Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [349]
“Before you leave this land, would you like to give a prayer of atonement? We can help you.”
Kutz nodded. Her lips moved, forming the word “please,” but no voice could be heard.
The old man held one of Kutz’s hands. His other hand he put upon his own chest. Beside him, his wife put her hand to her chest as well. She gently stroked Kutz’s forehead with the other.
“We are the children of the Goddess. We leave the dust of the earth, and rise to you.” The gentle words of a prayer flowed from the old man’s mouth. “Light most pure, source and mother of all, lead us now. Light the darkness at the feet of this traveler who now comes to join you. Wash away her sins, and ready a place for her soul in the heavens.”
The old woman brushed Kutz’s waving hair.
“Little child, child of the land. Do you repent your trespasses in the Goddess’s eyes?”
Kutz, eyes closed, nodded ever so slightly.
“Do you repent your sins as a child of man, the conflict, the anger, the empty struggle, the foolish ignorance?”
Kutz nodded again.
“Do you repent the lies, your own greed, your failure to accept the glory that the Goddess has given unto the children of man?”
Kutz nodded yes a third time. The old man replied with a silent nod of his own. “Here then your penance is done, your sins upon the land wiped clean as you were at birth. Be at peace, child of man, for you will surely be called into that eternal light’s embrace. Vesna esta holicia. Though a child of man knows time, life itself is eternal.”
A single tear welled in the corner of Kutz’s eye. Then it trickled up her forehead, falling into her black hair.
At once, the strength went out of her hand that Wataru still held to his cheek.
Wearing a faint smile and looking at peace, despite her many wounds, Kutz died.
The old couple were crying too. The woman stroked Kutz’s forehead again and again. Wataru joined their whispered prayer.
Sleep, child of man. Sleep.
Chapter 51
The Traveler’s Path
Wataru didn’t want to see anybody else crying, and he didn’t want anyone else to see his own tears. He walked to the edge of the woods, hiding behind a tree from the thin light of the crescent moon. Alone, he wept.
Where had all the sadness come from?
He had been sad when he met his father that time in the park. He had been even more sad when he had run from his mother as she fought with Rikako on the balcony. He had never thought he would be sadder than when Uncle Lou came to drag him out from under the bed afterward.
That’s right. I didn’t want to be sad anymore. That’s why I came to Vision to change my destiny. Yet here I am feeling like my heart will break, crying like a baby.
If this is the way it’s going to be, I never should’ve done anything in the first place. I should’ve grit my teeth back in the real world if the end result was going to be the same. No matter where I go, sadness follows. No matter how much time passes it won’t go away. You get only one heart when you’re born, and you can’t turn it in or get it repaired. The only thing that fills it is more sadness. I’m surprised there’s any room left in there at all.
Wataru cried and cried until it hurt to breathe. He wrapped his arms around the tree and hugged it tight, pressing his cheek to the rough bark, and waited until his breathing slowed.
My destiny…
I tried to change it, and only ran into a new sadness. What will happen if I try to change it again?
What has to change, what needs to change, is my, is my…
My what?
What can I possibly do, here in this corner of a Vision just waiting to be destroyed by a horde of demonkin?
Wataru heard soft footsteps coming across the grass. He looked up, quickly wiping his eyes with the palm of his hand.
It was Meena. She had been crying too. “There you are.”
“Yeah.”
“I…I said goodbye to Kutz.”
Her eyes were the color of the night forest. Wataru wondered if his eyes looked the same. Maybe the forest was covering the pain of their loss, and the failure of all their plans, so they wouldn’t have to see it in each other’s eyes.
“How is everyone