Pomeline held up her glass but she didn’t look at him. And she didn’t take a drink.
Jenny glared at Dr. Baker.
Harry held up his glass. “To beauty.”
Art lifted up his plastic cup. “To beautiful stories,” he said in his high voice, and we all took a sip of wine, everyone except Pomeline. She set her glass down by her feet. Harry kissed Sakura’s head and I wondered how many glasses of wine he’d already had. A glow was burning in my stomach. I took another chug.
“Darling, do continue with your scary tale.”
Sakura started roasting a marshmallow. “My mother used to tell me this story. It has music in it … you might like it, Pomeline. There was a man named Hoichi. He was known for playing an instrument like a lute, a biwa. Hoichi was also known for telling stories, the old stories, of famous battles. This was in the days of the samurai, a long, long time ago.” Sakura’s soft voice, so rarely heard, was hypnotic. “But Hoichi was blind. And he was poor. Things were difficult for him. He spent a great deal of time at the temple, where the monks enjoyed and appreciated him, and he performed for them often.”
Pomeline shivered. Dr. Baker put an arm around her, and the other around Jenny. Pomeline snuggled into him. Jenny sat there like a post and then squirmed a few inches away without taking her enraptured eyes from Sakura.
“The monks eventually invited Hoichi to live at the temple. They wanted to help him, and all he had to do was play and recite for them. One warm night Hoichi decided to enjoy the breeze on the verandah outside his room, overlooking one of the temple gardens. He had glass wind bells and they were making music, calling him out to the cooler air. The priest had gone out to console a grieving family, and the other monks had left to do some work in the nearby village. Hoichi was by himself. He played his biwa to pass the time, the music flowing out over the evening flowers.
“The air was tropical and heavy, just as it has been here most nights at Petal’s End. Hoichi remained outside. The priest still had not returned and it was well past midnight. The jasmine was sweet on the night air. Then, cutting through his music, a stern voice called his name. ‘Hoichi.’ He said nothing, but then it said his name again. He was afraid. Hoichi opened his mouth but no words came out. He tried again. He croaked like a frog in your lily pond: ‘I cannot see. Who is there?’ The man said, ‘My master, a very fine lord, has many nobles visiting. He would like you to come and tell the story of the battle Dan No Ura. You must come with me now, and bring your biwa. Do not be afraid.’
“Hoichi dared not defy the samurai. He was afraid at first, but then he thought how pleasing it was to be summoned before such an impressive audience. As they arrived, he could hear the murmur of a great many voices. He kneeled and began the story. Stories were told in a different way in that time and place, more like a chant, very formal. The court audience was delighted. Hoichi was told the great lord wanted him to recite for the next six nights, and the same samurai would come for him each night. He was told not to speak of his visits, since the great lord wished to keep his presence in the area a secret. At dawn Hoichi returned and slipped into his room unseen. The wind bells were silent and there was not even a wisp of breeze.” Sakura looked around at all of us.
Harry nodded. “It’s easy to sneak about in the dark.”
Sakura tilted her head to the side and looked out into the dark beyond the fire, like she could see his words out there and she was watching them. “It is easy to think one is sneaking about, though one never knows who is watching. The priest did notice the next evening and reminded Hoichi that going out at night was unsafe. But Hoichi was sworn to secrecy and he could not say where he had been. He knew it was dangerous to break an oath. Now the priest had a bad feeling, so he had the monks quietly trail Hoichi when he left the following night. They lost him on the dark path. They searched relentlessly for Hoichi and finally heard his biwa in the nearby cemetery. They hurried over and found him there at the grave of a famous lord. Death fires burned in the cemetery as he chanted in the howling wind and rain. Hoichi was in a trance.”
“Who set the death fires?” Art’s eyes were big like the moon. The wine had me more relaxed than I’d been in my life.
“No one, no person sets them. You could say they are the fires from an ill will, from a spirit, from a person or an animal, or even a bird, and they come into this world as blue flame. Hoichi, he was telling a part of ‘Heike Monogatari,’ the Heike Story. He was telling the part where they lost in battle. And the dead, they appeared as blue fires all around him, listening to him. I wonder, do you understand me?”
Jenny’s mouth was wide open. Art put his arm around me and squeezed. Dr. Baker pulled Jenny and Pomeline closer. Jenny brushed him away and moved from the log and sat on a rock. “Well, it’s a good thing this fire isn’t blue, and we’re not sitting in a graveyard.” Dr. Baker laughed, but no one else joined him.
Sakura took a bite of her marshmallow and then continued. “They shook him and he came out of the trance, but he was angry they had disrupted him. He seemed crazed, so they marched him home. There the priest asked him for an explanation, and Hoichi told them what he had been doing. Now he feared they had interrupted the dead, and that the spirits would kill him for breaking his oath. The priest carefully told him they would have killed him anyway. They were onibi, angry spirits that would kill him after he served them. These were the ghosts of those who had lost in battle and whose families had been ruined. Such ghosts sought revenge upon those who brought about the shame.” Sakura put another marshmallow on her roasting stick and held it near the coals.
The fire had burned down. The waves were closer, breaking on the rocks. Grampie had never seemed afraid of anyone who came to see him, but it made me wonder if he knew all the kinds of the dead. And why he wanted to keep me from talking to my dead brother. How he’d said in the letter not to go looking for the dead.
Sakura was glowing in the firelight. “To protect him, they stripped Hoichi naked and they painted sacred passages all over his body, even on the soles of his feet, between his toes and fingers. The priest told Hoichi to sit still on the verandah, and when the dead came to call that night he must remain still and silent and alone. The holy words would protect him. When night came, Hoichi sat for hours until he heard steps come through the gate and all the way to his verandah. The wind bells began to chime.
“ ‘Hoichi!’ The samurai called his name three times, angrier each time, and climbed the steps. ‘I see his instrument but the only flesh I see are these two ears. I will take them for my master.’
“Hoichi’s ears were ripped right off his head but he stayed silent and unmoving on the verandah, bleeding and in agonizing pain. When the priest returned he found Hoichi, only to realize they had forgotten to paint holy text on Hoichi’s ears. They sent for a doctor and Hoichi’s wounds were cared for. Some say Hoichi lived the rest of his days in fear of the dead samurai sending his dark messengers back for him again. Others say his bravery banished the spirits of the disgraced family for good.”
Jenny started clapping. “Sakura, what do you believe?”
Waves were breaking much closer and it was hard to hear Sakura, for she spoke even more quietly now. “Families cast long shadows—”
“We must all remember a fireside story is only that, children. Ghost stories are nothing more than tales we tell to explain what we don’t understand,” Dr. Baker lectured.
Harry kissed Sakura. “I could listen to her stories for hours. Don’t they give you such a splendid frisson?”
Dr. Baker cleared his throat. “I certainly hope we don’t have screams in the night up there. It’s a good thing we don’t have Obon in this country. Imagine that, his ears ripped off. It’s a bit gruesome. I suppose different cultures find different sorts of stories entertaining.”
Jenny’s eyes darkened. “Some ghosts get mad enough they don’t ever rest. Certainly ones who are constantly interrupted. And others, like my father. I don’t think he’s resting. And we
might not have Obon but we do have August. Maybe Daddy’s come back.”
“Jenny! How could you say that?”
“Pomeline, she’s just a child,” Harry said.
Sakura spoke again. “In my country we think of our ancestors’ spirits as part of the family. Just because they die doesn’t mean they cease to exist.”
Jenny’s eyes were circles of fire. “What’s wrong with that, Pomeline? You’re so uptight. Don’t you think Daddy would be angry if he was a ghost? Don’t you think so, Dr. Baker? It’s why Granny won’t let us in the Annex. There’s something in there—”
“My prescription for runaway imaginations is a good night’s sleep.”
Sakura didn’t acknowledge Dr. Baker. “Not all spirits are like the ones in my story, Jenny. Some that are angry can be appeased. For example, if they left something unfinished and it is completed they will be consoled and will never appear again.”
Art finally spoke up. “Well, my grandmother says some spirits never settle into their bodies to start with. They spend their lives trying to escape.”
Jenny shuddered. “That’s creepy. Remember the forerunner story, Fancy? Daddy told it to us. He said your mother used to tell him and your brother ghost stories in the kitchen. Isn’t it when those men were out walking one night, on their way to a costume ball? Isn’t that right? And they saw that thing coming from the sky?”
The wine had made me bolder, ready to fall back into my family ways. “A forerunner isn’t no ghost like Sakura’s talking about. It’s more of a foretelling of something bad that’s going to happen, at least that’s what Grampie said. He did believe those things he told Jenny.” I felt lighter and more carefree than I ever had before, and my worries fell away. Jenny’s sombre attitude made me giggle. “In the story you’re talking about it was a brother and a sister who was walking home one evening after they did an errand for their mother, not a costume ball, silly. It ain’t no fairy tale. And it wasn’t flying but crawling down the road using its legs and arms like a spider would. It was dressed like a woman, but thin as a scarecrow. They ran away but it appeared again in front of them on the road. When they turned to go it hopped onto a wooden fence and balanced there on one leg, one arm pointing out at them, and they went running back the other way screaming. The next day they went back and the fence was so rotten it crumbled away when they poked it with a stick.
“They stuck to what they saw, so the story goes, for it was only dusk so it wasn’t no dark night fooling them. Years later when they was grown, the oldest one was dying and she was diseased and on her deathbed. She looked in the mirror and pointed at herself in fear, for she looked just like the thing on the fence that had followed them that night. It was her own afflicted self haunting them under the moon, a forerunner of what was to pass. Her brother swore that his sister on her deathbed looked just like the lady thing that come after them that summer night long ago.”
It was silent except for the waves crashing onto the shore. Dr. Baker looked like he had indigestion, and Harry and Sakura clapped their hands as Jenny pointed down the beach. “Didn’t your brother die down there?”
Art took my hand under the blanket. I didn’t say a word. I finished my wine. My face burned, and I put my finger to my scar and tapped it. I was suddenly tired and dizzy. I felt like I’d been swimming for miles and miles against a current that held me in one place, keeping me from stepping out onto the rocks.
Pomeline looked weary. “Jenny, really, think of Fancy’s feelings. There’s been quite enough talk of a little boy who has been dead for decades, for heaven’s sake. That’s enough. All this talk of spirits and ghosts and ruin and revenge … I don’t mean to be rude, Sakura, as we begged you for a story, but we don’t tell such tales. My mother would be appalled.”
Harry stood up and began to break up the fire. “You’re quite right, Pomeline. It’s my fault. It’s easy getting carried away sitting around a beach fire in the dark. I think we all need a good night’s sleep. We’ll rise with the sun for another wonderful day of activity.”
Pomeline took Jenny’s arm. “Come along. I’m exhausted. I must go back up to the house. And you must get to bed, Jenny.”
But no one moved, and the waves were louder now. I saw their shiny heads rising up and flipping over into white foam as they crashed down. Pomeline rubbed her eyes and looked out over the bay. The beacon at the top of Parker Island beamed out, and Pomeline looked away.
I imagined Pomeline thinking about her father, swinging from the ceiling of the Annex. And John Lee … could someone that young linger on? I wondered if what I needed was sacred words scrawled over my flesh, to keep me safe. But so far it wasn’t the dead that was causing me any fright, just the living.
“We’ll head up with you, Pomeline. You do look tired, and deep sleep is what the doctor orders. I’m back to the city tomorrow and need to get a good night’s rest myself.”
Jenny twisted toward Dr. Baker. “I don’t want to go to bed yet.”
Dr. Baker could hardly contain his disgust. “Suit yourself then, Jenny, as you always do. Harold, you’ll make sure she comes up soon?”
“I will most certainly shepherd the flock back to Petal’s End, have no fear,” Harry said.
They said goodnight and went over the rocks, Pomeline taking Dr. Baker’s arm as they disappeared into the dark night. Harry, Sakura, Art and Jenny kept gabbing as the fire burned down to just the tiniest embers and the sky overhead seemed to get bigger and deeper and darker. I picked up a pebble and rubbed it between my fingers, a worry stone.
“I want to make more rosewater, Cousin Harry. Did you give the other bottles of rosewater to my grandmother? If not, I can take them up to her in the morning.”
“It was a small batch and there were only two bottles. Your grandmother gave the other one to Margaret. To thank her for all her work this summer. She says Margaret has gone above and beyond the call of duty.”
Even in the muted light I could see Jenny’s eyes narrow. She picked up a piece of driftwood and stabbed at the fire.
“We can make more tomorrow. I’m sure your Granny will give you your own. It’s only the first batch. The next batch will be the finest. Don’t take it so hard, my goodness.”
“It’s the first batch. It’s the most special. And Granny gave the only other bottle to Margaret.”
“Well, I’m sure Marigold would have given it to you if she’d had any idea how upset you’d be. Let’s just let this go for the night and we’ll make more later.” For the first time since he’d arrived, Harry appeared exasperated.
It was clear to me that Jenny was thinking of the bottle of rosewater in the cloakroom near Margaret’s orange sweater. She already knew and was only confirming what she viewed as Margaret’s efforts to displace her, Margaret’s trickery. She stood up and started back across the beach. She tripped, but Art grabbed her before she hit the rocks. “Slow down there, Jenny. Don’t let Margaret get to you.”
Art headed across the beach to his house. “Don’t let the ghosts get you,” Jenny called out to him.
I watched him disappear into the night. Art, like me, could walk this place blindfolded. He was singing, and I was comforted by his voice even as it faded. Jenny was mumbling under her breath as we walked. I whistled softly all the way up the hill. We came onto the lawn and the house sat quiet, the air warm and sheltered from the bay. There was a small outdoor light on by the door. Harold, Sakura and Jenny went up the front steps, and I called that I was going in through the back.
It was almost pitch-black at the back of the house. The linden flowers were strong on the night air. I heard a scuff. I should have gone in the house but I went further into the darkness. I headed back down the path, to the far door in the wall of Evermore. And that’s when I saw it, a shape by the carriage house wall. I was drunk and terrified.
Don’t be afraid, it whispered.
Running on the path now, I flew along and it grabbed me. I twisted and kicked it and heard it fall down on the grass
before I had a chance to look closely. In the moonlight, when he leaned back, it was Hector sitting there holding his arm.
“Shit, Fancy. Holy fucking shit. What are you, some freaking mercenary running through the night?”
My heart was pounding. “Holy fucking shit yourself, Hector. What the hell are you doing out here at this time of night? Didn’t you take Margaret down to the valley?”
He stood up, rubbing his arm. “I took her home a long time ago and then come back to do extra work. Buddy said he could give me a hand. Lots to do for the garden party. I could hardly wait to get her out of the car. It wasn’t my fault she went making fun of Marigold, you know. She’s got to be running somebody down, that’s how Margaret is. She don’t ever stop talking around me, giving me her slit-eyed look. You know fat girls. Anyway, I can’t get nothing done in the day with them people all around, the gardeners, the city ladies planning out the party like they’re putting on some end-of-the-world banquet. I told Margaret she should be more careful with what she says, especially around here where the walls got ears. It was good you come along to get her to shut the fuck up. But I will say Margaret’s not a bad dancer, the way she moves her hips.” Hector chuckled. “What are you doing out here? Now I’m all sore and beat up from you molesting me in the dark.”
I am ashamed to say even now what come over me there in that garden with the moonlight flowing down over us, like it seeped through my skin and filled me up with liquid silver. My heart was pounding, and he kissed me, licking the sticky marshmallow bits still on my lips, pressing his body on mine, my back against the cold stone wall. “Well, well, well, will wonders never cease. You’ve been drinking, Fancy Mosher. All grown up in one evening. Let’s see how grown up you are.” He pulled my dress up, and went down on his knees. I felt his wet mouth on me. He unzipped his pants and I could feel his hand moving fast. His tongue was hot and hard as the night air licked icy around the edges of my hot flesh.
“That’s just between me and you, Fancy,” Hector said when he sent me back to the house. “We all need some love to make us feel good. When you’re a bit older I’ll give you something better than that.”
The Memento Page 20