Ai of the Mountain (A Fairy Retelling #2) (9 page)

“Kaito, what is happening to us?” I say, so tired I think I would collapse completely to the ground if Kaito wasn’t holding me up.

“Ai-chan, please,” he says, and my gaze travels back to his face. Such pain I see there. Why? I don’t understand any of this. “You must save yourself.”

Save myself? From what? Here in his arms is the safest place I could possibly be.

“Take this,” he says, pulling his sword free from the sheath resting against his back. He places the sword in my hand and wraps his own hands protectively around mine. “Save yourself.”

My vision clears and he is gone. I am alone in the river.
Save yourself.
His words echo in my ears. The sword is still in my hands. I grasp it with both hands and lash out against the riverweed entwined around my ankle. The sword slides through it and breaks me free in an instant. I struggle not to drop it as I pump my legs, pushing my body to the surface.

Great gulps of air rush in as water expels from my lungs. I hug the bank of the river. The current has pulled me downstream and I see the daimyo in the distance, pulling Grandfather Koi onto the bank of the river.

I throw the sword onto the grass and pull myself out. My lungs burn. My body aches. My heart aches. Kaito’s face flashes before me. He was in so much pain. I do not know how to save him. But, I can still try to save Grandfather Koi.
Save yourself
, Kaito said. I will. But, I will save Grandfather Koi as well. If I can.

I lift the sword from the ground, and run as fast as my body will allow me, back to the maple tree. Lord Nakaguchi has pulled the giant koi completely out of the river and onto the ground. He kneels next to Grandfather Koi, and wrenches the sword out of his tail. I am close enough to see Grandfather Koi’s flanks lift and fall in rhythm with his quick breaths. I do not know how long he can survive out of the water. I do know he will not survive at all if Lord Nakaguchi has his way.

I rush from behind the tree and come at the daimyo with my sword raised, and a bellowing cry that sounds my hurt and anger. He sees me a second before my sword crashes down on him, and the metallic ring of his sword hitting mine rings throughout the mountainside.

“Stupid girl! You think you can stop me?” He pushes up and against the sword in my hands, and I fall back, but the force of his momentum is too great. As he takes a step back, his foot slips on the wet grass of the bank. He wobbles on the edge for a moment and then falls into the river once again, dropping his sword on the ground just before the black water swallows him whole.

I reach for his sword and put my hand around it just as Lord Nakaguchi’s arm breaks the surface of the river. He clutches the bank and he begins to pull himself out. I drag the wicked-looking sword out of his reach for now, but I know that will not save me for long. There is nothing but rage and hatred in his eyes. The moment he is free from the river, he will kill me. I am certain of it.

Something catches my eye from across the river. I look and see a red fox sitting underneath a tree on the opposite bank, its head cocked to one side, watching us. I think it is smiling at me.

Lord Nakaguchi has pulled most of his torso out of the river. He reaches for me, and his fingers brush against my foot for a brief moment. The daimyo almost has me. He knows this, too. I see it in his eyes. He pulls the rest of his body out of the river, and stands. Riverweed is wrapped all around his legs. He takes a step forward, but the riverweed pulls tight against him. He lunges for his sword, and I push it back farther behind me. The daimyo sprawls out on the bank of the river spewing curses at me, and pulling against the entangling river weed. Every time he pulls against it, it only knots around him more strongly. Each time he struggles, the weeds actually pull him further off the bank and towards the river. If he does not stop struggling, the weeds will pull him into the water again.

I don’t want to help Lord Nakaguchi, but I also don’t want to watch him drown. The experience of it is still burning in my chest. “Stop!” I say. “You’re going to drown yourself.”

The daimyo pays no attention to my words, but only rails against the weeds, completely enraged. With each twist and turn, his body is pulled farther off the bank and closer to the river. After a few moments, he is grasping the edge of the bank, his legs and chest fully pulled back into the river. He swears again.

“Please,” I beg, “let me help you.”

The daimyo stops thrashing around and holds his hand out to me. Instead of taking his hand, I reach for Kaitos’s sword. While I’m turned away, the daimyo’s hand seizes my ankle and pulls. I fall to the ground, and the daimyo begins to drag me into the river. I yank my foot out of his hand, and see his head disappear as the riverweed pulls him down under the surface of the water. I lunge for Kaito’s sword, and look over the edge of the water, but see nothing under the surface of the water. The daimyo has disappeared.

I look across the river to the opposite bank. The red fox is gone as well.

“Ai-chan,” a gravelly voice says behind me. Grandfather Koi.

I put a hand on the side of the giant fish. Blood pours out of the gash in his tail. His sides heave with the effort of breathing. I put my arms around him and pull, but his body is so great and heavy, there is no hope of lifting him back to the river.

“Tell me how to help you, Grandfather Koi. What do I do?”

“Oh, Ai-chan. There is nothing that can be done for me now. Even if you could push me into the river, it would not save me.”

“But, we have to do something. Please, Grandfather, help me.”

“It is too late for me. But do not fear, little one. I am ready for death. I have been alive a long, long while. It is my time.”

A great sob escapes me, and I put my hands on the side of my friend. “Please, don’t give up, Grandfather. Let me try to save you.”

“You have saved me. And now, I have a way to save you, as well. Quickly, before my spirit leaves me, you must take as many of my scales as possible.”

“No, Grandfather. I cannot hurt you more.”

“Please, Ai-chan. The pain of knowing I could do something more for you, and not doing it, will cause more pain than the edge of the sword. Please, let me do this for you. I don‘t have much time.”

I pick up the sword that saved me from the depths of the river, and hesitate.

“Let me give you one last gift, little mountain girl,” he says.

I nod and begin to cut away his scales. Tears stream from my eyes, and I am barely able to see them transform into gold coins. The gold of the coins blurs together with the orange of the scales, and the blood on my hands.

It’s too much.
I can’t do this.

“More, Ai-chan. Take more. Free me. Please.”

I nod, too heartsick to say anything, and continue to cut away at the scales. White flesh shines in the sunlight where I have stripped his body clean. With each scale that I take away, the koi’s skin lightens, becomes more transparent. I continue to pull scales off of Grandfather’s Koi body. He continues breathing shallowly. It will not be long now.

“Faster, Ai-chan. Hurry. Please.”

I take on a new sense of urgency, and slice off more and more scales faster and faster. Before long, there are only a few left. I stop for a moment and put my hand to his side. The skin is so translucent, I can nearly see through it to what lies beneath. I look closer. Pressed against his flesh from inside, is the outline of a hand. A human hand.

Grandfather Koi’s breaths come slow now, in great, heaving pants. I am surprised he has been able to survive this long. “It is almost time for me to go, mountain girl,” he says. I cut another scale and stop. There is only one more scale left on his great body. Something rings in my memory. I missed something important. I’m not sure what it is, but I know there is something in what Grandfather Koi has said that I should have caught.

“What did you say?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer. Instead, his body shudders and he exhales one last time, then lies still against the ground. Glimmering coins surround us in piles, but I care little for them. I would gladly give them all back to have Grandfather Koi alive and well. I stare at the blood-stained sword in my hand. Kaito’s sword. I hear a whisper of his voice on the wind.
My little mountain girl.

A gasp escapes my lips and I press my hand against the outline of the hand on the great koi’s skin. I can feel the hand, just underneath. Somehow, someone is truly in there, trapped beneath the beastly flesh of Grandfather Koi. I take the sword and try to slice the fish’s skin, but there is no cut. I try again. Nothing happens. Again, and again, I attempt to free the body from inside the fish, but the sword will not pierce the skin.

The final remaining scale winks at me in the sunlight, as if it is mocking me. At least I am able to cut it off, if nothing else. I take the sword to the place where the scale meets skin, and slice. The scale falls into my hand, but does not change into a gold coin. It remains a thin, delicate, orange scale. Where the scale fell off, a small tear in the koi’s skin remains. I put the edge of the sword to the tear, and the skin falls freely away from the blade, beginning at the bottom of Grandfather Koi’s tail, and leading all the way along his body.

I expect to see blood pour out of the gash, but none comes. I lift a flap of the fish’s skin, and instead of the inner viscera of a fish, I see a person. A real, living person. I think he is living. The body is curled up around itself, knees pulled up to his chest, and arms bent in front of his face. I pull away the remaining skin, and free the body completely.

The moment the last of Grandfather Koi’s skin is pulled away, it disintegrates into dust, and blows away in a quick gust of wind. The body of the man shudders with a great gasp, and I sit back in surprise. He pulls his arms down, unfolds his body, and blinks as his eyes adjust to the light.

Underneath our maple tree, in the light of the day, I see Kaito in the waking world for the very first time.

I put my hands to his face as he sits up underneath the tree. He is as solid and as real as in my dreams. More so, because now I know he is really, truly here in the flesh.

“I’m not dead?” he asks. “I thought I died. There was the struggle in the river with Lord Nakaguchi, and then you came to save me, but I knew it was too late. I told you to take the only thing I had left to give you, my scales, and then there was nothing but darkness.” He puts his own hand to my face. “I thought I lost you forever.”

I pull him close, and press my lips against his, hungry at first to feel with certainty the truth of his existence, and then caressing his lips more gently once I have been convinced that he is truly real. I am not dreaming.

“You helped free me from my curse,” he says when we finally pull apart. I remember the dream I had where he confessed how he was cursed by a kitsune spirit for his selfishness. I thought it was all part of my imaginary world.

“It really happened? You really lived so long ago?”

“Yes. For more than a hundred years I’ve been trapped in the body of a fish. I stopped daring to hope that I would ever be freed, but then you came. I watched you grow and become such a beautiful, strong woman. The kitsune told me that I would only be freed if I gave my life for love. I didn’t understand what he meant until today. If you somehow managed to get me to the river, I might have survived, but then, what would you have been left with?

“But, if I gave you my scales, knowing that they would become golden coins, I could do something to help you, even if it cost my life. That is why I expected to be dead. When I saw you, I thought I had died.” He smiles. “I thought I was in heaven.”

I look at this man who I thought was only a dream, then a ghost, and now is truly here, holding me. I would think I was imagining it all, if it weren’t for the ache in my heart and the sweetness of his lips against mine. “You gave me a reason to give, Ai-chan. The old man said I would only be able to gain my life back if I could give it away for love. Thank you. You saved me, in more ways than one.” Kaito picks up a handful of the enchanted rose-shaped coins and puts them in my hands. “Now, with these, you’ll never have want for anything ever again.”

I drop the coins to the ground, press my lips against his for a moment, and pull back to look him squarely in the eye.

“Together,
we’ll
never have want for anything. Ever again.”

Glossary

Ai
– girl’s name; love

arigatou gozaimashita
– formal form of ‘thank you’

-chan
– a suffix of endearment attached the end of a girl/woman’s first name, used to show affection between family members and friends

Edo
– former name of Tokyo, the capital of Japan

obento
– lunch box

daimyo
– feudal lord of a region

furoshiki
– large cloth used to wrap and carry items

futon
– a thin mattress for sleeping, usually placed directly on a tatami mat floor