The Yokai drifts through many dreams on her way to the mountains. She runs through plains bombarded by red and blue lightning strikes. She wades through a crowded bubble tea shop called Jubilee Irwin, where she is offered a cold minty shake in a small milk chocolate bucket. She listens to the tale of an old piano abandoned in a forest (sadly, the piano tells her, not the forest she is looking for). She crawls through a tunnel of dripping honeycomb, where children no bigger than her thumb lick the walls and beg for her attention as they dance and somersault, high off the sugar. The Yokai traverses through them all. She walks through daylight, through darkness, into the wild, crossing highways, and feeling her way through poorly lit tunnels. She walks for a long time, until she finds herself at the end of the world. Thick white billowing clouds line the cliff before her and stretch into the darkness. When she turns around, she sees a forest.

This is the place. I’m back. Now her hunt truly begins.

She explores the maze-like woods: the oak and redwood trees, wide as miles and tall as the sky, the forest of bamboo stalks, the short little spruce and pine trees that look as if they have just been planted, and all the other trees she does not know by name. Then come the laughing ones: The ones with soft, fuzzy orbs hanging from their branches, bobbing in the silent wind. The peaches. The ones that laughed, even when she sank her teeth into their soft, pliable faces or ate them whole. Her stomach rumbles and her tongue tingles with the taste of fear. The trees are not laughing anymore.

She hears a rustle in the grass. “Who’s there?” she calls out.

They emerge from the bush: babies. Hoards of them, toddling on unstable chubby legs. Only one of them speaks. “Ah, the baku is back. Welcome, Baku-sama, welcome.”

“Hello, Mr. …”

“Please, no names. Konaki Jiji will do. So, you have returned to us, and to the forest. To seek your friend, no doubt?”

“Yeah. Have you seen him?”

“I am afraid not. No one has seen the boy since 自分自身. That was three full moons ago, I believe. Only the King of Nightmares can know his whereabouts now.”

“I have to find him. He needs help. Someone told me so the other day.”

“If the King has him, then yes, help him you must. You are probably the only one who cares about him that can.”

“Why me?”

“I wish I had the answer to that question. Perhaps it is your connection, or the red string of fate that brought you two together, and it compels you to search for him. Unfortunately, as old and as wise as I am, I can tell you little. Talk me through your thoughts, child. What do you remember?”