Ohno Hoia is a guardian of a mysterious collection of seeds and a lonely soul tormented by her hideous, malignant shadow. What world did she come from? What century? She can't remember. She is a stranger to herself, a God's mistake.
Driven by the desperate wish to break free from the shadow and save the seeds, Ohno arrives at present-day California's desecrated shores. There she plants a garden the likes of which had not been seen since the days of Eden. While the garden's extraordinary power shocks humanity out of despair and transforms the land, Ohno's shadow grows fiercer and soon begins to threaten everything she holds dear. Now Ohno has no choice but to surrender. She must follow her tormentor as it takes her into the surreal, terrifying wilderness of her own soul.
There she must meet the demons of her own making and ask the question she is dreading most: Who am I?
Even if the answer kills her. Even if it already didâŚ
A spellbinding blend of a dark fantasy and piercing satire perfect for fans of Clive Barker's "Cabal," "Midian Unmade," Angela Carter, Neil Gaiman, Kazuo Ishiguro.
Ohno Hoia is a guardian of a mysterious collection of seeds and a lonely soul tormented by her hideous, malignant shadow. What world did she come from? What century? She can't remember. She is a stranger to herself, a God's mistake.
Driven by the desperate wish to break free from the shadow and save the seeds, Ohno arrives at present-day California's desecrated shores. There she plants a garden the likes of which had not been seen since the days of Eden. While the garden's extraordinary power shocks humanity out of despair and transforms the land, Ohno's shadow grows fiercer and soon begins to threaten everything she holds dear. Now Ohno has no choice but to surrender. She must follow her tormentor as it takes her into the surreal, terrifying wilderness of her own soul.
There she must meet the demons of her own making and ask the question she is dreading most: Who am I?
Even if the answer kills her. Even if it already didâŚ
A spellbinding blend of a dark fantasy and piercing satire perfect for fans of Clive Barker's "Cabal," "Midian Unmade," Angela Carter, Neil Gaiman, Kazuo Ishiguro.
She was chained to it for life. They had exchanged no vowsâno words were necessary. Nothing in this world or the next could tear them apart as long as the Earth revolved and the sun shone. Because of their intertwined connection, and perhaps out of loneliness, Ohno thought of giving it a name. A name wouldnât change a thing, of courseâthat much Ohno knew. It would continue to torment her, day after day, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. Still, mountains, stars, and dogs had namesâwhy not her shadow?
âGet out of there,â Ohno grumbled, poking a fishing pole at the throbbing ball of blackness coiled under the seat in her cockpit. It fought back, lashing out at the tip of the stick, but Ohno was merciless, and soon the blackness shrank, stretched, and slithered out onto the deck.
âDonât you ever come in here!â Ohno yelled at its serpentine tail as she collapsed onto the seat, exhausted. Sheâd been chasing it from stern to bow all day. By the grace of God, the sea was calm, or she would have tumbled overboard trying to catch it.
She suspected the nameless monstrosity had an eye for her cargo: six bags, tightly wrapped in waterproof cloth, anchored to the wall in the belly of the ship. This cargo could not be lost, could not be harmed, not by the sea, nor by man, beast, nor the shadow. Especially her shadow. If she had to die protecting the bags, she would.
Bobbing along, her vessel was the only thing visible on the endless blue expanse of water and sky. She was alone here, tossed by an unknown sea, sailing toward an unknown destination she might never reach. When sheâd first found herself on this pitch-black yawl on the open sea, she had thought of giving the sea a name but was afraid sheâd get it wrong. The wrong name was like a disease that killed you slowly. It could make you disappear. Ohno wasnât willing to take that risk. She decided to call it Sea and promptly fell head over heels in love with it.
Sea was beautiful, boundless, and dangerous, like a dream lover with a lethal touch. On days like this, when it was calm, Ohno liked to lounge on the deck and allow herself to be enchanted by the blue magic surrounding her. She let the salty breeze caress her face and soothe her quivering nerves as she listened to the flapping sails, contemplated the horizon, and imagined herself a queen in exile, journeying to some exotic land to reunite with her royal beloved. Sometimes she went as far as conjuring up her belovedâs bearded face, his lips kissing hers, a smile in his sea-blue eyes. But the image made her heart race and her cheeks flush until she lay helpless, bathed in tears.
The truth was she had no beloved, royal or otherwise, and in all likelihood, she was not a queen, or even a noblewoman. Aside from her nameâOhno Hoiaâshe knew nothing of her own identity or where sheâd come from. Like the fish beneath her keel, she had no memories, only hunches and dreams.
With the shadow driven out of the cockpit, Ohno retreated to her stateroom. It was dim and damp, and that was just the way she liked it. Her quarters had everything she neededâexcept a mirror. Whoever had built this vessel hadnât considered it a necessity, and so the shape and color of her own face remained a tantalizing mystery. The glimpses sheâd caught in the cockpitâs instrumentation were gauzy, distorted. Her hair was long and messy (she didnât need a mirror to figure that out), and from the strands she found on her pillow from time to time, she knew it was turning gray.
She sat at the small desk and gulped from a half-empty bottle of Dictador rum, a bittersweet concoction that burned her throat but lifted her spirits. She needed that today. Waiting for the liquid flames to reach their destination, Ohno opened her captainâs log and wrote in fiery red ink: The sea has calmed. Sailing east ⌠She hesitated and added a fat, curvy question mark, and then another.
The logbook was full of question marks, writhing all over the pages like little snakes. Who am I? What year is it? Am I dead? Am I mad? Thirty-six entries, no dates, written in her own unsteady hand. Entry number one was a scribble she couldnât even read, followed by a long line of bleeding question marks. That was the day sheâd found herself on the boat, the day she had begun, as a concept and not just a thing. Before that there had been nothing but darkness, and as hard as she tried, Ohno could not place herself in the world she must have inhabited before her life as a captain ⌠if she could even call herself that. She had a body. She had a name. She must have existed for quite some time before waking up on this boat and scrawling the first entry. But who or what she wasâor any detail about her pastâremained a lost memory. And her imagination was not much of a help lately. As the days slipped by in dreary monotony, the distinction between the twoâwhat she knew and what she imaginedâwas rapidly blurring.
The Dictador was working its potent magic.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, the ship bell rang from foredeck.
Ohno dropped the pen and sat up straight, her eyes wide. The pleasant, Dictador-induced oblivion evaporated, and her senses snapped back into focus. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Her shadow was up to some malicious mischief again. Will it ever end? Ohno thought wearily, as she grabbed her stick and stepped out of her stateroom.
It took immeasurable self-control not to launch at the foul foe and try to strangle it with her bare hands, but the last time sheâd tried that, the shadowâs unbearable cold had burned her skin and penetrated her flesh to the bone. It was as solid as a block of black ice, only icier. And somehow hollow. Her shadow was not of this world, and she could not touch it.
She waited a few feet away, watching it thrash the bell rope. Malice oozed out of it like pusâevery kind of wickedness, and worse. Give it a name? What was she thinking? That thing didnât deserve a name. And how could she keep beating up an entity with a name?
âIâm calling you It,â she muttered, hitting It as hard as she could.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. The bell tolled furiously as Ohno battered her shadow. Her hands had gone numb, but she didnât stop until It let go of the rope and leaped overboard, spreading its harpy wings.
After the thousand little tasks a solo sailor must attend to, Ohno returned to her cabin. She would have preferred to spend the afternoon in the pleasant company of Dictador, but the earlier ordeal would not let her soul rest. Fear spread inside her like mold. What if I never find land? Dying of thirst and starvation, with nobody but It by her side, seemed like the loneliest way to go. Another question arose, unanswerable like most of her questions: What happens to my shadow when I die? There must be a place where all shadows go.
There is. Itâs called hell, the tiny voice inside her whispered. Ohno nodded in agreement. In a way, she envied It. It didnât have a name, but It seemed to know what It was and why It was there. The shadow was freeâof form, of thought, and even of time, the cruelest of prisons. Even without a mirror, Ohno knew she wasnât immune to the ravages of time. She had a body, and it was getting old. She knew it deep inside her aching bones. Hers was not a young body. But what kind of body was it? Was she even a human? And what does it even meanâbeing human?
For the hundredth time, she examined her large, stiff hands. There was something wrong with them. She couldnât explain how she knew it, but the faint disgust at the sight of her hands told her that it indeed was so. And then it hit herâthe number! Twelve! She had twelve fingers; it was two too many for a body like hers. She turned her palms up and down, wiggled her fingers, and smiled happily. Yes, her body must be human. Abnormal, but human nonetheless. And again, she could not explain how she knew it, only that she did.
Then it occurred to her that she knew many things she had no memory of, and the source of this knowledge was more obscure than the mysteries lurking at the bottom of the ocean. How was that possible? She knew of seas, and lakes, and rivers; and birds, and cows, and dogs; and, yes, of shadows. She knew things in an innate way that only a human would. She knew of them without ever having seen them, or so it seemed.
Ding ⌠Ding ⌠From the foredeck again. A gentle, musical sound. Not the obnoxious one her shadow had made earlier today. Ohno frowned and made her way back to the foredeck, stepping cautiously and clutching her stick. Just in case.
The sun was hovering over the western horizon, bidding the day a luminous farewell. The sea turned into liquid gold, and the brass ship bell became a shining star with an amber halo. And there, on top of the bell, in the middle of the halo, was perched a creature of a most unusual kind. Its small, oval, wonderfully curved body was of the whitest white. On a smooth, supple neck sat a black head with two eyes the color of the sun. The creature held its gaze for what seemed like an eternity, cooed softly, and took off with one powerful flap of its wings.
A bird, the voice within whispered.
âA bird âŚâ Ohno repeated, following the trajectory of the creatureâs flight, higher and higher, until it became a distant dot on the flaming horizon.
Ding ⌠Ding ⌠The bell rang, swinging slightly from the release of the birdâs talons.
    Still under the spell of the vision, Ohno stared at the bellâfor the hundredth time. âUmbra, 1999â was etched on its surface in bold, black letters. Her brain itched; some memory was digging its way out into the open like a worm. Umbra, short for umbrella? No, that was nonsense. Nobody would name their ship after something so ordinary as an umbrella. Then it hit herâthe number! The year the ship had launched was 1999! Judging from the vesselâs considerable wear and tear, the current year wasnât the year 1999. Perhaps 2020, give or take. Ohnoâs heart skipped a beat, and then, as if someone pushed a lever inside her, all the tension of the day dropped away like an iron suit of armor. Suddenly she became aware of a cool evening breeze caressing her thighs, her breasts, her half-naked shoulders. Every cell of her body was singing in childlike delight, and her lavish torso shook as she laughed.
Time! She had found time. She had found her century: the twenty-first! It was like finding a long-lost treasure, like rediscovering a limb you thought was gone. Why would she ever think that time was a prisoner? Time was a treasure, a liberator, the best friend a lone traveler could have.
âThe twenty-first century.â Ohno whispered the delicious words under the darkening sky. The moon had risen now. Silver-capped waves broke gently over the yawlâs bow.
There hadnât been a better day in Ohnoâs life; of that, she was almost entirely sure. She was of the twenty-first century. Ancient civilizations with their human sacrifices and slavery were in the past, a long gone past. So were the Middle Ages; thank God for that. She wouldnât get burnt at the stake, or die in misery coughing up her own plague-infested lungs. She wasnât in some bleak, post-apocalyptic time, and there was no toxic fire sweeping the earth. All of those horrors were in the past, or in the far distant future. Now was the twenty-first century, the age of reason, of justice, of liberty, and may be even love. Humankind must have achieved the impossible by now, and is standing on three unfailing pillars: freedom, truth, and beauty. This was the world she could not wait to inhabit, to embrace, and upon which to unload her precious cargo.
She would find the land, the land of the beautiful and of the free. She would do what she must, and then ⌠Who knows? She smiled dreamily to the moon. Perhaps the sweet strawberry lips of her beloved would kiss her, and there would be love, and even something she would be able to call home.
The act of becoming is one that is both long and arduous. It takes time and effort to go from nothing to something. In contrast, the act of forgetting happens in but a moment, takes place so quickly itâs as if there was nothing there to begin with.
Yana Barbelo explores these things in Umbra. Or rather, the novel looks at what happens before and after one forgets, the journey to become on either side of life. We rise and fall with Ohno Hoia as she struggles to find herself amidst a terrible amnesia, only to be thrust back in time to her beginning halfway through the novel. Itâs only then that we can get a clearer picture of who and what she is.
Iâm not quite sure what to say about this other than that the absurdity of the novelâs second half more than makes up for the end of wonder in the first. Each part of it competes to top its predecessor in just how ridiculous it can get, down to some questionable use of Jesus Christ as a character, disembodied heads from Disneyland and, at one point, a journey in itself with a Baba Yaga-esque character.
Not that the âBook of Ohnoâ was by any means without its own excitement but rather, it was more of a straightforward narrative within a topsy-turvy world compared to the âBook of Umbrittaâ, particularly her adventures with the beach vagabonds Jesse and Jane, as well as the circus Mundus Vagus. I especially liked the second group for the richness of the characters, with Ivan the Terrible and the Wheelmaster Moia as standouts amidst an already varied group.
Of interest to readers of the absurd, however, would be the journey that Ohnoâs younger self goes through in the second half of the book. While there is a linear path, much like the first half, itâs not at all straightforward. Rather, much of it is cloaked in the guise of the fantastic, a journey unlike any other that plays out for the reader in vivid detail. While I didnât like parts of it for how confusing it could be, much of it was beautifully rendered and went along with the mostly grey illustrations that accompanied most of the chapters in the book.
Readers of the fantastic and the absurd, like the Edgewood Chronicles, who are looking for something in a more adult manner will do well to try this book out. Itâs a story about becoming and a story about stories, and isnât that narrative at its essence?