by Erin Johnson
Hank’s cheeks flushed. “I’m not positive, but if we repair as much as we can, then yes, we should probably have enough for the materials… I think.” He shook his head. “But not for labor. We’ll have to do everything ourselves.” He shook his head. “Sorry, guys. I didn’t realize quite what I’d gotten us into.”
Annie lifted a thin brow. “Sometimes it’s good to run with an idea you’re excited about before you have time to talk yourself out of it, dear.”
I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m not giving up. I’m going to stick with it and fix up that house.”
Hank’s brows drew together. “Really?”
I nodded, and he gave me a tentative smile.
“Me, too.” Maple laced her hands together. “I can picture it better now and…” She looked at me. “As long as nothing else scary happens, I think it’s going to be great.”
Wiley, Sam, Annie and Yann each agreed.
Iggy looked around at us. “No one else is concerned that we’re all going to be swallowed up by this haunted money pit? No?”
I grinned and nudged his lantern with my elbow. “C’mon buddy.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’m in.” He lifted a flaming finger as I opened my mouth to speak. “But if I see—or hear—another ghost, I’m out.”
Hank nodded. “Fair enough.”
“All right, everybody. You know what time it is.” I shoved my arm into the middle of the circle, palm down.
Annie groaned.
Wiley shook his head. “She’s doing it again.”
I clicked my tongue. “You guys! I thought we were past this. C’mon.”
Reluctantly my friends and Hank piled their hands atop mine. I turned to Iggy. “Your hand is here in spirit.”
He folded his arms. “Don’t talk to me about spirits.”
I grinned. “Team ‘fixing the house’ on three!”
7
Yakitori
Late that night, I sat on my usual corner stool at our favorite yakitori stand. My friends occupied all the other seats at the high counters that formed a square around the center area where Mr. Watabe grilled our chicken, steak, and monster mystery meat orders.
I still hadn’t been adventurous enough to try the latter, but Francis loved them—rare and bloody. I wanted to turn my nose up at it, but it was hard to with the juicy, delicious smells wafting off the steaming grills.
My mouth watered and I grabbed another steamed edamame pod sprinkled with coarse salt and dunked it in the little ceramic tray of soy sauce. I dragged the pea pods out with my teeth and munched.
“I want an appetizer, too.” Iggy folded his arms, his mouth a flat line.
I knew hangry when I saw it. I plucked a packet of disposable chopsticks from the jar on the counter and shook them out, then handed them to Iggy. The thin pieces of wood blackened and glowed as he devoured them.
I glanced at Mr. Watabe, who had sweetly offered to “cook” Iggy some dinner, too. A few thin pieces of cedar rested on the grill, lines blackening one side of them. Shakers of seaweed and sesame seeds magically hovered over the grills, seasoning the meat and onions and other yummy things cooking. The cook’s hands flew, turning skewers, while a magical quill and notepad hovered by his head, jotting down Maple’s order.
“Hey!”
I glanced behind me.
Jun dropped his cupped hands from his mouth and waved. He, Misaki, Ben, and Captain Kenta made their way through the dense crowd that always filled the night market. Jun was easy to spot—he stood a good head taller than everyone else.
I waved back, and they slid toward us through the quick-moving current of shoppers, vendors, and horse-drawn carts. We sat tucked in a narrow alley crowded with food stalls just off the main street—which made for great people watching.
“What’ll you have?” Mr. Watabe barely glanced up from his grills as the guards slid onto the empty stools to my left. “The usual?”
“You know it!” Ben bounced around the stall, greeting me, Iggy, and Hank, then Maple and Wiley beside us. He worked his way around to Yann and stopped for a chat, running his hand through his slicked back “fashion mullet.”
Misaki patted my back in way of greeting, and I lurched forward. “Oof!”
“Sorry.” She winced.
The girl didn’t know her own strength! I waved it off with a smile.
She slid onto the stool on the corner beside me, then Jun next to her. The tall guard grinned and waved at Hank, sitting to my right. “I can’t wait to hear how the renovation went.”
Hank and I exchanged glances.
He lifted a thick brow. “Do you want to tell it?”
“Ooh.” Jun’s brows drew together behind his glasses. “That well, huh?”
I opened my mouth to explain, but stopped, distracted when I spotted Captain Kenta. He normally took the stool beside Sam, but tonight he’d slid in beside Jun, his head down and expression downcast. I glanced directly across from him to where Sam sat. I frowned, concerned, as Sam sat turned away in his stool, one hand pressed over the eye closest to Kenta. Two red circles burned on his cheeks.
I didn’t know why Sam would be avoiding Kenta, but my stomach twisted with worry. Those two were so cute together. What was going on? I couldn’t help a little flash of amusement though, and made a mental note to tell Sam that it’d be more subtle to cup his face or something if he wanted to avoid someone—simply covering an eye was a bit obvious. It reminded me of when little kids wanted to hide and simply covered their eyes, assuming if they couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see them.
Misaki nodded her thanks to the cook as a frosted pint of golden beer floated over to her. She pulled it from the air, took a swig, and then lifted a thick, flat brow. “All right. What’s the damage?” She licked the little froth mustache off her top lip. “Does the house have termites or something?”
Iggy rolled his eyes as he polished off the chopsticks. “Probably.”
I shook my head. “No. I mean, yeah, Iggy’s right, probably, but that’s not what was so bad.”
Maple leaned forward from a couple spots down to my right and lifted her voice to be heard over the sizzling of the grills and the murmur of the night market crowd. “It was horrible!” Her pretty face scrunched up in a grimace.
Hank slid his hand onto my leg and wrapped his fingers around mine. I gave a grateful squeeze.
Ben gaped at Maple, genuine concern in his wide eyes. “Oh no! Did Imogen burn this place down, too?”
Misaki stifled a laugh against the back of her hand and Jun bit his lip.
My eyes narrowed. “Who told you about that?”
Ben blinked, confusion on his face. “Iggy. Was it a secret? Sorry.”
I shot my little flame a look and he cackled. “Really? You have to tell everyone I burned down my apartment building back in Seattle?”
He shrugged. “It’s an icebreaker.”
I shook my head at him.
Ben shrank back, half hiding on the other side of Kenta—who still hadn’t even looked up. “Remind me not to get on Imogen’s bad side.”
I threw my hands in the air. “It was an accident!”
“Sure it was.” Misaki took a swig of beer, her eyes wide.
“Hey, guys.” Hank’s deep voice cut through the din of voices, bells, and cooking around us. “Imogen’s had a tough day. So maybe lay off the teasing a little?”
I squeezed his hand, grateful that this sweet, handsome man had my back.
His lips pulled to the side. “I found this can of gasoline and rags in her closet the other day, so really, for your own safety, lay off.”
I shook my head at him as Wiley snickered. “Et tu, Hank?”
“Sorry.” He dipped and kissed my temple. When he pulled back, his grin faded. “But truly, something distressing happened at the house today. I don’t mean to make light of that.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Maple leaned forward on her elbows and loudly whispered, “Imogen saw a ghost!”
The guards all exchanged looks, and Kenta even deigned to raise his head from his arms. Misaki made a grabby hand. “All right. Pay up.”
Jun, Kenta, and Ben dug around in their pockets.
“Excuse me?” Wiley cocked a brow.
Misaki, hand still held out, turned to face us. “I bet you’d discover it was haunted on day one.” She tipped her head to the others. “These guys thought it’d take longer.”
My jaw dropped. “You knew?”
She shrugged. “Eh. There’ve been rumors for years.”
“Grr.” I turned to Hank. “Ms. Tomoko totally knew it was haunted.” I shook a finger at no one in particular.
Annie slid around the stall behind me, hugging close to my back to stay inside the glowing red lanterns that hung from the stall’s small roof. She slapped some gold coins into Misaki’s waiting hand.
I gasped. “You were in on the bet? You knew it might be haunted?”
Annie shrugged. “Why else would anyone just give us a house, dear?” She patted my hand and made her way back to her stool beside Yann and Sam. Sam darted a quick glance at Kenta, then blushed a deeper shade of pink. I needed to have a talk with my shifter friend later.
Hank let out a heavy sigh. “I guess I should have questioned it more. I was just so excited about the project—about us having our own home, and bakery…, and school.”
I squeezed his hand. “You didn’t know.” I turned to Misaki. “But I would have thought my friends, or Jiji, at least, would have told us.”
Jun scrunched up his nose. “Sorry.”
Small plates of juicy meat on skewers floated over to us, softly settling on the narrow counter. Mr. Watabe stepped away from the grill, a few thin pieces of charred cedar wood held between a pair of tongs. “Special order?”
I spun Iggy’s lantern around and the cook handed the sticks over to my little flame. He crackled with happiness.
“Thanks, Mr. Watabe.”
He winked at me and returned to cooking up the next batch of yakitori.
Jun adjusted his glasses, his brows drawn together. “Honestly, they were just rumors. Did you really see something?”
Iggy and I nodded at him, our expressions grim. Still, I couldn’t be too upset, not with my chicken waiting for me. I squeezed a lemon slice into the mayo dipping sauce and picked up the skewer. “Iggy and I went to the top of the tower and saw….” My throat tightened as I remembered the glowing green spirit—its dark, sunken eyes boring into me. I shuddered and tried to shake off the memory. “We saw a man hanging from the rafters by his neck.”
Ben’s jaw dropped. “No way.”
Misaki and Jun looked at each other and murmured, “Daichi,” in unison.
“Daichi?” Hank chewed his steak, then swallowed. “What are these rumors exactly?”
I nodded. “Spill it.”
8
The Train
Misaki leaned forward. With the little flags and lanterns that hung from the stand at our backs, I always felt as though I were inside a tent at the yakitori stand. Francis and Rhonda leaned forward to hear on the other side of the stand, as did the rest of my friends. I couldn’t help feeling like we were about to get a campfire ghost story.
“Daichi was the last guy who owned the house. He was this super rich lawyer and he had this pretty, much younger trophy wife. I mean, his son and she were a few years ahead of us in school, and they were the same grade.” Misaki lifted her brows.
Iggy scoffed and spoke around the piece of cedar in his mouth. “He was super rich and he lived in that dump?”
Jun shook his head. “It actually used to be the nicest house in town.”
I thought of it now. That was surprising.
Jun tapped his chin with a long finger, his gaze distant. “Actually, I did a report on it back in school. I’ll see if I can find it.” He blinked and turned back to us. “I remember that Daichi had spent some time in the kingdoms before the monster attack cut us off from them.”
My stomach always sank a little when that came up. I knew Hank felt guilty for his father’s actions, the way King Roch had sent hordes of monsters to this island so that the kingdoms wouldn’t have to deal with them. Many islanders had died, and it’d forever changed their way of life.
And the king hadn’t stopped there. Since no one even knew where the Badlands were, or that there were people here, we assumed he’d also done a major cover-up, magically removing the island from maps, records, and memories.
Jun continued. “This lawyer, Daichi, was really taken with the Earth Kingdom and built the house to reflect foreign architecture… I think it was called the Queen Anne style?”
Misaki nudged his shoulder with hers as she munched on a skewer. “You’re sexy when you’re nerding out.”
Jun grinned and flushed bright pink, and whether it was from her comment or the steam coming off his food, his glasses fogged. I chuckled.
He plucked them off his face and used a fabric napkin to clean them, then cleared his throat and continued. “For that report, I pulled a bunch of the original plans from the record office and did some of my own sketches. It used to be a beautiful house.” He grinned. “You know, they called all the detailed decorations and trim ‘gingerbread.’” He chuckled. “The house is perfect for a bunch of bakers.”
Iggy snorted. “Yeah. As long as we live long enough to do any baking in it.”
I shook my head. “If it was so nice, what happened? Why is it an abandoned wreck now?”
Misaki set down her skewer, and her straight black hair fell forward, just grazing her shoulders. “It was about ten years ago. A bad typhoon was headed for the island, and all the coast towns and cities were being evacuated. A bunch of evacuees headed toward Kusuri. Being in the middle of the island, we’re never hit as hard by the storms.”
Jun nodded. “That’s right.” He snapped his fingers, as if he’d just remembered something. “On the way here, one of the trains was attacked by a monster. A lot of people, about a third of the passengers, were killed… either by the crash, or by the monster itself.”
Wiley tilted his head to the side. “There’s a train? I’ve never seen it… or heard it.”
Kenta, who’d been silent this entire time, cleared his throat. His voice still came out hoarse. “Doesn’t run anymore. After that, it was too dangerous and expensive to try and maintain tracks that stretched across the monster-filled wilderness.” He sighed and his eyes grew unfocused. “Sometimes life’s like that. Trains run and then one day—they just stop. No warning. And maybe you try to get them going again, but they won’t even talk to you.”
I frowned and glanced at Maple, who also looked concerned. Were we still talking about trains here?
“Uh.” Misaki flashed her eyes at the despondent Kenta, who threw his head back and chugged an entire pint of beer, then lifted a finger at Mr. Watabe for another. She cleared her throat. “Uh. Right. No more trains. But some of the passengers on it were from a women’s prison. The prisoners, and the officers who escorted them, were all killed.”
She gestured to herself and the other guards. “We were all teenagers, well Ben was younger, at the time. It was chaos. The storm had just started to hit the town, winds and rain, when we got news about the train. Kusuri sent as many officers and guards as we could spare to rescue people and recover bodies.”
Jun nodded and picked up the story. “Meanwhile, we were all told to seek shelter. We went down into basements, if we had them, and others gathered at the local school. By the time everyone got back from the train wreck, the storm had hit in full. Winds uprooted trees, torrential rain fell, and the day had turned dark as night.” He shook his head. “It was the hardest any typhoon has ever hit Kusuri.”
I raised my brows. Sounded intense.
“The bodies of the dead were brought to the morgue.” Misaki dipped her chin, leveling us with a serious look. Her dark eyes darted around the stand at each of us. “One of the dead prisoners was this really vicious serial
killer lady that Daichi had prosecuted many years before. They wanted to ID all the prisoner’s bodies to make sure none were on the loose, and Daichi was called down to the morgue, as he was the only one who could identify the killer—Chiyoko.”
I frowned. This wasn’t going in a good direction.
9
Ghost Story
Misaki lowered her voice and my friends and I leaned forward to catch her words. “That night, the morgue burned down. The fire killed the officer stationed there and destroyed the bodies of the prisoners and the others killed on the train.”
I sucked in a breath.
“What happened to Daichi?” Annie called from across the food stall.
Misaki’s eyes flashed. “He disappeared that night.”
Hank frowned. “What do you mean… disappeared? He wasn’t killed in the fire?”
Misaki shrugged, and her top knot bounced. “Some say he was. But his body was never found.”
Ben bit his lip. “Some say the serial killer’s ghost possessed him.”
Misaki grew quieter. “They say that Daichi’s still roaming the woods today, possessed—looking for new victims.” She shot a hand out and grabbed my arm. “BOO!”
“Ahh!” I lurched back and would’ve fallen off my stool if Hank hadn’t caught me.
Maple whimpered and grabbed Wiley’s arm. He’d gone pale and looked just as terrified as she did, a hand clutched to his chest. “Not funny, Misaki!”
Iggy’s eyes nearly took up his entire fiery body, and we shared a look as my heart thundered in my chest.
She chuckled, then waved a hand. “Ah. It’s just a dumb ghost story.”
“Psh.” I folded my arms across my chest. “You can tell me it’s just a story after you’ve seen what we’ve seen.”
Iggy nodded at me.
Hank cleared his throat. “How did the morgue burn? Did they find evidence of arson?”