The Magical Sea Off Yura

The Magical Sea Off Yura

By Eriko Sugita

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Copyright: © 2017 by Eriko Sugita. All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to any actual persons, organizations, or events are purely coincidental.

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of author.

Prologue

I can’t breathe.

I’m suffocating. There’s a strange buzz in my ears and it hurts like mad. I know I fell into the sea, and I’m freezing all over. My feet are so numb I don’t even know if I still have them. I’m dizzy. Woozy. Everything’s blurry around me, and I can’t focus.

Am I drowning? Am I about to die? I don’t want to die yet, I’m only seventeen!

Someone help me! It’s dark, the water’s biting into my skin, and there’s nothing here—except for the fish swimming around me, scattering away, probably scared of me, but I’m the one who’s really scared! Isn’t there a fishing boat around with a net that can catch me? Offer me something to grab? I need something to pull me back up to the surface. I’m a good swimmer, but I’m no underwater diver. I need air!

I can’t breathe. But why isn’t it painful anymore? Am I already dead? But I wouldn’t be thinking like this if I were dead, would I?

The dizziness is getting worse. I feel faint, and I can’t tell which way’s up or down. The water’s wavering. Is that a light I see up ahead? It’s sparkling in the darkness, and it’s beautiful. Is it heaven? Crap, am I about to die?

I wasn’t aware that I had closed my eyes.

Chapter 1

My feet were killing me.

I love manga and anime, but that’s about it for my affection for my mom’s side of my heritage.

In fact, I hate it—the Japanese side of me, that is. Don’t take me wrong now, it’s not because I’m picked on for being half Japanese, at least not since grade school when there was a boy who used to go around wearing a Stars and Stripes around his waist who liked to tease me, Hi-ya! Karate chop-chop! Judo! Ah-so! Yeah, well same to you, Tommy, is how I always felt.

As a fifty-percent American, I used to wonder why I didn’t inherit Dad’s platinum blond hair and always envied my friends who had silky blond hair, bouncy brown hair, or gorgeous red hair. Maybe it had something to do with all the hair dye commercials they showed on TV.

My shoulder-length brownish black hair felt so thick and brittle when I sat in class looking at the light, feathery golden hair of the girl sitting in front of me that brushed against the back of her chair that I often felt like I was wearing a dry mop that was hanging down from the top of my head or maybe I was a reincarnation of a long-haired crow.

I hated it when I’d go to a hair salon for a haircut and the Indian hair stylist would say, oh, your hair is so thick! I was sure hers had to be thicker than mine.

It’s not that I wanted to be a blonde. I would have been happy with red hair, brown hair, purple hair, whatever. Anything but the heavy stuff I’d been born with. I just wanted to be a normal teenager like everyone else. I didn’t want to be different.

And yet here I was, sitting on a tatami mat-covered room, knees pushed together, butt resting on my ankles, and getting the not-so-infrequent glare from Mom—yeah, yeah, I know you want me to straighten my back—but my feet were killing me! My toes were totally numb.

It was a traditional birthday celebration for my great-grand uncle Jiro who had just turned ninety, which is supposed to be a special milestone in Japan. So here we were, my mom and me after a long flight across the Pacific Ocean, a smaller plane to western Japan, a cool bullet train ride to Hiroshima, then a bumpy ride on a local train that tended to teeter a lot. It’s probably just an excuse for a rare family reunion.

I really can’t understand what the big deal is about turning ninety. Everyone gets old if they don’t die. Your skin gets shriveled, maybe you can’t walk anymore, like Great-Grand Uncle Jiro, who lives in a wheelchair—though Mom said she heard he’d been in a wheelchair most of his life. He can’t even go out on his own. What a bummer that must be.

Maybe that was why his dementia was getting worse. He made me feel uncomfortable when we first met and he kept staring at me, but Mom said that according to her grandmother, he’d been showing signs of the disease more and more lately. It was no wonder when you considered the type of life he led, sitting around at home every day.

Celebrating that is like rubbing it in. Isn’t it kind of cruel? Why didn’t people just leave them alone?

Not that I’d say any of this to Mom, of course. She’d have a fit if I did. She’d already said to me a million times on our way here; We’re all celebrating the fact that your great-grand uncle Jiro is quite healthy at the age of ninety, all things considered. You’re his great-niece, Luna. You should be happy for him. Yeah, right.

Mom pretty much forced me to come with her to this sleepy little seaside city called Yura, which is supposed to mean ‘gently swaying’. Seems more to me like it stopped swaying with the times, like ages ago. I mean, there’s nothing here. It’s totally quiet, though I did see a pinball place by the train station that was blaring loud music when we arrived yesterday morning, a couple of convenience stores, and a tiny restaurant along that street. But that was all they had. There were barely any people walking around. We had to wait at least twenty minutes for a taxi to finally show up, and this place was starting to look more and more like a ghost town that had been left behind since the Middle Ages.

I met a bunch of relatives when we arrived at the big house with the big yard. Most of them said they were out of town and were staying overnight for the big event, which wasn’t exactly the type of party I’d been expecting.

We went into a huge room just inside the entrance with a tatami mat floor all around it and sat on these cushions at a very long table—a few long tables pushed together, I think—the same place where we had dinner last night.

It was a formal event with some of my relatives wearing Japanese kimonos and others in stiff dark suits. I couldn’t understand how they could bear to sit properly, their legs folded at the knees and tucked beneath their bums. I managed to sit like that for fifty seconds. Mom sighed and told me I could sit Indian style, bowing her head apologetically to the others and telling them that because of my western upbringing, I had trouble sitting in what she called a seiza style like everyone else. She warned me that she was only allowing me to sit cross-legged because I was wearing my jeans.

But tomorrow, you will sit properly like everyone else at your great-grand uncle Jiro’s birthday celebration. Have I made myself clear?

I thought about this overnight and decided that I’d make Mom happy by wearing a dress to the event. I could spread out the thin fabric over and around my legs so people wouldn’t be able to see me that my legs were crossed. It was a brilliant compromise but I couldn’t fool Mom. She glanced at me in my pretty dress and let out a huge sigh.

There weren’t any other kids around, and everyone was just so darned old. Nothing against Grandma Hiroko, a bubbly old lady who has purple highlights in her hair. Grandma Hiroko lives in Hiroshima, which is a short train ride away, where she has her own TV show.

Mom said she was the cooking expert in the family who’s published a number of cookbooks and was supposed to be like a local Martha Stewart. I wondered if Amazon actually delivered her books all the way out here where it’s like the middle of nowhere.

Wakako’s really nice, too. She’s my mom’s grandmother—which makes her my great-grandmother—and she’s the soft-spoken lady of the house. She has a gentle way about her, smiles a lot, and told me she grew most of the vegetables that she and Hiroko use to cook their family meals. I thought it was kind of weird that Great-Grandmother Wakako was living here with Great-Grand Uncle Jiro, who Mom said was her brother-in-law.

Wakako said she’d been growing her own vegetables since the war. I asked her which war that was and she looked at me kind of funny and said it was World