Anju read the letter through again. She felt tears running down her cheeks and put her hands over her face.
"Kafei…that's not true…" she whispered. She heard the inn door open and slam shut but did not look up.
"Anju?"
It was Link.
"Anju, what's wrong?"
"Hello Link," she said tearfully, wiping her eyes. "It's nothing, it's nothing, it's…it's Kafei. He sent me a letter, he says…oh, Link he won't tell me where he is and he won't say what's happened but he says that, that if I saw him I wouldn't…"
She broke down in tears once more, and held out the letter to Link. He took it and struggled to decipher the untidy writing.
Dear Anju,
it said.I'm so sorry to worry you. I'm fine, so please don't worry any more but I can't say where I am. Something terrible – something's happened to me. If you saw me now, you wouldn't love me anymore. I'm sorry. I still love you, I always will, I hope you know that.
Kafei XXX
"I would always love him, whatever," Anju said, having almost stopped crying. "I thought he knew that! I don't care what's happened to him… Damn it! I wish I could just see him, I wish I could tell him…"
"Do you have any idea where he is?" Link asked. "Any at all?"
"That's just it, I've none at all. None at all. Nobody knows anything! Except…" She looked suddenly different. Hopeful. "Link, will you and Tatl do something for me?"
"No we won't!" said Tatl harshly. "Sort it out with lover-boy yourself!"
"Shut up!" Link said, horrified. "Yes, Anju, of course we will. "What do you want us to do?" He frowned at Tatl.
"Well, you see, I'm sure that the…"
She stopped abruptly as the door opened. Two tall, slender women came in. They were almost completely identical.
"We can't talk now," Anju said hurriedly. "Can you come to the kitchen tonight? Say…half eleven? Then we can talk…"
Link nodded silently and left the inn as the women approached the desk and asked for a room for the weekend.
*
That night, Link sat in the Stock Pot's kitchen and waited for Anju. Something smelled great, and he was just wondering whether Anju would mind him tasting her soup when he heard her footsteps.
"Anju! Hi! How are you?"
"Better, better now," she said, smiling although it did not quite reach her eyes.
"That's good. What did you want us to do?"
"Well, I'm fairly sure the postman will know where he is. He must, I mean, he delivers post to him…and from him…sorry, anyway, I wonder…could you talk to the postman? I'd go myself, but it's going to be busy over the next few days…well, in theory. It might not be, what with people running from the moon and all…but I'm going to have to be here anyway. Would you ask him about Kafei? And, er, could you ask him to deliver this?"
She handed him a red envelope.
"Of course. We'll go in the morning."
"We don't have time!" Tatl hissed.
"Shut up!" Link hissed back. "Sorry about her," he added to Anju. "She's so annoying…and selfish! Yes, you are selfish!"
Anju smiled slightly.
"That's alright. Look, there's, er, there's one more thing. I feel really bad to ask you to do this..."
"It's fine, ask away."
"I, er, could you…could you go and see Kafei if you find out where he is? Just say….say I love him and, and that, that whatever's happened, I don't care."
"No problem!"
"Really? Oh thankyou! Thankyou so much!"
"That's fine," Tatl said sullenly. "We've got nothing more important to do anyway. Unless you count SAVING THE WORLD!" She narrowed her tiny eyes at Link and flew out of the kitchen before he could hit her in exasperation.
"Shut up!" he yelled after her, and with an apologetic smile at Anju he followed her.
*
The next morning, Link kept his word to Anju. Knowing the postman would be in the West of town at about nine, he hung around there for a while. Sure enough, the dutiful man emerged from his post office at nine on the dot.
"Hey!" Link shouted. "Hey, excuse me! I need to ask you something!"
"Oh," said the postman disdainfully. "Go on then. Hurry up!"
"Do you know where Kafei is?"
"No, I don't. I don't know. It's a secret. I, er…that is, it would be if I knew…"
"Oh come on! Please, it's really important. And you do know, I know you do…"
"You're interrupting my schedule. Leave me alone!"
"Can you at least deliver…oh DAMN YOU and you're stupid schedule!" Link shouted at the postman who had sprinted off.
"Damn it!" he said to Tatl. "I hate breaking promises!"
"Not your fault! Now come on, we have to find the mountains."
Link sighed resignedly.
"Alright. Let's go. Where are we heading?"
"North gate."
"OK."
As they walked past a postbox, Link pulled out the letter Anju had asked him to deliver and put it in.
"May as well post that. At least he'll get the letter, even if I can't get to him. You know," he added as the postbox thanked him for using it, "I'm never going to get used to the postboxes talking. It really is the strangest thing…hey!!!"
"Oh no. What have you come up with now?"
"The postman will collect from here, won't he! We can follow him to Kafei! All we have to do is wait here, and follow him… He has to go to wherever Kafei is eventually if there's a letter for him!"
"Oh no. No, no NO NO NO! Link we have to save the world! I'd say that's slightly more important than helping stupid Anju and he mean boyfriend…"
"Look, we can do that later! We have all the time in the world! I know loads of songs for messing with time….and that's not that point! We promised! And Anju's not stupid, I like her. Maybe Kafei's not mean anyway. I mean, he might have a really good reason not to see her. We don't know what's happened to him… We're staying, anyway. We're STAYING! Let's hide over here. The postman'll probably be here soon…"
*
After about half an hour of waiting, and of Tatl grumbling, Link spotted the postman. He jogged across to the postbox and pulled out the red envelope, the only letter in there.
"Only one letter all morning!" they heard him muttering to himself. "Pathetic! I'll be out of a job at this rate…"
He ran off again, and Link followed some distance behind. As the only letter the postman had was to go to Kafei, Link rightly assumed that he would go straight to him. After a while, they came to Laundry Pool.
"Kafei lives at Laundry Pool!" Link whispered to Tatl. "That short bloke with blue hair must be him! The one that was wearing the Keaton, remember?"
"Who cares?" she hissed back. "Look, hurry up! We don't have enough…"
She stopped as the postman hit the huge bell on the bridge. A door opened across the water and the guy that they assumed had to be Kafei came out and hurried over.
"In his house! Quick!" said Tatl.
"We can't just go in! It's…"
"Oh shut up, you wimp, if you want to speak to Kafei we've got no choice! It's up to you though, we COULD go straight to the…"
"Alright, alright, let's go!"
Link swam across the water, unnoticed by Kafei and the postman he was conversing with. He went through the door and up the staircase he found himself on to a tiny room. There was nothing in it except a bed, a desk and a mirror on the wall.
"Nice place," Tatl commented sarcastically.
"Oh I wish you would be quiet for one second…"
"OK, alright. Quiet. I'm very quiet. Completely silent in fact…"
"Shut it."
Link sat down on the bed. He felt bad at having just entered a complete stranger's house, but as Tatl had pointed out, he'd really had no choice.
After a few minutes' tense and silent wait, they heard the door below open and footsteps on the stairs. The guy walked into the room.
"What the hell!" he started. "Who are you! Get out of my house! What the hell are you doing in here anyway…"
"Hang on, hang on," Link said, standing up. "Are you Kafei?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Oh stop playing games!" That was Tatl, naturally.
"Shut it! Look, I'm Link. Anju sent us…"
"Anju?"
The guy took of his Keaton mask, to reveal large and unusual red eyes. He had to be no older than Link.
"I'm Kafei."
"Don't be stupid! You're a kid!" said Tatl, always one for stating the obvious.
The boy looked at the floor.
"I'm not really. It was…it was the skull kid. He made me into this. Oh, it's awful! You have no idea…you can have no idea how terrible it is to be in a body that's not yours…"
"Well, actually, I'd say I have a pretty good idea…"
"Really? How….anyway, Anju sent you? What does she say? I haven't read her letter yet. Does she…does she hate me?"
"No! No she doesn't!"
"Really?"
"No," said Tatl, "but maybe she should! If you love her, what the hell are you doing sitting in your crappy house and refusing to see her?"
Link frowned at her. Kafei looked into his mirror sadly.
"I'm…I'm ashamed…."
Suddenly he smashed a fist into the glass. It shattered and blood ran down his arm.
"Because I'm a freak! I'm twenty three and I look like a twelve year old!"
"Hey! Don't do that! And what's wrong with being twelve!"
Kafei wasn't listening.
"We were going to get married, me and Anju. And to make things even worse, even worse than being this…that stupid skull kid stole my mask…my special one for the wedding. I want to see her, I really do, but if she knew…if she saw…there's no way she'd want me anymore."
"Look, we're going after skull kid. When we do, we'll turn you back, and we'll get your mask…and Anju wanted us to tell you that she would ALWAYS love you, and that whatever's happened she won't care."
"Really? Really and truly?"
Kafei suddenly looked much happier.
"Honestly. So, will you go and see her damn it? We have to get going…"
"I can't…I can't see her. I can't!"
"You are such a…"
"Shut it Tatl! Kafei, I understand that you hate being something you're not. I can see that you wouldn't want her to see you as a kid… Look, shall I take a message to Anju for you?"
"Will you? Would you, oh…"
"NO!"
"Yes."
"NO, we won't!"
"YES WE WILL! What do you want us to say to her?"
"Um, er, well, can you explain to her what happened? And, and, er…"
Kafei untied something from round his neck. It was a silver chain with a blue stone on it.
"…give her this? And tell her…tell her I really do love her, and I'm sorry, and…and will she wait until I'm, well…until I'm me again?"
"We'll tell her. We'll go, but we have to go NOW, we really don't have much time…"
"Alright. See you again, I hope. Link, er…thanks very much…thank you."
"No problem," said Link, smiling, and ran down the stairs to the door.
*
Link legged it across town to the Stock Pot as fast as he could.
"Anju! Anju!"
He found her in the kitchen, staring vacantly into a pot of…well, something.
"Anju, we saw Kafei!"
"What? Oh, oh, where is…what's wrong…is he alright?"
"He's…well, he's fine, but…you know skull kid?"
"That little…what did he do to my Kafei!!!"
"He turned him into a KID! HA HAA!"
"Shut up Tatl! Sorry, Anju, I'm afraid it's true. He says, er, he still loves you and, he's sorry, and he wants to see you but he's, well, he's ashamed and he doesn't want you to see him until he's back to normal…"
"Really? A kid…. Weird. I wasn't expecting THAT! Does he love me? He doesn't…I mean…"
"He asked me to give this to you too," Link added and handed her the chain Kafei had given him. "And he says will you wait for him?"
"Oh wow! It's beautiful! Of course I'll wait for him!" she said, really smiling for the first time in ages.
"Thankyou so much Link!" she said vaguely, humming as she stirred the soup.
"No problem!" Link said. "Now, come on Tatl, we have some mountains to find!!!"