The Waking

3

B y the time Kara left the school grounds for the short walk home, the afternoon shadows had grown very long and a crisp chill touched the air. It might officially be spring, but on the first day of April, the memory of winter still lingered. Once again she found herself breathless at the beauty of Ama-no-Hashidate. Late in the day, the pine-studded causeway had an almost mythical aura around it, as though if she went for a walk among those trees, she might encounter things that now existed only in ancient legends.

The day had felt even longer than she anticipated and Kara had been very tired when she left school. But with the cool air and the blue sky and the fading sunlight, she drew in deep breaths and felt like running. All of her preparation had paid off. The days would be hard work, but Kara knew now that she could handle it.

More than anything, she wanted to immerse herself in her new home, to learn the streets and the houses and walk the shore of the bay, to go into Miyazu City and visit the shops, and to discover the history of local prayer shrines and festivals.

Unfortunately, she had homework.

But she’d have all year to explore, and she’d already made a start. Right now, school had to come first, especially since a lot of the students she’d met were also attending cram schools- juku -which meant that while she now headed home for dinner, they had gone into the city for more school. The idea made her shudder. Kara wanted to have the full experience of what it meant to attend school in Japan, but she understood now that it would be impossible. At some point, she’d return to the United States, either for her senior year of high school or for college. No matter what she did, she would never feel the kind of pressure that her classmates felt.

As she started up the path to the front of their small house, she smiled to herself. Cram school. The idea made her cringe. She’d live with the guilt.

“Hi, sweetie,” her father called as she walked in.

Kara found him in the kitchen chopping vegetables. She dropped her backpack and gave him a short hug, picking up a slice of onion and eating it raw.

“Hey. How was your day?” she asked.

He took a sip from a cup of sake, then went back to chopping. “Good, but exhausting.” Rob Harper grinned. “I’ll never learn all of their names.”

Kara crossed her arms. “Oh, come on. Don’t give up already. It’s only the first day.”

“What about you?” he asked, turning to face her. He studied her intently. “Was it everything you hoped it would be?”

“Everything I hoped and everything I feared.”

Her father looked at her in alarm, but Kara brushed his concern away.

“No, no, it was fine. I don’t mean, like, utter disaster feared. It’s just so weird being the only outsider.”

“Were the kids that bad to you?” her father asked.

“Some,” she said. “But I made a couple of friends today. At least, I think they’ll be friends, given some time.”

Picking up his sake cup, he nodded. “It’s a start. What about school itself? Any trouble understanding the teachers?”

“Not enough to be a problem. I really like the art teacher. And I think I’m going to love learning social studies from a different perspective. Now if I can just figure out what club I want to join, I’ll be pretty much set.”

Her father turned on the stove and poured a bit of sesame oil into the pan. “Right, right,” he said, chopping up garlic. “Did you see anything you liked?”

“Too many things.” Kara took a step away as he dropped the garlic into the pan. “It’s an interesting way to go about it, almost like a career fair. After o-soji, all of the clubs met in the gym, and I just kind of wandered around, talking to different people. It stinks that there’s no photography club, but I guess I take enough pictures. I wouldn’t mind doing judo or working on the yearbook. Miho, one of the girls I met today, does Noh theater, which is totally fascinating to me. But Sakura, her roommate, belongs to the calligraphy club, and that’s pretty interesting, too. The only thing I’m sure of at this point is that I don’t want to play soccer.”

Her father sliced raw chicken on a dish, but he paused to brush all of the chopped vegetables into the pan.

“Why’s that?” he asked as he scraped the chicken in as well.

Kara wrinkled her nose, only partially because of the smell of frying garlic. “Snotty girls. I mean, I guess they were okay. But you can always tell popular girls by their attitude. That requires zero translation. I couldn’t stomach those girls at home, so I don’t think I’m going to like the subtitled version any better.”

Her dad blinked, brows knitting. “Meow?”

“Was that catty? I guess that was catty. But my cup isn’t running over with regret.” She shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not, like, a diva or something. But I don’t want to be anybody’s token gaijin girl. I’m a little odd, so I’ll stick with the odd ones.”

“Does that go for the boys, too?”

“Huh?”

“Just wondering if you met any boys today.”

Kara arched an eyebrow. “None worth mentioning,” she said, then thought better of it. “Actually, there was one-”

“Aha!” He pointed at her with the wooden fork he’d been using.

“No ‘aha.’ I’m not looking for a boyfriend. Hachiro was just nice to me. He’s this big, friendly kid, sort of like a Great Dane puppy, already huge but hasn’t grown into his size yet.”

And, yes, great smile, pretty charming, she thought. She remembered the little jump her heart had given when Hachiro had smiled at her the first time, but she wasn’t about to mention that to her father.

“Observant girl. You picked up a lot on your first day,” he said.

“You taught me well.” As her father took another sip of sake, Kara studied him. He did seem awfully upbeat after a long day. Drinking sake. He might even have been humming when she came into the house, now that Kara thought about it. “What about you? Anyone catch your eye in the teachers’ room?”

Her father only smiled and reached for plates.

“Dad?” Kara prodded.

“Do you want some sake?”

Her mouth curled up into an eeeew face. Sake-nasty stuff. “You’re dodging the question.”

“I’ve already said you were observant.”

Kara laughed and poked him. “Which one is it? No, wait. Is it Miss Aritomo? She’s pretty and really nice. It’s her, isn’t it?”

Rob Harper nodded, surrendering before Kara had really begun the needling in earnest. “She’s beautiful. But I barely spoke to her. And you know I’m not looking.”

Kara’s smile vanished. All the good humor, the excitement after their first day, was sucked from the room.

“Hey,” her father said, reaching out to touch her face. “I didn’t mean to-”

“There’s nothing wrong with looking, Dad.”

Kara’s friend Anthony had lost his father to cancer when they were in eighth grade, and she had other friends whose parents were divorced. Most, if not all of them, had serious issues with the idea of their parents getting romantically involved with someone new. At first, she had felt the same way. But her father kept to himself too much, and when Kara thought about what her mother would have wanted for him, it gave her an entirely different perspective.

“She wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone,” Kara added.

He nodded. “I know,” he said and bent to kiss the top of her head. “I know, sweetie. This is our new beginning, right? But it’s only day one. I might need more time to adjust than you.”

Kara forced herself to smile. “Who’s adjusting? I’m freaking out.”

The moment passed, and dinner was ready. Kara went to change-she made a habit out of dropping food on herself at the worst times, and she didn’t want to stain her uniform. As soon as she returned, they sat down to eat. Kara had mastered chopsticks at the age of five, but she and her father had agreed that in their own house, they would use forks. Night came on, with even cooler temperatures, and Kara appreciated having something warm in her belly.

After dinner they cleaned up together. Her father went into the room he kept as an office to prepare for the following day’s classes, and Kara retreated to her room to do her homework. The events of the day were still fresh in her mind. Now that most of the morning’s butterflies were gone from her stomach, she found herself excited all over again.

She’d been told to expect about two hours’ worth of homework a night, but since it was the first day, she finished in less than half that time. Her windows had been open a couple of inches to let in the breeze of the day, and she’d enjoyed the crisp air while she did her homework-it helped keep her awake. Now, though, she went and closed the one nearest her bed.

The window gave her a view of the school, and the bay shore. She could see lights across the water and a dark swath that could only be Ama-no-Hashidate. For a moment she admired the peaceful view.

Then she remembered what Sakura had said: her sister had been murdered at the water’s edge. Kara’s serene moment winked out, like a candle snuffed by an errant breeze. The place where Akane had died must be farther along the bay, on the school grounds, so Kara wouldn’t be able to see the spot from here.

The thought troubled and intrigued her in almost equal measure.

She shook it off. Tragic as Sakura’s loss might be, Kara couldn’t let it ruin her appreciation of the delightful place where they had chosen to live. Miyazu City had its charms, chief among them the view of the bay and of Ama-no-Hashidate, which was considered among the three most beautiful locations in Japan. If Kara let this get to her, it would be a very, very long year.

Determined, she pulled on a sweatshirt. Her guitar called to her from the corner of the room, but she could play later. Right now, she wanted to explore, and she wasn’t about to let the night, or tales of murder, make her afraid.

“Dad, I’m going for a walk,” she said, at the door to his office.

He looked up from his desk, brow furrowed in momentary concern. Then he nodded. “All right. Don’t go far.”

Kara assured him she wouldn’t and headed for the door. She stepped out into the night, burrowing a little deeper into her sweatshirt, and started walking, first thinking she might head to the Turning Bridge before her feet decided to stroll along the path toward the school. Maybe some of the boarding students would be outside. Could they go outside? The ones who went to cram school would probably just be getting back. If she became real friends with Miho or Sakura, or anybody else, she wondered what the rules were for socializing.

Still, the warm yellow lights in the distant windows of the school comforted her. As a little girl, she had been afraid of many things. Every noise outside her window might be a ghost, every creak of the house a thief who might try to steal her away. Her mother had stroked her hair and kissed her forehead, and always said the same words until they became a mantra.

“There’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the light.”

Most of the time, her mother managed to convince her. But only most of the time. At sixteen, Kara still felt afraid sometimes, but she had to recite the mantra herself, these days. Her mother’s death had stolen so many things from her, so many moments. Sometimes Kara missed her so much she couldn’t breathe.

There’s nothing in the dark that isn’t there in the light, she thought as she walked along the path, forcing herself to taste the spring night air, to relish the beauty of the bay and the lights of the city.

A squeaking noise made her jump, but it was only an old man riding by on a bicycle. She smiled at him, but he didn’t even seem to notice her.

Nothing in the dark.

A trio of boys marched up the path toward the front doors of Monju-no-Chie School like coal miners or factory workers headed home after a long day. Kara watched them approach, surprised to see them so serious outside of school. Boys were usually laughing about something; whether they were insulting one another for sport or talking about girls, they tended to amuse themselves. But not these guys. Kara didn’t know the rules for students who lived in the dorm, but she doubted they were allowed to stay late in the city on school nights unless they were at juku.

Once more she felt grateful not to have the pressure the other students did. She couldn’t imagine the stress of adding cram school-and that much more homework-to her current schedule. It had to be past nine o’clock, and these guys would have to do the homework from the regular school day plus whatever they had to do for juku. Once the teachers started piling on the work, that might be three hours or more a night, total.

“Excuse me?” Kara said.

The three boys had been so tired, or so focused on getting back to their rooms, that they hadn’t noticed her. One of them even let out a small grunt of surprise, startled. Kara stood in the shadows off to the left of the front steps, hands in the pockets of her sweatshirt.

“What are you doing out here?” one of them snapped, angry or embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought I would take a walk, but no one else is outside.”

“It’s late,” one of the other boys said.

“I know. I just wasn’t sure… I don’t really know the rules yet. Are the students who live here allowed to have visitors in the dormitory?”

The one who’d spoken first, a short, doughy-faced guy, leered at her and waggled his eyebrows. “Why? Did you want to visit one of us, bonsai?”

Kara frowned. The piggish behavior bothered her, but not as much as the nickname. “Why did you call me that?” she asked, thinking of the soccer girls, and Ume, who’d been so bitchy at first and then tried to be nice.

“Everyone’s calling you that,” muttered the one she’d startled. “Bonsai. I wouldn’t complain. It’s not nearly as bad as some of the things they could be calling you.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind. I’m sorry I bothered you,” Kara said, half-scowling. She started to walk away.

“Bonsai!” one of the boys called. When she didn’t turn, he tried again. “Kara.”

She froze. They all knew her, didn’t they? Everyone at the school, whether or not they’d ever even seen her face. She’d only spoken to a handful of her schoolmates, but every single one of them knew who she was. It creeped her out, more than a little.

“What?” she asked, turning to face the three boys again.

“No visitors are allowed in the dorm after eight o’clock, except for other non-resident students. That’s you. If you’re part of a club or study group, you can stay until ten, and sometimes, if you get special permission, they allow non-resident students to sleep over with friends on weekends. But you’d only be allowed in the girls’ wing. We have shared common areas, but you wouldn’t be allowed into the boys’ wing.”

I’m heartbroken, Kara thought. But the guy didn’t deserve sarcasm. His friend had been obnoxious, but this one had at least been polite.

“Thank you,” she said.

His friends had already started tentatively up the steps, looking back impatiently. They behaved like she wasn’t even there. Kara returned the favor, turning to stroll away from the school. She had gotten the answer she’d wanted. Living with her father would give her the best of both worlds. When all she desired was a quiet, safe place of her own in which to curl up, she’d find that at their little house. But if she made any real friends among the boarding students, they could hang out in the dorm as well.

She wasn’t sure how it would work with local kids who attended Monju-no-Chie School. Walking around downtown or hanging out by the bay might work on the weekends, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t be getting a lot of invitations for movie night. Study groups might be the only social life available during the week.

Maybe Miho and Sakura would end up being her friends, or Hachiro, but it was only the first day. Anything could happen. For now, Kara was on her own.

Strolling across the grounds, she found herself walking once again along the path that led around the side of the school, near the woods. The dark, recessed doorway where Sakura had been hiding to smoke a cigarette before class seemed much darker now, and forbidding. But she’d come this way to take a look at the ancient prayer shrine at night.

She’d explored the area several times since they had moved to Japan, and she’d taken plenty of pictures. But at night, the whole world seemed different. The lights across the bay might be firelight or oil lamps; she could be seeing back across time. History always seemed to linger in the air. No matter how many computers the school had, what advances in technology the country might achieve, Japan always seemed an enigma to her. All of the engineering advances crafted by modern Japan seemed little more than a quaint mask of progress, and it seemed like the country’s rich, textured history and traditions would always hide behind it.

She stopped to look at the shadows of the old shrine, moonlight filtering down through the branches above. Though part of it had been built from stone, the shrine had a wooden frame, and she knew the wood itself could not truly be ancient. Time and weather would have ruined it many times over the centuries, but someone-monks, maybe-had rebuilt it just as frequently. Even now, candles burned inside lanterns, and their ghostly light flickered with every gust of wind.

Kara took a deep breath. Somehow the shrine eased her mind. The monks who’d first built it, and the people who prayed here, worshipped very differently than she did, but she believed that they probably prayed for the same things she would. Peace and love, patience and courage. Those were things everyone needed, no matter what god they believed in.

A ripple of laughter came from behind her and she turned to see a quartet of figures hurrying up the walkway toward the front of the school. More students returning from cram school.

A tiny sound came from the shrine-out of the corner of her eye she saw something moving-and Kara spun, breath hitching, heart racing. But the small thing that moved out from the shadows and flowers of the shrine was only a cat.

“Oh my God,” Kara said, lapsing into English. “You scared the crap out of me.”

The cat arched its back and gazed up at her, eyes glinting in the light of the moon and the flickering candles. Kara smiled and knelt down, reaching out for it. She preferred dogs. Cats always had that imperious attitude, like they were the rulers of the world, and occasionally allowed humans to open a can of tuna for them and change their litter. She half-expected it to hiss or scratch, so she moved her hand slowly and was surprised when it allowed her to stroke its red and copper fur.

“What are you doing out here, pretty?” she whispered.

But already the cat seemed bored. It slid toward her, brushed against her legs, and then started down the path that led to the bay. To the right there were woods, and to the left, the neighborhood around the school and the road that led to Miyazu City. The school stood silently behind her, and down the gentle slope ahead, the water lapped against the shore.

The cat trotted toward the water and Kara followed, mainly for the serenity the bay provided. She needed to get back before her father started worrying about her, but first she wanted to enjoy the spring night and the moonlit bay for a few minutes. The cat seemed to have the same idea.

But Kara had another reason for coming down here. One that did nothing to soothe her. She’d been pretending to herself that this was only a stroll, to check out the grounds and figure out if anyone else liked to wander after dark. Though parents and teachers discouraged kids her age from dating-it got in the way of school-Kara knew that wouldn’t stop teenagers. They might not be hooking up at parties, but there had to be at least some action going on with all the hormones swirling around.

But she’d known all along it wasn’t just a stroll. And she didn’t really expect to find anyone stealing kisses by the bay.

Not with the other shrine that had been put together on the shore of the bay, at the edge of the woods. Photos and stuffed animals and cards written in kanji. Bits of calligraphy. Flowers for a dead girl.

Did Akane come down here with a guy? Kara wondered. Did whoever did it mean to kill her, or just bully her somehow, and she ended up dead? Her father had warned her, even given her articles to read about the bullying that had become such a problem in many Japanese schools.

She’d wanted to think that anyone could have discovered Akane on the shore, maybe tried to rape her or something, and then killed her. A group of college students from the city. A fisherman. Anyone. And she supposed that was possible, but glancing around, it seemed unlikely. Who would come down to this spot except for students?

The question echoed in her mind, frightening her. Had Akane been murdered by her own schoolmates, and if so, had they graduated… or were there still killers at Monju-no-Chie School?

The cat shook her from her thoughts, brushing against her legs again before gliding down to the water’s edge. The wind caused tiny waves that slapped the shore, and the cat darted away in surprise. As though annoyed, it cast a glance at the bay over its shoulder, then walked over to investigate the shrine Akane’s friends had built in her memory.

Head low, sniffing the ground, tail swaying, it moved from a bouquet of decaying flowers to a pink pillow, sewn with silken hearts and ribbons. After a few seconds, the cat moved around the edges of the shrine.

Abruptly it hissed, arching its back.

Kara frowned, staring at it. The cat began to yowl and shake its head, and then it cried out the way she’d only ever heard cats cry while fighting. While injured.

It stiffened and slumped to the ground.

Kara’s mouth hung open. “Kitty?”

The cat did not move. Not so much as a twitch of its tail.

Slowly, she walked over to where the cat lay on the ground. Its chest did not rise. Kara thought about dead things she had seen in the road, and she saw in the cat the same stillness, sensed the absence of life that she associated with dried, desiccated creatures, their fur or feathers flattened down like a rose pressed between the pages of a book.

She lifted one hand to cover her mouth, horrified, but quickly dropped it. That hand had touched the cat, and if it had some kind of disease, who knew what might happen to her? She needed to get home to wash up.

She shivered but could not turn away. Staring at the cat, she pushed out a foot and nudged it with the tip of her shoe. Dead. She hadn’t really needed confirmation, but there could be no doubting it now.

Crossing her arms, she stared one last moment, about to turn away.

The tail twitched.

Kara yelped and jumped back, eyes wide, watching as the cat stretched, and then rose. Now she did cover her mouth, all fear of disease forgotten. It moved differently, lower to the ground, and it swung its head around and looked at her. At her. Its eyes glittered in the dark.

In the spot where it had lain dead a moment before, the cat let out a stream of piss. Kara wrinkled her nose, first in disgust, and then in revulsion at the rank stink that rose from the ground. She gagged, covered her mouth with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, and backed away. Maybe her first thought had been the right one: disease. Nothing healthy smelled like that. Nothing natural.

The cat looked at the shrine to Akane’s life and death and hissed.

It darted at Kara. She cried out and staggered back, but the cat ran right past her, headed up the slope, toward the school.

On the short walk home, Kara broke into a jog and entered the house breathless. Her father had fallen asleep at his desk. Though she didn’t want to wake him, she sat for a few minutes in that room, just to be near him, to feel safe. In her mind, Kara could still see the cat’s eyes, the way it had stared at her, had noticed her. That look would haunt her tonight. She only hoped it didn’t keep her from falling asleep. The sooner she got to sleep, the sooner morning would arrive. Sunrise, when it came, would be very welcome.