Chapter 4 — Amethyst Eluded by Dawn

1

As I stepped through the door into the theater hall, the high midday sun shining down from the windows on the ceiling cut sharp lines across the rows of seats. Paula was sitting in a seat about midway down. I didn’t make any effort to call out to her, just walked up and sat down at her side. Nito took the seat on my other side.

Paula spared us a glance before turning her gaze back to the front of the hall. Nito and I joined her in staring at the uncurtained stage.

“It was in the summer I turned ten, just after this theater was founded,” she began. “One of my friend’s parents became a cleaner here and used to sneak us kids in when there wasn’t much of a crowd.”

She paused, but I didn’t turn to look back at her, and I didn’t try to reply. I just had a feeling that was the best option to take.

“I still remember the first time like it was yesterday. That dancer’s dress sparkled under the lights, her arms and legs glided through the air, and her stiletto heels were just... It was like she was riding a horse made of music, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to be like that too—my arms and legs flying through the air.”

“So then you made it your job?” I asked after a short pause.

She snorted. It wasn’t a snort of derision at anyone else; it had only the soft puff of self-deprecation.

“I was just a tailor. It was a tiny store, and my usual takings were twelve belk a week. The closest I ever got was putting on a show in the local bar on weekends, dancing and making some spare change. Most of what came flying across the dusty floor was half-eaten bread from the drunkards, maybe a copper or two. The lights and the dress that I so longed for back then were all nothing more than dreams.”

I nodded along as she spoke, until eventually she paused again. Just like earlier, I waited for her to continue.

“I knew I’d gone too far as soon as I said it,” she admitted at length. “You asked the thunder rat about it, didn’t you?”

“And he told us Paula was his daughter’s name. Along with the fact that she’d died years ago,” I answered, finally turning to face her. I had no idea if my expression was as rife with confusion as my mind was, but I was dying to know. “Why do you have a dead girl’s name? It’s no coincidence, is it?”

“Of course not. She was my best friend, after all. Back when I first said I wanted to become a dancer, and even when I was wrestling with the fact that I was a man that had the heart of a woman, she was the only one that took me seriously.” Paula turned her gaze away from where it’d been fixated on the stage and gave me a searching look. “Kei, you never denied or rejected me when you first saw me. Your expression didn’t even change... Why is that?”

“Well, I guess ’cause it’s kinda normal?”

I’d seen people before that didn’t feel like they matched their body, in documentaries, TV shows, movies, and so on. Paula was the first I’d gotten to know personally, but that was no reason to reject her.

“Normal...?”

Paula’s eyebrows dropped and she gave a suspicious frown. Nito poked her head around from my other side and explained.

“Keisuke is an otherworlder, so he doesn’t have the same values as people from this world.”

“Oh!” Paula exclaimed, her eyes widening as she covered her mouth in shock and leaned her face close to mine. “You’re so incredible, Kei! I’ve never met an otherworlder before!”

“I don’t think it’s all that impressive,” I deflected, unsure how to react to being treated like some kind of celebrity.

“That otherworld is a whole other world,” she insisted. “Are there outcasts like me living loud and proud in your world?”

“Well...some people are loud and proud, but I think there are others who just live their lives. There’s definitely still discrimination and prejudice, but I’m pretty sure it’s getting more and more accepted as normal.”

If I’d known I would be asked about this kind of thing one day, I’d have looked into it more and been able to give her a better picture. Unfortunately, I could only offer vague platitudes. Paula put her hands to her chest and slowly shook her head as she took in what I’d said.

“So there really is a world like that,” she said after a moment. “A world where people like me can just live. That sounds...wonderful.”

My heart tightened at her expression. Here was someone who viewed the society I’d taken for granted my whole life as something radiant and enviable. There were people out there that would want such a thing more than I could ever imagine, and I had never even noticed.

“I wish this world could have grown into something like that, but it fell before it had the chance,” Paula said, then laughed softly. “Maybe that was for the best, though. It wasn’t a world I could live in with any ease, and there was no hope for my future either.”

“But didn’t you dream of dancing on stage?” Nito asked hesitantly.

Paula smiled gently back at her.

“Of course I did. But I’m old enough to know there’s a difference between dreams and reality, and I’d given up. This theater might be a decaying husk, but it’s still more than I deserve.”

Nito made to say something but I put my hand on her knee to stop her. Whatever she or I said, it would have been meaningless to Paula. I knew that nothing we could think of here in this moment would be new to her. We all had things in life that we believed in, wished for, and held on to with all our strength, but then gave up on once we realized there was no real hope.

“Paula, why did you come back here?” I asked.

“Well, I wanted to dance on this stage,” she replied.

“Back when we first met—when you stopped my car—you asked about the village, didn’t you?”

Thinking back on it, the way she had acted that day didn’t fit her at all. I started going over other details: she’d been friends with Monty’s daughter, she’d lived around here as a child... The photo I’d seen suddenly came back to my mind.

“Are you Fago’s...” I half asked.

It was more of a shot in the dark than a well-reasoned guess driven by any real certainty. The boy in Fago’s photo hadn’t looked anything like Paula, and on top of that, Fago had told me that he was dead. Even I barely believed it was possible, but I just had to ask.

Paula didn’t answer me out loud. All she did was give a single, tearful nod. Nito gasped, the sound awfully loud as it cut through the silence around us.

“Th-Then why don’t you go to her and—” From there, she let out a stream of rapid-fire half-formed questions, flapping her hands around emphatically.

I knew that she wanted to ask why Paula didn’t go and check in on Fago. There was another question that needed answering first, though.

“Does Fago know you’re here?”

She shook her head.

“I can’t face her now.”

“But she’s your mother,” Nito protested.

Paula directed a lonely smile toward the younger, smaller Nito.

“Dad was pretty pissed when I admitted I wanted to live as a woman and become a dancer. I wouldn’t budge, though, and eventually I got disowned. I’m not their son anymore.”

She gestured at herself.

“I mean, look at me,” she added derisively. “How can I just turn up looking like this and say, ‘Remember me? I’m your kid!’?”

“But...but you’re so close, and...” Nito’s voice got progressively quieter as she spoke, before she was eventually too quiet to hear.

“Thank you, Nito. You’re a sweet girl. I’m sorry, though...I’m a coward. All I can ever imagine is her turning away and saying, ‘I don’t know you. My son is dead.’”

“But that’s just...”

“Right, it’s just me imagining how it might go. But if that really did happen... That’s what I always think, and I can’t take the fear. If the alternative’s dying in despair, then I’d rather keep living like this. Once mom turns to crystals, I’ll regret not reconnecting with her, sure. Or maybe I’ll even go first. Either way, it’s better than the alternative. That’s why I can’t go to the festival, even though I really want to.”

The bright tone in her voice was definitely there for our sake. Her strength, and the need for her to have that strength, put a lump in my throat. The world was in ruins, all but ended. Each and every person was vanishing one by one, not knowing if tomorrow would ever come, but even then, mother and child could not necessarily understand each other. But this is the end, I thought. I just want someone to fix it. I didn’t care if it was the saint, a god, or even a hero. Anyone would do.

How could I comfort Paula? If Fago found out the truth, would it go well? Did I even have the right to decide something like that? No answers were forthcoming to my worries, so I remained silent. Then, cutting into my thoughts, Paula spoke to us.

“Come on, don’t make those gloomy faces. The most precious thing in life is a smile.”

2

No conversation passed between Nito and I during the ride back to the temple. The same thoughts were probably going through both of our heads, but it seemed that neither of us could come up with a clear path to follow.

Charolles’s trike was sitting outside as we drove up, despite usually being nowhere to be seen. I pulled the Kettle up alongside it, and we got out and headed inside. The saint’s statue was standing in the main hall as it always did; we went past her and down the corridor. The door to the library was open, and a peek through it revealed Charolles sitting in one of the chairs at the table. I waited for a moment, before calling out to her.

“What’s up?”

“Welcome back,” she replied. “I’ve been waiting for you two.”

The room seemed awfully empty to me, and I soon realized why. The piles of books had all been returned to their shelves. Before I could wonder at that, Charolles stood up and walked toward us, taking a thick book from her magic bag and offering it to us. I accepted it readily, but noticed that it was shockingly heavy.

“You can have it.”

“That’s great, but what is it?”

The leather-bound book was covered in scuffs and looked positively ancient. Constant rough treatment over the years must have battered it.

“It’s a map. You were looking for one, right?”

“You found it?” I asked.

“That’s the courier’s map I inherited,” she said, shaking her head. “There isn’t a map in this library, or so the author said.”

“What? Monty?”

“Yes. He said that he’s read every book in here, so there’s no point in searching anymore.”

“That’s why you’re giving us yours? It must be important to you, though.”

Considering she’d said she inherited it, it must have been an accumulation of some kind of ancestral knowledge, not just some simple map.

She shook her head, though, simply saying, “I don’t need it anymore. There’s no point in us couriers continuing our work, so it’s of no use to me.”

“You’re searching for that story, though, aren’t you? Don’t you use it for that?”

“I’m done with that too,” she said.

All I could do was let out a dumbfounded “Huh?”

“The author knew it. Apparently, there isn’t an ending to it in the first place. It was an incomplete book written by a hobbyist... That kind of thing happens quite often. A book starts out being written for fun, but the author tires of it before it’s finished.”

I knew it. I’d had a feeling when we passed each other on the way to Monty’s that she’d gone to ask him about the story. An author was definitely the best person to ask about a story, and I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it the night before. My mind had just been preoccupied with my worries about myself, apparently.

“Monty knew it, though... You’re really sure? It’s definitely the right one?”

“It is. He even knew what happened in it.”

Whether it really was the right book or not, this was all too sudden. My brain wasn’t great at the best of times, but having this sprung on me out of nowhere had robbed me of the ability to string a decent sentence together, and so I remained silent. Nito had been standing quietly beside me with her mouth agape through all this, but now she stepped forward and looked up at the taller girl.

“Charolles, are you leaving?”

Charolles crouched down and met Nito’s gaze.

“I suppose so, yes. Now I know that what I was looking for doesn’t exist, after all.”

That sentence hung in the air, a stifling weight in the small room.

“Wh-Where are you going?!” Nito demanded.

“I haven’t decided. I’ve spent all this time looking at the map, carrying my things from place to place, and searching for something or someone. Now that I don’t have any of that, I don’t know what to do with myself or where to go.”

Nito pressed her lips tightly together, her brows furrowing. It seemed like she might start crying at any moment. Charolles gently reached out to stroke her cheek.

“Don’t make that face. I’m sorry for worrying you.”

The two of them held each other’s gaze for a while, but then Charolles abruptly averted her eyes and stood up.

“You’re looking for a place, aren’t you? It’s better for you to have it than me. It’ll actually be useful for you.”

She gave me a glance and then moved past us both. Nito spun around in a tizzy and called after her.

“You’re going right now?!”

“Oh, well, we’re doing the Lantern Flower Festival, aren’t we? I want to join in too.”

“But...you just...”

Charolles looked blankly back at her and then seemed to realize how her actions had seemed from an outside perspective. She snorted.

“Sorry about that. I was just going to go check my trike over.”

“It was very ambiguous...” I commented before letting out a sigh of relief. That had all felt like the lead-up to a farewell, so I’d also thought she was about to leave for good.

“Oh my, were you going to miss me as well?” Charolles asked teasingly.

“Not at all. Not even the slightest, most minuscule amount,” I replied with the harshest frown I could muster.

“Well, that’s a shame,” she replied nonchalantly, before heading out down the corridor.

Nito’s eyes remained fixed on her back as she left. I dropped my own gaze to look at the book in my hands and let out another sigh through my nose. Partings followed meetings. That was the unfortunately inevitable nature of the world, but it was still hard to bear. Everything changed eventually, and we had no way of stopping it.

“The Lantern Flower Festival, huh?” I mused.

We four would be the only participants, and once it was over, Charolles would be moving on down a different path. It was shaping up to be a rather lonely festival, in my opinion. Even I was feeling down about it, so of course Nito’s deflated spirit was painfully obvious. She adored Charolles, so the suddenly much-closer parting must have weighed even more heavily on her.

“Are you okay?” I ventured hesitantly.

“I had it all wrong...” she murmured. “In stories, you get all sorts of suffering and sadness, but everyone does their best and things go well in the end. They find what’s precious to them and end up happy... I thought real life would be the same way, that if you believed and tried hard, your wishes would be granted and there’d be a smile on your face.”

If reality were that way, then it would be the best thing ever. I’d have felt better about laughing at all the adults who said stories were stories because they didn’t happen in real life. Reality wasn’t so kind, though. I knew that, and now so did Nito.

“Reality is much harsher than fiction,” she told me, looking up with a wan smile. “I don’t know why people smile, and I have no idea what I can do to put those smiles on their faces. I’ve read so many books and know so many things, but I still don’t know anything about helping people get through their pain and suffering.”

Her gaze gradually drifted downward as she spoke, until she was staring at her feet.

“There are people here suffering, but the only thing we can really do is watch? We can’t use magic like the saint, so we can’t help anyone?” she asked.

Maybe it would make her feel better to say there was something she could do? I wondered. Even if neither of us knows what that something is.

She seemed so blindingly bright to me, in how she’d worry and suffer so much for someone she’d only just met, and truly want to help them. She seemed fragile too, though. It was like her heart was made of spun glass: beautiful, but far too easily cracked.

I wished I had some witty remark to offer her. All boys in high school would be better served by learning not equations in math, not the past-progressive tense in English, but words to comfort a girl when she was suffering in front of them. Society would be far better that way. That wasn’t actually how things worked, though, so I didn’t know how to help her. I could only bite my lip and stand there pathetically.

An awkward silence hung between us for a while. Finally, Nito shook her head as if to clear it and forced her face up, pasting on the biggest smile she could manage.

“Sorry about that. I’m taking advantage of you again. Just forget about it.”

It didn’t feel right to accept her apology. I wanted to apologize myself, in fact, for having nothing better to tell her.

“I don’t think you’re taking advantage at all,” I answered eventually.

“Even though I know there’s no easy solution or answer to this, I’m still bothering you with it,” she replied firmly.

Nito looked down the corridor. The setting sun shining in from outside created floating islands of light in front of each window, glowing at even intervals down its length. The curtains on the few slightly open windows were swaying in the breeze. For a long moment, Nito just stood and took it in.

“This weather is a gorgeous sight...” she said eventually.

“That’s an interesting way of putting it. Couldn’t you just say it’s good weather?”

“The weather being clear and comfortable doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good, I don’t think.”

I voiced my agreement. The weather didn’t care about our feelings. No matter how depressed you got, the sky could stay disgustingly blue and bright. Those clear days themselves sometimes felt depressing, especially at times like this.

“Can I do some painting?” she asked. “That is, if you’ve got no plans for us.”

“Of course you can,” I answered.

Painting was a big part of Nito’s life, and I knew it was also a way she could get her feelings and thoughts in order. Even I needed time to calm myself and think things through.

She went back to our room, then left the temple with her bag of materials on her back and her easel propped over her shoulder, probably headed off to find something to paint. I went back to the room as well, but I didn’t set about to do anything in particular like she had. I fished my phone out of my bag and sat down in the chair. I could have passed hours like that if I’d had an internet connection, but all I had now was my little metal box, without all the bells and whistles. I could play whatever music I had downloaded, take notes, and look back on the few photos I had, but not much else.

I picked a song at random, the familiar Japanese pop music clashing with the surreal scenery of another world. Just as I started to think about maybe copying Charolles and inspecting the Kettle, there was a knock at the door. It was ajar, so that seemed strange. When I turned to look, I saw Jill standing in the doorway.

3

We moved to the main hall to talk, because I was sure Jill would never be able to relax in a closed-off room. Even with three seats’ worth of space between us, though, the conversation was slow to start.

“Um, what happened?” I asked.

It was pretty blatant that she needed to talk to me about something, but I had no idea what it might be. The most I knew was that, with her personality, it would have taken an immense amount of courage to come find me on her own.

Jill made to speak but couldn’t get out what she wanted to say, and her face twisted in conflict. Every time she met my gaze, she bit at her lips. Clearly, she couldn’t just dive right in with the main reason she was here, so I figured that maybe it would be better to calm us both down with some meaningless small talk.

“Did you come here by car?” I asked.

“I did,” she answered hesitantly.

“The one Paula drives?”

“It’s, um, one that I found before I came here, so...we share it.”

“Were you brought up here too, then?”

She shook her head.

“I-I’m...from Barcia...and that’s where I met Paula.”

“So you’re old friends, then?”

“We haven’t been friends for that lo—” she began, before cutting herself off. “I’m...sorry. It must be infuriating... I can’t really talk with people, but I just don’t...”

“I’ve actually been to Barcia,” I interrupted, changing the topic.

I laughed at the shocked look and gasp that my comment garnered.

“It was a beautiful town, with pretty impressive buildings.”

“Yeah...it was. There were so many people in it back then.”

“Was it an easy place to live?”

“It was,” she answered with a small smile. “No one would pay attention to someone like me there...”

“So how did you get to know Paula?” I asked, then quickly added, “Oh, I’m only asking out of curiosity. It might sound a bit rude, but you don’t seem all that similar.”

“Right. We’re not...at all.”

Jill chuckled slightly, and then a sigh left her lips and seemed to take the tension from her shoulders with it. As she began to speak, her eyes flicked upward like she was reliving a treasured memory.

“Do you know that Paula used to work in a tailor shop?”

I nodded.

“Well, I had a dress made by that shop. My gran was holding some kind of event and I had to participate... Anyway, it was Paula that made my dress for it.”

“I don’t know whether I should ask, but, back then, did she, um...”

“She dressed as a man and had short hair combed right into place. She spoke like a stereotypical man as well...”

Jill grew more amused the more she spoke. This unburdened expression was probably what she was really like under the shyness.

“I could never deal well with men... I could barely be near them, let alone talk to them. It was bizarre, though—none of the usual panic happened with Paula, and she was fun to speak with... Thinking back on it now, I wonder if it was because she was a woman at heart,” she mused, pausing briefly.

“It’s somewhat embarrassing to admit, but...” she warned as she continued, “I thought it was love... I wanted to see her more than anything, so I had her make me five outfits in two months. I was never even planning on wearing them.”

With this sudden revelation from the adult in the room, it was me that ended up feeling embarrassed.

“Then, um, are...the two of you together?”

Jill gasped and waved her hands in front of her face in denial.

“No, no, we’re not. Um, Paula noticed how I felt and told me about herself and then apologized for leading me on... That wasn’t what had happened at all, though, I’d just gotten ahead of myself... Either way, that’s how my first love ended, but we became really good friends.”

Jill then seemed to fall into a reverie, but just before I’d actually decided she had, she lifted her chin and fixed me with a serious look.

“I heard from Paula that she told you and Nito about things...between her and her mother.”

“She did,” I said after a moment.

“I’ve got a request. Help me get them back on good terms...”

I’d thought she might say that. She was closer to Paula than anyone else, so I’d figured she had to know what was going on and be concerned about it. It must have been weighing on her mind far more frequently and more seriously than it did on mine. Now that she’d gotten it out, it was as if a dam had finally broken, and the words gushed from her mouth.

“She, um, really loves her mother. That’s why she stays here even though it hurts her. She won’t go and actually speak to her, though. With the way I am, I can’t ever force any issue and so I gave up on it...but I’m sure she wants to make up with her.”

Her shoulders were heaving with ragged breaths, and her cheeks had gone ruddy. She seemed embarrassed at her own uncharacteristic actions but still didn’t stop.

“She comes out here every morning,” she said quietly. “She comes all the way here just to hide and watch her mother clean the temple. She laughs about how well her mother looks once she gets back, and all I can do is nod... I don’t know how else to deal with it...”

Then she lowered her head toward me, leaning down so deeply it was like she was trying to touch her forehead to the seat of the chair.

“I know how strange a request this is, but I can’t do anything about it alone... Please, would you help me think of a plan and see it through?!”

“Jill, calm down, sit up!” I yelped, panicked.

I couldn’t keep calm when someone older than me was bowing so deeply at me. That being said, I couldn’t haul her up by the shoulders either, so I just dithered, my hands twitching reflexively. All I could do was answer her feeble plea with a “yes.” Timidly, she lifted her face and peered at me.

“You will?”

Still, her gaze looked far less panicked than I’d have thought, and I started to consider that she might even have acted so drastically as a ruse.

“That’s not fair...” I told her.

“Well...I am still older than you.”

Her expression was both apologetic and amused, like a young girl caught in the middle of a prank. I was sure that it was the kind of expression that men would never be able to stand up against from a woman. Regardless, Nito and I were in the same position as her.

“We don’t have any good ideas either, though.”

“Figures. There’s nothing from your world that’d let you just snap your fingers and fix it, huh...”

“I’d love a pocket full of gadgets from the future,” I answered before noticing that she’d just dropped the fact that I wasn’t from this world as if it was nothing. “Did Paula tell you? That I’m from another world, I mean.”

That seemed to me like a pretty obvious explanation, but Jill shook her head.

“I, um, I knew as soon...as soon as I met you.”

“Is it that easy to tell? Is it how I act, how I look?”

Again, though, Jill shook her head.

“Um...can you keep a secret?”

I couldn’t help but nod, waiting with bated breath at her secretive tone. I was sure there was no man in this world that’d refuse a secret from a woman when she asked like that. Jill leaned ever so slightly forward and put a hand next to her mouth. I leaned in as well, catching a whiff of a fresh floral scent.

“I’m a witch.”

4

Nito and I had met someone else that went by that title. It hadn’t even been that long ago. Witches had magic and could answer any question you asked them correctly, but only once. We’d stopped in Barcia specifically to take advantage of that power.

“You can give a correct answer to anything?”

I couldn’t stop the tinge of doubt that crept into my voice. After all, the witch we’d found in Barcia was actually a fake that used her sharp observation and conversational skills to falsify miracles. A laugh burst forth from Jill, and she quickly covered her mouth to stifle it.

“Your world has witches?” she asked.

“Nope, I’ve just had dealings with them before.”

“So that’s why you know that old fairy tale,” she realized, shaking her head. “That’s not what witches do, though I’ve often wished it were...”

Nothing in her tone implied deceit. It just felt matter of fact, like she was talking about obvious, everyday things. Besides, she had no reason to lie to me about this.

“So you’re a real witch, then? With magic and stuff?”

I half rose from my seat in excitement as I said it, but Jill just grew even more flustered.

“I-I can’t use it, I’m sorry. That’s what mages do!”

“What’s a witch do, then?”

“Witches are like civilian doctors that use pharmacology and supernatural methods... We do things like stewing herbs to create medicines, making people feel better, easing pain, and so on... Ceremonially, we also expel evil.”

“That’s way too down to earth.”

If anything, such a role seemed like it would have been more at home in my own world.

“The thing is...witchhood is heritable.”

“Heritable?”

“The common assumption is that magic is carried in the blood. The lineage weakened as magic declined...but there were still families that passed it on, and those descendants are still called witches.”

“Wouldn’t that mean you could use magic?”

“Well...it’s more like I have magic than I’m able to use it. They say that medicines made by a witch, as well as their prayers, have mana within them, so they can at least somewhat influence a person.”

“So you make those magic medicines?”

“I, um, don’t have the skill,” she explained, so I guessed that it wasn’t something you could do just because of your lineage. “I end up putting mana in my singing. However much I practice, I can’t control it...”

When I heard the phrase “mana in my singing,” I had a vivid recollection of when we’d eavesdropped on Jill in the theater.

“When I heard you singing, I felt chills up my back and my head went all woolly, and then I felt really refreshed. Was that...?”

“Yes, it was,” she admitted hesitantly.

“For real?! That’s totally magic!”

I’d slipped into really casual speech there. As soon as I noticed it, I quickly covered my mouth. Jill lowered her head again.

“I’m sorry for not asking if it was okay...”

“Forget all that. I want to thank you for how amazing it was... Why don’t you sing in front of people? I’m sure you’d be a wonderful singer.”

Nito and I had both been agape and charmed by her singing, and I knew anyone else would feel the same. Still, Jill just hunched over further.

“My family all forbade it...”

“They forbade it? Why?”

“I’d always thought that would be better too. I love singing. But...if I sang while I was sad, then anyone that listened would get sad. If I sang while suffering, so would they. That’s a witch’s power... And, because I use song as a medium, it doesn’t matter how much mana someone has, it affects everyone the same.”

I saw what she was getting at. If it were just that she had a wonderful singing voice then it’d be fine, but her voice had mana within it, which could control people’s feelings.

“Does it end up being like brainwashing?” I asked. “Like, if they were sad, would just listening to your music make them feel overjoyed?”

“I can’t make people feel things they don’t want to. Magic that can control emotions takes exceedingly great power...”

“Then I think that’s even better... When someone wants to enjoy themselves, you can give them a smile, and when they’re sad, you can cry with them and sympathize. I’ve always thought that music’s influence on the heart is one of its best features.”

Jill looked back at me and softly shook her head.

“That isn’t the only problem... Witches live in secret. Things always get much more difficult if we’re found by people with influence, and there’s also prejudice against magic these days...so people that knew about it would be able to tell what I was doing, and they’d out me.”

To that, at least, I had no answer. Jill gaining acclaim for her voice would have made things more difficult for her. Despite being able to move hearts like no other, she could never sing proudly in front of people, all to protect her family. I could only sigh in sympathy at the unfulfilling circumstance it must have been.

“Did you never dream of it?” I asked.

“Dream?”

I searched for words. If I was too blunt, it would hurt her. The passing of time had a way of distorting and darkening memories, but still, I had to know how she felt.

“Of singing for people...a song from you, just for them.”

Jill’s eyes fell as I spoke, and even after I’d finished, she didn’t reply for a while. Just as I was beginning to regret asking, she spoke up.

“I always dreamed of it,” she answered. “I always sang—in the living room, in our little bathroom, and under my covers. My only audience was my family. I loved singing, and I didn’t have any other skills. I couldn’t sing for other people either, though...but I’d think of it every time I passed the theater. I’d dream of standing under its lights and singing out like the songstresses of old, of cheering up and energizing the audience, and of being able to love myself.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” she concluded with a small smile. “The world is dead... My dream can remain a dream, and that’s for the best.”

I couldn’t hold her gaze this time. I couldn’t pretend to understand her feelings about the world she’d spent her whole life in suddenly falling to ruin. I hadn’t suffered as she had, and so I couldn’t comment.

The silence didn’t last long, though.

“I’m sorry. I just ended up taking over the conversation and going on and on. I’ll never sing for a huge audience; I don’t think I could. But, if my singing has some power, some meaning to it...then I want to sing for Paula.”

Even as I shook my head at her initial self-derision, she raised her hands to her lips, her fingers laced together, as if she were praying fervently.

“I’ve always thought...that maybe I can erase those reservations, that pain, that sadness with my song...”

Was that possible? Jill’s singing could give people’s emotions a push. Maybe it could be a push of courage to take that one more step—a song of hope. The issue was that it couldn’t make someone feel something they didn’t want to feel. So if Fago didn’t want to reconcile, it would be for naught.

“That’s all I can do...but I don’t know how to do it best, or what emotions to sing with...so would you think about it with me?”

The equation she’d given me was one designed for the problem I’d had no solution to. The only problem now was that I had no idea how to actually apply said equation.

“It feels like this is something out of a story, songs being so tied to emotions like that.”

It just didn’t feel realistic, so much so that it made me want to laugh.

“Personally, I think you’re much more ‘out of a story,’” Jill said out of nowhere, getting an utterly shocked look from me. “There were so many stories about otherworlders in the past. They all had some influence on the world. Not just in culture or technology...but on people’s feelings, thoughts, and actions. I thought that with your values from another world, you might have some ideas...and I got my hopes up. Um, I’m sorry.”

I could only give a half smile. I was no great figure from the past. Even if the rest of the otherworlders had been amazing, I was just a normal person, not some hero or savior. She was relying on me, though, so I couldn’t just say it was impossible. It was almost like some small measure of pride was pushing me to give it a shot. I felt competitive, like I couldn’t give up and do nothing. It wasn’t for Jill or Paula, it was just...

I couldn’t help but laugh and shake my head at my own train of thought.

“Got it. I’ll think of something—something great,” I told her.

“Thank you!”

Jill bowed deeply once again, sending me into another panic. Once she was finally upright again and back to normal, I asked her about the last thing that was bothering me.

“How did you know I was an otherworlder?” I asked.

Her expression looked so mature in that moment, and I couldn’t parse any meaning from it.

“Witches can see other people’s mana, like a vague light emanating from them. Everyone from this world has mana.”

Oh, I get it, I thought, predicting her next statement.

“Otherworlders don’t have mana.”

5

I knocked and, after a few moments, the door opened a crack. Fago’s face appeared in the gap and she surveyed me briefly, before letting out a slight sigh. With an exaggerated frown, she finally spoke.

“Rare to see you here on your own.”

“Would you have preferred someone else?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “Anyway, did you need something?”

“I thought we could discuss the Lantern Flower Festival.”

“So you’re really going ahead with it... Fine then, come in.”

I took her up on her offer and walked inside. A small wooden frame rested on the living room table with white cloth stretched tight across it. A needle stood stabbed partway through the cloth, red thread trailing from its end.

“Embroidery?” I asked.

“You need something to amuse yourself when you have this much free time,” was her only answer.

I paused for a moment, then replied, “I completely get that.”

After all, I’m always worrying about what to do with myself.

“I’ll brew some tea. You sit and wait.”

She quickly tidied up the cloth and sewing implements that were scattered across the table and sofa before heading into the kitchen. I watched her leave, then turned my gaze to the black-and-white photos on the shelf. A certain one of them was, unsurprisingly, still sitting facedown.

“What do we need for the festival, then?” I asked, raising my voice so she could hear me from the kitchen.

“Well, firstly, you need food. Also, some alcohol.”

“Nito and I can’t drink.”

“It’s for making an offering to the saint. You two are far too young for drinking and making merry.”

Right, that makes sense. This was closer to a religious festival than a standard summer festival from back home, so preparing things to share with the saint would be critical.

“Also, there’s always a bonfire when night falls, so we’ll need firewood. There’s a stockpile in the temple that we can use, though. The final thing is the lantern flowers themselves.”

“Where do they grow?”

“You’ve been to that stubborn old man’s house, right? They grow around that lake he lives by.”

“We’ll need to collect them, then. Lots of them.”

“There’s only going to be four of us, right? No need to get that many. We’re better off having too few than getting tired of releasing them all.”

“True. I invited the others, but they turned me down. Every last one—Monty, Jill...and Paula.”

“Well...you’re holding a festival that no one’s held in ages. It’s only natural people wouldn’t want to participate after this long.”

Fago returned from the kitchen, carrying a tea set atop a tray. Then she just stood there for a moment and aimed a doubtful look at me. I was pretty sure I had a concerned expression on my face as I looked back at her. Poking my nose into other people’s business was really not something I enjoyed, but I made myself ask anyway.

“Do you, uh, know the name ‘Paula’?”

“Who’s to say? You quickly forget names as the years pile on,” she answered indifferently, putting the tray on the table and starting to pour out the tea.

“You seem to have known Monty for a long time.”

“He used to live here before he moved farther out, and the village was small enough that everyone knew everyone else.”

“So you knew his daughter too?”

It was only then that she stopped pouring. She didn’t look at me, just let out a sigh of what I could only identify as defeat.

“So you already knew... Out with it, then. Enough with all this beating around the bush.”

“Sorry. I only just found out, to be honest.”

I relaxed ever so slightly when she paused to blow the steam off her tea. This was a sensitive enough issue that I wouldn’t have been surprised to find myself getting kicked out. If she was acting this calm, though, I reasoned that I probably wouldn’t need to flee, so I sat myself down on the sofa.

After pondering whether to move along with the conversation or the tea, I eventually decided to wet my throat first. As I took a sip of the hot tea, I considered how to go about this. I’d been thinking about it even before I arrived, but I still had no good ideas. It seemed like the only choice was to dispense with the indirectness and just be upfront about it.

“You’ve noticed Paula coming over here from Mercian Street, haven’t you?”

“Of course,” Fago answered, with the same attitude, expression, and tone as ever. “Staring at me from the shadows every morning with such long hair and in that gaudy dress—it’d be harder for me not to notice.”

“Well...right. That makes sense now that you say it.”

It’d felt like I was making a shocking revelation, but given what she’d said, it was pretty obvious she’d have noticed. Paula was tall and well built to begin with, and her bright clothes would have just made her all the more visible from a distance.

“That child’s always overlooked things like that. Guess there’s no changing someone’s nature, then. They really think I haven’t noticed?”

“Ah... Yes.”

I’d gotten myself pretty fired up and ready for a serious discussion, but I ended up feeling adrift after Fago’s calm response. Still, I couldn’t just have the tea and then leave again.

“If you know, then haven’t you considered talking to her?”

“I have not.” This time, her voice was sharp. “How can I show my face now? What should I even say? My son died the day he left this house. I’m sure my child is well aware of that.”

She’d completely refused the idea. Given the way she was talking about Paula, talking to her must have been a daunting prospect.

“But you’re parent and child, right?” I pressed. “She’s right there.”

“Then it doesn’t have to be me. If this amount of distance between us works for them, then it’s best for the both of us. Still, to try and go through a child like you... That’s just disgraceful.”

“Paula didn’t ask me to do this,” I admitted.

“Oh, so you’re interfering in someone else’s family matters out of pure curiosity?”

I could tell the situation had taken a bad turn. Anyone would have known as much; it wasn’t a logical deduction, but more of an instinctual feeling that I had at that moment.

“That’s an unwise thing to do, don’t you think?”

“Right... I’m sorry,” I replied.

How many years had it been since I’d been scolded like this? I wasn’t being yelled at, but sternly scolded, and that made me feel all the more pathetic. Fago was right. The blame was all on me here.

“Honestly, I understand that you have time on your hands, but you should use it for something actually worthwhile.”

Even the gentle chiding she continued with just made me feel worse.

“You’re quite right...but I think that being here for this is worthwhile.”

Fago fixed me with a glare, and I got ready for another scolding. Then, abruptly, she relaxed, letting out a sigh through her nose.

“I doubt it will be... It’s not a fun story; nothing we old fools have to say ever is. Talking about it won’t change anything, either, so there’s little point in bringing up the past.”

Those words were proof that she’d accepted my prying, in her own way.

“Can I ask what happened?”

There was a long pause.

“Parents inevitably have expectations of and hopes for their children. When they’re just babbling babes, you simply hope they’ll be happy. Then, when they start being able to speak and reason, that’s when the expectations start. You want for them to grow into upstanding members of society, for them to succeed, and to be able to see yourself in them.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.”

“It’s not. But when you pressure your child to meet those expectations, it’s not good either.”

Her eyes were turned to the surface of her tea, but I had little doubt that she wasn’t seeing the present at all.

“My husband and I did the best we could over the years. Even now, I can’t think of what exactly we did wrong. Maybe we were just wrong from the start,” she continued, a tired sigh of remembrance passing her lips. “Maybe it would have been better if we weren’t the parents, if there’d been better ones that weren’t as stuck in their ways and wouldn’t need decades to change their thinking.”

Fago’s eyes shot up and her gaze slid across the table to the embroidery frame resting at its edge.

“Unraveling a tangled thread is difficult. Usually you’d just cut it and throw the tangle away. You can’t do that with the threads that bind family, though. Try as you might to undo the tangle, you just make it worse and worse, until eventually it’s unsalvageable.”

I hesitated, before asking, “Did something cause the tangle?”

She laughed, probably because of how timidly—almost fearfully—I’d asked.

“It was simple. One day, our child told us, ‘I’m a woman and I want to become a dancer,’ and my husband answered with his fists. I couldn’t protect my child. I couldn’t accept what they’d said. Then they left, and that was that. That...was really that.”

I could barely guess at all the emotions contained in those last words. Simply because they couldn’t get past that one barrier, Paula and Fago were both suffering. Fago’s voice trembled as she continued.

“How can I call myself a mother when I couldn’t even accept and embrace my child? I can’t face them. However much I apologized, it wouldn’t be enough. When I think of how they’ve spent their life since then, I...”

Eventually she couldn’t go on any further. She pressed her lips tightly together, keeping her expression composed despite her distress. She wouldn’t allow herself to show grief or sadness, as if she felt she didn’t have the right to them.

“Would you be willing to meet with Paula if she said she wanted to?”

As I asked, I knew that it might not be something I should offer her. Even so, I felt like I had to. I wanted the thread between them untangled.

“I’d ask for forgiveness if we did meet again. I’m not a strong person.”

“Is that bad? If you apologize and she forgives you, what’s wrong with that?”

“I can’t forgive myself.”

People pray for forgiveness. I felt like I finally understood what Monty had meant.

They didn’t pray for forgiveness from someone else, but from themselves. It was a prayer doomed to never be granted. Someone that could forgive themselves that easily wouldn’t pray for it in the first place. Fago went to the temple every morning to pray, and as she did so, she was blaming herself. Even as the world fell apart, Fago continued her routine. Her child was right there, and yet she wouldn’t allow herself to see her.

I pressed my fist against my temple and ground it around. The dull pain cleared my head. Even so, I couldn’t find the magic words to persuade her. Of course, it was no surprise; hadn’t magic fallen to ruin as well?

The words must have existed once, somewhere. The nobles, the saint—one of them would have known some miraculous spell that could resolve all the pain and worries people had, and bridge the inevitable gaps that opened between them. After all, worlds like this one were almost fairy tales. Why couldn’t everything be solved neatly, then, just like in those fairy tales?

[Keisuke’s Notes] The Crimson Saint

I hear about this woman here and there. She was apparently a pretty big deal in the past? There’s even a religion founded around her, and a magnificent statue of her in the temple here, which tells you how amazing she must have been. Her statue’s beautiful, though it does feel like it’s glorifying her appearance.