Page 13 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

His shadow spreads across the dirt. It’s much too long for any regular shadow. I watch as it morphs. Suddenly, his shadow has four arms instead of two and two heads instead of one. My chest goes cold, goose bumps pricking along my skin. People glance at the man passing by, but no one points to the bizarre shadow or seems to even notice it.

Then the strange man…disappears. I stifle a gasp, clamping my hands over my mouth. He’s gone. Not because he’s stepped into a doorway or passed beyond my sight, but because he’s vanished.

I rise, breathless, stories of yōkai crashing through my mind. Stumbling, I hurry forward to where the man was.

But he’s still there. In fact, he’s striding imperiously along, his shadow trailing behind him the way all shadows do, with one head and the correct number of limbs. He’s still whistling, though it’s not one of Otōsan’s tunes. I must have misheard. I must have misunderstood. My imagination mixed with my longing betrayed me, making me think Otōsan was here and that the man was magical.

My hopes dash against the rocks of reality.

This man isn’t a yōkai. He’s an internee, like the rest of us—just unruly and eccentric. I watch as he stops to peer into a window of a barrack, making someone inside yell at him. He keeps going, pausing to hiss at a group of teenagers. They exclaim in surprise and break into laughter. Guards frown at him. He notices their glares and glares back, almost in imitation.

How silly of me to even think his whistle was Otōsan’s. Sternly, I tell myself that I must keep my imagination under control. I’ve always loved it. It lets me summon yōkai from the depths of my mind to the tip of my pencil. But imagination is different at Manzanar. It jumps and darts and creates hope where there is none.

“Miss Aratani!” I recognize the voice calling me immediately. Mr. Boser. He spots me. “Just a moment!”

I turn away, determined to slip between the barracks and avoid him. Just as I do, though, I run into someone.

The boy with the sling from apartment 1, barrack 7.

Chapter Five

Ren

I stagger from the unexpected impact.

I’m on my way back to our barrack after dropping off our dishes at the mess hall and taking the long way around. This morning, when I got our breakfast, I saw some guys slithering through a hole in the fence with fishing rods cut from willows. They’d been fishing till daybreak in the watery branches stemming from streams and lakes down through the mountains. I thought I’d look at the fence on my way back, maybe go under it myself at midnight to breathe some free air.

But now I’m paying for my daydreams, because I’ve been nearly tackled by a tiny, flailing blur.

Pain shoots through my shoulder and I grip it tightly, grinding my teeth against the agony. Dots dance in front of my eyes. I try to blink them away. Behind the starbursts, a face lurks.

I know who it is.

It’s the girl I saw outside the bus the day we left the Santa Anita Racetrack. The girl who came into our barrack with her mother when we first arrived. My fox nudged me, like it wanted me to see her. I recall the way she stared at me, like I’d personally wronged her. What the hell had I ever done to her? There was one moment, right before she left with her mother, when her expression changed. I thought I saw a flash of…I don’t know…something other than annoyance.

Something more like fascination.

“I’m sorry, are you all right?” she says. “I didn’t mean to run into you. I was just happy to see you.”

I blink again, trying to right my senses and hide how much my shoulder hurts. A smile is on her lips. None of this makes sense. We’ve never formally met or even spoken to each other. Confusion makes me even more addled. I take a step back and she takes one forward like we’re doing an out-of-sync do-si-do. Next thing I know, she’s slipped her arm through my good one, her fingers touching my bicep. Her hand is as delicate as a leaf resting on water, so light it won’t sink. My fox pendant comes alive, buzzes against my skin inside my shirt. It…seems to like her?

It’s almost alarming to see her so close. Just like at Santa Anita, she’s all motion, but this time it’s the nervous motion of a squirrel trying to escape up a park tree.

“I…” She glances over her shoulder. A figure approaches. An officer. He heads right toward us. “Sorry I’m late.”

The officer slows. He tilts his head to the side, staring hard at her before sliding his gaze to me. I don’t want any more of the trouble that keeps finding me. Especially when I’m trying to get Emi help. But there’s also no way I’m abandoning this girl to him. I find myself squaring off, my body falling naturally into an aggressive stance.

“Miss Aratani,” he says, taking us in. “I wanted to…” He hesitates. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Yes.” Her tone is cold and brisk. “You are.” Her hand slides down my arm. Her fingers interlace with my fingers, and suddenly her palm presses tightly into mine. While her touch on my arm was light, her grip is desperate. “Let’s go.”

I nearly break character and glance warily at her. I’ve kissed girls amid the wreckage of Delilah’s back seat while Kai strolled around the block with his dates, but I’ve never done the whole romantic thing and held hands. And now…I am? With this girl? The one who stood by the buses looking like the air itself, if it could be seen?

“Lead the way.” My voice sounds like I haven’t used it in a million years. The officer’s smile disappears as he stares at our clasped hands. The girl tugs. Yes, ma’am, I think, and I obediently follow. The officer watches us until we round a corner. We walk for another few feet. Come to a stop. She releases me. My hand drops lifelessly to my side.

“Thank you,” she says in the crisp way you’d thank a bank teller for handing you your own money.

“Anytime,” I reply, because I don’t know what else to say. I hesitate. “Are you okay?”