Chapter 42: Night: Kendra and the Gunslinger Girl | Always (Scenes 1-3)

Night: Kendra and the Gunslinger Girl

Always (Scenes 1-3)

Death, so call’d, is a thing which makes men weep,
And yet a third of life is pass’d in sleep.

—George Gordon Byron,
Don Juan,
Canto XIV

1

After her tussle with Rancaster on the lake, Mara remained in slow-wave sleep with a God’s-eye-view of Katherine’s private boudoir for a time, looking over Nico (the other Nico from Celia’s dream dive) undressing Mara’s body on the bed. This other Nico pulled the blood-stained shirt over Mara’s shoulders, revealing her bra and bare stomach and panties.

When all three Hearn sisters passed through Katherine’s body-length mirror, they gaped and stared, wide-eyed, at the scene before them.

Mara watched over the proceedings in agony, promising herself to confront Nico about undressing Mara while she slept, let alone in front of strangers she didn’t know. The oldest one called Katherine seemed to be in a weakened condition, cradling her head in her arms over the vanity table as the other Hearn sisters bickered, till Katherine laid down the law and chilled the whole room into silence with her glare.

The longer she watched the proceedings of these three Hearn sisters with Nico, the more Mara recognized the youngest one as Celia, the girl who nursed her back to consciousness at the sukiya-zukuri mansion with Colibe and Kendra. Guilt connected to guilt in Mara’s mind when she remembered everything she had done to Celia and her friends (especially to Colbie), but when her mind flashed on those horrific seconds of holding Nico’s dead body on Rancaster’s stage amidst a sickening applause from a demented audience, seen from the same God’s-eye-view, Mara zoomed in on Nico’s face in the boudoir.

That’s when Mara realized that these thoughts were Nico’s, when she said to Katherine, "We all need rest, Ms. Hearn. Let's hole up in this room for a while, and I'll keep a lookout for the time being."

At her formality, Mara deflated somewhat at her words, so she descended into the room right next to Nico and reached out to touch her hand, but her hand passed through it.

"I guess you're right. Till I get my strength back, I'm not much use, anyway. But Nico," Katherine said, turning around and facing the girl, "please, just call me by my first name. Same thing with my sisters, too. None of us are strangers here."

"Okay," she said, keeping her gaze to the floor.

Katherine and Mara eyed Nico. She seemed so distant all of the sudden, as if she was trying to keep something inside from collapsing in on itself, a desperate strength on the edge of breaking into a waterfall of tears.

So Katherine got up from her chair and hugged Nico close to her, saying, "It's okay. You don't have to keep it bottled up. Just let it all out, okay? Just let it out."

At her words, something inside Mara’s sister released like an overflowing dam, and her wide-eyed expression of being caught in a moment of weakness now melted into fits of crying over the dead and the hell Mara had experienced to the edge of her plight. Her sister let all that baggage out in a cascade of regret, as she fell to pieces in Katherine's embrace and cried into her shirt. And the gesture reminded Mara of doing the same thing many times before when she cried into Nico’s shirt on their bed during their parents’ escalating fights.

So Mara looked on as Celia and Madison followed suit, wrapping their arms around Nico and Katherine in commiseration.

So Mara followed suit in her own way, thinking of that son-of-a-bitch Rancaster, and walked towards Katherine’s only mirror and peered into it, looking for him. Instead, she found someone else, another girl she’d never seen before loitering in the hallway, looking just around the corner at Kendra carrying Nico Cairns in a fireman’s carry.

“What is this?” Mara looked back at the crying Nico in the room, commiserating with Celia and Madison and Katherine, and turned back to the other Nico in the hallway. “What’s going on here? Why are there two Nicos?”

Before she figured out this coincidence, she saw Nico’s bandaged leg and felt a burning sensation searing into her thigh just above her knee. The agonized grimace of Nico’s face flashed through her mind, and when she realized what had happened, she flared up in a rage that sank her bodily through a seal of red roses circumscribing her through the floor and onto the petals of an enormous red rose pillowing her and closing around her astral form—

2

And taking her across the temporal spacetime of dreams through the ceiling right behind the ‘bambina’ girl’s position around the corner, who had been waiting for Kendra and Nico.

The moment Mara alighted on the ground and dissipated the enormous rose, the atmosphere changed, and psychic waves began flooding the hallway in torrents, sweeping the ‘bambina’ girl off her feet and slamming her against the opposite wall, cracking the wall panels and pinning her there. Mara then stretched out her hand and manifested a kodachi there, gripped it in both hands and lunged into a stab, ready to ram it through this ‘bambina’ bitch who had hurt her sister—

When a gun went off down the hall, and the kodachi tumbled from Mara’s hands and fell to the floor, sticking to the floorboards through the carpet.

And the next thing Mara knew, she found Kendra up in her face, grabbing her wrists and pinning her against the wall and saying, “Stop this! You have to stop this right now!”

“I WOOOOON’T,” Mara screamed, a scream made of psychic waves that rattled the panels in the walls and the doors in their door jambs, picking Kendra off the ground and throwing her down the hall and colliding into Nico several feet away. But once she realized her mistake, she dissipated the psychic waves and ran down the hall towards Kendra and Nico. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“I know that,” Kendra said, getting back up to her feet, “but (God) you need to control yourself!”

“I am,” Mara said.

“No, you’re not,” Kendra said. “You almost killed that girl!”

“She tried to kill me, first!”

“Mara, listen to yourself!” Kendra said, grabbing Mara’s shoulders. “Do you really think killing’s worth it? Do you?”

Mara paused at her question and looked into Kendra’s eyes, looking for a confirmation where there was none, and looked away.

Kendra then hugged Mara close to her and said, “I almost did the same thing to you, but thank God I didn’t. I don’t want you to make that mistake, and neither does your sister.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Kendra said, letting go of Mara. “I don’t blame you for feeling that way.”

Her words calmed Mara down a bit, and after wiping her eyes, Mara walked over to her sister and held out her hand to her. Kendra did the same, and both girls hoisted Nico back to her feet, who limped on one leg for a moment, then gingerly planted it on the ground.

“Don’t put pressure on it,” Kendra said, and both Kendra and Mara took one of Nico’s arms over their shoulders, letting her ease up on her leg.

Then, when the trio of girls looked ahead of them towards the end of the hall, they saw Auna standing there and staring at them, holding her gun by her hip.

The girl then raised her gun at them, but just before she fired her weapon, the ceiling lights of the hallway flickered and blinked out, casting everything in darkness for an instant. When the lights came back on, Rancaster was holding Auna’s hand—still holding her gun—up to the ceiling by her wrist and had his other arm around her waist, keeping her still.

“Father, why?” Auna said.

“Remember your debut, bambina. It’s best not to get carried away,” he said, then looked up at the trio of girls before him, eyeing Kendra in particular. “As for you, darling, for a meddlesome brat who went back on her word, you’ve proven yourself an honorable child. As a token of my gratitude, I call for a cease fire, and I’ll allow you to return to your place and your life, unmolested.”

“How do I know you’re not bluffing?” Kendra said.

“You only have my word,” he said, “and the integrity of your character to discern the truth in my word. That is all. Whether you believe it or not makes no difference to me.”

“Fuck you!” Mara said. “Why would we—”

“We have no choice,” Kendra said.

“You can’t be serious,” Mara said.

“She’s right, Mara,” Nico said. “My injury won’t make it any easier on us if we keep going like this.”

“But—”

“This is a tactical retreat,” Kendra said, “not a surrender.”

“Since you found your way in,” Rancaster added, “I trust you can find your way out again.” And a gray haze emanated below Rancaster’s feet and obscured him and the ‘bambina’ girl, causing the ceiling lights to blink overhead and blinking them out of sight like a magician’s stage act.

“Let’s get out of here,” Kendra said, and she let go of Nico’s arm. “Can you keep a look out for me?”

Mara nodded and said, “What are you planning?”

“What do you think?” Kendra said. “To get out of here.”

“But how?”

“Leave it to me,” she said, and manifested a semiautomatic in her hand and came to the first door near the corner where Auna had been watching them, handled the door knob and found it locked from the inside. “We’ll need to find a bedroom to get out of here,” she said, then raised her gun and fired some rounds through the knob and kicked it open . . .

Only to reveal a large storage room full of mirrors stacked over each other against the walls.

“Kendra,” Nico said, “do we even know where the bedrooms are?”

Kendra sighed and said, “We’ll just have to try every door.”

“This’ll be slower than hell,” Mara said.

“I know! Just bear with it, okay?” And Kendra made for the next door and repeated the operation—trying the knobs, shooting them out, kicking doors open. For the next half hour, Kendra repeated her modus operandi along three separate hallways, while Mara carried Nico and kept watch, the footfalls of all three girls cracking over mirror shards. Finally, after a sizable amount of tedium had elapsed, Kendra shot out the last door knob at the end of the third hallway and kicked the door open . . .

Only to reveal one of Katherine's more secret bedrooms, wherein Kendra and Nico and Mara sucked in breath and gaped in shock.

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Before them was a bed, draped in thin red linens and scattered with heart-shaped pillows, surrounded by recessed shelves stocked with dildos, vibrators, and rubber toys of all kinds on one side of the room, and several adult magazines and literary smut stocked into another set of recessed shelves on the other side of the room, and a large LCD flat-screen television inland into the front wall above another set of shelves stocked with adult DVDs and a DVD player in the middle.

Kendra was the first to enter, followed by Mara and Nico, who kept their eyes down on the floor away from the naughty objects on display, but Kendra was different.

Kendra said, “Kathy, you are a naughty girl.”

“Who?” Nico said.

“Katherine Hearn, the owner of this mansion,” Kendra said.

“You’re kidding me,” Mara said. “I never thought she’d be a closet pervert.”

“Me neither.” Kendra doubled back and shut the door, enclosing herself and her companions in the space, and stalked towards the bed and said, “If Celia hadn’t told me about it, I would never have guessed, and even then I still wouldn’t believe it.”

“So how do we get out of here?” Mara said.

“You’ll see.” Kendra then crouched and grasped the bed frame in both hands and pushed it aside, revealing one of Celia’s teleportation seals inscribed with red roses on the floor. “Ah, I knew it was there,” she said, then stalked towards a DVD collection of hentai, looked through the titles, and took one off the shelf.

“What are you doing?” Nico and Mara said.

“Oh, just planning to blackmail Celia with it,” she said, “since I know where she gets all her masturbation material now. Come on,” and she beckoned Mara and Nico to Celia’s seal, keeping one foot over the seal and one foot outside of it, till Mara and Nico were inside.

But Mara asked Kendra to take a hold of Nico for her, which she did, then stayed outside the seal.

“Hey, what gives?” Nico said. “Aren’t you coming with us?”

“No,” Mara said.

“But why?” Kendra said. “You’ll be safer staying with us than staying here. Wait a minute,” she added, and a wry smile turned up her face. “Are you planning on staying here and masturbating?”

But Mara remained unmoved, as she looked Kendra in her eyes and said, “I’m serious about staying here, and it has everything to do with Celia and her sisters.”

“Wait, they’re here?” Kendra said. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us before?”

“Because they’re in trouble and they need my help,” she said, “especially Katherine.”

“Seriously?” Kendra said. “What happened to her?”

“Didn’t you notice all the broken mirrors in the hallways?” Mara said. “All of her mirrors in the halls are broken, and we run into this Rancaster and this ‘bambina’ girl stalking around this place, both inside and outside. And the last time I saw Katherine, her sisters had to carry her to a hidden room.”

“What?” Kendra was speechless.

“That’s why I’m staying,” Mara said. “I need to help them out.”

“Do you even know where they are?” Nico said.

Mara nodded. “I”m not changing my mind. I’m staying here.”

Silence reigned for a spell amongst the girls, and Kendra said, “Don’t do anything rash, okay? I’m serious: no more of those idiot heroics. Your sister’s worried enough as it is.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t.”

But Nico added, “Be careful out there, okay?”

“I will.”

Kendra lifted her leg over the threshold and activated the seal that glowed beneath their feet—

3

And took them into the same sukiya-zukuri mansion that bore witness to Mara’s fury and Colbie’s death and Kendra’s and Celia’s tears over the dead, as well as the miracle that took place between them and Nico Cairns that night.

It felt strange for both girls to tread such ground after one day, like a film replaying in their minds as their footfalls cracked over wooden splinters and tatami mats scattered over wooden planks. Kendra herself averted her eyes from the hole in the wall looking out into the ruined garden, where Kendra had almost ended Mara’s life.

“It’s okay,” Nico said. “Let it go. Just let it go.”

“I’m trying,” Kendra said, and led her limping companion towards the storage room and let her sit on the chair in the corner, so she could recuperate. Kendra headed for the countertop drawers and pulled them out and placed the hentai DVD inside, then grabbed disinfectant ointment and fresh bandage strips and towels and bottles of water. “Sit on the edge and lean your leg out.”

Nico did as she was asked. “Like this?”

“Perfect,” and Kendra crouched and unwrapped the makeshift bandages around Nico’s thigh, opened two bottles of water and poured them over her leg, making Nico wince as she cleaned out the bloodstains and patted it dry with the towel, revealing three bullet entry and exit wounds. Kendra then opened the bottle of ointment and dabbed some on both hands and said, “This is gonna sting a little, so bear with it, okay?”

Nico nodded.

Kendra massaged the ointment over her thigh, making Nico clench her teeth and squint her eyes and grip onto the edges of her chair with both hands and say, “I thought you said it was only a ‘little?’”

“Compared to the next step, it is,” Kendra said, finishing the ointment and heading towards the sink to wash her hands. She then opened another set of drawers, looking for one in particular (“Ah, there they are.”), and took out a pickling jar of chrysanthemums, a blank omamori charm, and a roll of scotch tape, then opened the lid and picked out six chrysanthemum buds and replaced the lid and replaced the jar in the drawer.

“What are those?” Nico said.

“Chrysanthemums,” Kendra said. “This is my mom’s remedy for treating moderate wounds, like gashes and some bullet wounds. Come on—stick your leg out more.”

And Nico did.

“There, perfect,” Kendra said, and she taped one chrysanthemum bud over each entry and exit wound, making Nico wince again, then wrapped her thigh with a fresh bandage and tied it in a shallow knot, making her wince again. She then grabbed another towel and twisted it. “I need you to put this in your mouth when I start the spell, okay? Prepare yourself, because this is really gonna hurt.”

Nico took it and gulped. “Really? Is it that bad?”

“Yeah, but it works,” Kendra said. “Colbie’s mom taught me how to do this, so don’t be scared, okay?”

Nico nodded.

“Are you ready?”

Nico gulped but nodded, putting the towel bit in her mouth.

Kendra placed the charm over Nico’s thigh and pressed it against her palm, then said, “Now take a deep breath for me.” And when Nico did, she said, “Therapevo!” (Heal!)

And Nico bit down on her towel bit, as the spell enacted the healing process in ten seconds that would normally take ten days, which amounted to ten excruciating seconds for Nico.

While Kendra counted under her breath, saying, “One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten.”

She let go, revealing the word, ‘therapevo,’ smoldering into the charm above her leg, and grabbed more scotch tape and taped the charm to the bandages.

“There,” Kendra said. “It wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Nico spit out the towel bit and glared at her and said, “I should kill you right now.”

“Don’t worry about the pain,” Kendra said. “It’ll wear off eventually. You won’t be able to get up till it heals completely, so just stay seated till then.” Kendra paused when she spotted the bloodstain on the side of Nico’s dress and said, “What’s that?”

“No, it’s fine!” Nico said.

Kendra looked at her. “Are you sure?”

“It’s fine, really! It’s fine!”

“We’ll just have to find out, shall we?”

Tsuzuku

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