Chapter Seven
My eyes opened with a snap, breaking the crust thick at their edges.
A grey light bled from overhead somewhere, so faint it taunted the vision with only vague outlines of shapes. I lay upon a thin futon stuffed with reeds, coarsely woven blankets pulled up to my chin pressing wonderfully heavily over my body. I heard movement close by, a stream of softly spoken sibilant words near my ear. Although I had only heard her voice once before I recognized it instantly.
“Aki?” I asked in a croaking whisper.
She seemed not to hear me, for her voice did not pause. Frustratingly, I could not make out the meaning of any words, it was as if she spoke in a child’s made-up tongue. I struggled but my body refused to move. In that particular way of dreams, I knew that Masakage was closing in, taking huge strides down the corridor with deadly purpose, his hand reaching out for the door. Any moment now, it would be flung open.
I tried to shout out a warning, to cry out over the top of Aki’s sing-song voice. Something shifted inside of me, and I slipped into inky blackness.
Waking again, it felt as if some considerable time had passed. The room was silent, yet from the way sounds came muted from the floor beneath the futon I suspected the room was upstairs. This time, I could open eyes properly, crusty with sleep.
The room felt close, dimly lit by the light of a single candle, its flame still and upright. A figure sat upon the floor beside my futon, moving to press a warm cloth upon my brow. I closed my eyes and sank back.
“Aki. You found me. Thank you, you found me.”
The voice that replied threw me, for it was a man’s voice.
“Shhh, relax. Don’t worry, you’re among friends here.”
After a moment I knew it was the groundskeeper and struggled to sit, drawing myself away from the hand that pressed the towel to my forehead.
“Poison. You poisoned me.”
“Just a little something to help the healing process.”
Disoriented, at my core I felt a deep sense loneliness, as if I had been on a long journey lost and adrift upon a vast sea. I flailed for an anchor to bring me back to reality.
“Easy there, sit back,” said the groundskeeper.
“How long?”
“It has been two days since you arrived. You are young and have taken well to the process, in a few days you’ll be fine.”
“I heard her. I heard Aki.” My mind was a jumble of a sharp edged discordant thought, trying to separate dream from reality. “Where is she? You have to let me see her.”
“A dream,” said the groundskeeper. “Rest, rest.”
It seemed his voice came from far away, my eyes had closed, and I sunk back into dreamless sleep.