Budding Star

by Annie Dalton

  “So? Rellies aren’t always all that,” I told him. “But you can meet a total stranger and immediately you know they’re your family. Like, if Reuben here ever needed me, I’d just drop everything and go.”

  “Ditto, Beeby,” Reuben murmured.

  The hermit’s voice softened. “And that’s how you feel about this girl?”

  “She needed us,” I explained huskily. “So we came.”

  The old man shook his head. “If you want to save this girl’s soul, you must walk the Demon Road.”

  That’s just a name, I told myself quickly. It’s not used by real demons.

  “The road will lead you to the Palace of Endless Night. That is where the girl you seek is held captive. I would take you myself, but unfortunately I have business elsewhere. My blessings on your mission.”

  “But how do we—”

  He’d gone. No shimmer, no puff of smoke. Just gone.

  “…find the Demon Road?” I asked the empty space. I almost stamped. “Can you believe that! He was a wizard after all! This world is just TOO scary.”

  “I don’t think he was your average hermit,” Reuben agreed.

  “Jessica said PODS can cloak their vibes in Limbo, and I totally forgot. He could have been a Dark agent deliberately leading us away from Tsubomi.”

  Reuben shook his head. “He gave us his blessing. No PODS would do that.”

  I folded my arms. “So if he wasn’t PODS and he wasn’t a wizard, what was he brewing in that manky pot?”

  Reuben investigated the pan still steaming beside the fire, turning back to me with a grin. “Smells like tea.”

  We unrolled the map so we could check our progress.

  Reuben blinked. “Now where did that come from?”

  A glimmering green line had appeared to the left of the first track. The butterfly pulsed meaningfully over the new road.

  I stared at it. “How come it didn’t show up till now?”

  “I have no idea,” Reuben admitted. “But as you see, the butterfly has spoken. A more useful question might be, are we up for this?”

  “Totally!” I said brightly. “I want to go back to school and tell everyone we walked the Demon Road all the way to the Palace of Endless Night!”

  “Psst,” I added in a whisper. “That was my angel talking before. My legs are pure jelly, how about yours?”

  “Pure and utter jelly!” he admitted.

  “We’ll do it on three!” I told him. “One, two, THREE.”

  We both made a wild synchronised leap to the left.

  We’d been walking through a summer world of birds and flowers and sweet-earth smells; old-time Japan at its sunny best. The instant we set foot on the Demon Road, this changed. It was the same landscape, yet now it felt hideous and ominous. Even the air was hideous - heavy and clammy, making it hard to breathe. And the chirping of summer insects that I had barely noticed previously, now sounded like a v. v. disturbing track on one of Brice’s Astral Garbage CDs.

  You know on a sunny day, when a cloud unexpectedly covers the sun, how all the world’s colours suddenly look deeply wrong? It was like that. Even the shrines felt wrong, with icky dark stains splattered on nearby tree roots and surrounding stones.

  I could feel myself getting more and more twitchy. When absolutely everything feels creepy, it’s hard to know if something’s normal creepy, or, you know, creepy. All at once everything, even the Astral Garbage insects, went silent. At the same moment I realised the sun was starting to set.

  Was I tempted to turn back? Duh! Was I ever!! But we had come to save Tsubomi, so we just kept going.

  In the fading light, the Demon Road had acquired a green glimmer that made me think of poisonous slime. Maybe it was psychological, but I was suddenly aware of an icky gluey sensation under my bare tootsies.

  We’d been climbing steadily for over an hour. It was inevitable we’d have to go down at some point. Suddenly the slime trail veered off sharply downhill through a most unpleasant-looking grove of trees.

  “I guess it’s onwards and downwards to the Palace of Unending Night then?” I said bravely.

  “I think you’ll find that’s actually the Palace of Endless Night, Beeby,” Reubs corrected, taking off a girl from our class.

  “Imagine having to deliver parcels to that address!” I giggled. “Care of The Dark Lord, Palace of Endless Night, beside the Demon Road.”

  “Imagine the kind of parcels!” Reuben said darkly.

  Cracking nervy jokes to hide our growing panic, we took the sinister left-hand fork.

  Angels have an excellent relationship with trees as a rule. We like their vibes, they like ours. Not these trees, however. These trees had absolutely gone over to the Dark side; I’m not kidding. I twice tripped over roots that I swear hadn’t been there a second before, and don’t even get me started on the sound effects - whisperings, gibberings, mutterings, moans. It didn’t matter how fast you spun round, you could never see who or what was doing it.

  “Do you think this is like some form of cosmic balance?” Reuben suggested, warily checking over his shoulder. “We’ve had the helpful spirits, now we’re meeting up with the unhelpful ones.”

  “Could we please talk about spirits when there’s a bit more light, please?” My voice came out abnormally high.

  “Do you think demons secrete something from their glands that causes the road to glow like this, or is it like, an energy thing?” Reuben mused.

  “Could we please not say the D-word, either, please!” I squeaked.

  The hill was now sloping so steeply that I was getting vertigo just looking down. By the time we emerged back into what was left of the daylight, it was impossible to trudge at our normal pace. Soon we were literally hurtling downhill, skidding and scattering stones in a mad rush.

  Bare seconds before we reached the bottom, Reuben said, “Oh, what!” and we slithered to a standstill in a shower of gravel.

  Below us was an old riverbed that must have dried up years ago. The ground was littered with rubble that had been washed here in the days when there was still a fast-flowing river. If I squinted against the evening light, I could just make out a faint sheen glistening on the bottom of the riverbed like a thin layer of evil lime jelly, Marching across pebbles, and possibly old skulls and bits of human elbow, the Demon Road disappeared into the mouth of a huge dark underground cavern.

  “I didn’t realise that first bit was the scenic part,” Reuben said gloomily.

  “Guess he must be a really dark lord,” I said, attempting humour.

  Some kind of animal moved down in the riverbed, catching my eye. I watched it vaguely. There seemed to be quite a few down there. Suddenly I realised what I was seeing.

  ” Reuben! Those aren’t animals, they’re children!”

  The sun was so low in the sky, we were half blinded by this time, so it took us a while to figure out what the little kids were doing.

  “Some of those rocks are bigger than they are,” Reuben muttered. “What kind of game involves lugging big boulders?”

  “Someone should tell them to go home before it gets dark. It’s way too late for kids to be out. “

  We slithered the rest of the way down the mountain.

  Close-to, the scene was even more surreal. Hordes of little children, some hardly more than babies, were frantically building a tower on the riverbank. They rushed about, feverishly collecting stones and piling them on their visibly unstable construction. From the children’s constant scared glances at the cavern, it seemed likely that the thing they were frightened of lived in there.

  “Hi,” Reuben said in a sympathetic voice. “You’re working very hard.”

  But the kids went on desperately piling on boulders as if he hadn’t spoken.

  Normally, different sized rocks would make different kinds of sounds when you set them down. But in this dimension, every single stone landed with the same identical clack.

  “It’s probably time to go home now,” I hinted. “It’s
getting dark and you must be getting hungry.”

  Some of the little ones started whispering among themselves. With their matted hair and mud-coloured clothes, they looked like they’d been formed out of the dried mud of the riverbed.

  There was something seriously off about these kids, I thought. Their skin was crusted with dirt from the riverbed, so it was hard to tell for sure, but it totally didn’t seem like a healthy colour.

  “Is it just this light, or do they look sort of blue to you?” I murmured to Reubs.

  “Pick up the pace, you lot!” yelled one of the older boys. “We’ve got to finish this before it gets dark.”

  One little girl burst into tears. “You always say that” she wailed. “But we never do!”

  The boy can’t have been more than ten, but he tried to control his panic, and bent down to comfort her. “It’ll be different this time!” he promised. “You’ve all worked really well today. This is the best tower we’ve ever built. The gods have got to be pleased with this one.”

  The small girl wiped her nose on her mud-coloured sleeve. Her eyes filled with a kind of hungry longing. “And they’ll really let us through the gate this time?”

  He darted an anguished glance at the cave. “Yes, if you work fast.”

  “Will we see gates crusted with precious pearls?” she persisted.

  “Yes, and the gates will swing open, ” the boy gabbled, “and they’ll let us into the Pure Land, and we’ll live happily ever after. Now MOVE!”

  “The Pure Land,” Reuben whispered. “Isn’t that one of the names for Heaven?”

  I felt all the tiny hairs stand up on my arms. “Reubs! I think these kids are—”

  Then I broke off. A small boy was creeping closer, clutching two enormous stones against his skinny little chest. He stared up at me with an awed expression. “You’re so pretty,” he said reverently. “You must be from the Pure Land, like Jizo.”

  He was exactly like a normal child, except for his haunted eyes and the cold blue skin that showed through the dirt like mouldy lemon rind. He stretched out a grimy blue hand. I jerked away with a squeak. I don’t know why I was so freaked. Limbo is full of dead people. It’s virtually a dead people convention.

  Luckily Reuben is made of stronger stuff. He crouched down beside the little dead boy. “Those stones look heavy. Maybe you could put them down for a minute?” he suggested.

  The little kid let his stones slip to the ground without a word then he leaned very wearily against Reubs, and put his thumb in his mouth.

  Reuben patted his shoulder. “Are you sure the big boys have got their facts straight?” he asked softly. “You’ve really got to build a tall tower before you can get into the Pure Land?”

  “Yes, it’s a law.” The little kid had to take his thumb out to talk.

  “I don’t think that can be right,” Reuben said in the same calm, gentle voice. “Heaven is for everyone. All souls go home to Heaven just as soon as they’ve finished with their bodies.”

  The boy shook his head. “No, only some souls can go. We’re not allowed because it’s our fault.”

  “What’s your fault?” Reuben looked bewildered.

  “When you die young, it causes trouble for everyone,” the little boy looked deeply ashamed. “That’s why we have to be punished.”

  “For being dead?” I said in horror. “In what sick world does that make sense?”

  The little boy tried to smile. “Don’t worry. Soon we’ll build a really good tower, and the gods will forgive us and open the gates into the Pure Land.”

  He glanced hopefully at the children, madly piling on stones. Clack. Clack. Clack. To anyone over ten, it was heartbreakingly obvious what was going to happen.

  Poor mites, I thought, living out here in this horrible place, building towers that are totally doomed to fall down.

  I crouched beside him. Even I couldn’t be scared of a dead kid who still sucked his thumb. “Maybe we could help you build it,” I suggested.

  I heard him suck in his breath. “No! That’s like cheating. We have to do it on our own. If we cheat he’ll know.” He darted another terrified glance towards the cavern. “It’s getting dark. He’ll be here any minute.”

  I had a sudden unpleasant suspicion. “Are you sure these are gods, sweetheart? Are you sure they’re not, um, demons?”

  The little boy clapped his hands over his ears. “Why did you say that?” he screamed. “You’re not supposed to SAY that!”

  The ground began to tremble. The children scattered, screaming in terror. A gust of foul-smelling wind surged out of the cavern. The wind swirled up to the tower, toppling it to the ground with a mighty roar. A hideous figure lumbered out of the cavern, brandishing a blazing torch, and howling with rage.

  Chapter Five

  Here’s a little Limbo-type quiz for you. A drooling three-eyed demon is staggering towards you, saying something deeply uncomplimentary in demon language. Do you:-

  A :Run for the hills screaming like a girl?

  B : Shin up the nearest tree and hope he’ll be gone by morning?

  C : Screw your eyes up tight and pray to wake up?

  Um, not if your name’s Mel Beeby!

  For no reason, I fell on my knees among the pebbles, and started grovelling in the bag, frantically trying to locate the peach stones. What’s weirder is that Reuben actually seemed to know what I was up to! At the exact same moment we yelled, “Catch!” lobbing some of our peach-stone stash to the older kids, who also seemed to understand exactly what was going on. We all began hurling peach stones at the demon.

  Zoom, zoom, zoom! They didn’t sound like normal peach stones, as they zipped through the air, but then they didn’t behave like them either.

  Did you know that peach stones have a magical property that makes them ideal for fending off minor Japanese demons? If someone bombarded you and me with fruit pits, we’d just get peppered with teeny bruises. When a peach stone comes into contact with a demon, though, it’s a bit more dramatic, more like sprinkling salt on a huge slug.

  Picture a demon-sized slug, staggering around the riverbed, howling in agony, as flying peach stones (zoom, zoom, zoom) made peach-stone sized holes in various unspeakable parts of its anatomy. Then picture all the demon’s insides spurting out of the holes (euw!) and the demon toppling in agonising slow motion like a tree, and finally landing with a resounding thud (WHUMP!).

  A stunned silence followed. Then all the kids went bananas, cheering, hugging each other and jumping up and down.

  “Ding, dong, the evil demon is dead,” I whispered. The kids seemed to be taking it in their stride, but I was completely baffled. “How did we know?” I hissed to Reuben. “How did we know what to do?”

  My buddy stared down at the dead demon with interest, as it slowly dissolved into icky demon jam. “How did you know to take the bag?” he inquired, sounding surprisingly matter-of-fact.

  “True.” I felt a flicker of interest. “Wonder what else I know in Limbo!”

  But before Reuben could answer, the children grabbed our hands and dragged us into their mad dance of celebration.

  We were meant to be tracking Tsubomi through Limbo, but Reubs and I both agreed that it would be v. insensitive of us to just breeze off, like, “Byee!” So we chilled with the dead kids for a while. We lit a fire in the riverbed, and Reubs gave them some tips on tower building, and when no one was looking we beamed a ton of uplifting vibes.

  After a while, though, the kids started looking uneasy.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but isn’t it time for you to go?” asked the oldest boy.

  A girl rolled her eyes at him. “They’re worried, stupid,” she explained. “They don’t like to think of us being out here on our own.”

  He looked surprised. “We’re not alone. Jizo looks after us, when he can.”

  The little boy had mentioned someone called ‘Jizo’, I remembered.

  “He doesn’t have three eyes does he?” I asked doubtfully.


  “He’s the god of all dead children,” one of the older girls explained. “He should be living in the Pure Land, but he won’t go until we’re all safely inside.”

  “Sounds like a cool god,” Reuben said. “Say hi to him, from us.”

  The oldest boy jumped up. “Take the demon’s torch with you. It’s still burning.” He tried to lift it but it was too heavy. Reuben stopped him, breaking it in two, in one smooth swift movement. Woo, I thought, but my buddy didn’t seem to think he’d done anything unusual. Calmly lighting a second torch from the first, he handed it to me.

  The boy gave us a sheepish grin. “I forgot! We’re supposed to give you this.”

  He reached inside his tattered shirt and handed me a strange little dagger.

  I thought daggers had to be made of metal, but this one was carved out of jet-black stone. Tiny Japanese characters were written on it in gold.

  “Its name is Heart Seeker,” the boy told us solemnly. “You stick it in the Dark lord’s heart,” he explained helpfully, in case the name wasn’t enough of a clue.

  The dagger gave off THE most disturbing vibe, so I quickly passed it to Reuben. He tested the blade with the edge of his finger.

  “Thanks for this,” he told the boy. “And good luck with that tower tomorrow. Remember, you want the flat stones at the bottom. Keep the bumpy ones for the top.”

  Walking carefully around the pool of demon jelly, we crossed the riverbed, holding our torches high. We looked back at the children all waving and calling goodbyes. “Ready?” said Reuben.

  Turning our back on the firelight, we walked into the dark.

  According to the spirit map, the road would lead us to the innermost core of the mountain. In practice, this seemed to involve going down and around, down and around, like descending a spiral staircase, except there were no actual stairs.

  Underground, the road’s evil shimmer had become a lurid toxic glow. Our torches showed flickering glimpses of an eerie subterranean world; sudden scary cracks in the earth that emitted spurts of stinky steam and the dark glitter of bottomless underground pools.

  Normally I’d be doing this running commentary, like, “Ooh, did you see that HUGE root that looked just like one of the seven dwarfs!” But I was too preoccupied. My thoughts had taken a most worrying turn.