Chapter 8

Chapter 8

                 Andria’s fingers drummed nervously against the dining room table. What was taking him so long? Wasn’t he usually up this early? And on such an important day? With so much to do?

      Light was just barely gleaming through the kitchen window, choked and obscured by clouds the color and apparent consistency of hardened cement. Rain was pattering against the glass, condensation clouding the edges.

      On the table, spread flat and neat in front of her was a single piece of paper, one Andria had studied a million times over. Had she the inclination, she could probably quote the darn thing word for word by now. Albeit, it wasn’t the most important sheet from the relatively large packet of information. On that particular day, however, it was by far the most useful.

      Andria heard the floor creak from another room and knew, at once, that her father was, at last, awake. She shifted anxiously in her chair, but continued to wait patiently. She scanned the document on the table for the hundredth time that morning, committing to memory each bulleted point.

      A shadow crossed the table as her father entered the room. Without looking at Andria, he crossed directly to the kitchen counter where the coffee maker sat in its customary place of honor. His hand habitually reached for the lid, but he paused mid-gesture, noting the already-full pot of coffee situated deliberately on the base.

      “Good morning,” Andria sang from the shadows. Her father jumped.

      Noticing her sitting there for perhaps the first time, he chuckled to himself. He turned back to the coffee maker and, removing the pot, called over his shoulder, “Scared me, kiddo.” As he fumbled through an overhead cabinet, searching for a particular mug, he continued, “What drags you out of bed so early? I thought you’d be glad to have the morning to sleep in. ‘Know I am.” He chuckled again, one hand still shoving various cups and mugs around.

      “I just thought we could get an early start. Atlanta’s kind of far away,” she replied.

      Andria heard her father curse. “I swear,” he mused aloud, “Kat can’t seem to put anything back where it’s supposed to be put. My mug’s missing again.”

      Wordlessly, Andria reached across the table to where a heavy black mug had been placed. She slid it a little forward. The slight sound of porcelain on wood caught Andria’s father’s attention, and his eyes fell to rest on the mug with a genial smile. “Thanks, kiddo,” he called, closing the cabinet door soundlessly.

      Andria waited at the table as her father fixed his coffee, retrieved the paper from the front lawn, repeatedly cursed the long-gone paper boy for having tossed the gosh-darned paper all the way out by the sidewalk, and then changed out of his rain-soaked pajamas. He reappeared in the kitchen wearing a pair of relatively new jeans. She could tell they were new because the knees weren’t yet worn and faded and no traces of oil yet speckled the crisp, dark fabric. He matched his smart-looking jeans with a burnt-orange polo and worn tennis shoes.

      Taking his seat at the table across from Andria, he removed and set aside the wet plastic that protected the morning paper from water damage, and then folded the paper open.

      After a moment’s awkward silence, she spoke. “Were you able to book a hotel?” Andria asked.

      He glanced up briefly from his paper and grunted a quick acknowledgment before thumbing a page over.

      More silence. The rain was growing steadily louder, filling the room like an eerie white noise. Determined, Andria went on, “I thought that since we were going to be in Atlanta anyway, we might go by the mall.”

      “What for?” her father inquired absently.

      Andria bit her tongue, suppressing her impatience. “The list,” she stated flatly.

      “What list?” He turned another page.

      Suppressing the desire to scream, she explained for what had to be the fifth time, “For Japan.” Sliding the piece of paper closer to her father, she continued, “The program sent this list of things I’ll need when I’m in Japan. I’ve highlighted the stuff I don’t already have.”

      Setting the paper aside with a slight air of annoyance, her father picked up the document and began to read it over. His hard, critical gaze flicked to her, then back to the list, then to her. “A voltage converter?” He spoke the words as though they were foreign, articulating each syllable with suspicion.

      “For, like, hairdryers and straighteners, ya know. Outlets are different in Japan,” she concluded quite matter-of-factly. Nervously, she swiped a renegade lock of blonde hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.

      “Do you have any idea how much those things cost?” he interrogated. She knew. She’d priced them.

      “It’s cheaper,” she reasoned, “than buying new appliances once I’m there.”

      “And do you think you’re going to be unable to survive if your hair isn’t perfectly straight each morning?” Andria looked down at her hands. She could feel blood rushing to her cheeks.

      “No,” she whispered. “It was just on the list.”

      “Heck,” he spat, reverting his attention back to the paper in his hand. “Half the things you’ve got highlighted here are complete bull. You don’t need,” he emphasized the word ‘need,’ “three different types of shoes.”

      “They’re for school,” she said meekly. “Japanese schools make you change shoes throughout the day, I think.”

      “You think,” he spat. “Stupidest thing I ever heard.”

      Andria wanted to scream that it had not been she who had made the list, but people who knew what to expect much better than she or her father.

      “Shampoo, okay. Deodorant, okay. Umbrella? You don’t suppose your host family might have an extra to lend to you, do you?”

      The conversation continued in this manner for what felt to Andria like forever. They finally agreed on a heavily tailored list of items to buy in Atlanta, including shoes, a suitcase, rain boots, toiletries, a winter coat, and some other small items. Omitted, however, were the voltage converter, rain slicker, electronic translator, and no less than eight other highlights.

      The next thing Andria knew, she and her father were a few hundred miles south, in a mall in Atlanta. Andria’s father had his arm slung around her shoulders in a rare display of public affection, and the two strolled pleasantly through the bustling thoroughfare. One of Andria’s arms was laden with assorted shopping bags. “What time tomorrow can we go pick up your passport-Visa thingy?” he casually asked as they passed the entrance of a Bath and Body Works. The aroma of fresh scented soaps was impossible to miss.

      “Ten,” she replied.

      “’S ridiculous they make you wait a whole day to pick it back up. What do they suppose normal people are gonna do with all that time? Can’t go to work. Gotta take not one, but two days off. I say they oughta reimburse folks for wasting their valuable time.”

      Andria shrugged. It was two days of school she was able to miss without consequence, and once her Visa was processed, it would only be a matter of a week before she’d be on a plane to Japan.

      “Do me a favor?” her father said suddenly. Andria looked up expectantly. His eyes were serious beneath his furrowed, bushy black eyebrows. She nodded. “Try not to call too often. Long-distance, ya know.” Andria’s face fell slightly, but she nodded all the same. “I will,” he reiterated, “expect an email at least twice a week, ya hear?”

      Andria happily lolled her head against her father’s broad shoulder, the ghost of a smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Every day,” she promised.

      *    *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

      Andria woke suddenly, as though a lasso had yanked her forcefully back into the real world. Her eyes shot open and began darting around in the darkness. Where was she? She could see stars overhead, could hear snoring coming from somewhere close by.

      Soon, too soon, it all came flooding back to her. The field trip, the ferry, Miroshi, Yuta.

      Yuta.

      In her still-dreamy daze, Andria’s thoughts were a mellow, but deliberate blur. Dragons, monsters, fables, myths. These fantasies, this fabricated world of impossibilities, this was her reality. This was the world she lived in. That other world, the world before, the world of her childhood and all of her memories until that point, that was the myth. That reality, peaceful though it was, was the fairytale. How deep did it go? she wondered. How much truth was there in all the supposed fiction and fairytales of her girlhood? What about all the fairies, elves, and giants that stalked the world of daydreams? Would they, too, come dancing out of her imagination and into the real world? Or better yet, what of the monsters? Dragons were monsters, and they had proven to be real. What of zombies? And vampires? And ogres?

   Andria rolled onto her stomach, thankful for the comfort of a warm, soft bed; thankful, also, for a protector sleeping lightly nearby. For the millionth time, the thought crossed her: What was there to be afraid of? What had she done? It didn’t make sense. Part of her didn’t trust Yuta. Not yet. She didn’t like secrets or mysteries, and she hate, hate, hated the idea that she was a prisoner.

 Stubbornly, Andria sighed and picked herself up. Looking around through the shadows and dim patches of starlight, she spotted Yuta, quite asleep, one leg thrown over the back of the couch, the other hanging comically over one of the armrests. One hand hung limp, brushing the floor. He kept the other tucked close to his side, so that his fingers fanned across his exposed, muscular chest. The rise and fall of his chest was simultaneous with the soft, airy snores erupting from his open mouth.

     Andria half-giggled, somewhat fondly. For a monster, he could be very, very human. She wanted to hate him, wanted to be angry, but God, just look at him! Not only was he completely gorgeous, but there was nothing there to hate. Surely, he had to have some flaw, some betraying crack in his perfect mask? She just couldn’t see it, yet. Like it or not, she did owe him her life, and like it or not, she was exactly where she needed to be: imprisoned, trapped, safe. This monster, she knew, or at least thought she knew. The others, however, whatever monsters lurked beyond Yuta’s lair, waiting to be discovered, she didn’t.

 

*          *          *          *          *         

 

On the second day, Yuta returned from work with a gift. Andria had spent the afternoon pouring over Yuta’s book collection, and was surprised when one more fell into her lap. She looked up to find Yuta standing over her, leaning against the back of the couch. “What’s this?” she asked, picking up the thin paperback.

“Hon,” he said. “Book.”

Andria scanned the cover. It featured a bright, playful illustration of a mouse wearing a sumo wrestler’s belt. Across the top, several unfamiliar Japanese characters were sprawled. Her heart sank. She flipped through the first several pages and found nothing but more cartoonish illustrations and very large, blocky Japanese characters.

“Yuta,” she said, “Thank you, but I can’t read this.”

Yuta smiled and nodded. “But you will.” He came around the back of the couch. Andria moved her feet so Yuta could take the seat next to her. “You are in Japan to learn Japanese, right?”

Andria nodded.

“Since I cannot say how long it will be necessary to keep you here,” he said with a slight grimace, “I think it would be proper for you to continue your studies here.”

Andria frowned and took a second look at the book. It couldn’t have been more than thirty pages long, but it weighed in her hands like a cinder block. The unfamiliar characters began to swim before her eyes.

“Don’t look so frightened,” Yuta chuckled. “Japanese is easy.”

Andria scoffed.

“No, really. I taught myself English by reading books in English and listening to English music. You can do the same with Japanese. Here,” Yuta said. He pulled a wad of crumpled paper, a sales receipt, from one of his pants’ pockets and dug a pen out of the other. Pressing the paper against the arm of the sofa, he began scribbling. Andria peered over his shoulder and watched as he made a grid of symbols five rows across and ten columns deep, with a few blank spaces here and there. She listened while Yuta explained how Japanese writing consisted of three different alphabets, Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. He gave the completed grid to Andria, the basic Hiragana alphabet, and demonstrated each symbol’s sound.

This was the beginning of Andria’s lessons. The days began to pass, slowly at first, but each one brought a bit more routine to the completely altered life Andria had been thrust into. Each morning, Yuta had breakfast waiting on the table by the time Andria arose. They ate together, sometimes sharing lengthy conversations, but more often ended up sitting in silence while Yuta pored over the morning paper. Every day, Yuta brought her a new children’s book, and during the day, while he was away, she muddled over the new text. When he returned, she would attempt to read it back to him, and he would correct her pronunciation when necessary. Then, they would practice conversation, which Andria found considerably more difficult. Every conversation between them became a lesson in Japanese. Every word he spoke she added to her arsenal of new vocabulary.
            After a week and a half, Andria’s story began popping up in the papers less frequently, which could only mean that the papers were running out of news to report. Two weeks more and it was almost completely absent. This was good news for Yuta. It was annoying enough having the threat of the Lords and Crows ever looming on the horizon, much less a group of troubled humans frantically sniffing about his home. As for Andria, however, at first Yuta had tried to mention as little as possible about the search parties, speculations, and other such reports in the morning papers, afraid it might upset her. Recently, however, as her mood began to worsen and he feared she had taken to believing that her disappearance wasn’t even a topic of interest, he had decided to share more, even choosing to make up irrelevant details when the papers had proven void of anything worthwhile to report. Sometimes it troubled her, as he knew it might. He imagined it was impossible not to worry about the family she had left completely ignorant of her whereabouts. They were probably near-desperation, had they not already given up hope. After a bit of sulking and deep contemplation, however, Andria usually came around feeling better than when she had believed that no one cared. Silly women.
            After two weeks, Yuta began refusing to speak to Andria in anything but Japanese. At first, this frustrated them both to no end. Yuta had never tried teaching anyone his own language before, and he struggled to dumb-down his vernacular to a level Andria could follow. Andria, however, found herself in tears on more than one occasion because even the dumbed-down conversations were proving to be impossibly difficult to follow. She had a dictionary, another gift from Yuta, which she flipped through almost constantly during their conversations. Despite the hardship and the frustration, however, she knew that she was learning. She could hear herself improving each day. Her vocabulary grew at what Yuta assured her was a remarkable rate. Her accent gradually became more natural, and she began to feel comfortable with the grammar. She would never venture to call herself fluent. Oh, no. But she was becoming passable.

After breakfast, Andria usually took her daily bath. Some days, she lingered; others, she found the silence unbearable and longed only to get clean and return to Yuta’s company. She kept all of her clothes in a trunk Yuta had moved to the washroom for her. Every day she became less and less mortified with the silly dresses she was forced to wear. Yuta was the only one judging, and he never had an ill word to say against her appearance, but always a compliment.
            Though the amount of clothing Yuta had returned with was quite overwhelming, almost equal to her own wardrobe, she still chose to pass some time every few days by washing all of her worn garments in the bath’s warm, soapy waters. She left the paper doors open when she did this, so Yuta could join her for conversation. With very little else to do, talking had become the most efficient way to pass the time and keep her mind occupied.
            One day, as Yuta sat by the edge of the pool, his feet swishing idly over the side into the water, he pointed out, “You don’t have to do that, you know.”
            Andria looked up for the slightest moment. She was wearing the least-nice thing she owned, the school uniform she had worn the day she was attacked, so as not to spoil some of the nicer items while she went about her meaningless chores. The hideous necktie and uniform socks had, of course, been omitted from her outfit, and her plain white blouse stayed casually and comfortably untucked.
            She took a soapy hand and thoughtlessly brushed from her face a renegade lock of hair that had gone awry from her messy ponytail, leaving a trail of suds across her ear. “What do you mean?” she asked, turning back to her work. She held in her hands a soggy, soapy pink sundress, which she scrubbed as though a whip was to her back.
            “That,” he grunted. As he said it, he playfully kicked a small stream of sudsy water in her direction. She threw up her hands to block the assault, draping the dress in front of her like a shield. As she laughed, Yuta continued, “I can always go to town and buy you some more clothes.”
            Andria shot him a look as poisonous as she could muster in her disheveled, soggy state. The last thing she wanted was to be subjected to even more personal anguish as she modeled garments perhaps more frilly and more ridiculous than what she currently struggled to don day-to-day. Still, she knew he was only trying to be generous, so she didn’t say anything further about his awkwardly traditional taste in women’s clothing.
            Her expression softened as she turned back to her work. Shrugging, she explained, “I like to do this.”
            “Work?” he asked.
            Andria nodded. “I like to keep my hands busy. I don’t like to sit idle. Doing this helps to pass the time.”
            Yuta nodded, his thoughts trailing to depths Andria couldn’t even begin to fathom. The conversation fell to silence. The only sound was the monotonous sloshing as Andria scrubbed her dresses, skirts, blouses, and frilly panties clean.
            After a long moment passed, Yuta spoke. “Are you happy?” he asked in a solemn voice. Andria stopped scrubbing and turned to face him. His eyes lingered on the frothy water. His feet no longer kicked with the playful fervor they had afforded whilst she toiled, but hung limp.
            “What do you mean?” Andria asked. Already she knew, however, that this was not a conversation that either of them were going to enjoy.
            “I want to know if you’re happy,” he said, keeping his gaze intentionally turned from hers, “being here.” He hesitated, “With me.”
            Andria sighed as silently as she could. She didn’t want her answer to sound unnecessarily cruel, so she chose her words very carefully. “Yuta,” she began, “you have been absolutely wonderful to me, but you understand why I can’t, in honesty, say ‘yes.’”
             Yuta’s playful expression melted from his face like hot wax. “Oh,” he said simply.

Andria pursed her lips. “Please don’t take it the wrong way, but I’ve just been thinking…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?”

Andria drew the sopping garment from the sudsy water and let it fall to the stone floor with a sharp clap. She stared at Yuta, her eyes serious and searching. “It’s just not fair,” she finally said. Yuta’s eyebrows rose inquisitively. Andria continued, her voice growing louder with each word, “I should be home right now, going to school, telling my friends stories about Japan, being envied. This should have been over by now.” Yuta listened in silence as she ranted, her cheeks glowing red. “None of this should have happened,” she blurted.

Silence stretched between them, Andria panting to herself, Yuta staring, his eyes wide and confused. “Andria,” he finally said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to be this way.”

Andria scoffed, swatting the wet lump of clothing next to her back into the water. It made a feeble splash and stuck to the water’s surface like a linen raft. “I’m trying,” Yuta asserted. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“Oh, really,” she scoffed again, rolling her eyes. Yuta flinched, as though stung. “Tell me this, Yuta. What is it you’re doing, then? What’s your plan of action?” she demanded.

Yuta stared at her in disbelief. “I saved you,” he whispered meekly.

“From what?!” she screeched. Andria rose to her feet. For a long, frightening moment, she loomed over him, the hem of her skirt damp and dripping, her eyes wild. “What is it that’s so scary?” she yelled. “What is it you feel you simply must protect me from?”

“I’ve told you already,” Yuta said with a snarl, “Kazi. Bad guy. Minions.”

“And what’s your proof, Yuta?” Andria shouted. “How am I supposed to know that any of these things even exists? What if I said I think this was all you?”

“Me?” he spat.

“Yes, you. What proof is there? What is there that should make me believe this Kazi is real? Or that damn Turtle? Maybe I’ve started to think you made the whole thing up, that you scared me shitless into believing that some monster miles away wants to kill me just so you could play house with a little foreign girl.”

Yuta’s fists were balled with rage, his nails digging small pink furrows into his palms. Andria continued, “You’ve kept me here for weeks, and have never once offered me proof that there is anything out there. Even if Kazi does exist, you never said you were certain he wanted to hurt me at all. This could all be a misunderstanding, but we’ll never know, will we? No, because you’re keeping me caged up here like some paper-trained dog and not doing a damn thing to find out!”

Yuta looked as though he’d been slapped. Andria continued to pant, her nostrils flaring in a very unattractive manner. Her cheeks were red as cherries. The veins in her neck protruded like pulsing vines.

Yuta turned away from her with a snarl, disappearing through the paper doors. He slammed the sliding frame shut so hard that it de-hinged and tumbled to the floor with a clamor. Andria flinched, but did not move from where she stood. She wanted to scream, wanted to cry, wanted to run.

Then there was silence. More than silence, there was emptiness. It was the same emptiness that enveloped her each day when Yuta left for work, but heavier, sadder, lonelier.

Before she poked her head out of the broken paper door frame, before she was able to glance around at the still, silent room, she knew he had gone. Andria gasped when she finally did emerge to find that the room was indeed empty, Yuta had fled, but this time, he had left a trail. A space wide and tall enough to allow a minivan to pass through was hallowed into the side of one wall. And light was seeping through, casting odd reflections of gold and orange across the floor.

Andria blinked. Yuta had never left his point of exit open before, always taking special care to seal it up as soon as his body was lost in the shadows of the mountain wall. Andria looked around, expecting there to be someone watching her, perhaps Yuta hanging behind to see if she would make a run for it now that he had left a clear way out. She gulped.

Slowly, she stepped over the broken mantle at her feet and began walking towards the exit. She heard birds chirping on the other side. Not Crows, but sweet melodies of happy, carefree, soulless creatures of flight, unburdened by cages or worries. How many times over the past several weeks had she dreamed of running, dreamed of flying back across the ocean and losing herself in the life she had left behind, embracing the reliable monotony, become one with the familiar once more.

Heart racing, she stepped into the light and gazed through the tunnel. She was surprised to find that it was very short. She could see trees concealing all but a narrow sliver of the path at the exit, no more than twenty or so feet away. Somehow she had always imagined it would be longer, a long, perilous path to the outside world.

Calm and composed, Andria passed through the tunnel, flinching as the light of day splashed across her face with every minute force of its brilliance. It was a beautiful day, blue skies, only feckless slivers of cloud far away on the horizon. She breathed. The air was crisp and musky, blowing in deliberate gusts across her face and through her matted hair. She smiled.

Glancing around, it was hard to see through the thick forest before her, but she could hear the gentle sloshing and splashing of the Towada Lake far below.

“Town is that way.”

Andria jumped, surprised. She looked down to find Yuta sitting several feet away, his back pressed against a tree. He pointed somewhere down and to the right.

“What?” Andria called, confused.

“Town,” he said, refusing to look up at her. “It’s a pretty long walk, but you should be able to make it back by nightfall. Just try to follow a straight path, and you should come to a road. Follow that, and it’ll take you to someone who can help you out.”

Andria blinked. She looked from Yuta, to the general direction in which he had been pointing. That way to freedom. That way to home.

A dull twinge of apprehension found its way into her stomach. Yuta still would not look at her.

Andria closed the distance between them and took a seat next to him, giving him plenty of space. Silence lingered.

It was Andria who spoke first. “What’s out there,” she asked quietly. “Really?”

Yuta took a long moment to think. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I’ve told you everything I suspect.”

“I just want to know,” she continued, “how you can be certain it’s something bad.”

“Experience,” he said with a sigh, “I’ve seen what happens to humans who stumble upon our secret,” he paused. “I used to be a part of it. It’s,” he stammered, shaking his head, “It’s not good.”

“But I didn’t know your secret when all this happened,” she reasoned.

“But you do now,” he replied. “Now is all that matters. Whatever Kazi wanted initially, the point is now moot because you know too much about us.” Mournfully, he continued, “And that’s my fault.”

Silence fell once more, unbroken save for the chirping of birds nearby, the occasional rustle of small wildlife scattering through the underbrush.

“I need a reason to trust you,” Andria finally said.

Andria was slightly surprised when Yuta did not get angry, did not scoff, but nodded. “Okay,” he said simply.

“Okay.”

Yuta remained outside, sitting and thinking for most of the evening. When the wind began picking up close to dusk, Andria took her leave and returned to the warmth of the cavern. She sat by the fire, waiting for him to return, but his shadow never darkened the mouth of the tunnel. At some point, she could not recall exactly what hour, her eyes had drifted shut and sleep claimed her from the couch.

 

 

Chapter 9