Mother - Chapter 11.2

We follow the river on a slightly downhill course through the silver forest. Roots occasionally impede our path, gleaming with the same celestial light as the trees, winding from the forest’s edge and creating a blockade across the riverbank like magical barbed wire. Conrad repeatedly crawls through these obstructions with ease and waits patiently for me to clamber over them. Often, though I take care scouting for safe footholds, I’ll find my ankles unexplainably tangled in a root that I’m sure wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Do you feel better now?” He asks, plopping down on a spiraling root that has formed something of a stool, watching me flop around like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

“Yes,” I huff immediately. “It was nothing.”

“Hmm. Are you sure? It looked like you couldn’t breathe right.”

“Drop it, will you?” I pant, struggling to yank my foot free.

“I think it’s because you think too much,” he says, reminding me of his earlier diagnosis. “And because you didn’t want any of this to be real. That’s why your brain got scrambled up.”

“Leave it,” I hiss, tumbling out of the roots and landing on my back, staring up at the blazing sky. His face slides into view, suspended above me, upside-down.

“There’s nothing wrong with feeling stuff, you know.”

“Fine,” I say, jumping up and weaving past him to tackle the next wiry obstacle. “I felt stuff. Enjoy it, because it won’t happen again.”

“Pretending isn’t good for you, Hen.”

“Thanks for the advice. Can I get that on a t-shirt?”

“You always pretend,” he says, voice suddenly so solemn that it makes me abandon the roots and whirl around.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We used to do everything together,” he says, bottom lip quivering. “But now you pretend to be different.”

“I am different. When Mother started getting sick—”

“You never cried for her.”

This sudden statement knocks the wind out of me. The accusation on his face traps the words in my throat, so I can only wait with a dumbfounded expression.

“I cry all the time when I miss her,” he continues, eyes watery. “You don’t.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t miss her, Conrad!”

“Why do you pretend you don’t, then?”

My mind casts wildly for an answer. Before I can even consider the consequences, I lift my sleeve. The shining blue symbol tinges his pale face, pooling around his rainbow eyes, which widen into perfect circles.

“The night Mother passed away, she left this on my arm.”

Conrad stumbles forward and takes my forearm. He traces the symbol with his finger. “Mother was magic . . . like me?”

“I guess so,” I say, pulling my arm back. “Now do you understand? I miss Mother, of course I do. But I’m not going to sit around crying for her. I need to figure this all out. I can’t think of anything else and I don’t think I ever will. She left this symbol on my arm for a reason. I know it.”

“So that’s why you wanted to find Kit,” Conrad says. “Even though you didn’t want him to be real.”

“I wanted her to still be real,” I say, my mind going back to that night, right before Mother’s bedroom filled with blue. “Before she died . . . I don’t know, there was something about the way she looked at me. It was like—like it wasn’t really the end. Like there’s something I can do to help her. I needed that to be true. And if it takes spirits and magic to make it happen, then I’ll have to find a way to live with that.”

“Do you want to know what I feel right now?” Conrad says, jaw set with conviction. “We’re going to find her, Hen. We’re going to bring her back home.”

I watch him disappear under the next tangle of roots, boots kicking out of sight. My heart thuds rapidly, the jarring beats putting me in mind of a ticking clock—it’s only a matter of time before Conrad’s optimism, his unyielding certainty we’ll save Mother, falls apart. Because eventually I’ll have to tell him the price Kitsune wants him to pay to make that happen.

#

Rather than a sun to set in the sky and invite the dark of night, the splashes of colour simply cycle through the spectrum, the yellows deepening to orange, the oranges burning red, the plumes of black enlarging all the while, billowing like smoke, consuming everything. During this transformation, the trees grow brighter, replacing the dying skylight with their ethereal glow.

“I’m tired,” Conrad admits when there’s only one feeble streak of crimson left in the otherwise jet black sky. A sheen of sweat glistens on his forehead. “And hungry.”

My stomach rumbles its agreement. It’s hard to believe Father made me grilled fish only this morning. Why hadn’t I eaten it? I’m sure there must’ve been a good reason, though my fatigued, protesting muscles won’t let me remember it.

Conrad pauses to regard the forest, hands on his hips. “There must be something to eat around here.”

The words barely leave his mouth when a smooth branch slithers from overhead, curling in front of Conrad’s face, forcibly reminding me of when Kitsune offered him his tail.

“Hen, what’s happening?” he says, but there’s no need; as if in answer, a pink berry sprouts from one of the sprigs, growing from nothing, clearing the size of a marble, then a clenched fist, then finally stopping at the size of Conrad’s head.

“Thank you,” Conrad says to the branch, plucking the enormous berry with both hands. The branch whips out of sight as he takes a seat, back against the next barrage of roots we need to overcome.

“Don’t eat that!” I warn. Too late. Conrad gnaws a greedy chunk from the mysterious fruit, the juice splattering around his mouth. A subtle sweetness fragrances the air, something akin to watermelon. With the damage done, I can only watch and hope Conrad doesn’t suddenly clutch his throat and turn green.

“It’s delicious,” he confirms, raising his head only long enough to shoot me a watery grin.

I briefly weigh my options. Die of starvation. Eat unknown fruit offered by magical tree. My stomach grumbles again.

“Umm,” I say, facing the tree, already feeling ridiculous. “I would also like a berry. Please.”

The tree remains quite still.

“I’m hungry,” I plead. Again, nothing happens.

“Maybe it only had one left?” Conrad offers.

“Yeah. Maybe,” I say, dropping next to him, the nagging suspicion reigniting like a flame in my stomach. My reflection in the water springs to mind, a pair of dark, well-like eyes that don’t belong to me. Conrad hands me the half-eaten pink fruit, hands dripping with juice. Though I don’t feel quite as hungry anymore, I nibble off a small piece, chewing slowly. It starts off tasting like watermelon, as expected, then finishes with a surprisingly nutty aftertaste. When it’s clear the fruit is indeed safe for consumption, I take hungrier bites, each one sending waves of warm energy from my stomach and into my extremities.

“We haven’t got very far,” Conrad says through a yawn. I follow his gaze upstream, where the knoll breaks the horizon, the solitary tree planted upon it like a flag. “Can’t you go any faster, Hen?”

“Sorry I can’t slither through the roots like a worm,” I say, tossing the last of the berry to the side, which lands on the soil like a punctured football. “Why don’t you ask your tree friend to make us a boat so we can sail the river?”

Conrad, far from thinking this is a ludicrous idea, perks up at this suggestion and gives me a pointed look.

“You can’t actually expect that to work?”

This only seems to spur him further. Back on his feet, he makes his request to the tree, clear as a bell.

“I would like a boat, please!”

Again, the words barely part from his mouth when the next unruly wall of roots begin to squirm and writhe, some ejecting from the soil, others flattening into planks, all of them coming together, slotting here and there to form a hollow, triangular structure of wood. In a matter of seconds, with a splintering crunch, a tiny rowing boat thuds at Conrad’s feet.

“This place doesn’t make sense,” I say.

Conrad sticks his tongue out at me, then begins to shove the boat towards the river, exclaiming an elated “thank you!” to the tree as he goes.

“Woah, hold up there, captain.” I lift him into the boat and take over pushing, until the boat is resting on the sloping riverbank, partially submerged, the stream lapping against the bow. I clamber into the stern. It’s a tight fit, and I can’t help thinking the tree purposely made the boat to only meet Conrad’s needs. The thought also crosses my mind that I could try asking for my own boat, though what it might mean if the tree refuses me again creates a knot in my stomach.

“Use this,” Conrad says, handing me a small paddle over his shoulder. It’s sculptured from a hardened root with a knot halfway down the shaft. I use it to push against the bank, and with a soft splash, slide us into the water, now inky black, a mirror image of the night sky. The current takes us in its lazy grasp, and though we don’t exactly speed along, it’s clear we’ll cover much more ground.

After we bob in the water like a cork for several minutes, Conrad says gloomily, “We haven’t seen any animals yet.”

I swing my legs over the side of the boat and lean back against the other. Conrad copies me, facing the opposite direction to counteract my weight. The more I think about it, the more his observation sends a shiver along my spine. He’s right. We’ve been here for several hours without seeing so much as a bird. Now night has fallen, I’d have expected the buzz of insects, or perhaps the scurrying of nocturnal creatures. Anything to confirm we’re not alone. Yet all is silent, but for the slight ripple of water, which now also seems suspiciously calm, and so all the more threatening. What might lurk in its shadowy depths?

A welcome distraction from this ominous thought comes from another transformation in the sky, which after becoming fully black and velvety, grows transparent, like a fog lifting behind a glass dome. Stars twinkle to life, riddled throughout the expanse, and behind them, colossal clouds of green and lilac form a magnificent galaxy.

“Wow,” Conrad says sleepily.

Though I agree that the sight above is rather spectacular, my mind strays back to worry before long. I imagine Father waiting for us by the tree in which we left him, scared sick, spending the night inside the cold cave. Mr Tanaka spent thirty years wishing for his daughter’s return before he finally gave up. How long will Father hold on to hope? Will Mr Tanaka still attempt to burn the tree down? Somehow I don’t think so. Although after my eyes grow heavy and I slip into an uncomfortable sleep, my dreams are plagued by Father standing protectively in front of the tree, arms outstretched, guarding it from a determined figure approaching him through the paddock of stumps, blazing torch in hand.