I can’t locate him immediately. The voice seems to be coming from outer space. Then I spot him, a few dozen yards to my right.
He’s trussed up in a rope net that is hanging from a giant, ancient tree. His wings look mashed. Inu dangles in another bag next to him.
They are suspended above a smoking, hissing gray pit. I’m pretty sure we’re on top of the active volcano.
Inu manages one pitiful little woof.
“Peyton!” I shout. “Inu!”
Peyton lifts his head. A long, deep gash extends from his hairline, across his eyebrow and cheekbone, all the way to his left nostril. The whites of his eyes are crisscrossed with red, so bad that the damage is visible from this distance. His skin is a mottled purple. “Don’t come any closer.” His eyes look down into the smoky pit.
I follow his gaze.
The deep pit is filled with rice.
In the middle of the rice, buried up to his neck, is my father.
My father’s face is turned upward, his eyes closed. He is missing his glasses. His skin is an icy blue, his mouth slack and open.
“Dad!” I have to get to him. My muscles twitch but do nothing more.
We move as one, the beast-man says, and all those things in the air suddenly pause and shift. They coagulate into a giant sphere, like swarming bees. Pointing toward me. It is over, Xander.
He is correct. I’m done. I shut my eyes and brace myself for the onslaught. Good-bye, everybody. Sorry I failed you.
Iie! My grandfather’s voice shouts in my ear, shoving at me from the inside. You will not give up.
Like a snap of the fingers, it comes to me, what I must do. Move, I command my muscles, and I get up and start running. I think I hear the beast-man laughing, but I don’t care. Let him try to catch me. Nobody can stop me.
I jump in to save my father.
“Don’t!” Peyton says hoarsely.
Too late. My feet plummet in, the rice giving way, and it feels like I’m dropping into water. Except I can’t stay afloat. I keep on sinking and sinking.
I manage to find and grab my father’s shoulders. He doesn’t move. He’s stiff and cold. Grayish vapors rise mistily around him.
I wrap my arms around his neck, stick my head above the rice. I put my cheek against his and feel just the faintest little bit of air whoosh out of his nose. I keep imagining. I keep hoping. “Dad!” I yell again, and shake him. Nothing happens. It’s like trying to shake a huge tree.
Hot tears fall out of my eyes onto his neck where they turn into powdery ice. That’s how cold he is.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please don’t be dead.”
He descends with me as the rice pulls us under. I try to climb back up, to save us, but there’s nothing to grab on to. My fingers comb through the rice.
The grains swallow my dad completely. I’m next. I tilt my head back. Up above, the beast-man looks down at me triumphantly, his tongue pulsing in and out of his mouth. And above him I see Peyton, strung up and immobile in his big webby net, his eyes huge and horrified. Sorry you had to watch this, I say silently. Then I sink.
Rice swallows my neck, starts filling my ears. I cough and try to hold my breath, but it’s no use. Rice goes up through my nose, into my lungs, and presses into my eyelids. And then everything goes black.
I’m dizzy. I stand up slowly, expecting to spit out rice, but my mouth and my nostrils are clear.
Where am I? Am I dead? Everything looks fuzzy. I try to breathe deep and slow. To not panic. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
Four walls, a wooden floor, windows come into focus. My house. I’m in my house! I want to cry from relief.
I look around, dazed, at a familiar scene. Dad and Inu are sitting on the couch. Peyton sits in the armchair at one end—no wings in sight—and Obāchan’s in the kitchen, bustling around. She has cleaned everything up. There’s no evidence that an earthquake or tsunami ever hit. It’s dim in here, though. Why doesn’t Obāchan have any lights on? I crane my head up at where the ceiling lights are—or where they should be. Nothing there but black sky. The roof’s not finished yet, I guess.
Maybe it was all just a strange bad dream. Caused by eating too much of Obāchan’s chicken and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Or maybe I passed out during the earthquake, and I’m only waking up now. “Hey.” I test out my voice. It sounds normal. “Hey,” I say again, louder, getting the cobwebs out.
The others don’t respond right away. I sit in the armchair opposite Peyton, my heart rate slowing. I did imagine it all. There was no tsunami, no boat, no wings, no demons, no Momotaro. Life is back to normal—heck, it never even changed.
What a relief.
But, though I shouldn’t, I feel more than a little bit disappointed.
I’m just plain old ordinary Xander after all.
Dad strokes Inu’s furry head. There’s no sign of the dog’s injuries. “I’m glad you’ve come around.” His voice is super calm, even for Dad.
Peyton stretches in his chair. He’s wearing a baseball cap backward. “Hey, dude,” he says. He tosses a baseball up and down in his hand. “Took you long enough to get here. Want to play some CraftWorlds?”
Obāchan comes in, wiping her hands with a dishtowel. “I’m so happy you’re home.” She kind of laughs then. It doesn’t sound quite right. Not like her.
The hairs on my arms stand up again. This is wrong.
I examine the scene more closely, and then I’m absolutely sure. You know how I know it’s wrong?
Obāchan always tells Peyton to take off his hat when he comes inside. There’s zero percent chance Obāchan wouldn’t have marched over there and yanked it off his head. He’d be sporting serious, matted-down hat hair.
“This isn’t right.” I move backward. “Not right at all.”
Obāchan and Inu and Peyton and Dad all look at me, and their eyes are blank. They’re here, but not here here. Like those wax figures of celebrities that look almost lifelike, but not quite. Or an animatronic figure. I’ve seen mice that look like they have more soul than these fakers.
I back up a little.
They all start walking toward me, and it’s like one of those zombie movies, the way they lift their limbs oh-so-slowly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to eat my brains.
“Xander,” Obāchan says.
“Xander,” Dad says.
“Xander,” Peyton says.
“Xander,” Inu says.
Inu?
No way I’m believing my senses this time.
The floor shivers and slants, sliding the zombie imposters away from me. That gives me a little time.
I turn and run for the front door, but I hear something on the other side that makes me stop in my tracks. Some creature, scratching at the wood. I look to my right and left; there’s nowhere to go. Then the door swings open abruptly, the bell chiming its hollow ding-dong.
Lovey stands on my front porch. Her blond hair is gone and (I want to wash my eyeballs with bleach), she’s got no clothes on—because she’s completely covered with reddish ape hair. It both looks like her and doesn’t look like her at all. But I recognize her anyway.
She smiles at me with feral eyes and big yellow teeth. “Hey there, Xander.”
I back away, but not too far, because my fake family is gaining on me. “Are you joking right now, Lovey?” Ugh. She might just be a figment of my imagination, but I still don’t want to deal with the likes of her right now.
“Even when you were hiding from your true self, you knew what I was.” She puts her right index finger in the space between my collarbones and draws it down my chest.
“A horrible, horrible person?” I flinch away.
“A satori. Well, good for you, Mr. Momotaro.”
“Xander,” Inu whispers, getting closer.
“It’s bad enough that you bug me at school. Now you gotta bug me in my dreams, too?” I try to sidestep Lovey. How do I get rid of her? Shove her? I reach for my salt container, hoping it’s
here with me in this dream world, but my belt is empty.
During the pause, she grabs my shirt collar with both hands and yanks me toward her. “Don’t go, Xander. You know, I only ever bothered you because I liked you.”
I let out a burst of laughter. “I’m sorry, but it’s never going to work out between us.” I smack at her hands, but she tightens her grip and draws me closer. Is she trying to kiss me? I turn my face away as best I can.
The white plaster walls start turning pink and grow thick with swampy moisture that drips down.
This house is a mouth. Attached to who-knows-what. I need out of here, now.
Desperately I look over Lovey’s shoulder. It’s pitch-black outside. We’re floating in nothingness. Outer space, with no stars and no sun. My lungs shrivel as the oxygen-less, subfreezing air hits them.
I’m going to jump out there and find my real live, breathing father. My father is waiting for me. I can feel him.
“That way lies death,” Lovey whispers, her breath no better than her looks.
“Every way lies death. What’s one more?” I thrust my arm between her hands, grab her right thumb, and twist it back as far as I can. She yelps and releases me.
I wrest away from her and leap straight through the door. Into blackness.
For a second, I think I’ve died for real this time. Coldness surrounds me, as if I’ve jumped into a vat of ice cubes. My insides feel like I just drank a jumbo-size Slurpee.
Everything goes numb. There is nothing but blackness all around me. Time stops. I have no sense of floating or falling. I’m just standing still, unable to move or feel or see.
I’m frozen. And alone, a speck of something smaller than dust in all the galaxies in the universe. I will never find anyone again.
I remember the Momotaro comic, how he dreamed of a cold and dark land.
I’m there. I’m here. This is what Momotaro saw.
My heart has a tight cage around it, squeezing until I know it will burst.
If I could move, I’d be clawing at the air like a drowning, desperate rat. Make it stop! I shout in my head, but nobody hears.
Is this what it will be like forever? Me and this unending darkness?
My mind relaxes. Accept this fate, something whispers. Being in nothingness is easier than trying to keep fighting, Xander.
I jolt back to myself. No, no, no.
This isn’t the end. I force my brain to calm down. To think without trying too hard. To just know what I need to do, instinctively.
Dad! Peyton, Inu, Jinx!
Something invisible pushes away from me, but not far enough.
Mom! I scream inside, with every single one of my cells, and I feel longing and love and pain stronger than what I felt when Inu was injured, or when Dad went missing. The little BB of hurt I’ve been carrying for years expands into a cannonball again, filling me from the top of my head down to my feet.
Whatever force is holding me shatters like a soft snowball thrown against brick, and then there’s wind, and I’m falling. Freefalling, like I’m on a roller coaster without a seat belt on and I can’t see if there’s even a ground to hit.
Without effort, I picture a harness around me, a parachute better than the one I made when I was little and wanted to jump off the roof. Instantly, something yanks on my shoulders. Sure enough, there are ropes holding me tight. Saving me.
Light rises up around me, like spotlights on a stage. I land on my feet, squinting and blinking until my eyes adjust. I hear a tapping, like somebody typing on a keyboard.
I’m back at school. Mr. Stedman sits at the computer.
“Did your father punish you the way you deserve?” Mr. Stedman smiles cruelly. “With a belt, I should hope. Useless boy.” The slightest flicker of tongue peeks out from between his lips. His black eyes shimmer under the fluorescent lights.
I stand in the middle of the rows of desks and look squarely into those eyes, though there are no irises to focus on. It’s like looking at an empty space. I’m still shaking-scared, but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is helping my dad and my friends. “Tell me your name, beast-man.”
“Gozu.” The monster man smiles and allows his arms to redden and flicker back into slimy scales. He grows in height and width, like Bruce Banner turning into the Hulk, and now I’m staring up at him. I come up to maybe his upper leg someplace, as though I’m a toddler.
I was mistaken. How am I ever going to beat him?
“What do you want with me?” I glance around the room, looking for escape or weapons. The windows outside are black, as they were at my “house.”
Gozu’s tongue flickers in and out. “I’m here to take you into the underworld, Xander.”
“Aren’t we already there?” School being the oni underworld would actually be the least surprising thing that’s happened during this whole adventure.
Gozu chuckles softly. “Where your ship landed is merely the dwelling place for oni, Xander. Where oni assume physical form. There is also a place where we wait. Where we are still demons, but without bodies. You have no idea what the true underworld is like. This is a vacation spot in comparison. Wait until you meet Ozuno.”
My entire body tenses, as though some Momotaro gene inside me recognizes the name. “Who is that?”
“The oni king,” Gozu says simply. He walks toward me. “All I had to do was get you to voluntarily leave your body. Make you vulnerable. And now you are mine to take. Defenseless and weak.” He shakes his head. “It was so easy. Stupid, pitiful Momotaros. Forever enslaved to us. You will do our bidding, and we will take over the whole earth.” He smiles, an action more sinister than the worst dictator’s frown, and suddenly I feel very, very sorry for Jinx.
“You’re not the king, then?” I back up.
“No. And glad of it.” He laughs. “I’m getting paid handsomely.”
So Gozu’s a bounty hunter. “What do you even need with money? You’re a demon.”
He shimmers and turns into Mr. Stedman again. “We can turn into whoever we want. Even a social studies teacher.”
Mr. Stedman with his sorry comb-over. I start laughing. I laugh so hard I have to lean against a wall.
“This is not a laughing matter!” Gozu/Stedman says. With a scowl he turns back into the oni.
I shake my head. “You’re showing me you can turn into any human in the world, and you pick that guy? What a waste. How about an interesting person, like George Washington or somebody?”
Gozu shimmers and turns into my father. My father with black eyes. “How about him?” He strides toward me. “I’ll choke the laughter out of your scrawny neck while I’m in your father’s form.” His hands go up.
I should be afraid, but I’m not. He can’t hurt me. Not now. I’m not in my body, just as I wasn’t when I was in the waterfall or talking to my grandfather in my dream.
My mind is my land. Not Gozu’s. “Go ahead and try. I’d like to see how forgiving Ozuno is when you fail.”
Gozu growls and reverts back to his oni form.
I leap away to the other side of the room, look around for something to throw at him. The textbooks on the shelves say World History, same as in our class. I pick one up and open it.
Empty.
For some reason this freaks me out the most. A blank history book.
I remember all the times over the past week I stared at page 150. All about climate change.
The text appears on the pages.
I feel heat next to my arm. Gozu.
I jump up onto a desk and skip over the tops across the room, like I’m running over stepping stones, back to the other side.
I made those words appear, just by picturing them. My heart pounds. This is my talent.
I can do things. With my imagination. Somewhere in my head lives this thing—this being of its own, almost—that creates. That comic book. The samurai in the video game. Me swimming to Peyton. Turning acid into gel. Telling my real self what to do when I was in the waterfall. Exiting the hou
se through space. Putting the words in the book.
I just don’t completely understand how to control it.
Before, I did things while I was unconscious. Now I’ve done a few things while I was awake—but how?
I hold out my hand and imagine the weight of my sword in it. The cool scabbard. Coming to me from where they are keeping it, like a trained falcon flying to my hand.
Gozu whips his tail around and smacks me sideways, catching me under the ribs. Oof! I fall to the floor, the wind knocked out of me. “You’re wrong. I can hurt you here.”
No sword appears. I look at the textbooks, and I make something else happen.
The books fly off the shelves at Gozu, striking him hard, so fast that he’s buried. Now there’s just a big pile of books on the floor.
I run for the door. My hand closes around the knob. Sticky, just like in real life. My mind sure remembers a lot of little stuff.
Hands clamp around my neck, lifting me up and up. My legs dangle off the ground. I flail and hit at his arms and kick at his chest, but it does no good. He shakes me like Inu does with his chew toys.
I pry one of his fingers up enough to get a little air. “Hunhhh.” My larynx is getting crushed.
“Come, Xander,” the demon hisses. The snake tongue darts out. “Time to meet your new master.”
The classroom dissolves. We’re in the middle of freezing-cold nothing again. My body floats up, perpendicular to Gozu’s. My head gets light. I might be about to die for real. Sorry, Dad, I think. Sorry, Ojīchan. I feel my mind drift, like it does when I’m about to fall asleep.
And, oh, sleep will feel so good.
My heartbeat slows, fades. Here I go.
Then my father and my grandfather appear in my mind. Solid and real. I look at them through bleary eyes. I’m having a waking dream within a dream.
Unlock yourself, Xander, my father says, so quiet it’s like he’s only saying it in my head. Which he is.
Faith.
Gozu’s hands squeeze my neck harder.
Imagination.
Whose voice am I hearing? I don’t recognize it.
Remember the Momotaro comic. Everything you need is in it.
Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters Page 19
