‘It’s nothing. When it stops raining I’ll go out.’
A bowl hit the side of the sink. Mama then had a voice full of tears. ‘I can’t stand this any more. This isn’t working. It’s making you worse.’
‘Mai, please. I can’t . . . I can’t tell you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you would think I’m crazy.’
‘Crazy? You’re making yourself crazy. You’re making me crazy. This was a mistake. I knew it.’
‘Maybe. The house . . . I don’t know.’
A chair scraped against the floor. Mama must have sat down. Her voice went soft and I guessed that she was holding his hand.
‘Yuki.’ It was Maho calling me. Standing at the top of the stairs, she waved at me to join her. Because I wanted to hear what Papa was saying, I smiled at her but put a finger against my lips. Maho shook her head and her hair moved across her face to cover all of the white bits. ‘No. Come and play,’ she said. But I turned my head back to the kitchen because Papa was talking again.
‘I saw something again.’
‘What, Taichi? What did you see?’
His voice was all shaky. ‘I have to go to the doctor again. I’m going crazy.’
‘What? What did you see?’ Mama’s voice was going high and I could tell that she was trying not to cry again.
‘I . . . I went to the toilet. Last night. And it was there again.’
‘What, Taichi? What?’
‘Sitting on the window sill. I told myself that I was still dreaming. I stopped and I closed my eyes and made sure that I was awake. Look at the bruise on my arm where I pinched myself. Then I opened my eyes and it was still there. So I pretended that it wasn’t. That it was just a bad dream. I ignored it. But when I came out of the bathroom, it was still just sitting there. Watching me.’ In the kitchen they stopped talking, and all I could hear was the rain. Thousands of little drops hitting the wood and tiles and glass all around us.
‘You were dreaming,’ Mama said after a while. ‘It’s the medicine, Taichi. The side-effects.’
‘No. I stopped taking the medicine.’
‘What?’
‘Just for a while to see if they would go.’
‘They?’
‘Yuki. Yuki. Come and play. Come,’ Maho whispered from behind me. She was coming down the stairs on silent feet.
‘I don’t know,’ My Papa said. ‘A little thing . . . with long legs that hang over the window sill. And its face, Mai. I can’t sleep after I see its face.’
‘Yuki, look what I found. In a cupboard. Come and see,’ Maho said from behind me and reached out to take my hand. When I turned around to tell her to be quiet, I saw that her dolly eyes were wet. So I went up the stairs with her. I can’t stand to see Maho cry. ‘What’s wrong, Maho? Please don’t be sad.’
She led me into the empty room upstairs, at the end of the hall, and we sat on the wooden floor. In there it’s always cold. There is only one window. Water ran down the outside and made the trees in the garden all blurry. Maho’s head was bowed. Her hair fell over her white gown all the way down to her lap. We held hands. ‘Why are you crying, Maho?’
‘Your papa.’
‘He’s sick, Maho. But he’ll get better. He told me.’
She shook her head, then lifted it. Tears ran down from the one wet eye that I could see through her hair. ‘Your mama and papa want to leave. And I don’t want you to go. Not ever.’
‘I’ll never leave you, Maho.’ Now she was making me sad and I could taste the sea at the back of my throat.
She sniffed inside her hair. The rain was very loud on the roof and it sounded like it was raining inside the room. ‘You promise?’ she said.
I nodded. ‘I promise. You are my best friend, Maho.’
‘Your parents don’t understand the toys.’
‘I know.’
‘They just want to play. Your papa should sleep and let them play. If he finds out about me and the toys then he will take you away from us.’
‘No. Never.’ We hugged each other and Maho told me she loved me, and told me that the toys loved me. I kissed her silky hair and against my lips I felt her cold ear.
Downstairs, I heard the kitchen door open and then close. Maho took her arms away and uncurled her hair from around my neck. ‘Your mama wants you.’ Tears were still running down her white face.
She was right because I heard feet coming up the stairs. ‘Yuki?’ Mama called out. ‘Yuki?’
‘I have to go,’ I told Maho and stood up. ‘I’ll come right back and we can play.’
She didn’t answer me. Her head was bowed so that I couldn’t see her face.
‘Yuki, what would you say if I told you we might be moving? Going back to the city?’ Mama looked at me, smiling. She thought this news would make me happy, but I couldn’t stop my face feeling all long and heavy. Mama was sitting on the floor next to me in the cold room where she found me. Even though Maho had hidden I knew that she was still listening. ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’ Mama asked me, ‘You’ll see all of your friends again. And go to the same school.’ She looked surprised that I was not smiling. ‘What is wrong, Yuki?’
‘I don’t want to.’
She frowned. ‘But you were so upset when we moved here.’