The only place she could now go to freely from her bedroom was the castle.

If I’m in the castle, she started to think, then I’ll be safe.

Only the castle beyond the mirror could offer her complete protection.

AKI AND FUKA LISTENED TO Kokoro, their eyes fixed on her until the end.

She had trouble speaking at first. She spoke slowly, deliberately choosing her words, and halfway she found she couldn’t look them in the eye any more.

Her voice broke off at points, and she choked up.

Aki and Fuka didn’t rush her, but patiently heard her out.

‘Is this a problem that’s still going on?’ Aki asked after a while.

Kokoro didn’t explain that this was why she’d stopped going to school. She was well aware that Aki didn’t want her to go there. In fact, Kokoro really didn’t know how Aki would react to her story. She might dismiss it as nothing very major.

‘Yes, it’s still going on,’ Kokoro said, and as soon as she did, Aki stood up from her dining chair and patted Kokoro on the head with her right hand, messing up her hair.

‘What are you doing?’ said Kokoro, her hair askew.

‘I’m proud of you,’ Aki said, her eyes gentle and consoling. ‘I’m proud of you. That must have been so hard to take.’

Fuka, who’d been silent, held out a handkerchief to Kokoro. Her eyes had the same soft glow as Aki’s. Kokoro accepted Fuka’s handkerchief, held her breath, then quietly inhaled, long and deep.

August

EVEN FROM INSIDE HER bedroom, Kokoro could sense that the world was now on summer break.

She’d never expected to spend her first summer holiday in junior high like this, but August came to one and all.

During the day, when Kokoro didn’t go out, she could overhear the school kids talking with each other as they rode by on their bikes. Their shadows cut across below her window, kids who attended the same elementary school she’d gone to.

Just after the summer holidays started, at the beginning of August, she was having dinner when her father said, ‘I’m glad for you.’

For a second she didn’t know who he was talking to. Since she’d dropped out of school, she thought nothing would ever get her father to say anything like that.

But he went on calmly. ‘So now you’ll be like everyone else,’ he said. Kokoro’s hand froze halfway to her food. Her father seemed in a light-hearted mood.

‘It’s the summer holiday so you can walk around anywhere you want, and not get picked up as a truant from school. So why not visit the library? It’s got to be suffocating staying at home all the time.’