6: A_BELIEF_LIKE_BARED_TEETH

The only time Adelaide had ever seen Jisako angry— which was a very rare condition indeed— was in regards to what she’d declared was “nihilistic fish”. Or perhaps she’d meant to say crap, but Jisako had flubbed mid word, called it carp, and the humour had stuck. The nihilistic fish in question, were the words of a man who had used some technique to prove the sound of the universe was a meaningless pit. Another speaker at the same convention had insisted the technique could be used in order to create the “infinite one-ness of all things”, so really it seemed no one was in agreement of the purpose of the thing itself.

Adelaide could not recall a time her wife had seemed so angry as when she was listening to him giving his lecture. She had in fact seemed more calm when she had left to go run off into Maury Moytoy’s arms– the man who would kill her– then when she had been listening to some washed up professor rambling about nihilistic fish.

Indeed, she had jumped out of her seat and argued about the stupidity of the exercise itself so violently. She detested the way he was trying to make it artistic to have used simple sonification and then connected it to whatever music he enjoyed. Beautiful string instruments and proper arrangements. Jisako had argued that the data wasn’t what he was claiming it to be at all– ‘the sound of a country from space!’ but instead just some dance of smoke and mirrors. It was some sort of simple work. A traditional tear jerker as generic as they could come. And the woman had been so enraged about it, it was almost comedy.

Adelaide was pulled back to reality, and she chuckled without humour. She found the whole thing amusing, but it was drenched in the deep misting sadness of the past. She focused herself once again on the thoughts of the road in front of her. Drenched in the slick of human misery and the mire of everyone who’d been trying so hard to escape the world so cruel. The road was broken up and rotting bodies laid on the side.

Carrion birds and other scavengers were picking at the dead. And some flies landed on Adelaide’s own window, as if to test whether she too was alive. The majority of them kept dying off– but they reproduced so fast, that there were always ten dozen more for every two that died. Although, of course, that state of affairs wouldn’t last forever. In fact, it would be going downhill soon. She’d even seen less on the road the further down she went. Some must have begun dying in their eggs.

Adelaide swatted a few away from the relay, which sat in the passenger seat. They buzzed drunkenly into the windows and the dashboard. She sighed.

“The last town I was in– well, it was one of the most bizarre things I’d seen. The whole place was taken over– and it was corpses among the living. It was like that party we went to once, but… Far worse,” she noted. “There was something about the area… It was a bit disturbing.” Adelaide coughed. It was hard to speak when her lungs were melting away inside her chest. She closed her eyes. “It was certainly a misery– however you’d care to look at it. Nothing good was left and all the worst things had just been amplified into complete and utter madness.”

Adelaide considered it for a moment, looking away. Her skin was beginning to flake somewhat– she didn’t know if that was radiation poisoning or some other health problem. Those things had simply never been explained before the nukes were dropped. Not in a real way. Mutations were always explained as the fish with three eyes or the llama with two heads– never in a way that was less exaggerated. Probably because the truth would be almost more gruesome in its tameness.

Coughing, necrosis, blood thinning, immunodeficiency, lethargy, weakness, death. Puffy eyes, hair loss, bone density issues, cancer. Things everyone had felt just enough to lack sympathy for those who perpetuated their existence. Everyone had coughed. Everyone had lost someone to cancer at some point. Everyone had coughed. Everyone had felt faint once in their lives. Those things were far too present.

Silly things which were so bizarre and extreme they turned shuffled the parts around would’ve hurt far less to hear about. The list of actual ills were too much. They were mundane pains which could be processed, understood, and feared over and over and over. Adelaide stared at her hands, wondering for a long minute whether those hands would be her downfall. She turned back to look at the road again. She couldn’t think about it right now. “And, beyond that– it felt a bit… Like the demon was getting stronger.”

“They’re all probably gaining power with time,” Forrest replied, after a small delay. The relay was starting to take even longer than it had initially.

“Still. It’s bizarre to imagine. How bad could it be where I’m heading?” she wondered, dryly. “And what a horrible thing it must be– to be here, unsure about whether it will become hell on Earth here. I’ve been killing demon after demon– but they’re flooding the road.”

“They’ll thin out with time, I’m sure,” Forrest reassured. “How much worse could they be than the demons you and I fought against before?” he wondered.

“They– holy shit!” Adelaide cursed, stomping on the brake in a flurry. A woman standing on the road, facing away from her. Some sort of insect sat on the back of her head– like a scarab pin. As Adelaide’s care came to a sudden, grinding halt against the pavement, the woman walked forward the slightest of steps, her dress blowing out behind her.

And then she vanished.

“‘Laide? ‘Laide, is everything alright over there?!” Forrest called out, in a panic. His voice was strained and suddenly rather high strung. “Adelaide! What’s going on?!” he called again. Adelaide’s heart pounded in her chest and his shouts weren’t doing anything to calm her. Her eyes widened, and she stared into the emptiness. Nothing was in front of the car.

“Jisako,” she whimpered to herself, quietly. “Was–... Was– was that you?” Tears welled in her eyes, despite the dogged confusion boldly stapled across the entirety of her face.

“Adelaide?”

“There– there was, some– there was a woman on the road,” Adelaide stammered out. “I almost ran her down and then she was gone!”

Adelaide was met by no response but her own laboured breathing. The relay only allowed Forrest’s voice through after Adelaide began to contemplate turning it off. “You must’ve been seeing things on the road that aren’t there.”

“I… Yes. I must have. Jisako would never have bugs in her hair.”

“Well, who knows what got to her underground,” Forrest replied.

“That’s…” Adelaide sighed, and didn’t bother to answer. “I’m definitely seeing things. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Don’t get into any crashes.”

“I won’t.”

#

To the average human being, a town full of the dead, abandoned by desperately fleeing loved ones would’ve been a warning sign or a place to run from. Adelaide had chosen it as a moping spot to try and recover from what she’d seen. She was sure there was a demon in this town as well, but her mind was barely focused on that so much as just recovering from the shock she’d suffered not so much earlier in the day. The woman in the middle of the road.

She attempted to evaluate for herself why that had happened, what had even possibly caused it, but she couldn’t find an answer. Nothing came up as she scraped through every last corner of her mind in her search for answers. It really had shaken her.

Because something similar had happened once nearly when Jisako was alive as well. Adelaide had nearly run her down. And instead of offering comfort Adelaide had shouted at her for lingering on the road. That day was the final day they were truly wives.

It was the breaking point.

Adelaide had played that day in her mind over and over ever since it had happened. Mere moments after Jisako had left, that moment was the first to surface again in her mind. She had told herself that the occurrence was entirely her fault and so it lingered in her head. Why had she done such a cruel act? Why had she reduced herself to such a level with a wife who had so desperately tried to love her? Who had, in every way, been the ideal woman? She shook her head. She did not know. There could never be a satisfying answer to the question.

“Bride,” she called out. “Jisako, my bride. Would you have loved me more if I had gripped you so tight in my arms as you should’ve been? Would you be here with me or in the orbital choir– swirling with me in that endless empyrean above if I had been kinder to you?”

There was no response. Jisako’s ghost refused to bring itself to her, even to possibly speak on it. Adelaide had no room to blame her. Why would she want to discuss the breaking point of their marriage after her death?

The other thing which seemed to have reached a breaking point was Adelaide’s car. The damn thing hadn’t been able to start again no matter how many times she’d tried. Instead it sat idle and growled itself mad. The good news was that her destination wasn’t quite so far that it would be impossible to walk now as it had once been before– which was a single piece of good news, if nothing else.

Adelaide began walking into the town. The place was empty of living people. Adelaide stared at them. They were what she was destined to become. Dead from the radiation before she had a chance to die from it herself. And as she looked around– from one of the houses, emerged the boy she’d run into on the road not too long ago. Her eyes widened.

“You again?” she called, confusion piquing clearly. She laughed despite the pain and the discomfort. “It must be destiny I keep spotting you.”

“I’ve been looking for supplies,” the boy replied. “Are you looking too?” He was more willing to meet her eyes now, though there was still a clear withering quality to him. As though, like Jisako, he felt it important he exist, taking up space as little as possible.

“Something like that,” she responded, vaguely.

“There’s some cans in there. They’re irradiated, but not radioactive. The people here must’ve made the mistake of drinking rainwater. There’s no water stores anywhere around here. They forgot to prepare.”

“It could’ve been a demon. Or denial.”

“I’ll bet it was kind of both,” the young man replied, with a nod. “Do you want to fight the thing off together?” He gripped his cross in his hand, and smiled with a great deal of nerves. His face reminded her of a chimpanzee’s fear grimace.

Adelaide opened her mouth, before deciding against letting her pride get its way. “Yes. Certainly. We could make good use of some teamwork to fight off the wretch,” she noted, smiling. “Tell me, what is your name? Give me something to call you by,” she said.

“...I don’t want to tell you my name.”

“I’m Adelaide Kohvasen.”

“I’m still not going to give you my name, just because you gave me yours.”

“Well that’s just rude,” Adelaide said.

He shook his head. “Just… Make up something to call me. I don’t want to be a person anymore.”

Adelaide chuckled. “Okay then. Do you like rain? Would you call for it?”

The young man peered at her with a great deal of confusion. “I’ve no involvement with the rain.”

“Rainmaker,” she decided.

“Why?” He paused. “Wouldn’t rain be a bad omen in this place, anyway?” he asked, almost sounding a tad insulted.

Adelaide only smiled at him, shrugging. “I have a feeling it would suit you. Somehow, somewhere between identity and pathology, it would be a name calling to some part of you.” Rainmaker stared at her for a moment, before finally shrugging and leaving her to it.

He walked over to her, with a clear lack of surety in his pace. His frame was hunched somewhat, and he kept his eyes lower down, clear in his lack of confidence no matter where he walked. He really reminded her of Jisako– looking like he was about to melt into the scenery at the first moment she looked away. “The demon… It should be around here somewhere– but it’s not in any of the houses, I don’t think. Since I’ve been looking everywhere, through all of them.”

Adelaide raised a brow. “You have?”

“Supply hunting, mainly.”

“Right. And you didn’t see the demon in any of the houses when you’d look through them?”

“Not once. If it’s here, it’s wise enough to not hide itself in any of the houses.”

Adelaide took pause. She didn’t quite understand why it would be ‘wiser’ for a demon to avoid the houses. She decided to chalk it up to some weird new ‘wisdom’ that the children of today had absorbed like radiation. She forced a nod to pretend she knew what he was talking about. “What about the hanging man’s house? The one with the giant lowercase T?”

Rainmaker stared at her for a minute. Not a moment. A solid minute of focused staring, attempting to process what she had just said. He blinked only occasionally. Adelaide glanced behind herself, and felt as though she were once again faced by that cursed cat and Jisako, staring at nothing again. That seemed to bring Rainmaker back to reality. “Do… you mean a church?” he asked, almost incredulously. He gripped an effigy of the hanging man tight in his hand, like a child held onto the ends of a mother’s coat.

She nodded. “Of course. That’s their other name.” Adelaide reached under her tie once again– which was quite worn out by this point, being left crooked and dirty, and gripped the cross underneath it. Faith in the hanging man. “Did you see anything inside?”

Rainmaker shook his head. “I didn’t look much, but I didn’t see much of anything in the town’s church when I was inside it.” He looked around. “Should we try to call it to us, somehow?”

“You can’t without calling its true name. And it won’t tell us its true name. You’re too obviously an exorcist for it to. You wear your hanging man so openly– and you then will be called out far too quickly.” Adelaide flinched slightly when the young man’s face became a clear frown. The last thing she wanted now was to repeat her old mistakes while trying to repent for them. “Don’t panic. These things– you’ll learn them more with time. I understand, it’s alright.”

Rainmaker raised a brow. He tilted his head to the side, and opened his mouth, before closing it again. He frowned, before shrugging it off, clearly unsure how to respond to her words. They made little sense to him. He closed his eyes after a long moment. “I’m sure I will.”

“Of course you will.”

“Thank… you?”

“It isn’t any trouble.”

“I’d… hope not,” Rainmaker answered, still mulling over what she had said. He opened his mouth, preparing to say something of his own in response to her, but he didn’t get the opportunity

Their speaking was interrupted by the sound of a rather loud and brash voice appearing in the mist. “Oh gentlemen~!” it called, with a deluge of saccharine beauty. The woman with that voice smiled so bright and so clear at the both of them, grinning almost fiendishly. Her expression was drenched in a violent fervour that had no actual joy or intrigue to it. The woman even jumped forward, skipping along so casually over the corpses that they seemed to disappear under her careless foot.

She was beautiful in some abstract way– though Rainmaker didn’t seem particularly stunned by her. Instead, Adelaide was. The woman was dressed in a military uniform, her hair done up in some fancy way that left it tucked just right under her hat. Adelaide could only stare. The woman looked not a thing like any woman Adelaide had ever seen. Yet in a way, familiar. Indeed she carried with her a sort of inhuman grace.

Inhuman.

Adelaide jerked back, suddenly, as the woman reached a hand toward her. “Oh, sorry about that, dear. I should’ve known better! Of course, of course! You’re married. How could I ever forget that?” she asked, with a laugh. “Come on now– what’s with that face? Don’t you remember me? It’s me, Satine!” The woman laughed again and again– even as Adelaide’s expression grew only more confused.

Rainmaker raised a brow at her. “You know this woman?”

Adelaide shook her head. “I don’t know anyone who acts like this, I swear to that.”

“She seems quite familiar with you.”

“Familiar attitude or not, I don’t know anything about her! I’ve never seen this woman before in my life!” Adelaide insisted, stepping back from her.

“Oh come on now! We’re sisters, didn’t you know? I’m Jisako’s sister, Solko– and you were her wife– that makes us sisters!” The woman yammered, grinning and once again stepping closer for every step back Adelaide took. The woman smiled even wider. Even Rainmaker seemed a tad uncomfortable by this point. He looked away and stepped back, though the woman didn’t pursue him with the same fervour. “What are you here for, boy?”

He looked at Adelaide and seemed to panic because the lie that escaped him was… Complete crap. “She’s my mentor,” he said, in a panic. “My dearest mentor!”

“Your dearest mentor?” the woman asked. Adelaide could scarcely be sure this was an actual Aherzade, and not just some wild flailing demon. Rainmaker didn’t seem to be all that concerned about it, though. The man had no reason to be sure either way, and Adelaide couldn’t imagine he had much investment in parsing anything about Jisako’s family. She then also peered just a little closer at Rainmaker. “Oh! Dear me, I think I remember you!” she declared suddenly.

Solko yammered something about radios and tinkering, though Adelaide didn’t care enough to pay much strong attention to the specifics. Solko’s mouth ran a mile a minute, and Adedlaide was almost impressed by the sheer amount of hot air Solko could blow out of her mouth. She was nothing like her sister.

Jisako had always been quiet, of course, but she’d also never been so open or social as Solko. It was hard for Adelaide to imagine they were born of the same blood. They seemed inherently incompatible. As though a family with a child like Solko could never produce a woman as lovely as Jisako.

Jisako had been so tight-lipped about her history. All she’d said was that she was a runaway. After they were married, with a little probing, she’d admitted she had run from some cult. She’d never spoken more about her life beforehand. There were no further specifics about what the cult did, or what her life had been like. Adelaide had learned that asking led to no result, so she had stopped doing so.

It was an almost haunting silence in their home. The one thing about Jisako that Adelaide had not memorized and repeated in her mind several thousand times. Adelaide’s mouth fell half open, and she nervously reached a hand toward the woman. Enthusiastically, the woman just grabbed it and pulled her along. “I haven’t seen my dear sister Jisako in years! And now— her husband and her son both make an appearance! It must be fortune!”

“Husband?”

“I really am so excited! It’s so lovely to see you! I wasn’t able to go to her funeral because I was busy! But now that the three of us are united– it really is perfect! I adore it! I adore being able to meet you people! Jisako hid her life from me completely after she left! I haven’t seen even a trace of her since then!” Solko’s rambling continued, seemingly without end. She repeated the same topics at every opportunity. She didn’t actually have that much to say. She simply needed to hear herself speak.

Adelaide looked at Rainmaker. Rainmaker looked at her. For once, two people came to the solid agreement that the woman wandering the wasteland was completely insane, without that woman being Adelaide. Adelaide winced and stared as she was dragged along by the yammering woman. She didn’t know how to feel about being touched. Jisako clearly hadn’t had much love for a family she refused to speak about. And who was this woman to go out of her way to touch Adelaide when she hadn’t the right?

Rainmaker was forced to run behind as the woman dragged the pair of them along. “I love that I can see you again– well, for the first time, I suppose? I didn’t know you were my nephew. I really wasn’t expecting to ever see you again, and it’s such a nice day. No rain, no rain– it’s all perfect, the stars are aligned! My dear, the stars are aligned!”

Adelaide looked at him, barely holding in her laughter. Rainmaker looked at her, contemplating whether murder was really that sinful. Certainly he hated his name now. Adelaide considered it fitting punishment for being so tight lipped about it before.

“Jisako’s family. The family she left us for… Oh. Oh my. Really, what words could there ever be?”

“How did you learn I was Jisako’s wife?” Adelaide asked, rather less pleased or interested in pleasing.

“Come on, come on! Your friend told me! We worked in the same department! In fact, I was so close to him I would hear the transmissions. I thought you were his wife at first– but then I realized slowly, a name that kept popping up– it sounded like my sister’s. And there it was. It was her name. Jisako Aherzade.”

“Then why aren’t you in space, erh… Solko?”

The woman just laughed it off, as though the question was completely simple and meaningless. Adelaide couldn’t hide her discomfort very well. The entire situation reeked of something suspicious. Something uncomfortable. The exorcist had become very good at it keeping it up at all times before, but the façade was failing very clearly now, in a way it never had quite managed to before. “Space– what kind of woman wants to go to space? Come on, that’s silly. They only landed a man on the moon recently! Nobody’s going to space! I need to stay down here and serve my country!”

“She’s lost it,” Rainmaker murmured in Adelaide’s ear. Solko didn’t pay him any mind.

“I’m not sure she had anything to begin with.”

“The orbitals…” Rainmaker mumbled, mostly to himself, because ‘Solko’ seemed hellbent on ignoring him despite having contributed to dragging him along. The woman didn’t even turn to look at him despite his meek voice piercing the still air.

Though she didn’t hold back a sly comment. “Come on now, Radio Boy!”

“What’s your rank?” Adelaide interrupted. Whatever way those two knew each other, she just didn’t want to get into it.

“Why do you care? You ask a lot of questions,” Solko replied, laughing once again. “Oh– joy, joy, this was the town she and I grew up in! We had such interesting lives!”

“Good lives?”

“Interesting lives!” she repeated again, much more forcefully than the first time. The woman laughed even more hysterically, and Adelaide struggled to keep any sort of expression that wasn’t very obvious apprehension. “We were raised here, with a large family– and oh, I remember, there was a man Jisako was actually meant to marry. A young man– much better looking than you and much smarter than my own fiance was. He killed himself once he realized he’d never have any access to Jisako again!”

“What a tragedy,” Adelaide responded, in a tone somewhere between nervous and incredibly dry. “Why did Jisako leave? She never told me. Not a word.”

“So many reasons! Half I couldn’t even figure out myself or tell you because it would cost me my life.”

“Everyone else is dead,” Rainmaker added. Despite his rather obvious nerves, at least he had tried his best to speak what he thought needed to be said.

“I think you must be so very deluded, Adelaide!” Solko eagerly pulled the two of them through the town toward a rather large house which loomed over the town. It was not one of the houses of the hanging man. It seemed more like the house of a rich man.

Rainmaker seemed to stop at the threshold. “We can’t come in,” he insisted.

No? Solko replied. “You need to! Come on now, come in, your auntie wants nothing more than to invite you into your mother’s childhood home! Come on, come on. Let’s go, let’s take it. Let’s try to enjoy some time together! We’re all going to die so soon, aren’t we?” she insisted. “You’re not going to make your mother’s memory be in vain, right?”

Adelaide pulled her hand away from Solko’s. The last thing she wanted was for the two of them to touch. Solko simply threw her arm around Adelaide’s shoulders, completely uncaring in regards to Adelaide’s attempts to push away from her. Adelaide laughed awkwardly. Solko threw the heavy wooden door open, with a bright grin, and only tightened her grip on Adelaide. The inside of the house was nothing but dark– and it was bizarre. Adelaide continued attempting to struggle. She again tried to pull away.

Solko refused to let Adelaide worm her way out of the hold. Rainmaker looked at the woman, then looked directly into Adelaide’s eyes. Adelaide looked back at him, and then into the darkness. The pair of them could tell this must’ve been where the demon was. Their crosses burned in their hands, and Solko’s raving only confirmed it further.

They could explain it now. The offness they had felt was clearly leading into something, even though they weren’t sure how it related to the mansion Solko was dragging them into, they certainly knew it did. 

Adelaide braced herself, preparing for wherever the descent would lead them.

Solko pulled with more ferocity any time Adelaide came to a stop. Adelaide had long assumed that any hopes she’d had of reaching into Jisako’s past, and clawing out any parts of her history were long gone. She had lived with the fact that she had made the mistakes, and that because the body was now buried, there was no hope for her to hold onto. The woman was gone, her life story lost to time with her.

Being inside their childhood house made Adelaide’s heart ache with a dull soreness. As though a bruise from a week past was aggravated again. Jisako’s ghost did not appear, even as Adelaide willed it as much as she could. She wished it so bad that she may see Jisako. Hear what Jisako thought of the place.

It wasn’t right to be in it without her permission.

Despite her apprehensions, a part of Adelaide wanted to believe that this Solko woman was really Jisako’s sister. So she could know more, even with the guilt of learning things Jisako wouldn’t have wanted her to know. And, though she’d never admit it, find more things to use as fuel for her own self hatred. Things Adelaide would look at and say “you should’ve been able to figure this out, why didn’t you? Didn’t you care?” just like a demon would have.

When Solko walked her into the house, past the initial dark entryway, Adelaide was hit by a sense of dissatisfaction. She hadn’t been sure what exactly she was hoping to find, but she still didn’t like what she did see.

The house harboured no deeply special qualities beyond simply being a house. Its walls were barren of interesting features, and instead it harboured the most typical of even the typical lot of photos which could be found in almost any fortress of cookie cutter suburbia. The family of the house standing on an open air beach. The family of the house standing on Solko’s graduation day. It was all rather rote. That almost felt worse than seeing blood and chains on the walls.

One of the few things Jisako had deigned to tell Adelaide was that her early years had been wasted to a cult. That her family had been part of one. This place looked nothing like the typical retreat for a cult member. There were no clear signs. To Adelaide, that was a rather haunting thought. The idea that they had masked themselves in normalcy so terribly well. That no one nearby could have noticed. No teacher or friend.

Adelaide had seen the scars. The remnants of Jisako’s torrid history. Nasty ones that looked almost unreal in their deeply nightmarish forms. Implications which she had decided against thinking too hard on for the sake of her nervous, fidgety bride. Jisako always dressed modestly for the sake of hiding those marks. She had covered mirrors throughout the house and whispered how she would have done anything to make the marks fade.

As she stared now at the photographs, the remnants of a history which was now forever silenced, she couldn't shake the desire to vomit. These were the bastards who had stolen away so much from Jisako. Left her as a small presence no matter where she went. As if you somehow gave it back by getting her killed? rang a voice in Adelaide's head. She twitched. And Solko turned to her, raising a brow.

“What's with that expression? Why the twitches? Don't you like seeing your poor bride’s childhood home? Or do you hate to imagine she was once someone's child? The product of two people who loved and produced a child because they had the right kind of love? Is this some bitterness I can't understand?”

“Jisako had many scars. Deep ones, from her childhood. I'm thinking about something.”

“Oh, scars. Yes, I suppose she had a handful.”

“Violent ones, Solko.” Adelaide clenched her fist. Part of her was tempted to stab her with the hanging man. She was certain it would’ve heated up so much in contact with someone like her that it would simply melt away, though, so she did not.

“If you don't like our photos, we can go look at something else. We can talk about many things, can't we, Sir?”

Adelaide blinked. Though perhaps not dressed in a skirt or a dress, Adelaide wasn't that hard to take for a female. It would've beaten logic to believe Solko had just made a mistake. She was being insistent on Adelaide's maleness for the same reason she'd become so hostile and mentioned loving correctly. It made her more tempted to press the cross into her. Burn the bitch.

She held herself back. “...I suppose we can,” Adelaide answered, though she had neither energy nor interest in any of this nonsense. Her thoughts toward both herself and Solko were becoming increasingly sour. She had been desperate at first, but not anymore. As the ridiculous charade went on it became increasingly clear to her that there wouldn't be much of value to be gained from Solko. The woman was deluded. Clearly, the cult still had its claws deep in her.

Solko pulled the pair of them deeper, past living rooms and drawing rooms and doors which must've led off into bathrooms or bedrooms, or perhaps into the damn abyss. The house was unnaturally dark inside, despite the myriad of windows that filled it. Rainmaker seemed almost like he was glitching between awe and confusion.

Why is this house so large? Adelaide almost wanted to complain, though it should've been a good sign. That Jisako at least had some material comfort in her early life. Though even of that, Adelaide couldn't be sure. The house was barren of any signs of children. No toys or photos of just a child on its own, laughing. There were baby pictures, certainly, but nothing older. By the logic of this house, Jisako had never been a teenager.

Adelaide nearly snorted. Indeed, even for her, it was a bit hard to envision Jisako, so calm and sweet, so aged in her manner, to have ever been a teen. Moody and aggressive as Adelaide considered most to be. Then it came to her that Jisako may indeed never have been those things, instead forced into a premature adulthood despite her will. It was less amusing then. Her expression grew sour.

“Where are you leading us, Solko?” she asked. “And how is this house so barren of a history?” Solko was a pathetic wretch of a woman, who was desperately clawing for the sake of making even Adelaide fit in with the image of whatever her cult wanted. What point was there in politeness? In soft, cloying words, that would take her off her guard? Adelaide wanted to attack her now, and just barely held her fists.

“I will take you to the room where all my history was,” Solko decided. “Do you remember the healing tub? Jisako must've told you about it.” Solko smiled, and put her hand on the knob of a certain door.

“Jisako never told me about it. Not a word. What the hell is it?”

Solko's smile turned to a grimace. “Never?”

“Not once. What was it?” Adelaide repeated.

“I should've known better. That traitorous bitch. I'd have thought she'd kept up some of our traditions. Let something live on, at the very least.” Solko's fist tightened around the door, and her shoulders trembled. She sniffed loudly in the doorway. Adelaide slouched. She hadn't expected it. She leaned forward– partially just to gawk at the sight. A small part of her wanted to offer condolences to the crying woman. Her crying sounded too much like Jisako's crying. Quiet. Sniffling.

Solko punched her in the face.

Adelaide staggered back. She nearly fell over her own feet. Rainmaker caught her, grabbing her by the shoulder and keeping her standing by force. Solko let out a cry. “Oh! I didn't mean to do that. Ignore it. Come on now. Let's go down.”

“You punched her in the face!”

“It's fine, I didn't mean to. He'll live.”

Adelaide brought a hand to her face in utter confusion. Wetness formed across it in streaks, as blood poured out from her nose. Rainmaker gripped her shoulders tighter, as though she would faint at the sight of blood. With as much gentleness as she had left in her, Adelaide pushed his hand away. “Just a nosebleed, Rainmaker. It's alright.” Her voice wasn't above a whisper. She wasn't entirely sure even he heard her.

Solko continued standing there, looking down at them. She didn't move to help or apologize. Adelaide was sure of it now. Solko seemed cut from the same cloth Adelaide's own family had been. Adelaide had been lucky– she'd gotten out young and made her own life. Evidently, Jisako didn't get to have the same pleasant experience in how she'd left. And Adelaide wanted to cry for her. Now wasn't the time, but she'd make time. Her bride deserved an ocean's worth of condolences.

Rainmaker stood between the pair of them. Solko didn't hide her impatience, and seemed to deliberate on striking him. Adelaide glowered. For a moment– it almost felt like he indeed was her son. Solko withered, and turned tail. “Come on now. Let's go see it. Don't you want to at least see the healing tub? See it's glory?”

Adelaide wasn't entirely sure the ‘healing tub’ wouldn't just be some elaborate excuse to drown her or something. Solko tapped her foot, and her eyes widened. “Come on. Aren't you coming? The two of you?”

Solko's gaze met Adelaide's. The two women's eyes locked in on one another. The two women locked eyes. Adelaide quirked a brow, almost as a challenge. What is the secret hidden in this house? Solko finally opened the door, cutting the suspense.

Behind it was just a large seeming room. The stench which escaped it was foul. Rainmaker's nose scrunched up. The tub had a horrendous smell. And an overpowering one at that. The smell was almost sickly sweet, mixed with the awful smell of stagnant water, and whatever other nonsense was growing around in there. Solko forced them inside, pulling on them like a child. They didn't resist.

Inside was some sort of oversized tub. It could've been mistaken for being something worthwhile, if incredibly strange. It was a hideously bright green, rusted on the inside. It was twice the size of the average bathtub, and entirely too dirty to ever be used by someone who had any hope of getting cleaner. The faucet had been violently ripped out. The water inside was greyed over, with some sort of odd foam having overtaken it. Below the foam, the water was a deep mix of brown and red.

What the hell were they doing here? Adelaide peered into the foam. The tub wasn't that deep. It shouldn't have been so hard to see the bottom, but the water was so utterly concentrated with filth that it might have been deep as an ocean. As she stared, a chunk of something floated up to the surface. Though because everything was so filthy, Adelaide could only be left to wonder, is that rotting meat? Or someone's aged shit?

Suddenly, Adelaide was thankful Jisako's ghost wasn't with them right now. There was nothing which could have ached more than seeing her bride forced to face something like this again.

Solko wandered through the room without even a thought about how strange any of it was. “Our parents, when we were ill. We would be brought here, and this would be how we handled sickness. Injury. Everything. Better than any doctor, and instead of costing an arm and a leg, all it would cost is a little blood.”

She leaned back against the thing. “You know, it did us a lot of good. It felt good after a while– if you just let yourself get used to it. And if not good, easy. Familiar. That was how it was for us. Sucks if you don't feel that way, since you're not exactly among the ‘enlightened few’. You can't even handle the smell.” Solko crossed her arms.

“Did you bring us here just to talk down to us?” Rainmaker asked, frowning at her. The boy had managed to keep a straight face despite the disgusting sight in front of him.

“No, I wanted to see how you'd react.”

“My reaction is you need a clean up crew in here. And that if you raise a hand against Adelaide one more time–”

“Shh, shh. That's enough. Catch your breath. It's not on us.” Adelaide butted in. “Tell me, why this tub and not a doctor? How did you even stumble upon it? Surely it must have a history? Jisako hated talking so much. I want to know. And she saw bathing as a terror. What did you do here?” Of course, her tone had become accusatory. She growled out her words. Adelaide loved her wife– and this woman, who she was sure her wife had made the mistake of caring for, had done something awful here. Or their whole family had done something awful here, and Solko was just trying to continue the cycle. It didn't matter.

Solko rolled her eyes. “You're taking a cruel tone too. Why should I respect someone who has no respect for our traditions?” she demanded.

“I'm not here for the sake of respecting a family which didn't respect my bride.”

“I respected her! I did everything for her! It's not my fault she ran off with you!” Solko shouted. “It's not my fault she decided she hated me!” Solko's head bobbed wildly as she spoke. She threw it back and forward with the intensity of someone attempting to break it.

“Do you even hear yourself?”

Solko grabbed Adelaide by the back of the neck and shoved her head into the tub. The tainted water flooded into her open mouth and she was left gagging. She attempted to struggle– the taste of the water so foul that she began to gag and heave even with her head under the water. Solko was a strong weight. Adelaide could barely push against her strength.

Solko's suddenly ripped upward, and Adelaide was dragged out by her hair. Solko's grip on her head lessened, and Adelaide collapsed against the side of the tub. Behind her– she could hear fists slamming into one another. Adelaide gagged, desperately attempting to catch her breath. She dry heaved, the taste god awful. Blood. And other tastes. Water which had been sitting out for what felt like centuries. She'd never been forced so close to something so ghoulish before. Her stomach churned– desperate to try and push out the disgusting thing which had been pushed into it.

Finally, she got herself together, despite the god awful taste and the nausea. Adelaide forced herself to her feet, and she turned to see the fist fight playing out not too far behind her. Solko was handling everything much better than Rainmaker. She moved a lot like Forrest. The same articulated, practiced, scientifically tested motions on repeat over and over. The eyes of the woman were like a predator moving on learned instinct. A tiger out for vengeance.

A selfish part of Adelaide wanted to leave him to handle it. To collapse back against the tub and just watch, making bets. It became obvious rather quickly that Rainmaker didn't have so much prowess in the area of fighting, however.

When he attempted to strike back, Rainmaker was more of a wild animal gone feral. He had no real strategy. He couldn't against a foe so much more experienced and trained than he had any hope to be. Still– he was trying his best, and in some ways, holding his own. But it was obvious it wouldn't last if Adelaide left things as they were.

She lunged forward, grabbing for Solko's throat. The three of them all went crashing to the ground, with Solko and Rainmaker caught in a messy human tangle. Solko yanked her arms away from hitting Rainmaker and prepared to try and pry Adelaide's hands away. Rainmaker attempted to grab at her hands– but his face became suddenly shaken, and his hand jolted back before he laid a single finger on her.

Adelaide winced. “Come on!” she cursed, as Solko's fingers moved to be rid of Adelaide. But Rainmaker did not move, still frozen in place. Adelaide cursed. She pushed her knee into the other woman's gut, desperate to just hold her down if Rainmaker was going to become suddenly useless.

Solko rolled, and Adelaide was hit with a wave of sudden nausea, which sent her tumbling off. Rainmaker finally came to his senses, and struck the back of Solko's head with his cross. A loud crack rang out– and Solko was stunned for just long enough that Adelaide grabbed her by the hair. Solko grabbed Adelaide by the shirt. She stood up suddenly before pushing Solko into the water. Solko's grip on the shirt didn't loosen, so Adelaide fell in with her.

Adelaide scrambled to shut her mouth and hold her breath as she was yanked in. She flailed– before she managed to strike at Solko's head with her own cross. Solko went limp after the second. Rainmaker grabbed Adelaide and pulled her head up. Adelaide gasped for air.

Rainmaker and Adelaide looked at each other, out of breath, but victorious.