by JP Romney
Shaking hands is not really something we do in Japan, but maybe Shimizu-sensei would be too confused to see the snare tightening around him.
Moya was standing right behind my homeroom teacher when he finally held out his hand. I grabbed hold of it and whispered, “I see you, Kōtenbō.”
Before the world turned to ice, though, Moya picked up a chunk of concrete and slammed it into Shimizu-sensei’s head.
31
In my cold dream I was standing in front of a sign at the western edge of Kusaka.
ようこそ佐川へ
WELCOME TO SAKAWA TOWN
On top of the sign perched a brood of crows, black and shiny as ink. The air that filled the gaps between them was as cold and still as space.
Shimizu-sensei walked up from behind me. He wasn’t alone.
Fathers. Mothers. Sisters. Grandparents. Aunts. Uncles. Brothers. Children. A crowd of Shimizus surrounded my homeroom teacher on every side. Some were dressed in suits and fine clothing. Some wore kimono; others wore samurai armor.
It will never work, the crowd said. Best to turn back and go home. It’s our curse.
“But if I can leave, then so can you,” Shimizu-sensei answered them. “Isn’t that what you want?”
One man in the crowd started to laugh. The others looked at him and joined in. Soon the border between Kusaka and Sakawa rang with coarse laughter.
Go, my son, a man in a business suit said. We have all tried. We have all failed.
Shimizu-sensei walked away from the crowd. He lifted his foot and set it next to the sign. Easy enough, he thought. He took another step along the road. No problem.
The next step pushed the wind out of his lungs. Shimizu-sensei stopped and took a deep breath. A woman behind him smiled.
Another step and another step. It was difficult to keep breathing. Every time he set his foot down on the asphalt, his lungs locked up like he’d just run a race. He began to feel light-headed. His movements were slow and groggy. He felt like he was pushing his way through a torrent of water.
How much more can he take? a man from the crowd asked.
I bet he makes it to the other side, a woman said.
Muri da, grumbled the rōnin.
The world around Shimizu-sensei was moving fast. Cars on Route 33 shot by. Birds darted in and out of trees. Insects zipped around like machine-gun fire. I just need to get across, he thought. I’ll be safe there. I just need to touch the other side.
He leaned against the swirling dizziness and fought to keep his body moving. He felt heavy, like invisible arms were yanking his shoulders, pulling him back. His head dropped forward and he looked at his shirt. That must be it, he thought. My shirt. I’m wearing a shirt made of pure steel. How did I not notice that before I left the house? Who would make a steel shirt? Why would I ever buy something like that?
Shimizu-sensei struggled to undo the buttons.
Oh, he won’t make it, a boy from the crowd said.
Shimizu-sensei shrugged his shoulders and the shirt slipped off, fluttering to the ground. There, he thought. Now I’ll be fine. The weight is gone. I feel lighter already.
Shimizu-sensei pressed on for the same reason a rock climber reaches up for the next ledge. Backing down is not an option. Staying still is not a choice. If I don’t take the next step, I will fall and die.
His shoes felt like two massive stones around his feet. He stepped down on the back of one and pulled. With a little jerking, he was able to step up and out of his rocky footwear. Now the next one. There. But I still feel so heavy. Is it my skin? Oh gods, yes, that’s it. My skin is holding me back.
Maybe we should do something, a woman said.
Do what? a teenager answered. We can’t hold him down.
This is sad, another woman said. He won’t listen.
By the time Shimizu-sensei forced his way to the bordering line of Sakawa Town, he had no shirt and no shoes, and his breath came in shallow bursts.
A truck pulled over to the side of the road. A man in a straw hat opened his door and asked Shimizu-sensei if he was all right.
“Ehhhhhhhhtoooooo,” was the only word that came out of Shimizu-sensei’s mouth.
“Do you need help?” the farmer asked.
Shimizu-sensei closed his mouth and tried to picture the words. They were in his brain, all scattered and floating around. He pretended his eyes had arms and they were grabbing at the words, trying to collect them and hold them down into proper sentences, but every time a word was caught, another wriggled away.
“You’re the schoolteacher, right? Shimizu-sensei? Do you need a ride somewhere?”
Hai. One word. Two little syllables: ha and i. Easy to make. Where did the letters go? There they are. Up in the corner. Grab them. Okay. Hold on. Move them both down to my mouth. Yes. I need a ride. I need to leave this place. Please. Hai.
But as Shimizu-sensei opened his mouth to let those two tiny letters out, his jaw came unhinged. The left side popped like a warm carrot snapping. He stood there in front of the farmer, half naked, half jawed, the word Hai hanging out of his mouth like a string of drool.
Well, he almost made it, someone from the crowd said.
I wouldn’t call that almost.
He made it farther than I ever did.
Me too.
The farmer stepped out of the cab and took Shimizu-sensei by the arm. He helped him into the truck and ran back to scoop up the clothes that were scattered like a trail of bread crumbs. The unseen crowd waited behind, some smiling, others shaking their ghostly heads.
“Why would you do this to me?” Shimizu-sensei mumbled. “Why won’t you let me go?”
It isn’t us, my son, the man in the business suit said. It is the demon. He’s the one keeping us here. There is no escape without appeasing the tengu.
As the truck pulled away and drove into Kusaka Town, the flock of crows lifted off the sign and disappeared.
* * *
I jumped to my feet. Shimizu-sensei was lying faceup in the Lawson’s parking lot.
“Moya?” I yelled. “Did you hit him with that chunk of cement? I was trying to steal his memory. I had it under control!”
Moya rolled Shimizu-sensei over with her foot. “Take a look,” she said.
My homeroom teacher was still clutching a kitchen knife in his fist.
“What is going on here?”
“I’d say Shimizu-sensei made a deal with someone else,” Moya said.
“He was going to stab me?”
“Or make you a home-cooked meal,” Moya said. “But considering that his grip on this knife is more aggressive and less teriyaki, I’m gonna go with the first one.”
I stepped back. “Gods, Moya, that was cutting it a bit close, don’t you think?”
“I’d say my timing was right on. I had to hang back so I could be sure, but I think Kōtenbō promised to release your teacher from Kusaka Town.”
“If he murdered me? He’d be arrested! How did he think that was going to end for him?”
“Kōtenbō was inside his mind,” Moya said. “Your teacher only cared about getting off the Road. How he got off it didn’t matter at all.”
“Gods, Moya, did you have to kill him?”
“What?” she said. “He’s not dead. He’ll wish he was dead without some kampō herbs for his headache, though.” Moya rolled him back over with her foot.
“Shouldn’t we call someone?” I said. “Or at least not be kicking people who have obvious head injuries?”
“He’ll live,” Moya said, picking up the knife and tossing it into the grass. “The bigger problem is your teacher waking up. The tengu had his claws so deep into Shimizu-sensei’s mind that he barely knew what he was doing. Kōtenbō will not be happy about this failure.”
“So we’re just going to leave him here?” I said.
“The best thing we can do for him is find and stop Kōtenbō.” She turned and walked toward the exit of the parking lot. “We don’t have a lot of time. Let’s go
get your gym teacher and feed him to a kappa.”
I looked around for Shibaten and then ran to catch up with my totally-not-scary girlfriend.
32
33
With a final jerk of my arm, the saw blade slipped free. The top half of a baseball bat dropped to the ground.
“I’m a little confused as to what this whole thing is,” Moya said, making a circular motion with her hand.
“I have to get close enough to Shibaten to hit him, right?”
“Um, no. That’s a terrible thing to do.”
I tied one end of a string to the handle and the other to my wrist.
“So let me get this clear,” she said. “We’re not feeding your gym teacher to a kappa?”
“Gods, Moya, that was never the plan.”
I gave my sawed-off bat a little test, dropping it down my coat sleeve and catching the handle.
Moya watched and then said, “Well, it sounds like you’ve thought this through. Hitting a kappa in the face probably won’t make him mad, or make him fold you in half like a lady’s purse.”
“I’m not just going to hit him,” I said. “Haven’t you heard that nursery rhyme? ‘Spill the water from his head. He’ll fall down just like he’s dead.’ A kappa draws its energy from a cavity of water on the top of its head.”
“So you created the new plan with the help of a children’s nursery rhyme?”
“All I have to do is spill that water on Shibaten’s head and he’ll become as weak as a box of kittens.”
“What is it with you and kittens?”
“They are totally harmless! Cute and harmless. Like Shibaten will be.”
“I dislike your definition of cute.”
I zipped up my jacket. “If I can get the jump on Shibaten, I’ll drain his energy and make him swear an oath to never leave the river again.”
Moya clapped dryly. “Brilliant,” she said. “Absolutely nothing could go wrong with a plan like this. And I should know—I have experience setting traps for creatures that totally don’t work at all.”
I balanced the bat handle on the palm of my hand. “How do I look?”
“Like you have no idea what you’re getting into.”
“No different from how I look any other day, I guess. Let’s go.”
We walked out into the street and turned toward Kusaka River. The sun was just reaching its highest point, and as we walked I started sweating through my winter coat.
“So,” I said, pulling down the front zipper to let in a little air. “Why his eyes?”
“What?”
“Why did Shibaten steal Kōtenbō’s eyes?”
“That was the trick,” Moya said. “The tengu never trusted the peace agreement with the founding families, and they knew it. Every night, Kōtenbō would turn into a giant vulture and patrol the skies, spying on the humans below. The humans knew that without his eyes, the tengu leader would be harmless. You know, like a kitten when you pop out its eyes and toss it into the air.”
“Okay, leave the kitten analogies to me, please.”
“Shibaten stole Kōtenbō’s eyes, but the tengu escaped the massacre that followed. Over the next century or so, Kōtenbō hid somewhere here in Kusaka. He seethed alone in the darkness, searching out the Tengu Road and drawing from its dark power.”
We stepped off the street and into the reeds that lined Kusaka River.
“By the time he murdered Seimei’s parents,” she said, “Kōtenbō had learned how to use the crows as his eyes.”
“Is that what happened at the shrine?” I asked.
Moya stopped.
“I mean, Kōtenbō wasn’t really blind,” I said. “He probably had a hundred eyes wherever he went. Is that how he escaped your trap in Ōmura Shrine?”
She turned to me and poked her finger at my coat. “He didn’t escape.”
“I’m pretty sure he did.”
“I exploded him through a wooden wall that was half a meter thick, Koda. He didn’t escape. He … survived.” Moya turned and continued walking.
“You think he went back to the same hiding place,” I said. “He let the whole Tengu Road thing simmer for another seventy years and when it was done, he’d learned how to use the crows to break into people’s minds.”
“That’s my theory,” Moya said.
We reached the banks of the river.
“Well, the attempted barbecue at the shrine must have messed him up,” I said. “If Kōtenbō has to send crows out to hack people’s brains now, he can’t be doing too well with the walking and the moving and the decapitating people in front of their families.”
“I’m definitely counting on that,” Moya said. She looked around for the abandoned truck. “All right. We’re here.”
We jumped across the rocks in the river and walked up to the barberry bush.
“O Shibaten!” I called out.
“He knows we’re here,” Moya said.
A sudden chill ran up my spine. I pulled my winter coat tighter around my body. Maybe the temperature had dropped. Or maybe I was starting to doubt my nursery rhyme plan. “We have returned, O Shibaten! With your tribute!”
“Gods, Koda. Are you trying to alert every crow in Kusaka Town?”
Deep beneath the barberry came a loud sucking noise, followed by the stomach-churning stench of the kappa Shibaten.
“That is potent,” Moya said, covering her face. “I’m just going to step off to the side here and vomit all over my hands.”
“Wait, don’t leave me.”
“Do the best you can,” she said, and then disappeared into the cattails.
When I turned back around, Shibaten was standing in front of me. “Aaah!” I cried out. “You scared me. And you look bigger. Have you gotten bigger? I didn’t remember that you had all those … muscles. Gods, even your fingers are ripped.”
Shibaten rotated his head in curiosity. The water in the dent on his head sloshed gently. I stepped back.
“Do you have the eyes?” I said.
Shibaten looked from side to side.
“Ikeda-sensei is coming. Soon.”
Shibaten raised his arm, clutching a crude wooden box.
“Are they inside?” I asked. “I can just take them now, if…”
Shibaten lowered his arm and sniffed at the air.
“Or you could hold on to them for a while. I do have to actually touch them in order to start a cold dream, but hey, it’s not like finding Kōtenbō’s secret lair and stopping him before he kills everyone in this valley is a time-sensitive issue, right?”
Shibaten grunted.
“Well, I guess we do this the hard way,” I said, slipping my hand up into my sleeve and gripping the sawed-off baseball bat. “Ikeda-sensei will be walking along this path over here. We can hide beneath the bridge, and then you can eat him—or whatever you plan on doing. Follow me.”
I took a few steps and looked behind me. The kappa blew air out of the holes in his beak but crept forward to follow me. As we got close to the bridge there was this awkward silence, so I thought I’d try to make small talk. With a kappa.
“So … you like cucumbers, huh?” I asked.
Shibaten clicked his beak and smacked his chest with the box of eyes. Which is probably kappa for Shut your squirrel mouth—it’s annoying my ear holes.
Fine. Awkward silence it is. Your choice.
When we reached the bridge I turned around and said, “Let’s hide down there. I’ll take the eyes so you can hold Ikeda-sensei down and break his bones. Or suck the life-energy out of his anus. Which is totally not the grossest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re probably used to it, though—why would it be gross to you?”
Shibaten stomped his foot and walked past me. He didn’t offer Kōtenbō’s eyes.
So when is the best time to jump a kappa and smash him in the head with a sawed-off baseball bat? When his back is turned, I guess. I’d never done it before, but that seemed as good a time as any. I let the bat slip from the palm of my hand an
d caught the handle. Without a word, I stepped up behind Shibaten and cracked him in the back of the skull.
The kappa pitched forward, dropping the box as he reached out to steady himself. The water in his head rippled against the edges of his hair, but almost nothing dribbled out. I took another step, swung my arm up, and caught the kappa on the side of his head with a dull wooden thunk!
Shibaten rolled facedown into the dirt. A little water spilled out, but before I could run forward, he shoved himself up to his feet. The tremor from his throat became a bone-jarring roar and his pale blue eye fixed like stone onto my face. The element of surprise was entirely gone.
“Kso,” I whispered.
From the reeds, a white fox tore between us, snatching the thin box from the ground. It’s about time, I thought. I can’t actually fight a kappa. I’d hit him twice, and from what I could tell, he might have a headache later on. Moya was right, this was an awful idea— Oh gods, he’s running right at me! Moya, where did you go?
I swung my bat again. Shibaten caught it in the air and squeezed. The wood exploded into a shower of splinters.
“Betrayal!” Shibaten roared.
What? He knows actual words? Shibaten yanked the shattered bat from my arm, snapping the string and flipping it into the reeds behind us. He kicked me in the chest, and I slammed into the footbridge hard enough to jumble my insides.
Shibaten leaped at me. He pulled me up from the ground and threw me through the air. The ground raced up and punched me in the brain. Shibaten landed on my arm and shattered it. Light shot in and out of focus. The sounds of Kusaka River fell away. I could feel the end coming. I looked up in the sky and saw the kappa’s foot hovering right above my face.
“Betrayal,” Shibaten growled.
I was going to die, but the fact that in two hundred years betrayal was the one word Shibaten had learned from his interactions with the human race was actually pretty sad.
The kappa didn’t stomp down, though. Moya shot out from the reeds and sank her fox teeth deep into Shibaten’s leg. With her jaw locked like a steel trap, she rolled her body, loudly popping the kappa’s bones from ankle to knee.