The Waking by Thomas Randall

Author:Thomas Randall
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-12-14T20:00:00+00:00

9

The warm, white sand gave way under Kara’s bare feet, sifting between her toes. Her shoes dangled from the fingers of her left hand. In spite of the sun and the blue sky of that Saturday morning, the air had a chill that made her glad she’d worn a turtleneck this morning, but her jacket was unzipped. On the bay side of Ama-no-Hashidate, the thick black pines provided shelter from the wind that swept in off the Sea of Japan.

Loosely translated, Ama-no-Hashidate meant “bridge in the heavens,” but Kara liked specifics and preferred the more literal translation, “standing celestial bridge.” From the mountain overlooking the bay—accessible by cable car—the view was even more magnificent. The two miles of serpentine sandbar, with its pine trees only edged with white sand, were set off against the blue water.

According to local lore, for more than a thousand years, people had been visiting Ama-no-Hashidate and experiencing it in a way that Kara thought was just weird. You were supposed to turn your back to the view, then bend over and look at Ama-no-Hashidate through your legs. From that perspective, the dark spit of land against the blue water looked like a bridge across the sky.

Supposedly.

“I tried it once,” she said.

Hachiro had been walking beside her, hands stuffed in his pockets. She felt like some kind of Hollywood pop tart with a bodyguard. Hachiro towered over her. Yet for all his size, Hachiro had a gentleness that set her very much at ease.

On Friday, they’d had no school. A terrible stillness had settled on Monju-no-Chie School and on the entire area, as though everyone connected with the school held their breath and didn’t think it was safe to exhale yet. Maybe they were right, but Kara had to exhale.

This morning, she’d planned to come down to Ama-no-Hashidate and play her guitar by the Turning Bridge. Instead, she had left her guitar at home and walked over to the dorm, hunted down Hachiro, and asked him to come with her. He’d agreed instantly, and as they’d walked to the Kaitenbashi— the Turning Bridge—and across to Ama-no-Hashidate, he’d lightened her spirits, talking incessantly, making her smile the way he always did.

Until his words ran dry.

Jiro had been his good friend, so it made sense that there would be a limit to how long Hachiro could pretend he wasn’t grieving. Kara thought that her quietness probably also made him nervous. For her to ask him to accompany her this morning had been a very un-Japanese thing to do. She liked the way it made her feel, and if Hachiro was off balance, not knowing quite how to handle it, she didn’t mind very much. His utter lack of smoothness and cockiness charmed her, and given the way her expectations about life in Japan had turned out, she wasn’t in the mood to worry about fitting in.

“Tried what?” Hachiro asked.

“Hmm?” She glanced at him, saw him studying her curiously. “Oh, the whole ‘viewing heaven’s bridge’ thing. I didn’t care that I looked silly, since everyone else was doing the same thing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.