Spirits of the Noh

by Thomas Randall

Swallowing, she stared into his eyes and told him what she had seen in Miss Aritomo’s room at the school. As she spoke, his nostrils flared and his face flushed a deep red. Before she had finished, he interrupted.

  “That’s enough,” he said, his voice cold and quiet.

  “Dad, I swear—”

  “I said that’s enough!” he roared, and slammed his fist against the wall. He glared at her. “What did I do to you, Kara? Is it the move? Just living here? Or is it really just this thing with Yuuka? How did we get to the point where you’d go this far?”

  “Dad—”

  “No. No, Kara. Grow the hell up! What a stunt! How far will you go to interfere with me getting on with my life? I know you need me now, but someday you’ll be gone, and I’ll be alone. You’re so concerned these days with what your mother would have wanted, right? Well, is that what she would have wanted? Is it?”

  The words echoed in the silence of the house. His chest rose and fell as he tried to calm himself. Kara wanted to scream back at him, but she realized now that nothing she said would do any good.

  “You’re making a mistake,” she whispered.

  “Don’t tell me—” he began.

  They were interrupted by a loud knock on the front door. Kara whipped around, afraid for a moment, and then she realized it must be Hachiro and Ren. They would have heard the shouting and been concerned for her.

  Her father seemed to deflate. Eyes dimmed by disappointment, he turned from her and strode over to the door. Kara followed a few steps, words on the tip of her tongue, ready to tell Hachiro and Ren that she was fine, that she’d be out in a minute. But when her father opened the door, instead of the guys, Kara saw Miss Aritomo standing on the threshold.

  Kara’s eyes went wide and she drew in a sharp breath, on the verge of a scream. The memory of what she’d seen flashed in her mind, all too vividly. She tensed, ready to lunge for her father, to protect him.

  But when she met Miss Aritomo’s gaze, she saw no threat in them. The teacher looked as she always did, pretty and petite and intelligent, yet also tired and sad. She nodded hello to Kara, then focused on Kara’s father.

  “Rob. I’m sorry to come without calling first—”

  “Not at all,” Rob Harper replied, glancing at Kara over his shoulder. “Your timing couldn’t be better, in fact. Come in.”

  He stepped aside to allow her entrance, closing the door behind her. Then, as though to make a point, he took Miss Aritomo’s hand and gave her a quick, soft kiss. Kara went rigid, hair on the back of her neck bristling, and yet that was the moment that confused her the most. Miss Aritomo blinked and pulled back slightly from him, glancing shyly at the ground, obviously uncomfortable with this show of affection in front of Kara.

  Where is it? Kara thought. Where’s the Hannya? Where’s the evil?

  Her gaze shifted past her father and Miss Aritomo, toward the door. What had happened to Hachiro and Ren? Surely she must have seen them outside? Had she done something to them? Or did she seem so normal—so ordinary—because the demon wasn’t inside her now? Was it possible that Miss Aritomo didn’t know the evil spirit had been using her as its host?

  “Anything else to say, Kara?” her father asked, obviously daring her to repeat her accusations in front of his girlfriend.

  She hesitated a moment, trying to think of some way to continue the conversation. But she could come up with nothing that wouldn’t explode into a major argument. Either the Hannya was there with them right now—inside Miss Aritomo—in which case Kara didn’t think the woman had any idea, or it had left her body again. Either way, Kara had no idea how to proceed. She needed to talk to her friends. They had to find Miho.

  Frustration and confusion overwhelmed her, and all she could do was shake her head and make for the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” her father asked, in English.

  “Out,” Kara snapped, in Japanese.

  “This conversation isn’t over!” he called after her.

  She slammed the door on the final word, heart thumping in her chest, nervous energy making her want to jump or run or scream. She had to do something. This was all insane.

  “Kara?” Hachiro said, stepping from the shadows beside the house, with Ren following close behind. “Are you all right?”

  “You guys could’ve warned me,” she said, brow knitted in consternation.

  “We didn’t have time,” Ren said, still holding his right arm stiffly against his chest. “She came walking up the street and we hid so we could watch her. We thought about just attacking her, but she seemed so normal, and … what if you were wrong? What if you didn’t see what you thought you saw?”

  Kara stared at both of them. “I saw it.”

  Hachiro nodded. “Okay. But even so, what were we to do? Try to kill her? We watched through the window to make sure you weren’t in danger.”

  “You’re right, I know. It’s just … my father wouldn’t listen to me. He didn’t … he didn’t believe me,” she said. “The Hannya’s in there with my father, and I don’t know what to do!”

  In the dormitory foyer, Mai leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, staring at Sakura’s back. The other girl stood in front of the door, staring outside at the moonlit field that separated the dorm from the school building. The silence between them crackled with their need to be doing something, anything, with barely controlled fear, and with anticipation. Any second, Sakura’s phone would ring. Kara would call. They would learn what her father had said, and what they were to do next.

  “Why do you keep staring out there?” Mai asked, hearing how snippy she sounded but not caring. “The school isn’t going anywhere.”

  Sakura didn’t bother to turn around. “If the Hannya’s out there, I want to see it coming. And if Kara and the others come back without calling first, I want to see them, too.”

  The moonlight made the red streak in Sakura’s hair a deep crimson that reminded Mai of blood. Sakura had put some kind of henna tattoos on her upper arms and they almost look carved into her skin. The sight was unnerving, and Mai wished Sakura would put something over the tank top she was wearing now. The weirder things became, the stranger Sakura behaved. She made Mai’s skin crawl. But maybe that was just the girl’s way of dealing with her sister’s murder. Whatever. Mai didn’t know, and really didn’t want to.

  “This is crazy,” she said. “We need to go to Yamato-sensei. He’ll call the police. He had no proof before, because Kara lied to him. But if you come with me now, and back up what I’ve told him, he’ll have to believe us, just a little.”

  That got Sakura’s attention: she turned and glared at Mai with open hostility, and Mai knew Sakura had understood the part of her argument that she had not said aloud. Mr. Yamato knew that Mai was among the group of girls Sakura had blamed for her sister’s murder. If she said Mai was telling the truth, how could Mr. Yamato argue?

  “Just wait until we hear from Kara,” Sakura said.

  Mai sighed. “Why? Why are we waiting? Just call her and tell her we’re going over to see Yamato-sensei.”

  Sakura’s upper lip curled in distaste. Any possibility that Mai might have one day become friends with her had evaporated, but Mai didn’t care.

  “I understand. You don’t like me,” she told Sakura. “I’m not going to cry about it. I’ve never liked you or any of your friends very much, either. Except Hachiro, and that’s only because he’s cute and can play baseball.”

  “This is you being persuasive?” Sakura sniffed.

  Mai pushed away from the wall, throwing up her hands. “This is me wanting to do something before someone else dies! Or have you forgotten the Hannya took your roommate?”

  Sakura strode over, shaking her head as though ready to argue, and then slapped Mai across the face so hard that she staggered back to the steps, stumbled, and sat down.

  “You bitch!” Mai snarled, one hand clapped to her cheek.

  Sakura ignored her, turning away as she pulled out h
er cell phone. Mai’s cheek stung, but her pride had been hurt even worse. Still, all she cared about right now was Wakana and Daisuke, and Sakura was making the phone call. Nothing else mattered. If she hadn’t been afraid to go out after dark alone, she would have gone to Mr. Yamato’s by herself. But this was better. These girls knew something, at least, about what they were facing, and something was better than nothing.

  “Kara, what’s going on?” Sakura asked.

  Mai wished she could hear Kara’s side of the conversation. After a moment, Sakura went on.

  “Listen, we’ve got to go to Yamato-sensei. It’s the only choice now. You said before you thought he believed Mai a little bit—”

  Mai raised her eyebrows. That was the first she’d heard of it.

  “—and we need him to believe us now, and to call the police.”

  Sakura paused, and it was obvious that on the other end of the line Kara was arguing with her.

  “No, stop. Quiet, Kara. Listen. Mai and I are going over there, and if we have any hope of him believing us, you three have to come as well. He has to see Ren. He has to hear it from all of us. Two of us, he might think it’s some kind of prank. But not all five, and not if Ren is hurt and Miho is gone … I know, I know, but we can’t do this alone! We need help! Just meet us there!”

  Sakura snapped her phone shut and put it away. She took a deep breath and started for the door without waiting for Mai.

  “What did she say?” Mai said, following her out the door. “What’s going on? Why was she fighting with you?”

  “Kara didn’t want to leave her house because Aritomo-sensei is there. The Hannya is there with her father.”

  A chill ran up Mai’s spine and all her anger vanished. “But she’s going to meet us at Yamato-sensei’s?”

  “She’ll be there.”

  Mai nodded once, turned, and headed across the field with Sakura matching her stride for stride.

  Miho woke to the copper scent of blood and the awful, rotting stench of death. As she grew conscious of her surroundings, eyes flickering open in the dark, the smells overwhelmed her, filling her nostrils and her throat. Her stomach convulsed and she rolled to one side, a thin stream of vomit erupting from her mouth.

  Panic and revulsion brought her fully awake. She forced herself to breathe through her mouth, the stink of the room too much to take. Disoriented, she looked around, trying to make sense of what she saw.

  The low ceiling above her head had a peak in the middle, and there were boxes and two old traveling chests stacked to one side. In the gloom—slices of moonlight gleaming between shutters or boards that blocked two small windows—she could make out a metal rack hung with what appeared to be old Noh or Kabuki theatrical costumes. A bare dressmaker’s dummy stood beside the costume rack like some headless, limbless spectator.

  The smell. Where did the smell come from?

  Miho sat up and her stomach convulsed again. Bile burned in the back of her throat, but this time she managed to suppress the urge to vomit. It wasn’t just the smell, she realized. The nausea and disorientation were symptoms of something else. Flashes of the conflict on the train platform came back to her. Fear flooded through her as she remembered the Hannya, its intimate hiss, and what it had done to Ren.

  Oh, Ren. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, terrible sadness gnawing at her. Please don’t be dead.

  A fresh wave of nausea hit her gut and she thought again of the Hannya. One hand fluttered up to her neck and she gave a tiny yelp at the pain as she touched the bruised, punctured skin there. Some of the blood she smelled might be her own.

  It had bitten her, and the bite had poisoned her or something. It had made her sleep as if she’d been drugged, and now the effects were starting to wear off. But the Hannya would be back.

  Miho took a breath, still through her mouth, but now she could taste the stink of dead flesh on her tongue. Chills shuddered through her and she looked around, eyes at last beginning to adjust to the gloom.

  In a dark corner to the right of the window she saw an antique dollhouse. In the black shadows behind it lay what was left of a human body. Torn and broken, bones showing, from what she could see in the dark it looked as though wild animals had gotten to it. Hungry animals. The darker stains on the wall and on the roof of the dollhouse must have been blood.

  Miho began to shake. Her eyes swam with tears.

  “No,” she whispered. “No, please. I haven’t done anything.”

  Lurching to her feet, she banged her head on the low ceiling and then staggered toward the boarded window. Her fingers found purchase but she could not tear the wood away.

  Miho dropped to her knees, threw back her head, and began to scream for help. She cried and she beat her fists on the boards and screamed until her throat hurt. Minutes passed before she paused to breathe, and to think.

  And then a voice, little more than a dry rasp, came from behind the costume rack.

  “You shouldn’t bother,” said the voice. “No one will hear. I’ve been trying for days.”

  13

  Mr. Yamato sat in a rigid wooden chair, his back straight. As he listened to Kara and Sakura tell the story from the beginning, with Mai reinforcing their tale by relating again what Ume had told her and Ren showing his injuries and detailing the attack at the train station, the principal’s expression did not waver. So often stern, Kara thought his face must have settled comfortably into those grim lines over the years.

  “And then we came here,” Kara told him. “Please, Yamato-sensei. You must believe us. I’m afraid for Miho, and for my father. More people will die if we don’t do something.”

  The principal took a deep breath, but still his expression did not change. He shifted his gaze from student to student, studying each of them as though searching for a weak link in the story. Kara could not blame him if he thought they were all liars or lunatics, but she did not think that was the case at all. If he had, wouldn’t he have thrown them out of his house minutes after they’d begun their tale? Instead, he had listened to every word, asking only clarifications.

  “Please, Yamato-sensei,” Mai said.

  The principal’s eyes narrowed further as he focused on her. What had he expected when he had opened his door to find them there? Surely not this. He had invited them inside and they had removed their shoes and sat on mats and cushions on the floor of the living room. Mr. Yamato’s wife had offered them tea, but he had seen the urgency in their faces and politely asked her to let him speak to his students alone. He had apologized to them for sitting in the chair, explaining that he had trouble with his back. And then he had asked them to begin, turning to Kara as though sensing that the others also wished for her to speak first.

  Now the principal shifted his gaze to Kara again.

  “You lied to me that day, in my office.”

  She flushed but did not avert her eyes. “Yes, sensei. I’m very sorry. At that point I still hoped Wakana and Daisuke really had run away together. And I was afraid if I told you that Mai was telling the truth, you wouldn’t believe any of us.”

  Mr. Yamato nodded, glancing at Mai. “I see. And Mai told me only part of the truth, that day.”

  “It was the truth as I knew it, sensei,” Mai said quickly. “As told to me by Ume.”

  The man’s eyes darkened. “Ume, who may have been a murderer.”

  Mai dropped her gaze.

  “Tell me now, girl,” the principal commanded. “Were you one of those with Ume on the night Akane Murakami was killed?”

  Kara glanced at Hachiro, Ren, and Sakura. All of them were staring at Mai, waiting for the answer. Sakura’s fists were clenched, but Kara couldn’t tell if the look on her face showed fury or a fresh wave of grief over the loss of her older sister.

  Mai lifted her chin. “No, sensei. I swear I was not with them. Hana and Chouku were, but I know that only because Ume told me.”

  “How convenient that they’re dead,” Sakura said bitterly. “You know who else was there.”<
br />
  “I’d only be guessing,” Mai insisted.

  “Enough!” Mr. Yamato said, slicing the air with his hand. He looked at Sakura, then turned back to Mai. “We will speak about this more tomorrow. First, we must contend with the story you have told me tonight.”

  “Do you believe us?” Ren asked.

  Mr. Yamato took a deep breath. It didn’t seem possible to Kara, but he actually sat up a bit straighter in his chair.

  “As a younger man, I would have dismissed such stories without a moment’s thought. My grandmother loved to tell us tales of gods and demons, of spirits wearing the faces of men, and especially of tricksters who could appear to be animals. Kitsune was her favorite. I remember so many of those stories. I never believed them, but I knew my grandmother did. My father used to say the woman was crazy, and though I loved her stories, I agreed.

  “As I have grown older, I have thought of my grandmother often. In my memories, she does not seem at all insane. In all other ways, she conducted her life normally—a sweet, doting woman who made fish soup better than any I’ve ever had, and always kept a bit of candy hidden for me in a drawer in her kitchen. The light of faith in her eyes was ordinary belief, not madness. Many old women still tell such stories as though they really happened. Who am I to say they did not?

  “Even so, I would not believe you if not for the murders in April. Jiro and Chouku had their blood taken from their bodies. The police could not explain it. No one could explain it. They came up with their ridiculous stories, lies to tell the public, and I went along with them to protect our school. We could not afford to have people thinking the students were still in danger … and I truly thought the danger had passed. But I knew the police were mystified, and that made me wonder. And then Mai came to me with the tale of the ketsuki, and Kyuketsuki, and a curse.

  “I tried to tell myself it was impossible. But every time I did, I remembered the spark of belief in my grandmother’s eyes. And now here you are, telling me a Hannya has come to Monju-no-Chie school, and I remember the story my grandmother told me of a girl named Kiyohime and the monk Anchin.”