"Do you remember what I said, about what is inside the wardrobe?"
The man's strict voice came from a little way off again. I held my breath and tilted my ears, waiting for another voice that was always trembling.
"There is... a monster..." After a while, the girl's faint voice finally emerged reluctantly, like a flickering candle in the violent wind, or a blade of bending grass in the pouring rain.
"What does the monster do?"
I knew the girl didn't want to reply, but she wouldn't dare to avoid the question. "The monster eats... naughty girls..." She was almost in tears.
"Since you knew this already, why did you misbehave? Do you want to be eaten up?" The man's voice became gentle, though this kind of gentleness made one shudder with fear.
The girl fell silent, sobbing softly and trying not to make a sound. The man stopped talking too, sighed wearily, and dragged his feet towards the door. I heard the creaking sound of the worn door slamming shut and the brass lock turning. Then the footsteps faded away.
The girl got locked up again.
I couldn't see her. I could only hear her lowered sobbing. However, I was almost certain of her lying on the floor, curling up like a ball, clasping her knees, and shaking ceaselessly.
I scratched my chin, not knowing what to do. I didn't know where the wardrobe was, nor what the monster was, but judging by the girl's dread time after time, I think, they must be something utterly horrifying.
* * *
I didn't remember how I got to this place. The first impression I had, was the sound of the stern-voiced man telling a story to the girl. In the tower attic of this castle, he said, there was a terrifying monster. If the girl behaved, the monster would stay in his wardrobe, deep in a dream, but if the girl was naughty, misbehaved, or tried to flee his castle, the monster would burst through the wardrobe door, and devour the girl bit by bit from her little toes.
In the end, the man sighed and said that the girl had been so bratty recently, that he had no choice but to let the monster decide whether he was going to eat her. After that, he abandoned her in the attic, despite her piteous pleading, locked the door, and left. And so the girl wept uncontrollably for an uncomfortably long time until she was tired of crying and sank into a deep sleep.
I was nervous beyond description that night, anxiously listening to any sounds that came from afar. I didn't have the least inkling of the man and the girl, yet for some unknown reason, I didn't want the girl to be eaten up by the thing called Monster.
After a whole night, the man finally showed up again and took the girl away.
Ever since that day, the girl would be dragged to the attic and locked up once in a while. No matter how she apologized, how she begged, the man never wavered the slightest. I, who did not know how I could lend a helping hand, could only mimic the heartbroken image of the girl in my head, lie down on my side, and curl up like a ball, as if the less I was showing, the less likely I would get hurt.
All this seemed like an endless cycle. The girl would never be able to please the man, so he punished her with her fear to no avail time and again. Other than the ever-growing dread, I couldn't see the point of this cycle.
I thought this cycle would be as never-ending as the concept of eternity, but, gradually, everything changed.
The girl became quiet, hardly talking or crying. I could still feel her fear every time they showed up, though the colour of her fear was no longer vibrant, but blurred and blunt, like a worn-down blade, or the window view through frosted glass.
And the man quieted down too. He would just take the girl up to the attic, lock the door, and leave, sometimes for days. All that was left for the girl and me was the sound of her even breath.
So was that day.
The man had left for a very, very long time, so long that I couldn't help but worry about the girl. Yet her breathing was still smooth and steady, constant and unchanged as if the man's coming and going had ceased to matter.
Suddenly, the wall by my side split into a dazzlingly bright crack and opened wide from the middle. Astonished, I stared at the unexpectedly fragile wall and the person who wrecked it.
The girl gazed at me expressionlessly, with a storm of sunlight behind her back.
"Devour me." She said.
I looked at her, dumbfounded.
With my silence, she climbed into the little space that belonged to me and closed the wall behind her.
The consoling darkness fell back around me.
In that split moment, I had a temporary illusion, as if all that just now didn't happen, there was still a wall that I didn't know could open easily between the girl and me, and she was still breathing lightly and shallowly, waiting for the man to come back to the attic, just to take her to another hell.
But her demand, or rather invitation, contained something I couldn't ignore.
"Is here... the wardrobe?" I asked cautiously lest I might frighten her who was made of fear. Oddly enough, she didn't seem afraid anymore.
She looked at me curiously, didn't reply.
I cleared my throat and tried again, "am I... the monster?" My voice sounded hoarse and husky, like a suppressed roar. For some reason, it felt like I had never made a sound before, even if I had, it didn't leave any trace in my memory.
After a long pause, she finally asked reluctantly, "you've never wanted to eat me, have you?"
"Why would I eat you?"
She smiled bitterly, "it's okay, the thing that has been making me truly afraid is never you anyway." There was a pale touch of sorrow in her voice.
Before I could give it a second thought, I had already leaned forward and held her in my arms. I couldn't comprehend, why would the man want to hurt her, such a frail, tender, and harmless little thing. She softened even more in my embrace, buried her face in my thick fur, and cried quietly.
This kind of crying was poles apart from her lowered sobbing in the past. Her tears flowed out in an endless stream as if she wanted to silently cry herself away. Without uttering a word, I caressed the back of her head and felt her melting from the gesture in my arms.
* * *
It seemed that the man had completely forgotten the girl, letting her stay in the attic day after day, night after night. Perhaps his abandonment was something good, but the girl couldn't get happy again. She lost her glossy lustre, so I tried clumsily to bring new colours into her world. Even though she wasn't like me, who could see everything clearly in the pitch-black wardrobe, it still put a warm smile that flickered like distant stars on her face.
"I think, I won't be afraid anymore." One day, the girl finally spoke again.
And I, who now had the thorough insight, gazed at her sadly, because I knew what she would ask for. Because I was a part of her.
"Let me stay with you? Let me be by your side?"
I shook my head ever so slightly, "you don't belong here."
It's not enough that the fear was gone. I didn't say it, but she knew it all along. She couldn't possibly bury her whole life in a little wardrobe without a trace of light, waiting for the time to swallow her up gradually, like the girl-eating monster she used to firmly believe existed.
She wanted to say something, but I wouldn't listen, hence she sat silently in the complete darkness, with an expression as broken as shattered porcelain.
All I could do was to close my eyes, to avoid any possible splinters.
In the end, she opened the wall again - I didn't open my eyes, but caught the gleaming red light through my eyelids - and walked out. Before closing the wall, with her scorching glare, she left an eternal branding on my face, and then the darkness fell back around me again.
"Goodbye." Her voice drifted down in the air, like the dust that fell by my feet.
I knew where she was going.
Therefore, I wasn't at all surprised when I heard the wailing of the window frame that had stayed untouched forever. What followed the wailing, was the shrilling howl of the wind, the kind one could only hear on high ground.
The howl would be by my side until the end of time.
I hadn't opened my eyes ever since, nor had I left the wardrobe, but I knew for sure, the girl either remembered how to fly at the last second or fell to the ground, deep and hard.
Like the way she fell in love.
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