Chapter 20: The Gate

The water lay over the road in a shining sheet, and the headlights ran across it.

Sayo's brother cut the engine.

Akari pushed the car door open with her foot.

Her legs were jelly, and the cold air hit her.

"Wait," Sayo said. "You can't walk. Let me carry you."

"It's okay."

"It's not okay, you're ninety percent soup."

"Sayo," Akari said, and then the road in front of them rippled and a tall figure stepped out of the dark.

Nagi stood at the edge of the water with her robe wet to the knee.

Her hair was grey again, but her eyes were red.

She did not say anything.

She looked at Akari, and she looked at the milestone she could not pass, and she put out both arms.

"May I?" she said, in a shaking whisper.

"Please."

Nagi scooped her out of the seat.

From Sayo's side of the car, Akari simply rose into the air.

She floated up, wrapped in a blanket, with her glasses crooked and her feet dangling, and drifted off down the flooded road toward the dark gate.

"Oh," said Sayo, faintly. "Oh. I see how it is."

"Do not look so alarmed," her brother said. "It's the river. She's got her."

"How do you know that?"

"Grandmother told me when I was six."

"Why did nobody tell me?"

"You laughed at her."

Akari barely heard them.

She had her face in Nagi's neck, and Nagi smelled of cedar and cold water and fear.

"You came to meet me," Akari said.

"I could not do otherwise."

"You're as far as you can go."

"I am a hundred paces from the gate."

"Put me down at the gate."

"You are ill."

"I know. Put me down at the gate, Nagi. I have to say something."

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