“That’s terrible.” And it was happening with increasing frequency, it seemed. What was going on?
“They found her car sitting in a convenience store parking lot. The officers said it was the second body they’d found like that in the last month.”
Wait, so the girl wasn’t anywhere near Kurohana Forest, and she wasn’t a lone victim either?
“What do you mean, she was the second they found like that? I haven’t heard anything about it.”
Mr Fujita shrugged. “I think they probably don’t want the media to know about it yet. They don’t want people to panic or something. Stupid, if you ask me. People deserve to know. People have the right to protect themselves.”
I was in over my head. So much was going on that I didn’t understand.
“Well, I better at least grab some tea while I’m here so my wife doesn’t beat me when I get home.” Mr Fujita winked with a devilish smile and grabbed a few bags of matcha powder. “You give Ms Matsuda my best when she returns and tell her she owes me a free dinner for all the nagging I’ve had to put up with from my bored wife since she’s been gone.”
I forced a smile on my lips and nodded. “Yes, Mr Fujita. Of course.” I gave him his change, and he held a hand up.
“You take care, Mako. It’s a dangerous world out there. If you see or hear anything suspicious, you call the police at once, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You‘re a good kid. Be careful.”
My heart sank as he left and silence fell over the store once more.
17
Mrs Tamita’s photo stared back at me from the desk. Another uneventful day had passed, but that set my nerves even more on edge. Like things were building in the background, getting ready to explode before I was able to do anything to stop it. Well, I wouldn’t let that happen. I could do this. The power was within me; I didn’t need help. It was a simple photo album, and after searching for it several times, I finally got a hit. This time I knew what to look for and how to find it again.
I could do it. I couldn’t put it off any longer.
A quick in and out; find the location of the album and then come back. I was no chicken and there was nothing to fear. It would be easier now that I knew what I was looking for and not being pulled to and fro by everything else in the photo. I’d find it before anything else found me. I was a professional, and this was an easy job. A quick victory would be a nice boost to my confidence after the last few days. I grabbed the photo and allowed myself to fall in. The familiar colours and sounds swirled around me until the image before my eyes settled.
An old woman was praying in front of an altar. Mrs Tamita. A man stood in the corner, watching her. Mr Tamita. He hadn’t moved on. He was still there, watching over his wife. Why hadn’t he moved on? Sadness. He couldn’t move on. The feelings washed over me. The love he felt for his wife. His inability to leave her when she was in so much pain. Their memories. They weren’t much, but in her old age, they were all she had. Mrs Tamita’s shoulders heaved as she wept. Mr Tamita pointed outside.
I was in a creek. It was too small to be a river, but I didn’t recognise it. Litter covered the banks on either side, and two small school children ran by in uniform. A chill settled over my skin. It started by my ankles and crawled, wrapping itself around my calves, then around my knees and up my legs. I called out to the children, but they couldn’t hear me. Of course they couldn’t; I wasn’t there. It wasn’t even the present. At least, I didn’t think so.
Incorporeal forms rose from the water. Not darkness, not light, just forms. Invisible to the naked eye, but blinding to mine. More rose from the mud on the banks. For how bright they were to my eyes, I must have been even more blinding to them. They trudged through the mud and crawled through the water. More and more rose, making their way in my direction like moths to the flame. The chill wrapped around my stomach and snaked up my arms.
“Hey!” I called out, but the children laughed and ran past us. “Hey!” One stopped for a moment by the banks of the creek and my heart jumped. “Do you know—” The kid tied his shoelace and then ran to catch up with his friend. My heart sank as the chill rose to my neck. I tried to shake it off, but it clung tighter.
“Leave me alone!”
More forms were rising. There was no sign of the photo album. Why was I there? I searched frantically through the litter on the shore, frozen to the spot as my eyes darted around the blinding lights crawling towards me. It had to be there, but why couldn’t I see it? It should have been brighter than anything else. I knew what it looked like now; not its physical form, but its spiritual. The figures around me were too bright. They were blocking not only the album but everything else from view as well.
I pulled at my own legs, determined to move. “Come on!” They were getting closer. The chill grabbed at the back of my neck, sliding around to the front of my face. “Get off me!”
A presence behind me made the hairs on my body stand on end. For a moment the figures stopped, and I was free. They didn’t back away, but I feared turning around to see what made them stop in their tracks. I swallowed and time seemed to go still. I turned, slowly, unsure of what I might see and prepared myself to run just in case.
The figures swarmed me. The moment my eyes were off them they fell upon me, all over me, dragging me down with them into the cold watery depths below.
“No!”
I let go and was back in my room. Sweat poured down my brow despite the cold of the room and the goosebumps on my arms. The photo sat on the middle of the desk, nothing out of the ordinary. I wiped my forehead and waited for my breathing to calm down. What had gone wrong? The album was there somewhere. I wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t. What was I missing?
I should make a note, I thought, and I remembered the emblem on the child’s school uniform. Grabbing a piece of paper, I scribbled it down the best I could. I’d have to look it up later; it wasn’t immediately familiar to me, and neither were the surroundings.
The hairs on the back of my neck continued to prickle. Something was in the room. Did I bring it back with me? No. I broke away in time. Nothing could have followed. I put my hands on the desk and took a deep breath. One of the techniques Sayumi told me to use in times of stress. “Sometimes you’ll see things that aren’t really there. It’s okay. It’s just a residual effect, and with enough time, you’ll be able to tell the difference between what’s real, and what’s simply lingering.”
I turned. Nothing was there. I let the breath out and laughed. Just a lingering aftereffect. Of course my nerves were on edge. I turned back to the desk and the old man’s face was looking right at me.
“Quickly!” he screamed.
18
Nightmares plagued my sleep. Spirits I couldn’t see consumed me. I was blind to them, unable to see what was pulling me down, dragging me into the depths and drowning me. I couldn’t feel them, but they were there. They were everywhere, and I was alone.
My eyes flung open and faces looked down on me. They weren’t faces I recognised, and it took me a few moments to realise why. They weren‘t faces—not how we recognised them, anyway. They were darkness, unable to remember what they looked like in life and thus stuck formless in death. I fumbled for the lamp and pulled the string; light filled the room, and they were gone. Dirty, wet footprints stained the carpet where they once stood, and I turned as heavy rain pelted the window outside. Another storm. The room was cold, even more so than usual. I didn’t like to use the heater; cold was something I grew used to over the years and it was another unnecessary expense, but I plugged it in and warmed myself before it.
It took me a few minutes to realise that something was banging downstairs as well. The storefront? I shook my head and rubbed my hands for heat. If someone was down there at this time of night, that wasn’t my business. And if it wasn’t a someone, but a something, well… that was really not my business.
Yet the banging continued unabated, growing more frequent and violent.
“Go away!” I yelled, feeling the icy grip of winter ignore the heater before me. The banging continued, on and on, until finally it became too much. I threw the door open, anger propelling me forward, and stormed past Sayumi’s open bedroom door.
“I said go away!”
Lightning flashed and several shadows appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
“I have nothing to do with you. Leave!” I stomped down the stairs, not really sure what I planned to do once I got there; it wasn’t like I could forcibly shove them out the door or even punch them in the face like I wanted to, but I couldn’t just stand at the top of the stairs and scream at shadows all night. “This isn’t your place and I can’t help you, so go!”
They were gone by the time I reached the bottom, and the back door flapped open and shut in the breeze. The broken lock… A large puddle of water was forming beneath the door and I sighed in relief. That would explain the cold and the banging. I retrieved some rope from the storage cupboard and tied it around the remains of the handle, looping it back around the cupboard to keep it closed. It would have to do until morning. The noise stopped, and I made a mental note to call the repairman again the next day. In the meantime that mess wasn’t going to clean itself. I grabbed a mop, relieved that a puddle of water was the only thing I had to deal with.
Something banged upstairs and anger flared once more. “Oh, come on.” I threw the mop down and leapt up the stairs, two at a time. The window in Sayumi’s room was open, the curtain billowing wildly in the wind as rain poured in.
“Oh no!”
I ran in without thought and pulled it closed. A few items on her bedside table were wet, but there otherwise wasn’t too much damage. I stopped to take it all in. The room still smelt like her; vanilla and lavender, her favourite scents. You could smell them a few moments before she entered the room, and a few moments after she exited as well. It brought with it a sense of calm. Of warmth and security and… love.
I dropped to my knees, and the tears poured forth before I could stop them. I hadn’t allowed myself to cry or to feel anything that might suggest that Sayumi was gone and never coming back. The thought was forbidden, pushed from my mind before I could ever explore the possibilities of what it meant. She was on a job. It wasn’t the first time. She’d be back.
I cried. The feelings washed over me and consumed me and I let them. I missed her. The house was so cold and lonely without her presence. She was a shining star in a cold night, and now that she was gone it was dark and I was all alone. I was scared. Sayumi always knew what she was doing, and she was gentle in her guidance. She never led me astray and she never let anything hurt me. She shielded me from the horrors lurking in the darkness the best she could, and when things got too much, she was always there lending a shoulder to cry on.
“I… I don’t know what to do, Sayumi.” The sound of my voice in her empty room filled me with a sadness I didn’t know I could feel. The world had moved on and forgotten me. I was all alone and left to fend for myself, blind and scared in the dark. “Why? Why did you leave me here? Why, you of all people… you know how I feel about…” my voice choked up “…about being left behind…”
A book fell off Sayumi’s desk and landed on the floor with a thud. I got to my feet and picked it up. A piece of paper fell out and floated to the floor.
It was a map. A map of Kurohana Forest written in Sayumi’s handwriting. Kurohana Station was there, the outline of the forest, and there was a large X in the middle with several landmarks marked along the way. Large letters stood out beneath the X.
KUROHANA SHRINE.
This was it. Proof that Sayumi was working on the same thing, and she was several weeks ahead of me. A crude drawing of a shrine maiden floated next to the shrine. I was right. It was the shrine maiden after all. Sayumi went to the forest in an attempt to appease the maiden and stop the disappearances and ended up disappearing herself.
Sayumi was in trouble. I had to help her before it was too late.
19
The downstairs phone drew me from my revelry the next morning. I picked it up on the second ring.
“Matsuda Tea and Sweets.”
“Mako?”
My heart jumped. A voice I hadn’t heard in a long time replied. Possibly the voice I needed to hear most.
“Megu?”
“Oh thank god, you haven’t changed numbers! I was worried that maybe you moved and didn’t tell me, or maybe Ms Matsuda changed the number, or—”
“How are you?” It was so good to hear her voice again. The only blood relative I had left in the world. We didn’t see each other often, and our contact was usually kept to holidays or big events, but in that moment, Megu’s voice was the one I needed to hear most. I missed her.
“I’m… yeah. Okay, I guess,” she replied. “A lot of stuff’s been going on here. I don’t even know where to begin…”
“Stuff like what?”
Megu laughed, a sad, pitiable sound.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, no. Maybe. I don’t know. I… I met this girl.”
“Okay…”
“And there was a bunch of things… you know…”
I didn’t know, but I nodded anyway. She couldn’t see me, but it was a habit.
“Anyway, to cut a very long story short, it turns out she’s… different.”
I wasn’t following. “Different how?”
“Like you. I think. Maybe. I don’t… Help me out here, Mako.”
Megu was as scatter-brained as always. “Megu, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She sighed. The sound brought a smile to my lips. She was flustered and terrible at hiding it. “I met this girl. She’s very cute. But something was chasing her. Or at least, we thought something was chasing her…”
“Okay…”
“I tried to help her. I thought it was a ghost or something, or maybe something her father conjured. I don’t know how these things work, that was always your thing. But anyway, it’s not a ghost. Not really. I don’t think so. It was always around her, or connected to her, or inside her, or—”
“Sounds like an ikiryo.”
There was silence on the other end. “A what now?”
“Ikiryo. A living spirit. You’re right, it’s not a ghost, not really. Not of a dead person, anyway. It’s the spirit of someone who’s still alive.”
“…Huh. That actually makes a lot of sense now.”
I tried to hide my smile. Megu was older than me, but she always reminded me of a younger sister. “An ikiryo usually comes about to seek vengeance or revenge for something done to the person in question. They’re rare, but they can be extremely powerful.”
Megu snorted. “Yeah, no kidding…”
“So this girl’s cute, huh?”
I could hear Megu blushing from several prefectures away. “Maybe. Shut up. So anyway, putting that aside for the moment, how are things with you? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
The store was empty. Not like talking to my one and only cousin for a few more minutes would do any harm, and maybe she could help the storm that was brewing in my heart.
“Sayumi’s missing.”
“What?” Sayumi was always kind to Megu, and Megu looked up to her like an aunt.
“She left a few weeks ago. She told me she was going out on a job and not to follow, but that was the last I heard of her. Since then… I don’t know, Megu. People have been going missing around town, and a man came to me to help find his missing girlfriend.”
“Okay…”
“So I agreed to help, and there’s this forest nearby that… that I think is haunted.”
“Oh. Eww. That’s… no thank you. I’m sorry.”
I picked up a pen and scribbled mindlessly on the piece of paper before me.
“And ever since Sayumi left, the house has been… different. It’s always been a little different, you know? But now… I don’t know anymore. I have to bring her back, and I’m scared.” It
felt odd to say the words out loud. It was like admitting it to the world at large, and now I would be held accountable to those words.
“Are you okay? Do you need me to come down there?” The concern in her voice was evident, and it was enough to embolden me.
“No, Megu. It’s okay. Thank you. You sound like you have enough on your plate, anyway.”
“I mean, we can come down there together. Me and Aya. If you want.”
“Her name’s Aya?”
Megu fell silent for a moment, like she’d been caught out. “I think you’ll like her. She’s quiet and emotionally unavailable, just like you.”
I snorted despite myself. “Did you just make a joke at my expense?”
“Did it help?” Her voice was hopeful.
I sighed. “Not really, but I appreciate the attempt.”
“Seriously, Mako. You don’t need to do this alone. I mean, I can’t be there in the next ten minutes or anything, but I can make arrangements to come down. I don’t think I’ll be much help, I’m useless when it comes to this kinda stuff… or most stuff… but Aya…”
“It’s fine, Megu. Really. But thank you.”
An awkward silence filled the air again. An old couple walked past the store. I waited to see if they would enter, but they continued on their way.
“When you said the house was… strange… you mean like that whole ‘no entering the store after dark’ business?”
I continued scribbling on the paper. “No, not that. Well, strange things have been happening there too, but… I honestly don’t know, Megu. This is the one place I can usually be at ease. I don’t see anything here, and I think that’s because of the spirits in the store after dark. But lately… Well, they’ve been invading the second floor as well. I don’t know if it’s the same spirits, or different ones, but—”
“The house is haunted?” Megu answered for me.
“I guess.”
“Ugh, I don’t know how you could live there to begin with. All those ghosts downstairs every night, why doesn’t Sayumi do anything to get rid of them?”
Jukai (The Torihada Files Book 2) Page 8