The Waking

by Thomas Randall

  Sakura surprised both Kara and Miho by suggesting they visit Temple Chigenji, which had been built by someone named Takahiro for his mother, who’d been a Buddhist saint.

  “I didn’t think you’d like history,” Kara said.

  “Just because I don’t have respect for authority doesn’t mean I don’t have respect for the past,” Sakura explained.

  Standing in front of the temple, Kara felt exhausted. It had been a very long day.

  “My mother would have loved it here,” she said. “She never liked the idea of leaving home, living someplace so far away. But she would have loved it here. Sometimes beautiful places made her cry. I think Ama-no-Hashidate would have had her in tears. It feels like the top of the world . . . like you could sail north and find—”

  Kara faltered. She’d been about to say find heaven, but she couldn’t finish the thought. If that was where her mother had gone, Kara wished she would come back.

  Miho touched her arm. “I haven’t heard you mention your mother before.”

  “We know your father,” Sakura added. “He gives too much homework.”

  Kara smiled, a twinge of sadness still in her heart. “He’ll lighten up. He likes to put a scare into his students at the beginning of the year to make us take him seriously.”

  Both girls were still watching her but did not speak, as though waiting for her to go on.

  At length, Kara glanced away. “My mother died in a car accident, almost two years ago. It’s just the two of us, my father and me. She left us to take care of each other.”

  “But she loved you,” Miho said.

  Kara looked up to find a sad smile on the girl’s face. She nodded.

  Sakura did not smile. Her expression was hard, and her eyes difficult to read. But she met Kara’s gaze.

  “That’s a treasure,” Sakura said. “And you’ll have it as long as you live.”

  Kara startled her with a quick embrace. By the time Sakura started to return it, Kara was already stepping away. The three girls looked at one another for a moment, and then the subject changed and they were talking about nothing and everything again, heading back along the street. Heading for home.

  And they were friends.

  Jiro had his window open, and the night breeze brought the powerful scent of cherry blossoms into his room. So strong was the aroma that he blinked in distraction and pulled his attention away from the television set. He spent too much time in front of the TV, his parents were always telling him. But the stupid game shows helped numb him.

  Ever since September, when Akane had died, numb had been his goal. They’d been close friends—maybe even best friends—and he’d known that she didn’t love him any other way. But his feelings for her had been so strong that it felt like love to him, or the way he thought love should feel. He still wasn’t sure he knew what love really felt like, but no one else had ever made him so happy inside, so nervous, and so lighthearted, as though he could rise off the ground and fly.

  Ume certainly never made him feel that way, and she was supposed to be his girlfriend. But then, he knew Ume had never been in love with him. She used the word, but Jiro didn’t think she knew it was supposed to mean something more.

  The light from the television flickered blue off the walls of his bedroom, the only illumination in the room except for what streamed in through the open window. He shivered. It was probably too early in the year to have the windows open so wide, but the chilly spring air felt good. All winter he had let himself shiver with the cold; it fit perfectly with how alone he felt. His best friend had been taken from him, and her sister, Sakura, wouldn’t even talk to him. Every time she looked at him, he could see the blame there. But Jiro hadn’t killed Akane. He would have given anything to have her back.

  With a deep breath, he inhaled the aroma of the cherry blossoms. The scent was so strong it had gotten into his clothes, into the walls of the room itself.

  He frowned. The odor was so overwhelming that it seemed weird. The nearest cherry trees were in a small park across the street, and there weren’t even that many of them. Akane had loved the smell of cherry blossoms.

  The light flickered again, but he glanced at the TV and realized it wasn’t the odd game show that had caused it. Something had passed in front of the television.

  Jiro looked around the room, confused. He was alone. It had to be just a trick of the light. With a shake of his head, he focused on the TV again and laughed at the absurdity there, as three women tried to drink some noxious brew. The one to drink it the fastest without vomiting would win. He began to feel queasy himself and changed the channel, searching for a movie or something else to occupy his mind. He felt tired but wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet. Tomorrow was Sunday, after all, and tonight he could stay up as late as he liked.

  Outside his window, a cat yowled.

  Jiro shuddered at the sound, then laughed at himself, startled by a cat. Still, when the cat’s mournful cry came again, he felt a prickle of unease move up the back of his neck.

  And then it let out a terrible cry, as though something had attacked it, and Jiro scrambled to his feet. His heart raced, pounding in his ears, and he stared at the open windows, waiting for the sound to come again. What had caused that cry, and why was the cat silent now?

  He listened, but no other sound came . . . until he heard the tiniest mewling noise, like a newborn kitten or the sigh of something dying. Jiro didn’t even like cats, but he had to respond. If the cat had been hurt, he wouldn’t just leave it out there.

  He started for the window but faltered at the sight of the dark silhouette that appeared on the other side, outlined in moonlight. Though he could not make out her face in the dark, the way the girl’s hair fell on her shoulders and the way she cocked her head, the curve of her body . . . he knew her.

  A breeze blew in through the window, her hair dancing around her face, and the scent of cherry blossoms grew even stronger. She beckoned to him and he went to her, feeling as though he must be dreaming.

  They stood face-to-face in the light of the moon and the blue flickering from his television, he inside the room and she beyond the open window. She reached in to touch him and Jiro closed his eyes, weak with relief.

  Her fingers closed on his throat, and relief blossomed into terror.

  When she dragged him through the window, he did not even have the breath to scream.

  5

  Sunday morning brought a sun shower, the sort of thing that seemed only to happen in spring. Light rain fell outside Kara’s window, beading up on the flowers that were blooming around the house, but the sun shone down in spite of the rain and the colors of the flowers were vivid. When, in mid-morning, the rain stopped, she was almost sorry.

  She spent the morning with her father, cleaning up around the house and talking about the week they’d both had. He seemed glad that she’d made friends already, just as she knew he would be.

  “What about you, Dad?” she asked while they were making lunch. “You’ve been thinking about this adventure longer than I have. Is it what you were hoping for?”

  He took the question more seriously than she expected, brow furrowed in thought. Then, slowly, he nodded.

  “So far, so good. It’s certainly a big adjustment, and we don’t have as much time together—”

  “We’re together all day!”

  He grinned. “You know what I mean. With the long school hours, we’re just busier.”

  “I’ll try to ask more questions in your classes,” Kara said.

  Her father shook his head as he went to stir the chicken and vegetables they’d chopped into a frying pan. “We’ll be fine. It’s not just my adventure, Kara. It’s ours. All of it.”

  She leaned against the counter. “Then you won’t mind if I go over to school after lunch? I have a study date with Sakura and Miho.”

  With a fork, he split a piece of chicken in the pan to make sure it was cooked through, then looked up at her. “Like your father’s ever gonna stop
you from studying. Or from checking out what it’s like to live in the dormitory. Go and have fun. Will you be home for dinner?”

  “Definitely.”

  The first thing Kara saw when Sakura opened the door to her dorm room were the masks. There were three of them hanging on the far wall, to the left of the window, lined up one above the next like a totem pole. The top and middle masks were ugly, monstrous things, but the bottom one was the pretty, elegant face of a woman.

  “Wow.”

  Miho looked up from the book she was reading. “English? You must like them.” She smiled and sat up on her bed.

  “They’re amazing,” Kara said. “Noh masks?”

  “Yes!” Miho beamed.

  “She collects them,” Sakura explained as she closed the door. “Fortunately, she leaves most of them at home.”

  Kara admired the masks as Miho stood and pointed to them each in turn.

  “The top one is Karura, a great bird of legend, who flies in four heavens and eats dragons,” Miho explained, and now Kara saw that the green-painted mask did have a beak and a red crest so that it looked vaguely like a bird. “Next is Daikijin, Great Devil God, who protects festivals and ceremonies from evil spirits.”

  Kara blinked. The white and silver mask had been crafted with such care that its beauty was undeniable. But with its horns and shaggy mane and the sharp fangs in its wide-stretched, blood-red mouth, it was also ugly and frightening.

  “It looks like an evil spirit,” she said.

  Miho frowned in disapproval. “You should not judge only by appearance.”

  Kara gave her a small shrug. “Of course. I meant no offense.”

  Sakura laughed. “Don’t let her get to you. She loves those ugly things too much.”

  Miho shot Sakura an unpleasant look and then smiled and gave them a small shrug. “I can’t help it.”

  “What about the bottom one? The woman?” Kara asked.

  “That is Zoh-onna. She is not a goddess or spirit, only a woman of purity and serenity,” Miho said.

  Sakura sat on a cushion in the floor. “I always ask if there’s one that is the opposite of those qualities. I’d like to wear that one.”

  The girls laughed. They were both in T-shirts and pajama bottoms, and seeing them like that gave Kara a relaxed, familiar feeling. She’d worn black jeans and a green hooded sweater and felt comfortable enough, but Sakura’s silky-looking red pajamas and the cotton, very American-looking bottoms Miho had on—white and covered with the red and yellow S-crest that Superman wore on his chest—made her wish she’d worn pajamas as well.

  Kara surveyed the rest of the dormitory room. There wasn’t much more to see. The beds were wooden boxes with soft futon mattresses that unrolled for sleeping. At first she thought there were straw tatami mats on the floor but then realized the whole floor was tatami. There were a couple of big zabuton cushions on the floor. The two desks were tiny, and a slender laptop sat open atop one of them. There were bamboo sliding doors that must have been closets and two bookcases. One held mostly school books, but the shelves of the other were lined with manga digests.

  “I can guess whose bookcase that is,” Kara said, pointing to the manga.

  “I’ll let you borrow some,” Sakura replied.

  Miho crossed her arms. “Why not show her your art?”

  Sakura’s smile evaporated and, for the first time since Kara had met her, she shifted and glanced around awkwardly, unsure of herself.

  “You draw?”

  “She draws manga,” Miho said. “She’s really good.”

  “I’m not. I’m awful,” Sakura mumbled.

  Kara dropped down onto another cushion beside her. “I’m sure you’re not. I’d love to see some of your art. But I understand if you don’t want to show me today.”

  They were friends now, but they were new friends. Sakura’s art clearly meant a great deal to her, particularly since she kept it mostly secret. She only shared it with people she trusted.

  After a moment, she nodded and went to her bed, sliding out the drawer built into its wooden base. She withdrew a thick sketchbook and handed it over. Kara felt honored that Sakura would share this with her but didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.

  The three girls spent twenty minutes just flipping through pages and then looking at other drawings Sakura pulled from her drawer. To Kara’s delight, she was really talented.

  “Wow. Between this and Miho’s Noh theater stuff, I feel like I have nothing to contribute. I don’t do anything special.”

  Miho sprawled on her belly on the bed, ankles crossed, and poked her face between Kara and Sakura, hair falling across her glasses. “Don’t say that. You are a photographer. And you told me you play guitar.”

  “Yeah,” Kara said, “but you guys haven’t heard me play or seen any of my pictures.”

  “We will,” Miho promised. “And I’m sure you’re very talented.”

  “And if you’re not, we just won’t be friends with you anymore,” Sakura said.

  Kara blinked, hurt, and then Sakura laughed. Miho whacked the top of her head and Sakura turned to attack her. Despite their obvious differences in personality and style, the two girls had become like sisters. Perhaps the way their families had cast them aside had made them closer. They didn’t really have anyone but each other.

  Sakura pinned Miho in about six seconds.

  “I surrender,” Miho said, and Sakura got up, pretending to react to nonexistent cheering from a nonexistent crowd.

  “You watch too much television,” Miho told her.

  Sakura went to sit in front of the window. “You listen to too much bad music.”

  “Rock’s been dead since before I was alive,” Miho countered.

  “I’d rather have resurrected rock rot my brain than pop candy so sweet it can rot your teeth.”

  Kara watched this back and forth like a tennis match, grinning in amazement. Miho had such a quiet demeanor during school, but here in her own room, she obviously enjoyed sparring.

  “What do you think, Kara?” Sakura asked. “Rock or pop?”

  Kara shook her head. “Oh, no. You aren’t getting me in the middle of this. Besides, there are a thousand definitions for rock and pop. You’d have to play me some music to compare.”

  As Miho started for the laptop—presumably to play music— Kara held up a hand. “No, no. That wasn’t an invitation.”

  Sakura laughed. “Okay. We’ll leave you out of it, this time. But you’ll have to play your guitar for us soon.”

  “That’s a deal. Next time we’ll study at my house. There’s a lot more room there anyway.”

  Miho looked concerned. “You don’t think your father would mind?”

  “He’d be happy to have us there,” Kara said.

  Sakura sighed.

  “You don’t want to come to my house?” Kara asked.

  “It’s not that. You just said a terrible word,” Sakura said.

  Kara reviewed what she’d just said, fearing that she had somehow offended her friends. “What word?”

  Miho threw a small cushion at Sakura. “Study. That is what we’re supposed to be doing today.”

  “Right,” Kara said. “I was doing my best to forget.”

  Reluctantly, the three girls dove into their studies. Most of their assignments for the weekend involved reading, and Kara still had math homework she had been avoiding.

  They spent a contentedly quiet hour in one another’s company, until finally Sakura let out a groan and stood. She walked to the window again and gazed outside.

  “I need a cigarette. Can we go for a walk?”

  Miho tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I ought to read these last few pages.”

  Sakura smirked. “The boys are outside playing baseball.”

  For a moment, Miho hesitated. Then she slipped a marker into her book. “I can finish later.”

  Kara laughed. “I thought you were only interested in American boys.”

  Miho glanc
ed away, perhaps even blushing a bit. “That depends on what you mean by ‘interested.’ My curiosity is like a—” She said a word that Kara didn’t understand.

  “What?”

  Sakura kicked off her pajama pants and slid into a pleated skirt much shorter than the one she wore with her school uniform. She looked up. “A scientist who studies people.”

  “A sociologist?” Kara said in English.

  Miho repeated the Japanese word and Kara stored it away.

  “It’s like watching animals in their natural habitat,” Miho explained.

  Kara smiled. “Then by all means, let’s go watch the animals.”

  Sakura untucked her T-shirt, searched around for her cigarettes and lighter, and then went to the door.

  “Miho, you’re not coming?” Kara asked.

  “She’s coming,” Sakura said. “She’s just more proper than I am.”

  Kara smiled. At home, she and her girlfriends changed in front of one another all the time. It hadn’t occurred to her to wonder, but now she realized that things might be different in Japan. Probably were. Or maybe Miho was just shy.

  They waited for her in the hall, but a minute later Miho appeared in a cute blue dress from the downtown shop she’d taken them into the day before. She and Sakura put on light jackets, and they all went downstairs and out the back door.

  On a secondary field behind the dorm, a group of boys had put together a baseball game. They were wisely batting away from the building, toward the tree line at the distant edge of the school property, but Kara still thought they were risking knocking out some windows. One foul ball spun backward off a bat could easily end the game with the shattering of glass. But she wasn’t about to volunteer her opinion.

  “Baseball club?” she asked.

  Sakura nodded. “They’re not good enough to be on a team.”

  But for Kara, it was nice just to see the game played. She had never been much of a baseball fan, despite the two World Series the Red Sox had won in recent years. Earlier in the week, Hachiro had been very disappointed when she didn’t show as much enthusiasm for her hometown team as he did. He seemed to know everything about American baseball, so she wasn’t surprised to see him playing the outfield.