"We may not have much time," the old monk said.
But Mr. Yamato came stumbling up behind them, and he stared at the ice hill. "Impossible."
Kubo sniffed. "Very few things are impossible."
"This wasn't here yesterday," Mr. Yamato said, taking several steps toward the ice hill. "The police and volunteers have been scouring the mountain. They would have found this."
Kubo shook his head. "It isn't always here."
Miho turned to stare at him. "What?"
The cloud wanderer looked back at her with eyes like thunderstorms, full of lightning. "Yuki-Onna is an ancient thing. She exists now in a world that is neither here nor there, neither spirit nor flesh. The winter she brings is not the winter you know, and it is with her always. Your friends have been with her in that storm, but now she has gone to see who has summoned her. But Kara will not be able to distract her for very long. We must be gone before the witch returns. Do you understand?"
Miho nodded. "Enough."
Mr. Yamato ran past them, headed for the dark cave in the face of the ice hill. Kubo and Miho hurried to catch up. As they reached the hole in that strange, tapered hill of ice, Miho felt a fresh wave of fear wash over her, but Kubo did not hesitate and she knew that she could not, either.
Mustering her courage, Miho followed Kubo and Mr. Yamato into the ice cave. Snow crunched underfoot. Only when she had gone ten or twelve feet did she realize that a dim gray light filtered in from somewhere, holes in the twisted surface of the ice hill, perhaps.
Mr. Yamato had paused in front of her, but once he started moving again, she saw that they had entered a small chamber, whose floor was dark and textured. It took her a moment to realize that this was not ice or snow, but earth and scrub and roots — the ground.
Two figures lay curled up on the ground as though sleeping. Mr. Yamato rushed toward them, but Miho was faster.
"Hachiro, wake up!" she said, crouching beside him, jostling him hard. She glanced over at Ren, who shivered with the cold, even asleep.
Mr. Yamato shook Ren. "Boys, let's go!"
Kubo remained at the chamber entrance. His breath plumed in the freezing icebox the ice hill had turned out to be. Not far away, Miho could see a sort of menagerie of human statuary that she felt sure had once been actual people. But the boys . . . she felt Hachiro's pulse. Slow, but his heart was beating. They were alive.
"Come quickly," Kubo urged.
"Hachiro!" Miho shouted.
His eyes opened. He flinched with surprise, then scrambled backward as if fearful of them. For a moment it looked as though he had thought he might be dreaming, and then relief and happiness lit his face.
"Is Kara--?"
"She's fine," Miho said. "Put this on!"
Miho held up the ward Kubo had set aside for Hachiro, then quickly helped him tie the leather thong around the hulking kid's thick neck.
Ren sat up as well, and submitted to Mr. Yamato tying the last of the wards around his own neck, but his gaze was dark and hopeless.
"You shouldn't have come," Ren said. "She'll never let us leave her. You're all as good as dead."
Miho smiled. "You're welcome," she said, reaching out and pulling him to his feet. "But Yuki-Onna is occupied elsewhere at the moment, so start running, and try not to die!"
The book of folktales fell from Kara's hands and dropped into the snow. A gust of wind picked it up, whirling it around, lifting it on air until Yuki-Onna plucked it out of the gently swirling snow with pale, beautiful, slender fingers.
"What is your name, girl?" the Woman in White asked.
The words gripped Kara with a fear deeper than any she had ever known. Yuki-Onna could see her. Girl! The witch could see her. The ward had worked before, in the cafeteria kitchen, but now somehow it had failed.
The snow woman flipped through the pages of the book with a gentleness and delicacy that seemed like little more than a mask. Kara took a deep breath and studied Yuki-Onna's beautiful face, so perfectly sculpted and so beautiful except for the black pits of her eyes. Her hair moved in the breeze as if she were underwater, swaying and floating. Her feet did not touch the ground. Her skin was whiter than the whitest snow.
Yuki-Onna threw the book and a gust of wind carried it away, spinning the book, fanning its pages and sending it soaring up over the bare branches of the skeletal trees around them. Then the witch looked at her and —
No. Those black eyes were hard to read, but Kara was certain they were not focused on her. The witch was clever. Kara had been fooled at first. Yuki-Onna could not see her after all.
But that did not mean the Woman in White could not kill her. Or could she? If Yuki-Onna only saw human essence, and Kara's was masked, would the witch even see her footsteps in the snow if she walked away? Kubo had instructed her to say nothing and to stay completely still, but she could not help the tremors of fear that went through her or the urge to flee. This close to Yuki-Onna, she could feel the cold at the heart of the witch, could sense its otherness and its malice.
A rustle came from the trees and Kara held her breath. No, no, Yuuka. Stay still, she thought, praying that Miss Aritomo would not give herself away. If she believed Yuki-Onna was about to attack, Kara knew that her father's girlfriend would try to save her. Please, stay still. I'll be all right.
Yuki-Onna looked over at the place where Miss Aritomo had hidden herself, with only a mask over her face to distract the witch and no guarantee, even from Kubo, that it would work.
The witch began to glide toward the trees.
"No!" Kara said.
Yuki-Onna spun, her triumphant smile revealing rows of little shark teeth. "I asked your name, girl? Who are you?"
"If you are winter, then I am spring," Kara said.
Hatred contorted the witch's face, making beauty hideous. "You are nothing. Just a little girl with a sprig of magic."
Yuki-Onna came for her, then, her fingers elongating into icy knives. Her jaws opened too wide, revealing only blackness and those shark teeth within. Her eyes sunk deeper, turned blacker. Kara's lower lip trembled and she thought she might scream or cry. Instead, she held her breath and shrank down, crouching as the witch grasped at the air, searching for her, head cocked to one side. Her icy fingers missed Kara by several feet, but they kept clutching at nothing and eventually they would find her.
But then the witch faltered and lifted her chin. Her beauty and poise returned and in seconds it was as if the monster had never been there. Even her eyes seemed soft and almost ordinary in that moment.
Until the witch's savage grin returned.
"Stupid girl. I am ancient, but I am no fool."
Kara saw it in the witch's eyes. Yuki-Onna knew that she had been lured away, knew that she had been tricked. The wind whipped into a raging storm, snow churning around Yuki-Onna for a few seconds before it subsided, but when the moment had passed and the wind returned to normal, Yuki-Onna was gone.
"Oh, no," Kara said. "She's going back for them."
Chapter Fourteen
Mai and Ume stood over Sakura's bed, only the injured girl's breathing and the soft beep of machines breaking the quiet in the hospital room. Though Ume continued to insist that she had done nothing wrong, her air of superiority had begun to crack. She had been hesitant to even enter Sakura's hospital room, but Mai had insisted. And now Mai watched as Ume fidgeted uneasily, not wanting to even look at the unconscious girl on the bed . . . the dying girl.
Ume reached up and tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. In all the time Mai had known her, Ume had moved and spoken with a swagger that sometimes verged on arrogance, and other times fully embraced it. Now, for once, Ume seemed at a loss for what to say or do.
"This has nothing to do with me," Ume said, almost as if she were arguing with herself.
Beside her, Mai stiffened, anger sparking in her again. "It has everything to do with you. You may not have intended for the chain of events that followed — there's no way you could have guessed at the power
you were invoking, the evil that would come from it — but you committed murder."
Fear and anger flashed in Ume's eyes and she shot Mai a bitter look. "She was never meant to die." In a blink, her uncertainty returned. "Not that I'm admitting anything. I'm not."
Mai almost laughed. "You don't have to admit anything. I told you. Everyone knows you're guilty. That you're a killer."
What flickered in Ume's gaze then, Mai could not interpret, but she wondered. Had she seen regret there? Sorrow? Grief? Or just varying shades of anger and ego?
"Listen, I have no intention of just hanging around the hospital all day waiting for the little bonsai to call and tell us it's time to chant a magic spell around the campfire." Ume arched an eyebrow, glancing down at Sakura, whose breath had quickened. The beeping of the machine seemed to have sped up. "And I didn't come here to watch this girl die."
Mai could feel a sharp retort forming on her lips, but as Ume's words hung in the air she heard the pain in them. The mask of arrogance was slipping further, revealing another person underneath, maybe the person Ume had been before she had perfected the identity of the queen soccer bitch. She had made herself ruthless in order to stand out, to be popular, to create a perception of herself as elite.
So what are you? Mai asked herself. You took the bitch crown quickly enough when she was out of the way. A sick feeling roiled in her gut. Yes, Mai had assured herself and Wakana that she had only filled the void left by Ume's departure because someone had to, and she thought she could protect herself and others and hold the reins on Reiko and the girls by being queen bitch herself. But how much of that was true, and how much of it rationalization?
She had been demonizing Ume even as she became her. And if that was true, then what was really in Ume's heart, now? Unless the girl was a complete psychopath, she really had not intended for Akane Murakami to die, which meant that her life now must be utter torment. Bad enough that her parents suspected, that all of her friends and teachers suspected her of murder — but worse, she had taken a human life.
She must by dying inside. Rotting from the inside out.
Mai shivered at the thought.
"What did you come here for, then?" she asked.
Ume began to bristle, turning to her, but she must have seen the sincerity of the question in Mai's face, because she hesitated before speaking.
"Mr. Yamato threatened to send the police," Ume replied.
"But it wasn't just that, was it?" Mai asked.
Ume pushed her hair back again. She seemed to want to speak, but to be struggling with the words. Had she come back to face what she had done? Mai believed so.
"You might feel better if you tell her you're sorry," Mai suggested.
Ume glared at her. "Who? Akane? Don't be stupid, girl. Akane Murakami is dead."
"Not Akane," Mai said, nodding toward the hospital bed. "Sakura. You took her sister from her. Your crime and her rage and grief brought Kyuketsuki here. She and her friends are cursed because of you."
Ume's face contorted with clashing emotions. Her eyes began to fill with tears.
"I am cursed! I am!" Ume said.
"By guilt," Mai said, her voice low.
"Yes, by guilt! I never . . . it wasn't my . . ." Ume said, but she could not find the words to express the emotion welling up within her. She wiped her tears away even as her anger drained away. Her breath hitched and she let out a terrible sigh of surrender.
Surrender to the truth.
Ume turned her back on Mai and reached down to take Sakura's hand.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly, shoulders quaking as she wept.
And then she stiffened, a small noise coming from her throat. Mai frowned, wondering what had happened to her. Ume had frozen as though something had frightened her. But then Sakura began to shift on the hospital bed, the beeping on the machines began to speed up, and Mai saw that the comatose girl had gripped Ume's hand and started to pull her down.
"Is she —" Mai began.
But then Sakura's eyes fluttered open and Mai fell silent. The injured girl had bleary eyes, but she blinked a few times and she came fully awake. Something shone in those eyes, a tranquility and happiness that seemed incredible in that moment.
"Sakura's friends are in trouble," Sakura herself whispered, but her voice sounded so strange, not unlike her at all.
"What?" Ume asked, trying to step back but unable to break the girl's grip. "What do you mean, 'Sakura's friends?'"
Sakura smiled weakly, then nodded. "A small mistake. My friends, of course." She shifted her gaze toward Mai. "Kara and Miho and all of those with them . . . they are not going to be able to make it back for the ritual."
Mai shook her head. "How do you . . . how could you know that? You've been unconscious."
Sakura blinked and for a moment she seemed disoriented again, and then that strange light inside her eyes had gone.
"I dreamed it," she said, sounding as surprised as Mai felt. "But it's true. We have to go to them."
Sakura threw back her covers, reached over and pulled out her IV needle.
"What are you doing?" Ume demanded. "You were dying!"
That gave Sakura pause. "Dying?" she asked, sounding sad and afraid. She looked down at her body. "Maybe I was, but not anymore."
Mai stared at the girl, shaking her head. "But how is that possible?"
Sakura smiled. "You've all been seeing ghosts. I finally saw one, too. The one I've been waiting for." She turned to look at Ume. "She doesn't like you very much."
Ume began to back away, hugging herself as if she were cold, looking around the room. "Akane?"
Sakura tapped her chest. "She's in here." Then she put a hand across her forehead. "And in here."
"And you're . . . better?" Mai asked, wondering if Sakura might actually be losing her mind. But she dismissed the thought immediately. Her sudden strength and healing were no hallucination.
Sakura glanced from Mai to Ume. "The ghosts are here to help. But Kubo was right. I hate you, Ume. You need to pay for what you've done. But if we're to break Kyuketsuki's curse, the Unsui is going to need us both there. We need to go now!"
Kara ran, snow crunching underfoot, arms up to protect her face from branches whipping by. Her heart hammered in her chest and her skin felt flush with terror, not for herself, but for her friends. Behind her she heard a grunt and glanced back to see Miss Aritomo stumble and fall, sprawling across a bush. Without a thought she darted back, grabbed Yuuka's upraised hand and hauled her to her feet, and Miss Aritomo fell into step behind her again.
"Where are we going?" Miss Aritomo asked, struggling to catch her breath.
"I don't know exactly," Kara told her, not for the first time.
She expected Miss Aritomo to argue, but the woman said nothing more. They ran through a clearing amongst a circle of pines where the snow was deeper and it slowed them down, but moments later they emerged into the open area of the Takigami Mountain Observatory. The snow had started to come down hard, driven by the wind.
"Okay, we're here," Kara huffed.
They had gotten off the path but she had not wanted to spare even the few moments it would have taken for them to find it again. Now they sprinted past snowpacked picnic tables and reached the far side of the observatory area, and Kara could not believe it had been only days since they were here last, days since the field trip that had ended with Sora dead and Hachiro and Ren missing.
Wiping snow from her eyes, Kara whipped out her phone, hit the button to dial Miho, and was answered instantly.
"Hey," Miho said, breathing hard but trying to be quiet just the same.
"We're at the observatory. Where to now?"
"Head northwest. Kubo says there's an old trail. You'll find it, he says. It leads down at an angle. We'll meet you on the west face. There's a cave there —"
"A cave! We should be headed for the car!" Kara said. "This is crazy!"
She started into the trees, searching for the trail Miho mentioned. Yuuka
Aritomo followed, and Kara couldn't believe she did not speak up. They'd spent precious seconds arguing after Yuki-Onna had left them behind on the southern slope of the mountain. Miss Aritomo was right, Kara knew. They should have headed back down to the parking lot right then. But when Kara had called to warn Miho and Kubo and Mr. Yamato that the witch had figured out their plan and was on her way, Kubo had insisted they all be together.
Kara had hesitated, but then she heard Hachiro's voice in the background and her heart leapt. "Is that him? He's alive?"
When Miho confirmed that both Hachiro and Ren were alive, Kara had started running up the mountain toward the observatory. She hadn't given Miss Aritomo another second to argue. Whatever happened, she and Hachiro needed to be together.
But now . . . a cave?
"Kubo says not to worry," Miho said.
"How can he say that?" Kara demanded. She pushed a branch out of the way and saw a kind of natural path through the trees that must have been the trail the old monk wanted them to take.
The line crackled. The wind where Miho was must be blowing hard. Kara could hear it roaring loudly now. Miho said something else, but Kara had trouble making out the words.
"What?" Kara said. "What was that?" "The storm . . . Yuki-Onna . . ."
"She's there?"
Kara started down the trail, barely aware of Miss Aritomo following. The snow had started to pick up around them as well, the wind gusting, trees swaying.
"Not yet. But she's near. We have to hide. Just get to that cave. The ghosts will show you the way."
"What do you mean?" Kara asked.
But all she heard was the hiss of static. She shoved the phone in her pocket, picking up her pace, rushing along the old trail, ducking branches that were weighted down low with snow. The world had turned to a white blur around her.
Over the wind, she almost didn't hear Miss Aritomo calling her name. But then Yuuka shouted louder and Kara turned to see the teacher, buried inside her thick winter coat, running to catch up to her, eyes wide.
"What is it?" Kara asked, stopping to wait for her. A ripple of fear went through her. "Yuki-Onna?"
A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) Page 18