The limousine came to a halt, bringing her to her final destination for the day — a small hospital lost in the center of a bamboo forest. Talismans hung down from the maple and cherry blossom trees, weighing down the limbs, allowing the cherries to hang low enough to be picked with ease.
A dirt road led her down to that hospital, and inside, Beatrice walked past the secretary slash doctor. She was an old woman dressed in a sterile white kimono, an ex surgeon and a certified hermit who enjoyed the quiet of the forest. The hospital itself was small, stuffed inside of an untouched traditional home.
The old doctor sat behind a table, enjoying a newspaper lit by natural lighting while drinking tea from a bowl. When Beatrice stepped in through the sliding entrance door, she gave her a smile.
“Good afternoon, Miss Beatrice. Come to visit?” the doctor asked in Heshan, and Beatrice bowed — a part of the nation’s culture and tradition.
“I’m here for a checkup,” she answered, and the old lady nodded, standing up with a huff before guiding her along and down the hall of the home.
She walked past storerooms full of grains and rice and a bedroom with a futon bed. At the end of the hall was a pair of rooms — one filled with a tank of IV fluid and the other closed with a lock. An electrical wire laid by their feet, snaking its way into the locked room.
Beatrice took a key of her own and made her way inside, sliding the door open.
A sterility filled that room, a sterility that killed off all life. A layer of plastic covered every surface, keeping contaminants out, forming a sort of bubble that trapped a singular drop of life inside. That electrical wire passed by her feet, connecting to a machine that worked solo to keep him alive.
A constant beeping filled the room, the beating of a heart monitor. A ventilator pushed away, pumping into a pair of lungs that hadn’t been used in five years. Resting in a white coffin was once a young boy, now old enough to earn his diploma and wave goodbye to his childhood.
Of course, that wouldn’t happen. Not anytime soon. One year, five years, a hundred — it made no difference. He was as still as a corpse. After so long, his muscles no longer had their occasional spasm. If she had counted, it’d have to have been years since she saw any form of movement.
His name was Sen, and as far as the world knew, he was dead. The machine kept him in limbo for what felt like an eternity, but so long as the ventilator could draw him breath and the IV tubes could keep his mitochondria burning, he wouldn’t be granted the ending that is death.
Some would call it cruel and others would call it a necessary medical procedure. Beatrice didn’t think much of it. Every day for the past three years, Beatrice would come without fail, and be by Sen’s side.
“His vital signs are relatively normal, enough for me to leave him alone for now,” the doctor said, all while she stood in the doorway. “If you’d like, I can get you some tea.”
“No thanks. I’d like to be left alone for a while.”
“Of course, of course.” and she closed the door behind her, allowing Beatrice a private moment.
It was like this every single day. After an aristocratic morning and a paparazzi filled afternoon, she could rely on her evenings growing quiet and calm. There, she stood over the sleeping boy, now eighteen.
“It’s been a while since I last attended those yearly conferences, and from the arguing the two ‘figureheads’ had, it looks like they’re still as clueless as ever,” Beatrice said, and she leaned backwards, falling into the bed to sit by his side.
“They still believe that the culprit is among the nine,” she said, “but, it’s like the detective said. He doesn’t believe any of the nine are the culprit, and so long as they read testimonies written from his perspective, they’ll never find the truth.”
Sen laid still. Unmoving. Unfeeling. Unthinking. It was normal, at this point, and while it was essentially Beatrice talking to herself, she felt like he was listening.
“That detective, he’s a strange person,” she said. “He’s strange enough for all these possible outcomes — and for three of them to be validated as testimonies. He’s strange enough for the first, where he’s innocent and witnesses a demonic princess killing off the others, strange enough to be the detective chasing after a duo of killers and strange enough to be the killer himself, and admit it in his so-called testimony.”
She sucked in a breath, then laid back to lie down on the wide bed, leaving little room between her and the comatose boy.
“He’s a convenient piece,” she confessed. “He came from nothing, and now he’s returned to nothing. No evidence of his existence remains — nothing but our testimony.”
Sen laid still, but that was okay. So long as he lived, she could keep moving forwards — even if it was in a twisted, suspended animation.
“Then there’s the first victim, whose backstory can be molded onto any wealthy individual.
Then there’s the second, who can be pushed onto anybody with relations to the Ennian Emperor who famously had many, many friends who died in mysterious ways.
Then there’s the third, and seeing as there are plenty of Zahnian international students to pick and choose from, she could be anyone.
Then, the fourth. A Sulphuran princess is more difficult to pick from, but seeing as the Shah has many wives, he has an equal number of children — many of which have gone missing and end up in the castle with the rest.
Then, the fifth. He was nothing special. Just another criminal. Anyone could fit his description.”
With all of the victims laid out, Beatrice turned to face Sen whose face was covered with a ventilator mask. Seeing that, she softened, using a single finger to play with his long, black hair — uncut after years of being in a coma.
“All of the victims could have existed. The only reason the police dropped the case and called it fraudulent was because they had names tied to them,” she confessed, “but even if the names were fake, that doesn’t mean the people tied to them are also fakes.”
She reached behind Sen to a nightstand. There, a pile of books sat, all with bookmarks. She took them and opened them up to reveal nine names.
First victim. Howell Herman. He really was a rich gentleman who died mysteriously on an island supposedly inhabited by an Ennian imperial princess. He existed in a detective magazine.
Second victim. Baron Gadro. He was a nobleman with ties to the Ennian Emperor, who died on that same island. He existed in that same magazine, the next page from Howell.
Third victim. Shinjiro Aki. She was a samurai of old, sailed in from Zahna to southern Hesha — a woman of legends penned hundreds of years ago. She existed in a history textbook, an old, beaten down book.
Fourth victim. Iffrah Pezra. She was a Sulphuran alchemist born a thousand years ago who was burned for her crimes against God. She existed in a science textbook as an example of pseudo-science of the past — alchemy.
Fifth victim. Wright Bernstein. He was a Cobellian assassin who masqueraded as a shop clerk, who died ten years before the events that took place in the castle. The detective-work around his death, however, was sloppy at best. He existed in police records with both a mugshot and description.
Sixth victim. Calina Yekov. She was a semi important figure in the Cliesen uprising and the establishment of the socialist government. She existed in a political science textbook.
Seventh victim. Erika Portinari. A painter of old who had a habit of smoking — heavily — to the point that her lungs gave way and her body was thrown to the ash heap of history, leaving only a single, semi valuable, semi obscure painting in an art museum. She existed on an info label tied to her painting at said museum.
Finally, all that was left were the two ‘detectives’.
Misha Asimov, a female soldier who fought in the North Heshan civil war that occurred over a hundred years ago.
And of course, Dante Searcher.
He was born in the mind of an author and thrown into the limbo that was the eternal murder mystery series. He was an obscure piece of fiction brought to life by a true and genuine tragedy, a tragedy that was as tragic as it was vague. His name would forever be tied to his ‘death’, which was — in a twisted way — his birth into the public limelight.
Obscurity to reality. Fiction turned fact. She could call it one thing.
Magic.
“I did well,” she said. “I did as you would’ve wanted me to. I brought the world together to solve this impossible to solve case. If you were awake, you’d be proud of me, right?”
She squeezed his cold hand, then chuckled to herself.
“Although, you’d want me to release that testimony and give these poor people an actual fighting chance, don’t you?”
Her fingers interlocked with his, and with shut eyes, her voice vanished to whispers.
“But, that will never happen. I’ll never let the world solve this case and bring the true culprit to light — not until you’re awake to see it.”
Three years ago he was put into his medically induced coma, but eight years ago was when the two first met. It was in the depths of the Falling Forest that is said to be roamed by an immortal witch who’d fly over those foolish enough to enter her domain. According to local rumors, when you heard the flap of ashen-black wings, misfortune would follow.
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That forest just happened to surround the Mira Academy, a prestigious boarding school, and there, a new ten year old student was brought in. She was a blond foreign girl who wore the school’s uniform topped with a beret — a beret marked with a crest, the mark of a bear’s paw. It was the crest of the Jiyo family, a centuries old merchant family that survived regime changes and coups, though it wasn’t like the kids there knew that.
All they knew was that she had the white skin and facial features of a foreigner, and thus, she was an outsider. Heshan culture, being known as the walled continent, made their people’s feelings clear. They didn’t like foreigners.
The moment she stepped into that class, the teacher snapped her fingers, getting every student’s attention immediately.
“We’ve got a new student, everyone,” the teacher announced before patting her on the back — quite hard — hard enough to nearly send her falling forwards.
“Go on,” the teacher said. “Introduce yourself to everyone.”
“Good morning,” the girl said, all nervous-like. “I am Jiyo Beatrice, and I would be glad to be acquainted with all of you.”
The girl bowed, but the class snickered. Beatrice was stiff and nervous, and when she heard the crack of the teacher’s cane, she shuddered — electricity running up her spine.
“Sit in the back corner. No speaking in my class unless spoken to. Punishment will be doled out without exception,” the teacher said, and Beatrice was quick to comply, scampering off and away from the stick which every student feared.
In the back seat, she noticed something off. The seat next to her was empty, and with the beginning of class came attendance.
The teacher ran through every student, including Beatrice, and finally came to a halt. The old lady looked a little annoyed, but not surprised, as if an old itch had resurfaced — an annoyance she grew accustomed to.
“Ieri Sen? Is Sen present?” she asked, and the kids whipped up a storm of whispering. Her attention focused on a pair.
“Where’d he run off to again?”
“I heard he hangs out in the forest.”
“What? Is he playing detective again, searching for the witch?”
Witch? The word stuck with her, but before she could eavesdrop any further, she heard the crack of a cane.
“Sen is absent, as usual,” the teacher announced. “I’ll have to phone his parents. Will one of you take the attendance down to the main office?”
The teacher waved the attendance, and before one of the classmates could take it, someone burst through the door. Beatrice didn’t think much of the class until she laid eyes on the peculiar case that was that boy.
Raven dark hair, the classical deerstalker detective cap and a magnifying lens. The boy was as striking as he was strange.
“Teacher! I’ve returned with a clue,” he announced. In his hand — the other one, not the one carrying the magnifying lens — was a black feather.
“I’ve come one step closer to solving the mystery.”
“The what?” the teacher asked, all miffed and annoyed.
“Why, the case of the witch that roams in the Falling Forest.” and he presented the feather to the teacher, saying, “This right here is proof that a witch exists. Judging from the local birds, I —”
The teacher gave him a wallop, then sent him to his desk. With the beginning of class came a brutal math lesson and when lunch began, Beatrice walked out with a head full of hard-to-grasp concepts and learned what students meant when they brought up paddles.
Of course, lunch was no break.
The school was designed to be tough on the kids under the assumption that the more difficult their education and childhood, the easier their adult lives will be. The teachers were hand picked disciplinaries that just-so happened to be able to ‘teach’. It was less about having the kids learn and more about instilling discipline into the children.
That discipline reflected in the children’s actions, and seeing the straight, single file line that stuck out of the cafeteria, Beatrice found herself at the end.
There was a reason she was sent to this school, and that was to be disciplined. No matter how rich her family was, they refused to budge and grant her a single amenity. She’d have to live like every other student, staying in the dorm they provided and eating the meals they gave out.
Of course, she stuck out. She was the sore thumb of her class and the red hat of the school. No matter how hard she would try, there was no getting around it. She’d always be different.
Looking at the crowds of kids sitting inside, eating their meals, she took it upon herself to step out the doors and eat on an outside bench. Underneath the black shingles of the traditional architecture and the cherry blossoms, she ate alone.
It wasn’t like she tried to get along with the others, but when she looked at them and they looked back with their cautious expressions, she knew she would be excluded.
With that assumption made, she sat alone and ate her meal of rice, baked fish and an assortment of pickled greens. Meanwhile, she stared out, past a fence, and towards a forest turned amber with the autumn season.
“Morning sunshine.”
She was shocked to hear someone speak in Cobellian — and although it was with a heavy accent, it was still recognizably correct. She turned to see that strange boy, dressed head to toe like a detective. At least, as much as he could get away without completely breaking the dress code.
Sen stood with a chocolate pretzel stick in his mouth like a cigarette and stared off to that same forest. He had a half tired, half interested expression on his face.
“I’m Ieri Sen, and what you’re staring at is the Falling Forest, love,” he said. He said the ‘love’ part in Cobellian, which she assumed was a sort of catch phrase he came up with — the quip of an eccentric.
“The Falling Forest?” she asked, and he shrugged.
“Don’t ask me how it got its name, but if I had to guess, it’s probably because of all the falling trees. Most people would assume it’s an old, dying forest preparing for a reincarnation — but I think not.” and he took off his cap, then looked her in the eyes to ask, “Do you believe in the supernatural?”
“No,” she answered. Swift and stern. Immediate shutdown of his questioning. In fact, the way he talked and acted, it was all over the top, dramatic — but most of all, annoying.
He, however, stood firm — unwilling to bend to her assumptions about reality itself.
“I’ve studied the local ecology, and doing that, I’ve narrowed down the options,” he explained. “I cut down the bird population to a set of species.” and he pulled out the feather to say, “This feather, however, belongs to none of them.”
“And that explains what, exactly?”
“That the immortal witch, who can transform herself into a bird, is not of the native species here. Thus, this foreign feather belongs to her.”
Beatrice paused, her mouth hanging open with her chopsticks waiting for another bite. She put them down and turned to him with suspicion in her eyes.
“So because you found a non native feather in the forest, that means it belongs to the witch? Isn’t that kind of a stretch?”
“Stretch me out all you want. It doesn’t change the fact that this feather came from this forest.” and he sat down next to her on the bench to ask, “Now, do you believe in the supernatural?”
Who is this boy? She found herself shocked by how upfront and bold he was, and with that, she felt a tinge of stubbornness. That stubbornness bore itself on her face through a pout.
“I refuse to believe that.”
“What sort of evidence would I need to show you to get you to believe that witches exist?”
“What sort of evidence?” and she looked at him like he was mad, then shook her head, saying, “There’s nothing you can do to make me believe. I refuse to believe in the supernatural.”
“Then come with me,” he said. “Let’s go to the Falling Forest together. I’m sure the witch would be delighted to meet you.”
He offered his hand and she found herself trembling at the thought. That trembling made Sen smirk.
“You’re afraid, but why?” he asked, and he poked fun at her, revealing, “Why, it’s because you do believe, don’t you?”
“No I don’t,” she said with a bigger, poutier pout. He couldn’t hold back his laughter.
“Yeah, you do. You believe so much that you’re too afraid to step foot into the forest.”
She found herself overwhelmed by frustration — enough to make her shout.
“I’m not afraid!”
“And that’s because there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
He took that feather, then snapped it in half like a twig. Awe painted Beatrice’s face, all while a satisfied smile rose on his.
“That’s because this feather belongs to no bird. It’s a fake.”
“A fake?” and he nodded.
Seeing him nod filled her with confusion. Her anger and frustration vanished into thin air, leaving behind a quiet questioning that asked, what just happened.
“You see, no matter how much evidence I provide, the others flat out refuse to believe that a witch exists, though when I asked, they all refused to enter said forest,” he confessed. “You, on the other hand, ate it up. You let yourself believe, and in turn, that belief became a fear of the forest.”
“Ate it up?” she asked, and she frowned, asking, “What? Are you saying I’m stupid?”
“Not stupid. The opposite.” and he crunched a bite of his pretzel stick, saying, “You’re flexible. With the right evidence, you could solve any case. All you need is to be able to parse out truth from fiction.”
Sen reached out a hand to her, extending an eternal vow.
“Beatrice,” he asked. “Will you be my detective?”
She took his hand and shook it, and from then on out, the two kids began their game of cat and mouse.
Science class began straight after lunch. Beatrice had the entire year scheduled by the school, leaving her with only lunch and bedtime for time to herself. The rest of the day was reserved strictly for studying and learning. As usual, every teacher carried their punishment sticks and smacked away, both at the blackboard and at their students.
Carbon chains filled her eyes like a kaleidoscope and a mind numbing buzz droned on in her mind. That buzz grew louder and louder, blocking out the teacher’s voice.
That was until she felt a tap. It was from the student next to her, one of the normal kids. He had a folded note which he passed on to her — hidden from the teacher, of course. She kept it hidden and read it in silence.
“To my Dear Detective,
Welcome to the Mira Academy, and while I know you have a ton on your plate already, I ask of you one thing. Solve the following murders and bring the killer to justice. After class, when the school bell tolls, you will find a note slipped under your dorm room door.
Whatever you do, do not open it.
Tomorrow, I will explain further during lunch. Till then, I hope you can be patient.
Yours truly,
The Culprit.”
The word eccentric just didn’t cut it. Ieri Sen was something else entirely. She stared at the note, baffled, and filed it away in the back of her mind. The rest of the school day passed by in the blink of an eye, and with classes finished, she headed down to the female dormitory.
The other students weren’t outright hostile or mean, but from the way they looked at her and distanced themselves, she knew she’d be reminded daily that she was an outsider. At that point, she was too tired to think. She fumbled with her keys to find Sen’s promise to have come true.
As he stated, there laid a note on the floor, most likely passed through and under the door. As far as she knew, he had no way of entering the girl’s dorm without severe corporal punishment and expulsion.
All Beatrice could do was lock herself in her dorm, split open her notebooks and begin her ‘rest of the day’ homework — all while that note stared at her from the corner of her table.
Don’t open it, he had told her, but as the night dragged on and the studies wore away at her psyche, she found herself laying, head down, peering up towards that note.
She could poke and prod at it as much as she wanted, so long as she didn’t open it up. She laid, head down, staring sideways at the note. The light stand lit up the sheet, revealing ink through the folded page.
Beatrice couldn’t tell if it was an accident or her own curiosity surfacing as uncontrollable, unconscious action, but the note slipped between her fingers, landing before her vision.
Written inside was a simple message.
Sen has found his new victim.