On stormy night, when winter foxes still roamed the snowy ancient hills, three warlocks came to Hokkaido and into Kaisen Mura (made that up). No one saw them come but Shinichi, the blacksmith’s apprentice, and Heiji, the carpenter’s assistant, who were watching from the resting hut, their favourite hangout.
Through the scream of the wind and the rumble of thunder, the childhood friends’ sharp ears picked up the sound of hoof beats. A huge black horse, that looked almost like a Thestral from Harry Potter, was toiling up the road, and a heavy wagon creaked behind it. They ducked under the table and crouched low, wondering what kind of human could be traveling on such night, and when the wagon passed, they shuddered from the tips of their hair right through to the ends of their toes.
Three dark figures were leaning into the wild wind; one held a whip, one held a lantern and the third stared into the hut with terrible glittering eyes. And the freaky thing was they were all wearing pitch-black clothes. They weren’t sure whether the person who was staring at the hut saw them, but they weren’t taking any chances of coming out from under the table.
“I smell mischief,” Shinichi hissed.
“I smell worse, Conan,” Heiji grunted, calling his friend by his childhood nickname. “I think I smell a scary mystery or maybe even death.”
“Who do you think they could be, Heiji?” Shinichi asked, slowly crawling out of the table as soon as the wagon was out of sight.
“I don’t know, but we gotta keep our heads up. Let's go home now and get some sleep, coz I bet it'll be the last good sleep we’ll get for many a night.”
They bid their goodbyes and quickly rushed back to their respective masters' home. But they slept fitfully. Strange sounds disturbed their dreams—a clattering and a hammering that had nothing to do with the weather. It made such a noise that almost everyone in Kaisen Mura couldn't sleep. By the next morning the storm had rolled away. The sun burst over the hill and the villagers of Kaisen Mura bustled into the street. There they scratched their heads and murmured in disbelief, for overnight the tumbledown building on the Kaisen Hill had been given a new roof; the crooked walls had been patched with stones and smoke poured from the chimney.
Even Shinichi and Heiji, who were hanging out again together at the resting hut for a game of Japanese chess before work time, couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the massive dark building up at the hill. They looked at each other knowingly, convinced that what they saw last night was not a dream and that those three ghostly people were no ordinary beings.
“Who can be living there?” Kogoro Mouri, the blacksmith, asked.
“And who would build a house with only a peephole for a window?” Ran, his daughter, asked.
“Who could work on such a stormy night?” Akasa, the carpenter, asked.
“A magician?” His daughter Kazuha suggested.
“Or a witch?” Ran said.
“Baka! Who would believe such a thing!” the blacksmith and the carpenter laughed.
But Ran and Kazuha walked away from the laughter and headed up the hill, eager to see who could be living in the windowless house. Shinichi and Heiji wanted to stop them but they were called by their masters to hurry along back to the workshop for work. The girls had not climbed far, however, when someone emerged from the house on the hill. The figure wore a black hat, with long, flowing golden brown hair, and had a long coat as dark as night that hung over his face in heavy folds, and he moved towards the children like a dark pillar of smoke. Kazuha and Ran almost screamed as they ran helter-skelter down the hill, wanting only to be safe from that cloudy figure.
“Matte, matte, Ran,” Kogoro said as she raced into the yard. “Daijobu deska? Have you seen a ghost?”
“Not a ghost, Otosan, a…a…” But she could not finish, for there, moving soundlessly into the yard, was the stranger in his gray shroud.
“O…Ohayo gozaimas, and what can I do for you?” Kogoro asked, a little shaken by his mysterious visitor but determined to be polite.
“Blacksmith, I want you to make me a bed,” he said, and his voice sent a chill through the man. “A big iron bed with a bronze moon at the head and a bronze star at the foot. And I want it tonight.”
“Nani?! A bed like that by tonight! I cannot make it by tonight!” Kogoro said, standing his ground. “I have work to do for the other folk. Come back in three days and I’ll see what I can do.”
“You will do what I want today!” he screeched.
“Ie, I will not! Not by tonight!”
“Then it’ll be the worse for you,” the man snarled, and as he whirled away, he turned on Ran such a furious, cold glance with his icy-blue eyes that Ran, feeling dizzy, knelt and clung to Shinichi, who was bringing in the utensil for work. He caught her just in time.
“Da…Daijobu deska, Ran-sama?”
“Stay with me tonight, Conan,” she begged suddenly. “I'm scared to be alone in the dark. That strange man is gonna roam around and get us for sure!”
“Ho…Honto ni?” Shinichi asked in disbelief, his cheeks blushing pink like peaches. “But…But Ran-sama, I can’t be in your room alone. I’m prohibited to even go anywhere too close to you…”
“Onegai, Conan,” Ran said, begging him with her puppy eyes. “I’m really, really scared. I’ll speak to Otosan about this, don’t you worry. Just please promise me you’ll protect me tonight. Onegai…?”
“Ha…Hait, Ran-sama,” Shinichi agreed hesitantly, his heart jumping with joy. He had always wanted to be close to his little miss. He had a crush on her ever since he was accepted as an apprentice in Kogoro Mouri’s workshop. He swore that he would go to the ends for her, even if it means going to hell and back again. He smiled and stroke Ran’s cheek gently before she walked away to tell her father about her plan.
It wasn’t easy though. Ran had to do a lot of begging and Shinichi a lot of guarantees and promises for that. In the end Kogoro reluctantly agreed. Shinichi happily told Heiji about it and Heiji punched his shoulder playfully, congratulating him for being such a lucky son-of-a-gun. But somehow, deep down inside him, he couldn’t help feeling that Ran is trying to keep his best friend all to herself. Sooner or later if they got steady, he probably wouldn’t be able to hang out with him like they used to.
He didn’t know why he felt this way though.
That night the blacksmith's apprentice followed Ran when she went to bed. After what seemed like a long time of lecturing from his master not to even lay a finger on her, he was finally allowed to hang out in her room. He blushed as he watched Ran for the first time in her nightgown and her fluffy bed. She showed him where she keeps her spare mattress and he laid it on the floor beside her bed.
“Oyasumi nasai, Ran-sama,” Shinichi said as he got into his night clothes.
“Oyasumi nasai, my hero,” Ran said as she turned around to sleep.
He soon curled himself comfortably in the blanket and heard her drift into her dreams, but Shinichi knew that he had to steel himself for a sleepless and watchful night. He saw the moon sail into the snowy sky. He smelled the dew on the leaves of the fir tree beside her room window and he closed one eye. It would be so good to have a little nap, but he knew he must not. He listened for footfalls, for anything that might bring harm to his little miss Ran, but all he heard were owl crying and bats calling. Suddenly he heard a faraway song. It was a drowsy, dreamy song. He wasn't sure where it came from and who or what sang this but it was such delightful music, that he was sure only the fairies could have made it. He yawned and closed his other eye. Surely Ran would come to no harm if he slept for just a minute or two…
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