Spirits of the Noh

by Thomas Randall

  As Kara entered his room, her father looked up from making notes on a pad. He seemed surprised to see her there, and that made her sad and frustrated with him all over again.

  “What is it, honey?” he asked in Japanese.

  “Something happened tonight,” she replied.

  His eyes widened as he sat up, and she knew all sorts of unpleasant things must be rushing through his head. Had Hachiro done something to her? Had she and the girls gotten into trouble?

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Kara smiled. Whatever else she might be feeling toward her father, she knew he loved her.

  “Home safe and sound, as you can see,” she said. Then she grew serious. “But Miho almost didn’t make it home. After she came here looking for me, someone followed her, Dad. Somebody chased her. If Hachiro and I hadn’t been out in front of the dorm, whoever it was might have gotten her.”

  For several seconds, his expression was immobile. Granite. Then he slid out of bed, came over to her, kissed her forehead, and held her close. Kara wanted to pull away—the two of them still had things to work out—but now wasn’t the time.

  “That’s why you needed a ride home?”

  She nodded.

  “Did Miho get a look at the person chasing her?”

  “Not a good one,” Kara replied.

  Her father took a deep breath and went to his window. From there he could see the pagoda shape of the school in the distance.

  “Miho’s in the Noh club,” she went on. “So were Daisuke and Wakana.”

  “You’re suggesting they didn’t run away.”

  Kara stared at his back. “Do you think they did?”

  “Not anymore.”

  Even as he turned toward her, he picked up the phone and began to dial.

  For three days in the middle of August, the spirits of the dead returned to Japanese households to spend time with their ancestors—at least, according to the Buddhist festival of Obon. Kara didn’t pretend to understand the significance of this, but she tried. Some Buddhists—mostly older people—seemed truly to believe that the spirits of their ancestors came to visit them, but for the most part Obon seemed to have taken on a more secular presence in local culture. In other words, to a lot of people, it was all about the pretty lights.

  Not that she was making any judgments. The idea of ghosts hanging out in the house for a few days seemed creepy enough to her even before factoring in the family reunion element. Granted, she would have loved to believe that her mother’s spirit could be there with her, sharing space, watching over her. It warmed her heart to think of it. But her father’s mother had been a cranky, hateful old woman who complained all the time, bossed people around, and had clammy hands. She’d smelled weird, too. No way did Kara want her ghost hanging around.

  On the last day of Obon, tradition required that paper lanterns be lit and floated on water, usually down a river or stream. This was called toro nagashi. Similar rituals were performed at other times—in Hiroshima, for instance, on the anniversary of the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city. But despite the ghosts that were involved, the lantern festival was usually not such a grim affair.

  Miyazu City was widely acknowledged to have the greatest toro nagashi festival in the country, complete with spectacular fireworks. For the most part, it seemed like a big party to her. Ten thousand paper lanterns in varying colors would be set adrift in the bay, floating gently out to sea as the sun set. The lanterns represented the ghosts of dead ancestors, returning to the spirit world after their three-day visit. People gathered all up and down the beach on Ama-no-Hashidate to watch. Musicians played. Kids splashed in the water. Under normal circumstances, Kara would have been happy and excited. But after what she and her friends had been through, an undercurrent of unease flowed just beneath the surface of every moment.

  Her father hated the idea of her being out after dark, but just for this night, he had made an exception. For the most part, she would be on the beach with thousands of other people, and on the way home, she’d be walking with her friends, and she’d promised to be home no later than ten p.m., and earlier if possible.

  But all that was for later. Right now, she sat on a straw mat on the beach, drinking flavored water and listening to the thunderous boom of the five guys who had set up taiko drums and were performing kumi-daiko, drumming as an ensemble. The sound got deep into her brain, thundered off the inside of her chest, and it made her feel remarkably there, in the moment, swallowed by Japan. Kara loved the drums, but was glad they weren’t any closer. The kumi-daiko guys would have drummed her right off the beach, they were so loud.

  Vendors sold sweet cakes, drinks, all kinds of noodles, fried squid, and octopus dumplings. The fried squid were a bit chewy, but the octopus dumplings were astonishingly tasty, like the best sushi.

  “Maybe we should talk about the plan,” Hachiro suggested as he plopped a dumpling into his mouth. A bit of something stuck to his lip and he licked it off, looking lovably silly.

  Kara smiled. “Let’s wait for the others. Talk to me.”

  “About what?” he asked, chewing.

  “Anything,” she said, frowning. You’re my boyfriend, she wanted to say. We’re supposed to be able to talk. But that would be unfair. She and Hachiro could talk about anything and nothing with equal enthusiasm, and she never felt awkward with him. Well, almost never—whenever questions arose about where their relationship would lead, things got uncomfortable.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s sort of hard to think about anything else right now. When your girlfriend has a curse hanging over her head, other things don’t mean very much.”

  Kara felt a warm happiness blossom in her chest. “Well done. Most guys can’t come up with that kind of spin so quickly.”

  “I mean it,” Hachiro protested.

  “I know you do. I’m teasing. Seriously, though. Talk about baseball. How are the Red Sox doing?”

  Hachiro stared at her. “You’re from Boston. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be telling me?”

  It was Kara’s turn to shrug. “I don’t care about baseball. You do.”

  He couldn’t deny it, especially not with the Boston Red Sox cap perched firmly on his head. Hachiro seemed to think it over a moment, but then he warmed to the subject.

  “They’re in a slump, actually. But that happens every year after the All-Star break. People lose faith in them, and then they come back. If we’re lucky, they don’t let it all fall apart in the end.”

  Kara laughed. “Choke,” she said in English.

  “What?”

  “In English, we would say we hope they don’t ‘choke.’” Then she repeated the word in Japanese.

  Hachiro nodded. “Choke.”

  “There you go,” she said, reverting to Japanese. “Now you’re ready to live in Boston.”

  His smile vanished, confusing her a moment before she realized where her words had led his thoughts. Kara would go back to Boston eventually. Without him. That knowledge hung over them always.

  Her cell phone jangled. Saved by the bell, she thought as she slid it open. Sakura was calling.

  “Hello?”

  “Where are you?”

  Kara glanced around. “Exactly where we agreed. More or less.”

  The day they had gone to the beach together, they had sat on the seaside of Ama-no-Hashidate. Today, they needed to be on the bay side so they would be able to see the lanterns and the fireworks after it got dark, and they had decided to meet at a halfway point along the sandbar.

  “No, you’re not. We’re here.”

  Kara glanced around. “They’re here,” she said in response to Hachiro’s curious look, and he started to glance about as well. Both of them stood up, Kara turning in a circle, scanning the beach. A sea of faces looked back.

  “I don’t see you,” she started. But then she caught a glimmer of bronze in the sun. “Oh, wait. Ren’s hair!”

  Smiling, she waved, and a few
seconds later, Miho, Sakura, and Ren weaved their way through the crowd and began to make camp with them. Towels and mats were spread out, Miho hid under the umbrella Hachiro had already set up, and Ren opened a greasy paper bag and pulled out a wooden stick skewered with a fried piece of unidentifiable fish. He grinned happily.

  Sakura laid down on her belly, feet poking up, legs crossed at the ankles. Kara thought she looked beautiful, a modern, post-Goth version of the classic 1950s beach bunny. If only she would smile.

  But there was little chance of that.

  “Okay, we’re all here,” Sakura said, glancing at Miho. Then she focused on Kara. “What do we do now?”

  Kara took a breath, preparing to speak. Why were they all looking at her? How had she become the one who made decisions like this? She didn’t know the answer, but it was obvious that they all needed a purpose—something to make them feel like they were doing something, instead of just waiting for the darkness to swallow them—and if she had to give them that purpose, she would.

  “Step one went smoothly, as far as I can tell,” she said.

  Miho nodded. “I think the police believed me.”

  “Of course they believed you. It isn’t like you were pretending to be terrified,” Ren said.

  Miho gave him a glance that was part grateful and part bemused. All of the awkwardness she had once displayed around him was gone now that she knew he was gay. But the moment Miho realized that the others were looking at her, she shot a blank look at Kara as if to urge her to continue.

  “There isn’t much more to say about step one, really,” Kara said, shrugging one shoulder. “My father got Yamato-sensei worried enough to bring the police in. They’re not going to say it officially, but my dad tells me the police are taking the possibility of abduction more seriously in the cases of Daisuke and Wakana.”

  “They talked to everyone from Noh club this morning,” Miho confirmed.

  “Not just from the club,” Ren added, glancing at Sakura. “They talked to everyone who’s been volunteering, too.”

  Kara nodded. She knew this already. Sakura had hated every minute of it. After the way they had handled her sister’s murder, she had thought them a bunch of idiots, but when they had interrogated her after Chouku and Jiro had died back in April, Sakura had come to despise the police.

  Hachiro threw up his hands, smiling, apparently sensing the tension and wanting to move on. “So, step two?”

  “Step two,” Kara agreed. “We turn into bodyguards.”

  She studied her friends, normally so open and trusting and—the attitude Sakura adopted notwithstanding—happy, and she hated to see the shadow of Kyuketsuki’s curse hanging over them.

  “It’s a big job,” Ren said.

  “We can handle it,” Miho piped up from under the umbrella.

  Kara smiled at her. “Yeah. We can. At least while everyone’s at school.”

  “What do you mean?” Sakura asked.

  “Well, it’s not as if we can follow anyone home, so after the commuters go home, we only have to worry about the members of the Noh club who live in the dorm,” Kara explained. “Miho can keep in touch with the others by e-mail.”

  “We can’t protect them all,” Sakura said.

  “We might not be able to protect them at all,” Hachiro replied. He reached out for Kara’s hand, lending her his strength and support. “But we’re the only ones who know what’s really going on. We have to do what we can.”

  “Without getting ourselves killed,” Miho whispered.

  Ren sighed. “That would be nice.”

  The taiko drums began again, startling them all. Kara hadn’t even noticed that they had stopped. Her mind had been elsewhere.

  “All right,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Enough of that for now. Food and fireworks today. Let’s ‘eat, drink, and be merry.’”

  She didn’t bother to finish that old saying.

  For tomorrow we may die.

  9

  Mai had always loved the Toro Nagashi Festival, and today had been the perfect day for it, hot and breezy. The beach on Ama-no-Hashidate had come alive with people. Really, she thought, it was the people who had come alive. Even the normally sedate adults had seemed to laugh more, and swim more, and play more. She’d seen mothers and fathers tossing brightly colored beach balls to their toddlers and older couples splashing in the shallows. Faces that were usually buttoned up and serious had discovered their smiles, as if everyone over thirty had sipped one glass of wine too many before coming down to watch the fireworks. It should have made her happy to see them.

  And perhaps it would have, if she had been able to stop thinking about Daisuke and Wakana, or if her soccer club friends had allowed their mouths to fall silent for just five minutes. Was it so much to ask? Mai had never been the most talkative among them, but it wasn’t just the talking that bothered her. They gossiped and complained, and when they weren’t doing either of those things, they talked about shopping and clothes and boys, and other things of little real consequence.

  I miss you, Ume, she thought.

  An elbow nudged her. Mai had been sitting on the sand, knees drawn up to her chest, watching the lanterns float out on the water. Seven o’clock had come and gone and the day had begun to slip away. Dusk spread its wings across the sky. The paper lanterns were beautiful in the twilight, the lights burning within them brighter and brighter as twilight deepened.

  The nudge came again. She turned and looked at Emi, who sat beside her wearing a mischievous grin. The square glasses perched on her nose made her look far more intelligent than she had ever managed to be.

  “Wouldn’t you like to trade places with her?” Emi said.

  Beyond her, tall Kaori—probably the best soccer player in the club—snickered in agreement. The girls were focused on a twentyish couple who were chest deep in the water, wrapped around one another, kissing languorously. What had drawn their attention, no doubt, was the lean, muscular physique of the guy and the way he held his girlfriend or wife or whatever—crushed to him as though he could mold her like clay. And maybe he could. But that sort of guy had never appealed to her.

  Mai smiled politely, but said nothing. Emi rolled her eyes and went back to whispering to Kaori. Mai didn’t mind at all. In fact, she felt relieved. When Ume had left Monju-no-Chie school, Mai had been confused and even a little glad. They had never been the best of friends, and even Ume readily admitted she was the queen bitch of the school. She’d aspired to become that very thing. But as the reality of her departure grew closer, Mai began to realize that she would really miss Ume. Whatever else she might have been, she had been smart and confident—someone who led instead of followed.

  Not that Mai wanted to be anything like her. Ume, after all, had also murdered Akane Murakami. Mai had been there. She hadn’t laid a finger on Akane, but she had witnessed the whole thing and she had never spoken of it to anyone, not even the other girls who had taken part in the beating that had turned into a killing—girls like Emi and Kaori. The guilt from that night clung like a death shroud on Mai’s heart. If she had stepped in, she might have been able to save Akane, or she might have been beaten or killed herself, and her fear had stopped her.

  And if all the things that Ume had told her were true—about Sakura and Kara and Miho and the demon thing they had faced—then Akane’s murder had been the trigger for everything that followed. Mai could have prevented it all.

  She had to live with that stain on her soul for the rest of her life.

  Part of her penance seemed to be listening to Emi and Kaori giggle about nonsense. As much as she wished she could just quit the soccer club and walk away from these shallow girls, she had chosen to become queen bitch in Ume’s place, partially to make sure they did not get further out of control, but mostly to protect herself. The only people they treated with more venom than students they deemed less than themselves were those who’d once been their friends but no longer were.

  Now she wished she could
take it all back. She cared more about her roommate and Daisuke than she did about any of these girls, but she had been nasty and aloof with them a lot of the time—especially Wakana. For a while, she had comforted herself with reassurances that they would be found, that they were together, even though she had known that night when she came back to her room still wet from the shower that Wakana had not gone out the second-story window by choice. Wakana was afraid of heights.

  Stop it. Stop thinking about her in the past tense.

  Emi and Kaori giggled again, and she wanted to slap them. All day they had been posing when boys walked by. Now the day had cooled enough that they had closed their umbrella and even pulled on shirts and sweatshirts, but that only meant they had to find other ways to draw attention to themselves.

  Mai stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Kaori asked, frowning, as if Mai needed permission.

  “For a walk. It’s nice this time of day, and I like seeing the lanterns. Don’t worry, I’ll be back before the fireworks.”

  “We’ll come!” Emi volunteered, starting to rise.

  “No,” Mai said quickly.

  Emi blinked, obviously hurt, and she and Kaori settled back down. The other girls weren’t paying any attention, focused more on the lanterns and the people wading into the water.

  “I’m sorry,” Mai said. “I just need a few minutes to myself.”

  Emi nodded once, curtly. “Of course.”

  Mai felt the urge to apologize again but ignored it. She wished she hadn’t apologized the first time. Instead, she turned and walked away, soft sand shifting under her bare feet.

  She had always loved the Toro Nagashi Festival, but she feared that after today, she would never be able to truly enjoy it again. Still, she walked and watched the paper lanterns sway on the surface of the bay, red and blue, green and yellow, pink and purple and white, and she thought about their symbolism. People took solace in the sight, and she understood why. The ritual gave her a sort of peace, now that she was away from the other girls. She could let her sadness show without the fear of being judged.

  Mai went around a group of people watching the lanterns, stepping into the surf, and she enjoyed the feeling of the tiny ripples washing over her feet and ankles. She went on that way for a few minutes, wishing she knew what had happened to Daisuke and Wakana and wondering what would happen next.