Track for this chapter:
Passages, by Jon Schmidt, from the album A Walk in the Woods
Tsubasa gazed at the statue in his hand, mouth half-open in shock. Whatever this thing was, it was valuable. And it was stolen.
He turned it over; the base was covered in a soft layer of felt, presumably so it wouldn't scratch up whatever table it happened to be set upon. Doubtless the man with the fedora had chosen this location to hide it because nobody ever ventured this way.
He heard a loose newspaper rustle in the alley behind him, perhaps with the passage of a boot, and turned; nothing was there.
Tsubasa wrapped the statue in the brown paper again and replaced it in the backpack, and then slung the bag over his shoulder and, with a last glance at the other end of the alley, headed the other way.
A police station was not far off, and he made his way towards it quickly.
He opened the door and the sheriff at the desk looked up. "Excuse me young fella, may I help you?" he asked, adjusting his glasses.
"I overheard a phone call near the other side of town and followed the man's instructions to his friend and found this. I believe it was stolen." Tsubasa's words came out in a rush of excitement and he tore open the bundle, laying the statue on the table in the sheriff's office.
"Huh..." The sheriff leaned over the statue scrutinizingly. "Appears ta be valuable, whatever it is." He removed a penknife from his shirt pocket and nicked it across the diamond eye of the figure. "Whoa, yep. This'un's gen-yoo-wine."
He stood with a sigh. "Well, son, ya done a great deed. Thanks fer turnin' this in. Ah'll keep it in mah care nah, thank you very much. An' I'll be takin' the backpack, too, for...uh...inspection", he added. "Gotta go in ta evidence bank."
Tsubasa gladly handed it over and left. But as he lingered in the hall outside, catching his breath from the rush of another solved mystery, he overheard the sheriff speaking in a hushed tone.
"Jerry? Jerry...lissen, you was right 'bout t'at one. He's gotta spy's eye. YOU betcha." He was on the phone. Tsubasa peeked in the door curiously, and then fumbled for his phone before remembering it wasn't there.
He threw open the door just as the sheriff said crossly, "No, ah ain't payin' ya full price! We nearly got caught! You oughta be more careful, Jerry Sanderson!"
Tsubasa pointed an accusing finger and cried out, "I'm placing you under citizen's arrest!"
The rocking of the boat pressed a slow passage across the relatively calm waters, and Kyouya chanced a peek out the porthole.
It had been a few days now, and they were docking at Nicaragua for awhile and transporting the cargo to another ship by truck. Kyouya figured he may as well follow it; he'd no other plan.
He strolled casually off the docks, with one eye on the barrel he'd marked with a large red triangle. He sneaked into the back of a truck while its owners ate lunch a few yards away, talking frantically about some sport or other; locked in their heated discussion, they didn't notice him slipping into the truck behind the self-same red-marked barrel.
He sank down against the wall and waited as they shut the door of the truck, then dozed in the metal-scented interior while the truck rocked across the country like a land ship.
On journeys like this you tended to sleep a lot. It helped keep your metabolism going on limited supply, and there was no sense wasting your energy in between locations when the hull of a ship or the bottom of a truck could grant you as good a rest as a hotel bed.
Ryo paced the kitchen, white-faced, while Benkei wailed in another room. "KYOUYA SAN..."
Hikaru shook her head at Gingka, and he replied, "Some vacation this has turned out to be, huh?"
"I wanna go to a theme park!" Yuu demanded, tugging insistently on Madoka's shirt hem. "I'm BOOOOOORED! I wish there was a stadium here..."
Gingka facepalmed. Tsubasa was not here to do it.
"Why would Kyouya leave?" Ryo asked. "More importantly, why would he leave Benkei?"
"I think it's a lion's nature", Madoka said. "You can never expect him to anchor himself to anything."
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, all through the town...
Another children's song drifted through his dreams suddenly, and Kyouya jolted awake.
He'd been dreaming of the orphanage again.
He remembered how Noelle had always been there to take care of him and the other kids. He remembered Eric, his best friend in the boys' dorms; but most of all he remembered Mrs. Thornsley, the oldest caretaker and head of the board. She'd been blind at the time he had left, but he had always loved her; she kept cookies in her apron pockets and gave them to the kids between mealtimes.
Mrs. Thornsley had never been strict like the other caretakers, nor had she been careless; she always had an allowance for a little one to get up after bedtime in a thunderstorm or to get a glass of water. In the most violent of storms, she let all the boys in the dorm pile their blankets and pillows on the floor in the playroom and huddle together like a herd of lost sheep, and she would tell them tales of lands far off in her old lady voice until the drifted to sleep.
Once there was a wizard who lived in a far away land, and he had many visions of a boy named Arthur. This boy Arthur was...about your age, I think, Kyouya.
He had beamed when she'd singled him out from the crowd of boys; he'd been among the crew of the younger kids and swallowed all the attention he could get.
The wizard's name was Merlin, and he had this dream one night that Arthur would become king. And then the very next day he put a chair under a hole in his roof and told his good pet owl that Arthur himself would be droppin' in that day.
Then Arthur went after a fallen arrow and busted himself right through the roof of Merlin's home; the hole got wider and Merlin knew the next time it rained the whole house would get wet. But he din't mind because Arthur was the future king, after all, and he deserved a seat whether or not he'd made a hole in the roof bigger by doing it.
And then -
She had scooped up Eric on her lap at this part, and continued.
And then the wizard and the scrawny little boy had tea right there with the owl, and Merlin told him he had to come home with him to help him become king.
Arthur din't believe at first that what Merlin was saying could ever be true, because it was completely preposterous. He was only a little boy.
"Mrs Thornsley - " He heard his own voice pipe up. "Mrs. Thornsley, why can't little boys be kings too?"
"Now, dear, back in those times only great knights and burly men could be kings. It's because people dwell on what's outside and not in the heart, where it matters most. That's why so many evil kings got crowned back in those days."
"Could I be a king?" This was Eric.
"Of course you could. Any one of you could. You've got bigger hearts'n most adults, you know. You'd be caring and compassionate.
But what kings also need is advisors, because little boys can't manage the funds and the wars on their own. So Merlin accompanied Arthur back to the castle."
"What does accompanied mean, Mrs. Thornsley?"
"He went with him, dear.
Arthur was adopted, just like all of you will be someday. But his father and brother were not very nice. And so they gave Merlin a tower with a leaky roof and little space to stay in.
Merlin was not happy.
But he stuck by Arthur like he said he always would. He taught Arthur how to read and write, because only rich people learned that in those days, and if Arthur was to be a king, he needed to know all he could ever know.
One day Arthur came running, so happy, because his brother Kay had granted him a place as his squire at the joust soon. His other squire had got the mumps. Now, now, before you ask, dear, a squire was who helped the knights with all their armour and handed them things when they needed it.
So they got to the joust; Merlin was not pleased and went away because he wanted Arthur to try to be more than a squire, but Arthur was too happy to see what Merlin wanted.
Then the foolish little boy realised that he'd forgotten to bring Kay's sword, and the inn at which they were staying for the tournament was closed; what was the boy to do? Until, passing a little fenced-in yard covered in snow, Arthur found the sword in the stone.
It had been placed there a long time ago by faerie magic, to show the one true king. Even the strongest men could not remove it from the great stone in which it was placed. But Arthur had no other choice. He could at least say he had tried.
And so he pulled with all his might, yet the sword slid out easily!
At first nobody believed the boy, but finally they came around. Arthur was placed in the palace as the king.
Then Merlin returned to advise him in his ruling time and at last all was as it should have been in the beginning.
All the other little boys in the room had drifted off to sleep. Mrs. Thornsley lay Eric down in the little nest of blankets and pillows. Only Kyouya's sharp green eyes had pierced the darkness, and even in her blindness, she could sense his concern.
"Kyouya, dear, whatever is the matter? Why are you not asleep?"
"Mrs. Thornsley, what if I get adopted by mean people like Arthur did?"
She had leaned over him with a smile on her face.
"No matter what happens, dear, always remember that Arthur was able to rise to claim the throne in spite of his small size and unsupportive family. You'll always have the strength in your heart; I know you will."
Mrs. Thornsley patted his head and left the room.
Those were words to live by, and he had done so ever since.