The Book of Heroes by Miyuki Miyabe Read Free Book Online Page A

beast.”
    This she understood even less. She wished the book would stop talking in riddles and just get to the point. “So my brother isn’t bad, then. He’s not the evil one. Something evil grabbed him and made him do those things.”
    Hiroki is a victim.
    “I have to help him!” she said out loud, and then she had the strange sensation that the words took shape as she said them and floated up in the air of the darkened room, glittering as they rose.
    “I have to go help him. You have to tell me where he is.” Then a light went off in her head. “Wait, the answer is written inside you, isn’t it? All of this is written inside you. That’s how you know so much about the Hero!”
    Even before she had finished talking, Yuriko tried opening the book. But to her surprise, he resisted.
    “What? You can’t do that!”
    The book tensed, dug in its heels (or would have if it had them), and fought against Yuriko’s grip. Yuriko tore angrily at the book. Still, the pages wouldn’t open. You opened up easily enough yesterday!
    “You can’t do that!” she fumed. “You’re…a…book!”
    “You can’t save him,” the book said. His voice wasn’t singing anymore. There were no more gentle vibrations either. “No one who the Hero takes can be saved. Not by a person.”
    “Well I can. Just tell me where he is and we’ll save him! I’ll get the police and the firemen, and Dad and Mom!”
    “Ridiculous! What can adults do? They can’t get near the Hero. They can’t even leave this world!”
    There he goes again. Talking in riddles.
    “Fine, whatever, I don’t care. Just let me read you. What I need to know is written in you, isn’t it?”
    Yuriko struggled with the book there in her brother’s neatly tidied-up room, in the pool of pale white light that spilled in through the window from the streetlamp outside. When she thought about it later, she couldn’t remember exactly how she had struggled with the book, but she had. At the time it felt more like she was fighting not with a book but with a boy—a boy just about the same age as her brother.
    Of course, that was a losing battle. She had never actually fought with her brother, but her arms were shorter, and her feet were slower. Luckily for Yuriko, though, girls have a secret weapon when it comes to fights.
    Yuriko bared her teeth and bit into the book’s jacket. She heard the red book yelp and slip out of her hands, turning over in the air to land, pages up, on the floor.
    Out of breath, Yuriko scooped up the book. The book looked like it was sagging in shock. She could clearly see her own teeth marks on one corner of its cover. A perfect little semicircle. She had always been proud of her teeth.
    “Now that was a very mean thing to do,” the book moaned.
    “You’re the one who’s mean!”
    “Look, even if you got me open, you still couldn’t read me. You can’t even read the letters on my cover.”
    She had to admit he was right.
    “I never took you for someone so fierce, little miss. I guess it’s true what they say. Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The red book chuckled and then groaned. He sounded less surprised by the whole thing than hurt. Just like a real person. “You may have very sharp teeth, but you’re just a little girl. You can’t save your brother. Now be good for a change and dry your tears and blow your nose, and get to bed. You’ll feel better in the morning, and pretty soon you can go back to school. That’s how you do it. Just live life the same way you always have. It’ll be hard at first, but that’s what you have to do.”
    That was the last thing Yuriko wanted to hear. She might have had her temper back under control, but she was still just as angry, and it was bubbling up inside her.
    “I can’t just pretend everything is normal.”
    “You have to try.”
    “If I go back to school they’ll pick on me again.”
    “You’ll find some who won’t. They’ll be your allies.”
    “Oh what do you know?