The last fallen moon vol.., p.20
The Last Fallen Moon (Volume 2), page 20
Hattie struts back to me, grinning widely.
“What did you say to her?” I ask curiously. “She couldn’t get away fast enough.”
She chuckles. “I told her that the mayor has been spotted in the MMR Room.”
I laugh, remembering the framed photo of the mayor’s face with the love hearts on it. “Genius!”
Still, we wait a beat or two before we make our way to the doors beside the elevators. And when Hattie’s stolen/borrowed keys unlock the door, we give each other a high five down low before sneaking inside.
I groan loudly. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Mago Halmi must have been in a salty mood when she created the Spiritrealm, because there are way too many stairs down here. They might as well rename the place the Stair Realm! I begrudgingly make the descent down the spiral stairway, and eventually step out onto a dark basement. Going down is easier than up, sure. But it also means you have to climb up on the way out! Groan.
“Hello?” Hattie calls out quietly.
We are met with nothing but an echoing hello ello ellooo, followed by silence. There doesn’t seem to be anyone down here, and the space is only dimly lit by sporadically placed lamps that are resting on tables. Just as the archivist explained, the space is full of subterranean stacks, stretching out like coils of vacuum pipe in all directions. They reach so far that the ends are nowhere in sight. These must go on for miles.
Hattie looks to our left and right, biting her lip. “She said the stacks spanned a good chunk of Jiok, right?” she says slowly. “As in, we could get lost down here for days, maybe weeks, or more without a guarantee of finding what we’re looking for?”
Not me, I think with dread. I will be ripped back to the Mortalrealm when the potion runs out at the end of the day, and then Hattie will be left to find Jangsoo’s memories all by herself.
“Surely there’s some kind of categorization system.” I study the stacks closest to where I’m standing and get a bolt of hope. “See? They’re organized by date. This is great! This section starts at the year 1810, which means those over there are probably—” My joy is promptly dashed. “Oh, right. Still 1810…”
Hattie runs down the opposite stretch of stacks to check the dates on that section. “These are still 1810 down here.”
I groan. If we’re stuck in the nineteenth-century records, who knows how far we’ll have to search to find the books for this year!
Something squeaks above our heads. “Did you hear that?” I whisper, clutching Hattie.
We both look up to the ceiling, which unfortunately, due to the lack of proper lighting, is shrouded in shadows. It’s hard to make out anything clearly. What we do notice, however, is movement. Lots of ominous-looking black creatures—each a little bigger than the size of my hand—stuck to the ceiling, swaying back and forth to an invisible breeze.
“What are those things?” I ask.
Hattie digs her nails into my arm. “Oh my Mago, I think they’re bats.”
As if to confirm Hattie’s suspicions, there is another squeak from above.
I yelp, bumping into the stacks next to me. A covered bowl that’s sitting on one of the shelves tips with the movement, and the lid slides off and crashes to the floor at our feet. A whole host of creepy-crawlies scamper out, and a few beetles climb onto my shoes.
“Argh!” I scream. “Bug attack!”
If you think that’s horrifying enough, you are woefully wrong. Because the next thing I know, the colony of bats have unanchored themselves from the ceiling and have decided to go on a feeding frenzy of the aforementioned freed insects.
Hattie and I swat at the veined wings flapping around our heads, trying to protect ourselves from their sharp claws. The cloud of flying creatures swarm around us, squawking hungrily.
“Kick the bowl away!” Hattie yells.
“All we want is Jangsoo’s final memories!” I cry as I kick the bowl into the air, which smashes onto the ground with a deafening clatter. “Is that too much to ask?!”
The noise successfully grabs the bats’ attention, and the colony swarms around the broken bowl, feasting on what creepy snacks are left within.
Hattie and I stay clutched to each other, watching the carnage from a distance.
“I’ve failed,” I whisper to Hattie, feeling the sting in my eyes but with no tears to relieve it. “I can’t fix what I broke.” I feel like an archaeological site, dug-out and empty.
Hattie shakes her head. “No, we’ve failed,” she laments. “This is on both of us.”
A bat comes flying toward us, and I don’t even have the energy to protect my head, not caring anymore whether its claws scratch me. I came all this way to help my family and my clan, and gashes are all I’m going to have to show for it.
“Let’s go home, Hat,” I say, feeling dejected. “We’ll use the time I have left to find Cheol so he can send you back.”
She lowers her eyes and mumbles something I can’t hear.
“What was that?” I ask.
She slowly raises her head but still mutters too quietly.
“Dude, I can’t hear you. Talk louder.”
She sighs loudly. “I said I can’t go home!” she finally admits.
I stare at her as the same bat comes flying for our heads again. I ignore it, feeling increasingly annoyed—both at the bat and at Hattie. “What do you mean, you can’t go home?” I demand. “You said whenever you wanted to return, Cheol would send you back. You did. That’s exactly what you said.”
Hattie runs her palms down her face. “I lied to you, okay? I said that so you wouldn’t ask more questions.”
She might as well have slapped me. On both cheeks. “What do you mean, you lied to me? Why can’t you go home, Hat? Tell me, because I don’t understand.” I pause. “Wait, did you get scouted by a CFO, too?”
She shakes her head. “No, that’s not it. It’s the coma. I’m kinda lost in it. And until my body wakes up in the Mortalrealm, I can’t leave the Spiritrealm. I’m stuck here—indefinitely.”
Now I’m feeling mildly hysterical. “But you always wake up from those sleeping spells!” I argue. “You’ll wake up from this one, too.”
She slaps away the same unbelievably persistent bat and shakes her head. “Not this one. I can’t explain it, but something happened to me while I was in the Godrealm. It changed me. And those comas have something to do with it. For a while, I thought they were going away, but this blackout—it’s different. It’s too potent. And whatever it is—it’s keeping me locked inside my body up there.” She kicks the ground in a sign of resignation. “You can’t fix this, Rye. It is what it is.”
My chest is starting to feel so tight I need to get out of this basement. I need fresh air. Now.
But the bat comes for me yet again.
Seriously?!
“Just GO AWAY!” I scream at it at the top of my lungs. I channel my inner Emmett and give it my best, most evilest stank eye.
And that’s when I see it.
The book clutched in its claws.
And the words JANGSOO JEONG engraved on its cover.
I clutch my chest with one hand, and point to the book with the other. “Hattie, look!” I whisper, the words barely escaping my throat.
She follows my finger and her jaw drops open. “No. Freaking. Way.”
Having finally gotten our attention, the bat flies toward us. It squeaks a few times as if trying to communicate, then places the tome carefully on the ground in front of us.
“They weren’t trying to attack us,” I say aloud, figuring it out as I go. “They were trying to help us find what we were looking for. They’re…bat librarians!”
Hattie picks up the book and flicks through the pages. “Rye, this checks out. These are the last memories of Jangsoo before he got reincarnated.” She scans a page. “Looks like Rice Man’s actual name is Bob.”
The bat loiters around me, and this time, instead of swatting at it, I apologize. “I’m really sorry about before,” I say sheepishly.
It flaps its wings a few times and hovers in front of a section of the stacks to my left. It squeaks eagerly, as if calling me over. Feeling guilty about how I treated it, I obediently comply, only to find another covered bowl of bugs sitting on the shelf.
“You want a treat?” I ask, pointing at the bowl. “Is this, like, payment for finding the book?”
The bat squeaks again and beats its wings harder, which I take to be an affirmative.
I chuckle and place the entire bowl on the ground, opening the lid. “It’s all yours. Thank you for all your help.”
The bat lets out what sounds like a happy string of squeals, and digs into his buffet meal.
Hattie passes me the Jangsoo memory book, seeming reenergized. “I’ve got your book under my top, so you hide this one. And let’s get out of here.”
I’ve just managed to tuck the book away when a man’s voice calls out from somewhere behind us. “There they are! Stop right there!”
I swivel around to see two security guards running toward us from down one of the aisles. And they do not look like they want to be our friends.
“Hat, we gotta run!” I yell.
Hattie and I retrace our steps, running back up the spiral staircase, three at a time (groan), until we burst out the doors back into the lobby of the ground floor. Hattie slips and falls to the ground with a thud, but I pull her back up.
“Come on, Hat. We gotta keep going.”
As the stomping footsteps of the two guards catch up behind us, we race toward the revolving doors of the Archives. We can do this! We’re almost there—we are so close to escaping!
We are passing the coat check when a woman’s voice cries out shrilly from the main doors. “That’s them!” Sunny yells. “They’re the ones who stole the key!”
We skid to a stop, our feet screeching against the marble floor. The archivist is accompanied by four uniformed officers, who have come in through the revolving doors and started storming toward us. The officers are carrying nets, and we start backtracking, moving toward the basement door. Maybe we can go down there and find another way out.
But the other two guards have caught up now. They are coming at us from behind, with Sunny and the officers closing in from the front. The coat check is to our left, and the reception desk is to our right. We are trapped on all sides, and there is nowhere else to run.
We are done for.
“Rye!” Hattie breathes, her eyes wide and scared.
I squeeze her hand, and my voice is trembling. “It’s okay. We just need to stick together, and everything’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” I say it like a mantra. I say it so I don’t have to face my growing fears about what’s going to happen to Hattie when my potion runs out.
Hattie suddenly gasps as if she’s remembered something. She moves her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Instead, as the nets fall over our heads, Hattie points a shaky finger in the direction of the basement door. It’s where she slipped and fell earlier…where a black book with gilded edges lies forgotten on the floor. The book that houses all the stolen memories of my parents, my best friend, my Gom clan, and my Horangi clan. My one chance to be remembered again.
I whimper. My stomach sinks like the Titanic, and my heart is the captain. It’s going down with the ship, and I’m never going to be able to retrieve it ever again. I feel like I’m going to puke.
“Riley!” Hattie cries as the officers start dragging her toward the revolving doors.
There is no time to mourn. “Hattie, I’m right here!” I yell as hands pull me out the doors, too.
They push us toward a dodgy-looking van. It’s already dark out. I kick and thrash, but we’re no match for these officers. One of them opens the back doors to the van, and they throw us inside, slamming the doors in our faces.
“Are you okay?” I demand, searching Hattie’s face and body for any injuries. It’s so dark in here I can hardly see her.
“Are you okay?” she asks. Then with a hitch in her voice, she whispers hoarsely, “I’m so sorry, Rye. It must have fallen out when I slipped. I—I’m so sorr—”
“Shhh!” I put my hand on her arm to stop her from talking, as my eyes register the other bodies in the van. Two dark figures are sitting ominously in the corner, hidden in the shadows.
“What?” Hattie asks, not yet seeing what I can see. “What’s wrong?”
I squint harder. Their heads are saggy and featureless, as if their skin is melting off their faces.
My blood curdles.
Who are they?
What are they?
“Hat,” I say with a hiss, digging my nails into her skin. “We’re not the only ones in here.”
“HEY, KID, IS THAT YOU?” one of the saggy, featureless heads calls out from the shadows. “It’s me, Dahl!”
Hattie and I gasp at the same time.
“Dahl?” I yelp.
I bum-shuffle toward him and see that the melting heads are, in fact, just sacks over two people’s heads. I breathe a sigh of relief. So, not monsters, then.
I reach through the netting we’re caught in to rip the material off their heads. Their hands are cuffed in a crisscross so that their wrists can’t touch. I’m guessing it’s so they can’t activate their gifted marks, even though Dahl doesn’t have one as far as I’m aware.
“What are you guys doing here?” I demand as Dahl’s shock of moon-colored hair tries to de-static itself from being inside the sack. Then I realize that’s a silly question. “Oh, never mind,” I mumble. “You obviously got caught, too.” Still, I have never been so relieved to see that impossible hair and bone-white skin.
“Bob?” Hattie asks, searching Rice Man’s face with concern. “Are you doing okay?” He’s not wearing his bowl-of-rice costume anymore—only the leotard beneath.
“I prefer to go by Bobby, actually,” he responds, wiping the sweat off his forehead. He doesn’t look great, but at least he doesn’t seem to have worsened since we saw him last.
“Guys, thank you for telling the crane twins to check on Uncle H,” Dahl says. “I heard back from them, and it looks like he’s okay. He’s still in bed and totally out of it, but he seems to be stable.”
Hattie and I share a look of relief.
“And I’m also really sorry,” he adds, looking genuinely upset. “Because it’s our fault you guys are here. The officers wanted to know where you were, and they threatened to torture us, but I kept my mouth shut.” The van bounces over a bump on the road, and we are shaken like beans in a can. “Most of the protestors managed to escape, but unfortunately, Scallion Number One got caught, and he ended up telling the authorities where to find you.”
Hattie gives Dahl a grateful look. “Thank you for trying. Really.”
I nod, feeling a fuzzy warmth spread through my chest. My twin brother chose certain torture to save me, and that makes me feel like I’ve gained something—gained someone—for the first time in a long time.
I’m not sure how to express this feeling, though. So instead, I knock at the hard cover of the book still hidden underneath my top. “And we managed to find Jangsoo’s last memories.”
Bobby howls in triumph at his lover’s name. I do my best to forget about the other book lying on the floor of the Memory Archives.
“The only problem,” I say, remembering how bright the stars were in the sky as we got stuffed inside this van, “is that it’s nighttime already. At daybreak, I’ll have been down here two days. That means my time is going to be up very soon.”
I reach out and grasp Hattie’s hand, and she squeezes it back so hard, I grunt. Maybe if we hold on to each other hard enough, I won’t be pulled away. I can’t leave my sister here. Especially when we haven’t yet finished what we set out to achieve.
“Where are they taking us?” Hattie demands. “Do you know?”
Dahl and Bobby share a look. Neither of them say anything.
“Where are they taking us?” I repeat after Hattie. Dahl had said they’d been threatened with torture. Is wherever we’re going worse than that?
Dahl takes out his key ring and starts searching through it, as if the answer is hidden somewhere in those keys. He is pretending like he hasn’t heard our questions.
When it’s clear Dahl won’t be volunteering any answers, Bobby gives him the side eye and grunts. “I guess I’ll be explaining, then. Are you two familiar with the concept of expungement?”
This time, Hattie and I share a look—one of great alarm. Dahl had explained to us that while souls couldn’t die in this realm, they could be thrown in the recycle bin, and then emptied permanently.
“We’re gonna be expunged?” Hattie steels herself. “How exactly do they…do it?” She risks a glance at me. “And do you think we could stall them until tomorrow, somehow? After Riley’s safely returned to the Mortalrealm?”
“I am not leaving you here to get expunged!” I snap, even though I have no idea how I’ll follow through on that statement.
Bobby looks to Dahl for help, but my soul twin is still deep in concentration, biting on some of the keys, the way medalists in the Olympics bite their gold medals.
Bobby shakes his head, and uses his cuffs to nervously scratch his face. “I’ve never actually seen an expungement in real life, thank Mago, but I’ve heard my fair share of stories. Essentially, it’s the process of erasing your name from the Jokbo.”
“The Jokbo?” Hattie asks.
“The genealogy book for all humanity,” Bobby answers. “Mago Halmi used the Tree of Life to make the parchment. And then used her own blood and sweat to inscribe the names of every soul she brought into this world on it.”
“And that’s what we’ll be deleted from?” Hattie asks, her brows furrowing. “It sounds so…final.”
Bobby nods uncomfortably. “And the only way a name can be removed from the Jokbo is by using a special sponge.”
