Chapter Nine: Left and Gone

The door opens—

Watanuki wakes with a start, drenched in sweat.

The fox twitches in his chair and opens his eyes. The black pupils set by a warm amber-brown are elliptical, sharp and pointed. "Shopkeeper, what did you dream?"

"It was this shop," Watanuki whispers. "I was someone else—someone—familiar. I don't remember. I never got a good glimpse of his face. And he—he was searching me for me—he needed to, so badly, he thought I was lost—"

The fox pulls its lips into a vulpine grin, tucks in its feet, and pins him with a fixed stare. Watanuki stops talking, and gulps.

"Dreams, they say, may reveal truth," says the fox. "Do you remember your gift to me?"

"The arrow," Watanuki says slowly, thinking back. "I picked it up in a dream."

The fox nods.

"So I really am lost?"

The fox rolls his neck in a full circle, which has the same effect as eye-rolling in humans, and lolls out his tongue. Do I really have to answer that. "If you say so. In some way. Who was searching for you?" the fox asks instead.

"It…it felt like Doumeki. Doumeki Shizuka. Do you remember him? But that shouldn't be possible." Watanuki tries to think.

The fox chuckles.

Watanuki's eyes slide over to him and he grumbles, "Why am I even asking these questions, I'm the shopkeeper..."

And the fox outright laughs, which Watanuki was half afraid he would do.

"But he's dead!"

Sobering, the fox says, "All the more reason to be dreaming."

"Why do you know so much about it?" Watanuki asks curiously.

"Kitsune are masters of illusion. Dreams are natural illusions, so we study them, and that is why we know much about them. The most powerful kitsune can create an illusion one step stronger than dream, one that can mimic one of the five senses perfectly." He wrinkles his nose. "The rest of us simply know how to manipulate with small, quick, distracting spells the target won't think to question. We learn how others think."

"I see."

"Would you be up for breakfast?" asks the fox. "You seem better."

Watanuki rubs his neck, which is still slightly damp. Nevertheless, he does seem to have more energy. "Yes, I think so." He's not exactly hungry, but the thought of solid food doesn't seem repellent. He slides out of the blankets, and gets to his feet gingerly.

So far so good.

He doesn't walk very far, just to kitchen where there's a table where he can sit down. The fox cooks something, and Watanuki woozily traces the wood grains in the table, holding his forehead.

Suddenly, a flicker from out of the corner of his eye makes him turn his head, and he squints and glimpses a bit of pink and blue—Maru and Moro are in the corner... He wishes he could put on his glasses.

Frowning, it finally occurs to him to wonder where Mokona went off to.

"Mokona!" he calls, softly. "Mokona!"

A little furry black thing hops out from some shadow created by Maru and Moro's slumped forms, and leaps straight into Watanuki's arms, and immediately starts shivering. Mokona.

"Oohf!" He stops, surprised when she doesn't say anything, and it dawns on him that something serious has happened. "Mokona…" Watanuki murmurs, perplexed, and holds a little more tightly.

She turns in his arms, and keens. Watanuki strokes her velvet black rabbit ears.

"Shhh, shh. Mokona, I'm better now. I promise I'm better now, what's wrong?"

"Watanuki," she moans softly. "Watanuki..."

"Mokona, what is it?"

In misery, she whispers, "Maru and Moro…"

Watanuki looks up. "I can see them over there, sort of." He squints. "Could you fetch me my glasses?"

Mokona shakes her head and burrows into the crook of his arm, folding her ears back. "They're gone," she mumbles. "Just shells now."

"Are you sure they're not just sleeping normally?" Watanuki asks, with trepidation now.

"No. Crumbling. Dust. Shells. Bodies cold, stiff. Spirits gone."

"Will they come back?"

"I don't know, Watanuki." Now Mokona sounds tired. "The last of Yuuko's power has completely gone from this place. Everything left of her has been sustained by your magic for these last three years. So when you got sick..."

"They died." Watanuki feels numb, and cold. His grip on Mokona slackens slightly.

"Watanuki! Watanuki!"

"Unnngh." Watanuki's eyes focus on Mokona again.

"Watanuki, remember. They're not real. Artificial. Remember? They're just…not breathing." She sniffles. "The contract broke, and the spirits escaped. Now the girls are like dolls again. As they always were. Dolls."

"Mokona, I don't know how to get them back," Watanuki says softly.

Mokona makes another low, guilty miserable sound. "I know."

"Will…we...be okay?" Watanuki asks, tentatively, including them both in the statement.

She shudders; for a while her words are unintelligible, and she begins to cry again. Sometimes he can hear her repeating, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…" And after some minutes of utter incomprehension, finally Watanuki realizes what she's apologizing for, that it's because she thinks she should remember how Yuuko made the girls, or how to get them back, but she doesn't. It's gone. She thinks it is her fault that the knowledge was completely lost.

Then he finds the words to tell her, "It's not your fault. It's mine. They were your companions, and the fault was mine. Please, Mokona, it's going to be alright. It's going to be fine. I'll be okay, I promise. I promise. I won't leave you, I promise. I will be strong. I'm sorry I scared you. So sorry. Mokona, I promise. I'll never leave you. We'll be okay." The apology becomes a whisper, becomes a croon, and he doesn't stop stroking her until she stops shaking.

The fox comes then, with the food cooked. "Why is the Mokona upset?" he asks, nodding to the black furry bunny-eared lump in Watanuki's arms. He puts the food on the table.

"My predecessor, Yuuko, animated some dolls," Watanuki explains, feeling suddenly exhausted. "They were my helpers. The spell came off sometime the day before yesterday or last night, and Mokona discovered them. If you don't mind, could you get me my glasses? I just realized I can't see anything."

"Ah, the shells in the hallway," says the fox in understanding. "I didn't remember them. They had the smell of old magic. Give me just a moment." He fetches Watanuki's glasses and hands them to him.

Watanuki puts them on briefly, and looks in the right direction. He takes them off again, folds them and places them on the table, and wipes his eyes. "That will be all, thank you," he says. "I'll be back to bed in just a moment, after I eat…"

"Take your time," says the fox. He discreetly returns to the inner kitchen to brew tea.

Watanuki stares at the nearest blank wall until his eyes water. The image of the girls is floats there, blue and pink holding hands, the hands they clasped whenever they were anxious or worried. Moro slumped against Maru, forehead against forehead, and both of them bonelessly slumped against the wall, legs curled under them, a picture of sweet innocence. They were only dolls, and as dolls they will never be girls again. Their perpetual childhood was a limited and stunted life, but it had been something still. They had never grown up, would never have grown up even if they yet lived, but once they had been…his. His to care for. And now they were gone.

After that, the absence begins to hurt.

In hurting, he begins to feel.