Whispers.
Blink blink.
"I think she's coming around."
More whispers. Like praying.
The voice... So familiar...
Blink blink blink.
"Okuda-san! She's waking up."
My mind began to function, gradually assimilating information and formulating responses, though my mouth did not yet feel like cooperating.
"Good. She has been asleep too long."
Sleep? No, this, I knew, had been no ordinary sleep.
I opened my eyes, then immediately snapped them shut. "Lights," I mumbled, slowly lifting a hand, palm facing up, to shield my eyes. My movements were sluggish, as if I were moving through water.
I heard a rustling, and suddenly the insides of my eyelids seemed even darker.
"Takiko? Takiko, look at me."
More cautiously this time, my eyes fluttered open. My body lay completely still as I scanned the room. Someone had closed the windows, and a solitary candle flickered on the table by the far wall. The world was sideways, as it often was nowadays, and I was quite content to let it stay that way.
"Takiko!"
My father, it seemed, was not.
"Takiko-chan, sit up." His tone was softer than his words. He sat on the edge of my bed, brushed a strand of hair from my face, and then looked over his shoulder at the servant. "You may go. Please tell Akagawa-san that I will not be joining him at the station today."
As she walked to the door, I forced myself up, with much effort, to a sitting position. "Dou-san, iie!" (Daddy, no!) "You can't cancel the trip, you've been planning it for so long." After my statement, the serving girl paused, looking questioningly at my father. He nodded, implying that she should continue with his original instructions, and she bowed and closed the door behind her. "Dou-san!"
He held a finger vertically across his own lips, indicating that I should not speak. "Takiko-chan, it is not your decision. It is mine, and one that I make with several things in mind. The main one, of course, is your health--"
"Dou-san, daijobu." (Daddy, I'm fine.) I tried to smile reassuringly. "I'm always having spells like this. You know that. It's no reason to cancel."
He shook his head and picked up right where he left off. "Your health, which has deteriorated even further in the past few weeks." His sigh seemed so melancholy. Almost tortured. "You have been sick ever since I came back from my last trip, and that was weeks ago. You are not getting any better, and that is my responsibility. One that I have not been doing. It is my fault, and my duty to remedy it."
I opened my mouth to speak again, then stopped. I knew that arguing with my father was pointless; he was the one person who could be more stubborn than myself. Especially when he started using words such as 'responsibility' and 'fault' and 'duty.'
"Fine--" A fit of coughing seized me, cutting off my reluctant concession. My father tenderly dabbed my forehead with a cool, damp cloth, and it stung my sweaty skin. I whimpered and held back a sob as fire and ice battled on the surface of my forehead and through the whole of my brain.
I felt his breath by my ear before I heard him.
"Nero, watashi no Takiko-chan." (Sleep, my dear Takiko.)
I was floating in a world of velvety midnight and dazzling stars.
I didn't know how long I'd been there, or if I was even moving, since everything around me looked the same, but for some reason I felt completely safe. Like I'd been there before. Like I belonged there.
A wave of soft green light seemed to wash over me, and I saw a figure flying closer. I couldn't make it out. Then it hesitated and backed away out of sight again.
I was about to call out to it when a deep, quiet voice spoke first.
"Help me."
When I woke again, it was from a deep, peaceful slumber, and I felt decently rested and much less ill. I sat up on my own and pushed the covers off my legs. My first step was shaky, but I pressed on, and my knees soon gained strength. When I finally made it to the doorway, I leaned against the wooden frame and took a few seconds to catch my breath. My heart, I knew, was beating much too fast for such a short journey, but it always took a few minutes for my body to adjust after these spells.
In the bathroom I washed my face and brushed my teeth. There was an awful taste, like that of blood and pain, though I wasn't sure where it had come from. I thought it must have had something to do with the dream...
The dream!
It came rushing back to me then, the stars, the dark, the voice. The plea. 'Help me.'
"You're losing it, Takiko, you really are," I said to my reflection. The girl in the mirror, however, didn't seem to think it was very funny. Her dark brown eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and she looked much older than her sixteen years. It seemed doubtful that she'd even brushed her hair in the past month. "Oh boy, you are quite a mess, aren't you dear?"
I picked up a small comb and began to straighten the long mess of tangles that had once been a shiny black stream behind me. Methodical. Calming. Section by section, I restored the strands to the best of my ability and decided I'd have to finish the job with a good, long bath. Later.
"Dou-san?" My voice sounded weak and tentative even to my own ears. "Dou-san, where are you?"
No reply.
Perhaps he was sleeping. I was careful to take soft steps as I searched the house for him, so that if he were napping he could continue. He worked too hard and deserved to rest whenever possible.
As I suspected, I found him, face-down, at his desk, snoring lightly. I suppressed a chuckle but couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face. He looked so sweet and innocent. Next to him was a book -- the book -- he'd been researching for the past few months. Now that it was finally in his possession, he would devote his time to translating it, would have been much further had he not been dealing with physician for me. This book had been his obsession for the past year, the first project he had told me almost nothing about. The first he had coveted so exceedingly. I wondered just what kind of spell it had him under.
Hehe, listen to yourself, Takiko. It's just a book. No magic there. He's always been devoted to his studies.
But then why, I asked myself, did even I feel drawn by it?
Several times in the past weeks I had awoken to find myself in the hallway, on the verge of entering my father's office. Each time I would have sworn that the book was glowing, but when I blinked and looked again, it was just sitting there like any other book. A trick of the eyes? Of the mind? I told myself that it must be, that I was seeing things because I was so ill.
I frowned, frozen by my father's chair, recalling this mysterious disease that plagued me. No doctor had been able to tell us what exactly was wrong. Seemingly without cause, I was growing weaker and weaker, and dozing off randomly. I had no other symptoms: no cough, no pain, no mental or emotional instability. Except that I could never remember what I was doing just before I fell asleep, or as my doctor called it, "had a spell." No one understood it.
Did the book have the answers?
I wanted to laugh. Really, an ancient Chinese novel, knowing why a girl in 1923 was inexplicably sick? Ridiculous. I wanted to laugh.
But I couldn't.
Instead, I reached out for the book. When I touched it, I thought I saw a spark, but it must have been my imagination. It was already open to the first page, which my father had apparently been working on. I slipped the book gently out from under his elbow. He stirred briefly, mumbled something about 'preventing the cycle from beginning,' and then fell back asleep. I carefully folded his glasses, which had fallen off his face to lie haphazardly on the edge of the table, and placed them beside him.
I sat down on the floor pillow against the wall and decided to start at the beginning. Since I was a little girl, my father had passed on to me his love of archaeology and ancient languages, so I could read some of the words on my own. I recognized this particular book as being written in ancient Chinese. "Shi jin... ten... chi sho," I whispered slowly. Something of the Four Gods... The sky... the world... The Universe of the Four Gods!
Hmmm, interesting, I thought.
But the cover alone had taken me a couple minutes, and I certainly did not want to sit there all day trying to puzzle out the first line. I placed my father's first sheet of translations over the illustration on the left-hand side -- a fairly nondescript brush outline of a girl, really it could have been any girl, reading a book -- so that I could read the original text first and then refer immediately to the translation.
'This book tells the story of a girl who gathered the shichiseishi of Genbu and acquired the power to make her every wish come true. The story itself is an incantation. Whoever finishes reading it will receive the power. As soon as the page is turned, the story will become reality and begin...'
Then, like a whisper without sound, I felt a presence call to me, and suddenly I was swept off the ground by a cyclone of green lights. I looked around in confusion as the room around me faded to black and I began falling wildly through space. It took me awhile, as it usually did, to realize that I was dreaming again.
This time, though, I wasn't floating in space. A rich and magnificent building came into view, closer and closer, until I realized that I was falling towards it. Face first.
I landed with an audible thud and couldn't help groaning as I tried to rise to my feet. I wasn't physically hurt though, and in fact, other than getting the wind knocked out of me, I couldn't remember feeling better. It was, so far, the best thing about the dream.
I sighed, wondering where exactly I was this time. Just as I was about to turn over my right shoulder to orient myself, a voice came from my left. In trying to change directions last minute, I ended up tripping over myself and falling right back to the floor.
The tall, thin man chuckled softly. "Hello again." He approached me, helped me up, and bowed respectfully. "Welcome, Genbu no miko. We have been awaiting your return."
Blink blink.
"I think she's coming around."
More whispers. Like praying.
The voice... So familiar...
Blink blink blink.
"Okuda-san! She's waking up."
My mind began to function, gradually assimilating information and formulating responses, though my mouth did not yet feel like cooperating.
"Good. She has been asleep too long."
Sleep? No, this, I knew, had been no ordinary sleep.
I opened my eyes, then immediately snapped them shut. "Lights," I mumbled, slowly lifting a hand, palm facing up, to shield my eyes. My movements were sluggish, as if I were moving through water.
I heard a rustling, and suddenly the insides of my eyelids seemed even darker.
"Takiko? Takiko, look at me."
More cautiously this time, my eyes fluttered open. My body lay completely still as I scanned the room. Someone had closed the windows, and a solitary candle flickered on the table by the far wall. The world was sideways, as it often was nowadays, and I was quite content to let it stay that way.
"Takiko!"
My father, it seemed, was not.
"Takiko-chan, sit up." His tone was softer than his words. He sat on the edge of my bed, brushed a strand of hair from my face, and then looked over his shoulder at the servant. "You may go. Please tell Akagawa-san that I will not be joining him at the station today."
As she walked to the door, I forced myself up, with much effort, to a sitting position. "Dou-san, iie!" (Daddy, no!) "You can't cancel the trip, you've been planning it for so long." After my statement, the serving girl paused, looking questioningly at my father. He nodded, implying that she should continue with his original instructions, and she bowed and closed the door behind her. "Dou-san!"
He held a finger vertically across his own lips, indicating that I should not speak. "Takiko-chan, it is not your decision. It is mine, and one that I make with several things in mind. The main one, of course, is your health--"
"Dou-san, daijobu." (Daddy, I'm fine.) I tried to smile reassuringly. "I'm always having spells like this. You know that. It's no reason to cancel."
He shook his head and picked up right where he left off. "Your health, which has deteriorated even further in the past few weeks." His sigh seemed so melancholy. Almost tortured. "You have been sick ever since I came back from my last trip, and that was weeks ago. You are not getting any better, and that is my responsibility. One that I have not been doing. It is my fault, and my duty to remedy it."
I opened my mouth to speak again, then stopped. I knew that arguing with my father was pointless; he was the one person who could be more stubborn than myself. Especially when he started using words such as 'responsibility' and 'fault' and 'duty.'
"Fine--" A fit of coughing seized me, cutting off my reluctant concession. My father tenderly dabbed my forehead with a cool, damp cloth, and it stung my sweaty skin. I whimpered and held back a sob as fire and ice battled on the surface of my forehead and through the whole of my brain.
I felt his breath by my ear before I heard him.
"Nero, watashi no Takiko-chan." (Sleep, my dear Takiko.)
I was floating in a world of velvety midnight and dazzling stars.
I didn't know how long I'd been there, or if I was even moving, since everything around me looked the same, but for some reason I felt completely safe. Like I'd been there before. Like I belonged there.
A wave of soft green light seemed to wash over me, and I saw a figure flying closer. I couldn't make it out. Then it hesitated and backed away out of sight again.
I was about to call out to it when a deep, quiet voice spoke first.
"Help me."
When I woke again, it was from a deep, peaceful slumber, and I felt decently rested and much less ill. I sat up on my own and pushed the covers off my legs. My first step was shaky, but I pressed on, and my knees soon gained strength. When I finally made it to the doorway, I leaned against the wooden frame and took a few seconds to catch my breath. My heart, I knew, was beating much too fast for such a short journey, but it always took a few minutes for my body to adjust after these spells.
In the bathroom I washed my face and brushed my teeth. There was an awful taste, like that of blood and pain, though I wasn't sure where it had come from. I thought it must have had something to do with the dream...
The dream!
It came rushing back to me then, the stars, the dark, the voice. The plea. 'Help me.'
"You're losing it, Takiko, you really are," I said to my reflection. The girl in the mirror, however, didn't seem to think it was very funny. Her dark brown eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, and she looked much older than her sixteen years. It seemed doubtful that she'd even brushed her hair in the past month. "Oh boy, you are quite a mess, aren't you dear?"
I picked up a small comb and began to straighten the long mess of tangles that had once been a shiny black stream behind me. Methodical. Calming. Section by section, I restored the strands to the best of my ability and decided I'd have to finish the job with a good, long bath. Later.
"Dou-san?" My voice sounded weak and tentative even to my own ears. "Dou-san, where are you?"
No reply.
Perhaps he was sleeping. I was careful to take soft steps as I searched the house for him, so that if he were napping he could continue. He worked too hard and deserved to rest whenever possible.
As I suspected, I found him, face-down, at his desk, snoring lightly. I suppressed a chuckle but couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face. He looked so sweet and innocent. Next to him was a book -- the book -- he'd been researching for the past few months. Now that it was finally in his possession, he would devote his time to translating it, would have been much further had he not been dealing with physician for me. This book had been his obsession for the past year, the first project he had told me almost nothing about. The first he had coveted so exceedingly. I wondered just what kind of spell it had him under.
Hehe, listen to yourself, Takiko. It's just a book. No magic there. He's always been devoted to his studies.
But then why, I asked myself, did even I feel drawn by it?
Several times in the past weeks I had awoken to find myself in the hallway, on the verge of entering my father's office. Each time I would have sworn that the book was glowing, but when I blinked and looked again, it was just sitting there like any other book. A trick of the eyes? Of the mind? I told myself that it must be, that I was seeing things because I was so ill.
I frowned, frozen by my father's chair, recalling this mysterious disease that plagued me. No doctor had been able to tell us what exactly was wrong. Seemingly without cause, I was growing weaker and weaker, and dozing off randomly. I had no other symptoms: no cough, no pain, no mental or emotional instability. Except that I could never remember what I was doing just before I fell asleep, or as my doctor called it, "had a spell." No one understood it.
Did the book have the answers?
I wanted to laugh. Really, an ancient Chinese novel, knowing why a girl in 1923 was inexplicably sick? Ridiculous. I wanted to laugh.
But I couldn't.
Instead, I reached out for the book. When I touched it, I thought I saw a spark, but it must have been my imagination. It was already open to the first page, which my father had apparently been working on. I slipped the book gently out from under his elbow. He stirred briefly, mumbled something about 'preventing the cycle from beginning,' and then fell back asleep. I carefully folded his glasses, which had fallen off his face to lie haphazardly on the edge of the table, and placed them beside him.
I sat down on the floor pillow against the wall and decided to start at the beginning. Since I was a little girl, my father had passed on to me his love of archaeology and ancient languages, so I could read some of the words on my own. I recognized this particular book as being written in ancient Chinese. "Shi jin... ten... chi sho," I whispered slowly. Something of the Four Gods... The sky... the world... The Universe of the Four Gods!
Hmmm, interesting, I thought.
But the cover alone had taken me a couple minutes, and I certainly did not want to sit there all day trying to puzzle out the first line. I placed my father's first sheet of translations over the illustration on the left-hand side -- a fairly nondescript brush outline of a girl, really it could have been any girl, reading a book -- so that I could read the original text first and then refer immediately to the translation.
'This book tells the story of a girl who gathered the shichiseishi of Genbu and acquired the power to make her every wish come true. The story itself is an incantation. Whoever finishes reading it will receive the power. As soon as the page is turned, the story will become reality and begin...'
Then, like a whisper without sound, I felt a presence call to me, and suddenly I was swept off the ground by a cyclone of green lights. I looked around in confusion as the room around me faded to black and I began falling wildly through space. It took me awhile, as it usually did, to realize that I was dreaming again.
This time, though, I wasn't floating in space. A rich and magnificent building came into view, closer and closer, until I realized that I was falling towards it. Face first.
I landed with an audible thud and couldn't help groaning as I tried to rise to my feet. I wasn't physically hurt though, and in fact, other than getting the wind knocked out of me, I couldn't remember feeling better. It was, so far, the best thing about the dream.
I sighed, wondering where exactly I was this time. Just as I was about to turn over my right shoulder to orient myself, a voice came from my left. In trying to change directions last minute, I ended up tripping over myself and falling right back to the floor.
The tall, thin man chuckled softly. "Hello again." He approached me, helped me up, and bowed respectfully. "Welcome, Genbu no miko. We have been awaiting your return."