Brave Story

by Miyuki Miyabe

  “It was…tough, when it happened.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Yutaro smiled. “But it got better. I like my brother and sister too. Just wish they were a little quieter.”

  Now his little brother started crying. His sister was hitting him over the head with the red watering can.

  “Yeah,” Wataru said. He felt his throat tighten and couldn’t say any more.

  “So, anyway,” Yutaro said, sounding a bit unsure himself. “I guess I, well, you know…” He didn’t know what to say either, but his eyes told Wataru enough. Hang in there.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yutaroooooo!”

  Now both of the kids were crying. Yutaro gave an exaggerated sigh, but he was smiling when he turned around to run back to them.

  I wonder how many morning glories there were after all?

  On the way back home, Wataru’s mind was a blank. He thought of nothing. In his head, there was only a question mark where the face of Mitsuru Ashikawa had been, and in his chest, a lingering feeling of relief from his talk with Yutaro.

  He wasn’t even paying attention to where he was going, when he saw Katchan walking toward him on the other side of the street. He was wearing a pass to the municipal pool around his neck and yawning. It took him a moment to recognize his friend.

  “Oooooornin’.” Katchan waved to Wataru, not even bothering to stifle his yawn.

  Wataru stopped, frozen in place, staring at Katchan.

  Say, Katchan, you remember that exchange student, Mitsuru Ashikawa?

  “What’re you doing out here this early in the morning? I know that you didn’t come from the pool, I was just there!”

  “Gotcha.”

  “What?” Katchan craned his neck, looking at Wataru. If this early rising was to become a trend, Katchan clearly did not approve.

  “Thanks for freeing those birds for me.”

  “Huh?”

  Seeing his expression, it was clear that Katchan didn’t know anything about the birds. He never got them, and he never set them free.

  “Nothing,” Wataru said with a laugh. “Forget about it.”

  “You look scruffy, man. In fact, you look like you haven’t slept a wink.” Before Wataru could respond he could see Katchan’s brain begin to work double time. “Wait…” now he looked worried. “I hope nothing happened at home, with your old man?”

  Wataru knew he couldn’t hide the truth from Katchan, but there didn’t seem to be any point in telling him the whole story now. Maybe later, when things have settled down a bit.

  “Katchan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know what happened to Kenji…from the sixth grade?”

  “You mean Kenji Ishioka? That creep?”

  “Uh-huh.” Wataru chose his words carefully. “Did he lose his memory or something? Or did he go missing for a while? And when he came back, did he act like his soul was gone?”

  Katchan’s eyes focused on Wataru’s face. He walked straight over to his friend and waved his hand right before Wataru’s nose. “Hey! Mitani! Earth to Mitani!”

  Wataru laughed. Katchan kept waving. “I know why you didn’t sleep last night! You were playing that game, Detective Meadows: The Case of the Disappearing Client, weren’t you! They say it’s the best one in the series! Once you pick up that controller, you aren’t sleeping until you’re done. Well, time to wake up, Wataru. People we know don’t go missing. Not in real life.”

  Wataru laughed while his friend grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Mitani! Mitani!” Katchan was acting like a cop trying to keep a wounded partner from losing consciousness.

  “Kenji hasn’t gone missing. His memory’s fine too, far as I know. Though I did hear that he hasn’t been on the warpath lately. Maybe he’s gone soft. Maybe somebody took that crooked mean streak of his and straightened it out for him.”

  Hearing that was enough for Wataru to understand.

  It was in the afternoon when the call finally came from the hospital. Grandma had come over from Chiba, and Uncle Lou and Wataru went to the hospital together. Uncle Lou waited in the hallway while Wataru went to see his mother in her room.

  Kuniko cried, and Wataru cried. She apologized, and he apologized.

  Then, the most unexpected thing happened.

  “You know, Wataru,” his mother said, “while I was asleep, I had a really odd dream.”

  “What kind of dream?”

  “Well…” his mother began, but just from her expression, Wataru knew. He could see it in her eyes.

  “It was the strangest thing. It was like another world—like something in one of those video games you’re always playing. And you were there. You were traveling, learning to be a warrior. And you were with this big lizard man, and a girl with cat ears. It looked like you were having fun.”

  “Do you remember much about my trip?”

  If you don’t, I can tell you. I can tell you everything. I can tell you what I did, and what I brought back.

  “I do! I remember it all. Crazy, huh?” His mother smiled. “Wataru, you made a very dashing adventurer, I must say.”

  “Mom?” Wataru said after moment. “I think…I think we’re going to be okay.” I know now how to not punish myself for what I’ve lost. I know how to take care of the future.

  “Even if Dad doesn’t come home?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “Yeah,” Wataru said, nodding. “There’s a whole world out there waiting for us.”

  My Vision. My real world.

  In his mother’s eyes he saw the blue-gray sparkle of Meena’s eyes, and the black eyes of Kutz the Rosethorn. He even saw the clear blue eyes of Captain Ronmel.

  His mother hugged him.

  Several days later, his mother came home from the hospital, and it was decided that she and Wataru should go to his grandmother’s house in Chiba for a while. Grandma had grumbled a bit, wondering if Kuniko wouldn’t much rather go to her parents’ house in Odawara. But her resistance to the idea faded away when Kuniko told her she wanted to talk to her about their future. “I’d really appreciate your advice.”

  That had been enough for Grandma. The hard lines in her face softened, and she had gone home on the first train to do a little housecleaning before they arrived.

  Wataru’s father called several times. He saw his mom talking with him on the phone for hours. She wasn’t crying or screaming anymore though.

  Wataru told his dad he was doing fine.

  “I’m sorry, Kuniko, I really am,” he overheard his grandmother saying.

  Wataru had to tell Katchan the news. If Katchan’s parents let him, he could come out to Chiba to play. Uncle Lou said that, if he wanted to, he could stay for all of summer vacation. “Of course, I’ll be putting you two to work on the beach!”

  Katchan was ecstatic, but he had one request. “I’ll go as long as your uncle doesn’t force us into a watermelon battle.”

  “What’s that?” Wataru had asked.

  “It’s like a piñata. You know, when you blindfold someone and they take a stick and try to hit something? But instead of a piñata, you’re swinging at a big watermelon. And a lot of people are doing it at the same time. If I played with your uncle, he’d crack me over the head for sure and with those big arms…” Katchan shivered. “Yowch!”

  There was one other place Wataru needed to go. Right up until the moment he left Katchan’s house, he was half-thinking of inviting his friend along. He didn’t know if he had the guts to go there alone.

  But in the end, he said goodbye, and set off by himself.

  He began walking in the direction of the Daimatsu building. The haunted building.

  He hadn’t gotten up the courage to come here before today. He guessed that it was probably the same as it always was. Why would it be any different? But for some reason, he was scared to check for himself. He was scared to see that skeleton of abandoned iron girders, quietly rusting beneath faded blue tarps, that rain-beaten sign announcing the plans for
the building.

  Because when I see that I’ll know it’s really over. The spell will be forever broken.

  So he walked slowly, his eyes cast downward.

  He heard it before he saw it: the whine of heavy machinery. Wataru looked up to see a bulldozer and a crane busy at work.

  The haunted building was naked, its blue tarp dressing torn to the ground. A long rusted girder was hanging from the arm of the crane.

  They’re taking it down!

  Wataru ran.

  He stood watching the steel staircase where he first met Wayfinder Lau. Lost in thought, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Well, isn’t that our young friend Wataru?”

  He looked around to see Mr. Daimatsu grinning at him.

  “H-hello!”

  “I’ll bet you didn’t expect this!” Mr. Daimatsu said, waving his hand at the half-dismantled building.

  “You’re taking the whole building apart?”

  “That we are. It sat out in the rain so long, the metal fittings started to disintegrate. So we’re razing it to the ground and building it back up from scratch. Finally got all the money in order, this time. It will be a fine building, for sure.”

  The haunted building was going for good.

  Wataru’s vision blurred ever so slightly. The roaring of the big tractor drowned out his quick sigh.

  Goodbye.

  Just then, Mr. Daimatsu turned around and spoke to someone behind him. Whoever it was stood just right so that Wataru couldn’t see who it was.

  “No need to be shy,” Mr. Daimatsu was saying. He smiled broadly and put his arm around the person’s shoulder, pulling her around to face Wataru. “This is Wataru…Wataru Mitani. You’ve met him before, though you probably don’t remember.”

  It was Kaori Daimatsu.

  She wasn’t sitting in a wheelchair anymore. She wore a knee-length sleeveless white dress that fell down over her slender legs. Her skin was dazzlingly white, and her lustrous black hair was tied in a ponytail that gleamed in the hot summer sun.

  “My daughter’s gotten much better recently,” Mr. Daimatsu said, rubbing her shoulder as delicately as if she were precious jewel. “She came out for a walk and a little fresh air today. Well, Kaori, aren’t you going to say hello?”

  The girl was staring at Wataru, as though captivated. The look in her dark eyes said that she knew she had met him somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. They had spoken, but she didn’t know what had been said. I can’t remember how, but I know that I know you.

  Even for Wataru, the memory was fading.

  Her soul is back. Her soul was returned.

  “I…” Wataru stammered.

  The little white bird on my shoulder.

  “I once snuck inside this building,” he managed at last, “and I tripped and fell. Mr. Daimatsu took care of me.”

  Once he started talking, Wataru couldn’t stop. His voice sounded strange in his own ears.

  Mr. Daimatsu laughed out loud. “That’s right, I remember that.”

  Wataru was staring at Kaori. She returned the stare. “Hello,” she said quietly.

  Give me your sword, the Demon’s Bane…It was the same voice. Those graceful hands stretched out to Wataru. Those arms that had comforted him in his sorrow at leaving Vision behind. That warm embrace had taken the pain away.

  I’ll never forget that moment. Never.

  You don’t remember me, but I remember you.

  You were the Goddess of my destiny.

  “Well now, you’ve met again for the first time,” Mr. Daimatsu said cheerfully. Kaori Daimatsu looked up at her father and smiled. Wataru thought her smile must have been brighter than the summer sun high in the sky above, the way it lit up her father’s face.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Wataru.

  Vesna esta holicia.

  Until you shine again.

  Into Vision, into the real world.

  Though a child of man knows time, life itself is eternal.

  Miyuki Miyabe was born in Tokyo and graduated from Sumidagawa High School. After working in law offices and other places, her 1987 debut title, Warera ga Rinjin no Hanzai (Crimes of our Neighbors), won the All Yomimono Newcomer Award for Crime Fiction.

  Miyabe went on to win the 45th Mystery Writers of Japan Award, for Ryu wa Nemuru (The Dragon Sleeps) and the 13th Yoshikawa Eiji Newcomer Prize for Honjo Fukagawa Fushigi Zoshi (Mysterious Tales of Hon-jo-Fukagawa) in 1992.

  Her other literary awards include the 6th Yamamoto Shugoro Prize in 1993 for Kasha (All She was Worth), the 18th Nihon SF Taisho Award in 1997 for the Gamoutei Jiken (Case of the Gamou Residence), the 120th Naoki Prize in 1999 for Riyuu (The Reason), the Mainichi Shuppan Culture Award Special Prize in 2001 for Mohou-han (Copycat Killer), and the 6th Shiba Ryotaro Prize and the 52nd Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in Literature in 2002, also for Mohou-han.

  In 2007, her Na mo Naki Doku (Nameless Poison) won the 41st Yoshikawa Eiji Literature Prize. The newest edition of Na mo Naki Doku is currently available in Japan.