Brave Story (122 page)

The Spectacle Machine circus troupe had set up its great tent just outside the town of Gasara. But there was no performance. The tent was being used as a makeshift hospital and a refugee camp.

The town doctor was busy. Even if there had been two of him, he would still not be able to get everything done. Meena, who had so recently been fending off demonkin with a frying pan, was helping as a nurse.

She didn’t want to stop. She was afraid she might start to think about everything that had happened recently. She kept her mind on the task at hand, and she was grateful that she was needed to deal with emergency after emergency. A child crying over there, an injured man moaning over here.
Where’re the bandages? Where’s the salve?

“Meena!” Bubuho stood at the entrance to the grand tent. “Over here. Granny wants to speak with you.”

Meena wove through the cots, sometimes stepping over people to get to the door.

“I wish I had five or six more hands, they’ve got me so busy. Does Granny need me right away?”

“Ask her yourself—she’s right outside,” Bubuho said, a gentle look in his eyes. “And you need to rest. Even just to catch your breath. I can see the worry swimming in your eyes.”

Meena stepped outside. Granny had pulled out a small table and chair where she now sat. She was gazing into the depths of her crystal ball.

Evening had come while Meena was busy tending to patients. The darkening pink of dusk stretched above her head. The evil black shadows of the demonkin were nowhere to be seen.

Wataru saved us. He went to the Goddess and wished the demonkin away.

—Later, Meena.

She remembered his words as they stood next to the walls of Solebria.

It had been a promise, one he kept.

What about Wataru’s wish? Was this the end Wataru wanted for his journey? All the questions she had desperately tried to keep from asking were now welling up inside.

Meena reprimanded herself. She pushed aside all the other questions, finding the one that resonated the strongest, shaking her heart.

Will I ever see Wataru again?

Then she shook her head.
It’s my own fault. He’s from the real world. He was a Traveler.

Granny noticed her footsteps, and hunching over even further, she looked around. “Ah, you’ve come.” Granny gave the crystal ball a light pat with her fingers. She extended her hand toward Meena. “You will not need to look into the ball to see. Here, lend me a hand.”

Meena took Granny’s withered hand in hers. The old woman tugged at her, leading her farther away from the great tent. Then she looked up. “Do you see?”

Meena’s gaze turned skyward. Even the beauty of the sunset failed to stir her. “Granny, there’s nothing. Just…nothing.”

“It is disappearing,” the old woman said, pointing a finger at a quarter of the sky.

There hung a pinpoint of sharp red light. It had been there for weeks. For Meena, sometimes it had seemed even more evil than the demonkin.

But now the Blood Star’s light was fading. Even as she watched, it was absorbed into the night sky.

Halnera was ending.

The next thousand years for Vision were beginning.

At the edge of the Swamp of Grief, Shin Suxin took off his glasses and began to massage his knotted shoulders with the palm of his hand. While in Tearsheaven, the gatekeeper stopped sweeping up the remains of the demonkin for a moment and looked up into the sky. By her mother Satami’s bed, Sara put a hand on the window.

The dragons were returning to their island. The wounded Jozo sat nestled between his parents, looking up through a crack in the rocks.

Lady Zophie, reunited at last with General Adja’s troops, lifted the heavy canvas flap of her pavilion and watched the sky. In her mind’s eye, she could still see Mitsuru’s profile as he stood in the Crystal Palace.

In the remains of the sula woods where the Triankha Hospital had once stood, a quiet wind blew. Small animals ran over and under the fallen branches. Nearby, a waterkin looked up at the twilight sky from the driver’s seat of his darbaba cart.

Halnera had ended.

The Great Barrier of Light was remade anew.
May the Goddess reign in eternity.

“Meena, Meena!” It was Puck calling her. She looked around to see him jumping to and fro by the side of the great circus tent. Kee Keema was with him, his face looking sad and tired, and his shoulders sagging more than she had ever seen them before.

“Puck, what is it?”

“A white bird just flew by!”

“A white bird?”

“Yep! He stopped right on my shoulder. And then when I looked, he was gone! But guess what, he left something!”

Puck held out his hand. There, in the middle of his palm rested a firewyrm band.

Wataru’s armband. Meena put a hand to her mouth.

“This belongs to your friend, didn’t it? It’s a Highlander band, isn’t it?”

“It’s Wataru’s,” Kee Keema said. “He is saying goodbye to us. He’s saying he made it to the Tower of Destiny, met the Goddess, and saved Vision for us. And then he left—back to his own world. That’s what it means.”

I know it, and it’s a great thing, so why do I feel so sad
, Kee Keema’s eyes seemed to ask. He wiped his face with the back of one hand.

Meena took the armband in her fingers and held it to her cheek. She was crying.

“Meena, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Puck asked, flustered. Meena slowly knelt on the ground, hiding her face in her hands.

Wataru had left. He was gone from Vision.

His journey was over.

“We didn’t even say goodbye, did we?” Kee Keema mumbled, his eyes swimming in tears.

Meena gave him a great big hug.

“You don’t say goodbye!” Puck shouted, doing another flip. “Meena, weren’t you the one who told us not to say goodbye?”

Meena wiped away her tears and looked up. “Did I say that? What did I teach you to say, Puck?”

Puck beamed with pride, sticking out his chest. “Be well, you said! Be well!”

Meena looked at Kee Keema, and the two smiled. “Yes. Those are just the words, I think.”

The Blood Star had now completely disappeared from the darkening sky above Gasara. As night’s curtain was drawn, the stars began to shine. They began in the darkest point near the top then fell down to the horizon, painting the sky, leading Vision into gentle sleep.

Meena and Kee Keema hugged each other close and looked up. In their hearts they whispered to Wataru, knowing he would hear them.

Our Traveler, and our traveling companion: we wish for your happiness, as you wished for ours.

Be well.

Epilogue

The smell of gas.

He came running from somewhere far away, flying across incredible distances home. Wataru shot up from bed with the momentum of his arrival.

I’m in my room!

School notes and textbooks piled up on the desk. Mom’s hand-knit cushion on the seat of the chair. Dictionaries and an encyclopedia set on the bookshelf. Behind the encyclopedias: game strategy guides, a row of comic books, and a secret piggybank with money to buy
Eldritch Stone Saga III.

My room. My home. But why does it smell like gas?

The air conditioner was turned off. An unpleasant, dangerous stench hung in the air.

Wataru threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. “Mom!” He shouted, running out into the living room. The door to his mother’s bedroom was open. A strong smell of gas came drifting from the kitchen.

She left the door open so the gas could fill her room.

Holding his breath, Wataru dashed into the kitchen and almost turned on the light, his hand stopping just before the switch.

Stop, stupid! If the switch lets off a spark this whole place will blow.

Wataru withdrew his hand, then, groping behind the oven, found the main gas valve and turned it off.

Returning to the living room, he opened all of the windows. Nervously, he tiptoed into his mother’s room. She was lying there on her side, her face as pale as the moon. Her head was on her pillow and she was facing the ceiling. The summer coverlet on her bed was thin, but even so Wataru could barely see her form beneath it—
that’s how much weight she lost in the short time since Dad left.

But you don’t have to die. Please don’t die.

The curtains in the bedroom were heavy and thick, and easily slid out of Wataru’s hands. He jumped up and grabbed them, but ended up in a heap on the floor when the whole curtain rod detached from the wall. Still, he let his heart give a cheer of victory. Wataru scrambled to his feet and opened the window.

I made it in time! Mom’s going to be okay. I’ll save her! I can save her!

He had returned from Vision to the real world at the same point he had left—when Mitsuru had come through the Corridor of Light to save him.

The gas smell was thinning. Still, Wataru ran through the darkened rooms, down the hall, running into walls and furniture, until he was out the front door. He hoped the neighbors would wake up in time.

“Can I borrow your phone?! Hello? This is Wataru Mitani, I live next door! I need to call an ambulance!”

It was a dark night in the real world, with no moon. Only the gently flickering fluorescent lights in the apartment hallway watched over Wataru’s frantic struggle for help.

Uncle Lou came right away, driving straight in from Chiba. The two sat side by side in the hallway outside the emergency room at the hospital. It was three in the morning.

“You were lucky to have found her so quickly,” the doctor told Wataru. “We have to keep a close watch on her until she regains consciousness. But I have every reason to believe she’ll pull through just fine. You did well, son.”

The doctor was young himself. He had come out to greet the ambulance with a sleepy look on his face when they arrived through the emergency entrance. But when the stretcher came out, he was all business. There was work to be done.
Doctors are a bit like Highlanders in that way,
Wataru thought.

They checked out Wataru too. Spots in your eyes?
No.
Does it hurt to breathe?
Not at all.
Does your head hurt?
I’m fine.

I’m fine. Is it all right if I stay until Mom wakes up?

So he had sat with his uncle waiting, just the two of them. The bench in the hallway was made for adults, and Wataru’s legs swung in the air when he sat up. He kicked them back and forth.
I’m a full-fledged Highlander. Why am I sitting here like a little kid?

Then he remembered.
I’m not a Highlander, not anymore. I don’t have my Brave’s Sword. Or the power of the gemstones.

I’m just Wataru Mitani.

“Municipal gas won’t kill you, you know,” Uncle Lou muttered. His shoulders were sagging, and his large hands hung limp between his knees.

Wataru had heard something like that before.
That’s right, Mitsuru. Municipal gas isn’t poisonous enough to be fatal.
But if a spark catches it on fire…

And Mitsuru’s gone. Or wait, maybe he’s not! What if he’s back here in the real world?

“Aren’t you sleepy, Wataru?” Uncle Lou asked. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and his face was scratchy with stubble. His big eyes blinked sorrowfully.

He looked just like Kee Keema when the big waterkin was in a sour mood. The same giant frame, the same gentle heart.

“I’m fine, really.”

“Well, if you get sleepy, my shoulder’s all yours.”

“Thanks.”

He wasn’t tired, but suddenly an uncontrollable wave of emotion rose up inside him, and Wataru clung to his uncle’s arm. Uncle Lou put his arm around Wataru’s shoulders.

For a minute, nobody said anything.

“I’m sorry,” Uncle Lou said at last. “You’ve been put through all this, and it’s not your fault at all. It’s really not fair. Not fair at all.”

His voice trembled and broke slightly, like the unshed tears he was holding inside.

“Uncle Lou?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember us meeting?”

His uncle turned and looked Wataru from head to toe. “What are you talking about?” His tired face had a look of honest confusion.

Then Wataru remembered: it had been after he got the second gemstone and passed through the Corridor of Light that he had met his uncle. His mother was already in the hospital then, and Uncle Lou had come in just as Wataru was getting ready to leave.
But she just got to the hospital now. That hasn’t happened yet.

Then Wataru thought,
I’m already here, back in the real world. Maybe it will never happen at all.

Somehow, the time he’d spent in Vision hadn’t registered here in the real world. Finally, the full impact of it hit him. That’s what it meant to come back to an apartment filled with gas—the same apartment at the same time he had left it. While he had been running around Vision, here, back in the real world, nothing had happened.