“I don’t want your forgiveness, nor do I need it,” Mai said, turning back toward the principal. “We are not in school, Yamato-sensei-”
Mr. Yamato’s eyes blazed with quiet fury. “But you are still a student of Monju-no-Chie school, girl. For the moment.”
Kara knew she had to step in. She took a deep breath, glancing around the room at her friends who had gathered there. Sakura sat with a bandaged and bruised Miho on the floor. Ren had pulled a chair over from the dining table and taken a seat, while Hachiro stood behind him, hands on the back of the chair. The way he stood, he seemed almost to expect trouble. He kept glancing at Kara, checking over and over again to make sure she was all right. She liked the way those protective glances made her feel, and discovered that the instinct had become mutual. Later, when the meeting had broken up, they would go for a walk together and talk about what the future held for them. She had a feeling there would be lots of walks for them, many places they would wander together. But not by the bay. The time had come to make a new path, together. They would ramble in the hills and mountains around the city, explore the other beauties that Miyazu had to offer.
Soon. It was a promise she had made to herself.
“Please, stop,” Kara said, holding up her hands.
They all looked at her. Even Miss Aritomo lifted her sad gaze to see what Kara had to say. Mr. Yamato turned to her with the same glare he’d given Mai.
Kara gave the principal a small, informal bow. “Yamato-sensei, you must realize that it is not for our own sake that we argue. If you go along with the story the police have concocted-the latest in a series of ridiculous lies-no one will ever know what really happened.”
Her father cleared his throat. “Kara, honey, that’s the point. That’s what we want.”
She shook her head. “No, Dad, it isn’t.” Again she glanced around at her friends. Hachiro and Miho both nodded to urge her on. “People need to know so they can be on guard.”
“On guard against what?” Mr. Yamato shouted. “It’s over!”
Miss Aritomo flinched and shifted closer to Kara’s father, the loud noise troubling her.
“But what if it isn’t?” Ren asked quietly.
“’What if?’” Sakura said, throwing up her hands. “We know it isn’t over!”
“You don’t know that,” Kara’s father said. Mr. Yamato started to speak up, but Rob Harper raised a hand to forestall any interruption and kept talking. “I know, I know. The curse. But you’ve said yourselves that Kyuketsuki told you there were few… what, demons? Ancient spirits? Old gods? Whatever they are. You said there weren’t many left in the world. How do we know any others will ever make their way here? It took the Hannya months, and even then, it might never have found the entry point it needed if Miss Aritomo had not had that mask on her wall. She-”
“Sssssshhhh,” the art teacher said, putting a finger to his lips. “Please. Don’t.”
A flicker of pain crossed his face and then Kara’s father fell silent. Miss Aritomo didn’t like to talk about the Hannya. Kara couldn’t blame her.
Mr. Yamato cleared his throat. “Months. Harper-sensei is correct. There is no way to predict what might happen. It is possible no other
… entity will ever trouble you again.”
Hachiro glanced at Kara, hope lighting his eyes.
“Is it?” Ren asked, glancing over at Sakura and Miho. “Is that possible?”
Miho shrugged. “I suppose, but what are the odds? This curse is real. None of you should let yourselves forget it, no matter how much you may want to.”
Wakana spoke then, her voice quiet but carrying the power of condemnation. Firm and unwavering.
“So no one will ever know how Daisuke died? Or Yasu? We all pretend to believe the lies the police are telling?” she demanded.
Fed up, Mr. Yamato stood from his own chair, arms crossed, staring at Wakana and Mai with stormy eyes.
“What you call ‘lies’ are a service to the public,” the principal said. “The truth would either cause utter panic, or it would be discarded as absurd, and no one would take the Miyazu City police seriously. No one would believe.”
Kara stared at him, trying to figure out how the story the police had created sounded any more believable than the truth. The cops had not only fabricated a story to explain the two boys’ deaths, but one that made them look competent at the same time. Yasu and Daisuke had been murdered by a man who had been part of the crew of a freighter that had been docked in Miyazu Bay for nearly a week. He had stalked Miss Aritomo and had killed two of her students, leaving Daisuke’s body in her attic as a way to torment her. Only when the smell of death began to permeate the house did she realize something was wrong, but at first she had thought some kind of animal had died up there.
Then, at a meeting Miss Aritomo had held at her home to discuss the future of the Noh club, Rob Harper had gone upstairs to seek out the source of that smell, only to find that the killer had broken in and was hiding in the attic. His ship had been scheduled to sail that night, and he had intended to rape and probably kill Miss Aritomo before departing. A fight had ensued, with the killer using a knife from the teacher’s kitchen, but the man had gotten away, at which point Miss Aritomo had called the police. While waiting for officers to arrive, Kara’s father had found Daisuke’s remains.
The killer, according to the official police report, had left port that night aboard the freighter upon which he served as a deck hand. But the ship had been bound for Osaka, and Miyazu City police were working closely with Osaka police, who were especially intrigued because the man fit the description of a suspect they were seeking in four similar cases in their own city.
The story was convoluted, which made it the worst sort of lie-one that would be difficult to keep track of. It was what her friends from home would have called “one hundred percent, grade-A bullshit.” But the police were the police. The lie belonged to them. Kara had been told, along with her father, her friends, Mr. Yamato, and Miss Aritomo, to rebuff any inquiries by explaining that the police had asked them not to talk about it for legal reasons, as it was an ongoing investigation. Miraculously, the dodge had worked so far. Kara thought that, in spite of its audacity, the police lie was somewhat ingenious. By blaming the killings on an outsider-someone who was not only not from the community but who had already left the area and become the responsibility of the police department of a major Japanese city-they had created the implication that the case was, for all intents and purposes, solved and closed.
It troubled Kara that the cops could lie so well. She also had to wonder how much of the truth about what had happened in April they really knew. Had they spun lies about Jiro and Chouku’s deaths because they didn’t want people to be afraid, or because they knew something supernatural had killed them and were purposefully covering that up? And if the latter were true, what else did the police know? What other secrets and mysteries were they hiding from people?
Something to think about, Kara realized. But not today.
A deeply awkward silence had come over the room. Mr. Yamato still looked angry, but now his expression softened a bit.
“I know this is frightening, and I know it is difficult,” he said, glancing around at each of them in turn-Kara, Hachiro and Ren, Sakura and Miho, Kara’s father and Miss Aritomo, and Mai and Wakana. “But it is necessary.”
When none of them replied, the principal stood up from his chair.
“You will not speak of this to anyone. I would prefer you not even discuss it among yourselves, though I know that would be next to impossible. The school would suffer terrible embarrassment if it became known.”
“Embarrassment?” Wakana asked. “The school would be destroyed. No one would send their children here ever again. That’s more than embarrassment.”
Mr. Yamato sighed and looked at her, shaking his head sagely. “You don’t listen. Yes, that is what would happen if people believed such things were true. But they will not. The police will lie. I will lie. It would seem nothing more than a wild story made up by a group of students…” He glanced at Miss Aritomo and Kara’s father. “Or by dishonorable faculty members wishing to draw attention to themselves. It would be considered a hoax, and that would be an embarrassment.”
The principal began to walk toward the door, but paused to look at Kara. “If anything else happens, if there is any sign of supernatural presence at all, come to me and I will do whatever I can to help. The police will help as
