AND WHEN SHE ENTERED AKI’S memories, she had further confirmation.
Nowadays even students owned cell phones, but Aki communicated by pager. When Kokoro was younger, her mother had had a pager, which she used to keep in touch with her workplace and with Kokoro’s father, so she was fairly familiar with how it worked. It wasn’t a device to talk on, but to send a one-way message. ‘Pocket bell’ was the Japanese for it, a term her mum used to use.
As Aki had tried to type in a message to the pager, in her haste she’d knocked over a calendar on the table. The calendar read 1991.
If Kokoro matched up all the others’ realities, an even clearer timeline would emerge, she was sure.
For Aki, Kokoro was from the future.
For Fuka, Kokoro was living in the past.
I never said you can’t meet up, or can’t help each other. It’s time you people worked things out. Think about it.
The Wolf Queen’s words were on the nail.
We can meet.
We won’t look as we do now, we’ll be a different age, but it’s not true at all that we won’t be able to see each other.
‘Aki-chan!’
Kokoro opened up the door to the body of the grandfather clock and called out.
A key was hidden behind the pendulum.
She took hold of the key and spied a small keyhole in the back of the clock.
So this is where it is, Kokoro thought.
The Wishing Room.
They’d looked all over, and all this time it was hidden in an obvious place.
Kokoro inserted the key into the hole. There was a creaking sound as the back of the clock cracked open.
Kokoro closed her eyes, and made her wish.
Save Aki.
‘Please!’ she shouted. ‘Please, save Aki! Please forget that she broke the rules.’
Light spilled out.
Not the muddy light from earlier, or the brutal overpowering light.
But a milky, soft light that enveloped Kokoro.
‘Aki!’ Kokoro shouted desperately into the light.
Hang in there.
‘We can all meet each other!’
Kokoro recalled the scene in The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats when the mother goat opens up the grandfather clock where the youngest goat is hiding.
Aki, come out, Kokoro wished, and reached her hand through the open door.
‘Don’t run away! Come over here! Give me your hand! Aki, please!’
She was shouting at the top of her voice.
‘It’s OK, Aki! Aki-chan! We can help each other! We can meet! We can see each other again! So you have to live! You’ve got to keep going, and grow up to be an adult.
‘Please, Aki. I’m … in the future. In the future, where you are too. Where you’re all grown up!’
Kokoro felt something soft and warm.
Someone was grasping her hand.
Kokoro shut her eyes tight, and grabbed the hand back as firmly as she could. No way am I going to let you go.
‘Kokoro?’
‘Yes. It’s me, Kokoro!’ Her face was wet with tears. Aki’s hand. She would never, ever let it go. ‘I came to get you.’
‘Kokoro – I’m so sorry. I—’
‘It doesn’t matter!’ Kokoro was shouting, her voice welling up from deep inside her. ‘It just doesn’t matter! You’ve got to come baaaack!’
Her voice cracked.
With every ounce of strength, she pulled the hand towards her.
At that moment—
‘Kokoro!’ a voice said. Not Aki’s, but someone from behind her.
She barely had time to think before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around with a jolt.
It was Fuka.
Fuka, and Subaru, and Masamune, and Ureshino, and Rion.
They’d all come back. Her wish had been granted.
‘Is it Aki?’ Masamune asked, and Kokoro nodded.
‘Yes!’
That short exchange was enough. While Kokoro thrust her hand beyond the clock, the friends took hold of her and each other in a line like in a tug-of-war, and they yanked with every ounce of strength they could muster.
‘Heave-ho!’ she heard Subaru call out.
‘We’re not letting go of you, even if it means we all die!’
She felt something slipping.
They all shut their eyes and pulled harder.
This wasn’t The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats, but more like the Grimms’ story The Enormous Turnip, Kokoro thought. And suddenly she felt a weight lifted off her.
We can do it, she said to herself.
‘Here we go, Aki!’
‘Heeeave-hooo!’ they shouted. The tops of Aki’s fingers began to emerge from behind the clock.
The momentum sent them all tumbling backwards down the staircase.
✦ ✦ ✦
AT THE TOP OF THE staircase, in front of the grandfather clock, lay Aki.
‘Aki!’ Kokoro shouted, and raced back up the stairs.
‘Aki, you idiot!’ both Masamune and Rion said. ‘Seriously, you deserve a good kick in the butt,’ added Rion.
Aki looked as if she’d just emerged from underwater.
Her face was all wet – she’d been crying so hard and for so long.
‘I’m so sorry!’ Aki managed to speak through her sobs. Eyes bloodshot, she looked at each of them in turn.
‘I’m so sorry. I—’
‘You complete idiot!’ This from Fuka, echoing the boys. Fuka’s face was just as flushed and wet with tears as Aki’s. ‘What are we going to do!’ she squealed. ‘We’ve used up our one wish – to rescue you!’
‘I’m truly, truly sorry. I—’
‘Thank God,’ Fuka said, and clung to Aki’s neck in a tight hug. ‘Thank God you’re all right.’
Aki’s eyes widened, but they were blank. Arms wrapped around Fuka, she gazed at each of them again.
Perhaps she noticed that they weren’t actually angry.
She let out a long, deep sigh.
✦ ✦ ✦
WITHOUT WARNING, THEY BECAME AWARE of the sound of hands softly clapping.
They knew without even turning around who it was.
They also knew that their last hour of friendship was here. They knew, and they were ready.
Since the wish had been granted, the group would now lose all memory of ever having been to the castle.
The moment of farewell had finally arrived.
‘Wolf Queen.’
As one they turned to face her.
‘Well done, indeed.’
She was standing at the bottom of the staircase in the grand foyer, daintily clapping her small hands.