Spirits of the Noh

3

A beautiful job, Kara. Keep up the good work.”

Kara smiled up at Miss Aritomo and gave a little bow of her head in silent gratitude. No matter how much she wrestled with her own feelings about her father dating the art teacher, she could never say the woman was anything but sweet. Even when she had first arrived at Monju-no-Chie school, Miss Aritomo had been incredibly nice.

But as Miss Aritomo walked away, Kara grimaced. With a sigh, she brushed her blond hair away from her eyes, and then realized she’d smeared green paint on her forehead and laughed at herself, bending to pick up her paintbrush again.

“You do not seem like a girl who is having a good time,” Sakura said.

Kara froze and shot a guilty glance over her shoulder, but Miss Aritomo had already left the room.

“Is it that obvious?” she asked.

Sakura nodded. “It probably helps that you’ve been complaining all week, but it’s obvious to me. Aritomo-sensei doesn’t seem to have noticed.”

Kara dipped the brush into a bucket of green paint and began applying a second coat to the carved piece of wood that would eventually represent a tree in the background of the set.

“Good,” she said.

“You could just tell her you want to quit, you know,” Sakura said, head cocked, eyes narrowed as though Kara was some puzzle she wanted to decipher.

“It isn’t that easy,” Kara replied. “Miho would be heartbroken.”

Sakura shrugged and went back to painting. Kara said nothing more, but she had other reasons as well. Her father had been so pleased that she had been spending this extra time under Miss Aritomo’s guidance that he would be upset if she bailed on it now. Though obviously he didn’t understand just how little time this volunteer gig provided for teacher-student interaction.

The previous Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, after she and Sakura had finished with calligraphy club, they had come down into the basement room where Miss Aritomo held the Noh meetings and volunteered their assistance. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time that Ren-who was also in calligraphy club-had joined them. If Hachiro hadn’t had baseball club and been wholly devoted to the game, he might have done the same.

Now Kara thought that Hachiro was the lucky one. After more than a week of helping the Noh club prepare for its performance, she was racking her brain, trying to figure out some way to gracefully excuse herself from the obligation.

Sakura and Ren didn’t seem nearly as bored. Noh theater had been fascinating to Kara in concept, but she had quickly learned that in execution, that fascination waned considerably. Back home in Medford, she had taken part in a couple of different school productions, including My Fair Lady and A Christmas Carol. The cast and crew would form a family unit, an easy camaraderie that created friendships between kids who might never have stopped to talk to one another in the cafeteria or the halls. Working on Miss Aritomo’s pet project, she had imagined a similar arrangement, but had encountered something entirely different.

She had known, on an intellectual level, that the performers rehearsed alone. But she had not truly understood how little actual collaboration was part of the process. Kara and Sakura had been tasked with painting the background, even as other students created the various pieces that made up the traditional Noh set. Every Noh play used the same elements for its stage, and the entire platform needed to be created. But Miss Aritomo had assigned certain students to build the platform in a corner of the gymnasium that the principal had loaned them for the show, leaving Kara, Sakura, and four other students to create and paint the background.

The Noh club learned the basics for the chants and music for the play during their official meetings, but every member of the cast, including those who would be playing music, practiced alone. Kara found the discipline this required staggering to even imagine. The performers would perfect their parts in isolation, so that the play only came together as a whole story, and a singular piece of art, when they all joined their disparate elements on the stage, in front of the audience. That meant most of the members of the Noh club weren’t in Miss Aritomo’s room at all during “rehearsals.” They weren’t really even rehearsals as Kara understood the word.

Preparations, yes. Rehearsals, not so much.

Even Miho wasn’t around. Like Miss Aritomo, she collected Noh masks, and so the teacher had put Miho in charge of the select group of her students who were making and painting the masks for the play. Miho seemed almost giddy with excitement. She talked about her work with the masks nonstop.

Worse yet, after volunteering mainly so he could hang around with the girls, Ren had been put on Miho’s “mask squad,” so they hadn’t seen much of him at all.

The one bit of good news was that the weekend was coming up, and with it the Toro Nagashi Firework Festival. Kara had missed being in the United States for the Fourth of July, so she was really looking forward to the fireworks, and even more so to see the lanterns that would float in the bay. Hachiro had asked her to go with him, formally, the most official date they’d had, though they had been out together many times. All of her friends would be there, but still, it would be romantic.

“Are you daydreaming about Hachiro again?” Sakura asked.

Kara grinned.

“Well,” Sakura said. “At least that earns a smile from you. And this will earn a second one.”

She pointed to the wall. Kara glanced up and saw that 6:30 had arrived, and they were finally free. Happily, she poured the remains of her green paint back into the can and sealed it, then cleaned her brush. She had done her work for the day, and she thought the background for the play was coming out very well.

Kara went to a sink to wash her hands, pulling off her smock as Sakura did the same. “Come on,” Kara said, wiping her hands on a rag. “Let’s get Miho and Ren and get out of here.”

The two girls said their good-byes to the other students who were part of their background crew and hurried into the corridor.

“Do you have a lot of homework tonight?” Sakura asked.

Kara shrugged. “What’s ‘a lot’? At least two hours’ worth, but probably not more than that. Why?”

“I think we deserve a treat. Would you like to go into the city for dinner? We’ll take Ren and Miho, and I’ll show you my favorite restaurant.”

“I’d love to,” Kara said, shooting her a curious look. “But I doubt I can afford it, and wouldn’t you and Miho get into trouble?”

Sakura scoffed. “This is me, remember?” she said in English, a line she must have stolen from a movie. Then she switched back to Japanese. “I’m inviting you to dinner, Kara. My parents only remember that I’m alive when I spend money on their credit card. Which is ironic, considering that they gave it to me so that they wouldn’t have to think about me at all.”

“I couldn’t let you pay-”

“You’re not listening. I’m not paying. My parents are. And they can afford it. As for getting into trouble, we can take the train and be back before nine. There might be a few raised eyebrows in the dormitory, perhaps even a small punishment, but we won’t be suspended or expelled. Let’s go. If you think your father will let you.”

The taunt was obvious and explicit, but all in good fun. Sakura threw up her hands as though to ask, what could go wrong? Kara hesitated, then grinned. Sakura wouldn’t be happy if she couldn’t make a few waves now and then.

“Well, when you put it that way, how can I say no?”

They reached the room where Miho’s mask squad was at work. Kara glanced inside and saw Miho painting close-up detail work on a mask representing a long-haired woman, with wide eyes meant to indicate either sorrow or fury; it was difficult to tell which. Ren stood near a rack where a couple other masks were drying, but they were the only two left in the room.

“No, no,” came a voice from a room across the hall. “Like this. It must be precisely like this.”

Kara frowned. She had never heard such intensity in Miss Aritomo’s voice before, not even when the art teacher had been insisting that she and Sakura be faithful to the original Noh when they were adapting a play into manga.

Miho and Ren weren’t quite ready, so Kara slipped across the hall and peeked into the room. A quick glance showed her Miss Aritomo working through a series of precise steps and hand motions with Otomo, one of the girls who would perform in the play.

When Sakura slipped up next to her, Kara pushed her back, and both of them went back to stand outside, waiting for Miho and Ren. Kara did not want to be caught spying.

“That’s strange, don’t you think?” she asked.

Sakura raised her eyebrows. “What is?”

Kara lowered her voice. “I thought all of the Noh performers were supposed to rehearse in isolation. No one’s supposed to see them until the play, like the way a groom’s not supposed to see his bride before the wedding. It doesn’t seem like Aritomo-sensei’s style to break the rules.”

Sakura shrugged. “You know how seriously she takes all of this. I’m sure she just wants to make certain they do it correctly.”

Kara frowned. “Yeah. I guess.”

But it didn’t sit right with her.

Hungry and tired, and with plenty of homework still ahead of him, Daisuke Sasaki rode his bicycle toward home, wondering what his mother had made for dinner. His parents could not afford to pay for him to live in the dormitory at Monju-no-Chie school, and anyway, they lived too close to the school even to consider it, but Daisuke didn’t mind. Even on a day like today, when he had finished school only to have Noh club-and then an additional rehearsal period for the club’s upcoming production-he loved the ride home.

Actually, he considered himself lucky. Many of his friends had to go to juku, or cram school, after finishing their regular classes for the day. But Daisuke had always been an excellent student.

He pedaled past the train station and down long streets in the warm, golden glow of the summer evening. After the rehearsal, he had lingered for a while to speak with some of his friends about the play, and then stopped at the dorm to talk baseball with several boys from the baseball club. Daisuke had an interest in Noh theater, but really only belonged to the club because it pleased his grandmother. His true love was baseball.

Still, as he rode he could not help but chant softly under his breath. He had only a small role-an old priest who warned his younger counterpart about the Hannya-but he would also be chanting several parts of the play, like many others in the club. As he had worked to memorize the chants, they stuck in his head, and now he found them as difficult to remove as the catchiest pop songs.

Daisuke rode down a short hill into a narrow street. He let the bike coast as he swung around a tight corner, and had to swerve to avoid an old man who stood in the road cradling some kind of lizard in his arms as if it were an infant.

“Be careful, young fool!” the old man shouted, and Daisuke looked back to see him brandishing a gnarled fist.

Now, that was strange. He knew from having his grandmother living in the house with him and his parents that old people could be peculiar. But the wide-eyed old man with his lizard-baby made his grandmother seem boring by comparison. He ought to have a long, white beard. Crazy old men should all have long, white beards.

He raced past a library and an old church, then pedaled up a winding street among apartment buildings. A shortcut brought him buzzing down a lovely road lined with small shops, a wonderful view of Miyazu Bay ahead, and then Daisuke turned left, passed a park, and headed for a dingy, more industrial area of the city, where office buildings and noodle stands gave way to warehouses nearer the waterfront.

Blinking to clear his vision, he realized that twilight had snuck up on him. An indigo haze had replaced the golden light of early evening. Night came on late this time of year, but when it arrived, it did so swiftly.

Now he began to get tired, and wished he had taken the bus today, as he did in winter, instead of riding his bicycle. Ever since they had begun working on this play, the days had been longer, and he had been up later working on his homework. Daisuke decided that tomorrow, he would take the bus for sure.

Only a mile or so from home, he put an extra effort into pedaling. The wind had shifted and, though it had been a very warm day, the breeze off the bay cooled the back of his neck. As he passed a tiny restaurant where his father often took him when the women of the house were not at home, the smell of cooking fish filled his nostrils and his stomach growled painfully.

Daisuke began to daydream about what his mother might have cooked. He hoped for tuna and some curry bread. There would simply be no way for him to focus on his homework if he had to eat tempura and pickled plums again.

The darkness gathered around him, seeming to seep in from between the buildings as he reached the crest of a short hill. With a sigh, he stopped pedaling, grateful for the rest, letting the bike coast. He sat up high on the seat, guiding the bike with only his fingertips. The wind whipped at his hair and he breathed in the fresh bay air.

Something darted into the road in front of him. Daisuke scrabbled for the handlebars, fingers latching on, and twisted to avoid the figure looming up in front of him. He thought of the old man cradling the lizard, but in the gathering darkness he could make out only a silhouette, shifting and uncertain. He had the impression of hands reaching for him, but by then disaster had already struck. He’d swerved too far. The handlebars snapped sideways, the front tire following suit, and the bike pitched him forward. He flipped through the air, arms flailing, the world turned upside down.

Daisuke hadn’t time to utter a cry of panic before he struck the pavement and began to bounce and slide, pavement scouring the skin from his right arm, tearing his pants and scraping his leg. As he rolled, he struck his head, and the darkness closed in at the edges of his vision, swallowing him for long seconds.

When he opened his eyes, he lay on his side in the street, in the dark. A jagged shadow farther down the road he recognized as the wreckage of his bicycle. It hurt him just to breathe, and when he tried to shift, spikes of pain jabbed into his side and ran up his arm. Where he’d scraped the pavement, his skin sang with even more pain.

Panic seized him. The road was dark. He could hear no traffic. No one had emerged to call an ambulance for him. Someone there, in the road, had caused his accident, but he didn’t hear a siren. They must have run away, maybe afraid to be blamed.

But where did that leave Daisuke?

In his agony, frightened at how hard it was to breathe, he began to cry, wondering how long it would be before his parents became worried and came to look for him. He imagined his mother in the kitchen, or sitting at the table, waiting, and the tears flowed more freely. He sobbed once, and a fresh wave of pain enveloped him, nearly forcing him again into unconsciousness.

And then he heard it-a rustle against the pavement, a scrape and hiss.

Daisuke froze. “Hello?” he managed, although even that was difficult. Maybe the person had not run away after all. Maybe they had called, and help was on the way. “Are you there?”

No reply. He tried to turn, but it hurt too much.

“Hello?” he tried again.

He heard another rustle, and a low shush, as if someone stood just behind him, breathing, watching. His pain and hope began to be replaced by fear.

Then a new sound reached him, a soft hiss, that started a few feet behind him, but swiftly came nearer, until it had become an almost intimate whisper, inches from his ear.

Kara sat at her computer, scanning through some of the photos she had taken in and around Miyazu City over the past few months. She loved taking pictures, and since Sakura often used photographic reference to inspire her art for their manga, Kara had visited some of the prettier sites in the area with her camera. Ancient prayer shrines and mountain villages always gave her a quiet sense of peace and made her feel the weight of history.

Often, her friends would come along on these jaunts. Sometimes Miho and Sakura would join her, and on others, Hachiro had been her companion. The term break had consisted mostly of exploring the area with them at her side. When classes were in session, she spent so much time at school that it had been wonderful to discover beautiful, out-of-the-way spots she would otherwise never have encountered.

She came upon a cute photo of Hachiro. They’d climbed to the top of Takigami Mountain to visit the observatory. Afterward, Hachiro had climbed onto a large, jagged rock and Kara had knelt on the ground. When he’d thrust out his arms as if they were wings, she had snapped the picture, and with the blue sky and white clouds behind him, Hachiro appeared to be flying. No Photoshop, no tweaking.

The picture made her smile.

On a whim, inspired by a burst of affection, she clicked to make the photo her computer’s desktop background. As she sat back to admire the result, a wave of fatigue swept over her, and she yawned, stretching in her chair. When Miho had first asked her and Sakura to help with the Noh club’s endeavor, the idea had intrigued her, but it certainly made her days seem longer. The clock on her computer screen told her that ten thirty had come and gone.

She had eaten dinner quickly and then hit the books, finishing her homework about forty-five minutes ago. Normally she read a little before bed, or played her guitar for a while, but tonight she had wanted to catch up on e-mail, check in with a few friends from home, and upload new pictures to her Facebook page. She had lost herself in the photos, and now all she wanted was to go to sleep. Facebook would have to wait until tomorrow night, or even the weekend.

With another glance at the photo of “flying” Hachiro, she got up from her chair. The room-like the house-was small, but somehow she had learned to keep it fairly neat. She cleared her books off her bed and made an orderly stack of them on the bureau. With a sigh, she glanced at her guitar on its stand in the corner, tempted to play just a little, but her bed called to her as well, and she found her pillow far more tempting than the strings of her guitar. Shaking the urge to play from her fingers, she went out into the hall.

The door to her father’s room stood open, so she peeked in to find him stretched out on his bed in New England Patriots pajama pants and a plain white T-shirt. He’d propped his head on pillows and a book rested on his chest, barely held open by faltering hands. His eyes were closed, though he did not seem entirely asleep. Rob Harper had a habit of drifting off while reading, and then muttering offhandedly the next morning about having lost his place in the book.

Kara stepped quietly into the room and deftly extracted the book from his hands, freezing a moment to make sure she hadn’t disturbed him. When her father’s only reply was a soft exhalation that made his lower lip tremble, she gave a quiet chuckle, marked the page in his book, and set it down on the nightstand.

Stepping back, she regarded her father a moment. In those pajama pants, he looked entirely out of place in the room, with its traditional Japanese decoration and the tatami mats on the floor. She felt a strong kinship with him then that had nothing to do with being his daughter. No matter how well they spoke the language, or learned the customs, they would always be outsiders here. But the flip side of that coin was that, whenever they wished, they would always have a home to go to. It really was the best of both worlds.

Kara shut off his light and went down the short hall to the bathroom. With the door closed, she brushed her teeth, but even over the sound of the running water, she heard the hard knock upon their front door. A deep frown creased her forehead. Whoever might be coming to their door at a quarter to eleven probably didn’t care very much about courtesy, but they were going to wake her father. Not that she could do much about it with her mouth full of toothpaste foam.

She finished quickly, rinsed out her mouth, and wiped a trace of toothpaste from her lips with a facecloth. Washing her face would have to wait. Kara pulled open the bathroom door and hurried into the living room to find her very sleepy-looking father talking to an anxious Miss Aritomo. The art teacher appeared distraught, and both of them glanced up as Kara entered.

“Dad?” she ventured, a knot of dread in her gut. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

“Yuuka… I mean, Aritomo-sensei…,” he began.

“I had some upsetting news,” the woman said, picking up where her father faltered. “I went out for a walk, thinking it might ease my mind, and when I found myself passing your house, I realized that your father would want to know, and that it would be nice to have someone to talk to.”

Despite her reservations about the burgeoning relationship between her father and her art teacher, Kara truly liked Miss Aritomo. Seeing her so obviously troubled, it only reminded Kara how kind the woman had been to her from the very first time they met, and she felt badly about the distance she had begun to put between them.

“Are you all right?” Kara asked, going to her, even as her father closed the front door. “What news?”

The two adults exchanged glances, a silent communication, both hesitating to tell her what had transpired. Hideous thoughts filled her head as she thought of the monstrous ketsuki, the demonic thing that had killed several students earlier in the year.

Kara started to shake her head. “Please tell me nobody’s dead,” she said in a tiny voice.

Miss Aritomo blinked at this, then began to shake her head as well. “No, no. It isn’t that. At least, I pray that it isn’t.”

Kara’s father put a hand on her shoulder. “One of Aritomo-sensei’s Noh club students, a boy who lives on the other side of the city, hasn’t come home tonight. His mother called the school. She’s very upset, of course. But it’s much too early to assume anything has happened to him.”

He seemed to be speaking to Miss Aritomo as much as he was to Kara now, comforting them both.

“The boy might have fallen off his bike and been hurt, or he could simply be at a party. Or, worse, perhaps he’s run away. But don’t jump to conclusions. There’s no reason to think horrible thoughts.”

Kara knew her father was probably right, but she had to force herself to smile. No, no reason at all. Unless you’ve been cursed.