A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) (14 page)

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

The bell woke her with a start. She
sat up, sucking in a ragged breath, her heart slamming in her chest. None of
her tension had eased. She still felt like she could not exhale. Kids were
moving all around her, rising from their desks, some of them muttering about
how 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 heard
seemed to be complaining more because they wanted additional days off than
because they hadn't felt ready to focus on school again.

Another major adjustment in the
move to Japanese education had been the tradition of
o soji
. Monju-no-Chie
school employed maintenance staff to do repairs and things, but the basic
cleaning of the premises was conducted every day by the students themselves. After
the final class and before club meetings began, they swept the floors, took out
the garbage, cleaned the boards, washed windows in need of attention, and
performed many other tasks. While it had taken some getting used to, Kara now
prided herself on the results of o soji, pleased to leave the school as clean
as they had found it.

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

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

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

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

"Sensei, there is something
else."

Mr. Sato frowned, his eyebrows
like furry gray caterpillars above his eyes. His glasses seemed too small for
him, suddenly.

"What is it, Kara?"

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

The teacher stood up stiffly,
what little expression he had shown vanishing. "I'm sorry, Kara. It is not
proper 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 a
little. He glanced around to be sure they were not overheard.

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

"What?" Kara prodded.

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

"But he thanked you."

"It was almost as if he
were talking to someone else," the teacher said. "That is what I am
trying to explain to you, Kara. He was delirious. If Ren knows anything about
where we might find Hachiro, he cannot yet remember it. We must hope that his
memory will return."

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

"Is there something else?"
the teacher asked.

"No, sensei," she
said. "Thank you."

And she hurried away, trash bags
in hand, wishing that she could confront Ren at that very moment. According to
Kara's father, Mr. Yamato had offered to let the boy's parents take him home
for the rest of the week, but Ren insisted that he would be all right and
wanted 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 the
corridor, she spotted Mai and Wakana coming out of the girls' bathroom with
cleaning supplies. Mai carried herself with an air of superiority that made
Wakana seem to fade into the background, though in many ways she was prettier
than her roommate. She had kinder eyes, her hair lighter and more suited to the
warmth of her features. Mai had once been quiet like Wakana, and had smiled
more, then. But now that she was Queen of the Soccer Bitches, her arrogance
made her striking, if not pretty.

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

"Can I talk to you two for
a 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 that
attitude, that's for sure. I thought we were past this. You don't have to like
me, Mai, but we have shared interests. We had a truce. What is your problem?"

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

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

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

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

Wakana squirmed with
awkwardness, glancing past Kara, who turned to see what she was looking at and
saw Emi and Kaori sweeping the corridor three doors down from them. The girls
were unmistakable, Emi with her square glasses and Kaori with her perfect
athlete's build.

Kara felt like throwing up. She
spun on Mai and Wakana.

"Are you kidding me?"
she said, her whispered voice practically a hiss. "You're seriously
worried about those girls seeing you talking to me? We all suspect that they
took part in Sakura's sister's murder, or at least stood by and watched and did
nothing, and it's
their
approval you care about? What is wrong with you?"

Mai exhaled, seeming to deflate.
Wakana had the sense, at least, to look ashamed.

"Kara," Mai said, "just
as I do not have to like you, you do not have to like me. Wakana and I have
managed a certain status at this school and it has value to us, both now and as
part of the foundation for our futures. You are a gaijin. You cannot possibly
understand —"

"Please, don't," Kara
said, holding up a hand to stop her. "Trust me, we've got shallow bitches
back home in America, too."

"It isn't like that,"
Wakana protested weakly.

Kara glanced back and saw that
Emi and Kaori had vanished from the corridor, probably to dump what they'd
swept up or already headed off to their after school soccer club meeting. Mai
and Wakana would see them there.

Sadly, Kara gave a small shake
of her head and looked at Wakana. "Keep telling yourself that. Look, I
just wanted to ask you a question, test a theory, and then I'll stay far away
from both of you, okay?"

"Have you heard anything
about Hachiro?" Mai asked.

Now that the other soccer girls
weren't there to see, Mai's mask had dropped, and she seemed genuinely
concerned. But Kara could not forget that mask. At heart, Mai might be a good
person, but the word 'shallow' fit her all too well, and by her behavior she
forfeited any right she had to sympathy.

"None," Kara said,
putting ice in her words.

"Have you learned something
about the ghosts?" Wakana asked quickly.

Kara studied her. The girl
seemed nervous and frightened.

"No," she replied, "but
I think the ghosts we've seen are connected somehow to what's happening on
Takigami Mountain."

Mai asked what she meant. Kara
reminded herself that the girls had not been privy to the conversations about
Yuki-Onna, so she quickly filled them in on all that had transpired and about
the ghost she had seen the night before. She knew that they would not dare
breathe a word of it to anyone for fear of incurring the wrath of Principal
Yamato or the police, who wanted anything supernatural kept quiet to avoid
public panic. But more than that, no one would likely believe them, and girls
like Mai and Wakana would never run the risk of being mocked and ostracized.

"This is all guessing,"
Kara warned them. "But as far as I know, only those of us who have
encountered other supernatural things have seen ghosts. My father and me,
Hachiro, Miho, and you, Wakana."

Kara looked at Mai. "What
about you? Have you seen anything?"

Mai shook her head. "No. Not
yet. And I hope I don't."

"They're so . . . sad,"
Wakana said.

Kara frowned. "You've seen
more than one?"

Wakana nodded. "Yes."

Mai shot her a dark look. "You
didn't tell me you had seen another."

"Last night," Wakana
explained, her gaze falling. "I got up to go to the bathroom and saw it
had started to snow again. When I looked out the window, Daisuke's ghost was
standing by the trees, looking up at me. And he wasn't alone. Yasu was with
him."

Kara and Mai both stared at her.
Yasu had been the first to be killed by the Hannya last year.

"I'm really scared,"
Wakana said, her voice small.

"Don't be," Kara said.
"If we're right about what this is, it's not the ghosts you need to be
afraid of."

Sakura hurried along the
hallway, the duties of o soji forgotten. She kept her eyes forward, focused on
Kara, Wakana, and Mai. All through the school day she had tried her best to
avoid looking out the classroom windows. Just the sight of the falling snow
kept her nerves on edge and made her shiver. She didn't want to think about
Hachiro out there on the mountain. Even worse were the dark places her mind
wandered when she allowed it to do so. The snow itself held menace. Even the
occasional gust of wind that rattled the windows made her jump and suck in her
breath.

It had been her grief and rage
that had first woken the ancient evil of Kyuketsuki and led to this curse. Sakura
knew that she had done nothing wrong, that fate had played a role and that it
was natural for her to feel sorrow and fury, but so many had died and they all
weighed on her. It had begun with Akane's murder and her mourning, and now
Miyazu City and Monju-no-Chie school were being haunted by ghosts. And yet
Sakura had not seen one. Many of these spirits had died horrible, grisly deaths
because of a chain of events she had helped to begin, but the ghosts did not
appear to her. She knew she ought to consider it a blessing, but somehow it
felt like yet another curse, like some kind of punishment.

Stupid
, she told herself.
Who
wants
to be haunted?

Whatever conversation Kara had
been having with Mai and Wakana, it ended. As Sakura strode quickly toward her,
Kara turned away from the other girls, a desperate look in her eyes. Normally
the blond American girl looked cute, almost perfect in her sailor fuku school
uniform. Today she looked like some kind of impostor, like she belonged
anywhere but in the halls of this school.

"Hey. What's the hurry?"
Kara said in English as Sakura approached.

And that said a great deal in
itself, that she had forgotten to speak Japanese.

Sakura gestured after the departing
Mai and Wakana. "What was that about?"

"Ghosts," Kara said,
reverting to Japanese, blinking in surprise at her own lapse. "I'll
explain later. What's up? You look like you're rushing somewhere."

"Here, actually,"
Sakura said. "Your father sent me to find you. Mr. Yamato wants us in his
office right now."

Kara frowned. "Who's 'us'?"

"You, me, and Miho, I
think."

Sakura watched hope ignite in
Kara's eyes.

"Is it about —"

"I don't think so,"
Sakura said quickly. "As far as I know there's been no change in Ren, and
no word on Hachiro, but you know it's got something to do with that. He's not
calling us to his office to talk about our grades."

The two girls fell into step
side by side, headed for the stairs at the middle of the second floor hallway.

"As soon as this is over,
can you and Miho take me back to the dorm?" Kara asked.

"Of course. But why?"

The two of them hurried down the
steps, Sakura sliding her palm along the railing. They passed other students
who were finishing up their o soji duties or rushing to club meetings. Many of
the clubs did not start meetings until next week, but obviously some had begun.

"I need to talk to Ren,"
Kara said. "I want to hear for myself what he does and doesn't remember. He
must recall something. If he doesn't, I don't know, we've got to hypnotize him
or something, or even take him back up onto the mountain and see if it jars his
memory. He could lead us right to Hachiro."

Kara practically burned with
intensity. Sakura agreed with her, but hesitated to admit it. Kara seemed more
frayed and on edge than Sakura had ever seen her, practically shaking with her
need to do something, anything, to help Hachiro. Kara's eyes were not merely
desperate, they were frantic and lost, as though she saw threats in every
shadowy corner that nobody else could see. Sakura thought that might be true.

"What if his parents are
still there?" Sakura asked, as they reached the bottom of the steps and
turned left, headed for Mr. Yamato's office.

"I don't care. I'll talk my
way in, somehow," Kara said.

Sakura knocked on the office
door and a moment later it was opened by Miss Aritomo. The art teacher stepped
back to let them enter and the two girls moved past her and into the small,
very orderly office. Mr. Yamato sat behind his desk. Miho perched, birdlike, on
the edge of a small chair against the wall. Kara's father stood by the window,
deep shadows of concern and exhaustion under his eyes. Come to think of it,
Kara looked exhausted as well, and Sakura wondered how much sleep the residents
of the Harper home had gotten last night.