Spirits of the Season: Eight Haunting Holiday Romances

by Amanda DeWees

  A quiet, feminine noise reached his ears. He sat up, certain he’d imagined the girl’s startled, “Oh!” But not certain enough he didn’t want to cover himself just in case.

  The splash reached his ears from the other side of the partition. “I am sorry if my clumsiness disturbed you.” The young lady’s voice floated on the misty vapors of the stream across the barrier.

  “Not at all,” Spencer replied. “It is I who hopes not to disturb you.” Especially since a sudden burst of energy washed away the sleepy feeling from before. It was the girl with the tea. “Can I ask your name? I really liked the tea last night.”

  “It pleases me—I mean, I am happy you liked the tea.” The girl paused and he heard the sounds of water being poured over skin. His face warmed in a flush having nothing to do with the water’s temperature. She spoke again when the trickling stopped. “I should not be so forward with honored guests.”

  Spencer smiled, even though she couldn’t see it. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  “It would be wrong. We are not…equals.”

  His smile widened. “But isn’t that Chado? The Way of Tea is to be among equals, is it not?”

  “Oh!” He heard a splash and wondered what prompted it. “You are making fun!”

  “I’m not!” Way to go, Spooky. Real smooth. “Hospitality is important in my culture, too. We drink coffee.” Or, as he’d learned when visiting the commune, pass around other kinds of herbal concoctions.

  “I’ve never had coffee. It smells very good.” Her wary tone softened and Spencer felt an unreasonable sense of accomplishment.

  “I can buy you a cup the next time you’re in the city.”

  He heard her sharp intake of breath. “You mustn’t speak of that.”

  He turned his head towards the partition. He could just make out a shadow that might have been her movement. “My name is Spencer.”

  “Su-pen-saa.” Even her excellent English couldn’t wrap around his name, which puzzled him, but it would make him an ass to point it out. She splashed again. “My name is Yukiko.”

  “Your name is very pretty. Does your family own the inn, Yukiko-san?”

  “Yes. Many Grandmothers have provided shelter to weary travelers crossing the mountain.”

  Curiosity piqued, Spencer could feel himself starting to fall. “Tell me about the ancestors around here.”

  Toshiro should have been here. Toshiro would have slapped him and called him an egghead. Instead, he leaned his head back again and asked the captivating young woman about academic stuff.

  For her part, Yukiko told him stories. She spoke of how the area was home to a great many spirits and shrines. Even, according to one story, the original home of the Monkey King. “In the next valley, no one can open a ryokan, because the onsen are for snow monkeys only!”

  “Perhaps they should open a ryokan for monkeys, too.” Spencer quipped. “I bet a lot of people would pay to see monkeys in a hotel.”

  “But no people would wish to work in a monkey hotel!”

  The trill of her lilting laugh did something to Spencer’s insides that made him glad he was alone.

  “Why does a foreigner care so much about the stories of the mountain?” Her laughter faded and Spencer mourned its loss.

  But he answered her question with one of his own. “Will you tell me more stories?”

  “Why?” Her voice sounded faint and he hoped she hadn’t quietly left the bath.

  He shifted in his own half of the pool. “Back home, I study the stories of many cultures all over the world. I try to write them down and understand them.”

  “You are not a soldier, then?” Her voice had taken on a curious, wary tone.

  He sighed. “I didn’t have a choice about becoming a soldier, but it was my duty.”

  “We must do our duty.” Her voice lowered and Spencer strained to hear her next words. “Even when we do not agree.”

  The war seemed so far away when one sat naked in a hot spring, looking over a peaceful valley from near the top of a majestic mountain. About as far away as a jungle from upstate New York, or the desert outside Las Vegas. But as close as a denied deferment. As close as a wire connecting a battery to a loudspeaker. As close as the throb of a scar that burned, or a whisper in his head that would not shut up. “Even when we don’t know why.”

  Chapter 4

  “Yukiko-san, I need to find the shrine.” It wasn’t the smoothest way to request help of an unusual nature, but Spencer’s time was running out.

  After the soak in the onsen, he entered the main area wearing his own yukata to find a breakfast being laid out for him and hunger reminding him it was about time for it. It also reminded him of Uncle Nobu’s prescription, which was the only medication option left to him, since the base hadn’t given him any painkillers to take on R&R. Not with so many guys selling them or trading them for something stronger and less legal.

  “What does a foreigner want to go to the shrine for?” Yukiko was serving him breakfast and he really wanted to ask her to join him, rather than serve him, but that would be an insult even a foreigner couldn’t get away with.

  But he was also getting a little weary of her tendency to bring up the fact that he was a foreigner whenever she grew uncomfortable with his questions.

  She arranged small bowls of dumplings and broth around a setting of eggs, rice, and grilled fish with tofu. Spencer was not fond of the tasteless bean curd, but he was not fond of offending his hostess even more, so he swallowed past his gag reflex and reminded himself that field rations and foot rot were a lot less appetizing.

  “I heard it is a peaceful place.” Knowing she’d be insulted if he didn’t keep eating, he worked a pair of chopsticks around half a boiled egg.

  “It is a humble place. Not for tourists.” She ladled miso soup from a tureen into a cup for him to drink.

  “I don’t want a tour. I want to pay my respects to the dosojin.”

  Yukiko’s lovely face shifted into a frown. “How do you know of the road gods?”

  “That friend I was supposed to meet here. Speaking of whom…”

  Yukiko’s fingers fumbled with a small plate of pickled vegetables, which clattered to the tabletop. “Forgive my clumsiness,” she muttered, while the temperature in the room dropped.

  What did I say? Spencer was picking out the right words for an apology when she spoke again.

  “The storm…there are excursions…all the ryokan send buses up the mountain, and into the valleys.” Her hands moved quick and deft as she rearranged the tiny buffet of food.

  After watching her move the grilled fish plate for the third time, he put a gentle hand on her wrist. “It’s not your fault.” She turned her head to meet his gaze. “I just want to know if my friend is safe.”

  She dropped her eyes and nodded. “The ski guides take good care of the guests. There is a lodge where they may sleep.”

  Spencer nodded. He could just imagine Toshiro, bedding down in a sleeping bag between a pair of giggling snow bunnies. He shook his head and laughed to himself.

  “You find this amusing?” Her curious tone kick started something inside him.

  He must have passed some sort of barrier with her, and the idea made him feel warm inside. It was with amusement in his voice that he replied. “My friend is a very charming person. I think I’ll be missing him more than he’s missing me. He has family in Tokyo. They recommended this ryokan to us.”

  “Your friend is Japanese, then?”

  He nodded while swallowing a tofu cube and tried not to make a face. “His uncle said the onsen would help us heal.”

  “Most American GIs do not understand our ways.” She seemed to figure out he wasn’t a fan of the tofu and took the cubes away. “They believe we are backward and ignorant.”

  “They’re wrong, Yukiko-san.” He paused, meeting her eyes again so that she would see the truth in his. “Before I was a soldier, I made it my life’s work to understand other people’s ways. I’m grateful
for the wisdom of my friend’s uncle, who is a traditional healer. The hot spring has already improved my health.”

  She searched his face and he bore her scrutiny. He meant every word he said. When he awakened this morning, he was in the same position in which he’d fallen asleep. Since returning from the bath, the static in his ears had quieted to nothing more than another background noise added to the quiet murmur of the fountain in the corner and the sound of the breeze outside.

  Her mouth softened. “We cannot go to the shrine today. It is a long walk, and the weather is still uncertain. But I will take you there tomorrow.”

  He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face, making him feel like a giant blob of goofy joy. “Thank you, Yukiko-san.” He bowed from his waist. “You have made me very happy.”

  * * *

  Yukiko’s face caught fire at his grin. She cleared away the rest of the breakfast dishes and met Okami-san in the kitchen.

  The innkeeper regarded her with narrow eyes. “Brides are not born from maids, Yuki-chan. Your impulsive actions were unwise.” The hostess ran her finger over the plates on the sideboard, stopping at the ninth and final plate. “You served him tea.”

  “Someone had to.” Yukiko sniffed. “And even youkai know better than to marry foreign devils. This is a temporary thing. We have only to wait out the storm before sending him on his way.” The idea shocked her with the sadness it engendered.

  “This is the fault of that trickster! I should never have allowed that fox to fill your head with stories about the city. The Grandmothers are surely weeping at the turn of events!”

  “I would not call their words ‘weeping,’ Okami-san.” Yukiko’s lips twitched in a smirk. “You cannot hear the Grandmothers as a yuki-onna can.”

  Okami-san must be truly bothered. Her fingers drifted over the nine plates again. “One, two...And you cannot see the household unrest that will come from this. Three, four, five... You should have kept out of sight until we could—six, seven—dispose of the gaijin. Now–”

  “Now I have someone to talk to!” Yukiko stamped her foot in a fit of temper. “The gate opened for him!” Her tongue got away from her next. “Perhaps the gate is just as bored as I am!”

  “Yukiko!” The matron’s face tightened. “Willful girl!” She wrung her hands. “This will become a curse, mark me! Eight...nine...oh, dear...eight, nine…” Her finger stopped on the last plate.

  “Ten!” Yukiko whirled and ran out the kitchen door, leaving a cloud of ice crystals behind her.

  She found Spencer-san at the door leading to the side porch. “Come, Supensaa-san,” she said, snagging two tanzen made from quilted fabric from the pegs. “We cannot visit the shrine today, but I can show you the beauty of Myoko-san’s unchanging majesty.” To herself, she muttered, “Perhaps the only thing that is beautiful by not changing.”

  * * *

  Spencer followed Yukiko out of the inn. The inn was actually surrounded by a handful of smaller buildings he hadn’t seen last night in the dark. She identified most of them as family houses, and showed him the well where they drew drinking water, and a very primitive ancestor shrine a short distance away from the clearing, along a snow-covered track. The snow fell heavy, but the day wasn’t otherwise cold, and the thick, wet flakes soon accumulated on the shoulders of their outdoor kimonos.

  He thought they might encounter someone else from the tiny settlement out and about, at least collecting wood or carrying water, but the paths were deserted. Except for the birds that occasionally flitted by, they were the only two living things around.

  Spencer barely noticed, because he quickly got lost in the stories she told. In return for her tales about the shapeshifting fox bride who tweaked the noses of the weather gods with crude jokes, and who was in turn enchanted by a village man in the valley who made excellent rice balls, he told her stories of the Native American coyote spirit. “Coyote and Fox sound like they would be great cousins.”

  Yukiko chuckled. “Your Spider Grandmother sounds much like the Grandmothers here. Always weaving webs and too clever to be outsmarted.” She glanced around the woods. “From their webs, we struggle and think to be free, but their webs are the world.”

  A flash of sadness darkened her features and whatever it was that she thought of, Spencer would banish it if he could. “Spider Grandmother also gave her people wisdom. It’s said that her webs supported her people wherever they journeyed.”

  Yukiko huffed. Her breath emerged in white mist. “Their grandmothers must be much more fond of travel than the ones here.”

  “You went to the city, didn’t you?”

  “So you remember that.” Her cheeks colored. “It was a silly thing to do. I saw the picture of the bride in a magazine and wanted to appear as she did.”

  It took him a minute to realize what she was talking about. “Oh! You mean John and Yoko.” He remembered some of the conversations going on in the unit when the news had broken about the rock star and his new bride’s antics in Europe. “You were breathtaking that night. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  “You shouldn’t say such things. I—it was foolish of me to try to be something I am not.”

  He captured her cold hand in his. “I think if you want to be something new, then you should try it.” His grin was wry. “I’d like to try to be the man who makes Yukiko-san smile.”

  * * *

  The evening brought with it no sign of a bus or tourists. The snow started up again with a vengeance. He expressed worry to the matron, who smiled nervously and shook her head. Yukiko assured him that the hotels were well used to having travelers remain on the mountain. “The resort has hosted the Emperor of all Japan and his family. Your friend is as safe as can be.”

  Alone in his room, Spencer searched through his things. It wasn’t time to worry yet, with three days still on his leave pass, but all the same, it was better to be prepared. One thing he hadn’t seen on his walk around the inn was a telephone line.

  He found the tiny transistor radio readily enough. The thing had caught his eye at Uncle Nobu’s, and he paid one of the orderlies with off-base privileges to go back and buy it for him. He put the batteries into the back of the unit and thumbed the switch to “on.”

  Static popped and hissed. He extended the little antenna and tried to tune it. Electronic whines and dead air met his efforts. He opened the panel to the room’s tiny balcony, overlooking the valley below, and tried there. The reception improved a tiny bit, but he could only hear the faint shadows of voices that sounded somewhat familiar. He couldn’t make out the words, and half of it sounded like weeping.

  Like a funeral.

  The noises rose on a crescendo. Cries turned to groans, and then—there it was, the shriek—and then the crash of crude bells. The snow falling in the doorway turned to rain and he swore he saw the flash of lightning. And the whispers. Again and always, the whispers.

  He dropped the tiny radio onto the floor with a clatter. The plastic battery backing separated and the device went silent without power. The heavy smell of the jungle blew away on a cold swirl of snowflakes that hit him right in the face.

  He stood there, heart pounding, seeing Toshiro’s face lit up by the lightning, the stark shadows of the foliage standing out in greens and blacks and white light. The flash froze everything—the movement of leaves, faces, bodies, even the rain.

  His leg wobbled. His scar tingled. He waited for the jolt and the explosion.

  A spray of snow hit him in the face. Brought him around to reality with an icy caress. He blinked and the jungle was gone. The night was quiet and snow-covered and faint orange lights showed in the valley below. He shivered and slid the door closed.

  Yukiko had set up his bed earlier, and he crawled into the warm blankets, focusing on his memory of her face. The luminous vision he’d seen on a Tokyo street. Her shy smile and the sweet warmth of her dark eyes. Quiet peace of walking with her through the snow today, and the candy-pink of her lips.


  Before he drifted off, he stared at the glow of the clay brazier. Toshiro was having a hard time accepting his Uncle Nobu’s diagnosis, even after Spencer told him he saw no difference between Uncle Nobu and the guys who wouldn’t climb into a Huey without a St. Christopher medal.

  Uncle Nobu had pretty much echoed what the western docs at the hospital said about his leg—without a lot of therapy, it was going to continue to give him trouble. The leg was never the problem, though. The leg was the leg, and at least he still had a leg, unlike a lot of other guys in the ward. It was the whispering in his ears, the static in his head that kept his sleep fitful and started the staff whispering about the kind of discharge that could ruin a guy’s life and academic career, even in the liberal arts.

  He hadn’t thought about the rest of the conversation on the train ride up, with the bustle of life surrounding him. Toshiro tried to deny he’d said “demons” and Spencer let the matter drop for the time being. “Demon” was just another word for something people didn’t understand. Fire could be demons, illness could be demons, electrical energy could be demons. Lightning could be demons. But in the darkness, with the coals glowing like eyes and the snow silencing everything around him, Toshiro’s words returned to him. Doubt raises demons in the dark.

  It had been almost two months, but the night still pulled him back. Before the patrol, they’d learned of another unit doing similar work whose members were wiped out. Command was finding it harder to locate willing Huey pilots to take the broadcast rigs into the air—the pilots claimed they drew twice as much fire as other patrols. Among the infantry company where he and Toshiro embedded, morale was a grim slog uphill through swamp. Even the career guys were wearing thin. Back in June, Nixon had made noises about drawing down, and troops started hoping against hope for orders to pack up and move out.