by Adam Smith
“She would never,” ponytail hisses “She’d just won the track meet. There was no reason for her to do that.”
I drop my gaze to the floor and take to focusing on the floorboards beneath my feet. Are they talking about that girl I saw? Thought I saw.
“My friend knows someone who went to the same school as her, and that’s what everyone is saying happened,” Bob-cut whispers back, her voice so soft I’m having trouble eavesdropping and translating at the same time. “My friend’s friend’s boyfriend was even there when it happened, and he said no one was anywhere near her. She just jumped.”
“I don’t believe it,” Ponytail’s voice is very forceful.
“Whatever. That’s what I heard though,” Bob-cut states in a very case-closed manner.
The girl with the ponytail falls silent.
They couldn’t possibly be talking about the same girl I saw—thought I saw—from the train. Must be a coincidence. Just my mind searching for proof that what I saw actually happened. That I didn’t imagine the thing I’ve spent the past two weeks trying to convince myself didn’t happen. Maybe I’m reading into something that’s not there. Hell, I don’t even know if what I’m translating is the same as what they’re actually saying. They could be talking about long jump for all I know.
I wait to see if either of the girls is going to say anything more concrete, but neither seems interested in continuing. And it’s not like I can butt in and ask for clarification, so I just sit here gnawing away on my little seed of doubt. Even if they were talking about the girl I saw—thought I saw—would it make me any less crazy? Which is worse thinking I saw a girl get pushed to her death or hoping that a girl got pushed to her death? And if it did happen, what do I do about the person I thought I saw do the pushing? The boy staring at me from the seat next to mine?
Chapter 5
That day went on forever. Lots of classes filled with the teacher speaking, the occasional student being told to speak, more teacher speaking, what little free time I had filled with prying questions I avoided answering until eventually they stopped asking, and tons of note-taking. Tons and tons of note-taking. I don’t even know how to read half of the stuff I copied down. There are like 50,000 kanji, and I’ve never bothered to work on my reading or writing despite Mum’s insistence on it. It’s not my fault I can’t read Japanese, I never saw the point. I just scribble down the symbols and hope I can figure them out later.
What really gets me though is how still and quiet everyone is. Aside from the few murmured conversations that snuck through, everyone was completely silent. Not one person asked the teacher a single question. The vast majority just sat there with deathly serious attention. Not at all like back in Australia. Kind of wish I’d been paying attention like that, rather than spending the whole day replaying that small snippet of eavesdropped conversation over and over again. That, and ignoring a certain blond-haired boy that wouldn’t quit staring at me.
“Finished,” Haruka’s cheery voice snaps me out of my daze, and I look up at her. “We can go now.”
I grip my hands around the broom, still unable to believe that the students are required to clean the classrooms at the end of each day. I breathe a sigh of relief when Haruka takes my broom and locks it away with the rest of the torture implements. Finally home time, I just want to crawl back into bed and sleep ‘til June. “Time to go home?”
She gives a soft laugh, making my cheeks burn. “No, not yet. We have club activities now.”
I force a smile and give a small nod, trying not to let my shoulders slump in the defeated and exhausted way that I’m feeling at the moment. She simply takes a hold of my arm and begins dragging me from the room, without giving me time to complain.
She rushes up the stairs, still with a firm grasp of my arm. I have to take them two at a time just to keep up with her frantic pace. If I trip she’ll probably drag my prone and broken body up these very hard and pointy steps. At the top of the stairs, the noise of people prepping and tuning instruments echoes through the hallway.
“It’s just this way.” Haruka doesn’t even turn to speak to me. She just keeps dragging me.
“So, what exactly are club activities?” I shout at her back, partly to find out what I’m getting myself into, partly in the hopes that Haruka will slow down in order to answer me.
She stops in front of a large wooden door. Inside, I can hear jangled streams of musical instruments being warmed up. “School clubs are an important part of life here in Japan. Grandfather wants you to join a club, and since you said you like to play the drums I thought you’d like to join mine. The music club.”
Haruka looks at me like an expectant puppy waiting for her treat. It takes me a moment of awkward silence to realise she’s waiting for my response. I give her a brief shaky smile and she practically jumps with joy before opening the door and leading me in.
The room is just the same as all the other classrooms I’ve been to except that there are no desks and there’s a pile of instruments—including a drum kit, a keyboard, and several guitars—scattered around the room. On the far side of the room three girls stand around practicing various instruments and talking to each other. One of the girls glances over and hurriedly tosses her bass at the one behind the keyboard as she comes bounding over to greet us.
“Rin-san! You came!” Miki screams in my face as she bounces from foot to foot in front of me. The way the shiny off-white hairband in her hair flashes with each bounce is almost hypnotic. “Haru-chan told me she’d get you to come, but I didn’t believe her! You’re here!”
“Kono-san, knock it off!” the girl playing lead guitar shouts and Miki stops bouncing. For a whole five seconds.
I glance over and recognise one of the other girls standing in the room, the one behind the keyboard carefully setting down Miki’s discarded bass guitar, as the class president, Satomi. She pushes her glasses back up her nose, and gives me a small wave.
“Rin-chan, you already know Miki-chan,” Haruka says leading me into the room. “Over there, by the keyboard, is Tanaka Satomi, our class president, and this is—”
“You’re late, Takahashi-san,” the third girl barks.
“Sorry, bucho. I was just bringing Rin-chan to club. She wants to join,” Haruka apologises before turning back to me. “This is our club leader, Sakura-sempai.”
The girl glares at me over her guitar like I’d just thrown up on her. Her wavy copper-tone hair hangs loosely over the shoulders of her carefully messed school uniform complete with impossibly short skirt—way shorter than school regulations—and tight, two sizes too small, shirt intended to accentuate her curves, which she has plenty of. She shakes her head and places her guitar back in its case.
“Yoshida Sakura.” The girl steps forward, her steely gaze burning holes in me. “Sorry, but we’re not taking applications at this time.”
“But Sakura-sempai!” Haruka gasps. “You’ve been complaining that we need a new drummer ever since Kikuchi-san transferred. Rin-chan can play the drums!”
“We don’t have time to deal with some newbie.” Sakura crosses her arms in front of her chest. “We have to play at the festival next month. We have to be good.”
“But Rin-chan’s really good,” Haruka blurts out.
I want to open my mouth and protest. I don’t really want to do anything that will require actual effort. I never even said I wanted to join to begin with.
“Any idiot can play the drums.” Sakura shakes her head. “Not everyone can play them well.”
That’s it. I’m sick and tired of being told that I’m worthless when I haven’t even done anything yet. I yank open the zipper of my bag and pull out the pair of purple and black drumsticks I always carry with me to help relieve stress.
“Why don’t I just show you, then?” I spit out my response, feeling my cheeks redden at my lame attempt at a comeback. I give one last glance at the glowering older girl before hopping behind the drums.
“Be my guest.” An amused
smirk spreads on her face as if she’s waiting for me to fall flat on my face. I just hope that I don’t, especially after making such a point of it.
* * *
It’s pitch black outside by the time we get home. After proving myself to Sakura, she begrudgingly let me join them for practice—a whole two hours of practice—and then, instead of calling it a day and going home like a sane person would, Haruka tells me we have to go to something called Juku for another two hours, with only a couple of ekiben, train station lunches, for dinner.
Haruka wouldn’t even tell me what Juku was until we got there. Didn’t want to ruin the big surprise. More school! Cram school, to be precise. After a long day at school the last thing I want is more school, but apparently that’s what Grandfather wants me to do for three afternoons a week.
And this isn’t just the place to get help with homework, oh no, this is where we get more lessons and more homework to be completed when we get home. Yeah, like there are enough hours in the day to keep up with this momentum. Yet, that’s what I’m expected to do every Monday, Tuesday, and Friday while I’m living here. Right now all I want to do is curl up in a ball until this all goes away. Why couldn’t we stick to the part where I just sit quietly in Haruka’s room all day? I liked that. Can we go back to that?
When we finally get home I follow Haruka inside and slip off my shoes, hastily stowing them in the little cupboard beside the door, intent on going straight to bed. Or at least collapsing on the floor. Like there’s any difference. The moment I step foot inside, I hear strange mutterings coming from one of the rooms.
Against my better judgement, I open the door and see Grandmother hunched over the kitchen floor muttering to herself. She sprinkles dark powder across the boards at her feet as she moves.
She repeats the same phrase over and over again in a soft muttering, keeping her gaze fixed on the floor. “Little one.”
“What’s she doing?” I ask in a hushed voice to Haruka.
As soon as the question is out of my mouth, Grandmother looks up, a scowl crossing her face. She tosses the rest of the powder in my direction and sneers a new phrase in a louder voice. “Norowaretako.”
Haruka grabs my arm and pulls me out of the room.
“What was that?” As soon as we reach her room, I stare at my cousin demanding answers.
“It’s nothing.” She shakes her head. The way her gaze is darting all over the room suggests that there’s definitely something she’s not telling me. “I’m sure it was nothing.”
“What’s going on? Why’d she throw stuff at me?” I remember the fire in her eyes as she glared at me before chucking the powder.
Haruka pauses for a few moments, her lips pursed in a thin line before speaking. “Don’t worry about it, Grandmother’s always been a bit meishin.”
“What does meishin mean?”
“Superstitious,” she says after a pause, in clear brisk English.
“Oh,” I’m still not sure what’s going on with Grandmother. If she’s superstitious, then why is she taking it out on me? “So, what does that have to do with me?”
“It’s nothing.” She drops her gaze to the floorboards and shuffles over to the closet. She busies herself with setting up my bed, not once looking back at me. “I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you.”
“Please, if it’s something I’m doing, I have to know.” I don’t want to beg, but I really don’t like having things thrown at me for no reason.
She shakes her head. “It’s not you. Not really. Grandmother used to believe we had a spirit living with us, bringing us luck, then one day, about ten years ago, it suddenly vanished,” she lowers her voice to a whisper. “She believes, even though we’ve moved houses since then, that until it returns our entire family is cursed with bad luck.”
“What does any of that have to do with me?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this. Grandfather thinks your moving back might have provoked her.”
“Provoked her? How?” What on earth could I have done that would make the old woman snap? I’ve barely seen her in all the time I’ve been here. Grandfather did tell me not to go near her, but this? Is the crazy gene hereditary? Is that what is happening?
“I shouldn’t have said anything. Why don’t you go wash up so we can get started on our homework?” she clamps up, quickly changing topic.
“Aren’t you going to tell me why?”
“I wonder which subject we should start with? Dore dore.” She makes a big show of getting her books from her bag, clearly pretending our conversation never happened.
I sigh and leave the room, giving Haruka one last final glance. She keeps her head down, focusing intently on each book like the fate of the world hangs in the balance. If no one wants to tell me what’s going on I guess I’ll just have to go find out for myself.
“Why is Haruka-nee-chan acting weird?” Misa pops up behind me from wherever it is she wanders off to when she gets bored. “Is it because the old woman is throwing ash everywhere?”
Ash?
I give a slight shrug. I have no idea why anyone in this family is doing anything. What could I possibly have done to ‘provoke’ Grandmother? Why does Grandfather think it’s my fault? And why is it that no one ever gives me a straight answer? I want to go home.
“I think it has something to do with me,” Misa says in a soft voice.
I suppress a shudder, but don’t speak until I enter the bathroom. Closing the door, I lock it behind me and turn to face Misa. “What do you mean by that?”
“I think it’s because she knows I’ve returned.”
“That’s impossible.” I shake my head. “You are imaginary. Not real. Just like everyone has been telling me since I was nine. Mum, Dad, the doctors. Everyone.”
She takes a step back. “I’ve never been imaginary, and no amount of pretending will get rid of me.” And, on that, she runs out of the bathroom. Straight through the closed door.
Chapter 6
“Rin, I need to see you in here,” Grandfather’s stern voice calls out to me as I reach the bottom of the stairs on my way down to breakfast.
My feet freeze and I have the terrible feeling I’m not going to be able to make them move towards his room. I haven’t had much sleep thanks to another repeat performance of that freaking nightmare, and frankly the man scares the crap out of me. Almost as much as those glowing red eyes I keep seeing. He didn’t exactly give me a warm welcome, and he barely even speaks to me when it comes time for my medication each night. I get the sense this meeting isn’t so he can give me a puppy. Why me?
Taking a deep breath, which breaks into a long yawn, I wipe my sweaty palms on my school skirt and turn around, urging my legs forward as I make my way to his study. I really don’t need a lecture this morning.
He sits on the cushion in the same position I’ve found him in every other time he’s wanted to see me. It makes me wonder if he sleeps like that. As I approach him, he indicates for me to take a seat on the cushion opposite him. As usual.
Sitting down with my legs bent underneath me, I wait for the teardown I’m sure he’s about to give me to begin.
“I thought you understood the house rules,” Grandfather begins, turning his steely gaze towards me.
I nod. I think I’m doing everything he said. I spent my entire two weeks of purgatory carefully avoiding him and everyone else. And now I’ve started going to school and am doing everything he’s wanted. I can’t think of a single rule I’ve broken—yet.
“And here you are disobeying me already.”
“But, I haven’t —”
“Don’t you dare lie to me,” his voice is abrupt, putting emphasis on ‘dare’, and he doesn’t take his gaze off me. “I thought I made it clear that you were to stay away from your grandmother.”
Is this about the powder thing? I go to open my mouth to object, but close it again realising any argument I make will probably be used against me.
“How dare you antagonise your grandmot
her like this,” his voice now louder. The tone stable and authoritative sends a shiver down my spine.
“I... I... What?” I stammer like a mouse cornered by a cat as I try to grasp the correct words to say.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t rearrange the kitchen cupboards last night,” his voice thunders around the small room.
I force myself not to cringe away from him as my jaw locks shut. Even if I did open my mouth I have no idea what I would say anyway. As far as I know I’ve never even set foot inside the kitchen, so why the hell am I being blamed for this?
“This is the last time I will tell you this. Stay away from your grandmother,” he says, not taking his gaze off my face. “And I don’t want to hear of you playing any more of these little games. Nothing you do is going to result in you getting sent home.”
After a moment of silence, and aware that he’s not going to continue until I give some sort of acknowledgement to what he’s just said, I give a slow nod. I’m pretty sure fighting with him is not a good idea, so agreeing with him is my only option—for now.
“Go have breakfast so you will not be late for school.” Grandfather stares past me as if I’m beneath his notice. Our discussion is over.
I give another nod before pushing myself to my feet and making my way out of the room, but instead of heading towards the dining room, I head up to Haruka’s room. It’s empty, she’s probably down having breakfast with the rest of the family by now, something I’m supposed to be doing right now. Throwing myself on her bed, I let out a frustrated scream into her pillow.
“I’m sorry, Rin,” Misa’s soft voice calls out from behind me.
“You! Why would you do something like that? How could you do something like that?” I blink at the tiny girl standing in front of me. It doesn’t make sense. Misa’s only a figment of my imagination, it would be impossible for her to actually move something. I’m the one imagining her—aren’t I? I guess I could have done it, but why? Geez, maybe I am nuts. I don’t know what to believe anymore.
