A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) (12 page)

Officer Fuwa called out to
others in his assigned group and Mr. Sato heard their distant replies as he
trudged through another small drift that had accumulated amidst a thick stand
of pines. School had been canceled for the day, but he wondered what would
happen tomorrow if they still had not found the missing boys. One death would
be hard enough for the rest of the students, but if the others also did not
survive . . . it would be awful. The teachers had all discussed the arrival of
the new year as a kind of cleansing, putting the horrible events of the prior
year behind them. But now it seemed that fate had further ugliness in store for
Monju-no-Chie school. If Mr. Sato didn't know better, he would have thought
someone had put some kind of a curse on the place.

He emerged into a clearing of
sorts, the sun far too bright for January, and finally the sweat of exertion on
the back of his neck became too much for him. With a grunt of displeasure, he
removed his jacket, wishing he had never brought it in the first place. Carrying
it around was more work than wearing it, but he needed to cool off again. Glancing
around, he spotted Officer Fuwa in the trees off to his right and a man and
woman together at the western edge of the clearing.

A glance at his watch gave him
the strength for one more push. Officer Fuwa had scheduled a break in fifteen
minutes, during which they could smoke or have a bit to eat or something to
drink and restore themselves for another hour of hiking the mountain. Their
group had only been searching two hours this morning, but already his legs felt
like lead. Slim as he was, he had always assumed himself to be in fairly good
physical condition for his age, but this experience had changed his mind.

With a deep breath he forged
ahead, leaving the clearing and plunging once more into the thick woods. Fifty
yards or so later he came upon a fallen tree and paused to look beneath it,
just in case one of the boys had tried to take shelter there the night before. Even
some sign of a fire or camp would have given him hope.

Movement in his peripheral
vision drew his attention and he glanced to the right, thinking that Officer
Fuwa had closed the distance between them. Through the trees he caught a
glimpse of a solitary figure, pale and thin. Mr. Sato had worn the same glasses
for too many years as his eyesight had continued to fail, and he needed
stronger lenses. He blinked and took a step in that direction, squinting as he
tried to figure out which member of his search party had gone so badly off
course.

The boy staggered out of the
trees, so white he seemed a ghost. Mr. Sato shouted in alarm and took several
steps backward before he tripped over his own feet. The boy stumbled into him
and the two tumbled to the ground together in a tangle of arms and legs.

Shock silenced him for several
seconds as he extricated himself. The boy's eyes were wide and glazed and his
lips were blue. His skin felt like ice, but his chest still rose and fell with
every breath and a quick check of his pulse revealed that his heart remained
strong.

Ren was alive.

"Officer Fuwa!" Mr.
Sato shouted, cradling the boy in his arms. "I've found one of them! Over
here!"

His many years of practiced calm
had abandoned him. His emotions overwhelmed him. And yet he was not troubled by
this at all. There were times when tranquility was beyond the reach of mortal
man, and perhaps even of the gods.

"I don't understand,"
Kara said. "If this Etsoku Reizei was cremated, how could Yuki-Onna have
inhabited her remains?"

They all studied her closely,
but she could tell that it wasn't because the question had upset them; they
were troubled because none of them had an answer. Sakura and Miho glanced at
Kara's father, but he and Captain Nobunaga were now looking at Miss Aritomo.

"The stories are ancient,"
she said, pushing a lock of jet black hair away from her eyes with a delicate
hand. "In the tale I spoke of, Yuki-Onna inhabited a corpse. This
situation is different, but —"

Mr. Yamato sat up a bit
straighter, eyes focused on the policeman. "The simple fact that we are
discussing the possibility of Yuki-Onna entering our world and killing people
on Takigami Mountain means we must be prepared to accept all manner of things
that would seem outrageous at first. It may be her, or it may be some other
demon, or it may be nothing supernatural at all."

"I don't think that's true,"
Kara said.

The principal gave her a sharp
look and she quickly inclined her head in a short bow.

"With all due respect,
Yamato-sensei, I think every single person in this room believes the supernatural
is at work here. If it isn't Yuki-Onna, okay. But it's
something
unnatural. And given the power — the magic — that we have witnessed
already, I can honestly say I would not be at all surprised to learn that a
demon spirit might be able to . . ." she searched for a word. " . . .
to
construct
a body out of human remains. The fact that Miss Reizei died
during the first snow of winter is unsettling. It matches the legend too well. I
hope it's . . . well, I hope we're wrong."

"As do I," Captain
Nobunaga said.

Mr. Yamato nodded at Kara to let
her know her brusque tone had been forgiven. Her father put an arm around her.

"Yamato-san," her
father said, "what are you going to do about school tomorrow?"

The principal frowned, his eyes
stormy. "I have a responsibility to educate these children. We need to
return them to their routine as quickly as possible. We have had far too many
disruptions over the past year. If the boys are found today, classes will
resume tomorrow."

"And if not?" Miss
Aritomo asked.

Kara felt sick. If not? What was
she saying? Of course Ren and Hachiro would be found. They had found Sora and
he had been dead, incapable of searching for rescue. Ren and Hachiro . . . Hachiro
would be working on getting back to school, back to her. Even if they did
nothing but walk in one direction, eventually they would come to the edge of
the mountain and find a way down, and then they could circle around its base
until the found a road or Takigami Park. They would be back today, she felt
sure.

Unless they weren't capable of
looking for a way home.

"That is a conversation for
later," Mr. Yamato said firmly.

Miss Aritomo inclined her head. It
seemed to Kara that their worry and grief had made them all seek comfort in
formality.

Captain Nobunaga's phone buzzed.

"Nobunaga," he said as
he answered.

They all watched him, reading
his body language. His gaze fell and he put a hand to his forehead. His
expression fell, his eyes darting from side to side as though searching the
floor for answers. Kara thought he looked a little frightened. By the time he
closed his phone, she suspected they all knew what he was going to say.

"The Reizei grave has been
vandalized."

Silence fell amongst them. Nearly
one hundred percent of deaths in Japan resulted in cremation, with the deceased's
ashes buried in a
haka
, or family grave. But the dead woman's haka had
been disturbed.

"Etsoku's urn was broken. Her
ashes are gone."

"This is too much to be a
coincidence," Miss Aritomo said.

"Agreed," Mr. Yamato
replied. "Until we learn something further, we must assume that the spirit
we face is Yuki-Onna. With these ghosts some of you have seen, she may not be
alone, or this might be only one aspect of a demon who can appear in many
different guises. It is impossible to know —"

"Not impossible,"
Sakura interrupted. "It's just information we don't have yet."

Mr. Yamato did not chide her for
her breach of propriety. Instead he nodded slowly.

"We will need that
information," he said, glancing around at those gathered in the Harpers'
dining room. "Finding those boys is our first priority, of course. But
there are two other things we must do immediately. First, we must learn all we
can about the various incarnations of Yuki-Onna, but in particular the one to
which Miss Aritomo was referring."

"I will begin doing
research immediately," Miss Aritomo said, a flicker of fear in her eyes.

"So will we!" Miho
piped up. She glanced at Sakura and then Kara. "There are so many
different sources that we should all work on it. If she's taken the boys —"

Kara blinked in surprise. "Taken?"

Miho nodded emphatically. "It's
possible. You can't just assume that she's . . . that she's killed them. If she
had, with all those people on the mountain, wouldn't they have found Hachiro
and Ren already, the way they did Sora?"

"That makes sense,"
Miss Aritomo said, brows knitted in thought. "In several of the stories
about her, Yuki-Onna is fascinated by handsome or beautiful boys, keeping them
like some kind of collector of precious art."

"Do you really think that's
possible?" Kara asked. "That she would keep them captive just for the
company or whatever?"

Miss Aritomo gave her a grim
look. "Until she tires of them. Yes, if this is Yuki-Onna, that is part of
her legend."

"Then I pray you're right,"
Professor Harper said, giving Kara's shoulder a comforting squeeze. "That
would give the boys a chance."

Captain Nobunaga tapped on the
table. "I would not like to take officers away from the search parties on
the mountain, but if there is a connection to the curse of Kyuketsuki, the girls
will be in danger."

"We must presume this is
all related," Mr. Yamato said. "But the search is of primary
importance and your people are of most use in that task. It may be sheer luck
that the boys were taken and the girls escaped before Yuki-Onna could claim
them as well, or perhaps she was distracted by the presence of the boys, as
Miss Aritomo suggests. Regardless, it was fortunate."

The principal looked at Kara's
father. "We cannot risk them going anywhere near the mountain."

Professor Harper turned to stare
meaningfully at Kara. "They won't."

Mr. Yamato nodded. "Good."

Captain Nobunaga spread his
hands on the table, commanding the room with his presence. He looked at Mr.
Yamato.

"You said there were two
things that had to be priorities."

Mr. Yamato nodded. "The
second is related. It is not enough to confirm that Yuki-Onna is the spirit we
face, or how she came back into our world. We must find a way to defeat her."

"More than that," Miss
Aritomo said, eyes narrowed in thought. She glanced up at Kara. "We are
assuming that the demon cannot come down from the mountain, or away from the
snows. But we do not know that. It may not be enough for you to stay away from
the mountain. We must discover some other way to protect you if she comes to
fulfill the curse."

Sakura gave a soft, humorless
laugh. "Yes, we've been so lucky with protecting ourselves so far."

"Actually," Mr. Yamato
said, "you have been
very
lucky."

If Sora's death and their
understanding of this new danger had not sobered them enough, those words
filled them all with dread.

"We should tell Mai and
Wakana," Miho suggested. "They're not in any danger, but if Wakana
saw a ghost . . ."

Kara nodded. "I agree. I'll
talk to them."

Captain Nobunaga's cell phone
buzzed again. They all turned to him, holding their breath, wondering what news
this call might bring.

The policeman answered,
listening intently. Kara saw the way his shoulders seemed to relax and she let
herself believe the call brought good news. Nobunaga thanked his subordinate
and ended the call, but even as he closed his phone he stood up from the table.

"If you will all excuse us,
Mr. Yamato and I are needed elsewhere," Captain Nobunaga said.

"Did they find Hachiro and
Ren?" Kara asked, almost pleading. "Are they okay?"

Captain Nobunaga looked first to
Mr. Yamato, then to Kara's father, and at last he answered her question, stern
eyes suddenly kind.

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

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

"What about Hachiro?"
she asked.

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

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

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

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

Oh, Hachiro . . .