Past (Dobu)
Piano Sonata Number 24.
She was being punished for marrying another woman’s husband, and now she was cursed to become a witch.
The witch said, “Give me your liver.”
For our stepmother was a witch.
She tapped her cursed doll and attacked us.
Piano Sonata Number 25.
I wanted to run, but I could only watch.
The tall woman with a cursed doll in her grip, shadowed by the mesmerizing beauty of her doll, stormed over. She stormed over because she wanted to eat our liver.
“Give me your liver. I want your liver.”
I stared at her. She was melting. Our mother was melting like wax. For a moment, it seemed like I was melting too.
I pulled over the wedge that was separating us and pushed the weight of the pink oblivion into the darkness.
She fell, and when she fell, she cracked down like a wooden doll.
She was broken.
Piano Sonata Number 26.
“What have you done, brother?”
Dowa and I were now sitting in a tree.
I looked over. I looked over and noticed that the pink castle had disappeared.
Someone must have been hallucinating, for I knew that there was something wrong.
Because it was strange. It was so strange that the pink castle had disappeared, and our home was standing there.
Our home was standing there, and our stepmother was lying on the ground. Motionless. Without making a single move. She did not look like a doll. She looked like a woman. She looked like an ordinary woman.
“Was this all a dream?” I asked.
“No, brother. You killed her. You killed our stepmother,” whispered Dowa.
“No, but she was a doll, and now she is a woman… No… I think that it is something that only I saw.”
“What are you talking about? You killed her. You pushed her when she summoned us to her chamber this morning. You called her a witch.”
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“I killed her?”
“Yes. Don’t you remember how you had pushed her?"
“Hey! Don’t blame me; she was the one who turned into a witch, and she was the one who wanted my liver…”
I stopped talking. Dowa was looking at me, and he was looking as if I were mad.
I think I did not like how he looked. He was staring at me like I was some kind of murderer.
Surely this must be all a dream. It was difficult to accept, to accept the fact that I killed my stepmother. Was this all a hallucination?
I was sure that it was not a hallucination, though.
However, despite my belief, I was beginning to doubt myself. I was unsure. I was unsure if I was even invisible. I was getting anxious. I needed my magic hat.
“Grab the shovel,” I said.
“What?” asked Dowa.
“Don’t you hear me? Grab the shovel! We need to bury her!” I screamed.
“Brother? Grab the shovel? Surely, you are not asking me to bury our stepmother after pushing her just like that.”
I was not feeling my feet. It all felt like a dream. It was absurd. I wanted to cry, but I could not. I was holding my breath. I slapped my brother.
“Grab the shovel, Dowa! Grab the shovel before Father finds out that I killed her!”
Dowa was whimpering now. He was such a baby. I decided to grab the shovel myself. It was in the backyard that I started digging.
Piano Sonata Number 27.
Present (Baalisbra)
Baalisbra looked at a tall man. He was lying in a little room, on a bed that was even smaller than his regular size. He was a giant.
He awoke. He opened his eyes as he grumbled.
“Good morning, my little dove. Did you have a good sleep?” Baalisbra asked carefully.
The tall man nodded.
“I sure did,” he answered.
“You sure did. Hmm… Well, you haven’t killed a single person since last year. Don’t you?”
“Mhm.”
“What a good child you are,” smiled Baaalisbra. But all of a sudden, he stopped smiling and leaned over and whispered, “I don’t think I need you to hold yourself anymore.”
The tall man gazed at Baalisbra as if in a stupor.
“But you said that I need to hold myself and …”
“Not anymore. I want you to kill someone for me.”
“Kill someone? Do you really mean it? I don’t need to hold myself anymore?”
“Yes, you don’t need to hold yourself anymore."
“I must say that I am truly happy.”
“I know, right?” said Baaalusbra. He touched the tall man’s elbow. "It is ironic that to be happy for someone means to kill insignificant insects, while for another, it is to become a king. But never mind what I have said. For I am sending you to murder someone who can do magic. I don’t know who that is. However, I am suspecting that someone messed up my murder plan.”
“Your murder plan?” asked the tall man.
“That is right, my little dove. Remember that girl Peach Mitani? The one who accidentally listened to my conversation with Turakine.”
“Let’s just say that I remember her,” answered the tall man as he tilted his head in confusion. “What about her?”
“Well, I sent the head eunuch to assassinate her, and the head eunuch put poison in her mushroom soup and…”
“And?”
“His assassination mission has been sabotaged. Instead of Peach Mitani, another consort died.”
“With due respect to the one who has died, I must say that is quite unfortunate. But what does that have to do with my mission?”
“I have a suspicion that someone may have switched Peach Mitani’s plate. Perhaps we were late, and she had already told someone about our murder plan.”
“Gosh, and who might that someone be?”
“There are several people who are powerful enough to dare to stand against us.”
“Are you saying that Prince Guyugu already knows that we killed the crown prince?”
“No. I am pretty sure that it was not Prince Guyugu. He would not just sit on a comfortable cushion and wait if he already knew. I think that someone is someone who can time-travel."
“Time travel. Hmm, on what basis did you deduce your calculation?"
“Because I found this at the annual tea time," said the minister of personal affairs. He took a white substance from his sleeve. “See that? This is a magic substance that allows people to time-travel.”
The tall man warily touched the white substance. The white substance has already been crushed and split—it was soft and crispy.
“Then I will find whoever that is and kill him,” he said, and the white substance in his hand turned into a dust of vapor.
