Miss Aritomo crossed her arms, studying them with obvious disdain. “You saw Chouku’s body, Kara-I know you did-all those little bite marks on her. And I’m sure you’ve heard that she and Jiro lost a lot of blood. So the two of you start thinking something supernatural-”
“There’s no such thing-,” Miho began.
“Of course there isn’t!” Miss Aritomo snapped, glaring at them. “But suddenly you’re thinking about the ketsuki and now you want to do a manga story. Students are dead, and you want to use that for manga?”
Kara took a deep breath. Miss Aritomo had already made the connection to the ketsuki legend. Of course she had, with her knowledge of Noh theater. For a moment, Kara had thought the art teacher believed the ketsuki had killed Jiro and Chouku, but it was clear she didn’t believe the creatures were real. She considered trying to convince the teacher but suspected that would only lead to Miss Aritomo telling her father and the principal that the girls were losing their grip on reality.
“It isn’t like that, sensei,” Kara said.
Miss Aritomo raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“No,” Miho said. “It’s true that what happened to Jiro and Chouku made me think about the ketsuki, but we mean no disrespect. We’ve been talking about doing a manga of a legend from Noh theater, and once I thought about the ketsuki, I knew it would make a good one. It would be a faithful retelling of the story.”
The teacher seemed to relax a little. “Nothing to do with what’s happening at school?”
Kara shook her head. “We would never disrespect Chouku and the others like that. We knew them, sensei.”
Miss Aritomo hesitated, apparently trying to decide how much she trusted them. In the end she nodded, giving them the benefit of the doubt.
“All right. But I want to see every page as you create it.”
“Of course,” Miho said, giving the teacher a small bow of her head.
“The story would be perfect for a manga,” Miss Aritomo said. “But it is somewhat different from what you remember.”
“Could you tell us, please?” Kara asked. “Different how?”
“The story is not about a ketsuki,” Miss Aritomo said, reaching back to pull a book from her shelf. As she continued, she flipped pages, searching for something. “Well, I suppose in a way it is. In the play, a woman named Riko is murdered by her husband, who has taken a new lover. Her children mourn for her, and her parents make a shrine at her grave, and there is so much grief that the demon Kyuketsuki senses their rage and grief and comes to their village.
“Kyuketsuki is only spirit but can work terrible evil on the world through surrogates. Kyuketsuki influenced Riko’s family, luring them to the place where her husband spilled her blood. Her father killed a cat on the spot, offering it up to Kyuketsuki. The demon takes all of the sadness and rage and collects it in a bowl, then pours it into the dead cat, transforming it into a blood-drinking monster, forged in the image of Kyuketsuki herself.”
Miss Aritomo stopped flipping pages, then slowly went back several pages to something she had missed.
“There,” she said, pointing to the page. She turned the book around for them both to see. “That’s the mask of Kyuketsuki.”
Miho leaned over for a better look. Kara felt frozen in place. The pointed ears and sharp little horns, the black lips and bloody red teeth, the bright orange eyes. The feline qualities of the tengu were noticeable, from the shape of the nose to the hissing mouth and sharp, tiny fangs. But the face was distorted and gruesome.
Kara closed her eyes so that she would have the strength to look away.
She’d seen it before.
“It’s a rare play, almost never performed anymore,” Miss Aritomo said, not noticing Kara’s reaction. “So many Noh plays are lost to time and become unfashionable. If you really mean to take it seriously, it would be a ser vice to the theater and to Japan for you to create a manga of this story. I’m sure I could give you credit for it in class, as well.”
The teacher said this with a tiny smile, but the girls did not smile in return.
Kara looked at her. “So, the Kyuketsuki legend is older than this play, right?”
“Yes, very old. Most Noh plays are just retellings of older stories.”
“Is it always someone sacrificing the cat? Are there other ways to call the demon? To create a ketsuki?”
Miss Aritomo cocked her head, studying them more closely now, her prior suspicions obviously returning. “There are different versions of the story. Most of them begin with a cat walking over the grave of a murder victim and Kyuketsuki taking the cat that way. But it’s so coincidental, it would never work in the play.”
Kara nodded slowly, mind racing.
“Unless it’s not coincidental,” Miho said quietly. She turned to Kara. “If Kyuketsuki has a bond with cats, maybe she can summon them. Maybe they come when she calls them, and she fills them with all that hate and makes them monsters.”
Kara’s pulse throbbed in her temples. Her chest ached with the pounding of her heart and she took a deep breath.
Then she noticed the way Miss Aritomo was staring at them, and she knew they’d gone too far.
“Perfect,” she said, faking a smile. “That’s just the twist we need for a manga version.”
A look of utter disapproval replaced the confusion on the teacher’s face. “You just told me you were going to be faithful to the original. If you are going to adapt a Noh play, you should respect the material enough to tell the story the way it is meant to be told.”
Miho bowed. “Thank you, sensei. You’re right. We will discuss it.”
Kara bowed her head as well. “Of course. But one more thing, sensei. The play? How does it end?”
“In tragedy,” Miss Aritomo said. “The ketsuki kills Riko’s husband and his new lover, but its bloodlust and need for vengeance are not sated. It decides that the woman’s parents and children could have prevented her murder and so kills them as well. Only the youngest daughter, a little girl, survives. She lights candles and kneels on her mother’s grave and prays for mercy. The sun rises, and the ketsuki vanishes.
“It’s all very dramatic, if you like that sort of thing.”
13
K ara and Miho hurried back across the field toward the dorm. For the moment, at least, adrenaline had overridden Kara’s exhaustion. Her eyes still burned from lack of sleep, but her racing heart kept her moving.
“Is your father going to be angry?” Miho asked.
“I’m sure he’s not going to be able to leave school anytime soon,” Kara said. “I’ll still make it home before him.”
Her skin prickled with foreboding. The whole world seemed to have changed around her, the slant of light somehow ominous, the air itself heavier. How had her perceptions been altered so completely that she could believe, even for a moment, that the demon out of some Noh play might really exist? The girl she’d been when she’d left the United States would never have believed such a thing.
But she had changed since then. Japan had changed her. The dark events unfolding at Monju-no-Chie School had forced her eyes to perceive things she had never imagined.
She and Miho had left Miss Aritomo’s room in silence, not daring to share their thoughts about what she’d said until they were on their own. Even now, walking alone across the field toward the dorm, they avoided the subject, and Kara knew why. She and Miho were both struggling with their fear.
Kara looked up at the sky, tried to gauge how much of the day had already passed. It must still be morning, but how many hours did that give them until nightfall? And were they really safe during the day? That was a presumption they’d made based on too many vampire stories, but did it apply to demons?
Her heart beat so fiercely that it hurt her chest. Calm down, she thought to herself, or you’ll be no good to anyone. And Kara couldn’t afford to let that happen. For whatever reason, the ketsuki had inflicted its nightmares upon her just as it had upon Akane’s killers.
“Why…,” she began, then faltered.
