“Father…” he went on. “I’m worried about Mother. With every day that goes by, she drifts further away. She talks a lot about you, but… I just don’t know. I don’t think she remembers what’s real anymore. I don’t know what’s real anymore.…”
Kubo took a deep breath, tears welling in his eye. “I just wish you were here. So I could talk to you, see you… find out what I should do.”
He was about to say more, but a small voice interrupted him. “Daddy! Daddy! Grandma is here!”
He turned and saw the family beside him peering into their lamp. The wick had burst magically into flames, lighting the lantern. Hosato smiled as he and his daughter walked down to the river, setting their lantern on the water to help their grandmother return to the spirit world. The little girl chatted happily to her grandmother as they went.
Kubo stared into his lantern. It was still dark, the wick just the same as when he had made it. Why hadn’t his father come? Where was he? Had he listened to even a word Kubo had said?
“Father? Hellooooooo?” Kubo called, staring into the orange sky. The sun was starting to fall behind the mountains. He would have to return to the cave soon.
Kubo folded his arms across his chest. “Any time…”
But still, his father didn’t come. He watched the families in the cemetery smile and laugh as their lanterns lit. A young couple clutched each other as they walked their lantern down to the river and watched it float out to sea. Kubo sat in front of his altar, wishing the lantern would light, but minutes passed and nothing happened.
Soon he was alone in the cemetery. He looked to the sky, waiting again for a sign, but there was nothing.
“Fine!” he said, snatching the lantern off the altar. “I don’t need you anyway!”
He crumpled the paper lantern and threw it into the grass. He’d never felt so alone. Why had all the other spirits visited but not his father’s? Why wasn’t his prayer answered?
He sat down in the grass, staring at the balled-up paper. He picked it up and smoothed it out, not noticing the sound in the distance: the village bell marking the sunset. He looked down at the broken lantern in his hands. “I’m… I’m sorry.…”
He wasn’t sure to whom he was talking, but he felt better apologizing for his foolishness. He had been wrong to get so angry with his father. If he hadn’t visited, Kubo would return next year to find him, and then he would say something different—the right thing that would make him come back.
The wind whipped through the cemetery. Kubo turned, suddenly noticing how dark it had become. The hills were silent. The sky had turned a deep blue.
All along the river, the lit lanterns were extinguished one by one. Wisps of smoke curled from their charred wicks, joined by a thick fog rolling in off the bank. Through the trees, he swore he heard something: a strange, melodic voice whispering his name.
He spun around, trying to see where the voice was coming from. It was calling to him. His heart was thumping fast in his chest, and he immediately started to worry. What had he done? How had he not noticed how late it had gotten?
Then he saw her. There, across the river, was a woman dressed in long, billowing robes made of crow feathers. Her hair was the color of squid ink, just like his mother’s. Her wide-brimmed hat was pulled down, the front of it so low he could not see her face. She held a long wooden pipe in one hand.
“Little boy,” she said, coming toward him, “what happened to your eye?”
Kubo took a step backward, but she only came closer, laughing a horrible, high-pitched laugh. He heard more laughter and another woman stepped out from the first woman’s shadow. She looked the same as the first one, with the same black hair and wide-brimmed hat. They both had a silver medallion covering their hearts.
“Who are you?” Kubo called out. He tried to sound brave, but his voice was shaky. “How do you know my name?”
“We’re your family, Kubo,” the women said. “Your mother’s sisters. And we’ve been looking for you for so long. It’s so lovely to meet you… face-to-face.”
As they said it, they both raised their chins, showing themselves to him. But their faces were hidden behind ghostly white masks. Their lips were fixed in permanent smiles, and their black eyes stared at him blankly. Kubo had seen the Noh masks before—they were part of Japanese culture—but he’d never seen ones as terrifying as these. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
“Come, Kubo, come to your aunties.…”
As they glided over the river toward him, he watched in horror, too scared to even move. “No reason to be afraid, Kubo.…” they said. “We just need your other eye. Your grandfather admires it so.…”
They started up the bank toward him. He turned, running in the opposite direction, back toward the village. He glanced over his shoulder and saw one of the sisters take a puff on her wooden pipe. Smoke blew out of the pipe and curled up above her, taking on a terrifying shape. Smoke demons filled the sky, descending upon him, ready to strike.
“Help!” he screamed, running as fast as he could. “Somebody, help! Look out! Run!”
Kubo didn’t stop running until he got to the edge of the village. He held tight to the gates, trying to catch his breath. Behind him, the demons were still coming for him, a fog of twisting, curling smoke.
“Run!” Kubo shouted as loud as he could. “Quick!”
But his voice was so small compared with the fireworks that exploded in the sky above him. The crowd in the square was so thick that no one could hear him over the shouts and cheers. Women sang and danced, the music so loud it drowned out all other sounds.
Kubo ran into the market, trying to warn the villagers. But just as he did, the terrible black smoke split in several directions, spreading out over the large crowd. It coated the village like a fog, setting buildings ablaze and sending people running for cover.
He ran with a group of scared villagers who turned away, ducking inside one of the buildings that were still standing. Kubo kept on, thinking only of his mother in the cave. She must’ve felt so alone and scared. She waited every sunset for him to come home. She must’ve known what was happening out here in the night.
The terrible smoke slithered over the town. Kubo sprinted as fast as he could, finally reaching the path that led to the cave. But in an instant the smoke was upon him, too. Then his aunts appeared, emerging from the darkness.
“We’re here, Kubo,” they said, coming up the path toward him. “Your family has come for you.”
He tried to run but he tripped, falling forward onto the path. The smoke was everywhere. Terrified, he laid his head down on the ground. They would take his eye, he was sure of it, and maybe his life, too.
Then he felt a tug on his woven bag. The sweet chords of his shamisen filled the air. He looked up, worried that the Sisters had taken his beloved instrument, but it was his mother standing before him. She brought the bachi down across the strings, strumming a beautiful tune.
The notes were so powerful that they moved through the smoke like a shock wave, stunning the demons. For a moment, the smoke fell back. Kubo stood quickly, starting toward his mother as she played. She never took her eyes off her evil sisters.
“Kubo, you must find the armor,” she gasped. “It’s your only chance—remember this!”
He wanted to hug her, to hold her close, but there was no time. She shoved the shamisen into his arms. Then she held her hand out. It glowed with a mysterious blue light. She gently touched the beetle that was embroidered on the back of his father’s robe. Within seconds magical wings sprouted from the folds of the cloth. They fluttered furiously and Kubo was slowly lifted into the air.
Up, higher and higher, he went, until his mother was so small below him. He watched helplessly as his aunts moved toward her. One drew a razor-sharp sword. The other pulled a bladed chain from her robes. His mother was surrounded.
He watched, terrified, as his aunts moved in. They charged his mother with great force, but just as they reached her t
here was a blinding light. Then the robe rose up around him, shielding his eyes.
When Kubo awoke, his hands were throbbing. His head was buried in snow, and every part of him was freezing. Somewhere, he could hear a woman calling his name.
“Kubo? Can you hear me, Kubo?” she cried. Kubo turned, staring up at the woman… who wasn’t a woman at all. A monkey stood next to him. She was four feet tall, with a pink face and thick white fur. She stared down at him with narrow brown eyes.
Kubo jumped up, struggling to get away from the creature. But everywhere he turned, there was nothing but white. They were in the middle of a blizzard, the snow coming at them sideways. He could barely hear what she was saying over the sound of the wind.
The monkey stepped forward. “I said your mother is gone. Your village is destroyed. Burned to the ground. We landed here in The Far Lands, but your enemies aren’t far behind. We must search for shelter before your grandfather comes.”
Kubo stumbled backward, unsure what to do. He tripped over his bag and nearly crushed his shamisen. Then, below his feet, he heard a low creaking sound. He wasn’t in a field of snow—he was on a sheet of ice. The monkey spun around, gesturing for him to get on her back.
“We need to go now,” she said. “Come on!”
He turned around, looking at the frozen lake. There was snow in every direction. Where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do? He’d never even been outside his village before. Now he was here, in The Far Lands, somewhere he had heard about only in stories.
He climbed on, hoping that she would take him to safety.
The monkey moved easily over the snowy terrain. With her help, Kubo could go twice as fast as he would have on his own. She carried him all day, showing no signs of tiring, and it wasn’t until they reached the edge of a glacier that she stopped to rest.
Kubo glanced at the sky, suddenly realizing hours had passed since he awoke. The monkey stepped forward, gesturing to something beyond the glacier. Part of it was covered with snow, but Kubo could make out just enough to recognize the body of a dead whale.
“Once we’re inside,” the monkey said, “you might be tempted to complain about the odor. Keep in mind—my sense of smell is ten times stronger than yours.” As the sun started to set, the monkey ducked inside the whale’s mouth, waving for Kubo to follow.
The stench was disgusting. Kubo tried to hold his breath as the monkey went to work, tending to a small fire beneath the whale’s blowhole. She cooked some sort of soup in a large conch shell, stirring it with a piece of bone.
“You have questions,” she finally said. “I can tell. You get three.”
“Why only three?” Kubo asked.
“Okay, that was your first question,” the monkey said.
“What?” Kubo snapped. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Who are you?”
The monkey looked up, staring into his eye. Then she sat down and quickly posed exactly like his monkey charm. “You don’t recognize me.… All these years you had to keep me in your pack. Now you know why.”
“But you were a wooden charm!” Kubo cried, confused. “You were so small. I called that charm Mr. Monkey!”
“If I were alive at that point, I might’ve found that insulting,” the monkey said tersely. “Look, your mother used the last of her magic to save you and bring me to life.”
Kubo stared at the ground, thinking of what she said. The last of her magic. Your mother is gone. Your village is destroyed.
They’d been moving all day, and everything had felt scary and new. It was only now, in the quiet of the night, that Kubo began to feel the sadness of what had happened.
“Here, drink,” the monkey said, handing him a clamshell filled with white liquid.
“It smells,” Kubo mumbled. “I don’t want it.”
“I said, drink it,” the monkey repeated, an edge to her voice.
“You’re a mean monkey, aren’t you?” Kubo shot back.
“Yes, I am,” she said, holding up a few fingers. “And that’s three. You’re out of questions now, so just listen. I’m here to protect you, Kubo, and that means you have to do as I say. So if you don’t eat, you’ll be weak. If you’re weak, you’ll be slow. If you’re slow, you’ll die.”
Kubo took the soup, bringing the clamshell to his lips. He slurped away, making a loud, annoying show of it. “Oh, excuse me,” he said, pretending he did it by accident.
“You better start taking this seriously, Kubo!” the monkey said, pacing the length of the whale. “This is real. This is not a story. Those things, your aunts, they never get hungry. They never sleep. They will find you, and if we’re not prepared… they’ll kill me and take your other eye.”
Kubo swallowed the liquid, quiet for a moment. “So… what are we going to do?”
“We’re going to find the armor!” the monkey said. “It’s the only thing that can protect you.”
“So it’s real. It’s really real.…”
The monkey nodded. Kubo looked down, trying to imagine what it would be like to find the armor in real life.
That’s when he spotted the strand of thick black hair on his robe. He plucked it off, examining it in the firelight.
The monkey reached out for the strand of hair, but Kubo backed away.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m not going to keep it.”
“I must’ve pulled it from her head,” Kubo said, remembering reaching for her before the robe lifted him into the air. “I didn’t mean to.”
The monkey pinched the hair between her knees, then braided the length of it, tying the end in a knot. “Your mother was very powerful. She blessed your robes so that when the need was most, they would fly you away. She used the last of that power to bring me to life. This bracelet, her hair; it’s a memory. Memories are powerful things, Kubo. Never lose it.”
She tied the bracelet around Kubo’s wrist. Kubo stared at it, the hair he’d know anywhere, its straight, thick strands so much like his own. It was comforting to have a bit of his mother still with him.
Maybe the monkey was right—maybe it would help him.
“One more question?” Kubo asked.
“Last one,” the monkey said.
“Do you know where it is? The armor?”
The monkey poked at the fire with a whalebone, letting the sparks fly through the air. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t. Now go to sleep.…”
Kubo wrapped his robe around him like a blanket. When he buried his face in it, it smelled a little like home—a mixture of the beach and the smoke from their fires. He breathed in, trying to tell himself that Monkey would protect him. She was there to keep him safe. But as he lay down to sleep, he kept thinking of the Sisters, with their cold, blank stares, descending on his mother before she died.
The next morning, Monkey was standing over him, looking confused. “You were talking in your sleep,” she said. “Calling out to your father. And then the paper flew out of your bag and folded itself into… him.”
She pointed to the other side of the whale, where Little Hanzo was standing, his sword raised in the air. He was bigger than the Little Hanzo that performed in Kubo’s shows, and looked as if he’d been made out of several pieces of red paper. He had a beetle on his breastplate and textured armor. Kubo walked over to him, trying to figure out what had happened.
“He’s been standing there for hours,” Monkey said. “Quietly judging us. I’m not even sure this counts as origami. I could swear scissors were involved.”
Kubo leaned over, reaching out his hand, but the tiny warrior knocked it away with his paper sword. “Back home in the cave, it was my mother’s dreams that did this. And the paper always unfolded itself by morning.”
The two watched as Little Hanzo climbed on top of Kubo’s bag, striking a regal pose. His sword pointed at the whale’s blowhole. Kubo leaned over and turned the bag in another direction, so Little Hanzo’s sword was pointing the other way. Little Hanzo turned and pointed to the blowhole again, as
if he was trying to tell them something really important.
“What are you doing?” Kubo asked.
Little Hanzo pointed at Kubo, then at the blowhole, as if to say Come on, let’s go already! Kubo turned back to Monkey and shrugged. “I guess this is how my father answered me.”
Monkey let out a deep breath. “I’m tempted to say that trusting our fate to the guidance of a small paper man seems like a bad idea. But… it’s the best bad idea we have.”
Little Hanzo climbed out of the blowhole, and Kubo and Monkey followed closely behind. Outside, the sun was already bright in the sky. Little Hanzo led the way, pointing his sword toward an area beyond the glacier. Then he jumped on Kubo’s shamisen for a ride.
They walked to the far side of the glacier, then down through the foothills. The land was covered with a thick layer of snow. Kubo heard chirping above him and looked up, noticing a small white bird in the sky. He plucked a few strings on his shamisen, and a piece of ivory paper flew out of his bag and folded into a bird, joining the real one.
Monkey heard Kubo laughing and turned around, wanting him to hurry along. But he looked so happy watching the birds. For the very first time since they were together, he seemed at peace, almost carefree. He strummed his shamisen, and several more sheets of paper flew up and folded into birds, creating a whole flock.
Kubo’s birds flew, flipping and turning at his command. They glittered in the sunlight, somersaulting in a dazzling dance of paper wings.
“You’re getting stronger,” Monkey said.
Kubo let out a deep laugh. He could feel his magic growing. Was it his mother? Or his father’s spirit helping him, as he had asked?
“You might not want to look quite so pleased about it,” Monkey went on. “We grow stronger. The world grows more dangerous. Life has a way of keeping things balanced.”
Kubo curled his lip, sneering. “Monkey, do you ever say anything encouraging?”
Kubo and the Two Strings Page 2
