Maki's eyes widened. I was confounded, too.

"Akira was supposed to have passed away and been buried in the estate's garden, so isn't it odd that he went to study abroad? But the fact that there was a Japanese student named Akira Shikishima is recorded in the letters another Japanese student sent to his family. Akira was definitely in Germany eighty years ago."

We were confused, so Tohko belted out in a vibrantly cheerful voice, "I imagine that was Yuri! Yuri studied abroad in Akira's place. Hiding her sex as Akira."

"That's absurd! Your imagination is out of control! It's not possible! She'd be exposed right away."

Maki argued forcefully.

I also found it very hard to believe.

But Tohko grinned at us like the sun, vibrantly, brilliantly.

"Not possible? No, I believe Yuri made the impossible possible. And that it was her dreamlike story with Akira that gave her the power to do it."

She made this declaration in a cheerful voice and began telling Maki the contents of the letters from the other Japanese student that we had found out about from Ryuto.

How Akira's condition had deteriorated in the first year and how he was in convalescence afterward. How he had suffered unable to communicate. How he had applied himself intensely to study and rarely interacted with others and never drank alcohol. How he'd had a habit of touching his earlobe, had never returned to Japan once during his period of study, and had gone missing afterward.

"Would Akira, who read Goethe in the original for Yuri, have had so much trouble communicating? And can't you picture her not drinking alcohol and going back home before the sun set out of caution because she was hiding the fact that she was a woman?

"I'm sure it would attract attention if a woman was pretending to be a man in Japan, but in a foreign country at that time where Asians were still an unaccustomed sight, perhaps she was able to fool them as simply being youthfully slender and having a high voice for a man.

"So she would have especially avoided the other Japanese students.

"The man writes in his letter that Akira was like the moon. Perhaps it wasn't only because of his brusque attitude, but because he looked beautiful, too.

"Almost like a woman- "Plus, apparently Akira mentioned that he'd picked up the habit of touching his earlobe from his lover, but if you consider that it was Yuri herself, it makes perfect sense."

"How did she make arrangements to get to Europe? How did she pay the fees every month? Are you suggesting a young noble lady ignorant of the world managed to live in a foreign country?"

"What if the Himekuras arranged things behind the scenes?"

Maki gasped, taken aback.

"They say there was a long period of bad luck for the Himekuras at the time, so they must have been scared of Yuri. It's totally plausible that they would have done what she told them to out of an indescribable fear and sense of guilt. Maki, you should know better than me how much power the Himekuras have. If the Himekuras were backing Yuri, my imagination all becomes reality.

"The Himekuras didn't defeat Yuri.

"On the contrary, her very existence overwhelmed them and she made a bargain.

"That is what I, the book girl, imagine!"

Maki was agape.

Of course, she would be. Tohko's story was extremely hard to believe. Even I thought it was preposterous. As if Yuri had become Akira and gone abroad!

Still, when I heard Tohko's sunny voice and saw her brightly shining eyes, I found myself thinking, Well, it could have happened.

That the story hadn't ended with Akira's death.

That Yuri went on with her life and managed to do something that would have shocked everyone.

Uotani huddled down on the ground and burst out crying. Tears rippled down her face, her shoulders trembled, and through her sobs, she choked out, "M-my grandmother told me...that Miss Yuri had become a story.

"I would ask her, 'What happened to Miss Yuri? Where did she go?' And she would always beam at me and gently say, 'Miss Yuri became a story in the land of the dragons.'"

I am myself but a tale of one line.

The words Uotani's grandmother had told her.

I imagined what they meant and my chest thrummed with heat.

Maki's face stiffened, as if she, too, found it difficult to believe but was wavering.

Uotani covered her face with both hands and spoke, her voice thick.

"Miss Yuri...was as pretty as a dream...and she was so kind...my grandmother would always, always tell me that. I loved the stories Grandmother told about Miss Yuri...I would sneak over to the house and...I read Miss Yuri's diary so many times...I wanted to protect Miss Yuri's house."

I wondered if Uotani had put the pressed dianthus blossom in the pages.

Hearing Uotani's confession, I knew that it certainly hadn't been fear or a sense of obligation that had compelled her to become Shirayuki.

Uotani had only wanted to protect Yuri's story.

Beside the pond illuminated by the moon...

In the garden dyed in the crimson sunset...

In the tiny room, surrounded by the books Yuri had left behind, with warm light streaming in...

Perhaps Uotani had been having a lovely dream of flowers and moonlight.

Tohko bent her knees to crouch down and put her arms gently around Uotani, then stroked her hair.

"Sayo? When I finish reading a book, there are times when I've felt sad, too, as if I've woken up from a dream. The longer you've spent reading a book and the more fun you've had, the more truly bereft you feel, and you get this idea that you've been hollowed out.

"But it's not like dreams go away when you open your eyes.

"The memory of having the dream stays with you.

"And so your heart can still be warmed by that memory."

As she slowly stroked Uotani's hair over and over, Tohko talked in a kind voice that seemed to pervade the room.

"Even if you can see the flower reflected in the mirror or the moon floating in the water, you can't pick them up. If you try to take hold of either one, they vanish as if they never existed. But for that very reason, as long as we don't forget about them, they can linger in our hearts and stay beautiful forever.

"Remember what I said before?

"Even if you wake up from a dream, the story remains.

"After you've read a book, the story stays in your heart without fading so that you can pull up your favorite scenes again and again and read them over.

"You can cheer yourself up that way so that you can move on to the next story.

"I'm sure that's how Yuri made it in a foreign land."

Tohko smiled contentedly again.

"And you know- "Yuri received one other important thing from Akira.

"She bore Akira's child over there."

The hands covering Uotani's face dropped away, and she shot her eyes up to look at Tohko. Shock rose over her face still drenched with tears.

The cast of Maki's eyes changed as well and she stared at Tohko.

"After the study abroad period was up, Akira disappeared. But someone saw him walking around holding the hand of a small child. They said the child resembled him. Perhaps the reason Akira threw up so much and had to recover during the first year of studying abroad was because of giving birth. And hurrying home before it grew dark was also because her child was waiting for her. Plus there's a hint hidden in the rhyme that Uotani's grandmother taught her."

"...In the song?" Uotani murmured suspiciously.

Tohko nodded, that's right, and actually hummed the words herself.

"A snake is in the swamp there.

"Rich old spirit's little girl, "Get you up and set a trap.

"A bead of water 'pon her neck, "Golden shoes upon her feet, "Call me this and call me that "To the mountain or the field, go, go, go..."

When she finished singing, she grinned again.

"This song appears in Kyka's story The Grass Labyrinth. But there's just one part that's different: 'A bead of water 'pon her neck.' In The Grass Labyrinth, this part reads, 'Two jewels in her hands.' Sayo, your grandmother told you this song came from the land of dragons, right?"

Tears pooling in her eyes, Uotani nodded.

"She also talked about how Yuri had gone to the land of dragons, right?"

Again, she nodded.

Tohko smiled brightly.

"The land of dragons was Germany. Or rather, Yuri misunderstood it to be that. One of Goethe's poems is called 'Mignon.' It's a poem inserted into a longer story called Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, wherein the girl Mignon, who's dressed as a boy, sings to the protagonist Wilhelm of her longing for the southern lands. Have you ever heard the poem that begins, 'A land you know where lemon flowers bloom'? She wants to go to the land where oranges glow, where rows of bay trees grow, and the myrtle blooms with someone she cares for. She says there's also an ancient herd of dragons that live in caves in that land- "Yuri probably had Akira teach her this poem.

"Actually, the land to the south was Italy. But Yuri got the idea that it was Germany. When Akira proposed to her and said they should go to Germany together, she asked him if she could plant lemons and myrtle, and he'd laughed at her.

"Even so, for Yuri the land to the south was Germany. So perhaps that's what she told her friend Chiro, too. That she was going to the land of dragons."

"How is that connected to Yuri having a baby?"

Still smiling, Tohko answered my question.

"The fact that the song came from the land of dragons-that meant it was a message that had arrived from Yuri, who'd gone over to Germany. They say children are occasionally born in the Himekura family with a birthmark shaped like a dragon's scale. Perhaps the bead of water was pointing to that mark.

"In other words, Yuri was informing Chiro that a child had been born with a mark shaped like a bead of water on its neck."

I recalled the birthmark on the nape of Maki's neck.

A vivid purple, scale-shaped mark rising out of her white skin. Very much like a drop of water that had fallen from the sky- Tohko's eyes sparkled.

"Do you understand how important that fact was for Yuri?

"There was no question that Yuri's child had Himekura blood. It had the birthmark to prove it.

"Yuri wasn't a child conceived in her mother's affair. Akira had given Yuri memories, a new life, and proof that she was a true daughter of the Himekuras."

Maki abruptly shouted, "That's just what you imagine happened!"

Maki was pale and her gaze roved about restlessly; she was acting extremely panicked and confused.

"A child? A birthmark on its throat? That- It would never- You don't even have any proof that Yuri studied abroad as Akira, and yet-"

Just then, a cheerful voice spoke up from near the door.

"In that case, I'll give you one more fact."

"Ryuto!"

When she saw Ryuto come strolling in, Maki raised her eyebrows.

"Wh-why did you come back here?!"

"I got some new info, so I thought I'd come by. But I was holdin' back 'cos it looked like you were in the middle of somethin'."

How long had he been there?

Maki's eyes were bugging out as Ryuto came close enough almost to touch her, then tilted his face slightly and with a grin showed her the cell phone dangling from his fingers.

"I found out the name of the person who sponsored Akira when he was abroad. Shuichiro Kusakabe-one of the branches of the Himekuras-and oh, that's right, isn't that also the name of your grandpa's chaperone?"

An intense shock came over Maki's face.

The one who'd sponsored Akira's study abroad had been someone with ties to the Himekuras!

That was a huge element backing up Tohko's imagined scenario. Her imagination was getting closer to reality.

That Yuri had actually used the Himekuras to go over to Germany and live as Akira. And if that were true, her other imagining-the idea that Yuri had given birth to Akira's child-wasn't out of the question, either. In fact, that story had much more of an air of truth to it than the one about studying abroad.

Maki laughed out loud, which startled me.