The voice is mine.
Oh.
Momotaro was an artist. Like me, when I draw or make things—what do I do? How do I do it?
I pause for a moment, and then I know. The answer is that I just do, without questioning or thinking or doubt.
When I create, when I draw my pictures or I’m programming my computer games, I’m in what my father calls the Zone. The place where my imagination bubbles up without stopping. Where hours can pass and it seems like minutes.
Where I’m in a beautiful waking dream.
I don’t need to be totally unconscious.
I need to let my imagination do its work. Be free, without worrying or trying to make it happen.
I take a deep breath. My mind paints a picture, as easily as remembering a memory. Don’t force it.
The darkness disappears.
My home. The first fresh powder of the year. I stand outside the house, in the trees. Thinking about getting my skis out so I can go down our little hill.
My feet go back down where they belong. Gozu loses his grip and makes a disbelieving noise deep in his throat. He repositions his hands around my throat, but I’ve already taken a breath.
It begins to snow. I stick out my tongue and taste it, already knowing what it will be. It’s what I want it to be.
Salt.
Purifying salt. It’s all around us.
I stare into Gozu’s face. His snake tongue jumps out and touches my nose, but the little snakes are crying for help now. His legs begin to burn and melt.
He glares and shakes me again. The snow-salt stops. My neck crackles like popcorn, and blinding pain lances through my skull. Ow.
The landscape fades out as if night’s falling fast. Darkness is returning. Coldness tingles through my fingertips.
In front of me, Inu and Peyton and Dad all stare at me, buried by the snow. Melting in it like they’re oni, their eyes dripping gooey messes. You’ve failed us, they whisper.
I’m afraid again. The fear grips my heart harder than Gozu’s gripping my neck.
Dad, Ojīchan, I call in my head. Nobody appears.
Come on, Xander Musashi, I say in my head. Come on. You did it once. You can do it again.
I shut my eyes, and now I don’t picture anything. I just feel it instead.
I breathe in and out. The air, so fresh and cold, stings my lungs pleasantly. Christmas coming soon, the first day of winter break. I smile. I feel my family waiting for me inside the house. I can sense their presence, even if I can’t see them and in reality they’re way far away.
I’m bringing all of us home.
My hands warm and I open my eyes. Light beats back the night, filling every shadow and icy hidden spot. But the light’s not coming from the sun.
It’s coming from me. From my fingertips and my belly button and maybe even my eyes.
I’m filling up the darkness.
Gozu lets go of me. I drop to the ground, but I don’t fall. He staggers back. I raise my hands and the white light hisses against the slime of his skin. Dissolves him like a marshmallow held too long over the fire.
And then I shout the phrase I shouted in my dream once before. I know what it means now. “Anata ni wa nani mo nai!”
You are nothing!
Gozu screams and, just as suddenly as he appeared, vanishes back into the blank void where he lives.
Into nothingness.
At the edge of the forest, Dad stands, watching. The proudest smile I’ve ever seen stretches across his face. It’s as if I won the presidential election, got straight As, and remembered to make my bed, all at once.
Then this world falls away, starting with the sky, like building blocks tumbling over.
I’m back in the mountain of rice with my dad. But our heads are above the rice.
“Xander,” he whispers hoarsely. The blue drains from his face, the pinkness seeps back in, and he looks human again. He manages a weak smile. “Your grandmother sent you?”
I nod. “We have to get out.” I struggle to keep my face tilted, to get enough air within the rice.
I hear the sound of a scuffle above us. A monkeylike shape crawls over a branch, to Peyton and Inu. A sword flashes, cutting through the ropes, carefully, one by one. Inu and Peyton fall to the ground, and then I can’t see them anymore.
“Are you okay?” I yell. “Get out of here, Peyton! Take Inu and fly!”
Some creature like a demon pterodactyl plummets through the air toward the tree, squawking, claws bared.
Jinx stands upright on the gnarled branch. “Xander! Heads up!” she shouts.
She throws the sword, my sword, through the air like a spear. Right at my face, and I can’t move out of the way. I gasp.
The sword slices into the rice, right next to me.
The pterodactyl thing screams and snatches Jinx up.
“Jinx!” I call hoarsely. But I can’t do a thing from here. I watch as the bird creature carries Jinx away in its claws, her terrified face a stark white against its dark feathers.
“Grab the sword,” Dad says, his voice still weak. “We can use it.”
I don’t know how the sword is going to help us now, but I dig in the rice until I can feel its hilt. I grip it and pull it partway out, and Dad puts his hands over mine.
He shuts his eyes and his lips move, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. He drives the blade toward the bottom of the pit. The sword moves through the rice like a rocket, and we’re jerked down with it, our bodies turning upside down.
And then, by the time I take another breath, we’re outside the rice pit, under the tree where Peyton and Inu were hanging. They’re nowhere in sight now.
I blink, dizzy at being suddenly upright, still holding on to the sword with my father.
“How’d you do that?”
Dad lets go of the sword. He smiles at me, the way he does when I’ve learned something he’s been trying to teach me. “You’ll find out soon enough.” Then he staggers backward, and I grab his shoulders and help him sit on the ground.
Around us, the ring of fire blazes and crackles. It separates us from the masses of oni trying to get at us from the other side, which I’m both glad and sorry for—glad because it’s protecting us, sorry because it’s pinning us between the pit and the tree and freedom.
“We have to get out of here!” I say to Dad. “But how can we go through the fire?”
He shakes his head. Without his glasses, he looks odd. “We can’t get around all of them.”
“Then what do we do?” Now that my dad’s okay, I expect him to take over. Be the real Momotaro.
He shakes his head again, and he hacks wetly from deep in his chest, gasping for breath. “I don’t know.”
I look around for the salt netsuke and find it near the edge of the pit. Maybe we can throw salt up at them until they’re gone. I’m not sure. A piercing desperation slices through my chest. I try to feel like I did with Gozu, full of love and hope. It’s definitely not working. “Dad,” I whisper, “how do I make it work again?”
“Make what work?”
“My Momotaro power! Imagination! Picturing stuff and making it real?”
Dad wrinkles his brow. “Is that how you defeated them? That’s new.”
My heart sinks. So he doesn’t know how to do this. “Yeah, that’s how I defeated Gozu when we were unconscious. But what about now?”
“I don’t know, Xander.” Dad sounds defeated. He leans against the tree trunk. This is the worst I’ve ever seen him. Even worse than when Mom left. Maybe being stuck in the rice messed up his head. “You must be in internal harmony to access all your powers.”
Well, harmony’s definitely not happening right now. Instead, all I feel is useless panic. Like I want to flail around like a trapped chicken. We’re going to have to give up.
My stomach twists like knotted earbud cords. Now there will be no Momotaro at all. The oni will win. California will stay underwater. “Dad, come on. We have to do this. I have to figure this o
ut.”
My father just coughs again. He’s too weak from his ordeal.
What can I do?
Just then, a whooshing sound makes me look up. Peyton lands crookedly in front of me, holding Inu. His wings look pretty dirty and messed up. “Xander, what are you doing having all the fun while we were trussed up in that tree?” He puts Inu down and turns to Dad with a big grin. “Mr. Miyamoto! Wow. When you get captured, you really get captured. Are you okay?”
Dad nods weakly. “I’ve felt better in my life. But it doesn’t matter—we’ve got to get you boys out of here.”
Inu yelps and rushes my father, but he seems to know that he shouldn’t jump on Dad just yet. Instead, he settles for licking Dad’s hands and rubbing against his legs like a cat.
“Inu, my boy, I’ve missed you, too.” Dad scratches Inu’s chest.
I grab Peyton’s arm. “Did you see Jinx?”
Peyton’s eyes shine in the fire. He shakes his plumed head. “I saw that bird flying off with her after she saved us. But I was on the ground and I couldn’t help her.”
Dad glances at Peyton, then does a double take. He rubs his eyes. “You have wings,” he whispers. Then he grins. “I used to have a friend like you. Ha. All this time and I didn’t know you were going to be Xander’s pheasant.” He breaks into a cough again and this time spits up a big wad of rice. “Life is full of surprises.”
I wonder what happened to his friend? Now’s not the time to ask.
“Listen,” Dad says, “the only way out is up.”
We look at the fire ring and then upward. “Okay, so what’s the plan?” I ask.
My father coughs. “Peyton, you must take Xander right now. Get out of here and fly to the boat. Quick. Go back home.”
“What about you and Inu?” Peyton asks.
Dad puts his hand on the dog’s ruff, and Inu sits. “You can’t take all of us, Peyton. You must take Xander.”
Peyton’s silent for a moment, looking from my father to the dog to me.
Oh no. I hold up my hand. “I’m not leaving anybody behind. Not ever again.”
My father ignores my outburst. “Please, Peyton. I have to stay here and defeat the oni who created the tsunami and put me here. Otherwise California will remain underwater. The needs of the people are greater than the life of one person.” He straightens up and, for a second, appears to be my same-old father. “Now that I’m out of the rice, I can fight. Don’t worry about me, Xander. I’ll meet you back home.”
“No, you won’t!” I point at him. “You’re not strong enough to fight, Dad. You’re coming with me. At once.”
“Hey.” Peyton’s voice is scratchy and sorrowful in my ear. “Come on, Xander. You know your father’s right.” He puts his arms around me, under my armpits. “We have to do this.” He hoists me up.
“Put me down!” I scream. I drop to my knees, out of Peyton’s grasp. “I’m not going anywhere.” I can come up with a better idea. Where’s my grand imagination now? All I can think of is how much I hurt, and how much I don’t want to lose my father and my dog all over again.
Inu curls up next to my father and barks twice, sharply, at me. Go, Xander.
Dad’s color is draining again. He looks so pale. I have to get him out of here or he might die for real, oni or no oni. How can he possibly fight? “You must, Xander. You must live on. You will be needed again later.”
The oni screech and holler as they try to penetrate the flames. Sooner or later one of them will jump or fly through.
My eyes fill with tears, washing away the ash from the volcanoes and the fire ring. “Then what good was all this? I came to rescue you.” Jinx was right—my father was willing to sacrifice himself for me.
Inu thumps his tail and whines. He barks sharply.
Peyton’s chin juts out. I recognize that expression—I’ve seen it on him when he’s pitching a losing game and he’s putting up one last good fight. “We don’t have a choice.” He puts his arms around me and begins flapping his wings.
“No!” I scream, reaching out my arms. “Inu! Dad!”
But Peyton’s already beginning to lift me into the air.
I squeeze my eyes shut. I imagine the forest where I saw Ojīchan. See him standing in the center. He nods at me.
I’m Momotaro. The peach boy warrior.
Half-breed weakling, I hear the bounty hunter say in my ear.
I open my eyes and look down at the scene below.
Maybe I’m not weak because I’m half. Maybe my mixed blood gives me an advantage over the other Momotaro. After all, every single one of my ancestors eventually got defeated.
Maybe being different is good, like my grandma hoped.
“Go back down,” I say to Peyton. Command him. I sound like I’m a policeman or something. “I have a plan.”
Peyton lands back on the ground and I kneel by Dad. “Come on. Put your arm around my neck. Hurry!”
“Xander.” Dad’s voice booms like the old days. “Leave.”
“I’m the Momotaro now.” I sound just as stern as he does. Somewhat to my surprise, Dad puts his arm around me, maybe because he’s too exhausted to fight anymore. He can barely stand. I put my hand on Inu, and Peyton grabs my shoulder. I imagine that big ball of light coming out of me again like it did with Gozu. It will envelop everything like an explosion. All the oni will be destroyed.
Nothing happens.
I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine it again. Ball of light! Work, powers, work! I try not to try too hard, but of course that makes me seize up like machinery in need of oil. Argh.
Suddenly I hear a girl screaming. Jinx. She’s on the other side of the flames, with the oni. She’s trying to fight them off with a big stick, practically a tree trunk, but there are too many. She falls on her back.
I leap over to where she is, leaving Peyton to hold up Dad. Jinx’s whole body appears a wavy red through the fire. “Jinx, wait! I’ll help you!”
“Get out of here!” she yells. “Go home!”
It reminds me of when I first saw her, through that ring of acid.
The acid.
Of course!
I take out the sword and thrust it through the flame.
The hilt heats under my hand as if I’m putting my palm on a hot stove. My skin smokes. I shout and almost drop the sword. No. Hold on. I’m not leaving without my whole crew. I have to get all of us to the ship.
My hand stops hurting. The flesh is the color of steel, the same color as my sword, as if the weapon is an extension of me. Or I’m an extension of it. Maybe I’m going to be like Captain Hook now, only with a blade for a hand.
Go home, I think. I don’t know how, but I have faith that something will happen. Something that I make happen.
A breach appears in the red-orange fire. A dark oval.
A doorway. A portal.
“You did it!” Dad’s eyes light up. He glances at me. “You go first, Xander. I’ll hold the sword.”
“No.” I won’t let him try to get left behind again. “Go!” I bark at Peyton and Inu.
“How do you know we won’t just burst into flame when we go through?” Peyton says.
“I just made a doorway appear in a wall of flame. I’m pretty sure you can trust me.” I jerk my head toward the portal. “Have some faith!” Just like my grandmother said.
Inu jumps through. Peyton stops arguing and follows.
“You go, Xander.” My father’s still insisting.
“Dad, sheesh. Now who’s not listening?” I have no choice. I shove my dad through the portal with my free hand.
To my left, Jinx crawls away from the hissing and growling oni. “I’ll be fine, Xander!” One claws at her experimentally, like a lion playing with its prey, ripping at her arm. Then it throws her, limp as a piece of meat, right next to me.
“I thought you’d stopped lying!” I shout.
She struggles to rise, manages to get up on her hands and knees.
The doorway’s closing, turning back into a sol
id wall of flame. My hand starts to feel like it’s melting. I reach through the fire and grab Jinx by the wrist as quickly as I can. If it hurts, I can’t feel the pain yet. With every bit of strength I have left, I yank her through the fire and push her through the shrinking doorway.
A phalanx of oni lunge for me. At the last possible second, I jump through the door.
They disappear as if a curtain’s been drawn.
It feels like I’ve jumped down a set of stairs.
I land on my ship’s deck.
I should have died at least six times today, I think. I lie on the deck for a minute, grateful for the blue sky, the faces of my friends and family. The fact that I’m still breathing.
Then Inu nudges my cheek, and I stroke him between the eyes and scratch his woolly chest until he drools all over me. “Inu!” I chastise, but not really, because I’m so happy we’re here.
“Xander.” My father helps me sit up, hugs me, Inu leaning against both of us at once. Now Dad feels warmer, more normal. “Thank you.”
I hug him back hard. “Dad, I’m mad at you.”
He rocks me back and forth like I’m a little kid. For once, I don’t mind. “Why’s that?”
“You didn’t tell me about any of this stuff before! For the first time in my life, you had something I wanted to learn.” I let go of him to give him my best mock-glare.
He laughs, tries to push up his nonexistent glasses. “Xander, I don’t know if you know this, but you happen to be very stubborn. I gave you stories. You enjoyed them when you were younger—like when you made the comic. These days, though, you tell me you’d rather play video games. I offer to teach, and you wander off into your own daydream world. I can only force-feed a person so much. You have to want to learn.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” It’s true. Of course it’s true. And honestly, even though I’m rolling my eyes, it feels really good to be lectured again. I hug my dad again.
He touches my hair with one too-thin hand. “And I see your Momotaro hair has come in.”
“Oh yeah. At the sides.” My hand goes up to my temple self-consciously.
“No. Look.” Dad takes my sword and holds the polished blade before my face, like a mirror.
Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters Page 20