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Rest now in my arms, as I watch over you
As I recall your joy, your sorrow, and your rage
I will remember you always, until my life is exhausted
—from Memories of You, by Kawamura Yumi
アイリス
one.
Just a little over a century had passed after Ryuunosuke and Kazuma’s first meeting before Mikotoba Susato is born, and seventeen years more before she actually meets the shrine priest at the top of the mountain.
She was a bright young thing, Susato. After years and years of befriending nobody but the wild spirits of the forest and the wandering yokai seeking advice from other realms, her quick wit and fresh face evoked a sense of almost fraternal tenderness from Ryuunosuke. She not only believed in spirits; she could even behold them, if she concentrated hard enough. It was a rather amazing feat, for she was raised by a scientific father and science is the worst toxin to magic; but Susato also knew that empirical data cannot lie, and what she can see with her eyes and hear with her ears must exist.
“For example, I can always see that red-tailed fox out of the corner of my eye, hiding under the porch,” Susato says one late autumn afternoon, her pretty dark eyes gazing unfocusedly over the area where Kazuma was skulking, half-hidden under one of the foundations of the shrine. “He always seems to be around when I come here. Is he your friend, Naruhodou-sama?”
“Yes, an old one,” and grinning, Ryuunosuke beckoned at Kazuma to come forward. Almost abashedly, Kazuma slipped out from under the shrine and shifted into his human form, red tail carefully tucked out of sight within the folds of his red hakama. Ryuunosuke noted with some amusement that his cheeks had gone a little pink.
“Oh! I forgot that fox spirits were supposed to be able to do that,” Susato gasped, and Ryuunosuke laughs, lightheartedly.
“Nice to meet you at last,” Susato said, and Kazuma coughed.
“Likewise,” he answered, almost like a soldier with his crossed arms and ramrod posture, and Ryuunosuke chuckles a bit before he turns back to Susato.
“Haven’t you met any fox spirits before Kazuma then, Susato-san?” he asked, and Susato tilted her head in thought.
“No, not at all,” she said. “Perhaps my father’s anti-magic toxin around the house is too strong for them.”
“I wonder about that,” Ryuunosuke said. “But earlier you mentioned about him having some foreign guests over? That seems interesting. It’s not everyday that I get to meet people from the other side of the ocean.”
“Yes, a little English girl and her father. It seems like her father has had the pleasure of working with mine many times during his younger days.” Susato had a strange, sad smile on her face. “Come to think of it, Father hasn’t been at all talkative about his time overseas. I should really wring some stories about it from him sometime. Maybe Iris-chan can…”
“Iris?”
—Susato’s face brightened. “That’s our young visitor’s name. It’s a cute name, isn’t it, Naruhodou-sama?”
アイリス
However, Ryuunosuke only meets Iris for the first time some days later, during the dawn; the sun has barely broken from the horizon when he sees the rosy-cheeked figure struggle up the winding stone steps leading to the summit of the mountain and finally reach the shrine.
The girl was huffing and puffing, her adorable looped braids somehow reminiscent of a bear cub’s ears . She was wearing a lovely, deep purple dress with a skirt that fell below her knees, and black boots that looked rather worn for a young lady who was obviously brought up in a well-to-do household. She was looking around, seemingly much more inquisitive than she was afraid.
“ Hello? ” she said in English upon seeing Ryuunosuke. Then, catching herself, she said in heavy accented Japanese, “Good morning!”
“Good morning,” the shrine priest returned, smiling. “Are you Susato-san’s friend, perhaps?”
“I know Susato,” was the timid reply. And then, before they could even speak further, another foreigner—this time a tall, blond man with a crumpled hat in hand—came bursting into the scene.
“ Iris! What happened to waiting for me? ”
“ Papa! ” Iris seemed amused at the sight of her breathless father. “ I’m sure my hat flew toward here. I’m sure of it. ”
“ Mikotoba said this place is hallowed ground or something. Aren’t we going to get cursed for trying to break in here— ”
“ No one’s breaking in anywhere or getting cursed. Silly papa! ” Iris beamed brightly before turning back to Ryuunosuke and saying, “He is a bit of a scaredy-cat. Are we going to get cursed for coming here in so irreverent a manner?”
Upon seeing Ryuunosuke, who was wearing white today, Iris’s father blanched.
“ A ghost! ” he cried, bouncing nervously. For someone who was six feet tall, Ryuunosuke thought, he was somehow more like a child than four-foot Iris.
“ No, no, ” Iris giggled. “ Just the caretaker of this place, if I should hazard a guess. You are the caretaker, aren’t you, sir?” she said, addressing Ryuunosuke.
“In a way.” Ryuunosuke couldn’t help but smile at the sight of this wholly mismatched pair. While Iris was clad in bright colors, her father was dressed modestly in drab browns; his suit jacket even had dark chemical stains on the sleeves.
The man seemed to relax a little when he heard Ryuunosuke speak. “You are sure you’re not an evil spirit?” he asked, in somewhat better Japanese than his daughter. “Absolutely, absolutely sure?”
“Yes. Quite sure.” Ryuunosuke chuckled. “Would the pair of you perhaps like a little warm sake? It is quite cold here at the top of the mountain, and you are not wearing coats.”
“Excellent idea,” Iris’s father said, and he extended his hand quite nervously to the shrine priest, as if still a little afraid. “Sherlock Holmes. Pleased to meet you. This is my daughter, Iris.”
“Naruhodou Ryuunosuke,” Ryuunosuke returned.
“If I had learned correctly, the family name would be Naruhodou, yes?” When Ryuunosuke nodded easily, Holmes’s face finally broke into a genuine smile. “Then, how do you do, Mister Naruhodou,” he said, in English, and Ryuunosuke smiled back.
“You speak well, Holmes-san,” he replied, as he led them inside the shrine. “How did you learn?”
“Are you perhaps acquainted with Mikotoba Yuujin, the doctor?” Holmes seems to be an extremely animated conversationalist; Ryuunosuke couldn’t help but notice how he tended to gesture a lot when he spoke. “He is a close friend of mine, and he taught me a lot about this country during our time as housemates. He invited us down here for a holiday. I’m afraid Iris was starting to get restless back at home, so here we are.”
“London is extremely dreary,” Iris observed, looking around at the bland interior of the building. “Compared to the fog, this clear coldness of the mountain air is extremely refreshing!”
“It can be quite foggy up here too during colder seasons,” Ryuunosuke said. “When winter begins, you can expect extremely poor visibility around these parts.”
Iris pouted slightly, suddenly annoyed for some reason. “You seem to be a realist at heart, Mr. Naruhodou. Quite like Uncle Yuujin, if I had to say.” Before Ryuunosuke could laugh and question her comparison of himself to the village doctor, however, she added, “Speaking of Uncle Yuujin, you said you were a friend of Susato’s, right?”
“Yes. She often comes up here to have a chat. As one of my very few friends, she’s been a great comfort to me; it can be lonely living up here all by myself.”
Iris watched his quick movements preparing the warm sake with grave green eyes; when he finally set down the tray of cups before them, she sat up a little straighter in the cushion they were ushered to and gave a graceful word of thanks before sipping delicately at the sweet liquid. It went down smoothly, and after some moments she felt the warmth seep even to the very tips of her little toes.
“This is excellent,” was Holmes’s jovial comment. Iris nodded cheerfully, and then glanced at Ryuunosuke with a bright smile.
“If you would have us, Naruhodou-kun,” she said, “during the duration of our stay and even for the years thereafter, please let us be friends.”
Ryuunosuke looked up with surprise, but Iris could probably see the emotion already welling in those clear, dark-brown eyes.
“Of course,” he said, softly. “You are welcome to come up this mountain anytime you like, Iris-san.”
“You have my express permission to use ‘-chan’ with me,” Iris quipped, and Ryuunosuke laughed and immediately corrected himself.
“Iris-chan, then.” Ryuunosuke bowed his head. “Please feel free to visit me whenever you’d like, Iris-chan.”
アイリス
And come back she did, at times with Susato or Holmes in tow.
Iris was a delightful guest, and much like Kazuma, her visits were spots of color in Ryuunosuke’s monotonous existence—quite literally. It was not unusual that she was wearing some brightly-colored thing or two, whether it be a scarf, or a hat, or a dress, or shoes; Ryuunosuke was pretty sure he could associate a memory of a visit with what Iris was wearing during that time, and Iris’s new looks were soon one of the things that he found himself looking forward to guessing every time.
“You’re growing fond of the girl,” Kazuma noted dryly, one time. Some distance away, Iris was teaching Susato how to play hopscotch on the shrine grounds; Iris had sweetly asked if they can draw a grid for the game on the ground with some chalk, and naively, Ryuunosuke had agreed to the outrageous request.
“I certainly cannot refuse her anything at this point,” Ryuunosuke said lightly, and he laughed. “Are you jealous that someone else is taking up so much of my time?”
“Surprisingly,” and Kazuma absently glanced at the direction of the gate, “not at all. I’m just glad you’re keeping yourself amused whenever I’m gone.”
“But?” Ryuunosuke prodded, sensing something in the fox spirit’s tone.
“But,” Kazuma sighed. “I think that there’s something… never mind.” He shrugged.
Ryuunosuke frowned at this unusual hesitation from the fox spirit, and watched as Susato threw her stone over her shoulder and it landed on the space with a scrawled number five on it. Gathering the hem of her kimono, she daintily slipped her wooden sandals off and started hopping through the spaces. Iris was just standing on the background, her smile wide, her beautiful green dress bringing out the extraordinary color of her eyes.
“You did it, Susato! You did it!” she was cheering when Susato finally landed herself on the fifth space.
—Ah.
Ryuunosuke sighed and glanced back at Kazuma. “Right now, I don’t believe anything else other than what is happening right now matters.”
Kazuma stared back at him, and finally a smile curled his lip.
“You’re right,” he said, softly. “It doesn’t matter now.”
アイリス
“I don’t think papa ever married, really.”
Iris was making faces at a bird that was twittering from the branches overhead. Ryuunosuke was standing with her under the tree, laughing at Iris’s silly expression, but quickly sobered up at this statement.
It was quite unusual for her to come up the mountain, alone. Ryuunosuke found that even without Susato or Holmes, Iris can entertain quite well on her own.
Today had also been quite a departure from her usual elaborate clothing; she was presently wearing a furisode the color of autumn leaves and patterned with chrysanthemums, and her light hair was streaming loosely down her shoulders in neat waves. The ensemble was finished with the unusual Western addition of black Mary-Jane shoes, but overall the combination looked rather adorable on Iris.
The furisode, she stated matter-of factly, was a present from Susato, who had apparently insisted on wrapping her up in it this morning as a dress-up game of sorts and, upon seeing the jaw-dropping result of her efforts, insisted that Iris wear it for the rest of the day. “She said she used to wear it during important occasions when she was my age,” she said, when Ryuunosuke had commented on it. “I don’t look remotely Japanese, but does it suit me, Naruhodou-kun?”
“You remind me of a hina doll,” was the deeply amused answer. “Only life-sized.”
“Thank you,” Iris replied gravely. “Though I have not the foggiest idea what a hina doll looks like. I must ask Susato-chan, and if I find out that you are making fun of me, Naruhodou-kun, you shall not get any of my special herb tea during my next visit.”
“Oh no,” Ryuunosuke said, in mock horror. “Not your special herb tea.”
Iris had laughed prettily at this, and when they moved on to talk of other matters, they finally ended up under the tree where some bird was singing quite loudly and refused to come down to Iris’s outstretched arm even after a lot of coaxing.
“I don’t understand,” Iris was saying after some time of struggling with the frustration. “Most others come down for me after this much.”
“Perhaps he is only an unusually antisocial bird,” Ryuunosuke said, glancing up at the bird. It looked back at him and twittered curiously, but never moved at all.
“He’s like my papa,” Iris huffed. “He’ll never get a lady if he keeps hiding himself like this.”
Ryuunosuke glanced at Iris; she seemed unperturbed at what she had just blurted, only scuffing at the ground slightly with her shoes, perhaps trying to scrape some fallen leaves off the ground. “Holmes-san doesn’t have a wife?” he found himself asking and regretted it almost immediately, the unvoiced question hanging in the air. However, Iris, with her usual brilliance, picked up on it right away.
“Well, of course. I didn’t have a mother.” And that was when she added (as if it was the most obvious thing in the world), “I don’t think papa ever married or… or had any children, really. Papa’s not my real papa, you know”—upon seeing Ryuunosuke’s extremely confused face.
“Oh,” Ryuunosuke can only say at this next bombshell.
Iris chuckled at the discomfort on his face.
“Don’t worry. I personally think that papa not being my real papa is not a very big deal. The only father I ever knew was him, and I never felt as if he was anything but my real one. However,” she sighed, “there are days when I think he feels as if he’s bitten off more than he can chew.” She brightened up a little. “But most of the time he make sures to let me know that he loves me. Albeit, in his strange, odd, Holmesian ways.”
“That… that is a great thing,” Ryuunosuke said. “More than some people can say for themselves, really.”
“And sometimes I feel like I’m more his mother than he is my father,” Iris sighed. “I do enough cooking and cleaning for us both, you know! Papa is hopeless at both. He’s smart, but he’s incapable at just, you know. Living.”
“It’s quite unusual to hear that someone is incapable of just living,” Ryuunosuke remarked.
“It’s because papa’s work is very dangerous at times. He can never stay still in one place. He has to constantly move around, or he’ll get bored easily.”
“His work?”
“Papa is a consulting detective , and his office is in our house. We usually get clients and other detectives coming round to talk business. Most of the time, really bizarre cases.” Iris smiled at the confusion in Ryuunosuke’s face. “Never mind what a consulting detective is, or what he usually does, but you can imagine that the house is not a very ideal place for taking care of children in.
“But he did his best to bring me up in that house, anyway,” she added as an afterthought. “I think Uncle Yuujin was the one who brought me to him to take care of; they were roommates, a very long time ago. —Now that I think about it, then perhaps Uncle Yuujin is a sort of mother to me?”
“I don’t really think motherhood works that way,” Ryuunosuke said, uncertainly.
“I guess not. Perhaps he’s more like the mythical stork if you insist on a comparison.” Iris sighed. “But then, after Uncle Yuujin left London to go back here, papa took care of me by himself.”
“That’s actually… quite admirable,” Ryuunosuke confessed. “I wasn’t that close to my father, myself.”
“Really?” Iris enquired, curiously, but when Ryuunosuke only smiled mysteriously and did not volunteer any other information, Iris seemed to understand, and fell silent.
“ Iris? ” they both heard, and turning their heads in unison, they watched as Holmes huffed and puffed his way to the top of the long mountain stairway, clad in a kimono like Iris was. “Oof. It’s hard to run in these things.”
“Papa,” Iris was giggling. “You really do run out of breath quickly, for a detective!”
“Shut up,” Holmes said, quite crossly. “I never had much occasion to climb many mountains, you know. Not many of them in London, y’see—”
“Still.” Iris checked herself with a little difficulty and turned to Ryuunosuke. “Well, Naruhodou-kun. I seem to recall that you’re quite curious about what our city was like. Shall we ask papa to regale you with his tall tales of bravery, the adventures of the great Sherlock Holmes?”
“They’re not tall tales,” Holmes said, pouting. “They’re very true, thank you very much.”
“If you insist,” Iris said, “but you do know sometimes I stretch things in there a little bit—”
“La la la la la la,” Holmes said very loudly, to drown out the rest of Iris’s sentence. He then grabbed Ryuunosuke around the shoulders, and said, “Well, we really must satisfy your questions over a cup of tea. Shall we, Mister Naruhodou?”
Having been invited to a cup of his own tea, Ryuunosuke had no choice but to let himself be steered back to the shrine and prepare himself for the next lovely couple of hours being amused by Sherlock Holmes’s stories—stories of a city that he had never heard of before, much less hope to see—
アヤメ
O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river
Linger to kiss thy feet!
O flower of song, bloom on, and make forever
The world more fair and sweet.
—from Flower-de-Luce (1866),
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
あやめ
two.
“Naruhodou-sama! Naruhodou-sama!”
It was drizzling when Ryuunosuke’s quiet evening was disturbed by the frantic clip-clopping of Susato’s wooden clogs against the stone steps leading up to the shrine. By her elbow was her father and the dark and immediately recognizable form of Sherlock Holmes. By their bedraggled looks, Ryuunosuke guessed that they were not bearing any good news at all.
“What’s the matter, Susato-san?” he asked, giving the two men courteous nods; they both nodded back, somberly, even though Holmes himself seemed more than a little preoccupied.
“Iris-chan is missing,” Susato said, gravely. “Someone in town saw her run up the mountain just a little while back. Have you perhaps seen her, Naruhodou-sama?”
“No,” Ryuunosuke said, slightly trepidated. “Or at least, she didn’t approach the shrine. What… what happened? Why did she head here, with this kind of weather?”
“We had a… little argument.” Holmes was wearing a complex expression on his face, quite unlike his usual open, friendly one. “Iris is mature for her age, but at times she can also be a little impulsive… Anyway, it doesn’t matter right now. We have to find my daughter, as soon as possible. The rain is quickly washing away any traces she might have left.”
“Alright, Holmes.” Susato’s father spoke up for the first time. “Might I propose splitting up into pairs? Susato, come with me.” With a quick, desperate look at Ryuunosuke and Holmes, Susato nodded and hurried along with her father, their bright red parasol a beacon against the darkness of the forest. Left behind, Holmes and Ryuunosuke glanced at each other.
“Shall we?” Ryuunosuke said, gravely, and Holmes nodded.
The rain, slight though it might be, provided poor visibility through the trees, but somehow both men did not mind it at all. Ryuunosuke prided himself on his almost catlike vision through darkness like this, having lived most of his life with nary a light for the past three hundred thousand evenings, but Holmes, who looked perfectly ordinary, did not seem fazed by something like this at all. In fact, he was ahead Ryuunosuke by a couple of paces, almost as if he truly believed that he was in a race against time. His umbrella bobbed slightly in time to his strides—
“Do you believe in spirits, Mister Naruhodou?”
At this sudden question, thrown at Ryuunosuke in an almost joking manner, the shrine priest felt quite wrong-footed.
He said, cautiously, “—Are you really asking a shrine priest if he believes in spirits, Holmes-san?”
Sherlock Holmes laughed with that usual boisterous laugh of his. It was as if they were just chatting back at the shrine, instead of looking frantically for a missing child—his daughter, even. “Yes, indeed I am. Sometimes, seeing does not necessarily equate to believing. Take my dear friend Mikotoba, for one.”
“Susato-san’s father?”
“The very one.” Holmes smiled. “I know for a matter of fact that he can see spirits, but he does not believe in them at all.”
“How do you know he could?” asked Ryuunosuke, interested despite himself.
“Well. It’s not inaccurate to say that Mikotoba and I wouldn’t even have remained friends if he hadn’t been able to see spirits.”
Catching up with the Englishman, Ryuunosuke had the chance to steal a glance at Holmes; he seemed to be a little lost in thought, but he had quickly pulled himself out of his own reverie and added, “ Mister Naruhodou, I understand that even his daughter had inherited his unusually strong sense for spirits. Iris had been telling me Miss Susato’s stories about this mountain, you know.”
“Susato-san does see things that normal humans cannot, yes,” Ryuunosuke affirmed, deciding to let it go for now. “I guess it does make sense if her senses are passed down from her father.”
Holmes said nothing for a while, but his eyes were intently searching through the woods before them for clues. Ryuunosuke felt it best to let Holmes collect himself and advance the conversation in his own time, and let his eyes wander to the same sights as his companion; the dark, stern stripes of the trees, never more ominous than they were now, the scattering raindrops splashing against their umbrellas, the mushy ground under their feet.
Holmes finally gathered his resolve, and spoke with none of his usual jesting manner.
“We’ve been here for a while now, and have gotten used to life in this country. —That is why, Mister Naruhodou, I feel that I should confess something to you before soon.”
“Is this concerning the argument that drove Iris-chan out of the house?” was Ryuunosuke’s quiet inquiry.
One corner of Holmes’s mouth lifted slightly. “I have traveled here from the other side of the ocean at the advice of my dear friend Mikotoba. He tells me that his daughter knows someone who might be able to help me with my unusual problem. In other words, you, Mister Naruhodou.”
“I am humbled.” Ryuunosuke bowed his head. “However, I am not sure about any help I could give to an English gentleman as yourself.”
“Well, I think it might be best explained by the photograph I have with me right now. They do say that pictures are worth a thousand words.”
“A… photograph?”
“You can say that it is a portrait, of sorts. I took it myself.”
Pausing slightly, Holmes unfolded a kerchief and produced a curious plate from within to hand to the shrine priest. Ryuunosuke stared with avid interest at the photograph on his hands; it depicted Iris and a clean-shaven man whom he didn’t recognize at all, both seated in armchairs before a fire in what looked like an extremely cluttered, if not cozy, room. Iris, looking just like she did in real life, looked out from the photo with an intelligent, sweet expression on her face; the other man was smiling, vaguely, as he toyed nervously with a bowler hat in his hand.
“It’s my first time to see such a marvelous object,” Ryuunosuke said, awed despite himself. Holmes smiled tersely. “So something can produce such a lifelike reproduction of what the eye could see?”
“Man’s genius indeed is amazing, but that’s not exactly my point.” Holmes gingerly took the plate back from Ryuunosuke and stared at it himself, albeit gloomily. “The other man in the photograph is Miss Susato’s father.”
“Susato-san’s father?” Ryuunosuke frowned. “But that’s strange. He looks so…”
Young, he was about to say, when he caught himself and looked up at Holmes with a slightly alarmed expression on his face.
“How long ago,” he said, quietly, “was this image taken?”
Holmes sighed, deeply, considering, and bowed his head.
“Ten years ago,” was the dull reply.
Ryuunosuke found himself swallowing involuntarily at the words.
“Ten years ago,” Holmes repeated, “Mikotoba and I were roommates, around the same time when he was studying medicine in London.”
“Iris-chan told me, yes,” Ryuunosuke said, slowly. “But… she looks exactly the same in this photograph.”
“Iris looks exactly the same, indeed,” echoed Holmes. “And it is related to the conundrum I was hoping to solve with your help, Mister Naruhodou.”
“I’m not sure what kind of help you were expecting me to give, Holmes-san.” Ryuunosuke’s eyes ran over Iris’s face, forever young on paper. Forever young in real life? “If… if I may know, who… or what exactly is Iris-chan?”
“Mikotoba and I were never sure, exactly.” Holmes smiled mirthlessly. “However, I’ve spent some research on the subject, and she could be part-fay. Not quite pure fay, as humans can see her quite easily, but she’s not quite human either. Her… her extended youth is enough proof of that.”
“I am quite surprised that a gentleman of this age can reach this conclusion so easily.”
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. —A maxim of mine.”
“But… but even so…” Ryuunosuke faltered. “I do not see how Iris-chan’s nature relates in any way to bringing her here, Holmes-san.”
“The enlightened west is a cruel place for things it cannot understand, Mister Naruhodou. I have been fortunate to shelter Iris for these past ten years under my roof and shield her from the eyes of the world, but…”
“…Holmes-san?”
For some minutes, Holmes only trudged through the mud in troubled silence. Ryuunosuke followed meekly, his lips tightly pressed together.
“Do you think,” Holmes finally said, “that Iris likes it here, on your mountain?”
“Pardon?”
“Can she be happy in here, Mister Naruhodou? Here, in the only place I can find in the world that can possibly keep her safe, and innocent, before long?”—smiling bitterly.
Ryuunosuke, seeing this smile, wondered if this expression was made by the real Holmes, or if this was one of the many facades that the man seemingly was fond of wearing.
“Is that why she ran away?” he asked. “Because you told her that you were going to leave her here?”
Holmes didn’t reply—an answer in itself. He looked almost… defeated.
“There are stronger fathers out there,” Holmes said, softly. “Iris will have to suffer the longer I stay selfish, the longer I keep her with me. I can’t bear to see that… that suffering.”
“…Do you know what I think, Holmes-san?” Ryuunosuke murmured.
“ Mister Naruhodou—”
“I’m not speaking for Iris-chan in any way,” Ryuunosuke said, “but perhaps what a daughter wants most in the world is for her father to be selfish and admit that he wants to embrace her whenever she is suffering. To be selfish enough to never let go.”
Holmes was about to open his mouth to perhaps protest, but Ryuunosuke held up a finger and said, “ I can’t make her happy, Holmes-san. Neither can anyone else, other than yourself. Make the most out of your time together. Through the good times and the bad times, be by Iris-chan’s side.
“ That , is the special responsibility of fathers to their daughters.”
Holmes was frowning, but by the time Ryuunosuke had closed his mouth, he was wearing a smile, one that was a little less bitter than the one he had been donning before.
“You’re right, and Iris is correct. I am nothing but an idiot claiming to be a great detective, after all.”
—The sigh of someone who has finally come to a decision.
“That was perhaps what I was wanting to hear. —Thank you, Mister Naruhodou. And ah , what do we have here?”
—Holmes held up a torn piece of soiled, white ribbon that had been lying on the ground, and for the first time this evening, looked truly happy, and unburdened.
Ryuunosuke found himself smiling back at this show of the detective’s skill.
“ Iris? Where are you? ” Holmes then yelled into the trees, in English. “ Iris? ”
Ryuunosuke was about to wonder if it really was any use to yell, but—
—
——
———
—finally, finally, a feeble, trembling voice responded—
“ P-Papa? ”
“Let’s go home, Iris.” Holmes’s tone was pleading. “Let’s go back home. To London.”
“ —Really? ”
Iris, with a dripping hat and a ruined silk dress, stepped out behind a tree, and with haunting green eyes stared squarely at her father.
“ Are you really taking me with you, papa? ”
“ I’m a weak idiot of a papa, ” Holmes said, and while he cannot understand a word, Ryuunosuke could clearly hear that his voice was trembling as well. “ But if you’ll have me as your father once more, Iris. ”
“— Papa! ”
—and Iris was hurtling toward them, a yellow blur, her pigtails flying, her jade-green eyes anguished, her cheeks streaked with tears that looked like rain. Her large-brimmed hat slipped off her head and flew, carried by the sudden harsh wind— Up, up, to the dark, dark evening sky—
“ Iris! ”
Holmes’s voice was loud and strong as he opened his arms, and he caught his daughter neatly as she leaped at him, caught her up in a warm, warm embrace—
“ Never ever say anything about leaving me alone! ” she blubbered into his shoulder. “ Never ever! Or I’ll really get angry, papa! ”
“ Of course not, ” Holmes replied. “ I’ll never leave you anywhere, Iris. ”
The sound of the cascading rain was beautiful on the ears. It was like the blessing of the dragon god over this father and daughter, come at last after all of their ill-fate.
—The honest Ryuunosuke earnestly, and truly, believed that.
あやめ
—She was wearing a beautiful hat today, different from the others that had been irretrievably lost.
With its wide brim and its huge white silk bow, tied under her chin to prevent it from blowing away, Iris’s small face was almost doll-like.
Her lily-white dress fluttered in the gentle breeze, and she was clasping a hatbox under her arm.
Ryuunosuke thought that this was perhaps the first time Iris had shown up without wearing any color at all; everything, from top to toe, was just pure white.
“Is it time for goodbyes, Iris-chan?”
“Yes.” Iris had a small, sad smile on her face; but strangely, it also looked quite happy, too. “I’m very happy that papa changed his mind about leaving me here, but at the same time a small part of me wished I could spend a little more time with Naruhodou-kun and Susato-chan and Uncle Yuujin.”
Ryuunosuke walked over, and gently patted the top of Iris’s hat.
“Thank you for everything, Iris-chan,” he said.
“Oh, no,” Iris said, surprised. “If anything, I had to thank you for clearing up my stupid papa’s brain.”
Ryuunosuke laughed. “Holmes-san isn’t stupid. —Sometimes, however, he’s just a little too focused on the little details to see the huger picture, and it leads him to make stupid decisions.”
“You’re being too kind on him,” Iris teased. “My papa will never mend his ways if you don’t try to be stricter to him, you know.” She looked around. “Oh, I have a present for Asougi-kun. Is he here?”
“Asougi Kazuma?” Ryuunosuke said, confused. “How did you know him? I’m pretty sure you two haven’t met.”
“That was true until a couple of days ago,” Iris said, smiling. “He accompanied me during that rainy night, you know. Scolded me a little, but stayed with me all the same.”
“He did? That fox?” Ryuunosuke had a sudden urge to giggle, but he felt as if Kazuma’s large pointy ears might pick it up wherever he was right now. “—He really is a good guy.”
“Yes. He was… kind, and very warm.” Iris put her hand in her pocket and drew out a parcel wrapped in paper. “This is for him. Susato-chan told me foxes liked aburaage best.”
“I’ll thank you in his place.” Ryuunosuke took the paper-wrapped aburaage from Iris’s hands and bowed.
“Naruhodou-kun,” and Iris’s voice was strange and dry, and for a moment Ryuunosuke thought she was going to cry. “I want to ask you something.”
“What is it, Iris-chan?”
“Naruhodou-kun,” she repeated, “have I been good to papa? All these years, have I been a good daughter to him? For the next few years, is my insistence to stay by his side—”
“Iris-chan, do you know what the word for ‘iris’ is in my language?”
“Huh?”
Iris sniffled a little, and looked up from her feet at the strange question.
“Susato-chan told me that it’s ayame and that it is popularly known to be the flower of good tidings—”
“And do you know what else it symbolizes?”
Overhead, against the eaves of the great shrine, what was left of the leaves on the old trees are rustling.
“Ayame is also the flower of faithfulness. And you have been faithful.”
—The harsh, leaf-wilting wind told them that it was almost winter.
“Really?”
“Really, really.” Ryuunosuke nodded slightly. “As faithful as any daughter could possibly be. —And for a bond to form this strongly between two people who did not have the bond of blood between them, it is a strong, tender faith, indeed.”
“…You know what, Naruhodou-kun?”
Iris was finally smiling under her hat.
“You have quite a way with words.”
“Thank you.” Ryuunosuke laughed, blushing slightly.
Iris’s expression became a little rueful when she finally noticed the time. “I do have to go back in a while,” she said, sighing. “Papa can’t come because he was taking care of the luggage, but he’s given me this to give to you.” She held out a white letter envelope. “He says to read it after fifty more years, but I think he’s joking.”
“He’s probably dead serious this time,” Ryuunosuke said, noting the long, spidery writing on the back that said IMPORTANT! OPEN AFTER 50 YEARS.
“Well, at times even I can’t tell what he’s thinking.” Shaking her head, Iris smiled yet again and bowed. “Well, I really must go, Naruhodou-kun. Thank you for everything.”
“I see.” Naruhodou smiled. “No goodbyes. Just… just do come back again sometime, Iris-chan.”
Iris’s parting smile was sorrowful.
“I’m sure I will, someday,” she finally said, “but I shall pray that it takes a long, long time before we do meet again, Naruhodou-kun.”
He nodded, understanding her deepest desire in his heart, and her lip quivered before she turned away, almost as if not wanting him to see her cry.
—Naruhodou Ryuunosuke shall treasure that simple, beautiful picture that Iris had afforded him as she turned her back to him, all in her white splendor, and walked down the stone stairs, back to her father and back to the real world, retracing the steps that she had once taken to meet him once upon a time.
Indeed.
A long, long time, Iris-chan.
I pray I shall never see you before that time comes.
He prayed, and he prayed.
菖蒲