Kumiko and the Shadow Catchers Read online

  Kumiko and the

  shadow catchers

  BRIONY STEWART grew up in the inner-city suburbs of Perth, peeping over alleyway fences in search of great mysteries and honing her excellent tree-climbing abilities. Despite dabbling in entomology, crime solving and a desire to own a deli, Briony showed a talent for both art and writing during her school years. After graduating with a double degree in Creative Writing and Art from Curtin University, she published her first book, Kumiko and the Dragon, which won the Aurealis Award for children’s short fiction, and was a CBCA Notable Book in 2008. Briony currently lives in Perth with her husband Harry and their beloved pet rabbit Winston, writing and illustrating for children.

  Also by Briony Stewart

  Kumiko and the Dragon

  Kumiko and the Dragon’s Secret

  Contents

  Cover

  Author Bio

  Also by Briony Stewart

  Title Page

  Dedication Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Imprint Page

  for my much-loved parents,

  who always let me keep my head

  a little in the clouds.

  f all the things Tomodo has ever told me about the Shadow Catchers, it’s their book that interests me the most. He said their spells were written into its pages with ink made from the shadows of creatures that once roamed the earth. Strange creatures, magic creatures, creatures we have long forgotten. They once lived free as any wild things until their shadows were snatched and forced into the book. Forever bound by the spell of its cover, all other parts of the creatures disappeared as if they had never existed at all. There are traces that remain of these creatures. Tomodo says you can find them in old artworks and tapestries, and the stories we call folktales. He said that humans have lost their memories of what the world was once like, but it’s the most unbelievable stories of all that are probably the most true …

  Chapter one

  I make my way home beneath the full boughs of bursting cherry blossom. Others might describe this as beautiful, lovely and splendid. But I am in no mood for pretty words, not even at the end of the school day, not even at the beginning of spring. Only the weeping willow bows its head and understands. Most of the time I don’t mind having secrets like treasures hidden away where no one can find them. But today was one of those days when I wish people knew that I am not just any other girl. Of course, Mr Takahashi could not have known how I would feel about our new class project. When he asked me, ‘Kumiko, what do you know about dragons?’ I went quiet and blushed like an over-ripe plum.

  I would like to have said that dragons live in the great white clouds that push across the sky, that they come in a million different colours, sizes and shapes, but all like their tummies scratched before they go to sleep. I would like to have seen their faces when I said that dragons have taught me the recipe for rain and the smell of clouds and the taste of starlight on an evening wind. Or that every night, a dragon called Tomodo sits outside my window and guards me from Shadow Catchers as I sleep. Everyone in my family has a guardian dragon, but it’s a secret that we’ve kept for over a thousand years, so I said nothing at all.

  ‘Pay more attention please, Kumiko,’ said Mr Takahashi. ‘What about you Hatsuo?’

  Hatsuo had much more to say about dragons. Everyone looked at him as though he was very clever, but after today I think that Hatsuo is the least clever person I know. He said dragons are big, ugly lizards, and that they have been known throughout history to be powerful, evil and cunning. But that is wrong!

  I couldn’t stop myself, I shouted, ‘You’re wrong, Hatsuo! Dragons are kind, magical creatures and lots of people think that they are lucky!’

  Mr Takahashi told me off for interrupting, and Hatsuo scowled at me like he had eaten some of my obassan’s sour sauce. Later that day, Hatsuo caught a lizard outside and threw it onto my lap.

  ‘If you love dragons, kiss this!’ He laughed and ran off to join his friends.

  I wanted to shout something rude at him but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I still can’t think of anything to say.

  As I turn down the lane towards my street I feel a chill from the mountains nearby. There are no cherry blossoms on our street, not yet, only grey branches with white buds pushing up between their bony fingers. I stop at the little bridge that spans the stream near our house. I peer into the water to see if there is any winter ice left in it. But my eyes catch on something that makes my heart lurch and tumble with fright. On the water is a reflection, a reflection of an old man walking past me on the bridge. He doesn’t pay me much attention and walks straight on, but I remain frozen to the spot until he has shuffled as far as my ears can tell, until I am certain he has turned a corner and gone. Then I run. Our house is only on the next street but I take every shortcut on the way. Hatsuo described dragons as powerful, evil and cunning, but those words belong to something else I know …

  I don’t stop until I am shut on the inside of our gate, puffing like I haven’t taken a breath for a hundred years. My heart and my thoughts keep racing as I look back through the gate to the outside world. ‘Forget about boys and lizards,’ I whisper. ‘We have much bigger problems to deal with.’

  Chapter two

  I throw my shoes off at the back door the way Mother tells me not to, then race inside, socks slipping over the wooden floor. Mother is in the living room mending an old obi beside my obassan who has fallen asleep with a small white dragon in her lap. Behind them, in the kitchen, bowls and chopsticks float through the air and arrive on the table while a pot stirs itself on the stove. This isn’t magic, it’s just an invisible dragon. He’s my mother’s guardian and even though he’s watched over her her whole life, she never knew he was there until recently. She’s happy to put him to work around the house, but she won’t let him take her flying. Not yet. She’s new to the whole dragon thing and still afraid of it. I don’t tell her about what I just saw at the stream.

  ‘Hello, Kumiko. How was school?’ she says. I had almost forgotten about Hatsuo, and his big laughing face.

  ‘School was fine,’ I say quickly as I dash into the kitchen. ‘Pssst …’ I whisper, looking for a sign of the invisible dragon. ‘Where are you? I want to talk to you!’

  Mother leans back to see me from the living room. ‘Kumiko,’ she says ‘I hope you’re not bothering Bertolli while he’s busy making your supper? Besides, I think you have a visitor in your room. There were some loud noises …’

  I don’t wait to hear the rest. I rush to the stairs and up them like they’re hot coals under my feet. There is a long spiny tail spilling down the staircase. My little sister Arisu is sitting next to it, wrapping it in the pretty paper I was saving for something special.

  ‘Look Kumi,’ she beams. ‘I’m making your dragon so beautiful for you!’

  I growl under my breath and hop past her. Beyond my bedroom door is a mountain of cascading scales. They move gently, like the fans of graceful dancers, in time to the breathing of a giant green dragon. From his snout, smoky breaths have given a bluish gloom to the air and his crouched rump has knocked all the ornaments from my table. Poor Tomodo is squashed into my room like a horse in a cupboard. This is not his usual spot. Most nights he lies across our roof, with only part of his snout poking in through my window.

  ‘Tomodo!’ I say, squeezing my way through the door
. ‘What are you doing here? It’s still daylight!’

  He peers at me through the haze, ‘I’m here because you were frightened.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, taking a minute to swallow, ‘but you know why, don’t you?’

  Tomodo nods. As my guardian it’s his duty to watch over me at all times of the day no matter how far away he is. When I was looking into the stream he would have seen the same thing I did. Not an old man, but a Shadow Catcher.

  ‘It was the same one,’ I sigh. ‘The old Shadow Catcher from the forest.’ I try to be calm when I add, ‘The one who kidnapped Arisu.’

  I keep my voice low so my sister doesn’t hear. She pretends she’s not afraid of anything, but these days she wriggles into bed with me at night, full of bad dreams. Sometimes I have to remind myself not to think about what might have happened if I hadn’t been there to rescue her from that Shadow Catcher. If the dragons hadn’t carried us far away from his horrible cabin in the forest, I’m sure the Grand Kah-ge of the Shadow Catchers would have stolen her shadow; he would have written her into that book and closed the cover. Then no one would remember she’d ever been a real little girl, no one, not even me.

  Tomodo rests his head on my bed. ‘He was the same Shadow Catcher, it’s true, but you know his memories of that night were wiped away. We made sure of it. He does not remember ever seeing you or Arisu.’

  I sit down against my bedroom wall. ‘He might not know me,’ I say bitterly, ‘but I know him. How can I pretend to forget? How can I live a normal life knowing that I am never really safe, knowing that wherever I am there might be a Shadow Catcher nearby? You said yourself that they want to find our family more than anything, that they want the power we have. How can you be so sure that we won’t be discovered again?’

  It is the first time I have ever seen Tomodo without an answer. He looks at me with a steady stream of smoke rising out of his snout. I put my hand on his snout. ‘I want to be free of the Shadow Catchers,’ I say. ‘I want to stop them and get rid of them forever so no one has to be afraid of them anymore. You know everything, Tomodo, so tell me, do you think that there’s a way?’

  In his big yellow eyes, which look like golden circles of the setting sun, I see something stirring. There is a waver, something like the infinite ripples made when a leaf falls into a pond. He says, ‘I am not the one to ask, Kumiko. But there is somewhere I can take you which has more answers than I could ever offer, and that is to see the Council of Ancients.’

  ‘The Council of Ancients,’ I repeat. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It is a group of the oldest dragons in the world. They exist to serve the dragon king, and to keep a record of all things. If you seek their council, they must meet with you, because you are descended from the last dragon king and are a carrier of the Great Magic.’

  There is more I want to know, especially why it was that I had not heard of this Council of Ancients before. I thought I knew all the dragons that lived in the dragon kingdom, high amongst the clouds.

  ‘If you think they might have an answer for me, I want to meet with this Council as soon as possible,’ I say.

  ‘Then you will meet them tonight,’ Tomodo replies with a grin. ‘As soon as it grows dark enough to leave.’

  As Mother calls me downstairs for supper, I look past Tomodo towards the outline of my small window and it occurs to me that he couldn’t possibly fit back through.

  ‘How will you get out?’ I ask.

  With a smoky chuckle he says, ‘The same way I got in – with difficulty!’ Then, with a gentle nudge he pushes me out the door and down the stairs for supper.

  chapter three

  At night when it gets cold, tiny beads of water turn to ice, making everything glitter like the jewelled belongings of an empress. Even the tiles of our roof sparkle as I climb onto them from my bedroom window in my warmest hanten coat. Tomodo is waiting for me, his spines shining in the moonlight from his tail to his back, like steps. Once I am sitting safely between his shoulders, he throws his black wings open to the air of the night and leaps into the sky.

  We sail over the houses with roofs like upturned books, beyond the sway of the bright lanterns in town. Up here the roads and the rivers are just furrows raked into a large Zen garden and amongst them the mountains and forests sit like great mossy rocks. We cut through the sky and past the moon like black lightning, shadows flashing across the clouds. We fly until the last pinpricks of light fall far behind us and the air grows cold and damp. It is here that Tomodo starts to slow. He sinks closer towards a great seething black below until I can see the ruffling tops of waves and feel salt spray on my fingers.

  As we approach, the water starts to flatten out to a wide, glassy circle and Tomodo lands on it like it’s a hard, polished floor. Around the edges the waves continue to crash and spit as we sit and wait for the Council of Ancients to arrive.

  One by one they appear. They come across the water, and down from distant clouds. Some of them are familiar – the ones I know who live in the sky and the long black dragon from the depths of Mount Fuji. But there are others I have never seen – like the dragon from the forest with legs like the broad, mossy trunks of trees and plants sprouting between his scales. Another arrives like a comet of dim blue flames from the farthest layer of the sky. Ice tinkles from her wings as she lands upon the water like a newly fallen star. I’m sure if Hatsuo saw her he would be sorry he had described dragons as ugly.

  Last to arrive are three dragons who raise their stony heads from the ocean floor. Their snouts drip with long seaweed and their scales are crusted with shells and bristling urchins. I never knew dragons lived in places such as this.

  Tomodo keeps the water still across our meeting circle and I dig my hands under his scales to keep them warm. There are no welcomes amongst the Ancients; they have known each other for longer than I can count. It’s me they are interested in. They sniff at me as though I were a little flower growing on a rock.

  ‘So this is Kumiko?’ one dragon growls. ‘The girl who called this meeting.’

  ‘She is very small, isn’t she?’ says another. ‘And very human.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ says a third one, ‘she is the descendant of our king and a keeper of the Great Magic. We must serve and honour her.’ The dragons bow a silent welcome.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say, trying to make myself look tall and brave amongst these giants. ‘Tomodo tells me that, as the wisest of all dragons, you are the ones to ask for help. I am here to seek your advice about the Shadow Catchers.’ I look around the faces, stiff and unmoving like stone carvings. ‘I have come to find out how to get rid of them.’

  One of the sea dragons snorts a shower of sea foam. ‘Child!’ he hisses. ‘Impossible!’

  The dragon next to him tilts her head gently and says, ‘I’m afraid the time when that was possible has passed. Magical creatures were too slow to act and by the time they did, the Shadow Catchers could pin the creatures’ shadows to the ground and steal their powers. The battles fought long ago only ended up feeding the Shadow Catchers’ strength and greed. We are now some of the last free magical spirits to exist.’

  The first sea dragon growls. ‘We cannot afford a battle, Kumiko. That is something you will have to accept.’

  There was once a time when I would never have dared disagree with a dragon. But that was before I knew that there were bigger things to be afraid of.

  I take a big breath and say, ‘I will not.’

  The dragon’s eyes bulge. ‘Excuse me?’ he sputters.

  ‘I won’t accept it,’ I say. ‘The Shadow Catchers are now too strong for you to hide from. They know that there is a family who carries the power of dragon life. Once they find it, they won’t need to take your powers one by one. They will hold the key to the power of all dragons. It’s my family they are looking for, and I know that you think you can keep us safe from the Shadow Catchers, but Arisu was almost taken by them once and today I saw one pass me on the street! I think it’s only a matter
of time before we are discovered.’

  The dragon from Mount Fuji blows a furious puff of volcanic smoke. ‘Then perhaps we should move your family somewhere they will never find you, somewhere humans cannot go!’

  I shake my head with sadness as deep as this ocean. ‘No,’ I whisper. ‘Because one day they will find us. We can’t wait for that to happen. I won’t wait. If we can’t get rid of the Shadow Catchers we might as well be locked in their book because hiding and being afraid means that we are not free.’

  Around me the wind continues its thunderous melody on the waves, and I wonder if the dragons heard me because they say nothing. A blue glow begins to spread across the water and when I follow it I see that the dragon from high above the earth is crying tears of blue flames into the sea.

  ‘We are the Council of Ancients,’ she whispers. ‘We have learnt the ways of the world and the wisdom of time, but this child sees something simpler. She sees the truth. If we don’t try to win this fight then we are bound to lose it.’

  One by one the dragons’ stiff faces change, their eyes shine in the moonlight as though they have woken from a strange half-remembered dream. The forest dragon croaks like the heavy boughs of a tree, ‘If we choose to act then we cannot fight them with power or force, as we have tried before. We will have to think the way that they do and look at the source of their power.’

  As he says this, something bursts with brilliance inside me. ‘Of course!’ I gasp. ‘The source of their power is The Book of Shadows! That’s what we have to do. We have to destroy their book!’ I laugh with excitement and hope at the genius of the idea, but the forest dragon turns to me.

  ‘No, Kumiko, not we,’ he says, eyes knotted deep with thought and worry. ‘It is you who must destroy the book.’