The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

We passed the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, the icy steps of a Babylonian ziggurat, a Mexican pyramid atop which sat a gargoyle god ripping the heart out of a hapless child. Moonlight fringed the ice with spectral colors. Had the buildings grown taller somehow? Were the sculptures pressing in, narrowing the pathway, threatening to crash down over me? A skull-shaped mountain grinned down. Trick of the light, I told myself. I stared ahead. My shoes were waterlogged.

At length we came to Mt. Ida. I marched uphill. They could fix the footprints later. Dr. Mayuzumi followed. We crossed the terrace with its classical friezes, its nymphs and shepherds gesturing with Poussin-like languor.

In a moment we stood inside Ishii’s secret kingdom, the cave that the audience could not see. The mirror of mirrored mirrors.

There had been more tunneling. The walls were lit by reflected moonlight and the cave seemed to stretch forever into blackness, though I knew it was an illusion. Like Wile E. Coyote, we are easily fooled by misdirecting signposts... a highway median that leads to the edge of a cliff ... a tunnel painted onto the side of a sandstone mountain. It seemed we stood at the entry to an infinite labyrinth.

Dr. Mayuzumi took out a flashlight and shined it on the interior of the cave.

There were the three statues. Molly Danzig stood with her arms outstretched. It was her—but dead she was more beautiful somehow, more perfect . . . the statue of Athena had the face of Esmeralda O’Neil. She glowered; she was anger personified. It was just as I had imagined. The third goddess had no face yet . . . and neither did the boy Paris who was to choose between them.

I could be beautiful too, I thought. Cold and beautiful. I was tempted. I told myself: I hate the cold. I hate my childhood. That’s why I went away to California.

Dr. Mayuzumi said, “Look at their eyes ... as though they were still alive . . . look at them.”

Molly’s eyes: a glint of blue in the gloom. They stared straight into mine. Esmeralda’s looked out beyond the entrance. The Athena statue held a spear and a gorgon-faced shield. God, they were beautiful. But I knew the deadly secret of their verisimilitude.

“How long can the cold preserve a human organ, an eye, for example?” I said. “Doesn’t this snow-clad beauty hide death? Tell me there are no human bones beneath ...”

“You would destroy this masterwork?”

It was too late. Before he could stop me I had plunged my fingers into Molly’s face. I wanted to pull the jellied eyeballs out of the skull, to thrust them in Dr. Mayuzumi’s face.

The face caved in. There was nothing in my fists but snow, flaking, crumbling, melting against the warmth of my hands. And then, when the snow had melted, two globes of glass and plastic. Two marbles.

I looked at Dr. Mayuzumi. His look of indignation turned to mocking laughter.

All my resentment exploded inside me. I smashed my fists against the statues of my two friends. Snow drenched me. The statues shattered. There were no bones beneath, no squishy organs. Only snow. Tears came to my eyes and melted the snow that had clung to my cheeks.

“A gaijin philistine with a stupid theory,” said Mayuzumi.

I beat my arms against the empty snow, I buried myself elbow deep. I wept. I had understood nothing at all. The marbles slipped from my fingers and skated over a stretch of ice.

I felt Dr. Mayuzumi’s hand on my shoulder. He pulled me from the slush. There was so much sadness in him. “And I thought you understood us . . .”

He gripped me and would not let go. His hands held no comfort. His fingernails dug into my flesh . . . like claws.

“I thought you understood us!” he rasped. His teeth glinted in reflected moonlight . . . glistened with drool ... his eyes narrowed ... his mouth smelled of honey and tobacco.

I thought you understood us . . . what did that mean?

And all at once I knew. When he had greeted me in the bath, when I mumbled I’m sorry at the writhing lobster, had he not said How well you understand us? I had completely missed it before . . . “You’re an Ainu too, one who’s been able to pass for a Yamato,” I said. “You’ve blended with the Japanese . . . you’ve climbed up to a position of power by hiding from yourself. . . and it’s driven you mad!”

“I’m sorry . . . oh, I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was barely human. Still he would not let go. In the dark I could not see his face.

“Why are you apologizing?” I said softly.

“I need your soul.”

Then I realized that he was going to kill me.

The flashlight illuminated him for a moment. His face was caving in on itself. Dark hair was sprouting up through the skin. I felt bristles push up from his palms and prick my shoulders. I was bleeding. I struggled. His nose was collapsing into a snout . . .