Papa gaped at the bus. He had never seen it’s like before in the area and he had lived there for all of Hiro’s life. At the front, next to the driver’s seat, was a portly man with a jovial moustache. A conductor’s cap covered his grey hair. He bowed greetings to the group as they removed their hats and boarded, passing their palms over a black machine. The machine glowed green as it accepted their admission. Papa cautiously peered at it. He moved his hand in a quick wave and watched it glow green too.

“Come on!” Jonghyun called from the back of the bus. The others were already seated. They were fanning themselves with their hands, top hats on their laps. Only Key was oblivious to the dry air, absorbed in the photo album he carried. Papa hastily sat next to Onew. The doors squealed shut and the bus jerked forward. Its sudden movement threw Papa back into his seat.

Taemin was watching him and snickered. Now that he was certain that he would not get into trouble for Papa’s strange ability to see them, Taemin was devilishly curious of this mortal. They, themselves, were not mortal. They were Messengers, servants of the supernatural world that existed beside the mortal one. They, and others like them, were charged with a duty. Passed souls were bound to the mortal world by the weight of their memories. But too many souls in the mortal world will upset the balance. To pass over, the souls need to release their weight of memories; to have their last words heard by the person they needed to speak to. There was always something that mortals wished was never left unsaid.

Since they were of the supernatural world, they were not visible to mortals. And as far as Taemin could tell, Papa had not died. Normally they appeared to them as animals: birds, cats, dogs, and so forth. To Taemin, mortals were so narrow-minded that they could no longer interact with them, let alone see them in their human forms and touch them as Papa had. Or be allowed travel on the bus down Heavens Road.

“What are you?” Taemin finally asked Papa. Jonghyun snorted. He had been waiting for someone to ask that question. Minho merely swatted his head in reprimand for rude manners.

“I am a worker at the newspaper,” Papa answered hesitantly. He could sense that these were magical people. They could appear from thin air and transform rooms.

“That is not what I meant,” Taemin clarified.

“He is mortal,” Onew answered for Papa. Papa threw bewildered glances between them, unsure why Taemin needed to ask.

“Oh, really?” Jonghyun eagerly joined in their conversation, “Then how can he see us?”

“There must be a reason” was all that Onew would tell. He gave Papa a reassuring smile before closing his eyes to rest and ended their discussion of the matter.

With nothing else to do, Papa looked out of the window. The bus was moving through country he had not the power to dream of. The hillsides were purple and the lakes orange. There were darker patches of violets on the grass, and he thought them to be flower gardens. But they moved and fluttered away – butterflies, and thousands of them. The sky was a familiar red. The sun was setting. Papa jerked forward – he had not realised that so much time had passed! They had only moments earlier boarded the bus. “Saki! Hiro!” Papa thoughts were on how frantic his family would be with his absence.

Onew was startled awake by his panicked exclamations. He tried to calm Papa down, saying that he doubted that they would have noticed anything. “When you are in our world, Time likes to play around. Sometimes Time is normal, sometimes she is slow, or fast, or backwards. We just know when it is time for things to happen.” Onew patiently explained. An hour or two may have passed when Papa will return to his family. Maybe. Onew wasn’t too certain.

Off to the side, where he was sitting alone, Key scoffed. “It is a joke. How does one count 1000 years if Time doesn’t behave?” He said the last bitterly to himself. Onew reached over and patted Key’s hand, resting on the now closed photo album.

“But I don’t understand. Why do you have watches then?” Papa pointed out.

“We just do,” Onew answered with all seriousness.

Jonghyun threw his hands into the air with a sound of irritation. “Enough talk! Just sleep!” he commanded. Onew and Key fell quiet. Papa leaned back into his seat, his eyes unfocused on the roof of the bus. He now knew that he was no longer in the same world as his wife and son. And he wasn’t sure how he will be able to go back to them.

“Goodbye Subaru!” Jonghyun called out to the portly man at the front of the bus. They had arrived at their next destination.

“Why do you call him that? It is not his name.” Taemin asked him. 

Jonghyun gleefully grinned at the younger boy. “Because Subaru is ‘you are a bus’ said backwards and that man is always with that bus!” Jonghyun explained. Taemin’s brown eyes grew round with mirth. Sometimes he forgot that the older boy could be smart too.

“Come on, let’s go.” Onew commanded them. He put his pocket watch away and led them down the city street. Papa followed them and noticed the reflections on the shopfront windows. He was following five black cats. But the boys in front of him were clearly human. He looked again and realised that he could not see himself. Minho stopped next to Papa. It was obvious that their guest was too shocked to move. Minho put his arm around his waist and guided him along. Now was not the time to dawdle. The Whisper was still fresh but it was small and Time was running fast. They needed to deliver the Whisper as soon as they could.

Onew led his group to a nursing home. They surreptitiously pulled down their hats over their eyes and tiptoed into the yard, towards the grandmother sleeping in her chair. Her face was wrinkled with a life time of worry and stress. There were not enough laugh lines about her eyes.

Onew knelt next to the sleeping grandmother and withdrew the glowing crystal from his pocket – the Whisper. It was smaller than when he had collected it, but its light was as bright as it was formed. The rest of the group formed a close circle about the two. They watched Onew hold the Whisper to her ear and gently blow on it. The crystal dissolved into fine dust.

‘The memory of just us two in the Magician’s Tent has been with me all these years, mother. It has kept me warm in my times of doubt. I wanted to make you smile like you had back then with my own magic tricks. It was your smile that was my magic. Please smile more.’

The sleeping grandmother’s face instantly relaxed. She glowed in her sleep, a small smile gracing her lips. This was the power of the Whisper.

Onew stood up and fixed his hair beneath his top hat. He smiled his satisfaction and indicated for them to follow him back to the bus. Their pocket watches had switched Time and they were called to the next memory waiting to be collected.