Chapter 1
I only ever met one woman I’d call truly funny.
If you could call such a creature a woman. It was female, so it’d told me based on what it knew of us. Her eyes were wide, permanently fixed in shocked roundedness, her mouth splitting her face from cheek to cheek in a perpetual grin.
Us. Until I’d met the creature, what a comforting concept us had been. Us had been breakfasts over the Thinking Cloth and arguing over stupid things like ethical hedonism and Mobius strips. Us had been debating the presence of alternate universes, and if so, how we were going to rip through the very fabric of reality to get to them.
Then we’d succeeded. And our cosy breakfast jaunts didn’t seem so cosy anymore.
Its - her - name was Labubu. Standing just lower than my hips, she tells us there are more like her.
“Out. There.” She points into the garden, where the rift had been. “More.”
She didn’t have a name, if she even understood the concept of a name. It was a Labubu, so she told us, understanding what a species was. Beyond that, she couldn’t offer much else. Diet? Sleep? Hydration? Each question was met with a blank stare.
“I don’t think it knows what a butter knife is,” Francis mutters into my ear. He stirs his coffee, black, without sugar or milk, very pensively.
“Then help her,” I mutter back thinly, wisely taking a bite of toast to occupy myself before he can volunteer me on my behalf. Francis glares at me, then sighs and leans over the table to help.
Francis was the sort to wear a tinfoil hat if he could - provided it didn’t mess up his hair. Attractive in the way Oxford students often were and just slighty more aware of it, Francis was vain, but not flamboyantly so. This summer he was staying over at mine. We were supposed to have the house to ourselves each night.
“Myself!” The table rattles. We all jump back. Labubu has her paws on the table, leaning forward. “Do. It myself.”
“Okay, okay.” Francis raises his hands in surrender. “I’ll let you do it yourself.”
With difficulty, the creature lifts its little thumbless paws and wields the butter knife to her best abilities.
Funny. It depended heavily on your definition of funny. Labubu made no expression, her tone of voice never varying from its slightly annoying, slightly squeaky robotic manner. Despite her grasp on an abstraction of human concepts, it didn’t seem like she really knew the rhythm of dialogue. It was hard to know what she was thinking or feeling when her expression never changed a lick. You had to watch her turn in agitated circles, or hop twice her height in joy, or scratch at her arms, baring her teeth in fear.
We all settle back into uncomfortable silence. At the other end of the table, Madeline scribbles something into her notebook. “A fastidious record keeper,” Francis had called her. Madeline was wealthy, but never had anyone to spend time with except for me and Francis. I enjoyed her company, mostly because she sat in the library all day and touched nothing and bothered no one. Now she was spending all her waking hours at mine, keeping tabs on Labubu.
“What if she can cure cancer?” Madeline hisses. Francis paces the short length of the sitting room, until I catch him by the waist and draw him towards me. I can feel him trembling ever so slightly.
"It is a demonic creature from god-knows-where, Madeline,” Francis bites back, struggling to keep his voice low. I glance at the door. The shadow of a round head and tall ears can just be seen through the frosted glass. I couldn’t tell if Labubu was trying to listen in, or if it even cared about our conversation. ”It is not any more liable to cure cancer than you or me!”
Her face hardens.
“Francis,” I warn, tugging gently on his shirt.
But the damage was already done. “Fine. And when you see that you threw away a perfectly good scientific discovery, don’t come back crying to me.”
Madeline makes for the door.
“Wait. Madeline.” I grab her arm. When she turns to face me, I can see her green eyes brimming with tears. “It’s my house. I’ll let her stay… but just for a few days. Then we’ll talk about this again, okay?”
Reflected in the glass of the cabinets, I can see Francis lower his head in defeat behind me. But Madeline brightens up considerably.
“Really?”
“Really.” I try to give her my most convincing smile.
That had been the day before. Francis and Madeline wouldn’t be on talking terms if they didn’t have to be, but it seemed the common enemy had simultaneously driven them apart and brought them closer together. Francis wouldn’t dare abandon his cousin at a time like this. I watch him wordlessly put together a cup of coffee and creamer while she scribbles away.
“Eulie. Eulie. Eulie. I did it. Looks here.”
Each word is punctuated by the snapping of teeth. She didn’t seem to have a soft mouth like we did - God knows how she was enunciating words. Every time she spoke, her speech clacked like a shells in a nutcracker.
Labubu waves her knife at me, scattering melted butter everywhere.
“Yeah, you did.” I smile at her, not thinking of how we were supposed to clean melted butter off of wood floors later on. “Good job.”
“Good job. Good job.” The words seem to buoy her. She slides off the chair, hopping around the kitchen in what I’d learnt to be a display of joy. “Eulie. Good job.”
She hops to a halt in front of me, and it takes me a moment to realise what she’s asking for. I reach out and pet the top of her curly head. Labubu looks up at me, with her perpetual grin, and carries on hopping circles around the kitchen.
Francis sighs, and sinks his head into his hands.
