Page 20 of Water Moon
Chapter Twenty
Trips and Trains
There were nightmares you woke up from and there were nightmares you woke up to. Mornings were powerless to stop them. And so was Hana. She watched Keishin writhe in bed, blood dripping from wounds the Shiikuin left on his arms. His face twisted in pain. Sweat plastered a silver lock of hair to his face. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him hard even though she knew that she couldn’t wake him. The only way he was going to wake up was if he made it to the other side of the bridge on his own.
Keishin sat up with a jolt, wrestling himself free from invisible hands. His eyes found Hana’s face. “Hana…” he said, breathing hard.
“Kei!” She threw her arms around him. “You crossed.”
Keishin panted. “I almost didn’t.”
Hana jumped to her feet. “Get up. We need to go.”
“How did they find us?”
“It could have been the Horishi, or maybe someone who saw us at the teahouse or the temple. It does not matter. The Shiikuin have caught your scent.”
“My scent?”
“The Shiikuin can smell our secrets. That is how they track us down. Now that they know you are here, they will not stop looking for you.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I know. You have made it very clear that it’s useless to argue with you. I am not asking you to go back to your world, but we cannot stay here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Everywhere.”
—
They emerged from a puddle next to the entrance of a sprawling redbrick building with a large slate dome roof. An old-fashioned circular clock beneath the dome told the hour. Three floors below the clock, people scurried in and out of the building’s tall front doors.
“This is our Tokyo Station,” Hana said. “Does it look similar to the one in your world?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been to the one on my side. If I have, I don’t remember. My life in Tokyo is blurry at best. I hardly even remember my—”
“Your mother’s face?”
Keishin’s heart tightened. “How did you know?”
“I have the same look on my face whenever my father catches me staring at the only photograph he keeps of my mother. I have no memory of her, but I keep stealing that photo from his room, hoping that the next time I look at it, I will find some trace of her in my mind.”
“I try not to think about my mother.” Keishin looked up at the clock. “She doesn’t deserve an ounce of my time or the smallest space in my head.”
The sky turned dark.
“It’s going to rain,” Hana said. “We should go inside.”
“Are we catching a train?”
“A part of us is.”
—
A high octagonal coved ceiling made Hana feel small. Eight marble eagles perched around the ceiling, their eyes following the travelers beneath them rushing to catch their trains.
“Did that eagle just move?” Keishin said.
“Of course it did. It is a statue. They are supposed to move.”
“You’ll be very disappointed by statues in my world then.” Keishin looked around the station. “Where do we buy our tickets?”
“The tickets have already been purchased.” Hana glanced in the direction of a crowd making their way to the train lines. “By them.”
—
Keishin stood in the middle of a crowd waiting on the train platform, kneading his temples. “Out of everything I’ve seen and heard in your world, this plan is by far the strangest.”
“But it will work,” Hana said.
“You actually want me to go up to complete strangers and tell them my deepest secret?” Keishin said with a pained look.
“Both of us will. The more people we tell, the harder it will be for the Shiikuin to find us. They are tracking us, latching on to our secrets. A secret’s perfume is stronger and more distinct than any scent. No two people keep the same secret.”
“And that’s why we need to share it?”
“With as many people as we can. They’ll take our secrets with them wherever they go. It will confuse the Shiikuin and hopefully buy us enough time to find answers.”
Hana weaved through the platform, stopped behind a man checking the time on his watch, and whispered in his ear. Kei followed her lead, sharing his secrets with the crowd.
—
They stood on the platform and watched a train pull away from the station. “I’m glad that’s over,” Keishin said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more uncomfortable in my life. I felt like I was in one of those dreams where I was teaching one of my classes stark naked.”
“In a way, I suppose you were. Honesty strips away everything that hides who we really are. It is easier to share secrets with people you will never see again.” Hana buttoned up her coat. “It will take the Shiikuin a while before they discover that we have sent them after every train that has left the station in the past twenty minutes. We should not waste any of the time that we just bought.”
“Where to next?” Keishin asked.
“The edge of the sea.”