Jukai (The Torihada Files Book 2)

by Tara A. Devlin

  As though reading my mind, Sayumi suddenly froze. “The shrine maiden.”

  “What?” I turned and Sayumi took another step back.

  “The shrine maiden. She’s out there. She’s why… Mako! Did you see her?”

  I nodded. “Of course. Several times now, but—”

  Sayumi shook her head and backed up into the wall. “It’s no good. She has us trapped here. We’ll never get out. This is the only safe spot. She can’t come in here.”

  I was growing more confused by the minute. “What do you mean, we’re trapped? Why can’t she come in here?”

  Sayumi pulled me away from the door and closed it. “This here is a storage shed for the main shrine.” I nodded, unsure of where the conversation was going. “She can’t enter.”

  “Why?”

  She peeked through the gaps in the wood towards the main shrine building. “Did you go inside the shrine?”

  “I did.”

  “Did she follow you?”

  “No, but… No. She didn’t.” Come to think of it, I heard the wind chimes and heard her drag Yasu off to the tree, and she knew I was inside… but she never entered the building. By the time I came out, she was long gone.

  “Because she can’t. Do you see? The forest corrupted her, but at heart she’s still a shrine maiden. She can’t step on hallowed ground. The graveyard and temple are tainted. Dirty. But she’s a priestess. She can’t step inside the shrine buildings and dirty them. They’re clean and pure and need to remain that way.”

  Neither the main shrine building nor the storage shed seemed clean, but I didn’t think Sayumi was talking about their physical nature.

  “So, as long as we’re in here, or in the main shrine, she can’t get us?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, that’s why you were in here.”

  She nodded.

  “Okay. I get that. But… Sayumi, you’ve been gone a long time. It’s been several weeks now. What happened? Why were you…” The words I were looking for escaped me. I indicated the corner I found her in. “Why were you asleep in here? It was like you were in a coma.”

  At that Sayumi shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t even know how long it’s been. Time seems to work differently in here.” So, she noticed it too. “I was looking for someone. An old friend. I never found her, but I did find a young girl. She was hanging from a tree, and I was helping her down when…” When the shrine maiden appeared. I remembered from my vision. “I ran here. Or something led me here. I don’t know. But when I got inside, it was like I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.”

  “Do you think the shrine maiden did it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you sense her now?”

  “No. You?”

  “No. I think we should run.”

  “Do you know how to get out of here?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No.”

  Well, that was great.

  “We can’t stay in here forever,” I said. Sayumi nodded.

  “We should run while we still have the chance.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  She nodded again.

  “Let’s go.”

  30

  We were long past the river before Sayumi spoke again.

  “How long did you say I’ve been gone?”

  “Close to three weeks now.”

  She fell silent as we trudged through the forest. The fog remained heavy, but Sayumi walked with purpose. There was no sign of the shrine maiden, and the skeletons hanging from the trees were gone. Gone, or we were taking an entirely different way out. It was impossible to tell.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. I wanted to deal with things on my own, like I always do. It was stupid of me. I should have trusted you enough to tell you what was going on.”

  “What was going on?” Our boots crunched on the icy forest floor in unison. Sayumi was not dressed for the cold, and she rubbed her arms for warmth.

  “An old friend of mine from university went missing. I did a bit of digging, and the last time anyone saw her, she was buying a ticket to Kurohana Station. There have long been rumours that this forest is cursed, so I started looking into it. What I found suggested there might be some truth to those rumours, so I decided to check it out for myself. But I discovered one more thing. Something that I didn’t want you to get wrapped up in.”

  My heart pounded in my chest. “What’s that?”

  Sayumi stopped and held a hand up. “Do you hear that?”

  I stopped and listened closer.

  “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Exactly.”

  The forest had been eerily silent the entire time I’d been there. It didn’t strike me as odd; not anymore.

  “We’re not alone, and yet they’re leaving us be. Why is that?”

  She was talking about the spirits. To that, I had no response. “I don’t know.”

  Sayumi pursed her lips, did a full 360-degree turn, and then started walking again.

  “When we get home, I’ll tell you everything. I should have done that in the first place, and I’m sorry I didn’t. I’m sorry for a lot of things. I know I told you not to follow me, but… thank you.”

  It was rare to hear those words coming from Sayumi. Usually it was the other way around. I was always thankful to her for everything she did for me, everything she taught me and everything she helped me with. Never once did I do anything that required her being thankful to me. I smiled.

  “I couldn’t just leave you be.”

  “How did you find me?”

  I removed the remains of the blue stone from her brooch, wrapped safely in the cloth inside my pocket. Sayumi stared at it before tentatively picking it up.

  “It’s from your brooch. A man came to the store. Said he was looking for his girlfriend, and he heard I could help.”

  Sayumi raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? You’re famous now.”

  I shook my head. “No, no. Not at all. I still don’t know who told him about me. It’s usually you who brings clients in. Anyway, I was looking for her, and that led me here. She was… hanging from the tree outside the shrine.”

  Sayumi mouthed ‘oh’ but said nothing. I continued.

  “When I first came here, I found a girl. She was dead, lying under some brush. Your brooch was lying on the ground next to her.”

  Recognition lit up in Sayumi’s eyes.

  “I tried to keep your wishes. I really did. I ran the store, I tried to find that woman—the man’s missing girlfriend—and I’ve been trying to find Mrs Tamita’s family album as well. I’m getting closer on that. I did whatever I could to distract myself, because, to be honest, with each passing day I grew more and more worried that… you weren’t returning.” My voice trailed off. It was difficult to admit, especially out loud. I never was much of a talker, but Sayumi was all I had, and seeing her there in front of me again filled me with a myriad of emotions. One stood out above all the others though; happiness. She was back. All would be well again.

  “Thank you for ignoring my wishes,” Sayumi finally said. She gave a small laugh. “You know that we’re not done here though, right?”

  I nodded. “We need to put the shrine maiden to rest?”

  Sayumi nodded. “This place has corrupted her. She never asked for it, nor could she fight it. But if we can help her, if we can set things right again… we should be able to help the rest of the spirits, too.”

  “Do you know what did it?” I asked. “What corrupted her?”

  “I have some idea.” She looked down at the blue stone and clenched her fist. “When we get home, I’m going to ask you to do something dangerous. Do you trust me?”

  I nodded without a second thought. Sayumi patted my shoulder and smiled. A forced smile that she didn’t believe in one bit and did little to make me feel better. I trusted her with all my heart. If she felt it was necessary
, then I would do it.

  We walked in silence for a while. I fought the urge to ask Sayumi all the questions swirling through my mind, so many questions that I didn’t even know where to begin. Sayumi said we could talk when we got back. I waited weeks to find her, another few hours to hear her story wouldn’t kill me.

  Sayumi held her arm out in front of me and I walked into it. “What? What is it?” My eyes searched through the trees, fearing the shrine maiden was back. She was toying with us, letting us think that we could leave when in reality she was about to drag the carpet out from under us at the last moment.

  “This way,” Sayumi said, turning to the right. I followed her for a few minutes and then it hit me. The red rope on the ground. I recognised where we were.

  The little girl’s body.

  Sayumi leant down and brushed the hair off her face. She closed her eyes and sighed.

  “H-How long has she been here?”

  Sayumi grabbed the necklace around the girl’s neck and pulled. She put it in her pocket and looked around. “I don’t know. Weeks outside might only be minutes here. Either way, she’s been here too long. We can’t exactly carry her back on the train, but at the very least we can let her family know where she is.”

  “Do you know her?”

  Sayumi nodded. The girl’s father was a store regular; of course Sayumi knew her. Sayumi knew everyone. I decided to tell her about the photograph later.

  “Come on. It’s not far now.”

  I looked down at the girl’s body and said a quick prayer. It was the least I could do. “I know the way from here,” I said. The spirits were still watching from afar. I didn’t know what was keeping them at bay, but I had my suspicions. “We should go before the shrine maiden changes her mind and comes back.”

  I prayed to whoever was listening that she wouldn’t.

  31

  By the time we stepped through the broken back door to Matsuda Tea and Sweets, the sun had already gone down. I arrived at Kurohana Forest early in the morning. In my mind, I was within the forest’s depths for a few hours at best. It was disconcerting. Sayumi looked at me when she saw the state of the door and I grimaced. “I’ll explain later.” There was a lot of explaining to do on both sides.

  “Here, sit down.” I led Sayumi to the break room, and she collapsed onto the couch. Her eyelids drooped and her shoulders sagged. “I’ll make you some tea.” I set about making a cup of her favourite: sencha.

  “So, tell me about this man,” she said. I jumped.

  “W-Which man?”

  “The one who asked you to find his girlfriend.”

  I sighed in relief. Yasu. For a moment I thought she meant Hiroshi, and I wasn’t sure how she would handle that news yet, nor what she would do about it.

  “There’s not much to tell. Like I said, he came to the store and asked me to find his girlfriend, Keiko.” I poured the water and let the teabag seep for a few moments. “He brought a photo and a necklace. I refused him at first. I didn’t want to try it without you.” At that, Sayumi looked up and smiled. I shrugged. “Anyway, I finally agreed and when I tried to find her, I saw the forest.”

  “Okay. And you don’t know how he heard of you?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe one of your contacts mentioned me.”

  Sayumi pursed her lips. “Perhaps. What happened to the back door?”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Like I said, a lot of things have happened since you left.”

  “So, fill me in.”

  I told her about Hiroshi. His inappropriate comments each time he came to visit, the suspicions of the ramen waitress, the events of the night he broke into the house, and what happened when I grabbed his wrist. Sayumi raised her eyebrow at that and took a sip of tea as I gave her the cup.

  “You grabbed his wrist and saw him standing in your bedroom?”

  I sat down beside her with my own cup and nodded.

  “Interesting. I mean, it makes sense. If it works one way, it should also work the other. I never thought of trying it like that.”

  I smiled like a child uncovering a hidden talent their parent knew nothing of.

  “But more importantly, are you okay?” she asked. She was calm; a lot calmer than I would have been if she had told me the same story.

  “I am. I mean, I’m not physically hurt or anything. He never touched me, he just—”

  “Broke into the house to get you.”

  When she put it like that… “Yes.”

  “Did you inform the police?”

  “No.”

  She was contemplating what to say next, and I realised her hands were shaking as she raised the teacup to her lips. She was doing everything in her power to keep her emotions under control. I’d never seen her like that before. When it came to supernatural annoyances, Sayumi treated them as just that: annoyances. She never showed fear, never panicked, and stood toe-to-toe with more ghosts than I ever wanted to see in my entire life. But this was a human menace. In a certain way, he was far more dangerous than any ghost could hope to be.

  “You said you would tell me about the shrine maiden.” I hoped that by changing the subject she would forget about it, or at least calm down until we could do something about it. “You know who she is?”

  Sayumi nodded and took another sip of tea. “She’s my mother.”

  I choked on my own. “I’m sorry, your what?”

  She tucked her legs up on the couch and held the teacup close for warmth. “Like you, I never had a lot of family, and I never knew my parents. I was raised in this very house by my grandparents, the owners of Matsuda Tea and Sweets before me.” That much I knew. Sayumi never pestered me about my past, and I never pestered her about hers. She offered no information and I never asked. Now I understood why.

  “My grandparents never told me much about my mother or father. I think it was too painful for them. They were my mother’s parents. My father’s parents lived on the other side of the country at the time. He was a good man, they said. A very good man. He loved his wife dearly, and he loved me dearly.” Sayumi looked down into her tea and swirled it in the cup. “I would have liked him a lot, they said. He was tall and handsome and hardworking, and they couldn’t have hoped for a better son-in-law.”

  “What happened?”

  Sayumi continued swirling the tea. “Officially, he died from overwork. My grandparents said it was a broken heart. When I was three-years-old, my mother disappeared. She vanished without a trace and nobody ever heard from her again. My father pestered the police constantly to find her, and they tried for a while, but after weeks and later months of nothing, they gave up. The case remained open, but they had to put their resources into other things. Cases they were more likely to solve.” Steam from the teacup rose around her face. “My mother was a shrine maiden before she met my father. She was the first and only priestess to work at Kurohana Shrine. It was there that she met my father for the first time, and when they decided to move the shrine into the village, she retired and married him.” Sayumi gave a small, sad laugh. “Less than a year later, I was born.”

  “I’m sorry…” Words failed me.

  “My father left behind a diary,” Sayumi continued. “I don’t think my grandparents realised I had it, but I used to read it all the time. He noticed that my mother’s shrine maiden garbs were dirty when he got home sometimes. When he asked her about it, she said she was visiting Kurohana Shrine. He asked her why, and she said she felt sad the adjoined graveyard wasn’t being tended to anymore. With both the shrine and temple closed down, there was no more foot traffic, and with the graves being nameless, no-one to tend to them.” Sayumi finished her tea and put the cup down on the table. “My mother was looking after the graves at Kurohana Shrine when she disappeared. She was caring for those spirits in the forest when no-one else would, and they trapped her there. All this time I had no idea, but when I saw her there…” Her eyes watered and she leaned her head back to blink them away. “I knew that was her. I’ve seen photos of
her, of course, but instinctively I knew she was my mother. Whether she recognised me, however…”

  Sayumi took the blue stone out of her pocket and held it before me. “This brooch was hers. My grandparents gave it to me when I entered junior high school. I wore it every day, hidden underneath my uniform. It made me feel close to her. A small piece of her right above my heart, like she was always there with me.” She stopped and turned to me. “But it’s not just connected to me. Remember when I said I was going to ask you to do something dangerous for me?”

  She couldn’t mean…

  “You… want me to use it to find your mother?”

  She nodded.

  The stone in her hand was beautiful and glinted softly in the overhead light. Someone many years earlier laboured long and hard over that stone, and throughout the years it had been attached to two incredibly powerful women. One who was now dead, corrupted, and attempting to claim my soul.

  “I’m not sure I can—”

  “Do you trust me?”

  I swallowed. “Of course I trust you, it’s not that… When I tried to find you the first time, the shrine maiden looked at me, but she didn’t just see me. When I let go… she was here. In the house. Just briefly, of course, then she was gone, but… she was right there in front of my face, and she smiled at me. She knew. It was the same thing that happened with my parents. She followed me back.”

  Sayumi nodded and presented the stone for me. “I know. That’s exactly what I’m hoping for.”

  What exactly Sayumi was hoping for, I didn’t dare assume, nor could I guess why she wanted to bring the shrine maiden to the house. It was our safe haven, and she wanted to bring that powerful spirit—her mother or not—into it? “Do you trust me?” That’s what she said. I never had a reason not to trust Sayumi.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “No.”

  I sighed. “If this goes wrong…”

  “I’ll be here,” Sayumi answered. I hesitated a moment—potentially my last—and pictured the shrine maiden in my mind as I grabbed the stone. Now or never. Let’s end this.