Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [186]
And now they had their excuse to leave. Wataru was thrilled. He’d never been so uncomfortable in a place before—then he remembered how he had felt when his mother and Rikako Tanaka had fought on the balcony. He had been scared then too, sad and powerless. He’d been so miserable hiding under his bed, he thought he might die.
“What luck, Wataru,” Meena said, giving him a hug. Wataru snapped out of his reverie to see Chief Pam’s cold eyes drilling holes through them.
The next morning, they left the branch as early as possible so they wouldn’t have to see the chief again. A spearman stood guard alone. He smiled and said goodbye to them with a wave. As they left, he walked into the room they had been using and closed the door.
The three got into their darbaba cart and rolled away from the branch. Wataru looked back furtively so his friends wouldn’t notice. The spearman was in their room, tossing the bedding and cushions Kee Keema and Meena had been using out the window. Wataru bit his lip, and regretted looking back.
After a short time, the Spiritwood suddenly appeared before them. The area was hidden behind the hills so well that they had to check the map several times to make sure they were going the right way.
“Sula trees, eh?” Kee Keema said, craning his neck. “If they’re good enough for a fairy’s scepter, they might have a little magic in them.”
Despite Wataru’s rising joy at the possibility of meeting Mitsuru, he started to feel a nagging doubt in the pit of his stomach.
Chapter 19
The Magic Hospital
The sula trees were fragrant as described. They had a perfume-like smell, heavy and cloying. Their trunks and branches were slender and intertwined like dancers on a stage. No flowers appeared to be blooming beneath the thick canopy of pointed leaves, so Wataru assumed that it must be the trunks themselves that smelled so strongly.
Their darbaba cart had only just entered the forest when Meena complained her nose hurt. “This smell—it’s too strong.”
“Yeah?” Kee Keema said, flaring his nostrils. “I don’t smell much.”
“We kitkin are blessed with a sense of smell a hundred times keener than yours or Wataru’s,” Meena explained. “It’s making me dizzy.”
“Dizzy? Well, you’re in luck, we are headed to a hospital.”
Just then they caught sight of a gray, square building through a gap in the branches that tangled above them like the outstretched fingers of a hundred ballerinas.
“Is that it?” Wataru asked, leaning forward.
“Hmm?” Kee Keema lifted his whip and pushed aside some low-hanging branches that threatened to snag the darbaba’s fur. “Ah, must be!”
It was a building of whitish gray rock, a perfect cube, standing about three stories tall. There were several windows, each lit from the inside. It being morning, this seemed odd, but then it occurred to Wataru that ever since they had entered the sula wood, the light had grown decidedly dim.
Looking up from the darbaba cart, he was startled to discover that he couldn’t see the sun at all. How is that possible? It had been a perfectly clear day. But here, the patches of blue sky were hazy, as though a white veil had been drawn over the heavens.
“Strange, there isn’t a fog,” Kee Keema muttered, gripping the reins. His darbaba shivered and snorted, stomping its hooves. With a little bit of coaxing, the steed took a few more steps forward before completely stopping. “Oy, oy…what’re you so scared of, then?”
Kee Keema rubbed the darbaba behind its ears. Now it wasn’t just stomping, it began stepping backward.
Meena, sitting hunched over in the cart with both hands on her nose, suddenly shot to her feet, her ears standing straight up. “Something comes!”
Wataru felt it too. Where? Here—and there, and there. He felt like they were being swiftly surrounded. The air moved. In front of them. Behind them. The sula trees rustled, and the thick scent assaulted them anew.
Fzzing!
Something cut through the air. The next moment, Meena fell from the cart with a shriek.
“Meena!