“There are no vampires in Japanese legend,” Miho said. “Not in myth, not in Kabuki, not in Noh theater.”
Kara sighed and turned toward the window. The ambulance siren had ceased, which meant the EMTs would be in the building by now, on their way up to Chouku’s room.
“Fine,” she said with a shake of her head. “Then you tell me what’s going on.”
“I’ve told you both,” Sakura said, her voice even and emotionless. It scared Kara how detached she’d grown. Grief had forced her to shut down.
“It’s Akane,” she went on. “The police never did anything to punish her killers. They could never prove anything. She’s come back to make them pay.”
Kara studied her eyes. “You can’t really believe that. I’m sorry, Sakura—really sorry—but Akane is dead.”
“I never said she wasn’t,” Sakura said. Then she stood and went to the door. Miho moved out of the way. Sakura looked back at them. “I’ve been studying them, trying to figure out who else was involved. I think the ones who are crying the most are probably the other killers, or at least they were there. Chouku’s friends. Ume’s friends. I’m going to go and watch them, to see if I can narrow it down.”
With that, she went out into the hall and left the two of them standing there, staring at the open door.
Miho closed it quietly and turned to look at Kara with frightened eyes.
“She’s really scaring me,” Miho said.
Kara nodded. “Me too.”
Miho took a deep breath and let it out. She bit her lip, shook her head, clearly struggling to make sense of her thoughts.
“What?” Kara urged.
“I said there were no vampire legends. But there are stories about other things . . . things that are like vampires,” Miho said. “One of them, the ketsuki, appears in the form of a cat.”
11
I don’t know the whole legend of the ketsuki,” Miho went on. “It’s some kind of demon spirit, I think. There’s an old Noh play about it. But from what I remember, it takes the form of a cat and it drinks blood.”
Kara couldn’t breathe, staring at her. The memory of the bite marks all over Chouku’s naked body remained vivid in her mind, but somehow even worse was the memory of the cat standing in the open third-story window the night before. Her skin prickled.
“You saw it last night,” Kara said. “Where could it have gone? The door was locked.”
Miho rubbed the back of her neck, head bowed, hair spilling around her face like she wanted to hide but had nowhere to run. “The window was open, though.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Kara whispered, walking over to the window. She searched the sill for any sign that what they’d seen had been real—a few shed hairs, some paw prints—but found nothing. Still, they had both seen it. “If you saw it, too, then it couldn’t be a dream.”
A long silence ensued, the girls lost in their thoughts, until their reverie was broken by a knock on the door.
Miho shot a quick, frightened look at Kara. But it was morning, and there were so many people around—if all of this wasn’t their imaginations running wild, some kind of evil cat spirit wasn’t about to come knocking on the door.
Kara nodded to her. Miho took a breath and opened the door.
Rob Harper stood on the other side, worry lining his face. When he spotted Kara, he let out a relieved breath and walked in, snatching her up in his arms. She hadn’t been picked up in a long time and it felt simultaneously wonderful and humiliating.
“Dad, I’m okay,” she said.
He gave a soft chuckle and put her down, the relief draining from his face, replaced by a deep frown.
“When Miss Aritomo called, I had all kinds of awful thoughts,” he said in English. “But then she said she’d seen you. I came right away.”
“So it was you she was talking to before?”
Her father nodded. “When you came into the . . . into the dead girl’s room? Yes. I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
Kara sighed. “Me too.”
They’d been speaking English, but now her father looked over at Miho. “I’m sorry,” he said in Japanese. “I didn’t mean to ignore you. I was just—”
“I understand, sensei,” Miho said, executing a polite bow.
Kara’s father had completely forgotten such formalities, but now he returned the bow. Then he looked at his daughter.
“The police are here. They want to talk to everyone—”
“They can’t claim this one is a suicide,” Kara said, also in Japanese, not wanting to be rude to Miho, though a flash of anger sparked in her.
“No, they can’t,” Rob Harper agreed. “I spoke to them, gave them our information, so if they want to talk to you later, they can come find you at home. Right now, I’m taking you out of here.”
Kara hesitated, glancing at Miho.
“I’ll be fine,” Miho said. “Sakura will be back soon.”
But Kara wasn’t worried about Miho talking to police. She was worried about later, when night fell again. Sakura had gone over the edge with her obsession and her grief, and she had been having the nightmares, just like all of the dead kids. Maybe Miho was safe because she hadn’t had the dreams, but maybe not. What the hell did any of them really know about the demon that preyed on Monju-no-Chie School?
Demon? Kara thought. Seriously?
But she found that she was serious. The word had sounded faintly ridiculous when Miho had spoken it out loud, but in Kara’s head it sounded all too real and plausible. Her nightmares had leaked out into reality, or at least that was how it felt. The cat had been real. It had been there, looking at them, perhaps trying to choose its next victim. For some reason it had moved on to another room, another girl.
How close did we come to dying? Kara pictured Sakura’s body sprawled facedown with all of those bite marks on her flesh and felt panic rising. She thought of claws in her own skin, teeth puncturing her.
“Stay at our house tonight,” she said to Miho.
Her father shot her a curious, confused look. But Kara pressed on.
“You and Sakura should stay with us tonight,” she said. “It isn’t safe in the dorm, Miho. We were lucky last night. It could have been any of us.”
But maybe not you. Why not you? Why don’t you have nightmares? Kara thought Sakura’s certainty that it was her dead sister Akane back from the dead to take revenge was crazy. But she’d already established a connection between everyone who had been plagued by nightmares and all of those who had died. If Ume really had killed Akane, and her friends had helped—or at least known about it—then they were being targeted. Jiro had been indirectly responsible because he’d spurned Ume and fallen in love with Akane. And Sakura might be visited by the dreams because she was Akane’s sister.
Which explained why Miho didn’t have the nightmares.
But it didn’t explain why Kara did have them.
“Dad,” Kara said, “just one night. I don’t want to leave them here.”
“What about the rest of the students?” her father asked.
Kara tried a smile but knew it must look broken and desperate. “We can’t fit them all in our house.”
Her father relented. “If Mr. Yamato doesn’t object, it’s fine with me. I’ll find out.”
She hugged him and kissed his stubbly, unshaven cheek. He must have thrown on his clothes after Miss Aritomo called, no shower, no shave. But he’d never looked better as far as his daughter was concerned. Her dad had come to the rescue.
Miho and Mr. Harper bowed to each other again.
“I’ll call you later,” Kara told her. The girls shared a short embrace.
“I’ll see if I can find that Noh play,” Miho said.
Kara nodded. “Good.”
Her father led her out of the room. In the corridor, some of the girls had retreated into their rooms, though most of the doors were open at least a fraction. Police and EMTs crowded the third floor, along with teachers and several school administrators. Ume h
ad closed her door.
Kara followed her father to the landing, but voices from the common room off to her left drew her attention and she looked over to see Sakura seated in a wooden chair, being questioned by two policemen. The girl wore torn pajama pants and a T-shirt upon which she had painted some kind of calligraphic message. One of the cops stood, arms folded, glaring down at her and the other sat in a chair opposite Sakura, sleeves rolled up, leaning forward and speaking to her quietly. To Kara, they looked absurdly cliché, the living embodiment of every movie’s good-cop/bad-cop routine. But if she’d been sitting in that chair, she suspected she’d have fallen for it completely. Under the intense gaze of the cross-armed detective, the kind tones of the other would have been welcome.
Sakura seemed unfazed. She sat rigidly, back straight, chin up, studiously ignoring them both. As Kara paused to stare into the room, Sakura spoke quietly, a perfunctory reply to one of the questions that Kara couldn’t hear.
“Kara, come on,” her father said, in curt Japanese.
Hearing this, the detectives both turned toward them. The intimidating one scowled, strode over, and shut the door with a bang.
“Kara,” her father said, taking her by the arm.
“Dad, they don’t really think Sakura could have killed Chouku, do they?”
“I couldn’t begin to tell you what they think. I just know I need to get my daughter out of here and home safe.”
His tone made her look up at his face. He brushed the hair away from Kara’s eyes and cupped her cheek in his hand. She wanted to ask him what he meant by “home” but knew that was a conversation for later.
“All right. Let’s go.”
They started toward the top of the steps, only to be halted by Miss Aritomo, who came down the corridor after them. Kara assumed she’d been in Chouku’s room talking to the police.
The dynamic chemistry between her father and the art teacher crackled in the air, an unmistakable energy. As Miss Aritomo closed the distance between them, both of them wearing looks of profound concern, Kara had the impression they were about to embrace. But then Miss Aritomo brought herself up short.
“Harper-sensei, Yamato-san would like to speak with you for a moment before you leave,” she said.
Kara felt her father hesitate; he glanced at her.
“Go ahead,” she said.
“Are you sure? I really just want you to get home.”
“I could go—”
“No. I want you with me,” he interrupted. “Would you mind waiting just a few minutes? I promise I’ll be right back.”
“It’s fine,” Kara said. “But I don’t want to stand around here. Can I wait out front?”
Her father frowned, weighing the request. But with so many cops and teachers going in and out of the building, there wasn’t much chance of anything happening to her.
“Stay by the stairs,” he said, then threaded back down the jammed corridor with Miss Aritomo.
The second floor buzzed with chattering students, some of whom were visibly upset, even weeping, but others who seemed only morbidly curious. A trio of boys stood on the steps, daring one another to go up. Kara passed them without meeting their eyes and hurried down to the lobby, longing for the sun’s warmth and a breath of fresh air.
As she strode across the foyer, someone called her name and she turned to see Hachiro coming down the steps after her.
Kara waited for him. “Hi.”
The sadness in his eyes broke her heart. He had known Chouku well, and his face showed all of his pain. Jiro had been his best friend, and now this. Today the sweetness that usually lit up his face had been replaced by a grim expression that made him seem far older.
“Hello, bonsai,” he said, trying to keep a light tone between them.
Kara reached for his hand. “I told my father I would wait outside. And I feel so cold, I need the sun. Would you walk with me?”
Hachiro nodded, clutching her hand, and accompanied her, holding the door for her. When they stepped into the sun, Kara felt some of the tightness in her shoulders relax and the ice in her gut began to thaw.
Side by side, they looked out across the green field that separated the dorm from the school. Though the air was very chilly, the vivid blue sky spoke of another perfect spring day.
“I can’t believe it,” Hachiro said.
Kara looked at him, squeezing his hand. “It’s true. I . . . I saw her.”
Without warning, her hands began to tremble. She took a long, quavering breath and tried to say more, but no words would come. Hachiro looked at her, his eyes very old suddenly, and instead of asking the questions that he must have had, he took her into his arms and held her while she shook.
“Something awful is here,” Kara whispered against his broad, strong chest. “Something evil. I know that sounds crazy—”
“No,” Hachiro said flatly. “It doesn’t. Not at all. I think you may be right.”
On a huge wicker chair in the corner of her father’s bedroom, Kara curled up and delved into the pages of Sense and Sensibility, desperate to lose herself. The era conjured by Jane Austen’s writing had always been the most effective retreat from thoughts she wanted to avoid and emotions she hoped would go away. The words lulled her, wrapped her in cleverness and longing and the concerns of another age.
Her father had been back to the school twice that day and on the phone half a dozen times in between. Even now he was in his office with the door closed, and though she could hear the occasional muted tones from the other room, she could not make out any specifics.
When he came out of the office and down the hall, pausing to regard her from the open doorway to his bedroom, Kara kept reading to the end of the paragraph before she looked up. The real world—and the surreal world that had begun to intrude upon it—was not welcome. She tried to communicate that to him silently, to let him know that for just a while she wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong. But he was too preoccupied with the panic at school to notice her wordless pleading.
“The board of directors has closed the school until further notice,” he said.
Kara held her page with a finger. “Good. I don’t know if . . . I mean, hopefully they’ll catch whoever did it. But it’s all just too much now. They can’t expect the students to be able to focus.”
“I’d like to think that was part of the decision,” her father said, “but I’m sure it was mostly pressure from the parents. The day students won’t be coming in tomorrow, and a lot of the boarding students are going home, at least for now. Some parents have apparently already begun to take their children out of here.”
“Already?” Kara said, glancing quickly at her clock. An hour or so to go before dinner. If Miho’s or Sakura’s parents came to get them, would they even stop to tell her they were leaving?
“People are afraid.”
They have reason to be, she thought. Or some of them do.
“What about us? What are we going to do?” Kara asked, curious but grateful that she had her father. She could survive just about anything as long as he was around. Her mother’s death had shattered her, but she still felt fortunate to have one parent who loved her instead of two living parents who barely remembered she was alive, like Sakura’s and Miho’s parents.
“I’m not sure yet. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to Mr. Yamato and find out how long he thinks the school will be closed. If it’s more than a couple of days, I thought I’d take you down to Kyoto, get us both out of here for a while.”
“That sounds nice.”
But her father’s eyes were troubled. “I don’t want you over at the school after dark.”
Kara frowned. “What about the other kids, the ones whose parents won’t come for them right away?”
“The other kids aren’t my daughter.”
They both recognized how grim the conversation had become. Kara could see that her father wished he could take it back, or at least lighten his words with some humor.
“I didn’t me
an that as harsh as it sounded,” he started.
Kara shook her head. “No, Dad. It’s okay. You don’t have to worry about whether or not I’ll take all this seriously. I take it wicked seriously. I’m not going to be hanging around the school much, even during the day. At least not on my own.”
This time, he really did smile.
“What?”
“You said ‘wicked.’ Speaking Japanese so much, it’s been a while since I’ve heard that. Makes me a little homesick.”
“Right now, what wouldn’t make you homesick? But Harpers aren’t the type to run away, are we? You always say that.”
Her father came to crouch by the chair, one hand on her knee, locking her gaze with his own. “If it means keeping you safe, I’ll run as fast and far as our legs can carry us.”
Kara smiled and her father kissed her forehead before he rose and left the room. She dipped back into Jane Austen but had only read a couple of pages when she heard someone knocking at the front door.
“I’ve got it!” Kara called, unfolding herself from the wicker chair and hurrying out through the living room,
She opened the door to find Miho, alone, on the stoop. In black pants and a dark gray jacket, she seemed almost swallowed by the dark. She’d pulled her hair back into a hasty ponytail and carried a backpack, which Kara figured contained her pajamas and a change of clothes for tomorrow. Night had fallen, and Miho cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at the darkness behind her.
“Hey, where’s Sakura?” Kara asked, switching back to Japanese.
Miho flinched, brows knitting, and Kara felt an immediate flush of guilt. The question had to have made it sound like she was less interested in Miho’s presence than Sakura’s absence.
“Sorry. Come in,” she said, stepping aside. “I’m just worried about her, you know?”
“You should be,” Miho said, entering the house and immediately removing her shoes, setting them by the door.
Professor Harper came out of his office, summoning up a welcoming smile. “Miho. I’m pleased you could make it.”
The girl bowed stiffly. “I am honored to be invited, sensei,” she said in English. “And I hope you will speak English with me. I would like more practice.”
The Waking Page 14
