◇◇◇◇

  Lights flashed, and he felt vibrations so intense that he almost thought they shook the entire world. The high-pitched sounds of the stars echoed everywhere. Thousands of images were projected in his mind: the blue moon, a white star, yellow sand blowing in the wind. He also heard a voice screaming somewhere. A huge white cloth billowed in the wind, stretching out. He heard a familiar melody. A marble in rainbow colors, a bright light, a tremendous wave of heat, cold darkness, the deep bottom of the water, a black shadow wriggling, a gigantic bird gliding. A huge tree with monstrous branches. Black smoke rushing downward at an incredible speed. A creepy, old, large building with no one around. None of these made any sense to him, no matter how much he wanted to name them or take a closer look. He reached out, but he couldn’t even touch them. What were these? He was trying to remember something. He struggled hard, but he couldn’t name a single thing. He wished someone could tell him what they were. Finally, he stopped thinking and gave up on all of it. The images slipped through his fingers, disappearing only to reappear again.

  ◇◇◇◇

  “I sometimes have strange dreams,” he said, resting his chin in his hand after school. Alma shot a puzzled look at him while she packed her things into her bag.

  “What are they like?”

  “They come in many variations. For example, sometimes I’m floating in the night sky, or things I’ve never seen are projected in my mind, like a whirlwind.”

  Alma, sitting at the desk next to him, responded indifferently.

  “Dreams are like that. It’s unusual to have a straightforward one.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah. I had a strange dream myself last night. I went on an errand with Lisa, and we were holding hands. In the dream, we were little kids, riding a train alone. It seemed like we were heading to a distant town. We looked out the window, and I was teaching her, saying, ‘That’s the famous castle of the town,’ or ‘You should take another train at the next station,’ or something like that.”

  “And?”

  “Well, in the end, we were at an unfamiliar train station high up on a mountain, eating lunch with Father and singing a song together. That’s it.”

  “When did your father join?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, dreams are like that. You can never explain them.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  Ivy chuckled.

  “Are you going to Tesus’s house today?”

  “No. I have an appointment with Alexis. Bye, see you tomorrow.”

  Alma jumped off the desk, threw her bag over her shoulder, and trotted out of the classroom. Left alone in the room, Ivy buried his face in the weak sunlight that fell onto the desk and gazed at the mountains outside the window for a while.

  Ivy knocked on the door, and the voice from inside urged him to come in.

  “Good afternoon.”

  Tesus was facing the desk, which was positioned against the only window in the garage. He was studying, as usual. Ivy circled around the long table that was placed across the room and approached Tesus. Looking beyond him, Ivy saw a thick book about chemistry that he was working on. It looked too difficult for Ivy to understand.

  “Is this your father’s book?”

  Tesus nodded, placed a bookmark between the pages, and closed the book. He spun around in the chair, stretching both his arms overhead.

  “I’m thinking about taking the university entrance exam.”

  Tesus said this while massaging his shoulder.

  “Wow!” Ivy cheered.

  “That’s impressive. Which university are you thinking of? Selsor?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe somewhere else. I haven’t decided yet. It’s too hard for me to choose right now because I have too many things I want to do, but anyway, I have to make a decision by next summer.”

  Tesus glanced at the table where experimental instruments were scattered, and Ivy did the same. It was quite unusual for a child from this region to attend high school, and almost unbelievable that a child would be taking the university entrance exam. Ivy felt a sense of pride, as if it were his own achievement. Suddenly, the door opened, and Tabby barged into the room.

  “Hey.”

  He never knocked when entering the garage.

  “Hi.”

  Tesus greeted him without showing surprise. Tabby walked over to Ivy and handed him something—it was a white envelope.

  “A letter from Mr. Lansberge.”

  “Can I read it?”

  Tabby had often told him about the letters from the priest, but this was the first time he had shown one to Ivy. The envelope appeared to be made of high-quality paper, thick and rigid. Upon closer inspection, Ivy noticed it had a watermark featuring the symbol of a bird.

  “This is the same symbol as the one at the cemetery.”

  Ivy opened the letter. The handwriting, written in blue ink, was rather ordinary but carefully formed.

  Dear Tabby,

  I’m relieved to hear that you’ve been doing well at the factory. You are tough, patient, and good at getting along with people, so a job like working at the factory must suit you. I know you don’t enjoy studying, which was what I worried about when you were at school, but it seems like you’re managing it well. I sometimes miss the times when you’d escape from studying, and I would search for you all around the property.

  Studying will help you in the future, so keep it up – you can do it. Value your new friends and colleagues. Your happiness is my joy. Be careful and avoid injury. It’s getting cold, so take care of yourself. And, try to do fewer silly things.

  P.S. Please give this to your friend who’s interested in shrines. The chrono is a very rare type of tree that only grows in high places, like where the shrines are.

  Sincerely,

  Nils Lansberge

  Finishing the letter, he looked up.

  “It’s a short letter.”

  “His letters are always short.”

  “He told you not to do stupid things.”

  “Ah, like making a disturbance to take something back.”

  Ivy stuck out his tongue with a bitter smile. Fortunately, they were not suspected of having caused it. Adults seemed to have concluded that it was a chemical reaction in a factory.

  “Here.”

  Tabby held a thin glass plate out to Ivy. On the plate was a purple leaf, whose shape resembled a person’s hand. He had never seen such a leaf before.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  “I’ve never seen a leaf of this shape,” Tesus said, gazing at the leaf as well.

  “Is this for me?”

  “Who else would be interested in the shrine?”

  Ivy took the leaf and held it above his head, its red veins visible through the light. It looked just like a human hand seen through the sun. He felt glad thinking that the priest had sent it especially for him. He was also pleased by the fact that Tabby had written about him as a friend.

  “Thank you.”

  “This kind of tree usually has green leaves, but only in winter do they turn purple like this.”

  If the purple leaves spread overhead, it must be unbelievably beautiful, he thought. He gently caressed the leaf on the glass.

  “Did Mr. Lansberge give lessons to you?”

  “Yes, he was my teacher. I was meant to leave the shrine someday, so he wanted to educate me to live in the outside world on my own.”

  “But he wrote that you escaped from your studies.”

  “Yeah, it was fun to find new hiding places. He had trouble catching me every time.”

  Tesus let out a small laugh.

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “You escape from the classroom during school sometimes.”

  “I admire you for attending every class. It’s too easy for you to enjoy it.”

  “It’s not. I enjoy the classes.”

  “I’d rather work at the factory right away than study at school. Mr. Lansberge told me to keep studying until I graduate, so I’ll finish school anyway.”

  Ivy admired Tabby for saying that he wanted to work. While Ivy aspired to work like an adult, he was also worried about it. He’d rather stay in school forever without worrying about what came next, if he could.

  Tabby, sitting on the cushion on the floor, began strumming his guitar. The others paid rapt attention to the somewhat sad music. Under the purple leaves, Ivy imagined the priest playing music. It must be very beautiful.

  “Have you ever had a dream about something you’ve never seen?”

  Ivy asked, looking at the leaf.

  “I rarely dream,” Tabby replied, still playing his guitar.

  “I often dream about conducting an experiment. I’m almost about to succeed, but I make a mistake in the last step and fail. It’s very frustrating.”

  “I understand that. I’ve had a dream where I couldn’t score a goal even though the aim must’ve been perfect.”

  Tabby said.

  “And sometimes, a familiar place can be different in a dream. Like, I open the door to this garage, and outside is Wilder Station.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “Do you often have dreams, Ivy?”

  “Yes, it’s hard to explain in words, but in my dreams, I float in the starry sky, surrounded by strange images—sceneries I’ve never seen, animals I don’t know.”

  “Sceneries you’ve never seen before?”

  “Yes, places and things I’ve never known. There are things that I find both beautiful and somewhat scary.”

  “Be more specific.”

  Ivy tried to explain more clearly but ended up growling, both hands on his head. He was sure he saw those things clearly, but when he tried to remember, they slipped away.

  “I can’t. It’s difficult.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I think I understand you. A dream is something that seems to have a story, but it gets messy the next moment, or when you have a pleasant dream, it becomes vague when you try to describe it in the morning.”

  Tesus encouraged Ivy.

  “Yes, something like that, I guess. I’ve also had a dream while I was awake, standing up. It was early evening, but suddenly it turned to night, and rows of rainbow light showered down to the ground.”

  Tabby frowned and stopped playing. Tesus looked confused.

  “Does that happen often?”

  “Oh, no. It only happened once.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Did you feel dizzy?”

  “I’m fine. It was nothing. I must’ve been absent-minded and fallen asleep while standing.”

  Noticing the others’ concerned looks, Ivy hid his embarrassment by smiling.

  “It’s beautiful. I never thought there were such leaves in the world. The shape is unique, too.”

  When he showed the leaf to his mother, she gazed at it with an admiring look.

  “It’s called chrono. It grows only in highlands on the mountain. The leaves turn purple in winter.”

  He told her what Tabby had told him.

  “Mr. Lansberge can play the guitar. Tabby can, too, because he was taught by him. He sometimes plays for us. He’s really good at it.”

  “Musical instruments are unusual here. The priest must have been born in a town with a band.”

  “Tabby didn’t know that musical instruments were unusual. He didn’t think about where Mr. Lansberge was born or how he became a priest, because Mr. Lansberge was already a priest when he was small.”

  “I see.”

  “I wondered why he didn’t ask such things, but I realized it wasn’t surprising. I haven’t even thought about asking Dad about his childhood.”

  His mother smiled.

  “Right. To a child, a parent is just a parent. What kind of youth they had, how they chose their job, how they fell in love—those are things you care about only when you’re grown up. When you face the moment you have to decide your own path, you start thinking about how your parents did it.”

  “I think I’ll ask Dad someday. About his hometown, or why he opened a bakery here.”

  “You should. He’ll be glad.”

  He began to think that Tabby would never be able to talk with the priest the way Ivy was talking with his mother, sitting side by side. Feeling sad at the thought, he buried his face in his mother’s chest.

  “What’s wrong with you? You’re acting like a little child today.”

  His mother was a little surprised but smiled softly and patted him on the back tenderly. Her chest was warm and smelled faintly of sweat.

  One weekend afternoon, he was watching the train at the station, as usual, when Tabby arrived.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi.”

  They exchanged their usual greetings, and then Tabby stood next to him.

  “Tesus is coming back by train tonight.”

  Tesus had been to Mond to visit his father, who lived alone because of his job. The city was half a day’s journey by train from Wilder.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing him. I want to hear what Mond is like.”

  He looked up at the sky, where thin white clouds were scattered across it. His breath turned white and dispersed into the air. High above, two kites were circling leisurely, calling to each other in high tones.

  “Haven’t you been to Mond?”

  “No, not just Mond. I’ve never been to any other cities besides Ylla and Selsor. I went there to visit my brother when I was small. My brother still works there, and he promised to invite me to Selsor once he saves enough money.”

  Dreaming of the day he would go there, Ivy waited for a letter from his brother.

  “I love riding on trains. When you open the window, the sea breeze comes inside, and it feels so refreshing. As the train rounds the big curve, you can see the small islets far out in the sea. I heard those are the islets where fishermen live.”

  He could always remember the feeling of riding the train.

  “You came all the way here by train from Shaw, didn’t you? The scenery from there to here must be different from the scenery from here to Selsor.”

  “I don’t know. All I could see was the flat sea and the mountains from the other side of the window, so I fell asleep.”

  Ivy felt disappointed by Tabby’s rather dry tone.

  ‘I visited my brother just after he started working in Selsor.’

  Ivy, after all, continued. He could remember even now the scenery from the train window. It was a bright, sunny day in early summer. The train passed by Wilder, along with the row of factories, and then the wide blue ocean appeared before his eyes. The blue water sparkled in the sunlight, studded with islets, and fish occasionally leapt. And beyond it all, the horizon stretched out clearly before him. It was his father who had told him that the line of the upper sea was called the “horizon.”

  He got excited thinking about the world beyond the horizon. Opening the window and sticking his head out, he enjoyed the warm, comfortable breeze that messed up his hair. The train jolted with a creaky sound. The sound was made as the train passed over the joints of the rails, something the talkative conductor explained to him while checking his ticket.

  Aside from the creaking and occasional horn blasts, the inside of the train was so noisy with people talking that he couldn’t have a proper conversation with his family.

  Selsor station was very big and magnificent, incomparable to Wilder station. A high ceiling made of multicolored glass covered the platforms, each one supported by thick stone pillars with golden panels showing the direction. At Wilder station, the only trains he had seen were the passenger train with a red engine and green carriages, and the blue freight train. But at Selsor station, on the other hand, he saw many other types of trains—black engines, orange carriages, and more.

  He had been busily looking around as he walked, and was almost swallowed up by the crowd, nearly getting separated from his family. He stumbled ahead and caught up with them before passing through the gate. There, his brother was waiting, welcoming the family with a smile. Cobe lifted Ivy’s heavy bag with his muscular arm and walked toward the exit, pushing against the crowd.

  “Come this way.”

  The way he spoke, the way he walked—all of it impressed Ivy.

  ‘I thought he was so cool because he lived and worked in such a big city and was so accustomed to it.’

  ‘You’re proud of him,’

  Ivy nodded.

  ‘I am. Mond is much bigger than Selsor, right? I want to go there.’

  ‘Hmm, you do?’

  ‘Don’t you want to go to a big city, Tabby?’

  ‘Not interested. I’m happy where I am, and I don’t like living among crowds.’

  Ivy was surprised.

  ‘I don’t have any reason to go to a big city anyway. Do you want to work in Selsor?’ Tabby asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ivy looked down at his toes.

  ‘You’re going to graduate school next year, aren’t you? There isn’t much time left to decide.’

  No, there sure wasn’t much time for someone Ivy’s age to be uncertain. His parents were rather easygoing; they only said, “Do what you like,” or “You can help run the bakery.”

  ‘I don’t know how to decide my future job. I know less about things than everyone else does, which Alma laughs about. I’m not doing well in school. I’m not sure if I’d fit in a factory job, especially since we don’t have any training programs in Selsor.’

  ‘I don’t think a factory job would suit you. You’re too weedy. It’s more physical work,’ Tabby said bluntly.

  Ivy lowered his head at the candid opinion.

  ‘You can try everything,’ Tabby encouraged him, seeing Ivy slouch pitifully.

  Ivy’s true desire smoldered within him: to leave the mountain, pass through the massive station where many trains passed by, and work like his brother. But he felt like he had no right to speak of it, being so uncertain. He knew it wasn’t something to be decided on a whim. There was the option of going to high school, but Alma would probably choose that path. It was expensive, and he had to be smart enough. It seemed impossible to him. He was impressed by Tabby. Despite having just come down from the mountain, Tabby had already adapted to life here and understood more than Ivy did.

  Ivy’s hand shook against the stone wall. He looked up, thinking a train was coming, but there was no sign of one. Then, he realized he was trembling and stared at his hand.

  ‘It’s an earthquake.’

  Tabby spoke and raised his head. His voice was so weak that pedestrians didn’t notice. While the two of them fell silent and waited, the movement didn’t grow any larger; instead, it weakened before finally ceasing.

  “I’m relieved it was weak and ended quickly,” Ivy said with a smile.

  “We have frequent earthquakes here,” she added.

  Tabby frowned. “Yeah, but we haven’t had as many earthquakes recently as we have now.”

  “Extra! Extra!”

  Hearing the shout, Ivy turned around and saw a man in a black hat holding copies of the newspaper, handing them out to passersby.

  “What’s that about?”

  Tabby walked over to the man and, like the other adults, took a copy of the newspaper naturally.

  “Vanamond Cave-In Accident,” the headline read.

  They both looked at the article.

  The headline jumped out at him: “Death Toll Surpasses 20.”

  “It says it happened this morning.”

  “What’s a ‘cave-in’?”

  “A cave-in is when rocks collapse in a mine,” Tabby explained with a shrug.

  “The death toll surpassed twenty—does that mean over twenty people died?”

  “It seems so.”

  Tabby ignored Ivy’s question and read through the article before handing it to her. He then read it more closely. The specific name of the place and some of the technical terms were unclear to him. He could only understand that part of the Vanamond mine had collapsed, and many people had died or been injured. This morning, while Ivy had been studying at school, such an accident had occurred not far from here, resulting in so many casualties. It was almost unbelievable.

  “Did that really happen?” he murmured, looking up from the newspaper.

  “That’s why the extra edition was published,” Ivy replied.

  “Over twenty people…”

  “Yeah, it’s a disaster.”

  Tabby responded with a grimace, looking toward the railway. He handed Ivy the newspaper.

  When he went home, his mother was shutting down the store. Noticing Ivy on the street, she smiled.

  “Dinner will be ready in a minute. Go fetch your father; he’s by the oven.”

  Father was busy cleaning the oven plate. He finished the day’s work by doing this and prepared for the next morning. His parents woke up very early every day to prepare the store for the regular customers who needed their bread. That was one of the reasons he wasn’t eager to take over the store—he was never good at getting up early.

  “Mom says dinner’s ready.”

  “Okay. I’ll be in in a minute.”

  Father raised his stained face and smiled.

  “The newspaper guy was handing out extras at the station today. It says there was an accident at the Vanamond mine.”

  Ivy handed her father the copy while they ate their dinner of stew and bread together. Father read through the article.

  “That’s terrible.”

  He handed it to mother.

  “Was it a big accident?”

  “It says many people died. I feel sorry for them.”

  Mother read it and put the paper on the table with a frown.

  “The mine’s going to be closed for a while, it says. That reminds me, Mr. Helike mentioned that the government had predicted this and recommended shutting it down, but they rejected it. They rely on mining, so I understand. Poor them, really.”

  “How could they predict an accident?”

  “By the ground conditions or something, I guess. They probably have many ways to make predictions. We’ve had several earthquakes recently too, so it shouldn’t be irrelevant. They rely on mining, they couldn’t just stop.”

  He shook his head, eyes closed. How could they keep working in such a dangerous place when it had been predicted that an accident would happen, Ivy wondered. Did they not believe it, or, as his father said, could they just not stop working for the sake of their livelihoods? The consequences—the number of injuries and deaths—seemed too much to bear.

  “If the Vanamond mine closes, it might affect the economy around here too,” his father murmured.

  “Any accident is terrible. May the guardians protect the workers,” Mother said, bowing in the direction of the mine. She stood up and began to tidy the dishes. Ivy also bowed deeply toward the mine.