When Toshiko awoke early the next morning, there was a man in her room. Had she been any older than five, this might have filled her with terror, or perhaps a greater and deeper sense of threat, but instead the strange appearance of the man simply confused her.
'Who are you?' she asked.
The man looked scared, as if he'd seen a ghost, or perhaps the shark out of the fairy tale.
'What did you say?' he asked, in English. Toshiko could speak English. Her parents had taught her when she was little and they had lived on the other side of the world, and so she understood him.
'Who are you?' Toshiko asked, now speaking in English.
'My name's Michael,' whispered the man. 'Where am I?'
'This is Osaka,' said Toshiko, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and yawning.
'Where's Osaka?' asked Michael.
'In Japan,' said Toshiko.
Michael laughed, and put his hand over his mouth to silence himself. He started shaking his head and padding quietly from one side of the room to the other.
'Japan…' he whispered. 'I'm in Japan.'
He walked over to her window, and opened the blinds just enough so that he could see outside.
'Oh my God,' he said.
'What is it? What's the matter?' asked Toshiko.
'This… this city… It's…
It's like something out of a film. And the cars… Look how many cars there are.'
'How did you get here?'
'I don't know,' said Michael. 'I still don't know. It's like magic. But don't be scared. I'm not going to hurt you. I just need to go home.'
'Where's home?'
'It's a long, long way away.'
'Like the Land of Horaizan?'
'No. No… It's further away than that.'
Outside, in the hallway, Toshiko's parents were leaving for work. Michael looked this way and that around the bedroom, before diving inside a small, pink wardrobe and closing the doors after him. The door to Toshiko's bedroom opened, and her mother leaned into the room.
'Were you talking to yourself, Toshiko?'
'I was talking to Michael,' said Toshiko. 'He's a magic person.'
'It's those fairy tales,' said her father, standing in the hallway. 'Imaginary magic friends! Whatever next?'
'We're going to work now,' said Toshiko's mother. 'Grandma is watching television. You be a good girl and we'll see you later.'
The door closed and, as she heard her parents walk down the steps toward their cars, Toshiko said, 'It's OK, now. They've gone.'
Michael stepped out of the wardrobe. 'I need to go,' he said. 'I need to find a way out of here.'
'Why can't you use magic?'
Michael sighed. 'It doesn't work like that,' he said. 'It just happens.'
Michael's stomach made a growling noise, like the noise Toshiko's father made when he was pretending to be a lion, like in a story, and Toshiko laughed.
'Sorry,' said Michael. 'I'm hungry. I can't remember the last time I ate properly. I took some peas in the pod from your refrigerator last night…'
Toshiko laughed. 'Those weren't peas in the pod, silly!' she said. They're edamame!'
'Oh,' said Michael. 'Do you have any more food I can eat? I'll eat something, and then I'll go. God knows what anyone would think if they found me here. I'd probably be strung up.'
'I have some wagashi,' said Toshiko.
'What's wagashi?'
'They're sweeties.'
Michael shrugged. Sweets would have to do when he was this hungry.
'I'll go get them,' said Toshiko. 'You stay here.'
Toshiko got out of bed, and opened her door just a little to check that the coast was clear. She could see her grandmother in the living room, sitting in her favourite armchair. She was already sleeping. Her grandmother seemed to sleep a lot, but then she was usually awake very early, pottering about on the roof garden, watering the plants and feeding the grosbeaks and doves.
Toshiko tiptoed out of her bedroom and made her way through the living room toward the kitchen. Her grandmother was snoring again and, though Toshiko wanted to laugh, she decided not to, as it might wake the old woman up. On the television was Toshiko's favourite programme,
As Toshiko slowly and quietly opened the door to the fridge and lifted out the bag of wagashi, a strange thing happened. The picture on the television began to blur and then fizz, as if the signal had been lost. The light inside the fridge flickered several times, and then there was an almighty noise, like the sound of somebody hitting a great big drum. Even so, her grandmother did not wake.
'Toshiko…' said a voice. It was a terrifying voice, the scariest thing she had ever heard; like the kind of voice a snake might have, or maybe even a dragon.
Though a part of her didn't want to, Toshiko turned around and saw, stood in the middle of the kitchen, a tall man in a black suit and bowler hat, holding an umbrella. His skin looked diseased, almost grey, and he was wearing little round sunglasses.
'I smell something sweet,' the pale man rasped, his lips curling up in a sneer to reveal teeth that looked like hundreds of needles.
The Traveller…' he said. 'Where is he?'
Toshiko shook her head and hugged the bag of sweets close to her chest. Looking past the pale man at her bedroom door, she saw it open very slightly, and through the narrow gap she saw Michael.
The pale man had noticed none of this, and he crossed the kitchen in one swift move, clutching her by the throat and lifting her off the ground. The bag of sweets fell to the floor, spilling out its contents.
'Where is the Traveller?' said the pale man and, with one hand, he lifted off the little round sunglasses, to reveal eyes as black as ink.
'I could kill you just by looking at you,' he hissed.
Toshiko heard Michael cry out: 'No!'
The pale man dropped her to the ground and, as she fell, she saw Michael running from her room, his face contorted with anger, his hands reaching out toward the pale man as if he were about to strangle him.
Then he was gone; Michael had vanished.
The pale man looked down at Toshiko.
'We shall see you again,' he said, and in the blinking of an eye, he too was gone.
In the living room, Toshiko's grandmother stirred. 'Toshiko?' she said. 'Toshiko? What is all that noise? Are you getting up to mischief?'
Her grandmother eased herself out of her armchair and walked to the kitchen. 'What are all those sweets doing all over the floor? No sweets before breakfast.'
'I'm sorry, Grandma,' said Toshiko. 'I'll put them back in the fridge.'
'So you see?' said Toshiko. 'It isn't just you. It's both of us. I just can't work out
I'd forgotten… How could I forget that?'
Owen shrugged, and then looked at her with a moment's flicker of compassion. 'You must have been so scared,' he said. 'You must have
He sighed and paced back and forth with both hands linked over his head.
'Jack knows something,' he said. 'I can tell. Something about the way he reacted when Michael turned up. He