Spirits of the Noh

by Thomas Randall

  Her mouth had gone dry and her whole face seemed to throb with every beat of her skittish heart, but at last she bent to pick up a small, decorative stone and went to the window, where she used the stone to knock out the fragments of glass that jutted from the frame. Without hesitation—for she knew if she hesitated again she would never go in—she boosted herself up onto the window frame, swung one leg over, and stepped inside.

  The glass crunched beneath the soles of her shoes as she crept through what appeared to be a sort of artist’s studio, complete with canvases stacked against the wall and a fresh one atop an easel, covered with a sheet. Tempted by the urge to unveil the painting, to see what a woman possessed by a demon might paint, she pressed on instead, wanting to search the house and be gone before Miss Aritomo came home. But with every step, she regretted not having looked at that painting, and knew she would always wonder what image the canvas might have revealed.

  Though it was not a small house, it was sparsely furnished, and it took Mai only a few minutes to peek into every room on the first floor and make her way to the second. While she moved swiftly through the art teacher’s immaculately neat bedroom, she heard a thump above her head. And then another. Stopping to listen, Mai heard a voice again, and this time there was no mistaking it as anything other than a cry for help.

  She raced to the end of the hall, where narrow back stairs led up to what could only be an attic. Mai’s own house had no such space—most modern homes did not—but they’d be more common in an old prewar building like this.

  The narrow landing at the top of the steps was dark, and she wished she had searched for a switch before coming up. She tried the door, found it locked tight, and threw her weight against it. Again someone shouted from within. Was there a note of new hope in that voice?

  “Wakana?” Mai cried, throwing herself against the door again. But that was getting her nowhere.

  Carefully, she hurried back down the steps, hands searching for a light switch. When she found it, a dusty old fixture flickered to life up on the landing. Heart pounding, aware every second of the possibility of Miss Aritomo’s return, she hurtled up the stairs and stared at the door.

  Two locks. One was simple enough, a deadbolt, which she threw back instantly. But the other required a key.

  Mai sagged backward, racking her brain. The heavy lock would not be easily forced.

  “Think, think,” she told herself. Frustrated, she slapped the wall.

  Something jangled right next to her. She turned to see a hook, upon which there hung a key. Mai grinned at the luck. The old metal key might have hung there for years, even decades, with Miss Aritomo having little need of it.

  Now she snatched it up, pushed it into the lock, twisted it and heard the tumbles fall. With a surge of hope, she shoved the door wide. The light from the old fixture on the landing spilled into the pitch-black attic.

  Something moved in there. Mai blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and recoiled at the horrid odors that wafted from the attic.

  “Who is it?” said a weak, rasping voice.

  “Wakana?” Mai said, crouching slightly to step into the dusty, low-ceilinged room.

  Then she looked deeper into the attic, trying to make out the strange shape that had been revealed by the shaft of light from the open door. A dollhouse. And behind it, broken pieces of something that must once have been her friend.

  Mai had to scream, needed desperately to release the shriek of horror that seemed to catch in her throat. She staggered backward and struck her head on the door frame. The impact jarred something loose within her, and then she did scream, loud and long.

  Kara ran along the street, passing through illumination from a streetlight above. Her legs felt heavy, and the backs of her calves burned, reminding her that she hadn’t been getting enough exercise lately. She slowed to a walk, catching her breath, and glanced over her shoulder to see Hachiro and Ren hurrying after her. Ren had a small box clutched to his chest, while Hachiro carried a sack made of rough cloth over his shoulder.

  They had run most of the way to the school from Mr. Yamato’s, but it had taken much too long to pry the lock on the side door and then locate the items they were searching for. The route from the school to Miss Aritomo’s house had started as a kind of mad dash, but all three of them had needed to slow down several times. Passing her own house, Kara had seen lights on inside. Her father’s little Honda remained parked in front, and Miss Aritomo’s bicycle was still locked to a lamppost nearby. Kara had been torn between relief that the Hannya had not gone home yet, and fear for her father, that he was still with her.

  But if the Hannya was keeping Miho and the others in Miss Aritomo’s house—and Kara and her friends hadn’t been able to think of any other possible places—then this might be their one chance to find out. And if Miho and the others weren’t in the art teacher’s house, Kara feared they must be dead after all.

  So she had kept running, and the guys had raced along behind her, each carrying his burden. Now they were almost there. Hachiro and Ren caught up to her, then they both slowed to a walk as well, out of breath. The street came to an intersection, where the main road jogged left and a narrow avenue ran off to the right, newish homes clustered all along it. They kept to the main road, bearing left beneath the gleaming dome of another streetlight.

  Kara jumped a little at the sudden vibration in her pocket. With a soft, self-deprecating chuckle, she pulled out her cell phone, which she’d silenced when they had been breaking into the school. Sakura was calling.

  “Hey,” Kara answered.

  “Where are you?” Sakura demanded, her voice low.

  “Almost there.”

  “You’d better hurry. We heard something, maybe someone calling for help. Mai panicked. She went around the back and I think she’s breaking in.”

  “Shit,” Kara muttered. “Be there in a minute.”

  She hung up and as she slid the phone back into her pocket, she glanced up at Hachiro. “We’ve got to hurry.”

  “What do you think we’ve been doing?” Ren asked, still trying to steady his breathing.

  Hachiro took Kara’s hand and squeezed it. He gave her a quick kiss. “Let’s go.”

  Ren held up a hand. “Wait, wait, please! Just give me a minute.”

  Kara smiled and grabbed his hand, now locked between the two guys. “Sorry.”

  Then they were off and running, the two of them dragging Ren along despite his wheezing protests. In moments they came in sight of Miss Aritomo’s house. Veering to the right, they hid as deeply in the shadows of the buildings as they could manage.

  “Sakura!” Kara called in a rough whisper.

  “Why are you being quiet?” Hachiro asked, frowning. “Aritomo-sensei is not home.”

  Ren hit his arm. “Think. Just because Aritomo-sensei isn’t here, that doesn’t mean the Hannya is also gone.”

  Kara shivered, remembering all too clearly the sight of the evil spirit transforming and then vanishing inside Miss Aritomo’s prone body.

  When she called out a second time, Sakura emerged from beside the building on their right, a darkened laundry, and beckoned them to her. Kara, Ren, and Hachiro hurried over, and Kara felt vulnerable and exposed under the glow of yet another streetlamp. She exhaled as they stepped into a darkened alley beside the laundry, where Sakura had apparently been hiding.

  “Did you get everything?” Sakura asked.

  “We think so,” Ren told her, patting the box in his hands. “It’s just so strange to think that any of this will make a difference. We should have guns or knives or something.”

  Hachiro nodded. “A baseball bat.”

  Kara looked at him.

  “What? It worked before.”

  “The baseball bat helped, but it wasn’t what got rid of the ketsuki, or kept Kyuketsuki from coming into the world. The rules of things like this are very peculiar, and sometimes don’t make any sense, but the secrets are all in the stories themselves. If the monks
destroyed the Hannya with the sound of bells, and Aritomo-sensei purposely left them out of the play … Look, maybe this will work and maybe it won’t, but if it doesn’t, I don’t have another plan, and a baseball bat isn’t going to help.”

  Ren cocked his head, looking across the street at the darkened house. “It might.”

  The sound of an approaching car made them step deeper into the alley and they fell silent as they turned to watch it pass. But the car did not drive past. The engine rumbled and the vehicle slowed, and a moment later the headlights turned left, casting an ugly yellow light onto Miss Aritomo’s house as the car pulled into the drive. A moment later, the headlights went dark and the engine silent, but not before Kara saw the open trunk, and the bicycle jutting out of it.

  “Oh, no,” Ren said.

  “Kara, it’s your father,” Hachiro whispered.

  She barely heard them. Staring, wondering how the teacher had persuaded him to drive her home, and if it had been Miss Aritomo or the Hannya doing the talking—how did that work, having a demon riding inside your mind?—Kara started out of the alley.

  Sakura grabbed her shoulder. “Wait.”

  Kara shook her off and took one more step before Ren lent a hand, he and Sakura preventing Kara from going any farther. Hachiro stepped in front of her, blocking Kara’s view of the house. Her pulse raced, gaze darting around. Her skin prickled with frenzied thoughts and fears, and she looked up into Hachiro’s eyes.

  Car doors slammed. Her father would be taking Miss Aritomo’s bike out of the trunk now.

  “Why would she bring him back here?” Kara demanded. “I thought … I don’t know if Aritomo-sensei knows the Hannya’s inside her, and my dad’s got nothing to do with the play, so I hoped he would be safe. But if she’s bringing him here, I have to stop him from going inside.”

  “No,” Hachiro said firmly. “We have to stick to the plan. Just a couple of minutes and we’ll go in. He’ll be all right.”

  At the sound of Miss Aritomo’s front door closing, anger flashed through Kara. “You don’t know that.”

  She pulled away from her friends, stepped past Hachiro, and stared at the house. A light had come on downstairs.

  And then, from higher up—from the attic, it seemed to Kara—there came a piercing scream that rose and arced and then died out, leaving horrible silence behind.

  “Mai,” Sakura whispered.

  Kara spun, grabbed the box from Ren’s hands, and tore it open. She looked up at her friends, who were staring at her.

  “Hurry!”

  14

  Kara and Hachiro stood just outside Miss Aritomo’s house. She cocked her head, trying to get a glimpse of her father through a window, but despite the inside light, nothing seemed to be moving within. The sickle moon cast a dim yellow gloom over the buildings and the street. Kara glanced at Hachiro, swallowed hard, and nodded.

  “That should be long enough,” she whispered.

  Sakura and Ren had gone around the back of the house, following Mai’s path. However she had gotten in, they would as well. Which only left the front door.

  “Ready?” Hachiro asked softly.

  Kara nodded, and he reached into the cloth sack that he had taken from the art room and withdrew one of the Noh masks that Miho had made, handing it to her. Kara stared at it. The visage seemed almost genderless, a white-haired, grimly pale expression permanently fixed upon it. A villager or a monk, she thought. As she watched, Hachiro pulled a second mask from the bag, this one with a thin tangle of beard marking it as male. Surely it must be one of the monks.

  Hachiro donned his mask, fitting the string behind his head. Kara took a deep breath and did the same. Ren and Sakura had taken their masks with them. There were two others in the bag—the one they’d brought for Mai to wear and another that Kara feared might have been a mistake to bring along. That fear gnawed at her, but they would know soon enough.

  Kara looked at Hachiro, hating the way the mask obscured his features, but his eyes were still there, soft and kind. She nodded and pointed at the door.

  “Let’s go.”

  Hachiro took a deep breath. He had the sack grasped in one fist and in the other he clutched a small iron bell. Kara reached into her pocket and pulled out her own bell, two fingers inside it to keep it silent until the right moment.

  This is insane, she thought. They didn’t really know if any of this would work. It was all pure conjecture. But in her time in Japan, reading folklore and Noh plays—and from their brush with Kyuketsuki—she had learned that somehow, over time, the stories themselves seemed to have rejuvenated some spirits. The supernatural beings that survived in Japan were no longer worshiped, and so drew their remaining vitality from the stories and plays about them. The stories had reshaped them, in some way.

  And if the stories could shape them, then wearing the masks of the monks who destroyed the Hannya in Dojoji would give them a certain power over the creature. It would almost expect them to defeat it, and that would give them an advantage.

  Or so Kara now believed.

  In moments, she would discover if there was any truth to that theory.

  The bells, though, were different. There were so many instances in Japanese legend of the sound of bells warding off or weakening evil, even destroying it. The masks might give them an advantage, but the bells could actually be a weapon. If they were lucky. If they were right.

  Hachiro stepped up to the house and slammed his foot against the door, just beside the knob. Grimacing, he launched another powerful kick, striking the same spot. In quick succession, he struck the door twice more, and the lock gave way with a splinter of wood. The door swung inward and Hachiro didn’t hesitate. He burst into the house, and Kara followed.

  Her father and Miss Aritomo were standing at the bottom of the steps. It looked like they had been about to go up, belatedly responding to the scream from the attic. Rob Harper had a heavy lamp in his hand, apparently to use as a weapon, and Miss Aritomo held a long kitchen knife. They both looked startled, and if Kara had not seen the Hannya slipping into the art teacher with her own eyes, she would never have thought that Miss Aritomo was anything but terrified at that moment.

  At the sight of her and Hachiro in the masks, Miss Aritomo screamed. Kara’s father came toward them, wielding the lamp.

  “Dad, wait!” Kara said.

  “Kara?” he muttered, too confused to be angry yet.

  “Get away from her, Harper-sensei!” Hachiro barked, sliding away from Kara, watching Miss Aritomo closely.

  Maybe the Hannya’s not here, Kara thought. That could be, right? It’s not in her now.

  “Hachiro, it might be in the attic. That’s why Mai was screaming.”

  “Mai? What is Mai doing in my attic?” Miss Aritomo asked. “What is going on here? Why are you wearing those masks? You have a lot of explaining to do!”

  Sakura and Ren appeared from a hall that led toward the back of the house. They moved slowly into the living room, fanning out so that the four students had Miss Aritomo surrounded, with the stairs to the second story her only route of escape. They had also donned their masks, and clutched iron bells in their fists.

  “Shut up, demon!” Sakura snarled at Miss Aritomo.

  “No, Sakura,” Ren said, staring at their teacher. “Look at her. I don’t think she knows it’s in her.”

  Kara thought he was right. The expression on Miss Aritomo’s face made it clear—she really didn’t know. Somehow the Hannya had gotten into her and used her body as a host. Perhaps it influenced her from within, but she had no idea she had been possessed. When it left her body to prowl the world, it somehow lulled the teacher into unconsciousness, as Kara had seen with her own eyes.

  Her father put the lamp down on a small table and stared at his daughter. He spoke in low, measured tones. She had never seen him so furious. “Kara, you’ve gone much too far now. This is … it’s too much. It’s going to change everything.”

  Guilt and doubt surged up in her
and she started to flush, averting her eyes. For several seconds, she almost crumbled under his gaze. What could she do? Call it off and apologize? Run from the house?

  No.

  “I know what I saw, Dad. This is real. We’ve been to Yamato-sensei. He believes us. He’s talking to the police right now. But if you won’t believe your own daughter—if you really think I’d take it this far on some crazy whim—all you have to do is go up to the attic and find out what Mai was screaming about.”

  He hesitated, obviously confused, and Kara knew she’d finally gotten through to him. Her father turned to look at Miss Aritomo, but even as he did, the art teacher’s eyelids fluttered and she began to collapse. He caught Miss Aritomo before she could fall, but she lay limp in his arms, arms akimbo, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The kitchen knife she’d been holding fell from her hand and skittered across the wood floor.

  “Yuuka?” her father said, alarmed. He knelt down, laying her gently on the floor, still cradling her head and upper body. “Yuuka, what’s wrong? Wake up!”

  He twisted to look at Kara. “Call an ambulance.”

  “They’re not going to be able to help,” Hachiro said.

  “Please, Harper-sensei,” Sakura began. “Get away from her.”

  He glared at her, then at Kara.

  “Move back, Dad,” she said. “You don’t understand.”

  “Call an ambulance, goddammit!” he snapped, then turned back to Miss Aritomo. He slapped her lightly on the cheek. “Yuuka. Yuuka!”

  With a scowl of frustration, he cradled her head with one hand while, with the other, he fished out his own cell phone.

  “Dad!” Kara shouted. “Get back!”

  For Miss Aritomo’s head had lolled back in his grasp. Her mouth opened wide and a darkness formed deep in her throat. Yellow eyes peered from the inside of her distended lips, and then the serpent slid out, all rippling shadows and hateful glare. It hissed, the sound filling the room until it seemed to come from every corner and from beneath every piece of furniture.

  Rob Harper must have heard the noise, for he turned to look. At the sight of the Hannya emerging from its host, the woman with whom he was falling in love, he dropped his cell phone with a clatter on the floor, and yanked his hand away from Miss Aritomo. Her skull thunked down and he tried to scramble away, but too late.