A Winter of Ghosts

Chapter Fifteen

The ghosts were insubstantial,but Yuki-Onna existed in two worlds at once. She was both tangible andintangible, spirit and storm and flesh, and when the ghosts attacked her, shescreamed and began to beat at them, snap her jaws at them, tear bits of themaway with those shark teeth.

But they had diverted her, andher grip on Kubo broke. He fell to the ground.

The storm faltered, the snowslowing, the wind lessening. . but only for a moment. The Woman in Whitestretched out her arms as though conducting a symphony and suddenly the windcould touch the ghosts as well. . and yet Kara could no longer feel it. Thewind had begun to blow in another place, a world between life and death wherethese spirits had lingered, clinging to the lives they did not want to leavebehind.

"Hurry!" Kara snapped.

But she need not have bothered. Sakuragrabbed Ume by the hand and dragged her toward Kubo, and Kara's mind spun withthe sight. Sakura had been unconscious, even comatose, with major damage to herskull. How she was up and running Kara had no idea. It seemed impossible. Karahad grown used to impossible things, but they were always terrible, and herewas something that was both impossible and wonderful. She had to force herselfto focus on the ritual, on Kubo, instead of on Sakura and Hachiro and Ren, andthe fact that they were all, for the moment, still alive.

Because Kubo was dying. A sweet,funny, venerable old man, this monk, but also a mystical adept, the only onewho could perform the ritual that would break the curse on them.

"Master Kubo!" Karacried as she ran to him and dropped to her knees in the snow.

He looked ancient, now, sicklyand shaking with cold. His eyes were tired and almost opaque, but not blind. Hesaw her, and he glanced around at the others. Mai and Ume hung back, but Sakuracame close, almost gliding herself, a kind of ethereal beauty about her and aserenity in her eyes that seemed so strange in the midst of the rage of thisstorm, with the ghosts trying to restrain Yuki-Onna so close by.

Miss Aritomo ran to Mr. Yamato,the two of them shouting to be heard over the wind, telling Kara and the othersto hurry. Miho and Ren came over to Kubo and dropped to their knees oppositeKara.

Hachiro knelt in the snow besideher. His eyes were haunted, his face gaunt with starvation, and she knew he hadbeen through hell these last three days. But he reached down and took her hand,held it tight, fingers twined with hers, and she saw that the Hachiro she lovedwas still there, deep down inside this tormented boy.

All those who were there whenKyuketsuki had been destroyed and driven from the world, Kara thought. Notjust the cursed — her and Miho and Sakura — but all of them. Hachirowas beside her, but Ume had still not approached.

"Ume, come on!" Karashouted to be heard over the storm.

But the tall, statuesque girl,the former Queen of the Soccer Bitches, only shook her head. She tried to backaway but Mai put an arm around her and urged her forehead. Ume stared at the ghostsand Yuki-Onna, tearing at one another, and she began to cry, her tears freezingon her cheeks.

"Ume, it must be now!" Sakura said.

Kara frowned. It had sounded asthough two voices spoke in unison, two people speaking from one mouth. Was thatjust the storm, some weird echo? Kara studied her face and realized it had ahardness, a grim twist of the mouth, that were nothing like Sakura at all.

And then in an instant, herexpression changed, softening. Even her eyes seemed to lighten with a kindnessand understanding that hadn't been there a moment before. Sakura held out ahand.

"Ume, please," Sakurasaid, and now her voice, and her face, were hers alone.

Yuki-Onna tore free of theghosts and rushed at them. The ghosts howled like the wind — Kara realizedshe had heard them before but they had sounded so far away and now they wereright here with her, closer than ever somehow. The spirits grabbed hold ofYuki-Onna again.

"Little monk, I will haveyour flesh and blood!" the witch screamed, reaching out to slash at theair with her elongated fingers, now icy claws. She could not see Miho, Sakura,Ren, Hachiro, or Kara thanks to the wards Kubo had given them, but Mai wasunprotected, and so were the teachers. . and so was Kubo.

Mr. Yamato and Miss Aritomo ranforward, trying to help the ghosts protect the old monk, reaching forYuki-Onna.

"No!" Kara shouted,but they couldn't hear over the wind.

The witch shot them a singlelook that paralyzed them both. Their masks had not helped them. They had lookedher in the eye and, like the victims of Medusa, paid the price. Seconds moreand she might freeze them solid, ice inside and out, but the ghosts grappledwith her again.

"Ume, please!" Sakurasaid again.

Ume took her hand and togetherthey knelt in the snow by Kubo's head.

"What do we do?" Hachiro asked, gripping Kara's hand tightly.

Kubo struggled to get up on oneelbow, wheezing. From inside his robe he unsheathed a small, thin knife andhanded it to Kara.

"You bleed."

Kara took a deep breath. Theothers all stared at her. Hachiro and Ume looked horrified, but the others hadall been warned. Ren backed away from the old monk. The ritual to break thecurse did not involve him, and he seemed very relieved at that.

She tugged off her gloves. Placingthe small blade against her palm, she turned to look at Hachiro. Staring intohis eyes, she sliced her palm. As numb as her hands were, pain seared throughher and she hissed through her teeth but did not break her gaze as she gave theknife to Hachiro.

He kept his eyes glued to hersas he followed suit.

The moment the first drop ofKara's blood hit the snow, Kubo began to sing. How he knew the precise moment,she did not know, but he opened his mouth and began a chant that became akeening, almost mournful song in some dialect she could not translate at all.

One by one they all took theknife — Hachiro handed it to Miho, who gave it to Sakura, who in turnpassed it on to Ume — and one by one they cut, and bled, even Ume. Herexpression had become one of resignation, of guilt, and of sorrow. One by onethey each made a fist.

Yuki-Onna thrashed against theghosts. Kara could not help looking, and she saw that there were perhaps twodozen of them, maybe even more. Most she did not know, but the familiar faceswere there — Jiro and Hana, Chouku and Daisuke, and poor Sora — andthey were fierce and terrible to behold, but she loved them all so much in thatmoment.

Kubo's song grew louder and herose, gesturing to Mai and Ren, who rushed in to help the old man up to asitting position. He gestured to Kara, who put her bleeding fist forward, andthen to the others, nodding as he sang, and they opened their hands andtogether they bled. A crimson stain spread on the snow, steam rising from it,their blood merging.

The storm raged harder,buffeting them. Ren went down on his knees but managed to keep Kubo sitting up.Face and clothes coated in frost, the old monk glanced around at each of themin turn, his eyes weary, body swaying in the wind.

"Now you must be together,"he said, and somehow the wind brought his voice to Kara's ears instead of away."No matter what you feel for each other, in this. . you must betogether. Repeat after me. .

"I feel the wind as itpasses by, and I bend with it.

"I feel the rain as it runsdown my face, and I drink of it.

"I feel time rush by like ariver, and I flow with it.

"They touch me and aregone.

"Shadows vanish at sunrise.

"All things move on, exceptfor those I hold in my heart.

"The mark of evil is washedaway in blood,

"And cleansed by the watersof the river of time.

"The wind and the rain andthe river and the darkness touch me,

"But the seasons give way,the snake sheds its skin, and I am made new.

"Dark eyes and dark heartsturn from me.

"They have no power overme.

"And I am made new."

In unison they repeated thewords after Kubo, their voices rising in a forceful wave somewhere betweenchant and song. Wakana, Miss Aritomo, Ren, and Mr. Yamato looked on, but Karasaw they were only half-paying attention to the ritual. In the midst of thestorm and the rage of Yuki-Onna, the ghosts tormenting her, holding the witchback from finishing the job she'd begun of killing Kubo, they were terrifiedand freezing. They warmed each other, comforted each other, and stared, perhapseach praying his or her own private prayers.

Halfway through the chant, Karalooked up and saw something beautiful and unsettling. Sakura had become twopeople. She was there, across from Kara, open palm bleeding into the snow infront of Kubo, but beside and within her, a part of her and yet sliding away,was the ghost of a girl who seemed to be an older, sadder version of Sakura. Theghost had longer hair, thinner features, and eyes dark with a terrible wisdom,but as Kara watched, the spirit — it could only have been Akane Murakami — looked at Sakura with such love that Kara nearly wept with the heart-achingbeauty of it.

Kubo looked up when the chanthad finished. "It is done," he said.

As if in reply, the storm roaredand Yuki-Onna screamed with such ferocity that they all looked over at her. Thewinter witch tore away from the ghosts, leaving parts of herself behind. Herbeauty had fled and all that remained was her hunger for death, the cruelestpart of winter. She whipped toward them over the snow. They all scattered,forgetting for a moment about Kubo, before Hachiro and Ren rushed in to try todrag him away.

Yuki-Onna lifted Ren with awhirling funnel of snow and raging wind and hurled him into the trees. Karaheard something snap and hoped it was branches. She reached out long fingerstoward Hachiro's face and Kara screamed, knowing she would freeze him solid andhe would be just as dead as Sora, just another of the winter's ghosts.

Kubo stood in the way. Yuki-Onna'sfingers touched him and frost covered his chest, but the old monk smiled sadly,as though with pity.

"What's happening?" Miho yelled beside Kara. "It's supposed to be over! The curse is gone."

Kara's heart clenched with afresh dose of fear. Miho was right. Kubo had told them that if the ritual worked,the power that had summoned Yuki-Onna would be erased, and without that as ananchor, the Woman in White could not remain in this world. But he had also saidno one had ever driven Yuki-Onna away before. Had he been wrong about theritual?

Yuki-Onna lifted Kubo off theground, pulled him to her, and sank those rows of shark teeth into his fleshyet again. Ice crystals formed on his flesh as the witch drank his blood, andKara felt sure she was grinning all along. Kubo had been half-drained already,his vitality gone, withered away, and now his blood ran down the white flesh ofYuki-Onna's chin and throat.

"No!" Kara screamed,and she ran at the witch.

Hachiro shouted her name,reached out to stop her, but only managed to snag her jacket before she broke freeof him.

The ghosts darted about,grasping at Yuki-Onna, but they were not working in concert, now, their effortsin disarray, and the witch drove them off one and two at a time. If the spiritsdid not work together, they would not be able to restrain her again.

As Kara rushed toward Yuki-Onna,she saw Mr. Yamato doing the same from the other side. The old monk was theonly living connection between the principal and his dead father. Mr. Yamatohad deep respect and love for Kubo, and it showed on his face as he reached outtoward the Woman in White. Kara saw his hands take up fistfuls of the materialof Yuki-Onna's kimono and for a second it looked like he might get a grip onher, but then the fabric turned to snow.

Kara tried to grab the witch buther hands, too, passed right through, plunging instead into icy snow and air socold that she screamed in pain. But when she tried to pull her hands away, shecould not. They were freezing in place, inside Yuki-Onna.

The witch tossed Kubo away, theold monk little more than skin and bones where he landed in the snow. ThenYuki-Onna grabbed Mr. Yamato by the hair and turned to stare down at Kara, thewitch's black, bottomless eyes locked on hers.

"The monk's power is gone,"the Woman in White said with a bloodstained grin. "I can see you now."

The ghosts tore at Yuki-Onna'sface and hair and kimono. They existed in this world and the next, likeYuki-Onna, and so they could touch her. But Kara could not. Hachiro and Mihowere behind her now, trying to pull her away. Miss Aritomo and Ren were doingthe same with Mr. Yamato. Ume knelt in the snow by Kubo's still, unmoving bodyand wept, while Mai and Wakana screamed to the spirits of their dead loved onesto do something.

Then, Kara could move her hands.She could barely feel them, but she could move them.

"The storm is dying!" Miho shouted.

And it was. The wind's howlbegan to quiet. The snow lightened. Hachiro and Miho pulled hard and Kara'shands came free, the three of them tumbling to the ground together. Her handsand forearms were red and raw and bloody, and she couldn't feel them, but shecould move her fingers.

The ritual had worked. Yuki-Onna'spower was fading.

The witch spun around, staringin horror at the dying storm, the rest of them forgotten.

"No!"

She began to change, almost toshrink down upon herself. Her fingers became delicate and beautiful again, andher face followed suit. The wind danced around Yuki-Onna, her hair and herkimono flowing with it. As her power diminished her elegance and quiet, surrealloveliness returned.

Kara wondered if this was theface of Yuki-Onna, or the face of Etsoku Reizei, the girl who had died on themountain during the winter's first snow and whose ashes had been used to helpcreate a body for Yuki-Onna in this world.

The ghosts left her alone, then,standing by to watch as the winter witch glared at them all with eyes full ofhate.

"I still have the powerto kill you all," Yuki-Onna said, her voice like the wind, caressingthem, gusting around them.

"But you won't," Sakurasaid, stepping forward.

They all stared at her, thisgrim, hard-edged girl with her bandages, most of her face hidden by the jaggedveil of her hair. Kara did not know if the others could see it, but to her eyesthere were still two of Sakura, Akane's ghost blurred beside her, half joinedto her.

And then Sakura spoke in anothervoice.

"We won't let you,"said the ghost of Akane Murakami.

And she left her sister, theintangible spirit only a silhouette against the snow as she rushed towardYuki-Onna. The Woman in White staggered backward in confusion but could donothing to stop it. Akane's ghost entered her, vanished inside of her.

Yuki-Onna cried out, but itsounded more like anguish than pain. The witch doubled over, and for the firsttime, Kara saw that she had left footprints in the snow.

Then she straightened up, andher eyes had changed.

They were no longer eclipsedwith bottomless black. Instead, they were a soft, gentle brown, and they werefilled with a quiet melancholy.

Sakura started toward her. Mihoseemed about to try to stop her, but Kara held up a hand to forestall anyinterference.

"Akane?" Sakura asked.

The snow woman shook her head. No.This wasn't Akane. But it wasn't really Yuki-Onna, either. Not the creature whohad longed to drink life and to kill with the cruelty of winter's darkest days.Perhaps it was that girl who'd died in the first storm of the season, or somecombination of the spirits inside Yuki-Onna now.

But Sakura smiled as though shedidn't believe it, like she was sure her sister was there. "I love you,"she said.

The wind, weaker than it was butstill strong, gusted powerfully once more. Snow picked up from the ground,swirling around Yuki-Onna, creating a churning maelstrom that lasted onlyseconds before it subsided into nothing.

A final gust, and then the windbecame an ordinary breeze, and the snow tapered to flurries, and Yuki-Onna wasgone.

And so were the ghosts.

"Master Kubo!" Mr.Yamato called, running over to drop to the snow beside Ume, who had beentending to the Unsui.

Kara walked slowly toward themwith Hachiro at her side. He was rubbing her hands, trying to get the bloodflowing well, to get some warmth back into them. Mai and Wakana appeared fromthe trees, helping a limping, bleeding Ren. Miss Aritomo and Miho approached aswell, until all but Sakura were gathered around the prone, unmoving body of theold monk whose kindness and wisdom had saved them all.

The Unsui, it appeared, wouldwander the clouds no longer. Or, perhaps, Kara thought, he willwander them forever, now.

But then Mr. Yamato looked up."He's still breathing. We need an ambulance."

Miss Aritomo pulled out herphone. Ume started snapping orders at Mai and Wakana, talking about her carbeing not far, just a couple hundred yards down the mountain.

Kara felt afraid to hope, butcould not stop herself. It felt nice. Hope and love were the things that wouldwarm her. She turned to Hachiro, stood on her toes, and kissed him. When thekiss was through their eyes met but neither of them spoke. There would be timeenough for words later. Instead, she lay her cheek against his chest and justrelished the feeling of him there, where he belonged.

"Look," Miho whisperedto her.

Kara glanced over and saw thatSakura had not joined them. She stood gazing up the mountain toward the placewhere Yuki-Onna had vanished.

"Give us a moment?" she said to Hachiro.

He nodded. "Of course. Whateveryou need."

Kara and Miho went over to joinSakura, standing on either side of her.

"Are you all right?" Miho asked.

"I will be, I think,"Sakura said. "But more importantly, I think Akane will be."

"I'm not sure I understandwhat happened," Kara admitted. "Is she Yuki-Onna now, the way theother girl was?"

Sakura nodded. "A part ofher, at least. When she was inside of me, I could feel what she felt and I knewwhat she knew. It was. . it was what I needed. It was wonderful. Now shewill be a part of Yuki-Onna, and none of us will have anything to fear from theWoman in White again. And Akane has put her own anger and bitterness behindher. In the spring, when winter is through, her spirit will finally go on tothe peace she has always deserved. And the rest of the ghosts will as well."

Kara reached out and took Sakura'shand, squeezed it in her own. On the other side of her, Miho did the same.

"Then we can allhave peace," Kara said.

"And a new beginning,"Miho added.

Sakura nodded, then turned toher friends with a wistful smile.

"Let's go home."