A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) (11 page)

She leaned her forehead against
the window, staring out at the bay across the street, and the cold glass numbed
her skin. Sadness threatened to overwhelm her. She could so easily crawl back
into bed and succumbed to her fear for Hachiro and her guilt at leaving him
behind.

But he would still be lost.

No, something had to be done. A
glance at the clock told her it was just after eight o'clock. Searchers would
already be starting up the mountain, spreading out, looking behind every tree
and in every hollow. The urge to be among them, to be up on that mountain
looking for him herself, was powerful. But if she believed there was something
other than nature at work here — and she could not deny it seemed
probable — then the best way for her to help him was to figure out what,
exactly, that might be, and figure out how to combat it.

When impossible things had first
begun to happen to her — terrifying, supernatural things — she had
felt more alone than she ever had before. But slowly others began to get
involved, to learn the truth, and now Kara did not have to face this by
herself.

Pulling on a robe, she left her
bedroom. In the kitchen she found her father and Miss Aritomo embracing, Yuuka's
cheek pressed against his chest as if she were listening to his heartbeat. Kara
froze, hating to disturb their intimacy, but as she began to take a step
backward a creaking floorboard gave her away and her father looked up.

"Good morning, sweetheart,"
he said, as he and Miss Aritomo broke their embrace.

"Sorry to interrupt,"
Kara said sheepishly.

"You're not interrupting,"
Yuuka said, smiling. "You live here, remember?"

Kara returned her smile. Once
she had thought of Miss Aritomo as an intruder, but now she liked it when she
was with them. Kara knew she would never be able to think of Yuuka as her
mother, even if her father ended up marrying her, but she felt a certain
comfort when the three of them were together. It felt like family.

They had breakfast together and
Kara helped them clean up afterward. By the time she had showered, dressed, and
dried her hair, Mr. Yamato had arrived and Miho and Sakura were both there,
helping to set out cups for tea. In the eyes of her friends she saw her own
fears reflected back at her. They were all suffering from frayed nerves, and so
there was little of the usual polite chatter as they waited for the final
attendee to arrive for the meeting Mr. Yamato had called.

After the events the past spring
that had led up to Kara and her friends being cursed by Kyuketsuki, she had
been astounded by the utter incompetence of the Miyazu police. They seemed to
have an absurd explanation for every inexplicable thing and to willfully ignore
any information that would have cast those explanations in doubt. Only after their
encounter with the Hannya in the early fall did she realize that the police
were not stupid, they were simply deceitful.

The Miyazu police had understood
that supernatural forces were at work in their city, and they had worked to
cover it up as completely as possible, swearing to secrecy everyone involved
with Monju-no-Chie school who knew anything about it. And Mr. Yamato had
supported those efforts completely. They police did not want to terrify the
people unnecessarily, or to lose face by publicly acknowledging something that
many would never believe, and for which they would be mocked without mercy. Mr.
Yamato merely wanted to make sure the parents of his students did not panic and
withdraw their children from the school.

As long as there was no danger,
they demanded silence and secrecy.

But now Sora was dead, and Mr.
Yamato was no fool. The boy had been frozen solid in the middle of a freak
snowstorm, and there had been talk of ghosts, which must have gotten back to
him as well. Kara assumed her father had told the principal about the ghosts. They
had all vowed to inform him and the police if they encountered anything
remotely supernatural, anything that might indicate that Kyuketsuki's curse had
drawn yet another evil entity to Miyazu City.

And now . . . ghosts.

At half past nine, on the dot,
the doorbell rang. Her father answered the door and led the policeman into the
dining room to join them. Tea had not yet been served; they had been waiting
upon this grim man. They had all met Captain Nobunaga before, but he did not
greet them as friends. The policeman gave them a small, formal bow and waited
to be invited to sit. His uniform was crisp, his graying hair clipped short,
and his lips seemed eternally pursed in an expression of disapproval. He and
his colleagues in the Miyazu City police department did not enjoy having any
open discussion of such things as ghosts and curses, which was likely why the
meeting was being held here, in the Harper home, and why the captain had come
alone.

Over tea, the girls told the
story of the previous day's storm. Kara told Captain Nobunaga what Hachiro had
told her about seeing Jiro's ghost, and about the apparition of Sora that she
and Miho had seen on the mountain the day before, and how she had been certain
that the boy was dead, even then. Though she felt embarrassed at showing the
depth of her feelings for Hachiro in front of the principal and the policeman,
she revealed her belief that Hachiro and Ren were alive. If they were dead, she
suspected that their ghosts would have appeared as well.

Miho related the news that
Wakana believed she had seen Daisuke's ghost on the mountain, just before the
storm. Sakura remained strangely quiet during all of this storytelling, but
when Kara shot questioning glances in her direction, she only nodded for them
to continue.

When all of the tales had been
told, that shifting, nervous silence returned to the house. No one seemed to
want to begin to dissect what they had learned or to be the first to suggest
explanations. Captain Nobunaga glanced around at each of them in turn, letting
his gaze linger on Kara for a moment, and then he turned to Mr. Yamato.

"Has anything happened to
directly link these 'ghosts' — if that is what they were — to the
curse of Kyuketsuki?" the policeman asked, his words clipped and sharp.

Mr. Yamato gave a single shake
of his head. "No."

"Not yet," Miss
Aritomo added, her voice firm.

Kara loved her for that. The
police were so used to denying things they did not want to have to deal with,
but Yuuka had no intention of letting the captain explain this all away.

"With all due respect,
Captain," her father added, "you asked us to keep you informed
whenever anything . . . unnatural . . . occurred."

Captain Nobunaga nodded. "Yes,
Harper-san. But other than these 'ghost sightings,' there is no indication that
anything supernatural is at work here. The young man, Hachiro, saw a boy who
looked like his dead friend on the train. He was apparently half-asleep at the
time."

"But Kara and Miho both saw
—" Sakura started, angrily.

Mr. Yamato shot her a hard look
that silenced her. Her rudeness reflected poorly on him as her school
principal, whether the captain had earned it or not.

"They were and exhausted
and already had the suggestion of ghosts in their minds from the story Hachiro
had told them," the policeman said. Then he waved a hand in the air as
though erasing the words. "I assure you, I am not entirely discounting the
possibility of a supernatural explanation for all of this. I simply think we
cannot assume one exists without further exploration."

"What of the storm?"
Professor Harper asked. "I know that violent changes in weather and freak
storms are not unheard of, but those of us who were on the mountain yesterday
felt
something."

Kara shot her father a look. This
was new information. He must have talked to Mr. Yamato and Miss Aritomo about
it, but had not mentioned it to her.
Protecting me
, she thought, both
loving him for it and frustrated with him at the same time.

"A feeling is not evidence,
Harper-san," Captain Nobunaga said. "And even if the girls did see
ghosts, that does not mean that what happened on the mountain is supernatural. The
boys were lost in a blizzard. The one you have found, Sora, is already the
second to die in such a fashion this winter."

Kara realized he was talking
about the woman who had frozen to death in the first storm of the season. She
glanced at Miho and Sakura and saw that they had both reacted to the captain's
words.

"Could her death be
related?" Kara asked.

"How do you mean?" the
policeman said.

Mr. Yamato quietly cleared his
throat. "Captain, it does seem a bit unusual. I have lived in Miyazu City
for a quarter century and have never heard of anyone freezing to death in a
snowstorm, on a mountain or otherwise."

The principal glanced at Miss
Aritomo. "Some of us have encountered demons before. That is why we are
here together now, after all. And there are winter demons, are there not? Spirits
of ice and snow?"

Miss Aritomo began to nod, and
then her eyes widened.

"What is it, Yuuka?" Kara's
father asked worriedly.

The woman's gaze dropped. "I
can't believe it didn't occur to me before," she said, and then looked up
at Mr. Yamato. "But you've already guessed, haven't you?"

The principal cocked his head,
studying her. "There are many different legends, stories about various
spirits. But I was thinking of one in particular, yes. These boys have gone
missing in a snowstorm. How could I not think of the childhood stories I read
about Yuki-Onna?"

Kara frowned. She had never
heard the name before. But it seemed obvious to her that Sakura and Miho knew
it well. They looked confused and then almost amused.

"Yuki-Onna is only a story,"
Sakura said.

"So was the Hannya,"
Mr. Yamato replied.

Kara thought they all shuddered
at that.

"What is Yuki-Onna?"
she asked. "I don't . . . can one of you tell me, please?"

To her surprise, it was her
father who spoke. "I've read the story, or one version of it, at least. Yuki-Onna
is the Lady of the Snows. She's sometimes referred to as a witch or a demon —"

"Like in
The Snow Queen
,"
Kara said.

"She is a popular figure in
Japanese stories," Miss Aritomo said, her eyes haunted, her face pale, as
though she might be sick at any moment. "But my favorite version of her
tale is one of the rarest, an ancient story in which a woman is killed by the
winter's first snow —"

Kara gasped. "Oh my God."

Miss Aritomo nodded and went on.
" — and the spirit of winter joins its essence with the ghost of the
dead woman, inhabiting her corpse and transforming it from within to become Yuki-Onna,
the Lady of the Snows. The Woman in White."

They were all staring at her as
if entranced, and Kara realized that none of them had known this variation on
the legend.

The policeman broke the trance,
rising quickly to his feet. He pulled out his cell phone and hit a single
button, speed-dialing.

"This is Captain Nobunaga. Send
someone to the family grave of Etsoku Reizei immediately," he said into
the phone, turning to regard the others in the room. Kara thought even the
captain's eyes look haunted.

"Why?" he said. "Tell
him I want to know if the urn containing her ashes is still there."

Mr. Sato had spent his entire
life striving for an inner peace and balance that would make his parents proud.
At forty-seven years of age, he had found purpose in moderation and attempted
to be a model of tranquility and proper behavior for his students. Once,
several years before, he had overheard two students conversing about him; one
of them had remarked that he was as difficult to fluster as the guards at
England's Buckingham Palace. Though they had been mocking him, there had also
been a sense of wonder in their voices, and he had been proud of that. The best
way to lead, he had always believed, was by quiet example.

It was a very good thing his students
were not with him on Takigami Mountain this morning.

His feet still hurt from the
frigid temperatures and hours of searching from the previous day. He had not
been dressed warmly enough for the blizzard and its aftermath and the cold had
gotten down into his bones and made him exhausted. Today he had thought ahead
and dressed in many layers, including a thick green sweater and a heavy winter
jacket he had borrowed from a cousin who was fond of snow sports.

Instead of keeping him warm in
frigid temperatures, the layers made him sweat. The sun shone brightly today,
making it far warmer than yesterday. With the jacket he was too hot, but
without it the cold made his teeth chatter. His muscles hurt from a combination
of unfamiliar exertion and winter chill. Several times he had stepped into
small windblown drifts that were deeper than they looked and snow had slid down
inside his boots, quickly melting and soaking through his socks.

Mr. Sato did not feel very
tranquil today.

Yet he kept his mouth set in a
grim line and continued pushing his way through the trees, ducking branches,
peeking into any hidden spot that seemed large enough to hide a boy. His hands
had gotten sweaty in his gloves and now they were stuffed into his jacket
pockets and he had pine sap stuck to his fingers.

"Sato-san!" called
Officer Fuwa, the leader of their group of searchers. "Any sign of them?"

"Nothing!" Mr. Sato
called back.

He could vaguely see the
policeman and another searcher through the trees. The officer checked their
locations on a frequency so consistent as to be maddening, but Mr. Sato knew it
was necessary to make certain that no area of the mountain would be missed. Yesterday
there had been far fewer searchers on the mountain and, though they had done
their best, the net had been too wide. They had relied on the ability of the
boys to respond to their shouts. Now, they all knew they were searching for
students who might be sick, unconscious, or even dead, though no one wanted to
discuss this last possibility.