Temple Alley Summer

by Sachiko Kashiwaba

  If the master did not succeed, he added, his shop and his very life would be threatened.

  “Can you not seam the furs?” the prince asked.

  “Not for royalty,” my sister explained. “Every mantle for the castle is worked from one large fur.”

  “Can there be an animal with a hide that large? It would have to be a monster!”

  The prince and I looked at each other.

  “If we can help make a mantle, can we get into the castle?” the prince asked.

  “Of course! Do you have an idea about the hide?” the supervisor asked.

  “Yes!” The prince and I answered at once.

  Wolf Tooth’s underlings gathered by the dozens and launched ten boats onto the lake. The prince and I dove again. We had killed the otter beast some thirty days before. Stonebird had told us that dead fish in the lake never decayed, but we wondered if fish had nibbled at the hide. I was glad I had not poked it all over with my pin. We tied ropes around its legs, and the carcass was hauled to the surface. Its wounded belly had indeed been eaten away, but its back was intact.

  “A newtoria!” exclaimed the supervisor, who had boarded our boat with us. He wept with relief. He told us they could make a fine mantle from this animal, whose name we had never heard. Apparently, some people preferred newtoria fur to all others.

  The mantle made from the water beast’s hide was supple, shiny, and smooth as silk.

  The mantle was completed on the afternoon of the coronation day. The furrier agreed to take the prince, Wolf Tooth, and me to the castle as the delivery crew.

  My sister opposed the plan and grew so worried for the prince and me that her face turned pale. She protested that any slip-ups would put the furrier at risk. But the furrier reassured her, laughing: “Without this fur, my life would be at risk anyway!”

  The prince added, “If we don’t break this spell, there’s no point in me being alive.” He smiled.

  “But I—I—”

  Hami fell silent. I knew she wished to say that without the prince, she herself could not live. She loved him. He clasped her hand. I knew now that it was because of him that she had survived those years in the dungeon.

  The box holding the mantle hung from a large pole. Wolf Tooth and the prince walked at the front and rear ends of the pole, bearing the weight on their shoulders. I walked ahead of them, my pin tucked in my belt. The furrier led us.

  We walked a winding road to the castle. Mist appeared and obscured the road. The furrier held an oil lamp aloft. When he did so, a narrow path revealed itself, due to the magic of the castle magicians.

  A gate materialized in the mist, and five castle guards looked us over.

  “Aren’t you a rather large group?” one questioned.

  “We come bearing Her Royal Highness’s mantle. It must be handled carefully. If we fail to deliver it before the ceremony, I will lose my head,” the furrier replied.

  The guards bid us pass.

  Once we had entered the gate, others barely questioned us.

  “Her Highness’s mantle,” we would say, and before we knew it, we had reached the interior.

  We were shown to a small room in the castle and waited while an attendant took the mantle to the queen.

  “Her Majesty is pleased!” the attendant reported to us. “Have a drink in the galley before you go, to celebrate.”

  She handed us a heavy pouch of gold coins.

  The area called the galley was in fact an outdoor space with three wells, where tables were set out. Workers drew water ceaselessly from the wells, which they poured into tubs and hauled away. In a cleaning area next to the wells, servants washed vegetables, skinned animals, gutted fish, and scoured pots and pans at breakneck pace. Heat and aromas drifted from an oven beyond the wells, so that even on this winter night, everyone worked up a sweat.

  The people gathered at the tables included merchants from outside, like the furrier, as well as palace servants. A man drinking wine next to me had come to deliver fish. The woman across from us was a scullery maid only now eating her lunch. Many people entered and mixed together.

  Wolf Tooth intently watched two soldiers who had come to eat. He followed them as they left to resume their posts and used his powerful arms to drag them into some shadows. He and the prince soon donned their uniforms and disguised themselves as soldiers.

  “We’ll find the tapestry and burn it.”

  They disappeared into the castle.

  I wanted, somehow, to slip into the coronation room.

  Some carts laden with platters of food and covered in cloth stood ready to be taken away. I hid beneath one. The carts were soon wheeled to a room next door to the hall where the coronation would take place. I stole from beneath the cart to the underside of a food table and then, when the time was right, I slipped into the hall and hid beneath a platform of flowers.

  Lifting the cloth draped over the platform very slightly, I looked out. As in the tapestry, I saw a window on each side of the throne. Behind the throne, Stonebird’s tapestry hung on the wall. Lamps had been prepared throughout the room, but most remained unlit and the room was dim. The moon had not yet risen.

  Guests began to enter. Stonebird would certainly come. I dropped the cloth and huddled beneath the platform.

  I soon heard her voice.

  Peeking out, I saw Stonebird flanked by women, who wore dresses with puffed sleeves and trailing hems. She had come wearing a similar dress of deep magenta and had piled her hair high on her head. She looked nothing like a witch.

  “Why, Bajizu, it seems ages!” the other women said to her. “Are you quite well?”

  Stonebird answered, “Yes, very well. It’s a festive day!” She smiled. She must have wanted to laugh heartily. Her son would return to life and become king!

  A short way off, I heard another woman whisper. “Bajizu—who’s that? I’ve never met her.”

  “She’s the wife of one of the ministers’ distant relatives. When her husband died, she came to the capital in the minister’s care. That was twenty years ago! Had you not heard?”

  “She’s quite frail, apparently. She often takes to her bed, and she rarely socializes.”

  The women’s gossip turned to other people. Indeed, Stonebird seemed to have an estate in the capital and an identity to match.

  The din of voices increased, and the room grew warm as the guests assembled. Beneath the flower platform, I broke a sweat.

  “The king enters!”

  I heard a swell of voices followed by sudden silence. I felt sure that everyone could hear my heart thudding.

  The guests looked to the windows behind the throne, practically ceasing to breathe. Next to the king I saw the queen, wearing her just-completed newtoria mantle. The king and queen had both turned to watch the windows as well. Then a sliver of moon appeared in the window on the left.

  The moon rose. Its glow lit the floor before the king’s throne. It grew surprisingly bright.

  “Ooh!” I heard muffled voices.

  In the light of the moon, the kneeling figure of Stonebird’s son appeared, with his head bowed. He looked exactly as in the tapestry.

  “How beautiful he looks!” someone exclaimed rapturously.

  The king stood to place the crown on his head.

  At this rate, Stonebird’s son would rule the land!

  I longed to leap out and scream, “He’s a fake! He’s a ghost!”

  But someone else—Wolf Tooth—shouted, “That prince is an impostor!”

  I sprang from beneath the flower platform. I saw that Wolf Tooth had rushed into the hall alone. I wondered where the prince was.

  “Trespasser!”

  “Seize him!”

  Guards rushed toward Wolf Tooth. He knocked out one and then another, but still more guards threatened to capture him.

  I searched for the prince. I saw a torch move behind the heads of the guests. It advanced toward the throne—straight toward Stonebird’s tapestry. Wolf Tooth was providing the
distraction. I ran toward the torch and the prince.

  Despite the presence of Wolf Tooth, the guards near the king continued to defend the throne area. One soon spotted the prince.

  “Who goes there?!” The guards surrounded him.

  “That prince is an impostor!” the real prince shouted. “He is the son of the witch called Stonebird—a ghost of the execution grounds!”

  Guards captured the real prince. I ran to the throne from the other side. I held no flame so could not set the tapestry afire, but perhaps I could pull it from the wall and remove the pearl. Without the moon-pearl, the spell should change.

  Just as everyone had ignored Wolf Tooth’s accusations, so they paid no heed to the prince’s. It seemed no one suspected me of possible wrongdoing, though. Only Stonebird’s son, down on one knee and looking back toward the prince, suddenly turned his face my way. And then he saw me.

  “You!” He stood, his face twisted in rage. He reached for me, his hand pushing past the king who stood near him.

  “This prince is fake! He’s the son of the witch!” I cried out. I stretched toward the tapestry, but I couldn’t reach it. I felt Stonebird’s son’s hand on my neck.

  The light from the moon in the left window did not illuminate the wall, which was directly behind the throne. Stonebird’s son had come for me right in the dark patch.

  “Never step out of the light!” Stonebird’s voice called.

  “The prince melted in the dark!” the king shouted at the same time. I heard the queen scream.

  I could still see Stonebird’s son in the shadows. I was not like the king and the others, who had widened their eyes in shock. As Stonebird’s son tried to strangle me, I fought to breathe and managed to stab his hand with my pin.

  “Ow!” He released me, his hand spurting blood. He returned to the patch of moonlight.

  Everyone froze. The guests all stared at Stonebird’s son. To them, he seemed to have materialized again out of the darkness.

  “That prince is a pretender! A ghost of the prison!” Wolf Tooth declared.

  “He’s a ghost!” All the guests raised their voices.

  People began running to escape Stonebird’s son. The circle of guests around him widened as attendees fled.

  The real prince approached the tapestry with his torch.

  “The man you would crown is the son of the witch Stonebird—a ghost of the execution ground. He would return to life through the witch’s spell!”

  The prince thrust the torch at the tapestry.

  “Mother!” Stonebird’s son cried.

  “I should never have let those three go,” Stonebird shrieked, dropping her elegant front. Her hair spilled down and her face changed. Her dress turned back to black.

  She sprinted through the hall toward the tapestry.

  “She’s a witch!” people screamed.

  Stonebird tried to seize the prince. The soldiers who had restrained Wolf Tooth had been watching everything in a daze. Wolf Tooth knocked them all down.

  The tapestry burned. As it blazed, the moon-pearl dropped to the floor of the hall. At the sound of it dropping, all the guests looked to the left window. The moon had vanished. The spell was broken.

  Stonebird now battled against everyone in the castle. When a net dropped on her, she sliced through it. When a volley of arrows flew at her, she deflected it. She slid beneath slashing swords. The castle magicians arrived, hurling lightning bolts, shooting flames, and causing rockfalls. Stonebird dispelled their attacks with ease. She did not have her broom, so she couldn’t flee into the sky.

  The magicians lit every torch throughout the palace, determined to drive her son into the light.

  I alone could see him no matter where he was. “He’s there! Over there!”

  People illuminated the places I pointed out so that they could see him too.

  “Polonia child, let me be! What’s so wrong with wanting to live again? Everyone wants to come back to life, including your ancestors! You and I are alike!

  “I don’t want to be a ghost anymore. I can’t bear this existence. I won’t do any harm. I promise! Let me go!” Stonebird’s son wailed in agony.

  “Spare him!” Stonebird screamed. “He’s made it this far. Now that the spell is broken, he’ll eventually melt back into the darkness. Spare him!”

  She screeched wretchedly in despair as she saw her twenty-year spell to revive her son go up in flames.

  I knew that sparing her son would cause no real harm. Since he wouldn’t be crowned king, he could do little damage. He could make a new start. Then again, the prince, Hami, and Wolf Tooth had suffered terribly because of him and his mother. Children had died! How could I ever forgive that? And I did not care to think of myself or my family as like him. Then again, my Polonia ancestor had returned to life like him. I felt lost.

  Nonetheless, I kept chasing, joining Wolf Tooth and the prince. I pursued Stonebird and I pointed out her son.

  “All of you, beware! I’ll never forgive you!”

  Stonebird’s hair sparked with her anger. Her bloodshot eyes stared right into mine.

  Suddenly uncertain, I felt her words pierce my heart. I’ll never forgive you! I froze. Stonebird would have her revenge! My knees locked. As I stood immobile, my whole body trembled.

  “Fear not!” the prince shouted. “You will survive, Adi! You are Hami’s sister!”

  He had seen me shaking. He bid me not to give up, not to flee. He bid me to fight. He grabbed my hand and pulled me after him to chase Stonebird.

  If we let her escape now, she would surely haunt us for the rest of our lives. I gritted my teeth. No. I would never live like that. I pursued her.

  Stonebird and her son fled toward the castle gate. The castle magicians worked to move the gate, little by little, to trap them. When they rounded a corner in the corridor that once led to the gate, they found themselves in a courtyard. When they tried to slip out the other side, they found themselves in the galley.

  The magicians seemed to have no option but to keep changing the path. But, every time they tried something, Stonebird eventually oriented herself.

  “Does she not have a weakness?” Wolf Tooth shouted, clacking the teeth foretold by his name.

  Then I realized something. Her name. Perhaps her weakness was water! I thought she had been seasick when she crouched with me inside her boat—but perhaps she feared the water. Maybe she couldn’t swim. Maybe she, like Wolf Tooth, would sink like a brick. A stone.

  The magicians altered her path again. When she and her son ran from the galley to the corridor, they wound up in the galley washing area.

  “The wells! Chase her to a well!” I shouted.

  The prince understood immediately. He clasped Stonebird to him and jumped into one of the wells with her. Though the prince soon rose to the surface, Stonebird sank. We never saw her again.

  In the commotion, I spotted Stonebird’s son hiding in darkness near the next well. He was sobbing and trembling. Poor man. Someone like him might have been an ancestor of mine. I could not bring myself to raise the alarm, and I let Stonebird’s son get away.

  Many days passed.

  I had left the castle with Wolf Tooth. The prince and my sister Hami remained there. My sister wanted me to stay with her, but I found castle life stifling. So again, I was on the outside, with the castle hidden from me by magic. I could only learn of its goings-on through gossip. I heard that a coronation ceremony would be held for the formerly missing prince. And at the same time, I learned there would be a wedding. The bride-to-be was blind.

  Back at Wolf Tooth’s headquarters, I stared at the pearl from Stonebird’s tapestry. The king had given it to me as a reward.

  I didn’t know what to do now. It scared me to be able to do whatever I desired. I had never been free.

  I sighed. I heard another sigh from a dark spot behind me.

  Stonebird’s son had come into the light, but like me he did not know what to do with himself. He lurked in the capital’s
shadows now. He hid in darkness. The darkness near me.

  He drove me crazy.

  “What does it mean to embrace life?” he asked behind me. He may have been thinking of parting words from his mother. I couldn’t tell if he regretted his past and desired to change, or if he had always been serious—or if he just couldn’t manage without Stonebird. Whatever the reason, he kept to the shadows.

  “Don’t ask me!” I told him. I had no answer for him.

  Wolf Tooth merely chuckled as he looked on.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Summer’s End

  “The Moon Is on the Left” ended there.

  Akari clasped her hands to her chest in her signature pose, thinking.

  I handed the last page to Yūsuke and began to speak, but he raised a hand to shush me. He finished reading.

  We looked at each other.

  “That was good,” we said.

  “I’m glad you’re all satisfied,” Ms. Minakami replied. She looked right at Akari.

  Had she figured out that Akari was a ghost? I panicked, though I tried not to show it.

  Akari nodded to Ms. Minakami. “Thank you for sparing Stonebird’s son,” she said.

  Akari’s hopes and dreams were all compressed in that one sentence. She had seen herself in Stonebird’s son.

  Ms. Minakami said nothing.

  “Well, I didn’t think the son should be spared,” Yūsuke said, pouting though he had enjoyed the story.

  He still knew nothing about Akari. But he might be right about the story—the ending felt a little cushy.

  “Did you change the story from the one you imagined years ago?” I asked Ms. Minakami.

  A woman who would burn the Kimyō Temple statuette would never have let Stonebird’s son go free. Had she changed?

  She answered neither Yūsuke nor me.

  “It was good to finish something I had left undone,” she said. “It’s made me happy.” She bowed humbly to us. Then she got snooty again and waved us out.