A Mortal Song

by Megan Crewe

  “Hoping for food again?” I asked, holding out a mushroom. The sparrow tilted its head. When I set the mushroom on the platform’s railing, it swooped down to peck at it.

  As I wandered off the platform and along the edge of the forest, a voice reached my ears: Keiji’s, raised.

  “If you won’t even tell me— Okay, okay, I’ll try. I know. I’m sorry. Right. Okay. I’ll see you.”

  Footsteps crunched through the fallen pine needles, and his form emerged from the darkness amid the trees. His expression was grim as he snapped his phone shut. When he saw me, he came to a halt.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to listen—and I didn’t hear much. I was only walking by.”

  “That’s okay,” Keiji said.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “You sounded... upset.”

  His shoulders hunched. “I’m not really. I just— That was my brother. Who was being a typical older brother, thinking he knows everything, not really listening. But he does know a lot more than I do, so maybe he’s right and I should listen more.”

  “Is he upset?” I asked, suddenly curious. “That you’re out here, I mean? Do your parents know where you are?”

  “My parents are dead,” Keiji said matter-of-factly. “Since I was two. And my aunt and uncle are probably glad to have one less ‘problem’ on their hands for the moment. At least my brother cares. I shouldn’t get on his case—if he hadn’t been trying so hard to make things better for me, maybe he’d still be fine.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Here I’d been wishing I didn’t have two sets of parents, when he had none.

  “Hey, don’t be,” he said, a trace of his usual smile returning. “It’s because of you I’m going to get my chance to fix things for him. May I escort you back to the shrine? I promise to stay off my knees.”

  “I should hope so,” I said, falling into step beside him as we ambled toward the shrine building.

  “You know, it’s really not so bad kowtowing, if you’ve got the right girl in front of you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said easily. “I just thought it sounded good. Did you like it? If not, I’ll keep trying.”

  “No!” I said before he could make good on that offer. “I mean, no, don’t keep trying. It was wonderful.”

  He laughed, and as I watched the light coming back into his face, I wondered what else he would have said, if I’d told him to keep going.

  The sun was blazing overhead late the next morning when the five of us reached the valley of the doves. The forest around us felt like an oven, baking us as we climbed to the final ridge. The dry soil crumbled at the lightest touch of my feet, and the leaves on the bushes and saplings were starting to yellow.

  I counted back through the days and realized I couldn’t remember the last rainfall. Certainly it hadn’t rained since Omori had taken Mt. Fuji. Even the thunderstorm I’d smelled brewing two nights ago had dissipated without a drop.

  Between the dryness and the unusual heat, the crops must be starting to die, the streams shrinking. Was the absence of so many kami only affecting us here, near the mountain, or was it already echoing throughout the world?

  Maybe Rin would know. I wanted to leap straight into the valley, but we were already racing along as fast as our legs and ki could carry us. Ahead of me, Chiyo gripped Keiji’s wrist, lending him energy so he wouldn’t slow us down. She’d suggested leaving him behind as we’d been getting ready to set off, and I’d blurted out that we could hardly abandon him miles from any means of getting home. Takeo, managing to stay loyal to both of us at once, had pointed out that this way would give her extra practice controlling and maintaining her energy. But we’d both been watching her closely in unspoken agreement, checking for any sign that Omori might have resumed his magical attack. It seemed too much to hope that he would have given up on that strategy after just one failure.

  At the top of the ridge, Takeo stopped. His hand dropped to his sword. The rest of us slowed behind him.

  “Something’s come through here,” he said. “I sense ki I don’t like the feel of.”

  I sidled around Chiyo. As I reached Takeo, I caught a discomforting quaver in the energy around us.

  We separated, scanning the brush. After a few steps, a tug of uneasiness drew my eyes to a footprint in the cracked earth. Midori’s wings buzzed unhappily.

  “Takeo,” I said.

  The print looked almost human, but it was too wide across the ball of the foot and too narrow at the heel, and the toes ended in jagged points. I held my hand to it. A stronger waft of ki lingered in the dirt. My nose wrinkled as if I’d tasted something bitter.

  “Whatever made this, I don’t think we want to meet it,” I said.

  Takeo leaned toward the footprint. “Ogres, maybe,” he said.

  I remembered the monstrous figures I’d seen from a distance, tramping toward Mt. Fuji, and shuddered.

  “Ogres?” Chiyo said. “Right, if kami and ghosts and demons are real, of course ogres are too.”

  “The world’s full of all sorts of beings,” Takeo said. “Not all of them are friendly to kami. I don’t know why Sage Rin would allow ogres into her valley.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t stop them,” I said. To have lived as long as she had, Rin must have great power, but no kami was invincible. “How many do you think there were?”

  Takeo eased forward, closing his eyes as he absorbed the energy. “More than one. They were heading toward the bottom of the valley. I’ll go on ahead and make sure it’s safe.”

  He strode forward, drawing his sword. The trees rustled as he rushed down the slope with ki-sped steps. Chiyo tsked her tongue, letting go of Keiji. “Wait for me!” she called. “I’m ready to take on a few ogres.”

  She dashed after Takeo so swiftly the ground sparked beneath her feet. I grabbed Keiji’s hand and we hurried after them, Midori clutching my hair. The two of us supported by one already-tired kami were hardly a match for Takeo’s energy, let alone Chiyo’s. In a few seconds, I’d lost sight of both of them in the denser vegetation of the forest below. I pushed myself faster, threading more ki down to my feet and through my hand to Keiji. Midori’s small body tensed with a glimmer of strain. I hesitated.

  “Let’s just walk,” Keiji said. “They’ll come back for us when they’ve made sure the coast is clear, right?”

  “I don’t like being left behind,” I snapped, and clamped my mouth shut. I’d been thinking as much, but I hadn’t meant to say it.

  “Do not fear,” Keiji said with a squeeze of my hand. “I will never leave you.”

  I looked at him, and his crooked smile and the teasing glint in his eyes stopped any retort I might have made. The truth was, I would much rather have him here with me than be straggling behind alone. And if we were attacked by ogres, we’d be better off if Midori wasn’t completely exhausted.

  I released the flow of energy I’d been drawing. The dragonfly’s gratitude wisped over me like a gust of cool air, and guilt curdled in my gut. I’d been so worried about my own capabilities that I hadn’t been paying enough attention to hers. A real kami would never make another living thing suffer for her benefit. That was an unpleasant human trait I was going to have to break myself of.

  My hand felt abruptly empty. Keiji had let go to tramp through the trees to a small outcropping. He gazed down toward where I knew the waterfall and its trio of pools lay. “Wow,” he said, his voice awed. I folded my fingers into my palm and picked my way down the path past him.

  “So what other supernatural creatures do we have to watch out for?” Keiji asked as he caught up with me. “Shape-shifting foxes? Slimy kappa? Two-tailed giant cats?”

  “Probably all of them.” The thought made my skin crawl. But Keiji glanced around eagerly as if he hoped to spot one. “You didn’t know those things really existed until two days ago,” I said. “Why did you bother learning so much about them?”

  “I might not have k
nown, but I believed it was possible,” he said. The path narrowed as it cut through the forest along a particularly steep section of slope. The ground below us fell away amid the knobby roots of the trees and stalks of bamboo. “And also, ah, it totally annoyed my aunt and uncle—they didn’t think I should be reading anything except my school books until I was getting top marks. When I was little, there was a while when I’d decided they had to be evil spirits and if I just found a way to prove it, my brother and I would get to go live someplace else. Ha. After that it just sort of stuck. It’s kind of reassuring to imagine there’s more to life than grades and getting some upscale office job and working until you die, you know. Ogres or not, I’d rather be out here than back there.”

  He swung his arm toward the vista beyond the trees.

  “This sage we’re looking for,” Keiji added, “she’s the one who had the vision? What exactly did she see?”

  “She didn’t tell us a lot,” I admitted. “There was something about darkness coming over the mountain, and then Chiyo takes up the three treasures and drives it away.”

  “So she saw a vision of a girl with purple ponytails and puffy socks? I guess that helped narrow it down.”

  The corner of my mouth twitched up. “I don’t think so,” I said. “It was more... metaphorical, but we know it’s Chiyo because—”

  A black shape shot out of the underbrush near Keiji’s feet. He flinched away with a yelp and tripped over a root. I caught his wrist as his arms flailed, but he was falling so fast he pulled me off balance too. We toppled over the edge of the path together.

  12

  WE SLID several feet down the slope, Keiji on his back and me on my side, before my hand caught a bamboo stalk. My elbow twinged as we jerked to a halt. Midori, who had leapt from my hair as we fell, hovered above us.

  A large black rabbit hopped across the trail of broken ground left in our wake and darted off through the bushes. Keiji watched it go and started to laugh.

  “I thought—” he said. “I thought—” He was gasping too hard to finish the sentence. I looked down at the two of us, dirt-smeared and breathless for fear of a rabbit, and all the tension I’d been holding in broke with a giggle.

  Keiji shook his head, moving as if to squirm upright, and his shoulder bumped mine. He froze. I turned to find his face only inches away, his bright eyes fixed on mine. The air he exhaled grazed my cheek.

  It was the perfect time for him to make one of his jokes. I braced myself for it. But he just looked at me as if I were as magical as the creatures he’d spent his whole life wishing to meet.

  My heart started to pound. Gazing back at him, I could almost believe it myself. I wanted to fall into that look in his eyes.

  Before I quite knew what I intended to do, my head dipped. I caught myself. And in that moment’s hesitation, Keiji seemed to wake up beside me. He shifted the short distance upward and brushed his mouth against mine.

  My lips parted in surprise, the gentle contact sending a ripple of warmth through me. I’d never kissed anyone before. Not like this.

  Before my uncertainty could take over, Keiji slipped his hand around the back of my neck, tilting his head to bring our mouths closer together. His fingers were gritty with earth and the edge of his glasses bumped my face, but I found I didn’t mind at all. His lips were warm and a little rough, and as I kissed him back my head spun in a way that seemed totally out of proportion to what was happening, but oh—the shivery slide of his thumb tracing the line of my jaw, the fresh peach he’d eaten at breakfast on his breath, the softness of his skin as my palm found his cheek—my pulse was singing, my blood dancing—

  And then I woke up. I was lying there kissing a boy I’d met two days ago, when the one I’d loved for years might come dashing back at any moment.

  I jerked away. My lips tingled as if all the energy in my body had pooled there. Heat flooded my face, and I stared up at the path we’d fallen from, willing the sensation to pass.

  Keiji’s hand had dropped to his side, but otherwise he didn’t move. I could feel him watching me, hear the soft rasp of his breath. The silence stretched on. My heart stuttered.

  “We should keep going,” I said, hauling myself to my feet. “We—we don’t have much time.”

  Keiji swallowed. He shoved himself into a sitting position. I refused to look at him, but all I could see was him crouched there at the edge of my vision.

  “Time,” he said. “Right.” He took off his glasses, wiped the smudges off them with one of the few clean parts of his T-shirt, and set them back on his nose. Then he reached for his messenger bag, which had tumbled off his shoulder. Grabbing another bamboo stalk, he managed to stand. I scrambled up to the path ahead of him. Midori fluttered down and landed over my ear. I didn’t dare reach out to discover what she thought of my unexpected diversion.

  “Sora?” Takeo’s voice called. He emerged from the trees farther down the path. Panic washed over his face when he saw me. “Are you all right?” he said, rushing over. His eyes scanned the forest and came back to rest on me.

  “I’m fine,” I said around the lump in my throat, though I wasn’t really. Someone had rearranged all my vital organs. Nothing felt like it should. I wanted to close my eyes and lean into him until everything settled back into its proper place.

  “Oh, wow,” Chiyo said, coming up behind him. “What have you two been up to?”

  “We fell,” I said quickly, and motioned to Keiji, who had just staggered onto the path. “A rabbit startled us. It was stupid. Did you find Sage Rin? Is she all right?”

  Takeo still looked worried, but my questions seemed to deflect his concern. I became suddenly aware of a prickling that might have been a dusty handprint on the side of my neck.

  “I’m not sure,” he said as I wiped it away. “There were a few more footprints and traces of ki along the way to her house, but no other sign of the creatures it came from.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “So c’mon,” Chiyo said, snatching Keiji’s wrist. “You’ve slowed us down enough already, dirt boy.”

  They breezed past us with a gust of ki. Takeo offered me his hand. As I curled my fingers into his familiar, steady grasp, my mind flashed back to the taste of peach and the gentle pressure of someone else’s lips. That unwelcome heat tickled through me.

  Was this just one more horrible human thing: the inability to remember who you’d dedicated your heart to?

  I tightened my grip on Takeo’s hand. “Let’s go.”

  We’d nearly reached the stream at the base of the valley when Chiyo winced, her steps faltering. I tensed. “Are you all right?” I said.

  She nodded, smiling tightly as she tapped her chest. “I think our friend Omori just took another stab at me. But I felt it coming. He’s not getting in here, not today.”

  That meant Omori was hurting Mother or Father again. Blood singing to blood, heart to heart, spirit to spirit, in a tortured harmony. My throat tightened.

  I thought Chiyo proceeded across the stream a little more slowly than usual, but by the time we reached the tree that held Rin’s home, I couldn’t tell if she was still warding herself or if Omori had let up his attack already. Her eyes glittered with anticipation as she took in the immense cypress.

  Takeo knocked on the bark. We waited outside for a minute, but the sage didn’t appear. Takeo touched the trunk again and shimmered into his ethereal state to slip inside. Keiji’s eyes widened.

  “I’ve got you,” Chiyo said, and tugged him through the outer wall with her. I looked around once more, tasting the same bitterness in the air that I’d sensed from the footprints. Then Midori and I glided in after the others.

  I stopped with a jerk on the other side of the wall. Torn papers and broken porcelain scattered Rin’s once-tidy room. The bench in the corner lay on its side. Blotches of soil had been tracked across the polished floorboards.

  “Honored One?” Takeo was calling as he hurried up the stairs. The rest of us followed, over shards of p
ottery and trampled herbs. The table where Rin had taken tea with us was smashed in half; the cupboard doors dangled askew from wrenched hinges.

  “There was a fight,” Takeo said.

  “And if Sage Rin won,” I filled in unwillingly, “she’d still be here. They’ve taken her.” My gut twisted.

  “Do you figure Omori is behind this too?” Chiyo asked.

  “We did see ogres before who looked as if they were heading to Mt. Fuji,” I said, glancing at Takeo. “What if Omori sent them here?”

  “That could be,” Takeo said.

  Rin had hardly been kind to me when I’d met her, but I would never have wished harm on her. And we’d needed her to share her wisdom and experience with Chiyo, to expand Chiyo’s understanding of her powers beyond Takeo’s and my capabilities. What were we supposed to do without the sage?

  “Is there some reason that the demon would attack this sage?” Keiji said slowly. “I mean, I thought the prophecy was a secret? Or is the sage an obvious target?”

  “He knew to come after me,” Chiyo said, with a flex of her jaw that made me suddenly sure she was fending off his magic even now.

  “Yes,” Takeo said, his brow knitting, “but we believed he was targeting you only because he’d found out an important kami had escaped the mountain. No one but your parents knew about the prophecy and Sage Rin’s connection to it. I can’t imagine any circumstances under which they would have given up that information, no matter what he did to them.”

  “They’d have died before they risked the lives of everyone on the mountain,” I agreed, hugging myself. “But there isn’t any other reason for him to have attacked Sage Rin that I can think of.”

  Chiyo paled. “Okay,” she said to Keiji, holding out her hand. “I need your phone, now.”

  His shoulders stiffened. “What?”