Budding Star (14 page)

As we rode through the dazzling snowy morning, she chatted away, seeming almost like her old self; just so long as we kept everything light.

Considering that Tsubomi still fiercely denied she was a musician, she had extremely strong opinions on the subject. It turned out she adored hip-hop, which pleased me (I’m the original heavenly hip-hop chick, as you know!). But if you asked her how she was so well-informed about Earth music, she said evasively, “Everyone knows this stuff, it’s just like, in the
air
.”

“Sure it is, they play hip-hop constantly in Limbo,” I muttered.

Reuben gave me his look: like, she’s getting there. Give her time.

Eventually he and Tsubomi got into this weird conversation I couldn’t make head or tail of. Reuben asked if Tsubomi had ever tried listening to silence. (I know. To you and me, “silence” means you can’t hear anything, right?)

“Not just silences in music,” he explained earnestly. “Any time you feel stressed, just try focusing on the gap between ordinary sounds. Say you’re in a huge city with constant traffic noises, emergency sirens, pounding car radios, but you let it all wash over you, because you’re totally concentrating on that gap. It helps you stay calm when everyone else is stressing.”

Tsubomi gave him a look of utter suspicion. “You’re talking about Earth. But I don’t live there now. There’s no stress here. It’s beautiful and peaceful.”

“And sad,” I said softly.

“Life is sad,” she said, quickly turning away.

Tsubomi didn’t speak again for some time.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we came to a frozen lake, fringed with weeping willows, and spanned by a narrow footbridge

Snow had turned the bridge into a feathery fairytale construction like something spun out of frozen cobwebs. On the other side was a palace of pure ice.

Tsubomi suddenly seemed pale and strained. “The Palace of Everlasting Sorrow,” she whispered, as if the wind had just breathed the name in her ear.

“We must go inside,” she told us in a trembling voice. “There’s something I have to do.”

Reuben and I tethered the horses.

“I think she’s getting ill,” I murmured.

“No wonder with these vibes,” he commented grimly.

As a former human, I still tend to assume that any strong emotion belongs to me. As we made our way gingerly across the dazzling cobweb bridge to the Palace of Everlasting Sorrow, painful emotions hung in the air like ice crystals. I was grateful to Reubs for reminding me that these feelings strictly belonged to Level Three.

Crunching through deep snow we eventually found ourselves at the palace gates.

I’d tried to brace myself for this, but it was still distressing to see the guards standing frozen at their posts. One of them had the sweetest face. I saw Tsubomi swallow. She really shouldn’t be that pale, I thought.

If anything, the palace was chillier inside than out. The walls gleamed with ice, and the air literally smoked with cold. A vast central hall was crowded with frozen servants and lords and ladies, all fixed into rigid poses. Tsubomi’s hand drifted up to her face. I realised she was on the verge of fainting.

“Stay here,” I told Reubs urgently. “I’m going to find somewhere she can lie down.” Every nerve ending in my body was telling me that Tsubomi’s time was running out. Yet her immortal soul was still adrift in a world of pure make-believe, bracing herself to battle imaginary ice demons, or whatever.

Tell you one thing, if I hadn’t been so upset about Tsubomi, no WAY would I have had the courage to explore that palace by myself. Frozen or not, some of those Japanese noblemen were v. scary, the type who’d have you executed for, like,
sneezing
in their vicinity.

The ladies’ quarter of the palace was disturbingly like a scene from an oriental version of Sleeping Beauty. Beautifully dressed and made-up ladies were frozen in the act of playing board games, untangling children’s kite strings, arranging chrysanthemums, even picking their teeth! Two teenage girls peeped shyly round a lacquered screen, looking just as if they’d heard me coming, the rich colours of their kimonos dimly showing through the ice.

As I slid and slithered from room to icy room, I started ranting to myself. Well, it was more to Jessica Lightpath.

“I know you’re the don of soul-retrieval, and I know we’re supposed to watch and wait and it’s all a totally beautiful cosmic dance and whatever, but that’s for people who are already DEAD! Tsubomi’s not supposed to die. Not now. Not yet. Those kids on Earth really need her, Jessica. But I don’t think she can do this on her own.”

Reuben found me in the state bedroom, still ranting.

“Hi,” he said cautiously. “Just wondered where you’d got to.”

Sorry, this place is making me a bit wiggy,” I explained.

He pulled a face. “I’m not surprised.”

“I thought we’d use this room,” I told him.
“
On account of there are no frozen sleeping beauties, plus there’s a stove, if you think you can light it?”

“What do you mean ‘if’?” he said cheerfully. “I’ve been lighting fires since I was in preschool! Ask Miss Dove!”

“She must have loved you!” I called, as I flew out the door.

By the time I came back with a pale, exhausted Tsubomi, my fire-raising buddy had got the stove working a treat.

That bedroom HAD to have belonged to a princess! Everything was either gold or silver, or encrusted with pearls. It’s true the bed was carved out of wood, but it was v. expensive looking wood carved with dragons and other fabulous creatures.

Reuben and I stripped off the frozen covers, and remade the bed using two cosy fur-lined robes instead of sheets and blankets.

Tsubomi climbed into the huge dragon bed, and turned her face to the wall, looking like a fairy-tale princess who was having a really bad day.

“Night night,” I whispered, but she was already fast asleep.

I joined Reubs by the stove. It was really pumping out the heat, but in such a vast space it made virtually no difference. We experimented with moving pretty paper screens to shut out the draft, but our teeth were still chattering from the cold. At last, in sheer desperation, we both wrapped ourselves in Reuben’s robe and gradually stopped shivering.

He gave me a mischievous look. “If this was Orlando you’d be a very happy bunny!”

“Shut up! I got over him ages ago.”

“Yeah, right!”

I shook my head. “I didn’t even know him, Reubs, not really. I made up this ideal boyfriend in my head and made him fit the picture.”

We were sitting too close for me to see his expression. “The first crush is the deepest,” he said softly. “Isn’t that what they say?”

“What about you, Mr Dark Horse?” I teased. “You never told me you’d been in love!”

Reuben suddenly sounded defensive. “Who said I had?”

“You did, you nutcase! We were climbing the volcano, and you said it was just like being in love.”

“Oh, that!” he said carelessly. “That was the phoenix vibes talking. I didn’t know what I was saying.”

“You little devil! You don’t want me to know who it is!”

“No, I don’t, so drop it, Beeby.” Reuben’s voice had a warning vibe. He changed the subject. “Any more ideas about who’s running this game?”

He had virtually told me to butt out of his private life. I was SO hurt.

Typical boy, he didn’t seem to notice.

“I haven’t smelled a whiff of a PODS since we’ve been here,” he went on. “Have you?”

“Haven’t thought about it,” I snapped. “For all I know, Tsubomi’s creating this entire imaginary scenario from her hospital bed.”

We stared at each other.

“No way,” I whispered. “No WAY!”

“We’ve got to wake her up now and tell her,” Reuben said.

I shook my head. “Not a good idea.”

“But she thinks this is all
real
.”

“Exactly. You’ve seen how fragile she is. It could be really dangerous, like waking a sleep walker.” I stiffened. I’d heard what sounded like a muffled sob coming from Tsubomi’s bed.

She’d had a nightmare. She was too upset to tell me what she’d dreamed about but it had obviously shaken her to the core. “I don’t know what to do, Melanie,” she sobbed. “I know I’m supposed to do something really important. I just don’t know what.”

I held her and stroked her hair, but when someone’s been sad and lonely almost her whole life, making “there, there” sounds doesn’t seem like enough.

I think that’s why I did what I did next. I mean, it’s not like my singing voice exactly has healing powers. But I did, I sang to her, I sang her a lullaby.

I couldn’t seem to remember any real ones, sadly, so I just pulled soothing-sounding words out of the air, and randomly strung them together. It wasn’t as embarrassing as you’d think. In a funny way, it felt like I was singing to myself; like Tsubomi and I were suddenly one person.

And it worked, that’s the amazing thing. After a time, Tsubomi stopped crying. She sat up in the huge dragon bed, her breath making white clouds in the air and her eyes were full of wonder. “My father used to sing that song,” she whispered.

I could feel Reuben silently sending vibes on the other side of the room. We both knew that if I did the wrong thing, Tsubomi’s progress might be put back aeons.

All the same, I had to tell the truth. “Your dad really sang that song?” I said softly. “I thought I was just making it up!”

She shook her head. “I was scared of the dark when I was small. Dad would hear me crying and come in, and he’d raise the blind so I could see the night sky through the window. He’d say, “Don’t be afraid, Mi-chan. Even on the darkest night, when we can’t see her, the Moon Lady is watching over you, and he’d play his koto and sing that song.”

Tsubomi sniffed back her tears. She looked around, as if she was seeing the frozen palace for the first time. “This level isn’t supposed to be ice,” she said in a dismayed tone. “It’s supposed to be water. I’ve got to change it back, and you guys have to help me.”

“We’ll do it in the morning,” I said gently. “When you’ve had some rest.”

“The casket,” she said urgently. “What happened to the casket?”

“It’s safe. Look.” I placed it in her hands. “Tsubomi, it’s late, and this journey must have been a strain, maybe—”

“No, I have to open it now,” Tsubomi insisted. “There’s something inside, which will melt the ice. I know there is!”

Reuben looked alarmed. “Tsubomi, we don’t know for sure what’s—”

But it was too late. She’d already raised the lid. Angry red rays came streaming into the room, touching everything with a familiar Martian glow.

I’m not sure we were supposed to mix up magical objects from different levels, because the phoenix egg looked ominously different on Level Three. It was huge, around the size of an ostrich egg, totally filling the casket. Its colours were ominous too; hectic and much too bright, like you see on poisonous plants.

I heard Tsubomi gasp in dismay. Before she could slam the lid, there was an ominous CRR-ACK!

When I saw that bedraggled chick trying to struggle out of its egg, I knew this wasn’t going to end prettily.

OK, even phoenix demons are cute when they’re babies, but this one wasn’t going to be cute for much longer. The fledgling opened its beak to give a baby screech, and I saw the startling bright pink tunnel of its throat. Its eyes changed to an ominous flaming amber.

Oh-oh, I thought. Our sinister little cutie-pie was going to morph into a seven foot high lady demon any minute, and I knew for a fact we were all out of peach stones.

Luckily my inner angel knew exactly what to do!

“SING!” I yelled, like a character in a bad musical. “Sing like crazy!!”

“Mel, this is not the time,” warned Reuben.

“It IS. Unless you want to be fried like fritters! They love music, remember?”

I started desperately warbling my moon lullaby. After the first couple of bars, the others joined in slightly more tunefully.

“Now we’re going to walk out of the palace, OK?” I commanded, “and no one’s going to make any sudden moves, and we’re going to sing ALL the way.”

Ever tried singing in a palace full of frozen royalty? Luckily I don’t think we sounded anything like as scared as we felt. By the time we reached the bridge, the baby phoenix was completely blissed out, blinking happily into my eyes like a hypnotised kitten.

“Tip it over the bridge,” I hissed. “Quick-smart before it morphs!”

Tsubomi shut her eyes. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, little chick,” she gabbled, and she upended the box.

A spark, that’s all that came out!

One single gold spark, no bigger than a teeny tiny onion seed, and extraordinarily bright, as if all the fire demon’s humongous power had been concentrated into one tiny spark-sized package.

Now, I’m no scientist, OK? But if you add an entire fire demon to a seriously frozen world, you can pretty much guarantee a HUGE amount of steam.

WHOOSH!!! The palace, the fairy-tale bridge, the weeping willows, instantly disappeared under a thick blanket of fog.

I groped for Tsubomi’s hand. “Are you OK, babe?”

I felt an answering squeeze.

“Reubs?” I tried hopefully.

He didn’t answer.

“Reuben!” I said in a panic.

I felt his arm go casually round my shoulder, and Reuben’s warm, amused voice said, “Ssh! Isn’t that the loveliest sound you ever heard?”

Wasn’t it just! A fabulous symphony of gurgling, trickling and splashing, as the lakes, streams, fountains and underground springs of Level Three, shook off their robes of snow and ice, and began to flow once more.

“Guys, we
did
it! This world is coming back to life!” Tsubomi sounded ecstatic.

No, YOU did it, I wanted to say. You created the whole thing, Tsubomi. You’re STILL creating it, and I want you to stop
now
before it’s too late.

There was a brief swirling gap in the fog, and for just a heartbeat we were all visible again.

Tsubomi gave a gasp. I saw dawning realisation in her eyes. “Omigosh, you’re ange—”

With a chime of magical music, the dripping thawing world of Level Three dissolved, and the invisible game lords sent us zooming up to the next level.