Chapter eight: The pile of notebooks
I felt defeated. Completely and utterly. I wasn’t used to feeling defeated; I was used to getting what I wanted, even if it took a while for me to actually get it. This time, everything just seemed to get further and further away from me, and the more I uncovered, the more confused I became. I didn’t like it. Not one single bit.
Rei looked up from the book he had buried his nose in, glancing at me with an expression that clearly spelled out confusion. Which I couldn’t blame him for, really, considering that I had been apprehensive and almost cold whenever I talked to him after I got back. It wasn’t that I wanted to confuse the kid, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of someone not aging in the least bit in thirty years.
There was a solution, of course, but I didn’t like that thought any more, considering that it would mean that Rei had been lying to me all along. I preferred the mystery, actually, no matter how frustrating it was.
And then I had to add Dakota and her constant disappearances as well, which were getting on my nerves. Mostly, I wanted to forget about her, but I couldn’t.
For once, it was a relief to focus on my job. My nice, simple job that had no complications, a nice boss, not too many annoying customers, and enough time to read instead of actually work. The best part, though, was that it paid fairly well. I had to admit that I enjoyed having a steady job for once, if nothing than for the financial security it brought – I was used to taking small jobs every now and then, just enough for me to pay the bills, and then do as little as possible until the next time I was broke.
I sat down at the back of the shop, letting Miss Karen mind the counter – sometimes we worked at the same time, something which I didn’t mind, oddly enough. Miss Karen was nice enough; she told me small stories about her family, about how her husband had been killed, so now she took care of their two daughters and one son by herself. They had mostly grown up now, she told me, but they still lived with her.
Most of the time, however, we discussed books, or merely worked together in silence, like today. I decided to unpack a couple of crates of new things that had come in, sent to us anonymously. It wasn’t anything new, most people sent things anonymously, and a lot of the time it all turned out to be crap that was impossible to sell. Miss Karen didn’t particularly like going through these crates, but I found it fascinating.
This time there were a few old magazines that I put up on the shelves, along with a few old textbooks and some dictionaries. I hummed to myself as I sat down cross-legged on the floor, cracking open the second crate, frowning when I saw that it was filled with notebooks. “Great, more people who can’t be bothered to take their own garbage out,” I muttered to myself, flipping through the first one to see if they were new or old ones, quickly discovering that it was filled with scribbles.
It wasn’t until I caught sight of a mention of The Four Sisters that I became interested – I knew for certain that it was prohibited to actually write something about The Four Sisters. Even in the notebook the green rabbit had given me there were no direct mentions of them, so this was definitely a surprise.
Today I met The Four Sisters for the first time, the notebook – which appeared to be some sort of diary – read, and I figured that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to read the rest as well. Not when there were mentions of The Four Sisters.
They were more magnificent than I could have imagined, but they also surprised me. I came to the hill outside of Ashio, just like they had told me to. They were already there, waiting for me, standing at the top of the hill, as if they were queens. And king. I hadn’t expected that – one of The Four Sisters is a man! I think this is something that almost nobody knows, so I feel extremely privileged and proud.
The first Sister greeted me with a warm smile, the second Sister took my hand, and the third Sister led me into a house, right there on the hilltop. I can barely remember anything they said, I was so happy, but I remember the most important thing. The fourth Sister, the man (and such a handsome man, too!) was the one who really spoke to me, though I could tell that he isn’t the one who is really in charge.
Anyway, I have a mission now. A secret mission, no one is to know about it. I can’t tell anyone that I met with The Four Sisters either, which is understandable. I mean, if people knew, then they would demand to meet them too, right? I think I like it better this way. Makes me feel special. Chosen.
I wish I could talk more about the mission, but I don’t dare to mention it, not even in my journal. I don’t really think that my journal will be found by anyone, but I’m not taking the chance. Not yet, anyway. Maybe I’ll talk more about my mission later.
--
Today was the first day I started working on my mission. I still don’t really understand it, but if The Four Sisters want me to do it, then of course, I will. How anyone can be against The Four Sisters is beyond me, and if it’s true what they are saying – and of course it is – that someone is trying to destroy what they’ve worked for so hard, then I will do my best to bring that person down. Or if it’s more than one, then that’s fine as well. I know that The Four Sisters will point me in the right direction. All I have to do is to follow their orders.
--
I found my first villain today. I don’t have a better word for it than that. He had to have been a villain, right; otherwise The Four Sisters wouldn’t have sent me after him. I liked finding him. Searching for him, hunting him down. The fourth Sister called me a hunter, and that’s what I am. I’m going to hunt down everyone who tries to break the rules.
They don’t know. The Four Sisters see everything. There won’t be anywhere to hide. Not from them, and not from me.
--
I had no idea that there were so many villains here. I thought this was a peaceful place, filled with people who just wanted a second start, and people who wanted to good. People who knew how to obey the rules, and who didn’t want to ruin everything.
I’m so glad that The Four Sisters made me see the truth. There are bad people here, and those people need to be taken care of. Some of them are sneaky, they avoid getting marked. Some people are like that, you know. They just can’t help breaking the rules openly, and they get marked again and again, until the black rabbit picks them up and makes sure that they leave. I can tolerate those people – of course they’re stupid, but I can forgive the ones that just don’t know any better.
The ones I can’t forgive, though, are the ones that break the rules in silence, or find ways to bend the rules, or who try to trick or hurt The Four Sisters. I will not tolerate that. Those people don’t deserve to be here at all, they only deserve to be punished.
And I’m going to be the one to find and punish them all.
--
I feel so tired. I wonder if it’s all this evil that is wearing me down. I wish I could see The Four Sisters more often, to get strength from them. I love The Four Sisters, especially him…
I’d do anything for him. I’d die for him. But I don’t think he sees me as anything other than a hunter. So I’ll be the best hunter I can possibly be, and then he’ll see me for who I really am.
Then he’ll finally love me.
--
So much evil. So many people who want to do wrong. I don’t know what to do anymore. How to deal with it.
So much evil.
--
It hurts, It hurts so much, and I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m not sure I can deal with this anymore. I can feel myself changing; it feels like I’m becoming more evil, more like the ones I’m hunting down, one by one. Most of them look so innocent too – when I examine their lives I can almost never find anything wrong.
Sometimes… Sometimes it feels like The Four Sisters are sending me after people that they don’t like. People they want to get rid of, for no good reason whatsoever, and that it’s why the black rabbit can’t do this.
I wonder why they chose me. Do they know something about me that I don’t?
Am I evil too?
--
I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. I’ll tell them tomorrow. I quit.
I finally looked up from the notebook I was currently reading – I had gone through three of them in the span of a few hours, reading as if transfixed. Flipping through the rest of the book, I found that it ended there. Nothing more. From the hand-writing and the way the author talked about the fourth Sister, I assumed that it had to be a woman. A woman who had been picked to do The Four Sisters bidding, and who had simply done it – out of love?
The hand-writing seemed to change over time. From the first entries to the last, there seemed to be a steady decline; it became bigger, sloppier, and more difficult to read as time went on. The things the woman had been doing had clearly changed her on a fundamental level, and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, even though she had no doubt done some bad things merely because she was ordered to do them.
Only three of the notebooks turned out to be the woman’s diaries, the rest only contained names. Rows and rows of names, some with a circle in front, some with an X, and some with a star. I had no idea what it meant, but I assumed it was some kind of code; maybe a code for just what she had done to them.
Even if I knew that these notebooks were dangerous material, I ended up taking them home. I offered to pay for them, but Miss Karen shook her head and said that she’d just throw them out otherwise. Without even noticing it, my entire shift had gone by while I was reading. Not so strange, considering that the diaries didn’t only contain mentions of The Four Sisters and her “mission”, but also descriptions of her city, of her friends, little anecdotes of what she had been doing that day. It was a look into a stranger’s mind and heart, and even if I didn’t know the woman’s name, she hardly felt like a stranger anymore. By now, I was probably the person in the world who knew simultaneously the most and the least about her.
I looked through the notebooks more thoroughly when I came home, re-reading all the passages that had to do with The Four Sisters, re-writing it into my own little notebook, though I chose to code everything I scribbled down, never directly mentioning The Four Sisters. I had to be careful. After all, it wasn’t as if I was the one on a mission set by The Four Sisters. It was better to be safe than sorry.
It annoyed me a little that nothing was dated – it would make it far more difficult to figure out who the woman was. People came and went in this place, and without a date to go by, it would be nearly impossible – or at least incredibly time-consuming – to go through all the registers the woman’s city to find someone that might fit the description. I had a feeling that I was going to do it; however, seeing as this was a woman I wanted to learn more from. So far, I had met many who had mentioned The Four Sisters (always in hushed, reverend tones), but I had yet to meet anyone who had actually seen them and talked to them in person. The closest had been the green rabbit, but I had no idea how to get in touch with him again.
The lists of names didn’t tell me much at first, not until I went to the Town Hall to look up the names. I argued with the clerk for a while, but eventually she allowed me to search in the grand registry, the one that covered everyone living here, instead of only the ones living in Ixero. I told her that I was doing a freelance project for the Ixero Press, and that I was also looking for an old friend that I thought had moved here, though I didn’t know which city.
I was a good liar when I had to be – it was more or less required for someone with my kind of objective.
It didn’t take long for a pattern to emerge. Everyone that had been marked down by an X had died, pure and simple. There were details listed for each case, and as far as I could tell, they all looked accidental. I found it a bit strange that none of them seemed to have died from illness or old age, though, but I chose not to think about that too much now.
The next pattern that emerged was the fact that everyone who had a circle in front of their name had left. Some with an explanation, some without. It struck me as very strange, seeing as I knew for a fact that not many people decided to leave on their own.
The last pattern was the strangest one. The ones that had their name marked by a star had simply vanished without a trace. They hadn’t died, hadn’t left. I really didn’t like the pattern I was seeing, and the conclusions I drew from them.
Maybe I was insane, but to me the fact that people who vanished in thin air were marked by a star spelled out that this woman, whoever she was, had been the one responsible for Dakota’s disappearance, along with all the others. And the star that appeared in the sky – that was probably controlled by her as well, not The Four Sisters. Not directly, anyway. It was painfully clear, however, that it was The Four Sisters who ordered this woman to get rid of people.
It was difficult to tell the time span, but from the names I researched it seemed that the woman had been doing her “mission” for at least five years, up until roughly six months ago. People didn’t mysteriously die, leave or vanish before that, and the ones who had disappeared in one way or another afterwards weren’t written down in the woman’s notebooks.
I tried to put it all together as I walked back to the apartment, but I had to admit that I found it difficult. This also made me realize just how influential The Four Sisters were. I had known it before now as well, sure, but I hadn’t quite taken them seriously. In a way, I had seen The Four Sisters as I had seen the Town Elders – rulers in name and title, but not in reality.
Now, it seemed like the Town Elders were merely pawns in a game that was far larger than I had originally thought. It made me wonder if I should get myself out of this before it was too late – I wasn’t quite ready to risk my life on this, after all.
But on the other hand, didn’t I owe it to all these people to go through with my plan? These hundreds and hundreds of people that The Four Sisters had merely eliminated, apparently for no good reason whatsoever. I didn’t consider myself to be particularly courageous, nor was I a thrill seeker; all of this had been purely out of curiosity and for monetary gain up until this point.
“Oh, fuck it,” I said to myself, causing a few people to turn their heads and look at me, but I was hardly paying attention to any of them, even if I probably should. Considering the fact that I now knew exactly what I was risking by even thinking of going up against The Four Sisters, I should be paying, very, very close attention to anyone around me.
It took me over a day of contemplation to make up my mind, but I finally decided: I was going to see this thing through to the end, no matter what happened.
Even if I lost in the end.
~tbc~
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