NOTEBOOK/FUJIWARA, AIKO
DATE: 2006年9月4日
A black bird followed me home today. He stood on a stump and watched me walk into my house. When I went upstairs to my room, he was at my windowsill. I opened the window, but he wouldn’t come inside. Father walked in and the black bird flew away. Father asked if Mother had called. I told him no. He said the three-legged crow would bring her home. He says that a lot. The black bird didn’t return. Nothing stays around this place for very long.
Moya and I walked along the banks of Kusaka River. The sky was night above us, but we pushed through the cattails and the river grass. We dropped down embankments of slippery rock and jumped over the mud and water and fallen logs.
I held Yori’s goggles in my pocket. They were cold from the trauma, but I was so focused on revenge that even the pictures stayed away. “Can you kill him, Moya?”
She looked back at me. “I can stop him,” she said.
“No. I don’t want him stopped. Not like the Seven Noble Families or blowing up a shrine. He has to stay dead this time. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try.”
“Can you do that?” I shouted.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Thank you.”
My face was flushed and red. I removed Yori’s goggles from my pocket and slipped them over my head. They hung around my neck like a pendant. The goggles were cold and dark and full of pictures of trains and body parts, but hating Kōtenbō made it so much easier to control. Moya watched me silently.
“Do you feel it?” she asked.
“Feel what?” I shot back.
“The Tengu Road, Koda. It’s beginning to push in on you.”
“Nothing’s pushing in on me. I just want to find the tengu. I want to find him and tear out his soul. I want to replace everything he’s ever known with smoke and ash and fire. I can break him, Moya. I can find him and I can break his mind and stomp on it until nothing is left but a black hole.”
Moya lunged forward and hugged me. I pushed back, but she held on. I struggled, but she wouldn’t let go. Slowly the anger and the emptiness and hatred chipped apart and started to drain.
“No one I care about is safe,” I said into her shoulder.
“No one in this town is safe. Not until Kōtenbō is gone. We can stop him, Koda. We can stop him together.”
“Winning isn’t really winning if you lose everyone along the way,” I said.
Moya kissed me on the cheek. “You won’t lose everyone. I promise.” She let me go and looked out to the river. “C’mon, little thief, let’s find Taiki’s truck.”
I nodded and wiped my face as we walked off through the cattails.
* * *
Forty meters behind Taiki’s house, we caught sight of the abandoned truck from my cold dream. Shimmering moonlight from the water cast an eerie glow on the banks of Kusaka River.
“Which barberry bush was it?” Moya asked.
“That one,” I said, pointing. “I think.”
We walked over an old footbridge and stood to the side of the thorny bush.
“It doesn’t look like the entrance to a kappa den, does it?” Moya said.
I shrugged because I didn’t know what a kappa den entrance was supposed to look like.
Moya stepped up to the prickly branches. “Shibaten!” she called out. “Show yourself, you ugly little river troll. I’ve brought a suri. We’re hunting the tengu.”
The barberry bush stayed deathly still. Moya looked up at me.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“You want to take a turn?”
“I’ve never summoned a kappa before,” I said.
“Neither have I.”
“Maybe there’s a magic word.”
“Do you know a magic kappa word?” Moya said. She motioned for me to step up to the bush. I walked forward a bit and shouted into the branches.
“O Shibaten! My name is Koda. Um … of the Okita clan. We are a mushroom-growing people.” I looked over at Moya.
“Oh, keep going,” she said with an eyebrow raised. “You’re doing great.”
I ignored her and turned back. “I have arrived here on the banks of the mighty Kusaka River to seek your wisdom, O Shibaten.”
“Dear gods and goddesses,” Moya whispered.
“My companion and I, we are hunting the ancient tengu known to you as Kōtenbō. I am a human. My companion is a fox. We would like to slice the tengu many times. I will cut his face and also his body. I will wear his feet as boots and his hands as gloves. And we will give you the heart, O Shibaten, for you to bite, or just have, or whatever.” I stepped back. Nothing. “Hmm, thought that would work.”
“Bite his heart?” Moya said. “Gods, how did you think that was going to work?”
Deep below the barberry bush came a loud sucking noise. The branches and the leaves shuddered as the earth caved in, pulling the barberry into a yawning black pit. From the mouth of the hole drifted a stench so powerful that Moya and I stumbled backward.
“What is that?” I said, coughing and covering my face.
“That is Shibaten.”
“Did he die in there?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
From the darkness, a child’s arm reached up and clutched the soil.
“Whoa!” I yelled, backing up against the river.
The kappa dragged his rotting carcass from the underground lair. He was the size of a young boy, covered in damp scales from the nails of his feet to the mud-soaked ring of hair on the top of his head. He had a chipped and peeling beak where his mouth and nose should have been. His wiry legs, webbed at the toes, barely seemed able to support the weight of the filthy shell hanging from his back. On top of Shibaten’s head sat a cavity of water marked up with dings and dents. His right eye was dead and gray, and even in the fading light it was easy to see the arrow scars dotting his chest and abdomen. Shibaten looked to the left and then to the right.
“That was a dramatic entrance,” Moya said.
Shibaten stared at me.
“Oh, right, sorry.” I started to clap. Because that’s what you’re supposed do for dramatic entrances, right?
Moya closed her eyes and shook her head so I stopped.
Shibaten looked back at her and blew air through the holes in his beak.
“He’s a suri,” Moya answered. “Not a genius.”
“Did he just talk to you?” I said. “Was that his talking?”
Shibaten growled.
“Shibaten says you talk like a squirrel with rocks in its mouth,” Moya said.
“What? I do not. Wait, do I sound like that to you?”
“No,” Moya said. “Most of the time, no. But sometimes, yes.”
“Hey.”
“Can we just get on with this?” she asked.
Shibaten sat back on his sinewy haunches and watched us.
“We want the eyes,” Moya said.
“I’m sorry, the what?” I said.
Shibaten growled and scratched at his chest.
“We know they’re yours, but we need Kōtenbō’s eyes. It’s the only way to find him.”
Shibaten looked down at the ground. The water in the indent on his head sloshed from side to side, but didn’t spill. His chest vibrated softly.
Moya took a few steps forward. “The eyes are yours, we understand that, but our deal is simple. Hand them over, and we will kill Kōtenbō. Everyone profits, everyone gains. Unless you want to hide from his crows like a rat in the mud for another two centuries.”
Shibaten looked up at Moya and grunted.
“No,” she answered.
“What is it?” I asked.
“He wants us to buy the eyes from him.”
“Okay, I’m going to look past the fact we’re trying to purchase eyeballs from a kappa and I’m just going to ask what he wants.”
Shibaten’s throat began to click. It got louder until he stood on his feet, chest heaving, bellowing from the pit of his stomach that echoed out across the river. Then the night fell silent again.
“What. In the hell. Was that?” I said.
“Shibaten’s price.”
“It sounded expensive.”
“It was.” She looked down at Shibaten. “No. Give us the eyes.”
“What does he want?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter—we’re not going to pay it.”
“Just tell me.”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“Fine. He wants Nobu Ikeda.”
“My gym teacher?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“So he can kill him,” Moya said in an exasperated tone. “That’d be my guess.”
Shibaten snarled.
“I’m sorry,” Moya said. “He would like to pulverize his bones and siphon off his life-energy. Which I think would also kill him … so, yes, kill him.”
“Why kill Ikeda-sensei?” I asked.
“Really? I thought you had this figured out. It was the Ikeda clan that betrayed Shibaten. Yes, that was your fault, Shibaten. What did you think they were going to do? Let you skip along the river eating their children as you please? Of course they shot you full of arrows. I’d shoot you full of arrows, you little monster. Now, give us Kōtenbō’s eyes or the tengu will kill us all.”
Shibaten pounded the ground with his foot.
“You can’t hide from him forever,” she said. “The Seven Noble Families are almost wiped out. What do you think he’ll do next? Just forget about the river troll that stole his eyes? Do you think he won’t poison the river? Or dry it up entirely to find you? Kōtenbō will never stop. He cannot be reasoned or bargained with. Every human and magical creature in this valley will be consumed if we don’t stop him.” She paused, then said again, “Give us the eyes.”
Shibaten scratched his knees and looked at the ground.
“Don’t be stupid, kappa. Give us Kōtenbō’s eyes!”
Shibaten turned his face away. Smoke drifted up from Moya’s shoulders.
“You won’t survive the darkness that is coming, troll. How can you be so blind?”
“Tell him we agree,” I said.
Moya looked over at me. The smoke disappeared. “What did you say?”
“Tell him we agree to his price.”
Shibaten’s good eye fixed on me.
“Why?” Moya asked. “Why would you say that?”
I stared at the old kappa.
“You will have Ikeda,” I said. “Is my squirrel babble clear enough for you? I will give him to you, but not for the eyes. Giving us the eyes will save your life. That’s not something we’re going to buy. I will bring you Nobu Ikeda, Shibaten, but in exchange I want a trick.”
Shibaten glanced over at Moya.
“Don’t look at her, look at me,” I said. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? Tricks and pranks? I want to buy a prank.”
Shibaten growled.
“What kind of prank?” Moya asked.
“A complicated one. There’s an eighteen-year-old boy. His name is Haru. He lives down the street from my house and used to work at the Lawson’s convenience store. I want you to trick him into believing he is me.”
“Why?” Moya asked.
“Then you must trick my parents,” I said. “Make them believe that Haru is their son and they want to take him away from here. Far away. To some place like Tōkyō. Until Kōtenbō is dead. They must drive away in their truck and not return until the tengu has been killed. If the tengu doesn’t die, they must never return. Ever. Do you understand? Play this trick for me and I will bring you Ikeda.”
“This is a very bad idea,” Moya said.
Shibaten stood. His chest vibrated and he stomped the ground.
He is afraid of the crows, my brain said. He is afraid they will tell the tengu where he is hiding. Tell him they will not.
“The crows won’t bother you,” I said. “Not while you do this thing for me.”
“How could you know that?” Moya asked.
Look into the kappa’s eye and assure him that he will be safe.
I looked straight at Shibaten. “Because I know.”
The kappa turned to Moya. She shrugged. He looked back at me and blew air out of his nostrils.
“Good,” I said. “Then it’s a deal.”
NOTEBOOK/FUJIWARA, AIKO
DATE: 2006年9月13日
i sit with the black birds. only they listen. only they stay. i ask them if the three-legged one will bring my mother home. it makes them sad. they say no one can find her. they want to stop hurting me, but the monster wont let them. they want the three-legged crow to save them, but they cant find him either. i tell them my family worshipped Yatagarasu at a temple near our home so he will help us. they don’t know where the three-legged crow is or why he is taking so long. i dont want the black birds to leave. even with the crying i dont want to be alone again.
Not not not not
again
we leave together.
Fly
black birds
fly
I walked into my house sometime after midnight. “Tadaima,” I said, kicking off my shoes in the genkan, even though I knew no one would call “Okaeri” back.
“Come into the kitchen, Koda,” my mother would have said. “I made your favorite soup for dinner—shiitake.”
“No time, kā-san,” I’d reply if I were a normal kid and we were a normal family. “I have homework to do. And then I want to watch TV.”
If my life were normal.
I walked upstairs to my parents’ room and slid the door back just a bit. They were both asleep on their futon. My father was snoring.
I slid the door open wider. Maybe Haru would be a better son than me. Maybe he’d tell my mother how much he liked her soup. Maybe—
“Aah!” my father screamed. “Who is that? Who’s there? Mother, Koda’s come to murder us!”
“It’s just me, tō-san, I didn’t mean to—”
But then my father was snoring again. Was he sleep-talking? And also, does my father think I’m going to murder him in the middle of the night? How often does he wake up like that? My poor mother.
I really was the most dangerous thing that could have happened to them. Maybe in the space between awake and asleep, my father sensed that and resented me for it. I closed the door and walked down to my bedroom. I folded my futon and dragged it back along the hall to my parents’ room. I unfolded the mattress, and that’s where I slept my last night with them, listening to my mother’s breathing and my father’s terrified snoring through the door.