by Cristy Burne
"Sure, why not?" I unzipped my own jacket and ripped off my beanie. "That screeching, the gunshots, I bet that was the water expanding through the pipes until they exploded with the pressure."
Cait took off her own beanie. "If it's frozen pipes, then they're not going to be frozen for long. Something's messing with the temperature in here."
We looked around, remembering suddenly why we were here.
"Can she do that?" Cait asked. "The nukekubi?"
I shook my head. "No, I don't think so. It's got to be something else." I knew there was something my Baba had told me, something else. But it floated just out of reach, a kite on the wind.
"So how will we know if it's burst pipes that made all that noise?" Cait interrupted my thoughts.
But before I could answer, a dripping sound came from the classroom behind us. Almost at once more drips echoed from the corridor. Gone were the ringing and screaming of tortured pipes. Instead we could have been in a bathhouse. The sound of dripping water was everywhere. Five minutes ago we were freezing solid, now it was warm enough to go without a jacket.
"The water's melting," Cait said. She pulled off her scarf. "This is ridiculous."
The drips grew into trickles, like a hundred taps not turned off properly.
"The whole water system's busted," I said.
"What happens now?" Cait asked, watching as the trickles formed torrents and water began to gush from broken pipes up and down the corridor.
"I dunno."
"Will she like all this water?" Cait asked.
I stepped backwards as the water advanced towards our open door. "No, I don't think so. Baba never said."
I stepped back again, this time splashing right into a puddle. Behind us the floor of the classroom was shiny with water. More water was pouring in from the broken pipes, forming a fountain that was gushing and trickling its way into a flood.
Cait climbed on to the nearest desk. "I think we're going to get a little wet," she said, her legs dangling as water rushed around and under the table legs below.
Shoes wet, I jumped up on the desk next to Cait. We watched as the water from our classroom floor inched closer to the door. "We're going to be in so much trouble."
"Deep trouble," Cait laughed at her own joke.
"But really it's not so deep," I said, looking down. "Perhaps we should make a run for it?"
"What about the flying head?"
But I didn't have time to reply. Another thunderclap echoed as water from the corridor rushed to meet the water from our classroom. Great. The temperature had stopped rising, but now the whole school was flooding. And we still had to find my brother, defeat a flesh-eating demon, and get home before Mrs Thompson or the plumber caught us sneaking around the school after dark.
The classroom window had fogged up, but I could see giant snowflakes bashing against the glass. Inside it was as warm as a summer's day. "This is so weird." I racked my brains, trying again to think of what it was my Baba had told me. Something about the weather... Something important.
"Totally," Cait said, looking around. Each desk had formed a little island in the growing ocean. "We're surrounded. It's like something's set out to trap us."
Five minutes later, when the water had stopped rising, we had a new problem on our hands.
"What on earth is that?" Cait asked, staring in dread as water began arriving in waves at our classroom door, causing mini-tsunamis to rush against the walls of our classroom. The water was behaving like surf at the ocean, forming waves that raced through the door, each curling after the next.
"Flood's getting worse?" I asked, my teeth chattering despite the warm temperature.
"No," Cait said. "I think something's coming."
The waves were growing larger. We could see the bulk of them as they pummelled past our open door, with just the smaller waves pushing sideways into our classroom. I didn't know what to do. We were perched like helpless sailors on our school-desk desert islands.
"Perhaps we should run for it," I said again. "It could be her. Who cares about wet shoes?"
But it was too late. The waves had slowed and now just a few cautious ripples were rolling into the classroom. The thing, whatever it was, was nearly here.
"Hello?" said a voice from down the hall. It was a woman's voice, and not Mrs Okuda. I heaved a sigh of relief, but I didn't answer. Cait stayed silent too.
The ripples started again, pushing towards us. A woman's face appeared round the classroom door. "Hello?" she asked again. The face was quite young and beautiful, with a small nose and wide almond eyes, but both Cait and I screamed anyway. Cait stood up on her desk, trying to edge backwards and away.
"Children?" The woman seemed surprised to see us. "But what are you doing here?"
I was asking myself exactly the same question. We could have been at home eating pizza. But I couldn't take my eyes off her, for although the woman's features were as pretty as any of the girls in the magazines, her skin was bright green and shiny like a frog's. She had long black hair that hung wet around her head and her tongue was red and forked. It seemed to quiver like a snake's, as if she was using it to smell us out.
She came closer, gliding like a serpent. As she approached, more ripples lapped against the legs of our school desks.
Cait made a tiny choking noise. Her eyes were bulging and she seemed unable to speak.
I wasn't surprised. Being eaten by a massive snake-woman-demon-thing had not been part of our plan. I just stood there, silent, and waited for whatever came next.
The woman was wet all over and dressed in red, with green scaly arms reaching out of each sleeve. Her skin, green with streaks of mustard yellow, was clearly visible beneath the transparent fabric.
"Oh, I'm so sorry." She slid back a little. She didn't seem to have legs, just a long, snakelike body that disappeared into the corridor. "I didn't mean to disturb you. I didn't realise there'd be more children here."
For that was the worst of it. Worse than her green skin and forked tongue, worse than the way her body seemed to melt into a legless lizard. In her scaly green arms, this dragon demon held Kazu, my darling brother, tiny and trusting and asleep.
"Oh, but it's you," the dragon woman said, suddenly smiling up at me with warm, blood-red eyes. "Miku." She slid further into the room, her snake's body seemingly endless as it extended through the door and into the corridor. At the point where her jacket ended, her skin turned to red and shone wet and naked in the moonlight, rippling as it entered the room.
I could only gurgle back. This dragon knew me. And it had Kazu. And now it would have us too.
"It is Miku, isn't it?" the woman asked, her smile revealing two pointed fangs. "Takeshita Miku. I've heard so much about you. I was a great fan of your grandmother's."
Slowly, like a statue come to life, I nodded. What was this thing? What did it know of Baba?
"She did so much for your family," the woman continued, hissing a little as her scarlet tongue flashed in and out. "Such a tragedy that she passed away. Still, she lived to a good age. It's your turn now."
My turn? I had no idea what this monster was talking about, but I had finally found my voice. "My brother," I said. "Give him back."
"Oh, of course," she said, looking down at the sleeping Kazu. "But not yet. Not yet. I need him still."
"Give him back," I demanded, a little louder this time. "Give him back now." Now I had my voice I was trying for my courage as well. My words sounded strange, echoing off the walls and the water.
"But do you not know me?" the dragon woman asked, surprised. "The zashiki-warashi has sent me."
Zashiko had sent her, all the way from our house back in Japan? The mischievous child ghost, who had moved my pillow and swung my bedroom light in the night? I didn't believe it. Zashiko had always protected our family from evil, but this misshapen demon monster had stolen Kazu.
"He's my brother," I said. "We've come to take him home." I had hoped to sound heroic and strong, but in the face o
f this demon, I sounded almost apologetic.
"But you cannot take him from me now." The dragon woman looked concerned. "I have travelled so far. I have achieved so much. I have discovered the nukekubi, fought the yuki-onna. We are so close to victory, you and I."
Victory? You and I?
Cait shot me a look that said, plain as day, you know this woman-thing?
No. I shook my head. I'd never seen her before in my life. The yuki-onna, the thing she claimed to have fought, I'd heard of that. Another demon my Baba had talked about. But there wasn't time to think of that now. We needed Kazu back, and we needed to go home. We'd been crazy to try this alone.
"Give him to me," I said. "In the name of my Baba. In the name of Zashiko, our zashiki-warashi." If this dragon claimed to know Baba and Zashiko, perhaps that could work in our favour.
The dragon woman made a strange sound, a kind of watery whimper. "But the plan. The nukekubi. She is here, somewhere in the school. I must take your brother to her."
Take Kazu to the Okuda-monster? This was the last straw. There was no way Zashiko had sent this disgusting creature. It was a lie, another trick, like the Mr O'Neill noppera-bo. I might not be the world's best sister, but I drew the line at feeding my brother to a flying demon head. I decided right then and there: there was no way I was going to let anyone take Kazu anywhere near the nukekubi, and especially not this scaly green snake-demon thing. Even if my life depended on it.
"Give him to me," I commanded. This time my voice came out booming and hot, like Mr Lloyd's when he was mad at Alex.
The dragon woman squirmed. Kazu wriggled in her arms, still sleeping soundly. "It's not right," she said. "Zashiko has a plan..." But she slithered closer, her green arms extended slightly, holding Kazu out over the water.
I moved to the edge of the desk, close enough to reach out and touch Kazu. "Give him to me."
The dragon woman moved closer still, dangling Kazu like bait over a shark pit. "Are you sure, Takeshita Miku? Are you ready? Can you take him?"
I didn't answer right away. Instead I grabbed Kazu as quickly as I could, cringing away from the cool touch of the woman's scaly skin. "Yes, very sure. I'm ready."
Kazu felt warm and alive, soft and heavy in my arms. We'd done it! He didn't wake. I started to dream that we might make it home, me and Kazu and Cait.
The dragon woman hadn't moved. She stood there, watching Kazu as I held him. Her red eyes had narrowed, like a snake watching a mouse. It felt weird that she hadn't backed away, but at least she hadn't come any closer.
Cait had had enough. "Thanks for that," she said. "We're leaving now." But though she sounded as if she meant it, she didn't move an inch. Neither did the dragon woman.
"Leave us," Cait tried again. "We're going home."
But the woman didn't even twitch.
And I wasn't going anywhere. Kazu was breathing peacefully in my arms, but he seemed to be getting heavier every second. He seemed to be turning into lead, becoming heavier and heavier, until my arms were aching with the weight of him. I didn't care. I took a deep breath and hung on.
"Hey, Kazu," I crooned. "It's OK now, I've got you. We're going to take you home."
"Come on, Miku," said Cait, still eyeing the dragon woman warily. "Let's get out of here."
But I couldn't take a step. Kazu was growing heavier still. My arms felt as if they were being stretched, pulled down to the ground by their tremendous load.
Kazu looked just as peaceful as ever, but my arm muscles were burning up and my legs had started trembling with the weight. "It's OK, Kazu," I said, gritting my teeth. "It's OK."
But it wasn't. I was shaking with the strain now. How much longer could I hold him?
I looked up at the dragon woman. "What have you done to him? Let him go."
"You care for this child?" she asked, eyes glittering and tongue waving in the air.
"Yes," I gasped. I was staggering. "I love him, he's my brother." I didn't think I could carry Kazu's weight much longer.
"But you leave him sick and alone, coughing on the sofa..." the woman said.
"That was a mistake," I panted, my arms and legs ready to explode. "The amazake-baba, then the noppera-bo..." I cursed the spirits who had made Kazu ill, who had distracted us as we cared for him. And I cursed this dragon demon, who seemed to be crushing me under the weight of my own brother's body.
"No," the dragon woman reared up on her massive snake's body. She towered over me with her fangs shining in the moonlight. "It was you who left him. You who left him alone. Nobody did that but you."
My whole body was trembling as if under the weight of a thousand houses, but I refused to let Kazu go.
"OK," I panted. Kazu's weight was crushing my lungs, breaking my ribs. "OK. I shouldn't have left him. I was wrong. But that doesn't change anything. I still love him, and we're taking him back home with us, today."
With a mammoth effort, pulling strength and energy from places I didn't even know I had, I heaved Kazu's tiny body up a little higher, holding him close to my body and hanging on as if my whole life depended on it.
Suddenly, the weight was gone. Kazu seemed to float in my arms. He was back to normal, my ordinary sleeping brother.
The dragon woman had returned to eye level. "Good," she said. "I see you care for this child properly, as all children deserve."
"What is going on?" Cait said. She seemed to have missed everything. "Come on, Miku, let's get out of here."
But now that I could move again, I wasn't so keen to leave. "Who are you?" I stared at the demon in front of me. Her scaly, shiny skin, her red eyes, the fangs and serpent's body.
The woman suddenly looked sad. "I am the nure-onna," she said. "The woman of the wet." Yuki-onna I'd heard of, even my Mum knew
stories of her. But the nure-onna? This was a first. Not even my Baba had mentioned her. "What are you doing here?" I demanded. "Why did you take my brother?"
"Hush," the woman said. "The nukekubi is still about, and it's nearly morning. Her head may return any moment."
"But why did you take him?" After all we'd been through, I wanted answers.
"He was sick and alone," she answered. "And I needed him. It was Zashiko's plan. I could care for him. You will see his cough is gone."
I looked down at Kazu. She was right. He did seem to be breathing easily, with no sign of his earlier illness.
"Quick," the woman hissed, red tongue darting. "The water drains, morning grows closer. Take him home and keep him safe. Do not come back to school today. I will deal with the nukekubi. She is causing only trouble."
The dragon woman was right. Outside the night was growing lighter, and inside the water had stopped gushing from the broken pipes. Slowly, the flood was withdrawing.
"I must go," the dragon woman said, sliding backwards out the door. "Go home at once. She will be back any moment, and she will be hunting for you."
"What was that?" Cait blurted out as soon as the woman of the wet had gone. "This is getting way too weird, Miku."
I agreed. There were so many questions whirling in my own head. "The nure-onna," I whispered to myself, still holding Kazu safe in my arms. I'd never heard of her. And she said Zashiko had sent her?
"I have no idea," I answered Cait. "But I agree. It's getting too weird. We've got Kazu now. Let's do what she said and get out of here."
"I've been suggesting that for ages. What happened? You looked like you were going to collapse back there."
I shuddered at the memory of clinging to Kazu's massive, unnatural weight. "I'll explain on the way home. Let's move it."
The water hadn't quite receded, but who cared about wet feet when a shiny-skinned dragon demon lurked in the corridors and a flesh-eating flying head could arrive back any minute?
"But she seemed to know you," Cait persisted. "And your Baba. And she seemed to know a whole lot about the nukekubi too."
We sloshed our way to a classroom window and I wiped a veil of fog from the glass. Outside everything
was white, but at least it had stopped snowing. Something had stopped the snow, and that reminded me. The yuki-onna.
"Did you hear what she said?" I asked. "About that other demon?"
"Something," Cait said. "Yes. No. I can't remember all those Japanese names."
"She said she'd fought the yuki-onna," I said. "That's the woman of the snow. She's a famous demon, a big one, back in Japan."
"The yuki-onna? Great. What's she like then? Another giant serpent we have to fight?"
"No." I struggled to remember all the details. "She takes the shape of a beautiful lady, dressed all in white and with snow-white skin." Then it came to me. I remembered. "She's it," I exclaimed. "She's the one."
"The one what?"
"The one with the weather. She's the snow woman. She needs snow to survive, she can freeze things with her breath. I bet it was the yuki-onna who made the snowstorm, who cracked the pipes."
"Why would she do all that?"
I grimaced. Cait wasn't going to like my answer. "Well..."
"She's not another child-eater, is she?"
"Not exactly."
"Good. So she can't be that bad." Cait breathed a sigh of relief and turned her attention to the window. "This one?" She picked the nearest window, the one I'd wiped clean from the fog.
"Sure." Together we struggled to flick the latch and open the window. I kept quiet for a bit, cradling Kazu in one arm the whole time. There was no way I was leaving him anywhere ever again.
"So what does she do, then?" Cait asked, halfway through unlatching the window. "This snow lady. She freeze people to death?"
"Well..."
"What?" Cait stopped working and stared at me, incredulous. The window hung half-open. "She doesn't!"
I stroked Kazu's sleeping head. "Actually, she kind of does. She's some sort of lost soul. Angry maybe. Some people say she sucks the life force from her victims."
"What?" Cait's face dropped. "This is mental. What are all these things? Why are they coming after you?"
I shook my head. "I dunno. But on the bright side, she's not around any more. Look." I pointed outside. "It's stopped snowing. Someone, or something, maybe even that nure-onna, has forced her back."
