Page 71 of The Gods Will Sing Our Song

“Who disturbs me?” he demands, glaring balefully at me. He doesn’t seem aware that the crack has grown.

“Akira. It’s me.” My breath punches out of me all at once. “We have to stop this. Your shadows—they’re getting worse. You’re in danger. We’re in danger.”

His chest heaves, but something belligerent crosses his face. “And what do you expect of me?” Akira demands. “I don’t bring restlessness with me like a bag or a hat. Every soul has its discord, its tingling, itching, crawling, and throbbing. It is not my fault.”

A desperate longing for Otōsan comes over me. I wish he was here to protect us, to keep us safe. He would never let anything happen to us.

“I’m trying to figure out how to free you,” I say. “You were punished for seeking false worship from the spirits in Yomi. What if I offer you correct worship? What might work? An icon maybe?”

He softens. “I’ve always longed for an icon—a gilded one done in tempera paint, perhaps.” Then woefully he says, “I imagine it must be an offering from the times of the gods, when they walked among mortals and were known. And whatever the offering is, it must be imbued with divine magic.”

My heart sinks. Fear rises like a tide swirling around my ankles, trying to tug me out to the sea. Relics seem to be the only solution. They are already rare, but are probably even rarer here, with few daring to bring anything so undeniably Japanese. Where might I find one?

Akira seems to understand my worry. His hand flaps through the air toward me as though he’d like to soothe me but is unsure how. The crack on his face widens, just a bit. Desperately, he paws at it, lips parting in horror. A shudder works through him.

“Please, mortal girl,” he whispers, “don’t let the shadows devour me.”

Raw terror fills his eyes. It’s unlike any expression I’ve seen on his face before. It’s a primal terror, the sort humans feel because we can perish.

“I won’t,” I say, but the fear I see in his eyes swims through me, too. My mind grasps for solutions, moving too fast to form any coherent thoughts before jumping, panicked, to the next one. Then, finally, a single thought demolishes the others. I can’t vanquish it.

What if I can’t fix this?

Chapter Twenty

Ren

It’s evening and I’m sitting in the apartment holding Cosette with Mama, so tired my eyes are begging to slam shut. My mind feels like a weight, and I try to think about Akira and the shadow and freeing him but my thoughts always end up in the back of the truck with Violet beneath me, her eyes so big I could get lost in them forever.

Mr. Nomura is off on his trip to Salt Lake City. Before he left, I helped him set up partitions using the same pine the barracks are made from. Actually feels like we have rooms with privacy, instead of those damned sheets that turned us all into shadow puppets. But the rest of the barrack has been buckling and separating, so none of it fits together right. Wood, I’ve learned, is about as alive as anything else, affected by the weather and changing with time. It complains all the while, creaking and moaning around us.

Glass shatters on the floor. I hear the Wozumi children squeal in alarm. Jace says by rote, “It isn’t my fault!” even though it sounds like he wasn’t holding whatever broke. From what I can tell, it’s Mrs. Wozumi who broke the plate or cup. She speaks, but she isn’t upset. Her voice is trembling and full of joy.

“Sotaro!” she cries.

“Mary!” a man responds.

“Papa!” scream the children.

Mr. Wozumi is back. Mama and I listen as the children stampede their father. He laughs aloud. There’s scuffling as he flings them high in the air, one by one. He tells Jace he’s proud of him for being the man of the house. He tells Abigail she’s beautiful and looks like her mother. He tells Ethan he’s grown a foot and exclaims that he’s missing his front teeth. He kisses Akiko and laughs and fights back tears and says she looks like a chubby sumo. Then he kisses Mrs. Wozumi and the children groan and say “Ew” but their parents ignore them.

I’m happy for the gremlins.

Mama and I look at each other. There’s happiness on the other side of the board. There’s a family. Our part of the apartment is quiet. Cosette waves her arms. I lean over and kiss her nose. Mama holds out her hands for Cosette. She only holds her when she absolutely must, so I give her over.

“Looks like her father. Looks white,” Mama says, examining Cosette like a fruit. We haven’t gotten any more letters from Mrs. Ross. Not since Boser was so thoughtful as to alert her husband to our existence. Fine by me. I’m glad they’re leaving us alone. “A white Pasadena baby with a French name.”

“But her eyes belong to Emi,” I say, and Mama doesn’t disagree. She holds Cosette out for me to take her again. My heart sinks. I think Mama is going to fall silent and surly again, but she reaches for her drawer in our dresser. She opens it and removes a ball of white yarn and her crochet hook, same one she used to make Cosette’s baby hat. Slowly, she begins to work again on the baby blanket she abandoned after Emi died.

Relief fills me.

We are not like the Wozumi family.

But I am trying to make us one, and from what I can tell, Mama is finally ready to try as well.

I have to take off work for the rest of the week because Cosette’s stomach is so upset that she needs to be rocked all the time. The only solace is when Violet stops by, though she’s always in a rush because her mother might catch her. When I finally return to work, I let out a low curse. The shadow is as thick as pea soup in the sky. Today it looks sort of like a mountain range. Strange lights beam at the top of each cloudlike crest, scanning the camp. My throat clamps shut.

I’ll do what I can to try to calm things down, but those shadows are ominous as hell. My mind runs through my emergency plan. I’ve filched a spare fire extinguisher from the warehouse and put it in our barrack, along with wire clippers to widen the hole if we need a quick escape. Hopefully it will be enough…so long as the guards don’t shoot.