Chapter 16 Aunt Lily

I hobbled home in a sweat; taking out my feet which were covered with blisters gently, I soaked them in a basin of lukewarm water after a refreshing and relaxing bath. Out in the yard family of the deceased were wailing miserably; my grandma and granduncle were comforting them; after all, they were dead because of us. I thought my mother would continued to blame me, but she didn't. She just sat beside me and didn't say anything. After a long pause she said finally, "Do your feet hurt?" I said honestly: "Yes, a bit..." She sighed and said, "I've heard about it...We'll be back in town early tomorrow morning. It's not safe for you to stay here. Your granduncle would retrieve your grandpa’s body and handle the rest. Get yourself some rest; we leave at the first light of dawn.” I shook my head: "Mom, were the old gatekeeper of my school and my classmate Aaron from Bridge Vill? I kinda recall that you have spoke with the gatekeeper and a parent of Aaron in the last parents’ meeting...” Granduncle said in the wilderness there was no escape from the fate of Bridge Vill. the sooner you left the sooner they came after you. I needed confirmation from my mother. My mother thought for a second and said, "Yeah, if you say so...the boy who committed suicide...Aaron, right? And the old man keeping the gate of your school left the village with his daughter, what about him?" My mother didn't know that the old gatekeeper was dead too, and I didn't want to frighten her by telling her this, either. I shook my head and said: "Nothing, just asking, well, I will go to bed now." Just as I put the feet out of the basin, mother bent down to pick up the basin saying: "leave it to me, go to bed now! Can’t you just be a sweet girl and behave? Look at that feet; you could have been crippled. Such a pain in ass.” I lowered my head to avoid eye contact with her, my eyes swimming in tears; my mother had been strict to me but in a motherly way. I threw myself on the old wooden bed which I used to sleep on; the sense of familiarity and comfort made me drowsy. What a rough day, I had been tired out; with the light on, I closed my eyes. In a trance my subconsciousness gave out a faint reply as I heard someone calling me; I did not know who was it, but it sounded friendly and kind. Then an ice-cold hand patting on my face woke me up. "Aunt Lily...?" I sprung up realizing who it was; standing in front of my bed was my youngest aunt! She died a long time ago at that night she was wedded to the ‘underworld being’. Why was she here now?! "Rae, don't be afraid, I just come to see you; my husband said something was happening here, I have come to see you." The maturity in her voice and expression was somewhat in discordance with her still-young girly face. Grandpa had said the ghosts were strapped at the day they died, never aging another day... I regained my composure thinking that she was a family to me, my dad’s youngest sis; just like grandpa, she had not reason for her to hurt me. "Aunt Lily, why didn’t you enter the afterlife?" I was surprised. Aunt shook her head: "There is no afterlife for me, my husband is the Judge Death of hell; I have to serve him and will not reincarnate. That’s not bad anyway. I just learned that you were married to the King of Hell, Yama, what a lucky girl you are. Relax, Yama would keep you safe; even with every villager dead, you would survive. The baby in your belly is a blessing, your salvation in this great calamity and your future in the hell." The sincerity on Aunt Lily’s face startled me a bit. She seemed not to bear any grudge over dying at such young age. I patted my belly gently and asked. “You also think that I am pregnant?” Aunt said earnestly: "I am not in position to query the word of my husband. He keeps me back from knowing too much about human affairs, and says it is better for women to be ignorant. I have begged him for the chance to visit you." I was going to ask what kind of evil spirits the villagers had offended, but from what she said, I was sure she wouldn’t know... "Aunt Lily, what is the underworld like?" I was so curious that I couldn't stop it. She tilted her head and thought for a moment. "It looks just like the human world," she said. "There are mountains, rivers and towns, but rather old. There is no alternation of day and night; every day the sky is gray; you wouldn’t be surprised to encounter ghosts hundreds or even thousands of years old; some just refused to go with reincarnation and enter next life. Why don't you come with me; I will show you around?" As soon as I heard she asked me to follow her to the underworld, my hair stood on end: "What! No, no, no...I won’t..." She came up to me smiling. "I knew you wouldn't go with me, but you would, sooner or later. Come here, let me see the wound in your feet." Her cold fingers seized my feet and took out a small dark-red box from her pocket. She opened the box and applied something on my feet. I could only smell a nice sweet scent emanating from it, and my feet did not hurt so much. "This is a gift from Yama to my husband and is said to be the best wound ointment, no matter to the people in the underworld or the living." After a thin layer of ointment was applied, she put the box away into her large sleeves. I yawned and said, "Have you ever seen face of Yama?" Aunt Lily shook her head: "Never, I have only met him a few times; but I have heard that he liked opera and collected all sort of masks. He wears masks of different kind according to his mood in front of others. You could simply tell how he feels by his masks. Well, haven’t you ever seen his face, either?” Yeah? What did he look like? What a shame that I had never seen his face during this four years...He had offered me a chance but...It was too late and got to say that I was too afraid of him then after learning he was the King of Hell. "I don't care what he looks like. I'm alive and I'm not on the same path as him. I just want to live a normal life, get married, have children, and die a natural death. I never thought till now that anything so strange would happen to me, and if I ever get out of here alive, I'll give anything to get rid of that Demon Yama!” Aunt’s face darkened at my comments: "Hey, don’t you ever say that again; I have got to go now, stop thinking those nonsense." Aunt Lily disappeared after finishing her word; I felt a lot relieved till my mom suddenly knocked on the door and yelled: “Rae, who are you talking with? Still up?" I replied quickly, "I'm not talking to anyone. I'm mumbling to myself. I'm going to sleep now. So should you!” My mother said nothing more, and as her footsteps receded, I thought to myself, I could finally sleep. But as soon as I closed my eyes, I heard a familiar cold snort. I sat up, feeling not so good. Demon Yama was standing right next to me, making me wonder if he had been eavesdropping my talk with aunt Lily. I took a sneaky peek at the black-devil mask he was wearing now and wondered if he was in a good or bad mood... "You, you...What are you doing here? Aren't you gone?" I stuttered a little. The aura of him this moment was way strong than that of the demon who had escorted me back and made me involuntarily trembling. He leaned over me slightly and said, "Repeat what you said before. What do you want to do if you get out of here alive?" A wise woman knew when to retreat; I quickly pulled the thin quilt to cover my exposed legs and feet, remembering what an 'antique' he was. After the shower, I had changed into a white sleeping skirt, which reached to the knee; and he was very likely to have an objection against it too. "About that......I didn't say what I wanted to do. You must have misheard me. And stop showing up in the middle of the night. You'll frighten me to death..." I crouched by my bed and forced a smiling face in fear. He gave a gentle wave of his hand and, obediently, the sheet flew away from me; holding down my lifting skirt, I laced my hands behind my head and cried out fearfully: "Don't kill me! I am pregnant with your child!" He pushed me down on the bed and mounted me. "Who was talking about killing you?" I was pinned down by him tightly and as the devil mask approached, and my heart grew even colder. I swore him in my heart, what sort of Yama did that? Come and go like a shadow; sooner or later, I would be scared to death by him! I felt the touch of cold running gently on my thigh, making my skin break out in goose-bumps. "You...What do you want? Just tell me, I...I'm so scared..." I despised myself for being such a trembling and fearful lamb. I was such a loser, a coward; why did I even stutter? He said nothing, his long fingers gripping the edge of the mask... I closed my eyes quickly, feeling him take off the mask and put it aside, fingers running down my neck...