The ground felt soft beneath her sneakers. It’s a field. I’m standing on grass.
That wouldn’t be so unusual, if she hadn’t, until moments before, been standing in the reading room of Ichiro Minochi’s cottage.
She had done everything as the Sage instructed her. She caught the book that fell from the bookshelf and flipped through the pages until he told her to stop. Then she read the words there—she couldn’t actually read the letters herself, so she had to repeat them after the Sage. Apparently, it was important that she hold the book and say the words herself.
Then she had to search the cottage until she found a piece of white chalk in order to draw a strange circular pattern on the floor of the reading room—based on the diagram in one of the books the Sage showed her. Before she did that, she had to clear a space on the floor, and that meant moving stacks of heavy, dusty books which made her sweat and sneeze terribly.
Even still, the moment she saw an exact copy of herself emerge from the strand of her hair she had placed in the middle of that strange magical circle, the aching in her shoulders and back and the burning in her bleary red eyes all vanished. She was so surprised she forgot to breathe. Everything about the girl standing in the middle of that circle was just like Yuriko. The girl grinned and took a step closer.
“Do not be frightened. While you are away, your replica will serve in your place,” the Sage explained.
“I-I’m not supposed to touch her, right?”
Yuriko recalled a science fiction movie her brother had rented once. The main character in the movie got into a time machine and went back in time to meet his past self. She remembered the scientist who invented the time machine telling him sternly that whatever he did, he wasn’t to touch his past self. If he did, not only he, but the entire world, would disappear in an instant.
The Sage chuckled softly. “It will do no harm. Your replica is yours to command.”
“Really?”
“Try giving her an order.”
So Yuriko had her replica help her erase the circle she had drawn on the floor. It was harder then she’d expected to get the chalk off the wood floorboards, so she asked her replica to find a mop somewhere, and the replica walked out of the room, only to reappear five minutes later, mop in hand.
“The next circle you will draw is far more complicated than the last,” the Sage warned. “You must draw it carefully, so there are no mistakes.”
This second circle would serve as the gate to send Yuriko to the nameless land.
After a few false starts, and with lots of corrections, she drew the circle. Yuriko stood up to get a better look at her work. Part of her wanted to stride boldly into the magic circle’s center, while another part of her was afraid and wanted to run away. So Yuriko stood still, breathing raggedly. Then she heard the Sage speak.
“Yuriko, do you always wear your bangs down like that in the front?”
They were hanging down now. Yuriko had always been a little embarrassed about her forehead, which she felt was far too large for its own good. When she combed her hair forward, her mother would always scold her, saying it would get in her eyes, and make Yuriko press her bangs back with pins or hair gel, but over the course of a busy day her bangs would naturally fall forward anyway.
The question seemed so out of place, for a moment Yuriko didn’t know how to respond. “Is this another test?”
“Lift up your bangs with one hand so we can see your forehead. Now, turn toward me and lift your chin. Ah! Don’t step on the circle yet!”
Yuriko put her back against one of the bookshelves and looked in the direction of the Sage.
The Sage began to cast a spell. His words had the rhythm of a song, but he was not singing. His voice rose and fell like a Buddhist chant, but it was not a prayer. Yuriko had never heard such a strange sound in her life.
The Sage’s voice grew suddenly clear and higher, then stopped abruptly. A moment later, the white chalk circle she had drawn on the floor began to burn with a pale light. Yuriko jumped. Then she felt something like a cold fingertip running across her brow. Unconsciously, she lifted her own hand to touch it. On the floor, the magic circle went dark.
But something was still giving off light near Yuriko, shining in her eyes.
“I believe there was a mirror in the hall,” the Sage said, ordering Yuriko’s replica to fetch it. The replica left the room again and came back carrying a small square mirror in her hands. The frame was covered in rust, and about a third of the mirror’s face was clouded and cracked.
“Look into the mirror,” the Sage told Yuriko, but she didn’t hear him. She was too busy being surprised at the warm touch of her replica’s hand when she took the mirror from her.
“Yuriko, look at your face in the mirror,” the Sage repeated.
Hurriedly, she held up the little square mirror.
A small magic circle had been drawn in the middle of her forehead about the size of a large coin. This was the source of the light that was making her squint. The little magic circle glowed a peppermint color and was an exact miniature of the magic circle she had drawn on the floor. It was like someone had drawn graffiti on her face with a fluorescent marker.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“That mark upon your forehead is a glyph. It allows you to travel freely between this Circle and the nameless land. It shows that you are permitted to pass through the gate between worlds.”
All she had to do to move between the nameless land and her own world was place her hand upon the mark and wish it, the Sage explained.
“Wait, so when I want to come back from the nameless land, do I show up here, in the cottage? Or can I go anywhere?”
“Anywhere you like, but—” the Sage’s voice grew louder, “should the magic circle in this reading room be erased or destroyed, the glyph upon your forehead will lose its power. You would do well to return here frequently to check on the parent circle, for it is your lifeline home.”
So if one of her uncles or the lawyer came here and tried cleaning up the magic circle, she’d be in trouble.
“Could you use your magic to keep everyone out of the cottage while I’m away?”
“We could.”
“Then will you?”
“We may, but we cannot stop the people who try to come here from wondering why they fail time and time again.”
So their magic wasn’t all-powerful.
“Right, I guess that would be a little strange.”
“Indeed.”
Yuriko nodded firmly. “Okay, I understand. I’ll be careful.”
“You’re forgetting something important,” Aju said to the Sage. It was good to hear the red book’s voice again. “Little miss, try not to go showing that mark on your forehead to everyone you meet. Better keep your bangs down over it when you can.”
So that’s why the Sage was asking about my bangs.
“You are impatient, Aju,” the Sage grumbled. “I was just about to tell her that. And besides, you forgot an important part. There will be no need for you to hide your glyph in the nameless land. You only need conceal it here, in this Circle. And you’ll need to conceal it should you cross over to any other region within this Circle.”
“Any other region?”
“You’ll understand once you go there.”
“Oh, oh, one more thing,” Aju cut in. “There will be people who know you bear the mark, even if you hide it. Those are the wolves, Yuriko. Their knowledge allows them to sense the glyph’s presence. Don’t worry about them, for the most part. Except, wolves tend to be a little unusual sometimes—so come to think of it, you might want to watch out for them after all.”
Yuriko wasn’t sure how she would do that. “Do these wolves all collect old books like my great-uncle did?”
“Many of them do, yes.”
“So they’re scholars. That doesn’t sound too dangerous.”
“Well,” Aju said, “just be careful. There are some real weirdos out there.”
/> “Once again, Aju, you leave much unsaid,” the Sage scolded the red book in a harsh tone. “The wolves are pursuers of the Hero, child. They are hunters. And now that you bear the mark, you are one of them.”
“Me? A wolf?”
“You leave now on a journey to find the Hero, to find the King in Yellow, do you not?”
He’s right.
“And, Yuriko, the King in Yellow knows. It can sense that you have received the mark. You are an allcaste.”
“Allcaste,” Yuriko muttered to herself.
“That is the word the devout in the nameless land use. That is your identity now.”
Yuriko swallowed. “So the enemy knows about me already?” Her knees started to wobble. It didn’t seem fair. She just wanted to find her brother, not get mixed up in all of this. I think that maybe I started something big without really understanding what I was doing.
“Now that the King in Yellow is free of its prison, it is also free to collect more power. It will come to this Circle, intent on adding to its strength, and perhaps not notice you at all. But should it feel you are a hindrance to its plans, it will quickly move to eliminate you.”
No one said anything about this!
“We cannot know how it will act, or react. But Yuriko, be wary, for the King in Yellow has many familiars, and while not as powerful as their master they are nothing to laugh at.”
Familiars? Like the animals witches are always sending to do their dirty work? Yuriko swallowed again.
“Are these nameless devout guys strong? Can they fight?”
The Sage did not answer, so she turned to Aju.
“Do you think the wolves will help me if I ask them?”
Aju too was silent. Yuriko stepped forward and picked up the red book. “Will you go with me, Aju?”
The book’s red glow flickered weakly, like its batteries were going dead. “The time for me to be summoned to the nameless land has not yet come,” the book replied after a moment.
Yuriko sighed and placed Aju back on the shelf. The book mumbled an apology, and she felt it shiver sadly as her hand left the cover.
“Now then, are you ready to go?”
She almost said no.
She wanted to cry.
Next to her, Yuriko’s replica stretched out a hand. Yuriko grasped it and held tightly, but the replica slowly shook her head.
“Hand that mirror to your replica,” the Sage instructed her. “You will not be able to bring anything with you from this Circle to the nameless land but that which you wear. You must pass through alone.”
Shoulders sagging, Yuriko handed over the mirror. But she still held the replica’s hand, not letting go until the replica had to gently pry off her fingers.
“Do you wish to see your parents before you leave?”
She had found them lying in the hall and on the entrance mat when she had gone looking for the chalk. They had been sleeping like babies. It had taken all her willpower to resist the urge to shake them awake.
“No. I’m okay. I’ll just go like this.”
Yuriko gave up trying to control things. She would just have to go for it, she decided. Even if what she was about to do sounded a whole lot scarier than getting picked on at school.
What was that line again? “There’s no turning back now.”
“Take care of them for me, will you? My parents, I mean,” she said to her replica, and her replica smiled and nodded. “Don’t worry. Leave them to me.”
She can speak! With my voice! It was obvious, when she thought about it—she was an exact replica intended to take her place after all. But it still startled her to hear her own voice like that.
“Won’t it be weird if there are two of me here when I come back?”
“Don’t worry about that, either. There’s a way to make it so no one will notice. I’ll explain when the time comes.”
Yuriko thought the replica sounded a little older than she did. Like a seventh grader, maybe.
“Good luck,” the replica said, and Yuriko wondered if a piece of her hair had somehow managed to turn into a more grown-up, confident person than she was.
“Then let us open the gate,” the Sage said solemnly. “To the center of the magic circle, Yuriko.”
Though her knees were still a little wobbly, Yuriko stepped into the very center of the circle and stood. The Sage began to chant again. Soon the other books joined, until the voice of every book in that reading room was raised in a single chorus. She could make out Aju’s voice among them.
Once again, pale flames rose up from the magic circle. The flames arced in the air, wrapping around her legs and arms. Though Yuriko closed her eyes against the glare, the image of her replica standing just outside the circle, waving her hand, still floated on the inside of her eyelids.
And that was how she had come here, wherever here was, standing on the soft grass.
She didn’t feel like she had moved since stepping on the magic circle. She hadn’t flown up into the air or tunneled through the ground or had to duck through any sort of opening.
She was just here.
Yuriko slowly opened her eyes, steeling herself for whatever might be waiting. She had already imagined several possibilities. She felt ready for just about anything. Anything at all.
What she saw dashed all pretense of readiness from her, scattering her resolve to the wind.
She was looking out over a dry grassland, bleached of color, as bleak as the gray sky that hung low above it. There was no one else in sight.
She noticed the light above her eyes again. The glyph on her forehead was glowing. She lifted her own hand and saw its pale light reflected on her fingers, and then it went out. Like a signal announcing her arrival extinguished when its purpose was served.
The sky seemed oppressively close. The clouds hung heavily over her, and beneath them floated a layer of mist. The mist had a slight bluish tint, making it look cold, as though tiny particles of ice flowed through the air currents above her head.
The gray grass that covered the ground was surprisingly soft to the touch, supple even, and moist. Maybe it’s not dried-up at all. Maybe this is its natural color. She held up her hand to her face and sniffed it. It smelled of soil. Drops of dew glistened on her fingers.
For 360 degrees around her, as far as she could see, there was only the sky and the grass. The ground was slightly uneven, like the ocean on a calm day, lifting and falling in gentle curves. The high parts weren’t quite high enough to be called hills, and the low parts not quite low enough to be called valleys.
She thought for a while before she remembered where she had seen something like it before. Sand dunes. They look like sand dunes made of grass!
So this is the nameless land.
Maybe they should’ve called it the colorless land.
For no particular reason, Yuriko pursed her lips and whistled. It made a weak trill that the wind quickly swept away and carried across the plains.
So, which way do I go?
Just then, she heard the sound of a bell tolling from far away through the mists. Yuriko took a step back, hunching low to the ground. When she stepped back, it sounded like the bell was coming from behind her, and when she stepped forward, it sounded like the bell was somewhere in front of her. The deep, booming sound seemed to bubble up from the ground and rain down from the sky all at once.
Then the mist ahead of her split in two like an unbuttoned collar. It was as though the bell had been a signal telling the mists to open the way for her. Far beyond the gently rising and falling plain, Yuriko spotted the silhouette of a giant building, and her eyes opened wide. The wind in her face made her eyes water, but she found herself unable to look away, even to blink.
Was it a temple or some kind of church? Could it even be a mountain that she was just mistaking for a building? She had seen mountains something like it, with pleated edges and high ridgelines towering straight toward the sky, on a family trip to the Japanese Alps. It looked like some kind of mass
ive folding screen. But the color was all wrong. From here she could see dark grays, darker even than the clouds, and tiny spots of something glimmering like violet crystals, and other spots that were as black as night. The way the colors were arranged reassured her that whatever it was, it wasn’t natural. It must be a building.
Now the mist cleared further, and she could see a roof, triangular at the top, with columns like horns standing to either side of it. Actually, it was less a rooftop than it was a tower. Below it, the building was divided into stories. She counted three before the base of the structure disappeared below the horizon. What had looked to her like folds in the mountainside were rows of decorative columns lining the walls. And the spots of pitch black were windows. The violet crystals must be light shining out from some of the windows.
The sound of the bell was coming from that building, she was sure of it.
And then, suddenly, it stopped.
The wind whistled in her ears. And then she heard voices carried on the wind, people talking. No, they’re not talking. They’re singing. Someone was out there, singing. Their refrain seemed to echo low along the ground, creeping across the grassland, coming closer.
Suddenly, a torch flared up in the mist, startlingly nearby. The flame trailed sparks behind it in the wind. Then another torch appeared, and another, and three torches soared over the rising curve of one of the grass-dunes. Heads appeared, one head by each torch.
The three people climbed to the top of the dune, and she saw that they were all dressed in the same black robes. The robes went down to just above the knobs of their ankles, and the hems were wrapped tightly around their calves. They were barefoot.
The trio approached. They walked evenly, all at the same pace, not in any hurry, but steadily. Yuriko took a few steps toward them, then stopped. She stood up straight, fixing her posture, though no one had told her to do so. It just seemed the thing to do in the presence of the nameless devout—and she was sure that was who they were.
The three came down the slope. When they had reached the bottom of the swale, they were only thirty feet or so away. The wind whipped across the grass between them. Sparks danced from the torches.