by Amanda Sun
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.
“Ojousama,” 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.”
“But...it didn’t work, did it?”
Amaterasu shook her head sadly, lifting her hand to hold the Magatam
a tightly. “He became angry with Ukemochi for serving him dirty food from the earth instead of preparing nectar from the High Plains of Heaven. And so he murdered her, another kami. Our kin.” Her eyes closed, tears brimming in the corners. “I knew then how dangerous he had become.”
I thought of Jun on the tatami, sword by his side. “And so Susanou killed him.”
Amaterasu opened her eyes, gleaming like the sun. “No, child. I did.”
The thought of it made me dizzy, made the dream break into bleached-out fragments. I willed myself not to wake up. Not yet. “I don’t understand.”
“He trusted me,” Amaterasu said. “He loved me. I was the only one who could get close enough to do it. I betrayed him, Katie, to save the world.”
I struggled to stay asleep. I could feel myself lifting, rousing to the real world. “You said I would betray Tomo. Is that what you meant?”
“The mirror shows the truth,” she said. “The jewel bears the marks. The sword saves all. These three, the Sanshu no Jingi, will mark the way.”
“But Tomo isn’t Tsukiyomi,” I stammered. “We only need to keep the ink in him dormant. He doesn’t think the world is rotting, Jun does.” The sun beamed above us, the bamboo lighting in brilliant flames of white-green.
“Takahashi Jun must be stopped,” she agreed, placing the Magatama in my hands. The smooth surface felt cold against my skin. “The treasures will bring Susanou’s fate to him. Susanou’s descendants were never meant to rule. Nor were Tsukiyomi’s.”
“But Tomo doesn’t want that. He’s not like that.”
“A monster on a leash is still a monster,” Amaterasu said, her voice echoing with the sound of other voices rising on the wind. “You must kill him, before he remembers himself. Before it is too late and he hungers again. Betray him. Kill him.”
“No!” I shouted to the voices, and the light burst around me, the morning sun beaming through my bedroom window.
* * *
I remembered the dream so clearly. It didn’t fade, no matter how many other things I threw myself into. Other dreams became hazy, full of confused feelings or remembrances, but not this one. I remembered it too clearly.
In class, Suzuki-sensei wrote math problem after math problem on the board, but I found myself scribbling the three treasures in the margins of my notebook. The mirror shows the truth, she’d said. The jewel bears the marks. The sword saves all. The Sanshu no Jingi will mark the way. If it was hopeless, why did Amaterasu give the treasures to Jimmu? All this time, the ancestors of Tsukiyomi had survived. I mean, some of them had met terrible ends, but they hadn’t died as teenagers. They hadn’t destroyed the world.
Maybe the mirror, the sword and the jewel could have some kind of effect. I looked at my sketches, wondering if I needed to cross them out. I carefully ran my finger along the sword in case it was sharp, but it was only smooth, cool paper. But the mirror worked; I looked into it, and a tiny piece of my eye looked back. I held my pen tip over the mirror, watching it reflected in black and white on the page. Creepy. I scribbled out the mirror, drowning it in ink.
My phone buzzed deep within my book bag. I looked around, making sure no one had heard it. Yuki had, but she rolled her eyes. Suzuki-sensei was still lost in the problems he was copying from his paper onto the board, his shirtsleeves dusted with yellow chalk. I lifted the phone carefully out of my bag; it buzzed again in my hand.
Suzuki-sensei heard it this time, and turned around. I crammed the phone under my notebook, praying he wouldn’t see.
“Sorry, Sensei,” Tanaka said, and Suzuki stopped scanning the room, focusing on him instead. “I’m expecting a call from my parents.”
“It can wait until break, Tanaka,” Suzuki said.
“Yes, sir,” Tanaka said. He reached into his book bag and pulled out his white phone, which he turned off with a great show. Suzuki turned back to the board, satisfied.
I let out a shaky breath while Tanaka turned and winked at me. I winked back—I had the best friends ever. I reminded myself to bring some of his favorite onigiri tomorrow from the conbini.
I waited a moment, then carefully slid the phone out from under my notebook. A text from Tomo—not so surprising.
I know what to do. Meet me at the gate at lunch.—Tomo
I dropped the phone into my bag and tried to concentrate on the math on the board. He knew what to do? Had he figured out how to stop Tsukiyomi? There had to be another way. There had to.
When the lunch bell rang I grabbed my coat and quickly changed my shoes, running out to the gate.
He was there, waiting, his bangs fanned over his eyes and his bike leaning against the wall of the school.
“What do we do?” I asked, but he shook his head.
“Not here. Let’s go get a burger at the station.” He offered the seat of his bike, and I sat down and wrapped my arms around his waist as he pressed his feet against the pedals.
“Because it’s noisy there and no one will hear us?” I asked.
“No, because I’m starving and want a burger.”
Typical.
We sat in a booth at the burger place, and Tomo took a huge bite out of his before he spoke.
“I had a dream,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. I winced and passed him a napkin, and he grinned. “What, you don’t like cavemen?”
“Spill the news, not the toppings,” I said, and he rolled his eyes. “I had a dream, too.”
“Amaterasu spoke to me,” he said. “It was the clearest dream I’ve had in ages. Finally something makes sense.”
My eyes went wide. “She talked to me, too.” I took a bite of my teriyaki-and-corn burger.
“Uso,” he said. “No way. It must mean we’re on the right track. She told me we need the treasures to stop Tsukiyomi.”
“That’s...sort of what she told me,” I said, wondering how much Amaterasu had told Tomo. Had she told him I would betray him? I hesitated. There was no room for secrets anymore. “Tomo?”
“Mmm?” He sipped at his vanilla shake.
“Amaterasu...she told me that I would betray you. But I want to tell you right now, I would never do that.”
Tomo looked grim for a moment, but then shrugged. “I know that,” he said. “The dreams tell me things all the time that aren’t true.” He used his fingers to number the things he’d heard, folding them into his palm for each one. “There’s no escape, that I’m a murderer, a demon, that there’s only death. You know, the usual.” He took another sip of his milk shake.
“You’re not...freaked out by that?”
“It loses its effect after ten years.”
I shuddered. Ten years of dreams like these?
“The dreams are just dreams, Katie. You don’t have to live by their rules. But I do believe that the Sanshu no Jingi are involved. The Kusanagi is a legendary sword that could slice through dreams, even cut spirits from bodies. That’s what we need, right? To cleave Tsukiyomi from my body.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That doesn’t sound believable,” I said. “How do you cleave a spirit from a body?”
“I dunno,” Tomo said. “Maybe like in ancient times. They used to bleed a fever out of someone, right? Use the sword to cut someone, and bleed out the ink. A normal sword wouldn’t work, but the Kusanagi would. And maybe you need the mirror to see where to make the incision.”
“You sound like a manga plot.”
Tomo laughed. “Well, we don’t have many leads. Amaterasu said to seek the treasures, so that’s what I’m doing. After I finish this burger, of course.” He wolfed it down, making a big show of using the napkin. “The treasures are in Tokyo. I think it’s time for a field trip.”
“Yes and no,” I said. “Only the Magatama is in Tokyo. The mirror is in Ise, and the sword is in Nagoya.”
Tomo
blinked. “I see you’ve been researching, too. Fine, we’ll start in Tokyo, and then make our way to Nagoya and Mie Prefecture.”
“Aaand I’m totally sure my aunt will be fine with us traipsing around Japan.”
“Let me talk to her,” Tomo said.
I shook my head so fast the restaurant blurred. “How do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Okay,” he said. “Then you could tell her you’re going alone?”
“I doubt she’d agree to that, either. And how are you going to get past your dad?”
“He doesn’t care much,” Tomo said. “Anyway, Tokyo’s just a day trip. I can be back before he notices. I mean, dads. Seriously.”
My thoughts reeled. “Tomo, wait. My...my dad. He’s staying in Tokyo this weekend. He wanted me to meet him.”
Tomo tilted his head to the side and leaned back against the red pleather of the booth. It squeaked under the movement. “You want to meet the guy who abandoned you? That doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“It’s the perfect cover for the trip.”
“Katie, you don’t have to meet the man who deserted you just to give us a cover story.”
I waved my hand back and forth, another Japanese gesture I’d picked up. “It’s not like that. I’d been thinking about doing it, anyway, you know. About meeting him.”
Tomo looked at me carefully, tilting his head so his bangs fanned into his right eye. “Why would you want to do that?”
“I have a lot of questions,” I said. “About why he left. I want closure, Tomo. And, anyway, without Mom, I feel kind of...well, alone.”
“You have me,” he said, pressing his hands against the table. The sleeve of his shirt caught awkwardly on his wristband. “And you have your aunt.”
“I know,” I said. “But I can’t help but think, What if? I mean, why’s he in Japan? That’s weird, right? It must be the universe telling me something.”
“I guess,” Tomo said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “One stone, two birds, huh?”