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Sixteen

"What a horrible story," Mai said, when Pin had finished his tale. "You poor boy." She squinted into his bottle, her eyes appearing as huge as the moon. "There must be some way we can get you out of there, anyway."

"Try taking the stopper out," Pin advised. "I'm not sure if there's a spell on it or anything."

"Well, let's try," Mai said. She seized the stopper and the bottle and gave a sharp tug. The stopper flew out and Pin flew with it. His spirit surged out of the bottle and hung in the air.

"What do I look like?" he asked Mai. He felt so ephemeral, so diffuse, that he wanted proof of his own existence.

"You look like a ghost of a boy," Mai said. She frowned. "I suppose that makes a kind of sense, given that you're not actually dead, are you? You're still alive, so I suppose that makes you seem insubstantial."

Pin didn't really understand, but so much had made so little sense recently that he decided to simply accept it. At least she could see him. He sat down on a nearby couch, floating slightly above its surface.

"I don't know what to do," he said. "I think my mother is here, but I don't know where to find her." It embarrassed him to sound so lost, but Mai's kind face drew it out of him.

"How did she die?" Mai asked.

"She was ill. I thought she might be somewhere in the Ministry of Epidemics, but I don't know . . ."

"I might be able to find out for you," Mai said, "but to be honest, our records are in such a state—it's very hard to track people down and I'm only a minor clerk." She hesitated. "I've had associations with the Ministry for most of my life here, but it takes a very long time to work yourself up to any kind of position of power. I died of a disease, too, you see. I was three."

"Only three? Why are you here? Surely you can't have done anything bad enough to warrant being sent to Hell?"

"I'm not sure," Mai said. She sighed. "There was some kind of mix-up, my mother says. But anyway, Pin, you shouldn't be here. You're not dead yet; you got here by accident, from the sound of it. And you're so fragile. There are things here that eat ghosts."

"I don't even know what happened to my body," Pin said. Presumably it was still back in the demon lounge and he did not like to think about what might be happening to it.

"My mother is on Earth," Mai said. "I told you that. She's looking after my son. But she's elderly now—she wasn't young when she had me. She's very brave, but I don't want to ask her to go to a demon lounge. I'm sorry, Pin, but I don't want to put my family in danger."

"I understand," Pin said. "But if you could give me some advice—I can't stay here with you forever, can I?"

"I'll see what I can do," Mai said with sudden resolve. "I want to help. No one should be stuck here. It's different with me—I grew up here. I don't remember Earth very well."

"How did you grow up?" Pin asked. He didn't mean to pry, but it seemed unimaginably difficult to him, that such a small child might be sent on her own to Hell, and survive—yet how could she do otherwise, when already dead? The horror of it struck him then, that this was a life that one could not even escape through death. If he himself died—assuming he ever made it back to his life—then certainly he would escape the Opera, but to what?

Mai sighed. "It wasn't easy. I didn't understand what had happened to me at first—one minute I was with my mother and crying because I felt ill, and then the next thing I knew I was on a boat with all these dead people, and then I was here in Hell. They just put us out on the shore and left us. I ran away and I hid for days, and then I just lived on the streets. My dad came down with me—I glimpsed him on the boat but they wouldn't let me talk to him and I couldn't find him when we got to shore. That was the worst thing. But my mother prayed and eventually one of my ancestors came and found me and took me home to his family. I lived with them until my marriage. It wasn't so bad. But they reincarnated shortly after the wedding, and their shadow-personalities have faded, so I won't see them again."

There was a short silence. "I'm sorry," Pin said.

"I'm happy now, Pin. Ahn and I love each other. And we love our son. I just wish—well, that's not your problem. Pin—are you hungry, or thirsty? I don't even know if you can feel things?"

"I'm not," Pin said. "But I am tired." As he said it, in his ghost's whisper, he realized that it was true: he was exhausted.

"Then rest," Mai said, and Pin's last memory of that night was of sinking down into the couch and sleep, as Mai spread a blanket like a cobweb across him.

 

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Framed