Chapter Forty-Six The Rumor About a Man Named Minatozaki Keishin
Chapter Forty-six
The Rumor About a Man Named Minatozaki Keishin
I am not from your world. Keishin unraveled with every word. The truth he had whispered into Keiko’s ear turned him back into the stardust from which all things were made and cast him into the air and darkness. The particles of his mind could grasp only one thought. Even as dust, he held on to Hana, and what remained of her clung to him.
Keishin drifted until he began to gather in the spot that used to be his stomach. He couldn’t be sure. He had no eyes to see. He felt himself being stitched together one atom at a time, and when he had eyelids, he opened them and watched Hana take shape.
“Where are we?” Hana said as soon as she had lips to form words.
“Wherever we are…” Keishin glanced around. A tent surrounded them, crammed with all manner of things. Blankets. Baskets. Pots. Books. They balanced in stacks, filling every available space. “I don’t think we got far. It looks like we’re still at the station.”
Hana walked over to the tent’s flap and pulled on it. It refused to move. She tugged harder. “It won’t open.”
Keishin tried to lift one of the tent’s fabric walls but could not find a gap between the tent and the floor. He pushed against it. It pushed back, sending him to the ground. He got up, took as many steps back as the clutter allowed, and rammed the tent with his shoulder. He collided with something as hard as bone. Pain exploded in his arm. Keishin staggered back, clutching his throbbing shoulder. He cursed and pounded the wall with his fist. “Keiko! Keiko! Let us out.”
Hana pulled Keishin away from the wall. “It’s no use. We are trapped. You were right. Keiko betrayed us.”
“We got in here.” Keishin shoved away a stack of baskets. “That means there is a way out.”
The tent shook violently, tossing Keishin and Hana to the floor. Hana tried to get to her feet. Keishin grabbed her hand. “Stay down.”
The rumbling stopped. Bright light poured into the tent. Hana peeked over the clutter and squinted. She gasped and pushed herself off the floor. “The flap’s open!”
Keishin stood up. “Run!”
They scrambled to the opening, knocking over teetering piles of books and jumping over an obstacle course of blankets and clothes. They burst out of the tent, shielding their eyes from the light. Keishin pulled his hand from his face just in time to watch Hana fade away.
—
Collecting the scattered pieces of himself went faster the second time around. Or maybe it only felt that way. It was difficult to get a sense of time without a body. Keishin opened his eyes. Hana stood in front of him, her limbs molding themselves from thin air.
Hana stared at her newly formed hands and flexed her fingers. “What’s happening to us?”
Keishin’s eyes flew around him. They stood beneath a hexagonal gazebo that was surrounded by a shimmering lake. A full moon floated in the water. Keishin extended his arm, but an invisible wall kept his fingers from reaching beyond the gazebo’s wooden frame. “Another trap.”
Hana looked out at the calm lake. “It does not feel like a trap.”
“What else do you call a place you can’t leave?”
The ground shifted beneath them, sending waves across the lake. They grabbed on to the gazebo’s posts. Light washed over them as though an invisible door had opened and let the sun in.
“It’s happening again.” Hana squinted at the glare.
Keishin took a tentative step toward the light.
“Kei, wait.” Hana grabbed his arm. “We might fade away again.”
Keishin narrowed his eyes at the light. “Maybe that’s what’s supposed to happen.”
“What?”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this isn’t a trap.”
“Then what is it?”
“What if this is what Keiko meant by traveling inside a rumor?”
“You think that we’re inside someone’s mind?”
“Until they pass the rumor on to someone else.” Keishin held out his hand to Hana. “But there’s only one way to know for sure.”
—
People’s minds, Keishin discovered, came in many different sizes and shapes. Some were no larger than cupboards, while others were the length of the train. A few rooms had barely anything inside them, and quite a few overflowed with an assortment of odds and ends. The strangest so far had been a room perched on top of a tree, with every inch of its floor covered by a carpet of steaming cups of green tea.
Keishin stood inside a curved room made of glass and waited for Hana to become whole. The time they spent in each room grew shorter with each leap into the light. This, he thought, was the nature of a rumor. As it grew, it gathered speed. Keishin took in his latest surroundings, hoping to linger in them a little longer. He liked this mind. It was shaped like an orb and floated among the stars.
“This is beautiful.” Hana admired the constellations.
“Yes.” Keishin watched the stars twinkle in her eyes. “It is.”
“I wonder what kind of person has a mind like this?” Hana pressed her palm against the clear wall.
“The kind of person I would envy very much,” Keishin said.
“Envy? Why? I imagine that your mind would be filled with nothing but stars too.”
“I wish it was. But sadly, it’s probably just a gray room with poor lighting littered with numbers and charts. And maybe a chair. And an empty bag of Funyuns. Or two.”
“Funyuns? Do I want to know what that is?”
“You don’t. It’s a horrible addiction. I can’t work without them. I packed a suitcase full of them because I was afraid that I wasn’t going to be able to find them in Japan. And now that I’ve said it out loud, it sounds like the silliest thing in the world to worry about.” Keishin stared up at the stars. “It’s funny how the mind finds ways to fill itself up with worthless things as though it was afraid of being empty.”
“Or quiet,” Hana said.
The orb shook. Light broke through its crystal.
Keishin clasped Hana’s hand. “Let’s go,” he said, stepping into the light.
—
It was impossible to tell where the wildflowers ended and the sky began. The blue of the petals matched the cloudless horizon perfectly. Keishin did not question how the flowers bloomed in autumn. He was just grateful that they did.
The rumor had dropped them off on a dirt road along the valley of wildflowers when a farmer could find no one to share it with but his cart horse. The horse had neighed and swished its tail, brushing the rumor off like a fly. It cared little about a man named Minatozaki Keishin and less about the world he came from. All it cared about was getting home to its warm stall on its master’s farm, away from a sprawling blue field that made it sneeze. The rumor hung in the air between the farmer and his horse, swirled for a moment, and drifted away with the wind.
Hana’s mouth fell open when she had formed a jaw to drop. “We’re here.”
“We should start walking if we’re going to find the temple and the stream,” Keishin said. “We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“This place is a lot bigger than I imagined. Where do we even start?”
A strong wind blew in their direction, sending ripples through the wildflowers.
Hana cocked her head. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
The wind whipped Hana’s hair. Hana gathered the loose strands back into her ponytail. “Nothing. It was just the wind.”
A breeze kissed Keishin’s cheek and carried the sound of children’s laughter past his ears. He froze mid-step. “Hana…”
Hana locked eyes with him. “I heard it too.”