2001 The Children of Bottle

by Ryohgo Narita

  “It’s cold there, isn’t it? Why don’t you come in and have some tea with me?”

  At the sound, Feldt finally regained his composure. Slowly, starting with his head, he turned around.

  He was met by the sight of an inhumanly beautiful woman—the one who’d just left the garden and gone inside a moment before—and her soft, untroubled smile.

  In the castle’s drawing room.

  Bright flames glowed in the fireplace, dimly illuminating Feldt’s bewildered face.

  Sylvie and Czes sat across from his chair, on the opposite side of the table. They’d wanted to call Nile and Maiza, too, but they hadn’t been able to find them anywhere. They’d considered looking a bit longer, but in the end, thinking that being surrounded by the four of them would only scare the kid, Sylvie and Czes had decided to talk to him by themselves.

  “Let’s see, where should I start? I’m Sylvie, and this boy is Czes. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Uh, um…I’m Feldt Nibiru.”

  Even though he was flustered by this completely unexpected development, Feldt gave his name honestly. In the worst case, he’d thought the negotiations might not go well and he’d be taken prisoner. He’d never imagined he’d be welcomed so cordially and asked into the drawing room.

  “Did you come to watch us?”

  The boy beside Sylvie turned an ironic smile on Feldt. He’d nailed it. With no way to argue, Feldt looked down and said nothing.

  “Czes, hey. Don’t say it like that! After he took us up on our invitation and everything…”

  “But—”

  “Honestly. Don’t glower at me. You’ll ruin your sweet little face.”

  “……!”

  Sylvie laughed merrily. Czes blushed scarlet and fell silent. That said, since they’d been speaking English, Feldt had no idea what was going on.

  “I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it, all right? Oh, and the only one of us who doesn’t understand your language is Nile—the one in the mask—so it’s okay to relax and just talk.”

  That was what Sylvie said, but Feldt didn’t know where to begin. He couldn’t abruptly say, “Get out of the village,” and the atmosphere wasn’t the sort that would let him begin negotiating about the sacrifices, either. In any case, if Elmer—the most important demon—wasn’t here, it wouldn’t do any good.

  After he’d thought as much, something abruptly occurred to Feldt. Were these two also monsters, like Elmer?

  That doubt gradually deepened, and he took the initiative in the conversation for the first time.

  “Um…the man named Elmer… How are the two of you related to him?”

  It was a rather roundabout question, but Sylvie immediately understood what Feldt was driving at. Smiling a bit mischievously, she began, quite matter-of-factly, to tell him the truth.

  “This little guy and I, and the other two, are basically the same as Elmer. Immortal bodies that will heal up right away, no matter how badly they’re hurt—do you know what I’m talking about?”

  She’d struck the heart of the matter so easily that Feldt couldn’t decide how to react right away. It was the conclusion he’d feared most, and yet the woman had spoken so serenely that he couldn’t think of it as a serious problem.

  “Immortal… You really are…demons…then?”

  Holding back the excitement that was gradually building inside him, Feldt timidly asked the rest of the question. In response, Sylvie answered him as readily as before.

  “We’re not demons, and we aren’t devils either. We’re proper humans…although we did have help from someone we call a demon. Let’s see… Since we’ve made friends with you, maybe I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Wait, is it okay to tell him that?”

  Startled, Czes tried to stop her, but Sylvie nodded, smiling.

  “Sure, it’s fine. Telling him won’t do any harm, and whether he believes it is up to him. Oh, but if you believe in demons, this story will be easy to believe, too.”

  On hearing that, Feldt spoke as if something had just occurred to him.

  “That’s right… The demon in this castle—the one that was here before Elmer came. What happened to it?”

  Wide-eyed, he’d asked the question quite clearly. Sylvie and Czes exchanged a mystified glance.

  “What demon?”

  “Huh? Um…don’t you know? It’s been living in this castle for over ten years now.”

  “Elmer didn’t say anything about a demon… I haven’t seen anything that looks like one, either.”

  “……”

  For a little while, Feldt gazed into Sylvie’s eyes, but before long, he drew a breath, seeming somehow relieved.

  “Is that right…? Then I guess it really was just a rumor…”

  Murmuring the second half of the sentence as if to himself, Feldt looked down, apparently relieved.

  “That must have sounded strange. I’m sorry. Um…could I ask you a question, too? What are you…?”

  As he changed the subject, Feldt’s voice was clear. From his tone, it was obvious that the fear and unease he’d felt mere moments ago had faded significantly. This seemed to relieve Sylvie slightly, too. Smiling gently, she began to speak to the young villager.

  “Let’s see, where should I start? It’s already been more than three hundred years since it happened, you see…”

  As Sylvie related the events of the past, images rose in the minds of the two boys in the room. Feldt, who’d never seen the outside world, wasn’t able to see those sights clearly, but nostalgic pictures, complete with sound, played back in Czes’s mind.

  The scene was very beautiful, and sad, and it spread out forever and ever…

  “Let me just say this: I can’t see a thing.”

  “You don’t need permission to say that. I’m turning on a light now…”

  Having gone down the library staircase, Nile and Maiza were underground, and naturally there was no light there. Holding a flashlight he’d brought in from the car to help them explore the castle, Maiza gradually illuminated the depths of the passage.

  The narrow corridor ran in a straight line from the entrance. About ten yards in, the stone walls cut out, and the passage became even narrower, with walls made of something like packed earth.

  Exchanging nods, the two men slowly set off into the depths of the tunnel.

  As they walked through cold, cloying air, the pair organized what they knew about the village.

  “Good lord, what is this forest, anyway? An isolated village, a strange castle, sacrificial girls, and those books… You are certain this is private land?”

  “Yes. Officially, it’s owned by one of this country’s wealthy citizens, but…as I mentioned to Czes and Sylvie earlier, he doesn’t seem to be conducting any particular business.”

  “A rich, spoiled young pup burning through his inheritance, hmm? With all this property, I expect they will be able to live stably for three generations yet… Although no doubt that fourth generation will be miserable.”

  While Nile matter-of-factly predicted strangers’ lives, Maiza was reviewing what he’d seen of the village and puzzling it over in earnest.

  “Still… This is true of Elmer’s ornaments as well, but there were some things in the village that clearly couldn’t have been made here.”

  “Hmm. What do you mean?”

  “Besides… The village headman told me I ‘wasn’t one of the traders’ companions.’ If you think about it, it’s possible that they get minimal oil and everyday commodities from these traders… But assuming the traders really exist, where on earth do they come from?”

  “I see… That certainly is odd.”

  Maiza’s concern hadn’t been limited to that point, and he kept sending more questions Nile’s way.

  “In the first place, it’s strange, isn’t it? Both this castle and that village… Given the scale of the village, crude observations aside, it should be possible for satellites that perform detailed analyses to capture it clearly…and be
sides, they take all sorts of aerial photos these days. Some public agency somewhere must know exactly how this private land is being used.”

  “Hmm. Is that how it goes?”

  “Yes, particularly since it’s strange for an individual to own territory this vast in the first place. I’d think the public eye would be quite strict.”

  They’d reached the beginning of the dirt walls, and the two tall men stooped slightly and went on. It seemed to be wet red clay, and the humidity it gave off was so great that moisture could have started dripping from the ceiling at any moment. However, the two of them weren’t worried about getting their clothes dirty, and they were absorbed in their conversation.

  “In other words, someone’s exerting pressure from that angle?”

  “I can imagine someone would want to. This is the twenty-first century, and that village is cut off from the outside world. No matter what the circumstances are, attacks from human rights groups and the media would probably have terrifying effort behind them.”

  “Three hundred years ago, this sort of thing was fairly common, but…”

  “That hasn’t changed. The conditions are different, that’s all. Strange stories are always generated and suppressed to suit their eras.”

  “I see. True. By the way, Maiza, can you use the Internet?”

  “I don’t use it much. Or rather, for the past thirty years, I’ve never stayed in one place for long. Besides—this is rather embarrassing, but I’m a bit intimidated by an environment in which the information and experience we spent three centuries accumulating can travel around the world in a single day… Although, when I called them a little while ago, I learned that several of the men in my syndicate are quite addicted to it.”

  “Of our group, Huey is sure to have mastered it.”

  “When we leave this village, I expect Elmer will be overjoyed to buy a computer as well.”

  While they talked about pointless things, the pair reached the end of the passage.

  At some point, the walls had changed from earth to stone again, and in the wall on the left at the very back, several stones protruded like a ladder. When they turned the light on the ceiling, they saw a square hole with a cover made of some sort of rock.

  “Apparently we’re supposed to climb up.”

  “Allow me to venture a wager: It will be a graveyard. Everyone knows these things usually lead to graveyards.”

  “In that case, I say it’s beside the well that was around the back of the castle.”

  After cheerfully announcing their predictions, Nile went up the vertical rock ladder and carefully lifted the stone cover. Dust showered down like rain, and Maiza involuntarily put up both hands to shield himself below.

  At the same time, the stone cover began to open, and dim light filtered between his fingers.

  Nile stuck the top half of his head up to peer through the crack under the stone, examining his surroundings for a short while…but before long, he pushed the stone up all the way and spoke, satisfied, in the sunlight.

  “Let me just say this: I win.”

  It was in fact a graveyard, surrounded by thick woods. In the distance, through the gaps in the dense trees, they could see the back of the castle. It hadn’t felt as if they’d walked a significant distance, but they’d come farther from the castle than they’d anticipated.

  “I guess I lose.”

  Murmuring regretfully, Maiza took a look around at the scenery he’d emerged into.

  It was a small graveyard, and he didn’t see any road that led to it or any fence around its perimeter. Five or six gravestones were hidden among the trees, and if they’d been walking through the area in the ordinary way, they would probably never have seen them.

  Most of the tombstones had no inscriptions; however, the one right in front of the stone Nile had pushed up had been engraved with an odd passage. It was written in an antiquated version of the country’s language, as though the villagers’ speech had been converted into text.

  Below sleeps one who could not become fully human.

  Compared to the condition of the gravestone, the inscribed epitaph didn’t seem to have eroded all that badly. It had probably been engraved at some point in the last few decades, at the very earliest.

  Maiza was curious about the meaning of that inscription, but Nile—who couldn’t read it—seemed to have been bothered by something else for a while now. Neatly settling the stone lid he’d lifted back into place, he checked on something with Maiza.

  “Let me ask you, Maiza: Did you notice it, too?”

  For a moment, the question bewildered the man, but Maiza soon grasped its meaning and nodded.

  “Then…that really wasn’t my imagination?”

  “Mm…”

  The whole time they were walking through the underground passage, they’d felt uneasy.

  The passage had been completely straight and empty. Aside from stone and earth, there had been nothing there, but—

  They’d felt the presence of something besides themselves.

  Not a mole or bat or anything like that, but not quite human, either. They had no idea what it might look like physically, but from the feel of the air around them, they’d instinctively sensed that something was there.

  It had felt as if a ponderous gaze was pressing down on them from all sides. Precisely because they’d sensed it, the two of them had taken care not to let their conversation trail off until they’d passed through the corridor.

  “Let me just say this: Back then, I am positive that there was something near us.”

  “…The demon, you mean?”

  “Not possible.”

  “Well, it was probably our imagination.”

  “Hmm. Let us say that it was.”

  For a short while, the two of them looked at each other. Before long, though, they smiled as if to laugh at themselves, then began to push their way through the trees back toward the castle.

  …Sensing some unsettling presence under the closed stone cover all the while.

  “Then…you became an alchemist just for that, Miss Sylvie?”

  “No, that wasn’t it.”

  In the drawing room at the old castle, Sylvie and the others were still chatting. At first, Feldt had listened attentively but timidly. However, as the conversation progressed, he’d gradually grown absorbed in the “past” she spoke of… Or, more accurately, in the entire outside world she told him about. Words he didn’t understand popped up here and there, and when he realized they were all things that were “outside,” an intense curiosity welled up from deep inside himself.

  It wasn’t clear whether Sylvie had registered what the boy was feeling. She just kept smiling at him with the same alluring eyes.

  “I grew interested in the fairy tale of eternal beauty through a children’s story I read as a little girl. As a rule, the people who try for that sort of thing are witches or wicked queens. But, you see, I had a thought: Wouldn’t it be all right if at least one person in the whole world made a fairy tale like that come true?”

  When she’d spoken that far, the emotions in Sylvie’s eyes changed slightly. The only one who noticed the trace of sadness in them was Czes, who knew her past.

  “When I told the boy I loved about this, he said, ‘People are more than just looks.’ He also told me I was cute enough just as I was, and that once we were both immortal, he wanted to get married and stay together forever and ever. But, you know, for that very reason…I wanted to become the most beautiful girl in the world, and then marry him. I wanted him to be able to boast that his family was the most beautiful anywhere. It’s silly, isn’t it? And so—back then, I didn’t drink the liquor of immortality.”

  At that point, Sylvie looked up into space, as though recalling a fond memory.

  Feldt seemed to sense something in her behavior. He murmured a question, as if it was hard for him to ask.

  “Um…that person… Where is…?”

  “You saw the man with glasses, didn’t you? His name i
s Maiza.”

  On hearing that, the boy was relieved: Her wish had come true, and they were living together even now, safe and sound. However—she hadn’t finished speaking.

  “It was his little brother. I told you about that Szilard person earlier, remember? They say he was the one that man ate first.”

  “Oh……”

  Sylvie’s smile was faintly melancholy, and Feldt couldn’t think of anything to say to her.

  Maybe Sylvie noticed this. She immediately recovered her captivating smile and spoke to Feldt, fluttering her hands.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Don’t worry about it. Yes, let’s talk about something else.”

  At Sylvie’s words, Feldt hesitated for a little while, then slowly responded.

  “It may be strange to ask about something like this, but…”

  Averting his eyes as if he was a little embarrassed, Feldt put his wish into words. His tone held none of his earlier fear of Sylvie and the others. It simply brimmed over with curiosity.

  “Please tell me—about the outside. What sort of place is it? I want to know…so much more.”

  From the shadow of the door, I listen to Mistress Sylvie and Master Feldt’s conversation.

  I know it’s wrong, but I’m terribly curious.

  And once again, I think, Just maybe…

  At first, Master Feldt seemed wary of Mistress Sylvie and the others, but now he looks as if he is truly enjoying himself. Master Feldt has always hated Master Elmer and me less than the other villagers did, but from the way his voice sounds now, he seems to have no loathing at all for Mistress Sylvie and the rest.

  I imagine a certain outcome. How many decades has it been since I did something so pointless? I’ve visualized futures I hoped for before now, only to be betrayed, over and over.

  Still, this time… This time, I feel as if it will come true.

  Until yesterday, every time I tried to imagine a future, the pain had gotten in the way.