At first, I think it’s a stray noodle. I pull it out with my chopsticks.
A little wriggling worm with an eyeball at one end stares up at me.
I drop it back in, somehow managing not to barf. Maybe because there’s nothing in my stomach. I push the bowl away.
“What’s the matter?” Marigold uses hashi to secure her own noodle worm, which she slurps into her mouth without flinching.
My stomach tries to escape through my mouth and run back down the mountain. I swallow firmly. “You know, I’d really better be on my way.” I get up.
All five of them rise at the same time. Boy, are they tall. “You are too tired, and it is dangerous out there.” The man named Kai stares me down. “We were just about to retire for the night. We have an extra bed you can sleep in.” The way he says it makes it clear that this is not a polite offer. It’s a command.
“I know our ways—and our food—must seem strange to you,” Marigold says, “but we are harmless.” She bows her head.
“Please.” Kai grips my arm, not too tight this time. He smiles down at me kindly. “We would be honored to serve the Momotaro during his quest.”
I look at their eager faces, the night sky, the little shack thing, and consider my options. I really wanted to find the baku today, but I don’t want to get attacked by some monster in the dark. And I might not find a safer place to sleep.
Like Dad always says, the enemy you know is better than the one you don’t know. I mean, he didn’t make that up, but he does always say it.
“Okay,” I say.
Marigold leads me into the shack. It’s dim, lit by just one lantern, but I see there are two rooms. In the first, five futons are arranged on the floor. The other four people follow me in, still humming the Momotaro song, laughing softly. “Time for bed!” someone says, and they all lie down on their futons.
In the second room, which seems about the size of my bedroom closet, is another futon. Marigold smiles at me as though she’s showing me to the throne room of the Taj Mahal. “Please sleep well, Momotaro-san.” She presses her palms together and bows low.
I bow back. “Arigato, Marigold-san.”
The others titter. “He called you Marigold-san!” someone says, and they all laugh again. I wonder why. San is what you add to Japanese names to show respect. These people are more than a little bit strange.
Marigold bows yet again, then quickly shuts the door.
I put my backpack and sword down on the floor and remove my kimono jacket. The futon is thick and padded. I should be able to sleep in here, even though the walls are so close I can touch them with each hand.
I lie down and my rib throbs a little, though it’s mostly better. I turn onto my other side. My nerves thrum with electricity. My stomach growls. “Too bad,” I tell it. “We’re not eating any stinking eyeball worms, that’s for sure!”
I crawl to the end of the mattress to open the door and peer through. There they are, dimly illuminated by the window, all of them already asleep and snoring like a bunch of buzz saws. Well, if my nerves weren’t already keeping me awake, that snoring sure would.
I close the door and lie back down, feeling hot and sweaty and restless. I stare at the raw wood ceiling, trying to remember the advice Daruma gave me what seems like three hundred years ago. Remember your name. Whatever.
Then the idea hits me. I sit bolt upright. Why not call the baku for these slumbering people? She’ll show up, right? Then I can capture her!
“Baku, come take their dreams away,” I say into the stillness of my room. “Baku, come take their dreams away.”
I flop down again. The air is still and it’s hard to breathe, as though I’m inside a coffin. I have to stay awake, for the baku….
I must have drifted off. I wake up wiping sleep drool from my chin. I sit up. Did I miss the baku?
I hear voices. I put my ear against the door to listen.
“I don’t care if we showed him hospitality. He accepted, and we have a right to do it!” A deep voice. Kai’s voice.
It sounds like they’re farther away than in the next room. Are they outside? I try to open the door again.
The operative word here being try. Because it only opens a sliver. The door is barred somehow.
I knew I should have run as soon as I saw those worms. I pick up my sword and stick the blade into the crack. It hits something solid, like steel, but it’s not steelier than the Sword of Dreamers. I jam the blade upward and a padlock pops off the old wood. Success!
The door creaks open slowly. I crouch, ready to fight, but all I see are five figures sleeping on their mattresses. So why were their voices coming from outside?
I peer around the room. Nobody stirs. There’s no more snoring. When I hear the voices again, from the yard, I step closer to the sleeping forms.
And realize these bodies have no heads.
I suck in a breath. Are they dead? Has someone crept in and killed them all? I stick my fist into my mouth so I don’t scream. I want to run, but the voices are still out there.
“He doesn’t deserve to live,” a female voice argues. “And Momotaro is the tastiest meat. Like a peach! I read it on the Internet.”
Marigold snorts. “So that’s supposed to make it true?”
What kind of Internet do they have in this weirdo alternate universe? I kind of want to see what it says about me.
I huff. It doesn’t matter if these bodies are alive or dead or what. I’m getting myself out of here, pronto. I tie my kimono jacket closed and put on my sword. Then I peer out the window overlooking the courtyard.
Five floating heads bob around the smokeless campfire. “If we do this, we should take him now, while he sleeps!” Marigold says in a low voice. “It’s easiest when they’re asleep.”
“I don’t know if he’s really asleep yet,” Kai’s head whispers. “You should have made him eat the soup.”
Marigold’s head opens its eyes wide. “What was I supposed to do, pour it down his throat? That wouldn’t have made him suspicious. You have no sense of nuance, Kai.”
“I told you to leave out the eye worm!” the other woman says. “The humans always freak out about the eye worm.”
“Well, if you think you know so much, then you be in charge next time,” Marigold retorts. “You’ll be begging me to handle things again.”
“I doubt that very much,” mutters another man.
Marigold bares her teeth. So does the man. They erupt into a loud whisper argument, the kind adults have when they don’t want kids to hear, but you totally can.
I sink to the floor. It all makes a strange kind of sense. Headless bodies. That ribbon around the girl’s neck. The absurdly large Adam’s apples in their pencil-thin necks. They’ve got detachable heads.
What do I do? I can’t sneak out without them seeing.
I eavesdrop some more.
“If it was up to you,” Kai says, no longer bothering to whisper, “you’d wait until our bodies got moved before you took any action.”
The others gasp.
“How could you say such a hurtful thing?” Tears run down Marigold’s face. “I would never.”
“Too far, Kai,” the other woman head says. “Too far.”
Kai flushes angrily. “It’s true, Marigold.”
I duck out of sight. Bodies moved?
This reminds me of something. Daruma had told me to keep my body near by head. Of course! And here I’d thought he was just another babbling Looney Tune.
The forms lie there, their chests moving up and down as they breathe. Are they really alive separate from their heads? Will they fight back like zombies? Only one way to find out.
I grab Marigold’s feet and pull.
No resistance.
Okay…now what? Where can I put the bodies without the heads seeing? I have no other option but to move them into my small room. It’s not very far from where they were sleeping, but hopefully it is far enough to confuse the heads and buy me some time.
; Luckily, these aren’t the biggest of people—their bones are small. I wonder if they’re hollow, like chicken bones. I drag one after another inside until they’re all crammed into the small room, and then I shut that door. I wish I could put the padlock back on. I quickly stack the futons in front of the door.
Those monsters are still arguing outside. I swear, they’re worse than Peyton and Jinx. A knot immediately forms in my stomach, and it’s not from hunger. I have to leave, and there’s only one way out. Through the yard.
I hold my sword and swing open the door.
The heads pause in their jabbering, and they all swivel in the air to stare at me. For a second, I think they must be holograms—this can’t be real—but then I remember where I am.
I address them in the firmest voice I can muster. “I have two things to say. One, you guys are terrible team players. You should get along better. And two”—the heads float closer, and I ready my sword—“you’ll never get your bodies back now!”
Marigold shrieks and zooms past me into the shack. “They’re gone!” she wails from inside.
The heads follow her, bopping against each other like bowling balls. I slam the door shut behind them and take off running into the forest. The moon is glowing above the next mountain peak, and with its light, I find my way to the path that leads to it. My thighs burn with the effort, but there’s no way I’m stopping.
“You will not leave without moving our bodies back!” Kai growls from somewhere near my waist. Oops. I didn’t know he had glommed onto me by biting my kimono belt. His head is lighter than Fudō’s rope.
“Guess again, you eyeball-eating jerk!” I pant, trying to double my speed.
He clamps his teeth tighter.
Ewwww. “Get off me!” I yell.
“Never!” he says around a mouthful of silk.
Oh man. I make a fist and bash him in the temple, my knuckles connecting hard.
That does the trick. His mouth opens, and he falls to the ground, tumbling down the path like a bad apple.
“I’ll never talk to a stranger again,” I say as I wipe his saliva from my belt. “It’s so not worth it.”
The low moon looks like a giant coin. Silvery beams stretch out from it, like staircases to the horizon. And in front of the moon, silhouetted in inky blue-black, stands the baku.
I inhale so sharply I’m sure the baku must have heard it. The last thing I want to do is scare her off. I approach her gently as she stands there, swinging her trunk nervously, looking at me with large, doleful brown eyes. Behhh, she bleats.
I reach out my left hand to let her smell me. She raises her trunk and sniffs loudly. “Hi, there,” I say softly. Very slowly, my right hand takes the lasso off my hip, palm sweating. I hope I’ve guessed correctly about what the rope can do, and I hope I’m skillful enough to make it happen.
Up close, the baku is beautiful. The muscular trunk waves like a dandelion dancing in the wind. Her green fur seems to be tipped with moonlight, all silvery white. The golden mane cascading around her head is something straight out of a fairy tale.
I crouch down. “I won’t hurt you.” And this is true. All I want to do is capture her and take the dreams back. Where are the dreams, anyway? Inside her? Or does she take them somewhere else?
I think of the demon scorpion that bit me during the hike.
Is that who the baku works for?
Proceed with caution, Xander. I swallow. “Here,” I say breathlessly. “Come here.” I pat my thigh encouragingly, like I do with Inu.
The baku shuffles forward uncertainly. She touches my hand with her trunk, the prehensile end grasping my skin, pinching it gently, and assessing my hand with sniffs. Through it all, the baku never breaks eye contact with me.
I drop my left hand. At the same time, with my right, I throw the lasso up and over the baku’s trunk. Once it is around her neck, I tighten it.
The baku screams, a terrible noise like a chorus of frightened children, as if it’s saved up all the fear from all the nightmares it has ever eaten. It hits me with the physical force of a brick wall, and my ears ring in protest.
I fall backward and let go of the rope. The baku turns and runs, the golden cord dragging behind her like a dropped leash.
“No!” I get up and launch myself at the rope, scrabbling in the dirt. It slips through my fingers. I tackle it, grab the end, and hold it tight against my body so it can’t get away. Phew.
I don’t even have time to catch my breath, when I feel something on my face. I look up. Pearly white robes swish against my forehead like a cool breeze on a hot day.
“What business, pray tell, do you have with my baku?” A young woman glares down at me. Her head is triangle shaped, like a cat’s, and her skin is dusky, like a black pearl with pale highlights, glinting in the reflected light of the moon. She wears a crown made of pearls, a long string of pearls around her neck, and a white kimono bound with a wide silken obi.
She puts her hands on her hips and thrusts her chin up. “What do you want with my baku?”
I scramble to my knees, still holding on to the rope with both hands. The baku whimpers. I pull her close to me. Her little heart is beating fast, like a bag of hummingbirds. “She stole my dreams.”
“She does not take unless you ask,” the woman says sharply. “Baku is incapable of thievery!”
“I only wanted the bad dreams gone!” My voice cracks. “Make her give them back, and I’ll let her go.”
The woman shakes her head. “You want everything. It is like receiving a piece of cake and then getting angry because you can’t have the rest!” Her voice rises into fury. “You weren’t satisfied with what she did for you, so you asked for more. Well, sometimes you have to be careful what you ask for.”
Then, to my surprise, the woman sinks down into a squat and regards me. Her eyes are luminous. They remind me of a black-bottomed pool I once swam in. My reflection stares back at me. I’m sporting some impressive bags under my eyes.
But I’m not here to gaze into her eyes like some dopey lovesick puppy. I stand up, tightening my grip on the rope. “I will not give her back unless you give me our dreams.”
“Xander.” Her eyes close halfway, and she straightens with a sigh. “Son of Akira. The Momotaro line. You were misusing your powers.”
How does she know all this about me?
“Tell me something not every creature I’ve met has told me.” I recall that buttery French toast, my room makeover, what I did to Lovey…it all seems like several lifetimes ago now. “Maybe I did a little. But I won’t anymore. I’ve learned…” I think of Fudō-Myōō. “I’ve learned how to deal with stuff better.”
The woman shakes her feline head.
“You don’t believe me.”
She shrugs. “I have no reason to believe you, Momotaro-san. How can I trust someone who’s taken my most precious pet?”
The baku’s trembling, and I put my hand on its head to calm her. She’s not trying to run from me anymore, and I wonder if that’s because of the rope’s magical powers. I don’t think I would be able to hold the creature otherwise. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I am the dream keeper.” She waves her hand carelessly. “You have dreamed about your worries many times, Xander. The onryo that haunted you. Your mother leaving.”
I tighten my jaw. “So?”
“So how did you ever expect to fully become the Momotaro with all these fears plaguing you?” She tightens her mouth. “It was impossible. Now that you don’t have the dreams, your head is quiet. You don’t need to worry about becoming the Momotaro anymore. You’re normal. Average. You should feel good. At peace. It is better for you to feel nothing, is it not?”
“No!” I’d rather face the nightmares again than what I’ve been going through. “I need them back. But what I really need is the dreams of my family back, because without them they’ll just—” My voice chokes, and my eyes fill with tears.
Something like sympathy passes over her beautiful face. Sh
e looks up at the sky as if deep in thought, then back at me, a smile playing across her face. “All right. I will make you a bargain.”
I gulp. A bargain never sounds good. I wind the lasso around my hands. “What kind of bargain?”
She motions to the baku. “You can have the dreams of your family back if, in return, I get the baku.”
“Okay! Then we can all—”
“No, not we,” she says. “Only their dreams. Not yours.”
“So that means…no Momotaro powers for me?” My heart slows and seems to stop. “Or imagination?”
“Correct.” Her kimono skirts swish as she stands up. “No drawing. No creativity. Are you willing to trade?”
Yes, I swore off drawing before. That was my choice. But I don’t want it to be gone forever, to never have the option of starting up again. Without dreams or creativity, I would just plod along joylessly for years…. Or maybe I wouldn’t even last that long—look what was happening to Peyton….
I gaze down at the baku. All this trouble—and I have to give up my powers, too? The powers I’d just started learning how to use?
And misuse.
I think of my family back home, and my two friends, still waiting for me in the snow. If they’re even still alive, since this quest has taken so long…How could I possibly let them all down?
Besides, I’ve already lost my powers, so there really wouldn’t be any difference.
“Do we have an agreement?” she presses.
The decision is a simple one in the end. I nod once.
The woman smiles. She holds out her hand, beckoning with her fingertips, and I hand her the rope. She unwinds it from the baku’s neck and tosses it back to me.
“What’s your name?” I ask. Just for the sake of knowing.
“Kaguya. Princess Kaguya,” she adds, as if this will mean something to me.
“Nice to meet you,” I say politely, but she doesn’t respond. The princess bends over the baku and strokes her fur. Something like dust rises up, only I see it’s not dust but fine particles of gold and silver and pearl. They form a cloud that rises into the air like a freed helium balloon. I watch until the cloud reaches the stars, where it suddenly poofs apart.
Xander and the Dream Thief Page 18