The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.
- Stephen King
Chapter 7: New Participant
I stood in the garden and inspected my surroundings. The coast had to be clear if I wanted to take my leave. The garden was empty. The house was not. From where I was standing, I could hear the voice of the little prince happily talking to his mother, who was explaining to him how to bake cookies. Tadase had asked me earlier if I wanted to help too, but I refused to spend more time with the kiddy-king than was needed.
As for the weather: it hadn't changed. It was still winter, there still lay snow and it was still ice cold. And dad was still gone, but I forbid myself to think about him. Alas, everything together meant that I could leave this place easily. Which was exactly what I was going to do. Leave this house and it's lovely people behind me to visit the graveyard and it's…inhabitants again. People might wonder why I would keep visiting that place, since I didn't understand anything about it or about the people there. But there's a simple answer for that.
Reason for visiting: I have nothing better to do.
As silently and sneaky as I could, I made my way through the garden. I wasn't spotted, and when I reached the garden's gate, I praised myself. I was just a few little steps away from freedom, and nobody noticed me leaving. Now there was nothing standing in my way, absolutely noth-
"Ikuto!"
Okay, maybe one thing.
Utau was standing behind me with her hair in two pigtails and hands on her hips. Her eyes had that look that could make Tadase run crying to his mother. Her foot made a tapping sound on the ground, and the whole atmosphere around her felt like it was loaded with electric energy: sparkling and dangerous. I sighed. It seemed that I wasn't going to leave the house as easy as I had first thought…
"Utau," I started, "what are y-"
"Where are you going?" she interrupted.
"What?"
"You heard me!" she shot back. "I said: where are you going?"
"Who said that I was going anywhere?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Ikuto, I know that you are going somewhere." I softly growled. This wasn't going to work. Time for another tactic.
"It's not your business."
Utau hold her angry pose, but the look in her eyes changed. "I want to come with you."
"You don't even know where I am going!" I replied irritated.
Her angry face now fell and she smiled sweetly. "That doesn't matter: as long as you are there."
I frowned. "I already said: it's none of your business."
Her angry face returned and she was Miss Monster again. "You're going to meet a girl, right?"
"Wha-, where did you get that idea?" I asked, hiding my surprise and discomfort. This conversation was not going the way I wanted.
"Aha!" Utau pointed at me accusingly. "So you're going to meet one!"
"No, I'm not!" I replied irritated.
She had reached her limits. Her eyes began to water and her lips started to quiver, but the blazing look in her eyes didn't disappear. "It's not fair! I'm a lot prettier than all the other girls and still you never want to play with meeeeeeeeee!"
While Utau was busy with wailing and crying her eyes out, I walked past her and grabbed the garden's gate. Before I opened it, I turned around.
"Utau, you're wrong. I'm not going to meet a girl, I'm going to leave a girl."
Utau stopped crying and stared at me confused.
"You."
And before her cries started again, I closed the gate behind me and left my sis standing there.
I can't say that I was very happy with what I did, but I needed to get away from that house. I mean, they can't expect me to stay home all day with a wanna-be-king and my little sister. I needed a break, and I knew just the place where I could find that. I was so caught up in my thoughts, that I didn't notice that I was being followed.
By a pair of violet eyes.
When I arrived at the graveyard today, everything was still the same. The same stones, church, statues, snow that lay on the ground and the fact that the strange girl was nowhere in sight. And it didn't look like Anna would show any minute to guild me the way. I frowned. This was starting to bother me. Why is it so damn hard to find a little girl in a deserted place like this? Because this place is huge. Too. Damn. Huge.
I kicked a stone in frustration and it rolled away, and then, I saw the crow. The bird had been sitting on a cross the whole time, watching me getting frustrated about the fact that I don't know the way here. He turned his head to a side, like it asked himself what was wrong with me.
"And where do you think you're looking at?" I spat back at him. The bird didn't seem to be affected by my anger and kept staring at me curiously, waiting on what I was going to do next.
And honestly, I had no idea. I didn't know where to go or what to do, it was freezing cold and here I was, talking to a black bird on a cross. It was official: this place was not good for my health.
"Kraa," cawed the crow.
"What?" I yelled, pissed off. "Yes, I know I'm looking ridiculous standing here, but that's not my fault! Nobody every told me the way around here."
"Kraa," cawed the crow again, and flew up from the cross. He landed a few meters nearby and stared at me. I furrowed my brows and stared back. The crow gave me a look like he wanted me to understand something. He shook his feathers and gestured with his head to the path before him.
I pointed to myself and carefully asked "You want me…to follow you?"
"Kraa!" The crow answered and flew away to the north direction. I stared at the bird in general confusion and wonder, and then I woke up. "Hey, wait for me!" I called, and ran after him.
After a short time of running (in which I had to try to keep up with the bird and not to trip over the graves), I ended up in front of the old church. To my surprise, Anna was there. Why is she always here? She was looking at the doors of the church , and when she heard me arriving, she looked up.
"Ikuto!" she exclaimed happily, "how nice is it to see you again! How did you know where we were?"
"The…bird…lead…me…here…" I said panting. Anna raised her brows and looked up to the crow, who had landed at the top of the church. She smiled and waved at him. "Thank you dear!" The crow cawed and shook his feathers in response.
"Do you know that bird?" I asked.
"Even if I didn't, it's only proper to thank someone after they have helped you, isn't it?" she replied.
I looked up and watched the crow looking around and twisting his head, softly cawing a false tune to himself.
"But it is just a crow." I told her. "It's not a someone, it's a bird: they not really care about manners." Anna shot me a look that parents always give, which means 'you're too young to understand this', and turned to the door. "Angel, are you ready dear? We have a guest."
I stared at the doors, which where, to my amazement, pushed open by the little girl with her pink hair. I felt that my mouth fell open, but I couldn't stop it. Those doors were almost 3 times as long as her and a hundred times heavier, and she opened them like they're were made of clouds!
Angel caught me gapping at her. "Never seen a girl open a door, Infidel?" she asked sarcastically. She carried a bucket filled with water, and several brushes. Now I noticed, Anna had those things with her too. Angel pushed the door behind her, and it closed with a loud smash that made the whole church shudder.
"And what are you doing here?" she asked coldly. "Don't you have anything else to do than to bother us?"
Anna sharply turned to Angel. "Angel, what are you saying? Ikuto came probably all the way from home to see you: this is not really a way to show your gratitude to him."
"Should I show gratitude to him for showing up when we're going to work? " she shot back. "He is only going to stand in our way."
"In what way?" I was getting more and more confused by the minute. First Angel was acting more colder and angry than I have ever seen her before, and now she was talking about me like I was not even standing here.
Angel turned to me and snorted. "Anna and I were going to clean the graves, but since you are here, I'm not sure our plans will continue."
"Oh don't be silly, Angel," Anna told her. "We're not going to postpone our plans just because Ikuto decided to visit us. He can be a great help to us." Anna looked at me. "Do you want to help us, Ikuto?"
"Oh, uhm…" Angel glared at me and I quickly finished my sentence, "..I would love to help you!"
"That's wonderful!" Anna smiled happily.
"Oh yes, wonderful!," Angel said, imitating Anna's cheery voice. "Well Mister Wonderful can go and have a lovely time with you: I'm going to clean the crosses." She picked up her things and walked away. At the end of the path, she called over her shoulder: "Far away from you!"
Anna and I watched Angel leave, and Anna shook her head. "My, My, Angel, are you really that mad at him?" she spoke quietly and her eyes looked sad. I looked to Anna and she saw my confusion.
"Oh don't take it too personally Ikuto," she smiled assuring. "Me and Angel had some sort of…loaded conversation yesterday and I think she's still a little angry about that. It's nothing serious." I slowly nodded, not quit getting the whole topic, but decided to leave it this way.
"So, you want to help me cleaning the graves?"
"Oh, well..yes." I couldn't say no right now, right? I had already agreed on helping, so I followed Anna over the many paths, along the thousands of graves until I totally lost sight of direction and place.
After a while, she stopped. "Here we are then," she spoke and put her things down. I looked up, and then I just noticed the type of grave we were going to clean. "Well, it has been a long time ago since she was cleaned, so we have a lot of work to do!" Anna looked at me for a response, but I could only stare at the grave and try to control my fear.
On the old, marble tombstone lay a woman. Or more, a woman's statue. She lied face down with her arms crossed before her, and her whole body was bend forward like it was broken. Two huge stone wings grew out her back, but they hang low and followed the line of the woman's body, like they were too heavy for her to carry. I couldn't see her face since it was resting in her arms, but I could guess the expression. The whole thing: the angel's broken body, her big but heavy wings and the strong emotion than hang around her made my knees weak and my heart cold. The whole statue portrayed only eternal pain, sadness and guilt, and somehow I couldn't bare to look at it.*
It was so strange, all the other angel statues that I had seen so far on the graveyard all looked proud and strong, even if they missed body parts. They all looked at me like they knew exactly who I was, and that no secret was safe for them. But this one was totally the opposite. The angel looked so sad, so desperate, so…helpless. She wasn't crying for the dead lying under her, but for herself, and that made the whole picture even more painful. It was like she had realized she made a horrible mistake, and that whatever she would try, nothing could make up for it. And when she knew that, she just fell down on the ground and wept, endlessly.
"Ikuto?" Anna's worried voice seemed to come from far. "Are you okay, you look so pale?"
"Yes..yes, I'm fine," I softly muttered, not being able to tear my eyes off the statue. "Is this the grave you were talking about?"
Anna nodded. "This is one of the oldest statues here, and since the snow that fell last day, we really need to clean this one today before the snow can do more damage to it. I will clean the statue, do you want to cut all the plants on the stone away and make sure that the inscription is readable again? If the snow melts and turns into water, it can eventually erase the words in the stone, and that would be awful. We can't put this girl into more pain…"
"Yeah..yeah I will do the stone," I said slowly, finally taking my eyes off the statue and focused them on the stone. The whole tombstone was covered in ivy and the inscription could hardly be seen under need all those plants, but in my heart I was overjoyed that I could clean the stone; I didn't think that I could handle cleaning the crying angel.
I grabbed the small garden shears that Anna took with her, knelt to the ground and started to cut the thick stalks of weeds and ivy away. Anna stood next to me, the bucket with water between us, wiped the snow on the angel away, and dried the stone with a piece of cloth. It became silent, the only sounds coming from the garden shears and the rubbing cloth.
During the work, I didn't dare to look at the angel, and continued to frequently cut the weeds on the stone away. I was so caught up in this that when I heard Anna's voice, I almost got a heart attack.
"Io."
I looked up and stared at her. "What?"
"This angel's name," spoke Anna softly, "is Io."
I looked to the inscription on the stone. "How do you know, the inscription says nothing about the name of the angel."
Anna sighed and looked to the angel, who lied broken and beaten on the tombstone. "Her name isn't written in the stone, Ikuto, but in her heart."
I felt a story coming up.
Long, long ago, there was the wife of a mighty king named Io, who had 7 sons and 7 daughters. The queen was arrogant and proud, and claimed that her sons were stronger that the gods, and that her daughters were more beautiful that the goddesses. She even claimed that she herself was just as powerful and unassailable as a goddess, and that the people should worship her instead of the real gods and goddesses. But when the first offers which where made in glory of her, the gods and goddesses punished the prideful queen. They killed her sons and her daughters one by one, and they didn't stop until all her children lay dead at her feet. And the only thing the queen could do while all her children were murdered, was cry. And even after all the killing was over, and the gods turned her into stone, the stone queen kept on shedding tears, as a last sign of her endless despair and sadness.*
"And that's why this angel statue is called Io, the one who always cries." Anna placed her hand on Io's head, and I could only stare at the angel, filled with pity and regret. The queen had been dumb and prideful, but the punishment she got was not one she deserved. Not something that horrible.
Anna knelt down next to me and inspected the stone. "Well, that looks really good Ikuto." A smile lay on her face, but the sadness of Io lay in her eyes. "You did a good job for a first time." I nodded in gratitude, but then I lay my eyes on her necklace.
She always wore it when I saw her, but now I saw for the first time what hang on to it: a big green stone with the size of a small apricot and oval shaped. The green stone was placed in a holder of the same shape, but a little bit bigger, with a small ring on top so that the pendant could hang on to the chain. The chain was silver, just like the holder, which was decorated with a detailed network of little flowers. Everything together, it was a beautiful piece of art, shaped and made by no other than a real artist.* Anna saw me looking at it.
"You like it?" she asked. I nodded, and gazed at her. "May I..?" Anna understood me and placed the pendant in my hand. I carefully examined it, turning it around and inspecting every angle.
"It is beautiful." I said. "It's simple, but elegant. Not too much or too big. And the stone is also…really nice."
"It's really special for me. I got this necklace from someone who meant a lot to me." The look of Io in Anna's eyes didn't leave and spread out to her corners of her mouth, so that even her smile didn't hold any happiness this time. "It's my treasure."
"I see…" I muttered and rubbed with my fingers over the stone. "Just like my violin."
"Your violin?" Anna still looked sad but her eyes held a glint of wonder. I realized then that Anna wasn't there when I first arrived here, and therefore didn't know about my violin.
"I play the violin, or..my dad's violin. It's the only thing that he left behind before he left me and my mother and sister behind." I closed my fingers over the stone and hold onto it like it was a lifeline. "He saw the violin as his treasure, and even if he left me and my family behind, I now see it as mine."
Anna's attempt to show me a real smile were the best so far, but she looked more like Io that ever. And although I will never know for sure, I'm sure I wore the just the same expression. We stood there in silence, both looking at the pendant and thinking about our own treasures, while the air of sadness hang around us like a thick, cold, mist.
It was in those moments, I realized later, that I was the closest to Anna's heart than I would ever be.
From behind her stone cross, a young pinkette watched the two people talk with each other. Her golden eyes were wide with shock. She saw how the boy touched the pendant of the woman, and that the woman allowed the boy to do that. She lets him! She barley knows who he really is, but she lets him touch it! The woman and the boy spoke with each other, the boy still with the pendant in his hand. Then, he looked up, and smiled at her, which the woman returned.
The girl lay her eyes on the necklace again, and while she looking at it, a plan was born in her head. The golden colour in her eyes turned amber and a grin spread across her face.
If Anna was going to trust Ikuto more, and if Ikuto was going to grow closer to Anna, than maybe she could finally get what she wanted…
Far away from young boy's interests and little girl's spying eyes, a black bird was sitting on the frozen winter ground. The black bird was none other than a crow, who is, as you may know, not an unusual visitor for a graveyard. This one was cleaning his feathers using his long, sharp bill, making soft noises in satisfaction.
Suddenly he stopped and looked up. He had heard a sound, nearby. The rusty fence shrieked, opened, and a little girl slowly entered the domain. The girl was nervous. She took little steps, careful and unsure, looking around, like she searched for something. A small voice escaped from her quivering lips.
"Ikuto? Ikuto, where are you..?"
The crow hadn't moved from his spot on the ground, watching the girl with small, black eyes. The girl's eyes were a beautiful violet colour and were filled with determination, but also, with hidden fear. She looked to the scenery before her, deciding which way she wanted to go, and took one of the many paths who lead her into the labyrinth of graves.
The crow hopped up and down, shook his feathers and let out a loud caw. "Kraaaa!"
Then, he spread his wings and flew up into the sky, following the little girl searching for her brother in the snow.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, except for my CD of the Mary Poppins Musical. Chim Chim Cheree!
Explanation of the *-signs:
The story of Io: This story is actually the myth of Niobe. Io's name comes from another girl, who also has her own myth in the Greek Mythology. I just liked Io's name more, so I used it for Niobe's story. Don't sue me for it.
The links to Io's statue and the Anna's pendant stand on my profile. Feel free to watch.
A/N: Hello, I'm alive again! Sorry for the long wait, but I went on vacantion for 3 weeks, and in those weeks I couldn't update anything. But I got the time to work on this chapter, so hurray for long vacantions! If people want to know, I went for two weeks to the island Terschelling, and the first one how knows where that is gets a virtual cookie!
And a new player is added to the game! How will her presence influence the progress of the story? And how will Ikuto's growing trust have an effect on the lives of Angel (Amu) and Anna's lives? And are really all the players in the game playing with fair cards?
Any grammar mistakes? Tell me. Any critics, advices, flames or compliments? Please let me know. Any reviews? Always welcome.
I hope you all enjoyed chapter 7, see you soon! Bye!
~ Artemis
