Kara shook her head. “Just a bunch of cats.”
“Where’d they go, then?” he went on.
Miho and Kara exchanged a knowing glance.
“The shrine,” Miho said.
“Or what’s left of it,” Kara replied, nodding.
Hachiro slung his baseball bat over his shoulder as the three of them turned and started to run.
They followed a path that had become so familiar to them, diagonally across the field toward the east side of the school and the woods that bordered the grounds there. Over the years, generations of feet had worn a trail right down to bare earth, like the running path of a baseball diamond.
Instinctively, they kept off the dirt track, their footfalls quieter on the grass. Running felt good and right, and it allowed Kara to chalk her rapid-fire heartbeat up to exertion rather than the terror that had nestled inside her.
None of them spoke. Their chuffing intakes of breath sounded so loud in her ears-her own most of all. Far away, a car horn blared. Something rustled high in the trees off to the right and she glanced up, telling herself it had to be some silent night bird. Cats couldn’t climb that high. Still, she scanned the branches and the tree line for the slinking shapes.
Hachiro glanced at her and Kara picked up her pace. But when they came to the back corner of the school, Miho slowed down, and they quickly followed suit. The three of them stalked hurriedly alongside the building, wary of the woods.
Miho stopped, staring at the ancient prayer shrine that abutted the woods on the right, just ahead. Hachiro looked around, holding the bat with both hands, ready to swing.
At least a dozen white candles were burning on the altar of the ancient shrine, ringed in a carefully arranged circle and surrounded by freshly picked cherry blossoms. The smell of the flowers wafted to them on an errant breeze.
Kara peered past the old shrine into the woods, then looked ahead, toward the front lawn of the school and the bay beyond. Who had done this, and what did it have to do with the ketsuki? With Akane? With any of this?
In the darkness at the lee of the school, someone struck a match.
Kara turned to see Sakura’s face illuminated in the corona of light as she put fire to the tip of her cigarette and drew in a lungful. She shook out the match, but the cigarette glowed orange in the dark.
“Sakura-,” Miho started.
“What are you guys doing out here?”
Hachiro didn’t lower the bat. “We were worried about you,” he said.
Sakura had her fuku uniform on, the jacket inside out the way she’d worn it the first day Kara had met her. All of her patches and pins were showing. Her hair was feathered and jagged at odd angles, fresh from the pillow, and though she wore socks, she had no shoes on. She looked more than a bit crazy, like she’d been in a trance.
No, Kara thought, she looks like something out of one of my dreams. Or a nightmare.
A terrible thought occurred to her.
“You know this isn’t a dream, right? You’re awake. This is real.”
Sakura stared at her, taking a long pull from her cigarette and then exhaling, letting it plume in twin streams from her nose.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I know I’m not dreaming. I wouldn’t dream this.”
“Where’s Ume?” Hachiro asked.
“Having a chat with Akane,” Sakura replied, gesturing north toward the bay, down the slope to where they had ruined the shrine the students had built for the dead girl.
“That thing isn’t Akane,” Kara said.
“How can you be so sure?” Sakura asked.
“Because we knew her,” Miho said. “And she wouldn’t have done this. Not ever.”
“Maybe not before they killed her,” Sakura sneered. “I’m pretty sure being murdered might change your attitude.”
“Sakura, listen,” Kara said. “You can’t let this happen. It’s wrong.”
The girl curled her lips in disgust, about to argue.
“Yes, I know, she killed Akane,” Miho snapped, and Kara had never heard her speak to Sakura that way before. “Or you think she did. But if you don’t do something, you’re just as bad.”
“And when Ume’s dead,” Kara said, pleading with her to understand, “it’s going to come for us. You’re the one who brought this thing to life! Your grief, your rage. Just like in the story.”
Hachiro took a step away from them, headed down the slope for the ruined shrine to Akane.
Sakura blocked his way, flicked her lit cigarette at him.
“You’re wrong. I know you’re afraid, but you don’t need to be. She won’t hurt you, or me.” Emotion contorted her face and Sakura shook her head, looking at each of them. “Don’t you get it? What’s going to happen has to happen so Akane can finally rest.”
Miho hesitated. Kara saw in her face how difficult this was for her. They were roommates, and Miho struggled with her love for Sakura. But Kara hadn’t known them as long. She couldn’t just stand there.
“Get out of the way, Sakura,” Kara said, starting forward.
Sakura shook her head, her mouth a tight, expressionless line.
“You can’t stop us,” Hachiro warned.
Sakura swore and spit at him. Then her calm broke and she began to cry, balled her fists up and shook them like a toddler having a tantrum.
“Please,” she said, looking from Miho to Kara, ignoring Hachiro now. “Don’t interfere. This has nothing to do with you.”
Miho hesitated. Kara looked at Hachiro. She didn’t want to hurt Sakura, but she was ready to force her way past the girl.
A cry of terror rose into the night, startling all four of them and rousing an owl, which took flight from a tree and vanished over the roof of the school.
The cry became a scream.
Ume had woken from her sleepwalking dream into a nightmare.
15
A s they started to run toward the sound of that scream, Sakura grabbed Miho’s arm.
“Leave her alone, please!” Sakura said. “This has to happen!”
Miho struggled, and Kara and Hachiro both faltered, starting to go back for her.
“You’re hurting me!” Miho snapped.
Sakura must have seen something in her eyes then that jolted her out of her grief and obsession, must have remembered this was Miho, her roommate and best friend, who’d always stood by her. She let go, pulling her hands back as though burned.
“I’m sorry,” Sakura said. “But-”
“No,” Miho said. “Wake up! It’s not Akane!”
Then she ran to catch up to Kara and Hachiro and they raced down the slope toward the bay and the ruin they’d made of Akane’s memorial.
More screams tore at the darkness, cries for help and for forgiveness. Kara’s thoughts grew darker. For Sakura’s sake, they’d been fighting the idea that the bloodthirsty thing killing their classmates could be Akane. But maybe it is, she thought now. In a way .
Maybe part of what Kyuketsuki used to create the ketsuki was the murdered spirit of the dead girl, weaving Akane’s anguished ghost into the fabric of a nightmare, right along with her sister’s grief. The story from the Noh play was just a version of the tale, like all legends. The reality might be more complex. Kara knew it was only a theory, but if it held any truth, that meant Akane might be part of the ketsuki, but a tainted, awful version of herself
