Ancient Illusions

by Joanne Pence

  The words, Seiji's continuing gaze, were chilling. Demons were here; they were real, and they were persecuting Seiji. But bringing up his father had to be a meaningless ploy.

  He stood. “It’s time for me to leave. I have work to do tonight.”

  Kazuko bowed to Seiji and Lady Nakamura. “I should leave now as well. And I’ll walk with you, Michael-sensei. My car is at the bottom of the hill near your house.”

  With that, everyone said their goodbyes.

  The sun was setting over the tiny town. Refreshed, Rachel and Ceinwen had returned to Michael’s house, but an hour had passed with no sign of him.

  “Maybe we should go back to the station and try to find a hotel, or if none, return to Izumo,” Rachel suggested.

  “Let’s wait a little longer.” Ceinwen realized Rachel was nervous about encountering the archeologist. “The later it gets, the more likely Rempart is to return home.”

  Rachel nodded as she peered up and down the street. “Okay, maybe another half hour will … oh! That’s him! I’d know that long-legged stride anywhere.”

  Ceinwen followed Rachel’s gaze to see a tall, slim man walking down the hill. He was conversing with a Japanese woman hanging onto his arm and spending more time looking up at him than where she was going which, on the uneven pavement meant she kept bumping into him. Or, noticing how good-looking he was, Ceinwen couldn’t help but think the woman was doing it on purpose.

  His face registered surprise when he noticed two women waiting by his gate, but once he recognized Rachel, he smiled. He had, Ceinwen noted, a disarmingly nice smile.

  As he reached the house, Michael pulled his arm free from his companion. “Rachel Gooding! I can’t believe it.” He strode toward her and gave her a quick hug.

  “You remember me!” Rachel sounded happy at the greeting Rempart gave her and hugged him in return.

  “Of course I do.” His dark eyes glanced at Ceinwen and he gave a friendly nod before returning to Rachel. “What are you doing here?”

  Rachel pulled Ceinwen forward. “This is my college roommate, Ceinwen Davies.”

  Ceinwen held out her hand. “Hello.”

  “Good to meet you,” he said as they shook hands. His grip was strong and warm, and he stood a little taller than her. She could see why he had been on TV with his wavy black hair, pronounced cheekbones, straight nose, and nicely shaped lips. Being a popular archeologist was the icing on a fine cake.

  “Oh, this is my realtor, Kazuko Yamato,” he said. “Kazuko, this is an old friend, Rachel Gooding, and her friend, Ceinwen Davies.”

  Kazuko shook hands. “I should go, Michael. You are busy tonight.” She gave him a quick hug, cast a suspicious frown at both women, and then continued down the street.

  “I think we interrupted something,” Ceinwen said in a loud aside to Rachel.

  Rachel looked horrified at Ceinwen, then back at Michael to see his reaction.

  He gave Ceinwen a bemused smile. “It’s not a problem,” he said.

  Ceinwen grinned while Rachel looked like a student caught cheating on a test.

  “Something troubling is going on in Salmon.” Rachel blurted.

  Michael’s eyebrows rose. “Charlotte Reed phoned me a week or so ago. She mentioned strange things, but didn’t sound overly concerned.”

  “She was wrong.” Rachel’s voice quavered.

  “Have you been there?” Michael asked.

  “Yes, we both were,” she answered. “We saw Sheriff Sullivan.”

  Michael’s scowled. “Did he tell you to come here?”

  “Well… no.” Rachel, flummoxed, turned to Ceinwen for help.

  “We decided to come here on our own,” Ceinwen explained. “We spoke to your assistant. Mr. Li said he also couldn’t reach you by phone, but told us how to find you.”

  Michael nodded. “Electricity and all cell service has been out for several days.”

  “Several?” Ceinwen found the thought horrifying.

  “Oh, before I forget,” Rachel continued, “Mr. Li needs more information about some names you gave him. He’s not finding the information you requested.”

  He gave a quick nod. “It’s no longer an issue. Things are fine here except for the problem with the power grid. I could charge and use my phone if I left town and found some electricity, but frankly, I’ve enjoyed the peace and quiet.”

  Ceinwen couldn’t take another moment standing out there on the street. “We first arrived here this afternoon. Fortunately your neighbor kindly told us you wouldn’t be back until evening. Thanks to her, we’ve only been standing out here about an hour waiting for you.”

  He looked taken aback by the mild dressing down but also guilty by his lack of manners. “Sorry. Do you have a car?”

  “We got here by train,” Rachel said.

  “Then you can stay here tonight. There are no hotels in Kamigawa.”

  “We don’t mean to impose—”

  “It’s okay. Come inside.”

  Ceinwen followed him and Rachel to the house. Inside the foyer, he switched from shoes to slippers quickly and smoothly, and placed two pairs of slippers on the polished hardwood floor.

  “You can use these slippers,” he said. “Your boots need to stay in the genkan.”

  “You must have tatami floors in this house,” Ceinwen said.

  “I do. Where are you from, by the way?” Michael asked, as Ceinwen and Rachel sat on the landing to remove their boots.

  “You mean I don’t sound as if I’m American?” Ceinwen asked as he offered a hand to pull her to her feet.

  “Not in the slightest,” he replied. As she then stepped up to the hardwood, she noticed the tiniest of smirks on his face as he picked up her suitcase as well as Rachel’s. “Somewhere in England, but I can’t quite tell where.”

  “You’re close. I was raised in Wales, but haven’t lived there for some years.”

  “That explains it,” he said.

  Ceinwen watched Rachel step onto the hardwood floor and put on slippers. When she looked up again, Michael was gone.

  To the left was a hallway, and in front of them was a pretty room with paper panels as walls and a floor of tatami. Ceinwen angled her head toward the tatami room, and they entered.

  A low table with pillows on each side made up the room’s furniture. One wall had a nook with a Japanese scroll hanging in it. Below the scroll were an ikebana tree and a jade carving of a Japanese woman. It was all very peaceful and beautiful.

  Ceinwen and Rachel stood and waited, not having any idea what they should do.

  Soon, Michael returned. “This house is tiny. Only two bedrooms, so you need to share.”

  “I’m so sorry about this,” Rachel said. “Tomorrow, we’ll take the train to a larger town and find a place to stay. Today just seemed to get away from us.”

  “You’re here now. Let me show you your room.”

  His voice was gruff, and they followed him down the hall to a small, nearly empty space. “This is yours. Your beds, futon, are rolled up in the cupboard, along with blankets. I suspect you’re more than ready to freshen up. The W.C., as they often call them in Japan, is in the back of the house, down that hallway past the kitchen. But, until you get used to Japanese style toilets, you might want to use the facilities upstairs.”

  “Thank you,” Ceinwen said. “As Rachel mentioned, we’ll find other accommodations as soon as we can.”

  Michael stared hard at her, his mouth in a slight frown. “I’m afraid you two have come a long way based on wishful thinking. I hope you aren’t too disappointed.”

  Ceinwen stiffed. His words, his tone, stung. “I absolutely agree,” she said.

  His gaze leapt between Ceinwen and Rachel, then he proceeded down the hall.

  “The kitchen is here, next to your room.” They followed him. “Help yourself if you’re hungry. Next to it are the stairs to my bedroom and the Western-style bathroom. Feel free to use it anytime. That’s it for the house. My office, where I spend most
of my time, is in a separate building out back. I have a few things to do out there now, so make yourself at home.”

  He turned and walked out of the room.

  Ceinwen and Rachel gawked at each other. “Do you feel as chilled as I do by that reception?” Ceinwen asked.

  “I told you he was different.”

  “Different? Or an asshole?”

  Chapter 26

  Jianjun phoned Charlotte Reed, who Michael regarded as a scholar and a friend. When she couldn’t give him any information about Rachel Gooding’s whereabouts, he phoned Sheriff Jake Sullivan.

  “Have you heard from Rachel Gooding since she went to Japan?” he asked.

  “No,” Jake said. “I wasn’t even sure she’d gone. Why? What’s happening?”

  “I don’t know. That’s the problem. I told her what little I knew about where Michael might be, and she promised to call and let me know when she got there, but now I haven’t heard from her either. I’ve tried calling, but I get the same ‘not in service’ message as when I try to reach Michael.”

  “Could it simply be bad cell service?”

  “Maybe, but I thought one of them would have contacted me by now,” Jianjun said.

  “True.”

  “Tell me about Rachel. Do you trust her?” Jianjun asked. “And what about this friend of hers? Ceinwen. Where’s she from? And what’s her interest in Michael or any of this?”

  Jake told him what he could about Rachel, vouching for her character. He knew a lot less about Ceinwen, except that she had been a journalist—a position that made him nervous. He said both were students of archeology in Oxford.

  “So I heard. It’s an expensive school,” Jianjun said.

  “Apparently, Rachel was given some kind of full scholarship.”

  “Interesting.”

  “That’s as much as I can tell you.”

  “Please call me if you hear from anyone in Japan, and I’ll do the same,” Jianjun said, then hung up.

  He put in a call to a cousin in London who worked in the Administrative Offices of the Imperial College where they had a lot of international students who used scholarships and grants. He asked his cousin, Li Chin-wo, called “Chuck,” to find out what scholarship an Oxford student named Rachel Gooding had been given. Chuck was always on the lookout for money to give to students trying to attend “his” college instead of going elsewhere and was happy to do it.

  While waiting for a call-back from his cousin, Jianjun did an internet search on Ceinwen Davies. Born in Cardiff, thirty-three years old, she had a journalism degree and had worked for the past 11 years for the UK’s Daily Mail and had written several magazine and online articles for publications such as Fate, Paranormal Underground, Skeptic, Fortean Times, and Skeptical Inquirer.

  He found a number of articles by her on the internet about strange phenomena—from the “Face on Mars,” to remote viewing, to the death worm in the Mongolian desert, a bunch on crop circles, and even more on supposed hauntings. She wrote most of them with tongue firmly in cheek and a heavy amount of skepticism.

  Jianjun also found pictures of her with a number of men. She was striking with thick shoulder-length auburn hair and large green eyes—and she was single. He couldn’t find anything that put up red flags, other than her having been an investigative journalist. She was likely a master at getting people to like and trust her for the sake of her reporting. He needed to warn Michael.

  Three hours later, his cousin called back.

  “Holy shit, Jianjun,” were the first words from Chuck’s mouth.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re going to find this fucking interesting. Your gal, Rachel, was the first to receive a new scholarship for the Archeology Department, and it went along with a $100,000 grant to the University in honor of one of its top alumni, your boss, Michael Rempart. The scholarship was to be given to the most deserving student from some place called ‘Idaho.’ Where the fuck is Idaho?”

  “Michael gave the scholarship?” Jianjun asked, astonished.

  “Not Michael, dipshit! It was in honor of him. Some dude named William Claude Rempart, who must be a relative, paid for the scholarship.”

  “Yeah,” Jianjun said, his mind churning with the news. “It’s his father.”

  Chapter 27

  Ceinwen awoke to the pastel sky of dawn. In the kitchen, she found a French press coffee maker set up and ready for use. All she had to do was boil water. “Thank you, Lord,” she muttered as she turned on the burner.

  “Good morning. Did you sleep well.”

  She jumped at the sound of Michael’s voice and spun around. “Considering I was lying on the floor without even a mattress, it was quite comfortable.”

  “That’s the tatami,” he said, entering the small room. “I take it Rachel is still asleep.”

  “She is. Sleeping soundly with nary a cry for once. She’s been troubled by nightmares.”

  “She’s not alone in that,” he murmured. He placed a wicker basket on the kitchen table and folded back the cloth covering its contents. “Would you like some eggs? We also, as you can see, have fresh fruit, biscuits, butter, and breakfast pastries.”

  “No eggs, but those pastries look delicious. Where did you get them?” she asked as she made herself and Michael some coffee. She ran her fingers through her hair and wished she had taken the time to style it or put on make-up. She feared she looked a sight, while he looked even better than the food.

  “My landlady sends a basket here each morning. I doubt you’d care for a traditional Japanese breakfast of rice and fish, sometimes with a raw egg. It’s the one thing I’d never get used to here.”

  She handed him coffee and he thanked her. He was much more pleasant than he had been the evening before, and she hoped that meant he had gotten over his irritation at their unannounced visit. Maybe she had been harsh in her initial reaction to him.

  “Tell me what this is about,” he said as they ate. “Rachel said you’re her college roommate, but you don’t seem like a student.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She noted how uncomfortable he looked assessing her. “I’ve gone back to school after a wayward youth and some crap jobs. I'm taking some archeology courses at Oxford.”

  “Back when I was there, wayward youths rarely got admitted, and crap jobs didn’t pay enough to afford it.” He angled his head and waited for an explanation.

  She owed him none, smiled, and then took a big bite of a scone.

  He lifted his brows. “I didn't know Rachel was going there.”

  She swallowed. “She’s already making a name for herself. Things come easily for her—almost too easily, if that makes sense. But she’s paying a price for it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re here hoping you can tell us. She’s troubled but it’s difficult to tell how, or even why. I suspect it has to do with what happened to her in Idaho, but I don’t know enough about it to judge. All I can say is, she’s made me curious, and I’ve spent too many years looking into things that made me curious to stop just because I’m back in school. ”

  Michael’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know what happened in Idaho? Did Rachel tell you?”

  “She’s said very little. She’s been a good little trooper in keeping what actually happened out there a secret. Same with Sheriff Sullivan. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up trying to figure it out. You can explain right now, in fact.”

  He studied her a long moment. “You ask questions boldly, and follow up on answers. One of your crap jobs was as a journalist, right?”

  She grinned. “Am I that obvious? I was supposedly a foreign correspondent. I had expected to work on world news and politics. Instead I was the one they sent to anything bizarre, wanting me to debunk it. Find a weird crop circle or sheep mutilation? Send Ceinwen to write about it. After all, she’s from Wales, and aren’t they all about crops and sheep? And now, the area upsetting Rachel has sheep mutilations. Strange world.�
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  Michael seemed to choose his words carefully as he said, “I imagine there were few phenomena you couldn’t debunk.”

  What, she wondered, was he hiding? “You’re right. But that’s all behind me.”

  “You aren’t a journalist any longer?”

  “Not at the moment. That part of my life is over, Doctor Rempart.” Her words were true as far as they went. She had taken a leave of absence, and if she did well on a book deal, she wouldn't return to writing silly articles about the paranormal.

  “Call me Michael,” he said.

  “Michael,” she repeated. She found herself growing increasingly uncomfortable under his strange scrutiny, but that didn’t stop her from studying him as well—the sharp profile, the overly long, wavy but rebellious hair. At the same time, she sensed an odd remoteness about him. She was glad to move past his questions since she had plenty of her own. She began with something neutral and non-threatening. “So, tell me, how did you ever find such a nice house to rent?”

  He explained his meeting with Yamato Toru at the Lafcadio Hearn museum in Matsue.

  She frowned. “That was certainly a round-about way to get help cataloging artifacts.”

  “It turns out there’s another reason they want me here.”

  She waited, not speaking, but staring into his dark eyes. The moment stretched out until he said, “Nakamura Seiji, the descendant of a daimyo, wants to know more about the paranormal and demons. He ties my name to such nonsense.”

  She sensed how upset that made him. “Because of the events in Idaho?”

  He drew back as if to physically as well as mentally distance himself from her. “That, and a few other things earlier in my career.”

  Her eyebrows rose with curiosity even as she realized how different he was from what she had expected. Once more she waited, detecting in him a strange undercurrent of sorrow.

  He replied with complete seriousness. “Those close to him believe he’s possessed.”

  She stared. “Do you?”

  His jaw worked, then he confessed, “Yes.”