I smiled. “We do specialise in tea, so I’m glad to hear it.”
He looked around, seemingly taking in for the first time where he really was. “Uh, yes. Of course. How stupid of me.”
I shook my head. “Okay, so on the day Keiko disappeared, you said she left for work as usual?”
He nodded. “There was nothing out of the ordinary. She got dressed, gave me a kiss on the cheek and left. I leave the house 10 minutes after her. She’s usually on the train by that time. Around 10 a.m., I got a call from her boss. She wasn’t at work and she didn’t call in sick, so they wanted to know where she was. I told them she left as normal and called her phone, but there was no answer. It was like she just disappeared. We went to the police that evening, but they told us that this type of thing wasn’t uncommon.” Yasu scoffed at that.
“What did they mean by that? Not uncommon?”
“People go ‘missing’ all the time. They usually show up a few days later, safe and sound. Apparently the stress gets to be a little much sometimes and people take off, they said. But Keiko’s not like that. She wasn’t stressed. She had no reason to disappear like that. We have a happy life together, we do, and she enjoys her work. I just… I don’t understand.”
“I see.” I took a sip of my own tea and stared at the photo.
“After she was gone a few days, the police finally agreed to put out a missing person’s report for her. I called everyone we know, even old school friends we haven’t seen in years.” He put his cup down on the counter and leaned forward. “You don’t understand. Keiko’s… Keiko’s parents are old. They’re sick. We visit them each weekend. There’s no way she would leave like this, not when they might…” His words trailed off and he bit his bottom lip. “Please. We’re supposed to get married in a few weeks. Please. I don’t know…” He fought back tears. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do without her.”
The necklace sat atop the photo, a shining beacon screaming for me to touch it. To take it in my hands and open myself up to the other side. I reached out for it. Yasu was in the room. If anything happened… he might not be able to do much about it, but he could call an ambulance. Call the police. Whatever good that might do. I reached forward, closer, my fingertips just above the metal…
Ring ring. Ring ring.
I jumped and grabbed my chest, smiling apologetically at Yasu. “Sorry, I need to…” I picked up the phone, my heart hammering. “Hello? Matsuda Tea and Sweets.”
“Hello! This is Tanaka from Yoshien Tea Distributors. Is Ms Matsuda there by any chance?”
I turned away from Yasu. “Oh, um, no, she’s on vacation right now. She’ll be back shortly if you want to leave a message.”
I scribbled a note down and said goodbye to the man.
“Sorry about that.”
Yasu shook his head. He drained the rest of the tea and placed the cup back on the tray. “Can you help me?”
I looked at the photo. “Is there anything else? Anything else at all?”
Yasu shook his head. “What else do you need to know?”
That was a good question. “That should be enough. Thank you.” I replaced my cup on the tray and moved it aside.
“I’m going to do what I can to find your fiancée, Yasu, but I need you to know that I can’t guarantee anything, okay?”
Yasu nodded his head furiously, desperate for anything to help bring his fiancée back. “Yes, yes, of course.”
“I don’t know what I’ll find, if anything. It’s not an… exact process.” I’d never explained how I found things to people before. I never had to. Sayumi dealt with that side of the business. “But I’ll do what I can. I promise you that much.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” He reached out with his hands to shake mine, but I withdrew before he could touch me. He retracted his hands, confusion fleeting across his face. “Sorry, I…”
“No, no, it’s okay.” My cheeks blushed with embarrassment. “I don’t want to mix things up. Just in case.”
He didn’t know what I was talking about, but he nodded a few times, anyway. “Okay, yeah, sure. I don’t want to do anything that might mess with… whatever you do.” He looked around the room, half-expecting pagan symbols to appear on the roof and floor, no doubt.
“If anything else comes up, I’ll call you.”
“Yeah, of course. Thank you.” He took one last look at the photo and then bowed. “Seriously, thank you.”
He exited with another bow at the door, then disappeared up the street. The girl’s photo smiled up at me. I put my gloves on and hid it under the counter. There would be work to do later.
6
I took the photo and necklace upstairs after closing the store, to the safety of my room. After closing the door, I checked the window was shut tight and put the items down on the desk. I took off one glove, slowly, and then the other. This was it. I could do it. I didn’t need Sayumi. The power was in me, after all. She’d trained me well and nothing was stopping me from doing this other than myself. Judgement time. I would not fail, and I wouldn‘t let anything drag me in. I had nothing to fear. It was just me, a photo, and the connection it led to. All I had to do was follow it. Simple. I sat down, focused on the necklace, and grasped it.
My vision swam. Images and colours swirled in and out. Up turned down, right turned left. Sounds reverberated in and out and I was outside of myself. Where was I? A forest? A body, swinging from a tree, feet dirty with mud. Another body, face down in the dirt, unmoving. The flashes hit me, one after another, and I struggled to keep up. A sign with KUROHANA FOREST in old, flaky letters. A young girl walking through the darkness, shadowy figures watching her unseen from the trees. Their heads turned in unison towards my direction.
They were looking right at me.
I screamed and dropped the necklace. The connection severed, but the sensations remained. I jumped out of the chair, brushing my arms and legs of invisible ants, invisible dirt, invisible eyes.
I glanced around the room. They saw me. They looked directly at me. They knew I was there, even though I wasn’t, not really. The door was closed and the window shut. A chill filled the air, but there was no-one in the room but me. They didn’t come back with me. I was safe. I was alone.
I was… alone.
Brushing my arms again, I sat down on the bed. The feelings wouldn’t go away. Their eyes crawling all over me, invading me, finding me. Discovering me. Knowing me.
The woman, Keiko, was in a forest—Kurohana Forest—but she wasn’t alone. A body swung from a tree, and yet another girl lay in the dirt. The images were familiar, like I’d been there before. I hadn’t—not physically anyway—but I had been there. Just the day before when I picked up the photo of the little girl. It was the same place. The same colours, the same sensations, the same fear. Like the forest was alive, calling people to it and consuming them whole.
Branches scratched relentlessly at the window, an ungodly screech that reached into my chest and took hold, an iron grip that refused to let go. Something banged downstairs, and I jumped again. Just the house settling. That’s all. The house was old, a part of Sayumi’s family for generations. Old houses creaked and groaned all the time, especially during times of bad weather. It was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Besides, the things in the storefront never came upstairs. In the three years I’d been living there, nothing ever came upstairs. Nothing. They had their space, and I had my space. We respected each other and everything was fine.
I jumped. Another bang, this time closer. “Just the window,” I said, hoping the sound of my voice would make me feel a little less alone. It had the opposite effect; I was more keenly aware than ever that it was just me in a big old house at the end of a desolate street, the remains of yet another rainy, windy day lashing the trees outside. It was just the wind. Just the house settling. Just…
“Ah!”
I scooted back across the bed, pressing myself into the corner. The door handle jiggled. That wasn’t the wind. Sayumi’s
door was Japanese-style; a gorgeous sliding door decorated with various flowers. When it was windy, it often clattered and banged on its frame. That was normal. My door was Western. It had a metal handle and lock and it took force to move.
No. I shook my head. They couldn’t have followed me back. Not that quickly. It was just a second. I let go before they found me. I let go before they infected me. They couldn’t have…
Jiggle jiggle.
“Go away!”
I pulled the blanket up closer, a protective barrier between myself and whatever was on the other side of the door. Wiry stick fingers scratched at the window, motioning for me to come outside. There’s no-one here to help you now. It’s futile. Come. Join us.
“Salt…” Of course. I dove for the desk and yanked the bottom drawer open. Several boxes of table salt stared back at me. I fumbled, my fingers cold and not listening to my commands. I tore the top off the box and ran to the door. Salt spilt all over the floor and I dumped the rest in two piles on either side.
“You’re not welcome here!” The wind picked up outside and the scratching on the window continued. Something else creaked downstairs. I waited. My heart thumped in my chest and it was like time slowed down. Badump. Badump. Badump. The salt sizzled. My eyes burned a hole into the door. Badump. Badump. The top of the salt piles turned black. The window creaked. Badump. Badump.
The salt fell silent. It stop fizzing and the charred top settled. The door handle was still and the house calm. It was gone. I was alone.
Alone.
Leaving the lights on, I crawled under the blankets. I screwed up. I knew I shouldn’t have attempted to find something without Sayumi’s guidance. She was the one who helped me along, who pointed me in the right direction and kept me from harm. I wasn’t ready to do this without her.
I had invited something into her house and she wasn’t here to help me.
I was alone.
All alone…
7
“Hello? Matsuda Tea and Sweets.”
“Hello. This is Mrs Tamita.”
My breath caught in my throat as I picked up the phone the next morning. Mrs Tamita. Another customer who didn’t come to the store for tea but for the… side business.
“Mrs Tamita. Good morning! How are you feeling today?”
“Oh, you know. The same as usual. My hip is popping and cracking, and it’s a struggle to get up in the morning, but at my age, well, what else can you expect?” She laughed, the epitome of a sweet little old lady, but there was a sadness behind it as well. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any luck with the item I requested?”
My heart sank as I remembered the previous night’s events. Mrs Tamita was looking for a family photo album, a job Sayumi accepted a month earlier. The family moved houses, and it wasn’t until a few weeks in their new abode that they realised they couldn’t find the album. They must have left it in the old house, but when they went back to find it, it was nowhere to be seen. All that remained was a single photo of it. Mrs Tamita and her late husband were in the foreground, their children playing on the floor behind them, and the album was sitting on a bookshelf in the background. So much was happening in the photo that I had been struggling to pin the album down. My attempts pulled me back and forth, giving me images of Mrs Tamita herself, the children in the photo, and even her deceased husband. Finding a person wasn’t very difficult. The connection between a person and one of their possessions was strong, but finding an item was another matter altogether.
“I, uh, no, not yet. Ms Matsuda is on vacation right now, but we’ll find your album. I promise.” I wasn’t sure I could keep that promise, but the old lady seemed happy to hear it, regardless.
“Oh good, good. That album holds some of my most precious memories of my husband, you know.” I did. “I just…” Her voice trailed off and my heart dropped. “I just want to see them again.”
“I understand, Mrs Tamita. We’ll do our best, don’t worry. You’ll get your album back. We’re still looking. It’s being a little difficult, but you know what Ms Matsuda always says; hardship shapes character… or something like that.”
“If you do find anything, you will let me know, won’t you?”
“Of course, Mrs Tamita. Don’t worry. It’s not over yet. We’ll find your album.”
“Thank you, my dear. You don’t know how much that thing means to an old woman like me.” Sadness filled her voice again.
“We’ll find it soon. I assure you.”
I hung up the phone and rubbed my temples. The album. I entirely forgot about the album. The photo sat in my desk upstairs, untouched after Sayumi left. Mrs Tamita was ill and didn’t have much time left, and all she wanted was that photo album back. The last link to her memories of her husband. The store was empty. I pursed my lips and flipped the sign on the front of the store to CLOSED and went upstairs. The piles of salt sat blackened by the door. I walked through them and removed the photo from the desk.
“Why me?” I sighed.
In my experiences “finding” things with Sayumi, there was always a certain degree of danger, but it varied. Inanimate objects were harder to find, but safer. There was, in general, no energy attached to those. Nothing negative that could follow me home, or attempt to drag me in. People—living creatures—were another matter entirely. Easy to find, near-immediate in most cases, and as the little girl’s photo the other day reminded me, sometimes without any effort on my part whatsoever.
Too many people and objects clouded the photo. Narrowing just the album down was proving difficult, and after the previous night’s events, I didn’t exactly want to jump straight in again. But Mrs Tamita was old. The album was one of the last remaining things of her late husband. She might not have much more time left. I turned to the salt pile. My heart hammered in my chest. Bile rose in my throat and the jiggling of the door handle echoed inside my head. Did I really want to do this again? And so soon? Items were safer, I reminded myself. I’d searched the photos several times with no result on any front.
Succumb to my fear. Help a dying old woman with her final request.
What choice did I have?
“Screw it. Here goes nothing.”
I gripped the edges of the photo and focused. For a moment I saw nothing, and then colours and lines spread out before me. Visions and sensations jumbled into a rainbow of sensory overload. A needle in a haystack. I could dig through the hay for hours and never find what I was looking for, but if I spent long enough in there, something else might find me. That was how it worked.
Mrs Tamita was sitting on her couch, sobbing. A young woman, presumably her now-grown up granddaughter, was taking a test. Anxiety and nausea filled me, spreading throughout me like a wave. An important test. A life-ending test. Sobs. Fear. Nerves. A young man playing soccer. Adrenaline. Exhaustion. Jubilation.
Focus, Mako. Focus. People always stand out the brightest. Ignore them. Look around them. They’re not what you want. The album. Focus on the album. It’s out there somewhere. You can do this. When Sayumi returns, you’ll tell her that you found it. Your first successful job all alone.
Alone.
Fear flooded my veins. Invisible eyes on the soccer field turned my way. The sky darkened. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end. My neck? Or someone else’s? My chest rose and fell, rose and fell, increasing in speed. Hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe. No, not me. Cries. It hurt so much. So, so much. Why did he leave me? Being alone hurt so much. Why did they always leave me? A delivery truck. Darkness. Stuffiness. Hard to breathe. The corner. In the. Corner.
The album!
No, not a truck. Not anymore. The album. Follow it. Eyes were on me, increasing in number. Getting closer. I was a lighthouse and they were lost at sea. They would keep coming in increasing numbers. Closer.
Rubbish. Rubbish everywhere. Cold. So cold. The album, yes, there it was. Its unique signature, faint, but it swirled and answered my call. It was in the rubbish, thrown out by cleaners too lazy to find it
s rightful owner.
The eyes. They swam closer, no longer adrift but with purpose. The darkness. It expanded. It called. It drove with purpose. They were coming. Once again they were coming. The album was right there. I recognised its signature. It was weak, but it was there.
A biting cold drifted over my arm. Goosebumps rose on my skin. Another tendril snaked around my leg. No. I was so close. I needed more time. A flick of cold on the back of my neck.
“No!” I let go of the photo. The salt piles remained stationary. No fizzing, no hissing, no blackening. The room was just as I left it. They were close, too close, but I had picked up the signature of the album, and without Sayumi’s assistance. I had done it.
So why was I still covered in goosebumps?
8
I’m telling you guys, Kurohana Forest is haunted. Like, the trees are alive or something, seriously. I used to pass by on my way to school, and even from the train you can, like, feel it calling to you or something. It’s a popular suicide spot. Everyone knows that. People only go into that forest when they never plan on coming back out again, you know? The trees are so thick and dense that if you wander off the track, you’ll never find your way back out again. It all looks the same. You’ll walk in circles for hours, no idea where you are, and then…
The text continued. It was just after closing time and the house was eerily quiet. I scrolled down the page on my phone, but it was more of the same. Kurohana Forest. I knew of it, but not well. It was a half hour drive away, and I’d never been there personally, but the name wasn’t foreign to me either. I’d heard stories. The stories were enough to kill any ideas I might have about hiking there.
All the searches said the same thing. Suicide spot. Haunted forest. Don’t go in. It’s dangerous. Once you go in, you’ll never come back out. You’ll be cursed. The ghosts will make you one of them. On and on it went. Kurohana Forest was a bad place you didn’t want to be in. It was also the location of at least two missing girls that had come to my attention.
Jukai (The Torihada Files Book 2) Page 3