Into the Mystic, Volume One

by Tay LaRoi

  But with what? The only potential weapons were in the kitchen. Ingrid surveyed her living room from her bird’s-eye view, thinking of creative ways to use coat hangers, her school bag, and scattered office supplies as weapons. Her cheap box cutter was her best option. Her school bag would be her shield.

  Ingrid silently descended the ladder and picked up her bag, the box cutter, and her phone. If she could scare the intruder out of her way, get outside, and call the police, she’d be fine. Now, if only she could build up the courage to move. Ingrid took a deep breath, held her weapons tight, and charged the kitchen door.

  She froze out of pure unadulterated confusion.

  At her stove, chopping vegetables as water boiled and the rice cooker steamed, stood a petite Japanese woman in a black coat with fur trim and a white mask. She looked over Ingrid’s matted hair and baggy T-shirt with a cross expression. “Are you still drunk? Go sleep it off. I’ll wake you when the food’s ready.”

  “What are you doing in my house?” Ingrid demanded, holding her bag tighter.

  The woman sighed and set down her knife. “It’s simple,” she said nonchalantly. “I’m not leaving until you answer my question.”

  Two

  Ingrid allowed herself to be led to the sofa and eased down onto the cushions. The shock was too much. She watched as the woman placed a bowl of curry in front of her and sat across from her. Ingrid glanced at the food and then at the woman.

  “It’s safe,” the woman assured her. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have already.”

  “You still might,” Ingrid finally said.

  The woman leaned forward on the table. “It’s not personal. It’s just the way things are.”

  “Why?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed with a hidden smile. “You know who I am, right?”

  “The Kuchisake-Onna. My friends told me.”

  “Then you know how this works. Lucky for you, I’ve never met an American before, so I won’t rush your answer.”

  Ingrid weighed her options. The woman didn’t look very strong, but if she could disappear and enter a locked apartment, physical strength was the last thing Ingrid needed to worry about. So, where did that leave her? Calling the cops was out of the question, and her friends certainly wouldn’t believe her. Even if they did, what could they do? She could always buy a ticket for the first flight back to the States. Her family would be relieved, actually.

  No. She’d worked too hard to save up and move from Michigan to Sendai. This freak wasn’t about to scare her away.

  Ingrid stood up and headed for the door. “I need some fresh air.”

  “Aren’t you going to eat?” Something in the woman’s voice told Ingrid that she was pouting behind her mask.

  “I’ll eat when I get back,” Ingrid called as she grabbed her jacket, purse, and keys.

  “I’ll make miso soup, instead,” the woman replied. “It’s good for hangovers.”

  Ingrid faked a smile and shut the door. Once she was down the stairs, she dropped to her knees and let out a long groan that released all her emotions at once. That was hardly about to help, so she sat up, took a deep breath, and tried to think. A car pulled into a nearby parking spot, and Ingrid noticed the yellow charm dangling from the car’s rearview mirror.

  A charm!

  Maybe Ingrid could use one to get rid of the woman. She’d always thought they were just souvenirs and well-meaning trinkets, but if homicidal scissors-wielding ghosts were real, why not charms?

  But was the woman even a ghost? She didn’t seem to have trouble interacting with the physical world. Maybe Japanese ghosts worked differently. Now seemed like a good time to find out.

  Ingrid got to her feet and headed toward the train station with a clear destination in mind. Osaki Hachiman Shrine would have a charm or two to take care of her problem. Its patron god, Hachiman, was even a god of war. Ingrid figured she couldn’t go wrong with that sort of power backing her.

  Half an hour later, Ingrid hiked the steps toward the shrine, careful to listen for anything eerie or strange beyond the stone gate. The thick brush on either side of the stairs could be hiding anything. If the Kuchisake-Onna could walk around Sendai, why not a bunch of other supernatural beings?

  At least there were plenty of tourists walking the long stone path to the shrine. They posed by stone lanterns and large barrels of sake to take selfies while others sipped amazake, a warm, sweet rice-based drink. Even as she panicked, Ingrid had to admit the trees lining the trail were beautiful.

  Once at the shrine, Ingrid darted straight for the stand sporting brightly colored bells and squares of silk. Lucky for her, all the other tourists were occupied with leaflets and the sprawling shrine itself, so no one heard her ask the woman running the counter, “Do you have any charms to ward off ghosts?”

  The middle-aged woman’s smile faltered. Not enough to risk embarrassing Ingrid for her outlandish question—that would be rude—but enough to let the odd foreigner know that it was, in fact, an outlandish question.

  “My friend thinks her apartment is haunted,” Ingrid quickly lied.

  “I see,” the woman chuckled as she stood and surveyed her wares. “We don’t have anything for ghosts, but these might help.” She picked out one to ward against evil, one for safety, and a third for help finding a spouse. She clearly thought Ingrid needed to get out more. Maybe with a nice Japanese boy.

  Ingrid studied the brightly colored fabric and golden stitching in the design. She could make out a bit of the writing, but her speaking had always been stronger than her reading. She’d have to trust the woman.

  “I’ll take all three,” Ingrid said, rummaging around in her purse. With her charms bought and her change received, she set off back home, knowing that she could never return to Osaki Hachiman Shrine. Not with that woman working there, at least.

  Once home, Ingrid stood outside her apartment and listened. The silence worried her even more than noise would have. Silence could mean anything: the woman was hiding, she was waiting for Ingrid to enter and cut her down with her giant scissors, or she was never real at all and Ingrid was as crazy as the woman at the shrine probably thought she was.

  Ingrid took a deep breath, counted to three, and opened the door to find an empty kitchen. With a groan, she prepared to repeat the process with her living room. This time, she opened the door to find the room tidied and the woman fast asleep on the sofa.

  Yet again, Ingrid found herself too stunned to act. She studied the sleeping spirit—or whatever she was—and couldn’t help but notice how small she was. She couldn’t be more than five one or five two. Despite its uncombed state, her hair truly was lovely. If she wasn’t still holding those giant scissors, she might very well have been pretty with her face partially hidden.

  The woman shifted in her sleep, making Ingrid hold her breath, but settled once more.

  Right. Ingrid had a job to do. She gingerly opened the bag and held the charms over the woman, waiting for her to disappear, burst into flames, do something other than sleep.

  Nothing happened.

  Ingrid tried waving the charms around, muttering made-up spells, and even praying to Hachiman himself, but nothing seemed to work. With no other ideas in mind, she gently placed one charm on the woman’s head and the others on either side of her.

  Still nothing.

  Just as Ingrid was about to grumble a chain of profanities, the woman stretched, yawned, and sat up. The charm on her head fell into her lap, and Ingrid braced herself for the woman’s wrath. The Kuchisake-Onna picked up the charm, studied it with sleepy eyes, and burst into laughter, startling Ingrid more than if she had been angry.

  The woman winced and held her cheeks. “Ow. It hurts to laugh, but it’s worth it.” Looking up at Ingrid, she gathered the charms and asked, “You really thought these would work? And why did you buy one to help you find a spouse? That definitely won’t make me leave.”

  Ingrid took the bright-red charm from the woman and studied i
t. “That lady must not have completely understood me.”

  “You could have saved yourself the money and just answered my question.”

  “Why? So you can try to kill me?” Ingrid replied with a glare. “What even are you?”

  The woman shrugged, stood, and began to fold the blanket she had used. “Beats me, honestly. I’m just like this. It’s actually quite a story.”

  Ingrid took a deep breath to lower her blood pressure, packed up her laptop, and stormed out of the apartment once again.

  “Hey, where are you going?” the woman called.

  “Somewhere I can think of a way to get rid of you,” Ingrid snapped back.

  “Do you want me to make something for dinner?”

  Ingrid slammed the door in response.

  She set up shop in a tiny cafe down the street. With a cup of coffee and a slice of chocolate cake, she did what she kicked herself for not doing in the first place: googled the damn woman and her legend.

  Twenty minutes and half her cup of coffee later, Ingrid had her answer.

  “If you tell the Kuchisake-Onna that she’s average-looking, she’ll let you go,” read one site. But what about if she was haunting your apartment? The internet didn’t have any solutions for that, apparently. Calling her “average” was as good a plan as any. Even with her question answered, she couldn’t help but dive deeper into the story.

  Every source claimed the legend was based on a true story, but no one could agree on what that story was. Some said she had been hit by a car while chasing children across the street. Others said her husband found out that she was cheating, so he sliced her mouth so no one would ever find her beautiful again. One account said she had been assaulted by a group of men who left her for dead. Apparently, she tracked them down and killed them all.

  Frustrated, frightened, potentially delirious, and with that wonderful mental image, Ingrid paid her tab and headed home.

  “You’re average,” she called, upon storming into her own home. “Now please get out.”

  The living room door jiggled, and the woman poked her head into the kitchen. “Did you say something?”

  “I said you’re average-looking,” Ingrid repeated. “That’s how I get rid of you, right?”

  The woman’s thin eyebrows pulled together as she opened the door farther. “Says who?”

  “The internet.”

  “How does the internet know how to get rid of me?”

  “Are you saying you’re not going to obey your own curse?”

  “I never added that rule, so I can’t disobey it.”

  Ingrid set her bag down with shaking hands as her heart hammered in her chest. This joke, curse, whatever it was, had run its course and brought Ingrid to the end of her rope.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time. Please leave,” she muttered.

  The woman’s expression turned stormy as she slipped her hands into her pockets. “And I’ll ask you one more time,” she replied with a voice like thin ice. “Am I pretty?”

  Ingrid reached over the narrow kitchen counter and took the largest knife she owned from the wall. The woman watched her with narrow, steely eyes and drew her scissors. Ingrid drew the longest, deepest breath of her life.

  “No.”

  The woman struck. She jabbed through the small space separating her from Ingrid, but only met air as Ingrid backed into the bathroom to dodge. Ingrid ignored the way her stomach flipped and plunged her knife toward the woman’s back.

  She’s not human, she swore to herself.

  The woman nearly took out Ingrid’s left eye as she turned and swiped again.

  Ingrid stepped back into the living room. Between the desk, the coffee table, and the sofa, she had less space than she had hoped. If Ingrid could just keep the coffee table between them…

  The woman jumped on top of it and poised to plunge her scissors into Ingrid’s throat.

  The slick surface and scattered paper made it easy to knock her off.

  Ingrid went down on top of her and wrestled the scissors from the woman’s hands. Despite the woman’s infamy for slaughter, Ingrid found it easy to pry them away from her. With both her slender wrists held tight in one hand, Ingrid brought her kitchen knife to the woman’s neck.

  “Don’t make me do this,” she panted. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  The woman gave up struggling and glared up at Ingrid. “Fine. You win. Happy?”

  Before Ingrid could answer, the doorbell rang.

  Ingrid scrambled to her feet, making sure to take the kitchen knife and the woman’s scissors, and straightened her clothes before answering the door.

  Outside stood Mrs. Sasaki, a thirty-something woman who lived in the apartment below Ingrid, wiping her wet hands on her apron. “Is everything all right? I heard a crash.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Ingrid lied through her teeth. “I fell off the steps to the loft. Sorry if I startled you. I’ll try to be quieter.”

  “More careful is more like it.” Mrs. Sasaki folded her arms. “You could have seriously injured yourself.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  Mrs. Sasaki peeked beyond Ingrid but must have seen nothing out of the ordinary. “If you start to feel dizzy, be sure to call me, all right? I can take you to the hospital if you need.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Sasaki. Sorry again for the noise.”

  The woman gave a friendly smile and excused herself as Ingrid closed the door. For a moment, Ingrid leaned against the door and listened to the unexpected, though greatly appreciated, silence. She had really won. The crisis had been averted. Her ghost problem was taken care of and the only suspicious person thought she had fallen.

  Ingrid studied the scissors in her hands for a moment and then set them on the kitchen counter. She’d look up which recycling bin to put them in later—Japan’s complicated recycling system was equal parts a blessing and a curse—but for now, she just needed a beer. She wasn’t usually one to drink two days in a row, but today was a special occasion.

  With a Sapporo in one hand, Ingrid plopped down on her couch to take a long sip.

  “You’ve been hurt worse, huh? When did that happen?”

  Ingrid choked, spewing beer down her shirt. As she wiped her mouth, she looked up to see the woman sitting on the ladder steps with her chin in her hands.

  “Why are you still here?” Ingrid demanded, getting to her feet. “I beat you. Leave.”

  The woman shimmied down the stairs. “True, you did beat me, but I can’t just leave now. You’ve tarnished my reputation. Eternity’s gonna be pretty boring if people aren’t scared of me.”

  “What do you want then?”

  “If you want to get rid of me, you have to help me,” the woman said. “You have to figure out how to break my curse so I can cross over.”

  Three

  Ingrid took the rest of Saturday off from the freak show her life had become. It helped that Thomas and Sam wanted to go out that night for a little while.

  “The Split-Mouthed Woman still after you?” Sam teased after they ordered dinner.

  “Of course not.” It didn’t feel like a lie, seeing as the woman pretty much had Ingrid. “And I didn’t see any news about any similar sightings. You must have been right about her.”

  “Well, duh, I was right,” Sam snickered.

  Thomas studied Ingrid a bit closer. “But it still bothers you.”

  “Costume or not, something wasn’t right with that woman.”

  Thomas shrugged. “Well, Sendai is huge. The odds of running into her again are pretty slim. It’s best just not to worry about her.”

  Ingrid scoffed but said nothing more about it. She wouldn’t know what to say even if she wanted to tell the truth, so she did her best to put the woman out of her mind.

  As it turned out, she didn’t have to think about her much when she got home either. Upon entering the apartment, which she did very cautiously, she found that the woman was fast asleep on the sofa yet again. At least when she
was asleep, she couldn’t toy with Ingrid, so there was a silver lining.

  That silver lining melted away the next day when Ingrid woke up to the sound of shuffling in the kitchen. Ingrid reached the living room just as the woman emerged with a cup of coffee and a sandwich made of egg, cheese, and ketchup.

  “Hope this is okay,” the woman said, setting breakfast on the coffee table.

  “It’s fine. Don’t you need to eat, though?”

  The woman shook her head and plopped down on the other side of the table. “I’ve tried, but I don’t taste anything. My mouth makes it hard to chew, so I don’t mind.”

  Ingrid sighed and eased herself onto the sofa. If she was going to be stuck with this woman for the foreseeable future, she might as well make peace with her. Eating her food seemed like a good way to start. Sure enough, she didn’t keel over from the sandwich, nor did she start frothing at the mouth from the coffee, though it was a bit bitter. She didn’t mention that, though. Biting the hand that literally fed her seemed like a bad idea, especially since that hand wielded giant scissors.

  With her sandwich in one hand, Ingrid grabbed a nearby notepad. “If I have to break your curse, or whatever, I need information. Let’s start with your name, age, stuff like that.”

  “Yamada Ayame. I’m twenty, or I was when I was alive, anyway. I’m from Gifu Prefecture. I was a sophomore at Nagoya University. My blood type is AB.”

  Ingrid chuckled. “You believe in that blood type stuff?”

  The woman, Ayame, shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Do people not talk about blood types anymore?”

  “Not very much, I don’t think. I’ve only heard it mentioned in passing.”

  “What’s your blood type?”

  “A. Can we focus, please?”

  Ayame looked Ingrid over. “I can see that.”

  “Ms. Yamada.”

  “Sorry. I’m focused now.”

  Ingrid suddenly wished she wasn’t. Even if she didn’t believe blood types influenced people’s personalities, it was far more pleasant than the question weighing on her mind