The Waking

7

O n Wednesday morning, the world seemed to hold its breath.

No rain fell, no spring showers or storm clouds. On the contrary, the sun rose on a pristine day, the sort that almost demanded rambling along the shore of Miyazu Bay in quiet contemplation. Blue seemed insufficient an adjective to describe the sky. Instead of the bright, vibrant color that crowned perfect spring days, that morning the sky had a dusting of white over blue; not clouds, but the sort of crisp air that spoke more of mid-winter sunrise.

Kara kissed her father good-bye and went out the door, backpack slung over one shoulder, a small blue bow in her long blond hair. She started to whistle but faltered. Whistling, singing, anything that didn’t involve walking to school was beyond her today. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep.

A wind had come through in the night and seemed to have blown away the bad aura that had hung over Miyazu City for the past week or so. Despite her exhaustion, Kara felt a little better, as though the air was fresher and just breathing it in could cleanse her, and maybe keep the nightmares away. What a relief that would be.

Meanwhile, she had to make it through today. She would focus on the weekend, on having some time away from school. On Saturday afternoon, she’d already promised herself she would go down to the Turning Bridge and play guitar and sing, just shaking off the dust that had been settling on her spirit of late. She had hardly played guitar at all since school started.

And maybe there would be other plans as well. The one good dream she could recall from the previous night had involved Hachiro. At first she had dreamt they were walking together in the rain in a city that seemed sometimes to be Boston and others to be Miyazu. Then, somehow, they were swimming in a lake, or maybe the bay, laughing and splashing each other. He seemed even bigger in her sleeping imagination, like some kind of Goliath, and he had touched her face. She’d laughed, getting all shy, and looked down at herself in the water.

Only then did the dream-Kara realize they were swimming naked.

Sheer embarrassment had woken her, and then she’d seen the clock and realized somehow she had turned off the alarm. Twenty minutes later than she’d planned, she had stumbled out of bed to the shower.

Under the hot spray of water, she grinned at herself. How strange to still be embarrassed about something that had only happened in a dream. But then the dream of Hachiro began to slip away, and she started to recall the nightmares that had come earlier in the night. Slivers of those dark dreams flitted like ghosts at the back of her mind, tainting what remained of her one happy dream.

But it had gotten her thinking of Hachiro and how a walk along the bay with him might make her smile. She focused on those more pleasant thoughts as she walked to school, shoes clicking on pavement.

Nearby she heard the creak of a rusty bicycle chain and the rumble of a car engine. Someone tooted their horn not far away. None of it had anything to do with her; they were the sounds of any city. Kara kept to the side of the road, going over homework in her mind, making sure she was on top of things for her classes.

Three boys in Monju-no-Chie School uniforms rode by on their bikes, racing.

“Good morning, Kara!” one of them called, in English.

Surprised, she studied their backs as they pedaled toward school. The boy glanced over his shoulder and she recognized him as Ren, the spiky-haired kid in her homeroom.

Kara raised a hand to wave, but he’d already turned back around, bending to make up for the moment of distraction, still trying to win the race against his friends. Up ahead, other students congregated in front of the school.

Ren’s greeting had lifted her spirits. Her eyes felt heavy, and she knew she was moving slower than usual this morning. But tonight she would sleep, she promised herself. Early to bed and too tired to dream.

At home, her mother had kept a Native American dream catcher hanging from the lock on her bedroom window. Kara wondered what had happened to that dream catcher. More than likely it had ended up in a box in storage, but she wished she had it now.

Curt, angry voices snapped her from her reverie.

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I didn’t say that. But I think drawing attention is a mistake-”

“You think? No, you don’t think. Little mouse, you’re not worthy to share the air I breathe, and you want to tell me how to behave?”

Kara couldn’t help staring. She kept walking but slowed down as she passed the two girls on the corner, not far from the freestanding arch that marked the entrance to the school’s grounds.

A furious Ume had her hands balled into fists at her sides as she menaced Maiko, one of the soccer girls in her clique. As nasty as Ume was, one thing she had said was true: the girl was a mouse in comparison.

The argument accelerated until Kara couldn’t understand more than a few words of their rapid-fire Japanese. They were simply speaking too fast for her to translate. Then Ume glanced up and saw her watching, and it stopped abruptly.

“You! Ugly gaijin witch, what are you looking at?”

Kara flinched, not in fear but in astonishment. Ume had been a total bitch from day one, but she had been calm and collected, vicious in that quietly devastating way popular girls had perfected all over the world. This behavior went way beyond that. Her father referred to loss of temper on this scale as “going apeshit,” and Ume had definitely reached that point.

Eyes front, ignoring the two girls now, she picked up her pace and hurried toward school. As she walked away, she heard one last snippet of the argument.

“We both just need to sleep,” Maiko said.

Ume practically snarled her reply. “I don’t want to sleep,” she said. Her voice cracked on the last word, brittle and almost hysterical.

The words echoed in Kara’s mind as she lined up outside of school and then went inside. In the genkan, she put her street shoes into her cubby and slipped on her uwabaki, lost in thought.

Shuffling to the morning meeting, she started looking around at the other students. Sakura had been looking exhausted and frayed the past couple of days, but under the circumstances that was no surprise. And Kara herself looked like hell in the mirror this morning. Good thing that-dreams about Hachiro notwithstanding-she wasn’t really searching for a boyfriend.

But Ume and Maiko had both looked frazzled this morning as well. Ume’s hair had been perfect last week. The girl had the poise and skin and bone structure of a porcelain doll. But Kara remembered thinking recently that Ume looked tired, and today the girl looked like she was unraveling. Her clothes needed ironing and her shoulder-length hair had been put up in twin clips, as though she couldn’t be bothered to do anything else with it. Maiko didn’t look much better.

As Kara glanced around the gym while Principal Yamato talked, she saw other students who looked ragged around the edges. Ume and Maiko hurried into the back of the room, almost late, but Kara spotted other members of their clique. As a group, the soccer girls did not smile. Most had dark circles under their eyes. A couple of the boys looked equally tired.

Hachiro leaned out of his line and caught her eye, offering a smile. Kara could muster only a halfhearted grin in return, but she felt a strange sense of relief to see that he looked happy and alert. Whatever sickness had begun to affect so many of the students-it had to be a sickness, didn’t it?- Hachiro seemed not to have caught the bug.

Maybe they’re just not sleeping, Kara thought.

She frowned. Could it be that simple? All of them, just not sleeping?

All of them having nightmares.

Troubled by this thought, she studied them again, more carefully this time. Several of the soccer girls caught her staring and made unpleasant faces, but no one said anything or made rude gestures. They didn’t want to get in trouble.

When they were dismissed, and Mr. Matsui was leading them to the classroom, Miho caught up with her.

“Are you all right? What was going on in there?”

“I’m okay,” Kara said, brow still furrowed in thought. “Just more bad dreams. And I’m starting to think they’re…”

She couldn’t think of the word in Japanese.

Miho supplied it. “Contagious?”

Kara shot her a look as they walked up the stairs. “Exactly. How did you know that’s what I was going to say?”

Adjusting her glasses, Miho shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m fine. The only reason I haven’t been sleeping that well is because of the bad dreams Sakura’s been having. But I’ve heard other people talking about it in the dorm.”

“That’s weird.”

“You’ve been having them, too?” Miho asked.

Kara nodded. “I wonder what they’re all dreaming about?”

But then they were walking into class, and Mr. Matsui cast an admonishing glance at them and they had to drop the conversation. Kara took her seat. Ren said good morning to her again and she waved. When he wished Miho a good morning as well, she blushed so hard her whole face went a shade of deep pink. As much as she talked about only liking American boys, Kara thought the bronze-haired Ren was a definite exception.

Ume’s friend Maiko sat in the front left corner of the room, beside the windows. Mr. Matsui called on her for toban, the morning attendance and announcements. The girl pursed her lips, as though she might be thinking about telling him off, but she obviously thought better of it. She stood and took the notebook from him and went to the front of the class.

Barely lifting her eyes from the book, Maiko took attendance.

When she got to Kara’s name, she paused and looked up. Again, she seemed about to speak, but then shook her head and returned to her task. Kara had no idea what the girl had on her mind, but something was troubling Maiko deeply.

For the rest of the day, Kara tried her best to focus. By early afternoon, she had to accept that her best would not be good enough. Even the breaks between classes, when she could get up and chat with Miho and get a breath of fresh air by an open window, didn’t seem to help. Half of what she’d heard today had gone in one ear and out the other. Her notes were a mess. Between the distracting thoughts that kept popping up in her mind and the way her whole body seemed to just hang wrongly on her bones, exhaustion dragging her down, she felt that if she had to spend one more minute sitting on the hard wooden chair, she would scream.

When her father came in to teach his class, Kara wanted to run up and hug him. But he was Harper-sensei in the classroom, not her dad. Still, he smiled at her, and a few times he gave her looks of parental concern, obviously noticing that something was wrong. That alone was enough to restore her spirits a little. Besides, just because she was American didn’t mean she would automatically pass American Studies.

As the clock ticked away the afternoon-the end of the school day still seemed far away-she glanced out the window. An old cypress tree grew near the school, thriving and alive. The wintry cast to the sky had receded and now only pure blue remained.

Her father was discussing the three branches of American government, and she forced herself to pay attention. But as she pulled her gaze away from the window, she saw that Maiko had her head down. Exhausted as she was, Kara’s first reaction was envy. The thought made no sense. The moment her father saw that the girl had fallen asleep on her desk, she would be in big-time trouble. He had explained to Kara that the code of conduct at the school was very strict. At home, he might have let something like that slide, but he would have no choice but to punish her in some way. Harper-sensei would give her an extra assignment rather than make her sit on her knees in the hallway as some teachers would do.

At her desk, Maiko began to shiver, as though she was cold. Still asleep, head on her arms, she gave a tiny gasp, then a low murmur. Kara narrowed her eyes, staring at the girl. Then Maiko began to whimper in her sleep, and she understood.

Maiko was having a nightmare, right there in class.

Kara trembled, skin prickling with goose flesh. Just the thought of her own nightmares made her pulse quicken.

Most of the class was looking at Maiko now. Kara’s father had ignored her as long as he could, but now, at last, he started walking toward the sleeping girl’s desk. All Kara could think about was that whimpering-what was Maiko dreaming about to cause her to make that sound?

Her father tried to shake the girl awake. Kara couldn’t watch. She looked away, glancing toward the door to the hall.

A cat stood poised just beyond the open door.

Kara jumped in her seat, heart racing, staring at the feline. For a second, she feared she might be dreaming, that if she turned and looked at her classmates again, the girls would have no faces. The cat had red and copper fur, and she had seen it before… had seen it fall to the ground amid the remembrances left at the shrine for Akane, down by the water. It had collapsed as though struck by lightning, and she’d been sure it was dead before it had gotten up and darted off into the woods.

For several seconds, Kara and the cat just stared at each other.

It opened its jaws in a silent hiss, back arching. Kara froze rigid, breath catching in her throat.

Maiko gave a yell as she woke. Several kids in the class laughed, though most remained silent, fearing some punishment themselves. Kara turned to look at Maiko, saw the confused look on the girl’s face, and the relief-she might be in trouble, but at least she was no longer trapped in that dream.

Or maybe she is. Maybe we all are, Kara thought, turning back toward the door.

The cat was gone.

It undid her. Kara took a long, shuddering breath and brought both hands up to cover her face, rubbing at her tired eyes. She opened her hands as though playing peekaboo, and still the cat was nowhere to be seen.

She half rose, ready to rush from the room, to search out the cat, to find out who it belonged to and what the hell it was doing here, and why it haunted her dreams. But then she saw her father staring at her, brow furrowed in consternation and concern, and she sat back down.

The class dragged on forever. Kara fidgeted in her chair, not hearing a word, not able to focus at all. She watched Maiko in case she fell asleep again, studied her classmates to see if any of them looked tired, and every minute or so her gaze strayed nervously to the doorway. The frisson of fear that had prickled her skin had not receded at all.

When her father finally slid the door closed, trying to get her attention back, that only made it worse. Without being able to see into the corridor, she could easily imagine the cat still there. She knew all of this was paranoia and sleep deprivation, but knowing didn’t help. She needed to get out of school, to go home and get some rest while the sun was still up. It would be worse after dark.

When at last the class ended, her father beckoned for her to follow him out into the corridor. Today he’d worn a dark jacket and black tie, and Kara flashed to her mother’s funeral, to a vision of her father standing beside her grave in grim funeral clothes. He wore something similar every day to teach at Monju-no-Chie School, but the comparison had never occurred to her before. Now she’d never be able to erase it from her mind.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked in English. They’d agreed on no English in school, but there was less chance of being overheard this way.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“ Kara.” His tone said it all-she wasn’t fooling either of them. “You looked like a deer in headlights in there. You’re either scared of something or you’re on drugs, and it damn well better not be the latter.”

She looked at him, forced herself to focus on his eyes, and then she took a deep, shuddery breath and let it out in a long sigh. Her back and shoulders and neck were knotted up with tension, and she felt the muscles relax.

“I haven’t been sleeping well. I think… I don’t think I’m the only one. I was getting freaked out in there, but I’m all right.”

He looked dubious. Kara took his hands in hers and squeezed.

“Really, Dad. I’ll be okay. I think everyone’s on edge ’cause of what happened to Jiro. The weirdness is like a cloud around here. It’ll blow over.”

He had to get to his next class, but it was obvious he was reluctant to go. Finally he nodded.

“Okay. But you really need sleep, kiddo. I’ve got some Ambien. I know you don’t like to take that stuff-”

“Are you kidding?” Kara said quickly. “I’ll make an exception.”

Her dad smiled. “All right. I’ll see you later. If you start getting really antsy, just tell the teacher you’re sick and come find me.”

Kara would never do that. They had to fit into the culture of the school, and Japanese students at Monju-no-Chie School weren’t about to beg off class unless they were throwing up or too weak to get out of bed. Their parents weren’t going to coddle them, either. Her father would lose some of the respect of his peers if she behaved that way, and more if he seemed to condone it. She wouldn’t do that to him.

“Sure,” she lied.

Her father headed off to teach his next class and she went back into the room, glancing around first to make sure there was no sign of the cat. It made her feel a little better to know she would be able to sleep that night.

But not much. Whatever the weirdness was, it was just as contagious as the dreams. The more people had trouble sleeping, the more irritable they got. That was only natural. But that didn’t explain the cat-the same creature that she’d dreamt about-showing up just as Maiko had been having her nightmare, almost like the cat knew. Or as though it had brought the nightmares to her itself.

Calligraphy made Kara feel a thousand times better.

At first, listening to the teacher-Kaneda-sensei-she had thought it might be the most boring thing she would ever do. The gray-haired, fiftyish woman had a slow, drowsy voice, like some of the baseball commentators back home. Nothing made her fall asleep faster than when her dad would put on a Red Sox game on an August afternoon.

She’d also been on edge, wondering if the members of the calligraphy club would freeze her out the way the Noh club members had. And some of them had looked at her with disdain when they saw she was attending the meeting. But Sakura introduced her to some of the girls, and there were several kids from her homeroom in the club, including Ren and the female Sora. Ren teased her, slowly pronouncing the Japanese names for the special paper they used- hanshi -and the different brushes, but his teasing was so good-natured that Kara could shoot him a halfhearted icy stare and then laugh, which seemed to set everyone at ease.

What really helped, though, was when they actually got down to work. Kaneda-sensei stopped to show her brushstrokes several times, and she encouraged Sakura and the other members of the club to help as well. It was her first time even attempting calligraphy, and though she knew she couldn’t possibly be writing the kanji characters correctly, the process alone felt therapeutic. As she practiced different characters, following the order of brushstrokes carefully, she found her anxiety slipping away with every swath of black ink.

Japanese art all seemed to combine precision with beauty, but she had not seen the value in that precision with something like Noh theater. She admired it, yes, but couldn’t imagine doing it herself. Calligraphy was different. Working with the ink and brush seemed almost like meditation.

When the meeting ended, she knew she had found her club.

Afterward, Sakura and Ren walked out with her, the two of them involved in a conversation about their favorite manga that sounded almost like a completely different language to her. They talked artists and ink thickness, and when they discussed the actual stories, they spoke about the characters and places as though they existed in the real world.

Kara had already decided she liked Ren, but seeing the way he could distract Sakura from her troubles, she liked him even more. She only hoped that his interest in Sakura didn’t extend beyond friendship, because that might break Miho’s heart. As much as she dismissed the idea of dating Japanese boys, and only wanted to talk about American guys, it was painfully obvious that Miho had a crush on Ren. Kara made a mental note to talk to Sakura about him; she wouldn’t want to hurt her roommate without even realizing it.

“Why didn’t you two join the manga club?” she asked as they went into the genkan and changed into their street shoes.

They exchanged a look and a laugh.

“Matsui-sensei guides the manga club,” Sakura said.

“So? He’s very serious, but he’s nice enough.”

Ren shook his head. “Not if you don’t like baseball. He really would like to guide the baseball club, but since he had to settle for the manga club, he only wants to talk about baseball manga. We met in manga club last year and switched to calligraphy together.”

Kara couldn’t help the insinuating smile that touched her lips. “Really?”

Sakura rolled her eyes and whapped her on the arm. “It’s not like that. I’m not Ren’s type.”

The two of them shared another look and a laugh at what must have been a private joke between them. From Sakura’s tone, Kara got the implication. Miho would be very depressed if she found out that Ren was gay. Kara wasn’t going to be the one to tell her.

“Let’s go,” Sakura muttered. “I need a cigarette.”

They said their good-byes to Ren and went out through the front doors. The shadows had already grown long. Kara wondered how she would feel about being in school during the worst winter months, when she would be arriving shortly after sunrise and heading home after dark. Winter would be very long. Fortunately, it was far off, and they had all of spring and summer stretching before them.

“You and Miho really have to come over for dinner one night,” she said as they headed around to Sakura’s smoking spot.

“Your father really wouldn’t mind?” she asked.

“I’m sure-,” Kara began but stopped mid-sentence.

The soccer girls were there, gathered around like some 1950s gang waiting for a rumble. She knew a lot their names, now. Chouku. Hana. Reiko. In their sailor fuku uniforms, they looked like a real-life version of something out of one of Sakura’s favorite manga.

Ume started toward Sakura. Maiko grabbed her arm, trying to hold her back. Ume shook her off. A couple of other girls murmured hesitations, glancing around, worried there would be trouble and they would be caught up in it.

“Sakura…,” Kara began.

But she had no more luck than Ume’s friends. Sakura stormed toward her smoking spot. A couple of spiky-haired boys, obviously friends of Ume’s, were standing in the recessed doorway, but they did not try to help or interfere. They were there just to watch. They smiled.

To Kara, they all looked tired.

“You’re going to stop!” Ume jabbed Sakura in the chest with one long finger.

Sakura scoffed. With her jagged slash of hair and sleepless eyes, she actually looked dangerous, like she might at last be just as wild as she always tried to appear.

“Stop what? Breathing? Sorry, I’m not going to make it that easy for you.”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Ume said, almost snarling, stepping in close.

Kara tried to separate them.

Ume slapped her hand away. “Don’t touch me, bonsai. This has nothing to do with you.”

Kara looked around at the other girls and the boys watching from that recessed doorway. They all looked ragged and on edge. She thought about her own behavior earlier, and the way Ume had sniped at Maiko that morning, and she knew, suddenly, that things could turn very ugly here. Not just ugly-violent.

“Maiko,” she said, turning to the other girl.

But Maiko looked away. None of them would meet her gaze. Some glared at Sakura expectantly, waiting for a fight, practically salivating over the possibility. Others looked like they wished they were anywhere but here, as though they thought maybe Ume was acting a little crazy but didn’t want to be the first to say it.

“You are going to stop,” Ume went on. “I don’t know how you’re doing it, but you’re putting these things in my head.” She spread her arms to indicate the others. “In all of our heads.”

A terrible smirk appeared on Sakura’s lips. “Oh, I get it now. You’re having dreams, too, aren’t you? Bad dreams.”

“See!” Ume said, triumphantly, pointing at her again and turning to the others. “I told you! She admits it.”

“She didn’t admit anything,” Kara said. “A lot of us are having bad dreams.”

Ume stepped in close to Sakura. She was taller and glared down at her. “It isn’t just in dreams anymore. Some of us… we’ve seen things while we’re awake, too.” Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Things that shouldn’t be there.”

Maiko took a step closer to them. But instead of menacing, she was pleading. “What did you do, Sakura? Is it some kind of drug? Or did you poison us? Please, you have to stop.” Her bottom lip quivered. “I’m falling apart.”

Maiko sounded so full of despair that Kara couldn’t help feeling badly for her.

“You’re haunted,” Sakura told Ume. She glanced around at the others. “You’re all haunted, as you should be. None of you should be able to sleep.”

Kara stared at her. What the hell was she talking about?

Ume laughed. Nobody else did.

“I knew your sister was crazy, but I didn’t realize you were just as bad,” Ume said.

Her mistake had been in getting so close.

Sakura slapped her, open-handed, with such force that the sound echoed off the stone wall of the school. As Ume reeled away, Sakura followed. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, she punched her in the face hard enough that blood squirted from both nostrils.

“Jesus, cut it out!” Kara shouted and grabbed Sakura by the arms, hauling her backward.

Sakura managed to launch a kick that hit Ume in the gut. The taller girl fell to her knees and vomited in the grass. As she wiped puke and blood from her lips, the two boys by the door began to cheer and the other soccer girls started for Sakura. Even the ones who had seemed unsure before looked like they had made up their minds now. They were going to take Sakura apart.

“Stop it!”

They all turned to see Miho and Hachiro coming around from the back of the school and running toward them. Hachiro had been the one to shout.

“What’s wrong with you? All of you?” Miho asked, rushing to help Kara escort Sakura away.

“Do you want to be expelled?” Hachiro shouted at the others.

He stayed there, warning them all not to follow, and nobody did. Maybe because Hachiro had been so close to Jiro, maybe because they trusted him, or perhaps just because of his size, they all listened to him.

Except for Ume.

“I’m not haunted!” she cried after them.

“Yes, you are,” Sakura whispered to herself.

Miho and Kara walked on either side of her, around the front of the school building and down the street. Kara didn’t know where Miho was leading them, but at the moment, anywhere was better than here. It was a miracle none of the teachers had come out during the scuffle. They were lucky it had been so quick. But the headmaster would hear about it soon enough.

“Are we going for candy?” Sakura asked, softly.

Miho smiled. “Yes.”

“You’re going to give me sugar after that?”

Kara glanced at Miho. “Is that a good idea?”

“For her, yes. For us, maybe not so much.”

They all laughed, just a little. But as they walked, Kara kept stealing glances at Sakura, until finally the other girl shook her head.

“You want to ask, so ask,” she said.

“Fine. What was all of that about?”

All trace of humor left Sakura’s face. “I don’t know for sure if Ume was involved in Akane’s death. But if she didn’t kill my sister, I think she knows who did. They think I’m doing something to them, but they’re wrong. I haven’t done anything.”

She stopped and looked at Miho and Kara. “It’s Akane. She’s haunting them. Her spirit’s still here at school, still lingering where she was murdered. I hope she drives them all mad.”

Sakura walked on.

For a few seconds, Kara and Miho only stared after her, wide-eyed. Then they set off after her. Someone had to stay with her.

But all the while, Kara thought about what she and Ume and Maiko had said about their bad dreams. Kara hadn’t even known Akane, but the nightmares were haunting her as well. She thought about mentioning this, explaining to Sakura that it proved she was wrong. Even if she believed in ghosts or spirits, if Akane really was haunting Ume and the others, the spirit wouldn’t bother with a girl who’d been living halfway around the world when she was murdered.

Then she thought about the cat she’d seen in school that day, and her dreams, and how badly Sakura seemed to need to believe Akane’s spirit still hung around Monju-no-Chie School, and she decided to keep quiet.

There would be time for logic and reality-check questions another day.

For this afternoon, there would be candy.