Spirits of the Noh (17 page)

“Get it off her!” someone shouted.

Sakura called her name.

Miho saw, just a few feet away, a long kitchen knife gleaming on the wooden floor where someone had dropped it. Bells began to ring, and the Hannya flinched, tensing and hissing. Miho took that moment to lunge for the knife, but the Hannya shrugged as though shaking off a blow and caught her before she could reach the blade. As it dragged Miho closer, its forked tongue darted out and struck her cheek and she cried out, but already a terrible numbness spread across her face and down her spine.

Mai wrapped an arm around the Hannya’s throat, preventing it from lunging any closer to Miho, but the demon grabbed hold of Mai’s left hand and twisted hard enough that the snap of breaking bone was clearly audible.

Mai screamed. The Hannya thrashed her off and came at Miho again. She tried to block its attack with her hands, even as she grew disoriented once more. Her palm caught on one of the Hannya’s horns, puncturing the skin and drawing her blood.

It darted in, so much like a snake, and bit her with a quick strike before pulling back. Those dreadful eyes studied her and the Hannya smiled.

As darkness began to swim in around the edges of her vision, Miho heard the ringing of the bells grow louder and more insistent. Then her senses began to fail her entirely, except that she could still smell Mai’s blood.

In the moment when the Hannya had been about to kill her father, Kara had frozen. Unable to breathe, unable to move, she could only stare as the impossible unfolded before her. It couldn’t be happening. Inside her head, she could hear herself screaming, but no sound came from her lips. The Hannya had locked eyes with her, pinning her with its gaze, but she knew that even if she hurled herself across the room she would never reach the demon in time to save him. She felt herself suffocating inside the Noh mask that covered her face.

Then Miho and Mai had surged from the shadowy stairwell and attacked the Hannya. As Kara gaped at their courage, Sakura ran at her father and practically tackled him, dragging him to the corner of the room, away from the chaos erupting at its center.

Hachiro and Ren began to shout. Mai screamed in pain. Kara saw blood. Sakura called out for Miho. Then Hachiro began to ring his bell and at last Kara snapped out of whatever momentary trance had paralyzed her.

She rang hers as well, and in a moment Ren and Sakura were doing the same. Leaving Kara’s father in the corner, Sakura moved in closer. Ren and Hachiro hurried to place themselves as evenly as possible around the Hannya and the three bodies that lay on the floor. Kara saw it all through the strange eyes of her Noh mask. Miss Aritomo remained unconscious, but Mai moaned, cradling her left arm, blood soaking into her shirt from a long gash in her face and a wound on her shoulder.

Miho fought weakly against the Hannya, beginning to go limp in its grasp. Just a few feet from them, the kitchen knife Miss Aritomo had fetched earlier lay on the floor. Kara wished she could get it and use it, but feared it might be useless against the Hannya.

“Louder!” Kara shouted.

She held the bell high and took a step closer, then another. The iron grew strangely warm in her hand and the smell of hot metal began to fill the room, and then she knew that all of their conjecture had been right—the bells were the weapon they needed.

Sakura, Ren, and Hachiro took her cue and they began to close the circle. It might only have been Kara’s imagination, but the voices of the bells seemed to join in a chorus so pure they became almost one sound, ringing together, loud and bright.

The Hannya shrank down upon itself as though to protect itself from attack. It hissed, but the sound of the bells contained the demon’s hiss, swallowed and silenced it. The shadows on the floor began to coalesce and the corners of the room grew darker, but Kara shook her bell harder, ringing it even louder, so that her fingers felt scorched by the heat of the metal. The others followed suit, and soon the shadows were only shadows, with none of the demon’s influence.

Its skin rippled, jaws opening again to reveal those needle fangs, and now its flesh seemed trapped between monster and serpent. It bulged and pulsed, shifting as if the Hannya were attempting to control its shape and failing.

The demon turned and reached for Miho, tongue darting out, jaws opening wide.

“Never!” Ren shouted, and stepped nearer.

The Hannya grinned up at him, fixing him in its yellow serpent’s gaze. But Hachiro, Sakura, and Kara matched Ren’s step, holding the circle firm, somehow caging it there.

Kara saw its gaze shift toward the prone form of Miss Aritomo and immediately she understood its intent.

“Hachiro!” she shouted. “Throw me the bag!”

Confusion filled his gaze, but he trusted her and did not hesitate. Hachiro tossed her the cloth sack that still contained two of the masks Miho had made for
Dojoji
. Kara dropped to her knees, still ringing her bell, and shoved her free hand into the sack. The first face she touched had horns, and she knew that wasn’t what she wanted. She yanked the other free of the cloth.

The Hannya started to move, but Kara leaped to Miss Aritomo’s side, covering her teacher’s face with the mask of Anchin, the monk who had resisted all of the Hannya’s attempts at seduction, and who had burned to death rather than surrender to it. Miss Aritomo had always said that the masks of the Noh had power, that they were imbued with such tradition that they could help transform the wearer into the character they played. Noh theater was more than just acting, it was inhabiting the legend, and letting the legend inhabit the actor. But the old demons and spirits were equally influenced. With no one left to worship them, they were controlled by the tales people still told about them—things like Noh theater.

To the Hannya, Miss Aritomo was now Anchin, and Anchin had never feared it.

It had lost its host.

The Hannya shrank back from Miss Aritomo and looked up in confusion. The demon hesitated, then shrieked in fury and lunged for Kara. She thrust the bell nearly into its face, ringing it loudly. This close to the Hannya, the metal grew so hot that she could barely stand to hold it, but she dared not drop the bell.

“Damn you!” the Hannya said, its voice a damp, slithery thing. It had become more serpent than woman or monster now, and rose up on its thick snake’s body, swaying in front of her.

It pointed at Miss Aritomo. “She summoned me here! And you dare to—”

“Liar!” Kara’s father shouted, springing away from the wall.

“Dad, stay back!” Kara snapped.

She needn’t have feared. Her father was an intelligent man. He kept well away from the circle that the four of them had created with the ringing of their bells and the power of the Noh masks—the Hannya saw the people of the temple who had destroyed it once already, heard the bells of the monks.

“It lies!” Rob Harper shouted. Then he sneered at the Hannya, pointing at Miss Aritomo himself. “Yuuka never summoned you, she
honored
you. And this is how you repay her?”

Its voice weak and ragged with pain, the Hannya laughed.

“You are right, of course, teacher. But this woman you love opened the window for me to enter.”

Kara watched as it diminished further, shrinking to become the ebony, horned serpent—part flesh and part smoke—that she had seen before.

“Louder!” she told her friends. “Close the circle!”

And they did. She saw the pain in their faces and knew that the iron bells must have been searing their skin just as hers did, but they did not hesitate. The serpent twisted and coiled in upon itself, then it whipped around and stared at Kara herself, those hypnotic serpent’s eyes locking with hers.

“I won’t be the last, girl. You know that. You all do. My sister Kyuketsuki put her curse upon you and it calls to the rest of us like the scent of fresh prey. Worse things than I will come for you, and you and all that you love will die.”

Movement to her left caught Kara’s attention and she risked a glance, only to see Wakana stumbling into the circle. For a heartbeat, she was too astonished at seeing the girl alive, and too busy trying to put together how she came to be there—that Mai must have freed her from the attic along with Miho—that she didn’t even have a chance to cry out to warn Wakana.

Then she saw the kitchen knife glinting in Wakana’s hand and realized she had picked it up off the floor.

“Some of us have already lost what we loved,” Wakana said, tears streaming down her face.

The serpent twisted round to face her, but too late. Wakana slashed the blade through the air and sliced the horned serpent’s head from its body.

It flopped to the floor in two pieces, a final hiss rising from it—though, this time, of steam. A horrible stench filled the house, a smell of sickness and death, and the shadows puffed up from the serpent like smoke, drifting away.

“What the hell?” Kara muttered in English.

She kept ringing her bell and the others did the same as they moved closer to it. But the iron had gone suddenly cold in her hand and the thing on the floor showed no signs of its horns. All that remained of the Hannya were the head and body of a small garden snake.

“Kara!” her father snapped.

She turned to see the cloth bag containing the final Noh mask burning up. Flames rippled across the fabric, which quickly blackened. Her father raced to it and stomped on the bag until all that remained were tattered, scorched bits of cloth. Of the mask inside—the face of the Hannya—nothing remained but a coppery-hued dust.

The bells fell silent.

Sakura and Ren pulled off their masks and ran to Miho’s side. Wakana knelt by Mai, speaking softly to her. Hachiro stomped on the snake to make sure it was dead.

Kara removed her own mask and looked up into her father’s eyes, surprised to find fear there. At first she didn’t understand, and then she realized what she saw was his fear of losing her.

“Dad …”

“Quiet,” he said, pulling her into his arms and kissing the top of her head over and over. He held her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I should have believed you.”

Kara shook her head. “No. You shouldn’t have. How could you?”

But he wouldn’t accept her forgiveness. “I’m your father. That’s how.”

Again he kissed the top of her head, and then he turned toward Miss Aritomo. The teacher had begun to stir. Kara’s father went to her, crouched down and slid the mask of Anchin off her face, revealing once more the beauty beneath. Kara watched the way her father looked at Miss Aritomo, the gentle way he brushed the hair from her eyes, and though she wished she could have pretended otherwise, it still hurt her, even after all they had been through. She missed her mother.

But she found now that she could find room in her heart for both the sorrow of her mother’s absence and the happiness of her father’s new hope for the future. The two emotions would not sit easily together, but for now, it would be enough.

In the distance, police sirens wailed.

Otherwise, Miss Aritomo’s house had fallen silent.

EPILOGUE

They met, strangely enough, at Kara’s house. She thought that perhaps Mr. Yamato had decided he didn’t want to talk about demon spirits in his own home, and he certainly couldn’t have held the gathering at his office without people asking questions he would be unwilling to answer.

The house proved a better choice anyway. Miss Aritomo obviously felt more comfortable there, which was no small thing, considering how traumatized she was. The woman sat primly on the love seat beside Kara’s father, and he held both of her small, birdlike hands in his own. She didn’t look up often, and had spoken not a word from the moment Mr. Yamato had arrived. Kara’s father had told her that Miss Aritomo had spoken to the police, but that otherwise she had said little in the days since the horror that had unfolded in her living room.

It hurt her heart to look at Miss Aritomo, and to think of how hard she had made it for her father to fall in love with someone who wasn’t her mother. Kara regretted all of that now. Miss Aritomo had always been kind to her, and now the woman had gone through a terrible ordeal, her body violated by something awful. Something … evil. Kara felt awkward even thinking the word, but there could be no denying the Hannya’s nature.

Miss Aritomo needed someone to hold her now, and Kara found herself glad that her father could be that person. It would still be hard to share him, but she knew that she and her father would get through it all together. They needed to have their own lives, but they had to support each other, too. If they didn’t, who would?

“You can’t be serious!” Mai snapped, staring at Mr. Yamato.

The principal’s eyes narrowed and his lips formed a tight little line. “You are upset, girl, so I will forgive your insolence.”

But Mai only shook her head in amazement and turned to Wakana. The roommates stood with their arms linked together not far from the door, as though they might flee the house at any moment. Wakana still looked drawn and pale, though her bruises and scratches were fading. Mai, on the other hand, had a long recovery ahead of her. Doctors had put a cast on her broken arm and she wore it now in a sling. Of greater concern was the long gash on her right cheek, which had been stitched closed as deftly as her surgeon could manage. Even with plastic surgery, the scar would be significant.

“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 well. But unless such a presence appears, this
is
over. It is ended.”

Mr. Yamato went out the door, pulling it firmly shut behind him as he left.

Kara glanced at Mai, then searched the eyes of her friends, and finally looked at her father, who was holding Miss Aritomo close to him on the love seat, whispering soft assurances in her ear.

They all knew that it wasn’t over.

Kara feared it would never be.