Epilogue
The smell of gas.
He came running from somewhere far away, flying across incredible distances home. Wataru shot up from bed with the momentum of his arrival.
I’m in my room!
School notes and textbooks piled up on the desk. Mom’s hand-knit cushion on the seat of the chair. Dictionaries and an encyclopedia set on the bookshelf. Behind the encyclopedias: game strategy guides, a row of comic books, and a secret piggybank with money to buy Eldritch Stone Saga III.
My room. My home. But why does it smell like gas?
The air conditioner was turned off. An unpleasant, dangerous stench hung in the air.
Wataru threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. “Mom!” He shouted, running out into the living room. The door to his mother’s bedroom was open. A strong smell of gas came drifting from the kitchen.
She left the door open so the gas could fill her room.
Holding his breath, Wataru dashed into the kitchen and almost turned on the light, his hand stopping just before the switch.
Stop, stupid! If the switch lets off a spark this whole place will blow.
Wataru withdrew his hand, then, groping behind the oven, found the main gas valve and turned it off.
Returning to the living room, he opened all of the windows. Nervously, he tiptoed into his mother’s room. She was lying there on her side, her face as pale as the moon. Her head was on her pillow and she was facing the ceiling. The summer coverlet on her bed was thin, but even so Wataru could barely see her form beneath it—that’s how much weight she lost in the short time since Dad left.
But you don’t have to die. Please don’t die.
The curtains in the bedroom were heavy and thick, and easily slid out of Wataru’s hands. He jumped up and grabbed them, but ended up in a heap on the floor when the whole curtain rod detached from the wall. Still, he let his heart give a cheer of victory. Wataru scrambled to his feet and opened the window.
I made it in time! Mom’s going to be okay. I’ll save her! I can save her!
He had returned from Vision to the real world at the same point he had left—when Mitsuru had come through the Corridor of Light to save him.
The gas smell was thinning. Still, Wataru ran through the darkened rooms, down the hall, running into walls and furniture, until he was out the front door. He hoped the neighbors would wake up in time.
“Can I borrow your phone?! Hello? This is Wataru Mitani, I live next door! I need to call an ambulance!”
It was a dark night in the real world, with no moon. Only the gently flickering fluorescent lights in the apartment hallway watched over Wataru’s frantic struggle for help.
Uncle Lou came right away, driving straight in from Chiba. The two sat side by side in the hallway outside the emergency room at the hospital. It was three in the morning.
“You were lucky to have found her so quickly,” the doctor told Wataru. “We have to keep a close watch on her until she regains consciousness. But I have every reason to believe she’ll pull through just fine. You did well, son.”
The doctor was young himself. He had come out to greet the ambulance with a sleepy look on his face when they arrived through the emergency entrance. But when the stretcher came out, he was all business. There was work to be done. Doctors are a bit like Highlanders in that way, Wataru thought.
They checked out Wataru too. Spots in your eyes? No. Does it hurt to breathe? Not at all. Does your head hurt? I’m fine.
I’m fine. Is it all right if I stay until Mom wakes up?
So he had sat with his uncle waiting, just the two of them. The bench in the hallway was made for adults, and Wataru’s legs swung in the air when he sat up. He kicked them back and forth. I’m a full-fledged Highlander. Why am I sitting here like a little kid?
Then he remembered. I’m not a Highlander, not anymore. I don’t have my Brave’s Sword. Or the power of the gemstones.
I’m just Wataru Mitani.
“Municipal gas won’t kill you, you know,” Uncle Lou muttered. His shoulders were sagging, and his large hands hung limp between his knees.
Wataru had heard something like that before. That’s right, Mitsuru. Municipal gas isn’t poisonous enough to be fatal. But if a spark catches it on fire…
And Mitsuru’s gone. Or wait, maybe he’s not! What if he’s back here in the real world?
“Aren’t you sleepy, Wataru?” Uncle Lou asked. He hadn’t shaved in a while, and his face was scratchy with stubble. His big eyes blinked sorrowfully.
He looked just like Kee Keema when the big waterkin was in a sour mood. The same giant frame, the same gentle heart.
“I’m fine, really.”
“Well, if you get sleepy, my shoulder’s all yours.”
“Thanks.”
He wasn’t tired, but suddenly an uncontrollable wave of emotion rose up inside him, and Wataru clung to his uncle’s arm. Uncle Lou put his arm around Wataru’s shoulders.
For a minute, nobody said anything.
“I’m sorry,” Uncle Lou said at last. “You’ve been put through all this, and it’s not your fault at all. It’s really not fair. Not fair at all.”
His voice trembled and broke slightly, like the unshed tears he was holding inside.
“Uncle Lou?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember us meeting?”
His uncle turned and looked Wataru from head to toe. “What are you talking about?” His tired face had a look of honest confusion.
Then Wataru remembered: it had been after he got the second gemstone and passed through the Corridor of Light that he had met his uncle. His mother was already in the hospital then, and Uncle Lou had come in just as Wataru was getting ready to leave. But she just got to the hospital now. That hasn’t happened yet.
Then Wataru thought, I’m already here, back in the real world. Maybe it will never happen at all.
Somehow, the time he’d spent in Vision hadn’t registered here in the real world. Finally, the full impact of it hit him. That’s what it meant to come back to an apartment filled with gas—the same apartment at the same time he had left it. While he had been running around Vision, here, back in the real world, nothing had happened.
That raised a lot of questions. Where was Mitsuru Ashikawa? What about Kaori Daimatsu? And Kenji Ishioka, for that matter?
Uncle Lou was rubbing his face with his well-worn hands. Wataru felt like he should comfort him somehow. Really I’m fine. In fact, I’m beyond fine in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.
But he didn’t know how to say it. If he wasn’t careful, he might end up crying himself. Not that he was sad—but if he started talking, all the emotion he’d been holding inside would burst out, and he would cry. Because I’m still a kid.
Because I’m no longer Wataru, the Brave.
Wataru leaned against his uncle, letting himself be supported by his arm. His uncle was warm and smelled of suntan lotion.
“Uncle Lou?”
“Hmm?”
“I guess I am a little sleepy after all.”
“Goodnight, Wataru.”
Wataru closed his eyes. The instant he fell into a light sleep, he began to dream. He was riding on the darbaba cart. Kee Keema was sitting in the driver seat, spurring the beast with cheerful yelps.
Finally, the tears came. His first tears back in the real world. They ran down his cheeks and over his lips. They tasted like home.
They stayed at the hospital until morning, but his mother still wasn’t up yet, so Uncle Lou took Wataru back to the apartment.
They ate breakfast at a pancake house. The place was empty in the early morning, except for a man in a suit sitting over in the smoking section reading a newspaper. The smoke from his cigarette drifted past Wataru, who was busily stuffing his cheeks with pancakes.
“Wataru.”
“What?”
His uncle was looking at him curiously, a Styrofoam cup filled with steaming coffee in his hand.
“What is it?”
Wataru’s uncle put his cup on the tray. He furrowed his eyebrows. “You know, you…”
“Yeah?”
“You seem grown-up all of a sudden.” There was a hint of surprise in his quiet tone. Wataru realized his uncle had been observing him for some time.
Wataru smiled. A nameless, warm feeling, one part gratitude and one part amusement spread through him. It wasn’t sudden at all. I’ve just come home from a long journey.
“I’m just happy that Mom didn’t die,” Wataru said. “I don’t think that’s what she really wanted. I don’t think that was the right thing to do.”
Uncle Lou nodded, unable to speak. His eyes glistened with tears.
School was already out for summer vacation. Even if Wataru went, no one would be there. So, the first chance he had, he made straight for the apartment where Mitsuru’s aunt lived.
It was morning, and the doorman was piling up garbage in the waste bin to the side of the apartment. When Wataru arrived, he paid him no notice. But when Wataru came out again, panting for air, he stopped what he was doing and came over, a suspicious look on his face.
“What are you doing here, boy?”
“Uh…I…” The nameplate for the Ashikawa apartment was gone. Right there, on the mailbox in the entrance foyer with the number for the apartment where Mitsuru’s aunt had lived was a new, blank nameplate. “Did Ms. Ashikawa move?”
“Ashikawa?”
“Yeah, a young lady, living with a boy about my age. He and I were friends.”
The doorman put a hand to his forehead and thought. Then he grunted and rapped his knuckles on his bald spot. “Oh them! They moved.”
“When?”
“Just a while ago. Think it was the last day of school.”
“Did you see them when they left? Was it both of them? Was the boy with her?”
The doorman seemed flustered by this barrage of questions. He recovered quickly, though—the dour, worldly expression coming back to his frowning face. He glared at Wataru. “What do you want to know for? If you were really his friend, why didn’t he tell you?” Glancing back at the mailboxes, he continued, “Say, what did you really come here for? Haven’t I seen you around before?” But by that time, Wataru was already out the door and gone.
Wataru wanted to see Katchan more than anyone else. Unfortunately, his good friend didn’t have any news about Mitsuru.
But Yutaro! Yutaro Miyahara. He was friends with Mitsuru; they were the top students in the class. And they had even been in the same room. Now where did Yutaro live…?
Yutaro was busy watering a row of morning glories and sunflowers with his little brother and sister in the small garden behind an old wooden house. His sister was tottering along, carrying a red watering can. Yutaro was busy using a dowel rod to prop up a sunflower stalk.
Wataru put his hands on the steel wire fence around the garden and called out to him.
“Good morning!”
Yutaro jolted upright and whirled around. “Hey there, Wataru. Didn’t see you. Good morning. You’re up early for a summer vacation day!”
Yutaro walked over to the fence. Wataru mumbled some hasty explanation for his visit. Yutaro’s brother and sister stayed in the garden, absorbed with counting the blooming morning glories.
“Hey, Yutaro, you know that kid Mitsuru Ashikawa?”
“Mitsuru? You mean the one in my class?” Yutaro asked without skipping a beat. “What about him?”
Mitsuru does exist! He’s here! I didn’t just dream him up.
“Do you…happen to know where he is?”
“Where?” Yutaro blinked. “He moved.”
This was the answer Wataru had expected. “He was a transfer student, wasn’t he? And he already moved away?”
“Yeah. He was in and out of here in a hurry. But I guess with his home situation being what it is and all…”
“Yeah. I was wondering—what was he like?”
Yutaro stared at Wataru for a second. “What do you mean, ‘what was he like’?” Yutaro laughed. “Why are you so interested in him, anyway? He wasn’t even in your class.”
“Well, we were in the same cram school.”
“Really? But I never saw you talking to him. He was the silent type, that one.”
Wataru nodded. He wanted to know more…but he couldn’t think of any questions that wouldn’t make Yutaro even more suspicious than he already was.
Wataru was back in the real world now, and Mitsuru was gone. It’s like he was never here in the first place…
“Wataru,” Yutaro called out. “You know…”
“Yutaro!” came his little brother’s shout from behind him. “I’m trying to count the morning glories but Mayumi keeps gettin’ in the way!”
Back in the garden, the little girl burst into tears. Yutaro hesitated, unsure for a moment whether to be the big brother to his siblings or the friend to Wataru.
“Your sister’s crying,” Wataru said, letting him go.
“Yeah.” Yutaro looked over the fence, and turned toward his sister. Then he stopped and turned back. “The moms at school, they talk too much,” he said quickly, as though he was in a rush to get the words out before he changed his mind.
“Huh?”
“There was a PTA meeting before summer break, and this one older lady there loves spreading rumors, and she told my mom…”
Wataru already knew what Yutaro was going to say. For a second, he was afraid that news of his mother’s suicide attempt had already made the rounds, but that would have been much too fast. No, Yutaro’s mom had doubtlessly heard about the events leading up to that. A couple of kids in Wataru’s grade lived in the same apartment complex. They had probably heard something, or the families heard something, and word had gotten around.
Grandma was shouting pretty loudly that night.
“Things are pretty rough at your place, I guess?”
“Yeah.” Wataru nodded. Yutaro was as safe a person to talk to about this as anybody. And somewhere along the line, Wataru found he had the strength to talk about it without getting too weepy.
“I know what it’s like,” Yutaro said, rubbing his lip. “My dad’s remarried. Takes a while for things to settle down.”
Behind him, his little sister had stopped crying. She and her brother were crouching down by the morning glory patch, digging up something in the soil.
“It was…tough, when it happened.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Yutaro smiled. “But it got better. I like my brother and sister too. Just wish they were a little quieter.”
Now his little brother started crying. His sister was hitting him over the head with the red watering can.
“Yeah,” Wataru said. He felt his throat tighten and couldn’t say any more.
“So, anyway,” Yutaro said, sounding a bit unsure himself. “I guess I, well, you know…” He didn’t know what to say either, but his eyes told Wataru enough. Hang in there.
“Yeah.”
“Yutaroooooo!”
Now both of the kids were crying. Yutaro gave an exaggerated sigh, but he was smiling when he turned around to run back to them.
I wonder how many morning glories there were after all?
On the way back home, Wataru’s mind was a blank. He thought of nothing. In his head, there was only a question mark where the face of Mitsuru Ashikawa had been, and in his chest, a lingering feeling of relief from his talk with Yutaro.
He wasn’t even paying attention to where he was going, when he saw Katchan walking toward him on the other side of the street. He was wearing a pass to the municipal pool around his neck and yawning. It took him a moment to recognize his friend.
“Oooooornin’.” Katchan waved to Wataru, not even bothering to stifle his yawn.
Wataru stopped, frozen in place, staring at Katchan.
Say, Katchan, you remember that exchange student, Mitsuru Ashikawa?
“What’re you doing out here this early in the morning? I know that you didn’t come from the pool, I was just there!”
“Gotcha.”
“What?” Katchan craned his neck, looking at Wataru. If this early rising was to become a trend, Katchan clearly did not approve.
“Thanks for freeing those birds for me.”
“Huh?”
Seeing his expression, it was clear that Katchan didn’t know anything about the birds. He never got them, and he never set them free.
“Nothing,” Wataru said with a laugh. “Forget about it.”
“You look scruffy, man. In fact, you look like you haven’t slept a wink.” Before Wataru could respond he could see Katchan’s brain begin to work double time. “Wait…” now he looked worried. “I hope nothing happened at home, with your old man?”
Wataru knew he couldn’t hide the truth from Katchan, but there didn’t seem to be any point in telling him the whole story now. Maybe later, when things have settled down a bit.
“Katchan?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know what happened to Kenji…from the sixth grade?”
“You mean Kenji Ishioka? That creep?”
“Uh-huh.” Wataru chose his words carefully. “Did he lose his memory or something? Or did he go missing for a while? And when he came back, did he act like his soul was gone?”
Katchan’s eyes focused on Wataru’s face. He walked straight over to his friend and waved his hand right before Wataru’s nose. “Hey! Mitani! Earth to Mitani!”
Wataru laughed. Katchan kept waving. “I know why you didn’t sleep last night! You were playing that game, Detective Meadows: The Case of the Disappearing Client, weren’t you! They say it’s the best one in the series! Once you pick up that controller, you aren’t sleeping until you’re done. Well, time to wake up, Wataru. People we know don’t go missing. Not in real life.”
Wataru laughed while his friend grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. “Mitani! Mitani!” Katchan was acting like a cop trying to keep a wounded partner from losing consciousness.
“Kenji hasn’t gone missing. His memory’s fine too, far as I know. Though I did hear that he hasn’t been on the warpath lately. Maybe he’s gone soft. Maybe somebody took that crooked mean streak of his and straightened it out for him.”
Hearing that was enough for Wataru to understand.
It was in the afternoon when the call finally came from the hospital. Grandma had come over from Chiba, and Uncle Lou and Wataru went to the hospital together. Uncle Lou waited in the hallway while Wataru went to see his mother in her room.
Kuniko cried, and Wataru cried. She apologized, and he apologized.
Then, the most unexpected thing happened.
“You know, Wataru,” his mother said, “while I was asleep, I had a really odd dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
“Well…” his mother began, but just from her expression, Wataru knew. He could see it in her eyes.
“It was the strangest thing. It was like another world—like something in one of those video games you’re always playing. And you were there. You were traveling, learning to be a warrior. And you were with this big lizard man, and a girl with cat ears. It looked like you were having fun.”
“Do you remember much about my trip?”
If you don’t, I can tell you. I can tell you everything. I can tell you what I did, and what I brought back.
“I do! I remember it all. Crazy, huh?” His mother smiled. “Wataru, you made a very dashing adventurer, I must say.”
“Mom?” Wataru said after moment. “I think…I think we’re going to be okay.” I know now how to not punish myself for what I’ve lost. I know how to take care of the future.
“Even if Dad doesn’t come home?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“Yeah,” Wataru said, nodding. “There’s a whole world out there waiting for us.”
My Vision. My real world.
In his mother’s eyes he saw the blue-gray sparkle of Meena’s eyes, and the black eyes of Kutz the Rosethorn. He even saw the clear blue eyes of Captain Ronmel.
His mother hugged him.
Several days later, his mother came home from the hospital, and it was decided that she and Wataru should go to his grandmother’s house in Chiba for a while. Grandma had grumbled a bit, wondering if Kuniko wouldn’t much rather go to her parents’ house in Odawara. But her resistance to the idea faded away when Kuniko told her she wanted to talk to her about their future. “I’d really appreciate your advice.”
That had been enough for Grandma. The hard lines in her face softened, and she had gone home on the first train to do a little housecleaning before they arrived.
Wataru’s father called several times. He saw his mom talking with him on the phone for hours. She wasn’t crying or screaming anymore though.
Wataru told his dad he was doing fine.
“I’m sorry, Kuniko, I really am,” he overheard his grandmother saying.
Wataru had to tell Katchan the news. If Katchan’s parents let him, he could come out to Chiba to play. Uncle Lou said that, if he wanted to, he could stay for all of summer vacation. “Of course, I’ll be putting you two to work on the beach!”
Katchan was ecstatic, but he had one request. “I’ll go as long as your uncle doesn’t force us into a watermelon battle.”
“What’s that?” Wataru had asked.
“It’s like a piñata. You know, when you blindfold someone and they take a stick and try to hit something? But instead of a piñata, you’re swinging at a big watermelon. And a lot of people are doing it at the same time. If I played with your uncle, he’d crack me over the head for sure and with those big arms…” Katchan shivered. “Yowch!”
There was one other place Wataru needed to go. Right up until the moment he left Katchan’s house, he was half-thinking of inviting his friend along. He didn’t know if he had the guts to go there alone.
But in the end, he said goodbye, and set off by himself.
He began walking in the direction of the Daimatsu building. The haunted building.
He hadn’t gotten up the courage to come here before today. He guessed that it was probably the same as it always was. Why would it be any different? But for some reason, he was scared to check for himself. He was scared to see that skeleton of abandoned iron girders, quietly rusting beneath faded blue tarps, that rain-beaten sign announcing the plans for the building.
Because when I see that I’ll know it’s really over. The spell will be forever broken.
So he walked slowly, his eyes cast downward.
He heard it before he saw it: the whine of heavy machinery. Wataru looked up to see a bulldozer and a crane busy at work.
The haunted building was naked, its blue tarp dressing torn to the ground. A long rusted girder was hanging from the arm of the crane.
They’re taking it down!
Wataru ran.
He stood watching the steel staircase where he first met Wayfinder Lau. Lost in thought, someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Well, isn’t that our young friend Wataru?”
He looked around to see Mr. Daimatsu grinning at him.
“H-hello!”
“I’ll bet you didn’t expect this!” Mr. Daimatsu said, waving his hand at the half-dismantled building.
“You’re taking the whole building apart?”
“That we are. It sat out in the rain so long, the metal fittings started to disintegrate. So we’re razing it to the ground and building it back up from scratch. Finally got all the money in order, this time. It will be a fine building, for sure.”
The haunted building was going for good.
Wataru’s vision blurred ever so slightly. The roaring of the big tractor drowned out his quick sigh.
Goodbye.
Just then, Mr. Daimatsu turned around and spoke to someone behind him. Whoever it was stood just right so that Wataru couldn’t see who it was.
“No need to be shy,” Mr. Daimatsu was saying. He smiled broadly and put his arm around the person’s shoulder, pulling her around to face Wataru. “This is Wataru…Wataru Mitani. You’ve met him before, though you probably don’t remember.”
It was Kaori Daimatsu.
She wasn’t sitting in a wheelchair anymore. She wore a knee-length sleeveless white dress that fell down over her slender legs. Her skin was dazzlingly white, and her lustrous black hair was tied in a ponytail that gleamed in the hot summer sun.
“My daughter’s gotten much better recently,” Mr. Daimatsu said, rubbing her shoulder as delicately as if she were precious jewel. “She came out for a walk and a little fresh air today. Well, Kaori, aren’t you going to say hello?”
The girl was staring at Wataru, as though captivated. The look in her dark eyes said that she knew she had met him somewhere, but couldn’t remember where. They had spoken, but she didn’t know what had been said. I can’t remember how, but I know that I know you.
Even for Wataru, the memory was fading.
Her soul is back. Her soul was returned.
“I…” Wataru stammered.
The little white bird on my shoulder.
“I once snuck inside this building,” he managed at last, “and I tripped and fell. Mr. Daimatsu took care of me.”
Once he started talking, Wataru couldn’t stop. His voice sounded strange in his own ears.
Mr. Daimatsu laughed out loud. “That’s right, I remember that.”
Wataru was staring at Kaori. She returned the stare. “Hello,” she said quietly.
Give me your sword, the Demon’s Bane…It was the same voice. Those graceful hands stretched out to Wataru. Those arms that had comforted him in his sorrow at leaving Vision behind. That warm embrace had taken the pain away.
I’ll never forget that moment. Never.
You don’t remember me, but I remember you.
You were the Goddess of my destiny.
“Well now, you’ve met again for the first time,” Mr. Daimatsu said cheerfully. Kaori Daimatsu looked up at her father and smiled. Wataru thought her smile must have been brighter than the summer sun high in the sky above, the way it lit up her father’s face.
“Nice to meet you,” said Wataru.
Vesna esta holicia.
Until you shine again.
Into Vision, into the real world.
Though a child of man knows time, life itself is eternal.
Miyuki Miyabe was born in Tokyo and graduated from Sumidagawa High School. After working in law offices and other places, her 1987 debut title, Warera ga Rinjin no Hanzai (Crimes of our Neighbors), won the All Yomimono Newcomer Award for Crime Fiction.
Miyabe went on to win the 45th Mystery Writers of Japan Award, for Ryu wa Nemuru (The Dragon Sleeps) and the 13th Yoshikawa Eiji Newcomer Prize for Honjo Fukagawa Fushigi Zoshi (Mysterious Tales of Hon-jo-Fukagawa) in 1992.
Her other literary awards include the 6th Yamamoto Shugoro Prize in 1993 for Kasha (All She was Worth), the 18th Nihon SF Taisho Award in 1997 for the Gamoutei Jiken (Case of the Gamou Residence), the 120th Naoki Prize in 1999 for Riyuu (The Reason), the Mainichi Shuppan Culture Award Special Prize in 2001 for Mohou-han (Copycat Killer), and the 6th Shiba Ryotaro Prize and the 52nd Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in Literature in 2002, also for Mohou-han.
In 2007, her Na mo Naki Doku (Nameless Poison) won the 41st Yoshikawa Eiji Literature Prize. The newest edition of Na mo Naki Doku is currently available in Japan.