A Winter of Ghosts (8 page)

"Your friend Ren has beenfound alive. Other than frostbite, it appears he will be all right."

Kara's throat closed on her nextquestion. She could not even put voice to it. Seeing this, Miho spoke for her.

"What about Hachiro?" she asked.

The policeman's eyes went coldonce more. "There is still no trace of him. And according to the officerwho found him, Ren cannot help them. He has no memory of anything that hasbefallen him since the blizzard began."

Kara lay on her side in bed andgazed longingly at her acoustic guitar, which sat bathed in moonlight on itsstand across the room. Sleep felt very far away tonight. Her head ached and herheart hurt, both crammed full with far too many worries. Strangely, she did notfeel afraid, only a little lonely. Her father slept in the next room and herfriends were not far away, but in the darkness of her bedroom, she always feltalone.

Back in the spring, when she hadbeen afflicted with terrifying dreams of dead girls with no faces and cats withdarkly intelligent eyes, she had sometimes longed for home. The life she hadknown, the friends she had grown up with, were so far away. Her mother wasburied back in Medford, Massachusetts, not far from the house she had lived inall of her life until she and her father had moved to Japan.

But though she still missed thatplace, it wasn't home anymore. Her father was here. Sakura and Miho were thebest friends she had ever had. And Hachiro. . she had fallen in love withhis kind eyes and gentle spirit. Yet in spite of her happiness whenever she waswith him, she had still felt herself holding part of herself back whenever shehad been with him, knowing that she would have to leave one day.

Oh, Hachiro. .

Her hands yearned for the feelof her guitar. All of the emotions bottled up inside of her needed release, andmusic could do that for her. It always had. She could play a song, somethingfull of love and anguish. She needed to play. To sing. It was like pulling downa wall between who she was on the outside and what she felt on the inside.

Kara and the girls had spenthours doing research on Yuki-Onna, first online and then at the library, butcome up with very little that seemed helpful. There seemed to be dozens ofvariations on the story, many of which had filtered into modern incarnations. Sheappeared in films and role-playing games and in stories and plays. Variouslegends portrayed her as a blood-sucking, vampiric witch or a demon, but inothers she seemed almost benevolent, or little more than a ghost herself,appearing during the first snow of the year like Jack Frost.

Miho had taken copious noteswhile Sakura had flipped through books, searching for something that would givethem some clue as to how to protect themselves. When they were sick of looking,the found a small storybook of Japanese folktales. Cover frayed and faded,published in 1913, it included the Yuki-Onna story that Miss Aritomo had toldthem about the Woman in White inhabiting the remains of a woman who had frozento death in the first snow of winter, but it told them little that they did notalready know.

At half past three, with the skyalready dimming toward the early winter darkness, they had left the library andhurried back to campus, hoping to see Ren, only to be turned away by MissKaneda, who insisted that they not intrude. Ren's parents had been with himsince the early morning and they had asked not to be disturbed. As far as MissKaneda knew, he had not regained any of his memory of what had transpired onTakigami Mountain.

Walking home from the dorm, Karahad seen Mr. Yamato exiting the school with a couple she recognized from photosas Hachiro's parents. They looked lost, cast adrift from the moorings of theirlife, and she wanted to go to them and try to lend them some comfort, to assurethem that their son would be all right — she would not allow herself toconsider another alternative. But Hachiro had told her they weren't thrilledwith the idea of him dating a gaijin girl, and she suspected that any wordsfrom her would give them no comfort at all.

So she kept walking.

Now she lay in bed, staring atthe moonlight washing over her guitar. She could almost imagine she heard asingle chord of music resonating in the room. Her pulse throbbed in hertemples. The clock read 2:27 a.m. Kara desperately needed to sleep but she didnot want to close her eyes. It seemed to her that as long as she remained awakeand thinking of Hachiro, he was not completely alone out there on the mountain,in the cold.

Ren survived a night on themountain
, she told herself.
Hachiro will be all right. They'll find himin the morning.

Had Ren seen Yuki-Onna? Had thewinter witch done something to them?

Her thoughts raced. Hachiro wasstill missing, but Mr. Yamato had ordered students to return to classestomorrow. How could anyone focus on learning anything? How could they act likeit was over? Yes, Sora was dead and Ren had come back, but Hachiro was stillout there on the mountain!

Kara sighed. Sleep seemed evenfurther away. The longer she lay in bed, the more agitated she grew, and shehad only a few hours before she would have to get up to get ready for school.

Frustrated, feeling the staccatobeat of her heart in her chest, she threw back her covers and got out of bed. Shelooked in what she thought was the direction of Takigami Mountain, wishing shecould see it from here. That would make her feel closer to Hachiro, which wasall she wanted right now.

In her faded Negima t-shirt andflannel pajama pants, she shuffled to the window and bent to look outside,hoping to see even the mountain's peak. But the angle was all wrong. All shecould see was the houses on her street, bleached white in the moonlight, andthe tops of some of the taller buildings in the city in the distance.

She started to draw back intothe room, but froze as she caught a glimpse of motion. A pale figure passed infront of a house diagonally across from Kara's, headed toward the trainstation.

Kara's mouth went dry. Sheblinked, moving to get a better look. The man had his back to her, but hissilhouette seemed to shift as though ticking in and out of focus. He turned hishead and for a moment she thought he would look back at her, but his face waslost in shadows.

The figure flickered, nearlytransparent for a moment, then solid once again. Another ghost on the streetsof Miyazu City.

Her whole body began to trembleand she shook her head. The height, the build, the thick, unruly hair.

Hachiro?

F
orgetting the winter, Kararushed from her room and down the short hall, through the living room, and tothe front door. She unlocked the door and flung it open, letting in a blast offrigid wind. The door banged against the wall but by then she was alreadystepping out onto the stoop and then onto the sidewalk.

The January night embraced herwith fingers of ice, cutting deeply. Her teeth chattered and her skin prickledwith gooseflesh. Her thin t-shirt and pajama pants did nothing to protect herfrom the winter. A gust of wind whispered past her and she hugged herselfagainst the cold. The frozen street hurt the soles of her feet.

She ignored it all.

The ghost had paused a moment,just out of reach of the gloomy yellow light thrown by a streetlamp. It seemedalmost to be waiting for her, but did not turn to look at her. Instead itglanced up at the night sky, head tilting as though it searched the stars forsome vital truth that had eluded it.

Then it started toward the trainstation again.

"No!" Kara said,barely hearing her own voice.

She bolted down the street, barefeet slapping the frigid pavement, stumbling a bit when she stepped on a rock. Herface felt flushed despite the deep chill settling into the rest of her body. Herbreath plumed from her lips, drifting away behind her as she ran, and her legsfelt like brittle sticks that might snap out from under her. Still she ran,lungs burning with cold, heart clenched along with her fists.

Cold heart
, she thought.
Gotto keep a cold heart
.

She kept her lips pressedtogether in a tight line, refusing to let herself feel, but she could not stopher mind from rushing into dark places.
Please don't be Hachiro
. And atthe same time, her thoughts spiraled along other avenues. This was the secondghost she had seen, but who else had seen them? Wakana, Hachiro, and Miho. Allof them people who had previously been touched by the supernatural. Not justKyuketsuki's curse — the curse didn't affect Wakana — but peoplewho'd had their eyes opened to the things lurking behind the curtain of theworld. Had that given them some kind of sight, enabled them to see thingsothers could not? Or was it all coincidence? Or were there people who had seenghosts that she just didn't know about yet?

A block from the train station,Kara stumbled to a halt, feet painfully cold and raw. She looked around, panicsurging, but did not see the ghost. Up ahead, an old man with a white beardrode a bicycle toward her. Truly peculiar at going on three o'clock in the morning,but he was no ghost. Just strange.

No
, she thought. And thenshe said it aloud.

"No. I can't not know,"she whispered into the winter night, each word a wisp of icy breath. And nowher trembling had nothing to do with the cold. She'd tried to make her heartturn to ice but her breath began to hitch and her lower lip quivered and shehated to cry, hated how weak and foolish it made her feel.

"Kara!"

She turned.

The old man's bicycle squeakedas it approached, but she had her back to him now, looking back the way she'dcome. Her father must have heard her, for he had come out after her. He woreslippers, a white t-shirt, and sweatpants, and a giddy, frazzled part of hermind realized that the two of them must seem just as peculiar to the old man onhis bicycle as he did to her, that anything might happen in the small hours ofthe night, and every street, and every night, was a quietly bizarre midnightcircus.

"Kara!" her fathercalled again, concern in his voice. Even fear. And why not, given all they hadbeen through.

But she could not focus on herfather.

The ghost stood between them. Somehowshe had passed right by it without noticing. Moonlight and shadow made it seembarely there and even as she watched it faded further, slipping into nothing,vanishing. But she had seen its face and it was not Hachiro.

Tears did come, then, but theywere tears of exhaustion and relief in equal measure.

And then her father was thereand he pulled her into his arms.

"Sweetie, what are youdoing?" he asked. "You scared me, running out like that. Are youokay?"

They both jumped, startled bythe sound of a bicycle bell as the old man rode by. The tension inside Karabroke like a wave on the sand and she laughed, heart still pounding. But thatrespite lasted only a moment, the presence of the ghost so fresh in her mind.

"Did you see him?" sheasked, staring into her father's eyes.

She expected a look ofconfusion. Instead, his concern turned to uneasiness.

"I think I did," hesaid. "Just for a second, when I was running after you, I thought youweren't alone, that there was someone in the street with you."

He's been touched by thesupernatural, too
, she thought. The Hannya had nearly killed him.

"A ghost," she said.

"But it wasn't. .?"

"No," she saidquickly. "It wasn't Hachiro."

Her father took that in, thenlooked at her more closely. "God, you don't even have shoes on. You'regoing to get frostbite. Come on, let me carry you back."

Kara frowned. "I'll befine. Let's just hurry. It's freezing out here."

Knowing how cold Hachiro must beup on that mountain, she would not let this brief exposure get to her. Or soshe thought. By the time they were halfway back to the house, her feet were sonumb that they felt like blocks of wood. Kara's father insisted that she lethim carry her, and she went along with it gladly. Thin as he was, Rob Harperwas still strong enough to lift his daughter in his arms.

For the first time in days, shefelt safe.

All through Wednesday morning,Kara felt as though she was holding her breath. School felt surreal. Why werethey here? Books and pencils, notes and quizzes. How could they all go on withthis ridiculous pantomime of normality? Miho kept glancing back at her with sadeyes, and Kara knew she was worried. Kara loved her for it, but Miho could notcomfort her.

Outside the windows, snowflakesdanced on gusts of January wind. She had woken this morning to a light coat ofnew fallen snow across Miyazu City. The white swirl looked beautiful over theturgid surface of the bay, but the sight of it had made her feel like throwingup.

She should be on the mountainwith Hachiro. Searching for him. Just sitting here, all she wanted to do wasscream.

It had taken her no time at allto get used to the Japanese system, in which the students remained in theirhomerooms all day and the teachers moved from class to class. Ordinarily shethought it a much more sensible way of doing things, but today she would havegiven anything to be able to get up out of her seat. Her eyes burned from lackof sleep and her head felt stuffed with cotton. Teacher after teacher enteredthe room and droned on, but to her they sounded like the adults in old CharlieBrown cartoons, their voices an unintelligible drone.

The seat in front of her wasempty. Sora's seat. She wondered what would happen to it. No one would want tosit there and the empty seat seemed forbidding, a constant reminder of hisdeath. Hours ticked by. At lunchtime, Kara turned away so she would not evenhave to look at it. She decided to talk to Mr. Sato at the end of the day andask if he could just have the desk removed.

The afternoon crept by even moreslowly than the morning. Several times she found herself nodding off. When herfather came in to teach his American Studies course, she tried her best to stayalert, but kept rubbing her eyes. He couldn't help but notice. Several times itseemed he was about to say something, but then he stopped himself. Kara knewthat he would be worried that it would be improper for him to interrupt classjust to ask her if she was all right, and she was glad. The conversation shewanted to have with him — needed to have with him — would have towait until school was over.

As she drifted between sleep andwakefulness, feeling a bit sick to her stomach from struggling to stay conscious,she thought of ghosts. Hachiro had seen Jiro, shoeless, on the train intoMiyazu City back at the beginning of this horror. Kara studied the back of Miho'shead and from time to time she glanced over at Mai, who sat in the front of theroom by the window, and she wondered.

The ghosts had to be connected.

Her father and Miss Aritomo wereworrying like mad, trying to figure out how to hide the girls from Yuki-Onna. Yesterdaythat quest had been a useful diversion, helping her keep her mind off of Hachiroat least part of the time. But today, she couldn't care less about the curse ofKyuketsuki. What the winter witch might do to her meant nothing — notwith Hachiro still missing.

No, she had to solve this. Figureout the mystery. They still didn't know for sure that it was even Yuki-Onnathey were dealing with. But with the woman who'd frozen to death on themountain and the way her haka had been disturbed, her ashes removed, it sureseemed to match the legend.

So why had Sora been killed, butRen still lived? Why was Hachiro still missing? What did the Woman in White doto them? And what did the ghosts have to do with anything? Studying the back ofMai's head, thinking of Wakana seeing the ghost of Daisuke, she fell asleep.

The bell woke her with a start. Shesat up, sucking in a ragged breath, her heart slamming in her chest. None ofher tension had eased. She still felt like she could not exhale. Kids weremoving all around her, rising from their desks, some of them muttering abouthow Mr. Yamato should not have resumed classes so quickly after Sora's death,and with Hachiro still missing. Kara agreed, though some of those she heardseemed to be complaining more because they wanted additional days off thanbecause they hadn't felt ready to focus on school again.

Another major adjustment in themove to Japanese education had been the tradition of
o soji
. Monju-no-Chieschool employed maintenance staff to do repairs and things, but the basiccleaning of the premises was conducted every day by the students themselves. Afterthe final class and before club meetings began, they swept the floors, took outthe garbage, cleaned the boards, washed windows in need of attention, andperformed many other tasks. While it had taken some getting used to, Kara nowprided herself on the results of o soji, pleased to leave the school as cleanas they had found it.

She caught up to Mr. Sato in thecorridor, a trash bag in each hand.

"Sato-sensei," shesaid, "could I speak with you for a moment?"

He gave a tiny bow of his head."Of course."

Kara asked him about moving Sora'schair and the teacher agreed that it should be removed, but expressed concernthat it not be done so quickly that some of Sora's friends might take offenseand think they were attempting to erase the boy's memory. Mr. Sato decided hewould move the desk himself while the school was closed over the weekend. Twomore days with it in the classroom would not be intolerable.

"Sensei, there is somethingelse."

Mr. Sato frowned, his eyebrowslike furry gray caterpillars above his eyes. His glasses seemed too small forhim, suddenly.

"What is it, Kara?"

"When you found Ren, hereally didn't remember
anything
?"

The teacher stood up stiffly,what little expression he had shown vanishing. "I'm sorry, Kara. It is notproper for me to speak with you about this. I know you are concerned for — "

"Sensei, please. Did he
say
anything? Anything at all?"

Mr. Sato seemed to deflate alittle. He glanced around to be sure they were not overheard.

"He said 'thank you,' manytimes. Nothing more than that until long after we had come down from themountain," Mr. Sato said. Then he lowered his gaze, hesitating.

"What?" Kara prodded.

"Nothing," Mr. Satosaid. "He barely seemed to realize I was there at first."

"But he thanked you."

"It was almost as if hewere talking to someone else," the teacher said. "That is what I amtrying to explain to you, Kara. He was delirious. If Ren knows anything aboutwhere we might find Hachiro, he cannot yet remember it. We must hope that hismemory will return."

Kara dropped her gaze, lost inthought. If Ren hadn't been thanking Mr. Sato, who had he been thanking?

"Is there something else?" the teacher asked.

"No, sensei," shesaid. "Thank you."

And she hurried away, trash bagsin hand, wishing that she could confront Ren at that very moment. According toKara's father, Mr. Yamato had offered to let the boy's parents take him homefor the rest of the week, but Ren insisted that he would be all right andwanted to stay at school. He had not come to class today, but perhaps tomorrow,according to Sakura.

Kara needed to talk to him. Somehow,she had to make him remember.

As she hurried down thecorridor, she spotted Mai and Wakana coming out of the girls' bathroom withcleaning supplies. Mai carried herself with an air of superiority that madeWakana seem to fade into the background, though in many ways she was prettierthan her roommate. She had kinder eyes, her hair lighter and more suited to thewarmth of her features. Mai had once been quiet like Wakana, and had smiledmore, then. But now that she was Queen of the Soccer Bitches, her arrogancemade her striking, if not pretty.

The two girls were whispering toone another about something when Kara walked up.

"Can I talk to you two fora minute?"

Mai and Wakana looked up at her,both troubled, but then Mai turned chilly, almost sneering at her.

"Bonsai," she said."What do you want?"

Kara bristled. "Not thatattitude, that's for sure. I thought we were past this. You don't have to likeme, Mai, but we have shared interests. We had a truce. What is your problem?"

As she spoke, Mai grew more andmore rigid and obviously uncomfortable.

"I thank you, bonsai, forgiving me permission not to like you," Mai said, even more haughtily.

Kara threw up her hands. "Youknow what? Sora's dead and Hachiro's still missing. You might hate me, but Ithought you might actually care, but I guess I was — "

Mai narrowed her gaze, loweringher voice. "We do care, you stupid girl."

Wakana squirmed withawkwardness, glancing past Kara, who turned to see what she was looking at andsaw Emi and Kaori sweeping the corridor three doors down from them. The girlswere unmistakable, Emi with her square glasses and Kaori with her perfectathlete's build.