Chapter Eighteen
It's suddenly strange, I can hardly complain.
I'm down the stairs and out the door,
It's suddenly colder, it bowled me right over.
I'm down again - I suppose it's over now.
The nice thing about a Discman is that it lets you plug music directly into your head, making your skull a sound chamber, replacing thought with lyrics if you wish. Bic Runga's voice poured into Hitomi's mind, searingly sweet, softly slurring sybilants, sighing silken syllables. Thinking in alliteration seemed to be a by-product of the poetry she had been writing lately, listless lists of words, numb numbers, phrases she carefully constructed to convey nothing - that was the point, that you were left with the idea of hollowness. An elaborate pattern of sound that in the end meant nothing was one way to do it. She had shown the poems to Yukari at first, but she had just looked worried by them, and tried to get her to talk about school, and Amano's letters. It was easier to be by herself than to try to explain. She knew she was worrying her mother too. The problem was, she couldn't explain. She could make up an explanation that might make them feel better, and think they understood, but the truth would make her sound insane, and so she had no release. She had had a detention at school today for absent-mindedly scratching a V into her desk lid, fortunately only a lunchtime detention so at least she wouldn't have to explain coming home late.
Insulation from the world was what she sought a great deal of the time now; the music was keeping her mind comfortable just as her jacket and muffler protected her from the chilly air today. She walked with her head down. There was fresh snow on the ground, not yet dirtied by traffic, and it tended to reflect the sunlight with painful brightness whenever the clouds parted. A beam like that must be passing over; the glint of it brought tears into her eyes.
She walked right into someone; they both stumbled and the person caught hold of her arms for balance.
'Oh! I'm sorry.' She ducked her head apologetically, then glanced up to check that the person didn't seem angry.
Van.
In the first moment, she simply could not believe it was him; she rationalised it as a striking resemblance, like that between Amano and Allen, which showed how far she had come since she mistook one for the other. Then the rationalisation crumbled in the face of the evidence; in the face of his face, and the pressure of his hands on her arms, wearing those familiar brown gloves. He looked bewildered, and almost scared to see her. Hitomi's legs buckled and she bumped down on her knees on the pavement, hard enough to hurt.
'Hitomi, are you all right?' His voice; nothing could be clearer. He crouched down before her, tentative, wanting to help but not wanting to hurt by the wrong move.
'I'm all right,' she managed to say. His presence seemed to fill the world.
'I think you've hurt your knee there,' said another voice; another face appearing over his shoulder like the moon emerging from eclipse by the sun, if that were possible. A pale, pretty girl with untidy ash-blonde hair, dressed like Allen in blue and gold. Hitomi could not think who she could be. She was only the most distant distraction. Van helped her to her feet. Her left knee was, indeed, grazed, but only a little. Most of the damage had been to her winter tights. Hitomi could not even think of that now.
'What are you doing here? Why have you come now?' She could not just rush into his arms with the joy of seeing him; she had been too hurt by his long absence to be unwary now.
'I've I've been afraid to come to you for a long time,' Van said. 'I didn't think there was room for me in your life. I thought you might be better off without me, and we should both try to forget. I've been so confused. I - I didn't even mean to come now, things got out of control. But when I saw you just now - I should have come before. I should have come for real, not just looking on. It's amazing to be with you again - Hitomi, can you forgive me?'
She slapped him.
'You were confused!? You thought I'd be better off without you, but you didn't discuss it with me? I've been sitting here for four or five stinking months not knowing if you cared or not or if you were alive or not! What the hell is wrong with you? Of course I'm not going to forgive you! Get lost!' The anger she had never been conscious of suddenly roared up in her like an enlivening fire. She wasn't even going to cry this time.
Van raised his hand to his stinging cheek in shock. 'Hitomi'
'I don't want to hear it! Don't even speak to me until I've calmed down. Hi, who're you?' She spoke abruptly to Serena, who was dithering in the background, not wanting to be too obvious during a row, and staring at her surroundings a little wildly. She brought her attention back to Hitomi with something of an effort.
'Me? Serena Schezar Finn.' She held out her hand.
'Serena - Allen's sister?' Hitomi took her hand and squeezed it. 'It is so nice to meet you properly. How is Allen? And you? I think we should be friends, don't you? It's so alarming to touch down in a world where you don't know anyone, I know just how you feel. Please, come to my house!' She bore Serena off down the street, towing her by the hand. Van stared for a moment before scrambling to catch up.
'Hitomi!'
'We're leaving Van behind,' Serena pointed out. She felt a little panicky at the direction things were taking. Even if they were fighting, at least Van was familiar. It didn't seem right to just disregard him and walk off.
'We're ignoring Van,' Hitomi said briskly. 'He can see how he likes it when it's his turn. I like your clothes, are they copied from Allen's?'
'Well, no, I'm in the Knights of Heaven too.'
'Really? Congratulations! It must be so exciting!'
'It has its moments.'
'But how is Allen? And everyone else in Asturia? Are Millerna and Dryden getting on all right?'
'They're, they're actually divorced. Millerna is married to Allen now.'
'Good grief - that was fast!' Hitomi's face was bright and her voice was brittle. Being angry had given her a charge, vitality of a kind she hadn't felt in months. 'Poor Dryden - but I suppose he could have seen it coming. I did hope it would work out for those two, even if not for the best reasons. The people of the Crusade, too - how are they doing?'
'Pretty well - they're my crew now. I'll learn to love 'em.'
'So much has changed - I've got to catch up on everything. Nothing dreadful's happened to Gadeth, I hope. He was always nice to me.'
'He's nice to me too. I married him.'
'Married him!' Hitomi gasped. 'I can't believe it - well, good for you! It must have been weird for you settling back in after all those years.'
'Like you wouldn't believe.' I guess I'll be explaining Dilandau again. If she'll actually listen. She seems hyper. Oh goodness, how are we going to get back? What are the others going to do? What should I do?
'We are going to have a great old gossip,' Hitomi said cheerily.
'Hitomiiiii!' Van wailed. 'Please don't ignore me! I'm sorry!'
'Hard cheese,' said Hitomi over her shoulder. 'Look, Serena, here's my house. Now, if my mother asks, you're foreign exchange students whose host families can't take you yet, you arrived early, so you just need somewhere to spend the afternoon. You're from, I don't know, Russia. Schezar sounds quite Russian. Just don't speak, all right?' Ideas were sparking in her mind now.
'I can speak English,' Serena volunteered. 'A bit.'
'Ooh! Good. That'll impress Mum. Catch up, Van, unless you want to stay out here in the snow.' She bustled them in through the front door, stopping to take off her shoes in a vestibule just inside. Serena copied her, leaning against the wall while she pulled off her boots, thinking Here I am inside an actual house on the Phantom Moon, on Earth. A real ordinary family's house, in the same world Lord Dornkirk came from - I wonder if he ever lived in a house like this? I wonder if their furniture is weird? I wonder if they behave the same at home as normal people?
'We don't wear shoes in the house, Van,' Hitomi was saying sharply. He's definitely meant to know he's in disgrace. Van hastily took off his boots and stood with them in his hands, looking slightly helplessly for something to do with them, until he noticed Hitomi putting her shoes on a shelf by the wall.
'Mum, I'm ho-ome!' Hitomi called, taking off her jacket and hooking it on the wall. A woman came into the front hall from some room opening off it - she looked to be in her late thirties or early forties, with shoulder-length brown hair held back by a band, and a kind, if careworn, face. Serena tried not to stare. It had suddenly occurred to her that just as she and Allen had no mother, nor did Millerna or Van; Cid was an orphan. Well, literally they were all orphans, but one tended to think the word meant children. Gadeth was the only person she knew well who had both parents still alive. She had felt awkward among his relatives; now she found herself envying Hitomi her mother.
Mrs Kanzaki looked at the two extra teenagers in her hall with surprise, but did not seem annoyed. She spoke to Hitomi, phrases of gibberish to Serena's ears. She whispered to Van 'Can you understand her?' He replied 'Not a word.' Hitomi's replies, though, were perfectly intelligible to the two. She told her mother the exchange-student story - whatever exchange students were - and apologised for bringing friends home without warning, but she'd wanted to show them Japanese hospitality, and it seemed like such a shame that the plans had gone wrong and they couldn't go to their host families yet - it was the first time either of them had been to another country and they shouldn't be disappointed on the first day.
Hitomi smiled sweetly at her mother and waited to see what she would say.
'Do they speak Japanese?' Mrs Kanzaki asked.
'Hardly any,' Hitomi said, 'but they've learned English at school too so we can talk that way - Serena's a bit more fluent than Van so she usually translates for him.'
'So they don't understand me?' Hitomi shook her head 'Oh good - look, dear, why do they have swords?'
'Traditional costume,' she lied glibly. She was really surprised at herself, and surprised her mother seemed to believe her. Still, she had been lying to her for a long time, telling her that nothing was wrong. 'They're both from old Cossack families. That's what Serena's outfit is - her family used to be in the service of the Tsar, you know. She just wore it to show us at school. Doesn't she look good?' She waved her hand toward Serena, inviting her mother to admire the costume.
'Yes, very pretty - be-ri pu-ri-ti, Serena - is that right? - but they're not going to keep carrying them around, are they?'
'Of course not, they're going to leave them in my room - I'm just going to lend Serena some regular clothes.'
'Where are her own clothes?'
'Well, they left all their stuff in the lockers at the station so they wouldn't have to drag their suitcases around school.' I'm thinking of everything!
'What did she say to you?' Van hissed at Serena, sotto voce.
'She called me pretty, I think - her accent's strange but it sounded like "pretty." Don't keep talking - I don't know if we sound Russian.'
'You just said more than I did,' Van pointed out, but he held his peace after that, and after a few more words with her mother Hitomi led them into the house proper and upstairs to a bedroom. Once the door was safely closed behind them she leaned against it and let out a gasp.
'I can't believe that worked!'
'Your mother is nice,' Van said hesitantly, hoping to get on her good side again.
'Wait a minute,' Hitomi said, cutting him off. 'You said something about a bad situation bringing you here. Explain.'
Van opened and shut his mouth a couple of times before he could start properly; he was simply not used to Hitomi being this terse with him, and it had unbalanced him even more than being in an alien house hearing a foreign language spoken. He managed to give a concise account of the last couple of days, though, with many interjections and additions from Serena, who had, somewhat cheekily in his opinion, sat down on the end of Hitomi's bed and made herself comfortable. Hitomi sat on the chair by her desk and listened to them attentively.
'But why would everyone go to Zaibach?' she asked in bewilderment when they had gotten up to the previous evening.
'For it all to make sense we'd have to go back and tell you everything since you went home,' Serena said. 'Another reason why Van should have kept in touch.' She shot him a look under her eyebrows. He wondered why she hadn't taken the first opportunity to show him up by squealing about him picking a fight. He could hardly believe he'd done it. Going berserk in Escaflowne was one thing, but losing his temper like that, losing all control of the situation, was shameful. Goodness only knew how the others would be coping now. It really might have ruined everything. He'd have to do something about it, but it seemed impossible now; he was suddenly up to his neck in all this Hitomi business and it was just as important, but surely only to him. Did he have any right to try to sort things out here, now? And even if Serena was too ashamed of her own behaviour to talk about the fight (and he certainly didn't want to bring it up) she wasn't exactly helping him.
'Don't you start,' he said wearily.
'I know,' Hitomi said to Serena. 'I should have given him a cellphone instead of the pendant.'
'A what?' asked both Gaeans.
'I understand you nearly all the time,' Serena said, 'but I didn't get that word. Why can we understand you but not your mother? She speaks the same language, doesn't she?'
'I just don't know,' Hitomi admitted. 'I'm speaking Japanese. When you talk it sounds like Japanese to me, but you don't hear Japanese as your language, do you?'
'And there are other weird things,' Serena went on. 'What do you know about Shakespeare?'
'That's not important!' Van interrupted. 'We need to get back to the others.'
'Oh, that's really nice,' Serena said. 'You don't so much as speak to a girl for months, you drop in on her unannounced when it's convenient for you, and then you take off again as soon as possible. I don't blame you for smacking him, Hitomi - I feel like it myself sometimes.'
'Do you have to deal with him a lot?' Hitomi asked sympathetically. 'He can be maddening, can't he? I could tell you stories. But then, if you remember being Dilandau, you'll know all about being mad at him.'
'I thought you liked me,' Van said woefully.
'Liking someone and being very angry with them are not incompatible states,' Hitomi said coolly. 'It happens with me and Yukari all the time. You can at least stick around until you've appeased me a little. You still haven't said how you got here, just where you came from. Explain properly!'
Van sighed. Time to make a clean breast of it. 'We were in a negotiation with this local headman who seems to have taken over the capital city. And we got into a disagreement, her and me.'
'You blew your stack,' Serena said. 'All right, I was behaving badly too, but'
'You were practically insubordinate!'
'Well, I beg your pardon, but I don't necessarily consider myself your subordinate! You're not your brother.'
'Thank you, Dilandau!'
'Don't call me Dilandau!' Serena was on her feet now, her fists clenched and cheeks flushed. Hitomi rose too, afraid there was about to be a full-scale scrap in the middle of her bedroom.
'I don't understand how that would bring you here,' she said, a little desperately. 'Can't you tell me and not fight?'
'He can't keep his hands off other people's jewellery,' Serena said huffily. She twitched back her cravat to show the pink jewel hanging on her shirt-front. 'He doesn't think I should have this.'
'Is - is that mine?' Hitomi asked. She turned to stare at Van, eyes wide with surprise and hurt.
'It's one just like yours,' Van said. 'I still have yours. But she found that on a market stall and she insists on wearing it.' He hooked the chain out of the rolled collar of his jersey to show her. 'I'd never get rid of this. It upset me to see hers, when I was angry with her, and I was thinking of you' His voice trailed off. It sounded so feeble. It was feeble. Hitomi would think he was an idiot and everyone in Zaibach would think he was a child.
'Which seems to have fetched us both here,' Serena finished for him. 'Making, I bet, the world's worst possible impression on the entire membership of the Silver Star syndicate. Unless they found it bizarre enough to be impressed.'
Hitomi sat down again. She still looked troubled, but her focus had shifted. 'So things have gone wrong because of me? You got distracted because of me?'
'Oh no,' said Serena. 'We were messing up just fine all by ourselves. In fact, I think the situation might get better without us in it. I'm sure Gadeth knows more about how to deal with people than I do. I've done a fairly useless job so far.' She looked a little glum.
'You must go back,' Hitomi said. 'I feel terrible about dragging you here. I should have thought' She put her hand to her head as though it hurt. 'I really can't ask you to stay here. There's so much depending on you.'
Van didn't know what to say. He should go back, of course he should, and it was good that she understood, but how could he leave now without feeling like a bastard? Especially when he had upset her.
'I think we should stay a while,' Serena said briskly. Van stared at her.
'You're unbelievable,' he told her. He wished she wasn't there so he had a chance to talk to Hitomi properly. He wasn't sure what he could say but there was nothing he could say while Serena bloody Schezar was sitting there making sarcastic remarks. 'You'll just leave your poor husband there not knowing if you're alive or dead?'
'Hmm,' said Serena, 'who does that sound like that we know, Hitomi?'
'Oh, for God's sake' Van sat down on the floor and put his head in his hands.
'Gadeth will understand,' Serena said. 'He knows I'm with you and he knows I can look after myself. If we go back right now I think we'll make things worse. We should give him and Ailo time to calm things down, after an embarrassment like that. And I think you two need to take the time to sort things out, and opportunities like this don't come along every day. And this is an opportunity for me too, because there are so many things I want to know about this world. I don't think it can hurt to just spend the afternoon here - and besides, what will Hitomi's mother think if we vanish? Where's Hitomi supposed to say we've gone? We've already put her out turning up like this and I think we should make things easier for her if we can.'
'I'm sorry,' Van said heavily, 'I should have remembered you're right all the time.' She was probably right about the embarrassment. I'm not a diplomat. I don't want to be a berserker either. I should have stayed at home, should have sent someone instead of trying to take it upon myself, should have insisted that they didn't send Serena!
Serena stuck her tongue out at him. Hitomi looked at him with irritation too, and he realised with dismay that she was still angry. So what should I have done?
'Well, what would you like to know, Serena?' Hitomi asked. 'I still don't know half the things that would have made Gaea make sense to me. I really think you have to grow up in a place to understand it.'
'Oh, I know - really I'd have to say I want to know everything, but in the time we've got, I'd love to just see what people do - in shops and houses and things.'
'I could take you to the shops,' Hitomi offered. 'No-one will notice you if you leave your sword here and wear some of my clothes, and it wouldn't matter about the language because there are always foreign tourists around. If we hurry they won't be closed yet.'
'Really? Like a Phantom Moon bazaar? Is it anything like the one in Pallas?'
'Not much, but if you like that I bet you'll like our shops.'
'You've been whisked to another planet by a mysterious beam of light, leaving all your friends and family behind, and you're talking about going shopping,' Van said. 'Do you see anything wrong with this scenario?'
'We're girls,' Serena said, as if that accounted for everything.
'Out in the hall, you,' said Hitomi. 'Serena's got to get changed. Your clothes will pass, but you're not bringing your sword.'
'How do I know we'll be safe if I don't?' he protested.
'This is a civilised country with a low street-crime rate. Barring more poison gas attacks in the subways, we don't have a lot to worry about. Out out out!' She propelled him into the hallway and shut the door.
'Poison gas?' Serena repeated fearfully. 'Is that a common thing around here?'
'Don't worry, it was just some religious lunatics. It's not likely to happen again.' Hitomi went to her closet and opened the door. 'You're a bit taller than me, but I think I can find you something to fit, and you can just wear your own boots without anyone thinking they look strange.' She pulled out a dark-green dress on a hanger, looked Serena up and down, and put the dress back.
Serena was beginning to feel now that she might have been too forthright in her behaviour. Bickering with Van was one thing, but he looked really miserable. She was still trying to convince herself that this was a sensible thing to do; surely if she could make him settle things with Hitomi he would be happier and they could work together properly. If she could return with that problem solved she wouldn't have to be so ashamed when she saw Gadeth again.
'I may be speaking out of turn, but how long are you planning to treat Van like this?'
'Until I feel better or he feels worse,' Hitomi said, rattling the wire hangers in her closet.
When Van was allowed back into the room, they had both changed their clothes. He was so used to seeing Hitomi in her school uniform that he had forgotten it was a uniform; he just thought of it as her ordinary clothes. Still, it was as much an outfit for a purpose as his dragonslaying armour or the brief clothes she wore for running in. Apart from the dress Millerna had lent her in Pallas - which had rather awestricken him - this was the first time he had seen Hitomi dressed in clothes she had chosen.
There was music in the room, coming from a chunky black device on a little table, a song performed by a woman, words he couldn't understand although the sound was pleasing. It seemed like part of the air around Hitomi.
She wore a fitted black top of some fine knit material, with long sleeves and a high neck; when she turned around he could see there was a little device of stylised wings worked on the back between her shoulderblades. She had on a short, straight dark red skirt that stopped just above her knees, and her legs were covered with opaque black stockings. She looked alien and lovely. She had seemed so mournful and abstracted as she had walked along that footpath towards him, not even aware of him until they collided. Now there was some light in her eyes and colour in her cheeks, even if they only came of being annoyed with him. He wanted to throw himself at her feet and beg again to be forgiven, but he was fairly sure that would meet with a cold reception.
Serena kept twisting around in front of the mirror to look at herself in a pleated skirt of brown and green plaid and a cocoa-coloured ribbed turtleneck. Hitomi had also provided her with long black socks that came up over her knees. Although she came a distant second to Hitomi in Van's view, he would, if pressed, have admitted that she looked nice, if too pleased with herself. Neither of them asked for his opinion of her appearance, though. He felt surplus to requirements.
'Can I change the music? I think I know how to work it,' Serena said eagerly to Hitomi.
'Go ahead,' Hitomi said. 'You can change the CD if you want - I listen to this one all the time anyway.'
'Goody.' Serena bent over a metal rack holding the flat containers. 'What's this one?' She held up one, the front cover showing a picture of a group of girls in strange costumes with collars like Hitomi's uniform jacket's.
'Pretty Soldier Sailormoon. It's a soundtrack from an anime I used to like,' Hitomi said.
'Well, I didn't understand any of the nouns in that last sentence, but I'll give it a listen.' Serena carefully stopped the music still playing and pressed a button on the front of the music device, making a flat little drawer slide out of its front, as though the machine stuck its tongue out at her. She extracted a silvery disc from it, put that in an open case lying on top of the machine, and popped in the new disc. The whole thing was done with an air of ceremony - she seemed extremely proud of knowing what to do.
'You might think it's a bit strange,' Hitomi said hastily. 'It's a bit young for me, really. I liked the first three seasons but the fourth one has just been weird and I don't watch any more. It's a sort of a drama, a story. These are songs that go with the story.'
'What was it about? These girls in the funny clothes?' Serena closed the disc drawer. 'Aaaaand random play!' She pushed another button. 'Random anything is more fun.'
'It's partly a love story and partly about girl warriors defending the earth with magic,' Hitomi explained as chiming music began. 'This song - 'A Maiden's Policy' - it's all about how girls have to be brave and deal with pain and believe in love.' She looked embarrassed about explaining it, as though they might think the whole thing had been her idea.
'Good stuff,' said Serena. 'Dear God, it's so perky. I wish I understood the words.'
'Ooh,' said Hitomi, looking at her watch, 'we'd better get moving if we want to get round the shops.'
'Are you really serious about this?' Van asked, despairing.
'Yes,' Hitomi said, picking up a shoulder-bag. 'You can come and carry anything we buy, or you can stay here and be entertained by my mother who thinks you're Russian and can speak English. No pressure. And don't forget your sword stays here.'
Author's Note: Observant people and Bic Runga fans have probably become annoyed by now with the fact that Hitomi is listening, in late 1996, to an album that didn't come out until 1998. This is simply a mistake on my part; it's been so damn' long since Bic did an album (the tour with Dave Dobbyn and Tim Finn doesn't count) that I backdated it in my head. However, I would humbly submit that if a CD can fly to Gaea by itself, as we know it can, a CD from 1998 can fly to 1996. Clearly Hitomi just attracts these things.