The spider looked down from the ceiling of the ruined home. Though, in the strictest sense, you could hardly call it a home any longer. Where once love and order had reigned, now only chaos held court.
In one corner of this domestic apocalypse lay the kappa, propped against the far wall, legs akimbo. His body was dry, shrunken, and desiccated, as if he had been dead for years, and not just pummeling a meat creature mere moments ago. His once-bright skin, previously reminiscent of pondweed in the sunlight, was now the color of a week-old melon. The bowl that crowned his skull was empty, as a dark ring of water soaked into the floor beneath him.
As for the meat creature himself, he was everywhere and nowhere at once. A palm-sized gob of him clung, damply, to the edge of the door frame. A long, glistening strip of pinkish matter was draped over the top of an overturned ink-stone, twitching in a slow, arrhythmic pulse. Near the base of the wall, a fist-sized clod of Nuppeppō lay flattened. A thin rind of muscle was tacked to the back of a fallen scroll, a greasy film slowly oozing down a cracked teacup, pieces of meat strewn far and wide across the entire room.
The spider considered all that had happened this strange night and what her options might be moving forward. Minutes passed as she meditated, until she was pulled from her thoughts by an unexpected movement below.
It started with the smallest fragment: a speck of raw, damp flesh flexed, extended, then contracted again, dragging itself forward a fraction of a millimeter. It paused, as if waiting to see if anyone would object. Then, seemingly gaining confidence, it twitched forward once more leaving a faint, glistening grease trail behind it. The piece on the ink-stone responded with its own, slower undulation, every movement seeming laborious.
From her perch, the spider watched as the long strip on the ink-stone reached out, then flopped down to the tatami with a low, wet slap. She tracked its progress, marking the moments when it faltered, when a tremor ran through its length that almost made her pity it. But then she remembered the way it had terrified her earlier in the night, and pity was replaced with a more manageable emotion: clinical curiosity.
The palm-sized meatball near the door was the next to move. It rolled forward with an effort that would have been comical if not for the sound it produced.
I am simply having a frightful time describing sounds for this story, Children. Perhaps if you imagine the noise of a wet towel being dragged across a drum. Then multiply that by the hundreds of fragments now shuffling slowly towards center stage, you would be close to the truth of the matter. It was not a sound one could easily narrate, but it was a sound quite impossible to forget once heard.
Piece by piece, the scattered meaty bits gathered. Each time two fragments met, there was a moment of resistance, and a wet, sucking pop, before they merged with a dull slurp.
The spider dropped from the ceiling to a high shelf that overlooked the scene. From this vantage, she could see that the fist-sized clod against the wall had become the nexus of a slow, inexorable procession. The smaller scraps surged forward, resembling nothing so much as a swarm of flesh slugs coming to feed, and with every pulse, the mass grew.
At last, the entire collection gathered, convulsed, then began to swell, like dough rising in a bowl until the child sized mass of meat was returned to its full, disturbing shape. Nuppeppō was whole again.
Unsurprisingly, after a small pause, the meat creature turned toward the shelf where the spider waited, and began to move in her direction once again.
She no longer saw his approach as the movements of a predator. He now seemed more to her mind like a persistent cat that had found the one warm spot in the house and intended to claim it. This time she did not run, though a large part of her still very much wanted to.
She watched as Nuppeppō reached the base of the shelf, then extended a thick, stubby tentacle upward. His method of locomotion up the wall still raised disgust within the spider, even as the horror had mostly subsided.
She braced herself as slowly, and with great caution, a tentacle reached out and cupped her. Nuppeppō held her and began to stroke her again, soft and warm and unreasonably gentle for something composed entirely of dead human flesh.
The creature obviously did not intend her harm, but she worried that she was, in fact, a prisoner of his affections. She tried to skitter away from the tentacle cupped beneath her. Nuppeppō did not resist her movements. Instead, he simply followed her to the far end of the shelf, and resumed his strange attempts at comforting when she stopped again. Annoying, yes, revolting, most definitely, but something she could work with.
The spider, her blue coat still soot-stained and grease-covered, dropped to a lower shelf for a better view of the situation below. Her meaty nursemaid followed close behind. Her eyes flicked between the obviously dead kappa and Seimei still comatose in the opposite corner.
She scuttled closer. The kappa’s beak hung slightly open, his eyes like glazed over gray raisins. The bowl that crowned his skull was bone dry, save for a ring of residue clinging to the lowest side like the last dregs of soup.
The spider’s gaze dropped to the tatami just in front of the kappa’s body. There, perfectly outlined against the pale mat, was a deep, wet ring. As if the kappa had poured himself out in the act of bowing. She considered the scene and came at last to a conclusion, and a decision.
All around, the wreckage of Seimei’s once-pristine dining room told the story of the nights almost complete destruction. Fragments of lacquerware and crockery lay in the debris. Splinters of wood and paper screens littered the floor. Yet, in a small miracle, if in miracles you believe, one narrow side table remained upright close beside the Kappa’s corpse, improbably unbowed amid the ruin. Upon it stood a bowl and a full ceramic water pitcher, the kind meant for rinsing hands before a meal.
My children, if you are unfamiliar with jumping spiders you may be forgiven for not knowing that these are creatures of pure calculation. Behind the spider’s gaze a geometry puzzle was played out within less than a moment, deciding both the exact angle at which the pitcher would have to fall to fill the kappa’s skull-bowl and the precise location and force with which it would need to be struck to achieve that goal. She made a beeline for the table, tracing her way up an angled board and across the splintered edge of a fallen shoji screen.
Nuppeppō, noticing her departure, was not far behind. He pulled himself off the shelf, leaving behind a fatty smear, and crept after her.
The spider reached the pitcher and regarded it. The vessel towered over her. It was rounded at the middle, with a pale glaze streaked with a faint dust of blue. She circled its base, and tested its balance with a small heave of her tiny body.
Now, if you are a very small spider, you lack the strength to tip over such an object, even if you are very determined. A fact which this spider quickly learned. This spider, however, was quite clever and had something better than upper body strength: an assistant who was equal parts perfectly obedient, and utterly oblivious.
She glanced back over her abdomen at Nuppeppō, then at the pitcher. Slowly, deliberately, the small spider squeezed past the pitcher and crawled across the wall on the far side, casting a pointed glance at her companion with every step.
After a moment, Nuppeppō’s bulk shifted mindlessly forward in pursuit. As he had in the earlier chase, the creature seemed heedless of any items between himself and the spider. He pressed himself against the pitcher’s midsection as if he intended to walk straight through it. The vessel wobbled but did not fall. Nuppeppō pressed harder. With a teeter and a lurch, the pitcher toppled. Water arced out in a glistening sheet and struck the kappa’s head, filling the bowl-like indentation of its skull to overflowing, even as the pitcher itself shattered against the floor.
The water’s effect on the kappa was instantaneous. The kappa’s body, which had looked near mummified a moment ago, plumped up in an instant. The skin snapped taut, the color flushing back to a healthy, if still faintly repulsive, shade of green. The beak snapped shut, then opened again with a clack. The arms twitched, then flexed. Most disturbing of all, the kappa’s eyes inflated all at once, like overripening berries, rolled, and then refocused. The milky film washed away in a single, dramatic blink.
A moment later, the kappa’s chest rose with a gasp, drawing in air with a long, liquid gurgle. He stared at the wall, blinking rapidly, water dripping from the bowl on his head and running in rivulets down his face. He sat up slowly to regard the sight of a meat monster and a blue spider peering down at him, side by side.
The kappa regarded the two, and for a long moment, nobody moved. The spider flexed her legs, the meat creature patted her with uncertainty, and the kappa simply stared. Then, slowly, he placed a hand on the wall, and with surprising grace, pushed himself up to standing.
The spider stared up at the kappa, both she and Nuppeppō completely dwarfed by the hulking form of this teenage yokai sumo turtle.
What’s that you say my child?
The turtle should be a ninja?
What a fine thought that is, but it doesn’t quite fit, does it my sweet, silly one. You see turtles are quite bulky and unwieldy creatures, aspects that would, I’m afraid, make for a very poor ninja, yet make for an excellent sumo wrestler indeed.
Yes, it is a funny thing, children, to watch a thoroughly sumo turtle attempt to express gratitude. The kappa, remembering the customs of his old life, bent forward from the waist, lowering his head and extending his arms in the deep, solemn bow of the sumo. But as he dipped, a small wave of water threatened to splash from his skull-bowl again, and he had to clutch the table suddenly to prevent another disaster.
He straightened, jaw working, as if he meant to speak. But his new beak did not fit his old manner of speech; the words came out mangled, a croak and a click instead of anything intelligible.
For a moment, frustration was clear on his face, and then something inside his throat shifted. He tried again, this time not using the beak at all. Instead, a sound emerged from deep within his chest: a rumble, a vibration, and then, as if by magic, the message was heard.
You see, yokai do not naturally speak as we do. Some may have mouths and tongues and all the proper apparatus for language. The cleverest of them occasionally even learned to use these sundries to truly speak. However, to communicate with each other they use something much older, something that does not require words at all. It is not a matter of ears, but of minds, or perhaps of the bones inside one’s head. I must confess I’m not entirely sure. Whatever the method, human beings have long since forgotten the trick of how to understand it, which is probably for the best all things considered.
But the spider could hear it, clear as a bell. As could Nuppeppō in his way, though the words meant little to the meat creature.
“Thank you,” said Kappa, the sound echoing in the spider’s head.
He looked from Nuppeppō to the spider, as if suddenly self-conscious. He very nearly bowed a second time, but seemed to remember himself with some annoyance, and instead performed a small, dignified nod.
The kappa stood awkwardly looking around the room, uncertain how to proceed. His fingers twitched; he flexed his legs, and then without so much as a ‘by your leave,’ turned and stomped towards Seimei, intent to shake the onmyoji awake with his own hands.
Before he could move more than a few steps, the voice of the spider brought him up short.
“Please forgive our home’s appearance, honored guest,” the spider said in the same strange yokai speech, her voice oddly grand given her size. “It is not usually in such a… state.”
The kappa blinked in surprise.
“Do not trouble yourself, Spider-Sama,” he replied, “this humble Kappa has come with urgent business for the master of the house.”
The spider considered this, and then responded, “Thank you for your courtesy, young Kappa. You may call me Rika. The master is indisposed at the moment, but while you wait patiently, the duty of hospitality falls to the lady of the house, and so, honored guest, I welcome you to our home.” The web of etiquette was old, and Rika chose her words like fine silk, soft, but inescapable.
Kappa’s arms, which had been reaching towards Seimei, lowered slightly.
Rika skittered down the wall to a place just beside the single upright table. “If you will be so kind as to wait, I will bring what small comfort I can provide.”
Kappa looked from the spider to the meat-creature who, as if following silent orders, lumbered to the table and collapsed into a pile beside the spider.
Kappa had been raised an obedient child who honored his elders, as I am sure you children were as well. He lowered himself carefully to the floor on the only clear spot remaining in the ruins, folding his legs under him in the honorable rikishi’s pose.
Rika nodded gratefully at the huge yokai. “What refreshments would you prefer, Kappa?” she asked per custom, though she darted under a ruined shelf before he could respond. She scurried over the wreckage toward the larder, followed only by the faint, wet slapping sound of Nuppeppō’s pursuit.
Kappa waited, hands resting palm-down on his thighs. “This humble Kappa is unsure,” he confessed, looking away as if ashamed. “I find I am quite famished and wish only to feast on the souls and bloated, drowned flesh of the unrighteous dead, whom I have pulled beneath the black waters in my own two grasping claws… wait, is that a cucumber?”
Rika returned, using Nuppeppō as a make shift cart. Balanced on the meat creature’s back was indeed a battered, bruised cucumber. Perhaps not the most sanitary serving tray, but as they say, beggars could not be choosers.
When Nuppeppō stopped suddenly beside Rika, the cucumber rolled off of him and across the floor, where it settled at Kappa’s elbow.
He regarded it for a long moment, reached for it slowly, then paused. “For me?” he asked, the vibration softer than before.
“A humble offering,” Rika said, inclining her body with a little curtsy. “Please forgive us if our stores are… somewhat depleted.”
Kappa picked up the cucumber almost reverently with both hands. “My mother made me sunomono every day, with cucumbers fresh from her own garden,” Kappa said wistfully, his beak clacking as he held the cucumber just under his nose. “She said while I was wrestling it would protect me from pain—” his voice cracked on the final word. Slowly and deeply he inhaled the gourd’s scent, and then, with a ceremony that was almost religious, bit into it. The sound was a clean, bright snap, cutting through the air of the ruined house.
He chewed, slowly, his whole body seeming to soften as he ate. The tension drained from his shoulders, the ferocity melting away. The second bite was even slower, savoring the cool rush of moisture and the faint, grassy taste.
Nothing else in the room dared move and risk disturbing the venerable if modest meal.
Even Nuppeppō, who had previously twitched and convulsed at every opportunity to inch just a little closer to the spider, was still, only the occasional ripple along his surface marking the passage of time.
When the cucumber was gone, Kappa set the stem gently down and wiped his hands on his thighs. For a moment he looked almost as he had in life, cheeks bright, eyes shining, wet but clear.
He looked up at Rika, who waited on the edge of the table. “Thank you,” he said, “I have not tasted anything so fine in a very long time.”
Rika nodded once, taken aback by the display but gracious as ever. “Would you care to tell us, honored guest, what business brings you to the house of Abe no Seimei?”
Kappa’s composure, which had held so beautifully through the cucumber and the spider’s charm, crumbled almost instantly.
His shoulders hunched; his arms fell to his sides; his great green fists pressed into the floor, knuckles splayed wide for balance.
“I was murdered, drowned,” he said, in a thin, strangled croak that sounded very much like the mewling of a child. “I was walking home,” he managed, “after practice, my mother was waiting for me, and—” He choked, water flowing down his face and spilling onto the floor in thin, weeping lines. “Someone grabbed me. I couldn’t even…” He stopped, beak opening in a silent, desperate gasp. All the pride of his first entrance, the imposing majesty of the kappa, the sumo’s discipline, all of it collapsed into a puddle of memory and pond water.
Nuppeppō, who had been stubbornly glued to the blue spider since his rebirth, suddenly turned away from Rika and toward Kappa. His bulk shifted forward. He extended a broad, soft pseudopod and pressed it gently against the Kappa’s shoulder, then, after a moment’s hesitation, wrapped it around his broad shoulders in a half hug. Another tentacle joined the first, patting the Kappa’s back in the same comforting rhythm Nuppeppō had previously offered the spider.
Kappa looked down at him. Even through his tears he could not help but stare, baffled, at the mass of meat now clinging to his side. “What is it doing?” he said in surprise.
Rika’s eyes narrowed with a sudden understanding. “He is drawn to grief,” she said. “He cannot help it, he seeks to comfort.”
Kappa let out a strangled laugh that turned into a sob, then slumped forward, taking the meat monster up into his strong arms and squishing it close. Too lost in his grief to register revulsion, he buried his face into Nuppeppō’s gelatinous side, and broke down into open weeping. For a while he just stayed that way, the unresistant flesh creature petting his arm.
The blue spider watched from her post on the table, the ruined house silent except for the Kappa’s muffled whimpers and the steady drip of water from his skull-bowl.
I dearly want you to know, my children, that it was not a sign of weakness for this mighty Kappa to weep so at this time. It is not a failure of strength to cry, when cry you must. This world, despite its beauty, can often be quite cruel. Crueler still in that society seeks to deny us our very tears as we grow older. But there is great therapeutic value in a good cry, and I dare say we would all be much happier creatures if we allowed ourselves a luxoriously long lament every once in a while.
Finally, after fully venting his grief into surprisingly absorbent flesh, and feeling a great deal lighter for having done so, Kappa took a breath. His next words came out clear and even, with all the courage a young grieving boy could muster. “I do not know who it was,” he said. “It was a shadow, marked only by plum blossoms, but I know that I can never rest until I find them.” He looked over at the still-senseless Seimei, and then back at Rika and Nuppeppō.
“Can you please help me find my murderer?”
Thanks for reading. This story is a work in progress which I hope to some day publish. As such, I welcome all comments and constructive criticism.
If you find you enjoy my work and would like to read more, my first published novel, Grumble and Gasp, is currently available on Kindle and Amazon.
Want to know if I killed off your favorite character? I probably didn’t, but how can you be sure? Stay tuned. New chapters drop every Wednesday!
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I adore this story, but WHERE IS THe WHIMSY
This is the most humorous chapter of the game so far, I'd say, but at the same time still creepy. How amusing and surprising that Nuppeppo is like an emotional support animal!
One bit of criticism--you use references to "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," but I think you are more than creative enough to leave them out. Your story is, to me, unique, and the quotes from the nursery rhyme did not enhance your strong writing.