Her limbs trembled in response. “And you know too much about me. If you know this, then you know how this ends.” She should stop him, before he sealed both his fate and hers. But his skin called to her, drawing her hands to his chest like the mountain summoned water up, then drew it down to the valley. As his hands moved over her peaks and valleys.
Overhead, the boughs sighed in the wind, catching her sighs as her limbs tangled with his. The harsh lines of the mountain rocks softened with a thickening blanket of snow the way the angles of his face softened at her answering movements in kind. Snowflakes hissed as they touched the stream. Frozen water thawed in a thousand tiny puffs of steam that thickened the air the way her blood thickened to honey, and she burst with the sweetness.
Chapter 7
“We mustn’t speak of this.” Yukiko lay in his arms on the bench in the garden. Spencer had refused to let her melt into the night once their breathing had slowed. At first she resisted, but his voice soothed her with words of love and hope as the sky lightened.
“I know there are many obstacles. I would fight every single one.”
“Some are…too great for mere mortals.”
But with the day came the knowledge that their time was ending. Yukiko felt it in her bones and in her blood. “Your friend will be worried about you.”
He sighed. She felt him breathe, could breathe along with him if she chose. “I want to stay here.”
She was silent for several minutes. “Tell me the name of your friend’s hotel. I will see to it that a message is delivered.”
“I had it written down but the paper blew away the night I arrived.” He sighed. “I saw a paper on a sign when we were coming back from the shrine today. My friend thinks I’m lost.”
Sudden tears choked her throat. His friend had no idea. “There are many small roads around the peaks.” With the dawn, and the understanding of what had passed between them, neither Okami-san nor the Grandmothers would wish him to leave. Not until she quickened with child and they could be assured of a new generation. The Grandmothers could be…persuasive.
“Oh.” He sat for a few moments in silence. “Can I leave word in the village?”
It was several minutes before she answered him. Sending him away now would cut their time of happiness even shorter than it would be if he stayed. But perhaps…perhaps if he traveled far enough away, her nature could not reach him. If he could return to America, perhaps his time spent with the snow bride would leave him cold and alone, but not cold as the grave. “I will help you leave this place.”
* * *
She could not believe her own daring, but she lied to both Obasan and Okami-san. “We are going to the shrine. There, he will make me his bride.” But she turned down the mountain, instead of making the climb.
Kitsune darted in front of her while he hurried to catch up. “You dare much, Yuki-onna.”
“What choice do I have?” She hissed her answer to the fox, hiding unseen in the brush along the track.
“The choice not to go to the Fire Festival in that village! It is meant to drive away youkai and spirits, not welcome us! Only the strongest of us go, that is the agreement. Even my hundred and fifty years is not strong enough.”
“Then I am in accord with the agreement. I am feeling very strong today. See how my feet make footprints in the snow?”
Kitsune’s tails snapped, tangling with each other. “My husband would be furious if he knew I was anywhere near the village.”
Yukiko shot her a look. “Then stay here and safe. Keep the Grandmothers from following.”
Kitsune gnawed on her forepaw as she watched the star-crossed lovers make their way down the mountain. Someday, she thought, Yukiko would have a daughter of her own, and that snow bride would be just as much trouble, she felt it in the tails she had yet to sprout and in the eye teeth she had. Leave it to Yuki-onna to flout traditions and walk the line between mortal men and youkai. Nothing good could come of flouting this particular tradition. Nothing.
* * *
Knowing Yukiko’s nature didn’t change anything about the way Spencer felt. But she would not speak of the future with him. He knew she didn’t believe a future was possible. But when he clammed up, she begged to hear more about America. So he told her about New York and Chicago and San Francisco and Miami, then he spoke of places like West Virginia and Kentucky and New Mexico. They arrived in the village to find it teeming with throngs of people. Buses from all the hotels in the area—save one—idled in the parking lots near the train station. Buses from the surrounding towns and villages burped out people like dyspeptic dragons.
Yukiko drew the kanji for Toshiro’s name, along with a message to meet them due north of the main display of the festival. Spencer added the English words just in case any western tourists were about. Then they made their way north of the structure that acted as the centerpiece of the festival.
It was a bamboo and straw structure that acted only as a frame. As they strolled around the edge of the display, the fire brigade allowed people in small groups past the barrier to the structure. Arms loaded with New Year’s items, papers with wishes written on them, bundles of aromatic cedar, and good luck charms, people dashed to the structure and tied, heaped, or piled their offerings on it.
Yukiko’s nerves were on edge, he could tell. He could understand why. If he shifted his belief, it was obvious, even if he couldn’t speak of it. As the sunset rapidly approached, the structure would be set on fire. Among the wishes and prayers and charms were also the symbols people used to banish ghosts and spirits. It was one of the things he counted on, given his own problem with the Vietnamese ghost tailing him.
But before the sunset, the festival was a simple gathering of people in the cold and dark time of the year. Vendors had started small fires burning in barrels and roasted orange-flavored mochi balls over them. Spencer bought a bamboo shish-kabob of warm mochi balls and offered it to Yukiko. “You have shown me so much.” He leaned down and spoke the words in her ear. “I can only offer this, until you come to my country.”
She accepted the food. “Tell me what you would give me in your country.”
They found a less-crowded spot on a low stone wall and he sat down, watching the setting sun and scanning the area for Toshiro. The sun fell over the mountains and the town darkened. “I would give you a home.”
The structure burst into flame. The festival had begun. Spencer didn’t really notice, because Yukiko had flung herself into his arms and kissed him with all the passion her strong, young heart could feel. She cupped his face in her hands, and he felt himself falling all over again, this time ready to give as much as she wanted to take. Never mind the world, or the secret that he couldn’t speak and she couldn’t deny, he gave her his heart and was glad to place it in her cold, delicate hands.
Then the world exploded.
A screaming whistle and a flash of colored light dragged him right back to the jungle where Japan, the mountains, and the snow-covered peace were nothing but dreams in a hot jungle night.
Are you feelin’ it, Spooky?
I’m feelin’ it, ’Frisco. Time to run.
* * *
Yukiko bolted after Spencer. She’d kissed him as the sun set, felt her spirit merge with his in that magic moment between day and night, and the bonfire flared to life. The push of the wishes of people to cast out their bad luck and the spirits surrounding them forced her back. But then the fireworks had gone off. The screams of the crackers, and the explosions of chrysanthemums of light in the sky blinded her for a moment, until she saw Spencer fall to the ground.
She thought he must have been hit by something, but he scrambled to his feet and tore away from the fire as if demons pursued him. Pushed by her own forces at work, Yukiko sped after him and saw the shadow of the angry ghost tangled with him as the flames cast shadows all over the area. “Ai-ya!” She pushed through the people and gave chase, begging her feet to go faster.
The festival lights put stars in her
eyes and she wished she had never gone on such a fool’s errand. Shadows nipped at her heels, the curses of people against the “bad luck demons” and capricious youkai—such as herself—hounded her away from the village. Her nightmares chased her, hungry bellies growling for a taste of silly, lovesick snow bride.
“Supensaa-san!” Her inability to correctly pronounce his name filled her with rage. Without his name, she could not draw him to her, nor draw herself to him. She had to search for him as a human would—with her weak eyes and her weak ears and her living breath.
“Up the trail!” Kitsune barked from between two village houses. “An onryō chases him.” The fox emerged and ran beside her, leading the way away from the fireworks festival. The other youkai among the people began to disperse, as the fireworks frightened them, and Yukiko felt the same urge to run and hide. But her human body felt no such urgency and she was grateful that its weakness also gave her this strength.
She ran uphill, struggling with the wooden clogs. “I don’t—understand—what happened.”
Kitsune slowed to a trot. “I have seen it before. Nightmares of battle are strong and hungry. They can consume a man, and even a place itself.”
Yukiko’s lips pressed together and she surged forward, ignoring the lead in her legs and the weight of her kimono. Her own nightmares were hungry, but Spencer’s must surely be ravenous. “Not this one.”
She slowed at the edge of the village, where the road narrowed to a mountain track. A path leading to a clearing a little ways up showed boot prints and Kitsune danced around them, yipping excitedly.
I will not rush in like a fool. Yukiko stopped. The track narrowed to a small clearing, but the drop off on the other side was steep—a sheer cliff face before dropping off to a slope steep enough to kill a man in a fall. Jagged teeth of rock jutted up, hungry for the clumsy-footed.
She could not be human right now.
She found him lying prone in the snow, half-covered already in the winds that whipped around the sharp drop leading to the valley below. She rushed to him. A shadow loomed up before her. Spencer’s breath began to rattle in his chest. “Begone, witch!” The shadow thinned and rose to twice the height of a man.
Yukiko’s human heart pounded in her chest. “I cast you out, foul nightmare!” She clenched her fists and lifted her chin. Come to me, snow! Attend me, winds of the north!
The snows at the mountain top trailed out like prayer flags, glittering like diamonds across the clear, moonlit, night sky. But the snowstorm of her nature failed her. She was too...human. Yukiko sank to her knees in the snow beside Spencer. What have I wrought?
“Leave this one, witch. Find another to feast upon. This one is mine.”
“What do you want with him? Why come so far from your home, your resting place?” Yukiko asked the questions not in anger, but despair. Without her powers, she was as weak as the babe it would be her duty to one day bear. I must be the snowstorm.
“We are bound. He has trapped me. I cannot rest! I cannot rest!”
A wandering ghost? So far from its grave? “How is this? How can this be? What keeps you from peace?” I must be Yuki-onna.
The shade, bound by her question asked thrice, was forced to answer her with the truth. “I know not! I care not! I followed the funerary procession when I heard its music come from this strange monster priest! He has stolen me from my homeland and will not put me to rest! I call upon the gods for vengeance, and they do not listen without offering.” The shadow snaked back and forth in agitation, and Spencer’s pale skin grew even whiter in the cold. “So I will offer them a soul in return. The soul of the one who keeps me from peace!”
“No you will not!” Yukiko flung her body over his. “This one is mine!” I must be youkai. Her nightmares closed in as she strode forward. “Baku-san! Baku-san!” She called the Nightmare-Eater’s name. Her words carried away on the howling winds as the foreigner’s body grew cold in her arms. No, not the foreigner. Su-pen-saa. His name is Spencer, only I cannot speak it properly, because he is not my kind. “Baku-san, take my nightmare away!”
To her shock and horror, Spencer’s eyes fluttered open. “I—had to—find—a funeral.”
“Not your own!” Yukiko shrugged out of her tanzen and covered him with it. “Spirit, begone! You have seen the lights, heard the noises. Be at rest, and trouble us no more.”
“Untether me, witch!” The spirit thrashed, striking at her with incorporeal claws.
She stared into the burning dead holes where its eyes should be. It had become enraged when it could not seek proper rest. Spencer’s clumsy attempt at using the festival to drive it out had only enraged it. “Name it, Supensaa-san!”
“Don’t know…his name…” Spencer patted her hand weakly. “If this is…how it has…to be…”
“It does not!” She dug her nails into his palms to bring his circulation back to life. “One person can change the world! Give him a name in death so he may rest.”
Spencer murmured the name. It was a common one in Vietnam. Every third local who worked with the base seemed to have it. “Again,” she ordered. She made him repeat it thrice, and each time, the spirit tried to steal his breath. With each repetition, more of its tether pulled away from Spencer, leaving only one point of attachment where the leg of his trousers had ridden up. The end of his scar pulsed, as if the spirit itself lurked beneath the thickened tissue.
Yukiko lifted her hand. Ice formed at the tips of her fingers, deadly-sharp. It was the best she could do, weak and in love as she was. She stabbed downward, driving her icy nails into his skin.
A roar of pain erupted from his lips. The spirit sucked the breath he expelled, but took the pain with it. The shock was enough to curl the thing in upon itself. The face of the man the spirit had once been flashed before her eyes. “Be at peace, onryō. You have been appeased.”
The mouth of the spirit opened and with one long sigh, it dissipated into the night.
Beneath her tenzen, Spencer had stopped shivering. “Yukiko–”
“Hush now.” She pressed her cold lips to his. She was too late. When the body no longer trembled, it embraced the cold, soon to become one with it. He was freezing to death. “Baku-san!” A high wail of anguish erupted from her lips. Her nightmare had swallowed her whole.
Great darkness enveloped her. The stink of shaggy animal hide filled her nostrils, sat on the back of her tongue. She felt a nose—warm, wet, and inquisitive—snuffling along the edge of her kimono. Little Yuki-onna. You have a nightmare for me to eat?
Tears cooled on her cheeks. “His warmth gives out. He will die. This is my nightmare.”
Nightmares come from within us, little one.
She nodded. “I know. I made this. I would take it back.”
You cannot take back what was freely given.
“I never asked for his life!”
You have his heart.
“And he has mine! If he dies, he will give it away!”
Have you given your heart freely?
She nodded. Her hair fell the rest of the way out of its comb. “I give it freely, and gladly.”
She heard a snuffling sound, and a great pulling that seemed to pull breath from her lungs as well as the air from wherever she was. Ahh, a hearty nightmare, indeed. Dreams of a family ended and broken.
Under her hand, she felt Spencer’s chest rise and fall. Warmth suffused his skin, fairly radiating from him now. He coughed twice. “Whaa–?”
Weak with relief, she dropped her head to his, raining kisses along his face. “Supensaa-san! My heart, you are safe. Thank you, thank you, Baku-san!”
But I have a great hunger, and I am not fed yet.
There is a price, Kitsune had said. Her belly curled. She lifted her chin. I must be strong enough to pay it. “What dream would you have from me? I won’t give him up. Not even to Baku-san, when I have begged you already for his life.”
Your nightmare was nothing, your dream is forever. I have taken your nightmare. I will
have your dream. You will not have forever.
Sorrow welled in her breast. But Spencer’s words returned to her memory. Yuki-onna didn’t have forever with her husband, but they did have many happy years together, and beautiful children.
Spencer gripped her hand. “I’ll take as many years as I can with you, Yukiko.”
Her heart eased. “Yes.” She lifted her eyes to Baku-san. “Yes.”
Tradition outlives those who defy it. You cannot be the one to change tradition.
“Perhaps not I,” she said, finding a new thread of strength in the way Spencer’s hand twined with hers. “But perhaps together…”
The nightmare-eater chuckled. Perhaps together.
About the Author
Athena Grayson writes romantic fiction ranging from sci-fi romance to magical realism and contemporary fantasy. She loves characters who are more than they seem, and loves to play with beloved genre tropes in engaging, unique ways. She adores smart, sexy, beta heroes, and savvy heroines who aren’t afraid to demand–and get!–the best from their relationships. She has a love of language and a deep respect for how words can transform us.
To learn more about Athena, visit with the author at http://www.athenagrayson.com. She also enjoys hearing from readers at [email protected].
You can find more books by Athena Grayson on her author page at Amazon.
Sapphire Ridge
Aileen Harkwood
Copyright © 2015 by:
Aileen Harkwood
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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Spirits of the Season: Eight Haunting Holiday Romances Page 21
