Miyuki Miyabe - ICO - Castle in the Mist

Ico’s mind and memory were as white and unblemished as the sand. A gentle wind blew over him.

Maybe I’m dead. Maybe this is Heaven.

He looked around and saw a rocky outcropping in the distance. Trees grew from the tops of the rocks, their branches gently swaying.

Birds wheeled through the blue sky overhead. He wondered how they could stand flying so close to the brilliant sun. He wondered if they ever got lonely, flying so high above the ground.

Maybe I’m still alive after all.

He looked down at his disheveled clothes. They were only half dry, with salt crusted on the seams.

Ico rubbed his chest with his hand. He felt like he had been wearing something else on top of his shirt, but there was nothing there now.

He saw blood caked beneath his fingernails. When he turned his head, his neck ached too, and his head throbbed, especially the right side. He reached up and touched his right horn and felt it wobble like it was about to fall off. Ico gaped with surprise, realizing that the stickiness he felt on the right side of his face was dried blood.

Suddenly, he was very lonely. He moved his arms and shoulders. He tested an elbow. Nothing seemed broken. He tried standing, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. The sound held him down, telling him to stay sitting, that he shouldn’t move yet.

Sea stretched all the way out to the horizon, and the beaches stretched on for what seemed like forever.

How did I get here?

Next to him, where the waves lapped against the shore, rested a single wooden plank. It was sticking halfway out of the water, gently bobbing up and down with the waves. A small crab had worked its way up on top of the board and began skittering across it while he watched.

Ico’s belly rumbled.

He laughed. I’m starving! I should get something to eat-I should go home. Mother will be worried.

Where have I been, anyway? What am I doing out here?

Ico had the sense that he had been on a journey to someplace very far away. But the memory remained lodged somewhere in the back of his mind, and he couldn’t pry it out no matter how hard he tried. It was like even though he was awake, his memory slept on.

He tried again and managed to stand. He was covered with scrapes and bruises. Brushing off the sand, he bent his knees and stretched a little. Ico looked down the beach, sure that it must end somewhere. Maybe there’s a way up onto that outcropping? He started off in that direction.

His feet slapped across the sand and Ico noticed he was barefoot. What happened to my sandals? At least the sand was soft.

Far off to the right, the rocks extended out over the beach into the water. Birds had gathered on top of the rocks. He headed toward them.

After his first step he wobbled, and after three steps he rested. That was how he began. But as he walked, it grew easier. His feet found their pace and he fell into a rhythm.

Closer to the rocks, he could hear the cries of the birds overhead. They flew up, making little circles in the air, flapping their wings busily.

Ico stopped and looked at the rocks beneath where they had been sitting-there was something at the edge of the water in the shadow of the rocks.

Someone else is lying on the beach!

Ico broke into a run. The white sand grabbed at his feet, and he swung his arms into the air, trying to go faster. He could make out the person as he got closer.

Ico ran, holding his arms out for balance, and the seagulls flew up even higher. He ran in among the rocks, and the slender form of the person lying there, her long wet hair, tickled the edges of his memory and made his pulse quicken.

It was a girl in a white dress.

She was sleeping just as Ico had been a moment before. She looked exhausted. But her chest was rising with her breath-she was alive.

The waves washed her legs and the sun reflected off her smooth skin.

Ico knelt and reached out, touching her cheek. Her skin was so white and unblemished at first he thought she might be a doll, but her skin was soft beneath his touch.

I know this girl.

He had a feeling that when he first met her, she had been light itself, a drifting fairy.

Now she was just a girl, her warmth a human warmth.

His memory struggled to awaken in the back of his head-dim images of cold, timeless stone rising like a wall in his mind’s eye. The vision passed, driven off by the warm sun beating down on the beach, the rise and fall of the waves.

The girl’s eyelids fluttered open. Ico saw his face reflected in her dark eyes.

He smiled at her.

The girl sat up, wind teasing the hair that fell down over her forehead.

Ico took the girl’s hand in his own, the gesture feeling intensely familiar, as the sun shone brightly over the end of their long story.

Miyuki Miyabe’s first novel was published in 1987, and since that time she has become one of Japan’s most popular and best-selling authors. Miyabe’s 2007 novel Brave Story won The Batchelder Award for best children’s book in translation from the American Library Association. ICO: Castle in the Mist is Miyabe’s seventh book to be translated into English. Her Haikasoru novels include Brave Story and The Book of Heroes.