Kara looked at Mai. "What about you? Have you seen anything?"
Mai shook her head. "No. Not yet. And I hope I don't."
"They're so . . . sad," Wakana said.
Kara frowned. "You've seen more than one?"
Wakana nodded. "Yes."
Mai shot her a dark look. "You didn't tell me you had seen another."
"Last night," Wakana explained, her gaze falling. "I got up to go to the bathroom and saw it had started to snow again. When I looked out the window, Daisuke's ghost was standing by the trees, looking up at me. And he wasn't alone. Yasu was with him."
Kara and Mai both stared at her. Yasu had been the first to be killed by the Hannya last year.
"I'm really scared," Wakana said, her voice small.
"Don't be," Kara said. "If we're right about what this is, it's not the ghosts you need to be afraid of."
Sakura hurried along the hallway, the duties of o soji forgotten. She kept her eyes forward, focused on Kara, Wakana, and Mai. All through the school day she had tried her best to avoid looking out the classroom windows. Just the sight of the falling snow kept her nerves on edge and made her shiver. She didn't want to think about Hachiro out there on the mountain. Even worse were the dark places her mind wandered when she allowed it to do so. The snow itself held menace. Even the occasional gust of wind that rattled the windows made her jump and suck in her breath.
It had been her grief and rage that had first woken the ancient evil of Kyuketsuki and led to this curse. Sakura knew that she had done nothing wrong, that fate had played a role and that it was natural for her to feel sorrow and fury, but so many had died and they all weighed on her. It had begun with Akane's murder and her mourning, and now Miyazu City and Monju-no-Chie school were being haunted by ghosts. And yet Sakura had not seen one. Many of these spirits had died horrible, grisly deaths because of a chain of events she had helped to begin, but the ghosts did not appear to her. She knew she ought to consider it a blessing, but somehow it felt like yet another curse, like some kind of punishment.
Stupid, she told herself. Who wants to be haunted?
Whatever conversation Kara had been having with Mai and Wakana, it ended. As Sakura strode quickly toward her, Kara turned away from the other girls, a desperate look in her eyes. Normally the blond American girl looked cute, almost perfect in her sailor fuku school uniform. Today she looked like some kind of impostor, like she belonged anywhere but in the halls of this school.
"Hey. What's the hurry?" Kara said in English as Sakura approached.
And that said a great deal in itself, that she had forgotten to speak Japanese.
Sakura gestured after the departing Mai and Wakana. "What was that about?"
"Ghosts," Kara said, reverting to Japanese, blinking in surprise at her own lapse. "I'll explain later. What's up? You look like you're rushing somewhere."
"Here, actually," Sakura said. "Your father sent me to find you. Mr. Yamato wants us in his office right now."
Kara frowned. "Who's 'us'?"
"You, me, and Miho, I think."
Sakura watched hope ignite in Kara's eyes.
"Is it about —"
"I don't think so," Sakura said quickly. "As far as I know there's been no change in Ren, and no word on Hachiro, but you know it's got something to do with that. He's not calling us to his office to talk about our grades."
The two girls fell into step side by side, headed for the stairs at the middle of the second floor hallway.
"As soon as this is over, can you and Miho take me back to the dorm?" Kara asked.
"Of course. But why?"
The two of them hurried down the steps, Sakura sliding her palm along the railing. They passed other students who were finishing up their o soji duties or rushing to club meetings. Many of the clubs did not start meetings until next week, but obviously some had begun.
"I need to talk to Ren," Kara said. "I want to hear for myself what he does and doesn't remember. He must recall something. If he doesn't, I don't know, we've got to hypnotize him or something, or even take him back up onto the mountain and see if it jars his memory. He could lead us right to Hachiro."
Kara practically burned with intensity. Sakura agreed with her, but hesitated to admit it. Kara seemed more frayed and on edge than Sakura had ever seen her, practically shaking with her need to do something, anything, to help Hachiro. Kara's eyes were not merely desperate, they were frantic and lost, as though she saw threats in every shadowy corner that nobody else could see. Sakura thought that might be true.
"What if his parents are still there?" Sakura asked, as they reached the bottom of the steps and turned left, headed for Mr. Yamato's office.
"I don't care. I'll talk my way in, somehow," Kara said.
Sakura knocked on the office door and a moment later it was opened by Miss Aritomo. The art teacher stepped back to let them enter and the two girls moved past her and into the small, very orderly office. Mr. Yamato sat behind his desk. Miho perched, birdlike, on the edge of a small chair against the wall. Kara's father stood by the window, deep shadows of concern and exhaustion under his eyes. Come to think of it, Kara looked exhausted as well, and Sakura wondered how much sleep the residents of the Harper home had gotten last night.
"Girls, please sit down," Mr. Yamato said, indicating two other chairs beside the one where Miho sat. Normally they were reserved for students who had caused trouble or whose grades had fallen, kids who needed the principal's personal attention.
Miss Aritomo closed the door, but stood by it, presumably in case anyone else knocked. But Sakura didn't think anyone else had been invited to this meeting.
Sakura sat down, but Kara didn't.
"Yamato-sensei, is there any word about Hachiro?" she asked.
The principal's anger showed in his eyes, but then he softened. "No, Kara. Nothing yet. Please sit down."
Still, she did not obey. Kara turned to her father. "I can't do this. I can't just go to class and pretend everything is all right. I need to be up on that mountain with the search team. I feel like I've abandoned him. Either that, or you've at least got to let me talk to —"
"Kara!" her father said sharply. "Please sit down."
Sakura winced on her friend's behalf. They would forgive her only so much, no matter how much they might understand how agonizing it was for her to be able to do nothing but wait.
Forlorn, Kara went to the chair and sat down.
"I'm sorry, Yamato-san," she said. "I forget myself."
Mr. Yamato acknowledged this with only a nod. He glanced at the three girls, then at Kara's father, and finally at Miss Aritomo. The principal leaned back in his chair.
"Miss Aritomo. Please go ahead."
They all turned to look at the delicate-looking woman. She also seemed tired, but somehow the vulnerability this produced made her seem even prettier.
"Mr. Yamato, Mr. Harper, and I have all done a great deal of research about Yuki-Onna in the past twenty-four hours," Miss Aritomo said. "I know you girls have done much yourselves. With deepest regret, I must tell you that there is nothing we have found that suggests there is any way to destroy or even defeat Yuki-Onna."
Sakura stared at her in shock, and knew the other girls must feel the same.
"What?" Kara said. "You're just giving up, after one day?"
"If she really has come because of the curse of Kyuketsuki . . ." Miho began.
None of them needed her to finish that sentence, and the words trailed off.
"Yuki-Onna is a monster, yes," Miss Aritomo said. "But she is also an elemental spirit. Once she has been woken, she will remain for the entire winter, or as long as there is snow on the ground. And if she has come because of the curse, you three are in grave, grave danger."
"The curse included Hachiro, too," Kara said, her voice sounding hollow.
Mr. Yamato interlaced his fingers on top of his desk. "We know that."
Kara looked up at her father. "We have to find him. No matter what."
>
"My only concern is protecting my daughter," Mr. Harper replied.
Miho cleared her throat. "With respect, Harper-sensei, Miss Aritomo just said there was nothing we could do to stop Yuki-Onna. If she has come for us, we will all soon be dead."
Sakura stared, unable to believe that Miho would say such a thing, and then she let out a long, shuddering breath as she realized it must be true.
"Not necessarily," Miss Aritomo said. "We may not be able to stop Yuki-Onna, but there may be a way to protect you from her, to hide you all. Mr. Yamato and I have found someone who may be able to help." "Who?" Sakura asked.
Mr. Yamato stood up from behind his desk.
"That was our purpose in calling you here. Come along, girls. We will take you to meet the Unsui, the cloud wanderer."
Chapter Nine
Kara knew she had to breathe, to calm down and sort out her thoughts, but she felt out of control in a way she never had before. The mystery of the ghosts gnawed at her, even as she was torn in two directions, needing to talk to Ren, but wanting to be searching Takigami Mountain for Hachiro. Miho had put voice to her own feelings: with no way to stop Yuki-Onna, they were all pretty much dead soon. Now, nothing mattered except finding Hachiro. If they were going to die, she wanted to see him first, at least to say goodbye.
But she rode in silence in the back seat of her father's car, because she knew one thing above all . . . if Hachiro was still alive, the only way to save him would be to also save herself. Just because none of the ancient stories revealed a way to destroy Yuki-Onna that did not meant it was impossible.
So, torn as she was, she tried to breathe, to stay calm and tell herself that this was exactly what she needed to be doing for Hachiro right now.
"I don't understand who this man is supposed to be," she said. "'Cloud wanderer?' What does that mean?"
Miss Aritomo had ridden with them, while Miho and Sakura had gone with Mr. Yamato in his car, which her father now followed, driving a curving road into the hills outside of Miyazu City.
Yuuka turned sideways in her seat to look back at Kara. "An 'unsui' is a kind of monk. It means 'cloud and water wanderer.' Normally it is applied to novice monks, often those who are on a pilgrimage, searching from monastery to monastery for a master to teach them. But Kubo is often called the Unsui, because he has been wandering for his entire life in search of the master he believes will teach him true purity of spirit, but has never found such a teacher."
Kara listened in amazement, contemplating such a life.
"He must be so lonely."
Her father glanced back at her, concern etched into his face, and then looked at Miss Aritomo.
"How did you and Mr. Yamato find this man if he is always wandering?" he asked.
Miss Aritomo smiled. "He is at least eighty years old. No one seems to know exactly how old. Though Kubo is still the Unsui in the minds of the local people, and possibly in his own mind as well, he does not wander far these days. He has a small house in the hills. He grows his own vegetables and likes to fish. You might have seen him yourselves. He is constantly riding his bicycle around Miyazu City, still wandering a little every day, but never so distant that he cannot sleep in his own bed at night. It seems he will never find the master he sought."
"And you know him?" Kara asked.
Miss Aritomo shook her head. "No. Mr. Yamato's grandfather played with him as a boy. Whenever The Unsui would wander through Miyazu City, he would stop at the Yamatos for tea and then be on his way, off to the far corners of Japan. When he reached seventy-five years of age, he built his house."
"He built it himself? At seventy-five?"
"So they say," the art teacher replied.
They lapsed into silence, all three of them alone with their thoughts. As the car climbed a road that ran alongside a stream, she stared out at the gently falling snow and tried to imagine that she could speak to Hachiro, and that he could hear her.
This will help, she told him in her thoughts. This cloud wanderer can help us all.
"Do you think he'll be able to tell us why some of us are seeing ghosts?" Kara asked.
Miss Aritomo dropped her gaze. "I hope so."
Kara stared at her. "You've seen one, too?"
Rob Harper glanced at his girlfriend with the same kind, worried look he had given his daughter. "More than one."
"Yuuka?" Kara said.
"This morning," Miss Aritomo said. "Just before dawn. I was up making my morning tea and looked out the window from my kitchen. The streets were empty except for an old man I saw walking by and a teenaged girl who seemed to be watching my house. It made me uneasy; it felt as if she were looking at me. So I went closer to the window to get a better look and I saw that neither she nor the old man had any snow on them at all. It continued to fall, but it drifted right through them. And as the sky lightened, I realized I could see through them a little bit, too. The tea kettle whistled, startling me, and when I looked back outside, the ghosts were gone."
Kara shook her head. She studied the back of her father's head, watching his hands on the steering wheel. Up ahead, Mr. Yamato had turned off onto a road that was little more than a rutted, snow-covered path running alongside the stream, which was edged with ice on both sides.
"Do you have any idea what the connection is between Yuki-Onna and these ghosts?" Kara asked.
Miss Aritomo shook her head. "No. But maybe the Unsui will."
She turned around in her seat to face front, and bent to peer through the windshield. Kara looked as well, and saw the brakes on Mr. Yamato's car glowing bright red in the white swirl of the snow.
They began to slow, and up ahead Kara saw a small cottage with a black, sloping, tiled roof and many sliding doors, some of glass and some of wood.
The home of Kubo, the cloud wanderer.
Light snow continued to fall as they walked toward the front of the cottage. Remnants of the previous season's garden made strange shapes in the snow off to one side of the house. On the other side, the stream trickled by, a hushed burble that slipped over rocks and beneath expanding shelves of ice. Across the field behind the house, the hills rose further, covered in trees that must have made for a beautiful view in summer.
In front of the house, a stone walkway and wooden bridge separated two sides of a rectangular man-made pond which winter had turned to ice. On either side of the pond were bare-branched cherry trees. Snow coated the black tile roof, which extended out above the wooden porch — really a walkway that ran the length of the house. Sliding doors, some of wood and others of glass, made up nearly the entire front of the house, but Kara knew from looking at them that they would all be removable. That was the most interesting facet of Japanese houses . . . the way that nearly any space could be transformed by the removal of doors or partitions to some other purpose.
A bicycle leaned against the side of the house, protected by the overhanging roof.
Mr. Yamato led the way, determined and yet respectful, approaching the main door without hurrying. Sakura and Miho hung back, waiting for Kara and her father, and for Miss Aritomo. Kara found herself thinking about what an unsui was supposed to be. This monk had wandered for almost his entire life without finding what he had been searching for and had eventually found his way home. Instead of living out his waning years in a monastic seclusion, he had chosen an even more solitary life.
Maybe in all of that searching for the right person to become his teacher, he figured out that he was his own best master.
They went up two steps to the porch. It reminded her of the sort of wooden walkways she'd always seen in old western movies, where the façades of the buildings in every town were built with walkways elevated a foot or so off the ground so that people didn't have to walk through mud and horse crap.
Through a glass door she could see that another walkway ran around the inside of the cottage, parallel to the one outside. This was called a rōka, and in good weather it would usually be open to the elements, the sliding doors removed
and the interior protected from the rain by the extended roof. More sliding doors separated the rōka from the inside of the house, but these were made of wood and paper so thin that it would allow sunlight to pass through.
Mr. Yamato rang a small bell that hung by the door. Kara could not imagine that the old man would actually hear the sound unless he were standing right behind the door, but just before Mr. Yamato would have rung the bell again the door swung inward, snowflakes dancing across the threshold.
"Yamato-san," Kubo said. "Honorable friends. Welcome to my home."
The elderly monk stepped back to let them enter, watching them as they stepped through the door one by one, his stance and expression evoking a birdlike curiosity. His hair was thin and white and long enough that he tied it into a knot at the back of his head. His beard and eyebrows were shaggy and matched the color of the snow, as though he might be a winter spirit himself, some male counterpart of Yuki-Onna. If he had been wearing a kimono or any sort of robe, Kara would have thought she had stepped back in time, or into some samurai movie. But the cloud-walker apparently preferred more modern clothes. He wore loose-fitting tan trousers that were ragged at the cuffs, a thick cobalt blue sweater, and a pair of black slippers.
His outfit made her smile, and distracted her enough that it took Kara a moment to realize she had seen him before.
The moment of recognition was mutual. Kubo smiled.
"I take it you have seen more ghosts," he said.
Kara took off her shoes in the genkan, just as the others were doing, but she could not help staring at The Unsui. It had been him she had seen riding his bicycle along her street in the early hours of the morning, when she had been chasing ghosts and her father had come out after her. A quick glance at her father told her that he had recognized the elderly monk as well.
Tempted to barrage him with questions, she nearly forgot to pay him the proper respect. Mustering her self-control, she bowed her head.
"It is nice to see you again, Kubo-san," she said. "I was surprised to see anyone on the street this morning."
A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) Page 11