Spirits of the Noh

5

K ara stood just outside a small noodle shop, holding her breath to avoid inhaling the fumes from a battered taxi. Otherwise, she thought this street was one of the lovelier spots in Miyazu City. Despite its parks and gardens and temples, much of the city had an urban feel, and many neighborhoods were old and gray, almost the Japanese equivalent of some of the uglier areas in and around Boston, and in Medford, where she’d grown up, just minutes north of the city.

But although they called it Miyazu City, much of its heart remained the same town it had been during Japan’s Edo period. Downtown there were still homes of wealthy merchants from that era, and she had even been inside one of them, Mikami-ke House, which was open to tourists.

Here on Nariai Street, it seemed a perfect blend of old and new. A small temple rose from the middle of the block, up ahead on the left, and some of the buildings had been apartments or houses at some point, while others were shops of indeterminate age. All of the older buildings had been renovated. An old woman stood with a young girl on the corner across from Kara, selling flowers, though the summer-evening light had begun to fade into dusk.

Straight ahead, down the gentle slope of the street, she could see the water of the bay, glistening with the golden sheen of twilight. This would’ve been a nice, even romantic, place for her to have come with Hachiro any other time.

Now she doubted she would ever be able to come here again without thinking of what brought them here this first time-not just her and Hachiro, but Miho and Sakura, and Ren, who had volunteered to join them, though he still was not one hundred percent convinced that they had not all hallucinated the Kyuketsuki incident.

According to Miho, Miss Aritomo had made only one comment about Daisuke’s absence during the Noh club meeting, explaining that his parents were concerned about him, that he appeared to have run away, and if anyone heard from him, they should inform her right away. She’d made a similar plea during the rehearsal for Dojoji, but Kara, Sakura, and Ren had all been there for that. One kid had actually had the utter callousness to ask who would be taking Daisuke’s part if he didn’t come back to school. Miss Aritomo had gone cold and told the guy she would await Daisuke’s return, that she was certain his parents would locate him.

Beyond that, everyone behaved as though it was business as usual. And, maybe, if things had been different, Kara would have done the same.

“This is accomplishing nothing.” Sakura sighed, tromping up to stand beside her, a bit of petulance in her stance. She lit a cigarette, the pack and lighter appearing from and vanishing into her jacket pockets as if by magic.

The rest of them had changed clothes, but Sakura still wore her sailor fuku with the jacket turned inside out, all kinds of patches and pins on display, skirt hiked up too high, hair in short pigtails. This was a chance for her to act out, and she’d taken it. The Goth Lolita thing wasn’t her style, but she verged on the borders of it from time to time.

“It was a…,” Kara began, but she didn’t know how to say long shot in Japanese. “It was worth a try,” she said instead. “Though I admit, my feet are killing me.”

Sakura smiled. Killing me was a bit of idiomatic American slang that she’d managed to translate into Japanese and explain to her friends, and they’d quickly adopted it as their own.

They stood together, Sakura shifting slightly so that the breeze off the bay would not blow her smoke into Kara’s face, and glanced back the way they had come. Hachiro had stopped to talk to a pretty woman in front of a dress shop, trying to figure out the most direct way to get from this street to Daisuke’s address. Miho and Ren waited and listened, but didn’t seem to be adding anything to the conversation.

“Here they come,” Kara said, as Hachiro waved to the dress shop woman and the three of them started to come down the street.

“Oh, good. More walking,” Sakura mumbled around the cigarette clenched between her teeth.

It wasn’t just Kara’s feet that hurt. Her calves ached, and her stomach growled from lack of food. The aromas wafting from the noodle shop smelled wonderful. Kara had been concerned that her father would balk at her hanging out with her friends tonight, as it was a school night and she had homework yet to do. But when she had brought it up right after o-soji, he had been all for it. He had, he said, been thinking of taking Miss Aritomo out for a quiet dinner somewhere to distract her from her worries about the missing student, and if Kara and her friends were going out, she could fend for herself dinner-wise, and that would work out nicely.

Which all seemed fairly sensible and convenient, except that she felt sure her father and Miss Aritomo were having dinner by now, maybe even dessert, and she was famished.

“So?” Sakura asked as Hachiro, Ren, and Miho walked up. “What now?”

Miho gave a small shrug, a sheepish expression on her face. “This seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“I’m not sure it ever seemed like a good idea,” Hachiro said, giving her a sidelong glance. “But it did seem like something we had to do. Now, I don’t know. I suppose I thought that if something happened to him, maybe we would find a clue, or some hint about where he went.”

Ren pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head, longish bronze hair framing his face. “Really? The way Sakura described it, I thought we were looking for a body, or maybe his bike.”

Hachiro nodded grimly. “That, too. But none of us really knows Daisuke. I talked to him more than any of you, but only ever about baseball. And if he was dead on the side of the road somewhere, the police would have found him.”

Miho pointed across the street, where the flower sellers-the old woman and little girl-were packing up for the night. Twilight gathered around them. It would be truly dark soon.

“That road is the most likely one for him to have taken to get home. But it’s not the only one,” Miho said, shrugging again. “Daisuke could have stopped for a drink, or there might be a road that he’s used to taking, a shortcut we don’t know about.”

Hachiro continued. “The woman at the dress shop said any of the four streets that branch off this one would lead down toward the old fishery area, and Daisuke’s neighborhood is just beyond that.”

Kara could see where all this was going. Sakura caught her eye, taking a drag off of her cigarette, and nodded. They were both thinking the same thing.

“It’s getting dark,” Sakura said, holding the cigarette down by her side as she blew out a lungful of smoke. “We won’t be able to see anything.”

“She’s right,” Kara said, glancing at Miho. This whole thing had been her idea, so she had to be the one to call it off.

Miho seemed reluctant a moment, and shifted her gaze away from them, looking down the street toward the bay. Ren and Hachiro stood on either side of her, almost protectively, though Kara could tell both of them wanted to call it quits as well. They had to be realistic about it. They didn’t know which way Daisuke had gone, and weren’t going to find anything in the dark.

“We really don’t have any reason to think the curse has anything to do with this,” Miho said.

Ren gave a short bow. “Thank you. That is what I’ve been saying for the past hour.” He took Miho’s hand and, with a gallant, courtly flourish, bent to kiss it. “Your heart is gentle, fair lady, but logic wins the day.”

Miho blushed deeply. “All right, all right.” She glanced at Kara. “But I hope he really did run away. This is going to haunt me until I know for sure.”

Kara forced herself to smile. “Anyone up for noodles?” she said. “I’m starving.”

But what she would have said, if she weren’t worried about troubling Miho even more deeply, was, Me, too.

Mai stood in the shower, warm water sluicing down her body, pushing her fingers through her hair to rinse out the shampoo. She took a breath and placed the palms of her hands against the wall, letting the hot spray massage her shoulders, hoping it would ease the tight stress knots in her muscles. Normally she got up early and showered before school, like most of the other girls on her floor, but tonight she just needed to be out of her room and away from Wakana.

The girls had nothing in common. Mai hadn’t even spoken to Wakana prior to the school year beginning in April. But Wakana had been new to Monju-no-Chie school, transferring in as a second-year student, and Mai’s roommate had not returned, so they had been thrown in together. Mai had tried to make the most of it-she was still trying. She thought of herself as a good person, and it wasn’t as though Wakana had ever been anything but nice to her. They were just such opposites that they had nothing to talk about, and Wakana’s natural shyness would have made that difficult even if they had.

For the past twenty-four hours, though, Wakana had been insufferable. All the crying had gotten under Mai’s skin so much that she could barely stand to be in the same room with the girl-which was a problem, since they were roommates. Wakana had been talking about Daisuke nonstop since May. The two of them had met in Noh club and were apparently boyfriend and girlfriend, although they never really went out anywhere, so Mai had her doubts that they could be considered a couple. If Daisuke really liked Wakana, he would have taken her to dinner, or done something romantic with her. At least, that was what Mai had told Wakana, over and over.

Daisuke did like to hang around, though. He commuted from home to school, but every day he seemed to linger, quietly flirting with Wakana. As her roommate, Mai saw a lot of Daisuke as well, and against her better judgment-as much as it drove her crazy how much Wakana talked about him-she ended up liking the guy. He had a cute smile and a nice laugh and a self-effacing sense of humor that charmed Mai completely.

Now Daisuke was missing. Her roommate’s boyfriend. Ever since Mr. Sato and Mr. Yamato came to their room last night to ask if they had any idea where he might be, all Wakana had been able to do was cry, and Mai couldn’t listen to her anymore.

She stood in the shower, the water too hot now, the spray like tiny pinpricks, her skin almost scalding, but she didn’t turn it off. If she did, she would have to dry off and go back to her room and listen to Wakana cry. She wished she could stay in here until her roommate had cried herself to sleep. Mai especially did not want to go back into the room until she could stop her own tears, for she was crying for Daisuke as well.

You shouldn’t be. He’s not your boyfriend, she told herself. Mai knew that there wasn’t anything wrong with crying out of worry for a friend’s safety. But the problem was, she had started to think of Daisuke as more than a friend-her roommate’s boyfriend or not. And if she went back into their room with tears in her eyes, she would never be able to hide that from Wakana.

Mai didn’t want that. Acting like a bitch to that teacher’s pet gaijin girl, Kara Harper, was one thing. But hurting Wakana, the most harmless person in the world, would not sit right in her heart. The other soccer girls, the ones who had worshipped Ume and were now turning that worship to Mai herself, would never understand such thoughts. They were merciless, those girls, and the only reason Mai stepped up into the queen bitch role was to prevent any of them from doing so. She had taken enough crap from Ume.

But Wakana… all she ever did was read, and try hard to stay out of the way. It was difficult enough for her to deal with Daisuke just vanishing, or running away, if that was really what happened. Mai just wished she would stop crying. And she wished that she could pretend Ume had never told her the crazy stories about ghosts and demons or whatever those things were back in April.

Mai hadn’t really believed Ume then, and though Daisuke’s disappearance had freaked her out, she didn’t really believe her now. But it had been clear from the fervor in her eyes that Ume had believed, and she found that deeply unsettling.

“Stop,” she whispered to herself, the word lost in the hiss of the shower. She took another deep breath. “Just stop.”

The command seemed to work. She turned and let the hot water spray her face, eyes tightly shut. When she shut off the water, grabbed her towel, and ran the soft cloth over her features, her tears had ceased. Mai paused a second to make sure they wouldn’t return, and then finished drying herself off before stepping out of the shower.

Clad in her robe with a towel wrapped around her head, she peeked into the hall to make sure there weren’t any boys out there. This time of night, the two sides of the dorm were off-limits to the opposite sexes, but rules were made to be broken. When she saw that the coast was clear, she darted down the hall, carrying the small shower caddy where she kept her shampoo and body wash, her room key dangling from a hook there.

Mai gave the door a quick rap and tried the knob, but it didn’t turn. She frowned. When she’d gone to shower, she had left it unlocked so that she wouldn’t have to disturb Wakana, but the girl had actually shaken herself from her sobbing long enough to lock the door behind her?

And people think I’m a bitch, Mai thought.

With a sigh, she pushed her key into the lock. As she turned it, she heard a noise from inside the room-a kind of helpless, plaintive sound that was neither sob nor grunt, but something in between.

The door trembled, pressing slightly outward, and she felt a cool breeze come underneath it, sweeping past her feet. As the door resettled, she turned the key and pushed it open. She entered to discover one of the two windows wide open, as far as its frame would allow, which made no sense because the air-conditioning was humming along nicely. Another gust of wind came through the window as she went to close the door, snatching the knob from her damp hand and slamming it behind her, making her jump.

The dormitory rooms were small. Two beds, tatami mats, two tiny desks, a small futon-chair, built-in closets, and a mirror.

“Wakana?” Mai said, an odd feeling creeping up her spine.

It might have been possible for her roommate to fit into one of the closets, but only barely, and not without spilling clothes out onto the floor. And then there was the question: why? Besides, Mai could feel the emptiness of the room.

Wakana was gone.

Brow furrowing, Mai glanced at the door she had just come through. Wakana must have gone out, locking the door behind her, knowing Mai had a key. It was the only thing that made any sense.

She went to the window and leaned on the sill, looking out, head cocked and all of her senses wide open. Something wasn’t right. No, more than that. Many things were not right. Her heart began to beat a little faster and the skin prickled at the back of her neck. The sound she’d heard, that tiny yelp-she had not imagined it. Mai might persuade herself otherwise if she let herself, so she fixed it firmly in her memory, pinned it there, confirming for herself that it had been real. And now that she considered it, her nostrils flared as she detected the strangest aroma in the room and just outside the window. The smell was neither pleasant nor unpleasant-or, rather, it was a bit of both, like dying flowers or fruit just beginning to turn.

Mai peered out into the darkness behind the dorm, where a narrow lawn separated the building from the woods that marked the property boundary at the rear of the school grounds. The wind continued to gust, rustling leaves, but that scent remained unchanged, lingering like the spray from a skunk, though not nearly so offensive.

Somewhere far off, a bell began to ring, or perhaps had been ringing. She tried to keep count of its tolling but lost track while wondering where the sound originated. Had one of the local churches or temples gotten a new bell? She’d never heard it before.

She flinched, stepping back from the window. Down in the trees, had she seen something moving? A pale face, darting behind a tree? Her heart began to sprint, now, and Mai tried to calm down.

The clock read 10:48. Late. Too late for Wakana to have gone out. Maybe she only went to someone else’s room. That had to be it. Relief washed over Mai as she grasped at this simple solution. Chuckling at herself, she let her towel and robe drop and quickly stepped into underwear and pajama bottoms and a yellow T-shirt with a cute monkey on it. She went to the door, thinking she would take a stroll down the hall, and surely she would find Wakana.

As she opened the door, a hot, humid breeze caressed her, and she remembered the open window, and the humming air-conditioner. She ought to shut the window. When she turned back to do precisely that, however, her gaze fell on something she hadn’t seen before.

Wakana’s keys, on the little tea table next to her bed.

Mai’s throat went dry. She ran her tongue out to moisten her lips, thoughts slowing, mind a bit numb. The keys were on the inside, which meant Wakana had to have locked the door from within.

She hadn’t left through the door.

Mai stared at the open window, one hand fluttering up to halfway cover her mouth as she shook her head, and thought of Daisuke. Of the police calling him a runaway.

It seemed Monju-no-Chie school had a second “runaway.” Only this one had left through a second-story window.

Kara sat at her desk trying desperately to stay awake over her math homework. She spoke Japanese fluently, and could read and write it fairly well, but sometimes mentally translating the instructions on a section of calculus homework made her want to scream. It ought to have been the simplest thing, but the Japanese words describing certain formulas and mathematical theorems confused her, which led to frustration, which led-this late at night-to outrageous boredom.

It didn’t help that they had walked miles tonight, both before and after their dinner at the noodle place, before taking the train back to the station near Monju-no-Chie school. It was just down the street from Kara’s house, but she had not dragged herself over the threshold until nearly ten o’clock. Her father and Miss Aritomo were out later than she had expected them to be, but this, of course, was a stroke of good luck. Her father couldn’t very well give her a hard time for staying out so late when he, himself, had not yet come home.

All night, she had been distracted by the question of whether or not to tell her father about Kyuketsuki. She had been emphatic about not doing so when talking to her friends, but inside she had been torn. If he believed her, he would be angry with her for not having told him the truth originally, and he might well pull her out of the school and pack them both back off home to Boston on the next flight. If he believed her.

Much more likely was option B, in which he didn’t believe a word of it and was either offended or assumed she had lost her mind. In either case, he would have to do something.

Kara hated not being completely honest with her father. Their relationship had always been open, especially after her mother’s death. They had drawn strength from each other, and the truth was a big part of that. But if she told him the truth, one way or another, he would have to act on it.

No, she had decided while reading from her biology textbook, attempting to study. If anything truly weird or scary happened, or if she had reason to believe Daisuke’s disappearance had anything to do with the curse, she would tell him. Otherwise, there would be no point. All the truth would bring either one of them was stress, and unhappiness.

For what felt like the thousandth time, she tried to focus on the directions for the third section of her math homework. Her eyes felt itchy and dry and exhaustion caused her chin to start to dip toward her chest. Her lids fluttered as she struggled to stay awake.

Maybe she did actually fall asleep, just for a few minutes, before voices outside her window woke her. Kara inhaled sharply, blinking, and for a moment only sat there, reacquainting herself with the waking world. Only then did she realize what had caught her half-conscious attention, and zero in on the voices.

Her father and Miss Aritomo were back from their dinner date at last.

Once again, she found herself in conflict, with new thoughts only adding to the mental turmoil. If she told her father, and he believed her, who would he tell? Miss Aritomo? The principal, Mr. Yamato? The police? Even if Kara could persuade her father that she and her friends had not imagined the wild things she would be telling him, once he spoke of it to others he would be subject to ridicule. No one would believe him, any more than they would have believed Kara, Sakura, and Miho. Perhaps he could convince Miss Aritomo, but in the end, it would mean dishonor and humiliation for him, and for what purpose?

Kara took a deep breath and rubbed grit from the corners of her eyes. No. She’d been right the first time. Talking to her father about any of this had to be kept as a final option. Right now, they had only their own fears to report. For all they knew, they were in no danger.

Sitting up straight in the chair, she focused intently on the instructions for the final section of her math homework. Half a dozen problems and she could go to sleep. This time, for whatever reason, she managed to decipher the directions in fairly short order. That’s all? She smiled. This would take twenty minutes or less to complete.

But as she took up her pencil, she heard voices again and realized her father and Miss Aritomo were still outside. If they were saying good night, they were sure taking their time about it. God, she thought, they’re probably totally making out, right there, where anyone driving by could see them.

Perhaps they had been, but now they were talking. For the first time that day, she managed to calm her thoughts and just listen.

“-tell you how much it’s meant to me, spending this time with you,” her father was saying, his voice low. Didn’t he know she could hear him? Or maybe, since the only light on in her room was the little one on her desk, and she’d been so quiet… did he think she was asleep?

“It’s been a wonderful surprise for me, too,” Miss Aritomo replied sweetly.

“Ever since Annette died, I’ve worried almost every second. Was I doing the right thing for Kara? How could we start our lives over? Would coming to Japan make that easier, or more difficult? Always doubting myself. But whenever I’m with you, I feel such a sense of peace.”

Kara smiled sadly, there in the glow of her one little lamp. If her father had really been that anxious all the time, he rarely let it show. He’d done an amazing job of keeping their world steady, and the two of them had taken care of each other. If Miss Aritomo brought him peace of mind, how could she begrudge him that?

“I’m glad,” the art teacher said, voice dropping even lower. “I feel that peace, too.”

A pause, a hesitation, and she knew they had to be kissing. Kara wanted to talk, to knock something over, click off the light, do something to let them know she was there and could hear them. They were being so quiet, but not quiet enough, and she didn’t want to hear, because the truth was, she did begrudge him the happiness Miss Aritomo gave him. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop it from hurting. Every longing glance or sweet word between them was a reminder to Kara that her mother was dead.

“Yuuka,” her father said, his voice a rasp, obviously breaking their kiss, “I believe I’m falling in love with you.”

Kara’s mouth fell open, her chest tightening with grief. The pencil fell from her hand. Fair or not, hearing the words hurt her deeply. Her ears burned, face flushing, and she reached out and turned off the light.

Outside, low voices dropped to nearly silent whispers.

Ignoring the rest of her homework, Kara crawled onto her bed and pulled her knees up to her chest, staring wide-eyed at shadows. A few minutes later, when her father rapped softly at her door and spoke her name, she remained silent and did not invite him in.