something?” A plump rosy-faced woman peered from behind the curtain in a white apron.
“I’m sorry to bother you. Can we get a taxi? We got off at the wrong station. We wanted to go to Yaiyama, to see my nephew…” Ojiisan’s voice trailed off.
The woman wiped her hands as she came into the store. Ojiisan rambled on. Jet watched the woman’s cautious expression fade, the wrinkles on her brow ease. He was a harmless country bumpkin.
“Normally, you call a cab from the next town. It takes thirty minutes just to get here. But my husband got home early today, so he can drive you,” she said pleasantly.
“No, no.” Ojiisan shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to put your husband out on a Sunday night. Besides, we’re strangers. I’d feel bad for the inconvenience.”
“Don’t worry. When people have trouble, they should help each other. What goes around comes around.” She parted the blue curtain and yelled for her husband.
“Anta, will you drive this old man and his grandkids to Yaiyama?”
A heavyset man with sleepy eyes emerged from the back room. When he saw them, his round face softened into a smile, just as hers had. They probably didn’t get many visitors.
“No problem at all,” he said jovially.
“Thank you. We know it’s your precious day off.” Ojiisan bowed.
Jet watched as Ojiisan’s expression, attitude, gestures, and tone of voice completely changed. Was this henge, the art of disguise her mother had told her about? He was clearly a master, but Jet was too frightened to feel proud.
Ojiisan bowed and shuffled out, leading them out of the store. In the car, he chatted with the shopkeeper about baseball. Thirty minutes later, he abruptly asked the man to stop.
“We’re not at the village yet, sir. It’s just a few miles more.” The man glanced outside at the dark dirt road nervously.
“It’s all right. My nephew is kind of a hermit. He lives in the mountains. We can take a trail from here. I know this area like it’s my own backyard.”
“But it’s pitch-black outside, sir. You can’t see a thing,” the man insisted.
“Not to worry. I could do it with my eyes closed!” Ojiisan laughed. He put a five-thousand yen bill on the dashboard and reached for the door. “Thank you so much. Here’s some money for gas. Please take it.”
“That’s not necessary—” the man stammered.
“Please. It’s the least we can do.” Ojiisan opened the door and bowed to the man as Jet and Hiro got out.
After the car drove away, Ojiisan stood up straight, his voice clear and sharp again.
“We’ll have to walk very quickly. Come on!” he commanded.
The lights of the village shone to the west, but where they stood was lit only by the glow of the crescent moon. Cold wind whistled against the mountainside. Jet shivered.
“Ojiisan… I’m tired!” Hiro said softly and yawned.
“I know. I am, too. But we have no choice. It will take us two hours to get home on the animal trails. Watch your step. And if you have to talk,” he glanced at Hiro, “speak only in shinobi kotoba. Okay?”
Hiro nodded.
Jet looked at her cousin, eyebrows raised.
She sensed Hiro gathering energy from his core as he sent out breaths like smoke signals. She listened, remembering long ago when her mother spoke in this special way when they played “hide and seek” in the mountains. In daylight, her mother had taught her to use hand signals, but in the darkness—where their range of vision was limited—they used this same language. Now it had a name—shinobi kotoba.
“Do you understand me?” Hiro asked.
Jet nodded, remembering how words were made from the amount of air released when the mouth opened and closed. Ordinary people couldn’t hear anything recognizable as language.
With a start, Jet realized she wasn’t ordinary.
“Can you say something?” Hiro asked.
Jet opened her mouth, trying to let the air come through. She couldn’t. This wasn’t a game, it wasn’t hide and seek in the mountains, and she’d never used shinobi kotoba when there was danger. Focus. Think. Remember! she willed herself, but only strange muffled gasps escaped her lips. Hiro couldn’t understand her. There was no use.
“It’s okay. Come on!” Hiro urged.
With heightened awareness, Jet stepped lightly behind her cousin and grandfather, moving swiftly in the darkness. The moon occasionally passed behind the black clouds carried on the strong north wind.
Then Ojiisan lifted his arm and stopped. It was as if his body had frozen. His mouth moved soundlessly in the secret language. Jet struggled to make sense of the word, and then, instinctively, it came to her. “Danger,” he’d said. Hearing it gave her goosebumps.
Ojiisan crouched behind a tree and cocked his head, listening. Jet listened, too. The wind blew straight toward her, sending branches crashing into each other and casting leaves onto the ground. She couldn’t feel any presence, not even a rabbit or a fox.
Jet tried to speak again, carefully shaping her lips around the air.
“Is someone there?” she asked, haltingly using her breath to push out sounds.
She waited for a response. Had she made sense?
“Yes, they’re waiting for us. But we’re still a bit away from them,” Hiro replied.
Jet’s heart pounded. “Why can’t I feel them?” she asked in the secret tongue, the words coming more swiftly now.
“They aren’t expecting us to come from this direction,” Ojiisan said, “so they’re focusing on the opposite direction. Once we go another mile toward them, you’ll be able to feel them. And they’ll be able to feel you, too. I’m sure they’ve raided the house.”
“Ojiisan, what if they hurt Aska?” Hiro asked.
“Aska’s tough. Don’t worry.” Ojiisan looked at the moon through the branches.
“It’s five and a half miles to the southern mountain ridge. I’ll go there to check on the house and make sure the village is secure. You two go east to Aterui’s cave and wait for me. Okay?”
“We’ll go with you,” she insisted. “We should stay together. It’s so dark, and–”
“Jet’s right,” Hiro added. “Let’s go together. That way….”
“Hiro!” Ojiisan’s body tensed. “The village is surrounded. If I bring you there, that will play right into their hands.”
“No!” Hiro hissed.
“We
