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Authors: Amanda Sun

Storm (9 page)

BOOK: Storm
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I tapped my fingers on the small purple couch in our living room. I had my legs curled up tight against me, the TV blaring the latest drama, something about a doctor who had a terminal illness but didn’t want to tell anyone. Not exactly uplifting to my mood, but to get to the other channels I had to pass at least one news hour, and I was afraid to watch. Another Yakuza leader had died, this time in Kobe. The mob families were getting paranoid, turning on each other and on smaller rival gangs. At least, that’s what the news was reporting. The Yakuza weren’t dumb. They probably knew a Kami was hunting them. And they’d fight back.

I watched the two love interests in the drama chase after the doctor for a while. One was a girl from his past who’d rejected him in medical school; the other was another doctor at the hospital, one he’d grown close to over the past few years.

“Doesn’t matter,” I mumbled out loud. “He’s going to die in a few episodes.” I watched him stumble in the hospital hallway. The music swelled as he clutched the side railing, as he pressed his head against the wall and cried, as he forced himself one step after another to get to the patient’s room. I felt the tears well up in my eyes, too. It was melodramatic, sure, but it still got to me.

The house phone rang, which jarred me out of it. Diane walked in front of the TV toward the headset. She took a glance at me and tossed me the tissue box, which I caught with a loud thunk. I dabbed at my eyes. I wasn’t made of stone.

“Moshi moshi,”
Diane answered cheerfully, while she rolled her eyes dramatically at me. I stuck my tongue out in response, and she grinned; she loved Japanese dramas as much as I did.

The smile dropped from her face, though. “I thought I told you that we’ll call you,” she said, her tone serious. She paused, looking at me, and then shuffled into her room, closing the door behind her.

My dad. It had to be.

I padded down the hallway in my socks and pressed my ear against the door.

“I know you’re only there for another week,” Diane said. “But if she hasn’t called, it means she’s not ready to see you, okay?...No, I know there won’t be another chance for a while. Steven...” Her voice started out calm, but grew frustrated. “Steven. Listen. I hear you, okay? But that’s the choice you made seventeen years ago. You had the chance...No, I’m not saying you don’t deserve—I know people change, but...Steven, you have to think of what’s best for
her
now.”

I listened to Diane struggle, to try and stand up for me, but my heart sank. He wanted a second chance. He regretted what he’d done. I hated him for leaving us, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was telling the truth. Did he really regret it? Did he really want to meet me? He must have, to keep calling.

I heard the phone beep as Diane turned it off, but I made no motion to hide that I’d been eavesdropping. Diane must have known, too, because she opened her door and showed no surprise at all to see me there.

“Sorry, kiddo,” she said.

“He’s in Japan now?” I said, and she nodded.

“In Tokyo until next Wednesday. I don’t know. He sounds so sincere.”

I couldn’t believe I was saying this. “Maybe...maybe I should meet him.”

Diane wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a tight hug. “That’s for you to decide,” she said. “Whatever you choose, I’m here for you, okay?”

“I love you,” I said. The words just burst out; they felt right.

She hugged me tighter. “I love you, too, hon.”

I could face anything with Diane at my side. Even my dad.

“Think about it, okay?” she said, and I nodded, heading for my room. No point catching the end of the drama. I could hear the credits song playing.

I sat down at my desk and my Future Plan assignment stared back at me. I had to focus to read the instructions for each section. Would I ever look at Japanese writing and not have to concentrate to understand it? I’d always taken it for granted in my old life that I could just glance at English and understand without trying.

Future plans. I tapped my pen against the paper. Stop Jun from taking over the world. Stop the Kami power from destroying Tomo. Learn all my kanji perfectly so I don’t have to fail the school year and transfer to an international school in English. Confront my dad about how he could’ve left Mom and me.

I sighed, folding my arms across the paper and resting my head on my hands. It was overwhelming. I lifted my head slightly and scribbled my name in the corner.

The edges of my katakana letters flickered with gold, so quickly I thought I’d imagined it. But my stomach twisted like motion sickness, and I knew I hadn’t imagined it. The ink was moving.

Something tapped against my window twice, and I jumped back from my desk, bumping my knees against the top. We were up on the fourth floor, but I was still scared to look. A small figure gleamed in the window, and I stepped toward it slowly.

It was a raven, its feathers scribbled in black ink, its blinking eye vacant and papery white. It tilted its head and ruffled its feathers as it peered in my window.

“Did Tomo draw you?” I said quietly. The raven tapped again and cawed loudly. It hopped along the windowsill, its feet crinkling like paper as they bent under the bird’s weight.

I looked, horrified, as I realized the raven had three legs. I stepped back from the window as it squawked and tapped urgently. What was wrong with it? Maybe Tomo had drawn it from two different angles and they’d combined somehow into this three-legged sketch.

“Poor thing,” I said, but its beak looked sharp and vicious. It lunged toward the glass and I called out, jumping back. I yanked my curtains over the window, leaving only the shadow of the bird hopping from side to side. My heart twisted at its incessant caws. What if its sharp beak pecked right through the glass?

After a moment there was a sound like a rush of pages flipping in the wind, and the tapping stopped. The raven cawed once, from a distance.

Why would Tomo send a raven? Maybe it was supposed to be a sweet gesture, but he knew the dark twist his drawings took. It could’ve tried to peck my eyes out if I’d opened my window.

I clicked off my lamp and lay on top of my comforter, listening to Diane as she shuffled around the living room to the muffled sounds of the TV.

I could feel exhaustion take hold, could feel myself spiraling into sleep.

Mukashi, mukashi
, the voice whispered in my head.
Once upon a time there was a boy who devoured the whole world.

* * *

At first, all I could hear was the roar of the ink waterfall all around the island, the world dropping off a sheer cliff in every direction. Then, darkness, as if someone had simply shut off the sunlight.

Then the glow of
inugami
eyes illuminated the darkness, narrow canine slits gleaming turquoise in the distance, a faint growl drifting on the air.

And then, nothing. Complete silence, complete dark.

I took a pace forward, but not even my footstep made a noise. I waved my hand slowly through the blackness, the air thick like water. There was no cold, no warmth. Nothing.

It was stifling.

I took another step, and another. And then my foot landed on something sharp. I cried out, falling to my side.

Dim light began to flicker, hundreds of lanterns catching fire around me. In the distance I heard horses whinny, stifled by the sound of thundering hooves. The castle from before was burning, the flames gleaming in a scorching halo, a thick plume of smoke lifting into the darkened sky.

I held on to my ankle and looked at the sole of my foot in the firelight. Shards of glass had embedded themselves in my skin. With shaking fingers I reached for the pieces, pulling each one carefully as I winced at the extraction. I laid them on the ground like a puzzle, lining up the breaks with one another.

The Magatama jewel.

I heard a rustle of fabric, and looked up. Amaterasu stood over me, tears in her eyes. The firelight subsided; the screams went quiet. We stood on the small island in the sky, the sun and bright clouds surrounding us. No more horses, and no more fire, just the murky ocean spreading out from us, tipping over the edge of the floating continent in a soft roar of golden clouds.

Another weird dream. I couldn’t take them anymore. Couldn’t I just dream about taking exams in my underwear or something? Why did I have to be so aware I was asleep? I didn’t want to live this anymore.

I scooped the pieces of the Magatama up and spread them in my palm for Amaterasu to see. She reached over, her hand covering mine for a moment, and when she pulled her hand away, a red string unraveled from inside her palm, the Magatama pierced through the top like a necklace pendant. It was in one piece now, a curved teardrop of glass, and she held it between us, where it dangled and twisted on the string.

“They’re the key, aren’t they?” I said. “The Imperial Treasures.”

“I gave them to Jimmu,” she said. “So he could survive the cycle.”

“The cycle of what?”

She lowered the jewel, resting it in my hand. It felt cold and smooth as I wrapped my fingers around it. “The cycle of fate. Birth, innocence, betrayal, death.”

I shook my head. That was too bleak an answer. “I thought they represented love, bravery and honesty.”

“Honesty,” Amaterasu repeated. “They hung the mirror in a tree to trick me into leaving my hiding place in that cave. Is that not deceitful?”

I tried to slog the thought through my sleep-lagged brain. “No,” I said, “because they only showed you who you truly were.”

Amaterasu smiled, the tears on her cheeks glistening in the sunlight. “They showed me I could not hide from what I was meant to do. I could not hide from the truth.”

I knelt slowly, like I had seen the samurai in TV dramas do. I knew I was probably doing it wrong—bowing like a guy instead of a girl, or at the wrong angle, or something—but I pressed my forehead into the sand, the grains sticking to my skin.

“Ojou
sama
,”
I said, calling her a princess like I’d heard before on TV. “Please help me. Tell me what happened to Tsukiyomi. Tell me what I can do to stop him from hurting Tomohiro.”

Amaterasu bent down, the fabric whistling as it slid against itself, fold over fold. She took my arms and gently lifted me back up, until we were standing, facing each other. The dream faded away, and we were in a thick bamboo grove, the tall green stalks blocking out everything but the brilliant glow of the sun above us.

“This isn’t about saving Tomohiro,” Amaterasu said. “It’s about saving the world. Already Tsukiyomi’s bloodlust claws for control in his veins. He cannot escape his ancestry. It is your task to stop him.”

She looked into the forest of bamboo, her eyes gleaming with memory. “Long ago, I pledged my heart to Tsukiyomi, and he promised me his. We were the children of the August Ones, not completely immortal, but neither were we human. Yet we longed to take care of the world, to nurture the humans who were building homes, who were experiencing the first of human life and death. They were our children, and we knew what it was to be lost to our ancestors.

“Alas, Tsukiyomi soon saw nothing but corruption, disease and despair. He became obsessed with his own power, his own vision to change the tides of the earth. He was disgusted with
kami
and human alike. The other
kami
and I wanted to guide the descendants, but he wanted to paint a new world, to begin anew. He began to sketch dragons that scorched the skies,
kappa
spirits that drowned livestock and people in the waters,
inugami
that stalked the mountain paths. He was filled with bitterness and blindness.”

The sun above us clouded over, the field of bamboo shifting to a deeper, shadowy green. I had never dreamed like this before, remembering her words so clearly. Would I remember them when I woke up? I forced myself to listen, to stay focused.

Amaterasu’s arm fell to her side, her closed fingers hidden beneath the twelve layers of colored kimono sleeves. “To quell his anger, I asked Ukemochi to prepare a feast for him. Rice from the plains of what is now Niigata. Tea brewed from the sacred leaves in the valley of Fuji’s shadow, now called Shizuoka. Fish pulled wriggling from the grasp of Susanou’s raging seas. It was to remind him of the beauty found on the earth, to remind him that not all was lost.”

BOOK: Storm
6.72Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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