The Night Itself

by Zoe Marriott

  “Mimi, you seriously don’t look good.” Jack patted me on the back.

  “I–I think…”

  Ojiichan’s voice darted through my head again. One who remembers. One who endures. One who is hidden.

  He must always be hidden…

  Always? What had Ojiichan said exactly?

  “I need to sit down,” I managed to mumble.

  “You can take her into the sunroom,” Natalie suggested uneasily, clearly still watching for signs I was about to ralph on her precious shag pile. “It’s quieter in there.”

  She pushed through the gawping people to the far end of the room, shoved a coffee table out of the way and opened a set of French doors that I hadn’t noticed earlier.

  “OK with you?” Jack asked me, putting her arm around my shoulders.

  I nodded and followed Natalie into the other room. Predictably, it had a tiled floor and was mostly made up of windows, with more doors leading outside. The glass might as well have been brick now; with the lights on, the windows were dark and opaque, solid shadows. I shuddered. Jack guided me over to a wicker sofa. The saya dug into my side again as I sat down and I shifted, readjusting him. I could feel Jack’s concerned gaze on my face, but I couldn’t look at her.

  “Uh, I’ll just … leave you be then, OK?” Natalie said, already halfway back out of the door. “Like, call me if you need anything.”

  The door shut and immediately the noise of the party surged up again on the other side, muffled and distorted by the glass doors.

  “Can you put the light off?” I asked, rubbing my forehead. My head hurt, and the darkness gave me an excuse to avoid meeting Jack’s eyes. As the overhead light went out, the windows turned from black to deep blue. I could see walls and grass outside, and no one could see in here.

  I relaxed a little.

  “Sorry,” I said after a minute.

  “Don’t be stupid. This is my fault, isn’t it? I should have let you eat the fricking lasagne. I didn’t realize you were this starved.”

  “It’s not that.” I hesitated for a second, then admitted, “Something’s wrong. I’m seeing weird things. Like hallucinations.”

  Jack went on the alert, her body tensing up like a bloodhound catching a scent. “Shit. Did anyone give you a drink other than me?”

  “Um … yeah, Kylar did, but—”

  “Shit! I can’t believe this! He spiked your drink. I’m going to rip off his—”

  “Kylar didn’t spike my drink,” I broke in. “I’ve been feeling off all night. Since…” Since I stole the sword.

  And all of a sudden it did feel like stealing. Because all this weird stuff, these feelings, the flickering lights, had started then. Right after I got him out of the box, out of all those layers of embroidered cloth. Maybe I ought to have spent less time trying to remember my dreams and more time trying to remember my grandfather’s exact words about this katana that my family had been looking after for five hundred years.

  Hiding for five hundred years…

  I think I did something really stupid.

  “Mimi, if you’re seeing things, it’s the only explanation. The stuff they put in drinks can play tricks with your memory and—”

  “Just leave it, Jack,” I said, my voice coming out sharper than I meant it to. I took a deep breath. “I–I’m going to go home. You can stay if you want.”

  She shot me one of her stabbing looks. “Right, I’m going to let my drugged, seeing-things friend stagger home, alone, in the dark because I’m just that awesome. Shut up and let me call a taxi.”

  “That’ll be way too expensive. Look, I feel better now, OK? Let’s catch the Tube back. It’s faster anyway. The walk and the fresh air will probably help.”

  Jack hesitated. “If you start feeling funny again you need to tell me straight away.”

  “I will. I will!” I said, jumping up and going to the doors that led outside into Natalie’s garden. When I didn’t wobble or collapse, I could tell that went a long way to reassuring Jack. She put her phone away.

  But it didn’t reassure me. I already knew I hadn’t been drugged.

  One who is hidden. Always hidden…

  Ojiichan hadn’t been messing about that day. And he hadn’t just been talking about my dad. You’re not supposed to wave hidden things – ancient things – around at parties, for fun. I had been feeling wigged and uneasy from the second I took the sword. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I was desperate to get home and put the blade back where he belonged again before—

  “Before someone finds him,” I whispered.

  “Are you talking to me?” Jack asked.

  “No, I’m muttering to myself. All part of tonight’s delightful package of crazy.” I pulled open the French doors, letting in a whoosh of freezing air that smelled of damp earth and exhaust fumes. “Hell. Our coats are in the dining room.”

  “Hang on a second and I’ll get them. I’ll grab Natalie if I see her and tell her we’re off too.”

  “Thanks, Jack. You’re a bright shiny star.”

  “Damn straight.”

  The noise of the party made me wince as Jack slipped back into the living room. I thought it would be a while before I wanted to dance again. I’d be lucky if my freak-out didn’t end up being the number-one story when I got back to school in January, and by that time Chinese Whispers would have made it common knowledge that I’d done a topless lap dance for Kylar and projectile vomited on Natalie.

  The chilly air felt good. I breathed in deeply, stepping past the threshold of the sunroom and looking out at the night. Calm down. You’ll be home soon. You can hide the sword soon.

  The room was built onto the side of Natalie’s house, so next door’s wall was straight ahead. The garden – just a little patch of grass with a few shrubs, like mine at home – was on the right side, and the gravel parking area in front of the house on the other. The streetlights twinkled too brightly through the bare branches of the trees, making my eyes water.

  I blinked and squeezed my eyes shut, but when I opened them, coloured dots were still darting through my vision. They came together in the shape of a man.

  He was turned sideways to me, so that I could only see his profile in shadow. He wore a robe – no, it was a kimono – that gleamed dully with gold embroidery. A costume, like mine? Except that it didn’t really look like a fancy-dress outfit. And he didn’t really look like he belonged at this party.

  He was very tall, but sort of slender, like a kid, with arms and legs that seemed too long for his body. Something about the shape of him was subtly off, the proportions skewed. The more I stared, the more off he seemed. Abruptly I was convinced that he wasn’t anyone Natalie had invited here. He was … wrong.

  The man turned his head towards me. The light reflected from his eyes – no, no, that wasn’t the light. There were twin holes in his face, glowing eerie white. They had no iris, no pupil. Those weren’t eyes.

  For a second I was so frozen with fear that I felt like I’d turned into a piece of the wall behind me. This guy was real. Real. And he was so, so wrong. I couldn’t even explain how terrifying he was. He could have pulled out an AK47 and aimed it at me and I wouldn’t have been able to whimper, let alone run.

  He could see it too. He smiled a triumphant, gloating smile.

  And just like that, I was mad. More than mad. Furious. This guy was trying to scare me on purpose. I didn’t know why, or how, but he was trying to drive me crazy, and he thought it was funny. My feet came loose from the ground and I flung myself down from the doorway, gravel crunching under my feet, my breath making wheezing noises in my ears. The noise of the party had faded away to silence behind me.

  “Who are you?” I said. My voice came out shockingly loud; too many drinks.

  He carried on smirking. “I am the Zenpyou. You would call me … a Harbinger. The bringer of fate. I come to remind you, child of the Yamato, of your sacred duty to protect that which you bear; a duty you seem to be taking far too l
ightly. Has your family already forgotten the consequences of failure?”

  He stopped, like he was waiting for me to say something back. Waiting for me to get on my knees and grovel?

  “Are you high or something?” I demanded. “What are you on about?”

  His smile faded abruptly; his stare turned assessing. “You? No. It cannot be.”

  “What do you want?”

  He made a sound of disgust. “I have told you.” He turned away with a restless, contemptuous shrug. “Remember what I have said, sword-bearer.”

  He began to walk towards the road. His back shimmered like a mirage as he moved into the light.

  “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here!” I charged after him, so angry that I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing.

  The shimmering light spread out behind him, a wake in the air, like the disturbance a ship makes in calm water. The straight, everyday lines of houses, trees, streetlights, the pavement under my feet, the sky above me, all rippled, streaming and blurring past my eyes. I forced myself to keep running. I couldn’t tell the ground from the sky, but my feet were still hitting solid earth and I could still see the man’s lanky shape ahead of me.

  “Mio! Stop!”

  It was Jack’s voice, shrill and frightened.

  The streaming ripples brightened until they blinded me. I threw up my hands to protect my eyes. There was a noise, coming closer, a rising wail, like a—

  A car horn.

  CHAPTER 4

  BLOOD FROM A STONE

  Have you ever been hit in the face? Really hit? So your head snapped back and you landed on your rear end wondering what the hell happened? You don’t actually feel it at first. The harder the blow is, the more numb you go. I mean, your face just seems to disappear, and for a minute you think your eyes are going to drop right out of their sockets because they’re the only thing that still seems to be working.

  I suppose that explains why I didn’t feel the car hit me. There was no pain. Just a sort of … nudge. I flew up, and the world did a gentle roll around me, everything coming apart, lights and trees and cars scattering before my eyes like colourful pieces of broken glass.

  Then I hit the ground. I landed on my front and skidded for a few feet before I came to a halt. I still couldn’t feel anything, and it was quiet. I’d say “dead quiet”, except that’s too accurate to be funny. I never realized how loud my heartbeat was until it stopped.

  And all I could think was, Thank God I landed on my front. Thank God I didn’t destroy the katana. Thank God.

  Then it started to hurt. Pain was closing in on me, cold and dark, like a vice, compressing me from all sides at once, crushing down until everything was reduced to a bright chink in the agony, a gap that let me hear Jack screaming and see her running feet. The gap kept closing down, getting tinier and tinier until it was nothing but a pinprick and it just seemed easier to close my eyes…

  Heat pulsed on my back like the heartbeat of some massive creature. It broke through the agony for a second, and in that second, I heard another voice. Mio, it whispered. Take my hand. Don’t let go.

  I knew his voice. I had never heard it before in my life, but I knew it. Mentally I reached out through the darkness and the cold, and felt that same warmth close around me, embracing me, lifting me up, up, away from the pain—

  And I was somewhere else.

  The light was red. The sun was setting beyond the forest, streaking the sky with fire, shining through the autumn leaves that shivered down on to the battle.

  A man and a … a creature fought beneath the trees. The man weaved, leapt and spun, avoiding the nine slashing tails of the creature. He moved faster than any human should be able to move. He was a black hurricane, a whirlwind of flashing silver blades and flying dark hair. I could not see his face – but his big, tanned hands were clenched white on the handles of his swords.

  His swords…

  In one hand he held a short wakizashi blade. In the other he held a black and gold katana that glittered in the red light. My katana. Mine.

  But here it was his. Everything about the way he moved, the confidence with which he wielded it, shouted that. And he fought furiously, as if the survival of everything he loved depended on winning.

  The creature was a thing of terrible darkness, its body rippling and shifting in the air like oil on the surface of water. Long tentacles of that darkness lashed and whirled at the warrior, scraping white chunks out of tree trunks and gashing great holes in the earth. Its face was the most awful thing of all, a nightmare that melded human with feline – red lips and fine brows, an elongated jaw and bristling needle fangs. Yellow, inhuman eyes.

  The man moved into a complex pass that turned the blades into a silver blur. Two of the creature’s limbs went flying. Black liquid spattered over the red leaves. The warrior darted forward into the gap and struck deeply, cleaving a hole where the creature’s heart should be.

  The creature let out a high-pitched shriek that shook the trees. The man leapt back, swords at the ready. More black liquid gushed out of the wound as the thing writhed, its limbs drawing in with a convulsive movement, like the legs of a dying spider. The drifting mantle contracted, folding in on itself.

  The man’s muscular back seemed to relax a little, but he took another, wary step back before he lowered the blades to his sides.

  The creature shrieked again. One of its limbs shot out, streaking across the clearing like a black whip. A jagged claw hit the man squarely in the chest and then ripped away in a spray of blood.

  The short sword dropped from the warrior’s left hand with a clatter. He clapped his palm over his heart. Staggering slightly on his feet, he watched as the shadow creature convulsed. The beast twisted down into a knot of blackness, and … solidified. A second later it was no more than a rough stone figure, barely a foot tall, in the shape of a cat.

  The man sighed, shoulders sagging as if a terrible weight had been lifted from him. Blood spilled through his fingers with the movement, cascading down his chest, soaking the material of his kimono. Almost gracefully, he crumpled, still clutching my – his – katana in his right hand.

  He fell among the red and copper leaves and I saw his face for the first time.

  He was young. Much younger than I’d thought when he was fighting. Not a man, after all. A boy, maybe only a couple of years older than I was.

  His skin was golden, turning pale now as his blood drained away. Long hair lay in a shiny pool around the strong, angular planes of his face. His eyes were almond-shaped, long-lashed, endlessly dark. There was no fear in them. They were as calm as still water, reflecting the sky. This boy was beautiful, and unafraid. And he was dying.

  His lips shaped a word I could not make out. I stared at his mouth, moving closer as I tried to understand what he was saying. Those peaceful eyes shifted, just a little, until they almost met mine.

  He smiled painfully. Peacefully. “Mio.”

  I heard footsteps crunching stealthily through the fallen leaves. The boy’s eyes flicked away from me as a shadow fell over him.

  A green, leaf-shaped blade flashed down. Darkness fell over me like a thick, velvet cloth.

  No!

  I shot upright, my fingers clawing at the air. I had to go, I had to. I had to get to him, to help, to hold onto him…

  Wait. My head throbbed and tears made my vision swim and blur. I blinked rapidly, putting both hands over my face. Wait. I remember…? I remember. A forest. A monster. A boy with – with my sword. The boy who said my name. He was dying, lying there dying – he was calling for me – and I didn’t help him. I hadn’t done anything. I let him go. I rocked backwards and forwards in agony as a terrible sense of loss pierced through me. Why did I let him go…?

  “Mio, please stay still! Please! Can you hear me?”

  The pleading voice finally got through. I forced myself to look up. Jack was kneeling next to me, and the light from the moon showed tears pouring down her face. I was sitting on
tarmac. In the middle of the road. “Jack?”

  “Thank God,” she said, fumbling for her phone. “You’re going to be all right, OK? I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “What?” I whispered. The suffocating feeling of grief was beginning to fade. I looked around, bewildered. “What – what happened?”

  “Just stay still!” Jack reached out, then hesitated, her hands hovering in the air, as if she didn’t dare touch me.

  “Did I fall?” Then I gasped. “Oh no!”

  I whipped my arms back – ignoring Jack’s yelp of protest – to pull the katana out of the shinai carrier and inspect him. Not a scratch. I turned him over and over, double-checking, and let out a sigh of pure relief. He was pristine.

  There was a weak pulse of warmth under my hand on the grip. For a second I held the sword to me, taking comfort in the familiar/unfamiliar weight and shape. I stroked my fingers along the saya once and felt the last of the Dream’s grief dissipate. I sighed again, easing him back into the shinai case. Then I got quickly to my feet.

  Jack sat on the ground for a second, gaping at me. As she swore and scrambled upright, her phone popped out of her hand and hit the tarmac with a clatter. We both bent to pick it up; I got to it first. As I straightened, I looked around again. Why were we in the middle of the road outside Natalie’s house?

  I froze. “There was a car.”

  “The bastard didn’t stop. You – you flew twenty feet. You flew! You shouldn’t even be conscious. I thought you were dead.”

  Slowly I stretched out my arms and legs, staring at them in the strong moonlight. The sturdy fabric of my kendogi was ruined – shredded in some places – and covered in dust and dirt and bits of glass. But the skin showing through the holes didn’t have a scratch on it. I touched my face. Rolled my head experimentally. Nothing. Even the headache was gone.

  “I’m OK,” I said, hearing the surprise in my own voice.