Kubo steepled his hands in front of him, almost as if he were praying. "If we go to Takigami Mountain, I may be able to find her. Such power as hers leaves echoes in its wake."
"But what will we do then, Unsui?" Mr. Yamato asked. "Yuki-Onna will never let us take the boys."
"If I can find her, and them, someone will have to lure her away to another part of the mountain. I will have wards for both boys. It will be difficult for her reclaim them if she cannot see them."
"How do we lure her away?" Miho asked.
Miss Aritomo shook her head. "Not you, girls." "Who better?" Kara asked, reaching up to finger the smooth stone that hung from the thong around her neck. "She can't see us. So, how do we lure her?" Kubo nodded thoughtfully. As youthful as he often seemed, in that moment his eyes seemed very ancient indeed.
"There is a summoning spell. Though if she realizes that you are one of the cursed ones she seeks, you would be in terrible danger."
"I'll do it," Kara said instantly.
"Kara, no!" her father said, trying to sit up. He hissed in pain and Miss Aritomo helped lower him back to the mattress. Kara thought that his ribs must be pretty badly busted up, and whatever the doctors were giving him, it wasn't enough.
"Dad, what choice do we have?" Kara asked. "It's me or Miho. Unless Master Kubo has enough of these perfect stones to protect a bunch of police officers, too."
In his eyes she saw that he understood the logic, and that he hated it.
"The search on the mountain has been suspended for the day," Mr. Yamato said. "Captain Nobunaga has most of his officers at the school, or talking to the parents of the students who were injured or . . . or killed."
They all hesitated at those words, but only for a moment.
"I'll keep her safe, Rob," Miss Aritomo said, clutching his uninjured hand.
Miho cleared her throat. "With apologies, I believe we have forgotten an important element. I understand that we want to rescue Hachiro and Ren no matter what might happen after that, but if Kubo is to lift Kyuketsuki's curse, we will still need to persuade Ume to come back to Miyazu City."
Kara let out a breath, weariness catching up to her. She had forgotten about Ume for a time.
Mr. Yamato turned to gaze out the window. "Not to worry. Ume should be here shortly. She decided that she would rather come by choice than in police custody."
Mai sat on the tatami mat floor in her dorm room, leaning against her bed, and stared at Wakana's desk. The girl kept everything perfectly neat. Even the pen on the desk had been laid down in a vertical line parallel to the edge of the desk.
Why did you try to help? she thought.
Moments after Mr. Harper had left the room in search of Kara, Wakana had insisted on following him. They had all worked together to save each other from the Hannya, and she said she would never forgive herself if she stayed safe in her room when something was out there hunting their friends.
Part of Mai wanted to argue that they were not friends with those girls, but she knew what Wakana meant. They shared a bond with Kara and the others; it might not be friendship in the day-to-day definition, but it meant something. Wakana had opened the door. Even with Miss Aritomo arguing with her that the best thing they could do for everyone was to stay safe, Wakana had insisted, and so Mai and Miss Aritomo had gone along with her.
The storm had buffeted them on the stairs as they descended, and then Wakana had lost her footing. Now, alone in the room that they shared, Mai stared at her hand. She had reached out to grab Wakana, but her fingertips had just grazed the girl's sleeve. Even over the roar of the wind, she had heard the crack of bone as Wakana's arm broke. Then Wakana had reached the landing between floors and hit her head.
Moments later, the storm had simply ended, wind dying, temperature in the building rising despite the shattered windows. But Wakana had not moved.
Mai had feared the worst. Fortunately, Wakana would be all right, but the same could not be said of Sora, or of the four students who had died last night. In her walk to the bathroom to shower, Mai had heard weeping coming from behind many doors. She would have gone over to the hospital already this morning to be with Wakana, except that she was waiting.
She dug her cell phone out of her pocket and checked the time. Her anger, which had been simmering all morning, began to rise. Waiting didn't suit her, but there was nothing she could do about it.
Twenty minutes later, just as her patience was about to reach its end, a knock came upon the door. Mai jumped up and ran to open it, swung the door inward, and there she was, standing in the corridor, awaiting an invitation like some movie vampire.
"Ume," Mai said, unsmiling.
The girl had lost none of her poise. She was tall and slender, her long hair perfect, her face like that of a porcelain doll. With a toss of her hair, she lifted her chin with her typical superior air, and smiled as falsely as ever.
"Did you miss me?" Ume asked.
Mai laughed. The reaction stemmed from disbelief rather than amusement, but Ume was too shallow and self-serving to notice, for she stepped into the room and gave Mai a perfunctory hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"You managed to persuade your parents to let you take the car, I see," Mai said as she closed the door.
"It was not easy," Ume replied, glancing around the room. "But Mr. Yamato did not leave me much choice."
The girl — once queen of the soccer bitches and as imperious as ever — sat down on Wakana's bed and looked up expectantly.
"All right," Ume said, "here's what you're going to say."
"No," Mai said curtly.
Ume laughed, though she seemed a bit unsure now. "I have not even told you, yet."
"You don't tell me anything. You don't go to this school anymore. I will not follow your lead and it shames me to know that I ever did. You were always cruel and small and petty, but you are a murderer, as well. I have nothing but contempt for you."
Ume flinched. Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed in fury.
"I didn't kill anyone," she lied, rising from the bed. "And for someone who needs my help, you have a strange way of showing it."
Ume started toward the door but Mai blocked her way. Ume reached out as though to push her, and Mai slapped her across the face. The sound echoed in the small room. Ume blinked in shock.
"My roommate . . . my friend, Wakana, is in the hospital. Sakura may not survive her injuries. Hachiro and Ren are missing. Sora is dead. Daisuke . . . do you remember him? Probably not, because he was quiet and not handsome and he was kind. Daisuke is dead, because of you. All of them, because of what you started. Jiro, who you claim to have loved, is dead because of you."
Ume's face reddened, and not only where Mai had slapped her. Her gaze shifted around as though she sought some escape. Her lip quivered and she shook her head in adamant refusal of the truth.
"That is ridiculous."
So Mai laid it all for her, everything that had happened, and what Kubo thought might be able to be done to break the curse.
"You may not have been cursed by Kyuketsuki," Mai said, "but you share the blame for all of this death. It's as if you planted some seed and evil grew from it. You murdered Akane Murakami, and you need to atone for that. You should confess, Ume. For the sake of your own soul.
"Everyone knows you're guilty. I would wager that even your parents know, deep inside, that you killed Akane. You set it all in motion, and now it is time for you to do something — a very small thing — to help stop it."
Ume looked as though she might continue to argue, but then she sagged backward, all the fight leaving her. She took several deep breaths, and then she stood a little straighter.
"I'll help. If it means breaking the curse and preventing others from dying, and this Master Kubo needs me at his ritual because I was there when Kyuketsuki was defeated, I will help.
"But I admit nothing."
Kara had expected Sakura to be in intensive care. Years of watching American television had prepared her for
breathing tubes and blinking machines, so she was surprised to find very little of that apparatus when she entered Sakura's room.
"She's been like this since last night," Miho said, stepping up beside Kara.
They stood there a long moment, staring at their friend's unmoving form. An IV dripped fluid into Sakura's arm and a single monitor beeped along with her heartbeat. Another — like a small television screen — seemed to be measuring her body temperature along with her pulse. Her left arm was in a cast and where her pale blue hospital top had ridden up, bandages showed from underneath. The left side of her face was bruised and swollen, but there were no stitches. Only the bruises and bandages hinted at the trauma beneath. To someone who didn't know better, she looked as though she might wake up — in quite a bit of pain — any moment. Kara wondered what her parents would do if she died. After Akane's murder, Sakura had been all they had left and they had ignored her for a year. No one should have to lose a child, but to have them both die . . .
Miho took her hand and Kara held on tight, squeezing.
"Kara?" Miss Aritomo began. She knew the teacher was about to ask if she was okay, and she was very much not okay. But the time for thinking about herself had passed.
Kara stood up straighter, ignoring the aches and stiffness and the lingering chill in her bones. She reached up with both hands — bandaged and not — and pushed her hair back out of her face. The hospital gown she wore gaped at the back and she was grateful for the robe, but she still felt exposed and vulnerable. She ignored the feeling, narrowing her focus down to only the tasks that were ahead of them.
"There's nothing we can do for her here," she said, and let go of Miho's hand.
"But —" Miho began.
Kara turned to her. "She's in the doctor's hands. The only thing we can do for is get Hachiro and Ren back, get Ume here, and make sure Kubo lifts the curse, so when Sakura wakes up she can have a normal life again."
Miho fixed her with a hard look. She wasn't ready to leave.
"I talked to her, last night," Miho said. "And this morning. And I talked to you as well."
Kara frowned. "What do you mean? I don't remember —"
"I wasn't sure if you were going to wake up," Miho said, her voice firm, despite the sorrow in her eyes. "The doctor said you would be all right, but I couldn't be sure. So I talked to you. And to her."
Miho nodded at Sakura. Kara looked at the unconscious figure on the bed, saw her chest rising and falling with each breath, and for a moment all of her defenses were stripped away. She had barely acknowledged that this was Sakura, a girl who had become more than a friend to her, almost a sister. The harsh cut of her hair had been softened by disarray. All of her rebelliousness, her spirit, was gone.
She could die. Kara took that in, brought it close to her heart as though holding it in her fists. Her mother had died and the loss remained with her, hurting her every single day. The hardest part of dealing with such loss was in looking to the future and knowing that she would never see her mother again, never hear her voice or her infectious laugh, never have another hug or do a weird, goofy little dance in the kitchen the way they often had when some silly television commercial jingle got stuck in their heads.
Sakura could be gone.
Kara did not dare sit on the edge of the bed, unsure how delicate her friend's condition might be. She knelt on the floor and took Sakura's hand in hers.
"It's me, Kara," she said, voice softly, feeling faintly ridiculous and grateful that only Miho could hear her. "I just . . . I want you to know . . ."
She hesitated. In an apparent effort to give Kara privacy, Miho walked across the room and stood looking out the window.
"I love you, Sakura," Kara whispered. And then she said it louder. "You and Miho are the best friends I've ever had. I could not bear to lose you. And I won't. We won't. I promise you that we are going to fix this . . . all of it . . . and there will be no more curses, no more demons, no more —"
"Ghosts," Miho said.
Kara started to nod in agreement, but then she frowned. Something was odd about the way Miho had said that. It hadn't sounded like she was being helpful, but more like she was making an observation.
"Come over here," Miho said, her voice small.
As Kara stood, she watched Miho bend close to the window, peering out and squinting as though trying to make out something at a great distance.
"Ghosts?" Kara echoed. "Do you mean more than one?"
Miho stood back and gestured for her to look. The view showed the street in front of the hospital, a busy Miyazu City avenue with cars, people on bicycles and on foot, and a man selling fruit from a small cart in front of a boarded up, abandoned shop across the road.
She saw Daisuke's ghost first, standing by the fruit seller, but he wasn't alone. There were at least a dozen others, most of whom Kara did not recognize. Sora stood in the middle of the road, and a little electric car carrying the implements of a street sweeper buzzed right through him. The ghost did not even seem to notice.
"I see Jiro," Miho whispered. "And Hana."
Kara had not known Jiro, but she saw Hana as well, along with Chouku, another girl who had been a victim of the ketsuki, the monster that Kyuketsuki had set loose upon the school.
"No one else sees them," Miho said.
Kara nodded. She had noticed that as well. People strolling or riding or driving by did not seem to register the presence of the ghosts. It confirmed what she had previously suspected, that only those already touched by the supernatural could see the ghosts.
"What do you think they want?" Miho asked.
"I have no idea," Kara said.
And that much was true. But whatever the ghosts did want, she thought it must be important for them all to gather like this. She hoped that Kubo would have an answer, because she feared that if they could not figure it out, very soon they would all be ghosts.
Chapter Thirteen
Sakura knew she was dreaming, but only in that distant way which never seems to make the dream feel any less real. Standing on the shore of Miyazu Bay, she gazed across the bay at the black pines that grew thick on Ama-no-Hashidate and at the horizon beyond. The air shimmered with a dim gold light that made it feel like twilight, or like that moment just before a storm broke, when the air grew thick with static and moisture and the promise of rain, and thunder would roll in from the distance, like a stampede of horses about to come over the rise.
But there were no horses here. No thunder. Just the quiet lap of water against the shore.
She wore her school uniform, and yet not hers. Sakura personalized hers as much as possible with pins and badges, and it had never really fit her well. But what she wore now was pristine and crisp, brand new and a perfect fit. Perfect. That was her. The perfect student. The perfect child. The perfect sister.
But, of course, she had never been any of those things. That had always been Akane.
"Where are you?" she asked, her voice echoing over the water.
But Akane did not answer. The trees whispered back in her stead, and as happened so often in dreams, Sakura realized that she had not noticed them until now. She stepped back from the water and turned to study the trees. They were so close that their branches seemed to be reaching for her, but it wasn't the trees that frightened her.
The ground sloped up from the bay and at the top of that slope stood the silhouette of Monju-no-Chie school. Yet when she glanced at the school she frowned, narrowing her gaze. Something seemed off and it took her a moment to realize that the building seemed to have shrunk.
No. It's not smaller. Just further away.
Of course. So far. Too far. When the killers came for her, there would be no safety to be found there for the girl who would die on the muddy slope.
Muddy? she thought, glancing down. And then it was. She could smell fresh rain, as though a storm had just passed, and the ground was soft and spongy underfoot. The grass on the slope was slicked down. In places — where it had been worn away
by generations of students making a path down to the bay — the soil had turned dark and malleable. Mud.
Fear rippled through Sakura and her breath came too fast, matching her racing heart. This was all wrong. She glanced at the bay again, then spun toward the trees, wondering if that was where the attack would originate. Who had killed her? Who would kill her?
Not you. They killed Akane.
And then the memories swarmed in. She looked out at the water where they had drowned her sister, but it had not started in the bay. It had begun here, on this muddy ground. They had beaten her savagely, kicking her nearly to death even before they got her to the water.
But Akane was still here. Somehow she knew that.
Grief rolled in like the storm she had felt before had finally arrived. She wanted to shout at the night, to cry to the heavens, to tear her hair and scream. Out of the corner of her eye she saw something white flutter in the darkness and she spun to see what it had been. A length of black hair flew behind as the figure darted into the tree;, branches swayed, and it was gone. But Sakura knew the girl wouldn't stay hidden for very long and she did not want to see her . . . the killer. Perhaps they were all there, the faceless, merciless girls who had murdered her sister.
She found herself walking toward the trees.
Maybe they've come for me this time, she thought. Immediately the idea took root and grew. She stood staring into the trees, breathing hard, something rising up inside of her, a scream, a plea, a certainty she had never put into words before. And, at last, turning toward the water, she let it out.
"Why did you leave me behind?" she screamed.
I did not leave you, a voice whispered in her ear — Akane's voice. I'm still here.
Slowly, Sakura turned, and she saw Akane standing on the muddy slope, a red bow in her hair, her smile ironic and teasing all at the same time. Sakura rushed to her sister, crushed Akane in her embrace, thinking of all of the times that they had fought and said cruel things to each other, times she wanted to take back. The scent of ripe plums filled her nose, Akane's favorite perfume, and Sakura laughed out loud.
A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) Page 16