13 Mink Street

Mr. Hoffen lay sprawled on the floor. Karon stood over him, silent and still.

It would be easy, right now, for Karon to send Mr. Hoffen off just a little ahead of his time. The old man’s words and icy stare moments before were crushing to him, heavy as stone.

From the moment he’d woken into this world, safety had been an idea just out of reach. He’d survived so far only by clinging to the cover of his new identity, wearing it like a second skin. It was the only thing keeping him from plunging, without warning, into whatever lay beyond. Threats weren’t just about daily life here; there were undercurrents moving far deeper than anything he’d known before.

This wasn’t some simple drama about running away from home. That wouldn’t have left him feeling so stifled. The fear here was that he wouldn’t just be cast out. Nothing as straightforward as being “sent away” awaited him. That couldn’t possibly be all there would be to it.

He now knew the particular anxiety, the sick dread, of a medieval witch standing before a bonfire.

Karon stepped forward and bent down. If he reached out, if he only let his fingers close around Mr. Hoffen’s throat, or lifted his head under the pretense of help only to let it strike the tile again, just one twist could finish the matter. The dangerous pull dragging him under would dissipate. No consequences, just stillness.

Would he do it?

Such thoughts came from somewhere deep and cold. Even the gentlest souls are sometimes startled by a fleeting rage, a shadow that passes through the mind as if it were just another thought. But in the end, Karon did nothing. He remained frozen where he stood.

He waited, staying there until Mina came down from the second floor. She called out until Aunt Mary emerged from the basement and Paul hurried over, stooping to lift Mr. Hoffen from the floor. Only when Aunt Mary shouted his name did Karon truly awake. He then finally moved forward to help heave Mr. Hoffen into the Immers family hearse. Paul started the engine and Karon stayed in the back, silent beside the unconscious old man.

Their car was a modified sedan, and had lost its front passenger seat years ago. The cabin was stretched, so there was plenty of room for a coffin. More than enough for a single frail body.

Mr. Hoffen didn’t stir.

He was lucky, in a sense. Ambulances weren’t common here, so with the hearse, he’d at least make it to the nearest hospital alive, if barely. Luckier still, if doctors failed, he would have an easy final ride back from the hospital. The vehicle well suited the occasion. Given his friendship with Tiz, there would probably even be a discount for the funeral, though Aunt Mary would be left holding the bill.

A dry laugh escaped Karon. He rubbed his face.

The golden retriever, having followed its master into the car, padded over and nudged Mr. Hoffen’s limp fingers, licking them gently. Then, nose twitching, it made its way to Karon.

He reached out. The dog leaned forward without hesitation, letting Karon stroke its head. It settled heavily against his leg, its fur warm and soft. When he paused, it prodded his hand again with its nose, gentle, yet insistent.

Karon sighed, glancing at Mr. Hoffen’s still form.

He leaned back against the side of the car, his hand sinking deep into the dog’s fur as he muttered, “Whatever.”

***

The hearse pulled up at the hospital. Mr. Hoffen was wheeled straight to the emergency room.

Paul darted through the hallways with paperwork. Karon waited on a bench by some flowerbeds, the golden’s leash looped around his hand.

Half an hour later, Paul jogged over, smiling. “Young Master Karon, the doctor says Mr. Hoffen is still unconscious, but out of danger.”

Karon let out a long breath. Relief, edged just barely with some emotion he couldn’t name, moved through him.

“The bill’s on the family account,” Paul added.

The Immers family ran the funeral home. They had a good relationship with the hospital. Aunt Winnie, who handled the books, even kept lists of terminal patients from the various wards. Sometimes, while a person was still being resuscitated inside, Uncle Mason would be outside in the hospital parking lot, quietly smoking and already waiting.

Where there’s profit, there are ties. With such connections, the paperwork was quickly finished.

“We can hire a caregiver,” Paul mentioned.

Karon just nodded. “Then do that. By the way, Paul, do you have any cigarettes?”

Paul fished out a half-empty pack and a lighter. “You want one, Young Master?”

“Yeah.”

He handed them over.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll go find the caregiver.”

“Okay.”

Karon pulled a cigarette from the pack and placed it between his teeth. The rules regarding smoking barely mattered. Even in the hospital courtyard there were plenty of patients and visitors standing in scattered groups with cigarettes loosely hanging from their mouths. Nurses breezed past, yet gave no sign of caring.

He lit up and drew in a lungful of smoke.

Almost immediately, his body recoiled. A fresh warning flared in his mind at the intrusion of poison. Nausea crawled up from somewhere deep, causing his stomach to clench, ready to rebel.

He ignored it all.

What struck him, as he exhaled, was how pointless it all was—the very act of smoking, as well as the stubbornness required to keep it up. He thought he matched the stupidity of it step for step. Seasoned smokers forced themselves to endure, day after day, suppressing their bodies’ protests until the habit hollowed them out, piece by piece. And here he was, having just safely delivered Mr. Hoffen to the doctors, only to feel himself steadily slipping toward some unknown abyss.

He brooded, though the force of his thoughts didn’t really land. There were flickers of regret, but they remained soft, unwilling to burn. The only thing that felt clear and cut through the haze was embarrassment. He felt exceedingly foolish.

He let out a dry breath.

With the cigarette burning between two fingers, Karon leaned back and let himself sink into the bench.

A shadow passed over him. He looked up, startled, just as the cigarette was plucked from his hand.

“You—Grandpa?”

Tiz stood before him.

The old man still wore the same clothes as in the morning. Karon noticed the stains clinging to the cuffs of the old man’s trousers and the smudges of dirt on the hand holding the stolen cigarette. Maybe it was mud.

Tiz dropped the cigarette to the ground and looked at the boy. “When did you pick that up?”

“I...” Karon stalled. For a fleeting moment, he almost told Tiz the truth. It was instinct, practically automation, threaded together from a half-remembered dream, to share Mr. Hoffen’s wild interrogation and all of the small strangenesses. Something unusual pressed in all around him.

Tiz and Mr. Hoffen were old friends.

Karon wasn’t afraid of what Mr. Hoffen might say if he awoke. For all of Mr. Hoffen’s mysteries, he remained a just retired professor with a taste for divination. Tiz, a man who ran a funeral home and served double duty as priest, seemed even more secretive.

Could Tiz really know less than Hoffen?

Would lying bring punishment, and honesty forgiveness?

But when he met Tiz’s eyes, the truth caught in Karon’s throat before retreating. “Uncle Mason taught me.”

Tiz’s brow wrinkled slightly.

“Mr. Hoffen is inside. The doctors say he’s stable,” Karon reported.

Tiz nodded. “Mary told me what happened. Were you frightened?”

As Karon answered, he was not sure whose discomfort he felt more keenly: his own, or someone else’s.

“I’ll go see him. Wait here.”

“All right, Grandpa.”

Tiz walked away. Upon returning, he addressed Paul, “When did you learn to drive?”

“Not long ago. I paid attention and picked it up.” Paul sounded shy.

“Do you have a license?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Starting next month, your pay goes up by one thousand rupi.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tiz. Thank you.”

Paul and Ron could not have been less alike. Ron liked to slip off early to drink and gamble. He was probably already at a bar. Paul had stayed behind, and kept busy polishing the car.

“Let’s go home.” Tiz looked back at Karon. “Home.”

Paul got back behind the wheel. Karon and Tiz sat in the back on bare cushions too thin to call a seat, facing each other.

“Should we notify Mr. Hoffen’s family, Grandpa?”

“No. His children cut ties with him long ago and don’t live in Roja City. Come back in a few days to check on him.”

“All right, Grandpa.”

Their talk ran out and silence gathered.

Karon watched as Tiz slowly rolled up his sleeve. What was revealed stunned him. A third of Tiz’s left forearm looked charred, blackened, as if it had been held directly in an open flame.

“Forceps,” Tiz said.

“Hm?” Karon was slow to react, but then leaned forward to open the black case at Tiz’s side. Within, he found a set of surgical tools, as well as other things mixed in that had no business being in any doctor’s bag. There were small vials, each containing strange-colored liquids. Translucent beads, iron plates bent into odd shapes, something like a whip that Karon couldn’t identify, and, most striking, a sword hilt that was hollow at the center.

The hilt was a puzzle. On one side, there was a twisted skull. On the other, the serene face of a saint. There was no blade, but Karon was still careful. He avoided the hilt as if it could cut him.

He picked out the forceps and handed them to Tiz.

The old man took them, clasped a corner of his blackened skin between their jaws, and pulled. Even with the car in motion, Karon could hear it: Unmistakable and faint, it was the fragile, tearing sound of skin as thin as paper being pulled away.

The golden retriever had followed them back. It crouched in the corner, wide-eyed and trembling.

Tiz calmly peeled away two strips of the burned skin before speaking, “Tweezers.”

“Oh, right.” Karon handed them over, yet Tiz did not take them. He moved his arm in front of Karon and pressed the forceps back into Karon’s hand.

According to the memories of the original Karon, nothing like this had ever happened before.

Still, after a moment’s hesitation, Karon did as he had just been shown. He took the forceps in his right hand, the tweezers in his left, and proceeded to use the tweezers to lift an edge of the charred skin. With the forceps, he drew it off in one piece. Beneath the ruined layer, fresh crimson flesh wept blood.

Tiz endured in silence. His face betrayed nothing. Once the last of the burnt skin was gone, the left forearm was left bare and red, like meat that had just touched boiling water.

“That’s all,” Karon said.

“Mm.”

Tiz reached for a vial of purple liquid, flicked the stopper away, and poured its contents over his arm.

A hiss escaped Karon’s mouth as white vapor steamed up from Tiz’s arm, accompanied by the sharp crackle of hot oil splashing in a pan.

After a long pause, Tiz exhaled. He tugged his sleeve down to cover the wound.

“Shouldn’t you bandage it?” Karon asked, unable to hold back.

Tiz shook his head. Karon dropped the matter and sat up straight again. Soon, the car rolled to a stop. They were home.

Karon led Mr. Hoffen’s golden retriever from the back seat while Paul got out at the curb in front of the gate. “Mr. Tiz, Young Master Karon, I’ll be heading home now. I’ll come back early tomorrow to set up the mourning hall.”

“Good.” Tiz nodded.

Buoyed by his recent raise, Paul jogged away, humming to himself.

Karon lingered at the gate, waiting. Tiz had not yet moved.

Two people and one dog stood in front of the gate. Above them, in a windowsill on the third floor, Pu’er stood, looking down. The cat’s eyes remained fixed and unblinking. Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted. The world’s soundtrack changed in an instant. The jolt was unmistakable.

Karon’s breath caught, his lips starting to tremble.

The golden retriever looked up at him, uncertain. Its leash shuddered. Karon’s hand was shaking.

People have a sixth sense. Sometimes it comes with the wind, sometimes with a shaft of sunlight, sometimes from the hush of the shrubs behind a garden fence. Karon wondered if dying and coming back had honed that sense for him. There was no room left for such questions in his mind. He felt like a freshly stolen egg, tossed from hand to hand by some unseen trickster.

Run?

He turned his head as far as possible to look at the road past the gate. It was an open path, an escape.

He then turned to look the other way but stopped halfway, and his gaze fell.

He saw the leg of a pair of trousers, then Tiz’s exposed left forearm, and in his hand, the sword hilt Karon remembered putting away. At this moment, it was gripped tight.

Suddenly, tears pricked his eyes, and his nose burned with the urge to cry. His face twitched. He was on the verge of crumpling. It was as if the familiar house at 13 Mink Street melted away and was replaced with plunging terraces below him. He stood alone on a high stage, with the gallows waiting at his side.

“Karon.” Tiz’s voice boomed in his ears like a peal of thunder.

“Gra... Grandpa...” Karon’s teeth chattered against each word.

Yet despite the shaking, a strange stillness filled him. It was a dividing of flesh and spirit.

“Karon, where are we right now?”

Karon’s lips parted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tiz’s left arm rising, moving behind his back.

In a fraction of a second, Karon straightened. In a rough, guttural voice, he answered, “Home.”