All the Gates of Hell (26 page)

Another tug a the wrist, which Jin ignored. She barely felt it as she blinked at her mother in confusion. "Excuse me?"

"A lie. False. At odds with the facts. See also: fib. Do it under oath and it's perjury."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

Her mother sighed. "Well, maybe I didn't lie to you on purpose. For a long time I believed that bit about the world and all myself, but I haven't done much but think about this when you said you were moving back for a while. I was trying to figure out why you'd agreed."

"It's complicated, Mom."

Margaret shrugged. "No doubt. Yet at first I thought perhaps the bad old world was getting to be a bit much for you, but I knew that wasn't it, and it was silly to even think that. So I started to think about why I
knew
that it was a silly idea. That's when I finally figured this thing out."

"Figured what out?"

"Jin, I didn't stop being everything I was to make the world a better place for you. I stopped because I wanted to
be
you."

Jin just stared. "You're not making any sense!"

Her mother shook her head. "My mind has never been clearer in my life. Jin, you have no idea what it was like for me, watching you grow up, loving you, seeing in you everything that I was not."

Jin could barely believe her own ears. "Like what?"

Margaret grinned. "Lots of things, but first and most of all: fearless." When Jin just stared at her she went on, calmly. "It's true. I once came to pick you up from first grade and found you facing down two second-grader bullies by yourself. And why?"

Jin did remember. She remembered how hot her face had been, how angry she was. She remembered the confusion on the two louts' faces as she hurled herself between them and her playmate David, who was lying bruised and crying in the dirt. She remembered taking blows and giving them back harder for every blow struck and crying with rage, not fear, and then the hand on her shoulder that she tried to tear away from before she realized the hand belonged to her mother. The two bullies ran away then, leaving Jin with a bruised cheek and a black eye, but Jin remembered the next day with some satisfaction as the two bullies showed up for school, one with two black eyes and the other with one shiner and a split lip. From a girl. Neither of them was quite as effective as a bully from then on.

"Why? Because I didn't have enough sense to run?"

Margaret shook her head. "Because they were hurting your friend. You were always like that, Jin. From the time you could walk until now: fearless, and with an innate sense of justice that had me ashamed of the things I had to do every day. I kept asking myself, 'what would Jin think' and knowing I wouldn't like the answer."

"All kids know about justice, Mom. The problem is they think it applies to everyone else."

"
You
didn't think that way, and give me a little credit here, please. You weren't a little pipsqueak goody-goody saint, hon, and maybe you didn't get half the paddlings you deserved. You were simply
better
than me, and deep down I knew it every time I looked at you."

Jin felt her knees wobbling, and she was glad she was sitting down. "I don't know what to say."

"Neither did I, for a long time. You know, it's funny the lies we make up about ourselves. What we're willing to believe in order to keep up the illusions we cling to. I'm not ashamed of the things I've accomplished, Jin, but I am a little ashamed of why I did them and throwing it all in your lap now. I know something's going on with you above and beyond the loss of your friend. I wish I could help."

Jin stood up, a little unsteadily, and now it was she who opened her arms and enveloped her mother in a tight hug. "You already have.... oh.

Margaret buried her head for a moment in Jin's chest. "What is it, Lotus Blossom?"

It was the last thing on earth Jin expected or wanted to feel or know just then. She did not feel it the first time she had embraced her mother, but now it was all there, laid out for her like the petals on a rose. Jin felt the tug at her wrist again, and now she knew it for what it was. The touch and the tug together brought a complete and unwelcome understanding.

I won't. I can't
...

"Honey, what is it? What's wrong?"

Jin said the words, though she wanted with every iota of her being not to have to say them. It was too much to ask of her, and yet she did it anyway because, well, it was what she did and who she was, like it or not.

"It wasn't a lie, Mom, you just didn't understand -- you weren't trying to be me, you were trying to be
you
, and you didn't know how. You started wrong, and it just took you a while to figure that out. I was a clue, an example, perhaps even a hint, but that's all. The rest you did on your own."

"All...?"

There wasn't anything to break. There were no external symbols of the confusion that had ordered Margaret Kathleen Hannigan's life. She's just been waiting for an explanation, the one it was Jin's fate to give. She kissed her mother on the forehead. "If I was fearless, ever, I learned it from you. Goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Margaret Kathleen Hannigan looked confused for just a moment, but that moment passed quickly. "Oh. It is goodbye, isn't it? I think I understand, now."

With that understanding the last links to Medias were severed. Margaret Kathleen Hannigan was already fading out of Medias forever, but she did smile fondly at her daughter one last time.

"I said you were better than me, Lotus Blossom, but I didn't know the half of it. I thought you were kidding. About being Guan Yin, I mean."

"I wish I had been," Jin said.

"You don't mean that, Jin."

"I don't know if I do or not, but I had to say it... Mom, I'm sorry."

"Don't you dare be sorry. I'm not. Goodbye for now, Lotus Blossom." Then she was gone.

Jin found she had a few tears left after all, but even these could not last for long. There was too much left undone and she tried to concentrate on that, since she had no tears left to cry with.

I assumed Shiro made contact with my mom in order to get to me, but it was no different from all the other people who were waiting for me: Rebecca, Michiko, Buddy... Dammit, Shiro knew! Why didn't I
?

Jin sat in her chair in the empty office. Elsewhere, she knew, the world was being reordered to account for the absence of both Margaret Kathleen Hannigan and Joyce Masters. The difference was that Joyce would be eulogized, mourned, and buried, while those whose lives she affected, including Jin, would rearrange the pieces as best they could on their own. For Jin's mother the process would be very different -- the world would reorder
itself
. Jin wondered if, for instance, she called up the Chairman of the Legal Aid Board, he'd even remember Jin's mother at all or simply remind Jin that she'd died years ago. Which way was the world going to turn? Jin found herself oddly unconcerned, really. How the world reformed itself didn't bother her so long as it didn't try to make her forget her mother.

That wasn't going to happen. She remembered Buddy, and Rebecca, and Missus Tickles, and even the Lemon Man, who had a real name that Jin knew and could say aloud if need be. Everyone from Medias who had caused a shift in the world to accommodate their loss. She realized that it didn't work the same way in every hell; she rather doubted that the hell she'd just come from would or needed to bother much to replace one working demon out of millions. But in Medias it was different and, though she really didn't understand why, she knew it was so. She also knew she wasn't going to forget her own mother, even though -- or because -- she was the one who sent her out of the world forever.

I'm sorry I couldn't do as much for Joyce
.

It felt strange to think that way. For all that she knew in her mind that what had happened to her mother was supposed to be a good thing, it was hard to see it in those terms. Jin felt the way she had felt at age twelve with Missus Tickles -- she felt like Death. After all, death wasn't a person; it was a portal from one world to another and that was how Jin felt, and that was what she had done, and kept doing, and was going to continue to do even after the mortal part that was Jin Lee Hannigan was long gone.

"How did she do it?" Jin asked aloud, but there was no one there to answer. At least, she didn't
see
anyone, but Jin wasn't fooled. "I asked a question," Jin said. "I know you're there. At least, you damn well better be. Those were your instructions. Come out."

Frank and Ling appeared. "Forgive us. We didn't realize you were speaking to us."

"Of course I forgive you. I have to, don't I?"

"You would forgive anyone almost anything," Ling said. "That's not the same thing."

"I'm glad you said 'almost.' I want to reserve my options on that. Anyway, it was a serious question. Guan Yin, I mean. How did she do it all those centuries? When I free someone from Hell I feel like I've killed them, even though I know it's a good thing, and to keep my sanity I must believe so too. You saw what happened to my mother."

They nodded, though neither spoke.

"So why do I feel like complete and total shit?"

Ling shrugged. "Because you're mortal. The part of you that is Guan Yin knows, but the part of you that is mortal must interpret what is happening in terms that make sense with its limited understanding."

"You know that for a fact?" Jin asked. It made perfect sense, but that didn't mean she was prepared to accept anything on faith just yet.

"No, it is just what I believe," Ling said. "When my mistress -- the full, divine form of her -- did what you do, there was nothing but joy on all sides. You, if you'll pardon my saying so, seem more confused and sad than anything else. This is a time to celebrate! This is not a time to grieve."

"And yet I'm going to, and for a long time. One more problem with being mortal. I'm beginning to wonder if there
are
any advantages." Jin rubbed her eyes, wearily. "All right. Thank you both for protecting my mother; it made me feel somewhat easier. But now I need some time alone."

They both winked out without another word. Jin finished loading her cardboard box and prepared to lock up the office. She hesitated, then opened her Third Eye the slightest bit.

The imp was there, sitting alone on Joyce's desk, looking morose. Jin wanted to be angry but she just didn't have the strength.

"Oh, shoo! The office is closing, and Joyce is dead, and you already know what's going to happen if try anything else with me!"

The imp just sighed. SHE WAS CLOSE, YOU KNOW.

Jin almost dropped her box. "To what? A total breakdown?"

TO GETTING OUT.

"If this is some kind of sick joke -- "

YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE. NOW I HAVE TO START ALL OVER WITH SOMEONE ELSE.

"Why don't you wait for Joyce? She's coming back."

IT'S STILL STARTING OVER. THAT'S THE PARADOX, BUT THAT'S HOW IT WORKS. KARMA BUILDS, BUT EVERY LIFE IS THE FIRST ONE, THANKS TO MADAME MENG.

Jin almost smiled. "You're starting to sound like Gnasher."

The little imp shook his head, and sighed. TOO MUCH PRIDE IN MY WORK YET. TOO MUCH JOY.

Jin frowned. "Can there ever be too much joy?"

IN SUFFERING?

Now Jin did manage a smile. A weak, pale one, but a smile nonetheless. "Good point."

STILL, WE ALL DO OUR PART. LISTEN, IMMANENT ONE -- IF I DO MEET YOUR FRIEND AGAIN, I PROMISE NOT TO BE ONE BIT HARDER THAN I HAVE TO BE. THAT'S NOT AN EASY THING FOR A DEMON.

Nor for
Guan Yin
, when she's me
.

"Thank you," Jin said, and meant it.

(())

Chapter 21

Jin got her first hint of how the world had reordered itself when she got back to her apartment and found that it wasn't her apartment anymore. She didn't even have a key. The harried-looking young mother who answered the doorbell thought she was lost. After a moment Jin decided that was probably true. She asked directions to Kindle Avenue and was a little relieved to discover that it still existed. She let the poor woman get back to dealing with a squalling toddler and walked back down the stairs.

I wonder if I have a home at all
?

Not that Jin had really expected that. The changed world might not have been able to change Jin, but despite that Jin had a pretty good idea of what the new reality had wanted to do. Acclimating would not be hard. Still, one thing to know and another to feel, as Jin already knew. By the time Jin had walked box all the way to Kindle Avenue she was getting a little anxious, but the key fit the door to her mother's house just as Jin knew it was supposed to. Jin walked through the door and recognized things that belonged to her mother: a small brass statue of the Hindu goddess Tara, a Japanese print in sumi-e style of a running horse, a rickety plant stand. There were one or two things she recognized as her mother's.

So. She hasn't disappeared totally
.

Jin carefully went over the house from top to bottom, noting each change: her old bedroom was a guestroom now. Jin found her own clothes in what had been her mother's bedroom. She also found pictures that were indisputably of Margaret Kathleen Hannigan.

Jin found the actual obituary in newspaper clippings in a scrapbook in her night stand. Apparently her mother had been hit by a car about five years before, in Jin's junior year in high school. Jin grunted. Honestly, was this the best the universe could do? A car? For Margaret Kathleen Hannigan that seemed much too ordinary an end. Jin wasn't sure what she'd expected, perhaps something more along the lines of 'buried by a bulldozer in Israel' or murdered by government thugs in India, but no. The obituary stood firm: hit by a car on Pepper Street. There was one other difference, too -- in this version of the world, her mother had served as director of the Pepper Street Legal Aid Office until her duly recorded death; it was only then that Joyce Masters had taken over, apparently. Although, in this new version of the world, Joyce was still dead.