HE HEARD THE WOLF QUEEN’S howl.
‘Aki-chan, where are you? It’ll be time soon and we need to go home,’ called Ureshino.
‘It’s OK, Ureshino. There’s nothing we can do.’
‘Why don’t we go home now, just us. Time’s running out.’
Halfway through the mirror on his way back home, he thought of Aki.
I bet Aki actually wanted to find the Wishing Key.
She must have a wish she really wants to come true.
She chose to stay in the castle, rather than go home to her reality. Subaru found her courage amazing. He knew he could never do that.
But as soon as he got home, he was pulled back through the mirror.
Back to Aki’s screams and the wolf’s piercing howls.
‘Subaru. Over here! We’ve got to get Kokoro in!’ Rion shouted. ‘Kokoro’s the only one of us who didn’t come today, so she won’t be forced back and eaten. We’ve got to get Kokoro to help—’
As he watched them all fleeing for their lives, a feeling came over him for the first time ever.
I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die – not yet.
I haven’t done anything with my life. He suddenly realized: he wanted to do something.
The wolf howled again. Louder this time.
‘Eeee!’ Fuka screamed, eyes shut tight.
‘Fuka-chaaaan!’ Subaru called out to her.
I don’t want to die, not yet, he thought again.
And I don’t want the others to die either.
✦ ✦ ✦
THE PAIN THAT HAD STRUCK her in the forehead began to recede.
Kokoro found herself crying again. She wiped away the tears with her fingers.
I have to save them, she said to herself.
I have to save them all.
The castle fell quiet.
She thought about where she should go.
The grand foyer was at the end of the long corridor with their rooms off it.
She normally strolled nonchalantly down this hallway, passing the landscape paintings and the candlesticks without a thought, but today, stepping through the rubble on the floor, it seemed endless.
But she had to go.
She took a deep breath and started to run.
I’m the only one who can do it.
But what if the wolf hears me running? In tears, she changed her mind and headed towards the Game Room.
It was a complete shambles.
Masamune’s game device was nowhere to be seen, lying somewhere in the wreckage of the overturned sofa, table, shattered ornaments, stag’s head and flower vases.
Kokoro turned away, unable to look, and when she started to run in the direction of their individual rooms, another loud howl rang out.
Aoooooooooooooooooooo!
The howl was so loud she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. She grabbed the door handle to the nearest room. The shock of the howl hit her cheeks like a gale.
Once inside the room the aftershocks of the howl seemed to fade, and the wind died away.
Her eyes traced the shapes in the darkened room. It had been wrecked, just like the rest of the castle.
The lid to the piano was propped open. The keyboard, like a mouth with missing teeth, had been destroyed, and it looked pitiful.
Fuka’s room.
She’d never been in here before. The room was smaller than Kokoro’s. Aside from the piano, there was no bed or bookcase like in her own room.
On top of the broken desk were textbooks, reference books, pens and notebooks.
I’m pretty sure there’s one under the desk in my room.
An X.
She waited a few moments before reaching underneath the desk. She placed her finger firmly on top of it.
She needed to know, to access all their memories, to hear everyone’s full story.
✦ ✦ ✦
FUKA WAS PRACTISING IN THE piano room in her house.
Fuka enjoyed having quiet time alone to practise.
A calendar hung on the wall: 23 December, a national holiday, was marked in red. Underneath, it said: Piano competition.
It was coming up very soon.
✦ ✦ ✦
‘FUKA-CHAN IS QUITE THE GENIUS, Ma’am,’ the piano teacher had said to her mother.
Fuka had not yet started elementary school.
Fuka’s mother, busy with work, had taken her daughter to free introductory lessons at the piano school, at the invitation of Mima-chan’s mother, who lived nearby. The three free lessons had run out when the teacher spoke to Fuka’s mother.
‘She has a real gift,’ the teacher said.
Fuka’s mother was both astonished and pleased. ‘Really? My little Fuka?’
‘She absorbs things so much more quickly than other children. I’ve been teaching for many years but have never seen such potential. You really should consider her future, perhaps send her to study abroad at some point.’
Fuka listened in while they were talking.
‘You’re … not just saying this because you want us to continue lessons with you now that they’re no longer free?’
Her mother seemed suspicious. Her cell phone started buzzing inside the bag she always took to work, the one with the worn handles. Normally she would have answered it but she chose not to.
‘Not at all,’ the teacher went on. ‘I am honestly amazed by her playing. I don’t say this to all the children.’
What he said was true.
The teacher hadn’t said the same thing to Mima-chan, who’d gone with Fuka, or to Mima-chan’s mother.
I am gifted. I am gifted.
I’m different from other kids.
✦ ✦ ✦
AT PE AT SCHOOL, FUKA sat on the sidelines and watched.
The others had formed a circle, and were tossing the ball to each other.
She was sitting on the gymnasium floor, hugging her knees, her back up against a corner, when Mima-chan came over with a group of girls.
‘Don’t you want to play?’
‘Um … no.’
Fuka always sat out during PE. It would be a disaster if she hurt a finger playing volleyball.
Back when she was a freshman, they’d been practising vaulting when Fuka missed her landing and twisted an ankle, and her mother had come into school to complain and the whole thing had escalated. This is a critical time for her, her mother had shouted, she has a competition soon! So she’s hurt her foot, but what if it had been her hand?
Mima-chan and the others exchanged a look. ‘It’s because Fuka-chan has piano.’
‘Oh.’
The girls walked off. She heard them giggling.
‘My fingers are so important and it just wouldn’t do to injure them.’
‘I just have to play the piano, you know?’
Their voices were shrill, as if they intentionally wanted her to overhear.
✦ ✦ ✦
PIANO, PIANO, PIANO.
Fuka’s days in elementary school were clearly divided into boxes – school and piano. Gradually, she spent more and more time at the piano than on schoolwork, and as far as she was concerned that was fine.
She was told to take time off from school to have lessons in Kyoto with a famous piano teacher. She would attend lessons from her grandparents’ house, who lived in the area.
She was often told to practise more, but not once did an adult ever caution her to study harder.
Her mother said to the teachers at school, ‘You’re concerned about her school attendance, but would you have a look at her record in piano competitions? Couldn’t you consider this as equivalent to her school record?’
She didn’t attend school much, and she thought that was OK.
Until the final piano competition of her elementary school days when, aiming at the top prize, she came nineteenth.