Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters (17 page)

Ahead of us, Inu isn't moving at his usual trot; instead, a paw-dragging trudge, and he's also panting. Jinx seems like she's doing all right—no crankier than she was an hour ago, anyway. Maybe she's used to the jungle climate, being from Kauai and all. Nobody speaks.

I take what my grandma would call a “deep, cleansing breath.” Or I try to, at least. The air is so humid it's like breathing in warm soup, which sticks in my throat. I cough. What I really want to do is sit down in the shade for approximately twenty hours and have a good rest. Apparently I'm not meant for outdoor life. I think of my room at home and my video games. Heck, I'd even be happy washing dishes for Obāchan, if it meant I could be inside.

Then again, if I was home, that would mean being back in a room wrecked by the disaster. It would mean that everyone and everything in my town was gone, including my father and Peyton's parents.

Not to mention what it would mean for the rest of the world when the oni attacked them, too.

I'm walking straight into the oni nest—no, I probably don't want to think about that.

A shadow passes overhead, and then a giant splotch of bird poop, neon yellow and green and white, plops down in front of me. Ew. I glance up and see a monstrously huge bird flapping away. I'm pretty sure it's laughing.

How much longer can we keep walking?

I stare at Jinx's back as she leads us to wherever we're going. She's my sidekick, and so is Peyton. They're here to help me. But even with them, how can I fight all the oni? Throwing salt can't be the answer—I don't have enough. I need a sword. Or something. Anything.

I remember the dream I had about my grandfather.
Ojīchan
, I say in my head,
what am I supposed to do?
Obāchan told me I had faith and imagination. But imagination isn't good for much when a real live monster is trying to claw your guts out. I don't know what she meant by faith. Faith in what? I don't have any faith. I don't even have a weapon. That sword in my dream—my grandfather's sword—shouldn't I have that? I'm no expert on heroes and demon fighting, but that weapon seems kind of important. In my frustration, I hit a palm leaf that's sticking out into the path, and it hisses and smacks me back. I jump forward, almost knocking into Peyton. Okay, mental note: leave plants alone.

The trees become more closely packed, their roots gnarled foot-traps. We have to slow down, pick our way over the knotty, ropelike appendages. Abruptly the light dims and the air cools, though there's not a breath of wind. Thank goodness. I inhale and feel the refreshing chill seep into the deepest part of my lungs. I look up, and the sky's completely obscured by leaves again. No birds or creatures chirp. It is as quiet as a baby's nursery at naptime. Ahead there's an especially big tree, with space between its huge, exposed roots that look like two arms waiting to hug me. I want to lie down between them. Usually dark forests are spooky, but this one's as inviting as a pool on a hot day. I stop walking. My eyelids are so heavy I might literally fall asleep on my feet. “Can we rest in here?” I try not to show how tired I am. I put my hands on my hips.

Jinx looks back at me and frowns. “This is not a good place. It's the Sacred Grove.”

“Why's it sacred?” I move toward the roots, where I want to lie down. “We won't hurt anything.”

“I don't know. It's just really ancient.” She purses her lips. “It's like a church. Would you sleep in church?”

The two times a year when my dad takes me to church, I do tend to nod off during the sermon. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Peyton yawns loudly and sits down on a root, his wings folding up behind him. “I vote for a rest, too.”

Inu leans against Jinx. Guess that means he's siding with her, which makes me reconsider my opinion. But Peyton's already slid down to the ground, and his head's bobbing against his chest.

Jinx wipes sweat off her forehead. “Whatever. I guess it's safe enough. Just don't hurt anything.” She sits against a root, too, and Inu throws himself down beside her with a sigh.

“I won't. I'm a regular tree hugger.” I examine the massive tree.

Its bark is gray-white and only slightly rough, like watercolor paper. It's as wide as three men lying end to end. I stare at the bark, looking for something out of the ordinary. Nothing. I turn and examine the other trees in this copse, too. A soft breeze rustles the leaves and dappled sunlight hits the uppermost branches. They're just regular trees.

Jinx and Inu are already fast asleep, as is Peyton. I sit down against the biggest tree, in between two roots, curling my body up against its trunk.

In a moment, the grove falls away and I'm standing on a mountainside that overlooks an ocean. A regular, non-tsunami ocean. And it's not my mountain, either. I look down at big white waves crashing into rocks, up at pine trees and snow.

“Musashi.”

I turn. My grandfather sits on a small boulder. He is older this time, a hump in his back. A jolt goes through me.

“You were at school!” I point at him. “It was you, older!”

He winks. “Suffering through your boring social studies class with you.”

I grin. Finally, a grown-up who will admit the truth. Too bad he's an ancestor now and can't back me up in real life. “I'm having trouble, OjÄ«chan. How do I know what to do?”

“Have you consulted the comic book?” He stretches his legs out in front of him, flexing his feet in his wooden
geta
sandals, wincing as if this action pains him.

“It's back on the ship. But we read it.” I stand in front of him, my arms crossed. I'm not going to let him turn into the beast-man this time. This is
my
dream, darn it. “The comic book doesn't say, like, how to kill the beast-man or get my father back. His father's not even missing in the story. It's not the same at all.”

“But you created it, Xander Musashi. You know all you need to know.” He reaches up and taps my temple with his cold right forefinger. “All you need to do is access it. Like with your computers.”

“Well, I don't know how to do that.” My nose begins running, and my eyes sting. I look down to stave off tears. “I don't know why nobody will tell me anything.”

My grandfather's calves are bare under his kimono, crisscrossed with blue veins and red scars. This man has seen a fight or two. I soften. “Please, can't you help me?”

He laughs, not unkindly. “If I helped you any more, Musashi, I would be having this adventure for you. You must live it yourself.”

My nose tingles. I sneeze once, twice. By the third, I'm awake, back in the grove, my face pressed against the tree.

So I still don't know where Momotaro's sword is, or how to vanquish anything. Everything I've done has been through trial and error, not because I know how to access information stored somewhere secret in my brain.

And the sword! I didn't ask about the sword. I punch the tree's bark lightly. Not only would I like to live this adventure, I'd very much like to live through it,
thankyouverymuch
.

I take a few breaths so deep my lungs pinch. The bark smells like lemongrass. I see now that the bark is actually many colors, light greens to grays to green-whites and silver-whites. It looks like a
CraftWorlds
tree, made of thousands of pixels. I stare at the pixels and think about how I'd re-form them into different shapes. Like a tree-colored person.

Then, before my eyes, the pixels of the tree bark actually shimmer and move. Whoa. I take a step back. The squares clump and rearrange themselves into a silvery shape that mirrors my shape, like a light-colored shadow of me.

You have awakened me
, a whispery voice says. It might be a man's, or a woman's. A teenage boy's, maybe? Like a dude whose voice is still changing, not too high and not too low.

“Who's there?” My voice sounds out of place and too loud in the grove.

I
am here. You wanted to speak to me.
The tree-shadow thing is talking. I look behind me, but everyone else is still sleeping.

I move so I'm kneeling in front of it, facing it. “I didn't want to talk to anybody,” I whisper. “Who are you?”

I am Wakunochi-no-kami, second son of the gods Izanami and Izanagi, who created this place.

Those names sound vaguely familiar. My dad has a book called
The Kojiki
, which is a Japanese legend of creation. Or maybe it's
not
legend—who knows anymore? He used to read it to me when I was little. Izanami and Izanagi, I recall now, were gods who gave birth to the islands of Japan as well as a bunch of other gods. I don't remember this Wakunochi, though. Probably because I was mostly asleep when Dad shared the story with me at bedtime.

You are looking for your father.

Well, I guess a god would know that. I spread out my hands and so does the shadow. It has no face. To my surprise, maybe because I'm still so darn tired, I'm not scared. It's just a tree without eyes or a mouth. “If you're a god, can you help me find him? Or tell me how I'm supposed to do it? Like, how do I fight the oni? I don't even have a sword.” I shut my mouth. I sound kind of whiny. Not at all like a hero.

I am a
kodama
, a tree spirit, and as such can only stay here.
It raises its hands, which I am definitely not doing.
I can tell you this: you have powers the sword does not. The sword has powers you do not. Together, you have twice as many powers. But the sword will not appear until you earn it.

“Well, how am I supposed to do enough stuff to earn it, when I don't have the sword to fight with?” I ignore the fact I don't know how to use the sword anyway. It's obviously magical. Once I get it in my hands, I'll probably turn into a crazy good fighter straight out of a video game. That's what always happens.

I'm sick of people (or spirits) talking to me in riddles I can't figure out. Going on about powers they claim I have but I don't. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm super-duper thirsty and tired, but I'm as cranky as a toddler coming down from a sugar high. “Spirit, if you can't leave your tree, what good are you?”

The shadow reaches out of the tree, its arm all see-through pixels, and puts its hand on my forehead. It's as cold as an icepack. The ground shudders under my knees—only under
me
. The chill seems to pierce my skin and touch my brain. It doesn't hurt, but it doesn't feel good, either. I try to stand up, get away from it, and—yowch!—now
that
hurts, like my head's caught in a vise.

You are not very respectful for a boy without a weapon. Not like a Momotaro should be.

“Sorry!” I yelp, and the cold lessens. “I don't know how a Momotaro
should
be. I'm just me.”

The kodama sighs.
That is not an excuse.

I gulp and try to turn to look at my friends, but I can't move at all. I take a deep breath, and I don't even feel my stomach move. It reminds me of the time I got my tonsils out when I was five—that moment when the doctor sticks the mask over your face and tells you to go to sleep, and you know you have no choice. Okay, now this is getting a little scary. “I thought you were a god. Aren't you a good tree spirit?”

Why do you think this part of the forest has so many trees?
the spirit says, sounding almost gleeful.
These were all people once, until they annoyed me.

Uh-oh. “What did they do?”

They were both impertinent
and
stupid. There is no crime worse than being so stupid you do not even realize how stupid you are.

I think of Lovey, being racist and mean and too dumb to know it, even when people tell her so. I guess maybe the kodama's right.

I could not let them infect the world. Now, if you prove to be impertinent but smart, I may let you go on your way. Listen.

“Okay,” I whisper. I hope I'm up for this. I don't exactly feel at my mental best at this moment. If I mess this up, my friends will turn into trees right where they're sleeping. And my dad will never be able to find me, if he does manage to escape on his own. Who'd think to look in a sacred grove on an island of oni?

The kodama speaks again.

I shut my eyes, picturing the words written on a blackboard in front of me. A comet? An eclipse? A dying star? A breath? No, no, no. It has to be something not so obvious.

In my head, I look over the words. The letters.

I can't tell.

Time's up.

I flinch, my heart racing. “You didn't tell me this was timed.”

I don't have to tell you anything. This isn't school. It's life.

“I give up!” I yell. And then, suddenly, I see the answer on my mental chalkboard. Of course! It's so obvious. “The letter
m
!” I say, and I can't keep the huge grin off my face. Take that, tree.