Book Girl and the Famished Spirit (18 page)

“But then when you rescued us from the basement, you told Takamizawa to go get the first aid kit and towels. Not go and
look for
, but go and
get.
Isn’t that a strange way to ask for something in a house you’ve never been to before? I assumed you had them in your car, but Takamizawa got a first aid kit and towels from a room on the first floor and started treating me too quickly for that. It seemed like you had a pretty good idea where you could find everything in the house.

“The girl in Hotaru’s class said that a tall man in a suit picked her up in a car. And that people had seen you riding in that man’s car, too, Maki.”

“Was that Takamizawa by any chance? Those crazy rumors about you and Hotaru being rivals started because you were in contact with Hotaru through him, right? You’ve been to that mansion on the hill before, haven’t you?

Tohko peppered her with questions.

“You know, there’s a theory that Nelly skillfully manipulated Heathcliff and Catherine and that it was she who wove together the tragedy in
Wuthering Heights
. That it was all some scheme of hers. If you read
Wuthering Heights
from that perspective, everything takes on a new form. Nelly criticizes Heathcliff to Isabella by asking, ‘Is Mr. Heathcliff a man?… And if not, is he a devil?’ but even he is nothing more than a puppet she manipulated. Nelly watched everything, knew everything, and even occasionally changed the course of the story without anyone realizing it. You were Hotaru’s Ellen Dean, weren’t you, Maki?”

“What if I said I didn’t know?”

Maki looked at Tohko, the smile still on her face.

The wind and rain had abated and the workroom, lit by the fading light of sunset, was filled with a sacred silence. As she stood against the windowsill, Maki’s hair sparkled gold, illuminated by a pure light from outside.

Tohko frowned ever so slightly.

“I wouldn’t believe you. You gave this book girl too many hints, Maki.”

Then Tohko’s face became serenely dignified again, and she returned the book to the shelf. She approached the covered canvases and whisked away the sheet that covered one of them.

Drawn on the long rectangular canvas was the picture I had seen the other day.

It was a hilly landscape at night, slathered in blacks and blues,
looking like a foreign country, like another world. Heavy clouds loomed in the sky, and a harsh wind gusted over the grass and trees, bending them in its wake. I could hear the raging wind and the pounding of the falling rain, stirring my heart up wildly; it was a crazed landscape, heavy and dark, that seemed to bellow.

Tohko stood beside the painting and crisply declared, “This is
Wuthering Heights.
”

Maki closed her eyes in apparent resignation.

“That’s right. I didn’t think you had read
Wuthering Heights
… In any case, that ghost you’re so afraid of originated in that story.”

Tohko had fixed a stern gaze on Maki, but that made her jump and threw her into a panic.

“How did you know I was afraid?”

Maki gave Tohko a look and then winked.

“Because I love you.”

Tohko’s eyes bugged out and she turned red. Then she pouted and looked a little sulky before smoothing her face into something more serious.

“I’m a book girl—I love all the stories the world has to offer. No matter the book, I will taste it and drink it down.”

Maki probably didn’t realize that Tohko wasn’t speaking metaphorically, but in fact meant exactly what she’d said. Maki’s lips twitched into a small smile. It wasn’t her usual haughty smile: This one was kinder and almost lonely.

“I suppose that’s it, then. I underestimated you, book girl.”

Tohko’s face grew gloomy. She scrunched her eyebrows together and her eyes clouded, as if she was suppressing some kind of pain. She moved closer to Maki and asked, “What is Hotaru trying to do? You know, don’t you, Maki? And where is Ryuto?”

Maki replied, “That all-too-feisty boy is being treated at the hospital of one of my grandfather’s friends. He was stabbed nine times in the stomach, but he’s still alive at least.”

When she was small, her mother would often take her by the hand, and they would set out for the mansion on the hill.

The wind never stopped buffeting the house, and the trees surrounding it leaned in odd directions. Whenever she opened her window, the blast of air made her curtains leap up and tore around the room like an unbroken horse in the field, fluttering the pages of a book left on a table.

“The wind is too strong here. Let’s go to the room downstairs,” her mother would say and lead her to the gray room in the basement.

“This is a secret room, but I’ll tell you about it.”

A secret she would share with her mother—her mother’s innocent smile and the sweet, somehow immoral promise in her offer stirred the girl’s heart and made her feel slightly uneasy, as if she was standing on an inescapable precipice.

“I can’t tell Daddy, either?”

“That’s right.”

Her mother rested a thin white finger on her lips.

“A long time ago, Mommy was friends with a little boy, and we used to play in here. We read books and talked to each other and wrote each other letters.”

“You wrote each other letters? But you were in the same room.”

“Yes, we did. We used a secret code that we made up. You can still see it on the wall.”

Her mother pointed at the wall, where a great many numbers were written.

They were like a magic spell, and she pored over each one, whispering them to herself.

“17, 28, 18, 21, 2, 5, 4, 23, 9, 28, 10, 5, 28, 1, 28, 1, 28, 18, 21, 2, 5, 4, 23, 9, 28, 10, 5, 28, 17—10, 5, 23, 21, 10, 24, 21, 8, 28, 22, 5, 8, 21, 12, 21, 8—… What do they mean?”

Her mother chuckled.

“I won’t tell even you that. It’s the secret I share with him. Mommy left a lot of codes at school, too. Maybe if that little boy comes back someday, he’ll see Mommy’s messages.”

“Did he go somewhere?”

“Yes, Mommy made him mad and he went far away, and I don’t know when he’ll come back…”

Her mother spoke sadly and hugged her tightly. Her shoulders trembled and she seemed to be crying, so the girl asked her nothing more about him.

After a while her mother raised her face and stroked the girl’s hair; then she smiled at her with red-rimmed eyes.

“All right, I’ll read you a book. It’s called
The Day Boy and the Night Girl.
The little boy and I liked this book very much.”

Who had this boy been that had made her mother so sad?

If they were such good friends, where had he gone?

One day her mother whispered that she had a secret and showed her a few photographs.

One was of a young boy a little older than herself with light brown hair and eyes like smoky quartz with a slight bluish cast. And then the boy in another one, a little older now, dressed in a middle school uniform.

“Doesn’t he have pretty eyes?”

She thought the boy’s eyes looked very lonely.

And sad, like a stray cat with no friends.

She was sure that he must have loved her mother.

Something in her heart wavered.

It was a puzzling emotion, forlorn and secret like the beating of a waterbird’s wings.

Her father was a kind, peaceful man. Her aunt was beautiful and refined.

They both loved her with all their hearts and showered her with their affection like clear water.

“You look so much like your mother. Your eyes are exactly the same.”

“Yes, your mouth and nose both come from her side. You’re going to be very beautiful when you grow up, just like she was.”

“I’m so proud: My little girl is starting middle school. The uniform suits you. It reminds me of when I first met your mother.”

“I remember how you fell in love with Kayano the very first time you saw her.”

“It’s all right. I have these episodes all the time. I’ll be able to leave the hospital soon. How could I die before I’ve seen you on your wedding day? Your mother was beautiful in her wedding dress. I was so happy when I married her, I thought I might float up into the sky. I’m sure a white dress and veil will suit you just as well.”

“Let me stand in for your mother when the time comes. Okay? Promise your old aunt that.”

“Dinner is ready, miss! You eat up now.”

“Thank you!”

“How is it, miss?”

“It’s very good!”

“I’m glad. There’s plenty left for seconds.”

The loving gazes of her father and aunt.

The kind housekeeper who cooked so well.

The house she grew up in was as warm and unsullied as heaven must be, and her favorite flowers bloomed everywhere in the garden. The wind was gentle and the colorful green leaves of the trees never blew away.

She knew that
he
would have brought a storm to this paradise, would have shaken the trees and plucked apart all the flowers.

So she kept him a secret from her father and her aunt and the kind housekeeper.

She never opened her sketchbook in the house.

His injuries must have still hurt. Ryuto sprawled out in the backseat of Maki’s car, wearing a shirt and pants over the bandages that circled his stomach. He was breathing raggedly.

“Nngh—”

Tohko, Ryuto, Maki, and I were going to Amemiya’s house.

It had grown impenetrably dark outside, and lights flashed in the windows of the car before disappearing.

After Maki admitted to giving Amemiya advice, we had all gone to the hospital where Ryuto was being treated.

Ryuto was in a hospital bed, shouting to be let out. When Tohko saw him, her tension dissolved. She broke down and scrunched up her face as tears welled in her eyes.

Then she walked up to Ryuto, who was staring at her wide-eyed, and whacked him hard on the head with her fist.

“How can you keep making us worry like this all the time?! Your luck isn’t going to save you forever, you know!”

“Owww. But no, I need to get to Hotaru. She’s trying to get revenge on Kurosaki. I have to stop her!”

In the car, Ryuto told us everything that had happened, letting out a groan every so often, his face twisted in agony.

The day Ryuto and I went to Amemiya’s house, Ryuto had held Amemiya while she sobbed, but I couldn’t bear to watch them. After I’d left the estate, Ryuto had urged her to come to his house.

You shouldn’t stay here. I’ll find a place you can live without being scared. Until then, you should stay at my house. My dad’s gone, so it’s just my mom and big sister, and Mom doesn’t care what I do.

“But she got spooked suddenly and pushed me away, and then she started cryin’. She was shakin’ real bad, but she said she couldn’t just leave the house like that without tellin’ anyone. Then she got real worked up and seemed confused. She started babbling about how a ghost was going to come, how she wasn’t supposed to eat anythin’, how she was a ghost, how she’d made a promise to her mom so she had to keep it a secret, how she wasn’t her mom… All kinds of stuff.”

Ryuto’s forehead knit in pain and he groaned. His breathing seemed labored, and he repeatedly sucked in a breath and then hissed it out again, almost panting.

Tohko watched him, her heart breaking.

“Nngh… Durin’ all that, she blurted out that she was gonna get revenge on Kurosaki and that since she’d turned sixteen, she could do it. She said Maki was helpin’ her… Hey, are you the same Maki who told Hotaru that she could get married once she turned sixteen and then Kurosaki wouldn’t be her guardian anymore?”

His eyes clouded with sweat, Ryuto glared bitterly at Maki. Maki regarded her reflection in the windshield with a languid expression. Without turning back to look at him, she replied.

“Yes. I told her that. I said if she was interested, I would find someone for her in the Himekura family. She’s so rich there would be plenty of guys interested in becoming her husband. Of course, I wouldn’t let her do or say anything to Kurosaki. I told her I would protect her and her husband with the prestige of the Himekuras.”

Why had Maki told Amemiya that?

Why would she ally with Amemiya in the first place? How long had she been involved in this situation?

I had a ton of questions, but then when the others started talking about Amemiya getting married, I listened intently so I wouldn’t miss a word they said.

“Yeah, Hotaru mentioned that. She said even Kurosaki couldn’t lay a hand on you. She told me there was no other way for her to be free of him and that it would be her revenge on him.

“I shook her and told her to forget about gettin’ married. I told her I would protect her, but Hotaru wouldn’t listen and she tried to leave. I tried to stop her, and then she… grabbed a piece of broken dish off the floor and stabbed me in the stomach.

“She… apologized when she did it. But not just once. Tears were streamin’ down her face while she apologized, stabbin’ me over and over… Even when I fell to my knees and collapsed on the floor, she kept stabbin’ me. Like she was possessed.”

I could picture the scene vividly. My throat tightened, and my hair stood on end.

Frail, subdued Amemiya, tears pouring from her eyes as she swung a piece of broken dish over her head and brought it down again and again into Ryuto’s stomach as red seeped across it. I couldn’t hold back a shudder.

“… I was right when I guessed she was a dangerous woman. The worst part is that she didn’t gut me because of how she felt about me. Nngh—if she’d stabbed me because she was truly in love with me, then I would have welcomed my death.”

Ryuto smiled bitterly. A moment later, Tohko was yanking on his ear.

“Don’t talk like that! You got off lucky to walk away from getting stabbed that viciously!”

“Owww, Tohko! I’m hurt. Can’t you restrain yourself a little?”

“Since when do you care?!” Tohko pouted, tears welling in her eyes again.

Luckily the shard Amemiya picked up had been a small one, so none of Ryuto’s injuries were life threatening, and when Maki and the others ran in, they had taken him to the hospital.

“Amemiya called me, actually. She told me she’d killed Ryuto and asked me what she should do. She sounded detached. She’s psychologically unbalanced, so she’s in a dangerous state right now. She told me she was starting to forget where and who she was. She couldn’t even remember her name. This is the first time she’s ever stabbed someone, though. It caught me off guard.

“So I had her watched, so something like that wouldn’t happen again. I wanted to move her to an apartment where I could keep an eye on her, but she said she didn’t want to leave that house. And just as I feared, this time she locked you two in the basement and tried to incinerate you.”

Tohko wasn’t surprised; perhaps she’d already dreamed up that possibility. And at this point, I understood that Amemiya was probably capable of pulling off something like that.

Because Amemiya also had the strong and uninhibited Kayano Kujo inside her, who I had met in the chemistry lab.

Maki related the facts in a detached tone.

“As you’ve surmised, Tamotsu Kurosaki is Aoi Kunieda, the boy who lived in Kayano’s home. He died abroad, but he made some money getting mixed up in dirty business, so he bought a new identity and came back to Japan.”

Kurosaki’s objective had been getting revenge against Kayano
for tossing him aside, but Kayano had already passed away by then so he fixed his sights on her daughter, Amemiya.

The disappointment of losing the woman he loved and despised in equal measure, who had been the other half of his soul, must have driven him into a tempest of madness.