Lonely Castle in the Mirror Read online

  Kind of an arrogant supervisor, thought Kokoro.

  Someone asked another question.

  “The thirtieth of March is a mistake, isn’t it? There are thirty-one days in March.”

  This was from the boy in sweats, the only one who hadn’t spoken yet. The boy that Kokoro had secretly thought so good looking. Like a character in a manga for girls.

  The Wolf Queen shook her head several times.

  “No, you heard correctly. The castle will remain open until the thirtieth of March.”

  “Why?” the boy asked. “Is there a reason?”

  “Not really. If anything, the thirty-first of March is when the castle closes for maintenance. You see that sometimes, no? Closed for Maintenance?”

  The castle was the Wolf Queen’s home, yet she seemed so detached from it. The handsome boy seemed unconvinced, and was about to add something, but then he looked away and muttered, “OK.”

  “Is that actually real—a wish coming true?”

  This time it was the boy fiddling with the game console. He turned his body moodily towards the Wolf Queen. Kokoro looked curiously at the game console, since she didn’t recognize it, though she couldn’t tell for sure from where she was standing. The boy’s tone had a scathing ring to it.

  “You’re saying if we find the key, any wish can come true? We can use the kind of weird supernatural power that got us here to make it come true? Like we can become a wizard, or enter a video game or something? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I am, though I wouldn’t advise it. I don’t know anyone happy who wished for any of those. Enter the world of a game, and the enemy might kill you in an instant. But if that’s what you want, feel free.”

  “You’re so downbeat, aren’t you? If I go into Pokémon, it won’t be me doing the fighting, it’ll be a monster.”

  Still clutching his game console, the boy said this so matter-of-factly it was hard to tell how serious he was. He nodded to himself.

  “And then there are certain things you need to be aware of while you’re in the castle,” the Wolf Queen continued, surveying her group a little more closely.

  “Only the seven of you are allowed entry. If you try to bring someone with you, they won’t get in. So don’t attempt to get any outside help to find the key.”

  “What about telling other people about the castle?”

  This, again, from the good-looking boy. The Wolf Queen turned to face him. She’d answered all their questions so smoothly, but this one seemed to stump her.

  “If you think you can talk about it with others, go ahead and try.” She paused. “If you think anyone will ever believe you. The problem is, people will think you’re weird. You’re the only ones who can get in, so it will be very hard to prove it exists.”

  “But we can go through the mirror in front of someone, can’t we? If someone actually saw their kid disappear into a shining mirror, they’d be worried enough to believe it’s true.” This from the boy with the game console.

  The Wolf Queen sighed. “You said kid. So you’re talking about getting your parents to help you. Not your friends, but adults?”

  “Yeah.”

  “In that case, when you get back home the adults will probably smash the mirror. Or else they will forbid you to go through again. And if they do, then it’s over for all of you. None of you will be able to come here again, and the search for the key will be terminated. For my sake, I’m not in favor of you using the portal in front of anyone else. As a security precaution.”

  “You’re saying that when someone else is around, we shouldn’t enter the mirror?”

  “Well put.” The Wolf Queen nodded emphatically at the handsome boy’s question. Her large wolf ears flapped. “As long as you stick to the rules, then you can do whatever you want while you’re here. Talk, study, read books, play video games. And I’ll permit you to bring in lunch and snacks.”

  “Y-you mean there’s nothing to eat here?”

  Kokoro was surprised to hear the chubby boy hiding behind the banister speak.

  He did look overly fond of food, but she was amazed that he was brave enough to ask about it.

  “No, there isn’t,” the Wolf Queen said. “The truth is, you’re all food for the wolves. So eat up and put a little meat on your bones.”

  The Wolf Queen gazed silently for a moment and then jerked her chin up.

  “Introduce yourselves,” she ordered. “Over the next year you’ll be seeing a lot of each other. So go ahead and get to know each other.”

  Easy to say, Kokoro thought, and they all exchanged looks.

  She was anxious that the Wolf Queen might scream at them again not to look to each other for answers! She ducked her head, fearful that the Wolf Queen would let out another howl.

  “Wolf Queen, do you think you might leave us alone for a moment?” the ponytailed girl said. “We’ll get on well, don’t worry. We’ve all been thrown together here, so of course we want to get on. But now we’d like to work things out on our own.”

  “Well . . . all right.” The Wolf Queen didn’t seem particularly irritated. She tilted her masked face sideways. “Take your time. I’ll be back in a while.”

  She raised her arms as if she were going to float away, flapped them gently up and down, and then, in the blink of an eye, she vanished.

  The seven were left speechless.

  “Did you see that?”

  “Yep. She disappeared.”

  “What the—?”

  “Whoa.”

  Exclamations flew hard and fast between them.

  As luck would have it, her absence meant Kokoro could speak up.

  “I’ll start. I’m Aki,” the ponytailed girl said.

  They sat in a circle in the foyer between the double staircase, the grandfather clock looming over them.

  The girl’s tone was a little awkward, and Kokoro looked at her more closely.

  She gave her first name. No last name.

  “I’m in ninth grade. Nice to meet you.”

  “Very nice to meet you,” Kokoro said, keeping it polite because she was slightly in awe of the older girl.

  Kokoro had never experienced this before—a group of kids introducing themselves so formally.

  Usually, when introductions were made there was a homeroom teacher or other adult present. This April, just after she’d started junior high, when students were introducing themselves and one of the boys near the beginning of the register announced his name before sitting back down in a hurry, their teacher, Mr. Ida, had teased him. “Come on,” he said. “You can give us more than that, can’t you? Tell us your name, the elementary school you’ve come from. And a few words about what you like to do in your spare time.” After that the other kids mentioned baseball, basketball and other things they enjoyed. When Kokoro’s turn came, she said, Karaoke. She thought if she’d said she liked reading, the others would label her an introvert, so when several girls ahead of her said they liked karaoke, she copied them.

  Now with their so-called caretaker, the Wolf Queen, absent, no one urged anyone to add any extra detail. The only one who looked like she might do so was Aki, the girl who had already introduced herself, but since she merely said her first name and grade and nothing else, the others followed suit. It was enough.

  “I’m Kokoro,” Kokoro said boldly. She might not be able to remember everybody’s name immediately, she thought. Even introducing herself to such an intimate group was enough to get her stomach churning. “I’m in seventh grade. Nice to meet you all.”

  “I’m Rion,” the handsome boy said next. “People tell me it sounds like a foreign name, but I’m Japanese. It’s written with the ri in rika, science, and the on that means sound. I’m into football. And I’m in seventh grade. Nice to meet you.”

  Seventh grade. Like Kokoro.

  Kokoro heard a smattering of nice to meet you’s, and she could tell the situation felt awkward. Would they all have to explain which characters their names were written in, and
their hobbies and things?

  But Aki didn’t seem to want to add anything to her introduction, and Kokoro wasn’t about to take the lead either. Casually mentioning at this point that she was into karaoke would no doubt backfire.

  “Hi, I’m Fuka. I’m in eighth grade.”

  This from the girl in glasses. Once you got used to her high voice, it wasn’t so bad. Each word sounded bright and crisp. A couple of seconds of silence followed as she seemed to consider things, but then she broke it with a straightforward nice to meet you all.

  “I’m Masamune. I’m in eighth grade.”

  This was the boy with the game console. He stumbled on, not meeting anyone’s eye. “I’m tired of everybody always saying Masamune sounds like a samurai warlord’s name, or the name of a famous sword, or a brand of sake or something. It’s actually my real name.”

  He was the only one who didn’t add a nice to meet you. The others lost their chance to respond, and the tall boy seated beside him took a breath, ready to speak. He was the one who looked like Ron in Harry Potter, and who’d earlier stood up and asked if he could go home.

  “My name’s Subaru, OK? Nice to meet you. I’m in ninth grade.”

  Kind of an oddball, was Kokoro’s take on him. Otherworldly, you might say. She’d never heard any boy she knew end a sentence like that, with a challenging OK? But Subaru seemed the type who could say that and get away with it. He wasn’t like any boy she’d met before.

  “Ureshino,” a small voice said.

  This from the chubby boy who’d worried whether there was anything to eat.

  “Eh?” the others responded.

  He repeated himself. “Ureshino. It’s my surname. It’s a bit unusual. Nice to meet you.”

  His bashfulness struck a chord with Kokoro. She immediately found herself wanting to ask him which characters his name was written with, but she stopped herself.

  “Really? So how’s that written?” a casual voice asked, and Kokoro gulped. It was Rion.

  Ureshino took a deep breath. He didn’t seem to mind the question at all.

  “The ureshi part is written with the character for ureshii—happy. And the no is the character in nohara—field.”

  “Whoa—lots of strokes in writing those characters. I don’t even know how to write the first one. What year in school are you supposed to learn to write ureshii? Must be a pain during tests when you have to write your name at the top.”

  “Yeah, it takes so long to write it out that sometimes I’ve got less time to actually do the test.”

  Ureshino grinned, the very image of happiness. The mood lightened. “I’m in seventh grade,” he added. “Nice to meet you.”

  “So we’re all in middle school,” Aki said, looking around and nodding. She seemed to be in charge. “I know the Wolf Queen might be listening in, but do you have any idea why we were brought here?”

  Aki’s voice was starting to sound a bit tense, and quivered slightly.

  “Nope,” Masamune said, not skipping a beat. “Not a clue.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Aki nodded. Kokoro felt a wave of relief herself.

  Introductions over, they fell silent and looked awkwardly away.

  They’d all spoken in different ways, but Kokoro was sure they had all come to the same realization. None of them was going to school.

  None of them dared broach the topic.

  But even if they didn’t put it into words, it clearly weighed on everyone’s minds.

  The silence lingered until—

  “Have you finished?”

  The Wolf Queen, standing hands on hips at the top of the stairs. How long she’d been watching, no one knew. There were a couple of startled yelps as they turned to look at her.

  “Come on, don’t behave like you’ve just seen a monster.”

  It felt like that, though no one said it.

  “So, are you all ready?” she asked.

  Ready?

  Did she mean ready to begin their search for the key, and make their wish come true? There was only one key. Only one person’s wish could come true. Kokoro knew they were all thinking the same thing.

  As if seeing through them all, the Wolf Queen said, “Well, that’s it for today, then. You can do whatever you like now. Stay in the castle, take a stroll around, go home. It’s up to you.

  “Oh, and one other thing,” she said. And the words that came next, so softly and gently, calmed Kokoro.

  “You each have your own individual room here in the castle, so feel free to use it. You’ll find your name plate outside, so check it out later.”

  June

  May was over and June had arrived. Kokoro woke up to the sound of raindrops striking her window, the sort of weather she didn’t mind at all.

  When she was attending school, she’d go by bicycle, and on rainy days she would wear her school-approved raincoat. She liked its damp smell when she spread it out to dry in the evening. Some people might not like that smell—a mixture of water and dust, apparently—but Kokoro was fond of it.

  On an afternoon back in April, she had been unlocking her bike at the end of the school day, and as she breathed in the rain, she turned to the students making their way home, and without thinking she said, “It smells like rain.”

  Later she saw Sanada and her little cohort lifting their raincoats theatrically to their noses and saying with a smirk, “Oh—it smells like rain.” Kokoro froze in horror. They must have been spying on her.

  And what was so wrong with liking the rain?

  School wasn’t a place where you could speak honestly.

  She got out of bed, and made her way downstairs. Today when Kokoro again told her mother that she didn’t want to go to the new School, she didn’t get frustrated. Outwardly, at least, she kept her voice calm.

  “Another stomachache, is it?” she asked. Kokoro’s stomach really did hurt, and she couldn’t understand why her mother had to use that tone of voice, as if she were faking illness.

  “Um,” she replied in a small voice, to which her mother said, “Well then, you’d better go back to bed.”

  Her mother couldn’t bring herself to look at her.

  Last month she had not managed to go to the School even once.

  There were so many things she wanted to say to her mother—that she wasn’t pretending to be ill, that she didn’t hate the School at all. She felt she needed to open up about all her feelings, and explain them in detail, but she was afraid that if she stayed in her mother’s company any longer, her mother would explode. She didn’t want to hear her mother on the phone calling the School to explain yet another absence, and so, carrying her pain alone, she trudged back upstairs.

  Curled up on her bed, she heard the sound of the front door slamming as her mother left for work.

  She would always call out a cheery “See you later!” when she left, but today she walked out without a word. Kokoro slowly closed her eyes. In the silence of the empty house, she could hardly breathe.

  After a while, she slid downstairs and peeked into the dining room. The usual bento and water bottle were waiting for her on the table.

  When she went back upstairs, the rain still pounding on the window and filling the room with its wet smell, the mirror had begun to shine.

  The entrance to the castle was open, inviting Kokoro inside. Kokoro found herself recalling the events of the day she’d last been in the castle.

  As suggested by the Wolf Queen, they were all keen to check out their allocated room.

  When Kokoro found hers, her jaw dropped.

  It was so much more spacious than her own at home: thick plush carpeting, a rolltop desk with carved flower designs, and a wide bed. “Wow!” she squealed. She gave the bed a gentle pat, before perching on its edge. The mattress was soft and welcoming.

  On one side was a bay window with velvet curtains and white latticework—a window like an empty birdcage she’d only ever seen in a Western fairy tale.

  Up against the wall was a bookcase,
a huge one.

  Kokoro caught her breath. She thought she caught a whiff of old paper. The musty smell that hit your nostrils whenever you ventured into the far corner of a tiny bookstore, the place where few people ever went. A smell she loved.

  The bookcase covered one entire wall and reached almost to the ceiling. As Kokoro sat on her bed contemplating her room, she felt a little dizzy.

  Did everyone have a bookcase like hers?

  Just then she thought she could hear the tinkle of a piano.

  She perked up her ears.

  Someone somewhere was hesitantly picking out a tune. It was a piece she recognized. Someone must have a piano in their room.

  She heard a sudden bang, as if someone had struck the keys in frustration. Kokoro flinched. The performance was obviously over.

  A teddy bear sat at the top of her bed, nestled among the oversized pillows. She picked it up and went over to the books; she ran her fingers along their spines, wondering if she would ever get to read them. She pulled out a couple. To her surprise, they were all in foreign languages. She might be able to read the ones in English a little, but the rest were in French, German or something else. Most of the books were fairy tales. She peered closely at the covers: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Snow Queen, and The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats by the Brothers Grimm. One cover showed an old man and a woman heaving up a huge turnip, which she figured must be the folk tale The Enormous Turnip. The Wolf Queen had called them all Little Red Riding Hoods, and when Kokoro spied what looked like a German edition of the book, she felt a chill run through her.

  She considered borrowing a book to take home. She might be able to get through an English one, with the help of a dictionary.

  She carried on browsing.

  She’d seen some of the more striking covers before. They might not be exactly the same, but they reminded her of the pictures on the wall, the warm feeling oozing within her, when she spent time at Tojo-san’s house. She felt a stab of pain in her heart. You can borrow any book you like, her friend had said to her. Now Kokoro knew that would never happen.

  She couldn’t help feeling a touch disappointed that her room didn’t have a piano. Even if they put one in here, Kokoro couldn’t play it very well. The piano was no doubt for someone who could play it decently. Probably one of the two other girls—ponytailed Aki, or Fuka, the girl in glasses.