A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) (2 page)

Fathers and daughters
,
her mother had often sighed.
They'll indulge each other forever.

Kara thought maybe her mom had
been right.

After persuading her father that
the white coat with the fake fur around the hood was an absolute necessity —
with a little help from Miss Aritomo — Kara waited in line with him to
pay. Someone had apparently gone on a break and left an old woman with a
cranky, pinched face as the only clerk. Kara dared not complain about the wait.
Instead, she leaned her head on her father's shoulder.

"Thanks, Dad."

"It's okay," he said.
"I don't want my little girl's toes freezing off."

"Yuck. Me either."

"So, everyone's due back
tomorrow, right?" he asked.

Kara smiled. By 'everyone,' he
meant her two best friends, Miho and Sakura, and Hachiro, but he tried not to
pry too much into her feelings for her boyfriend. She didn't mind talking about
Hachiro with her father, actually, but he seemed very wary about seeming too
curious, which was probably for the best. As long as she was happy and Hachiro
was treating her well, he didn't need to know any more than that.

Despite what her mother had
always said, boyfriends were the one area where fathers didn't always indulge
their daughters.

". . . that's terrible,"
Miss Aritomo said. "How did she die?"

Kara and her father both turned
to see the teacher talking to a short, fiftyish man whose glasses were too big
for his face. His expression was grim.

"She became lost on the
mountain during the first snowstorm we had last month," the man said,
shaking his head slowly, mouth set in a thin line. "They searched for her
after the storm, but two days passed before they found her. She had frozen."

Kara flinched at the word.
"God," she whispered, in English.

Miss Aritomo expressed her
sorrow at the news and the man with the big glasses — who Kara now
realized was an employee here, but also someone the teacher knew — nodded
again. Or perhaps they were small bows, accepting her condolences.

The conversation went on, but
Kara had had enough.

"I'm going to look at
gloves," she said, forcing a smile.

"You already have gloves,"
her father said.

"I didn't say 'buy.' I'm
just looking," she replied, and then she was off, heading over to a
circular display upon which hung what seemed hundreds of pairs of gloves.

Things had been going so well. They
were happy. Kara had had enough of death and ugliness and did not even want to
hear about any more of it.

As she searched for a pair of
gloves that would match her new jacket, not really intending to ask her father
to buy them, but curious, she heard soft voices whispering behind her, and then
one of them spoke up.

"Well, hello,
bonsai
.
Happy New Year."

Mai Genji had seemed to be her
nemesis for a while. She had inherited the position of Queen of the Soccer
Bitches when the reigning queen, a girl named Ume, had been expelled during the
spring term. Ume had told Mai about the impossible, awful things that had
happened in April of last year — about the curse that the demon
Kyuketsuki had put on Kara and Sakura and Miho — and for a time Mai had
blamed Kara for Ume's expulsion and for the horrible things that had followed
it, during the autumn term.

Now Mai knew better, and she had
a long, thin white scar on her right cheek that would remind her every time she
looked in the mirror. Now she knew that it had all started with Ume, whom they
all suspected of having murdered Sakura's sister, Akane.

Kara's first year in Japan had
been long and strange and sometimes awful. And though the curse still lingered,
and she worried that it would draw even more evil to her and her friends, she
wanted to focus on the new beginning that the winter term offered.

So she smiled at the Queen of
the Soccer Bitches, and at her roommate, Wakana, who had nearly been killed
herself back in the fall.

"Happy New Year," Kara
said.

They shared a dreadful secret,
something other students at Monju-no-Chie school would never believe and should
never have to learn, and it had created a strange bond between them. Mai and
Wakana weren't her friends, and they never would be, but maybe they weren't
enemies any more, either.

"Your father and Miss
Aritomo look very happy," Mai said, an edge to the words that seemed on
the verge of mockery.

Kara bristled. No way would she
put up with anyone saying anything about her dad and Yuuka.

"They
are
," she
said.

To her surprise, both girls
smiled. They looked at each other and then back at Kara.

"They're really cute
together," Wakana said.

"We're glad for them,"
Mai added, and then her smile vanished. "I'll see you in home room."

"Yeah," Kara said.
"I'll see you."

The two girls turned and
meandered off through the racks, whispering to each other in a way that she
knew she should have assumed meant they were gossiping about her. But she didn't
think they were. They had lives, just like she did. Families. They had probably
enjoyed the holidays with the people they loved, and now it was a new year.

No, they would never be friends.

But maybe it really was a new
beginning for all of them.

Hachiro had seen a lot of
impossible things since Kara had come into his life, but never a ghost. The one
on the train back to Miyazu City to begin the winter term was his first.

Late that Monday night, just a
couple of days after New Year's, he sat aboard the busy train, head lolling
against the window, lights strobing across the dark glass as the express shot
through some commuter station without slowing down. His parents had struggled
trying to decide when to drive him back to school and who would take him, so
Hachiro had suggested they let him take the train back to Miyazu. At first they
had balked, but he had appealed to reason. He knew they loved him, but they
both worked and he could take care of himself. Logic triumphed, and now he
found himself returning to Monju-no-Chie school a day earlier than he'd
planned.

The early return would be a
pleasant surprise for Kara, so he had not told her. And Hachiro had quickly
discovered that he did not mind traveling alone. A couple of hours on a train
had offered myriad options. He could have played a video game or read baseball
magazines or manga. Instead, he listened to music and read from
To Kill a
Mockingbird
in English. Professor Harper had assigned it over break and
explained that the subject matter would be addressed in his American Studies
classes and that it would be a challenge for his English language students. Hachiro
had read it twice. Kara's Japanese was excellent, and he wanted to surprise her
by improving his command of her language.

Now, though, as nine o'clock
came and went and the long winter night was well under way, he could not help
closing his eyes. He drifted in and out of wakefulness, barely aware of the
murmured conversations around him, of the old couple attempting to retain their
composure while their granddaughter exhibited a wild imagination and bursts of
laughing energy, of the rock-star cool university guy with two giggling
girlfriends fawning over him. They were all just vague background as he dozed.

The train slowed a bit as it
rattled onto older tracks, and so he knew they were not far from Miyazu City. The
ride would not be as smooth from here on in, but still he rested his head
against the window, skull juddering against the glass. Sleepy as he was, Hachiro
could not fall into a full slumber because he knew that once he arrived in
Miyazu he would have to change to the local train that would take him out along
the bay to the station just down the street from Monju-no-Chie school.

The little girl let out a mischievous
squeal, forcing her grandmother to snap at her. Drifting, Hachiro listened, and
felt badly for both the girl, who only wanted to play, and the old woman, who
could not help being embarrassed by what she would see as improper behavior.

Eyes closed, head jouncing
against the window, he listened. The too-cool university guy whispered things
to his female companions that were doubtless far more improper than anything
the little girl's grandmother could even imagine. There were giggles and more
whispers, and Hachiro began to drift off again.

A cold draft caressed his face
and slipped like a scarf of silk and snow around his neck. He opened his eyes,
wondering where the breeze had come from. Had someone opened a door that let
the winter in?

He glanced around at the
windows, then at the doors at either end of the car, but saw nothing that could
have been the source of the draft. Only when he lowered his gaze, shifting in
his seat, did his mind process what he had just seen. A familiar face, spiky
black hair, bright eyes. A face he knew very well.

Hachiro's heart raced and a
tentative smile touched his lips. Impossible. He was sleepy, half in a dream. There
were plenty of teenaged boys with spiky hair, and the kid was half-turned away
from him anyway. He could be anyone.

Curiosity driving him, that
chill caress running up the back of his neck, he turned again and looked toward
the back of the car. The kid had his chin down, almost as if he were dozing off
as well, but his eyes were open and he stared at the floor. The lights in the
train car flickered and in each lightless moment it almost seemed that the
darkness outside the windows was trying to get in.

Jiro
.

But it couldn't be Jiro, of
course. Jiro had been murdered on the shore of Miyazu Bay, his body found
drained of blood, his shoes missing. Hachiro had been there when they hauled
his corpse out of the water. He could still feel the hollow place inside where
his friendship with Jiro had once been.

The resemblance was uncanny. Hachiro
wanted to look away but he couldn't stop staring. The train rumbled over a
rough section of track and outside the windows he saw the lights of shops and
offices — they would be arriving at Miyazu station in moments.

The wan, yellow luminescence
inside the train car flickered again, off and on, off and on, off for several
long seconds, and then on again. The kid had not moved.

Hachiro leaned forward to get a
fuller view of the kid, slid almost off his seat so that he could see past
briefcases and small suitcases and outstretched legs. Then he froze, ice racing
through his veins. His breath came in tiny, hitching gasps and he slowly shook
his head.

The kid had no shoes on. His
feet were so pale.

He turned to look at Hachiro,
not in some random fashion but in a slow, sad glance that said he had been
aware all along of being watched. And when he smiled wistfully and gave a tiny
nod of acknowledgement, Hachiro could not lie to himself anymore.

Jiro
.

The train began to slow. Hachiro
could not breathe. He locked eyes with the ghost — for what else could it
be? — and felt all of the sadness of his friend's death return. He wanted
to speak, to ask questions, to say that Jiro had been missed. He wanted to run,
to hide, to nurture the fear that rose in him. The lights flickered again and
now, for the first time, he realized that Jiro had faded, his presence thin as
delicate parchment, the shapes and shadows of the floor and the seat and even
the window visible through him.

The conductor's voice filled the
air. The train lurched three times in quick succession, but the third was the
worst, rocking Hachiro forward, breaking his eye contact with Jiro. He had to
put a hand out to keep from being thrown from his seat as they came to an
abrupt halt.

As he turned, the doors shushed
open and people began to rise, grabbing their bags, chatter erupting as they
began to herd out.

"No," Hachiro said,
grabbing his bag and standing.

He thrust himself into the flow
of disembarking passengers, searching the crowd for that spiky hair, that
familiar face. He caught a glimpse of a silhouette he thought might be that of
the ghost.

"Jiro!" he called.

Several people gave him
disapproving looks, but most simply pretended not to hear him. Hachiro called
out again, fear and confusion warring within him, and he pushed through the
crowd and stepped off the train.

On the station platform he
stopped and looked around. Hachiro was tall and broad-shouldered, so he stood
his ground and peered over the heads of the other passengers. He called Jiro's
name again, but already his hopes were fading. Someone bumped him from behind
and he staggered two steps forward.

People streamed away, reuniting
with family and friends and lovers and then vanishing from the platform. Only
stragglers were left when the train hissed loudly and the doors closed and it
began to glide away.

Jiro stood just inside the
doors, staring out at Hachiro as the train pulled away. He hadn't been there a
moment before. The ghost watched him with sad eyes, and as the train rattled
out of the station he faded from view.

Gone again.

Hachiro stared along the tracks
for a long time after the train had gone, frightened and glad all at the same
time, and he wondered if, perhaps, he should never have come back to Miyazu
City. To Monju-no-Chie school.

To Kara.

Kara knew there had to have been
a time in her life when she had been more bored, but she couldn't think of one.
Her father had gone into school to make final preparations in his classroom and
office for the new term, which started tomorrow. His lesson plans were done,
but the principal, Mr. Yamato, wanted all of the teachers to organize their own
materials so that all was in order when classes began. They were also taking
turns overseeing the return of the boarding students to the dormitory behind
the school. Kara had wanted to go along — she couldn't wait to see her
friends — but her father had discouraged it. Mr. Yamato would have
frowned upon it.