by C. J. Anaya
“How did you even get out of there? Kagami is enchanted. You shouldn’t have been able to leave with Hope in your possession.” Victor folded his arms across his chest fully expecting an explanation.
My father hesitated and cast a furtive look at Tie. No one noticed it though because almost everyone was looking at me. Nor did they see the almost imperceptible shake of the head Tie sent my father.
“Let’s just say a desperate father has his ways. Julia and I took Hope from that awful place and left Japan as soon as we could. We never talked about it again.”
“Dr. Fairmont, Hope isn’t your daughter,” Ms. Mori said in exasperation. “Your real daughter did, in fact, die in her mother’s womb. Her death and subsequent stillbirth allowed the statue that Hope had been trapped in for over a millennium to break open, releasing her spirit into the body of your baby girl, giving her a second chance at life. Although Hope may not remember it at this moment, she lived once before in an age and place now long forgotten by almost everyone.”
An unfamiliar feeling of rage shot through me. Finding out you’re a major player in a prophecy involving a battle between the forces of good and evil is one thing. I think I was actually capable of eventually accepting that kind of bad news. Being told my father wasn’t really my father was enough to break me where I stood.
He was everything to me. Never once in my entire life did I ever feel he didn’t belong to me or I to him. We were family. Our bond was tighter than most families. That had to mean something, didn’t it? It had to mean I was his daughter.
I placed my trembling hand on my father’s shoulder and prayed he wouldn’t push it away. Instead of rejecting me he pulled me close and held me as tight as he could.
“I don’t care who Hope’s spirit belongs to,” he said vehemently. “She’s my daughter, and as far as I’m concerned this conversation is over. I’ve heard enough.”
He grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the door. Within seconds Ms. Mori and Victor stood in front of us.
“Dr. Fairmont, I know this is a lot to take in, but you must understand the danger she now faces. Amatsu knows where she is. We have to keep Hope safe until she’s ready to take her place beside Victor,” she said in a placating tone.
My father visibly bristled and moved me behind him. I accidentally backed up into Angie who gave me a fierce grin. I could have sworn she was enjoying this.
I peeked out from behind my father to look at Victor and for the first time realized that if everything Ms. Mori said was true, I was supposed to live the rest of my life as Victor’s wife. No wonder he’d been so annoyed with Tie’s flirtatious advances. It explained many things, including the hungry kiss he’d given me earlier. How long had he been waiting to do it? Centuries? A full millennium? Even now, the look he gave me was filled with yearning, but all I could think about was Tie.
“I will protect my daughter,” my father emphatically stated. “I’ve managed to keep her hidden from you people all these years, and I can do it again if I have to. As far as healing the veil is concerned, I’m afraid your kami friends are going to have to think of some other solution to their problem. It’s no longer Hope’s concern. Come on sweetheart. We’re getting out of here. Angie, let’s get going.”
“You got it doc,” Angie said with a bright smile.
“You can’t do this. You have no right to do this,” Ms. Mori cried out. “She belongs to us.”
“She belongs to herself,” my father roared. “She will determine her own destiny and decide her own fate. You’ve already messed up one of her lives, and you are not going to mess up this one. You people are immortal! You’ve had a thousand years to work on some other contingency plan. If you haven’t done that by now, there’s no one to blame but yourselves. You are not going to lay this problem at my daughter’s feet. We’re done here.”
“What is Tie’s role in this?” I said.
My question caught everyone off guard. Ms. Mori looked at Tie—who still stood behind all of us—and tried to say something, but for the first time since I’d known her she seemed at a loss for words.
Tie’s gaze captured me, pleading with me to remember something profoundly important—as if I already held the answer to that question and many others I hadn’t yet voiced.
Victor finally spoke into the silence. “Tie is the god of love and marriage. He unites couples together through his blessing and the gift of a cherry blossom. He’s merely here to bless our happy union.”
My father stiffened at my side. I’d never even dated a boy let alone talked about marrying one. The subject couldn’t have come up at a more inopportune time.
There was more to it than that, though. The room positively itched with secrets left unspoken, but no one seemed willing to reveal the truth. I was only being told so much. Clearly, I needed to find out the rest on my own.
“Musubi-no-kami,” I said, addressing Tie.
“At your service, my lady.” He gave me a gallant bow.
“No wonder you argued with me in class. I criticized your very existence.”
“It was a bit offensive, but I can’t expect you to accept what you don’t understand. I have an important role to play, and I take it very seriously.”
“Yes, you force people to fall in love with each other by giving them magic flowers. Is that what you’re here to do? Give me a flower, and all your problems are solved?”
How galling. The very idea infuriated me. I rebelled at the thought of anyone, especially Tie, making me feel something I wasn’t sure I wanted to feel.
“No, of course not,” Victor protested. “He’s simply here to help protect you and give our union his blessing.”
Tie opened his mouth to say something, but Victor sent him a warning look.
“We are leaving now,” my father said.
Angie and I followed my dad out of the den and down the hallway toward the front door.
“Dr. Fairmont, I beg you to reconsider. Think of what you’re doing. Hope’s life will be placed in jeopardy because you can’t accept what is meant to be,” Ms. Mori cried out.
“Don’t stand there and pretend you actually care about my daughter. All you care about is strengthening your precious veil.” He rounded on her and pointed an accusing finger at her face.
“I care about Hope just as much as you do,” she cried out, close to tears.
“It’s not the same thing. She’s not your child,” he shot back.
“She is my child!”
That stopped everyone in their tracks.
“I’m the empress who gave birth to her over a thousand years ago.” That admission cost her emotionally. I sensed a maelstrom of turbulence within her system.
“Wow,” Angie said. “I feel like I’m watching an episode of Jerry Springer. My money’s on Dr. Fairmont. Pretty sure his paternity test will prove positive.”
Ms. Mori’s announcement took the fight right out of my father. He had absolutely no idea how to respond to her startling revelation.
I couldn’t help but feel completely detached from Ms. Mori’s statement. How was she still alive if she’d been mortal when she gave birth to me a thousand years ago? It was quite the bombshell to unload. Maybe a person who’d never had a mother like Julia Fairmont might have felt some kind of connection to this woman’s claim of motherhood, but all I felt was annoyance that she’d even dared to try. Nobody could take the place of my mom. Ms. Mori may have birthed me a thousand years ago, but she was most definitely not my mother.
My father was still standing there silent; no doubt trying to figure out what his next move should be.
I didn’t know what was supposed to come next, but the thought of leaving without getting any rest made me want to cry.
“Look,” I said wearily, “let’s just stay here tonight. You’re tired. I’m tired. Angie looks like she’s about ready to face plant into the nearest couch cushion.”
Angie nodded in agreement.
“Let’s take a break, get a good night’s slee
p, and talk about this in the morning,” I said. “Ms. Mori, do you have room for all of us?”
She couldn’t have looked more delighted.
“Of course I do, dear. You’ll be safe here with Victor and Tie watching over you. Tomorrow, we can straighten everything out. Okay?” She directed her question at my father.
I was expecting another argument from him. Instead, he gave Ms. Mori a tired nod, and then grudgingly followed her out of the study. He’d agreed to this new arrangement far too quickly, considering his previous rage and uncertainty regarding our current company. I wondered what he had up his sleeve.
What was he was planning?
One thing my father insisted on was a tour of the house. I assumed he wanted to locate any and all available exits for future reference. The absence of Ms. Mori and my father left behind an uncomfortable silence. I had no idea what to say to Victor and did my best to avoid eye contact as much as possible. Tie didn’t seem to notice the awkwardness of the situation, or if he did, he most likely couldn’t have cared less.
“This is great,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to attend a slumber party.” He waltzed over to me and threw a casual arm around my shoulder, causing it to tingle all over. “So, do we have a tickle fight first or are we kicking the night off with some mani-pedis?”
“As if,” Angie responded. “We’re more into chocolate and chick flicks.”
“Tie, can I speak to you in private?” Victor growled.
He stood a few feet in front of us, looking displeased with the physical contact between Tie and myself.
I wanted to tell him to back off. I wasn’t his property. I wasn’t his wife.
Tie gave Victor a dark look and released me, following the kami warrior out of Ms. Mori’s study.
“Why is your dad agreeing to this?” Angie asked before I could say anything.
I looked over at the entrance to the study, making sure no one would hear us.
“I don’t think my dad really intends for us to stay here tonight, but we need to be able to communicate with him without the other kami listening in.”
“You don’t think they’ll force us to stay, do you?
“I’m almost positive they will. To be honest, I’m surprised Ms. Mori was sitting there trying to reason with us. Victor and Tie have can easily overpower and force us to go wherever they want.” I noticed Angie’s nervous glance past me. I turned, but didn’t see anyone there. When I looked back she was pulling a can of mace from her resilient, pink purse. I shook my head, knowing it was going to take much more than a can of mace to take out three gods. “I think the initial argument was just a formality. Ms. Mori is trying to see what she’s up against, and she’s up against an extremely pissed off father. ”
“Not to mention an extremely pissed off best friend. She’d best not mess with me, Hope. I’ve got serious rage issues.”
I smirked at that. Angie could inflict some damage if she wanted to, but we were dealing with a situation we didn’t perfectly comprehend. There was no telling what would happen if getting out of here involved a face-to-face confrontation with Ms. Mori, Victor and—
“What about Tie?” she asked.
I thought about the way Tie and my father had silently communicated with each other throughout the evening.
“I’ve got a funny feeling he might be on our side. My parents were hiding me for a reason, and I’m beginning to think they had some help.” Soft footfalls down the hall alerted us to someone’s presence.
“So if Ms. Mori used to be mortal, how did she end up a kami?”
“Hachiman allowed me to ascend so I could raise Hope to be The Healer,” Ms. Mori said as she entered the study.
“Oh,” Angie said. “I…didn’t know that was possible.”
Ms. Mori scrutinized us for an uncomfortable moment like she was trying to read our minds and remain one step ahead of us. It wouldn’t have surprised me if that’s exactly what she was doing.
“Girls, your room is ready. I assume you want to share?”
“Oh, yes. Thank you,” I mumbled.
We stood in awkward silence.
Hello! I’d just found out she was my mother. Was I supposed to ask her how she’d been doing over the past one thousand years?
“We’ll just hop right into bed then,” Angie said, grabbing my arm and hurrying me past Ms. Mori and down the hallway.
The woman made me nervous.
* * *
“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself. It’s not safe.”
I reluctantly turned around and watched Victor’s tall, sturdy frame take on a surreal appearance as wisps of foggy moonlight clung to his nicely shaped body.
After getting settled into our respective bedrooms, I’d made a break for the car, hoping to get a minute to myself. Being told you lived once before, and that your powers for healing were supposed to be used for an entirely different purpose than the one you originally believed in for most of your life merited some alone time.
In the midst of all this drama were my feelings of unease regarding Kirby. I was extremely worried about him and wondered if his body had continued healing after I left, or rather, collapsed in the elevator. Knowing my life was in danger and that I’d come close to dying tonight, made me want to sneak back to the hospital the minute an opportunity presented itself. I wanted to heal Kirby completely before another nekomata launched an attack.
I mean, who was going to take care of Kirby if I died?
“I don’t think another nekomata is going to find me anytime soon,” I answered.
“Can I at least talk to you for a minute?”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alone with Victor. There was a full moon out tonight, and the soft breeze blowing through the trees made a peaceful rustling noise that intertwined harmonically with the sounds of the ocean in the distance. Far too romantic a setting for my taste
“What’s up?” I asked as Victor slipped in front of me.
The way he walked usually reminded me of a sleek, black panther, but at the moment he shifted uncomfortably from side to side.
“I just thought that we could, you know, talk about…about us,” he said.
“About us?”
I didn’t mean to sound so brain-dead, but I was still trying to process the last twenty-four hours. My clueless expression gave him pause.
“You know what, forget it. We can talk about it another time.” He took a step back.
I automatically reached for his hand to stop him. His fingers folded around mine, gripping them like they were a lifeline. He stared at our entwined hands with a bit of reverence and awe.
I didn’t know what to say or do, but holding his hand didn’t feel bad either so I decided to wait instead.
“Look, I know you weren’t expecting any of this. Finding out you were meant to heal the veil is a lot to take in, and being told you’ve been engaged to me your entire existence probably didn’t help either.”
Victor waited for me to say something, but I wasn’t sure he’d want to hear the truth. So I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head.
“You kissed me tonight.”
His serious expression lightened a bit.
Could I have been more spastic?
“Yeah, I probably should’ve asked you first, huh?”
Now that I knew Victor was a god, a warrior god no less, I had a hard time picturing him asking for anything. He was here to give orders, and basically ruin my life. I was actually feeling pretty darn angry.
Why in the world was I even talking to him? I’d just been told that my life was no longer my own. It belonged to him. I guess my first life had never been my own either, but at least in that era I’d been raised to believe the garbage I’d been fed not thirty minutes earlier. Not to mention an ample amount of time to prepare for it.
In my current life, my parents taught me you were what your choices made you, and I’d felt confident knowing I was the main player in charge of my own fate, my own destiny. Ms. Mori�
��s little bombshell had reduced me from player to pawn, and that’s exactly how I was feeling right now, a tiny little chess piece waiting to be moved by someone other than myself.
“I think you’re probably used to doing whatever you want,” I said, pulling my hand out of his. “You and Tie have certainly been doing exactly that since you showed up at my school this morning.”
Victor’s expression became guarded
“You’re different, you know. You weren’t quite so…outspoken in your other life,” he said.
“Yeah well, women’s lib and all that. Phrases like ‘If I only had a brain’ are now things of the past…for most of us anyway.” I thought about a few unfortunate girls in my math class.
“I’m sorry for all this cloak and dagger business. I should have taken Tie’s word for it and believed it was really you. If I’d been upfront with you from the beginning, we could have avoided the nekomata attacks.” He held his hand out toward me as a kind of peace offering.
It suddenly occurred to me that Tie had been my watcher, looking out for me all of this time and never approaching until the day after that first attack. I didn’t know whether to be angry or pleased. A head’s up certainly would have been helpful.
“A handshake? Gee, that’s sure to make everything better.”
He pulled his hand back and stuck it in his pocket, looking a little miserable in the process. I felt a perverse sense of satisfaction even though my anger was misplaced. Victor had never been anything but nice to me.
He’d saved my life at least twice tonight, but I was insecure, confused, worried and missing my sweet little Kirby. The only person standing in front of me was a warrior god with rippling pectorals and thunderous looking arms, the kind of arms I could have easily fallen into and found comfort in, which made me feel even more insecure and confused.
Verbally abusing him was clearly my only option.
“Tie knew my identity?” I asked.
“I don’t know how he figured it out, but he did. He told Ms. Mori about it several months ago, and that’s when she stepped in as a new teacher at your school.”