The Potter's Notebook by Frank Giovinazzi, a historical novel set in 17th century Japan, is available on the Amazon Kindle platform and in paperback.
Nineteen He didn't just walk into the kitchen. Everything about him was exaggerated, theatrical. When he came in he brought the wind with him, and judging from what he had seen before, Hideaki knew that was possible. His eyes had that distant look again, they appeared to not even register his portly brother, and his tattered strips of clothing moved on the shoulders of the wind as if separate entities, not adorning the Ragman's body so much as attending it. The scowl on his face looked as if it had been born in the eye of a storm; Nature herself had concentrated her furies to twist his features into a mask of anger. Before the Ragman spoke, Hideaki knew this: there was nothing the boy could do about it. Hideaki smiled. The only thing that could make this man, or whatever he was, so angry was to deny him the very freedom of action he so clearly relished. Striding halfway into the kitchen, the barely lidded fury of the Ragman appeared to somehow calm down the boiling and hissing pots. He looked as if was about to burst; Hideaki still seated at the low table, shrunk in dread expectation. His eyes were still unfocused on the scene around him, but when he spotted the boy they widened in anger and seemed to drink in the steam still emanating from the cauldrons all around him, quieting them even further. Hideaki knew he wasn't just calming their activity for effect – he was drinking in the energy that was driving them, either from the greater force of his anger or for something he was preparing to do. "Neither." His voice rent the air like a raptor's shriek. The Ragman focused his eyes fully on the boy, concentrating their vapory steam into a pair of opaque icicles that pierced Hideaki's self-confidence. The thin man cracked a smile that used all the available skin on his taut face. As he did, he took in the whole picture of Hideaki, his sleeping brother and the remains of their non-traditional Japaneses meal on the table. That sight almost broke him out of his forced joviality, but he continued to drink in the steam and energy from the kitchen fires, creating a hush stillness that made the room feel like a paused image on a VCR. The kitchen was now dead with the exception of the two sets of brothers. The smile on the Ragman's face cracked a little higher, revealing front incisors that had pushed themselves to the front of the mismatched set of teeth. The Ragman quietly removed the barkcap from his skull and turned to one of the large cauldrons, dipping it as if he to drink from a stream. The strength of the gaze held the pause and he stepped backward and up onto a food preparation table. Hideaki's eyes widened, because the Ragman accomplished this in the same way a bird settles down to perch in its nest, automatically and without looking over his shoulder, he assumed his position, with his haunches touching the table and his his bony knees sticking straight up in the air, framing his upper body. The array of rags gathered about him were like a pair of wings folded from use, and Hideaki saw the man's toes were long, curved and so dirty as to appear solid black, making the whole of the man look like a half-human, half-avian creature of malintent. Perched, he drank from his bark cap, lifting it to his mouth and drinking like a man, but looking at Hideaki as a hawk eyes a rabbit on the open ground. A rabbit that sees its tormentor and is frozen in a solid statuary of fear. The Ragman took another drink. The kitchen was still, Jittoku and Shuji were silent; Hideaki was unable to unlock his eyes from the gaze of the Ragman. He took long draught from his cap. In a split-second of giddy fear, Hideaki wondered what he was actually drinking, since knew everything in the cauldron was materialized by Jittoku according to the request. The Ragman lowered the bowl halfway and affixed Hideaki with the icicles once more. "Miracles don't come from thin air, boy." The voice had the effect of a curdling shriek even when modulated at low volume. The Ragman stayed on his perch, flexing his toes in a slow, progressive arc that displayed just how every single muscle on the man's feet and lower leg operated. He looked down distractedly and placed the barkcap on his head, excess fluid seeping out along the sides of the helmet, making the man's hair look even more like a bird's head groomed after flight. "All acts require wisdom, power and energy. A creature needs the knowledge to act, the will to do so, and the raw fuel to perform the task. You noticed I drained the energy when I came into the room. I needed it." The Ragman kept his voice low, but the keening quality kept Hideaki's nerves on edge. "You see I went looking for your friend." He paused to stretch his neck sideways, pulling the muscles from the center of his chest into action. "As soon as I found out you two had arrived here, I waited for a moment to find out what was going on. That's when I came and got Shuji while you were sleeping. For him, there hasn't been a break in the fabric of his reality, except for the obvious one." The Ragman pinioned him again with the icicles in their sockets. "But you and I know different, so after you were safely here with my brother, I went looking for your friend the kindly Abbot." Hideaki brightened for a moment hoping that there would be some kind of message even from the hostile witness perched before him. None would come. "No. I didn't find him. Most likely he is traversing the other time spirals, restoring his own energy after sending Shuji back to this time to live his life over again." The last words came on a riser of energy that made Hideaki cringe backward. The Ragman was silent for a minute. Still staring a the boy, pausing to refold his arms and shift his weight, he continued. "The audacity of that youngster!" That was uttered as a cry, and Hideaki turned to see his brother stir a bit. "Karma is inviolate. The first time Shuji wound his way through this lifetime, he followed his way and became what he was the first time you met him." The Ragman lingered to let Hideaki know there was nothing he hadn't been able to learn. Now Hideaki was emboldened to speak. "But the Abbot said perhaps if he had the chance to try again, with my help, that maybe . . . " The Ragman raised himself up screeching, "You cannot even help yourself, you arrogant little boy!" He remained half-raised on his haunches, as if he was about to strike. The Ragman settled back down, "No. This is only going to create a more elaborate mess," he said sneering, "not that either of you are so important as to actually change anything that happened, but human life is fraught with hardship, indeed it is defined by suffering with only moments of joy that you hold onto as the promise behind the pain, when actually it is nothing of the sort." Her withdrew into silence. "Life is hardship, and the youngster – your kindly Abbot – had no right to try and interfere on this scale." Hideaki tried again. "But what if, this time, now, he can change, he can overcome what he is and let the true strength come out, now, instead of later . . . " The Ragman's expression and voice contorted in distaste. "No wonder the youngster like you. That's something he would say. No. I tested Shuji when he first came through and he fell to laziness and failure." "What do you mean? You tempted him?" "Yes, just like you saw today, with games and frolic and food and nonsense." "But that mean you contributed to his failure. You are as much a meddler as the Abbot." "Failure became his his fate because that was his nature. There is no changing that. If he became something else later on, it was because of the remorse and despair, mixed into his personality matrix, created what you saw as the successful old man." For the first time, the Ragman's voice softened. "You see, boy, that is the way it is with humans. You may have something good in you, but if it doesn't come out on its own, that's due to some deficiency and only hardship can smooth out that flaw in order for the perfection to shine through." Hideaki was still feared the Ragman might strike out at him, but his awe of him as an authority had eroded. The Abbot was right. With the right kind of guidance, he thought Shuji could make things go right for himself this time. The Ragman watched him with soulless, unblinking eyes. Hideaki stared back, without the same force but the same determination. "We shall see." That was said with the least human voice Hideaki heard issue from the bony creature yet. He wasn't sure if he blinked or if the room wavered before his eyes, but the form of the Ragman shifted rapidly, consolidating into the bird-like form suggested all along. The kitchen grew colder, and Hideaki looked over at Jittoku, whose form was also consolidating into a shorter, fatter, and furrier version of the chef who had been their host. Looking back at the Ragman, the room, or Hideaki's eyes, blinked again, as if something was taking the whole of reality and crumpling it up like a wad of paper. The Ragman continued to shrink, and his tatters of clothing hardened around his flank, assuming the shape of wings that before they had only approximated. In a split second what was left of Jittoku waddled over to his brother, curiously hunched over with the bulk of his weight concentrated low in his carriage and his arms noticeably shorter. "Craw-ck. We shall be watching you." The voice sounded like it came from anything else but the form that was once the Ragman – he had completed his metamorphosis into the largest magpie Hideaki had ever seen, all dark iridescent blue-black feathers bespeaking ill will with a white stripe down either side that made their kind look like flying killer whales. The bird was still perched on the table, while on the floor below it was the greasiest, fattest and most awkward looking tanuki the boy had ever seen. It resembled any of the other wild dog-like creatures that inhabited the forests of Japan, but oddly domesticated, as if it had been taken in by an indulgent woodsman and fed relentlessly until it looked pathetic and helpless. Hideaki swallowed. The kitchen was ice cold, colder than he remembered it being outside, as if the supernatural pair had sucked up even more of the energy than they had brought with them. The kitchen was dark where before it had been lit by lights not visible, and now they stood in shadows except for creeping moonlight illumination. The two creatures stared at him for a long moment, then left, the tanuki exiting via the curtained door, the magpie by the window ledge. Before the Magpie launched itself into the night, it let out one, "Craw-cckk" and lifted itself away. Now the boys were alone. Hideaki was nervous, but enthralled by what had just happened. He looked over at his brother and uttered yet another silent oath that he would guide him through this second chance that the Ragpie was so violently opposed to. But as the moment longer, Hideaki came to realize the new nature of the situation they were now in. It was the middle of the night, they
were in the kitchen of the Daimyo's with a mess of food littered around them,
and wearing royal silk robes – all without an escort or license to be there.
Hideaki clutched up in fear, forcing himself to be quiet even though he hadn't
made any sound. They were in a lot of trouble. |