5. Now Comes the Pain #2
“Why?!!” The Itako thrashed between her keepers as they pulled her into the dark. Her blood-streaked face turned toward me one last time, and her white eyes found mine across the clearing and held them. “So bad!!”
Then the trees swallowed her whole.
I came up off the stone as far as the hands would allow me. "What did they do to my daughter?!"
One hooded figure eased me back down against the slab. “Please, calm down, Tora. That was the old timeline.”
The Death Guardian let out a long breath. “I should have told you the rule.”
“What rule?”
“Never talk to the Itako while she is in the spirit world. Her control is. . .shaky at times.” The Death Guardian came to my side. “Do not worry. That timeline is gone—”
“But—”
“It was one thread among many. You should set it aside."
My whole body shook now. "What did they do to my daughter?"
"Set it aside." She laid a hand flat on my shoulder, and the heat of it surprised me through the thin robe. "You made your decision and Kenji travels toward us. Both actions erased that bad timeline. This is good.”
“But there are o-other bad timelines?”
“Yes, that is why the Itako is near. We will see how many other bad ones we can erase with the ritual. Which is why we must move quickly." She leaned her head to the side. “Are you ready, Tora?”
Am I?
I stared past her at the moon, and my daughter came back to me a third time.
She was a teen now and wore a long shimmering prom dress the color of deep rippling ocean water.
She stood on the front steps of a mansion with an older Zo doing final prep to her hair and adjusting parts of her gown.
She must have been sixteen or seventeen years old.
Her curly hair was pinned up and her chin high.
A teenaged boy stood beside her holding a bouquet of flowers in his shaking nervous hands.
Frowning, Kenji stood in the doorway behind her with his arms crossed over his chest. All he did was glare at the boy.
Shirtless and showing off his tattooed muscles, Hiro leaned against the same door’s frame with a lollipop in his mouth and murder in his eyes as he also watched the poor boy.
Reo stood off to the side and studied the boy the way he studied a map before a war, letting my daughter’s date know without saying a word that if he ever stepped out of line there would be a yakuza army at his doorstep.
The poor boy shook under all three of their gazes and appeared close to pissing himself.
Zo stepped back and did a grand sweep, declaring it was his best work yet.
My daughter simply rolled her eyes at her father and uncles who loved her so much and laughed as she headed off with her date.
And the sound of that laugh. . .
Oh God.
Her laugh reached across all the years I would never have and broke my heart open in my chest.
Have fun, sweetheart.
A wave of mourning rose in me so fast and so high that it stole my breath.
I closed my eyes.
What am I saying? She will never wear that dress. She will never roll her eyes at Kenji. She will never laugh on those steps. I’m killing all of it. I’m killing every day of her.
I fisted my hands in my lap.
Am I ready for that? Do I even have the time to think about it? No.
I forced my eyes open and made myself breathe.
Because. . .the bad timeline. . .that’s worse.
Another hooded figure stepped from the ring and faced the Death Guardian. "Hiro comes with the Dragon."
A massive change ran through the entire group. Several of the Silent Ones drew back, going deeper into the shadows at the edge of the torchlight, making the red of their robes dim to black.
They’re afraid of him? Why?
"We will surround Hiro in case he tries to interfere." The Death Guardian gave a single nod. "And we must definitely take the Tiger's screams from her. Hiro's ears run too sharp. He will hear what the Dragon cannot and then there will be an unexpected war with him in this forest."
A hooded figure came forward out of the ring, moving without sound across the dead leaves. Once next to the slab, the figure leaned over me, and the shadow of that hood fell across my face. A woman’s voice came out of it. “I will cover your mouth, Tora.”
My throat went dry. “Okay.”
“Are you ready?” The Death Guardian looked at me. “You never answered and. . .you must. We will not do this without your permission.”
Oh God.
My daughter came to me again.
Older.
She walked across a stage in a black graduation gown with a flat cap on her head, and a man read her name aloud.
I sat in the audience beside Kenji, both of us gray now, both of us softened by all the years we had been given. He gripped my hand so hard it hurt, and his jaw worked the way it did when he refused to let himself cry, and a tear escaped him anyway and ran down into the lines of his handsome face.
On the stage, our daughter found us in the crowd, lifted her diploma over her head, and grinned at us.
And we grinned back, two old fools weeping in a room full of strangers over the only thing we had ever made together that mattered.
And then the years rolled forward once more.