“It’s still early spring.” Wataru appeared next to me. “See the surfers? They’re wearing suits that cover most of their body because it’s so cold.”
Farther out, I could see the black figures lying on their boards. The waves were bigger out there, but there were only a few surfers braving the temperature.
“Come on.” Goro tugged me again. “The tide pools are this way. Over by the rocks.”
“Is that a lighthouse?” I asked. Above the dunes sat a small, squat lighthouse. It was white, with the customary glass dome on top, but otherwise looked nothing like what I expected.
“It is,” Wataru said. “But it’s not used anymore.” He pointed at a huge metal tower sitting a good distance beyond it. “That’s the lighthouse now. But about a hundred years ago, the Hisaka lighthouse was the tallest building on the island.”
“Do you want to see it?” Reiji asked. He squinted toward it. “The lifeguards keep their supplies there, but it isn’t always locked. We can try it.”
I shook my head. “Not yet, I want to see the tide pools.”
The sandy beach dropped away, leaving rocks every shade of red and blue to lead to the ocean. “This way.” Dai pointed. “When I was a little boy, I found an octopus in a pool.”
My stomach clenched with excitement and I skipped my way toward the rocks. The first pool I found was a disappointment—full of water and mussels and none of the things I’d hoped for. No starfish. No octopi. Boo.
Still, I wiggled my fingers in the water and ran my hand along the mussels attached to the rocks. Even without the animals, it was interesting. Like my terrariums at home, it was a snapshot of the larger ocean.
I held my hand beneath the water, watching the waves push the water up to my wrist and then draw it away. There was a snap, and I glanced up to see Dai taking a picture of my hand. He smiled as he drew the camera from his face. “I like your hands,” he said. The sun was behind him, making him hard to make out but I could tell he’d embarrassed himself. His cheeks flushed and he swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing in throat.
“Kumiko!” Goro yelled, distracting me. He was farther out, hidden behind an outcropping of rock so I could only see the top of his head. He waved his hands in the air. “Come here!”
Quickly, I scrambled to my feet, sliding across the wet rocks toward him.
“Hold on.” Dai slung his camera over his shoulders and held his hand out so I could clamber over the rocks. Once I was safely over, he followed me.
“What’d you find?” Wataru asked and I turned to see him and Reiji picking their way toward us.
“Starfish,” Goro said.
I knelt next to him to peer inside the pool. The arms of the starfish swayed with the movement of the water, almost like it was waving. “Oh,” I breathed. “Goro.”
I sat on my bottom, crossing my legs so I could better see. My balance was off without being able to brace myself with my bad hand. “I wish I knew more about the ocean.” There were shells and tiny fish, sea grass and snails stuck to rocks, but I wanted to name them so later on, I could describe, or draw, what I saw.
Reiji squatted next to me and cleared his throat. I glanced over and he winked before pointing to himself. “Marine biologist.”
I giggled and pointed to a thick, curled worm-like creature.
“Sea cucumber,” Reiji said.
There was a little creature shaped like a Spanish conquistador’s helmet and I pointed to that. “You’ll love that one,” Reiji said. “Sea hare.”
I laughed and tilted my head, trying to make out what it was about the tiny thing that had gotten it named hare. “Does it hop across the sea floor?”
“Ha! No.” Reiji reached into the pool to carefully move aside a few rocks. Beneath one was a spiky shaped ball and I pointed to it. “Is that a plant or an animal?” It didn’t seem to be attached to anything, and yet it didn’t move with the pull of the tide the way the other plants and animals in the pool did.
“Sea urchin,” Reiji said. “It’s an animal, but it moves very slowly. You could watch it all day and it wouldn’t move.”
The bright red starfish caught my attention again. Its arms waved again and I giggled. “Can I touch that one?” I asked, not wanting to disturb or stress the animal. I’d only ever seen dead, dried starfish, but this one seemed so soft—its skin ridged but rubbery.
“Yes,” Reiji said. “Just the tip of your finger and be gentle.”
I reached forward and I heard a click from Dai’s camera again and smiled. This was my favorite day. The sun heated my back and the men I loved surrounded me. In my whole life, I’d never felt so protected—which was ironic considering I was miles from home and out in broad daylight.
The water in the pool was warm, and for a moment, I just waved my hand beneath the surface, staring at the way the water distorted the image beneath it. The starfish stopped its waving, as if it sensed my approach and I hesitantly touched its skin.
“It’s rougher than I expected,” I said, running my finger toward its center. I allowed myself one more stroke before I began to pull my hand back. From the corner of my eye, the little balled creature, the one Reiji said wouldn’t move if I stared at it all day, darted forward and pierced the skin on my extended finger. “Ouch!”
A wave of heat began at the base of my spine, shooting up my back and over my head.
“Kumiko?” Reiji asked, but my tongue was suddenly swollen and I couldn’t answer him.
My head was too heavy for my neck to hold up. The outside world seemed hazy and dark around the edges, creeping toward me like I was traveling down a dark tunnel toward a pinpoint of light.
“No!” Wataru yelled, but his voice sounded far off.
Maybe he was at the end of the tunnel. The wind kicked up and I breathed in one more breath of salty air before everything went dark and I plunged into a dream.
24
Goro
It happened in slow motion, and yet, somehow, everything happened too fast. The sea urchin, as if prodded by an electric current, zoomed toward Kumiko. A small bloom of blood, bright as a poppy, floated from her hand.
“No!” Wataru yelled.
The hat slipped off Kumiko’s head as she slid sideways, and I dove to catch her. She landed in my arms, face toward the sky, and I froze.
Her features were peaceful, her pale lips slightly open, and when I looked at her, I wasn’t repulsed. I wasn’t horrified. I wasn’t filled with rage.
I was struck dumb. She was just a girl, a normal girl with a freckle below her eye.
This was her. For the first time, I saw Kumiko’s true face.
“It must be an allergic reaction,” Dai said, his voice was tense but calm. He took her from me, scooping her into his arms and standing. “The lifeguard station will have epinephrine.” And with that, he took off. In a daze, I followed him, leaping over rocks and scrambling up the dunes and past beach grass so dry and sharp it poked through the fabric of my pants.
The door to the old lighthouse swung open as we approached and a woman stood framed in the doorway. Something about her seemed strange, off, but I was too panicked to be anything more than grateful that it was unlocked.
“Bring her inside,” the woman said, as if she’d been expecting us. Dai stepped inside, the three of us on his heels. The woman pointed to a backboard, and Dai placed Kumiko gently on it while the woman lifted the top of a red case. She turned, and I expected to see a needle in her hand, but they were empty. “Thank you,” she said, dark lips drawing back into a smile. “Now you can leave.”
“Wha—” Wataru moved first, but froze in place as the woman flicked her hand in our direction. Gripped as tightly as if a hundred hands wrapped around my arms, an invisible power dragged me backward toward the door. I fought it, kicking my feet and twisting my body, but the force was inexorable. I wasn’t strong enough to stop it.
Around me, the air filled with the yells of my friends as they, too, were pushed outside. I landed, sprawled like the st
arfish Kumiko had been so enamored with in the sand, struggled to my feet, and stopped.
The lighthouse, small, squat, and ancient, grew before my eyes, lifting into the air so high the glass enclosure seemed to touch the clouds.
“No!” Reiji yelled.
A moment later, something snaked around my ankles, dragging across my skin and piercing me through my clothes. I cried out, stepping back instinctively as a thicket of thorns and trees grew out of the sand and toward the lighthouse. Like it did to me, the vines, sharp with inches-long barbs, wound and turned around the structure.
The sky, which had been so bright and blue this morning, darkened. Clouds roiled in the sky and lightening flashed as the air filled with the sour scent of sulfur.
“We have to get her!” I yelled to my friends.
It was like the vines had taken on a life of their own, and at my words, they twisted midair and shot toward us.
I fell backward, but Dai dragged me up and pushed me back. “Move!”
“Kumiko!” Reiji cried from where he struggled with Wataru.
“We’ll come back,” Wataru yelled as he tried to pull Reiji away from the encroaching spikes and barbs.
“We can’t leave her,” I said to Dai and he hesitated. I followed his gaze toward the lighthouse, which was now completely obscured by vines. They continued to snake across the ground before entwining so tightly I couldn’t see through them. “It’s the curse. It has to be the curse.”
“We’ll come back,” Dai choked out, repeating what Wataru had said before his eyes narrowed. Lightening flashed and cast his face in shadows. “And we’ll fight.” When he finally looked at me, his dark stare was bleak.
The vines shot out again, searching, and when it touched me, it wrapped like a tentacle around my leg.
“Goro!” Dai yelled. He caught my hand before the vine could yank me into the thicket, and pulled.
The barbs sank into my skin, past muscle and into bone, but still Dai held on. “Help!” he yelled and then Reiji and Wataru were there, heels driving into the dirt. The muscles at my shoulders burned as I was wrenched in opposite directions.
As sudden as the attack had happened, it ended, and then other hands, smaller though just as strong, yanked me back.
Kumiko’s sisters dropped their hands as soon as I could stand and then, glancing at each other, they lifted their hands and shut their eyes.
I don’t know what I expected to happen. Once they'd been powerful. Maybe flames, white hot, would engulf the vines. Maybe the sisters would fly over the vines to the lighthouse.
None of those things happened.
They lifted their hands, shut their eyes, and…nothing. No magic. No power.
And they looked as gutted as I felt. Fuyumi strode toward the vines, as if she’d take them on, rip them apart with her bare hands, but Aoi stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “This isn’t our fight,” I heard her say over the wind. “It’s theirs.”
25
Wataru
Kumiko’s sisters strode toward us, fire in their eyes.
“Why don’t your powers work?” I asked, stopping them short.
“What did you do to her?” Aoi asked, ignoring my question. I’d never seen her angry and it sent me over the edge.
“What did I do?” I yanked on the ends of my hair and pointed to the lighthouse. “What the hell is that? Who is that? What is happening?” Each question came out louder and more desperate. I couldn’t get to Kumiko and the knowledge tore me apart.
“Why did you bring her to the beach?” Aoi asked. Were we going to go back and forth all day? Kumiko was hurt, lost, and…fuck! I couldn’t get to her!
“She wanted to see the tide pools,” Dai said. “A sea urchin pricked her and she had an allergic reaction. We brought her here, but then—I don’t know what happened.”
“She pricked her finger…” Aoi’s eyes widened in horror. “She’s asleep?”
Something was going on. Something I didn’t understand, or hadn’t been explained to me. “What is going on?”
Lightning flashed and Aoi glanced at the lighthouse while quickly swiping at her cheeks. “Come away from there,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Dai pointed to the building. “Your sister is in there! We’re not going to leave after you tell us how dangerous it is. We have to get her!”
“You can’t!” Fuyumi yelled. “It’s over. She’s gone!”
Dai staggered as if he’d been punched in the stomach and my knees went weak. I ended up on the ground, staring up at Aoi. “She’s dead?”
“As good as dead.” Her voice cracked. “It’s the second part of the curse.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Goro yelled. He strode toward Fuyumi, tall and imposing, but stopped himself. His shoulders heaved as if he’d run a race, and he asked again. “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have saved her.”
“Come away.” It was the first time Miori spoke. “I know you don’t want to leave her. We’ll explain everything.” I glanced over my shoulder at the lighthouse, ready to refuse. “We’ll explain and you can prepare yourselves. But you can do nothing right now. Our magic isn’t strong enough, and you have no weapons.”
Weapons? Mindlessly, I lumbered to my feet to follow the sisters away from the lighthouse. Kumiko. I’ve failed her. I’m leaving her.
The sisters led us right into our apartment as if they’d been there a hundred times. The door hadn’t closed behind us before their phones, and ours, started ringing, but by tacit agreement, we ignored them.
“Explain.” Dai crossed his arms, holding himself stiffly.
“We changed Kumiko’s curse. You know that part, right?” Miori asked as she played with her braids. She sat on the couch, narrowly avoiding the cat who leapt onto a cushion. Absent-mindedly, she began to stroke his fur while I tried to recall what I knew.
“Sort of,” I finally replied. “I just know she was cursed to be ugly.”
“No,” Aoi said, shaking her head. “No, she was cursed to be ugly and then die. She was supposed to live until her twenty-first birthday, repulsing everyone around her, and then when she pricked her finger, she’d die.”
“So she’s dead?” Reiji’s voice lifted before he covered his face with his hands and repeated so quietly, “She’s dead.”
“No,” Aoi said. “We changed the curse somehow. Made it so she could be saved.”
“True love’s kiss,” Dai said.
“Yes,” Aoi replied, her gaze darting between her sisters. “But it has to be before her twenty-first birthday.”
“She never told us,” I said and ripped the tie holding my hair back to rake my hands through the strands. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She didn’t want you to feel pressured,” Miori said. “She said it wouldn’t make any difference.”
“She wanted us to be certain we loved her when we kissed her,” Goro said quietly. When he met my stare, he quickly wiped his nose. “I knew, though. I think we all knew.” His wide eyes were horrified. “Why did we wait?”
“I thought we had time,” I got out, though the answer was pathetic. We thought there was no rush, but Kumiko must have been watching the clock tick down.
“She loved you, you idiots,” Fuyumi cried. “But you’re no different than the other princes, not seeing past her face.”
“We do love her,” I argued. “I don’t give a fuck about her face. I could have kissed her as soon as she landed.”
“So why the fuck didn’t you?” Fuyumi stared at me like I’d betrayed her, and maybe I had. But I’d betrayed Kumiko, too, by not recognizing the depth of my feelings until it was too late.
“If she knew about pricking her finger, why did she let us take her to the ocean? I never would have agreed!” Dai’s movement was abrupt and he paced the room. “Fuck!” he yelled so loudly the cat screeched and flew across the floor.
“She didn’t know.” Aoi sighed and Fuyumi went to her, wrapping her arm ar
ound her shoulders and laying her head on Aoi’s shoulder. “My parents wouldn’t let us tell her, because she already had so much to deal with. And…it was easy for so long. She never asked to go to different places, she was content in her room.”
“It’s too late now,” Goro replied, his sad gaze met Dai’s and he shrugged. “It’s too late.”
“It’s not too late.” Reiji erupted from the couch, jerking his finger toward the window. “She’s alive, right?”
“Yes,” Aoi answered. “I think so.”
“So we could still break the curse?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Aoi replied.
Reiji growled and I burst out, “How can you not know?”
“I just don’t know!” she cried. “We were children when we used our magic. I couldn’t save her when she was a baby, I don’t know if you can save her now.”
“We can.” Dai put his hand on Reiji’s shoulder. Goro stood to join him, and the three of them stared at me, as if waiting for my agreement. “There’s no other choice. We’ll save the princess.”
26
Reiji
Dai’s hand on my shoulder steadied me. I had to be strong. No more breaking down, no more doubts.
He was right—there was no other option but to save Kumiko. Outside, the weather had turned dramatically. The sun and blue sky were gone, replaced with black clouds and lightning. Beyond the houses, I could make out the tops of trees whipping in the wind.
“Is this magic?” I asked Kumiko’s sisters as I studied the world outside our home.
“I think so.” Miori spoke next to me, her voice quiet. “It prickles my skin and the air smells funny. Like rotten eggs.”
“The woman in the lighthouse,” I said, remembering the beautiful woman with the fiery eyes who’d taken Kumiko from us. “She was the witch.” My hands shook and I shoved them in my pockets to hide. Be brave.
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