That was it. He wasn’t even going to try and explain. I felt devastated inside, like the silent aftermath of a massive hurricane.
Fine. I wasn’t going to beg. He could leave whenever he wanted. I was done.
An hour later we were in the air, Sage across the aisle from Ben and me. Ben offered a cribbage game. I wasn’t in the mood. I willed myself not to think about Sage. I flipped through a magazine, I watched a movie for a bit … and finally I fell asleep.
This time I didn’t dream about Sage. I dreamed about my father. It was such a simple dream. Dad, Mom, and I back home doing nothing of any consequence: eating dinner together and teasing Mom for going on one of her random and bizarre homemade cooking jags; Dad bent over the Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle —much harder than Sunday’s—and recruiting Mom’s and my help; all of us cuddled up and watching TV together: Dad with his arm around Mom, me sprawled out across the couch, wrapped in an afghan, my head resting on Dad’s leg. Dad looked a little older, a little thinner, but he was fine. He was there. The whole year he’d been missing was a distant memory now, something we didn’t dwell on because we’d moved so completely past it.
It didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like a premonition. I woke up many hours later, just in time for our descent into Tokyo. The dream and the long sleep energized me. I felt hopeful. Optimism and drive surged through me like a shot of straight caffeine. I was suddenly sure we could succeed, but only if we worked together. That meant Sage too, and he couldn’t help if he and I weren’t speaking.
My feelings didn’t matter right now. After we found the dark lady, after we found the Elixir, after we found my father, then I could deal with Sage rejecting me. Until then I didn’t have the luxury of being heartbroken.
I surprised both Sage and Ben with my upbeat small talk as we trekked through the airport, waited for the bus, then took the long ride to Shibuya station. I don’t think either of them expected me to sound so positive and chipper. That was my new attitude though—anything to make the team work.
We stopped at a hotel in Shibuya and got a couple of rooms. We hoped to find Magda right away, but in case we didn’t, we needed a place to stay. We also wanted to drop off our bags. We did everything as quickly as we could, but it was still past sundown by the time we emerged onto the street.
Shibuya felt like Times Square, crammed with towering buildings, each covered in blinking lights and shining neon signs and constantly changing video billboards that threatened to overload the senses. Cars whizzed by in a constant stream, their headlights adding to the visual blur.
We saw it right away: the soaring cylinder of Shibuya’s top fashion store, its electric pink 109 blazing through the night sky. It seemed like the least likely place to find the key to an ancient mystery, and for just a moment I wondered if we could have possibly misunderstood my dad’s messages.
No. They were clear. As incongruous as it seemed, we were in the right place.
When we were just across the street from it, I turned to Sage. “Have you ever been to this part of Tokyo?” I asked.
“A couple times.”
“This is my favorite part.”
That was when the traffic lights changed and all the cars stopped, in every direction. Pedestrians flooded the intersection, filling crosswalks that ran every which way.
We joined the mad scramble, walking among throngs of tourists from all over the world mixed with Japan’s hippest scenesters, all crammed into the street and lit by the waiting headlights of cars, cabs, and buses.
As we maneuvered through the crowds, I noticed people looking at us. It was weird. Young, giggling fashionistas weren’t the type who usually recognized me, but today they did. Pairs and groups of Japanese girls did double takes as we passed them, their eyes going wide as they clutched one another’s arms and waved their hands in front of their mouths, whispering and giggling. Some even snapped pictures with their wildly decorated cell phones.
“Ho-ly crap,” Ben said, and I followed his openmouthed stare upward to the giant screen on the side of the QFront Building. It was airing some gossipy entertainment show … featuring the pictures of Ben and me at Carnival. Right now the one of him staring at me while I shot pictures of the Samba Parade was up, and while I couldn’t read Japanese, it wasn’t hard to imagine what the swirly pink script accented with hearts and flowers implied.
Not that the look on his face needed any added explanation.
A deafening sea of horns spurred us across the street, and we just made it to the curb before all Shibuya Crossing again flooded with traffic.
“Wow, um, that’s … um …” Ben couldn’t even finish his sentence.
“It’s trouble.” Sage sounded irritated. He nodded to another girl snapping my picture. “You don’t think that’s going up on the web?”
I winced. He was right—we had a far bigger problem than Ben or me feeling embarrassed. We had worked so hard to remain off the grid, and now countless people had probably Tweeted and Facebooked my image all over the world. If Cursed Vengeance or the Saviors of Eternal Life were scanning the Internet and looking for me, they’d be rewarded soon enough.
The Saviors of Eternal Life web forum I’d seen in Dad’s studio flashed into my mind. Should we check it to see if we’d been spotted?
No, it wasn’t like it was comprehensive—it wouldn’t tell us anything for certain. It would be a waste of time.
What we could do was get a little less conspicuous. After all, we were at the mall.
We went inside Shibuya 109. Japanese pop music rang in our ears, and the hottest fashions leaped out of each crammed storefront. Every inch of its ten floors was packed with shoppers. Rayna would have gone nuts. She’d at least appreciate it if I did a little shopping while I was here.
I asked Sage for the credit card, then ducked into the first store I saw that looked right. It took no time at all to grab a short black wig, large sunglasses, a pair of ripped jeans, and a tank top.
I changed in the fitting room, then stepped out to find Ben at the entrance of another store, confused and transfixed by a pink Hello Kitty cell phone case absolutely covered in Swarovski crystals. As I watched him, he turned it curiously, then pressed a button on the side of the case. The crystal kitty head popped up to reveal a hidden compact mirror.
“I think it’s you,” I chirped.
Ben wheeled around and smiled approvingly. “I like it. Very Japanese.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I also got something for you.”
“I’m not wearing a wig.”
“You’re such a downer.” I handed him a baseball cap, then took off my camera case and slung it around his neck. “There: Generic American Tourist. No one will look twice at you.”
“I’ll choose not to take that as an insult.”
“You look fine,” Sage said, all business. “Let’s find The Little Door.”
I checked the directory. “Sixth floor.”
We raced upstairs to the store and asked for Magda Alessandri. We knew she might not be working this shift, but figured we could at least nail down when we might find her.
But no one by that name worked in the store. On any shift.
“So if she’s not here … where is she?” Ben asked.
Neither Sage nor I had an answer.
“Okay … maybe I was being too literal,” I said. “Maybe Dad’s note didn’t mean the store The Little Door. Maybe we’re supposed to be looking for an actual little door.”
I would be the first to admit that it sounded odd, but I wasn’t sure what else to try.
“So … we just search the entire mall looking for particularly tiny doors?” Sage asked drily.
“I’m totally open to other ideas if you have them,” I said.
Neither of them had another idea. We decided to be methodical: The cylindrical mall had ten stories, two of them below ground level, so our smartest move felt like heading downstairs and working our way up, looking into each store for anything that might qualify as a “little door,” then asking at those places for Magda. It was incredibly daunting, and it could take an insanely long time—far too long if the wrong people had seen us on the Web and were coming after us—but we didn’t see incredibly daunting, and it could take an insanely long time—far too long if the wrong people had seen us on the Web and were coming after us—but we didn’t see another way.
We found very few little doors, and no Magdas at any of them. By the time we got to the top floor, we moved slowly, none of us wanting to believe the truth.
We had failed.
“Maybe Grant wrote the wrong coordinates on the board,” Ben finally said.