“Ooh isn’t this fun!” Andrea was huddled up to the little fire pit across from me, flanked by boys. She was dressed in cute layers, like the few other girls who had decided to attend, with long underwear under her stylish jeans, cute little fur-topped boots, and a hat with long tassels. She looked like she was freezing. I watched her cuddle up to one of the boys and thought maybe her lack of appropriate clothing was purposeful.
Personally, I was glad that I’d worn a snowmobile suit and thick wool gloves. The twelve degree weather didn’t faze me at all and, thankfully, it gave Wyatt absolutely no opportunity to offer to warm me up.
He hovered at my side, like a mosquito. The boys intermittently took to the hill, gliding over the powdery snow on tubes rented from the park’s little ranger cabin. But the girls wouldn’t leave the fire, too interested in flirting to care about something so childish. I thought it was stupid that they had even come. I shifted from foot to foot, bored out of my mind, as Andrea and one of the other girls yammered on about some dance that was coming up near Christmas.
Wyatt turned to me with an expectant expression on his face and I braced myself for the worst. The idiot was going to ask me to the dance. I’d been avoiding him for a couple of weeks now, ever since I had heard about the nightmare. If there was one thing I would never do with my clumsy new self, it was attend a dance. He opened his mouth, but he shut it again almost immediately, frowning over my shoulder.
Ryuu popped up at my side. “So, are you going to go sledding, or did you just come to stand around?”
Ryuu hadn’t said anything about my little outburst in the past week or so, and I was determined that I wouldn’t be the one to crack first. I grinned at him, thankful for his perfect timing. Turning, I took the rope he offered me, which attached to one of the big tubes. I glanced at the others, but it was obvious that none of the girls were going to join me. A couple of the boys grabbed their own stuff and followed us to the hill, where they raced to the bottom.
Ryuu and I waited until they were well clear. “We should do something like this for your birthday,” I suggested.
Ryuu shrugged. “I like being outside, but I don’t know. There’s too many people.” He grinned. “If it wasn’t for you this would be no fun at all.”
I laughed. He was right. Everyone else was just here to socialize or show off. We were the only ones actually having fun, because neither of us cared if we got all snowy or our hair got messed up.
“Hey,” I said, squinting at him. “Are you ever going to tell me what you want for your birthday?”
Ryuu would be fifteen in a month. Dad had offered to take me shopping, but I had no clue what he wanted. And I thought it should be something good, because very soon I might not seem him again for a very long time. He wasn’t talking about it, but Dawn sure was. She’d shown me the brochure for his new school just yesterday.
Ryuu tossed his tube down on at the top of the hill. “Nope.”
“Race you,” I said, suddenly not wanting to look at him anymore. Then I took off running toward my tube, not giving Ryuu a chance to catch up. I jumped awkwardly in my bulky clothes and hit the tube on my stomach.
The hill was huge, and I thundered down it at about a million miles an hour, over little dips and bumps, my tube flying wildly. Ryuu appeared at my side, but I didn’t have much attention for him, since I was busy clinging to my tube for dear life. We were nearing the end of the hill when I swerved sideways, spun around, and hit him.
We tumbled off with bruising force, kicking up snow like feather down as we rolled in a mad tumble of tubes and arms and legs. I lay on my back in the snow, gazing up at a perfect blue sky. It was hard to breathe, and I slowly realized that this was because there was a weight on my chest.
I tilted my head down a bit and met Ryuu’s dazed black eyes. We were both laughing, our breath sending little clouds puffing up into the air. Ryuu’s legs were all tangled with mine, and he flopped his head on my chest, still shaking with laughter.
“I thought we were gonna die,” he snorted.
I laughed and pushed him off so I could sit up. “You and me both. Did the tubes survive?”
Ryuu nodded and pointed a little ways off, where our tubes sat innocently in a snowdrift. His black eyes were twinkling. “Hey Kit,” he said suddenly.
I glanced at him in question, realizing that he was way too close. “I figured out what I want for my birthday.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and started brushing at my hair, setting loose a shower of snow between us. “Oh?”
He handed me my hat. “Yes. I want you to kiss me.”
I laughed and pulled my hat down over my ears. “Why don’t you ask one of the cheerleaders in your class? I’m sure one of them would be more than happy to grant your birthday wish.”
One corner of his wide mouth lifted in a lop-sided smile. He wasn’t angry at my evasion. “No.” He looked absolutely evil. “You’re going to get your wish soon. In the spring, Dawn’s getting married, over the summer we’ll move. By fall, I’ll be hundreds of miles away. You’ll never have to see my face again. So one little kiss shouldn’t matter to you at all.”
I stood up and headed for the tubes, my stomach doing little flip-flops. That kid was insane. How could he just say stuff like that without even looking the least bit embarrassed? And how could he throw my words back in my face that way?
Ryuu caught up to me as I tromped up the hill. He was pulling his tube behind him and humming something, looking around the park curiously. “You know,” he said, as if the other conversation had never occurred. “I can feel the kami in this place… but they feel different than the spirits that live in the cursed objects.”
I glanced at him, startled. “There are kami out here too?”
He shrugged. “Well of course. It’s where they belong, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. I hadn’t really thought of the spirits belonging anywhere. But it seemed kind of right somehow. I knew, from reading bits of Ryuu’s moldy old books, that Shinto beliefs centered around nature sprits- kind of the same way native American beliefs did. I’d just never really seen it as anything more than fairytales. But standing here gazing out at the woods while the snow drifted down, hushing everything- even the laughter of the kids rocketing down the hill- I could picture it perfectly.
We trekked back up the hill via a set of old railroad ties set into the ground at intervals like steps. “If the Kami belong out here, then how in the world do they end up attached to something like a book or a piece of jewelry?”
Ryuu frowned. “I’m not sure. You know I don’t have a manual for this stuff.” He sighed. “But I’ve thought about that and, well, I suppose it’s our fault.”
We were quiet for a few seconds as a group of kids overtook us and passed us on the rough stairs. Once they were out of ear-shot I replied. “Our fault?”
Ryuu nodded. “Not me and you,” he said patiently. “Us humans. We have a knack for upsetting the order of things.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it comes from man intruding where only the wild creatures should be? Maybe people pick things up while they’re out in the wild places and bring them back home attached to an object.”
I worried my bottom lip between my teeth, thinking I’d heard something very similar in my biology class, about the spread of rare diseases. How much of the time viruses and bacteria and parasites were brought back by hikers or travelers. “Or maybe because humans have destroyed so much of the natural environment, they just had to come live among us.”
Ryuu sighed. “Of course, we’re assuming the kami are some sort of being or spirit with a will of its own- but we don’t know that. It could just be bad energy.”
We were lagging on the steps as we talked, apparently taking forever to reach the top. Lost in conversation as we were, we didn’t notice this until Wyatt pointed it out. He and a group of people from school came from behind, startling us out of our reverie.
“Hey, what are you guys talking about? It looks in
tense.” He said it like he was joking. But I didn’t think he was.
One of the other guys nudged Wyatt and whispered loudly. “I think that kid’s puttin’ the moves on your girlfriend.”
I refused to look back. I was angry, but at the same time, I remembered Ryuu’s birthday request, and my cheeks felt hot. Ryuu rolled his eyes. The rope of his tube just happened to slip from his hand. The tube slid down a step and bumped into the group of guys, the rope tangling around their feet and making them wobble precariously on the step. Wyatt seemed to have expected some sort of attack. He nimbly stepped aside. But the boy that had been teasing him got his foot all wrapped up in Ryuu’s rope and sat down hard, his own tube bounding back down the stairs to land at the bottom and go skidding off into a snow drift.
Ryuu deftly grabbed his own tube, slipped the rope free of the guy’s foot and continued up the stairs. The group of guys were laughing hysterically at their unfortunate companion, but I could feel him glaring at us all the way back up the hill.
*****
With everything else that was going on, the threat of another visit from Child Protective Services gradually got pushed to the back of my mind. Nonetheless, I had warned Dad that they were poking around. I told him that I thought it was only Dr. Laura wanting to know why I was all banged up. I told him my story about the burns, and about falling down. Repeatedly. I wanted to make sure our stories matched.
I could tell his feelings were hurt that someone would doubt his love for me. But he bucked up rather well, saying that he was glad Dr. Laura was looking out for me and that she was just doing her job. I thought maybe he and Fumio were sharing brain waves.
Ryuu managed to find reasons to be at our house all evening long since their first visit, but I had forgotten why he was there, just happy we were still on speaking terms, strained though they sometimes were. So, when that Thursday night rolled around and the doorbell rang he was there with me, sprawled out on my bedroom floor making a half-hearted effort to study.
I went to the door, all of my apprehension springing to life again, expecting to find Marci standing there. But it was a man who stood on our stoop. He was probably in his late thirties, with fine, platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a suit and carrying a brief case, just like Marci. But I noticed one glaring difference right away- he had a faint silvery haze around his body that flickered in and out of existence as he moved.
“Good evening,” he said with a soft smile, his blue eyes evaluating, scanning me from head to toe. “I’m-”
“From CPS?” I cut him off, in no mood to do this again. I blinked a few times, trying to make the silvery outline go away.
He laughed lightly. “Of course.” He didn’t offer his little ID like Marci had.
“Come on in.” I stood back and let him enter.
The man’s eyes roved over our home as I led him to the living room where Dad was waiting. But they didn’t seem quite as calculating as Marci’s had. He wasn’t cataloguing, just looking.
He shook hands with Dad and sat in the one vacant chair. Ryuu and I had claimed the couch, and Dad the other armchair. Dad peered owlishly at the man, one John Dyer. I glanced at Ryuu and Dad to see if either of them noticed the sparkles. Dad showed no surprise. But I watched Ryuu’s eyes widen, then narrow, and I could have sworn they looked a few shades lighter.
“Well,” John said quietly. “You know why I’m here, of course?”
Dad snorted. “Yes. I hear someone is worried about my Kit.”
“I’ve read over Marci’s notes,” John said in light tone. “She had some concerns about Kit’s injuries. It says here that there was a baking injury?”
Dad nodded. “Yeah. Kit loves to cook, but she’s a bit of a klutz.”
“Dad,” I didn’t protest too much. After all, that’s what I wanted to be- a big old klutz who had hurt herself.
Dad shrugged. “Sorry honey, but you know you aren’t all that graceful.”
John laughed. “Okay, and the bruises on your daughter’s face?”
Ryuu piped up. “We were running, goofing off out back, and she tripped.”
John’s eyes rested on Ryuu and there was a pause. It stretched out just a bit too long for comfort, so I jumped in. “It’s true,” I rambled. “I tripped and did a faceplant.” I laughed nervously.
Those blue eyes were on me now, and I squirmed under that gaze, wishing he would hurry up and look somewhere else. “And what were you running from?”
There was another pause while I gaped at him and he waited patiently. I was sure, in that moment, that he knew exactly how I’d gotten those bruises. The silver around him seemed to grow for a minute. Then it died down.
“She was chasing me,” Ryuu answered for me. “We were just playing around.”
There were a few more questions, but John didn’t seem to have much interest in the answers. He left with assurances that he didn’t see any danger here- though he slanted a meaningful and rather wry look at Ryuu and I as he said this- and that the case would be dropped.
I followed him to the door, surprised when he paused in the threshold and stared down at me. “It was…interesting to meet you, Katherine.” He leaned closer. “Please be careful not to be so clumsy from here on out,” he whispered. “Oh, and remember this when someone asks you for a favor in the future,” he said with a wink. His blue eyes lightened to silver, and he turned and made his out to the dark sidewalk, whistling a tune.
I shut the door firmly and wondered just who Fumio was making friends with. I turned to find Ryuu watching me. “I don’t like the way that guy was looking at you,” he said bluntly.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “It’s fine, Ryuu. Jeeze sometimes you seem like an old man, but then you say something like that and you sound like a two year old.” I laughed. “Afraid someone’s gonna take your binkie?”
He frowned at me. “He knows,” was all he said. It gave me a slight chill, but I pushed the feeling away. “Whatever. Fumio asked him for help, so he probably told him about us.” I messed up his hair as I walked past him. “The important thing is I’m not going back to the nuthouse.”
Chapter 16
I dodged slower moving couples and children, the skates singing under me, rumbling like a rollercoaster when I ran over the bumpy paths left behind by the other skaters, then coasting smooth and silent over the glassy surface of an untouched area. The wind blew my hair back and I glanced over my shoulder to see Ryuu slowly closing the distance between us. He was more careful, the chicken. It was thrilling to feel that I finally had some connection with this body of mine. It was less clumsy- in fact, just now it felt perfectly graceful and strong.
Until I hit a divot in the ice. I didn’t even see it coming. Next thing I knew, I was lying on my back, gazing up at the twilight purple sky, watching the first few puffy snowflakes fall. A man with a little girl clinging to his hand stopped and leaned over me.
“Are you okay?” He looked like he didn’t know if he should laugh or call for help.
I sat up and rubbed my elbow. “Fine,” I said, my face hot. This was what I got for being a show off.
The man smiled and went on his way, carefully keeping the little girl upright when she almost lost her footing. There was a grinding sound close by, and Ryuu came to a stop at my side.
He wasn’t having any trouble deciding if he should laugh, and I slapped his leg. “I could have died, you know,” I said over his laughter.
He gave me a hand up. “Your own fault,” he said, still grinning.
I sighed. “How could I know there was a big hole in the ice?”
He shook his head. “Uh huh…” We both laughed.
“This was a good idea,” Ryuu said, gesturing to the skating rink. The city flooded the park when it got cold enough, and opened it to skaters for a couple dollars. Mom and Dad had brought me here a lot, once upon a time.
Ryuu kept a hold of my hand as we started off again- at a much slower pace. I wouldn’t admit it to him, but he wasn’t
the only one who was afraid I would fall again. I refrained from rubbing my aching butt. I was going to have a bruise for sure. Luckily, Ryuu and I were the only ones there from our school. I was glad that he hadn’t wanted to invite anyone else, and not just because none of them were here to witness my skills. I knew that it wouldn’t have been nearly so much fun if the others were here.
“Can we stop for a while?” I think I’d pulled something when I fell, my leg was aching from my backside to my knee.
“Sure. Hey- let’s get cocoa.” There was still a hint of laughter in his voice.
We took off our skates, then went to the small pavilion that catered to the skaters. We came away with little Styrofoam cups of cocoa, complete with miniature marshmallows.
The sky had darkened even more, and the streetlamps along the sidewalk flickered to life as we passed. We found a little stone bench under a bare-branched tree, and settled in to drink our cocoa.
I slipped a brightly wrapped box out of my coat pocket and held it out to Ryuu. One corner was a little crushed, thanks to my graceful maneuvers on the ice. “Happy birthday!”
He set his cup aside and took the box eagerly, then held it up to his ear and shook it experimentally. It gave a little metallic jangle and he frowned at me. “Uh…I think you broke it.”
I laughed and took a drink of my cocoa, pausing to wipe away my whipped cream mustache. “It’s supposed to sound that way. Open it.”
He undid the little silver ribbon that held the box closed, then pulled out the bracelet. It was a prayer bracelet, woven with grey cord and wooden beads. At the end was a shiny silver bell.
Ryuu’s face grew serious as he studied the bracelet. “You don’t like it?” I reached out a hand to take it back, but he held it away from me.
Kami Cursed (Dragon and Phoenix) Page 15