I breathed deep, and tried to focus on Setareh’s words.

  “If you were to walk east along the road that leads from your house, and walk for twenty days, and speak to the first person who appears on your path, you might ask them for the way to the Talking Bird, the Singing Tree, and the Golden Water.

  “These three things are marvels of creation. The Talking Bird is intelligent, and a great songster and mimic. Its chatter and song are charming and sweet. Added to this, the Singing Tree produces wonderous music from its silvery leaves; bird and tree together make songs such as never heard elsewhere. Finally, the Golden Water may be poured into any container and will become a fountain, and those who drink of it will not know sickness.”

  A health potion? I caught Rohan and Red’s eyes and saw we were thinking the same thing. We needed to get that Golden Water.

  “Why has no-one else just taken these things, Auntie?” asked Red.

  “Of course they are guarded. I don’t know the details myself, you must ask that of the gatekeeper who lives twenty days east of here.”

  Typical.

  Still, my hands were shaking. If I had owned a health potion in the last scenario, there probably wouldn’t have been so many deaths. How strong was this Golden Water? Could it revive the dead?

  The old lady was already beginning to pack her things and make her way out. I absently waved her goodbye, staring after her without seeing as she made her way down the stairs and away towards the city.

  “Let’s go,” Rohan said, brushing past me.

  “Wait, we haven’t even decided what our plan is.”

  “We go to see this gatekeeper, ask them how to get the Golden Water, get the Golden Water, and boom! We’re done!” Red said cheerfully, politely moving me to one side as he followed Rohan.

  “And what, you’re going to go unarmed? What about food? A change of clothes? Twenty days is a long time, you know. Have you ever even been camping?”

  “… no.”

  “Rohan, remember the last time we went-”

  “Yeah, okay, no need to say anything,” he interrupted hastily.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t actually felt hungry since I got here,” Red pointed out. “Have either of you?”

  Come to think of it… We’d munched on the fruit to keep the old lady company, but I hadn’t actually felt hunger. Still, you never knew…

  I turned back into the house and began ransacking it. Rohan and Red found swords, bows and arrows in the rooms that appeared to belong to them. All I could find was a small dagger and a pair of scissors, but they were sharp, so they would have to do. I didn’t trust myself to swing a sword around or shoot arrows anyway.

  Red was hopping excitedly from one foot to the other and Rohan was brooding in the entranceway by the time I was ready, a pack on my back with extra clothing, waterskins and dried fruits, as well as some money we had found and divided between us. We slowly made our way down the long staircase.

  “Maybe we should get horses.”

  “Do you know how to ride a horse?”

  “It can’t be that hard.”

  “You’re welcome to go and find out, if you want.”

  Rohan muttered something unintelligible, but kept walking.

  He’d always been an interesting guy. When the six of us had been kids, just entering secondary school, he had spent the first few weeks alone, rarely socialising with others. Eventually I just felt sort of sorry for him, always eating lunch alone, so I asked if he wanted to join us. The others looked at me questioningly, but just went along with it.

  Rohan had always been an absolute hopeless case when it came to anime. Whenever he invited us over to his house, it was usually to help him unwrap and start watching some new series or other, or to put Gundam models together. We weren’t as mad keen fans as he was, but there was a lot of fun to be had, putting models together, arguing through plot points or conspiracies, yelling at the screen when the lead character did something dumb in whatever series we were watching. The long humid summer days where we lay on the tiles of his house with the fans on, eating the icecreams my mother would never let me have, and idly watching the screen, seemed eternal, until they weren’t.

  I think we all changed, at some point. We grew up. The world began to weight down on us.

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  At least when we were yelling or building models or whatever, Rohan was lively, excitable. His dark eyes would shine as he fought for hours with Lee Wai Meng about who would win in a death match between a ninja and a pirate. The outcome didn’t matter. Why would it?

  I glanced at the sullen young man awkwardly striding ahead. His steps seemed… strained, as if he was trying to take strides longer than his legs would allow. Occasionally, he would tossing his head to flick his fringe from his face.

  How would I feel, if Rohan died?

  How would I feel if any of my friends died?

  I shuddered, suddenly clutching my stomach.

  “Maria? Are you okay?” Red’s face appeared before mine. He had quickly crouched down to look up at me.

  “I’m okay.” What a quick little puppy. I couldn’t help it – I patted his head, and he seemed surprised but happy. I saw Rohan glance back at me, but keep walking.

  “Did you guys have a fight or something?” Red asked, watching him go.

  I shook my head. “That’s just how he is.”

  Since when? Since when?

  The days dragged by, Rohan mostly silent, Red and I doing most of the talking. He was very easy to talk to, cheerful and ready with a response at all times. I couldn’t say I entirely trusted him, he was too ready to agree, even if he’d said something completely contradictory in the same breath. If I disagreed with any opinion he made, he would be quick to disclaim his previous words and agree with what I had said.

  “He’s trying to get into your pants,” Rohan said to me, finally, when Red had gotten tired of walking and decided to run ahead on the nineteenth day.

  “Okay?”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “Surviving bothers me, Rohan. And if I can at least have someone nice to talk to in the meantime, I’ll take it.”

  He didn’t respond to that.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Look me in the face and say that.”

  He stopped and turned. I could see his real appearance staring out at me from behind that handsome avatar he wore. “What do you want me to say, Mik Tsaam? Don’t be so clingy.”

  I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as I used to do when I wore glasses. “Let me know if I can help with anything.”

  “I don’t need help with anything.”

  “If you do.” I eyed him. “Pretending not to have feelings doesn’t make you look cool, you know.”

  He walked away.

  On the twentieth day, we saw a man.

  At least, he seemed to be a man, under all that hair. His head hair, beard, moustache, even eyebrows, were overgrown and greying. He squinted up at us through this dense carpet as we approached.

  “Hello!” Red sang. “We’re looking for some Golden Water!”

  The old man continued to blink at us. Red was about to repeat himself, louder, but I tapped his shoulder. “He’s thinking.”

  I looked at him more closely. He sat on a worn prayer mat, and the skin that was visible through his hair was dark with days in the sun. A somewhat broken umbrella lay beside him.

  He said something.

  The hair around his mouth obscured his words though, and we all looked at each other with the same mystification.

  “I… have scissors. Should we ask him if we can trim his moustache or something?”

  The old man nodded agreement, and I began to gingerly trim the hairs. I was used to cutting my own hair, like my mother had done for me, but I had certainly never trimmed anyone’s facial hair.

  Eventually, his mouth was clear, and my hands were shaking with the effort of not accidently cutting his lips. Red tapped his foot impatiently as I began tidying the edges. “Maria, come on, we can hear him now.”

  “Thank you,” was the first thing that came from the old man’s mouth. Out of habit, I checked his name.

  They hadn’t even given him a name. Good grief.

  Still no sign of Pretty Princess Peach.

  I thought of this old man being called Pretty Princess Peach and had to look away to stifle the hysterical laughter rising in my chest.

  “The way to the Talking Bird, Singing Tree, and Golden Water is very dangerous,” he said hoarsely. “You have been so kind to trim my hair, I have to warn you – others have already attempted to take these things and failed. Go home.”

  “We’re not scared,” Rohan and Red said in unison, with very different tones.

  “We can’t go home unless we find these things,” I said to the old man, gently. “Please tell us.”

  He sighed, disappearing into his hair for a moment.

  “Here.” He held out a wooden bowl. Red took it curiously. “I’m afraid only one of you can use this at a time. Throw the bowl, it will roll away. Follow it until it stops. It should lead you to a mountain. Climb the mountain, but ignore all the voices you hear.”

  “Voices?”

  “Of those who failed before you.” The man fiddled with his beard. “They will call out to you, try to stop you from climbing. They can’t hurt you, but they know things… And if you turn, you will become one of the black stones on the mountainside. When that happens, that bowl will return to me, as it always has.”

  Red eyed the bowl in his hand dubiously.

  “Once you reach the top of the mountain, you will find the Talking Bird in a cage. It will tell you where to find the Singing Tree and the Golden Water.”

  “Why are fairytales so convoluted?” Red grumbled to himself. Out loud, he said, “Thanks, Uncle. Right, who’s going first?”

  No-one spoke for a moment.

  “Alright, looks like it’s me then!” Red announced, less than a breath later. “See you soon!”

  He tossed the bowl. It flipped strangely, hit the ground on its edge, and trundled away as if powered by a motor. Red saluted us and hurried after it, humming eagerly.

  We sat down to wait.

  Rohan sat with his back to us, staring in the direction Red had taken, so I turned to the old dervish. “Um, sir… Should I trim the rest of your hair? There isn’t really anything else to do.”

  I could see his lips curve into a smile. “Thank you, child. I would be very grateful. Few people pass this way, and I have devoted myself to Allah, so it has been a long time since I sought out civilisation and the services of a barber.”

  I slowly cut away the hair, wishing I had a comb or something to deal with the years of tangles. Great piles of grey hair lay to one side like some kind of sleeping animal. Rohan shifted positions, but continued to ignore us.

  I was just finishing the trim I had performed on the dervish’s head hair and was beginning to work on his beard, when a sound had us all pricking up our ears.

  “That doesn’t sound like Red,” I said.

  The old man sighed.

  Rohan stood up, taking a few steps forward towards the shape trundling towards us.

  The bowl hit his foot, and came to a stop.