Ancient Illusions

by Joanne Pence

  “To me, it’s you who have the accent, Sheriff,” Ceinwen said with a smile. “I’m from Cardiff, Wales.”

  He nodded. “So, what brings you two way out here?”

  “I’m home for the summer, and decided to drive up and see how everyone is doing,” Rachel said. “And Ceinwen has never seen this part of the world, so she came with me.”

  “Well, welcome,” he said.

  “I was also wondering,” Rachel said, twisting the inexpensive ring she wore. “Is everything okay here? Or, out in the wilderness?”

  Jake tilted his head as he watched her. “Well, you know how it is. Anything strange happens and everyone worries.”

  She frowned. “In what way, strange?”

  His eyes narrowed as they went from Rachel to Ceinwen. “Is there something you want to tell me about? Charming as Salmon is, I can’t imagine this area has much interest for someone getting a degree from Oxford. For either of you.”

  Rachel gave Ceinwen a quick glance, then said, “Ceinwen has read about the deaths out here. She was a journalist.”

  “A journalist?” He regarded Ceinwen with a scowl

  “I can tell you aren’t a fan of the profession, Sheriff,” Ceinwen said. “Don’t worry. I’m giving all that up for the pleasures of digging around in the muck trying to find old chips of pottery. It’s a much cleaner profession than the one I left.”

  “I can well imagine,” Jake said, still frowning.

  “I’ve been having dreams,” Rachel told him.

  “Go on.”

  “First it was … I guess you’d call them demons. Always after me. Scary stuff.”

  Jake nodded. “Not surprising given what happened to you. PTSD, some call it.”

  “Well … perhaps. But then the dreams became more specific. They were about the wilderness, the place we went to after we stepped between the pillars. I was back there. The dreams—or, I should say, nightmares—affected my work. My professors thought I needed a rest. So I came home.”

  “And it hasn’t helped?” he asked.

  “Not at all. I…” She stopped. After a long moment, she said, “The dreams made me feel as if I needed to return to Salmon. I don't know why. All I know is I kept feeling it was time for me to return. But now that I’m here, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do."

  “Things have been kind of rough for you, I take it,” Jake said softly. Ceinwen noticed a level of understanding and compassion in his eyes as he regarded Rachel. More than ever she wondered what had happened that affected both a hardened middle-aged sheriff and a naïve coed so completely. And what were these pillars Rachel said they ‘stepped between’?”

  Rachel drew in her breath. “Yes. It started just a few weeks back.”

  “As the land thawed after a long winter,” Jake murmured.

  Ceinwen stared at him a moment, wondering what made him say that.

  Rachel nodded, then said, “I keep having this feeling that I don’t belong here, that I … I’m fading away. And it grows worse each day.”

  Jake shook his head, worry and dismay at her words contorting his features. “I’ll confess I don’t like what you’re sensing, or that something has drawn you here.”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

  “Rachel has no need to apologize,” Ceinwen said. “It’s not her fault. She’s suffering, Sheriff. And if being here can help her, I’m all for it.”

  “I agree.” His lips tightened. “Something is happening. I can feel it, too. We’ve had strange mutilations. Strange deaths of livestock and pets. And recently, a man.”

  A chill rushed through Ceinwen at his words.

  “What about the other students?” he asked Rachel. “Have you contacted them?”

  “I tried. Devlin dropped out of school and refuses to think about it, and Brandi thinks so much she can’t cope and lives in drug-induced hazes. I don’t expect either will show up here anytime soon. I don’t fault them for wanting to bury the past. I tried to with my studies. But I couldn’t.” She paused a moment. “All I did was end up making a spectacle of myself at school. I had to get away because if any of my professors learned about this, they would tell me I’ve gone mad, and that I should leave and never return.”

  So, Ceinwen thought, she now knew what had happened to the only other student survivors. She wished she could pull out her notebook, but didn’t dare. Besides, the sheriff acted willing and able to lock up anyone he considered a danger to his friends.

  “I know what you’re saying about not wanting to tell anyone,” Jake said to Rachel, then cast a warning scowl in Ceinwen’s direction. “You’re the first one I’ve admitted my own uneasiness to.”

  Ceinwen found that an odd thing for him to say. “Have you kept in contact with any of the other rescuers?” she asked. “With Michael Rempart? Or Charlotte Reed?”

  Jake looked surprised by her question, but then glared in Rachel’s direction, probably thinking she had told Ceinwen about them. “Charlotte stayed in Salmon until last week. I can’t help but suspect, now that we’ve talked, that she was affected by whatever is going on around here as well. It’s like her to try to dismiss any occult signs as ‘stuff and nonsense’ that couldn’t be happening to anyone rational.”

  “Where is she now?” Rachel asked.

  “Back home in Virginia.”

  Ceinwen heard the heartbreak in his voice. Now she understood why a woman with Charlotte Reed’s background had stayed in this small town—because of its sheriff.

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel murmured.

  “So am I. But I’m glad you came here to try to work this out. I’ll help you, Rachel, anyway I can.”

  Ceinwen suspected Rachel was proof for him that something real was happening around Salmon—that the problem wasn’t him, and it wasn’t Charlotte. And it was strong enough to affect a person in another continent.

  Ceinwen asked, “Sheriff, what do you think is happening here?”

  “All I can say is people aren’t acting the way they should, the way they always have, and that includes me. Even … even the woman who was living with me, Charlotte, isn’t herself. She came to believe it was over between us, and nothing I said or did could convince her otherwise.”

  “It’s strange she wouldn’t believe you.” Rachel said. “That’s not the Charlotte I remember.”

  “The problem is, whatever’s scrambled Charlotte’s reactions have scrambled mine, too. I’ve been acting like a son of a bitch, yelling at my staff, even at Charlotte when she was here. And I questioned her feelings. I’ve been irritable. Nothing pleases me. The only one I’ve been able to hold a calm, civilized conversation with for the past few weeks has been, weirdly enough, Emily Parker—the woman Charlotte thinks I’ve fallen for. Sometimes I suspect I like her company because she doesn’t know a damn thing about the past, so she isn’t constantly studying me for any hint that it might all be starting up again. We’ve all been touched, branded. It doesn’t go away. Like some goddamn curse.”

  “No one in England knew of my troubles except Ceinwen,” Rachel murmured. “Yet they plagued me there.”

  He cast a suspicious gaze on Ceinwen. “Is that so?”

  “If I wanted to hurt Rachel,” Ceinwen said, “it would have been much easier to do something in England than here. I believe you can trust me.”

  “I trust her,” Rachel said.

  Jake wasn’t placated. “How do we know she doesn’t want to find out what happened out here two years ago just to write up an interesting story?”

  Ceinwen shook her head, but said nothing.

  “Have you ever gone back?” Rachel asked Jake.

  Ceinwen noted that Rachel didn’t need to say where.

  “I didn’t. I couldn’t. We lost too much out there. I don’t ever want to see it again. It took months for me to get over it. When I think of how close we all came to being killed …” He shut his eyes a moment, his mouth hard.

  Rachel nodded as if remembering of her own struggles. “I need to se
e it once more.”

  He frowned. “Why? For God’s sake, Rachel. Nothing’s out there anymore. We don’t want to remember, to conjure up…”

  Rachel’s lips pursed. “I’ve got to do this. I can hire a guide.”

  “And I’ll go with you,” Ceinwen said.

  “No,” Jake said.

  “You can’t stop us,” Ceinwen snapped. “I’ve always heard that this is a free country, and as such, we have the right to travel on public property. I understand the area Rachel speaks of is protected for the public’s use.”

  “Cut the lectures, lady,” Jake said. “I’m not saying, ‘No, you can’t go.’ I’m saying Rachel isn’t going out there alone with some goofy guide and a mouthy Brit who probably doesn’t know a real wilderness from a stroll through Hyde Park. I’m going with you … if we can find it.”

  Ceinwen folded her arms and faced Rachel. “John Wayne still lives, doesn’t he?”

  Rachel smiled. “We’ll find the right spot. I’ll know it when I see it, but if nothing else, I’ll feel it.”

  Jake gave her a sad gaze. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Chapter 18

  Michael followed the stranger's directions and an hour later was in Kamigawa. Rows of traditional Japanese buildings in dark wood with curved eaves on rooftop corners made it look like a movie set for a samurai film.

  Yamato told him to park at the first petrol station and his cousin would find him. Michael did so, and almost immediately, an attractive woman approached. He got out of the car.

  "Mr. Rempart? I am Kazuko, Yamato-san’s cousin.” She was petite, with short, carefully coiffed hair, and looked as if she were in her late twenties. “I understand you wish to see the house where Lafcadio Hearn stayed."

  "I would."

  "Good. We can walk to the house. It is very convenient. Near shops and restaurant. We have one."

  “One?”

  “One restaurant.”

  Michael nodded. They went two long blocks and then turned onto a small street that led up a steep hill. As they walked, Kazuko proudly told him a little of the town’s history, how it had once been an important place because a daimyo chose to live there rather than in the Matsue Castle during the days of the Tokugawa shogunate.

  When they neared the top of the street, Kazuko stopped at a tall wooden gate within a six-foot high wall. She unlocked the gate and held it open.

  Michael entered a small attractive garden with a gravel pathway leading to a “samurai” house.

  “The house is old and small, but in good condition,” Kazuko said. “Of course, we have many modern homes and apartments available. They may be more comfortable for an American if you wish to spend time in Kamigawa, perhaps to look at the Nakamura daimyo collection.”

  “I’m not interested in staying,” Michael said, “although I may return to view the collection. But today, I just wanted to see the house.” He stepped up onto what he would call a veranda that ran along the outside of the building under the roof line. Entering the house, he found himself in a small foyer with a cabinet of low shelves that held thin, backless slippers. The polished hardwood floors of the main part of the house were a step up from the foyer. Kazuko removed two pairs of slippers from a shelf, one large and one small. She placed the slippers on the hardwood floor and then, in a smooth motion, she stepped from her shoes into the slippers, taking care never to put her stockinged foot on the floor of the foyer, or genkan, as she called it. She waited for him to do the same.

  He knew that wearing street shoes to walk on tatami, a woven reed, was the social equivalent of entering a person's home in the West and spitting on the carpet. He felt about as graceful as an elephant as he removed his loafers and stepped into the slippers.

  Kazuko then led him from the hallway to a room with a tatami floor. The smell of the woven reeds was pleasant—a hint of nature—and helped the sense of bringing the outside in. As he took in the room devoid of furniture except for a low table and four large pillows around it, sunlight streamed through the white shoji screens, casting the room in a soft glow. Panels of sliding doors that could be opened wide made up the home's interior walls.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  She pitter-pattered down the hall with a pleasant sway to her hips. He followed her to a tiny kitchen, then to a Japanese-style bathroom with an ofuro—a steep-sided wooden bathtub. The toilet facilities were also Japanese, which meant floor level.

  "Do not worry, Michael-san,” Kazuko said with a slight grin. She led him up the stairs to the second floor. It had a Western-style bedroom with a queen-size bed, and a bathroom complete with a Western-style toilet and shower. “Sometimes Westerners stay here for a brief visit. They are happy to have facilities they are accustomed to."

  "Very nice,” Michael said. The house was the type he would have wanted if he were to stay any amount of time in Japan.

  “Now, I have a pleasant surprise,” she said when they were back on the main floor. She stepped from the slippers into her shoes, and Michael did the same—less awkwardly this time. They walked around the house to the back garden, which was smaller than the one in front.

  There, he saw a wooden shed-like building. She unlocked the door and opened it. “This little building has been set up to use as an office.”

  He looked inside to see a floor with a carpet, a desk, a computer, and even an ergonomic desk chair. Regular sash-windows were on two walls.

  As he entered, she said, “Western businessmen who have rented this property have needed this convenience, so we provide it to all our renters.”

  “You’ve thought of everything, it seems.” He put his hands on his waist as he looked over the space, and then walked around the back garden. It was less lush, although every bit as peaceful as the one in front. The peace and beauty of the setting were worming their way into his heart. He could imagine himself working out here and enjoying the traditional house at other times of the day.

  Disappointment struck as he watched Kazuko lock up both buildings, and then the front gate. “Perhaps you would like some tea and something to eat before you head back to your hotel,” she said with a warm smile. “Our restaurant has delicious sushi. Very fresh. Also, I can help you make an appointment with the Nakamura family if you would like.”

  “That sounds good,” he said, not mentioning that he didn’t yet have a hotel. There were plenty of places to stay back in Matsue, so he wasn’t worried. But the thought of the house he’d just left intrigued him more with each passing minute.

  They walked back to the main street. He saw a group of children get off a school bus and run towards their homes. They looked happy and cute in their public school uniforms.

  When they reached the restaurant, the doors were open and inviting. Over tea and sushi, Michael asked about the cost of renting the house. When he heard how reasonable it was, that he could rent it by the week, and it was immediately available—he decided to take it.

  Kazuko had him fill out rental papers as she spoke on her cell phone to the owners about their potential tenant. The town might have been remote, but the communications weren't, and Kazuko soon got an okay from the owners as well as Michael’s credit card company as he put down a deposit. With that, she gave him the keys.

  “I believe you will be happy there,” she said. “I felt as if the Hearn house, as everyone here calls it, welcomed you.”

  He studied the keys in his hand. “That must be it,” he murmured. “I didn’t expect to like it this much.”

  “I’m glad.” She used a napkin to draw a map to a grocery store in case he wanted to stock up on some food and such, and then promised to check in with him the next day to be sure everything was in order, and to answer questions he might have. “Since they now know where to reach you, the Nakamura’s will contact you directly as necessary.”

  Michael wasn't sure why this was all happening so quickly and conveniently for him, but he felt good about the outcome. He didn’t mind relaxing here for a week. How w
as such a place not well-known?

  He stopped at the store for instant coffee, beer, and snack foods, and then picked up his car at the petrol station and drove back to the house. After unlocking the gate, he stepped into the garden—his garden.

  Two men waited for him there. He stiffened, but both men placed their hands on their thighs and bowed low. When they stood upright again one man said, “Doctor Rempart?"

  It took a moment for Michael to understand that his name was being said since the Japanese “r” was much softer than that used by Americans. "Yes I'm Michael Rempart."

  “Please.” The man handed Michael a note and then stepped back as if waiting for a reply.

  * * *

  Dear Dr. Rempart,

  Welcome to Kamigawa. I am Nakamura Seiji, descendant of daimyo of Shimane Prefecture in the time of Tokugawa. I am honored to welcome you here. Please attend dinner at my home tomorrow at 5:00.

  * * *

  Nakamura

  * * *

  Michael read the note twice, then faced the two men. “Please tell Mr. Nakamura that I’ll be happy to attend.” At the blank looks on their faces, he shortened his answer. He remembered reading somewhere that “hi” meant “yes” in Japan, and “ohio”—like the state—meant “good morning.” He wished he’d paid more attention. He gave it a try. “Yes. Hi.”

  “Ah, hai!” Both men smiled and repeated “hai” several times as they bowed and then left the garden.

  Chapter 19

  “I tell you, the guy fucking disappeared. Right before our eyes. We were following his car along the coast, staying back a bit, sure. We didn’t want him to pick up on being tailed. Anyway, the road curved and when we came around, his car was gone. We sped up, way over the speed limit, but couldn’t find him. We went back to see if he’d turned off the highway, but there were only a couple side roads, and we didn’t see him there either.”

  He waited, listening to furious ranting coming from the other end of the phone line.