Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [370]
Playing catch with his father in the courtyard of the apartment. Here comes Mom, carrying an armful of grocery bags. Dad throws her the ball, she picks it up, tries to throw it, and it goes wild. Way wild. The glass in one of the apartment windows on the first floor breaks, and the three of them go to apologize. Dad’s teasing Mom, and she gets mad at him. They sneak away to laugh where she wouldn’t see them…
How could there be so many memories in only eleven years? The human heart is a strange, bottomless container. Anything and everything goes in, just waiting to be taken out again someday.
Wataru climbed further and saw an episode with Mitsuru. He was looking grim the day they met at the shrine. This is sacred ground, he told Wataru, sounding adult and knowledgeable.
And there was the priest. Wataru was saying something to him over his shoulder, running off with his bag under his arm. That’s right. I asked him if there really were gods, why were they so lazy?
Then he saw her—Mitsuru’s aunt. He remembered the silver bangles she wore on her arm. She was worried about Mitsuru, yet looked like a little girl herself. The resemblance to Lady Zophie was startling.
The translucent walls of the Tower of Destiny showed him Uncle Lou too. They were lighting fireworks in the garden at his grandmother’s house in Chiba. His uncle was so tan that at night, he could have stepped behind a tree and you’d never have seen him. Only when he smiled would a row of white teeth suddenly appear, floating in the air. Wataru laughed so hard he fell over. It made him smile even now.
But, in the next image, his uncle’s face was twisted. He was calling out to Wataru who had crawled under the bed. Come out, come out, he was saying. The pain rose in Wataru’s chest to see how sad his uncle looked. I did that. I had no idea.
What’s that, swaying on the wall up there? It’s me. He was grabbing on to the collar of a karulakin, dangling perilously far above the ground. He had wandered into a pack of gimblewolves in the Fatal Desert. It was funny to think how little he knew of Vision back then.
Now he was riding on Kee Keema’s cart. They were racing across the grasslands. Wataru was holding on for his life, still unused to the rolling ride. Wataru ran farther up the stairs, following the darbaba cart as it raced along the wall.
There, the wall became suddenly dark. But it wasn’t night. Black things, too numerous to count, were swarming along the wall. Flying in a great cloud.
It was a swarm of demonkin, so many they blocked out the sky. Long fangs jutted from skull-like faces. He could almost hear the clicking of their claws.
This isn’t the past. This is Vision right now.
The shock and horror of the scene made Wataru step back from the wall, his arms hanging slack by his sides. The heel of one of his boots jutted over the edge of the stairs, and he almost lost his balance, which quickly returned him to his senses.
He hadn’t realized just how far up he’d climbed. He could no longer see the entrance below. The bottom of the tower was lost in the distance. Only the wind blowing up through the hollow center of the tower served to remind him he was still in a physical space and not some dream world. Once again he began to climb the tower. The images on the wall kept pace.
The town of Gasara. Ramshackle barricades had been constructed everywhere out of furniture, wooden boxes, and barrels. A weary guard was standing on the watchtower, looking at the sky. Captain Ronmel led a group of Knights galloping down Main Street.
In the distance, across the grasslands that surrounded Gasara, a black cloud appeared. As he watched, it grew and swept closer. The Knights drew their swords. As one, they lit their torches. Kee Keema was standing on a rooftop, his legs apart, axe held at the ready. Meena—there’s Meena! She was helping those who couldn’t defend themselves