Kiki and the New Magic

Kiki Returns to Koriko

Fourteen years ago, in a little town sandwiched between a deep forest and gentle grassy hills, a girl named Kiki was born.

This girl had a little bit of a secret. Her father was an ordinary human, but her mother was a witch. So Kiki was half witch. When she turned ten, she decided to live as a witch like her mother. But the magic she could use wasn’t so extraordinary. All she could do was fly through the sky on a broom. Still, when it came to flying, she was no slouch. With her black cat Jiji riding on the back, she could pull off two and a half loop-­de-­loops easy-­peasy.

Jiji was raised alongside Kiki from the moment he was born, but he didn’t know any magic. Well, perhaps being able to talk to Kiki (and only Kiki) is magic if you think of it as such.

Kiki’s mother, Kokiri, can fly on a broom and make sneeze medicine. Kokiri’s mother—­Kiki’s grandmother—­knew other magic, like how to keep a packed lunch from going bad. It seems magic is steadily growing weaker, and fewer and fewer types remain. Some people say it’s because there’s no such thing as pitch-­dark nights or completely soundless silence anymore. They say that since there’s always a light or a noise somewhere, witches get distracted and can’t use their magic well. Though Kiki’s father, Okino, a folklorist who studies fairy tales and legends about witches, sprites, and the like, has said that magic once lost might return someday . . .

At any rate, when a witch turns thirteen, she chooses a night with a full moon and sets off on her own. She leaves the home where she was born and searches for a town or village with no witch. There she’ll build a life for herself using the powers she possesses. This is an important custom, ensuring that people know witches really exist in this world. The protagonist of this story, Kiki, set off on her own exactly one year ago. She found a large seaside town called Koriko, settled there, and started a delivery service. Over the past year, she’s had all kinds of experiences. There were sad times, surprising times, and exciting times. She also delivered all sorts of things, both visible and not. She managed to make it safely through the year and then went home for a visit.

Now Kiki and Jiji are making their return to Koriko. The broom is flying pleasantly.

“Hey, look, Jiji! It’s Koriko!” Kiki pointed up ahead. Koriko came into view, backed by the purple sky where the sun was just disappearing over the horizon. Was it the clock tower’s light that blinked on first? Kiki had only been gone a short while, but all her memories rushed back at once—­that road, that corner, the shape of that rooftop, the faces of all the people she’d met—­and her chest filled with no­stalgia.

“When I first got here last year, I was really such a baby witch!”

“You think so?” Jiji murmured with a snicker from where he sat perched on the broom’s brush.

“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing . . . I just wonder if you’ve really changed all that much.”

“You’re so mean.” Kiki straightened up in annoyance and flew faster.

The sun hid itself beyond the sea. A sliver of moon hung in the dark sky like the eyebrow of a stylish lady.

“Back then it was a full moon, but today we got this skinny little thing.”

“It’s kind of ghostly,” said Jiji.

Kiki pointed the tip of the broom’s handle down and gradually descended. In this area outside town, it was completely dark, and the leafy trees looked like pitch-­black monsters.

“Ow—­ouch! Ouch!” Kiki suddenly yelped. Something had hit her foot.

“Ack!” Jiji ducked. “Something just zipped past my cheek.”

“It stings! What could it be?”

Kiki hurriedly did an about-­face. Looking down, she saw a hazy white blob waving with large side-­to-­side motions at the top of one of the tallest trees. Just then, something else came whipping toward her.

“O-­ow!” Without thinking, Kiki covered her face with both hands, so—­oh no—­her broom began to plummet. The bell she had brought back as a souvenir for her good friend Tombo clanged.

“Mewww!” Jiji’s scream echoed.

Kiki frantically grabbed for the broomstick, but she couldn’t reach it. The broom was pointed straight down toward the ground.

“Here, over here! Grab a branch!” Jiji shouted, hanging from Kiki’s skirt.

Kiki flailed her arms and clung to the branch her hand touched. When she hung from the branch, it swung like a trapeze at the circus.

“Ooh, I did it! I did it!” A voice came from above.

When Kiki looked up, she saw a boy wearing white pa­jamas swaying atop a branch and peering down at her.

“It’s a successful hunt, Sis!” the boy called loudly again.

Below, a soft light came on, the door of the little house built leaning against the tree opened, and a girl came racing out.

“Not again! Cut it out!”

“I caught a big bat and a small bat! Look!”

Bats? When Kiki looked around in confusion, her eyes happened to meet the girl’s when she looked up. The girl’s whole body abruptly stiffened. She must have been about the same age as Kiki.

“Good evening,” Kiki said as she looked down, because someone had to say something. “I may be hanging from a tree, but I’m not a bat.”

The girl seemed to have grasped that and nodded.

“Lies! You’re a bat! You only transformed! Just look at you, all black!” the boy retorted, shaking the tree.

“Ah, please don’t move!” Just as Kiki screamed, the branch she’d been clutching broke with a loud crack, and in the next moment, she and Jiji were hurled to the ground. Kiki’s bottom throbbed. Jiji’s eyes were open, but he was stunned.

“Jiji, Jiji!” Kiki scooped him up in a panic and tugged on his whiskers. Jiji heaved a big sigh.

“Are you all right?” The girl peered at them nervously.

“Yes, somehow.” Kiki rubbed her sore lower back as she stood up. “I’m—­” she began.

“I know—­you’re the witch everyone in town is talking about, right?”

When Kiki nodded, the girl’s face brightened.

“A person from town told me. You make deliveries, right? They said you’re so cool when you fly.” Then she looked at Kiki, who was all dirty and dusty, and made a strange face. “But you fell?”

“It seems that way,” Kiki said, offended, as she patted her skirt to get the dirt off.

“Sis, I scored a direct hit! Isn’t that amazing?” The boy’s voice came from above again.

When the girl looked up, her whole body flinched. “Ah! Yaa, you know you’re not supposed to climb that high. D-­don’t move, you might fall!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” He made a show of reaching for the next branch up. “I’ll get closer to the moon, closer to the moon.” Singing, he swayed back and forth on purpose with his hands in the air. Kiki caught a glimpse of the rubber slingshot in his hand. The branch started swinging in a wider arc baaack and forrrth.

“Agh! That branch seems like it’s going to break. He’s going to fall.”

“Wait just a moment. I’m a delivery girl, so I’ll deliver that naughty boy to you.” Kiki cracked a smile. “Not that I can fly in a very cool way here . . .” she said, straddling her broom and rising straight into the air. Then she zipped all at once up to the top of the tree and somehow managed to grab the swinging boy by his pajama pants to lift him up.

“Stop it! No!” The boy kicked his feet. “Sis, the bat’s gonna eat me!”