“Kara,” Ren whispered.
She had just bent to her work again, and now her brush twitched the tiniest bit, ruining the line of the kanji character she had begun.
“Sorry,” he said, glancing to make sure Miss Kaneda was not paying attention. “Sakura showed me the last few pages of the manga you guys are doing. It’s pretty dark stuff.”
A ripple of unease went through Kara. Months had passed, but she still didn’t like to talk about what had happened in April. Not that Ren had asked about that—he just wanted to know about the graphic novel she and Sakura had been working on—but Kara couldn’t discuss one without being haunted by the memory of the other. The manga faithfully adapted a Noh theater play about the demon Kyuketsuki. Very few people knew that during the first term, she and Sakura, Miho, and another student, Hachiro, had encountered the real Kyuketsuki, an ancient, almost-forgotten demon spirit summoned by the violent murder of Akane, and the rage and grief of Sakura.
“The subject matter is pretty dark,” Kara whispered, with a sidelong glance at Sakura. “I’m glad to be done with it.”
“You mean you don’t like it?” Ren said. “It’s really good. Sakura’s art gets better with every page, and your script is excellent. So creepy and tragic.”
Kara shrugged. “It’s the way the play was written. I can’t take credit for it.”
They had managed to stop the spirit from stepping fully into the modern world, but before it had vanished, it cursed them. In the time since, the girls had not encountered anything remotely supernatural. No hauntings, no violence, no demons. Sakura and Miho had even begun to believe that Kyuketsuki had grown so ancient that its curse no longer wielded its original power. But Kara did not feel so sure. She still had nightmares sometimes, though they were ordinary enough, not the unnatural dreams the Kyuketsuki had once created.
“Don’t be so modest,” Sakura said. “You did an excellent job. Even Aritomo-sensei said so, and you know how worried she was that we would disrespect the source material.”
Kara wished the conversation would end. She and Sakura shared a sad and knowing look, but Ren seemed not to notice.
“So what are you going to do next?” he asked.
“Next?” Kara echoed.
“For your second manga. Sakura’s getting so much better, you have to do another one,” Ren said.
Kara looked at Sakura. “I hadn’t really—”
Miss Kaneda cleared her throat. All three of them stiffened and looked up at the teacher, whose disapproving glance was enough to make Kara feel terribly guilty.
“I’m sorry, sensei,” she said.
Miss Kaneda gave a small bow of her head. Kara returned the gesture, and lifted her brush, focusing again on her calligraphy. But as she got back to work, she couldn’t seem to slide back into the peaceful, meditative state she’d been in before.
Next? They had just finished the manga about Kyuketsuki. She didn’t want to think about what came next.
To Kara, the best part of summer had always been the long, golden twilight of early evening, when the day had come to an end but night had not yet arrived. On that Friday night, as the heat of the day began at last to break, she sat on a fence across the road from the tiny house she shared with her father, playing her guitar and softly singing along. It was a song about tragic romance, and though Kara had never had the kind of relationship the song depicted, she could imagine heartbreak all too well. Perhaps for that very reason, there were times when the idea of falling in love terrified her.
Or maybe you’re just sending a message, she thought.
A tiny smile played at the corners of her lips, but then guilt drove it away. Her father and Miss Aritomo were inside the house, and surely could not hear her singing. Even if they could, they wouldn’t have been able to make out the words. Still, she faltered, losing interest in the song, and moved on to another.
Kara had plenty of homework and she wanted to try to get as much of it as possible done tonight, because she had plans for tomorrow. But hitting the books could wait a while, especially since Miss Aritomo was inside cooking dinner with her father. The two teachers had been getting closer over the past couple of months. Though her dad kept insisting they were just friends, it was obvious to Kara—and to anyone else paying attention—that they liked each other a great deal. What was going on was more than friendship. Dating, at least. Maybe other things that she refused to think about.
At first Kara had encouraged it. Miss Aritomo taught art at Monju-no-Chie school and was the faculty advisor to the Noh theater club. While Kara and Sakura had been working on their manga, she had been a huge help.
Pretty and petite, with gorgeous eyes, Miss Aritomo had seemed to take to Rob Harper immediately. Kara had wanted her father to be happy, to smile more, and she had seen him noticing Miss Aritomo. She’d smiled and teased her dad to let him know it was all okay with her, had told him that her mother would never have wanted him to be alone.
Those sentiments had felt true at the time. But now that her father and Miss Aritomo were getting closer—maybe a lot closer—Kara was having a difficult time with it, and she refused to let her father see that it bothered her. He didn’t deserve that.
So she sat on the fence across from the house and looked out over Miyazu Bay below and played her guitar. It didn’t hurt that the view was considered one of the two or three most beautiful in all of Japan. A spit of land thrust out from the shore, a three-mile sandbar that had been there long enough for eight thousand pine trees to grow along its length. Ama-no-Hashidate—this finger of land—was a major tourist attraction, and Kara always smiled to see people coming to view it in the traditional way. From various vantage points, they would turn their backs to Ama-no-Hashidate and bend over, looking at it upside down through their open legs. It looked ridiculous, but she had tried it, and from that angle, the spit did indeed look like a bridge in the heavens, which was a rough English translation of its name.
Her fingers lost their way on the strings, moving almost of their own accord, jumping from song to song before finally falling still.
With a sigh, Kara stood up, holding her guitar close, and stepped over the low fence. Off to her left, in the distance, she could see Monju-no-Chie school and the welcome arch at the edge of its grounds. As she started across the street, her father opened the door of their squat little house and blinked in surprise when he spotted her.
“Perfect timing,” he said with a smile.
“My stomach is psychically attuned to the precise moment of dinner’s readiness,” she said in English.
Her father arched an eyebrow as he stepped aside to let her in. “Hey. I thought we were supposed to stick to Japanese.”
Kara laughed. “You think I can say ‘psychically attuned’ in Japanese? You aren’t that good a teacher.”
He gaped in false astonishment and then glared with equally invented anger. “My dear,” he said in Japanese, “I am an exceptional teacher.”
“And modest, too.”
As they walked into the dining area, Miss Aritomo was pouring ice water into glasses from a pitcher. She smiled.
“You have a very pretty singing voice,” she said.
Kara bowed her head in thanks. “I didn’t realize I was singing so loud.”
“Not very loud,” Miss Aritomo replied. “But the window in the kitchen is open, and we could hear you while your father cooked the pork.”
Kara stared at her, forgetting for a moment to put on a smile for her father’s benefit. Miss Aritomo had sounded, for a moment, so much like a parent that it freaked her out. Part of her wanted to act out, to vanish into her bedroom and not come out, but that would be juvenile and it would be unfair to her father.
Instead she smiled. “Everything smells delicious.”
Miss Aritomo blinked, a moment of doubt shading her eyes. She’d sensed Kara’s hesitation, though Kara’s father seemed clueless. Before the situation could become awkward, Kara hurried to sit down. Dinner had alrea
dy been served. There was a shiitake-mushroom rice and orange-simmered pork that really did smell wonderful.
“How was your day, Kara?” her father asked.
She smiled. “Hot.”
That set the three of them off on a conversation about the terrible heat of the week, combining misery with the relief that the forecast brought. It had cooled off significantly in the past few hours, and a thunderstorm was due to sweep through overnight, pushing the last of the heat wave out to sea. They talked and ate, and her father and Miss Aritomo had some plum wine, and soon any awkwardness Kara had felt dissipated. She was glad, for her father’s sake. But she couldn’t stop the little twinge it gave her heart to see the two of them smiling intimately at each other, talking sweetly, and just generally behaving like a couple-in-the-making.
Get over it, she told herself, time and again. It’s what Mom would want. And maybe that was true—she thought so—but for some reason, for once, what her mother would have wanted didn’t seem to be having much influence over her. Getting over it would be easier said than done.
“Tell me about your day,” her father said. “Did anything interesting happen?”
“Not really,” Kara replied.
“Good,” her father said, momentarily serious before his smile returned.
Swallowing a bite of pork—it was truly delicious, lean and infused with orange flavor—she gestured to both him and Miss Aritomo.
“Actually, at the calligraphy club meeting, Ren asked me and Sakura what our next manga was going to be.”
“Next?” her father said. “You just finished the first one.”
Kara nodded. “I know. Sakura’s been drawing like crazy for months. I’m sure she’s not in a rush to get started on another.”
“I don’t know about that,” Miss Aritomo said, taking a sip of plum wine. “She’s such a talented artist, and the manga has given her focus. I’m sure Sakura is already wondering the same thing. What is next for you two?”
Kara shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve barely thought about it. Another Noh play, maybe. Something else creepy.”
A thin smile appeared on Miss Aritomo’s face and she raised an eyebrow, studying Kara over the rim of her glass. “I know just the thing.”
“Really?” Kara’s father said.
Miss Aritomo nodded. “I haven’t told the Noh club yet, but I’ve decided that this term, we’re going to perform an actual Noh play.”
“Seriously?” Kara asked, intrigued. “Miho will love that!”
“I think they all will,” Miss Aritomo said. “And it really would be perfect as a manga for you and Sakura as well. The story is gruesome and full of evil, just the way you seem to like them.”
Kara forced a smile, trying to hide the way she shuddered. Such tales did make for excellent manga, but she thought like might be too strong a word.
2
After a Saturday filled with classes and homework, Sunday morning began with a knock on her door. Kara sat at the dining table drinking a glass of juice, barely awake. She’d pulled on a pair of threadbare denim shorts and still wore the oversize T-shirt she’d slept in, and she rubbed sleep out of her eyes as she went to answer the door. Pulling it open, she found Miho and Sakura waiting on the stoop, smiling conspiratorially.
“Good morning, Kara!” Miho said brightly.
Kara leaned against the jamb, still half-asleep. “You guys aren’t supposed to be here for another hour.”
Sakura replied with an unusually open grin. “Change of plans. Get dressed. The guys will be here soon!”
Guys. Soon. That woke her up. Kara didn’t think of herself as especially vain, and Hachiro might even think the just-rolled-out-of-bed look was cute, but if they were going out, she wanted to pull herself together, and better to do it before the guys arrived.
More focused now, she studied the girls. Sakura had added a streak of red into her hair, though she’d have to take it out by the time school started tomorrow. Miho had her hair back in a ponytail, and both girls wore loose dresses. Under Sakura’s, she glimpsed the straps of a bikini. They had talked about going into Miyazu City today, having lunch with Hachiro and Ren, maybe doing a little shopping if the guys could be convinced to endure it.
“Wait, when you said change of plans …?”
Miho laughed and switched to English. “Now you’re awake. Yes, we’re going to the beach.”
It took a second for Kara to translate. She’d been speaking Japanese so much that half the time she thought in that language instead of her native tongue, and when Miho switched in the middle of a conversation, sometimes she had to catch up.
“Are we going with English today, then?” she asked.
“Of course!” Miho replied. “You promised.”
Sakura made a face. Speaking English helped them both to become more fluent in the language, just as speaking Japanese helped Kara. To Miho, it was fun, almost a game, and she hoped to live in America someday, at least for a year or two, to pursue both her career and American boys, who fascinated her endlessly. But Sakura had made it plain that spending hours speaking English felt too much like homework to her.
“All right,” Kara relented, still speaking English. “For a while at least.”
She stepped back to let the girls in. “Have some juice or something. I need to take a quick shower and get dressed. I’ll go fast. Try to be quiet, though. My dad’s sleeping late.”
At that, she heard a rustle of fabric from behind her and turned to find her father standing in his bedroom doorway in pajamas and a Boston Celtics shirt.
“Not anymore,” he said, smiling, his face dark with weekend chin stubble. “Good morning.”
Embarrassed, Miho glanced away. “Good morning, Harper-sensei,” they chorused.
Sakura seemed to find the moment just as awkward as Miho, even blushing slightly. Kara smiled to herself. Sakura wanted to be different, to break the mold that society expected her to follow, and she did that, to an extent. But she wasn’t the bad girl as she tried to portray herself.
Kara’s father chuckled softly. “I’ll stay out of your way, don’t worry.”
When he shuffled back into his bedroom and closed the door, Kara gestured for the girls to sit and made a beeline for the bathroom.
Less than twenty minutes later, she had showered, shaved her legs, and pulled on a black-and-white striped bikini, fretting over the way she looked in it. Living in Japan and eating Japanese food had made her thinner, which hadn’t necessarily been a goal—she’d liked the way she had looked before—and from the way her top fit, it seemed like her breasts had gotten smaller. She poked and tucked and retied the top and finally gave up worrying about her appearance at all, tying her wet hair back with a rubber band. Then she pulled on a V-neck white shirt and a black cotton skirt and slipped her feet into brown leather sandals.
“Ready!” she announced, stepping into the dining room.
Sakura and Miho were sprawled in their chairs, pretending to have fallen asleep waiting for her. Kara laughed, whopped Sakura in the head, and got them moving. They went out onto the front step, leaving Kara’s father to putter happily around, not worrying about who might see him in his pajamas.
“I’m surprised the guys haven’t arrived yet,” Miho said, still working the English, and doing a fine job of it.
As if summoned, Hachiro and Ren appeared down the street from the grounds of Monju-no-Chie school. The boys ambled along the street, Hachiro carrying a faded beach umbrella over one shoulder, and Ren burdened with what appeared to be a very full picnic basket. They were an odd pair, Hachiro tall and barrel-chested, and Ren short and thin, with almost elfin features and that stylishly ragged bronze-hued hair. Kara assumed it was dyed, despite his claims to the contrary, but apparently the school had different rules if you dyed all of your hair, versus a single streak as Sakura had.
“Good morning!” Ren called in Japanese.
“No, no,” Miho corrected. “Speak English.”
Ren rolled
his eyes as he and Hachiro walked up to the house. “Again? Do we have to?”
“We won’t answer you otherwise,” Miho assured him in English, smiling.
Hachiro reached out with his free hand and clasped Kara’s fingers in his. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
“Was this your idea?” he whispered—in Japanese—into her ear.
“Not at all,” she replied in the same language. “But I indulge Miho. It makes her happy.”
Hachiro pulled back, gazing into her eyes, and Kara shivered with how good that gaze made her feel. The connection between her and Hachiro had been growing stronger, but it troubled her that they had stopped putting words to it. Mostly, their rapport went unspoken. She believed he felt what she did, but he didn’t talk about it much.
You’re going back to America, she reminded herself. He doesn’t want to make more of it than it can be. The trouble with that thought was that Kara couldn’t turn her heart off, and she didn’t think Hachiro could, either. He seemed to be trying, though, and it hurt her that he’d become so silent about what he was really thinking.
Maybe it’s for the best, she thought.
But it didn’t feel that way.
“All right,” Hachiro said in English, turning to Miho, Sakura, and Ren. “English until lunch. That’s a good compromise, okay?”
Everyone agreed, and moments later, they set off on the trek to Ama-no-Hashidate.
Though young people covered the shores in summertime, Japan wasn’t really known for its beaches. Kara had been to Hawaii with her parents when she was ten years old, and Japan had nothing on the Hawaiian islands. One of the better-known beaches in the country actually imported its sand from Australia. In many other places, the sand was more like fine gravel than the soft stuff Kara was used to from home, and she had heard that a lot of beaches were quite dirty.
But Ama-no-Hashidate was an exception. The spit of land that jutted like a finger out into Miyazu Bay boasted a variety of beauties and uses, not least of which came from the miles of white sand that lined its shore. It was known as one of the most beautiful spots in the country, and that included the beach.
Spirits of the Noh Page 2