Majo no Tabitabi - Volume 1 - Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

A Gentle Death Slowly Approaches

In a primeval forest of towering trees, moss grew densely underfoot. Rays of sunlight filtered through the gaps in the vibrant canopy, but the light on the narrow path was dim at best.

I was handling my broom skillfully, avoiding the trees as I proceeded down that path. The lukewarm breeze was very, very uncomfortable against my skin.

“……”

After going just a bit farther, I arrived at a clearing. There was a village there.

A very, very small one. A village so small that you could almost see the whole thing from the entrance.

“Ey.”

When I got down off my broom, the moss-covered ground yielded softly to my weight. There didn’t appear to be a gate, so I was able to enter the village simply by passing under a trellis.

Wooden houses stood here and there, simple log cabins without a single unnecessary flourish. They appeared to have been built to serve as shelter and nothing more.

Suffice it to say there was nothing remarkable about this village.

Let’s not stay here after all—wait, I’m not sure if there’s anywhere I could stay the night. Actually, I’m not sure if people are even living here. Is this a ghost town?

I walked aimlessly around the deserted village, and a single villager emerged from one of the houses. Oh, good, someone does live here. With some relief, I turned to look at the villager and saw a man in his prime with an ax slung over his shoulder.

“……!”

Strangely, as soon as the man saw me he opened his mouth, dumbfounded, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

......? What could that mean?

My head was tilted in confusion as he pointed a trembling finger at me and shouted, “…Mina! Hey, you’re Mina, aren’t you?!”

…? Huh?

The man threw his ax down and rushed over to me.

“Thank goodness…! Thank goodness! You found the cure-all, right? You made it just in time! Abel will be so happy, Mina!”

“Huh? Um…”

Immediately, I understood that the man must have me mistaken for someone else. Who the heck is Abel?

But just as I was about to open my mouth, the man shouted again.

“Heeey! Everyone! Mina came back!”

In the blink of an eye, his loud voice reached every corner of the village, as if to rouse the primeval forest itself. The trees nearby grew noisy with chattering, and I could see birds making their escape.

It was a really, really small village. If you shouted, everyone in the village would probably be able to hear you. People poured out of their houses in droves.

Old people, children, married couples—when they caught sight of me and the man, the villagers rushed over to us with such nimble, deliberate movements the whole thing felt planned. Before I realized it, I was completely surrounded. Oh no, this is scary.

The bustling assembly of people stared at me relentlessly with the kind of pure-hearted admiration usually reserved for heroes returning from war. Oh no, this is scary.

“Big Sister Mina! Did you bring back any souvenirs from the city?”

“My, my, you’ve really become a beauty in the short time you’ve been gone.”

“Did you get shorter?”

“Never mind that, what are you wearing?”

“Come on, Dad. It’s obviously the clothing that’s popular in the city.”

“So did you buy the cure-all?”

“Hey, don’t smother her.”

The villagers prattled on as much as they pleased.

Ah, I give up, I decided, then tuned out the rest of what they were saying and let the clamoring voices of the villagers wash over me like so much noise. After a bit of time had passed, their cheerful shouts died down.

The man who had summoned all the villagers yelled, “You’re all too noisy, be quiet!”

You’re the loudest one here. You be quiet.

“…Really, everyone, Mina must be tired from her long journey. Give her a break.”

What’s this? Now you want to talk like you’ve got common sense? Aren’t you their leader? Wait, more importantly…

“Everyone, I think you’re mistaken about something.” Now that the crowd had quieted down, I seized the opportunity to speak up and correct them. If the misunderstanding continued any longer, I’d be in trouble.

“Mistaken? About what?” The man looked at me blankly. I could hear a stir spreading through the villagers around me.

I spoke as plainly as possible. “I am simply a traveler. I am not this ‘Mina’ you’re all talking about.” I thought I sounded very serious, but it looked like only a few people in the crowd had genuinely listened to what I had to say. Directly behind me, laughter broke out.

“What on earth is the child saying?”

So they won’t believe me. What if I use magic to make them kneel down and obey me? Listening to them, I would guess no witch has visited this village, so that in itself should make an impact.

Well, that’s a last resort.

“……”

And then, after everyone except for me had had a good laugh, one of the villagers spoke up.

“Hmm? Now that she says that, she does look a little younger than Mina…”

The person next to me chimed in and agreed. “Come to think of it, she’s a bit flatter than Mina, too…”

My unease grew steadily greater.

“I thought she had gotten prettier while she’d been gone, but maybe…”

“And if you think about it, growing shorter is completely impossible…”

“And what’s with this getup…?”

“Gramma, where’s my food?”

“Stop it—you ate just yesterday.”

“……”

It took no time at all for my anxiety to wash over me completely. Before I knew it, a dark, funereal atmosphere permeated the crowd.

“…You’re really not Mina?” the man in front of me asked miserably.

“I told you that from the beginning. I said you had the wrong person.”

“…Then that means”—the man crumpled on the spot, and his voice began trembling—“that we can’t do anything to help Abel anymore…?”

“What on earth are you talking about? First of all, who is Abel?”

Ignoring my question, someone muttered, “…No, wait. There’s still a way.”

Several of the people surrounding me left the circle and huddled together somewhere else, then came back and said, “We have something to discuss with you, so we’d like you to come with us.” That was all they would tell me.

Whether because of their amazing powers of persuasion or because the faces of the adults were all deadly serious, I had agreed to go with them before I even realized it.

The man and a number of the other adults brought me to the largest house in the village. We walked into the dining room, where a young man pulled out a chair and said, “Please have a seat.” And so I sat.

Two people sat down across from me. The one on the left, from my perspective, was the man in his thirties or so who I had encountered first… He had calmed down, as if the fire in him had gone out, and he suddenly seemed like a different person.

The old man with the white beard sitting to the right (possibly the head of the village) crossed his arms and opened his mouth to speak.

“We understand now that you are not Mina. Our sincerest apologies.”

“It’s fine.” Understanding that is the first step.

“However, you look exactly like her; the resemblance was enough that the villagers confused you for her. Just like two peas in a pod, you could say.”

The thirtyish man nodded vigorously.

The old man stroked his beard. “First, let us make our request. Traveler, just for one night—even less than one night, in fact—could you please pretend to be Mina?”

“…Why?”

I had an inkling that it might have to do with the famous Abel.

“Mina had a boyfriend. His name is Abel, and he’s very serious, very kind. For his sake, we’d like you to put on a little performance.”

Called it. Shall we try to guess the next plot twist?

“Abel’s life is in danger, so you want me to pretend to be his girlfriend coming home after moving to the city?”

But the old man shook his head slowly. “No, Mina did not move away to live in the city. She ran off to get the cure-all.”

“…Hmm.” Come to think of it, the villagers and the man in his prime had said the same thing about getting some cure-all.

“Right now, Abel is lying in his sickbed.”

“…Mm,” I urged him on.

“What’s destroying Abel seems to be an incurable disease. It’s bad enough to make the village doctor want to throw in the towel. No matter what type of medicine he administers, it has absolutely no effect. In fact, Abel’s condition actually gets worse. At first, he just had a simple fever, but now he can’t even stand upright.”

I see. “And so this cure-all?”

“Mm. Right after we realized the medicine we had in the village wasn’t doing him any good, Mina flew off, saying, ‘I’m going to get the cure-all.’”

“And where can one acquire this cure-all?”

“If you proceed far to the north from here, there is a large country. Rumor has it you can acquire the cure-all there, but it’s a full two days’ walk. No one from this village has been there to confirm whether it’s true or not.”

“So Mina dashed out of the village, relying on that questionable information.”

“She must have been willing to take the risk. She wanted so much to help Abel, but…” The man in his thirties finished the rest of that sentence weakly, hanging his head. “Two weeks have passed since she left here. Mina—my daughter—should have come back long ago, but she hasn’t returned.”

…Daughter? Did he say daughter?

“Huh, are you her father?” This was a surprise. The man in his thirties nodded quietly. It’s pretty bad to honestly confuse your own daughter and a complete stranger… Well, he must be very exhausted.

“The more time passes, the closer Abel comes to death,” the old man said. “The village doctor is saying that at most he has three days left.”

Three days. Will Mina make it back in time?

It takes two days to arrive at the country that has the cure-all, then another two to buy the medicine and come back. But it’s already been two weeks.

Returning ten days late (and counting) was really something else. I couldn’t help but think she had run into some kind of trouble—or worse. Could Mina possibly make it back before his time was up? No, the two people seated in front of me were already sure of one thing.

Mina is never coming back…

“Up until now, Abel was fighting his sickness with everything he had, but…his girlfriend was by his side like family the whole time. If he dies without being able to see her, it would be unbearably sad.”

“……”

“Ever since he lost his family when he was small, Mina has been the only one who supported him. And Mina’s the only one who can ease his mind. A fake Mina will do—we just want you to make him feel happy at the end, at least,” said the old man.

Even though I hadn’t agreed at first, I eventually decided to go along with the old man’s suggestion. There was no risk to me, and I would have been an awful person to refuse at that point.

That said, I was a traveler. I didn’t want to spend a whole day in a dull village with no inn in sight. If possible, I wanted to get on my broom and hurry to the country that was said to have the cure-all medicine.

That was why I presented my conditions up front. “I’ll cooperate. But only once. After I meet Abel, I’m resuming my travels immediately.”

The two of them said that would be fine. Once that was decided, we hurried to prepare. I was taken from the big house to another house, where several girls and women from the village awaited me. They varied widely in age, from young girls to old women.

Among them, one particularly elderly woman seemed to be the person in charge. Small wrinkles lined her face as she spoke. “All right then, let’s get ready. Men, get out!”

In an impressive display of violence, the women in the house began using sticks to beat back all of the village men who had come to see the spectacle, including the old man and Mina’s father, and took complete control.

The old woman closed the door and barred it so that no one could enter, then signaled the rest of them with her eyes. When she did, everyone but me started closing every curtain in the house and the back door.

Once the house was dark, the old woman approached me. “Take ’em off.” She was suddenly holding a robe.

“I’m sorry?”

“Hurry up and take those strange clothes off! If you go looking like that, Abel will know you aren’t her!”

Oh, so that’s what you mean. I wasn’t expecting that.

I took care to remove the precious brooch that proved I was a witch from my robe. With it still in my hand, I stripped down to my underwear.

A very young girl politely took the clothes I removed off to the side to fold them.

“Okay, have her put this on.”

Another girl took a package from the old woman and hurried over to me, then took the clothes out. “All right, everyone. I’m going to put this on the traveler, so help me out.”

Huh? I can dress myself.

But before I could respond, a crowd of women was already bearing down on me from all sides. There was nothing I could do but shut my mouth.

Thus, I became a dress-up doll.

“Okay, lift her leg.”

“Would you put her arm through the sleeve of this blouse? Uh-oh, it’s the wrong size.”

“She really is the spitting image of Mina.”

“She’s even prettier than Mina.”

“Yeah.”

“What color is good for the ribbon? Oh, red, of course.”

Everyone seemed a little too enthusiastic to me. I could have sworn they were just doing this for fun.

After the dressing was more or less finished, I looked down and found I had been dressed in a white blouse and an olive-brown flared skirt. I could have put something like this on myself, though…

“All right, time for the finishing touches. Miss Traveler, this might hurt a bit, but hang in there, okay?” As she spoke in a cheerful tone of voice, the woman behind me wrapped something black around me.

“……?”

And what do you think it was? A corset. Before I knew it, the thing was around my torso.

“Huh, um, hold on a—”

Ignoring my bewilderment over the sudden turn of events, the girls surrounding me grabbed my body and yanked the strings at my back with all their might. It felt like my rib cage was being crushed.

“Th-that hurts! Ow! If you have to tighten it, at least do it more gently!”

“Oh, come on. Don’t struggle.”

“Persevere, persevere.”

“You’ll get used to it soon.”

“Do your best, Miss Traveler.”

With that, the work of changing my clothes came to an end, and everyone seemed satisfied except for me.

Afterward, the old woman said, “It looks like you don’t have enough of a chest, so let’s stuff it a bit, shall we?” and held out wads of cotton to me. Apparently, she was serious. I slapped them to the floor.

There was a small house on the edge of the village.

It looked completely unattended, and as I walked over, I crushed knee-height grass noisily underfoot. Compared to the other houses clustered together, this small house was old. You could probably punch right through the thin planks of its walls with a single hit. It looked less like a house where someone would live and more like a rarely used storehouse.

They told me Abel was quarantined here.

Abel had suddenly fallen ill one day, and the villagers didn’t know whether or not his disease was contagious. That’s why they had shut him up in this small house, to reduce the possibility of spreading it. Apparently, Mina’s father had been taking care of him. At first, his girlfriend had been nursing him from morning until night, but she had left the village when his condition took a turn for the worse.

Some villagers wondered whether Mina might have run away, but no one knew whether that was true or not.

After taking a few deep breaths in front of the hut, I opened the door. It made a squeaking sound that hurt my ears.

“……”

I went inside and closed the door with a hand behind my back.

A man was lying on the bed. He was young, and he had black hair. It was easy to see that his face was handsome back when he was healthy—but now he was a shadow of his former self. The man turning his vacant eyes toward me had sunken cheeks and no light behind his eyes.

“…Mina?” His lips moved slightly, forming the name of his beloved.

“Yes. It’s me,” I lied. “Have you been well?”

The floorboards squeaked underfoot as I moved to sit in the chair to the side of the bed.

He smiled faintly. “You came back… I thought—I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I’m your girlfriend. Of course I was going to come back, no matter what.”

“…Of course.”

He stared out the window.

There was nothing there. Just overgrown weeds and the primeval forest in the distance. The small hut didn’t just appear decrepit; it was truly falling apart, and a draft that blew in from somewhere rustled the man’s hair.

“I found the cure-all medicine,” I told him, as if I was reading from a prepared script. “I’m going to bring it along with your dinner tonight, so please take one pill after eating plenty of food. It may take some time, but you should definitely get better.” This, too, was a lie.

Mina’s father had written the speech. He thought it would be suspicious if Mina came back without the cure-all, so he had me act as if I had the medicine in hand, to reassure Abel.

The pill I was bringing with dinner contained sleeping medication. They would have him talk to his beloved in his last moments, and after that, the villagers would do something with him—they hadn’t told me what. There had been no need to ask.

“Say, Mina.” He looked into my eyes. “Would you hold my hand?” With heavy movements, he stuck a hand out from under his quilt. It was not the muscled hand of a young man, but withered and bony.

I mustn’t falter.

I immediately grasped it with both hands. It was so cold, it was hard to imagine any blood was flowing through it at all.

“So warm…my blood must already be growing cold…,” he said. “Say, Mina,” he called the name of his beloved. “Would you give me a kiss?”

“Huh, a kiss?” I asked involuntarily. I immediately felt intense regret.

“…Yes, a kiss. Do you not want to?” I thought I saw a dim flash of suspicion in the depths of his eyes. I thought hard. What should I do? If I’m his girlfriend, then of course, I ought to kiss him, but I’m— Ahhh, if I hesitate, he’s going to be suspicious. What to do, what to do…?

He looked at me as I floundered, and chuckled.

“Sorry, I was just teasing. Please don’t mind it.” Somehow, he looked like he had recovered just a little bit of his energy.

After that, he smiled and said, “I’m not going to pester someone who isn’t my girlfriend for a kiss.”

I was upset by the idea that he had spotted the deception due to some imperfection in my performance, and I denied the charge many times over, but he was sure.

“You’re not the real Mina. You don’t need to force it,” he said confidently, despite my efforts to continue my act. “First of all, it’s not like Mina’s even going to come back to me. I’m such a fool.”

I wasn’t sure who he was speaking to, but I suspected something else was going on here. I gave up pretending to be Mina and revealed everything about myself—that I was a traveler, that I was a witch, that I had been asked to pretend to be Mina because we looked alike. I hid nothing.

“Hmm,” he said, “you really are the spitting image of Mina.”

“We look that similar, huh?”

“Yeah. You could say you’re two peas in a pod. But…,” he asked, “…what’s a witch?”

“The people of this village really don’t know about witches, do they?”

“No, this is the first I’ve heard of them.”

Well, I suppose it’s not impossible for them not to know about witches, since this is a remote village two full days’ travel from the nearest country. I explained in detail, producing my wand and performing some magic so it would be easy for him to understand.

“Amazing…! Ha-ha, I never knew such people even existed!”

Abel laughed, making his best effort to speak loudly. His dry laugh soon got caught in his throat, where it turned into a cough.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, sorry. I got a little overexcited. Well then, concerning Mina and me…”

“…Right. What happened? You said she wouldn’t be coming back.”

He looked up at the ceiling. “I made up the story about the cure-all. It doesn’t exist.”

“It doesn’t exist…?”

He nodded. “Mina was…”

And then he quietly told me the story.

“She was really kind, and cute, and good. She was wasted on me. She was the only one who supported me.

“Even after I fell ill, she took care of me and never acted as if the task was unpleasant. She came to my room every day, gave me homemade food to eat, and brought books so that I wouldn’t get bored after I was bedridden. She sat by my side until I slept. She was my lifeline, tending to me with all her heart.

“But my illness just kept getting worse—it didn’t matter how much medicine they gave me or how much I rested. Soon, I couldn’t eat properly. Mina brought me her home-cooked meals, and I still couldn’t muster up an appetite. In fact, I felt like I would throw up. It was obvious that I couldn’t hold on much longer. I could tell.

“But she tried her hardest to cheer me up. I adored her, but I also felt terrible for her. She wanted so desperately for me to live on.

“One day, I said to her, ‘My illness can’t be cured by the medicine we have in the village. I’m not getting better. Do you know of the large country two days north of here? I’ve heard they have a medicine that’s effective against any kind of illness. If it’s all right, would you go get it for me?’

“Mina was perplexed. She wondered if such a cure truly existed. Besides, I was sure to get better if I just tried, she said.

“I ignored her. Instead, I pressed into her hands a letter and the money I had saved for the two of us to someday go on a trip together, and I said, ‘You should be able to buy it with this. Bring it to me. Don’t you dare come back until you have that cure-all in your hand. As for that letter, open it if you can’t find the medicine and you really have no idea what to do.’

“Mina was really a good girl. After worrying and worrying, she eventually got on board with my plan. ‘I will find it and come back to you; you can count on it,’ she said. But in reality, there was no such medicine.

“The following day, my surroundings changed. Mina left to find the cure-all, and bit by bit, word spread through the village that my condition was deteriorating. Some people came out and said my illness might be contagious, and the end result was this. I was quarantined, and only Mina’s father attended to me. But that’s fine with me.

“…I really, really love Mina. I love her so much it hurts. Of course, it’s painful to be so far apart, but even more than that, I hate that I’m making her sad. I don’t want her crying over my corpse. I want her to smile as much as possible. That’s why I decided to send her away from the village.

“If I had said, ‘It’s best if you don’t come see me anymore,’ she would never agree, I knew. Even if I managed to turn her away so that she wouldn’t come to my side anymore, she would have been heartbroken, of course. And I didn’t want the other villagers to get involved.

“Above all else, I didn’t think she could truly live happily in the village where my dead body was put to rest. It’s a conceited thing to think, I know, but I imagined that she might be weighed down by my memory.

“I’m certain she reached the country two days’ walk from here and searched for the cure-all there. I’m sure that she walked around the country for hours, days on end to no avail. And I’m sure she then opened my letter.

“I poured all of my feelings into that letter. I told her I would surely be dead by the time she read it, and that I wanted her to be happy somehow in the new country.

“I believe she’ll be able to find a wonderful man in that big country who can heal her wounded heart. There must be someone who can make her smile again.

“It’s so selfish, isn’t it? But that’s what I had been thinking for a while. She was meant for more than a cramped village like this. She ought to see the wider world.

“By the way, Miss Traveler, if you’re pretending to be Mina, that must mean she hasn’t returned, right? I believe two weeks have passed since she left the village.

“In that case, it must have happened. She must have found happiness.”

After his story was done, the sick man looked out the window with tired, vacant eyes. The wind blew; the withered leaves danced and, finally, fell.

“Are you all right with that?” They were trite words, but I couldn’t find anything better to say to him.

“Of course not. It’s a sad thing to be apart from the one you love.”

“……”

In that case—, I was about to say, but I stopped myself.

Both Mina and Abel were sad to be apart, but they would have to overcome it. And they seemed to be doing their best to make it through. An outsider shouldn’t butt in to such a private matter.

“I’m glad I met you, Miss Traveler. You’re not really Mina, but I still feel like I got to see her one last time.”

“…I’m also glad I got to meet you.”

“That’s good…,” he mumbled, and then said, “Miss, you’re a wandering witch. Does that mean you have mysterious magical powers?”

“Hmm? Yes, I do.” I was a little surprised by the sudden question, but I answered in the affirmative. Magic isn’t something that just anyone can deal in, after all.

“The magic you showed me earlier truly was amazing. It was like being in a dream world.”

“Thanks for saying so. I’m happy you enjoyed it.”

“Say, what else can you do with magic? For example, could you—?”

I left the hut and went straight back to the house where I had changed clothes. Then I had the crowd of women take the corset off. They had tied the back too tightly for me to take it off myself.

“Did it go well?” the old woman asked me after I had changed back into my robe.

I gave a phony answer. “Yes. He never suspected a thing.”

“Thank goodness. He must have been happy to be able to see Mina in his final hours.”

“……”

His final hours?

“So what is Abel doing now?”

“He was tired from talking after so long, so he said he was going to sleep. Please leave him alone until tonight.”

“I see. Understood. I’ll tell the village headman, too.”

The village headman must be the old man with the white beard. “Please do.”

I put on my star-shaped brooch and my pointy hat, and my transformation was complete. I had returned to my usual self.

“What will you do now? If you’re staying in the village, my house is open to you, but…”

I was happy for the suggestion, but I shook my head. “No, thank you. I’m going to leave the village now. I’m in a hurry to get going.” Also, I want to try to make it to that big country.

“…That’s too bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re leaving without seeing the headman and the others?”

“If I saw them, they would probably try to stop me, right? I should just slip away. If you see the headman and Mina’s father, please give them my regards.”

“Going so soon?” said one of the girls who had helped me out of my corset.

“Too bad,” commented another girl.

“Come again, okay?”

As for me: “Sure, I’ll definitely come back,” I mumbled halfheartedly.

And so I left the village. I flew north, straight through the primeval forest, and didn’t look back. My hand was gripping the broom, but I could still feel Abel’s cold fingers.

And he…

“…Are you seriously asking me that?”

I was extremely perplexed after listening to his proposal.

“Yes, I’m serious… I’m going to die soon, right? I have no doubt that the end is near for me. It’s unbearably frightening. Day after day I fall asleep thinking that today could be the day I don’t wake up. It’s terrifying, and I can’t do anything about it.” From where he lay on the bed, he continued, “Besides, I know. Everyone in the village, even Mina’s father, doesn’t have any sympathy for me. Somewhere deep in their hearts, they’re all hoping for my death. When I finally die, they won’t have to take care of me anymore, they’re thinking. I can’t take it anymore. I’m at my limit. That’s why… Can I ask you…? Can I ask you to kill me?”

He wasn’t joking.

He was speaking seriously.

He was already at his limit.

However…

“I refuse.”

There was no way that I could accept such a request. I didn’t become a witch to kill people. Even if it was his final request, I couldn’t do it.

“…That’s too bad.” He was calm; I think he had never expected me to accept in the first place.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you don’t need to apologize. Even if you don’t kill me, the villagers will do it themselves before long. Maybe even tonight. They’ll feed me poison or something, and it’ll look like I just quietly drifted off.”

“…No way.”

“No, I’m sure of it. A person who just lies in bed and can’t get up has no worth in this village. He can’t do anything except wait for death.”

“……”

“The only reason I’ve been able to hold on until now is because the villagers were expecting Mina to come back. They were convinced that she had a lingering attachment to me…but it’s all over now.”

I realized what he meant…

“…And then I showed up.”

“Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not really blaming you, okay? This was my fate sooner or later.”

“……”

And then he smiled.

“Ideally, I would pass away while Mina’s twin is tending to me, but…I don’t want to force your hand. I’m sorry for making such a strange request.”

“No, don’t worry about it…,” I said.