Satoko smiled. “Very much so. Don’t be afraid of him. Whatever he asks you, you must do. There’s no time to lose.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about this?” Jet’s words came out whispery with fear.
“There’s so much more to learn, but you have the gift,” Satoko said assuringly, a sense of urgency permeating her words.
Jet unrolled the paper. It was a hand-drawn map with a route to a mountain village.
She was about to ask her mother to explain more when the trailer door opened. A ray of light came in from the lamp outside. Satoko looked up. Jet turned to see a tall, quiet man standing above them. It was J-Bird, Satoko’s boyfriend. She’d been waiting for his arrival. Waiting for him to come so she could go.
J-Bird’s long, gray hair was tied back as always. He took his shoes off and sat quietly on the bed by her side. He dusted off his hands on his faded jeans and took Satoko’s hands in his.
“Open the curtains,” Satoko said.
Jet slid them aside. The torn yellowed curtains had never entirely covered the windows anyway, she realized. They’d been left over from their last house and didn’t match the trailer’s size. Everything in my life is mismatched, she thought.
Light from the full moon streamed in.
A smile spread across Satoko’s lips. She told them about the tsukimi-mado—the moon-viewing window in her father’s home, the way moonlight streamed in clear and shining like a crystal river. The thought seemed to touch something within her, calming her to the core.
Delirious now, Satoko asked if the moon one saw in America was the same one Jet would see in Japan.
“Of course, Mother!” Jet said. But was it really the same?
J-Bird moved aside. Jet lay her head on her mother’s chest again, wanting to melt into it. “Don’t go, Mom. I’ll find Grandpa, I promise. And I’ll tell you all about it when I come back,” she said.
“Good,” Satoko murmured. “I look forward to that.” Satoko’s breath was labored now.
Feeling her mother slipping away, Jet took her hand.
“Mom!” she cried. “Wait!”
But Satoko’s eyes were closed.
Taking a deep breath, Jet looked into her mother’s mind. She saw the ancient village, its crumbling walls, the thatched-roof farmhouse, a mountain path. Then a beautiful green forest appeared behind Satoko’s eyelids, a small clean river flowing through it. Jet saw Satoko as a little girl, walking along the river. As she walked, she could feel many animals alive and thriving under the brush. A white mist fell onto the forest.
“The forest is going to sleep…” Jet whispered as Satoko, too, fell into slumber.
Jet held onto Satoko’s vision, filled with rich green and cool white air. She could almost smell the sap in the crack of a tree before the branch snapped off, the earth under her feet before the rain.
“Tell me the end of the story,” Satoko murmured.
But Jet didn’t know the end.
When I grow up, can I be like the brave girl who freed her people? Jet had always asked her mother as the story ended.
Of course you can, her mother had always replied. Because you already are.
But Jet had never heard her, just as Satoko, deep in the dream of the beautiful green forest she’d soon be walking upon, didn’t hear her daughter end the story this very last time.
CHAPTER 3
約束 Yakusoku
The Promise
They dressed Satoko in a white paper kimono, left side folded under the right so she would travel in the correct direction in the afterworld. J-Bird set fire to the paper, which burned from its edges with a rushing sound.
The paper turned in upon itself as the flames spread, taking her mother with them. Jet watched the map of her past burn with her mother’s life. She held her tears close to her body, as if they were a prayer book only she could read. She couldn’t believe her mother was really gone. Only yesterday, on the mountain, she’d been so fierce, so strong. Determined to live.
J-Bird leaned toward Jet. “There’s more your mother wanted to share with you. You should never use your real name, Rika. Kuroi—your family name—means ‘black’ in Japanese, so you must use that instead. Use your nickname in Japan. Just in case.”
“Why?” Jet was alarmed. “Was Mom in that much trouble?”
He sighed, looking worried. “I promised Satoko I’d help you, but I don’t know much more. We have to act quickly.”
Jet swallowed, gazing at him in the half-light. Her mother had nicknamed her Jet when she was a little girl, because she ran like a rocket. J-Bird was the only one who knew.
They stood in silence as the fire consumed her mother’s body.
Rika Kuroi is dying in these flames. Jet Black is being born. She felt her mother’s presence guiding her thoughts. Why had she gone so quickly? Why wasn’t there more time?
When the fire died down, Jet picked Satoko’s bones out with long chopsticks and placed the white shards in a small urn. She poured the ashes into it, watching them stream before her, unable to believe that this dust had been her mother, a woman who had seemed capable of anything—surviving anything.
Later that evening, J-Bird and one of the elders, Neil Bluewolf, sang Navajo prayers in deep melodic voices, sending Satoko’s spirit safely into the Big Sky. Jet watched their shadows sway on the wall, getting bigger or smaller in the candle’s flame.
All those times I made you go up to the mountains, Satoko had said, frail and struggling to draw enough breath to speak– all that hard training, you will soon understand why I made you do it. I hope you’ll forgive me.
Of course, Mom, Jet had told her, though she didn’t really understand. Almost every night since she could remember she’d had to train in the forest behind their trailer. Or in dusty fields along the highway. She’d often shown up at school with her clothes mud-caked and torn, and had told her teachers it was from soccer practice. Then there were the bruises, scratches, and scars. Other kids called her crazy, but she couldn’t explain. When the school bully started picking on her, she couldn’t even use her training to fight back.
Though Jet was exhausted, she rarely found relief in sleep. When she turned over in bed, her bruises ached. Her heart ached, too, for even when she fell down and begged her mother to stop, she kept pushing her.
“Keep moving! When you give up, it’s time to die,” Satoko had said.
Spurred on by her mother’s voice, she tried to avoid the barrage.
“Why do I always have to do this?” she pleaded, though she knew the answer.
“You have to protect yourself. I won’t always be here to do it for you,” Satoko had cautioned every time.
Even when her mother came back from work at dark, she took Jet to the desert, making her jump from tree to rock or run until her breath gave out, rolling on the ground until her clothes tore to shreds. On cold winter evenings, she forced Jet to hide behind boulders without moving.
And whenever Jet had asked her mom to explain why she’d fled Japan, Satoko’s answer was always, “Later. We’ll talk about it later.”
But “later” never came.
Would she finally learn more, now that her mother was gone?
“You see,” J-Bird confided, “The Kuroi family has a treasure. People all over Japan want it.”
“Treasure?