Chapter 7 – Questions with Nana from Mecchen House

The wind seemed to push us forth along our way. It was calm but vibrant. The trees nearby, with their triangles of green, barely moved under its influence. Jamie led, and I was in the middle. Nathan and Nana took up the rear.

My wallet and keys slid around as I walked on the pavement. I stopped a moment to stuff them both in the bag Ms. Ishida had given me. The sun shone brightly in the east like the purest white paint. I shielded my eyes.

No one said much along the way. With Nana, that wasn’t a surprise, but Nathan and Jamie both looked subdued. I figured that was my fault.

I thought I saw Mami’s bright hair on someone in the distance. They wore the same uniform as the other girls. The girl carried herself like Mami as well. But they were going one way, and we were going the other. I gave them one last look before we turned at the gas station.

Nana finally broke the silence when we came to the crossing near the bus stop. “It is a nice morning here.” Jamie answered, with a quick look, “Yeah, but it isn’t home.”

She passed me to draw closer to Jamie. “You’re right. It isn’t home, but it could be.”

Jamie whirled around. “And who asked you? I don’t want to live here. You were born here, drawn here, or whatever. We come from somewhere else! That’s our home. And I want to go back to it.”

Nana bowed her head and said only, “I want to help.”

He let out a sigh. “Thanks. Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just terrified by all of this. It feels like a dream I can’t wake from…”

A faint smile emerged from Nana’s mouth-line as she remarked, “Don’t worry. All dreams have an end.” Jamie nodded and led us onto a nearby pedestrian footpath because the traffic was rather heavy.

We made our way to the path, trees crouching in exactly like I remembered. Nathan looked in the direction of Mecchen House and gave a little wave. “I’m sure gonna miss them.”

I nodded but Jamie huffed. “Some of them were cool, like Tara and Aneko… and you, Nana. But Reiko was a jerk. Katsumi too… I’m glad you told her off, Kelly. Doesn’t matter though. We’ll soon say goodbye to all of this.” He stepped onto the soft dirt and didn’t wait for us. I pulled my bag closer and called after Jamie, “If it’s waited this long, then it’ll wait a few more minutes.”

He shot back, “I’m the one who can’t wait!” Nathan turned to offer Nana a lift on his shoulders so she could keep up, but saw she wasn’t behind us; she was up with Jamie, right in step.

I panted and pleaded with Jamie to slow down. He just kept going. Since when did Jamie get this active?

The path undulated up and down a few times. I nearly tripped over my bottom hems. I looked at Nathan. It wasn’t quite racing with Miki, but it seemed like he was having some trouble keeping up as well. Nathan slipped his bag around his neck and trudged ahead, leaving me in last place.

Blegh. If it took racing just after eating to get back home, then I didn’t mind staying in Mecchen House, even if it meant watching Katsumi kill me with her eyes each time I walked by. I wrapped the bag around my neck too.

I called out to Jamie, between pants, and said that we didn’t race when we first came this way. He slowed a little. At first, I figured my words got to him, but then I noticed the clearing through the trees. It wasn’t home. It was another street corner.

The rear of a building, painted in blue and gold, stood before us. The windows twisted in the morning light like square, reddish-gray rivers bound by white frames. Jamie staggered forward, to the front of the building, facing a small street.

Everything was so closely placed together. Tall electrical poles traced black, intersecting lines through the air like fractures in the sky. Special lines led from the poles to each business. I noticed a café across the street and a computer repair shop next to it. There was a brightly-drawn ramen shop on the other end and a couple of gift shops. The small, brick building down the road looked familiar. It had a narrow pyramid at the top and an area map on the side of it. I was sure I’d seen it in some anime before.

On this side of the street was the narrow alleyway we passed through which led to the tree-flanked path. I could just make out a furniture store to our left. On the right was the blue and gold building. The sign was at an angle, but I could still make out the name. It read “Fanatic Heaven.” By fanatic, it seemed to mean at least a better connotation than the typical ‘otaku’ term which was familiar to me. I assumed this was the anime place which had been much spoken of before.

Nathan answered my question a moment later with, “How can this be? This is the place. But it’s different. Yet it’s the same.”

Nana softly touched his shoulder. “Such is the way with many things.”

He looked at her with confusion in his eyes. She said nothing further on the subject.

The front of the building was adorned in colorful streamers, ad signs with various deals on items, and tables with posters weighed down with rocks. None of the things advertised looked exactly familiar to me, but each looked reminiscent of something I’d seen before. Jamie looked up at the sign. It probably wasn’t the best time, but I asked him if he read it the same way I did.

He looked at me, confused and lost. After a moment, he said, “Fanatic… Heaven.” At least things read consistently. That seemed to snap him out of his spell though. He burst out with, “This isn’t right! We shouldn’t be here! We should be back home. What changed? It’s her! I knew it. We shouldn’t have let her come. We can’t take her with us. Come on, just the three of us this time. It’s sure to work.”

Nathan blocked Jamie’s path. “Stop! Hey! Come on. Don’t take this out on her.”

Jamie grit his teeth. “I’m not taking this out on her. I’m being very calm! I’m facing the fact she doesn’t belong with us. She’s not from our world. Whatever brought us here could be refusing to take us back due to her.”

Nana walked over to hold Jamie’s hand. “I am sorry.”

“Then let us go on our own!” He shot back at her. She bowed her head.

Nathan glared at Jamie. “You could put it nicer…”

Jamie huffed. “You’re telling me to be nicer after what Kelly did? I am who I am, but at least I didn’t make any of those girls slap me.” I let that slide. He trudged on ahead of us.

Nathan waited a moment to ask Nana, “Will you be okay?” She nodded in reply and waved.

I said a few quick words to her as well before running after Nathan.  

Jamie was silent when we emerged at the other side of the path. It was the same residential area with a bus stop, pedestrian crossing, and gas station nearby. Then he coughed, turned around, and said, “Well, then we gotta do it this direction to make it work. The reverse of how we came here. Only just with us. Yeah, that’ll do it.”

So we trudged all the way back between the trees to Nana standing and looking at us beside the anime store.

Jamie made the trip several more times by himself and while dragging us along. The result was always the same. We just came out the same, physical end. No wormholes, no rabbit holes, no endless paths, no special effects. Jamie took several ragged breaths before crumpling to the ground.

I approached him carefully and watched him throw up beside a tree. I quickly turned away and gritted my teeth. He coughed and retched a few more times. Then he wiped his mouth and trembled. “We can’t be stuck here. There’s gotta be a way out. There’s gotta be one.” He turned to Nana and grabbed her shoulders. “You know a way out! You have to! You’re a geek with tons of computers. You know all sorts of stuff, right?”

Her arms reached up to touch Jamie’s arms. “I know some things…”

“What about crossing between worlds?”

Nana seemed to look at a space just beyond Jamie. “Very difficult.”

He shook Nana. “You know it? It can be done? At will? How?”

Her expansive eyes rippled with the mottled light through the trees. “I cannot offer you what you seek…” Jamie’s arms and head went slack. He looked like he was going to throw up again. He let go of Nana.

I stepped forward. “Nana. You know about the sort of thing that happened to us?”

She moved forward as well and touched my hand. Her contact was warm and whispery. She gave a single nod.

“What can you tell us about it?” Something was better than nothing.

After a long pause, she said, “What I can tell you, you may not like to hear.”

Nathan grimaced. “Well… Whatever you can tell us could still be helpful.”

There came another long pause, then, “If that is your wish… I know that what you speak of can be done by the will of one. This one must understand the connections between worlds. If this one understands that, then many things are possible. Without that understanding, none of them are possible.”   

Where exactly did she learn this?

“I read about it in books…”

“Do you have the books with you?”

“No. I do not.”

Scratch that theory then. Jamie kept asking her questions about more specific details.

“Where can we find these books?”

“I do not know.”

“Can you tell us any methods you recall? How do we achieve this ‘will of the one’?”

“It cannot be taught by words or methods alone.”

“Then how can it be learned?”

She bowed her head for a long time and said, “There is nothing more I can tell you…”

Jamie put his fist to his mouth then pounded it into a tree. “I hope this isn’t some New Age Transcendent junk.”

“It is not,” was all Nana said.

He glared at Nana. “Do you know more than you’re telling us?”

She looked at him, eye to eye. “I know only that which I know.”

He flicked his hand. “Well, I’ve had enough of riddles and other stuff like that. You say you want to help… then help.”

“I have no ability to do what you seek of me.”

Jamie leaned against a tree. “So, you can’t open a path or anything to where we came from?”

“That is correct.”

He pursed his lips. “Well… Is there any way for us to go back to where we came from?”

“Not within anything I know…”

I took a turn with asking Nana a few questions. “So… okay. So, you’re saying someone willed us here. Could it have been one of us?”

“Entirely possible.”

“Could it have been someone… outside of the three of us?”

“Also possible…”

Okay, I seemed to be making some progress here. “Now could we have accidentally transported ourselves from one world to another… one of us who just happened to ‘will’ it?”

“That is very improbable but still a possibility.”

“Is it more likely that someone purposely brought us here?”

“Purposeful intent is always more likely than accidental happenstance.”

Jamie buried his eyes in his hands and sighed.

Now to try and put this all together. I asked, “That means someone wanted us to be here, right?”

“That is more than likely when considering everything.”

I had to ask her, especially with how much she knew about the concept, “Are you the one who brought us to this universe?”

She looked directly at me. “No, I am not the one who brought you here.”

It was a last-ditch. Besides, assuming Nana’s theory was right, how likely were we to just run into the ‘one’ who summoned us to this place anyway? Unless Nana was lying. But if she was lying then what was true and what wasn’t? I held my head and found a place in befuddlement beside Jamie.

Nathan bowed to Nana and told her, “I’m sorry if our questions bothered you. We’re just trying to figure this out.”

She returned the bow graciously and said, “I am not bothered by questions. But I must leave you now for class.”

I nodded and pulled myself up a little. “One last question, if it’s alright. I still don’t understand… Why did you want to come with us?”

She spoke, “As I’ve said …to help…” and waved once. Nathan and I returned her wave, but Jamie still clung to the tree and looked at his feet. When Nana was gone, I asked him what was wrong.

He glared at me. “I still think she’s hiding something. She creeps me out.”

Nathan said, “I think she’s really nice. She was very open with us about what she knew. She just has a weird way of talking. She’s different, but the other girls of Mecchen House seem to get along with her quite well.”

Jamie snorted. “As if that’s a glowing endorsement. I don’t trust most of those girls. I’m sure they have secrets we can’t even imagine.”