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It started with a letter.
In the dead of night, a particularly strong wind forced Takashi’s windows open, jerking him awake from his sleep. A single piece of paper fluttered inside and he caught it. On the paper was one line—the one line he had been waiting for months ever since Hinoe and Misuzu left in search of his grandmother: We’ve found Reiko.
As if right on cue, Takashi heard commotion from outside and the inky blackness of the night was suddenly dotted with the orange glow of fire torches. He leaped out of bed and hid behind the wall of his attic room, peeking through the opening of his windows. Several people had gathered down on the street, discussing between themselves. He recognized the color of some of their garb and Takashi felt his heart beat picking up.
Had he been found? he thought frantically.
Nyanko-sensei had leaped onto his shoulder and clicked his tongue at the crowding mass. “Well, it was good while it lasted,” he murmured, indicating their time with the middle-aged couple in this village was coming to an end. “Come on, Natsume.”
The calico cat leaped down and scampered off down the stairs. Takashi frowned. Did he really have to leave? He had thought that after finding Reiko, he would be able to go back here. The months he had lived with the Fujiwaras were the happiest time he ever had. They had let him in and let him stay when he was covered in bruises and dirt with only the clothes on his back and a ragged bag in his hands, with no home and no family, no money and nowhere to go back to. Here, he had made friends.
Takashi waited for another moment, hoping for the impossible, but as he’d feared, those people were heading toward this house.
“Natsume!” came Nyanko-sensei’s hiss from the stairs. He’d gone back up and peeked his head above the landing. A glare and a frown and Takashi could do nothing else but nod.
Was it a premonition? He had been feeling uneasy the whole day. He had been looking toward the horizon, as if expecting soldiers from the castle or, worse, the court mages and people from the Academy to appear to take him back. Because of that, he had even fallen asleep in his day clothes.
Takashi threw his cloak around his shoulders and pinned it in place. He grabbed his bag and with a look around once to make sure he didn’t leave anything important, Takashi rushed down the stairs in quiet feet. The house was still dark. He crept toward Shigeru and Touko’s room and opened the door a crack. The middle-aged couple were still sleeping soundly, but they would wake up in a matter of moments when the crowd came up the door and knocked on it hard.
He didn’t have time to say goodbye. He couldn’t leave anything behind. No one could know that the boy who had been living under their roof was an unregistered mage.
Takashi closed the door quietly and exited the house through the back door without looking back. In the cover of darkness, he ran toward the forested hills behind the house. He stopped when he was far enough, catching his breath, and ignoring Nyanko-sensei’s urgency, Takashi finally turned around. In the break between the trees, he could see the torches getting closer. He hoped that he was wrong, that they were not the people he had expected them to be—the masters of the Academy. But he was right, because they had stopped before his house and in the span of several moments, the lights turned on, and Takashi knew Shigeru had come to the door.
He turned around and left, praying that the Fujiwaras would be able to get through this safely.
After running some more through the trees in the dark, Takashi found a wide enough space with a break in the leaves where moonlight filtered in. He sat down and placed the paper on the ground before him. It was light enough for him to make out the words.
“Now, let’s find where they are,” he murmured to no one in particular.
Takashi grabbed his grandmother’s book of illegal magic from his bag and looked for a tracking spell. Well, illegal if he used the Court’s terms. He didn’t think it was all that illegal.
Magic was outlawed. The only way the mages could use it was to be the court mage and serve the king. Reiko had powerful magic and she didn’t want to join them. It was just the King’s way of controlling them and using their powers for his own purposes. So she ran away and was then labeled as a rogue mage or criminal. At least, that was what Takashi had learned from the creatures Reiko had befriended.
Reiko had always been an outsider. The people feared her power and yet she didn’t want to abide by the King’s law. She never stayed at one place for long, but one day, Reiko just disappeared, and whispers of her gradually ceased. Some said she had died. Some said she had killed herself. Others said she had cloistered herself away to avoid worldly troubles.
And Takashi wanted to find her.
He found the spell then drew the runes on the earth with a stick. He placed the paper on top of it and slowly spoke the incantation. Nothing happened.
“Focus!” Nyanko-sensei reprimanded. He was sitting at the edge of the circle of runes, glaring up at Takashi.
“I know, I know,” Takashi said with an irritated click of his tongue. Ever since they met and he became Takashi’s self-proclaimed guardian, Nyanko-sensei had acted more as a reluctant teacher as he was a reluctant guardian.
Takashi repeated the incantation several times under his breath, memorizing it by heart. Then he shut the book and closed his eyes, one hand outstretched over the paper and runes and whispered the spell.
The runes lit up one by one then the air seemed to move. A gentle wind lifted the paper over the circle before it was engulfed in a ball of white light and a single light was projected deeper into the forest, northward. The wind died down, the paper fell back onto the dimmed circle of runes, but the projected light was still there.
Takashi shared a glance with Nyanko-sensei and with a nod, the cat transformed into a great white wolfish beast and Takashi stashed both the book and paper into his bag. He was about to climb onto Sensei’s back when a call of his name halted him in his tracks.
He knew that voice. His hands fisted in Sensei’s fur, fighting the urge to look back. He needed to leave, before any of the others caught up. But, he needed to see him, to ask if the Fujiwaras were okay.
Takashi turned around. A man in his early twenties with light brown hair was standing several feet behind him. He wore the maroon-and-gold cloak of the Academy with the Academy’s crest on his breast pocket. Takashi hadn’t seen wrong, then.
“Natori-san,” Takashi greeted back.
A conflicted look crossed his teacher’s face. Sometimes, Takashi would go as far as call him his friend. When he was still in the Academy, Natori had been the only one he could talk to. But he had to wonder whether Natori was only as kind as he was so he could find where Reiko’s book was.
“Are the Fujiwaras all right?” Takashi asked. He hadn’t let go of Sensei.
Natori was silent for a while. He had noticed the way Takashi was clinging onto his white beast, noticed Madara growling under his breath, ready to launch if he so much as did something suspicious. He noticed the white light projecting northward. A tracking spell, probably, leading to somewhere important. He had half a mind to ask where Takashi was going, or to convince the boy to come back, but his conscience wouldn’t let him. Takashi’s trust in him was broken and more than anything else, he wanted to earn it back.
Natori took a step back. “They’re fine,” he finally replied. Takashi felt a heavy sigh escaped his lips. He hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath. The Fujiwaras were safe. That was the most important thing.
Then, Natori added, “They knew nothing of a young mage going rogue, so we didn’t do anything to them.”
That made Takashi pause. So if he’d revealed to them who he was, they’d be taken in right now? he thought, but when he looked up at his former teacher, he found Natori smiling slightly at him. It reminded him of something Natori once said to him: to trust no one but himself. Maybe back then, Natori wanted him to be able to protect himself from others, because once people knew what you were capable of, they would shun you or take advantage of you.
Takashi knew the Fujiwaras were different, but he didn’t know how different. Time and time again, he wondered what would happen if he came clean and told them that he was a mage. A runaway mage, to be more exact. The grandson of an outlaw who possessed a Book of Summoning, filled with the names of all kinds of creatures she had met. This was the Book the court mages were after.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” was all Natori said, before he turned around. Takashi’s eyes widened. Natori didn’t look back when he said, “Go. I’ll lead them away.” With that, his teacher ran into the darkness and Takashi was left quite dumbfounded.
Sensei grunted. “I still don’t trust him,” he said in his deep voice.
Takashi decided not to think about it. What was important was that Touko and Shigeru were safe. He’d think about other stuff later.
Climbing on top of Sensei’s broad, furry back, he grabbed on before the great beast launched into the sky and flew northward, following the still projecting light.
***
A great white tree stood in a vast expanse of green plain in the far North, far from the outskirts of the kingdom. No wonder no one ever found her. This place was practically untouched. With mountains ranging all around, there was no populace in sight for miles and miles. Hinoe and Misuzu sat under the awning of the great tree. At the sight of them, Hinoe stood up and waved her hands up high.
Sensei landed on the plain with an exhausted huff after more than half a day flying. It was already the afternoon when they arrived and the setting sun painted the plain gold. Misuzu told him of a cave beneath the tree but they couldn’t find any opening. However, they were sure that Reiko was there—they had felt signs of a powerful spell on the tree.
Takashi walked around the great white trunk before he fished the book from his bag and flipped the pages. There had to be some spell here. To open a door? To uncover a secret? No, those didn’t seem like something Reiko would use. After flipping every page and couldn’t find any relevant spell he could use, Takashi closed the book and looked up at the tree, its leaves swaying gently with the wind.
Whether she was dead or alive, he didn’t feel like Reiko would hide away from the world. If she had died, Takashi felt that his grandmother would have known that her end was nearing and that she had accepted it. That was just the kind of person she was. She was not the type to cling onto her mortal life. In fact, despite her tendency to want to disappear from everyone, if she were hidden away from the world, it might not be of her own doing, but someone else’s.
Takashi looked into his bag and touched the rim of the Book of Summoning.
“Can you not open it, Natsume-dono?” Misuzu asked.
He could not, because there were no spells done on the tree that hid away the entrance to the cave. Takashi looked up again and lay his palm on the white bark gently. “Please,” he whispered. He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t even know if his hunch were right or wrong. But it felt like the right thing to do, so he asked the tree to let him in.
For a while, nothing happened. But then the air stilled and the clouds stopped moving. Even the sun stayed in its place as the tree began to stir from its core to the tips of its uppermost branches. White leaves and flowers danced in a nonexistent wind, and a woman emerged from it, landing gracefully down before them.
The woman bowed deeply. “Good afternoon to you, Takashi-sama,” she greeted in a breezy, lilting voice.
“Ah—good afternoon,” Takashi stammered, flustered and bowing awkwardly at the waist, surprised at the fact that this…woman knew his name.
A small smile grazed the woman’s face, like an upward parting of leaves where her lips should be. “Have you come to see Reiko-sama?”
That made Takashi perk up. “She’s really here?”
“Yes.”
“Can we see her?” he asked. He couldn’t hide his enthusiasm. After some forty years missing, Takashi finally found her.
The woman nodded. With a wave of her sinewy limb, the tree seemed to tremble from deep within the earth. The bark on one side of the great white trunk disappeared, as though it had been an illusion, revealing a wide enough opening through which Takashi could crawl. He looked up at the woman, then his friends, and when they nodded, he went down to his hands and knees and crawled inside.
The moment he passed through the threshold, he could feel it—like a feather-light touch of a gentle wind—a barrier of some sort. He wondered whether Reiko had some role in setting up this elaborate hiding spot or whether it was solely the work of the tree and the woman—another creature Reiko had befriended. Takashi wondered if her name was in the Book.
“This tunnel stinks,” came Sensei’s voice from behind. Takashi looked over his shoulder and indeed, Nyanko-sensei had transformed back into a cat and was following him inside. Behind him was Hinoe. Misuzu wasn’t able to transform to a smaller version like Sensei could so he was forced to stay outside.
The farther they went in, the darker the tunnel became, until the fading light from the tunnel entrance wasn’t enough to light their way. The mark on Sensei’s forehead began to light up and in the sudden brightness, Takashi could make out an opening not far in the distance.
The tunnel opened up to a larger one where Takashi could stand on his feet without bumping his head. There was no breeze but the air felt cold, as if they’d gone so far underground where the heat from the sun couldn’t reach. He couldn’t fathom how Reiko could have lived here for forty years.
Holding the cat in his arms high, Takashi hoped Sensei’s mark would light up more of this mass of dirt, but the tunnel seemed to go on forever. The deeper they went, the more he thought if maybe this was a mistake. What if they had fallen into a trap and at the end of this cave was not Reiko but a huge monster giving life to the white tree?
The thought just crossed his mind when he noticed dim blue lights coming from the other end. “Is that it?” he asked to no one in particular. Ignoring Sensei and Hinoe’s warnings, Takashi rushed ahead, eager to leave the tunnel behind and find Reiko at last.
The tunnel abruptly opened up into a large cavern and the sudden burst of light blinded him for an instant. Blue crystals jutted out from the rocks all around him, the light they emanated was enough to light the whole cavern. There was a shallow pool along one end and beyond was a small island with a huge crystal on the wall, the figure of a woman resting inside it.
Takashi’s mind stopped working, his body stopped moving, when he beheld the huge crystal. He almost didn’t realize when Nyanko-sensei transformed into a beast and dragged him with his cloak between his teeth over and across the pond to land on the little island, Hinoe close behind. He thanked Sensei absent-mindedly, his attention solely focused on the figure inside the crystal.
It was the face he had seen in the memories of the creatures he had met. A similar face like his, her brown hair shorter than he remembered it, her face creased with age. Despite that, she still looked young—young enough that people could mistake her for his mother. But Takashi knew that was not true.
The blue light emanating from the crystal seemed to pulsate with life. His heartbeat fell into rhythm with it. It was cold to the touch, so freezing that it stung. Reiko had her eyes closed, her arms folded over her chest. She looked peaceful and serene.
“She came here one day and lay down by the Tree,” the woman of flowers and leaves said, materializing beside him. “Both of them had been afflicted with illness. What the mages do to the Land, drawing magic from the earth to build their cities and strengthen their forces, it was slowly but surely draining the Tree of its life. You see, this Tree is the Land’s source of life. When the Tree rots, the Land dies. Reiko-sama had known her end was nearing and she offered us the last remaining of her life.”
Takashi looked up at the woman then, and there was a wistful smile on her face.
“We had heard of her, of course, of the power she possessed. We did not think of her seriously. Yet, Reiko-sama just lay there until she fell asleep. The Tree was reinvigorated, and she never woke up again.”
The woman gazed at Reiko’s body and bowed low. “We took it upon ourselves to protect her,” she said. “Only those with no malicious intent may pass our barrier.”
The woman bid him goodbye before drifting away.
Takashi’s gaze shifted back to his grandmother’s peaceful face, made eternal by the crystal and magic. Reiko Natsume had indeed died. The rumors weren’t wrong. The body resting inside the crystal now was only the vessel of a soul that had long ago left the world. She let her magic drain away to help the Tree—the Tree of Life that had been dying as a result of the King’s ambitions. No wonder Reiko didn’t want to join him.
Takashi touched the crystal once again, letting the cold seep into him. He found himself smiling through the tears that were threatening so hard to spill. Takashi never knew his family. Both his parents died before he could remember properly and ever since then, he had been moved around his relatives’ care, no one wanting to take care of a child-mage. Until one day one of them decided to hand him over to the Academy and he started hearing the tales of Reiko Natsume.
If not for the glimpses of memories he had seen from the creatures in the Book of Summoning, Takashi probably would still wonder if this Reiko really existed. If, by chance, people were just mistaking him to be her grandson because of their shared surname. But he was here now, in front of her, and she was real, and she had mattered—mattered enough that the spirit of a dying tree decided to encase her body in a crystal deep within the earth.
“I’ve finally found you, Reiko-san,” Takashi whispered. The dam finally broke, releasing tears streaming down his face.
~ END ~