Chapter 7

It took them a minute to let him out of the sword.

“It’s moonsilver,” said Anri, as if that explained everything. He seemed surprised when it didn’t. “Just tell it to let me out. With your mind, though, and politely. It’s smart for a metal, has a sense of things. It won’t like being yelled at.”

In a display of sagely restraint, Renko did not shake the sword, or bash it against the wall, or put it in the sheath and throw it around to discover whether or not a ghost scarecrow could vomit. Instead, she held it in both hands, and tried to mold her thoughts into the closet approximation of an eviction notice.

What reached the sword was raw intent, the unspoken twitch of a muscle. Renko thought she felt the metal flex. She flicked the blade like she was shooing off a bug.

There was the same warp of light and dark, the same sucking of air, and then there was a scarecrow standing before them.

“Ah,” said Anri, stretching his arms out. Wood creaked, bolted joints groaned. “That was certainly interesting. Not as cramped as you’d imagine.”

Renko tossed the sword absently from hand to hand. Now it was undeniably lighter. “So, how the hell did it do that?”

“Moonsilver traps spirits,” he said.

“Yeah, I got that much. But like, how?”

“I’d like to know too,” Bina added with a smile. “Back where we’re from, swords don’t really do that.”

Anri pulled his straw hair back into a short, sprouty tail and bound it with string. “I don’t know, actually. Just the way of things,” he said. “I’d say you could ask a moonsilver smith, but there hasn’t been any for centuries. There’s probably three or four of those blades in all of Munedori.”

“Does this stuff really come from the moon?”

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been.”

Renko huffed and slapped the sword disappointedly back into its sheath. “Some tour guide you are.”

“Some indeed,” Anri said proudly. “I’ll have you know I worked at reception for six years, and was the highest rated guide for four in a row. I’ve helped countless souls settle into the afterlife here, it’s only that most of them ask normal questions.”

“Well, I’d hate to tarnish that legacy with a bad review, so how about you just get to guiding?”

“Quite.”

He led them out into a great rounding hallway, which he explained ran a circuit of similar rooms beneath the whole island. Conjuring storms wasn’t a terribly involved process, all you really had to do was maintain the machines, and the island did all the real work itself. Same with the plants, he said, and the repairs and renovations, the proliferation of inhuman life within the stretches of woodlands, which he clarified for Bina did include insects, much to her chagrin.

The island did it all. He spoke about it with reverence, as if it were alive, which for all they knew was completely true.

“It’s got a sense,” he said, as he led them up a winding stairwell, into a smaller hallway, and then finally, to a door labeled: “FINDERY FOR MISLAID THINGS – WING B”

“Lots of crevices about the isle, things tend to tumble down here,” he explained. “You two should probably change into something more…local, before we hit the town. Should be some clothes in there no one will miss.”

“Dead people’s clothes?” asked Renko, a bit disappointed when Anri shook his head.

“Mostly we get donations from the living, or we make it all here. Lots of time to spare. Go on, I’ll wait. Keep watch.”

Eager for a quiet moment, they went in.

You can learn a lot about a place from the things people lose there, but usually only in boring ways. On earth, lost and founds are filled with phones and keys and wallets, baggies of illicit substances, maybe a scarf in the winter.

Here, it quickly became clear that the people of Munedori were not like the people back home. They lost the sort of things you’d expect to find in a wizard’s basement, or a particularly odd crafts store.

Whittled carvings of animals that didn’t exist, with glinting metal eyes that might have blinked just then, or maybe it was the light. Rows of ships in bottles, which upon closer inspection rocked gently on invisible waves, and had sails filled with invisible winds. Several throw rugs with kaleidoscopic designs that wouldn’t sit still on the fabric. A scarf or two. A spinning top, which had been spinning in place for so long it had worried a little indent into the shelf—when Renko picked it up, it politely waited for her to set it down again, and then continued to spin.

Cutlery knives with blades like oil slicks. The ears of a cat, which adhered to the head and were fussy to remove. Marbles full of lightning. More scarves. A straw hat that stayed balanced upon the head no matter how much one jostled around. A hand mirror with a reflection that ran a few seconds late, so you could check the back of your head more easily. A deck of cards, certainly used in some roguish way to cheat at Munedori poker.

It was a lot, but it could have been worse. Tours were all well and good for places you’ve never been to but at least have expectations for. Had Anri simply taken them topside and gone on about fractal castles, everpure water, and panapples, Bina would have smiled and nodded and been utterly confused. Renko would have gotten angry again.

They found a wardrobe and a few small cratefuls of clothes at the back.

“Ah, god,” Renko muttered, sifting through a heap of ceremonial robes and tacky kimonos. “Feel like I’m in a school play.”

“I think it’s kinda nice,” said Bina.

Of the two of them, she had a simpler fashion sense. She liked comfortable and practical things, while Renko liked people to stare in mild distress when she passed them.

They settled on something in between. Renko mixed and matched a few wayward pieces; a ratty, baggy top and a pair of hakama pants, for something that vaguely resembled a samurai’s ensemble. Except for the spiked collar and bracelets, which she refused to discard since she made them herself.

Bina found something less analogous to home. A sort of robe one might expect to find in a game, as preset gear for a character who shouted the names of the spells they casted. It was something you could take to a convention, and nowhere else without more than a little embarrassment. But, it was comfortable, and most importantly, it didn’t look like it belonged to someone twice her size. Finding interesting clothes that fit her was no easy feat.

They tossed their old clothes into the crates. Take a yenny, leave a yenny. Maybe Munedori could come to appreciate skirts and ripped jeans and graphic tees for the band “DEADGIRL DELUXE.” Bina kept hold of her inhaler though, as well as her grandpa’s pipe, and Renko squirreled away her damp, crumpled cigarette.

“Hold on,” Bina said, and handed Renko the resolute straw hat. “Anri freaked out when he saw us, maybe it’s best if we cover up the, uh,” she gestured to them both. “Yeah.”

Renko tied her hair back in a messy tail, then plopped the hat indelicately on her head. Her horns busted through the straw, but if you didn’t look too closely, you could have confused them for an ornament of some kind. She also wrapped a scarf around her face to hide as much purple skin as she could.

There was nothing to be done for Bina’s hair, there was just too much of it. But she found a pair of round, tinted glasses that covered the burning light in her eyes.

“You look like you rode a Harley Davidson to a ren fair,” Renko said. “I dig it. You ready?”

“Yeah. Uh, I mean no. Maybe?” she sighed, feeling suddenly very heavy. “I don’t know. I think I could use a minute.”

“Same.”

Bina sat down on one of the crates, and took what felt like the first real breath she’d had all day. Her body ached, her chest was less tight than she thought it ought to have been after all the fuss, but overall she felt…fine. At least physically. Mentally, she felt like she was treading water over a very dark trench, waiting for something to brush past her toes. It was not the mind and body dynamic she was accustomed to.

She wasn’t the only one to notice, either. Renko sat down next to her, looking her over with all the befuddlement of a butcher seeing their first soy burger.

“You, uh, okay?” she asked. “I mean, y’know, just generally speaking.”

Bina shrugged. It was thereabouts how she was feeling, just generally speaking. “You?”

“I’m purple, but other than that, uh, fine?”

“Is your arm okay?”

“Yeah, no, yeah. Yeah my arm’s good,” Renko rolled her shoulder for emphasis. “Just needed a minute, I guess.”

“Good, good. That’s good.”

Astute observers, grinding their teeth, might notice a large vacuum in the conversation. An elephant-sized whole in a room full of people very much expecting to see an elephant. It would have to be skirted delicately. There were only so many ways to inquire about one’s wellness without tripping into topics like, ‘by the way how did you throw me thirty feet into the air?’ or, ‘your body usually implodes if you get a little chilly, how are you alive?’ and other difficult questions neither of them were prepared to voice, lest they spook away that lingering hope in the back of their minds that everything would, in the end, sort itself out.

Left to her own devices, Renko would have most certainly stumbled into an awkward confrontation of her inhuman strength. But Bina, who was a bit defter at chit-chatting, was also determined to avoid talking about the unnatural but not uncomfortable warmth in what she could only describe as ‘the gut of her soul.’

So, with grace, she pivoted.

“How long have you guys had a sword?”

“Huh?” Renko looked down at the katana in her lap like she’d forgotten it was there. “Oh, right. A while, probably? I found it in the attic a few months ago, mom kinda freaked out. I thought it might’ve been my dad’s, but, like, she doesn’t have anything of his I guess.”

True enough. Bina had never seen a picture of Renko’s father, and when she thought about it, didn’t even know his name. As long as she’d been alive, the Hurane household had always been a two man—or rather, woman—operation.

“Anyway, she put it back, but I kept sneaking it out to swing around, so she let me keep it. It’s been under my bed.”

“It’s cool,” said Bina. “Suits you.”

“Damn right it does. Feels good. Might have to try and find some kendo classes or something when we get back, realize my true potential, or whatever.”

“Yeah…” Bina nodded uncertainly. “When we get back.”

Renko knew that tone and wouldn’t have it. She tugged Bina’s stylish glasses down and looked her right in the eyes. “Hey,” she said. “We’re getting back. You, me, mom, the old man. All of us. If I gotta steer this stupid island there myself.”

“You can’t drive.”

“Then I’ll crash it. Still getting us home.”

Bina smiled. There was something comforting about Renko’s indelicacy, like when someone else points out to the waiter that you asked for no pickles on your burger. When she was around, one way or another, things got done.

“You really think they’re here?” Bina asked.

Renko’s grin was toothy, and malicious, and a stark reminder that whatever color she was, she was still herself. “For everyone else’s sake,” she said. “They’d better be.”