by JP Romney
“Ne-san?” he said into the phone. “Ima doko? Sunny Mart? Itsu kaette kuru? Nandatte! Kagi ga shimatteru kara. Chigau, chigau. Baka ja nai, Shibaten no sei datte!” He looked at me and lifted the phone from his ear. “She hung up on me. Guess she was the one who locked the door when she went to Sunny Mart. Said the back door is unlocked.”
“It wasn’t Shibaten, then?”
The fire that animated Yori died away. His shoulders slunk back into his drab brown suit. He pocketed his phone and asked if I wanted something to eat.
“No, I’m fine,” I said.
Yori walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a musubi rice cake. He peeled off the plastic and bit lazily into the seaweed wrapping.
“You sure you don’t want anything? I have another one,” he said.
“I’m okay.”
Yori took another halfhearted bite.
“I almost forgot.” Yori reached under the counter and pulled out a pair of welding goggles. After snapping them to his face, he slumped back down and bit into the rice cake.
Sad.
“Yori, I need your help.”
“Really.”
“I have to find Shibaten.”
“No, you don’t.” Yori crumpled the plastic from his rice cake and brushed it onto the floor. “That’s the last thing anyone has to do.”
“Something is wrong with this town, Yori. You can feel it. I know you can. If we find Shibaten, we can stop the suicides.”
“I don’t know who told you that,” Yori said, “but they’re stupid. Or trying to get you killed. A kappa is crazy strong. Shibaten will break every bone in your body with one hand. If you ever see a kappa, you should run as fast as you can in the opposite direction.”
“Can’t you help me find him?”
“How would I even do that, Koda? He doesn’t usually stop by for a cup of tea. No one ever stops by to have tea with me.”
I was losing him. “Think, Yori. Do you have a memory of Shibaten? Anything we could use to find him?”
“A memory?”
“You know: Do you remember something specific about where he hangs out, or whatever?”
“Kappa live on riverbanks, Koda. That’s all I can tell you. I don’t know where Shibaten goes when he’s not killing kids. And it would be best if you didn’t either.” Yori laid his head down on the counter.
I’d completely lost him. I turned for the front door but stopped. “Who do you think will be next, Yori?”
“What?”
“Do you know what they call Aiko and Ichiro and Taiki?” I said, stepping back to the counter. “The Yamabuki Three. Don’t you see anything wrong with that?”
He lifted his head. “It’s a little creepy, I guess.”
“First of all, thank you. It is creepy. More important, it’s the ‘three’ part. Everyone’s already decided the tragedy has passed, and they fixed the number of victims at three. But you and I know Shibaten is still out there. So I’m asking, who do you think will be next?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s me, Yori. Maybe I’m Yamabuki number four. Or maybe it’s another kid who has friends and family who care about him. I have to stop this and I can’t do it without you. Help me.”
Yori pushed the goggles up onto his forehead. “I don’t know where he is, Koda. I swear to you.”
“You have to know something—anything at all. Try to remember, Yori. Please.”
My ex–school bus driver dropped his head into his hands and squeezed his skull. “Think, Yori, think!” he cried to himself. “You are the Desert Punk. You can do this. You are awesome. Where is Shibaten hiding?” He was quiet for a moment. “Ah!” he bellowed and then looked up at me. “Okay, I’ve got nothing.”
“What? I thought you were remembering!”
“Sorry. Nothing at all … Wait.” He closed his eyes again. “Nope, that … that was from a manga.” Yori opened his eyes. “I’ve never actually seen Shibaten. I’ve only felt him from a distance, so there’s no way I would have a memory of him. Like, at all.”
I exhaled loudly. Moya was wrong. Yori was a dead end. Just because you obsess over something doesn’t mean you really know that something.
“Taiki’s father met Shibaten,” Yori offered. “But then he was murdered by him. Everyone thought the guy fell into Kusaka River, but you don’t break every bone in your body by falling into slow-moving water.”
Tonight was just full of dead ends.
“It’s getting dark,” I said. “I should be getting home.”
“I wish I could help you, Koda.”
I stepped back toward the entrance. “Can I go out the front door, or do I have to climb through the window again?”
Yori walked past me and turned the lock. The door screeched when he pulled it back.
“Thanks, Yori,” I said with a half smile. “I’ll stop by some time for a cup of tea.”
Yori smiled back. “Watch yourself out there, Koda. Stay away from the river. If Shibaten’s hiding, it means he doesn’t want to be found. I doubt even a suri could track him down.”
I stopped. “A what?”
“A suri. You know, those nasty little pickpockets who feed on misery and suffering.”
“When you say ‘feed on misery and suffering’ …”
“If your brain were a pocket, these awful sneak thieves break inside and pick the coins out of it.”
“And ‘coins’ in this case are…?”
“Memories of trauma. Obviously.”
The air of Yori’s house suddenly felt close and sickeningly raw.
“Stealing traumatic thoughts and memories is only the beginning, though,” he continued. “Those are the first steps on the Tengu Road. Most suri become dark inside. They spend their days spying on people’s misfortune until all their compassion drains away. At that point there’s nothing human left inside them.”
Yori’s house started to sway. I felt light-headed.
“Their bodies eventually transform into mountain demons. They become lost. They become tengu. I’m pretty sure everyone knows this. Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I just need to get outside. I need some air.”
I pushed through Yori’s front door, stumbled to my bike, and threw on my giant helmet.
“Be careful, Koda,” Yori shouted.
I slammed my foot on the pedal and didn’t look back.
* * *
Kusaka High School was empty. There were no cars in the parking lot, but it wasn’t that kind of empty. I parked my bike under the awning and walked up the front steps. The new motion-sensing lights came on, but after a few seconds they went out again. Lights and locks were the best people could do, but when faced with the strange emptiness that hung over the high school, their best wasn’t good enough.
I walked through the side gate and over to the abandoned pool. It had been scrubbed clean just like the school gymnasium and the math room. I climbed inside and looked up at the roof. That was a huge jump. Even for a regular-sized person.
I got down on my hands and knees and inched forward, feeling the cement in the dark with my fingertips. I’d been hospitalized twice for narcolepsy since I was thirteen. I wear a helmet sometimes because I get too stressed and black out. I see weird things when that happens, but it’s not like I’m spying on people. I’m just dreaming. Like a normal person. Like any other totally normal kid.
I hit a patch of cement that was definitely colder than the rest and jerked my hand back. My hopes of normalcy shattered and fell to pieces around me. The bottom of the pool was warm from the evening sun, but the area that had been scrubbed the most felt like ice. I ran my fingers back over the spot. The longer I kept my hand there, the dizzier I felt.
This is very stressful, I thought to myself. Of course I’d be feeling a little woozy, I’m climbing into an empty pool at night, a pool where someone died. Who wouldn’t be stressed out by that? Time to ride my bike back home, eat a nice warm meal, and slip into a st
eaming bath. That sounded amazing, so I pushed myself up to my feet.
All that talk of hot food and hot water was just a mirage in my brain, though. The world around me was freezing cold. I’d fallen face-first onto the pool floor and hadn’t even realized it.
Gravel crunched loudly above me. I didn’t have to see him. I knew it was Taiki. He’d just pulled his bike into the awning. I could feel his pain.
Taiki Watanabe was too small. He was too small for his home, too small for Kusaka High, and perhaps too small to last long in this world. But he was just the right size to be the last of the Yamabuki Three.
Taiki’s mother usually worked the night shift at a local gasoline stand, and before she would leave each night she would say, “You are a beautiful boy, Taiki. You are very special and someday you will do great things.”
“Will I be tall?” Taiki would ask.
“Yes, of course, my son. You will be the tallest man in all of Japan.”
But then she would take her coat from the hook near the front door and leave him. Alone. With his father.
“You are a stupid boy,” tō-san would always say, pouring another glass of warm sake. “You aren’t special. Gods, look at you. You aren’t even normal.”
Taiki would turn to leave the room, but his father would stop him.
“Say it,” he said.
Taiki wouldn’t turn around.
“Say it,” his father repeated.
“Iitakunai.”
His father would slam the sake bottle on the table. “Say it!”
Without turning, Taiki would whisper, “Will I be tall, Father?”
Then his father would laugh and laugh until spit trailed from the corners of his mouth and Taiki would run from the room. When the house had become still, Taiki would sneak out to sit in an abandoned truck on the banks of Kusaka River. He pictured himself as a giant. Not the kind the villagers would fear, no, just a normal giant who grew tea in steppes on the mountainside.
Do you see that, child? the villagers would say. That is a real giant.
Will he eat me, Mother?
No, child, no. You shouldn’t fear that giant. He only wants to grow tea and to be left alone.
Taiki’s father died one night after falling into the river. His mother cried for days.
“What was he doing out there?” she sobbed. “He never left the house that late. He was too inebriated.”
“You may have answered your own question,” the policemen said softly.
Taiki sat in his room imagining what the accident might have looked like. The policemen were puzzled by his father’s body. The official cause of death: drowning. But that wasn’t the whole story. So many bones were shattered.
“Falling in is one thing,” Taiki heard them say. “But it looks like he was dragged along the bottom of a raging torrent. And then went over a waterfall.”
“How many raging torrents and waterfalls do we have in Kusaka?” asked one of the policemen.
“Not a single one,” the first one said.
Taiki knew something that the policemen didn’t, though. Not everything small in Kusaka is weak and scared. Some small things are powerful. Some small things are strong enough to grind a man’s bones to dust. Taiki couldn’t help picturing the look on his father’s face when the river reached out and dragged him under.
Taiki stood outside Kusaka High School and searched the windows on the second floor. There it was. The one that led to Toriyama-sensei’s art room. After Aiko and Ichiro died, the school windows were shut and latched each night. All of them except for the tiny window above the art room. Without ventilation the paint fumes will fill the school, Toriyama-sensei thought to herself. Surely that’s more dangerous. Besides, no one can get through that window. It’s just too small.
Giant, the art room window said.
“Me?” Taiki replied through the dark, frigid air.
Of course, you. You are a giant, aren’t you?
“Yes. I am a giant.”
Giants aren’t afraid of walls or balconies, are they?
“Giants aren’t afraid of anything.”
That’s right. Giants go wherever they want to go.
“Wherever.”
They climb the tallest mountains, don’t they?
“The tallest.”
Climb this mountain, Taiki. Stand above the world below. Look down on everyone like the giant you are.
“They won’t fear me?”
No, Taiki. They will love you for it.
Taiki walked around the school and stood beneath the balcony.
“I can’t jump that high.”
You are not small, Taiki. You are the tallest man in Japan. The balcony is easy to reach. It is easy for you.
The window was right. Taiki leaped with all his might and grasped the frozen concrete ledge. After struggling for a few moments, he managed to pull himself up and over the railing.
You are so close now.
Taiki ran along the balcony and slid easily through the art room window.
“How do I reach the top of the mountain?” he asked.
From the maintenance hatch. In the kitchen. The key is in your pocket.
“The key that the crow gave me?”
Yes, that is the one.
Taiki climbed to the roof of Kusaka High School.
You did it, Giant, the voice said.
“I did it,” Taiki repeated.
He walked through the flock of crows nesting on the roof and looked out over the town of Kusaka. He was taller than everyone else. Morning broke out over the mountains behind him. The birds hopped around his legs. Taiki stood and looked and smiled. For the first time in his life, he was totally and completely happy.
Nothing is impossible for you, the voice said after a while.
“Nothing is impossible.”
You could even fly if you wanted to.
“I could fly.”
To higher mountains than this. Do it, Giant. Spread your arms and soar through the air.
“With the crows?”
Fly with them, child.
“Crows fly,” Taiki said.
“A traveler on the road
Is lost.”
Taiki Watanabe spread his arms as wide as he could. He didn’t notice the crowd below at all. The crows lifted up, storming away into the sky. The last of the Yamabuki Three followed them. Over the roof. Over the sidewalk. Above the fence that ringed the freezing pool. Until the moment he landed behind me, Taiki soared with the birds.
14
It was long after dark when I finally walked into the house that night. Father had gone to bed, but Mother was waiting up for me. Well, sleeping up for me. She was snoring on the floor in the sitting room with a paperback novel in her hand. She’d probably been like that since five o’clock. Did I mention my parents are super old?
“Okaeri,” I whispered to her. “It’s time to go up to bed, Okā-san.”
She looked up and smiled at me.
“You took the long way home from school,” she said, totally unaware of what time it actually was.
“Yes, Mother, I did.”
I helped her to her feet.
“Good night, Koda. There’s shiitake in the refrigerator if you’re hungry.”
Nope. Never hungry enough to pop open a bag of snacking mushrooms.
“Oyasumi nasai,” I said.
“Oyasumi,” she said back.
I was exhausted and slept through the whole night without dreaming at all.
My parents were both gone when I came downstairs the next morning. That wasn’t so unusual for a Saturday. Since the cycle ends in October, they would both be harvesting the remaining shiitake from oak logs stacked outside the house.
I ate a bowl of rice and miso soup, and sat outside on the front steps. I breathed in the mountain air and tried to push yesterday out of my mind. The haiku wouldn’t budge, though. During class breaks Aiko used to stand on the balcony and talk to a three-legged crow that wasn’t there. I figured t
he poem was just something she’d made up. But then Ichiro said it in the math class, and Taiki said it on the roof. I wasn’t so sure it was a haiku anymore. It sounded more like a warning. Or a cry for help.
“Crows fly.
A traveler on the road
Is lost.”
If people are getting lost on roads in this town, maybe it would be best if I found a new place to walk. I should listen to Yori. Whatever I am, nothing good will come from following this road to its end.
“Koda,” my mother called out to me.
I looked up and saw her pushing a baby carriage from the direction of Route 33. I stood up and unlatched the front gate.
“I brought you your favorite treat, Koda.”
My mother handed me two shopping bags and then parked the carriage in the carport. Parked it. We do have a truck, but since my mother’s vehicle of choice is a baby carriage she purchased ten years ago, the truck was moved to the side of the house to make room.
“Your treat is in that one,” she said, pointing to one of the bags.
“Oh, Milky … yep, that’s my favorite all right.”
No, it’s not. I mean, it was. When I was six. Old people always seem to be stuck in the past. They tell the same stories about you over and over and over again, and they’re always from when you were six.
It’s true that Milky is a very popular candy in Japan. It may be the most popular candy along with Pocky sticks and Kit Kat bars. But once I turned seven, something about the bag seemed really weird. There’s this cute girl on the front—Peko-chan. She’s got pigtails and big eyes. She’s licking her lips with this huge smile on her face and staring off to the side. But just above that, there’s the slogan for Milky candies.
ミルキーはママの味
Milky: The Flavor of Mom
Wait. The Flavor of Mom? What exactly is Peko-chan licking her lips at? Suddenly I felt like I’d outgrown milky mom candies.
“Will you be seeing Haru today?” my mother asked as we walked inside.
“I think so.”
“I hope the boy’s all right and nothing was too damaged in the fire.”
I set the groceries on the counter next to the sink.
“What fire?”