Sam felt pleased that he had finally plucked up the courage to ask. The question hung in the silence for a moment.
Hikari levered a piece of fish into his mouth with his chopsticks, chewed carefully and swallowed before answering.
“I would like you to, my son, but I think you know the answer to that question.”
Hikari was right. Sam did know the answer. For a boy aged five, Hikari had told him, he was more advanced than he should be. Hikari would know, too. He was once a school teacher himself.
The answer pained Sam. He couldn’t go to school because he was different. If the other children saw his horns and the blackness of his eyes, questions would be asked. Questions that if answered, would not be believed.
Hikari stopped eating and looked sadly at his ward. “I am truly sorry, my son. I know this is hard but you have another purpose. A greater purpose. Something far more important than playground games and making friends. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is.”
Something rebelled inside him. He knew his master spoke the truth, but it was still painful. He surged to his feet, knocking over his plate in the process. Shame brought a blush to his cheeks.
“May I be excused?” he asked stiffly. When Hikari nodded, he ran from the table to the security of his room.
He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to cry. Like laughing, he didn’t seem to be able to manage tears even though he knew that a situation like this probably warranted that response. He’d seen Aimi do it enough times. Hikari had told him it was because his eyes had no tear ducts.
He heard a faint knock at the door. Before he had a chance to say anything, the door opened, and Aim’s tiny head peaked around the door.
“Hi,” she said brightly.
She took his silence as an invitation to enter and nudged the door open with her shoulder. She was carrying a plate with some rice and fish on it. “I brought you some food.”
“I’m not hungry,” he said, rolling over and facing the wall.
He felt the bed shift as she sat down. “You know, school’s not all that great,” she said. “I’d much rather stay here at home with you and Papa.”
Even at three years of age, she knew what to say to cheer him up. He turned over to see her beaming face. It was too much for him to take and he smiled back.
She held up the plate of food. “Eat. I know you’re hungry.”
He did. Then after Aimi left, he tried to sleep. It was always hard — he didn’t need much sleep and anyway, he preferred to do it during the day. The dreams he had were not soothing, and seemed to be dominated by dark shapes wreathed in flames.
Much later, finally drowsy with the onset of sleep, he heard another knock on his door.
“Go away,” he said, thinking it was Aimi.
His master entered the room on silent feet, a technique he was just starting to teach Sam.
“I’m sorry, Sam, but I think we need to talk.” His master, like Aimi before him, perched on the side of his bed.
Sam sat up in bed and regarded his master. He had the utmost respect and love for the diminutive man who was both foster father and teacher to him. He would not willingly disobey the man, other than small infractions like sitting amongst the plants. Hikari had never raised a hand or his voice to Sam — he’d never had to. His demeanour and calmness commanded instant attention and obedience.
“I think it’s time we talked about your mother,” said Hikari in a gentle voice.
Sam’s body went rigid with shock. He’d asked about his mother before but Hikari had always maintained that it wasn’t time, despite the boy’s pleading. Perhaps his master sought to grant him a gift to make up for the school issue? Sam didn’t care what his master’s reasons were. He wanted to hear about his mother. Needed to hear about his mother. Although Hikari’s wife was always kind and gentle with him, Sam felt that it just wasn’t the same.
“Your mother was a beautiful and kind woman,” Hikari began, stroking his small, neatly-trimmed goatee that was only now starting to show the greying signs of age.
Another shock coursed through Sam’s body when he heard the past tense. What happened to his mother?
Was she no longer alive? Hikari held up a hand to stop Sam interrupting.
“Her hair was long and black, much like Aimi’s and my own, and her skin was the colour of alabaster, very similar in hue to yours. “
It was true. Sam’s skin was very white indeed, a testament to the lack of time he’d spent in the sun, he’d thought, but apparently genetic.
“I first met her in Japan. Like my wife, she was American and had also been sent to Kyoto as a missionary exchange student by her church. She would sit in the back of my church and listen to the minister give his sermon in Japanese. I only found out later that at that point, her Japanese was very limited. I think she just liked sitting there and soaking up the peacefulness.
“Our church was very small — I believe our congregation was less than 100 — but the church itself was a thing of beauty. It had been built in the late 1800’s and people would come from all over the country just to see the workmanship of its stained-glass windows. You know what a stained-glass window is?”
Sam nodded. Although of course he’d never been into Jacob’s Ladders’ church, he’d seen it from a distance and noticed the beautiful colours of its windows.
“I used to sit there for hours myself, alone with my thoughts. It really was a very peaceful place. Anyway, I’d see her on the way out and she would smile and nod at everyone as they left the church. She had a lovely smile — very genuine, instantly likeable.
Gradually we got to know each other. My English was much better than her Japanese so communication wasn’t too difficult. Our minister, who knew that I was a teacher, suggested that I teach her Japanese. I agreed willingly.
She would come over to my small house for three hour long sessions each week. She was an excellent student — much like yourself. She learnt quickly. Very soon, we were able to converse fluently in Japanese.
We became good friends. One Christmas, my wife and I presented her with a silver cross which she refused to ever take off. She and my wife got on extremely well — they were very similar in many ways. She was exceedingly devout and we had long, rambling conversations about the nature of the church, the Bible and so forth. What became clear to me over time was that she had probably the purest soul of anyone I had ever encountered. Which is why what happened next came as a shock.”
Sam, who had up to this point been listening with rapt attention, was suddenly on his feet, his heart hammering.
Hikari made soothing motions at him. “Come. Sit back down. You need to hear this.”
Reluctantly, Sam slowly lowered himself back onto the bed. A part of him didn’t want to hear any more, but the rest of him desired this knowledge so much that it hurt.
“A man appeared one day, dressed all in black. At the time, I took him for a priest. He was waiting for your mother outside the church grounds after the evening service. I never heard what he said to her that day — I arrived at her side too late. What I can tell you is that there was something about him that I immediately disliked. Disliked and distrusted. I couldn’t put my finger on it but he just felt wrong somehow.
“Your mother didn’t notice. She seemed to be completely under his spell, for that, in hindsight, is what it was. He had charmed her somehow, probably using the dark arts.
“After that moment, I didn’t see your mother much. When I did see her, she was a different person. The light had gone out in her eyes. She rarely smiled anymore. Eventually, she moved out of the church accommodation that had been provided for her and even our minister didn’t seem to know where she’d gone. I made enquiries and found that she was living in a part of Kyoto where most people were scared to go after dark. I tracked her down one night and decided to follow her as she left her apartment.