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There were no screens allowed on The Maw.
Anything and everything was allowed on her ship, especially if her dearest clientele had the means of paying for it. Slide a couple of coins her way, and The Lady had the good sense to excuse one transgression or another, but she’d been adamant about that rule; keep the technology to a minimum and keep anything that could broadcast a signal back on land.
No televisions, or phones, or whatever twisted technological apparatuses she’d spied in greasy palms of her clients during her impermanent time away from The Maw. Of course, she’d incorporated the policy into the very gimmick of the resort—why be bogged down by the worries of the surface world, why let the very instrument of of your strife be your chaperone in this adventure when you’ve taken to traversing the darkest depths of the sea in order to escape it—and, more or less, it had worked.
Worked at least to the extent that, during her time here, such a long time that after a certain year all the years behind it and coming to take its place blended into one, innumerable amount of time, one that hurt her to think about if she focused on it for too long, The Lady had almost taken to forgetting the sound of static. The shape of a television. The LED, piss-yellow lighting of a mobile phone.
No. Perhaps forgot wasn’t the right word, because The Lady never forgot. She never forgot anything. The names of all the guests she’d hosted over the years lay no further than a tap of her dimpled chin, dredged up from the bottomless pit of memories.
She’d never taken to naming any of the children—why bother naming the hors d'oeuvres—but she’d certainly given into the habit of bestowing upon them silent nicknames. The child that kicked and screamed as they were lowered into the cage? She thought of him as Howler. The one whose clothes barely hung on to their starving body, if only by a filthy thread? Tatters.
And on the infrequent occasions she oversaw the janitor’s tidying of the dining room, especially after the departure of a large party, she could recognize what was left behind as well. The broken femur of Tatters. Howler’s head, his eyeballs sucked clean out of his skull by one of her more distinguished guests, the ones who knew the most delectable part of the child were the eyes.
No, she never forgot. Thought about it less, but never forgot.
Until the lumbering mute, the janitor—sparing her even the courtesy of a knock—dropped the television on the floor.
The Lady did not jump as the hulking mass of wires and plastic smacked the wood, although she was certain the guests had heard it. She waited, her back turned away from the mirror of the vanity, for Roger to explain.
Found on guest 2B, he signed to her in a flurry of fast-moving hands. Roger couldn’t see the fury that had etched itself into her face—the guest would be dealt with swiftly for this offense—but he could certainly smell the stink of it, for he backed away, his fingers shaking as he spoke, tried play it. No work. Too much water all around.
On cue, the television sprung to life in a shriek of white static, and Roger sprung back, into the relative safety of the hall. She waved her fingers. The door slammed in his face, and The Lady double locked it. Good. Less fuss, getting rid of prying eyes, and no matter how this reunion ended, the janitor hadn’t any stakes in it. No, this was between her and him. Between What Once Was the little girl in the raincoat, and the little boy in the paper mask.
The Lady folded her hands together, one on top of the other. She hummed a pleasant tune to herself, and briefly considered fetching the music box.
Her fingers twitched at the mere thought of it, the urge briefly overpowering her, but by then, the signal had evened out. Instead of noisy static, the frequency had changed. The picture had changed. Before her she saw a white hallway, leading into a doorway with black shadows.
The Thin Man approached. He strode from the darkness, calm as if taking a mid-day stroll, and began towards her.
The Lady never considered herself a woman—a woman-adjacent thing, more appropriately—that could feel remorse. But seeing her dear companion in this state, as this monster haunting the radio waves, almost made her feel something close to it.
Look at that. What a monster I’ve made of you.
He unfurled himself from the screaming television as if preparing for a show. And perhaps he was, she thought, for The Lady was all but enraptured. Waiting patiently for his arrival, for there was nothing Thin Man could do to her here, in this domain of water and abyss, her kingdom.
Even now, so far away from its source, the signal waned and so did its embodiment, the blue-tinged apparition wavering in and out of reality, like it couldn’t quite get a hold on existing. But The Lady waited. The man in the suit flexed his fingers and jostled his body, like he’d been in cramped quarters for an extended period of time. She drummed on her knuckles. Waiting.
She was quite skilled at waiting; after all, it was what she had been doing prior to this. To the events that would soon, if they were not already, be set in motion. What was life, really, except for waiting for the inevitable? What were a few minutes, waiting for Mono to stabilize himself in her quarters?
She thought of the music box. She hadn’t heard its song in years, and she wanted to now, and as if he’d heard her speak the desire aloud, The Thin Man lifted his head, where the Bowler hat had obscured his eyes.
“We’re nearing the end.” said the man in the very dapper suit.
When he spoke his lips never moved, and the voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere very far. From a place of crackling electrical wires, and television antenna, which she’d never seen in person before, only in pictures from fading books waterlogged by filthy water. The End. What a powerful combination of two words.
She didn’t bother rising from the vanity as he stepped, two seconds passing between each creak of the floorboards, inching closer and closer. One-two, closer. One-two, closer. Destiny, with a timed rhythm.
“We’re nearing the end.” he said once more through a mouthful of static.
This time, she nodded. Nothing more than a slight bob of the head, as if there was anything else she could say, but it was enough to give the pale man pause. The ball of his left foot tapped the floor, and he moved no closer, though there wasn’t much ground left to cover. One more step and he’d be upon her. The stink of copper—not like blood, which she’d become accustomed to, but of wires and metal and technology—tickled her nose.
“Yes, we’re nearing the end, my dear.” The Lady stood. Her feet did not touch the ground.
“The question is, will anything be different in the next life?”
Downstairs, the guests roared, their cries excited and piercingly loud, spurred on in this atmosphere of unbridled hedonism coupled with a land as lawless as its ruler. To accompany this sound, followed a scream.
The man in the suit tried to look her in the eye, a difficult feat considering the Nō mask; as if it burned to face at her, he flinched away, hat covering his eyes once more, looking into the corner of her room where it was safe.
“No matter what, I always find my way back to you. I’m there. Breaking through the door. You and your music box. Do you see it?”
She did. Felt it, too; like a current of static, permeating the air. The feeling of weightlessness in her stomach as the reality set in. After all these years, this was really the end of the line; though they hadn’t yet merged, she could see herself as a child in mind’s eye.
Playing with the music box, the instrument almost the same size as her. The rush of fear as something—someone—tears through the flimsy door like paper. The relief to discover it’s just a little boy, the way she’s just a little girl. The new iteration had started. It was coming, would come to pass once again, and it would end in both of them bleeding, dying, dead.
The Lady reached out. The silk of her gown slid halfway down her forearm. She reached out, and when he took her hand, she had to bite her tongue so as not to make a noise.
The Thin Man was warmer than she’d expected him to be, more real—the static-visage gave way to flesh and blood skin, hotter than the normal temperature of the human body. An undercurrent of something, like electricity, like a small jolt of lighting, tickled The Lady’s palm. She threaded her fingers with his and held on.
“Itsumo no yō ni.” The Lady smiled, sadly. Like old times, dear friend.
“I loved you.” it came tinny from his mouth, the vowels and consonants breaking apart in places as the signal waned in and out, and he spit them from his lips as if they hurt to say. They probably did.
She’d never been much of a comforter, and now was no exception, but she squeezed his fingers tighter. The only way she’d known how to soothe him then. The only way she knew how to soothe him now. He looked down, at both of their hands intertwined, brow furrowed. As if he was having a difficult time believing it.
You and I both. She thought.
“I loved you, and you let me fall.”
He looked her in the eye then, as if waiting for a challenge. She stared right back, accepting it.
Yes, she let him fall. But how to explain the actions of her past self, the nine-year-old iteration of her guided by nine-year-old sentiments to a man so far removed from the child he once was? From the children they both were? I sacrificed you to The Abscess because you destroyed my music box? I created this terrible thing because of my anger as a child?
“I did.” She transmitted the statement directly to his head, nodding to confirm. The Lady resigned herself to silence afterwards, and The Thin Man's upper lip quivered, like he'd expected more, and he turned his head to the side. She knew he did, and that was why he'd hacked this frequency. To hear what he so desperately wanted to hear after all these wasted years, this time lost. He'd never get it.
Because I'm not necessarily sorry I left you to the great fleshed beast. I'm only sorry it's come to this. She kept this thought locked up tight in her own mind.
Behind them, the television set let free a burst of whining transmission. The clear picture of the hallway began to wane, and, still clutched in her fingers, The Thin Man began to dissolve. The signal would be nonexistent soon.
“We’re nearing the end, my love,” he repeated, but this time, and to her surprise, The Thin Man leaned in, until they were pressed together, forehead to forehead. He made no move to unmask her, but he ran his long fingers against the flesh of her exposed chin, settling both hands, one on either side of her face, around her ears.
“The Black Tower emits its ghastly wail, and neither one of us shuns its siren song. I’ll fold to eternity, beloved. It is upon us. The wave of a roaring typhoon. I’m first, and then you, and around, and around shall we go.”
"Perhaps one of us will break", The Lady thinks, holding on to his rail-thin shoulders. She settled her head into the crook of his neck, breathing in the familiar scent there. Still copper, but with an undertone of something else she had almost forgotten about. Like berries. Mono always smelled like berries.
He settled his cheek onto the smooth flesh of her exposed temple, and for a moment, it was just the two of them once more. Like old times. Everything in place, if only for a moment, as the light of the television began to fade. The Thin Man pressed his lips into the shell of her ear and spoke.
“I’m going to kill you.” He whispered, and She—The Lady, the proprietress, what was once Six and now mostly is not—smiled against the material of the mask.
"Koun o inoru." She leaned up and bumped him on the nose. The Lady kept that smile even as the television suddenly shuddered to a stop, silence and dark following in its wake, and all she held in her empty hands were air and memories.
The Lady stood for another moment. She turned back to the empty vanity and resumed brushing her hair in rhythm, idly humming a tune only she could hear. One-two, downstroke, one-two, downstroke.
And it was here, on the final downstroke, that she got the news from the janitor a mere week later.
Ship, intruder. Girl in yellow raincoat.
The Lady took this news in stride. She closed the door.
We're nearing the end. We're nearing the end. Around and around and around we go.