Still hacking up little bits of phlegm, still coughing, but my voice HAS progressed from a whisper to "60-year-old-chain-smoker", AND I hit 50k in Nano this year. So things are looking up. Well enough, at least, that I can post another update before returning to lie down.
Chapter SevenList of outfits she probably was not going to get to this week: Shingyoku's orb form, Yuugen Magan, Kikuri (probably), and Sariel's second form. List of outfits she had planned to get to and finishi this week: Mima, Elis, Sariel's first form, Konngara, Reimu Hakurei, Shingyoku's female form, Shingyoku's male form.
List of outfits she had already made: Mima, Elis, Sariel's first form, Konngara, Reimu Hakurei, Shingyoku's female form, Shingyoku's male form.
Mari had barely bothered to set foot outside her apartment this week. She was aware that she probably looked like a mess, with all the pins and random bits of fabric she had stuck into her own clothing to keep it handy, but this hardly mattered to her. And thank god for pizza delivery men and women. Aside from the fruit bowl on her table she had already depleted of its bounty, the most amount of fruit she had eaten was the pineapple on her pizza.
But even with all that, she felt very satisfied with the five dresses she had hanging on her mannequins at the end of the sixth day. The first two she had completed, Konngara's red-white robes and Reimu's red-white shrine maiden outfit, were hanging on coat hangers instead. She only had so many mannequins, after all.
If this had been anyone else, they probably would have been shoddy rush jobs, but not Mari's clothes. It was known, back home, that her stitches were flawless and that they would never come apart and embarrass you on the dance floor in front of your boyfriend or girlfriend.
Actually...
Mari's eyes narrowed as she lay on the floor, fingers sore and hands tired.
There... were no men in this play, were there? Well, there was Shingyoku's third form, the priest, but that hardly mattered when Shingyoku was also a female and also a yin-yang orb at varying points in the play. As far as she knew, the orb was the character's real form, and the humanoid forms were just for show. She didn't have the script, after all.
She had barely noticed that there were no men. She just noticed by accident, realizing that she hadn't sewn men's clothing in a long time. Oh well. Maybe her next commission would have men's clothing too. It was a different challenge to design for men. She didn't find anything particularly interesting about men's clothing over women's clothing, but she relished sewing challenges.
Next time...
From where she lay, Mima's costume was to her right. She lifted a sore right hand and fingered the bottom of the skirt. She really hoped the kannushi would like these. Though, even if she hadn't, she had honestly enjoyed making these. Getting to flex her creative muscles was pretty great.
Though of course a monetary reward was even better on top of an emotional one. She very much hoped the play turned out to be a financial success.
But maybe it'd need a different, catchier title for that.
No, really, she was quite pleased with her own work. She had long since gotten over the first two phases of a creator's relationship to their work. The first had been being overly shy about creating, seeing all the flaws in it and being scared of showing it to other people. The second had been being super conceited about everything she made, showing it off and humblebragging about the work she had put into it, ignoring the flaws and thinking that she was the greatest seamstress on the planet.
At some point in high school she had transitioned from that, though. She really enjoyed the work she put into things, relished teaching herself new stitches and working with new fabrics, challenging herself by confining herself to one motif or using only zigzag stitches. She was, however, pretty sure that there were women and men out there with decades more experience with the needle who were better at it than she was.
But not by much. Because if she was completely honest, she was really, really good at what she did.
She was pretty lucky about that, now that she thought about it. She had known what she wanted to do with the rest of her life in middle school, at around age twelve. Isabel, on the other hand, had flailed around for years, trying to figure out what her passion was without being able to commit to any one thing. She liked culture, she liked history, she liked languages, she liked mythology and religion, she liked reading and books, she liked learning about other countries...
On some level Mari knew she should have been jealous. Isabel was off uncovering artifacts and studying something she enjoyed, meeting more people and having more interesting, intellectual discussions with brilliant people. And she was here, sewing and making clothes for a play.
In fact, she had been, once upon a time, as one of the dramas of their teenage years. But then Mari had realized. Maybe she was boring, maybe she was afraid of going outside and being in crowds, maybe she needed more alone time than Isabel did, maybe she wouldn't ever be in khakis hacking her way through bushes and vines and uncovering an ancient temple where priests of ages pasts performed dramatic human sacrifices. But she was actually content with sewing. She enjoyed it. She wanted to do this for the rest of her life. If that made her more boring than her sister, then so be it.
Well, minus the crippling anxiety when in crowds and fear of going outside and agoraphobia in general. She could do without those qualities making her 'interesting'. But that aside, she was happy with who she was.
She sighed and realized there was a smile on her face.
Man. It had been too long since she had gone all out like this, sewing and cutting and designing. She had almost forgotten how happy it made her.
She fingered the bottom of Mima's skirt again. She had worked hard on these outfits. She was proud of herself.
In fact...
She sat up and took a breath, then turned around and looked at the costumes she had made.
That documentary on the Boshin War had definitely been influential here, she realized upon looking at them. Shingyoku's male form and Konngara looked like they had just stepped out of feudal Edo, with the samurai-style robes for Konngara and the Shinto priest look that Shingyoku had. And of course there was Hakurei Reimu's miko outfit, but that was at least always meant to be somewhat antiquated. Of course, she didn't want them to look like perfectly historical outfits. Shingyoku was fine as he was, but Konngara looked too plain to be an astral knight, so she had given Konngara some dangly bits of black and red cloth coming off her shoulders to make her look more intimidating. She couldn't do anything about the horn in the middle of her forehead, though. Or was that supposed to be a dagger? Anyway, she was not a prop designer, so she left well enough alone.
Mima had been somewhat of a challenge to design. Aside from Reimu's outfit, she had probably put the most mental effort into Mima's. Apparently she was a vengeful ghost that would attack Reimu when Reimu chose the Hell route in the story, according to one of the note scraps she had found in the notes the kannushi had sent her. So to reflect that vengeful nature, she had been given a bloody dagger. She was meant to be a ghost, so she had a ghost tail, but obviously she couldn't design an outfit for someone who was a ghost, so she made the skirt long enough to conceal an actress' legs, and attached a ghost tail to the back of it. The green and red threads along the bottom of it had been added to give her a splash of more colours.
Then she had remembered that the kannushi had said multiple times in his backstory script that despite how serious things in the setting looked, it was not actually all that serious. So she had also given Mima a somewhat poofy-looking blouse, to make her look slightly on the ridiculous side, and a white cap to give her a matching accessory. The cape had been a distinct part of the design the kannushi had given her, but she had disapproved of that part; she didn't think such a heroic look suited a vengeful ghost, so she had taken her scissors to it and given it a tattered look.
She still was not completely satisfied with it. If she could get the chance, she wouldn't mind redesigning Mima's outfit. It was not a very unified theme as it was. Maybe more blue next time.
Speaking of blue, she saved a bunch of it for Sariel's first form. Sariel's second form looked like some kind of purple miasma, which she couldn't... well, she could probably design something like that, but it wouldn't be so much a costume as it would be some kind of purple cloth to hide under while fighting on stage with the heroine, Reimu.
Sariel's first form was way easier. She had noticed that unlike all the other characters except Elis, Sariel didn't have a Japanese name. In fact, she was fairly certain that was some kind of Hebrew name-- probably related to angels, if the six wings did indeed mean that Sariel was a seraphim. But she didn't know a thing about that part of Christianity, though. Isabel would know. She jotted it down in her notebook to write to her later.
Anyhow, Sariel was all blue and white and silver. A nice colour combination, she noted as she worked on it. She didn't know much about Christianity, being somewhat disinterested in religion, but she did know that angels were technically without gender; or more accurately, that the limited concept of binary genders didn't apply to them. So she went for an androgynous look. No skirt for Sariel, but robes instead, to look intimidating. The back of the dress would need holes in it to accommodate the six wings the actress would have to have, so she left the back of the long blue robe plain.
She wanted the front of the robe to be less plain than the rest, but she didn't know what sort of pattern or insignia to sew onto it. It was a pity she had never gotten into Evangelion like seemingly everyone else at the Japanese-Peruvian community center did, because she knew that the Tree of Life imagery would have been perfect to sew onto the front of the robe. She could only remember its faint shape, but not the details, and she didn't want to screw up something like that by half-assing it. So in the end she decided to forgo the deep religious symbolism and used some special silver thread to sew in an insignia of a silver wing on the front of Sariel's blue robe.
The rest left were also all female, which she enjoyed. Women's clothing was much more fun to make, in Mari's eyes. Skirts were cute as hell and also opened up a bunch of possibilities with patterns that you just couldn't pull off the same way with pants or trousers.
She had wanted to make the female form of Shingyoku less plain-looking than the male form. Judging from the small sketches with labels that the kannushi had given her, the humanoid forms of that character had red eyes, and the female form red hair, so she wanted to give her a matching outfit. She was happy that she had gotten so much red fabric from the crafts store, because it really came in handy to make her skirt. She used some of the white scraps from making male Shingyoku's robes and used them to make some abstract images on female Shingyoku's skirt, though all that would be visible from the audience's point of view would be the white sun and a lightning bolt on the front.
She also wanted to have some continuity with male Shingyoku, however, to give a visual hint for the next form. So she gave female Shingyoku a blue capelet. Instead of using white cloth, she had sewn grey cloth onto that, in a cloud pattern. Most of it wouldn't be visible to the audience for the most part, though maybe if the actress in this outfit turned her back towards the audience once or twice, then they would see the work she had put into this.
A simple white blouse went under that, then she also noted red shoes under that long red skirt, and a cute red bow completed the look. Well, that was it for her part. The sketch had the character wearing some sort of horns or antlers on her head. She couldn't make something like that, so she just ignored it for now.
She had also taken what she had learned from that kabuki theatre performance she had watched on video, and as a result, female Shingyoku's outfit was unique among all the others in that it came apart really easily, just by unfastening some tied-together threads on the sides. Those threads were all that held the outfit in place, and pulling on the threads would make it fall off the actress and reveal the outfit underneath.
The last one to be completed had also been her favourite, both in terms of making it and regarding the original sketch from the kannushi. Elis was absolutely adorable. The rough sketch had given her appearance as having big bat wings and long blonde hair and a red star on her cheek. As before, she couldn't do anything about wings, but she could give Elis a somewhat poofy long red skirt, with curlicue patterns in purple thread along the bottom hemline. The same colour of purple was used to make her vest, over a white blouse. (She was a little worried that she kept using white blouses, but they contrasted well against the rest of the colours, and she didn't want to put a whole lot of work into clothing items that the audience wouldn't ever see.) Another cute red bow tie to match the red hair bow in Elis' hair, and it was done. The white blouse and purple vest would need to have cuts in the back to accommodate her wings, again, but she didn't mind at all. Big purple bat wings made her adorable. There was also some sort of wand with a star on the end, but that was a prop, and therefore it was not her responsibility.
That was it for the outfits she had made. There were a few more she hadn't; Shingyoku's orb form, Yuugen Magan, Kikuri, and Sariel's second form. She had ideas for those, though. Shingyoku's orb form would need to be a large shield of sorts, concealing most of the actress, and when it came time to 'change' on stage into female form, the actress would come out from behind the shield and toss it away, and from there she could easily change into Shingyoku's male form.
Yuugen Magan was tricky, but she thought it could be done. What it needed was a frame made of light but not easily broken material, like thin bamboo rods with wire to reinforce them. On this frame, the five eyes that made up Yuugen Magan could be glued on. Under the third eye, the one in the center, the yellow lightning bolts (that would be yellow cloth over the bamboo rods and wire) converged to create some kind of electrical storm. This would be the actress. The actress would have to wear a tight black cloth bodysuit, and there would be patterns of yellow all over her top. The third eye would be a face mask. The other four eyes would be resting on her right and left arms. It was definitely awkward, but she thought it could be done.
Kikuri's was also somewhat tricky, but nowhere near as labour-intensive as Yuugen Magan. Like Yuugen Magan, the face of the coin would be a face mask of sorts, going down to her arms. It would be a wooden circle, with golden or yellow coloured cloth stretched over it, but not too tightly. It would fit over the neck and shoulders of the actress, and the imprint of her own face would be Kikuri's face. Alternately, the image of Kikuri could be painted right onto the cloth, but that might be a problem if the image of the face and the actress' face didn't always line up exactly. There would also be dangly purple cloth falling down from the edges, to represent purple flame.
Sariel's second form would be comparatively much easier; just have the actress throw on a dark purple cloth.
Mari didn't give much thought as to why these characters were designed the way they were. She assumed they were symbolic somehow. Surely the play's dialogue would reveal the mystery, anyway. For her part, she just guessed that they were probably all manifestations of Reimu Hakurei's internal demons, and confronting them as enemies would be the catalyst for her character development.
Anyway, that was it for now. Her arms were tired and her hands sore, so she couldn't actually write back to Isabel's letter just yet. Both of her letters had reached their destination by this point, actually; Isabel's reply was already here, while she expected that her parents' letter back would arrive tomorrow.
It was also sort of embarrassing to admit, for such a highly skilled seamstress like she was, but her fingertips were covered in bandages, in part to stop the small bleeding from accidentally poking her own fingers with needles from getting onto her clothes, and in part hoping to avoid pricking her fingers again.
Still, she was quite satisfied with all the work she had gotten done.
The phone rang. Mari looked at it nervously. That was probably the kannushi. No one else, aside from her sister and her parents, had her number.
She picked it up. “Hello?” She was not caught by surprise this time, so she didn't accidentally start speaking in Spanish.
“Hello. Is this Saihoshi Mari-san?”
“Yes. I recognize that voice. Are you--”
“Kannushi-san, yes.”
“Oh, good, just the man I was hoping to speak to.” Mari looked over at her mannequins. “I have finished the majority of the costumes you asked me to make.”
“Th-- the majority?” His voice sounded surprised. “How many have you made?”
“Let's see...” Mari counted them off as she pointed to each one. “Mima, Elis, Sariel's first form, Shingyoku's female form, Shingyoku's male form.” She pointed to the two folded ones. “And Konngara, and Hakurei Reimu-san's miko outfit, as well.”
A pause on the line. “I see you did get my letter, then. When did you get it?”
“Ah, about seven days ago.” Another pause on the line. She got nervous. “A-ah, should I not have gotten started immediately? Did you have anything else you wanted to send me first? Or any more information or sketches to give me?”
“That's seven outfits in seven days.” His voice was monotone. Mari's heart was racing. Oh god, what had she done wrong?
“N-not seven days! I had to spend the first day reading your sketches and notes and at least drawing out some larger patterns on my own paper, and then I had to go buy all the fabric... I didn't want to get more expensive fabric because I didn't want to waste the money you gave me, so they're just the usual cotton-poly blend...” She was babbling now, and she knew it. She tried to stop. “U-um, did I make a mistake? I apologize, truly, I'm really sorry, I should have probably called--”
“N-no! That's amazing. Amazingly fast. I didn't expect... wait, they're completed and everything?”
“Y-yeah,” she stammered. “They're hanging here on the mannequins I use to make dresses. I don't like leaving a project half-done before moving on to a new dress, so I finished each one in full before I went to do the next one.”
“Seven full costumes...”
“W-well, I didn't do all of them. I was not sure how to do a few of them. L-like, Kikuri, and Yuugen Magan's costumes seemed sort of weird... I mean, I could probably do them, except probably Yuugen Magan, that one's just weird... but I wanted to check in with you before...”
“Which ones did you not do?”
She swallowed. That sounded really accusatory. She was worried instantly.
“Yuugen Magan and Kikuri, like I mentioned... and Sariel's second form, and Shingyoku's orb form. I-I'm sorry, should I have--”
“No! In fact, it's good that you didn't do those. I think you've done all you can do on your end. We can take care of those on our end.”
Mari drew in her breath.
“S-so, I should stop here?”
“You certainly can! I'm just amazed you got those seven done so quickly! You're amazing, Saihoshi-san!”
He sounded so happy. Mari had to smile, feeling a huge weight being lifted off her chest.
“T-thank you, kannushi-san...” She felt herself able to breathe again. “S-so, when would you like to see them? I'd like to make sure they match your mental image of the costumes you were thinking of when you made those sketches.”
“No, I'm certain that whatever you've come up with, it'll be perfect,” he said over the phone. She was happy that it was over the phone, because she flushed dark red upon hearing that. Even on someone with dark skin like hers, that level of flush would have been noticeable, and therefore embarrassing.
“B-but... I'd like to be certain, even if you have that kind of faith in my designs. I-if nothing else I'd like to be on hand, t-to be able to adjust any sleeves or seams to make sure they all fit perfectly.”
“Ah, I suppose that's true... ahahahah, I'm sure it won't be a problem, though!”
Even on the phone, Mari was boggling. Just how happy go lucky WAS this man??
“So should I...” she winced at what she was suggesting. “Should I take these over to the theatre? Wherever the theatre is, I suppose...”
“Oh, that's right, you've never been. Hmm... I'm not sure that is a good idea,” he replied. “The theatre is kind of far from where you live. I think I mentioned once that it was at a distance from the city. And didn't you say that you had an anxiety disorder?”
She took a breath. “Thank you for considering my limitations, truly. But if I don't go, then I won't be able to fix the costumes on the spot, and I couldn't then in good conscience accept your payment. And at the same time, going outside makes me very anxious. I don't know what to do.”
“Hmm...” In her mind, Mari imagined a man in priests' robes scratching his chin. “I do not want to stress you out. I am certain that you have already done amazing work in a very short amount of time, Saihoshi-san, and I am very impressed by your commitment. I also don't doubt that you've done good work with the outfits. I have an idea. How about this: I will send one of the ladies over to your apartment to pick up the costumes, and we'll bring them over here to the theatre and try them on. I doubt this will be the case, but just to reassure you, if there are major errors, we will send them back to you with notes and you can adjust them as necessary. Will that satisfy you, Saihoshi-san?”
Mari brightened as she heard his plan. “Y-yes! It very much will. Thank you for being so understanding, kannushi-san!”
“Good, good. When shall I send her over? I really was not expecting you to finish so early, so you've still got time before the first dress rehearsal. You don't have to send them over immediately if you don't want to.”
“No, that's fine, I could always use the time to make adjustments. But on the other hand, my fingers are quite sore.” She looked at her bandage-covered fingertips. “And I'm going to be somewhat busy tomorrow. How about... in three days' time? Is that fine?”
“Certainly! I will go ask if anyone would like to pick them up from you and give them your address. Oh, that reminds me...”
“Hm?”
“Two... no, three things I might have forgotten to mention the last time we spoke. Saihoshi-san, did I mention that the Shanghai Alice theatre troupe is all female?”
Mari blinked. “No, you didn't.”
“Indeed it is. There are a few male roles, here and there, such as Shingyoku's male form, but all the actresses are women, and I don't see that changing at any time soon.”
“I see. It's the opposite of Noh and Kabuki, then?”
“Yes! Do you know a lot about Japanese theatre, Saihoshi-san?”
“No, I do not, I regret to say,” she said, chuckling a little. “But I did watch a documentary recently on the Muromachi period of Japan, and they mentioned that Noh theatre arose during that time, and that the actors are exclusively men.” And honestly, she had just been guessing on the kabuki part.
“Aw, that's too bad. But yes, it's like the opposite of those two. In fact, I think it takes more from the Takarazuka Revue's style, with an all female cast, but there's an important difference. Takarazuka does a lot of western romance stories, so they also have male roles. Females playing male roles, I mean. But this theatre group has all women, playing almost entirely female roles.”
Mari nodded along. “I see. It is indeed different. I like the idea of it, though.”
“Yes, I wanted my theatre troupe to stand out from the start. And also, they are performing original works, rather than adapting old stories to the stage or performing already-written plays. That's where I come in.”
“You're the manager and the playwright?”
“Indeed. And I also write the music. I handle everything so that the women can focus on acting.”
“Wow, you write the music too?” Okay, that was genuinely shocking. How could one person possibly handle all of that?!
“Yes! I've been writing music since I was in high school. If anything, I created this troupe because I wanted a medium through which to convey the music I compose.”
“I see.” She was definitely impressed.
“That was the second thing I wanted to mention. We'll be setting a public date soon for our debut performance. When that happens, would you like a ticket to come watch?”
“A ticket – eh?”
“Well, it seems only fair to invite the costume designer for our troupe to come watch. Normally I would have just sent you the complimentary tickets, but seeing as how you have trouble with crowds and all, I'm asking. Would you like to come watch us perform?”
“I-I... I'm... umm.” Mari winced. “I would love to, but...”
“How about this? I'll send you a ticket and you can decide whether to use it or not. No pressure, Saihoshi-san.”
“You are really...” Mari covered her face. “Really, absurdly... too nice to me, kannushi-san.”
Loud laughter on the other end. “Don't even worry about it! You've done so much work for us, this is just the smallest thing I can do to repay you. I'll send tickets along with my delivery girl. How many would you like? Would anyone else like to come along?”
“I--” She winced. “I'm not--”
“Eh, no worries, I'll just send you two. Oh, and the third thing I wanted to mention.”
“Yes?”
“This is very important for you to understand. You mentioned that you don't know a whole lot about theatre, so I must ask. Have you ever heard of method acting?”
“No, never.”
“Hmm... how to explain this.” He paused for a few moments. “Well, in order to play a role well, most actresses do research on the time period of when their character lived, or read on the experiences of people who lived in real life who were in similar situations as their character. That way, they can understand better what their character goes through, and depict their reactions accordingly. Are you following?”
“Yes, so far,” she said, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
“Method acting takes those ideas and runs with them. It seeks to make the actress identify with the character they'll be depicting, or to invoke how they themselves felt in a similar situation, so that their acting on stage will be more realistic. And while I know that not all theatre groups do this, our own troupe of actresses decided they wanted to take it one step further.”
“Oh? How so?”
“In a lot of shows and dramas, characters who are actors sometimes do 'method acting' take it to the logical extreme of completely immersing themselves in the character. For example, if your character lived alone in a cabin in the woods, most method actors would research on what it was like to live in the woods, consult survival guides, and so forth. But the character on TV who's a method actor will actually go and live in the woods for a while to see what it's like, lose weight, gain muscle, and so on. Do you see the difference?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Well, our theatre troupe decided to do that in real life.”
“You... wait, what?”
“Our actresses are all in character. Well, right now they're just, ah, rehearsing their lines, but once they get them down, they'll be staying in character as much as they can until the performance so that they can best convey how their characters feel.”
Mari thought that sounded interesting, but then she remembered Yuugen Magan. How was someone going to stay in character as a floating set of five eyes?
Still, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. “I see! That sounds highly interesting, kannushi-san. But... how is someone going to remain in character as a shrine maiden who fights demons and youkai who attack her shrine? That can't actually be done in real life, after all.”
“Well, we have our ways.” Quiet laughter on the other side of the phone. “But those are, shall we say... company secrets.”
“I see...” Mari didn't see, but as long as it kept the conversation going.
“Anyhow, this means that, well, don't be surprised if the young woman who shows up at your apartment acts a little oddly. She's trying to be in character. So don't be alarmed, it's just part of how our theatre company works.”
“All right, I will keep that in mind,” she replied. “Then I'll wait for her to show up in three days. Is that everything?”
“That is it for now! Thank you again for all your hard work, Saihoshi-san.”
“And thank you for being so understanding of me, kannushi-san,” she said. “I'll look forward to three days.”
The phone clicked, and she hung up.
Okay, so everything was turning out much better than expected. Tomorrow she was meeting Akihiko in the morning, and then writing back a letter to her parents. And at some point she was still going to go out for ramen. And then she had to go shopping for groceries, because she was dangerously low on food. Thank god for all the cereal boxes she had stocked up on, and thank god that she was perfectly content with not eating milk with cereal or else she wouldn't have been able to sustain herself on it.
She did want food to eat now, but she was honestly sick of corn flakes by this point, so she figured that if she woke up early... no, how about asking Akihiko what was a good place to eat breakfast around here? That was a good idea... yeah...
Mari realized, belatedly, that she was absolutely drained. She yawned and pulled her bed covers open. But she couldn't shake the sense that she was forgetting something...
“Oh, right.” She pulled off her wrinkled shirt and shorts. She hadn't bothered to iron any clothes over the past five days. She was not leaving her apartment, so who cared? Tomorrow she'd have to find something halfway decent to wear, she guessed, but if she was the only one who could see how she looked, she didn't much care.
Well, she was not the only one who saw how she looked.
With those off, she reached over to her table and pulled off the almost empty box of cheerios and, yawning loudly, she took out a small handful and walked over to her windowsill, where the magpies who always hung out there were sitting and cooing quietly. They didn't seem bothered when she reached out towards them and dumped the small handful of cheerios on the windowsill between them. If anything, they rubbed her hand with their feathers as she did so.
“Sorry, but I don't have any fresh bread. I'll try to get you some tomorrow, okay?”
The magpies seemed to understand, maybe. They cooed in response, anyway, and then feasted on the cereal.
She wondered what they would do if she died in her apartment. Maybe they'd fly and alert someone? The staff in the office on the first floor?
She snorted to herself. She shouldn't be ridiculous. Birds didn't actually understand human thought. Even if these magpies were kind of weird.
She yawned loudly again. Eh, it was not worth bothering herself with these thoughts when she was this tired.
Mari flopped into bed, and was asleep within minutes, her sore fingers and hands relaxing as she slept.
-----
End of Chapter SevenThe mystery thickens!
Also, cookie fanatic Mari... I can see her with boxes and boxes of cookies behind her as she sews, always well-stocked. :p
Mari is just lucky she lives in the late 90s and not the present era, because she would be the longest-playing fanatic for Cookie Clicker there is. When Isabel and her parents beg her to stop playing, she refuses. When they take away her computer, she would take out her savings and buy a tablet. When they cut off the Wi-Fi, I think there would have had to be an article in the local newspaper where she slaughters her entire family with a single 7-centimeter sewing needle.