Dairy Of Ellen

Cute Little Bottle (3)

Outside the forest, the land went through many rulers.
I heard many rumors about wars starting and ending.
Perhaps decades had pa.s.sed since I came to this house.
Or maybe it was centuries.
I didn't know an exact number. As I never aged, I felt I had no need to keep track of time.

"A witch lives in the forest, and she takes away those who get lost there."
That was the rumor that spread.

Outside the forest, secret efforts were made to try and kill me. Some who visited came explicitly to kill me.
But I did not panic. Because they would all be my friends. Because every time one came along, they could satisfy the demon's appet.i.te.
Their deaths instilled fear and sorrow in the ones who remained, and it summoned new humans to the house.
As the demon surely knew, I enjoyed this chain of occurrences myself.

I looked down on the garden from a second floor window.
It was fully covered with red roses in bloom.
When I first arrived here, only seasonal flowers bloomed. But with each human killed, the roses increasing in number could no longer be contained only in the house, but now went outside to encircle it, blooming in the garden.

I softly put a finger against the gla.s.s.
My beloved roses. I wanted to leap right into that red bedding. I lamented not being able to do so.
A black shadow flew across the sky, and I looked up.
That noisy black bird's cry.
...The demon was here to sell his medicine.

I started putting the medicines from the crow in a special food storage.
As the demon's medicines increased in number and type, they couldn't just fit in cupboards anymore.
In addition to the medicines that stopped the advance of my sickness, there were those which did damage to the body - those were for the black cat's interests.
I left the medicine room and stood in a long hallway.
I didn't want people to get anywhere near. I had worked for those medicines, and it would be awful if someone were to destroy them.

Water settled in the center of the hall, flowing in a shallow river.
...I wondered where it came from. Well, perfect.
I pulled out a few hairs and dropped them in the river. The clear water suddenly turned purple, bubbling and emitting an odd heat.
"Yikes! What're you doing?", the black cat asked, intrigued.
I gave up on trying to drive him away.
I grabbed him under his front legs and lifted him up.
And I smiled at him, as if he were unbearably cute.
"...Ellen?"
He looked up at me, his legs dangling.
I was smiling as usual, so he returned it, but it seemed somehow awkward.

...Suddenly, my face returned to normal, and I threw the cat into the river.
"Wha?! I knew it -"
Splash.
By the time he finished yelling, or maybe before, his body dissolved in the poison water with a pleasing sound, leaving no trace.
Only bubbles came up to the surface where he had fallen in. There wasn't even a bone left. I snorted my nose at the smell.
That should do.
I slipped away through the wall.
A purple haze, the demon's true form, circled around my shoulder, but I pretended to ignore it.

I wandered the house.
It had gotten much bigger than when I first arrived.
I pa.s.sed by the dining room. Handless residents were having a meal around the long table.
Next, I peered into the marble hall. Residents with uncertain forms were playing piano, while others pulled up chairs to listen.
They were living as they pleased
...Those residents of the witch's house.
They seemed to have no purpose. They things they said had no meaning. I could no longer laugh among them.
I pa.s.sed them by, and vanished into the darkness of the hall.

I am Ellen.
But just who is Ellen?

When was it that I wanted to claw at my sick skin?
Before I became a witch. I could remember it like it was a picture. In a dirty room, looking into smoke and crying. When I remembered that smell, it became hard to breathe.
How pitiable I was back then. But I was happy. Because I could just wallow in sorrow.
The trouble was when I thought about what would come next.
If a future of being loved, a path were set out for me, could I just not think about anything?
I wanted it at any cost. But that was no good.
The cry of my heart, the thing my soul desired, beat against my chest.
I obeyed my soul.
Just as the demon indicated I would.

I found my heartbeat slowing down, and instead, I started to hear the heartbeats of others. The people who were eaten by this house with faces of terror.
Ah. This is how it should be.
In a trance, I reached a rose vine out. Around their necks, sucking all the blood. Their hearts became my nourishment. Their death wails my lullaby, fulfilling my desires.

To be loved. That was my desire.
But just what is love?

Kind hands to wrap around me?
A carefree face to smile at me?
I wanted to cry the more I thought about it.
I had learned many things, living in this house for so long. Many things had come into my possession, I felt.
But none of it left anything inside me. It just pa.s.sed through my body and vanished.
What I wanted was something warm that would always stay in my body. Something that fulfilled me. I didn't know what it was.
Because I had yet to obtain it.
I lived to have my desire granted. I carried it in my chest with the utmost care, like a bird protecting its eggs.

I felt like, in my time living here, the ent.i.ty Ellen had gradually disappeared.
...I was the witch named Ellen.
That came to feel more appropriate.

As I walked around the room of books in thought, a book t.i.tled with my name appeared.
"Ellen," it read.
That was quick.
I took it and flipped through the pages. But nothing had yet been written in it.
"Well, what do you know," came a low voice. I looked by my feet.
There sat a black cat with a different face from before.
Ah. So you've gone into a new corpse already. I lifted an eyebrow instead of greeting him.

I put the book back and asked.
"Are there any books about the witch who lived here before?"
"Hmm. Might be," he said, playing dumb.
It wasn't payback for dropping him in the poison water earlier. He was always vague and unwilling to answer when it came to the previous witch.
That witch must have been distant past for him. Would the time could that I would be as well? I couldn't imagine it at the moment.

I looked up at a tall bookshelf.
I couldn't possibly read all the books in here.
They seemed to be constantly multiplying and lessening.
Where were they stocked from? Perhaps the knowledge of the people who died here took the form of books.
Someone's history. A telling of someone's way of life. That was wonderful. What was tragedy for them became comedy for the reader.

But...
Since they were all people fed to the house, they all had the same ending.
"Isn't it boring how they all end the same way?", the black cat asked me.
"I wouldn't say so. It's all about how you get there. Besides..."
"Besides?"
"Everybody dies at the end."
So I said, but after realizing that I wasn't included in that, I cast my eyes down.
I was surprised at how much it disturbed me. I was still being dragged into the fact of never dying.
I wished he wouldn't notice my unrest. Ahh, but of course he would. He laughed at me - I was too scared to look at him.
Tsk. I escaped through a gap in the bookshelves.
And as I wandered as if looking for another topic, I found a boy sitting in the corner of the room.

At some point, a boy had taken up residence in the room of books.
I wasn't sure if it was entirely right to call him a boy, as his chestnut hair fully covered his face, making it impossible to see.
He would order the bookshelves, open up books on the floor, and mutter things to himself. I felt like I'd heard his voice before.
I couldn't particularly remember the voices of everyone I'd played with, and they all seemed to blend together. But just looking at his kitten-soft hair seemed to calm my heart.

At times, I would overhear him talking to himself when I came in. I sat in a chair some distance away and gazed at him with my chin in my hands.
He didn't seem to notice my presence. He was so focused on what he was doing, he didn't even look my way.
Around him were encyclopedias and storybooks. Can you not read? Do you want me to teach you?
I shook my head. No, surely he didn't care for that.
Hold on. Why did I know that?

...I couldn't remember.
I put a hand to my forehead and thought. But my blank memories remained so, and no clues came to mind.
After thinking for a while, I gave up, got out of the chair, and left the room.

I visited the room with the big tree.
I didn't see the red plants around anymore.
Apparently, because they had frightened me, the black cat moved the ladies somewhere else, somewhere dark.
They were hardly evil, though.
It was a bit of a pity, but with those curiously-shaped plants gone, the garden scenery seemed improved.
Instead of their feelers along the walls, there were now rose hedges.
Pa.s.sing by those hedges, I proceeded to the stone pa.s.sage.

The cold touch of the stone ran through my soles.
...When was it I walked along here in fear? It didn't matter. It was just a dark hallway.
I looked down as I walked and recalled how I was always barefoot.
Why was it I had so few memories of wearing shoes? Because I had no need to wear them? In truth, I had bad memories a.s.sociated with shoes, particularly red shoes - but at the time, I had forgotten.
As I walked, I saw lines of iron bars to my left.
I looked through the bars and thought about the residents of the house.

They were the remnants of souls the house had eaten.
In a sense, the demon's leftovers. Like breadcrumbs or apple cores, they took form and stayed in the house.
So when the demon ate people, they didn't die in the house; they came to live as its residents.
At that point in my thoughts, I stopped in front of a cell.
I turned a heavy gaze toward the bars.
In the back of the cell was a man with one arm chained.
I couldn't quite see his face.

Because I didn't remember father's face very well.

Father leaned, sitting down, on the back wall. His bones were clearly visible through his sickly skin, and he looked very worn-away.
He said nothing. I didn't want to ask him anything. He hid his breathing and sat like a statue.
I grabbed the bars with both hands. I had no desire to shake them or call for him. I just felt like I needed to do it to keep my feelings in check.
I found it hard to breathe. My chest heated up. I tightened my grip on the bars.
Suddenly, I noticed something at my feet.
...Father's pipe.

I picked it up and stared.
The thing father had used to dream. Because he had this, he didn't look at me. Perhaps that was how I wanted to see it.
I gently held the pipe in my palm. Gently. I didn't think of crus.h.i.+ng it.
And yet the pipe shattered, vanis.h.i.+ng like bits of sand.
I stared at my empty palm for a while, finally looking back into the cell, then preparing to go back the way I'd come.
Then, before I could take a step, I stopped.
There was another cell next to father's.

A woman's room, with a sweet smell different from father's

The interior of the cell was pitch black. The door was firmly shut and showed no sign of opening. I had no intention to, either.
The more I smelled that sweet aroma, the more a bitter taste spread in my heart.
Just being in front of the cell threw my heart into disarray, and I quickly took off.

Back in the room with the great tree, the black cat was sitting on the bench underneath with tea.
It was about medicine time, I suppose.
I sat down next to him without saying anything. Placing the teacup and saucer on my lap, I drank the tea.
I leaned back on the bench and looked up at the high wall.
The flames of the torches on the wall swayed. A long forelock fell into my eyes, and I knit my brows.

I really was living for a longer time than I should have been.
What was happening to my body? Even if I was drinking the medicines to still my sickness, as the crow demon told me.
To what extent was it stopped? Had the ugly swelling of my face and legs spread to my entire body?
If the magic of the house wore off, or if I went outside, I could see for myself.
I s.h.i.+vered at that point.
...No. I don't want to see that. I don't need to.
I could leave the house when I was healthy. Once the demon granted my wish, I could.
My fingers trembled waiting for the demon's medicine.

"We have a guest."
I turned to the black cat's voice, but he wasn't sitting there anymore.
It was a sign that a human had come. He would always vanish when I was with a human.
I closed my eyes and surveyed.
I didn't need to concentrate. I could see the human coming into the house in the time it took to blink.
...Sigh. Won't someone different come?
I was tired of the humans who came without fear.
I was seemingly an enemy that had to be defeated. I was likely the target of someone's vengeance. Everyone came to the forest to kill me.
And to kill this witch, they brought all kinds of unique weapons as they set foot in the forest.

I didn't need to invite them. They just came right in. The demon had his mouth open, like a great gate for them to pa.s.s into one after another.
They all had their determination, their firm resolve, but once they entered, that was the end for them. They were eaten alive. What a joke.
Why did they say they wanted to kill me?
Why was it thought that I should be killed?
I decided to ask the brain of the person coming to attack me.
And I found that yes, I was evil. I had killed innocent people, thus evil. I had killed many, thus evil. So I had to be killed.

Hmph. I thought about what I'd done. And about what I was going to do. Yes, from your point of view, perhaps it was so.
But in my eyes, you are evil. Because you're impeding upon my wish. You won't allow it to come true.
Evil, because I kill innocent people? Aren't you trying to kill me? Then how are you not evil?
Hm? G.o.d told you so?
...What a pain.

I spoke as I strangled them with rose vines.
I know. Evil is just a word you say to people doing things you don't like. That's all it is.
And you just decide what kind of person deserves to be killed as you please.
Yet you want to give a reason for it, don't you? You want to label everything as good or evil?
But it's only humans who do those idiotic things.
All other creatures, when they want to kill, just kill. And not only so they can eat. Cats even kill bugs for fun.
They don't need a reason for everything. They want to do it, so they just do it.
I'm the same as them, killing because I want to kill. What makes you any different? You only want to kill me because you want to.

Yes, go on and believe in your G.o.d.
But he's not going to save you. If I was going to receive divine punishment for doing what you say is evil, I would have been struck by lightning long ago.
Here's what I think. G.o.d dropped us down here to suffer. To live our lives clinging to him and begging for help. So we'd never forget to pray to him.
And thus you and I have both suffered.
Hey, are you listening? I squatted down to talk to them, but their body was already motionless.

"You're talkative today."
The black cat poked his head out of a rose bush.
"I guess," I said, tilting my head.
"But you won't talk much with me."
"What would I need to talk to you about?"
"I dunno. Anything?"
"If anything is fine, then not talking at all must be fine, too."
I promptly terminated the conversation and left.
"Hey, wait!"
The black cat leapt out of the bush and followed.

I visited the stone pa.s.sage again.
I went down the path and stopped in front of father's cell.
The pipe, which had broken and left no trace, was now back to normal in father's hand.
A faint smell wafted out into the hallway. He calmly smoked, leaning against the wall. The sight made me a little sad.
From the neighboring cell, I thought I heard a woman's laughter.
I did not visit there again.

I walked along the stone, biting my lip.
Perhaps because it was important that I treat my memories with care.
Perhaps because I had a pitiable past.

...I couldn't remember.

Not my feelings on my parents. Nor the boy in the room of books. When I tried to remember those past feelings in detail, I felt my head hurting.
I could read my diary to remember, but by the time I'd turned the next page, I'd already forgotten.

"Can't be that big a deal if you can't remember, can it?"

The black cat was suddenly there coiling around my feet.

"Don't have to think about all that stuff. You're a witch. You eat people and have your wishes granted."

Right.
He was right.
I nodded at the demon's whisper and raised my head.
I am Ellen. The witch of the forest. The one who will cure her illness, and become one who is loved.

But just who was I to honestly smile saying that?

In the corner of the room of books, the book t.i.tled "Ellen" emitted a faint light and began to fill with words.

The witch asked.
"Hey, how much longer?"
"A little more," the demon answered.