The Book of Heroes (5 page)

“A special what?”

“A special way to use me.”

Yuriko’s finger hovered.

“Didn’t I just tell you I’m not scary? I mean, I guess I understand why you might be startled, but scared? Still, I couldn’t just sit here and watch you…”

Yuriko lifted an eyebrow.
Watch me what?

“Look, pick me up. It’ll be a lot easier to talk that way.”

Yuriko withdrew her finger. Her hands clenched tightly into fists. She was trembling. She heard herself swallow.
Gulp
.

She closed her eyes, then opened them and quickly yanked the red book off the shelf.

A second later, she tried to toss it to the floor. In her hand, the book was light as a feather, and slightly warm. It felt like…like human skin! As she jerked her hand, trying to toss it, she felt the cover warp, wrapping around her fingers, clinging to her.

It felt disgusting.

“Eeeeew!”

“Gentle, please! I’m an old book, you know. I don’t even want to count the cracks in my binding these days. And don’t even get me started about the glue.”

Yuriko looked down at her hands and found that the book was still there, cradled gently between her fingers.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” the book suggested. “You can just put me on that desk over there. Then open me and put your palm flat on my page.”

“Open you to where?”

“Oh, any page will do.”

Yuriko sat down in her brother’s chair as she was told and placed the red book on the desk. It did look pretty beaten up.

She opened the book to the very middle; the pages settled to either side. They were covered with letters—the same code-like writing as the faded letters on the cover. The paper was yellow with age, with a few holes here and there.

“What an old book,” Yuriko whispered. After wiping the palm of her hand on her jacket, she gently placed it on the page.

She felt a sensation like the page was stroking her palm. Just like the cover had, the paper felt warm.

“I see,” the red book said. “You’re younger than you look, ain’t you, little miss?” Now the voice sounded normal, a plain human voice, not like the fluttering of wings she’d heard before.

“H-how can you tell?” she stammered.

“I can tell.”

“I’m eleven years old, you know.”

“As you count the years, yes, I suppose you are. Tell me, how old is your brother?”

“Fourteen.”

“He’s pretty young too, then, isn’t he?” It sounded like the book was scoffing.

Yuriko frowned. “My brother’s not a kid. Maybe he’s not grown up, but my parents said he will be soon. He’s…” She searched for the phrase. “He’s a young adult.”

A difficult age
, she had heard her parents say once. But then they smiled. Nothing bad would ever happen to Hiroki.

“No, no, he’s young enough. Believe me.”

The book’s voice was coming to her through the palm of her hand. It wasn’t like she could hear it with her ears. More like the voice was echoing in her mind.

“Are you a book fairy?”

A book fairy. A book spirit.

“Fairy? That’s an interesting word. Where did you learn that one?”

“In movies and folktales and stuff.”

“Ah, yes. Stories. I’m a story too, you know.”

“I thought you said you were a dictionary.”

“I’m a dictionary and a story. There’s a story in everything written in me. Of course, the stories came first.”

The book’s voice vibrated gently to her through the page. Even though the book was old and dirty and falling apart, she found to her surprise that it didn’t bother her in the slightest to touch it. Or touch
him
—the book was definitely male, though Yuri wasn’t sure how she knew this.

“Look, miss, I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to talk to you at all. I knew nothing would come of it, see? But you sang the song, so—”

“I did what?”

That strange song. The one that my mouth sang all by itself.

“I’ll bet you don’t even know what that song is.”

Yuriko nodded. “I heard my brother singing it in a dream,” she explained. She described the dream and what she’d seen.

The book trembled beneath her fingers. “Oh, so you did see it. Then maybe I
was
right to talk to you. Yes, that was definitely the move to make.”

The book sounded a bit too satisfied with himself.
Or maybe “itself,”
Yuriko thought. She was talking to a book, after all. “It was a weird dream,” she told the book. “And it’s even weirder that I remember the song.”

“But you don’t know what the song means?”

“How could I?”

“I suppose it’s just as well that you don’t.”

The red book stroked the palm of her hand again. Yuriko wasn’t sure exactly how he could do something like that, but that was how it felt.

“Little miss. Never sing that song again. You’d be better off if you just forgot it entirely.”

Now it is true in every place and age that the surest way to fire up a child’s curiosity is to tell them that something is forbidden. Yuriko leaned forward. Her palm pressed down on the page of the book. “Why? Why can’t I sing it?”

“Please, you’re pushing kind of hard.”

Yuriko hurriedly lifted up on her hand. She felt the book tremble, like he was catching his breath and shaking himself off after having the wind knocked out of him.

“Because,” the book said after a pause, “that’s a bad song.”

Yuriko was silent for a while. In her mind she was replaying the scene of her brother singing the song while that strange figure towered over him. Because she was now fully awake, she felt like she could remember the scene in much better detail.

Again, the book shivered. Yuriko felt as though she was touching human skin again.

“That’s right. That’s
it
.”

“That’s what?”

“
It
,” the book muttered and fell silent.

“Wait. You could see what I saw just now, couldn’t you? Are you reading my mind? Do you have ESP or something?” Then Yuriko laughed at her own question. If anyone had ESP, it was she. After all, here she was talking to a book.

“Something like that,” the book said.

Wait,
Yuriko thought.
He sounds frightened now.

“Is
it
something scary?”

“You mean you weren’t frightened?”

She remembered her brother tapping his forehead on the floor. The giant silhouette looking down at him. Back arching, proud.

Suddenly a phrase sprang into her mind. “I alone am king of the castle.”

“Huh?” said the book. “What’s that you just said?”

“I said ‘king of the castle.’” Yuriko stared at the book. “That big shape I saw—he was dressed like a king. Like the ones you see in picture books and the movies. He was wearing a crown.”

“Did you see his cape? All tattered and torn, wasn’t it?”

That’s it!
She had thought the silhouette looked swollen in places, like a balloon, but now she realized it had just been a billowing cape that swept from the shape’s neck all the way down to its ankles.

“It was too dark to see it clearly.”

“Then, did you see
its
face?” The book sounded so forceful, like this question was very important, that Yuriko reflexively pulled her hand away from the page.

“It was too dark.”

“So you didn’t see the face at all?” the book confirmed, his voice soft and whispery again.

Yuriko quickly replaced her hand on the page. “No, I didn’t.”

“That’s good then,” said the book. The book seemed to relax, the tension in his pages easing.

“So is this
it
all that scary? Is
it
a king of some place?”

The book was silent, almost as if it had decided to go back to being a regular book. But Yuriko could still feel him breathing against the palm of her hand. He was breathing like grown-ups did when they were worried about something. The book inhaled deeply, exhaled, then waited for what seemed like forever before remembering to breathe in again.

Once, two years before, her father had failed to pass a routine health check-up at his company. He had gone in for more tests, failed again, and was sent to a big hospital for even more tests. While this was going on, her mother would sit at the kitchen table by herself, breathing just like that. With each breath out, she was imagining all the terrible things that could go wrong, and it took her until the next breath to shake them out of her head. Luckily, in the end it turned out to be nothing serious, and the deep breathing stopped. Still, its rhythm remained etched in Yuriko’s memory.

How terrible could
it
be?

Why was Hiroki bowing to
it
?

A dim light began to flicker in Yuriko’s head.

“What if that’s why he did it? What if Hiroki hurting those boys had something to do with that king?”

The red book jerked beneath her fingers.

Yuriko’s eyes went wide. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

The book didn’t answer, so Yuriko grabbed him with both hands and gave him a good shake. “Tell me! Tell me!”

“M-m-miss! Gently, please! Just calm down.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

The book grumbled. “You’re right, okay?
It
’s bad. Evil.”

And it makes people do evil things—

Yuriko felt her knees go all wobbly. She slumped back into the chair, clutching the book to her.

From the day her brother had disappeared up until this very moment, Yuriko hadn’t heard one single explanation that made sense of what Hiroki had done. Not from her parents, her teachers, the police, or even herself. Every time she had gone looking for one, she had been told not to worry, or that she didn’t need to know. What the book had just told her as it quaked with fear (probably because she had shaken it so roughly) had been her first real answer.

Uh-oh, I think I’m going to cry.

“I knew he wouldn’t have done something like that. I knew it.” She really did begin to cry now. One drop, then two drops splattered on the cover of the red book. “It’s not like him. I know him.”

“Of course he wouldn’t,” came the red book’s gentle assurance. “Your brother’s a good kid. He would never hurt his friends, let alone take a life.”

Yuriko looked up. “You know him?”

“Sure I know him. Not for very long, mind you, but I was always nearby.”

Yuriko wiped the tears from her face.
Of course. The book was on Hiroki’s bookshelf.

“Believe me, miss. I tried to stop it with all my might. I told him to be careful. But he didn’t hear me until it was too late.
It
moved too fast…And
it
’s much stronger than I am,” the red book added, bowing its head in shame—or at least, that was how Yuriko imagined it.

The book sighed. “I’m no match for
it
. It is the Hero, after all.”

“The hero?”

Yuriko was surprised to finally hear the dark figure’s name. But the name didn’t fit. A hero was noble and strong. In history books, the heroes always saved the day. In sports, the one who set a new record was a hero. And in stories, the hero was always the main character, the good guy. How could a hero be something so evil?

“Wait, you’re joking, aren’t you. A hero can’t be bad.”

“I’m sure that’s what they taught you, yes.”

“Nobody
taught
me that. It’s just common sense.”

“Common sense?” The red book sighed again. “Fine, whatever you like. Oh, and it’s not ‘a hero.’ It’s ‘the Hero.’ It’s a title, not a name.”

Suddenly, the book felt different under her hand. He was no longer warm, and she couldn’t feel him breathing. It was as though the strange talking being in her hand had become nothing more than a dusty old
book
.

“Hey, wait!” Yuriko shook the red book. She tried holding it upside down by the cover, so the pages fluttered in the air. She tossed it and stomped on it and did everything she could think of short of ripping out the pages, but the book was silent.

“I don’t believe it!” Yuriko cried out loud. “That’s not fair. You—you’re mean!”

Sadly, she soon found that books are not easily swayed by little girls’ tears. Yuriko gritted her teeth, and summoning all her strength, she flung the book hard across the room. It opened in midair before slamming into the wall and dropping onto the floor face down, its pages bent beneath it.

There was no cry of pain, no angry shout. The book didn’t glare at her. It didn’t do anything.

Yuriko left the book where it lay and walked out of Hiroki’s room, her head filled with the rush of victory, but her feet dragging in failure.

She didn’t tell her parents about the red book. What would she say? It seemed like a dream even to herself, though she knew she had been awake. That evening, all they talked about was Yuriko’s return to school the next day, and how her mother would be bringing her in for her first day back, and how she was to play with her friends just like she had before—and nothing else.

The red book was left abandoned, crumpled on the floor by the wall.

The following day, Yuriko went to school as planned. When she got there, the head teacher, the principal, Mrs. Kiuchi, and Mr. Katayama were all there to greet her in the principal’s office. Her mother must have bowed to them a hundred times. The teachers all bowed back. Then Mr. Katayama took Yuriko to class.

After first period ended, during the first break, Kana ran over and hugged her. She looked like she was going to cry.
I was so worried. I’m so glad you’re back.

The other students in class were smiling, or looking sympathetic, or just pretending not to notice she was back—but no one was cold or angry, as she had feared they would be.

Whew
, she thought.
Everything’s back to normal. Except for the fact that my brother’s gone, nothing’s changed
. Yuriko felt the tension in her heart ease.

But it was all a sham.

After third period, Yuriko joined Kana for a bathroom break. That was where it happened. Some girls from the next class over walked into the bathroom just as they were about to leave—she had seen their faces before, but didn’t know their names. One of the girls saw her, then did a double-take. Her eyes sparkled. Not a bright sparkle, but a dull, dark sparkle, like the twinkling of a lantern at the bottom of a deep well.
Here’s something fun,
her eyes said.
Here’s something freakish. Let’s play with it and see if we can make it cry.
Yuriko could feel hands reaching out of those eyes, grabbing for her. The feeling was intense.