by Rin Chupeco
“And every time, I black out. Every time I come to, I’m somewhere else from where I recall being. It’s happened frequently enough whenever I’m around that people started connecting me to all these weird incidents and staying away. Dad doesn’t believe that, naturally, being dear, old logical Dad. And word soon got around school that I had a mom in a mental institution, a mom who attacks me before I can even get in a ‘hello.’ Not exactly the best way to climb up the social ladder.”
“But that’s awful!” Callie is appalled. “Why didn’t you or Uncle Doug ever tell us about this?”
Tarquin snorts. “What, Dad telling you and Aunt Linda I was crazy, or me telling you both I was being haunted by an eyeless woman with a mask, or that I was responsible for my old school almost closing for failing to reach local sanitation standards? If you hadn’t told me you could see her, too, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“This isn’t something you should be going through alone, Tark. I won’t let you!”
Tarquin flashes her a swift, grateful smile. “You’re treating me like one of your fourth-graders again, Callie.”
“Half my fourth-graders think ghosts are people running around in a white sheet, and the other half think they’re some kind of Pokémon.”
“Well, she tried to come after me last night. Don’t worry,” he adds, spotting Callie’s stricken expression. “Okiku saved me.”
“Okiku?”
“The other ghost. The girl in white. We…she’s all right.” An odd note enters the boy’s voice. “I don’t know how much you’ve seen of her, but she’s… Sometimes she wanders around looking like she’d been floating in a river for days, but that night she was… She can actually look kind of pretty, you know? Don’t know why she doesn’t look like that all the time. Maybe it’s some unspoken rule about being dead that I’m not aware of.”
“Tark, I’m not sure you should be sympathizing with someone like her just because she saved your life,” Callie says, uneasy at the remembrance of my dead face, my broken neck. “She might have some other ulterior motive.”
“Like what?”
“You’ve heard about the murder at Holly Oaks, right? They say the victim’s face was bloated—exactly like that man who kidnapped you and nearly killed me! I’ve been doing a lot of research. I’ve read newspaper clippings dating back dozens of years about men who’d been killed in the same way, and how no one has ever found out who’s responsible. They’ve all been suspected of murdering children themselves, but many of them have never been arrested or convicted for a number of reasons. I think—I think it’s her, Tark. She’s been traveling all around the world, looking for people like them to kill.”
Tark merely shrugs at that, and Callie does not like the quick manner with which he dismisses her fears. “Then I’ll have to make sure not to go around molesting teenagers of both the handsome and tattooed persuasions, so she won’t want to murder me, too, right?”
“That doesn’t mean she still isn’t dangerous!”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like that at all. I mean, she saved my life. She saved yours, too! It feels like she genuinely wants to help. And with her around, maybe I can finally stop accidentally killing off people.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There’s something else Dad and I neglected to tell you and Aunt Linda. Before we came to Applegate, there was this other boy…” The boy stares down at shoes dug deeply into the damp soil, the dirt obscuring the whites of his laces.
“I’ve never told this to anyone else before,” he says.
“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it…”
“No,” the boy says, making a decision. “You’ve seen her, too. I don’t like it, but you’re in this with me now. Besides, he was a bully. His name was Todd McKinley. But I still can’t say that he deserved it. I don’t think anyone deserved dying like that.”
The words pour out, painting the vivid images I see inside his head.
The bully is a stocky boy of marginal width and height, a menacing memory. Tarquin is younger, frightened. I watch as the bully pushes him against a bathroom door, lifting him high enough that his shoes kick out, barely reaching the floor. But when the bully pulls a fist back to punch Tarquin in the stomach again, the lights go out.
Immediately the older boy begins to scream and does not stop.
It is only after the lights come back on that the other teachers and students arrive to find Tarquin huddled underneath the sink. The bully’s legs and arms are scattered across two of the bathroom stalls. His head is found in the toilet bowl of the third, face burned and heavily disfigured.
“People started avoiding me after that, pretended like I wasn’t even in the room with them. Everyone thought I had something to do with it, and they were scared. Even the teachers wouldn’t look me in the eye.”
Callie finds she cannot stop shivering.
“I was glad to leave that school. Everyone thought I was a freak long before that happened, anyway. Never really stopped feeling guilty about it, even if I didn’t do the actual killing—like maybe the reason he was dead was because I wanted him dead. And then I started seeing her more often, the woman in black. When McKinley died, bits of the mask she wears start crumbling—not that she has what you would call a face in any normal sense of the word. And when I heard about how Mom died, in almost the same way McKinley did…maybe Mom was right to try and kill me.” The boy shudders.
“Don’t ever look at her directly, Callie. That thing behind the mask…everything wrong about humanity is hiding behind it. And now it’s happened again.”
“What has happened again?”
Once again, Tarquin slowly rolls up his sleeve, exposing the rest of the tattoos. The lines of strange writing running up his arm look bleached and worn, as blanched as the seal on his right wrist. In contrast, the seal on his left wrist had not faded like the others had; translucent one moment, dark in the next.
“There’s more.” Tarquin turns and lifts his shirt partway up. Like the ones on his arms, the other tattoos are also faded, except for one of the two seals at the small of his back that is still an inky black.
“Is it too optimistic to hope that they’ll all disappear soon?”
She has broken many of those seals, Tarquin’s mother had said. And Callie knows that her blood marks the now-sputtering seal on her cousin’s left wrist, remembers the hooded woman staring down at her as she lay helpless on the gurney, that evil, decayed face looking out at her from behind the pristine and porcelain doll-like mask.
“Callie, what’s wrong?” Tarquin asks, studying her face. “You’re as white as a sheet again.”
“I’m just—I’m just a little overwhelmed by all this.”
“I won’t stop you if you don’t want to come near any of us after this, you know. I don’t want to get you into any more trouble.”
“We’re in this together, Tark.” I’m in this, too, she thinks. My blood is on that seal. Even if I stay as far as I can away from them, she’ll still be able to find me. And kill me.
“It doesn’t matter. We’re going back to Japan. Dad’s company wants to send him to Tokyo because he speaks Japanese, and he wants me along. And we’ve still gotta bring Mom’s ashes back to Yagen Valley, wherever that is.”
“I could be going to Japan soon, too.”
The boy turns to look at her, and I know the young woman feels it as well as I can. There is something about the masked woman in black that lurks out of the corner of the boy’s eyes, though he himself does not know.
“Why?” he asks.
“You remember that cultural studies program I applied for? Japan is on the list of countries I can opt for, if it hasn’t filled up already.”
“You’re not sticking around here to teach anymore?”
“Probably not. I’m getting a little si
ck of being pointed out as ‘the girl in that serial-murderer case.’ Anyway, I’ll be back in time for college applications.”
“What about Aunt Linda?”
“I told Mom about the murder, but not that we were both involved in it—and since Uncle Doug doesn’t know her email address, I intend to keep it that way. She’s got enough going on in Africa that I don’t want to add to her worry. I did tell her about the exchange program, though, and she thinks it’s a great opportunity for me.”
“I guess it is. Just promise me one thing, Callie. Don’t get yourself into any more trouble on my behalf. I’m in enough as it is.”
“What, you get into trouble?”
They grin at each other. “What does she want with me, do you think?” Tarquin asks suddenly.
“Who?”
“Okiku, the woman in white. Sometimes I feel like her presence chases the other woman away, but I don’t know why she’s suddenly so interested in protecting me. One way or another, I’m going to figure out a way to break this curse or…” He trails off.
The girl follows his gaze. For a moment she thinks she can spot me some distance away, outlined against the horizon with my back turned toward them, also watching the remains of the drizzling morning.
Tarquin begins whistling almost absently to himself. It is a familiar lullaby.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Good-bye
“All the other teachers say you’re going away,” the girl says. “Miss Palmer says so, and so does Mr. Montgomery.”
“Yeah, I am.” They are sitting on the swings during recess on Callie’s last day at Perry Hills Elementary.
“When will you be coming back?”
“I don’t know yet. Maybe in two or three months.”
“Are you going to Japan so you can make that bad woman go away?”
Callie considers this carefully. “I don’t know how to do that yet. But I’ll do what I can to make sure that she’ll never hurt anyone else.”
The little girl reaches over and takes Callie’s hand.
“I hope you do,” she says, and she is both worried and frightened. “I don’t want you to die.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Well
“What’s that?”
“Huh?” Callie realizes that one of her fellow tourists named Allison is peering over her shoulder and reading off her laptop screen. Like her, Callie and eight other teenagers on the plane are taking part in the cultural studies program in Japan. Allison, the brunette, is a cheerful and easygoing dark-skinned girl, quick to offer friendship.
“‘Japanese ghosts and hauntings?’”
“I just wanted to know a little more about Japanese folklore.”
“You could have asked me.” The brunette pouts, makes a pretense of being insulted. “I’m the one taking the Japanese studies major in college this fall, you know, and my facts won’t change every half hour like Wikipedia does.”
“Okay, then, Miss Self-Professed Japanese Expert. I’ve been trying to find out as much as I can about one particular ghost.”
“Shoot.”
“Her name is Okiku.”
The other woman’s face brightens. “Oh, that Okiku. Of course I know something about her. Most people who study Japanese culture are familiar enough with her legend.”
“A legend?”
“You know all those Japanese horror movies that came out not too long ago, like The Ring? Well, they’re all based on her story. She’s the Patient Zero for undead Japanese women with long hair and pale faces, so to speak. As far as the myth goes, she’s said to have spurned a nobleman’s offer to be his mistress, and in revenge for the insult, he killed her and threw her down a well. Himeji Castle’s one of the educational tours we’ll be going on, and a place there called Okiku’s Well is where the murder supposedly took place.”
Callie swallows. “The legend says she broke one of ten plates entrusted to her for safekeeping.”
“That’s all the nobleman’s fault, too. He broke it deliberately without her knowing to guilt her into being his mistress. Men, right? Bastards, no matter the time or place. After her death, they say her ghost still climbed out of the well to count the nine plates and would go nuts whenever she can’t find the tenth, which was—I don’t know, about every freaking time. Someone supposedly figured out how to lift the haunting. Some samurai hid and waited ’til she appeared. As soon as she counted up to nine, he jumped up and yelled ‘Ten!’ and her ghost disappeared after that. I always thought that was kind of ridiculous. Not to mention it’s a horrible trick to play, even on a ghost.”
“Was the man ever punished?”
“I don’t think so. Japanese ghost stories aren’t all that fond of punishing male murderers, for some reason. Double standard, I guess.”
“Do you know of any other ghost story where the number nine serves as an integral part of the story?”
“None that I know of. There could be some local stories floating around that never got a lot of international interest. I know for a fact that several are way out of whack. Like there’s this little girl who haunts toilets, of all things. And some women wandering around the countryside without faces. Why are you so curious about Japanese ghosts all of a sudden, anyway?”
“It’s nothing.” Callie blushes again under her friend’s scrutiny. “I’m just trying to immerse myself in the culture, and the old stories sound like the easiest place to start.”
“Huh. Well, I hope you’re still as enthusiastic about it once we get there. There’s nothing fun about waiting seven hours for the next connecting flight out of Chicago.”
The plane ride is of no consequence to the young woman. While her friend takes quick naps, waking every now and then to grumble about the bad food and the uncomfortable seats (of which the plane has two hundred and seventy-five), Callie wonders about this sudden decision to involve herself in things she has no business in. But at the back of her mind she is aware that she has come too far to back out now. Her cousin is in danger, she tells herself, and so is she.
When the plane finally touches down at Kansai International Airport, the students duly present their passports and visas, and are soon bowing to a genial, round-faced man who introduces himself as Fukuyama Mori-san, their guide for the duration of their stay in Japan.
“We have a small rental bus waiting.” His English is impeccable, though his heavy Kansai accent gives him away. “We will take you to the apartments where you will be staying, so you can unpack and make yourselves comfortable for our first educational tour the next day.
“It is quite fortunate,” he continues, as their bus makes its way out of the terminal and onto the main express road, “that the Japanese government and His Majesty, the Emperor, are more than eager to fund grants for students such as yourselves. The earthquake has done very little to improve our tourist industry, though I am happy to say the numbers are increasing again. We will naturally avoid all the places that have been hit by the radiation, but there are so many more sights to see here. From the National Bunraku Theatre to the Municipal Museum of Art in Kobe—”
“Himeji Castle, too?” the girl’s friend asks, with a sly grin in her direction.
Mori-san beams. “Himeji Castle, most definitely! It is one of the most magnificent examples of our architecture—we call it the White Heron for the way the whole fortress seems to alight on the mountaintop, just like that magnificent bird. In fact, we will be taking a tour of Himeji Castle tomorrow. If there is anything you would like to ask in the meantime, do not hesitate to do so. I shall answer any questions to the best of my ability.”
The ten students are given four apartments, which, in turn, are divided by shoji screens that draw easily across. There are clean futons instead of beds, rolled up and ready for use.
The group enjoys a small dinner at a nearby izakaya with Mori-san, who continues to regale t
hem with stories about Japanese history. Callie asks if he happens to know any ghost stories other than those of Okiku’s where the number nine heavily figures in, but the puzzled look on the man’s face gives her all the answer she needs.
Once they return to the apartment and the lights are extinguished, Callie finds herself lying awake, staring up at the ceiling. Her fears curl up inside her, magnified by the dark.
In the corner of the little apartment, I hang down from the ceiling and watch her prone form and know that she is aware of my presence. I, too, have followed her to this land of ancient secrets and quiet solace. After several hundred years, the taste of my old home, my old country, is sweet in my mouth.
“What do I do now?” Callie whispers into the growing darkness.
I do not reply.
For all I am, I, too, am not infallible.
• • •
The tour begins at the break of dawn “to beat the crowds” as Mori-san explains. Nonetheless, when the bus brings them and forty-six other tourists to Himeji Castle, a substantial crowd of people (four hundred and three) are gathered by its entrance, though Mori-san explains that this is a small number when compared to the weekends.
Even from a distance, the white fortress shines in the sun. Several parts of the castle are heavily under construction, and a large tent stretches out over several of the tower fortifications, much to the other teachers’ disappointment. Mori-san, however, remains optimistic.
The castle tour guide is a thin man named Tomeo. “These are the servants’ quarters,” he explains, as he leads them down a long section with numerous doors leading into seventeen smaller rooms. “Each servant’s rank in the castle was determined by the room they stayed in. The highest-ranked servant had the room closest to the exit, and each preceding room denotes a servant with a similarly decreasing rank. The inhabitants of Himeji Castle were very particular about their social status, their perceived stations in life, and it shows, down to even the domestic help.”
