Chapter 44 Rui
Rui
The woman rose to her feet and turned from the altar.
“Rui?” she gasped, coming closer. She reached out with shaking hands. “Is it really you?”
The shock of seeing her mother took the wind out of Rui.
“It’s me,” Rui said, clinging on tightly.
Her mother’s skin was chilled, but she was solid, not a mirage. Her presence was strangely intoxicating, and a veil seemed
to fall over them. Yet something tickled at the back of Rui’s mind like a persistent itch. She brushed it away. Things in
the underworld didn’t exactly work the way they did in the human world. Her mother was here; nothing else mattered.
“I missed you,” she said, scrubbing her eyes and trying not to bawl.
“I missed you too, Xiao Ru.” Her mother’s eyes darted around nervously, and she whispered, “You’re not supposed to be here.
They’ll find me.”
“Who? The Guardians?”
Her mother bit her lip. She was afraid. But of what? Nikai said that each soul had to be sorted into a Court, but her mother
was in this temple. Was she in trouble?
“I have so much to tell you,” her mother said. “But you should leave. Your soul can’t stay here.”
“But we just met—I don’t want to leave you.” There were so many things Rui wanted to say, so many I’m sorrys, so many thank yous, so many I didn’t mean its. She needed her mother to understand. She needed more time.
“You wish to stay?”
Rui nodded. Her mother smiled then. It was oddly sharp-toothed, different from what Rui remembered.
“It isn’t safe to speak here. Come with me.” Her mother grabbed her hand forcefully. Rui’s instinct was to pull away, but her mother’s grip tightened. “Do you trust me, Ru-er?”
“Of course.”
“Good girl. Close your eyes.”
Rui did as she was told.
“Now open them.”
They were no longer inside the mysterious temple in the middle of the forest. Brightly lit stalls lined the streets, selling
charms and talismans, curios, and street food. Laughter and loud chatter filled the air, along with the sounds of percussive
instruments. If she concentrated, Rui thought she could hear a faint plaintive melody from a string instrument.
“Where . . . are we?”
“Don’t you remember the Night Market?” Her mother sounded disappointed.
“I do.” But the place felt different. Something was off: the lights were a touch too neon, the buildings in the distance had an unfinished
look to them, and people’s faces were too smooth, their eyes too shiny. There was also a sickly sweet scent wafting from the
food stalls that felt like it was masking something less pleasant underneath.
“Are we in my memories?” Rui asked.
“Think of it as an alternate thread in your fate.”
“I don’t understand. Wait!”
Her mother was walking away.
“Mom?”
Her mother kept walking. Maybe she couldn’t hear Rui’s shouts amid the raucous laughter from the crowd and a growing drumbeat
in the distance. Rui pushed through the throng of people, tripping as her shoulder collided with someone.
“Sorry,” she said out loud without thinking.
The man turned.
She stifled a scream.
The man had no face. Just empty, smooth skin stretched across a skull. He lifted his head, turning to his right, then left,
like he was looking for something. He couldn’t see, but he was using some other way to sense her.
Rui covered her mouth and held her breath. She didn’t know why she did that, but it felt like if the man found her, very bad
things would happen. Moments later, the man gave up and moved along with the crowd. Not uttering a sound and keeping her breaths
as shallow as possible, Rui hurried to an alleyway, and she found her mother standing at the far end where the road met a
small quiet street.
“Mom, why are we—” The shophouses and streetlamps, the peeling road signs and the potholes in the tarmac—she recognized them.
They were standing on the same street where the Hybrid Revenant Feng had attacked them four years ago.
“What’s wrong, my dear?” Her mother was smiling. Her teeth sharper. Her face gaunter. She reminded Rui of a porcelain doll
with glassy, empty eyes.
A layer of fog had descended over Rui’s mind since she’d entered the misty forest, but now that persistent nag at the back
of her consciousness returned. It felt like someone was knocking on a door in her head, calling out for attention.
There was a clarity to Hell, to death. Something stark and honest about it. It didn’t hide itself or its intentions from you.
This place was a murky lake, its waters still and serene, but its depths unknown. You could see your own reflection on the surface,
but one ripple and your image would distort. Tip forward and the lake would fill your lungs with marsh water and drag you
to the bottom.
This isn’t the underworld, she realized with a shiver. The Guardians must’ve thrown her into something else.
“Why are we here?” Rui demanded. She couldn’t help but flinch as her mother approached.
Her mother blinked, tilting her head at an unnerving angle, her glassy eyes going big. “This is what you want, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand—”
“You want to stay here. With me. You want to make amends. To repent. To atone.”
Every instinct in Rui told her to run, but her legs refused to move.
“The attack will begin soon,” her mother said, her voice oppressively sweet. “But you can change things.”
The attack? Was her mother talking about Feng?
Her mother’s smile grew disturbingly wide. “If you take my place, you will never feel guilty again. You’ll never feel any
sadness or regret about what happened.”
“Take . . . your place?” Rui whispered, breaths ragged.
The woman with her mother’s face came closer, and she cupped Rui’s chin, cold fingers digging in. “You are broken, my child.
So, so broken. But down here, you can be whole again.”
Rui couldn’t speak. She didn’t know—didn’t want to know what the woman was saying.
“I don’t have to be the one who dies. Take my place, and your father won’t have to suffer the way he did. Take my place, and
your grief, your guilt, it will all leave you.” The woman leaned in, whispering in Rui’s ear, “Take my place, and you can
stop hating yourself.”
“Stop . . . hating?” If she took her mother’s place now, would she finally be released from her guilt? Would the broken parts
of her be mended, piece by piece?
She felt herself drifting, as if her soul’s anchor to the world had loosened and its light was fading. Darkness fell, but
the shadows did not take her all at once. They seeped into the cracks of her being, weaving through her sorrow, her grief,
weighing her down and engulfing her.
Your mother protected you because she loved you.
A pinprick of light appeared. She snatched at it desperately, clinging to it, clinging to life. To hope. Her world brightened,
and she gasped.
“You’re not my mother—she would never ask this of me!” She shoved the woman away.
“I am your mother,” the woman said with a ghoulish grin. Her dark hair was turning stringy, the ends writhing like worms. “I’m your
mother’s soul, trapped forever in the underworld because of you.”
“You are not her,” Rui repeated, backing away.
“Don’t go!” the woman cried. Tears streamed down her face, her features contorted in despair as she reached out. “Ru-er, Xiao
Ru, don’t go—”
“You can’t have me!” Rui shouted, willing her strength into each word.
The woman seemed to shrivel, her limbs wasting away as she fell to the ground. “Don’t go, please . . .” she wailed.
For the briefest of moments, Rui hesitated. Whatever that thing was, it still looked like her mother.
Your mother protected you because she loved you.
Rui turned and ran.
“Selfish girl! Rotten seed of my womb!”
Something sharp struck her, like knives slicing her flesh and bone. But she kept running, mustering whatever strength she
had left. The alleyway went on forever, and the screaming echoed around her, each word carving pain into her soul.
“You couldn’t even avenge me yourself. Instead you had someone else get their hands dirty for you. Unfilial child—it should
have been you who died. It should have been you!”
A cry escaped Rui’s throat when she realized the screaming voice sounded like her own.
Her mother was dead, her soul either in one of the Courts or reborn. Rui wasn’t here to meet her. It was never meant to be.
Rui had her own purpose in life, her own reasons to go on. She pictured her father’s face in her mind, then Zizi and Ada and
Ash and her friends, and she covered her ears and kept running. The screaming continued, the words cutting so deeply she thought
she was going to black out from the pain.
Red flashed in the corner of her eye. The string on her wrist was glowing again. There was a rhythm to it, like a pulse. She didn’t know why, but she held up her arm as she ran. She felt a sudden tug, as though someone had hooked a finger around the string, pulling her arm to the right.
Something flashed against the brick wall up ahead.
A mirror.
Was it an entrance or an exit?
She took a deep breath and threw herself into the glass.