A Small Charred Face

by Kazuki Sakuraba

  “Yeah.” I nodded slightly.

  While we were studying governance with Father, I had been thinking in my own way about rules the takezoku on the settler ship would probably need. Like the sorts of laws we should have if we were going to go to an unknown land and combine our strengths to make a new life. Maybe there should be regular meetings. Also! All of us would be in danger if even just one of us was revealed to be takezoku, so I thought we should have a rule about not leaking our secrets to humans. But what if someone broke one of the rules? Right, there’d have to be serious punishments to match too. And, let’s see, there were all kinds of things to think about…

  I had moved my pen half in a trance, but suddenly I grew anxious. What if this was just me butting in again? Well, I could simply ask my friends the next time I saw them. We could discuss everything and make the laws we needed.

  I drew closer to my brother and gently reached out to touch his soft, pudgy, chilled cheek. “What are you going to do?”

  “What?!”

  “D-don’t act so shocked, all right… If it’s easier for you to go into the mountains, then you should do that. But if, if maybe—”

  “No way! Crossing the ocean, I totally—Sis, I!” My brother’s pale face stiffened as he spoke. He yanked his shoulders back as if trying to escape from me and shook his head from side to side.

  “Right!” I hurriedly nodded. “Yeah, sorry.”

  “I-I-I…”

  “What?”

  “You—” He hung his head and then yanked it back up. His tone was abruptly hysterical in a way I’d never heard before. “I mean! I don’t want you to cross the sea either! I want you to stay with me! I mean, of all our brothers and sisters, you’re the only one who really—and then you suddenly say you want to go to the other side of the ocean, I mean, I—! I don’t get it.”

  “Mm.”

  “I—um. I don’t want you to leave me. You dummy.” My little brother had no sooner muttered this sad statement than he was turning his back to me and awkwardly racing away down the hall, veering to the left and right. And then he turned into a ball of blue light and disappeared into the darkness, his figure vanishing abruptly, almost with a pop.

  Above the pond in the courtyard, still floating, wobbling, cross-legged, I stared at the darkness where he had disappeared and sighed. Tonight again, the moon shone coldly in the night sky, like ice.

  And then, three days later, the king formally announced the grand plan to transfer the takezoku population deeper into the mountains. The whole community was instantly abuzz, everyone sharing their thoughts on the whole thing with anyone who would listen. But given that the humans and their torches were not going away anytime soon, the people began to accept the need to move away for the sake of peace.

  Preparations began all at once in the castle and in the houses outside. Perhaps sensing the change among us, or perhaps for some other reason, the humans began to appear outside the gates in even greater numbers. Some even raised their voices in what sounded like battle cries. The time for the move was closing in on us.

  My friends called me to the hut two days after the plan was announced. I woke up when night fell and shot outside. My little brother hadn’t spoken to me since I’d told him of the plan, but tonight, maybe feeling a change in the air, he came to me. But when I turned around after landing at the hut, I saw that he had disappeared at some point. I called his name, but my voice was simply swallowed by the darkness. And I was in a hurry, so I gave up on him and went into the hut.

  My friends greeted me strangely ceremoniously, which struck me as quite odd.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Your coronation!”

  “…What? Coronation?”

  “Well, it’s just make-believe, though. Sit, sit!”

  The young would-be emigrant takezoku stood crowded together in the hut. In the center was a chair lovingly adorned with seemingly handmade silver ornaments. My friends spoke to me with smiles. “You really came!”

  Urged forward, I timidly set myself down on the chair. A large blue handmade hat was placed on my head. It jingled from the decorations that hung from it. Everyone grinned and began to applaud. I was bewildered at first, but my confusion was soon overtaken by delight.

  “Everyone!” The girl with the short hair stepped forward on behalf of the group. “Our ship is destined to leave our homeland and be carried away to a far-off country. But destiny has also done something wonderful for us! This princess, whom we all love, the smartest and nicest of the royal family, has deigned to join us on our journey!”

  Everyone applauded again. I looked around at their faces, and I gasped with surprise at a sudden realization.

  My existence was so worthless, so meaningless, as long as I was among the youngest in the royal family. But now I saw that I was a ray of hope for these future settlers, something that had actual value, a balm on their hearts to relieve the fundamental anxieties and concerns raised by a one-way journey to an unknown land.

  The girl raised her voice. “We are about to set out on an incredible voyage! We’ll never return alive to these mountains, the eternal homeland of the takezoku. We will be cut off from the long history of our people and become a nation of orphans. But! But! In our hearts—!” Her words were interrupted by the tears spilling out of her eyes.

  A man stepped out beside her and held her shoulders as if to give her strength, then picked up where she had left off. “We can live happily anywhere, so long as we have courage in our hearts!”

  “And—!” From no one in particular. “Whatever happens, we have a princess with us. We’re counting on you for the spring and fall harvest festivals and such.”

  “But I mean, she’s not a princess anymore. She’s a queen, right? Well, whatever!”

  “Your Majesty the Queen! The ship will be finished soon. So, wait, it’s the queen’s ship then!”

  “This is going to be a fun trip. I mean, it’s us. We can be happy anywhere.”

  “ ’Cause we’re monsters! We’re strong! I just know we can make it if we work at it.”

  Anxiety and hope and faith in each other and the yearning for an unknown land—all of it mixed together, and the inside of the rough hut began to sparkle.

  Made to sit on something like a throne for the first time in my life, I was in a place now where the governance I had studied and the many ideas I had considered would finally be useful. So will I now have my own country? I thought with surprise. Will I have to protect the people and the kingdom?

  Outside the hut, the late winter wind blew fiercely. I heard the clear babbling of the river. Someone poured fresh blood into a vessel, and it circulated through the room.

  Gradually, my nervousness subsided. With a gentle smile, I looked around at the bodies—my people, my kingdom. The youth with the book of poetry had come to stand next to me at some point. I looked up at his quiet profile, and he slowly opened his mouth.

  “Maybe it was fate.”

  “Fate?”

  “Yeah. You probably think it’s a funny beast? But it’s like it was all decided in advance, a destiny you share with all of us. So whatever happens next because of it, I’m going to accept it all, good or bad. That’s the way I see it.”

  “You’re an idea person, huh?”

  “Heh heh. It was written in this book.” He showed me the red-covered collection of poetry he was holding so lovingly. And then he met my eyes and grinned playfully.

  The coronation turned into a party, the inside of the hut filled with noise and movement, and the night grew ever deeper and darker. The moon radiated a magical blue light. It was indeed a night for monsters.

  “You fool!”

  Before dawn broke, I returned to the castle, went to my father, and reported that I wanted to go out to sea, that I wouldn’t be going into the mountains. My brothers and sisters fell silen
t, so stunned that they appeared to have turned to stone, while my father burned with a fiery rage and roared at me with enough force to very nearly send me flying.

  Panicking, I started to fling myself onto my hands and knees before him, as usual, but then checked myself. No. I lifted my face and stared up at my father.

  “But I—” My whole body shaking, I tried to express my thoughts. “I…I…I want to go…”

  “What are you talking about? You are a royal daughter. And the royal family shall lead the takezoku into the mountains! I will not allow this selfishness!”

  “But, Father, you knew about the ship, and you tacitly approved. You didn’t punish the commoners.”

  “You fool, those are peasants. Obviously, this same path is not permitted for you! As a royal, you must go into the mountains, where we shall live a still-quieter life.”

  “But even if I follow you into the mountains…I-I can never be monarch!”

  “What is this nonsense? Aah, I had such hopes for you. You’re such a clever child. I see now. You might be very intelligent, but you appear to have no understanding of your place. What poison there is in a daughter’s half-finished education…”

  “Father?”

  “So you want so badly to be king? To intimately wield power? Foolish daughter!”

  “I want to be needed!” I shouted, abruptly, from the depths of my heart, the depths of darkness.

  My siblings were shocked and floated up from their seats. Perhaps instinctively, they were separating themselves from the anomalous presence that I was, a being to be shunned.

  “I want to be needed! I want to be needed! I want to be needed! If I can’t be of any use to someone, then why have I worked so hard for this knowledge? Why was I born to be a gifted student? Why was I born a girl so unnecessary, so ugly and awkward, unable to pass my days in pleasure like my beautiful sisters? I want to believe that there is a meaning in me being born like this, that it’s my destiny. I will rule, I’ll be a queen…”

  “Queen, queen, queen,” my eldest brother said coldly, exasperated. “You mean of those beggars? Come now!”

  I looked back at him. I knew that my long black hair flew up and spread out like it was a separate creature with a will of its own. I turned toward my eldest brother, his crossed arms and a sneering expression on his face, and shouted with all my heart, “There are no ranks among the takezoku! And none among the royal family either! We’re all supposed to be equal! I-I—I saw that I could be useful to those people about to set out on that journey. If I stay here like this, if I stay here, I-I’ll have to act like I’m not here even when I am. I’ll have to stay out of your way, keep my head down all the time, hold my breath forever. And that’ll be the end for me. Someone, someone…”

  Sobs rose up in me, and I said, like spitting blood, “I want to live with purpose! And I know I can. I know it.”

  “You—!”

  “I-I don’t want to live like I’m dead anymore. Not one day, not one more day. I’m done.”

  “Stand up!” my father roared.

  I was totally, utterly, completely done. I wouldn’t avert my eyes ever again. I forced my head up.

  “Such defiant eyes.” Father was stunned. “I had misgivings right from the start. That you would be a conceited daughter who would never be brought to heel. That in the end, you would prove to be a fool unable to understand your own place in this world. This impertinent rebellious seed you’ve kept hidden, I-I’ve always been aware of it!”

  “Father…I-I wanted to be a magnificent ruler like you, Father. From the bottom of my heart, I-I respect—”

  “I will not allow it! You are the fifth child of the royal family. You cannot change that destiny.” And then, painfully, like he was wringing it out of himself: “Just the way that I must be king like this.”

  “No!” I stood up and roared back. “A person can change their destiny. I know it, I know it… Because we’re alive!”

  “Hey?” one of my older sisters interjected, worriedly. “Where do you suppose the boy is?”

  “Huh?”

  Everyone came back to themselves and looked around. I noticed that my little brother was nowhere to be found. Let’s see, when did he leave…? I gasped and stood up. Right, he had followed me part of the way when I was flying along the river at the beginning of the night, but I’d lost sight of him. Had he seen my coronation? What had happened after that? Ever since I’d talked with him about leaving, he’d seemed too depressed to even talk to me. And yet, lost in the new possibilities for myself, I’d completely forgotten about him.

  “He’s not in the castle,” my sister said, sounding worried. “I thought maybe he went out.”

  I hurriedly turned my eyes to the sky. Dawn was about to break, wasn’t it? I looked around at my father and my siblings. “Um!” I said, pained. “I’ll go look for him. He’s my responsibility.” I bowed once and hurriedly flew out of the room.

  The voices of my brothers and sisters chased after me.

  “Be careful! It’s almost dawn. Wait! I’ll come too!”

  “Me too. That boy! What on earth could he have gotten up to, I wonder?”

  After wrapping myself tightly in my orange light-blocking cloak, I leaped up into a sky on the verge of daybreak. About to go from the castle to the Yellow River, I noticed that the human beings who had been neatly surrounding the castle gates earlier were, for some reason, slipping through them and heading toward the castle. I looked down, incredulous.

  “Go back!” I quickly turned around and shouted at my second brother and my sister. “Hurry and tell Father! Look! There! The humans…”

  My siblings looked down and gasped. Tentatively, slowly, the humans were proceeding up the gently sloping road to the castle.

  One of them noticed us and cried out. Others turned their gazes upward. Shouts of terror and hatred filled the air.

  I heard something cut through the air, an arrow passing by my ear. I watched it go, only my eyes not covered by the light-blocking fabric. My sister, flying behind me, twisted her body in surprise to dodge it.

  This was followed by rocks being thrown. My second brother caught one of them and casually tossed it back down at the mob. It hit a human in the chest, and he fell to the ground with a thud, vomiting red blood. The humans yelled and shouted, shooting a powerful hatred our way with their glares. Toward the rear was the girl I’d rescued from the fallen tree. She looked up and opened her mouth, Oh!

  And then bows and guns were turned on us.

  I turned neatly aside and flew up into the sky. “Damned humans! They were waiting for morning to attack us! Hurry and tell Father!”

  “But what about you?”

  “I have to find that boy.”

  “Got it. So then we’ll go back to the castle.”

  After this back-and-forth, my brother and sister flew off in one direction and I in another, high up in the sky. I passed the castle gates alone and headed toward the river’s edge.

  People heading for the castle. People scrambling for the common takezoku houses on the riverbank. Of course. The takezoku were without equal at night, but once dawn arrived, we were held back by one tiny weakness. Unable to endure the light of day, we couldn’t fight properly once the sun came up.

  My friends were in danger too. Soaring above the earth, I raised my voice and announced that we were under attack. The humans who heard me looked up and glared before showering me with arrows and shouting their battle cries at me. Then they brought hunting rifles to their shoulders and peppered me with bullets. Encased in my blackout cloak, I darted left and right to dodge these attacks. But I had so many near misses. My cloak was riddled with holes in the blink of an eye.

  Worried, I cast a glance over my shoulder. From the castle, where the silver towers soared majestically, takezoku wrapped in blackout fabric of various colors shot out and up the moun
tain. A beautiful sight, a storm of cherry blossom petals. As though their souls were hot despite the fact that they were monsters.

  Occasionally, I heard the sound of gunfire. And then takezoku dancing ephemerally like flower petals on the wind fell. Their insides turned to ash, they disappeared in the blink of an eye, and the light-blocking cloak and decorated hat they left behind dropped to the ground.

  Grasping the situation from the commotion, peasant takezoku shot out of the common houses as well. They headed deep into the mountains and instantly receded from sight. From time to time, someone—probably my friends who had chosen the ship over the mountains—would fly toward the opposite bank of the river. Some were hit with arrows, somersaulted in the air, turned to ash, and scattered, while their abandoned cloaks dropped to the ground or the water’s surface.

  The humans had apparently started to enjoy the hunt, and they ran around shouting as they launched arrows at unresisting takezoku, as they fired their rifles at us.

  Turning in midair, I intently sought out my little brother. That kid! Where on earth had he gone at a time like this? I knew he’d followed me at least this far after night fell. He’d looked about to burst into tears. But after that…

  When I was almost at my friends’ hut on the river, I saw a scrap of vivid-blue light-blocking fabric behind a tree. I shrieked unconsciously.

  He—my brother! He’d already been attacked and turned to dust, vanished. Only a piece of fabric left behind?

  But the blue cloth shifted in reaction to my voice. Covering his face very carefully so the sunlight wouldn’t touch it, he looked up at me fearfully.

  I cried out again in my extreme relief.

  My brother seemed relieved too. “Oh! Sis!” he called. A tearful expression on his face, he started to float up.

  “No, don’t. Stay there. Don’t move!”

  “Huh?”

  “The humans are attacking! You won’t be able to get away by yourself. I mean…” I mean, you… Unlike me, he wasn’t very good at flying. He quickly tumbled and fell from the sky. If the humans found him, he’d be helpless. Please, just stay there like that.