Someone is standing on the far side of the meadow. Her white dress blows in the wind. Her hair is long and soft-looking. Beyond this figure, a child crouches. Me. My child self is looking up at my mother. That’s right—we found each other in the meadow under a starry sky. Understanding hits me. This is a continuation of my dream. It’s a scene buried deep in my memory, too deep to uproot no matter how much I want to. My mom has something in her hand. She holds it out to me. What is it? I squint. It’s too far to see. I want to get closer. I lean in through the door, bending my body into the foul torrent of the worm. There is no warmth, no blinding brightness, no resistance. It’s all just clear, weightless murky water. I duck my head and slip through the gondola’s small door. I plant my right foot on the floor and find that it’s become deep, soft meadow. My mother and my child self are much closer now.
“……”
I feel like someone is calling to me from behind, but my eyes are drawn to my mother. I take a step forward. What is it? What is she trying to give me? What? I take another step. It’s—
A chair. A little handmade chair with three legs… A chair? My heart bumps up against something. I can almost remember.
“……”
Who’s behind me, calling my name? A chair. That chair is—
“Suzume!”
My eyes pop open. “Huh?!”
I’m leaning out a tiny window. Ahead of me, I can see a mountain and the night sky and, far below, the dim asphalt. I shrink back, terrified of falling. Suddenly, I remember where I am—inside a rising gondola. The meadow is gone, and so are the two figures.
“Suzume, hurry!”
I look around. The worm is spewing from the gondola’s small door. Souta is reaching his front leg desperately through the muddy water.
“Souta!”
I collapse on my knees on the gondola’s floor and grab his leg with my right hand, and he pulls me out of the gondola with reassuring strength. I plant my hands and feet on the frame of the Ferris wheel. We’re already near the peak. We’re so high we can look down over the whole city of Kobe.
“Suzume, the door!”
“On it!”
Using the slender metal frame as scaffolding, I climb around to the outside of the wildly flapping door and start pushing again. Souta is pushing below me, and he’s much stronger now. The door steadily closes. The muddy torrent of the worm shrinks to a trickle.
“O Divine Gods who dwell beneath this land.”
As if guided by Souta’s prayer, I close my eyes. I listen for the happy shouts that must have filled this place. Suddenly, I remember Rumi’s words—“That place was always packed when it was open.” There must have been traffic jams every weekend and lines for the go-carts, the merry-go-round, and the Ferris wheel. I imagine every detail—every person surprised by how tall the Ferris wheel was, how twisty the roller coaster, how fast the swinging pirate ship. They’re shouting and laughing with excitement.
“Wow, we’re so high up!”
“Let’s go on the spinning cups again!”
“Stop running—it’s dangerous!”
“An amusement park on our first date, huh? What a cliché!”
“You have long protected us for generations. Your mountains and rivers that we have long called our own—”
I can tell from the heat that the key resting on my chest is glowing blue. Behind my closed eyelids, I can finally see the amusement park like it used to be. Everyone smiling, the asphalt under their feet painted in pastel colors, not a trace of rust on the brand-new rides. A yellow balloon escapes the hand of a little girl and floats up, cutting a tiny hole in the blue sky. Ah, there it goes! The little girl stares up after it, but there’s not a trace of sadness on her face.
“Now!” Souta yells sharply enough to shred my nostalgia.
“We respectfully return them to you!” I scream as I push the key into a keyhole made of light.
I can feel the lock click into place. A second later, the reddish-bronze flower covering the sky splits open. The air is light, like a heavy lid has suddenly been lifted. A moment after that, a shower washes over the ruins. Even though it’s night, each drop glitters like a rainbow. Finally, the lights in the park go out, as if they’ve spent the last of their energy, and all is quiet and dark once again.
With a low whine so loud I can feel it in my body, the metal frame below my feet creaks.
“Oh no!”
I reflexively hug the gondola and look down. The ground is black and very far away. I feel like it’s going to swallow me up. My knees shake. The frame creaks again.
“Let’s get in,” Souta says calmly. I open my eyes and dive into the now-quiet gondola. When I close the door, the sound of the wind fades.
“…That was so scary.”
All of a sudden, the strength drains from my legs, and I sink to the floor. I was just standing on the top of a Ferris wheel. I belatedly start shivering, and my eyes tear up. I sigh pitifully, while Souta bursts out laughing.
“Ha-ha-ha! Suzume, you were amazing. Thank you.”
Outside the window, the lights of Kobe spread like a carpet in all directions. Upon closer inspection, I see that the inside of the gondola is neither big nor small, but carefully calculated to be the perfect size for getting close to a special someone. Souta and I sit across from each other on the plastic seats, watching the ground slowly approach. Souta tells me that Ferris wheels are designed so that even if the electricity goes out, the weight of anyone still inside will slowly pull the wheel around so they can get off.
When I ask what happened with Daijin, he says with a wry smile that the kitten got away again. They fell off the roller coaster together, and Souta had him pinned to the ground, but then he noticed I was hanging off the Ferris wheel and came running to help me. I tell him I’m sorry, but he just laughs and says there’s no reason to apologize. He declares confidently that he’ll catch the cat next time for sure.
“Suzume…,” he says quietly, fitting his words between gusts of night wind.
“Yeah?”
“What were you looking at inside the Gate…?”
“Um…”
I realize the memory is quickly fading, like a dream I’ve just awoken from.
“There was a blindingly bright starry sky, and a meadow, and…”
“Ever-After,” Souta says, sounding surprised.
“Huh?”
“You can see Ever-After…”
“What’s that?”
“The back side of the world. Where the worm lives. The place where all time exists at once.”
The place where all time exists at once. Far in the back of my mind, something clicks into place for a second. But it’s far too deeply buried for me to reach.
“…I can see it, but I can’t go in.”
“They say that’s where the dead go.”
Souta looks out the window, and I follow his gaze. The city lights sprawl like a dusting of stars before a black sea. There’s an extra-bright factory district, and a cluster of high-rises that are like towers of light, and blinking houses huddled together. It all looks so close, I feel like I could reach out my hand and set the points of light on the tip of my finger.
“Those of us who live in this realm can’t cross into that one. We’re not meant to. I’m glad you couldn’t. That’s how it should be.”
For some reason, his voice sounds a little sad as he stares out at the city.
“We live here, after all…”
The Ferris wheel spins slowly around, its enormous metal frame creaking. Eventually, black trees rise up to hide the city lights, and they blink out between the leaves. We stare out the window until the last fleck of light disappears.