Jorge Joestar

Chapter 9: Cliff

The second I arrived home from Rome, I was arrested forKenton’s murder. Her father, Ben Motorize, had many friends in the justicedepartment, and he had strong-armed them into ignoring juvenile laws andcharging me as an adult at age 16. With first degree murder. My mother andPenelope came to see me in jail. Penelope burst into tears the moment she laideyes on me.

“Jorge! Poor thing…I promise I’ll get you out of here,Jorge! Oh, Jorge…!”

She was in such a state it rather rattled me.

“But I’m fine, Penelope. Calm down. We can’t have you losingcontrol of your emotions, now.”

I did NOT need a locked room clown showing up here. Both ofthem seemed rather surprised I wasn’t more upset.

“Eh…?”

Penelope said, dubiously.

“This doesn’t bother you?”

“I’ve grown up a lot, you know. I got to keep it together.”

“Hunh…”

My mother seemed equally concerned, but she said,

“Well, I’m glad to hear it, Jorge. Still, we’ll doeverything we can to get you home soon. Don’t you worry.”

“Mm. Don’t worry about me. I’m actually pretty comfortablehere. Eh heh heh.”

“……………? You really do seem like you’re OK.”

Still not quite believing it, mother and Penelope went ontheir way, but on the way back to my solitary cell – they were keeping meseparated from the adult criminals – it was all I could do to stop myself fromskipping. The guards hated it when I did that, so I forced myself to walk. Isupposed this was what they meant by happy feet. I wanted to get back to mycell. The tiny cell at the very back. Where Lisa Lisa was. As we reached thecell the guard went bzzt and fell asleep on his feet. She’d paralyzed thethought centers of his brain, and he fell back to his normal routine, doingonly things he didn’t have to think about. Put the suspect in the cell, turnthe key…just like he did every day. His eyes saw Lisa Lisa and saw the stateof our cell – we even had a refrigerator – but his mind failed to comprehendit. My mind remained unaffected because Lisa Lisa had given me socks thatblocked the Hamon she was sending rippling through the floor. They were madefrom special thread from the uh… Smrtipologian Beetle, I think. Anyway, thisweird bug’s thread disperses Hamon.

“Welcome back, Jorge.”

“Good to be back!”

“Mama Erina looked so worried at first. Thank goodness youwere able to reassure her.”

“Eh? You were watching?”

“Mm. I thought I might have to say I was with you if shelooked too upset.”

“Eh…”

If mother found out about this she might very well say thatjail was no place for a young lady and forbid her from staying.

“But reassure her you did,”

Lisa Lisa chuckled.

“So I didn’t say anything. Mama Erina and old man Speedwagonwill take care of things, and the Hamon Warriors are helping too. I’m sureyou’ll be free in no time.”

“Mmm…”

I didn’t really want to leave. With Lisa Lisa being niceenough to bring me food and snacks and clean the place and teaching me thingsthis place was paradise. I didn’t have to go to school, either. But I knewbetter than to tell her that. Since Lisa Lisa had been with me almost since themoment I was arrested I had escaped all anxiety and fear. I knew I could relyon her utterly and completely. Watching her walk right into the jail with allthe guards going bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt I completely forgot to be depressed.

“I’ll get yelled at for using Hamon like this,”

she laughed. She was the best. She left at night, though.

“It wouldn’t be appropriate,”

she said. I wouldn’t do anything! ← ? So alone at night Ithought about Kenton Motorize. The girl

who got me to dream. Like a fairy riding on the back of abird. Always smiling, prone to startling me with her sharp tongue, but shenever once lied or hid her feelings. She was fun to be around. But now she wasdead. On the morning of my sixth day in jail, Steven came to see me. Ehh? Ithought. Maybe he thought I was the killer. I was scared to see him. But Iwanted to see him. He’d lost his sister, and I wanted to give him mycondolences. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to do anything, maybe the words wouldn’tform. But I should at least show myself, I thought. Kenton had been brutallystabbed 23 times in the gut and chest and face with a knife from my house andmy plane had been with her. Even if it wasn’t actually my fault I felt as ifthere should have been something I could have done to stop her from dying. ButI was scared. Scared to face my friend’s death head on, and scared to face abrother after his sister was murdered.

“Go, Jorge. Be with your friend the way I’m here with you.”

Lisa Lisa promised to watch the visiting room from close by,so I gathered my nerve and went to see Steven. Steven looked beside himself,and had lost so much weight I barely recognized him. I was almost at a loss forwords, but I managed to say,

“Kenton…it’s too sad. Too horrible. I don’t know what tosay. The police suspect me but…obviously, I didn’t do it.”

“I believe you,”

Steven said.

“You would never kill Kenton. But…I came to apologize. Myfather is convinced you did it, and is hell bent on taking all his rage out onyou. I keep telling him you would never do something like that, but he needs toavenge her, and won’t hear a word of it.”

That was depressing. But I didn’t let it show.

“That’s OK. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about anythingelse. Just mourn Kenton. I’m praying for you every night. Praying that she canfind peace in heaven.”

“….thank you. But Kenton was cut to pieces. I can’t pictureheaven or hell right now. I just don’t understand why a girl like her would getmurdered.”

I had no answer.

“I hope we can fly together some day,”

Steven said.

“I saw your plane. It was balanced well. You were almostready to fly it.”

“Ah…”

I thought about the old Motorizing 5, reborn as the StarShooter. If my weight was around 100 grams I’d have been able to fly it. It hadmade for a good kite. My plane had not just been left lying at the cliff whereKenton had been murdered. It had been tied to a rope, and flown, with Kenton’sbody and a rock as anchors. There was a strong wind off the sea and heavyrainfall weighing the plane down, but it had flown high anyway. That was whythey’d found Kenton’s body so quickly. Steven had seen the kite, and it led himto the horrible discovery of his sister’s remains. I couldn’t imagine how thatmust have felt.

“Doesn’t seem like they’re gonna let me fly,”

I said.

“Don’t let yourself think like that, Jorge,”

Steven said, smiling.

“If the two of us abandon planes…it’ll feel like there’sno proof Kenton even existed.”

I remembered that at night, and cried in my cell. Kentonloved planes. She loved flying. She was good at it, and never more beautiful.Even now I wasn’t sure if I really liked planes, or just been entranced by thesight of her flying off that cliff.

Despite my mother’s best efforts, I remained in jail, but itseemed like the police were having trouble building a case against me. To takethe case to trial, they needed to get all their facts in order, but there weretoo many mysteries about Kenton’s death. First, nobody could figure out atimeline for my actions that allowed for the murder. After speaking toDarlington at the Motorize home, Faraday had led me to another room, and thenI’d called from Rome two hours later. The only time unaccounted for was thattwo hours, and getting from Westwood, England to Rome, Italy in two hours wasimpossible to begin with. It was a four day

trip by rail or by sea, and even if we took the maximumflight distance of American planes and placed that end to end it would stilltake two days. When the police questioned this, I answered,

“Faraday took me to see a friend who should be dead, andwhen I took his hand I found myself in total darkness. I figured out that I wasin a cave and climbed out of it and found myself in an underground ruin inRome.”

That was mostly true, so I could explain it comfortably eventhough the police were trained to see through lies. I left Lisa Lisa out of it,and named a different underground ruin she’d suggested instead of the templewith the treasure room in it, but that underground ruin had not yet beenofficially discovered, so when the Italian police went to check it out it becamea huge deal and if I hadn’t gotten lost in there they’d never have known theruin was even there, so it seemed like I was going to get away with lying aboutthat part. In fact, if proven innocent there was talk of the Italian governmentgiving me an award. I’d turned it down already, though. Lisa Lisa and the otherHamon Masters apparently knew everything that lay underground. I could tell thepolice had no idea what to make of my nonsensical statement. They clearlycouldn’t write that down in their reports as is. They had Faraday’s testimony,and proof from Rome, so despite what I was saying they couldn’t doubt the factof it. They had me undergo a psychological evaluation but whatever the resultof it was, they still had to write a detailed account of how I could havekilled Kenton Motorize in Westwood, England before traveling to Rome, Italy.And that was hardly the end of the mess they had to make sense of. I had nomotive to kill Kenton. At all. She was one of the few friends I had in England;she and her brother were the only friends I had. I had liked her cheerydisposition, the open way she spoke, and she’d taught me everything I knewabout planes. This was the truth. But in their report, they said that I was inlove with

Kenton, had said I would show her my plane to get her aloneand ask her out, and had killed her when she turned me down. I had brought theknife with me planning to threaten her with it, and had tied the plane to herbody and flown it to make her grave.

“That isn’t true,”

I said, over and over and over again. And learned it wasuseless to say anything to someone intent on bending the truth or outrightlying to make things fit their needs. Based purely on the estimated time ofKenton’s death, it should have been difficult to believe I killed her. Iarrived at the Motorize home at 3:30 PM, and Faraday led me to the other roomaround 4:00. But Steven had just arrived home when he saw the kite flying abovethe cliffs from the gate of the Motorize manor, around 4:10 PM. It was a twentyfive minute trip by wagon from the Motorize manor to the scene of the crime.Two hours walking, and even if one were to run the whole way, it was a steadyincline so it would take at least an hour. Kenton had been seen leaving schoolwith an umbrella at around 3:30 PM, and if she had headed straight for thecliffs it would have taken her thirty minutes. When her body was found…Stevenhad seen the kite flying in the rain from his home, and afraid something hadhappened, had run his horse straight to the cliffs. According to his testimony,Kenton’s body had still been warm, so the murderer must have killed Kenton onher way home, tied her body to my Star Shooter, and let it fly – all in the tenminute period between 4:00 and 4:10. Just transporting the plane was a hugechallenge. I’d been bringing Star Shooter back from the dead in my tent, and itwas fully assembled; normally, transporting it would have meant taking itapart, carrying it to the cliffs, and then putting it together again. But fromwhat Steven had seen, there weren’t any new marks made on the body, so it wouldhave been impossible for anyone without my knowledge of the plane’sconstruction to take it apart and put it back together again. After all, I’ddesigned and built it myself. It was a mess of cobbled together bits andoddball parts. Which meant the killer must have transported it to the scene ofthe crime intact. It

was a glider with a ten meter wingspan; the cliffs were fivekilometers from where the plane was kept, and the town center was right in themiddle, so the killer would have had to take the long way around to avoid beingseen. Could they have flow it as a kite while moving it? If anyone saw a ropeleading into the sky they’d wonder what was on the end of it. And the weight ofone person would not have been enough to control Star Shooter once the windcaught it. The fastest way to get it there would be to climb aboard and fly it,and the winds were strong enough enough that the winds passing through the tenthad it almost at a hover. But like Steven said, the balance wasn’t yet right,and it was impossible for it to carry anyone. Yet in the report, that was howI’d got the plane to the cliffs. I’d left school, came home, picked up a knife,flown Star Shooter to the Motorize manor, spoken to Darlington, snuck out ofthe house unseen, and then flown the plane to the cliffs. Kenton was waitingfor me there, and when she rejected me, I stabbed her to death… I deniedeverything, but the report was finished, and I was allowed to return home. I’drather have stayed in jail, but I couldn’t make Lisa Lisa dote on me forever,so I reluctantly went home. The Westwood jail guards were starting to have fitsbrought on by overexposure to Lisa Lisa’s Hamon anyway; their eyes would rollback in their heads, and they’d stop moving entirely, as if lost in a daydream. Lisa Lisa had a fiery temper, so I privately suspected she’d used Hamonthat was a bit too strong. Lisa Lisa accompanied me from the cell to the frontdoor without anyone noticing, but once we reached the door she said,

“OK, I’d better be off, then.”

“Eh? You aren’t coming home with me?”

“I’ve got work for Straits. I’d been playing hooky.”

“What? I’ll miss you.”

“Don’t do that, Jorge. You’ve got to find the strengthwithin you. They’re going to take you to trial. It’s only going to get worse

from here.”

I knew that but…

“That’s depressing.”

“Come on, Jorge. Your friend was murdered, and they thinkyou did it. ‘Depressing’ is hardly strong enough, it is?”

Good point.

“Yeah…”

I had to agree. I’d lost Kenton, and was probably losingSteven as well.

“That’s true…”

And depending on how this trial went I could well loseeverything that mattered to me. I had to fight this.

“Thank you for everything, Lisa Lisa.”

She peered intently into my eyes.

“I need to be stronger,”

I said.

“I need to be strong enough to do this on my own.”

“You don’t need to be strong,”

Lisa Lisa said.

“You just need to be a grown man.”

“Then I’ll aim for that. And be stronger that way.”

“Mm. Don’t think you need to do this on your own, Jorge.I’ll come to help you again.”

“But if I’m not strong like you…”

“Jorge, it’s not like I can do everything on my own. I’m notstrong at all. You’re helping me just as much as I’m helping you.”

“Eh!?”

My mind was filled with warm, fuzzy memories of our timetogether in jail, so I genuinely didn’t know what she was talking about.

“When I was underground in Rome and terrified? You came tosave me, Jorge. You helped me more than you can know. You might even have savedmy life. There was that thing in the dark, remember? You noticed it too, right,Jorge?”

The gorilla spider.Pffffffffffffffffffffffffffft……….ffffbbbbbbbbtttt.

“Yeah, I did.”

“I still have no idea what that thing was, but I know it wasafter me. Just as it was about to attack me, you showed up and protected me,Jorge.”

I did?

“Yeah, but it’s not like I was brave or anything…”

“My point is, Jorge, finding people you can rely on givesyou strength. Whether or not they can actually be relied upon is beside thequestion.”

I went home. Mother and Penelope welcomed me, we ate dinner,and I went to my room. At last I could think, not about Kenton, but aboutTsukumojuku. When I’d seen him floating just off the ground in the Motorizemanor, it was definitely Tsukumojoku, alive, but not in any way normal. I’mcurrently in Japan, in the year 2012. I’m there with a different you – aJapanese boy completely unlike you, but also named Jorge Joestar. I’ve beentransported to a place called the Arrow Cross House, and I’ve gotten caught upin another case. That meant Tsukumojuku didn’t die on the boat; instead he timetraveled to Japan 107 years into the future. I thought this was a good thing.Japan was at war with Russia, and while the Japanese forces were on theoffensive, Russia’s Baltic fleet would probably annihilate them soon. Oncethey’d turned the tables and Japan had surrendered, and Korea was securelyunder Russian control, they’d clearly attempt to conquer Japan as well, whichmight have spelled trouble for Tsukumojuku. He was once again my only friend,so I was glad to hear he was in a world without war. And with another me. Wasthat Jorge Joestar descended from me? Then why was he in Japan? Would theJoestars move to Japan some day? How would something like that happen? Did somethinghappen in England? Would England go to war with Russia? Would they annex Japanas a protectorate? I didn’t know anything about war. Everything I knew abouttime travel came from the novel by H.G. Wells. I couldn’t imagine what theworld 107 years in the future was like. But at least I knew one thing for sure.Tsukumojuku had not

drowned to death. The thought made me want to go look forhim, made me feel like I had to find out what had happened to him. As hisformer partner. But what could I do? The boat Tsukumojuku was on sank off thecoast of Florida. I couldn’t travel to America to look into it, not now that’dbeen charged with first degree murder. If I left the country they’d think I wasrunning for it. And would there even be any evidence of time travel? Even ifthere was, would I be able to recognize it? Even if there was some clear andamazing proof that time travel had happened here what could I do with that? DidI really think I could chase after Tsukumojuku to the world 107 years in thefuture? Tsukumojuku was a genuinely special person. I was normal. There weremany, many things I couldn’t do, and I was still only sixteen. And I had todeal with these murder charges first. …he’d said he would probably meet meagain someday. I would just have to wait for that. What was it he’d said,exactly? The nature of my name suggests that we’ll meet again, one more time.His name? What did that mean? He’d said something about the kanji. I rememberedthe Japanese dictionary he’d given me. I looked it up, but there wasn’t anyspecial meaning. 九and 十were just 9 and 10.

I’d been charged, but since I was pleading innocent we hadto have a jury trial. In the opening statements the prosecutor spoutednonsense, and the supposedly amazing lawyer mother hired made a counterargument to the jury, dismantling the prosecutor’s theory. Witnesses werecalled, questioned, cross-examined, and questioned again, and this seemed to betaking a while. Since I couldn’t go to school while the trial was going on Ihad to study at

home, so once again Penelope became my tutor. She explainedeverything very well, so my studies went quickly, and I had more free time. Iwas bored, and I didn’t feel like mucking around with planes. But if I wentinto town I’d run into classmates or maybe even members of the Motorize family.What was happening to me was so freaky I couldn’t concentrate on reading. I’dliked messing around with planes and I had a lot of tools lying around, so Iwas wondering what else could keep my hands busy when mother came home andstepped out of the automobile she was using at work and I found my new toy.Motor cars! Vroooom! Hell yeah! I immediately asked to get a license. However,you couldn’t get a driver’s license until you were seventeen. The worlddefinitely seemed to think cars were for grown ups, but my mother was never oneto care about such things, and let me do as I pleased. I got the man who droveher to work and back to teach me how to drive, and I had the hang of it in notime. They were much easier to control than airplanes. They were built to beeasy to drive. I bought a car. A Rover 8. A two-seater that I immediately tookapart and considered trying to customize, but all the parts were hand made andreplacements weren’t easily available and unlike when I’d been messing aroundwith planes with Steven Motorize I didn’t have a teacher and was doingeverything by myself so I took a few parts off and looked and then put themback and looked, trying to figure out how engines worked, but of course itbroke. Wha ha ha. I was never actually that good at this stuff. No reason I wouldbe. So I took it to an automotive garage in London and then I met a collegestudent named John Moore-Brabazon. One glance at John told you he was someone.He wore an expensive suit poorly and stumped around the garage floor scowlingat every car like a particularly bold thief but as I watched he suddenly tookthe engine out of one car and started switching the

wheels on another, doing whatever he liked without any ofthe other mechanics saying anything so I asked and it turned out he actuallyowned all seven cars in the place and I thought wow, even the aristocrats don’thave that many how rich is this dude? Apparently he was private mechanic to aman named Charles Rolls who owned an automotive company. So four of the sevencars in here he owned for work-related research and the remaining three weretest designs given to him by his boss, and nobody but him was allowed to touchany of them. Gosh, that sounded fun. When I heard he was still a student I knewthere were incredible people in this world. I stood watching him poke at thisand that walking from car to car as the whim or idea struck him, taking piecesout, changing them, taking things apart, putting them back together. I washaving so much fun watching him I forgot my original plan to learn somethingabout how cars actually work and just watched in sheer admiration of hishandiwork. A shockwave was running slowly through me. It seeped to my core muchlike my first meeting with Kenton Motorize, but not just that; it also remindedme of when I first met Tsukumojuku, and I was beginning to get the hazy ideathat was I on the verge of another life change. So when John noticed me andspoke, I just thought it was happening again. And then he yelled,

“Quit staring at my ass, motherfucker!”

Eh? What did he just say?

“I wasn’t fucking looking!”

“Who the fuck is this brat?”

“Who you calling brat! You’re just sponging off your richfriend!”

“I earned that shit with my own two hands! I bet yourparents just bought you that car, didn’t they? Shitbird.”

Clang! He’d thrown a wrench at my Rover 8 so I totally lostit.

“What the fuck are you doing!?”

I yelled and considered fucking up his cars but it seemedlike a waste so I didn’t and instead shoved John out of the way and opened upthe Rover 8’s engine room and started fixing the broken part and was so mad Icould see how to fix the part I couldn’t figure out how to fix early so I fixedit myself and then banged the dent John’s wrench had made out from

the inside until you couldn’t tell it had ever been therejumped into the driver’s seat, looked over at John who was staring at me withhis mouth open and yelled,

“I’m gonna run you over, so stand still!”

Bang! Brrrrrrrrr the engine started up and I hit theaccelerator and really tried to run him over and wound up chasing after Johnbut he yelled,

“Fuck that!”

and run out of the shop and jumped into an working eighthcar he had parked out front and drove away and we ended up in a car chasethrough the industrial district. But it wasn’t a contest at all. John’s car wastwice as fast as mine and it just went shoop shoop away from me and ran circlesaround me and he shouted insults as my eyes filled with tears. Lots of childishshit like sticking his tongue out and nananabooboo and I got even more pissedoff but couldn’t catch him. John laughed his ass off,

“Let’s play tag through all of London!”

he yelled, and in a corner of my mind I thought shit, if Iget arrested it’ll fuck up the trial but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Fuck you! Just die!”

and we shot out of the factory startling horses andpedestrians and I followed as he dodged everything perfectly and was impresseddespite myself. By the time the mounted police started chasing us I waslaughing. Even though it would be really bad if they caught me. I was havingfun. I’d been bullied my whole life and never been much of a fighter and whileI’d let it bottle up inside me until I exploded and took a swing at someone afew times, John had pulled the rage out of me so easily the curses just spilledoff my tongue. It felt amazing. Liberating. To think I could talk like this!That I could trade blows instead of snapping! Later, John and I went back tothe garage and the worried mechanics shook their heads at us but soon we wereall laughing and John and I were friends. It wasn’t the way I’d imagined but mylife had, indeed, changed again. John was a member of the Royal AutomobileClub, and its star. To me, he was a magician. I mean, everything he turned hishands to not only got fixed, it worked better than he had before. If he sat inthe driver’s seat, that car would run and turn like never

before. If he drove off in it and came back, when he steppedout of it the entire vehicle would look polished to a new level of beauty. Whenhe raced, he was less interested in winning than in enjoying himself to thefullest; the results were too inconsistent for gamblers, but as a spectator hisperformance was full of gasp-inspiring moves and previously unheard ofstrategic maneuvers. The other drivers considered him one of the best. As theonly one of his friends younger than him, John quite liked me, but that oftengot me in trouble. John was very good at making fun of people, and every time Isaw him he’d come after me so tenaciously that I’d wind up fighting back tears.But I put up with it, and kept chasing after him and my own race resultsgradually improved, and people started to notice me, but the more people knewme the more they knew about him. Most people avoided me after finding out I wason trial for murder.

“Who cares if you killed her or not?”

John said. No, no, no, no, no.

“It matters!”

I said, but I knew what he meant. The truth didn’t changeour relationship. I was almost touched by this, but then he added,

“Besides, if war starts most men’ll wind up killers. Butwe’ll all go on living as if that’s normal.”

What was he talking about?

“Then just don’t go to war,”

I said. John laughed.

“You’re a fool, Jorge. The next war’s gonna be way biggerthan any before. Battlefields, soldiers, and weapons.”

I didn’t know what he meant, but he was right. I had neverreally had a knack for politics or international intrigue. When Japan utterlydestroyed the Baltic Fleet, sinking damn near every ship in it and emergingvictorious over Russia I thought,

“Daaamn, Japan,”

but I just wasn’t that interested in Japan as long asTsukumojuku wasn’t there.

I was sick to death of trials.

I mean, the police had a bullshit report and the trial wasbased on that bullshit and nobody involved believed a word of it so there wasno way they’d ever be able to convince anyone to believe a word of it. Not oncehad they managed to get all twelve jurors to buy into the bullshit so they keptreturning hung juries and starting over, and the third time they finally got anot guilty verdict and before I could even breathe a sigh of relief theattorney general declared there were grounds to overturn the not guilty verdictand the trial continued in the appellate court. And so I turned seventeen andeighteen still under suspicion, graduated Hugh Hudson High without ever going back,and refused to go to college despite mother and Penelope’s pleas. After all,not one good thing had ever happened to me in school. And I was finallystarting to give John a run for his money in RAC races, and automobiletechnology was advancing like you wouldn’t believe, and a year before John’sboss Rolls had put out the Silver Ghost, which could do 80 kph without anynoise and a guy named Ford in America had started mass producing his T seriesand this was the age of cars, baby! And here I was, right at the side of thecenter of the heart of that fire and John went off to a circuit race in theArdennes in Belgium and hopped in a Minerva and drove 600 kilometers in sixhours fourteen minutes and five seconds and won. Trapped back in England I gota call from John afterward.

“Hey! We’re doing planes next.”

Ehhhhhhhhhh!?

John and John’s boss, Charles Rolls, were basically allabout adventure. Rolls had decided his company was gonna start making airplaneengines, and John was super into it, too. I’d mentioned playing around withairplanes before Kenton’s murder, and John said,

“Maybe you’re better at airplanes than you are cars.”

Which irritated the shit out of me but I ended up gettingback into planes

too, and that made me want to talk to Steven Motorize again.

I couldn’t exactly just go ring the doorbell at the Motorizemanor, but Steven had never really come to school that much and didn’t seem tohave any friends to speak of, and since I had stopped going to school entirelyI wouldn’t have known who to ask anyway, so for lack of any other options Iasked my mother, who said,

“He left home and is working in France somewhere.”

She didn’t seem to know anything more. I could have lookedinto it further but if he was out of the country then I couldn’t exactly go seehim and this wasn’t really the sort of thing you talked about over the phone soI was starting to give up when Penelope asked,

“What do you want with Steven Motorize?”

She sounded weirdly pissed.

“Uh, John and everyone are starting to get into planes now,”

I said.

“Hunh? Planes? ……Jorge, don’t do that. I can’t seeanything good coming from planes.”

“Eh? But John’s already made up his mind.”

“Jeez! John, John, John! You let your friends control everyaction you take? Every time you meet someone you stop thinking about anythingelse. It’s creepy!”

Oh dear. Creepy, hunh?

“…is it?”

I could kinda see how it might be. I’d done the same thingwith Tsukumojuku. I was pretty bad at making friends, so wound up being superdevoted to the ones I did make.

“…I mean, I guess you did that with me, too. But I worry,you know?”

Penelope said, and now I was a little worried two, and thena couple of days later Darlington Motorize came to the Joestar mansion. Ihadn’t seen her since the day her sister Kenton was killed.

The last two years had aged Darlington out of her old sweet

and gentle disposition. That had been replaced with anintimidating formidability.

“Hello. I apologize for the sudden visit,”

she said, politely.

“Uh, sure…it’s been a while,”

I said, at a loss for words.

“We need to talk. Do you have a minute?”

“Yeah, I guess. …should we step outside?”

It was the weekend, and Penelope was here. If the two ofthem saw each other it would lead to trouble, I thought.

“Let’s,”

Darlington agreed.

“It’s high time the two of us spoke. We haven’t even seeneach other all this time.”

We stepped into the beech woods out back, but Darlingtondidn’t actually say anything. Finally, I broke the silence.

“I know it’s a bit late now, but I was very sad to hearabout Kenton.”

Darlington’s expression didn’t change. She didn’t respond atall. She just kept walking, so I said nothing else. We walked away through thedappled light of the woods. At last, Darlington said,

“You remember William Cardinal?”

? Where’d that come from?

“Sorry, who?”

“My boyfriend.”

“Oh…the athlete who was very smart and going to be adoctor but really wanted to be writer?”

Darlington seemed surprised that I’d remembered all of that,but she was no more surprised than I was.

“Quite the memory you have there,”

she said.

“I guess it came as quite a shock,”

I said, intending it to cover the awkwardness but it feltuncomfortably close to the truth.

“Eh? To you?”

Darlington said. I didn’t blame her.

“Why?”

“Well…like I said then, it felt like you were suddenly attackingme. I was scared.”

“Sorry. I was just a confused little girl back then. Stillam.”

She seemed to have grown up a lot to me.

“No, I had no reason to react like I did, either. Anyone hasthe right to their opinion of any novel, or any person.”

“But it was bad form on my part to tell you somethingmean someone said about you.”

“…………..”

I didn’t disagree with that.

“It doesn’t matter now. I never imagined I’d speak to youagain. Even without what happened to Kenton. But I’m glad to see you. Thanksfor coming.”

“………..”

“So what about Mr. Cardinal?”

“He’s saying he’s going to enlist before becoming a doctor.Wants to be a commissioned officer. He’s good at motivating people. He might bea better commander than a doctor.”

“Hunh. No more novels?”

“He hasn’t spoken about that lately.”

“But you’re still seeing him.”

“I am.”

“Oh.”

“That disappointed look on your face suggests I’ve given youthe impression he isn’t a good man.”

“Well…maybe.”

“So…I don’t want this to seem like another sudden attack,but I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. Do you mind?”

“Eh? ….go ahead.”

“William is hardly a perfect man. He can be shallow andboring, and tactless but I think he’s far better than you.”

“Eh….I mean, I’m not gonna argue that he’s not a better ormore normal person than I am, but…”

“Listen. You have a way of getting all the girls around youto look at you.”

“Eh? What do you mean?”

“Don’t deny it.”

“I really don’t know what you mean.”

“Then think about it.”

“Eh….?

“That’s what I wanted to point out. For two years now.”

“Eh…….? Sorry.”

“You’re too quick to apologize. You don’t evenunderstand what I’m talking about.”

“No…”

“What’s worst about you is that you don’t even realize whatyou’re doing, and that you aren’t actually looking for romance with any of thegirls you lead on. You’ve already got someone for that. You always have.”

“Eh……..?”

Oh. I knew what that meant. It meant I was pathetic.

We walked through the woods in silence a while. Then we wentback to the house, and Penelope’s voice came down from the stairs over theentrance hall like thunder.

“What is that woman doing here!?

“Hello, Miss de la Roza,”

Darlington said calmly. They clearly already knew eachother.

“Your family is trying to frame Jorge for murder! How dareyou come here!”

“That’s what I came to talk about.”

“Even if you drop the charges now, it won’t get Jorge thesetwo years back!”

Eh!? I thought. Oh, I guess that was also a possibility! Butbefore the thought could cheer me up Darlington shook her head.

“I’m afraid there’s no chance of that happening. Truth is,the reason I came here is because my father has found new evidence that seemslike it will dislodge the trial from this quagmire. Jorge, I think you hadbetter look into the possibility of a plea bargain. Unofficially, of course.”

A plea bargain? What?

“Hunnnnhhh!?”

Penelope roared. I could hear a faint rustle, as if thefurniture on the porch and the trees outside and the ground itself were alladvancing on Darlington.

Shit. Penelope was summoning her locked room clown.

“What!? You’re telling Jorge to plead guilty!? In exchangefor a reduced sentence?”

Whaaat!?

“Calm down and think about it, Miss de la Roza. This newevidence will shift things in favor of a guilty verdict. This trial… everyoneknows it’s only happening because Ben Motorize wants revenge. The case is amess. Everyone involved is just willing it into whatever shape they can. Andonce my father makes up his mind about something he sees it through to the end.He always gets his way. And he just found a major puzzle piece that’ll makethat happen this time. The judge…look, this is super off the record and all,but it’s almost public knowledge he’s absolutely over the moon about this newevidence. If they find Jorge guilty, the story they have about him preparing aweapon and asking her out only to be rejected? The sheer selfishness of thatmotive, followed by the elaborate steps he supposedly went to to obscure thetruth…he’ll be given the maximum sentence allowed. You’ll be in prison for along, long time, Jorge.”

But then I could live in prison with Lisa Lisa. That was myfirst thought, but a moment later I realized how pathetic that was, and feltdizzy. I was certain Lisa Lisa would come with me to prison; it’s not like Iwanted that to happen but if it did it wouldn’t be that bad, and knowing thatmade me willing to accept it. That’s how fucked up my mind was. I was preparedto waste Lisa Lisa’s life just to ease my loneliness, lessen my fear, and calmmy anxiety. I wasn’t just pathetic; I wasn’t even a man. I was scum. I couldn’tallow myself to go to prison, I thought. Lisa Lisa would absolutely come therewith me, and if nothing changed I would be unable to tell her not to. As timepassed trapped in that tiny world I was sure I would convince myself it wasn’tthat bad. Don’t make girls protect you. Darlington had just told me that. I hadto tattoo those words on my very bones. I had to win my innocence.

“Darlington,”

I said.

“What is this new evidence?”

“………..”

“Please. You don’t really believe I actually killed Kenton,do you?”

I’d never asked her that before, and when she didn’t answerI started getting nervous. She’d met me that day at the Motorize house…didtheir timeline actually seem believable to her? Or was this new evidence thatdecisive? At last she spoke.

“…they found two witnesses. They’ll testify that they sawa plane fly out of your garden, and that they saw a plane hidden in our garden.These aren’t false witnesses my father hired, Jorge.”

For a moment, my legs went wobbly. Their timeline had beennothing but a guess. Now they had evidence to proved part of it. That woulddefinitely have an impact on the trial.

“How do you know they aren’t false witnesses?”

From the top of the stairs Penelope yelled,

“Stop it, Jorge! Get away from that woman!”

The entrance hall shattered around Darlington, and dirt roseup around her, forming new walls around Darlington. I took a step closer toher, placing myself inside the walls. The moment the locked room was done theclown would appear to hang Darlington and me.

“Jorge! Get out of there!”

I ignored Penelope, and kept my eyes on Darlington.

“Because the witnesses are me,”

Darlington said.

“And the woman on the stairs.”

“……….! What!?”

“That crazy lady’s been keeping quiet about what she saw,because she thought it would be bad for you. So have I. Jorge, your plane flewaway from here at 3:00 PM, and landed at my house at 3:30 PM. I…and the ladybuilding dirt walls around us with some mysterious power… We’ll be called tothe witness stand. She might deny everything. But they’ve already foundalternative proof.”

“Proof? What is it?”

“She stopped by the house on her way home from work, and

saw the plane you could never get to fly flying away. Whatdo you think she did?”

“………..?”

“She wrote a note congratulating you. ‘Congrats on StarShooter’s first flight, Jorge! Won’t the rain be a problem? Make sure you showme next time, P.’ On memo paper from work. With Star Mark Trading’s logoprinted at the top.”

“…………!”

I turned around, saw a mix of anger and panic on Penelope’sface, and knew what Darlington said was all true, that Penelope really had seenStar Shooter fly away, and that the plane really had not been taken apart, butthat someone had climbed aboard and flown it out of here.

“Jorge, you idiot!”

Fed up with trying to get me to leave the locked room,Penelope left the top of the stairs, ran down the hall, and we could hear the doorto her room slam. With her gone, the dirt room stopped growing just before itsealed itself off.

“This is amazing,”

Darlington said. I looked, and there was a clown made ofbits of our porch standing there, a rope made from grass from our yard in its hands,looking like it was about to slip that garrote around Darlington’s neck. Therewas another rope slung over its shoulder for me.

“Sorry,”

I said. But Darlington did not seem upset.

“You weren’t scared?”

“She wouldn’t really try to kill me. And I’m not the type togive in to a threat. And I know someone else with a sad power like hers.”

“? ………oh…..Steven?”

The wound wings. But Darlington ignored the question.

“Well, I’d better go. Jorge, think about the plea bargain.Seriously, thank about it.”

She turned to the walls.

“Should I just break it?”

she said, and gave it a push. It crumbled away around thehole she’d made, all four walls falling to pieces until there was nothing but agiant hole in the entrance hall.

“Bye.”

And with that, Darlington was gone, and I went upstairs toPenelope. She was lying on her bed, crying. I didn’t know what to say. Thinkingof what she’d hidden the last two years, and how it must have weighed on her, Icould never begin to express my gratitude in words. And now that it had allbeen in vain, and the truth had come out, and she was crying, I knew I couldnever comfort her. I could never her cheer her up with empty words like ‘It’llbe OK’. I would be found guilty. Penelope knew that, and that’s why she wascrying, and that fact was starting to sink into my thick head as well. Theweight of it stole the power of speech from me. I didn’t know how plea bargainsworked, but perhaps we should think about it. Perhaps we should focus ongetting a reduced sentence. But I hadn’t killed Kenton Motorize. Was thisreally accepting reality? As I stood there silently, I heard a voice behind me.

“Heavens, what is going on here?”

I turned around, and found my mother standing at thedoorway.

“Jorge, have you given up already?”

“……..eh……..? What…..?”

“…you can drive cars and you may soon fly planes, but areyou actually still a child? Think.”

“Um…but the situation’s hopeless.”

“So? You’ve given up?”

“…what else can I do?”

“It’s your life. Think for yourself.”

“…………”

Wouldn’t it all be settled if I just accepted it? As thelamest thought to ever be thought ran through my head, mother said,

“When you give up, it won’t just be your reputation that’sdamaged. The Joestar family name, the Pendleton family name, the Star MarkTrading company name, the name of the Royal Automobile Club you joined, and thename of anyone who befriended and introduced you, like John Moore-Brabazon. Andthat’s not all. You’d be betraying Penelope and my feelings,

betraying Lisa Lisa’s faith in you, and betraying thatdetective you were friends with, Tsukumojuku. You’d hurt Steven and DarlingtonMotorize as well. But above all you’d insult poor dead Kenton Motorize. Doesnone of that matter to you?”

“It matters! All of it does!”

I blurted. She was right. Giving up meant ignoring theconsequences. How could I ever consider that not worth it? Penelope had stoppedcrying, and sat up. She was staring at me, tears drying on her cheeks.

“It matters,”

I said, again. But what could I do about it? I didn’t voicethat thought. I had to think. Shit! I’d spent too much of my life relying oneveryone else. My brain wouldn’t budge. But that was just another way of givingup. Think!

“So…I have to prove my own innocence,”

but I couldn’t just say that and have it be true. It didn’tmatter what the hell I felt I wanted to do. How could I go about proving I wasinnocent? It was patently obvious I could never have killed her. I was infucking Rome! But that was just another dead end. If I let myself get stuckhere I’d just chase my own tail around for hours. I had proven I was in Rome,and clinging to that fact was just being defensive. I had to go on the attack.Bring the fight back to them. But how? The police report was a complete fake.They were trying to make everyone believe a lie. We’d already made all thepoints we had to make. They’d managed to get everyone to ignore what we had tosay. Repeating the same thing would get us nowhere. If they had new evidence,then we had to bring something new to the table as well. But what? There wasonly one true version of my actions that day. But that argument wasn’t gettingus anywhere. So I had to think of something else. Something not about me. Icouldn’t think of anything…but the reason I thought that was because I wasthinking about what I could do. What I thought I could do what less than what Icould actually do. Because I was

pathetic like that. I could do more than that, but it waseasier not to. Did I really believe I couldn’t do anything? I wasn’t sure, soI’d better think about what I should do, figure out what was needed to get meout of this mess. I had to prove that I hadn’t done it. But how?

“Find the real killer,”

I said. No sooner had the words left my mouth than I startedshaking like a leaf. Ohhhhhhhhhhh! I could feel a hot flash riding up theinside of my thighs. I had spent all that time with the great detectiveTsukumojuku. When I was with him I had never once tried to solve anythingmyself but I would have to imitate what he’d done. I had seen first hand how hewent about it, how he thought his way through all those mysteries. I could dothis. Could I? No. I had to. Everything around me was depending on it.

“That’s right,”

mother said.

“That’s also what Darlington wanted to say. Didn’t yourealize?”

“Ah….”

Oh. That was why she had come all this way to tell me. Ofcourse Darlington would never believe I’d done it. And it was totally out ofcharacter for her to suggest pleading guilty in exchange for a reducedsentence.

I’m not the type to give in to a threat.

She’d said that because I seemed like I was about to give in

to one.

“Worst comes to worst, I’ll tell everyone I did it, soyou just do the best you can,”

Penelope said, and I gaped at her.

“You can’t, Penelope,”

mother said, angrily. Penelope just stared back at her.

“I mean it.”

Jesus, I thought. How pathetic was it that I was making agirl say something like that? My whole life I’d been saved by girls. I had todo this.

“I swear I’ll find the real killer.”

“I’ll help!”

Penelope said, jumping excitedly to her feet. I hesitated abit, remembering Darlington’s line, Don’t make girls protect you. But I alsoremembered what Lisa Lisa said, and let her help. Finding people you can relyon gives you strength. Whether or not they can actually be relied upon is besidethe question. Behaving properly meant people trusted you, tried to help you.The more people like that you had, the more you could accomplish. Instead ofletting them do everything for you, you just had to do the best you could andpeople would naturally step up to help you out. Penelope got mother to give herleave from work so she could focus on assisting me. Since I was finallyinterested, she told me she’d actually been investigating the murder of KentonMotorize for the last two years. Not only solidifying details that would beneeded for the trial, but also chasing the killer’s actions. Since Darlingtonhad leaked us info (admittedly, disguised as a threat) she now knew that StarShooter had gone to the Motorize manor after leaving our place. It had not beentaken apart for transport. Flying it like a kite would have attractedattention, and the winds were too strong. So someone must have been inside StarShooter as it flew. But who could possibly do that? I saw your plane. It wasbalanced well. You were almost ready to fly it, Steven had said, when he cameto visit me. It could fly, just not support the weight of an adult. So a child?I thought, and remember how Faraday had described Tsukumojuku. He looked like ayoung boy, primary or middle school. Come to think of it, I’d noticed thatTsukumojuku was floating. What if he’d been flying Star Shooter? He was adetective, and anything he tried his hand at he

quickly mastered as if he’d been doing it for years. Hecould have learned to fly a glider in no time. Yeah. He’d come to see me. Or…wait. He’d said he’d come there for me, and he’d come to where I was, but he’dcome from 107 years in the future…if he was coming to see me from that faraway would he be able to arrive exactly where I was, at the Motorize manor?Wouldn’t he have stopped by the Joestar mansion first? Then once he discoveredI was out, he would have been able to use his detective skills to quicklyascertain my location, and borrowed my airplane…because he was in a hurry. Hehad to join my hand with Lisa Lisa’s. That was how Darlington had come to seeStar Shooter abandoned at the Motorize Manor! But of course Tsukumojuku wouldnever have murdered Kenton Motorize. But the airplane had been found on thecliffs. So perhaps… Perhaps after moving me to Rome and Lisa Lisa, he had notvanished immediately, but climbed aboard Star Shooter once again. And flown tothe cliffs. Where he found Kenton’s corpse. In the rain on a deserted cliff.Unable to report his discovery in person, he had flown my plane as a kite toensure she was discovered quickly. Which Steven did. Hmm, it made a certainkind of sense. In other words, the one who murdered Kenton and the one whomoved the plane were different people. Forget the plane. My target had to be themurder itself. Once again we started at the Joestar mansion. Following themovements of the knife with the Joestar crest on it. This had been assumed totravel with the airplane, causing confusion, but for now I was assuming it hadmoved separately.

“Do we believe our knife was stolen the day of the crime?”

I asked. Penelope nodded.

“That’s been verified. It was stolen while the Joestarmansion housekeeper was on her afternoon break. The police checked into it, butit was an old knife, sharpened regularly over the years, and the sheen of theblade and a few small marks on it proved it was ours.”

Tch. If there was any chance it had been missing earlier andsimply not noticed that would mean it and the plane didn’t share start and endpoints. But if that was the truth, then oh well. That meant that Tsukumojukuand the killer trying to frame me for Kenton’s murder must have been on ourproperty at the same time. That thought reminded me of something. Are you insome sort of danger right now? Tsukumojuku had asked me that. Turned out he wasright. I was. His mysterious power had sensed it, and brought him to me, andtransported me to Rome. And thanks to that the killer’s plan had been thwartedfor at least the last two years. If I had simply gone home after speaking toDarlington I’d have been trapped completely in his web, and thrown in jailwithout a second thought. Someone was out to get me. Crap. That was a scarythought. I had to find them quick. How had the knife been moved? It was an hourand a half by foot from my house to the scene of the crime. If he’d planned tokill Kenton, then he would have started by making sure Kenton left the gates ofthe school, but there wasn’t enough time. She left school at 3:30 PM. She waskilled, at the latest, at 4:10 PM. In that forty minutes the murder happened,and Tsukumojuku found the body, tied the glider to it like a kite, and thenSteven saw it and came running. Hmm. Something about that seemed wrong. Had itbeen pure coincidence that Tsukumojuku found her body? He was a detective. Hemight have had a reason to head up the cliff. Was he already thinking about itwhen he met me in the Motorize manor? Or did he discover it after sending me toRome? If he had known something, why hadn’t he mentioned it to me? And he wouldn’thave asked if I was in danger! He’d have been more specific. Something hadhappened after I vanished. Something was hidden in the Motorize home that ledhim to suspect Kenton was murdered. …however, that had been my first and lasttime entering the main building, so I had no idea what that could be. On theother

hand, that would go for Tsukumojuku as well, I thought. Keepthinking. Get back to the knife. Once Kenton had left school it was too late,so they must have come to get the knife first, and then gone to kill Kenton onthe cliff, which meant they already knew where Kenton was going that day. Whocould possibly have guessed that Kenton would have gone to the cliff in thatdownpour? Kenton had told Steven she was going to meet me, apparently, but whohad lied to her about me wanting to meet there? They must be the killer, butthey had to be someone I’d pick to give her the message. There were very fewpeople who knew that Kenton and I were close, and would think it was normal forthe two of us to meet on the cliff. All of those people were very close toKenton, too. Or, I thought, perhaps meeting me was a lie Kenton herselfinvented. I didn’t think Kenton had a boyfriend or anything, but would I haveknown if she had? No, I couldn’t imagine any secret boyfriend would have calledher to the cliff. Kenton would have seen that cliff as a place for the three ofus. I was stuck again, so I went back to the knife. I still couldn’t explain itat all. Were there any other clues?

“Penelope, about the knife…did they find anything elsebelonging to the killer?”

As I asked, I had an idea.

“Footprints, for example?”

It had been raining that day, so it seemed likely there weretracks left when he entered the house. But Penelope shook her head.

“None. The police and I both looked…but there wassomething strange. We found drops of rain water from an open window down thehall into the kitchen. But no footprints. Like he’d been floating in the air.”

Well, that just made me think of Tsukumojuku again, but no,no, he had nothing to do with Kenton’s murder.

“Which reminds me, there were no footprints but yours in oraround your tent, Jorge. That’s one reason why they suspected you.”

Ah, that’s because Tsukumojuku was floating…him again.

He could have done it, and that would avoid the absurdcoincidence of two people with different motives in the same place at the sametime. Was there no chance that Tsukumojuku had taken the knife? I couldn’timagine he’d actually murdered Kenton, but given that he’d traveled through timeto see me was it really out of the question that he’d taken a knife from myhouse? To protect himself? No, that didn’t work. Tsukumojuku had guessed that Iwas in danger. Perhaps he had taken the weapon to help him protect me. Thenwhat happened? He flew Star Shooter to the Motorize manor. I seemed fine. Heleft the house without using the knife, got on Star Shooter, and found Kentonwhile he was flying. She was dead. He couldn’t report the discovery himself, sohe turned Star Shooter into a kite to call people to her, and left the knifethere knowing full well it would be mistaken for the murder weapon? It justdidn’t make any sense. I decided to force the hypothetical a step farther. Wasthere really no chance that Tsukumojuku had murdered Kenton? What if Kenton hadbeen the threat to me he had mentioned? No, no, that didn’t work. Kenton was myfriend. Even if she wasn’t, she wasn’t the kind of girl to do anything horribleto anybody. Ever. But that meant Tsukumojuku didn’t take the knife, either.Which meant the knife’s movements were a mystery again. Since I was justsitting there thinking in silence, Penelope asked,

“Jorge, are we done with the footprints?”

“Ah, yeah. Sorry, I was just thinking about why KentonMotorize would have gone to the cliff.”

“Oh, I did look into that, but nothing really stood out.I’ve questioned the students at her school. But her classmates all say therewas nothing out of the ordinary that day. They all thought Kenton Motorize wasa little odd to begin with; she never really talked to anybody else, and eventhough she was attractive and well-known the boys had pretty much given up onasking her out.

They didn’t notice anything different that day…althoughthe kids I spoke to were a little surprised about one thing. The school wasasking about her plans for the future, and she’d said she was hoping to get ajob after school ended. Like, she’s got a title, why would she need a job?”

Hunh, I thought. I’d sort of assumed she would go on livingin the Motorize manor, flying planes with Steven. But the times were changing,and maybe Kenton had more ambitious ideas.

“At any rate, it’s much too deserted a spot for someone tocall her too, and it’s too far away. Would any girl really go to a place likethat alone? She ended up getting killed, but I can’t imagine she’d agree tomeet someone she thought might kill her in a place like that,”

I said. Penelope agreed with me vehemently.

“Yes! Exactly!”

“Arghhhhhh, I dunno! I can’t think of any reason why Kentonwould have gone there!”

I groaned.

“Then why not go?”

Penelope suggested.

“? Where?”

“To the cliff. We’re just sitting here thinking, but perhapswe should start by visiting the scene of the crime?”

I felt sure Tsukumojuku had often said the same thing, butit had slipped my mind entirely.

Two years since I’d been to these cliffs. A lot of memorieshere. This hill wasn’t actually Motorize property or anything, but I foundmyself glancing over my shoulder as if Steven might show up at any minute. Theslope down from the cliff top was gentle; there was a little forest at thebottom, and beyond that I could see the roof of the Motorize manor. Stevenwasn’t there, I knew. He left home and is working in France somewhere.

“This is where Kenton’s body was found,”

Penelope said, pointing at a large rock. Star Shooter’s ropehad been tethered to that rock and to Kenton’s body. I knew that rock; it washard to

believe anything so grisly had happened here. But that’swhere Steven found her body. Kenton had been stabbed twenty-three times in theface and body, and tied to this rock, positioned so she was looking down at theMotorize home. When Steven found her, she was still warm; she’d been killed notlong before. Running that through my mind, something tugged at my mind again.Just like it had back at the house, when I was sitting with Penelope, thinking.Something wasn’t right. Something was bugging me. What? When? Where?Tsukumojuku had flown Star Shooter up here, seen Kenton, and tied the glider toher as a signal. Steven had seen it, and ridden his horse up here. Somewhere inthere. But what was it that was bothering me about that? Steven’s horse. Stevenhad ridden a horse to find his sister’s dead body? He might have started out onhorseback…I looked back down the hill. On his way up the hill from the house,Steven would have been able to see the top of the cliff, see her body longbefore he got here. It was a gentle slope all the way to their house. With theplane as a guide, even in the rain, he’d have seen her the second he left thewoods. But if he saw Kenton lying there, why wouldn’t he have sprouted wings?He would have. He always grew those wings when he was in a hurry to savesomeone. He wouldn’t have wasted five or ten minutes riding up the slope whenhe could be at his sister’s side in a single swoop. Of course not. He wouldhave grown them if he needed to. Steven didn’t mention that specifically, butit was a minor detail. Not important. Or was it? He’d spoken to me face to facebut didn’t mention his wings. Wasn’t that odd? I thought about it some more.Then a thought struck me. Tsukumojuku wasn’t the only one who could float abovethe ground. Steven Motorize could also have flown my plane.

What was I thinking? Kenton was Steven’s sister. They were

very close. And they were my friends. But the wheels in mybrain kept spinning. If Steven had killed Kenton, and was trying to frame mefor it, suddenly everything fell into place. I’d told him where I was going,and with his wings he could get to my house and back in minutes. Flown to myhouse, and stolen a knife. He could have murdered Kenton anywhere. Then placedher back on the clifftop, parked the plane outside the Motorize manor to matchmy movements, then taken it to the cliff top and tied it to her, flying it highto explain how he’d come to find her first. Finally, he called the police. Oncehe got home again he would find out I had vanished into thin air without everleaving the Motorize manor. Despite carefully murdering Kenton at a time I’dhave trouble establishing an alibi, he played the tragic role of a brother witha dead sister, coming to visit me in jail six days after I’d been put there,ten days after her death, not because he was grieving, but because he had towait for his back to heal and the wings to fall off. I believe you. You wouldnever kill Kenton. Had he been lying to my face? No way. I actually shook myhead, even though Penelope was looking at me. I couldn’t tell her about thisyet. Steven would never do a thing like that. I kept repeating that until Iremembered something else. I know someone else with a sad power like hers. WhenDarlington said that to me, was it a hint? A sad power? That made sense, Ithought. That’s why Ben Motorize was so hell bent on sticking the crime on me.He was protecting his son. Or at least protecting the reputation of his familyname. The reason he’d let a son of noble birth go work in France was because hewanted to get him away from all this till it settled down. This also explainedwhy the last two years had managed to make Darlington so intimidating andformidable. That was the formidability of a girl suddenly thrust into the

center of her family affairs, and the honed intensity ofsomeone who’d been grappling with her family’s secret all this time. Ohhh,Steven Motorize! Was it true? What happened!? Why would you ever kill Kenton?You were so close! Until I met them, they’d flown planes together, laughing andhappy! I looked up at the sky, and remembered. The kids I spoke to were alittle surprised about one thing. The school was asking about her plans for thefuture, and she’d said she was hoping to get a job after school ended. Like,she’s got a title, why would she need a job?”

That was it. Kenton’s father would never have allowed her todo that. She wanted freedom, would have done anything to get away from him. Butleaving her father meant leaving home. And that meant leaving Steven. That wasmotive enough for murder. But, I thought… What need was there to frame me forthe murder? Did he have reason to resent me!? I don’t get it! I just don’t getit! I took a few unsteady steps towards the edge of the cliff, and Penelopethrew her arms around me.

“Careful!”

Three steps further and I’d have fallen. And Steven wasn’there to catch me any more.

“That reminds me,”

Penelope said.

“Harriet Motorize, their mother, threw herself off thesevery cliffs.”

“Steven would never have let Kenton go. But Kenton saidit was better to die than to be trapped in a cage her whole life. She threwherself off there to torture Steven,”

Darlington said. Three days after my first visit to thecliffs in three years, neither Darlington nor I mentioned plea bargains.

“I wasn’t there myself, but I know what happened. Stevenfirst grew those wings the day he couldn’t save our mother. Kenton

knew that as well as I did. And she told him she’d throwherself off those cliffs over and over until she died, too. Steven couldn’tstand it. Not the sadness of seeing her try to kill herself over and overagain. The pain of having his wings rip out of his back every time she did.You’ve seen them, right, Jorge? Steven’s wings. Those huge, painful lookingwounds. The pain he felt every time they came out must have been unimaginable.But Steven always smiled and acted like it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing.Wings made of flesh and bone tearing their way out of his back. Kenton knewjust how much they hurt, but she kept pushing him until he exploded. All theanger he’d bottled up over the years. He realized that she knew how hesuffered, and kept placing herself in danger, taking advantage of him, doingwhatever she liked, torturing him. Both of them taking their stress out on eachother. Kenton was angry all the time. Steven was bottling up his pain,pretending not to be angry. They could never have kept that up forever. And theyboth understood each other perfectly. Kenton may have been murdered, but itmight as well have been suicide. I’m sure she did throw herself off the cliff,so it began and ended as a suicide. But I think this way they’re both free.Freed by the clash of their emotions.”

“But you have no proof,”

Darlington said, placing her tea cup on its saucer. Ididn’t.

“And you won’t testify in my favor.”

“Of course not. I am Darlington Motorize. I have too much Ineed to protect. You’re a Joestar. You understand.”

Did I? When I didn’t answer Darlington smiled.

“You were friends with Kenton and Steven, but you werealways happier than them. You’re the only heir the Joestars have. How can yoube so carefree? Were you born that way?”

Hmmm.

“Or is because you were brought up in a Spanishterritory?”

That might be part of it, but…

“Or because you know someone else will carry the Joestarfamily for you?”

That seemed closest to the mark. We’d moved Jonathan Joestarfrom La Palma Island to the basement here in England. He wasn’t dead, and thatmight be part of what I felt the way I did. Like someday it would be his dayagain, and I was just a temporary replacement. This was the first time I’d everconsciously thought that.

“If you’re going to keep trying to frame me, I’ll gofind Steven, and make him confess,”

I said.

“Tell your father that. I may not be able to leave thecountry, but I can do that much.”

Darlington looked me right in the eye.

“You’ve got more spine than I thought.”

Yeah. I wasn’t just the crap son of the Joestars. I was theboy driver gunning for the second rank seat in the RAC.

“I’ll tell him,”

Darlington said,

“But there’s a lot of people in on this now, and it won’t bethat easy to stop. The hardest thing for people to do is to know how to lower afist once they’ve raised it.”

I didn’t care how long it took. If we were doing planes nextI had a lot to do, and a lot to learn.

As I left the Motorize manor for the first time in twoyears, for the second time ever, I thanked Faraday for the tea. I have no ideawhat he thought of me, or just how much he knew, but he fixed me with a gentleexpression that stopped just short of being a smile and said,

“I believe it will rain this evening, so do hurry home,Master Joestar.”

That reminded me.

“Um, two years ago, that boy who came asking for me…didyou happen to look at his feet?”

He was silent for a moment, then said,

“…no. To tell the

truth, I have done my best not to think about that visitor.”

“? Why?”

“I found him quite sinister.”

“…I guess I can see that, but…”

“What did he look like to you, Master Joestar?”

“Eh? He was my friend, a Japanese kid. Nothing unusual.”

Other than the fact that he was floating.

“I see…”

Faraday said.

“To me he appeared to be a Spaniard. A terrifying Spaniardwith no eyes.”

“Hmm? He had eyes…wait, a Spaniard? Not a Japanese kid whospoke Spanish?”

“Yes. He wore his hat low, hiding his face, but there weredark pits where his eyes should be. His skin was browned, like any Spanishchild. He was maybe twelve or thirteen. I have never seen anyone Japanese, buthe was decidedly not Asian. Thinking back on it now I believe that wassomething evil in the shape of a child. When I heard you vanished and werediscovered underground in Rome, I knew that devil had done something to you,and it made absolute sense to me. I have never spoken to anyone about this.I’ve been too terrified. Much too terrified.”

What was he talking about? He was getting up there, buthardly seemed senile. What could he have seen that rainy evening?

A year later, I was cleared of all suspicion in Kenton’smurder, and joined the Royal Aero Club with head held high. The year after thatJohn was the first Englishman to officially fly a plane on the Island ofSheppey, and a year after that, in 1910, Charles Rolls died in an airplanecrash and John never again flew a plane, but there were plenty of us stillflying, so I kept flying too. And an ill wind began to blow.

You’re a fool, Jorge. The next war’s gonna be way bigger

than any before, in fields, soldiers, and weapons. Like JohnMoore-Brazabon had said, the Great War came, and with it…came other evils.