by Rick Hautala
“Do you have your sword?” Benny asked.
He knew Alfie always carried his sword strapped to his side, but truth to tell, it was a rather pitiful sword. It was made of two pieces of wood. The “blade” was a flat piece of wood that would better serve as part of a picket fence while the cross guard was a small piece of a tree branch tied into place with several loops of yellowing twine.
Without another word between them, Benny stalled in the air and then dropped down onto the heaving deck of the pirate ship. The crew made collective oohing and ahhing sounds as they drew back. The weapons in their hand were all but forgotten as Benny and Alfie eyed Skipper Black.
“Well, so yea be not so cowardly as I thought,” Skipper Black said as he approached them.
His good hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. There was a loud rasp of metal as he drew it out. In the gathering gloom of evening, the blade appeared unnaturally bright. Benny and Alfie wondered if there might be some magic in the pirate captain’s blade, but Alfie slid to the deck from Benny’s shoulders and stood straight up, his feet braced widely apart. A faint smile twitched the corners of his mouth as he faced the captain, his mortal enemy. He was secure with Benny at his back.
“Are you sure you can beat him?” Benny asked, leaning his huge head close to Alfie’s ear and whispering so as not to be heard by anyone else. “I could shoot flames all across the deck and destroy the entire ship, and then we could fly away.”
“No,” Alfie said. “It wouldn’t be sporting.”
“Sporting?”
“I want to fight him.”
Alfie gripped the hilt of his wooden sword so tightly his knuckles turned white. The fire in his eyes was much brighter than the lingering glow of the setting sun in the west.
Without another word, the pirate captain and the boy closed the distance between them. There was a loud clank as their swords crossed, and then they set to it.
Metal clanged against wood as man and boy fought without mercy. They slashed and parried, lunged and ducked swashing blows. Chips of wood flew from Alfie’s blade at the same time his rapid strikes put deep dents into the metal blade of Skipper Black’s sword. Alfie fought with fiery joy in his eyes, his arm swinging tirelessly back and forth, his wooden blade whistling as it sliced through the air.
They pressed each other back and forth across the charred wooden deck. The crew gave way, allowing them plenty of room to fight, but it was clear after a while that Skipper Black was tiring. He began to give ground.
“Go! … Go! Finish him!” Benny called out, urging his friend on. “You’ll be captain of the ship.”
For a moment, Benny was afraid Skipper Black might have an evil trick up his sleeve.
What if he was backing up only to lure Alfie into a trap?
But the look in the pirate chief’s eyes was gradually changing from anger to concern and then to outright fear of losing.
It was obvious he knew he was beaten … and to a mere boy at that.
Their blades whooshed and sliced back and forth. The pirate crew was silent as they and Benny watched, captivated by the spectacle. Alfie kept moving forward slowly, steadily pressing his advantage. His bare feet inched across the deck, nimbly avoiding the charred remains of ropes, weapons, and barrel staves. Skipper Black’s eyes widened as he fell back with a look of growing desperation.
“So, ye think ye can get the better of me, do yah now?” Skipper Black said between black and broken teeth.
He may have sounded brave, but his sword arm was dropping lower by the second as fatigue took its toll. Alfie didn’t let up. He kept coming at him, his arm swinging back and forth like a harvester, slashing … cutting …
“I don’t think I can,” Alfie said through clenched teeth. “I know I can.”
With that, he suddenly lunged forward and swung at Skipper Black’s sword with all his might, sweeping it from his hand. The sword twisted end over end as it flew out over the water and then went plunk into the sea, disappearing below the surface with barely a ripple. Skipper Black stopped and looked at Alfie in amazement.
“You beat me!”
Then, without a word, he dropped to the deck on both knees and raised his hands while lowering his head.
“I yield,” he said in a broken voice. “Curs’d be ye.”
A collective gasp went up from the pirate crew. In all their battles, in all their raids, they had never seen Skipper Black bested … and by a mere boy!
“Do with me what ye will.”
Alfie didn’t say a word as he approached his victim. Sweat beaded his forehead, glistening like dew. He was breathing fast, but his face looked as fresh as the morning sun compared to the abject defeat etched on Skipper Black’s face.
“What I want is—”
“Yoo-hoo!”
Everyone looked around as the sound of someone’s voice echoed in the stillness that had dropped like a curtain over the deck of the pirate’s ship. Alfie and Benny froze where they stood. After a breath, they turned and looked each other straight in the eyes.
“Oh, no,” Benny said.
“Don’t tell me— Is it—?” Alfie’s voice choked off.
“Hello … Where are you?”
The voice—a female voice—sliced through the gathering gloom. Skipper Black stood up and looked at Alfie, his face floating like a pale moon in the deepening darkness.
“What be this?” Skipper Black said, his upper lip curling into a sneer that raised his pencil-thin moustache.
“We—uhh, we have to go now,” Benny said as he took a cautious step backward. The shifting of his weight made the ship heave from side to side. Seawater sloshed into the scuppers.
Alfie looked at Benny with gathering surprise in his eyes.
“Yoo-hoo … It’s time to come home now!” the voice called. “Where are you, child?”
Benny looked wistfully at Alfie, and then he turned his head, looking over his shoulder at the shore. Night had settled across the land like a dark, heavy blanket.
“I … I’m over here,” Benny called out, his voice a low, mournful note.
“But the battle’s not over,” Alfie said. “I haven’t taken my prize yet.”
“I’m sorry. It’s getting late,” Benny said. “I have to go home now. My mom’s calling.”
“If he don’t be acceptin’ my surrender, says I,” Skipper Black said with a snarl, “then he don’t be winnin’. I live to fight another day.”
“I’m really sorry,” Benny said, lowering his head and looking at both Alfie and Skipper Black with the most mournful look possible for a dragon. Then he turned and looked to the shore as a huge, dark shape appeared over the nearest sand dune. The silhouette of a fully-grown female dragon towered against the night sky, blocking out half of the stars.
“Ah-hah … There you are,” said the huge, hulking dragon as she walked down the slope toward Benny.
“Hi, Mom,” Benny said, lowering his head until his scaly jaw nearly touched the sand.
“Benedict! What are you doing, standing on that rock?”
“Nothing.”
“Get over here.”
With a few flaps of his wings, he flew over to the beach where his mother stood.
“How many times have I told you that I do not want you playing down by the water alone … especially once it gets dark? How many? Tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t—”
“Who were you talking to just now?” Benny’s mom asked. There was a peculiar mixture of worry and anger in the golden disks of her eyes. “I thought I heard someone else talking.”
Benny sighed and then jerked his head back when a tiny lick of flame shot out of his nostrils.
“No,” he said. “No, it was just … me.”
“Are you sure? If you’ve been playing with that Lambert boy again. You weren’t, were you?” His mother shook her head with a stern look of disapproval.
“No, Mom.”
“I don’t want to be telling tales out of schoo
l, as it were, but I know that young boy is the one who put you up to lighting those fires in the woods last spring. We were lucky the entire forest wasn’t destroyed.”
“No, it was just me and … and Alfie.”
“Alfie?”
The expression in Benny’s mother’s eyes softened, and she moved close enough to him to lean down and nuzzle Benny’s neck.
“Darling, how many times have I told you that Alfie is just a … an imaginary friend? He’s not real.””
“I know … I know.”
Humiliated, Benny was unable to meet her gaze.
“There is no Alfie … And there’s no such thing as ‘people’ … not anymore, anyway. They’re figments of your imagination.”
“All right, Mom.”
“I say it’s time you grew up … at least a little. I want you to promise me you’ll forget all about this … this Alfie from now on. Do you hear me?”
When Benny didn’t answer her right away, she nuzzled him again until he couldn’t help but smile.
“I did … I will,” Benny said, and with that, they both turned and started walking across the sand dunes toward home.
At the crest of the hill overlooking Mockingbird Bay, Benny hesitated for just a moment. When he sighed, a plume of flame lit up the deepening night as he looked back at the sea one last time. A piece of driftwood caught fire, blazing with a blue flame from the salt-saturated wood.
Benny gazed into the dancing flame, as blue and hot as a midsummer sky. A single tear ran down his scaly green cheek when he considered that his friend might now be lost to him forever. He sighed as he stomped out the fire. He didn’t want to burn the forest down again.
And just before he turned to follow his mother into the woods, he paused and whispered, “Psst … Hey … Alfie … See you tomorrow.”
It might have been the distant sound of the surf in the night, but was sure he heard someone whisper, “… see you tomorrow …”
Blossoms in the Wind
That morning in early September, Miko Barnes and her husband, Dave, were late getting to Logan Airport. It wasn’t as if the Boston traffic was all that bad. There weren’t many cars on Route 1-A through Revere that early. But last night—like so many nights before—Miko’d had disturbing dreams. In fact, last night’s nightmare had been so bad she’d lain awake in bed until dawn tinted the eastern sky, and it was time to leave for the airport.
Miko was on her way to Los Angeles to visit her elderly mother, Kyoko, who—according to the phone call from her aunt last week—was failing fast. As worried as she was about what might happen, she was determined not to worry and to deal with it only when it happened.
This morning, something else gnawed at her, filling her with subtle dread. All she knew for sure was it wasn’t just the anticipation and worry about the flight to L.A. that was bothering her.
Throughout the drive, with a clear, bright September sky overhead, Miko couldn’t shake the feeling that something she couldn’t see or hear but which was very real was close by, threatening her and casting a dense shadow over the morning. Even so, the bright sunlight stung her eyes, making them water and blur her vision. She told herself she wasn’t crying, but she appreciated that Dave had offered to drive her to the airport before he left for work. So what if he was a little late?
“You dreamed about him again, didn’t you?” Dave said, half question, half statement of fact. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands and didn’t look at her, focusing instead on the road ahead.
Miko wondered if he really was interested in her dreams or if he was merely being polite, asking out of habit and a sense of obligation after forty-plus years of marriage. No matter how much the dreams bothered her, the situation no doubt bored poor Dave … if he felt much of anything. After being together for so long, she should have been able to read his moods, but she couldn’t … not this morning, anyway.
She was too confused and frightened. The image of another man, a much younger man, filled her thoughts. Even as she pictured him in her mind before describing him to her husband, a rush of fear went through her like she’d experienced last night and so many nights before.
“He was—” She paused and swallowed dryly. “He was standing at the foot of the bed. But I wasn’t dreaming this time. I was awake, and I saw him.”
“How can you be sure you weren’t asleep?”
Miko swallowed hard and looked down. “It wasn’t just last night. I … I’ve been seeing him at different times in the day, too. Not just at night.”
“And is he always wearing the same headband?”
“Yes, and the same flight suit.”
Miko lowered her gaze to her folded hands in her lap and shuddered at the memory. Her knuckles were white, and the blue veins stood out beneath her parchment-like skin.
Dave remained silent as he pulled to a stop at a red light. He glanced at Miko, then reached out and patted the back of her hands gently.
“Have you talked to your mother about this?”
Miko nodded, but she was unable to look him in the eyes when she said, “I mentioned it to her, but it’s hard to explain … especially in her condition. But I’ll ask her when I get there. I have a feeling she knows more about this than she’s letting on, but—you know, she’s from the old country. She considers it impolite for a child to ask too many questions of a parent.”
Dave smiled. “You’re in your sixties, Miko, and she still considers you a child.”
Before Miko could reply, he gave the back of her hands another light pat and then gripped the steering wheel with both hands when the traffic light turned green.
“These headbands they wore … the kamikaze pilots … Was the rising sun design and the message really painted in blood?”
Miko nodded. “In some instances, yes.” She still didn’t look at her husband. “My mother lived near a girls’ elementary school. The students there painted the designs using their own blood.”
“Children?” Dave sighed and shook his head. “I can’t believe that … that level of fanaticism.”
Miko was about to correct him, as she had so many times before, but the truth was, even after being married to her for forty years, he still didn’t fully comprehend or appreciate her Japanese heritage. It wasn’t fanaticism. It was loyalty and devotion and patriotism to the homeland. Above all, it was about honor. The kamikaze pilots were willing to give their blood for the defense and honor of their emperor and his people, so everyone was willing to give their blood … even children. When she raised her head and turned to look at her husband, she saw something reflected in the driver’s side window that startled her. It was the face of a young Japanese pilot, the same one who was haunting her dreams. When she let out a tiny cry, Dave sighed again as he glanced at her.
“It’s only for a week or so,” he said, obviously misunderstanding her reaction. “You’ll be home next Friday.”
“Yes, unless …”
Miko couldn’t say anymore. Dave’s pale profile was reflected in the side window, but that other face—as thin and insubstantial as her husband’s reflection—had been staring straight at her with dark, hollow eyes. With steadily mounting horror, she watched as the apparition’s lips moved. Even though Miko couldn’t hear what he said, she could read his lips well enough to know that he was repeating what he had whispered to her late last night and all those other nights. He spoke Japanese, but, roughly translated, what he said meant: “There is no honor in this,” or “This is dishonorable.”
A surge of guilt filled Miko, and like so many nights before, she wondered what he meant?
What is dishonorable? … Is it something I’ve done … or am doing now? … Or is it something I’m about to do?
She doubted that it had anything to do with her visit to her eighty-three year-old mother, whose illness had finally put her into a nursing home. Miko had been raised correctly and, even at her advanced age, she was a dutiful daughter.
So what is it? … What is without honor?
… If I don’t know what it is, how can I do anything about it?
Sadness made her heart ache as she contemplated being separated from Dave for ten days and nine nights. Would those dreams and that ghostly pilot follow her all the way to Los Angeles? Even three thousand miles away from home, would she see the figure wearing a kamikaze headband, staring at her with the eyes of the dead as he spoke to her?
“… There is no honor in that …”
As they entered the airport, Miko’s nervousness steadily increased until she could barely stand it. She was on the verge of tears as Dave took the exit for the gate where her flight to L.A. would board, but she held them back. She couldn’t cry and show weakness in the face of duty.
That would be dishonorable!
— 2 —
The old woman’s hands trembled, and her eyes filmed with gathering tears as she stared at the old letter. After so many years, the rice paper had yellowed and was fragile with age. Kyoko had read this page so many times in the years after the war that she no longer needed to look at it. Every line, every word, every pen stroke was engraved in her memory. Still, she found solace simply looking at the actual script Ichiro had written to her so long ago. She had lost count of how many times she had traced each graceful line of his calligraphy, imagining that, even in death, his hand was resting on her, gently guiding it as she retraced the words he had written. The delicate paper was stained and close to worn through on the edges from being held and caressed for so long.
… We never speak of our fears because fear does not exist. We are ready to do our duty to the glorious honor of our Emperor and Nippon. But to you, Kyoko, I can tell you the truth. Every night, I have the same dream. I see a city. Its buildings lie in smoking ruins. I am afraid this city is in Japan—maybe Tokyo or Kyoto or Yokohama. I don’t recognize it, but all around me, I see fire and destruction and death. And I feel—I don’t know how to describe it—but as impossible as it seems, I know that our unborn child is lying dead in those ruins. It is impossible for me to know the future, I know, but this dream—which comes to me night after night in the barracks while others are asleep—is as real as any memory I have. When I fly my final mission—which may be as early as tomorrow morning—I will carry the memory of you and our unborn child with me. Please name her Miko, after my grandmother.