The little girl sat alone in a puddle of cold rain when a tall stranger approached her and offered a gloved hand. Instead of taking it, the girl stood up and showed the man the burns and scars running from her blackened fingernails to her elbows which she had tucked under her sleeve.
She expected the man to see her as a bad omen, for him to run away. What she did not expect was for the man to remove his glove, and reveal an arm much the same, a hand in much worse condition.
The girl looked and squinted up at the man who had now attracted the girl’s curiosity. The man looked like a foreigner, middle-aged but still handsome with a black top hat over a ginger head that matched his ginger whiskers. He wore a tailored black suit like that of the west. His eyes were an unnatural yellow. Golden. It was a color that the girl was familiar with. The same color of eyes as the girl.
“Did you do this?” asked the man, motioning to the wreckage behind the girl, a house no more.
The girl shook her head.
The man smiled. “Back then, I also said it wasn’t my fault, but I saw the cranes.”
That had the girl back away, hands back to her sides.
“The cranes, you did that.” It wasn’t a question.
The girl looked at her muddied, wet socks. “Do you know how to get them back?” she whispered, curling her toes.
“No.”
Tears wallowed in the girl’s eyes.
A shadow fell over the girl, and when she looked back up, the man placed a hand behind her shoulders. She noticed that he was gloved once more.
The man’s yellow eyes watched steadily as he said, “They’ll be back. They’ll always be back.” The girl believed him, but she was still curious.
“How do you know?” the girl sniffed and wiped at her eyes, the same color as the man’s.
“Because all you did was answer their prayers.” The man stood so that the girl saw through her eyes, the blinking stars in the sky which looked like a halo of crown jewels. “You are only a little nestling. Your spells won’t last, they will be back.”
The girl sniffed, her tiny red nose quivered. “One was my sister.”
“Oh?”
She nodded slowly. “Ai. It was her birthday. I made it the worst.”
“She’ll be back,” the man reassured once more.
The girl remained silent.
The man leaned back and looked up into the sky that blinked with a million stars. It was only minutes before that the sky was veiled by dark clouds.
“You know,” said the man. “I once had a brother.”
“And he returned?”
“He never left,” the man smiled. “But I did, and I always returned.”
The man took the girl’s small, trembling hands. They trembled because of the cold, not out of fear.
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“So where are you going now?” wondered the curious little girl. “Back to your brother?”
The man laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle. “No, not yet.”
The girl’s tears had now gone dry, and when she blinked, she saw an opportunity form before her and so she fell at the man’s feet.
“Take me with you,” begged the little girl. “I can’t stay here. They’ll hate me more than they already do now.” She hung her head in defeat, white tendrils of hair falling around her face like wet fur.
The man didn’t say anything for a while, and when the little girl looked up to make sure the man was still there, he saw her tear-streaked face and laughed. “My, you aren’t kidding, are you?” He coughed as if embarrassed, then lowered to his knee, mudding his dark trousers so that he could look at the girl in the eyes. “I can’t take a girl I don’t know. What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one,” the girl didn’t want to tell the man what the villagers called her. The Hakusei. As if she weren’t one of them.
“I see,” the man dropped his gaze as if in thought, then he looked back up. “I’m Erwin Kennedy. A traveling doctor from the kingdom of Iyll.” He searched the girl’s desperate eyes and sighed. “I suppose you can tag along while I’m in Kuroba.”
The little girl’s heart rejoiced.
“But let me name you in exchange. What do you think of a name like Odilia? It’s a name that means ‘treasure’ from my mother’s hometown.”
“Oh,” the girl thought about it. “So then will I be your treasure?”
“Sure,” the man rested a gentle hand on the girl’s head. “Like a daughter of my own.”
The girl tilted her head to the side thoughtfully, then looked back up at the man. “I like that.”
The little girl, now Odilia Kennedy, stood up with her new father and took his gloved hand in her own blackened one. The pair looked back at the wreckage of a fire. The dark hand in Erwin’s palm tightened its hold. “Will I see my sister again?” said the girl.
“Sure,” said the man. “We will pass this town again each year. You will see her then.”
“Okay,” says the girl. Then a moment later, “Since we’re now family, I want you to teach me how to do that.” she points to the man’s gloved hands, golden eyes looking with purpose. Before, when he’d put them back on, he hadn’t done it the usual way with the pulling and tugging at the fingers. They’d simply once been off, then suddenly in a blink, on his hand once more.
The man smiled. He made his promise.
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As promised, the next year, the little girl, Odilia, now a year older, and the doctor, Erwin Kennedy, returned to the town known as Hikizu village to see if Ai and her friends had returned.
The town which was known to be broken and disheveled, was even more broken than before. Half the people were missing. Odilia noticed the missing families were the families of the girls who’d flown into the night with her sister. When the pair reached where the Torizora family estate once stood, they understood why.
The wreckage that once stood, had somehow caved into a ditch that was now flooded by rainwater. Floating and flocking amongst the flooded wreckage were red-crowned cranes. Ai and the girls had returned to this village that they knew as their home, but they were still flapping great white wings as graceful, long-legged birds. The spell had not lifted.
Odilia, while wearing a hood so that her white hair would not be recognized, asked the passing villagers what happened to the empty plot with all the charred wreckage. What the remaining villagers told her, was a tale of sorrow. They told the girl that a terrible storm had struck the house and killed all the inhabitants. Seven girls had supposedly died that night, one, who was the daughter of the house, Chief Torizora and his wife’s beloved child. The mother, when she found out, had been shaken into depression and died of illness within a month. The father had committed suicide. It was too much for the village so most families had left.
When Odilia asked about the Hakusei, the villagers shushed her, saying the name of a demon shall not be named. It was a new policy presented by Father Mich’yl, head priest of the Temple of the Crane. Perhaps the people believed it was the girl’s fault for the terrible fate of the Torizora family.
Odilia left the village the same day she came, heart feeling hollow despite being hand in hand with her new father.
Still, Odilia returned every year, hoping to see the spell lifted. Hoping to see her sister’s face.
But every time the girl saw the birds. So she left with her new father. Why stay if her sister hadn’t fully returned home either?