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"Are you sure you want to do this?" Mayu asked, for the twentieth time. "We can stay here."
Mio pulled the bandage down over her eyes and took her time straightening it. She knew Mayu was worried, and it was a constant effort not to give in to that concern. It would be easier. In so many ways, it would be easier to stay at home, struggle with her braille, wait for Mayu to tell her when it was time to eat, bathe, and go to bed. Whenever she thought of what they were about to do, she felt sick with dread.
But she was tired of hiding at home. When they had come back from the village, she'd been reeling from the loss of her sight, and from what had almost happened to them; back then, the only way to feel safe had been to stay at home. She'd thought, in time, things would get easier, and she'd be less afraid. If she just waited, everything would go back to normal.
Now it seemed the opposite had happened. She had stayed in the same place, and normal had become more and more remote. She was afraid to go outside, afraid to be among strangers, afraid to be alone for even a moment. If she didn't do something, it would get worse.
"Mio?" Mayu said. Her voice came from nearby; she had moved closer without Mio noticing. "Shall we tell Uncle Kei we don't want to go?"
"I want to," Mio said. "Come on, he's waiting."
Before, they had made the journey from Tokyo to their old hometown by train, but Kei and Mayu had agreed that the crowded stations would be too complicated for Mio to deal with. By car, it would take hours. Even with the radio on, it soon began to feel monotonous to Mio. She didn't get motion-sickness like she had in the first few weeks after losing her sight, but she missed being able to look out of the window at the towns and villages gliding past. When she tried to imagine the people they were passing, all she could see were the gaunt, writhing faces that had looked up at her from the Abyss.
Silently she reached across the back seat and took Mayu's hand. She had to be calm. She couldn't afford to be thinking about the village.
Gradually her heartbeat slowed. She could feel Mayu's heartbeat as well, through their joined hands; she could hear her breathing. She could sense the stiff, awkward way she had to sit, to stop her knee from hurting.
And then, a flash of green.
In her excitement, Mio lost the feeling and had to go through the whole process again. It couldn't be forced; it was a little like falling asleep, only she never stopped being conscious of her surroundings. She felt the sway and rumble of the car. Kei was humming along with the radio. The sun was warm on her face, and when she noticed that, there was the light.
The images came tiny and blurry at first, just a moving patchwork of colour. Little by little, she began to pick out houses, cars, trees, telephone poles. The afternoon sun was brighter than she remembered — everything was so much brighter. For a year she'd been picturing the world in the muted, decayed hues of the lost village.
Mayu shifted, turned her head, and for an instant Mio was seeing herself. She looked dark and sombre in the clothes Mayu had picked out for her; the corners of her mouth turned down, and the bandage over her eyes made a blank of her face, like someone's unfinished picture. It was too disorienting to hold in her mind, and the next moment it was gone. She was blind again.
"What was that?" Mayu whispered. "What were you doing?"
Mio shook her head. She hadn't said anything about it to anyone yet, not even to Mayu. She hated to hide anything from her sister, but she was too scared that talking about it would make it go away, like a wish that could never come true because you spoke it aloud. She pulled her hand back into her lap, and kept it there for the rest of the journey.
They got a twin room at the hotel, while Kei had a single across the hall. While Mayu unpacked their cases and laid out the new yukata on their beds, Mio was learning the room — the number of steps from the door to her bed, from her bed to the dresser, from the dresser to the bathroom. Before now, she'd hardly had to use the techniques the counsellor had taught her; she'd always been at home. She tried to be confident, and not to shuffle along with her arms outstretched.
"Let's get changed," Mayu said at last, when the suitcases were stowed safely on top of the closet, where Mio wouldn't trip over them. "Do you need help?"
The yukata itself wouldn't have been a problem, but Mayu still hovered and fussed until it was easier for Mio just to stand with her arms out and let Mayu dress her like a doll. Then there was nothing to do but sit while Mayu changed as well. People kept walking by in the corridor outside their door; recently the festival had started to attract more tourists, and the hotel was fully booked. Probably all those people would be there tonight. Probably some of them would shake their head in pity at the blind girl, and wonder what she was doing here when she couldn't even see the lanterns going up.
A little later came Kei's tap at the door. She recognised its slightly apologetic sound from home. "Are you girls ready?" he called in. "We should be leaving now, if we want to get there in good time."
From the heat in the air Mio guessed it was only just sunset, but the streets were already bustling with people, all heading in the same direction. Mio wondered what would happen if she and Mayu became separated in this crowd, the way they had as children. It was almost enough to make her wish they hadn't come.
But they stayed arm-in-arm all the way to the shrine. While Kei fought his way over to the stalls to buy them takoyaki, Mayu guided Mio to a quieter spot near the forest's edge. "You look really pale," she whispered. "Are you feeling all right?"
Mio nodded, mouth tight. Even with the busy, happy festival atmosphere, the sound of the drums only reminded her of Minakami Village. It would be worse, she knew, when the lanterns were released and the hush fell. She wished she didn't have to be here for that, but she could hardly leave now. This whole trip had been her idea, and she was the one who had insisted, even when Mayu kept trying to talk her out of it.
All at once she felt so horribly alone that she couldn't bear it. She felt she had to do something, share something with Mayu, anything to lessen the distance between them. Even if it meant she could never see again.
"Mayu, listen," she said. "Before, in the car, I — "
But then Kei came up and started passing out the food. She could feel Mayu watching her, but she couldn't say it with Kei standing there. Even though she felt sick, she tried to eat a little. Kei began to tell them about the times he'd been to the festival. As a child he'd trailed along after his older sister, their mother, who'd been desperate to meet some boy. Later, he'd come back as a student, hoping to write an essay about the origins of the festival, but nobody seemed to know enough about it. Mio and Mayu were silent, and eventually even Kei began to run out of things to talk about.
"They said it shouldn't be long," he said finally. "The priests have to — ah, here it is."
The drumming had stopped, and the crowd grew still around them. To Mio it seemed an ominous stillness, a waiting stillness. She had the feeling everyone was looking at them — that they were the ones expected to do something. It would hardly have surprised her if the crowd had started chanting for a sacrifice. The blood in her ears roared, Kill her, kill her, kill her.
With a desperate lunge she grabbed for Mayu's hand, and found Mayu reaching for her too. She didn't have to try. In that moment, they were thinking the same thing, feeling the same thing — seeing the same thing. In the past months, she'd become used to the dark, but now it was different. She was looking up, and as she watched, something golden came swimming across the night sky, disturbing its blackness. Then there were two, three, a dozen, a hundred, all rising together.
It was...
"Beautiful," Mayu said. Then, squeezing Mio's hand, "It's all right. It's wonderful. Shall I describe it?"
She couldn't speak. Even with the crowds, she couldn't rid herself of the feeling that this was all for them, all somehow aimed at them. She wondered if Yae and Sae had seen something like this when they were children — not lanterns but butterflies, rising from the purified earth — and felt the pull of their souls wanting to be united again.
"I can see," she said in a whisper. "Not all the time, but sometimes, I can see what you see. I was afraid to say anything, but I'm not afraid now."
Mayu was turning to her, but Mio shook her head quickly.
"Don't! Watch the festival. I want to see. I want us to watch it together."
So Mayu looked up again, where the wave of light was still breaking across the sky, carrying wishes and prayers to heaven. Maybe this was the answer to both of theirs.
"We'll see everything," Mayu said. "Together. It's a promise."
They watched until the lanterns were all gone. The sky was dark again as they made their way back down the shrine steps, but Mio didn't mind the darkness now. It would pass. After this would come the sunrise.