by A. L. Knorr
My head was still spinning a few days later. I sat through my classes in a daze, and avoided spending too much time with Saxony since even she was bound to notice my distraction. Every night I lay awake praying that Daichi wasn’t playing some kind of sick joke on me, that he wouldn’t retract his offer. I had chosen to walk home alone every day so I could think. If I kept this up, Saxony was going to chase me down.
I scuffed my feet along the sidewalk, kicking chips of ice skittering down the pavement. This had to be my last solitary stroll home, and thankfully the shock had worn off enough that I thought I could hang out with my friends without alerting them that something big was happening.
Daichi barked at me from the kitchen as soon as I stepped into the house. “Akiko?”
"Here," I called, taking off my jacket and boots. My heart leapt into my throat and I fought to wrestle my irrational dread back into its place. Just because he had something to say didn’t mean he was going to withdraw the offer. I took a breath, put my hat and mitts into the wooden bin under the coatrack, and pulled on my slippers. I padded down the hall to the kitchen and immediately began to warm up. Daichi kept the heat cranked up no matter the season.
He sat at the kitchen table staring out into our snow-covered back yard. A small cardboard box sat on the table in front of him. He looked at me as I entered.
"Sit."
I sat, heart pounding in my ears, and pleading inside that he wasn’t about to rescind his offer.
He pushed the cardboard box across the table toward me. "You will need this."
I stifled an audible sigh of relief. He was furnishing me with some kind of necessity, not calling the whole thing off. I slid the box closer and opened it. Unfolding the tissue paper revealed black fabric. Bemused, I pulled out the fabric and held it out. It was so soft and thin that it slipped through my fingers like air. Dangling it by the top, I could finally see what it was. It had short sleeves and the body of it was so short I doubted that it would even come to my knees.
"A bathrobe, Grandfather?" On Georjayna, it wouldn't even cover her butt. "Uh... thank you."
I spotted a small bulge in the pocket on the front of the robe. I fished out a pair of thin slippers in the same material. As footwear, they would fall apart within days. I couldn't help my look of confusion.
"They are one hundred percent silk," Daichi said matter-of-factly.
"Oh?"
He took the robe from me and got to his feet stiffly. He brushed the cardboard box to the side and lay the robe out flat on the table. He spread the arms out in a perfect 'T', tucked the slippers into the front pocket and began to roll the robe from the bottom up. Folding it over and over into a stripe of fabric no thicker than an inch, he picked the length of it up and looped it around my neck twice, snug enough that if he'd pulled it any tighter I might have coughed. He tied the ends in a knot and stepped back.
I looked up at him, fingering the odd scarf. Was the old man finally losing his mind? I swallowed and felt the silk tighten.
"Grandfather," I began. "I'm confused."
"Become a bird," he said.
When he gave me an order, I could no more hold back the tide than I could prevent myself from executing it. I phased into a small gray chicken, my clothing falling past my small feathered body to the floor. I landed on the edge of my chair and almost slipped off the smooth wooden seat. I squawked and flapped, my claws scrabbling for purchase. The silk loosened from around my neck but it stayed draped around my chicken shoulders.
"Become a bird that can fly," Daichi barked with exasperation.
I phased into a crow and hopped up on the table, tilting my head at Daichi. The silk robe hung from my neck like an absurd scarf, but I could barely feel its weight.
Daichi opened our back door and a burst of cold air swept the kitchen. "Fly to the ocean and return," he commanded. "Do not lose the silk!"
I hopped to the edge of the table, hooked my claws over the rim, and took off through the open door. I dropped low toward the ground, picked up a gust of wind and swooped upward. Up and up I spiraled, the silk hanging from my neck in front of my wings. I didn't feel the cold nearly as much when I was a bird, and the wind increased as I approached the ocean. I swept out over the beach, cawing my pleasure hoarsely at this brief freedom. I circled over the waves and headed back to the house. Well-kept yards covered in snow swept by beneath me as I passed over our suburb.
The back door to our kitchen opened and I slowed down and flew inside.
"Go to your room and become human," came the next order.
I whooshed past Daichi, landed in the hall, and hopped into my bedroom. I beaked the door closed and phased back into my human form. I stood there naked in front of the full-length mirror, my chest rising and falling as I caught my breath. The silk robe was once again tight around my throat.
Daichi had put my clothes on my bed. I pulled them on and went back to the kitchen where he was once again seated at the table, waiting.
His eyes, deep in their wrinkled folds, dropped to the black silk around my neck. "It stayed," he said.
"Yes."
"Still confused?" he asked, folding his gnarled fingers on the table and leaning forward.
"A little." I sat down across from him. "I understand you want me to have clothing for when I arrive in Japan, but—"
"It will not disappear," he said, cutting me off. "It will not disappear in the Æther."
I frowned. I wanted to ask him how he could know that for sure, but I knew what the answer would be. The same it always was, the non-answer.
Daichi leaned forward and patted the back of my hand in a rare moment of contact. He gave me the non-answer anyway. "I was old before I met you," he said. He got up and walked in his slow plodding way toward the living room where he would wait until our evening meal was ready.
"What do you want for dinner, Grandfather?" I asked. "Besides rice."
He paused and looked back. Amusement was just a ghost at his lips, but the upward twitch of his mouth was unmistakable. "Chicken." He disappeared around the corner.
I smiled and untied the knot of silk at my throat. Funny how after so many years together, even under unhappy circumstances, there could still be some kind of humor between us.
Chapter 2
Saxony closed her locker and pulled her hood up over her wild curls. She hooked her arm through mine. "Come on, I'll walk you home. It’s been too long." She eyed the gloomy sky outside. "Why did I put away my winter stuff? It was so nice last week."
"You always put it away too early," I said, smiling. Every year was the same. "We live near the Atlantic—don't you know by now that spring means snow and freezing rain?"
"Don't swear," she said. She pulled a folded yellow document from her pocket. "Look what I got today." She waved it in front of my face.
"A subpoena?"
"Nooooooooooo." She drew out the word with artificial annoyance.
"A parking ticket?"
"No. Stop that."
I gave a fake and exaggerated gasp. "Jury duty?"
Her eyes grew wide and she gasped, too. "How did you know?"
"What?" I gaped at her.
She whacked my shoulder. "No. Shut up and listen, would you?"
"A love letter?" I tried one more time.
"Yes!" She bounced up and down. "From the au pair agency in Toronto. They have a place for me in Venice. Guess who is spending the summer in bella Italia?"
"No way." I held the school's front door open for her and we walked out into a fine wet mist.
"Way. And I can't get there soon enough," she said, pulling her collar up around her ears. "No one should live here. Brrrrrrrrrr." She shivered. "Would you come visit me there?"
"Uh..." The idea of visiting Saxony in Italy during the summer was heavenly. "Grandfather—"
"I know, I know," she interrupted. "He'll never let you go to Europe. I was completely shocked when he let you sleep over at Georjie’s house last year for her birthday. It’s the only ni
ce thing he’s done for you like, ever. Have I ever told you that I'm not all that fond of your grandfather?"
I smiled and hooked her elbow as we took the concrete steps down to the sidewalk. "A couple of times. Even though you've never met him."
"A," she said, holding up a long finger, "whose fault is that?" She held up a second finger. "And two, I dislike him on principle. He never lets you do anything fun. It's like he's got you on an invisible leash."
I had to smile at her description. It was worse than a leash. I wondered what she'd say if I told her he wasn't my grandfather and that he'd basically stolen my soul. I cleared my throat. I was bound not to say any such thing. Instead, I said, "You might be surprised to learn that he's sending me to Japan."
"He's never once even let you have me over, your best friend—" Saxony continued, but then froze abruptly and pulled me to a stop. "Wait. What?"
Her face had gone even paler than normal, quite an accomplishment for a redhead with a porcelain complexion.
"Not for good," I said quickly. "Just for the summer."
"Really? I stand corrected. What for?"
I gave Saxony the lie that Daichi had told me to say. "He wants me to spend the summer with the Japanese side of my family, since I never knew them. They live in a small village in the mountains on the east side. It's supposed to be beautiful."
Saxony narrowed her eyes and studied my face.
"What?" I tugged on her arm to get her walking again.
"I'm just trying to figure out if you're happy about it." She matched me stride for stride. She gripped my elbow, and didn't take her eyes from my face.
My heart sped up the way it always did when I was under scrutiny, even from those I trusted. Too many lies had passed my lips for me to ever feel completely comfortable with anyone digging for more information. The irony of the situation was that I was dying to tell my story to my friends. What a relief it would be to express the suffering and loss I’d endured. I had been alone in it for so long. I shot Saxony a side eye. "And?"
She studied me intensely.
"Are you okay?" I asked. "You're not blinking."
She gave a sigh. "I gave up trying to read you about a week after meeting you." She relaxed her grip on my elbow. "So, are you happy about it? Do you even want to go?"
I shrugged and tried to put a neutral expression on my face. I had become a master at hiding my emotions—from my captor and from my friends. One of the reasons I liked spending time with Saxony was that she usually didn't dig too hard and she talked a lot. She was the extrovert I was safe hiding behind. But as she'd gotten older, she'd gotten better at asking questions.
"It is what it is," I answered.
She groaned. "I hate when you say that. Fine, have it your way.” She stepped around a patch of ice and pulled her collar up to her chin again. “Did I tell you that Jack plastic-wrapped the toilet last night? Was I that brain-damaged at fifteen?"
As Saxony talked, I relaxed into her world. Her family was so normal, so loving. Hers was a life I could watch from the outside with envy. Georjayna struggled with a mom who didn't care enough, and Targa struggled with a mom she felt responsible for. Only Saxony had the stability of an intact family. I wondered if it was where she got her confidence from. I'd seen her walk into a party where she knew no one and within an hour she knew everyone's name, had endeared some of the girls to herself, and had most of the guys following her around like puppies. She also annoyed some people to no end because she was always talking, laughing, always the center of attention. She was the perfect companion to divert eyes away from me. Saxony, Georjie, and Targa were my first close human friends. They’d become my anchor and the only good thing I had in my captivity. My mind went back to Daichi's words.
Bring me this wakizashi, and I'll give you your freedom.
Freedom.
I had been staring down the barrel of an endless, useless life. Servant to the whims of an elderly Japanese man who should have been dead a hundred years ago and who never shared his motivations with me for any choice he made. Who never told me why he'd brought me here, what he wanted, or how I might move on with my life one day.
Until now.
There was no way Daichi could be happy with our life the way it had become. I had never actually seen him happy. Why anyone as miserable as Daichi would even want to be immortal was beyond me. The waste of it sickened me. It twisted in my stomach and made me want to scream.
Every night for decades, Daichi had me phase into a bird and locked me in a cage. All I wanted at that time was to remain human, to have human dreams again, and sleep in a soft warm bed. Then when he finally let me remain human and had a bed delivered to the house for my room, the nightmares started. He never said anything about my night terrors. He never forced me to go back to my cage. I did that all on my own. The passing of time was easier to bear in bird-form, and I didn't have nightmares. It was a little better now. Sometimes I spent the night in my cage, sometimes in my bed, depending on my mood.
When he enrolled me in school and forced me to spend hours studying English and practicing to eliminate my Japanese accent, it served two purposes. It equipped me to be his go-between in the foreign place he'd moved us to, and it kept me so busy that I fell into bed exhausted and dreamed about grammar instead of that fateful day in the woods when my sister had betrayed and abandoned me.
When I finished the high school on the south side of Saltford, he moved me to a school in the north and started me over again. I was more than three years into my cycle at Saltford High and this time around it was impossible not to ace every class. I had no trace of a Japanese accent left, and the North American way of life had become my way of life. I couldn't allow myself to dream of what I would do if I had my life back. I wondered if Daichi felt even a hint of guilt about keeping a creature as powerful as I was behind bars for his own selfish purpose...whatever that was. A surge of dragonflies spiraled up from my stomach and battered my ribs from the inside when I thought about what little seemed to remain between me and my freedom.
"Hey?" Saxony squeezed my arm.
"What? Sorry." I blinked. We were in front of my house already.
"I said, when do you leave?"
"We haven't booked my ticket yet, but it'll be shortly after the school year ends."
Saxony nodded. "Same time as me. Let's make sure we get the four of us together before you and I go."
"Sure, that would be great."
We said goodbye and I wandered up the cinderblock steps to our bungalow. A shiver of anticipation went through me as I thought about my impending flight. I would be flying, but there was no need to book a plane ticket. I'd be making this journey on my own wings, the wings of one of the few birds that could fly high enough to reach the Æther. Thirty thousand feet up, somewhere in the vicinity of earth’s ozone layer, lay the home of all spiritual energy and the force that had made my sister and I each what we were.
Chapter 3
"They're in the back yard," Liz said, holding the front door open for Saxony and me. Her Prada bifocals were perched on the end of her nose. Her blond hair was still perfectly coiffed, even at the end of a long day, but the dark smudges beneath her eyes gave away her exhaustion. Georjayna’s mom had made partner at her law firm a few years back. Since then, I hadn't seen her without the dark circles. And since then, Georjie had felt almost motherless. "Come on through. It's the warmest evening we've had so far," Liz said. "But it’s still cool. There are blankets at the fire pit for you."
"Thanks, Liz,” Saxony said as we stepped into the massive marble entrance way. Four large panels of mirrored sliding doors hid their coat closet, and a wide curved staircase led downstairs to their indoor pool and games room where I had first met Saxony and Georjayna. A matching set curved upward to their loft and library.
“You know how to get there,” Georjie's mother replied, shutting the door behind us. "Have fun." She gave us a stiff smile and disappeared down the hall toward her office.
I
followed Saxony past the enormous kitchen and through the sliding doors into Georjie's backyard. A few stars were visible in the cloak of darkness over Saltford, and a gentle breeze kissed my skin as we crossed the deck. Georjayna's house was built on a bluff overlooking the ocean and the lights of our small city peppered our view. The ocean stretched out black and endless into the dimming horizon.
"Hey!" Targa called from her place by the fire, stretching her arms wide. She had a bag of marshmallows in one hand. "You're here!"
"Yeah well, we heard there were s'mores here," said Saxony as we crossed the grass.
The fire crackled merrily, sending sparks toward the darkening sky. Targa and Georjayna's faces were lit by the dancing firelight, and they both had blankets draped over their legs. If I wasn't mistaken, there was a kind of excitement in both of them that hadn't been there at school.
"Come grab a seat." Georjie patted the blanket on the Adirondack chair beside her. "Iced tea?"
"Absolutely," I said.
Saxony and I settled into our chairs as Georjayna poured us drinks.
"Targa has news," Georjie said.
"Lemme guess,” said Saxony. “You've developed a crush on the new guy they hired at the body shop?" She took her iced tea from Georjayna and poked at the ice cubes with her straw.
"There's a new guy at the body shop?" Georjie asked. "How do you even know these things? Why do you know these things?"
"RJ," said Saxony, and took a swallow of her drink. "I was with him when he picked up a part for his car yesterday. Dude is cute. The new guy, not my brother,” she clarified.
“Your brother is pretty cute, too,” laughed Georjie. Pretty cute didn’t do RJ justice, the guy was a dark-haired Adonis.
Saxony rolled her eyes in a whatever gesture. “This new guy’s got that tortured mechanic thing going on." Saxony reached for two roasting sticks leaning against Georjie's chair and handed one to me.
"Ah, yes" smiled Georjie. "The tortured mechanic. Targa's dream guy."
Targa laughed. "Good guess. But, no," she said, handing the bag of marshmallows to Saxony. "I'm going to Poland."
