The Night Itself

by Zoe Marriott

  “Now, listen,” Mum said, as we got to the end of the call. “There’s broadband in the lobby here, and I’m going to go and sign up for it. If there are any more problems with the phones and you start getting worried, just send me an email, OK?”

  “Thanks, Mum,” I said. “Um. Give Dad a kiss for me?”

  “He’s right here, Mio. Why don’t you talk to him for a minute?”

  Crap! “No, that’s fine—”

  “Mio?” My father’s deep voice growled down the line. “You gave us quite a scare, you know. Your mother was about to start packing to come back.”

  “Yeah, it’s been pretty scary over here too,” I admitted.

  “You’re all fine? No problems?”

  You have no idea, Dad. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  There was a pause. “Why does that sentence fill me with dread?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you’re paranoid and incapable of trusting me?”

  “When you prove yourself worthy of trust, then I’ll stop being paranoid. What are you up to? You haven’t wrecked the house already?”

  My eyes shot guiltily to the closed kitchen doors. “Dad!” I snapped. “Why do you always have to start with me? You know what – just put Mum back on the phone.”

  “Mio—”

  “Put Mum back on the phone or I’m hanging up.”

  Now he was the one sighing. “Fine. Take care. Don’t blow anything up. See you in a few days.”

  Mum was laughing when she came back on the line. “Seriously, you two! That was – what? Thirty seconds before you started fighting?”

  “I didn’t start it,” I said. “He was… Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got homework and stuff to do, and I bet this call is costing loads, so I should probably go.”

  “Hang on a second, love. Is Rachel about? I want to have a word with her.”

  Argh!

  “She’s in the kitchen making us curry. You know how she always wants to feed me when I get stressed out? It smells amazing, but there are about six pots on the go. I’m slightly scared to go in there.”

  Mum laughed again. “Well, never mind then. I’ll talk to her next time. You give both her and Jack a hug from me. Night, honey. Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  “Night, Mum,” I whispered. This time the tremble in my voice wasn’t faked. I hung up and buried my face in a cushion.

  CHAPTER 13

  FAIRY TALES

  “Mio—” Jack began. The front doorbell rang, cutting her off. She leapt up. “Pizza!”

  “Don’t go outside!” Shinobu and I burst out simultaneously.

  “Make sure you keep your feet on this side of the threshold,” Shinobu said.

  “And don’t … invite him to step inside or anything,” I added nervously. “Just in case.”

  “Fine, fine,” Jack said, pulling money out of her jeans pocket as she went out into the hall.

  Shinobu waited until Jack was gone before he came to rest his free hand on the back of the sofa next to – but not quite touching – my shoulder.

  “You should be proud of yourself,” he said quietly.

  “What for? Lying my ass off to someone who trusts me?”

  “I know it was not an easy thing you just did. To take the whole burden of this thing, and the truth of it, upon yourself. But if your parents returned they would only become hostages to be used against you. You have saved them from that.”

  The tension leaked out of me in a long sigh. It was true. My parents were the last people in the world who could deal with monsters. They were dentists, for crying out loud. I ran my fingers around the complex piercing on the katana’s guard, looking at Shinobu from the corner of my eye. “How do you always know just the right thing to say?”

  “Do I?” He looked surprised. Then he smiled his crooked, shy smile.

  I blinked a few times. I was a twenty-first-century woman, and I was not going to be conquered by any random facial expression. No matter how adorable it was.

  “It might be strange for you to think of it this way,” he said. “But I do know you quite well. I spent … a long time thinking about what I would say to you, if only you could hear me.”

  I nibbled on my lip. “Will you tell me something?”

  He nodded, the smile fading into a grave expression. “Of course.”

  “You were there when my ojiichan promised me the sword, showed it to me for the first time. Do you remember what he said to me?”

  “I think so.”

  “I’m trying to fit it with what the Harbinger said. He – or it, or whatever he is – said that he’d chosen our family to guard the sword. Didn’t Ojiichan say something about bad people looking for it?”

  “Your grandfather spoke in vague terms, suitable for a child, but … yes. Yes, he did say that. He promised that he would explain and tell you the stories of the sword later—” Shinobu broke off.

  “Only he died,” I said, a pang of old grief going through me. “He expected to be around to guide me and explain what he knew, and he wasn’t. If the Harbinger did do something to the sword, and then turned it over to us to hide for whatever reason, he had to have told the Yamato family something, otherwise Ojiichan wouldn’t have known to say that bad things could happen if the sword wasn’t hidden. He knew ‘bad people’ might be looking for it. He knew – he had to have known – that it had some kind of power. So why – why – would he give it to me? Allow me to connect to it that way? I was, like, ten. I didn’t even understand what I was feeling, what this weird connection was. It wasn’t—” I cut myself off.

  It wasn’t right. That was what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. Because this was Ojiichan I was talking about. My grandfather, who’d loved me more than anything. My grandfather, whom I’d worshipped, and still worshipped. He wouldn’t ever have put me in danger. He wouldn’t.

  Would he?

  Shinobu hesitated. “It does seem strange. You were a small child, incapable of protecting the sword, or even yourself. At the same time, your father was an adult, yet, as far as we know, he is not even aware that the katana exists. If your grandfather needed to pass on the sword, why not to him?”

  “Cos her dad would have laughed in his face,” Jack said. She was leaning against the doorframe with two pizza boxes, a six-pack of Diet Coke and a pile of paper napkins in her hands. She came into the room, dumped the food on the coffee table and then opened one of the boxes to reveal that she’d opted for her favourite combo of pineapple and pepperoni on a deep-pan base. Ick.

  I reached out to check the other box and was relieved to see that she had taken pity on me and got an Italian-crust Margarita.

  “This is food?” Shinobu asked doubtfully, coming round the side of the sofa. He sat down gracefully on the floor beside the coffee table, folding his legs beneath him.

  “It is.” I handed him a large slice of the plain pizza, with a napkin to shield his fingers from the hot, stringy mozzarella. “And it’s good. What did you say, Jack?”

  “You’ve told me about your dad and your granddad. They could never, ever get on, right? A bit like you and your dad now. It seems like your dad was pretty determined to leave everything from Japan behind and just be British. Be modern. Never look back. Your granddad had this sword, but he must have realized fairly early on that it would be no good trying to convince your dad to hide it and guard it with his life.” Jack swallowed a mouthful of pizza. “Your dad would probably have wanted to sell it and do roof repairs or something.”

  “You’re right,” I said, staring blankly at my pizza. “Dad is like that. I’ve always wondered if it was because he lost his mum so early. He was five when she died. It must have been pretty awful for him. He and Ojiichan came to England soon after that. Maybe it was part of Dad getting over it – just leaving all the memories of Japan behind. He always seemed like he wanted to leave Ojiichan behind too.”

  “I have known people like that,” Shinobu put in. “People who dealt with sorrow by shutti
ng it out.”

  I nodded, feeling more puzzle pieces click into place. “So instead of passing the sword on when Dad was sixteen, Ojiichan had to wait. And wait. But he didn’t wait until I was sixteen. He showed it to me as soon as I was big enough to pick it up…” As soon as Dad threatened Ojiichan with taking me away.

  Dammit, Dad. Why did you have to be such a pig to him? You left him no choice.

  “It was a dangerous strategy,” said Shinobu, putting his piece of pizza back in the box, untouched.

  “We don’t know if her granddad knew about the monsters, though,” Jack said. “What actual sane person would imagine all this was going to kick off?”

  “It wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t taken the sword out,” I said guiltily. It must always, always be hidden. Why had I waited until it was too late to remember that?

  “It is also what broke me free of my prison,” Shinobu pointed out. “Would you wish me back there again?”

  I sighed. “Fine. I can’t go back, I get it. I just wish that Ojiichan had the chance to tell me what he knew. Tell me the rules, or something. Anything!”

  Shinobu frowned thoughtfully. “Your grandfather tried to prepare you physically by training you in sword work. He must have tried to prepare you in other ways. He must have told you something. Perhaps something which did not seem important at the time?”

  I threw my nibbled crust down. “I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d remember. I mean, he never spoke to me about the sword before he showed it to me that day, not ever. Mostly he just told me stories, you know? He’d tuck me into bed and tell me fairy tales about Japan. I loved them, but Dad didn’t like me hearing about that stuff, so we kept it a secret. Gods. Monsters. Demons and heroes. Princesses who were born in bamboo trees and flew off to live in the moon. A hero who turned his girlfriend into a hair comb to protect her and then cut the head off a dragon.”

  “Those are both common fairy tales,” Shinobu said. “My mother told them to me as a child too.”

  “Is that it?” Jack asked, disappointed.

  “Pretty much. I remember the day he showed me the katana – I mean, that night – he told me a new story. I’d never heard it before and it was kind of … dark. It was about this king and queen who couldn’t have children.”

  “Like in Snow White?”

  “Er, no. It went something like the king and queen were the most beautiful people in the world, and they loved each other very much, but they had children that were – not right. Deformed. And the king only loved beautiful things, so he threw the babies into the sea.”

  “Whoa. What a dick.”

  “Yeah. And then the queen died. Her husband refused to accept that she was gone, so he followed her into the land of the dead, but when he found her she refused to leave with him because, you know, she was dead and it wasn’t right. But the king said—”

  “He would love her to the ends of the earth, and to the darkest depths of the sea, and to the highest heights of the sky,” Shinobu broke in softly. “The world itself was not as great as his love for her, and he would never leave without her. And so she, weeping with joy, agreed to go with him, back out into the light.”

  There was a short, charged silence. I propped the katana against my knee and defiantly rubbed the goose pimples off my arms. “Is that a common fairy tale too?”

  “It is the story of Izanagi and Izanami, the father and mother of all the Japanese gods.”

  “Gods?” I repeated.

  “Correct.”

  Jack shrugged impatiently. “Well, that’s a sweet, romantic story and all, but I can’t see what it has to do with us or the sword.”

  “That is not the end of the tale,” Shinobu said. “Can you remember the rest, Mio-dono?”

  “No, because my dad came along. And the next day…” I took a deep breath.

  “Oh, hell,” Jack said. “That was when—?”

  I nodded wordlessly. Jack shifted down the sofa and put her arm around my shoulder. Finally I managed to ask, “So what did happen next in the story?”

  Shinobu took a deep breath. “The god Izanagi took his wife’s hand and began to lead her out of Yomi—”

  “Where?” Jack interrupted.

  “Yomi. The Underworld. A place of endless darkness and endless night, populated with all the creatures of men’s nightmares.”

  “Not a top holiday destination then,” Jack said.

  Shinobu cracked a tiny smile. “I would not want to visit it. Izanagi did not like it either. He had succeeded in his quest and was sick of darkness. So he took the comb from his hair and made it into a torch to light their way. His wife, Izanami, cried out, and when he turned to look at her … he saw that she was rotting. Her flesh had decomposed, and her skin was covered in maggots and parasites. She had eaten the food of Yomi and was truly dead.”

  “Yuck,” said Jack.

  “Izanagi was terrified and disgusted. He could not stand anything that was flawed or imperfect and despite all his promises, his love for his wife was destroyed. He flung her away from him and ran. Izanami followed him, sobbing, broken-hearted and begging him not to abandon her after he had given her hope. But he ignored her. And she became filled with rage and hate and sent all the nightmarish monsters of Yomi after her husband to kill him, so that he would be forced to stay with her in the Underworld for ever. However, Izanagi’s fear had given him swift feet. He reached the entrance of the Underworld ahead of his pursuers, and blocked it with a giant stone, so that Izanami could never escape.”

  “I stand by my original opinion. This guy is a dick,” Jack said.

  “Pretty much,” I agreed quietly. “Is that the end?”

  “Not quite. Izanagi performed the rites of divorce there, outside the entrance to Yomi. Izanami screamed at her husband through the stone that she would kill one thousand humans for every day that she was trapped in the darkness without him. And Izanagi, uncaring, replied that he would ensure one thousand five hundred were born each day to replace them.”

  “Lovely. Thanks a lot, Izanagi and Izanami,” Jack said. “But I still don’t get why Mio’s granddad would make a point of telling her that story right after showing her the sword. There isn’t even a sword in it.”

  “Again, it is a tale that all Japanese children know. It may mean nothing,” Shinobu said. Despite the reassuring words, his face was troubled.

  “You might as well say it,” I told him.

  He sighed, then reluctantly went on. “After her husband abandoned her, Izanami became the Goddess of Death. Mistress of Yomi and its denizens, the creatures of darkness.”

  It took me a beat to join the dots. Then the goose pimples I’d just got rid of prickled up over my skin again. “Let me guess. That’s what the Nekomata is, isn’t it? A creature of darkness. So when it kept going on about its ‘Mistress’—”

  Shinobu shook his head. “The monster could have been speaking of any supernatural creature more powerful than itself. The stories say that Yomi is teaming with malevolent spirits. We must not leap to conclusions.”

  I picked up the katana in both hands. It sat across my palms, glinting in the light. “Do we have anything else to go on?”

  “The Goddess of Death,” Jack repeated flatly. “Are you kidding me?”

  All at once it seemed ludicrous. I groaned. “I don’t know. She’s apparently been killing people off since the beginning of time without any help. Why would she need some big, macho sword to make her happy?”

  “Bang goes that theory,” Jack said, relieved. “What about this Harbinger guy? Where does he fit into things?”

  “I have no idea. He said that if I didn’t protect the sword – boom! – end of the world. That was when he skewered Shinobu to the floor.” I shuddered.

  Shinobu shifted to kneel beside the sofa. I felt a tentative touch on my leg, above my boot, and fixed my eyes on the pattern on the katana’s saya, holding my breath. Long, warm fingers gently circled the delicate bones of my ankle. Little electric sparks of exciteme
nt bounced up and down my leg.

  “There is no need to be upset,” Shinobu said. “Although it was painful, I was not injured.”

  “It was injuring you,” I said, risking a look straight into his eyes. “He said that he was repairing ‘damage’ to the sword. But I could see you dying. You were fading away into nothing.”

  “‘Fading away,’” Shinobu repeated. His palm slid down to rest on my foot. I shivered and Jack rubbed my shoulder again, thinking I was still upset.

  “So, wait,” Jack said. “The Harbinger didn’t want to take the sword for himself. He wanted to repair it? He was telling to you to protect it? Is it possible that he’s one of the good guys?”

  “No.” I shivered again, and this time it was nothing to do with Shinobu. My grip on the katana tightened, fingers clenching until they felt numb. “The Nekomata has nine tentacles and fangs like knives, and it’s still not as scary as him. Whatever the Harbinger is, he’s definitely not one of the good guys.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS

  Half an hour later, the pizza and Coke were all finished and Jack had just slumped into an exhausted sleep on the other side of the sofa.

  I slid down to the floor to make a pile of the boxes and cans on the coffee table, tucking the katana in next to my right leg so that I could feel it close.

  My left knee bumped into Shinobu’s thigh.

  His long legs were lying, slightly bent, under the coffee table, and his elbows were propped on the edge of the table top. I glanced up at him. His eyes dropped hurriedly from my face. I waited for him to look at me again, but when he did, I found my gaze slipping away from his.

  “So, earlier,” I began, slightly rushed, as I arranged empty Coke cans in a line. “You know, when I was fighting the Nekomata and you were all ‘strike the heart’? Exactly where is the heart on that thing anyway? I mean, the middle of it moved around. A lot.”

  “When I fought it, I located the heart by observing the placement of the creature’s head relative to the limbs in its mantle.”