The Waking

by Thomas Randall

  By mid-morning, the rain slowed to barely a trickle, with shafts of sunlight reaching down through breaks in the clouds. It looked like the gloom would burn off, delivering another picturesque spring day on Miyazu Bay, perfect for the tourists visiting Ama-no-Hashidate. But it felt as though all of that existed in some parallel world now, a busy, happy reality blind to the dread and death that stalked the halls of Monju-no-Chie School.

  “Dad, Miho wants to get back to the dorm. I’m going to walk her, all right?” Kara asked, standing framed in his office doorway.

  He looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you want to go over there?”

  Kara had shrugged. “There’ll be plenty of people around. And I want to check on Sakura.”

  At his desk, Rob Harper stared at her, tapping a pen against his computer keyboard. “How do you feel? Did you get up again last night?”

  His nerves were frayed. When she laughed, she knew she sounded frayed as well. There was no hiding it.

  “Not as far as I know. If I did, I didn’t go anywhere.” But Kara knew she hadn’t gotten up again. “And I’m okay,” she went on. “Just really, really tired. If there’s not going to be school, I think I’m going to try to sleep a little after lunch.”

  Miho came out of the bathroom then, lost in a hooded sweatshirt much too large for her. Kara’s father glanced at Miho, then back at his daughter. “All right, go ahead. But unless you’re coming back right away, after you go to the dorm, come by the school. I’m headed there shortly to help deal with the parents. There’ll be a lot of activity later today with so many people coming to collect their kids.”

  Moments later, the girls were out the front door and walking briskly toward school, a silent but mutual urgency propelling them. Kara had brought her camera, but she uncapped it only once for a quick picture of the school in the distance, shafts of sunlight dappling the pagoda-style roof in splashes of golden light and gray storm shadow.

  “Why did you bring that?” Miho asked in English.

  Kara glanced at her. They’d spoken very little this morning, each keeping to her own thoughts. Kara’s eyes burned with exhaustion and her head felt stuffed with cotton, the way she’d felt the one and only time she’d ever drunk enough beer to wake up with a hangover. And Miho might not have been suffering from nightmares, but she had to be exhausted this morning as well.

  “When I’m upset or freaked out,” Kara explained in English, “there are two things that make me feel better, taking pictures and playing guitar. I’m not some strolling troubadour, and I figured we didn’t have time to hang out and sing Jack Johnson surf tunes. So, the camera.”

  Miho nodded slowly as they walked, listening, trying to take it all in. Her English was decent, but not as accomplished as Kara’s Japanese. Miho didn’t have a father who’d been teaching her a foreign language basically since birth.

  “What does ‘troubadour’ mean?” she asked.

  Kara smiled. She switched to Japanese. “Like a traveling musician.”

  Miho shot her a sharp look. “Don’t do that,” she said, resolutely sticking to English, irritable from sleeplessness. “Don’t be so . . . Don’t be . . .”

  The girl grew frustrated, sighing because she could not find a word in English to express her feelings.

  “Shit,” Miho said.

  Kara tried to hide her smile, and then laughed instead, raising a hand to hide her face. Miho shot her a fierce, withering look, entirely different from her usual shy, amiable demeanor.

  “No, no,” Kara said. “Okay, English. I’m not laughing at you. It was just . . . you don’t have any problem learning English swear words.”

  Miho shrugged. “Profanity is useful and it makes you feel better. It’s an . . . what is the word?” she said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “My brain is not working right today. Profanity is a very expressive part of any language.”

  The girls walked on another half a dozen steps in silence, and then Kara bumped Miho gently. “The word you wanted was ‘condescending.’ It means to treat someone like they’re not as smart as you are, or something like that. And I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be condescending. It’s just easier to talk to you in Japanese.”

  Miho bumped her back, a little harder. “But I need to speak better English.”

  “Your English is freakin’ amazing. You speak English better than most Americans.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. No shit.”

  Miho smiled. “See? Profanity is useful.”

  “Oh, I can teach you all kinds of profanity you probably haven’t heard yet.”

  “I would like that.”

  The drizzle had picked up a bit, and Kara snapped her camera case shut, keeping it close to her body. As she and Miho walked, they continued to bump each other every few steps.

  Pretending they had nothing at all to fear.

  As they stepped up onto the curb and then onto the lawn in front of the school, Kara felt words coming up from deep within her, felt her mouth opening to ask a question to which she did not want an answer. She rubbed at her itchy eyes.

  “Did you smell the cherry blossoms last night?” Kara asked.

  “I was just thinking about that,” Miho said, looking at her oddly. “I looked around this morning, but there are no cherry trees near your house.”

  “No. There aren’t.”

  Kara expected Miho to pursue the point, to want to talk about what had caused the smell, but instead the other girl fell silent. But Kara couldn’t bear silence right now.

  “Did you see it, Miho? Last night, when I was outside?”

  Miho glanced at her for a fraction of a second, obviously reluctant to meet her gaze. “I don’t know.”

  Kara stopped. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  Miho went on two steps further, then turned. Her gaze kept dropping, shifting from Kara to the ground and then up again.

  “When I came out, for a moment I saw something,” she said, then shifted into Japanese, pointing to Kara’s camera. “If someone takes a photograph with a bright flash, sometimes it makes you blink, and there are colored lights that linger when you close your eyes. It was like that. I had only a glimpse of something that seemed only barely there, like I was looking out of the corner of my eye, but instead it was right in front of me. And as soon as your father yelled for you, I blinked and it was gone.”

  The two girls stared at each other. Kara had a hard time catching her breath. The damp, gray day enveloped them. Sleep deprivation had made the whole world surreal and dreamlike to her, so that there on the grounds of Monju-no-Chie School, she felt as though she were no longer in the world she had always known.

  “I saw it, for just a second. I came out of a nightmare, but I’m not sure I was ever really dreaming,” she said, sticking to Japanese now, needing to be understood. Her voice was barely a whisper. Her father had put ointment on her palms last night but the little cuts still stung. She forced herself not to make fists of her hands. “Last night, as long as I stayed awake, I could still sort of picture it. But then I slept a little, and now all I have is the impression of it in my head, like the whole thing was a dream.”

  Miho hugged herself, looking like a tiny little girl in that voluminous sweatshirt. “It wasn’t, though. It isn’t a dream.”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  “That’s okay,” Kara said. “We both need a peaceful night’s rest. We need to get away from here.”

  “What about Sakura?” Miho asked.

  Kara pressed her lips together a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think she’d want to leave.”

  Miho blanched, looking like she might be sick, but she didn’t argue the point.

  “Let’s go talk to her,” Kara went on.

  When they started toward the school again, they walked a little faster. Several unfamiliar cars were in the lot to the left of the main school building. They went around, cuttin
g across the field that separated the school from the dormitory. Other vehicles were parked beside the dorm where several mothers were gathered outside, and two boys were loading suitcases into car trunks.

  Kara and Miho ignored everyone. A couple of boys tried to stop Miho to talk to her, but she brushed them off. Some of the doors were open on the corridor; the rooms were empty of students and any personal belongings. It was still early, but some parents had already come and gone, collecting their children. More boarders would depart over the next day or so. By tomorrow night, Kara had a feeling, the dorm would be empty except for a handful of kids, Miho and Sakura included. And then Miho would leave, and Sakura would be alone with her grief and obsession.

  When Miho unlocked her door and pushed it open, they both saw Sakura sprawled, half-tangled in her sheets, unmoving. Kara gasped and from the visible jolt that went through Miho, she knew the other girl had made the same assumption.

  But then Sakura moaned and stretched and rolled over. Her jagged, short hair stood up in tufts and wings. Bleary-eyed, she gave them a soft smile.

  “Do you have to be so loud?”

  “Sakura!” Miho said, hurrying toward her. “You scared me. For a second, I thought you were dead.”

  The smile drained from Sakura’s face as she sat up, blanket around her waist. “That would be helpful. Then the police wouldn’t think I had Chouku’s blood on my hands.”

  “Oh, no,” Miho said. “They don’t, really.”

  Sakura nodded, rubbing her hands over her face. “Yeah. They do.”

  “But they talked to everyone,” Kara said. “They asked me and Miho if you’d left the room during the night, and we told them no.”

  “How do you know?” Sakura asked bitterly.

  Kara blinked. “What do you—?”

  “You were sleeping,” Sakura said. “You don’t know if I left or not.”

  “We would’ve heard you,” Miho argued.

  Sakura gave a short, humorless laugh. “I’m sure the police were totally convinced by that argument.”

  She’d made a mess of the room, with dirty clothes strewn on the floor and piles of manga on Miho’s bed. Now she seemed to notice the condition of the place.

  “Sorry about this. I couldn’t sleep, so I tried reading.”

  But Kara had stopped listening, stopped paying attention to her. The window stood wide open and the temperature in the room was a good fifteen degrees colder than out in the hall. She went over and closed the window tightly, locking it.

  “Why are you so quiet?” Sakura asked.

  Kara looked at her. “We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “You know what,” Kara said. She glanced at Miho, but the quieter girl only sat, waiting for her to speak. Miho and Sakura were best friends as well as roommates, but their dynamic had long since been established. Sakura was the wild one, the bold, outgoing one, and though Miho seemed more talkative with Kara, around Sakura she chose to play the part of modest mouse.

  “Fine,” Kara went on, sitting down on the edge of Miho’s bed, locking eyes with Sakura. “You think Akane’s come back, that she’s giving us these dreams, that she’s the one who killed Chouku and Jiro, and made Hana jump off the roof, because they were all involved in her murder. Maybe they were. And maybe you’re right and Ume really did have something to do with it, too.”

  Sakura’s nostrils flared, her expression cold. “And you think I’m crazy.”

  Kara and Miho exchanged a look.

  “Not entirely,” Kara said. Her heart raced and she felt her face flush. God, it’s so hard to say this stuff out loud, she thought. “Okay, a lot of people would think the whole thing was nuts. Ghosts? Spirits of murdered girls back from the dead? That’s pretty crazy. But Miho and I . . . we’ve been talking about it. What’s going on here isn’t normal. There’s something awful at this school. I feel like a total idiot using the word ‘evil,’ but I know what I feel.”

  This last bit felt to Kara like a plea, and emotion welled up in her. Fear and desperation made her voice quaver.

  “You’re talking about vampires again, aren’t you?” Sakura said, crossing her arms almost petulantly.

  “Not exactly,” Kara said.

  Miho took a breath before speaking. “You know the legend of the ketsuki?”

  Sakura rolled her eyes, but instead of humor, a grim anger emanated from her. “Seriously? That’s so much easier to believe? I’ve seen the looks between the two of you, I know what you think. I’m losing my mind. I miss Akane so much that I’m wishing for this to be true. But I don’t wish it! I wish she was still alive, not a thing, not a spirit killing people! But she was my sister, and if she can’t rest because the police are such fools they don’t know how to make her killers pay, then she should rise! She should make them pay!”

  Kara nodded. “Maybe she should. But I don’t think it’s Akane.”

  Sakura threw up her hands, then turned away, wiping tears from her eyes. “How insane is this whole conversation? They’ll lock us all up if they hear us talking like this.”

  Miho went to sit beside her, pulled her into an embrace. For a while, Sakura wept into the soft fabric of Miho’s sweatshirt. At last she steadied her breath and pulled away, looking up first at Miho and then at Kara.

  “What makes you so sure it’s a ketsuki?”

  Kara hesitated, running her tongue over dry lips.

  Miho answered for her. “It came for Kara last night.”

  Sakura’s eyes widened. “What?”

  Kara nodded. “If Miho hadn’t woken my father, I’d probably be . . .”

  She couldn’t say dead, but she did not need to. Miho and Sakura both knew what word she had left out.

  Sakura sat a moment, taking that in, and then she shook her head.

  “No. It’s Akane.”

  “Sakura?” Miho said in surprise.

  “You imagined it,” Sakura said, simmering with anger. “Akane’s back. I know it. I can feel her when she’s near. She wants justice. The police wouldn’t give it to her, so she’s taking it in blood, the way the old spirits always did.”

  “You’re wrong,” Kara said, shaking her head, trying to get through to her friend. “I saw it. And even if I hadn’t, why would she come after me? I never even knew her.”

  “Maybe she was there to frighten you because you don’t believe,” Sakura said, lips curling into cruelty now. “Or maybe she just doesn’t like you.”

  “That’s not fair,” Miho said, reaching for her hand.

  Sakura pushed her away. As they stared at her, she stood and pulled on pants and a sweater, slipped into shoes, and went to the door.

  “Wait, Sakura,” Miho pleaded. “Don’t go.”

  She didn’t even hesitate, slamming the door as she went out.

  Miho turned to Kara, eyes pleading. “What are we going to do?”

  Kara gnawed on her lower lip. “She’s having the dreams, too. If the ketsuki comes for her, she’ll go willingly, thinking it’s Akane. We can’t let her be here by herself anymore.”

  Miho stared at the closed door. “We’re going to have to stop it, aren’t we?”

  “Someone has to.”

  “How?” Miho asked.

  Kara shrugged, troubled but no longer confused. She felt strangely awake now. “I’m not sure. Nobody else will believe us. You’re leaving in a couple of days. But we have to . . . Wait a second.” Kara turned to Miho, mind racing, forcing herself not to succumb to the powerful temptation to pretend none of it was real. They both knew it was real. Denying it might cost Sakura her life. “You said there was a Noh play about the ketsuki. We should ask Miss Aritomo about it.”

  Miho thought about that a moment, then nodded. “She might be busy dealing with parents, like your father, but let’s see if we can find her.”

  A ripple of anticipation went through Kara. They might be crazy, but it felt good to be taking some kind of action.

  “I should go tell my father I might be a
while,” she said.

  “Okay. I want to take a shower anyway. I’ll meet you on the school steps in half an hour?” Miho suggested.

  Kara stood up. “See you there.”

  The new school term had barely started, really, and already it was coming to a close. Boxes and suitcases and trunks were being carried out of the dorm. In a way, that seemed fitting to Kara. It felt like many weeks had passed since school had begun—since she had walked so nervously toward Monju-no-Chie School—instead of a comparative handful of days. She remembered vividly how anxious she had been and how Sakura and Miho had set her at ease.

  She left the dorm and strode across the field, going toward the trees that lined the opposite side. Sakura had taken off quickly, and Kara expected to find her in the arch of that recessed door on the east side of the school, smoking a cigarette, hiding out. That first day she’d had her uniform jacket inside out, all of those badges and patches on the inside, and Kara had thought Sakura was so cool, that the girl had it all together.

  But even back then, she’d been falling apart.

  How did you not notice? she wondered now. If not then, when you found out about her sister? How did you not know how broken she was inside?

  Kara couldn’t blame herself, though. Miho hadn’t noticed either, and they were roommates. And Sakura hadn’t really begun to fray at the edges until the nightmares came and Jiro died.

  If all of this was real—if she and Miho weren’t completely freaking out and seeing things that weren’t there—then they had to be so careful now. The ketsuki had come after Kara, but at least she knew it wanted to hurt her. Sakura felt righteous and invincible. She needed help desperately, and her parents weren’t even returning calls from the school.

  When she walked around the side of the building, she peered past the small trees up against the wall, into the deep shadows of that recessed doorway, in the shadow of the overhanging pagoda roof. So certain had she been that, for a moment, she thought she saw a figure there. But the little alcove was empty. Only cigarette butts, stubbed out in the dirt, remained.