by Rin Chupeco
“But it’s all boarded up.”
“This shrine is merely a front; the real shrine is underground. There are passageways underneath some of these houses. I suspect they were used by many of the ceremony masters to gain access to the shrine without being seen by the common people. My father’s notes indicated that these caves existed long before the village came into being and that its layout had been planned to accommodate what lies below.” She sobers. “And somewhere within those caves, I imagine, lies the hell’s gate.”
“Please tell me we don’t need to go there.” I don’t want to go anywhere with “hell” as part of the description if I can help it.
“We must if we are to find the shrine. How many of my notes have you read?”
“All that I could find. I read the diary, the odd parchments your father kept, and about the rituals.” I frown. “I didn’t know about the shrine being underground though, or about some of the other rituals mentioned in his research. Why isn’t Hiroshi Mikage’s house on the map you gave the Ghost Haunts crew? He’s the village priest after all. I thought your father would have concentrated on finding his house first.”
“I don’t know where it is either. It was never mentioned in my father’s accounts.”
“Is it possible that Hiroshi Mikage is the kannushi, Kagura? There isn’t much information about the head priest, and being the master of ceremonies and in charge of everything, he’s the most likely culprit.”
Kagura considers it. “That does make sense. The kannushi would have overseen all the village rituals, and that would have made him the most important man in Aitou.”
“And the ritual must be performed underground?”
“Yes. The place where the rituals first began is also the place where we must end it. You told me you found one of the passageways.”
“Yes, but parts of it were caved in. The path I took led from the Kunai residence into the house to the left of this one.”
Kagura nods. “The Kajiwara house, I think. My father’s account states that the Kajiwaras were heavily involved in the ceremonies and rituals here in Aitou. It would explain why their house would be one with underground access to the shrine.”
I groan. “Figures. Let’s get this over with then.”
“Let’s start here. I don’t know about you, but I would like to get rid of that ghost before we do anything else. I’ve been trying to track her for some time, but she’s been very clever—and stronger than many of the others.”
“Tell me about it. She’s the first one I met, and she welcomed me with moldy open arms.”
Ever cautious, we move through the rooms of the Uchiyama residence. I don’t know about the other ghost brides Kagura hunted, but it is clear that whatever glowing accounts the Oimikado girl had written about Yukiko Uchiyama in her diary, Uchiyama was also at the top of her class in the crazy department.
Although the other residences show signs of disrepair and disuse, this ghost bride has pulled out all the stops to let visitors know that a madwoman haunts here. Chairs had been thrown into mirrors, bits of wood still sticking out of the frames. Pottery is shattered on the floors, and some of the walls are riddled with deep fingernail scratches. The rest of the structure has been liberally splattered with rough kanji, using what I’m pretty sure is not red paint. Had I been her intended fiancé, I would have broken it off by now.
“‘Don’t drink the tea,’” Kagura translates, looking at one wall.
“That’s a little tamer than what I was expecting.”
“I don’t think you can choose what to write when you’re insane.”
I concede her point and move on to the next room, where we encounter more writings, ranging from “‘Beware the beautiful death’” to “‘The monsters are here.’” I stand before the first of these, frowning at their familiarity and trying to recall where I’ve heard these phrases before.
Kagura finally urges me on. There’s no sign of the ghost anywhere. “There’s no point in lingering around here,” Kagura says after we’ve looked through the rubble. “I don’t want to leave her behind, but we don’t have much choice for now. Let’s try the next house over, the one with the passageway.”
The temperature has dropped and my breath leaves my mouth in puffs as I jog to keep pace with Kagura. She’s already hurrying to the Kajiwara residence. Here, some parts of the walls are missing, allowing the winds to swoop inside and making me shiver all the more. Despite her bare shoulder, Kagura doesn’t seem to feel the cold.
Although the room has been open to the elements, the bridal doll is where we’d expected it to be—by the makeshift family altar and looking none the worse for wear.
What we don’t expect are the dozens of other dolls strewn around it.
Most of the dolls are unfinished or half made. Some are missing hair and eyes and facial expressions. There’re piles of arms and legs gathering dust and rust. Time has done a number on all of them, but their states of decay only make this more horrifying.
“I was right,” Kagura murmurs. “If the Kajiwaras were the doll makers of Aitou, then they would have been extremely influential. That they were the masters of ceremony might have made them the predominant family in the village after Mikage. They were very likely conspiring with the kannushi in exchange for a share of the power. Remember that he left Edo with a handful of followers after he was exiled. Some of them could have been the Kajiwaras.”
“I am so glad I found you” is all I say. I take a step forward, but Kagura stops me. “Be ready. The ghosts are irrevocably tied to their hanayome ningyō. Take the doll, and its ghost bride will most likely attack.”
“I wish I’d known that two dolls ago.”
Despite our situation, Kagura grins. At her instruction, we circle the room first, trying to ignore the profusion of doll heads and appendages. It’s the largest room we’ve seen, which only highlights the miko’s assertion that the Kajiwaras must have been very rich or very well-respected to afford this rural luxury. That didn’t seem to prevent one of their daughters from being sacrificed in the ritual, and I wonder if they resisted or simply accepted her fate.
Kagura scours one side of the room while I circle the perimeter in the opposite direction. Then she places a finger to her lips, signaling for me to stop. Her hearing is sharper than mine. I need a few seconds to detect the strange humming from the room in front of us, coming from the other side of the shoji screen.
As we watch, a shadow rises from behind it—a profile of someone with long hair streaming behind her. The silhouette rocks back and forth for several moments, and the humming continues. And then, much to my horror, I watch as it lengthens and expands, the neck rising, rising, rising, until it’s stretched several feet above from the still-reclining body.
The rising head turns. It is looking at us.
Despite my shaking knees, I manage to take several steps back. Kagura is made of stronger stuff. She glides toward the screen and yanks it open in one hard movement. The screen slides back easily, but no one is behind it, just a tatami mat and a moth-eaten kimono strung along a small clothesline.
Farther into the room, however, is a small closet.
“Kagura,” I whisper, sweating now despite the cold.
“You might want to stand behind me.” The miko’s voice is terrifyingly calm. “Grab the bridal doll as soon as I give the order.”
I obey, and she steps into the room. Back by the altar, hand poised over the doll, I watch Kagura. She must have nerves of steel. She isn’t trembling, and every step she takes toward the closet is made with such preternatural calm that she could be strolling down a street of shops in Akihabara.
Kagura’s hand slowly reaches for the door, and I brace myself for the worst. With a deft flick of her wrist, she sends the door sliding open.
There’s nothing there. Kagura swears, a rare occurrence for her.
“Language,” I chide, not sure whether to be relieved or terrified.
She turns to scowl at me. Then her face
pales. “Tark!”
A voice giggles in my ear.
I snatch the doll from the altar and dash away, but I’m too slow. Pain blooms along my upper back as nails score my skin. I hit the floor hard. Instinct tells me to crawl away as fast as I’m able, and that’s what I do. There’s a heavy thunk and a brittle shriek. I risk a look behind me. A stake has found its mark, sinking into the ghost bride’s chest. Kagura is an excellent shot. The ghost ripped into my knapsack, tempering the blow before it could reach me and saving my life.
The sacred stakes have weakened her, but she closes the distance between us. Her eyes are too large for her face, her mouth too wide, and she is screaming.
Kagura runs toward me, the familiar chants leaving her lips even as she raises her arm to throw another spike. The pain in my back is getting harder to bear. I don’t think she’s going to be able to save me.
But the killing blow never comes. I feel instead of see Okiku reaching up from inside me to deflect the clawed hand. There’s a sickening crunch followed by a shrill scream.
I turn my head to see the ghost staggering back, her wrist hanging uselessly off her arm. Ignoring the pain in my back, I lunge with my own stake and catch the ghost bride in the stomach. The momentum sends her to the floor, with me nearly on top of her. More wood splinters as the spike lodges itself in the floor, leaving her squirming in agony.
“Stop moving,” I growl, but the ghost isn’t interested in commands. She reaches for me with her uninjured hand, but I roll away. Kagura is close behind and sends two more stakes into the ghost bride’s shoulders. All the while, she recites her sutras, so when I drag the doll in front of Kajiwara’s livid, blackened face, it doesn’t take long.
“Tark, wait!” Kagura gasps. “Let me take the doll and—”
Too late.
She hangs suspended from its branches and knows that she must flee. But her arms and legs refuse to comply with the screaming in her head. They remain motionless, unable to struggle. She feels tired and exhausted, as if she gave up control of her body a long time ago.
Her feet are tied together, her arms stretched above her and bound by the wrists. She tries in vain to move again, to think, to free herself, but there is a low voice telling her that everything is going to be all right, that she must only fulfill her intended purpose.
She wishes Toreo was here. No. Toreo cannot be here, she remembers. Toreo cannot be here with her, because…because…
It is getting harder to think, to will words into her mind.
Her vision clears for a moment, and she sees the kannushi standing solemn before her. His attendants—her father and her brothers—stand on either side of him, carrying long yards of cloth so white and pure that it looks nearly invisible in their hands.
“Sleep well, Fujiko.” The kannushi’s voice is gentle. “Sleep, and protect this village from what comes.”
Her father and brothers carry the cloth so that it is stretched in front of her, brushing against her kimono. She tries to look at her father, not quite sure what is supposed to happen next.
She hangs suspended from a lower branch of a large tree. It is dark and dying, yet magnificent, though it no longer has leaves to shed.
A curious beat of drums starts nearby, and her father and brothers begin to circle her, wrapping the cloth around her midsection. Their speed quickens, until her chest and lower torso are bound in the silky material, and she is finding it hard to breathe.
Now her lower legs are constrained so tightly that she could no longer move even if she wished to. The material twines around her chest—her neck, nearly choking her—and her mouth. The last thing she sees before the thin gauze wraps around her eyes is the kannushi, watching her from behind his mask—
I am only barely aware that my face is planted onto the floor when I surface back into consciousness as Kagura frantically shakes me awake. There is ash in my mouth. It tastes bitter and grainy. I gasp for air. I feel like I was the one being strangled in Fujiko Kajiwara’s place.
The ghost bride is long gone, the holy stakes on the floor the only evidence she was ever there, but I’m still clasping her hanayome ningyō, those now-familiar black eyes large against that placid, porcelain face. Kagura’s hand clutches at its leg.
“Kagura, did you…?”
“Long enough to see.” The miko bites back a sob. “Those poor, poor girls…”
In light of what we’ve just seen, the girls’ attempts at murdering anyone who enters Aitou now seem pretty justified. But there is one more thing we have to do for Fujiko Kajiwara, and Kagura finally delivers the coup de grâce. Her eyes brimming with unshed tears, she yanks one of the wooden stakes from the floor and sends it straight into the doll’s chest.
Chapter Fifteen
Last Words
“I’m fine, Kagura. It barely even hurts anymore. See?” I rotate my shoulder to prove my point, then disprove it when what feels like fire ants come dancing up the length of my back. “Owwww.” The wound turns out to be only a scratch, but that doesn’t stop it from hurting.
“I don’t recall you being this petulant before,” Kagura chides lightly, placing gauze on the wound on my back. With hindsight, I realize I didn’t bring as many first-aid supplies as I should have, but thankfully, Kagura also came prepared.
“I don’t recall ever being clawed by a ghost before,” I say grumpily and then flinch again. The upper part of my knapsack is shredded, but some quick work with my needle while Kagura works on my back ensures it’s intact enough to carry most of my belongings. The thick cloth, along with Okiku’s timely intervention, kept the ghost bride’s fingernails from digging in too deeply.
“You should have let me finish the exorcism, Tark.”
I give Kagura’s shoulder a pointed glance and then sober up. “Hey, Kagura…I read as many of the notes you left behind as I could, and nowhere did I read how the ritual was performed. Do you know?” The idea that the girls were potentially killed via suffocation, spun slowly into the cloth like trapped insects, is a sickening revelation.
“I wasn’t sure of it myself. Father’s account gave no details of it, just generalities.”
“They were weaving the girls into cocoons.” It fit with the earlier vision from Mineko Kunai’s ghost when, through her eyes, I saw that massive, horrifying tree and that wriggling cocoon hanging from its branches. “Your father said that the ritual only takes place every three years. So if something inside the cocoon was still moving, then at least one of the girls had been alive inside it for…” I pause, shocked by the very idea.
“…for three years, at the very least. Yes.” Kagura rolls up the rest of the bandages, and I gingerly pull my shirt down. “Mikage dealt with some very dark magic, Tarquin-san—the kind of magic that could sustain life, of a sort, though its victim would suffer very much from it. But it is not true life as you would know it, Tark. It’s an existence much like Okiku’s, where one can exist and yet still be dead at the same time.”
Great. Schrödinger’s ghost.
“Did you read what my father wrote about the silkworm-raising techniques?”
“Not really. I didn’t know then what they had to do with Aitou.”
“More than even Father suspected, unfortunately. Once silkworms reach a certain age in their larva phase, they begin to spin silk cocoons. Eventually, when they become moths, they bore holes through these prison walls, and the silk is destroyed in the process. As a result, silkworm breeders boil the silkworms before they reach that stage.”
“I take it that’s not very good for the silkworms involved.”
“No, it isn’t.” Even now, Kagura is oblivious to sarcasm. “The cloth they used for the ritual—I’ve seen evidence of silkworm hatcheries in more than a few of the houses. Aitou was self-sufficient by all accounts. I think they took the best of these silks and wove them to make the ceremonial cloths used for the ritual, to bind the girls—”
“But for what?” I burst out. “It doesn’t seem sane. Why go through all
that trouble? If they were going to sacrifice those girls, couldn’t they have at least gone about it in a more humane way?”
“Suffering is the most important aspect of many of these kinds of rituals, Tarquin-san. The more suffering involved, the more successful the ritual.” She smiles sadly. “I had hoped against all hope that you would never find your way here, Tarquin. Despite everything you’ve been through, your heart’s too kind to comprehend the evils man can do when he is afforded the opportunity. You must not think about these things. We should plan our next move.”
“And what would that be?”
“Exorcising Yukiko Uchiyama is still my priority. Failing that, we must gain access to the underground shrine to find those cocoons and purify them if necessary. And we must learn the fate of the last girl sacrificed.”
“That Oimikado girl, you mean? You don’t know what happened to her either?”
“Nothing I have read mentions her fate. Her diary is all I’ve had to go on.”
“She had blue eyes,” I say suddenly. Cold seeps through me, triggering a faint spasm of pain on my back. I hadn’t thought much about the girl’s eye color with the whirlwind of all that’s happened, so I’m only now making the connection. “The diary said something about people who looked down on her because of her eyes. And that her mother belonged to the Ainu tribe.”
“I remember that entry. The Ainu are frequently discriminated against for their mixed racial stock, for having Caucasian ancestry. Blue eyes would not be too unusual for them.”
“I’ve seen her inside the shrine! When I was trying to get in. She must be the ghost helping us, Kagura! And if she’s one of the ghosts here”—I swallow—“she must have been sacrificed too.”
I feel a little sick. It’s a long shot to hope that she got away safely, but it doesn’t stop my anger and my disappointment.
Kagura is more pragmatic. “If she was sacrificed, there is little we can do other than to help her find peace. How is Okiku?”
“Sleeping—or as close to sleeping as someone like her is able to. I think that thing with the Fujiwara girl sapped more of her strength than she’s willing to admit.”