She picked up a piece of paper I had shredded in her thin fingers and brought it to her lips. Even though she usually dripped criticism everywhere, today she went on eating in contented silence, as if savoring each and every flavor.

When I saw that, the pit of my stomach got even more ticklish. I got fidgety and looked away and picked up the copy of Demon Pond with the embroidered cover.

"To my daughter..."

I turned the page with the brush-written message on it and sat down on the opposite end of the chaise lounge from Tohko and pretended to read.

In fact, hardly any of it penetrated my mind.

The flowing characters were beautiful to look at, but it wasn't really suited to easy reading, and I wasn't used to the old way of spelling things, so I was stumbling.

"That was great," Tohko murmured happily.

I kept pretending to read the handmade book.

Tohko leaned in and peeked at me from the side.

She smelled like violets, and I thought my heart would jump out of my chest.

"You're not making much progress."

I jumped. "It...it's hard to read. And the sentences...I don't really understand the situation."

"But Demon Pond is one of the easier Kyka stories to read. The Grass Labyrinth tells another story inside the story, and a lot of the time you get confused about who's talking about what. That sense of peril is like turning circles in a maze and it entrances you.

"You don't think about Kyka's stories as you read them. You surrender yourself and drown in them. Simply sinking deeply into them without flailing your arms and legs around...

"You don't think about them with your mind, you feel them with your heart.

"Still, if you don't understand it, hmm-maybe we should try reading it aloud."

Tohko's face sparkled as if she'd just had a great idea.

"Let's split up the parts and read it together! The flavor of a play goes up dramatically when you say the lines out loud!"

"What?!"

I tried to refuse, but with her belly full, Tohko had gotten her energy back, and she was in full swing.

"Since I'm a girl, I'll be Yuri, and you be Akira. You do Shirayuki, too."

"Shirayuki is a girl!"

"Don't get picky over the details. I'm doing Shirayuki's servants and her nurse. Oh, and you'll be Akira's friend and the villagers, too."

"Don't I have a lot more parts?"

"I'll help when I need to. Okay, let's start. Go!"

When I hesitated, Tohko jabbed me in the chest with her elbow.

Geez, why did I have to do stuff like this?

I started reading Akira's lines stiffly, as if I had been called on in class to read from the book.

"The water is beautiful. Whenever I look at it...beautiful."

"Yes," Tohko answered gently in the role of Yuri.

"The water is clean."

"But it is white."

The stage directions indicated that Yuri puts a hand to her white wig, and Tohko too touched her hair. Girls just love playing house and playing with dolls and playing pretend...

The sunny exchange between the husband and wife went on for some time.

"It is that part of you which seems to shine through the last iris to bloom, casting a shadow on the water. It is even prettier."

"I know not whereof you speak."

"Is there anyone who is incensed by flattery?"

"Though this holds me up for your enjoyment to ridicule."

Ugh, this conversation was so embarrassing. Even if it was just acting.

Plus, Tohko was oddly infused with feeling...Since she was reading right next to me, I felt her breath on my ears and her braids tickled the back of my hand.

I wanted it to end quickly, but the story was still in its introductory stages. After this, Akira's friend Gakuen would happen through a place where Yuri is by herself and talk about his friend who had gone missing.

Unwilling to let Akira go back, Yuri tries to drive Gakuen away, but at that point Akira comes back.

Akira soothes Yuri's anxiety by telling her, "I won't go back." Seeing the two of them like that, even Gakuen is overwhelmed by emotion.

"How thoughtful of you to inquire whether I wish to return to Tokyo after you've rapped me on the back and woken me from my dream."

"Come now, Hagiwara. This dream shouldn't end from seeing my face. You hardly need wake if you're having a good dream."

"After this part, there's a really long conversation between Akira and Gakuen."

"Okay, I'll be Gakuen."

Perhaps because the entanglement between Akira and Yuri had gone away, my embarrassment gradually lessened, too, as we continued reading together.

In fact, sitting beside Tohko in this room walled in with books, following the words from a shared volume, putting our voices to them, and speaking the words, it started to feel pleasant.

And even when Tohko murmured, "Acting is fun. I could get used to this," despite myself, I almost replied, "You're right..."

"As you know...I wanted to hear the tales of every land and walked up the Northern Highway. As I did so, I...I am myself but a tale of one line."

The words expanded my imagination.

As if the two of us were bobbing through a dream in a tiny boat shaped like a chaise lounge.

All around us was unbroken water.

The moon dyed the water silver and pleasant-smelling white flowers floated by on it.

Tohko wove the brilliant words together.

Pulling me into that unreal, ephemeral illusion.

And I answered with words.

Magic-tinged words like a moon, like a flower, tickling at my ears and inviting me into fantasy.

Finally, Shirayuki appeared and told of her frantic feelings for her beloved partner who lived in the pond at Swords Peak.

She missed him.

But while the villagers kept their promise and continued ringing the temple bell three times a day, Shirayuki remained sealed. She could not leave her pond.

Then she would knock the bell down!

"Nurse, whatever you think of me, I am going. I must go to Swords Peak. If only it weren't for the bell, there could be no pact...They will pull down the bell and smash it into atoms."

"Whatever becomes of a human life, it is no concern of mine!...Love has no need even of my own life."

As I read Shirayuki's lines, I was pulled into her passion, her restlessness, and the core of my brain grew numbingly hot.

How fierce was the dragon princess...

"I cannot abandon love for the sake of a life. Withdraw, withdraw."

"Were my body to be smashed to dust, were I to be cut to pieces, would my soul, which burns with desire and dyes the one I love in blood, turn into a faint firefly's light and fly to Swords Peak?"

The cry like lightning cutting through a storm recalled a girl who was now gone.

Hotaru Amemiya- The strong, evanescent girl who had risked her life to accomplish her love.

Her love had been a purely destructive love that no one would have celebrated. She had loved someone she could never be with, with all of her soul.

For the rest of my life I would never forget her smile as she clung to the one she loved, smiling as she wept, and whispered, "Father..."

A painful love that engulfed everything and destroyed it like a storm.

At the same time, the image of the rampaging dragon princess was superimposed on Maki, too.

Whatever becomes of a human life, it is no concern of mine! The image of her making that arrogant declaration- "I'm doing this my way. Shirayuki doesn't exist. Neither does the curse. It's all a delusion. Even if the curse does happen, I'll take it all on myself."

Amemiya and Maki.

Though their appearances and personalities were polar opposites, right now the two of them felt like one, like the front and back of a coin.

Maybe it was because of the intensity they both had inside them.

Like Amemiya, Maki wouldn't mind letting a rain of fire pour over her body if it would grant the wish of her heart.

Perhaps the Shirayuki who had slaughtered the people of the mansion had been that way, too.

Sealed at the bottom of a dark pond, frustrated, perhaps she had cherished tempestuous feelings.

Like the Shirayuki of Demon Pond-who had caused a flood and swallowed up the village-the Shirayuki Yuri Himekura feared had dyed the mansion in blood.

The Shirayuki of Demon Pond had heard Yuri's lullaby as she waited for Akira, and her spirit was quieted. For Yuri's sake, she decided to keep her promise with the humans.

But...

"I envy the couple in this house; I covet what is theirs. Nurse, let us settle ourselves and emulate them."

"I will embrace this doll and sing as well..."

As I spoke the words, I felt the terrifying realization that if she hadn't heard Yuri's singing, Shirayuki probably would have caused the temple bell to fall even if it brought a curse down on herself.

Just then, there was the sound of glass shattering on the second floor.

Tohko and I jumped at the same moment.

"Wh-what was that?"

"It came from the second floor."

"You don't think it was in Maki's room?"

Tohko stood up with a grim expression and bolted out of the room.

I hurried after her.

It was nearing two o'clock in the morning. We turned on lights in the hall as we ran, then sprinted up the stairs.

As we were heading toward Maki's room, we saw a red liquid dripping, dropping in the hall, and Tohko grew even paler.

"Ee-is this...blood?"

She shook her head with a shudder, as if trying to force back her fear, and opened the door to Maki's room.

"Maki, we're coming in!"