Kumiko and the Shadow Catchers

by Briony Stewart

  ‘What have you found, Goro?’ he asks. ‘This had better be worth my time.’

  With a low bow, the old Shadow Catcher points to me. ‘This girl, Your Grandness, she came here full of lies and trickery, but she knows about dragons. I think she has been sent by them.’

  The Grand Kah-ge’s eyes twist towards me and he seizes my wrist between his fingers. He looks into my eyes and smiles. After a thousand years, there are no more secrets.

  ‘You have done well, Goro,’ he muses. Looking back to me, he smirks. ‘Tell me little one, what are you exactly? Human, dragon … demon?’

  What would Tomodo do? I think. I feel like I have a tray of dumplings stuck in my throat. My face flushes.

  ‘She said she was descended from the dragon king,’ the old Shadow Catcher offers in my silence. ‘But my grandson knows her from school. Her name is Kumiko; her family must live close to here.’

  When he mentions my family I stop breathing. In my hurry to be so brave I have put them in far greater danger than ever before.

  The Grand Kah-ge nods. ‘Send for the others to capture her family. I think this is what we have been searching for.’ I hear Hatsuo gasp loudly as the old Shadow Catcher begins to throw jar-fulls of black strips into the fire. While he does this, the Grand Kah-ge asks, ‘Do you like games, Kumiko?’ He wrenches me towards the small window that looks out to the forest. ‘I can tell you have powers but what are they exactly? If you are who I think you are, you will summon a dragon to come and help you. If you cannot do this, it must mean you are some kind of spirit or demon up to no good and I shall get rid of you right away.’

  As I look out the window towards the forest I think with a voice as loud as a shout inside my head. I hope Tomodo can hear me, because I need to tell him that I’m sorry, that I failed, that he should take my family far away and not look back even once. This must be the end for me because I would never call a dragon to come before the Grand Kah-ge, even if I could.

  The colours of the forest start to mix together, they shimmer and dance with terrible beauty through the tears starting to well in my eyes. But through the shaking light I see something large rise over the trees. I wipe my tears away to see what this is, but as soon as I do I wish I hadn’t, because there alone, on the clearing outside the cabin, is Tomodo.

  ‘Good girl,’ the Grand Kah-ge says though I can hardly hear anything but the sound of my own breath.

  Tomodo peers at me with an amber gaze glistening with things I can tell he wants to say. If only I had his power to hear the things that aren’t said. If only I could tell him not to be so foolish. Of course, I try to run to the door but the old Shadow Catcher holds me back. The Grand Kah-ge slips outside and with a flicker of light he pulls Tomodo’s shadow from the ground like it’s nothing but a great swathe of silk. Tomodo roars and fights as the tears run down my face.

  I hear Hatsuo shout, ‘Ojiisan, don’t!’ as the old Shadow Catcher squeezes my elbows in a strange way that makes me sink with sleepiness. As my eyes start to close, Tomodo disappears and we both drift away into the darkness like smoke from extinguished candles.

  Chapter eight

  When my eyes open, there is nothing but an old lamp on the floor, the starry sound of crickets chirruping between the rafters and feet treading along a wooden floor. My hands and feet are tied with a long silk cord and as my eyes adjust to the dark I see I am in a small room. I shake my heavy head. The Grand Kah-ge stole a shadow, I know that much, but I can’t remember who the shadow belonged to.

  I was once told that when a shadow is stolen its owner becomes nothing – not sound, not smell, not even a memory. But whoever told me that was wrong. There is something left behind. An aching, a knowing that you can’t remember something tremendously important.

  I’m looking about the room for some way out when I hear a gnawing sound in the far corner. A rat seems to have scuttled up from under the floor. To my disgust, it races out of its hole towards me. I try to kick it away until it gives a small flaming cough. It is no rat.

  The tiny dragon leaps from the floor to my shoulder. I remember it from the cloud kingdom, a nervous copper-coloured thing the size of a small boat. I had heard it boast about the ability to shrink or grow as it pleases and now it looks miniature, like a metal toy, gleaming in the lamplight.

  ‘Kumiko,’ it hisses, tickling my ear, ‘I have been sent to tell you not to give up. We will not let harm come to you. For now you must remain as the Grand Kah-ge’s prisoner, but get him to take you outside. We will be there for your escape.’

  ‘What about my …’

  ‘Shh!’ the dragon squeaks. ‘Your family has been taken to the clouds, they are safe.’

  ‘But I failed,’ I whisper softly.

  ‘No, Kumiko,’ says the tiny dragon. ‘The plan failed, not you. Now hold tight, I must go.’ As it says this, the door to the room opens. The dragon’s wiry tail just slips out of sight as Hatsuo slinks into the room. He puts a finger up to his lips then squats low beside me, his round face turned towards the door. For a moment he says nothing, then he whispers, ‘I am supposed to be keeping an eye on you, but … I heard the Grand Kah-ge talking to my grandfather. They haven’t found your family yet and it sounds as if they must have escaped. I thought you should know that,’ he adds quickly. His face is as pale as a bitter radish with no hint of laughter left in it.

  A small part of me is warmed to hear this. The dragons looking after my family have kept their word.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hatsuo continues. ‘I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t know– ’

  ‘That I am the descendant of a dragon king?’ I whisper.

  Hatsuo’s face flashes like a coin. ‘Are you really?’

  I hesitate, then nod. There is no point keeping secrets now.

  ‘Is that why you were able to call that dragon to you?’ Hatsuo asks. ‘Do dragons always do what you say?’

  Hatsuo seems to remember more than I can. ‘If a dragon came here it was because it wanted to, not because I called it,’ I say. ‘I would never have asked a dragon to come. The Grand Kah-ge only wanted to steal its shadow.’

  ‘But how did that dragon know to come if you didn’t call it?’ Hatsuo asks, eyes wide as soup spoons.

  ‘Dragons have all kinds of powers.’ I shrug. ‘Some of them can see and hear things that happen far away. Whoever that dragon was, I think it came to help me.’

  ‘Even though it knew its shadow might be stolen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Hatsuo pouts. ‘That is … honourable. I never knew dragons were like that. My grandfather has always told me that dragons are dangerous and evil, that they would eat you if they had the chance.’

  I give a small laugh despite myself. ‘I used to think that too, until I met one.’

  I tell Hatsuo about all the funny things dragons do, the way they dance, the way they blow clouds into shapes and fly down to the mountains when they have an itch, just to scratch themselves on the rocks. I tell him what it’s like to break through storm clouds and to visit places so distant your footprints might be the only ones that ever mark the ground there.

  Hatsuo’s eyes seem to grow bigger and bigger and the corners of his mouth widen into the smile I remember from school. ‘You know, I only ever wanted to be a Shadow Catcher to learn more about magic,’ he says under his breath. ‘I think you are lucky.’

  ‘Lucky?’ I ask him. ‘This world was once full of magic! All those things like Kappas, Tanuki and Kirin in the stories our teacher told us, were probably real creatures until Shadow Catchers made them disappear. Now they are all just shadows pressed into a book.’ I look down bitterly at my tied hands. ‘If the Grand Kah-ge has his way,’ I say, ‘I will be too.’

  In the soft flicker of the lamp I see Hatsuo look sadly at the floor. He gets to his feet as though about to leave but he just stands there. With a voice as thin as threads he says, ‘Then I better help you escape.’

  chapter nine

  ‘I need to get outsid
e,’ I tell Hatsuo. ‘If I can get outside the dragons will do the rest.’

  Hatsuo nods and leaves the room. When he returns, he opens the door wide and shouts, ‘The Grand Kah-ge wants to see you, so stand up!’ With a small wink he unties my feet and I follow him back into the main part of the cabin. The large room seems to have transformed. Green lights hover above Shadow Catchers lined up in rows like soldiers along its walls. Outside, the lights continue on. They glow like a mass of fireflies across the clearing and throughout the trees of the forest. How could there be so many Shadow Catchers?

  In the centre of the room the Grand Kah-ge sits with a book across his knees. My stomach makes a frog leap as I realise it is the very one I was trying to get close to all along. The Book of Shadows.

  Hatsuo nudges me forwards and the Grand Kah-ge tilts his head towards me and rolls up his sleeve with an indulgent smile. One snap of his fingers and he stamps my shadow to the floor. He chuckles as it lies still like dry ink at my feet. I am now unable to move.

  ‘I could take your powers now if I wanted to,’ he says lightly. ‘But I don’t want to be too hasty. I like to make sure I do things right and young Hatsuo here seems to think you have something important to show me outside. I don’t believe him by the way. I think he is a stupid child like you are. But please, if it is so important, you better tell me what it is.’

  I hesitate. I can see Hatsuo squirm with anxiousness in the corner of the room and I know I better think of something. The Grand Kah-ge begins to laugh a booming laugh like someone at the mouth of a cave and the others chime in nervously. I look out the window for a clue. Apart from the sea of Shadow Catchers, their floating green lamps and the full yellow moon, there is nothing else to see. But then I look more closely at the moon. Its full glow starts to shrink before me and as it does an idea begins to grow.

  ‘There is a reason,’ I breathe, thinking my words over one at a time. ‘I see now that coming here was a mistake,’ I say a little louder. ‘But it was the dragons who made me come. If I tell you the true secret to their powers will you promise to spare me?’

  The Grand Kah-ge draws himself up and winces. ‘I will make no such promise,’ he says. ‘But if the information proves useful, then I would be inclined to keep you around.’ With another snap of his fingers, he releases my shadow.

  ‘Very well,’ I say with a bow. ‘I hold the key to the power of dragon life, but there is something you should want more than that. Something so great, it carries the power of everything on earth. The dragons know this – they draw from it when they need to and tonight I am sure they will for it is happening now and they need it to defeat you.’

  ‘What is it?’ the Grand Kah-ge snaps. ‘What is this power?’

  ‘The earth’s shadow,’ I say. ‘But they call it a Dragon Moon.’

  ‘An eclipse?’ the Grand Kah-ge hisses, then to himself he murmurs, ‘Of course!’

  I point towards the window. ‘It’s happening now; if you take me outside I can show you.’

  A stir of whispers brews in the air, until everyone is silenced by the Grand Kah-ge rising to his feet. ‘Outside!’ he barks and the Shadow Catchers quickly file out of the cabin with a low rumble of excitement. A frenzy of snatching, grabbing arms drags me out beside the Grand Kah-ge and once I am in the clearing I point a shaking finger to the slowly changing moon.

  The black disc of the earth’s shadow closing over the moonlight excites the Grand Kah-ge. His face fills with an expression that turns, like rotting fruit, into something ugly to behold.

  ‘We must seize that shadow,’ he calls. ‘We must do it now, immediately, to make our control complete. All the world’s magic can be ours!’

  Under the Grand Kah-ge’s instructions, the crowd of Shadow Catchers starts raising their hands to the moon. They chant with the whispering might of a winter wind and the unified force of a waterfall.

  I peer up into the empty sky. The dragons had better hurry.

  As the shadow closes over the moon, the Shadow Catchers start to clutch at the air as though something enormous lies beyond their straining hands. The Grand Kah-ge opens The Book of Shadows and waits for something to happen. But nothing happens, nothing, until a string appears. A long black string begins to wriggle between his fingers. The string thickens into a rope, then a stream, then a river of shadows before I realise with dread what’s happening. The Shadow Catchers are indeed stealing the earth’s shadow from the moon! In the same moment, out of the corner of my eye I see a shimmer at the edge of the night sky. The dragons are coming.

  As the Shadow Catchers see the dragons, they begin to pull faster and faster at the ribbon of shadow, like weavers. The ground begins to shake. The Grand Kah-ge laughs with triumph as everything becomes brighter and, at first, like him, I think it is because there is no more shadow left on the moon.

  But then I see it is the book. The book is burning with its own light and billows of smoke are rolling off its pages. The Grand Kah-ge stops laughing. The light swells until it is too painful to look at, and with a howl like a wounded animal, the Grand Kah-ge lets the book fall out of his burning hands. Like a winged creature, smoking and frothing bright sparks, the book soars into the air and explodes. Chrysanthemum bursts of white light flood over the clearing as perfectly as the midday sun and from the light comes a torrent of black. A surge of fleeing shadows storm from the twisted pages of the book. They fall to the ground running, or into the sky flapping, and as they do, they change. The shadows become creatures racing, prancing and soaring. Creatures of gold and silver, and colours I have never seen. Creatures with pearl horns on their heads and wings that sparkle like gold dust in the light of the broken book.

  A shadow larger than any before slips over the ground towards me. It begins to turn green and glisten with scales, its eyes flash yellow and suddenly I remember the name of my very greatest friend.

  I throw my arms out wide and cry, ‘Tomodo!’

  Chapter ten

  As the burning light fades back to the deep blue of the night, a kingdom of dragons lands in a circle around the clearing. The Grand Kah-ge scrambles towards the singed book and picks it up like a child would a broken toy. He rifles through its pages with crazed desperation, spit foaming in the sunken corners of his mouth. ‘You,’ he says shaking. ‘You did this. The book, it’s … it’s empty!’

  But Tomodo stares at the Grand Kah-ge so hard he stops as though his own shadow has been pinned to the ground.

  ‘Kumiko did not do this,’ Tomodo growls. ‘You did, all of you.’ He looks up at the field of people who look small and frightened by the surrounding dragons. They cluster like beetles on a sinking leaf as they realise there is no spell they can cast, no weapon they can wield. One cowering man near Tomodo whimpers, ‘Don’t hurt us.’

  Tomodo sighs. ‘We aren’t here to hurt you. We came to free ourselves from you by destroying your book of shadows, but it seems your fear and greed has led you to destroy it yourselves. If you had ever bothered to ask any creature of magic, they would have told you that the earth is a thing more powerful than any of us. There is so much of it we cannot, and should not, know. Your book could never have held it all inside.’

  Tomodo pulls the book from the Grand Kah-ge’s hands and passes it to me. I feel the faintest heat still lingering on its pages.

  ‘You have no magic now,’ Tomodo continues, ‘and you will not have it again. Magic creatures will be wary of humans now; they will hide themselves and their shadows away where you cannot get to them. So long as you do not go looking for them you will never have anything to fear. They don’t wish to harm you. They only want what we all want – to be free. The only thing we ask of you is for you to live the lives you were meant to live without taking the things that are not yours to take.

  One by one, the dragons around the Shadow Catchers turn and sweep back into the sky. I smile at them: the forest dragon, the dragon from Mount Fuji, the glowing blue dragon and all the others I know.

  Some of the Shadow
Catchers stay motionless with shock, while others begin to skulk away, back through the forest to the homes and towns they left behind. I look around for the old Shadow Catcher and the Grand Kah-ge but they have fled, just like the shadows from the book. I can’t say where they have gone, but I suppose we might never see them again.

  I jump on Tomodo’s back with a tingling sensation. I am not sure if I can believe it all just yet, but I feel like I’ve finally come out of my cocoon, only it’s not me who has changed, it’s the world that’s changed around me. Before Tomodo launches into the air to join the streams of dragon tails fluttering back towards the clouds, I look behind at Hatsuo. He is standing in the lonely light of his grandfather’s cabin.

  ‘Are you coming?’ I ask.

  Before he can put a silly grin on his face, the glowing blue dragon scoops him up between her incandescent wings and shoots into the sky.

  The Dragon Moon is full and bright once more, and as we fly I feel it. It makes the dragons’ bellies burn bright and their whiskers shine all the way to the dragon kingdom, high above the clouds.

  Before today, the magical world was locked away in a book. The only traces of it were the ancient folktales and legends we were told at night when we were little. But the one story that was never told was that of the book itself, and that of the ones who made it. Humans are the ones who tell these stories, and so it is no surprise that it was humans who kept the story hidden, for the Shadow Catchers were human no matter what they tried to be. I don’t know if people will ever hear about the Shadow Catchers, or the book whose pages are now as blank and quiet as fields of snow. But I do know one thing: now that there’s a little more magic in this world, the most unbelievable stories of all will probably come true.