Burning Sky

Chapter 20

The next morning, Sora was at her desk, wearing the same rumpled clothes from the previous night, with her head resting on the pages of the red leather bound book Drake had given her. She opened her eyes slowly. The clock glared at her that it was already after ten, but there was barely any light in the sky. The sun was hiding behind thick clouds and rain was pouring down fast, leaving a buzzing sound in Sora's head that numbed any other thought.

She lifted her head and saw a small puddle of drool on the old page she had slept on. She winced and tried to wipe it off with her hand. That's when her eyes focused on the words written on the page. They were Japanese. She took the book in her heads, moving it too close for her eyes to see. She finally settled it at a more reasonable distance, on her knees.

Her eyes scanned the lines up and down while she was trying to make sense of the text. It was hand-written and looked old which made it even harder for her to unravel. She knew the basic Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries but she was no good with Kanji ideograms, the more complex ones were used to represent whole words. The ancient text was filled with them.

She rose to her feet, tucked the book under her arm and headed to find the one person she knew would be able to help her.

Her grandparents' bedroom door was open and welcoming, as it always was, but she knocked once before entering just to make sure she wasn't disturbing them.

"Hai," she heard her grandfather calling cheerfully from inside. Now that she could understand. A simple 'yes' was one of the few words in her Japanese vocabulary.

She entered the room slowly and her tired eyes immediately found her grandfather, still resting in his bed, despite the late hour for him. She carefully ducked to avoid all the colorful origami cranes hanging from the ceiling as she made her way towards him. The room was an explosion of brightly colored paper cranes. They covered every flat surface, and hundreds of strings hung from the ceiling in different lengths that ended with yet more cranes, swirling and dancing in the air.

"Sora," her grandfather smiled from the bed and started to get up but then, like his arms couldn't lift him, he fell back on his pillow.

Sora didn't miss that and ran to his side. "What's wrong?" she asked worriedly placing a hand on his shoulder feeling his old, fragile bones shaking underneath his shirt. For a moment, she felt so stupid and selfish for coming here with her own problems. She had spent the last few days focusing only on her own thoughts that she hadn't notice something was wrong.

"I am okay," he said and placed a wrinkled hand over hers and patted her gently. "A book?" he asked dropping the matter at hand and focusing his eyes on the red leather book that was still under her arm.

She followed his gaze and bit her lip with guilt. She needed to know what was in the book, but his condition upset her, and she didn't want to cause him any further weariness. "It's nothing, just an old Japanese text, nothing important. Now, you rest and I'll bring you something to eat, okay?" She started to walk away but he called her name, his voice sounding strong and steady like normal, so she hurried back to his side, dropping to her knees next to him.

"Give me the book," he said firmly, but she could see that he was forcing himself to sound like nothing was wrong. He was really tired, maybe even ill. She shook her head to shove that frightening thought away and handed him the book. She couldn't deal with the loss of someone else, so denial was her best option, besides she had more pressing matters at hand.

He stared at the page his eyes moving up and down faster than Sora thought possible. After a few seconds, his face changed as all the remaining color drained from his cheeks, not that there was much left, and his eyes were as wide as she had ever seen them and still moving. "Where did you get this?" he asked and she could tell he was worried, even worse, he sounded scared.