The Girl from the Well

by Rin Chupeco

  I saw a geisha the other day, maybe only a couple of years older than I am. She had on the most gorgeous kimono I’ve ever seen, all butterflies and paper lantern lights, and her face was made up in white powder and rouge. She said she just got back from entertaining a client who’s an executive at one of the biggest companies here in Japan. Mostly just playing shamisen, which my friend says is a Japanese instrument that’s like a guitar, and she and a group of other geisha sang and danced for a bit. Though I imagine their singing and dancing would be much different from what you and I are used to.

  I’m helping a friend here named Allison to put together a thesis paper for when she returns to Canada. She’ll be majoring in Japanese studies this fall, and her paper’s called “The Development of Traditional Performance Arts in Response to Japanese Modernization” with a specialization in bunraku theater. Bunraku, I have since discovered, means “Japanese puppet shows.” We’ve been traveling to a lot of places, including a small island off Honshu, where we watched a few people put on some very elaborate bunraku performances. Some of the puppets cost as much as $2,000! Their clothes probably cost more than all of mine put together.

  As for the boy you mentioned, he reminds me one of this one girl I taught back in Perry Hills Elementary. Her name is Sandra. She’s probably not as creepy as your neighbor—she’s actually quite adorable when she wants to be—but sometimes she worries me.

  Just the other day, we went to Himeji Castle. We visited a place called Okiku’s Well, which they say a ghost haunts every night when the castle closes to visitors. I’m not quite sure how Okiku was able to leave Japan or wind up in Applegate, but I just had the oddest experience involving her at the well.

  It is because spirits do not often choose to linger in their places of death.

  Callie starts visibly when she hears, then sees me, nearly upsetting a cup of tea by her elbow. I realize my mistake and, not wishing to cause her more worry, drift past her sleeping companions and fade from view. When she is assured that I will not return, she resumes her typing, though her hands still shake.

  I’ll tell you more once I get to visit you and Uncle Doug. In the meantime, let’s not talk about odd kids and ghosts! How have you been feeling? The program won’t end for another couple of weeks, but I’ve already made arrangements with the Japanese representative to travel to Tokyo instead of leaving with the rest of the students. I’ll see you guys then!

  • • •

  The days pass slowly, and a profound change comes over Tarquin. He begins to lose weight. Dark circles form under the hollows of his eyes, and he becomes more exhausted, taking to sleeping more frequently. There is very little that I can do.

  Sorry for not replying sooner. I’m feeling tired lately, and I’ve been sleeping a lot. I haven’t been doing much while Dad’s at work, just walking around all day and taking in whatever sights I can find. I’ve been to the Shibuya shopping district, which has an insane number of people at any given time of day, even at night. It reminds me a bit of an organized stampede, like a sea of people rising up to do battle at Prada armed with nothing but shopping bags and a credit card, or something.

  I think that’s what’s been getting me tired. Dad’s worried. I can tell because he just canceled two meetings he had to attend so we could go to three doctors who ran a lot of tests but couldn’t find anything wrong with me, anyway. They think it’s a form of culture shock, trying to get used to being in Japan. I mean, I’m pretty shocked no one seems to know what ketchup is every time I set foot in a McDonald’s, because that must be the only reason they don’t serve it, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the deal breaker here.

  I even had sushi for the first time today. It tastes a little funny, but it’s not too bad. Finding any reason to eat food raw and skip cooking altogether sounds good in my book.

  So in summary—no one really knows what’s wrong with me, if you exclude the fact that I can see dead people.

  Nice to know a little more about Okiku. If I was a ghost I’d be bored haunting the same spot for hundreds of years. I’d try getting into Disneyland since I could get on all those rides for free. Or Las Vegas. Would an underage ghost still be allowed inside a casino, hypothetically?

  One other thing. This morning there was a small earthquake around Shibuya—nothing worrying, just strong enough to be noticed. And apparently the seismologists they spoke to for the evening news are puzzled. Japan has an earthquake warning system to let them know about these things in advance, but this earthquake never even triggered it. Only people within a three-mile radius of the apartment actually felt the shocks, which doesn’t seem to be normal earthquake behavior. I’m hoping I have nothing to do with this, but it doesn’t seem likely.

  Neighbor kid was just at the door. He wanted to know why we wouldn’t let the woman into the apartment. I asked him what woman this was, but he just shrugged and wandered away.

  What is the deal with all these weird, creepy ghost-seeing kids? Exempting yours truly, of course.

  Gonna head off to sleep.

  • • •

  He downplays his condition, his humor masking his own worry, and Callie thinks little of it at first. Been eating lots of ramen since getting here, she writes instead.

  It’s easy to make, and that’s good. I don’t think we’ve had much time to cook lately. There are a lot of small affordable ramen shops near the apartment we’re staying in, and we’ve been making use of them a lot. There’s one shop in particular called the Oishiya that serves almost the most perfect-tasting ramen I have ever had. Allison says that Oishiya literally means “delicious store,” and I can see why.

  Are you getting enough to eat, and are you taking some vitamins? (I know I sound old. Shut up.) I don’t know much about Tokyo, but the air in the countryside is supposed to be good for your health. You should ask Uncle Doug to bring you around places that won’t have as many cars or people, like somewhere outside of the city without all the congestion. From your descriptions of the people in Shibuya, I don’t think large crowds make for the best medicine.

  As for Okiku, don’t worry too much about her. I’m sure she’s been around long enough to know what she’s doing, even if we don’t.

  And yeah—that is one disturbing child.

  • • •

  Tarquin’s condition worsens as Callie’s Kansai tours draw to a close. His father brings him to prestigious clinics, to medical experts. Tarquin is soon spending the night in hospitals, but little about his peculiar malady is known, and his health declines for no discernible reason that anyone can see. Even Tarquin can no longer pretend to himself that all is well.

  I officially admit it: something is wrong with me. I keep falling asleep all the time, and I constantly have this feeling like I might not wake up again when I do. No more wandering around Shibuya for me, at least until I get better.

  Had the weirdest dream last night. I saw some guy all dressed up like a samurai, throwing Okiku down a well. In my dream, Okiku wasn’t the frighteningly dead specter in white we both know and love. She had on that kimono you described for me, the one with the paper lanterns, except it had glowing fireflies on it instead of butterflies. She looked really torn up. Bruises and cuts and worse, and I knew the guy did all those things before he pushed her inside. I remember being so mad at what he’d done to her, like I wanted to tear the guy to pieces with my bare hands, but I couldn’t move or speak. And when the jerk looked my way, he suddenly transformed into the masked woman in black which, as you can imagine, freaked the absolute shit out of me. Thankfully, I woke up before I could wet the bed.

  And you know something else that’s odd? I slept twelve hours today, have been up for only about five minutes—and I’m already sleepy. Been hibernating close to fifteen hours a day now, and while I enjoy being unconscious as much as the next lazy bum, I gotta admit that this isn’t natural. Got another doctor’s appointment tomorrow for that. Woo-hoo.


  Dad says next week should be okay to visit, if you can get away by then.

  P.S. Managed a decent conversation with the apartment guard earlier today. I think something might have been lost in the translation, because he’s claiming there’s no little boy living in the apartment next door. There WAS some kid matching the description I gave who died several years ago, though.

  PLEASE, for the love of molasses, get here soon.

  • • •

  A day before the rest of Callie’s companions leave Japan to return to their respective countries, Tarquin’s father sends her a letter.

  Callie—Tarquin has told me about your plans to visit us in Tokyo, and I apologize for the delay in emailing you. Tark’s been feeling a little under the weather all week—he’s thinner and paler, and I’m worried that the strain of the past few months has finally caught up to him. I’ve taken him to several doctors, and they’re currently running some tests.

  I had initially planned to make the trip to Yagen Valley earlier this month, but Tark’s illness kept forcing me to postpone. If the tests on Tark come back negative, we’ll be heading to Yagen Valley with Yoko’s ashes. I think the fresh air might do him a bit of good. We all could use a little rest.

  As your exchange program will be ending tomorrow, will you be available to fly out by then? Tark and I can meet you at either the airport or the train station, whichever form of travel you prefer. I have booked two rooms for the three of us at a nearby hotel. (I insist on paying for any expenses for Yagen Valley as well. It’s the least I can do, given everything that has happened. I feel that at this point you’ll be much better for Tark’s health than the doctors or I ever could be.)

  Let me know when would be the most convenient time for you. All our love.

  • • •

  Callie’s reply is both swift and brief.

  Thank you for being so generous! Yes, I’ll be available by next week. I’ll be arriving at 4:30 p.m. tomorrow at Narita International Airport. Lots of love to you both.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Boys

  The boys do not yet know that they are about to die.

  Still in their high school uniforms, they watch television. They laugh and tell tall tales and trade stories as the night wears on. They pass around bottles of beer (twenty-seven) that they pour and drink from small glasses (six), and empty instant noodle packages (seven) litter the floor. The room is none too clean, a small and rundown Tokyo apartment no bigger than an average American walk-in closet, but the boys feel comfortable here.

  Every now and then, one will excuse himself and leave to use the bathroom at the end of the narrow corridor leading out the room. While the boisterous laughter from his companions continues, he enters the washroom, pushes the dead girl’s body away from the entrance with a foot, and uses the urinal, too drunk for the moment to care about the rancid smell and the stink of burnt flesh beginning to permeate through the air, or about the blood splashed against the walls, the red liquid circling the drain, dripping, dripping down the girl’s naked body. He zips up, washes his hands like the good boy he’s supposed to be, and slides out, rejoining his fellows and leaving her alone in the darkness.

  The corpse’s arms and legs are severely burnt in several places, her breasts and genitals mutilated. One lifeless eye stares up at the door. The other is swollen shut.

  The sixteen-year-old girl is their first kill and still freshly dead. To the boys, she was nothing more than an experiment, a small price to pay for the thrill of taking a life.

  The night wears on, and I bide my time. My experiences with Tarquin and Callie do not

  crush them take them break them

  still the hungers, the malice that bubbles within.

  I am who I am.

  “What are we going to do with her, Hiroshi?” One of the boys, an emaciated-looking teen with acne scars, asks after some time has passed, when they can no longer pretend that the smell does not bother them. “The stench’s making me lose my appetite, and she’s gonna stink up the house for days.”

  A tall boy with a shaved head shrugs. “Well, we gotta get rid of her soon, anyway. Get your old man to clean up the mess once we’re done, Jo, but we gotta figure out a way to dispose of the body without anyone else noticing.”

  “There’s a small concrete factory just down the block, right?” Another one of the boys speak ups, this time a silver-haired youth with a tiger tattoo on his neck. “We could dump her into one of those cement barrels.”

  “Get some garbage bags, Shinji,” says the Shaved Head, who is in charge. “Tetsuo, Koichi—you guys help him. Jo, go to the kitchen and get some sharp knives. A saw, if you got one. Ya-chan, help him look.”

  The boys disperse. The acne-scarred teenager and his companion, a boy with a bright purple Mohawk, head downstairs, where an old man and a frail woman sit quietly before a small table, their tea lying untouched before them and slowly growing cold.

  “Hey, you,” Acne Scars tells his father. “Go find us a saw or something. We need to get rid of the girl.”

  “Jo-chan. You can’t…” his mother begins, pleading, but she is interrupted by the Mohawk. He slams a hand down onto the table, causing the cups to rattle, tea slopping out onto the wood.

  “Didn’t I say you are not to disagree with us?” he spits out. “Do I have to keep reminding you old fags who I am every fucking time? I’m good friends with people from the yakuza, bitch. One word from me, and they’ll slit your throats. Hey, maybe the next time you speak up I might just kill you myself! Fucking old crone!”

  Shaking, the father leaves the room and returns with a large circular saw. The mother begins to cry. Their son says nothing.

  The boys return to the second-floor landing, where the others are waiting. “Better lend me some old clothes to wear while I cut her up, Jo,” Shaved Head says. “I don’t want to wash no fucking blood off my shirt.”

  Acne Scars flips the light switch as they enter the bathroom. The bulb overhead sputters and dies out.

  Shaved Head swears. “What the fuck is wrong with the light? Jo, go get a new one.”

  “Mom only changed it yesterday,” Acne Scars whines, but he obediently trots off to look for a replacement. One of the other boys, with unkempt hair and a scraggly beard, turns on a penlight, splaying the beam across the bathroom walls.

  “Hey, Hiroshi,” he says hesitantly. “I can’t find the body.”

  “What?” Shaved Head grabs the light and shines it around. The girl’s corpse is nowhere to be seen. He swears again.

  “Who the fuck do you think you guys are, playing pranks on me? Whose fucking idea was it to hide the body?”

  “We didn’t do it, Hiroshi!” a boy with glasses protests. “We were with you this whole time.”

  “And we were downstairs looking for the saw,” Mohawk adds hastily, for Shaved Head is known for his foul temper. “I swear, Hiro, we never moved the body!”

  “Well, I want you all to start looking for it soon, because I’m losing my patience. Where the hell is Jo with the light?” Shaved Head flips the light switch on and off again, then punches his fist into the wall, his frustration apparent.

  “Go look for Jo,” he barks out. “And see if the old farts downstairs had anything to do with this.”

  His companions rush to carry out his orders, leaving him scowling at the small, smudged mirror in the bathroom. “Idiots,” he mutters, smoothing out his rumpled shirt collar.

  And stops. A peculiar dark spot in the mirror is growing slowly in size as he looks on, though the darkness makes it difficult for him to see clearly. Frowning, he scrunches up his eyes and draws closer to the mirror, trying to determine what this is.

  The black spot increases, spreading across the mirror’s surface like an ugly paint splotch, until Shaved Head can barely see his own reflection.

  “What the hell?”

  Tw
o discolored arms shoot out from the mirror, and it is only from reflex that Shaved Head is able to throw himself away from their reach, hitting the wall behind him hard instead. He gapes at the mirror, where a long-haired woman’s head begins to push itself out. From underneath her hair, eyes like twin black holes bore into the now-terrified boy’s face, and from her wide, scarred mouth she gurgles low.

  “Shit!” Shaved Head bursts out of the bathroom, skidding across the narrow hallway. “Jo!” he yells. “Shinji, Tetsuo! Where the fuck is everybody?” He runs toward where he last saw the boys, halting beside the room they previously occupied. The room is empty, though the TV still plays. A strange screeching noise makes him stop in his tracks.

  A variety show program is on: Japanese comedians on a game show. But the television screen occasionally flickers into a different image—barely more than a few tenths of a second at first, but growing longer each time, until Shaved Head finds himself looking into the face of the murdered girl. Her skin has been warped from burn marks and stretched over her horrific skull.

  Blood begins to spill in rivulets down the walls of the room, soaking through the curtains. At the same time, something drops from the ceiling behind him and hits the floor.

  They are Purple Mohawk and Tiger Tattoo, both unrecognizable if not for their brightly colored hair. Their legs are twisted behind them, like all bone had been leached from their limbs. Tiger Tattoo is obviously dead. His features are an ashen gray, tongue lolling out. But Mohawk is still dying. Half of his face is bloated and swollen, and he flops helplessly across the wooden carpet, a gutted fish out of water.

  “Hlllp,” he croaks. “Hiroshhhhhhi.”

  Something

  gurgles

  by his side. Shaved Head sees me standing on the ceiling for the first time, watching him with my pupil-less eyes and my hollow, open mouth.

  Shaved Head flees, ignoring his dying friend’s garbled pleas. He races through the hall. “Tetsuo!” he screams. “Koichi, where the hell are you guys? Fuck!” He shoves open the door leading into a small storage room but steps back, frightened, when two of the other boys come tumbling out.