by Rin Chupeco
easy
to let
go so easy
to let
It
overcome
you
no.
Okiku in the morning light.
Okiku, smiling at me for the first time in the glow of a lone lamppost.
Okiku as the fireflies stream past, my fingers tangling in her hair.
Okiku before the silkworms took her away.
No.
I won’t let it take my memories of her.
I
won’t.
I won’t.
I
won’t!
I rip my mind free before I go in too deep, before the tree ensures I can never go back. I can hear the tree snarl as I slip from its grasp.
I won’t!
I delve one last time into the priest’s mind, forcing my way through his insanity to find what I need before the darkness claims from him what it could not from me. I begin a new hymn, breaking the seals containing the area’s power, allowing it to surge through me. I force myself to look through the dark gateway at the center of the tree, and I see the hell’s gate in its true form: never-ending emptiness and despair. I feel the priest breaking free, yowling and shrieking, as the darkness pulls him into its gaping maw and to his fate.
With all my might, with thoughts of Okiku in my head as my sanctuary, I take in everything the gate has to offer, absorbing its power. For several moments, I’m sure I won’t survive the onslaught, but I push on and on and on until it has nothing left to give.
I am ruling the gate. The power is so immense that I understand why the kannushi was willing to kill so many people for it, and my head spins at all I could break and bend to my will. I could move mountains, bring down lightning from the sky.
I could be like a god. I could be God.
No, I hear someone whisper in the darkest corners of my mind—the part of me that contains all that’s left of Okiku. It’s enough.
I feel the darkness’s eagerness, its hunger.
I close my eyes. I take the energy channeling through me and wrap it around the malice. It does not expect this and struggles. For an instant, it nearly overwhelms me, its hatred overpowering. But I hold on to my memories of Okiku and slice through the blackness with everything I have.
The resulting backlash tosses me on my butt. A million screams of pure agony ring in my ears as the gaping hole in the tree explodes—and then, like a dark supernova, it abruptly collapses into itself.
***
When the world stops moving, I lift my head and cough out a mouthful of dust. The silkworm tree remains standing, but where it once thrummed with energy, it is now still. Half of its branches are gone, and the silkworm cocoons…
I brush past Kagura, who’s finally achieved some mobility but isn’t quick enough to stop me. I dash toward the silkworms. In the aftermath of the explosion, they’ve scattered and I don’t know which one holds Okiku.
The dagger in my grip, I tear through the nearest cocoon and am rewarded with the faintest whiff of an image—a girl in a peony kimono. Ran Hirano. I move toward the next, the blade flashing quickly. Fujiko Kajiwara. Mineko Kunai.
I find Hotoke Oimikado inside the fourth cocoon, but unlike the others, she doesn’t dissipate. She’s so transparent as to be practically invisible, but she lingers—expectant, anticipating.
The fifth cocoon is empty, but I sense her, that faint scent of eucalyptus, the sensation of morning light on my face.
“No!”
I paw at the silken shell, scavenging for any trace of her, but there is nothing. Okiku is gone.
“No! No, no, no, no!”
I don’t recall much of the minutes that followed, but I remember trying to cradle the bits of the silk threads around me, as if Okiku would return if I held them long enough.
She can’t be gone. There’s no way she could leave me behind with nothing but the memories of what she had to sacrifice for me.
Because it isn’t fair. I didn’t realize the consequences. It’s only now that we’ve won the fight and the aftermath of the ritual has settled over us like dead skin that I feel truly afraid. I have to leave Okiku here with that terrible tree for her tombstone.
It doesn’t deserve her. No grave deserves her.
I hear Kagura calling my name, but I don’t answer. I feel her arms surround me, but I remain rigid and bent. My grief won’t allow for comfort.
I’m crying when she lets me go, taking the ceremonial dagger from my hands. I’m crying as Kagura moves toward the godforsaken tree and slides past the twisted branches and the cobwebs spun across the floor like brittle blankets. I’m crying as she lifts her slender arms, the blade glinting in the unnatural light, and drives it violently into the tree’s rotting trunk. Pools of frothing black gush out. The miko circles the tree, the knife flashing in and out, in and out, scoring new holes into the gnarled surface and spilling more blood.
No longer fattened by the blood of its cocooned prey, the tree succumbs. What is left of its branches thin out, and the bark sloughs off its limbs. Smoke rises from the tips, thatches of kindling consuming the rest of the wood in flame as if it had been nothing but an illusion all along. Within the space of a few minutes, the tree rots away until only a protrusion of stump remains.
And I am crying.
There is movement beside me, and I know who it is. I do not bother to turn around, because I no longer care. But Hotoke Oimikado forces me to look at her. Her fingers are cold, but the magatama glows when she takes hold of it. Fog curls from its center, rising in formless wisps to take a more concrete shape, until the ghost of Kazuhiko Kino stands before me, no longer an old man, but the watchful, defiant boy of his youth. I recall his sunken corpse in the pit. Unlike the other villagers and the ghost-hunter crew, he had not been woven into a cocoon. The magatama might not have saved his life, but at the very least, it kept his soul intact.
The boy turns toward Kagura, who watches him, awestruck. He kneels before her, smiling, and then she starts to weep.
Around me, the cocoons wriggle. Their motions become frantic, desperate.
As we watch, fireflies burst out of their silken prisons, wings whirring, taking flight into the darkness. The tiny fireflies surround me. As one, they venture higher, and I reach out without thinking, my hand knowing what I want before my mind consciously does.
I catch one of the glowing insects in my palm, and Hotoke’s hand moves toward my forehead—
—I am no longer in a dark cave with a dead tree but in some nameless field on a bright morning. I am on my knees, and the silken threads of Okiku’s cocoon that once bound her to me are gone. Fireflies soar overhead. Some stop to nuzzle against blades of grass, bracing against a restless wind. Others bat wings against my cheeks, wiping away the tracks my tears have taken.
Okiku is beside me. She is no longer garbed in death. There is color in her cheeks and brightness in her eyes, and she wears a plain brown yukata. Her face is tilted up, examining the sky with wonder, as if seeing it for the first time and wondering why she never took the time to observe such beauty before.
“Okiku!” I take her hands, but I have a hard time holding on to them. They keep slipping from my grasp, her skin sliding against mine, though she does nothing to pull back, does nothing to push me away.
“It is beautiful here.” Her voice is hushed.
“Yes,” I agree, wishing I could stay with her forever. “Do you remember when I took you firefly hunting in DC? You always loved that.”
“I love any place where you are with me.”
Air fills my lungs—too quickly. I choke, finding the words to say, “Don’t leave me, Ki.”
“I’ve come,” Okiku says, “to say good-bye.”
“No!” Fireflies spin away, startled by my forcefulness. “Okiku, I can’t let you go!”
“I do not want to. But I must.” She’s happy and beautiful, but the regret she always wears about her lingers in her voice. “I cannot stay with
you.”
“I won’t allow it. There has to be a way.”
“It is beyond my control.”
A small procession of people comes into view. I recognize them: Yukiko Uchiyama, no longer malicious but clothed in serenity and white. Like her, the other ghosts are in their bridal kimonos, and their betrothed stand by their sides. The old mother whose skeleton we unearthed in the Hirano house is with her daughter, both with joyous expressions.
Other villagers stream past us, talking and laughing. The burden of the Aitou curse has been thrown off their shoulders, and they are ready to ascend to something better. Hotoke and Kazuhiko trail behind them. They smile at me and Okiku, and then the fireflies surround them, wrapping them in frenzied flight, a hurricane of bright lights and promises that spins faster until their lights blur, a whirlpool of stars.
And then just as suddenly as they came, they slacken and fade.
“Tarquin.” Okiku’s soft, warm lips press against my forehead. She moves lower to kiss my nose, and somewhere in the space between us, my heart breaks.
“I lied,” she whispers. “I am sorry.”
“Lied about what?”
“I know why I do not like her. The girl. She is the life you should have led if I had not been selfish. But it is not too late.” She rests her forehead against mine. “Think of me sometimes—”
—on its knees, the dead body that once knew itself as Okiku weeps bitterly for what life demanded of her, for what she had been unprepared to give.
Something brushes against her forehead. A pulsing brightness streaks past her, and when she raises her head, she sees a multitude of fireflies. Their wings brush against her forehead in gratitude, spinning around her until she is at the center of their maelstrom. They are tiny souls that had been lost, and in their glow, she sees a purpose. She sees a glimpse of the future and the souls she could save. An endless tide of children and innocents, one with a shade of black hair and unusual blue eyes…
She has nothing here.
But for now, she is not alone and that is enough—
The meadow fades to black, until I am hugging the floor of the cave once more. My tears could fill these open spaces soon, for Okiku is gone.
Chapter Nineteen
Unnatural Changes
I don’t remember how we stumble out of that accursed cave and back into the sunshine.
I am aware of Kagura at my elbow, keeping a firm grip to give me balance, and of her curt orders to Riley to do the same on my other side. I know they’re speaking, but I’m not paying attention. Snatches of conversation and “in shock” filter to my ears. They’re surely talking about me, but I find that I don’t care.
I feel strange. I’ve learned to recognize the signs of possession: a feeling of sinking into your own chest, as if something else has laid claim to your insides. Its claws dig into you and sap you of your strength when it goes against your wishes, like the masked woman who lived within me for years. It gives you sudden bursts of energy when you’re a willing partner, the way Okiku always was.
This presence is not being overt, but it’s lying on the edge of my awareness—letting me know it’s there but doing little else. For now.
In the meantime, my body is lead and sweat runs down my face. Once or twice, Kagura commands Riley to stop and checks my temperature and listens for my pulse. Her lips are pursed, but she says nothing each time.
They carry my arms over their shoulders while the rest of my body slumps against theirs, a rag cloth hung out to dry. I’m mindful of us moving past the silkworm hatcheries and their rotting wood, past the houses and their rotting souls. At the back of my mind, I remember that before all of this decay, there were dolls on altars, cared for by those who had been left behind. I remember a diary and a mother’s love.
It’s easy to look around and forget there was life here once. That there was love here.
The gate leading out of the village looms before us. Kagura and Riley fight to pull it open while balancing me between them. As we exit, I start to struggle.
“I can’t, Kagura.” I’ve run out of tears, and I’m short on words. I repeat them over and over, as if saying them enough times will make a difference. “I can’t, Kagura. I can’t.”
As irrational as it sounds, I don’t want to leave her behind.
“I am so sorry, Tarquin-san,” Kagura murmurs gently, “but we have to go.”
They pull through the creaking gate, and we are once more in the thick of the woods. I am weak. In the end, I can do little more than flail and whimper, so the miko gets her way. The ground is spoiled with twigs and rocks, but for all their own injuries, both Kagura and Riley hold me tight and don’t let me fall.
I blank out for a bit. I don’t know how long we wander before we’re found. It starts with a thrum of noise, a series of calls and whistles that penetrate Aokigahara’s silence.
Riley runs madly ahead, whooping and hollering and waving his arms in the air. I blink, and then I am on the ground on my back, and people are lifting me onto a crude stretcher. I can see Kagura being carried on another stretcher despite her protests, and then my vision is full of Callie, who has swooped down from somewhere in the noise to envelop me in a tight hug that robs me of the rest of my breath.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack!” She weeps, our combined weight forcing the medical personnel to lower the stretcher to the forest floor. “Where did you go? Why did you run off like that? I told you never to do anything like that to me again. You liar!”
I can only manage a halfhearted “Callie…” before the men lift me again and carry me through the woods on a babble of excited voices and cheers.
When I wake up next, it is to the sticky-sweet, sanitized smell of the hospital. Callie is huddled at my bed and dozing off, her hands clasped around one of my own, but my faint movement is enough to wake her. She lifts her head, her eyes red-rimmed, but the smile on her face is the widest I’ve ever seen.
“H’llo,” I mumble.
“Hi, yourself.” Callie dashes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You have a cut on your back, but it looks worse than it actually is. They said you’re just mostly exhausted, and they can send you home tomorrow. But they wanted to keep you under observation tonight to make sure you didn’t have any other injuries. Which is why I can do this.” She gives me a light thwack on my nose, a swat one might use to belittle a puppy, and I yelp. “Whatever possessed you to run into the woods like that?”
“I didn’t—”
“You’ve been gone for two days! I thought Auntie was going to have a heart attack. Even Saya joined the search for you. We were all so worried. Every time the rescuers found a body, I kept expecting it to be yours.” A sob bubbles from her throat. “How did you find Kagura? And what happened to the rest of the Ghost Haunts guys?”
Something that doesn’t feel like me coils inside my body, wishing to move, but I force it down. I don’t want to talk about it. “Can we do this some other time?”
She softens. “Oh, of course. I’m sorry, Tark. I got a little wound up. Rest for as long as you want, okay? I’m just…” Her eyes brim up again. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you too, Callie.” I hug her back, grateful for her warmth and her closeness. But a strange burning curls inside me. It’s been plaguing me ever since we left Aitou.
“Is Kagura okay?”
“She’s banged up but mending fast. The doctors are having a hard time getting her to rest. The ghost-hunter guy’s going to pull through too. Search parties are still looking for the others.”
I close my eyes. They can look all they want, but the rest of the ghost-hunter crew will never be found. Guilt comes crawling back. Yet it doesn’t dull the burning that wraps around my insides.
“Don’t worry.” Callie’s tone is encouraging. “I’m sure we’ll find them soon. We can talk later, when you’re better.”
But I don’t get better. Not where it matters most.
As soon as I get a
bit of my strength back, I start pacing in my room. Callie and a nurse come in and badger me into retreating back to the bed. But I can’t sleep. I feel too restless, and I’m not sure why.
I’m discharged from the hospital the next day, and Callie talks me into going back to the Kamameshi Ryokan instead of waiting for Kagura to be released. There, I resume pacing, too restless to do anything else. The news outlets had me pegged as an unimportant member of the search party who got lost, so I’ve been spared the media attention that poor Kagura and Riley are no doubt enduring. I saw Riley being interviewed twice on television but not the miko.
Callie returned to the hospital almost as soon as I’d settled in—to fend off the worst of the news vultures and to look after the miko. There’s nothing I can do but wait. As I pace for hours on end, I stare at the hot spring outside my room, remembering how much Okiku enjoyed the steam and the waters. Every so often, I would turn my head to ask her something, only to realize she’s no longer here. The pain only worsens as time ticks by.
Okiku’s presence is gone, but a strange one remains. I can feel it move. It whispers: we are power.
“Shut up,” I snap, and it does not speak for the rest of the night.
On my second night at the inn, Auntie visits my room. I haven’t told her about all that happened, and I’m pretty sure Kagura hasn’t either. She gently wraps her arms around me.
“I am so sorry for your loss.” I can hear her grief.
Maybe she could infer what had happened from my state of mind or maybe it’s because an affinity for spirits has always been strong in Kagura’s bloodline. Either way, I finally break, crying like a baby against her shoulder at losing Okiku. It’s a good release, and I pull myself together, although I’m probably only a little better off than I had been. Dad calls the next morning, frantic to know if Kagura is all right.
I learn then that Callie has been sneaky, because she didn’t tell him I’d been missing. For his peace of mind, I don’t enlighten him. Because the news says nothing about my and Callie’s involvement but is throwing Kagura’s name around liberally now that she’s been found, I don’t even need to fib too much. I tell him about Kagura’s current condition, playing down her injuries, and promise him that Callie and I are all right.
