it sounded like a person calling out, though she could decipher no words and the voice seemed so distant.
Still, it might have been coming from the house.
“I don’t know. It could be some woman three streets away yelling at her kids.”
Mai threw up her hands. “You know that’s not what it is!” she snapped, taking a few steps out of the alley, into the pool of illumination thrown by the streetlight.
“What are you doing?” Sakura demanded.
Mai turned to stare at her with a how-stupid-are-you? look on her face. “I’m not just going to wait here. If our friends are still alive, that could be them calling for help. I’m not waiting another second.”
Sakura grabbed her wrist. “Don’t be stupid. Kara and the boys will be here soon-”
“And what if it’s not soon enough? It was one thing when we weren’t sure, but someone’s in there. In the dark.” She yanked her arm away. “I’m going in. Are you coming with me?”
“Not a chance,” Sakura replied. “Someone has to be here to explain why you’re either dead or a prisoner in that house. You don’t have a weapon, or anything else to distract the Hannya aside from your incredible stupidity.”
Mai shot her a furious, withering glance, spun on one heel, and raced across the road. Sakura receded once more into the shadows of the alley and watched Mai run up alongside Miss Aritomo’s house and then disappear around the back.
Guilt filled Sakura as she worried what might happen to Mai, or what the Hannya might do to Miho and the others when Mai broke in, if they really were imprisoned within those walls. But she stayed put. Without the bells, on her own, she’d be no help to anyone.
Only after the heavy potted plant left her hands did Mai fully consider the danger she might be in, but by then it was too late. The pot shattered the window with a terrible crash, followed by an almost musical noise as broken shards hit the floor inside. She backed up, glanced around, and hid behind a tree that grew in the stone and flower garden that Miss Aritomo must have spent all of her free time grooming.
Mai held her breath and waited, but no lights went on inside the house. Faintly, she thought she heard that voice from inside, but somehow it seemed even more muffled back there.
Her mouth had gone dry and her whole face seemed to throb with every beat of her skittish heart, but at last she bent to pick up a small, decorative stone and went to the window, where she used the stone to knock out the fragments of glass that jutted from the frame. Without hesitation-for she knew if she hesitated again she would never go in-she boosted herself up onto the window frame, swung one leg over, and stepped inside.
The glass crunched beneath the soles of her shoes as she crept through what appeared to be a sort of artist’s studio, complete with canvases stacked against the wall and a fresh one atop an easel, covered with a sheet. Tempted by the urge to unveil the painting, to see what a woman possessed by a demon might paint, she pressed on instead, wanting to search the house and be gone before Miss Aritomo came home. But with every step, she regretted not having looked at that painting, and knew she would always wonder what image the canvas might have revealed.
Though it was not a small house, it was sparsely furnished, and it took Mai only a few minutes to peek into every room on the first floor and make her way to the second. While she moved swiftly through the art teacher’s immaculately neat bedroom, she heard a thump above her head. And then another. Stopping to listen, Mai heard a voice again, and this time there was no mistaking it as anything other than a cry for help.
She raced to the end of the hall, where narrow back stairs led up to what could only be an attic. Mai’s own house had no such space-most modern homes did not-but they’d be more common in an old prewar building like this.
The narrow landing at the top of the steps was dark, and she wished she had searched for a switch before coming up. She tried the door, found it locked tight, and threw her weight against it. Again someone shouted from within. Was there a note of new hope in that voice?
“Wakana?” Mai cried, throwing herself against the door again. But that was getting her nowhere.
Carefully, she hurried back down the steps, hands searching for a light switch. When she found it, a dusty old fixture flickered to life up on the landing. Heart pounding, aware every second of the possibility of Miss Aritomo’s return, she hurtled up the stairs and stared at the door.
Two locks. One was simple enough, a deadbolt, which she threw back instantly. But the other required a key.
Mai sagged backward, racking her brain. The heavy lock would not be easily forced.
“Think, think,” she told herself. Frustrated, she slapped the wall.
Something jangled right next to her. She turned to see a hook, upon which there hung a key. Mai grinned at the luck. The old metal key might have hung there for years, even decades, with Miss Aritomo having little need of it.
Now she snatched it up, pushed it into the lock, twisted it and heard the tumbles fall. With a surge of hope, she shoved the door wide. The light from the old fixture on the landing spilled into the pitch-black attic.
Something moved in there. Mai blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and recoiled at the horrid odors that wafted from the attic.
“Who is it?” said a weak, rasping voice.
“Wakana?” Mai said, crouching slightly to step into the dusty, low-ceilinged room.
Then she looked deeper into the attic, trying to make out the strange shape that had been revealed by the shaft of light from the open door. A dollhouse. And behind it, broken pieces of something that must once have been her friend.
Mai had to scream, needed desperately to release the shriek of horror that seemed to catch in her throat. She staggered backward and struck her head on the door frame. The impact jarred something loose within her, and then she did scream, loud and long.
Kara ran along the street, passing through illumination from a streetlight above. Her legs felt heavy, and the backs of her calves burned, reminding her that she hadn’t been getting enough exercise lately. She slowed to a walk, catching her breath, and glanced over her shoulder to see Hachiro and Ren hurrying after her. Ren had a small box clutched to his chest, while Hachiro carried a sack made of rough cloth over his shoulder.
They had run most of the way to the school from Mr. Yamato’s, but it had taken much too long to pry the lock on the side door and then locate the items they were searching for. The route from the school to Miss Aritomo’s house had started as a kind of mad dash, but all three of them had needed to slow down several times. Passing her own house, Kara had seen lights on inside. Her father’s little Honda remained parked in front, and Miss Aritomo’s bicycle was still locked to a lamppost nearby. Kara had been torn between relief that the Hannya had not gone home yet, and fear for her father, that he was still with her.
But if the Hannya was keeping Miho and the others in Miss Aritomo’s house-and Kara and her friends hadn’t been able to think of any other possible places-then this might be their one chance to find out. And if Miho and the others weren’t in the art teacher’s house, Kara feared they must be dead after all.
So she had kept running, and the guys had raced along behind her, each carrying his burden. Now they were almost there. Hachiro and Ren caught up to her, then they both slowed to a walk as well, out of breath. The street came to an intersection, where the main road jogged left and a narrow avenue ran off to the right, newish homes clustered all along it. They kept to the main road, bearing left beneath the gleaming dome of another streetlight.
Kara jumped a little at the sudden vibration in her pocket. With a soft, self-deprecating chuckle, she pulled out her cell phone, which she’d silenced when they had been breaking into the school. Sakura was calling.
“Hey,” Kara answered.
“Where are you?” Sakura demanded, her voice low.
“Almost there.”
“You’d better hurry. We heard something, maybe someone calling for help. Mai panicked. She went around the back and I think she’s breaking in.”
“Shit,” Kara muttered. “Be there in a minute.”
She hung up and as she slid the phone back into her pocket, she glanced up at Hachiro. “We’ve got to hurry.”
“What do you think we’ve been doing?” Ren asked, still trying to steady his breathing.
Hachiro took Kara’s hand and squeezed it. He gave her a quick kiss. “Let’s go.”
