Authors: Zoe Marriott
Even Jack looked daunted by that.
“What’s wrong?” Shinobu’s voice made me and Jack jump violently. I looked over the back of the sofa to see him leaning against the doorframe. I momentarily lost the power of speech.
He was dressed in the soft, worn jeans that I had dug out of the bottom of my dad’s chest of drawers and a plain black T-shirt that my dad used to exercise in. On my dad they were loose, boring, ordinary clothes. On Shinobu’s larger frame they clung faithfully to every muscle. I could clearly see the outline of his pectorals and abdominals shifting as he breathed.
I had a sudden, nearly uncontrollable urge to lay my head on that chest, to feel it gently rising and falling with the movement of his lungs, to hear the slow, steady rhythm of his heartbeat. The feeling was so intense that it was as if it had already happened, as if I had done it a hundred times before and it was my absolute right to do it again whenever I wanted. It felt less like wanting and more like … more like … remembering…
A leaf-shaped blade flashed in the red light as it sliced down—
“Mimi!”
I jumped again as Jack shrieked in my ear. “Whoa! What?”
Jack shook her head at me. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Shut up,” I muttered, flicking a humiliated look at Shinobu. “I was thinking.”
“What were you thinking about?” Shinobu asked, coming forward. He looked suddenly intent and a little wary. Like my answer mattered to him. A lot.
“Yeah, right, you were ‘thinking’,” Jack said, making quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “Can we please get back to working out how to handle your parents, before they call my mum and they all come back to London and get eaten by demons? Cos I, for one, am not ready to be orphaned.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that Jack’s dad was still alive. Since he’d gone off to California with his new girlfriend he might as well be dead to Jack.
“OK, OK, let me think.” I put the phone down on my lap and ran the hand not resting on the katana through my damp hair, carefully keeping my eyes on the phone and away from Shinobu. I didn’t want to zone out again.
Zone out
… aha!
“I’ve got it.” I found Mum’s mobile number on speed dial and pressed the button, ignoring Jack and Shinobu’s baffled expressions.
The phone only rang once before Mum answered. “Mio? Is that you?”
Her voice was the perfect mixture of parental fury and parental concern. This was going to have to be
really
good.
I let my voice take on a shrill, anxious note. “Oh, thank God! Mum!”
Mum instinctively responded to the anxiety in my voice. “Mio, are you all right? What’s happening over there?”
“I’ve been trying to reach you for
hours
!” I babbled. “We all have. We just kept getting a ‘Service not available’ message. I tried calling from Rachel and Jack’s phones. Nothing worked. I was so worried. Did you get there OK? What about Dad?”
“We’re fine, sweetie,” she said soothingly, automatically flipping into Mum Reassurance mode. Thank God my dad hadn’t answered. “You didn’t need to worry about us.”
“But I didn’t know what was going on,” I said, putting a bit of a tremble into the words. “I kept thinking about train crashes and stuff, but there was nothing on the news…”
“Now, don’t be silly. There’s no need to be a drama queen! We’re absolutely fine. There must have been some sort of disruption on the line when we moved into the new service area, that’s all.”
I sniffed, playing it up a little bit. “You’re in the hotel?”
“Yes, we are, and it’s lovely! You can just see the Eiffel Tower from our balcony. It’s so beautiful, Mio. You would love it – although it’s a good job you didn’t come, really. Everywhere is booked solid. We’d never have got you an extra room at short notice.”
“So you’re having a good time?”
“Wonderful. It’s even sunny here! And I’ve already seen this amazing coat that you’re going to love…”
We chatted for another few minutes. I could tell that Mum was going all out to coax me out of my fake panic attack. It made me feel queasy.
“Now, listen,” Mum said, as we got to the end of the call. “There’s broadband in the lobby here, and I’m going to go and sign up for it. If there are any more problems with the phones and you start getting worried, just send me an email, OK?”
“Thanks, Mum,” I said. “Um. Give Dad a kiss for me?”
“He’s right here, Mio. Why don’t you talk to him for a minute?”
Crap!
“No, that’s fine—”
“Mio?” My father’s deep voice growled down the line. “You gave us quite a scare, you know. Your mother was about to start packing to come back.”
“Yeah, it’s been pretty scary over here too,” I admitted.
“You’re all fine? No problems?”
You have no idea, Dad
. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
There was a pause. “Why does that sentence fill me with dread?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you’re paranoid and incapable of trusting me?”
“When you prove yourself worthy of trust, then I’ll stop being paranoid. What are you up to? You haven’t wrecked the house already?”
My eyes shot guiltily to the closed kitchen doors. “Dad!” I snapped. “Why do you always have to start with me? You know what – just put Mum back on the phone.”
“Mio—”
“Put Mum back on the phone or I’m hanging up.”
Now he was the one sighing. “Fine. Take care. Don’t blow anything up. See you in a few days.”
Mum was laughing when she came back on the line. “Seriously, you two! That was – what? Thirty seconds before you started fighting?”
“I didn’t start it,” I said. “He was… Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ve got homework and stuff to do, and I bet this call is costing loads, so I should probably go.”
“Hang on a second, love. Is Rachel about? I want to have a word with her.”
Argh!
“She’s in the kitchen making us curry. You know how she always wants to feed me when I get stressed out? It smells amazing, but there are about six pots on the go. I’m slightly scared to go in there.”
Mum laughed again. “Well, never mind then. I’ll talk to her next time. You give both her and Jack a hug from me. Night, honey. Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
“Night, Mum,” I whispered. This time the tremble in my voice wasn’t faked. I hung up and buried my face in a cushion.
“M
io—” Jack began. The front doorbell rang, cutting her off. She leapt up. “Pizza!”
“Don’t go outside!”
Shinobu and I burst out simultaneously.
“Make sure you keep your feet on this side of the threshold,” Shinobu said.
“And don’t … invite him to step inside or anything,” I added nervously. “Just in case.”
“Fine, fine,” Jack said, pulling money out of her jeans pocket as she went out into the hall.
Shinobu waited until Jack was gone before he came to rest his free hand on the back of the sofa next to – but not quite touching – my shoulder.
“You should be proud of yourself,” he said quietly.
“What for? Lying my ass off to someone who trusts me?”
“I know it was not an easy thing you just did. To take the whole burden of this thing, and the truth of it, upon yourself. But if your parents returned they would only become hostages to be used against you. You have saved them from that.”
The tension leaked out of me in a long sigh. It was true. My parents were the last people in the world who could deal with monsters. They were dentists, for crying out loud. I ran my fingers around the complex piercing on the katana’s guard, looking at Shinobu from the corner of my eye. “How do you always know just the right thing to say?”
“Do I?” He looked surprised. Then he smiled his crooked, shy smile.
I blinked a few times. I was a twenty-first-century woman, and I was not going to be conquered by any random facial expression. No matter how adorable it was.
“It might be strange for you to think of it this way,” he said. “But I do know you quite well. I spent … a long time thinking about what I would say to you, if only you could hear me.”
I nibbled on my lip. “Will you tell me something?”
He nodded, the smile fading into a grave expression. “Of course.”
“You were there when my ojiichan promised me the sword, showed it to me for the first time. Do you remember what he said to me?”
“I think so.”
“I’m trying to fit it with what the Harbinger said. He – or it, or whatever he is – said that he’d chosen our family to guard the sword. Didn’t Ojiichan say something about bad people looking for it?”
“Your grandfather spoke in vague terms, suitable for a child, but … yes. Yes, he did say that. He promised that he would explain and tell you the stories of the sword later—” Shinobu broke off.
“Only he died,” I said, a pang of old grief going through me. “He expected to be around to guide me and explain what he knew, and he wasn’t. If the Harbinger did do something to the sword, and then turned it over to us to hide for whatever reason, he had to have told the Yamato family something, otherwise Ojiichan wouldn’t have known to say that bad things could happen if the sword wasn’t hidden. He knew ‘bad people’ might be looking for it. He knew – he had to have known – that it had some kind of power. So why –
why
– would he give it to me? Allow me to connect to it that way? I was, like, ten. I didn’t even understand what I was feeling, what this weird connection was. It wasn’t—” I cut myself off.
It wasn’t right
. That was what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. Because this was Ojiichan I was talking about. My grandfather, who’d loved me more than anything. My grandfather, whom I’d worshipped, and still worshipped. He wouldn’t ever have put me in danger. He wouldn’t.
Would he?
Shinobu hesitated. “It does seem strange. You were a small child, incapable of protecting the sword, or even yourself. At the same time, your father was an adult, yet, as far as we know, he is not even aware that the katana exists. If your grandfather needed to pass on the sword, why not to him?”
“Cos her dad would have laughed in his face,” Jack said. She was leaning against the doorframe with two pizza boxes, a six-pack of Diet Coke and a pile of paper napkins in her hands. She came into the room, dumped the food on the coffee table and then opened one of the boxes to reveal that she’d opted for her favourite combo of pineapple and pepperoni on a deep-pan base. Ick.
I reached out to check the other box and was relieved to see that she had taken pity on me and got an Italian-crust Margarita.
“This is food?” Shinobu asked doubtfully, coming round the side of the sofa. He sat down gracefully on the floor beside the coffee table, folding his legs beneath him.
“It is.” I handed him a large slice of the plain pizza, with a napkin to shield his fingers from the hot, stringy mozzarella. “And it’s good. What did you say, Jack?”
“You’ve told me about your dad and your granddad. They could never, ever get on, right? A bit like you and your dad now. It seems like your dad was pretty determined to leave everything from Japan behind and just be British. Be modern. Never look back. Your granddad had this sword, but he must have realized fairly early on that it would be no good trying to convince your dad to hide it and guard it with his life.” Jack swallowed a mouthful of pizza. “Your dad would probably have wanted to sell it and do roof repairs or something.”
“You’re right,” I said, staring blankly at my pizza. “Dad is like that. I’ve always wondered if it was because he lost his mum so early. He was five when she died. It must have been pretty awful for him. He and Ojiichan came to England soon after that. Maybe it was part of Dad getting over it – just leaving all the memories of Japan behind. He always seemed like he wanted to leave Ojiichan behind too.”
“I have known people like that,” Shinobu put in. “People who dealt with sorrow by shutting it out.”
I nodded, feeling more puzzle pieces click into place. “So instead of passing the sword on when Dad was sixteen, Ojiichan had to wait. And wait. But he didn’t wait until I was sixteen. He showed it to me as soon as I was big enough to pick it up…”
As soon as Dad threatened Ojiichan with taking me away
.
Dammit, Dad. Why did you have to be such a pig to him? You left him no choice
.
“It was a dangerous strategy,” said Shinobu, putting his piece of pizza back in the box, untouched.
“We don’t know if her granddad knew about the monsters, though,” Jack said. “What actual sane person would imagine all this was going to kick off?”
“It wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t taken the sword out,” I said guiltily.
It must always, always be hidden
. Why had I waited until it was too late to remember that?
“It is also what broke me free of my prison,” Shinobu pointed out. “Would you wish me back there again?”
I sighed. “Fine. I can’t go back, I get it. I just wish that Ojiichan had the chance to tell me what he knew. Tell me the rules, or something. Anything!”
Shinobu frowned thoughtfully. “Your grandfather tried to prepare you physically by training you in sword work. He must have tried to prepare you in other ways. He must have told you something. Perhaps something which did not seem important at the time?”
I threw my nibbled crust down. “I don’t think so. I’m sure I’d remember. I mean, he never spoke to me about the sword before he showed it to me that day, not ever. Mostly he just told me stories, you know? He’d tuck me into bed and tell me fairy tales about Japan. I loved them, but Dad didn’t like me hearing about that stuff, so we kept it a secret. Gods. Monsters. Demons and heroes. Princesses who were born in bamboo trees and flew off to live in the moon. A hero who turned his girlfriend into a hair comb to protect her and then cut the head off a dragon.”
“Those are both common fairy tales,” Shinobu said. “My mother told them to me as a child too.”
“Is that it?” Jack asked, disappointed.
“Pretty much. I remember the day he showed me the katana – I mean, that night – he told me a new story. I’d never heard it before and it was kind of … dark. It was about this king and queen who couldn’t have children.”