Tetsuo’s thesis is on Japanese folklore, so he has a bunch of books about all kinds of funny creatures. The inugami is a dog spirit, bound to a family. To make an inugami you need:

  One dog.

  A hole to put the dog into.

  Dishes with meat.

  Place the dog in the hole, buried up to its neck.

  Place dishes with meat around it, but don’t feed the dog.

  When the dog is going mad, starved and terrified, cut off his head.

  Bury the head under a busy road.

  I don’t recall step five. But after that, you have yourself a spirit dog to command.

  I’ve never liked dogs. Not since that Doberman bit my right hand back in third grade. I’m a cat person.

  We have a fish tank in Toronto. James is sub-letting our apartment and he’s supposed to take care of the fish, but I don’t know how good a job he’s doing. He doesn’t even own a potted plant.

  But this is where Tetsuo wanted to be: six months in Nowhere, Ontario, so he could complete his thesis.

  Here I am, too.

  I’m playing Mahler.

  Wakarimasu: I understand.

  Tetsuo makes fun of my Japanese but in all fairness my parents divorced when I was five. My father lives in Vancouver now. I’ve only been once to Japan. I speak French, but can’t trace a kanji to save my life.

  Not so weird, though, when you grow up in Toronto by way of Cabbagetown.

  Tetsuo’s stories of spirits and ghosts and all kinds of folklore have always seemed very new because of this. Oh, I’d heard a bit about women who are foxes and that story about a snow lady. Snow spirit? Some stuff about the inugami, but Tetsuo knows all about strange critters.

  An inugami is a possession spirit. You send it against your enemies. The spirit dogs have an easier time possessing the emotionally unstable.

  The inugami enters the victim through the ears and settles into the person’s chest. A person who dies while possessed by an inugami has claw and tooth markings on their body.

  The inugami book, the one with the illustrations, begins in winter, with an outside view of a hut. The sky is black, no stars nor moon doting it. There is a woman in the hut. She’s an inugami-mochi, a member of a family that keeps an inugami. You see, an inugami is passed along the bloodline.

  The bear or fox or giant raccoon (would a raccoon be out in December?) overturned a garbage can this morning.

  Playing Lacrimosa,Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

  mō ichido, itte kudasai: please say it again.

  A bad connection this morning. The phone rang, but when I picked it up there was only a weird buzzing noise. I could be shopping down Yonge Street right now!

  This is my penance. I’m making it up to Tetsuo for last summer, which wasn’t a big deal but got all blown out of proportion and ruined our vacation plans . . . well, I’m trying to be supportive. Supportive girlfriend.

  Just discovered that the 1812 Overture I bought myself as an early Christmas present is scratched. Not a small scratch. A huge scratch down the middle of the record. It’s useless. Can’t play it.

  merī kurisumasu: merry Christmas.

  Merry. Fucking. Christmas.

  The record player is busted. I plugged it in and out of the outlet a dozen times and it did no good. I’ve ended up putting cassettes into the tape deck. How amusing. What’s one supposed to do?

  Tetsuo did not phone. The number in Tokyo? Not answering.

  It’s not until the middle of the inugami book that anything interesting happens. Turns out that the inugami-mochi families keep their inugami hidden. This family keeps its inugami inside a water jar. That’s the first glimpse you see of the dog. Its floating, like a fetus in a jar. The jar glows green.

  hottoite!: leave me alone.

  Mother phoned. The last person on Earth I want to speak to and she somehow managed to string the numbers together.

  Hello, Mother.

  Fine. Thank you.

  Yes, I’ve been following the doctor’s instructions.

  No, he’s not here.

  No, I can’t go into Toronto for New Year’s.

  No, I don’t hate you.

  No.

  The spirit dogs of the inugami-mochi families do their bidding, but once in a while they turn on their masters and bite them to death.

  That bear is back for sure. There were tracks in the snow today.

  hoka no heya e utsuremasu ka?: can I have another room?

  Mother again.

  I’m sure I had a tape of Erik Satie and I can’t find it.

  Mother phoned. Why won’t I drive back to Toronto. I’m waiting for Tetsuo, mother.

  That boyfriend of mine.

  I’m fine.

  I’ve got no headaches.

  The accident wasn’t a big deal. A thump to the head and it wasn’t even my fault. Drivers in Toronto! But I still get a bit of pain sometimes. Almost nothing these days. A pill here and a pill there fixes it up.

  It wasn’t so bad. I got a lot of reading done last year when I was convalescing.

  The final illustration in the book shows the girl with her belly gnawed away.

  It’s gross.

  Oh, the bear might be a real problem now. I think I heard it last night, outside, behind the cabin. I have no idea what you are supposed to do in case of bears. I spent my summers in Vancouver, the winters smack in the middle of the city. I went camping twice and hated it.

  Like my Japanese, this is one of those deficiencies Tetsuo will never understand.

  I miss Tetsuo.

  odaiji ni: get well soon.

  I hate my handwriting. It’s so childish.

  I’m switching to the typewriter because I cut my hand with the potato peeler today. No big deal, but it makes holding a pen a little annoying. Pounding the keys is a lot easier.

  I’m being a very good girl and sticking to this diary. Doctor’s orders!

  Today I went outside for a walk. You can’t see the little path that goes behind the house now, it’s all covered in snow. And the neighbors cabin seems so far away!

  I walked all the way down, to what’s the creek. I think it’s supposed to be a creek. There’s a wooden bridge nearby and I ran across it twice, but the second time I heard something in the bushes and I rushed back home.

  Wouldn’t want to be lunch for a bear.

  As luck has it, when I was out Tetsuo phoned. He left a short message on the machine.

  Love you, he said.

  People used to worship the inugami but they outlawed it.

  I saw a dog and swerved when I had the accident. But they all blame me for it.

  gomen nasai: sorry.

  Dear diary: the cassette player is also busted, though it is my fault. I take the blame.

  I also take the blame about the phone.

  The thing is, I lost my temper. The inugami book I’ve been reading? It’s gone. I can’t find it. Tetsuo needs that book for his thesis and I’ve lost it. First I thought maybe I had taken it with me yesterday when I went for a walk outside, but I hurried back and it wasn’t by the creek. I retraced my steps. Nothing.

  Then, guess what? I also couldn’t find the box with the tapes.

  You’d think your medication wouldn’t make it hard to remember where you left stuff. But it does. It so does.

  I got angry, dear diary. I kicked the cassette player and smashed the phone. The answering machine looks so lonely.

  It’s not a bear, by the way. A wolf. I heard it howling last night. When we were kids my brother showed me a piece of paper with the paw prints of animals. Should have paid more attention.

  I might drive to town Monday.

  kaite kudasai: please write it down.

  Changed the bandage. My hand still hurts.

  When I was a girl the dog bit my hand. I still have the bite mark on my palm. A pale discoloration.

  I’m not sure how writing anything of this down is supposed to help, but the doctor was insistent and Tetsuo was insistent and mother was insistent.

  The wolf was in the house, by the way. Don’t know how it got in but it left a mess in the kitchen. It rampaged through the pantry. When I came downstairs the back door was open and there was food everywhere.

  Maybe I forgot to close the door? Man, these pills completely dope you out.

  oyu ga arimasen: there’s no hot water.

  Heading into town tomorrow. I was going to go today but I slept in and it was pretty late by the time I woke up. I heard the wolf howling near the window and did not dare to go outside.

  The accident was in April, when I was driving back home from the university. I had my music playing in the tape deck. Henryk Gorecki.

  I did not. Plow. Into. That. Truck. On. Purpose.

  That’s what everyone thinks. Even Tetsuo.

  I saw a dog and swerved.

  I swerved because I was trying to hit it.

  chekkuauto shitai no desu ga: when should I check out?

  There was no morning today. The clock said nine A.M. but outside the sky was painted black, as if drawn with a marker, and I could not find any stars.

  The wolf is scratching the front door. The wolf is scratching the roof. The wolf is on the roof.

  The wolf is a dog.

  It’s a dog.

  A dog bit my hand when I was a little girl.

  I killed a dog when I was a girl.

  You can see the teeth marks on my palm. A pale discoloration. The tooth went right through. You can see the mark through my hand.

  The dog is on the stairs. I can hear the dog running up the stairs.

  There’s a green glow coming from under the door.

  I don’t know how to say green in Japanese.

  Don’t know how to say dog.

  Not a dog.

  What is glow?

  heya no setsubi ga kowarete ite komatteimasu: there’s a problem in the room.

  Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s work has appeared in many anthologies, including Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing and Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic Science Fiction. Her first collection, This Strange Way of Dying, is out now, and her debut novel, Signal to Noise, will be released in 2015 by Solaris.

  The Land Baby

  Natalia Theodoridou

  The diving suit weighs against his body like a wall. He pushes through the water. The pressure in his eardrums is constant and piercing, as if a nail is being driven through his head. The glass of his diving helmet fogs up; the view becomes obscure, the kingdom around him threatening, mystical. Dark forms swim against the luminescent bottom of the sea. He wades through this other world in his cast-iron boots, half man, half machine. People call them Mechanics, these divers who use the canvas suits and copper helmets to do what had always been done before with no equipment but a stone and your skin and the air in your lungs.

  The Mechanic keeps walking against the current, slowly, painstakingly. He uses his hook to tear a sponge from the sea floor. His net is almost full. Two more and he pulls on his lifeline twice, signaling his mate on the boat to haul him up.

  He takes his time surfacing, gradually releasing air from his helmet, allowing his ears to adjust. Now he is supposed to become a creature of the land again, of naked flesh and dry air and heavy bones. As he nears the surface, a stabbing pain blooms in his left ear, and his arm goes numb. He blinks once, twice. A tingling sensation now. He takes in the sea air through his helmet. Once, twice. The tingling subsides. Then, it’s gone. He clenches his fist, once, twice. It’s fine. Everything’s fine.

  He lets himself float, waiting for Nikos to load the harvest before pulling him on board. Then Nikos releases the valves of the Mechanic’s helmet and Alekos emerges from the suit, sweaty, disoriented, adjusting to the surface world like a newborn.

  “All good?” Nikos asks.

  Alekos clenches and unclenches his fist. Once. Twice. He nods.

  “Good haul,” Nikos remarks as he helps the Mechanic out of the suit.

  Alekos nods again and, soon, they are on their way back to land.

  As the boat approaches the shore, Alekos can make out his daughter sitting on the wet sand, waiting for them. But there is another figure, in the water, resting against the rocks to the left. A woman watching his daughter from afar. Alekos stands up on the boat, trying to get a better view. At that moment, the girl jumps to her feet, as if she has just noticed the boat. Alekos shuts his eyes tight and opens them again, once, twice. At last, a splash and a fleeting glimpse of hair and scales and the woman’s gone.

  The sudden nausea makes him sit down on the bench.

  “What is it?” Nikos asks. “You feeling okay?”

  “Did you . . . ” Alekos starts. He rubs his arm. “Never mind,” he says. “Let’s get to shore. Maria’s waiting.”

  On the way home, none of them speak. The men push a wooden cart loaded with their crop of sea creatures. The copper helmet shines in the corner. As it catches the sun, Maria thinks her father’s body is still in it, buried underneath the sponges. She shakes off the thought, and pulls on the diving stone, trailing it behind her like a dog on a leash. Her father hasn’t used it since he became a Mechanic, but she carries it with her every time he goes diving anyway. For good luck.

  It’s a long way to the village, but no one complains. They leave behind the sea and her ancient voice, wailing for her children, and they hold their breaths, as if to slip away unnoticed.

  The house smells rank. No matter how hard they work, a few sponges always roll under a sofa or are shoved behind a bucket in a corner and rot there while the rest are drying outside, until someone sniffs them out. Both father and daughter are used to it; they don’t even notice the smell any more unless they really try. Besides, Maria has never known anything different. All the houses on this island smell the same.

  Her hands are deft at handling the sponges and clippers. Clip, clip, squish. At only seven years old, she already has the dexterity of a woman who’s been doing this her whole life. Clip, clip, squish, and the sponges take shape. Clip, clip, squish, and you can almost forget these are skeletons she’s handling. Beautiful, tender skeletons.

  Alekos sits on a stool next to his daughter, staring at her little bird of a hand, clipping away. He clenches his fist, unclenches it. He picks up another pair of clippers, but they slip through his fingers. He looks at Maria, to see if she noticed, but she seems absorbed in the hypnotic rhythm of her work.

  “I saw mama down at the beach,” she says suddenly.

  Alekos inhales sharply, the glint of scales and hair and salty skin flashing before his eyes.

  “Don’t be silly,” he says.

  Maria stops clipping and eyes him with her most serious look. “It’s true.”

  “Mama is in the meadow, under the stone,” he says. “Remember?”

  “I saw her. She was crying,” Maria insists.

  Alekos forces a laugh, and it feels like a bead in his mouth, like those blue ones girls always wear around their necks to stave off bad luck and evil eyes.

  “Well, then, maybe you saw a water woman,” he says, pinching his daughter’s cheek with his good hand.

  Maria thinks about this for a while. “Why was she crying?”

  “Water women always cry. Their babies get caught in our nets and die.”

  “And then what happens?” Maria asks as Nikos taps on the door lightly, and walks in.

  “Then the water woman cries and some man somewhere dies,” Alekos says. “And then the water woman has a child again.”

  Maria stares at her father, unsure whether she should believe him or not.

  Nikos sits by him on a low stool and pulls two cigarettes out of his pocket.

  “Now go play,” Alekos says. “You’ve worked enough.”

  Nikos waits until Maria is out the door. “What’s that you were talking about?” he asks. He passes one of the cigarettes to Alekos.

  “Nothing. Childish nonsense. Says she saw a woman in the water,” Alekos replies. He brings the cigarette to his lips and reaches for his matches. “She just misses her mother,” he adds.

  “You’re scaring her.”

  “She should be a little scared of the sea. I don’t want her waiting at the beach by herself every time.” Alekos tries to light his match, but his left hand doesn’t obey. The match falls to the floor, and dwindles briefly before it goes out.

  Nikos strikes a match and lights the cigarette for him. Then he lights his own. “What is it?” he asks, nodding towards Alekos’s arm. “Is it the bends?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been like this since I came up.”

  Nikos is silent. He looks serious. “You shouldn’t use the suit any more,” he says after a while.

  “Can’t get enough sponges if you’re not a Mechanic.”

  Nikos drags on his cigarette and half-closes his eyes. “Can’t get that many if you’re dead, either,” he replies. “Or if you get the bends.”

  “I know,” Alekos says. “I know.” He takes in his smoke and holds his breath. “I think I saw her too, you know,” he says while he exhales.

  “Who?”

  “The woman.”

  “Did you?”

  Alekos rubs his arm. “I don’t know.”

  “Was she crying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay. Well. Not much we can do about it, either way.” Nikos gets up. “Come on. Let’s take you two up to the village. Sotiris had a good haul yesterday and he’s buying everyone wine at the tavern.”

  Alekos crushes the butt of his cigarette against the side of his stool and grabs the wool coat that is hanging by the door. He can’t manage to put his left arm through the sleeve, so he simply drapes it over his shoulder. He catches Nikos looking at him and shaking his head, his eyebrows furrowed.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” he growls. “And let’s go get a drink while I still have a good hand to hold a glass with.”

  The feast has been going on for several hours when the three of them get there. Half the village is gathered at the tavern and Sotiris, red-nosed and red-cheeked with the drunk man’s happiness, is pouring wine for everyone. The gathered crowd greets the new arrivals merrily—the women kiss them on the cheeks, the men embrace them or tip their hats and wave.

 

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