The Bridge To Nihon (BOOK ONE)

Chapter 11 - The Missing Children

As far as Sofia knew, she had been brought to the Border Village as a baby. An avalanche had killed most of the inhabitants in the mountain village where her family had lived, but some of the small children had been saved and given to people in border villages, where birth rates were low.

Sofia had never given much thought to this strange and fragmentary story. It was a distant fact, a story to concern historians more than herself. She knew that she'd had parents, and that they had died, and that this was sad. But she didn't feel any of this sadness, except for the vague feeling of tragedy that loomed over life in general.

She had assumed that Pip and Tin had been brought to the village from the same place as she, even though their appearances were very different from hers. Sofia was strong and tall and dark, and the boys were white and small and round. They had never become friends and had never felt any sort of kinship towards each other.

But now that Pip and Tin had gone missing, she was frightened. For the first time in her life, she felt like she might be in danger as well and that her fate and that of the twins might be intertwined after all.

Aunt Sybil led Mr Borrealis into the kitchen. He sat down heavily, accepting a glass of hard liquor from Uncle Tomas. For once, Aunt Sybil did not protest at the sight of the bottle, though she refused a glass for herself.

"When did you last see the boys?"

Mr Borrealis looked unhappy.

"Yesterday afternoon. They were playing outside the store. I was unpacking a delivery of linen and called out to them to make themselves useful and help me. I said that they could keep the box afterwards, as a kind of incentive. They always build playthings out of the packing material. I got no answer, and when I went outside, they were gone."

"Gone?" Sofia repeated.

"I didn't think anything of it. I thought they had run off to avoid having to lift one of their lazy fingers. I was quite angry, I admit. They had even left those strange stones they are always playing with on the ground, so I figured they must have been in a hurry to get away from me. When my wife went to pick up the stones in the evening, I told her not to. I said that we should not always clean up after them, that they needed to be taught a lesson. Mrs Borrealis was not happy."

"Are the stones still out there?" Sofia asked.

Aunt Sybil looked scoldingly at her.

"I don't know about the stones," Mr Borrealis said. "But the boys - they didn't come back that evening, and Mrs Borrealis and I were very tired. We fell asleep early, and didn't think anything of it."

"You were always too lenient with those boys," Aunt Sybil said. "It does not bode well to let children do everything they like."

"That's not helpful, Sybil," Uncle Tomas said.

"It needed to be said."

"It didn't."

"I'm sorry, I don't want to cause any problems," Mr Borrealis said. "I know this is my fault."

"It's not," Uncle Tomas said. "We should have known that these troubles would reach us, too."

"What troubles?" Sofia asked.

"Tomas!" Aunt Sybil said in the same scolding she used for everybody, be they children or grown-ups.

"You know very well what I am talking about. I know that's why you've been keeping a close eye on Sofia."

Sofia frowned. She hadn't noticed any difference in her aunt's behavior. She wondered if she knew about Orì after all, but she couldn't imagine that she would have kept quiet about it. It was like her aunt at all to let things slide.