Chapter 9.6

The one to notice the noises first was Tamae. There was an incessant knocking on the back kitchen door. Tamae sat up in the living room. For a time she stayed within the futon, tilting her head at the strange nearby noise. When she looked at the clock she saw that it was about 2:30. She couldn't think of why a person would come to visit at this hour, or even who would. 

Finally her confusion reached its ends and Tamae went to the other room, calling to Ikumi.

"Mom?"

"Aa." It seemed Ikumi was awake. She sat up and peered towards the kitchen. "Don't talk with them. It's bound to be an Oni anyway. They came to get revenge on me."

That can't be, Tamae murmured, but she couldn't think of their visitor as anything normal either. If she opened the door something bad would happen, she couldn't fight that feeling. 

For a time the two quieted their breath, but the knocking noise didn't stop. Ikumi staggeringly rose.

"...Mom."

"It's all right. I'm just going to have a look."

Without turning on the light, Ikumi went into the kitchen. The door in the kitchen was an old hinged door, so it didn't even have a lock. But since the latch didn't work, there was a string tied around the door knob and to a nail on the wall to keep it shut. Somebody was knocking on the door. When they put a little bit of power into it, the door wavered. Tamae and Ikumi watched it do so when at last Ikumi called out in a low voice.

"Who's there? At this hour."

The knocking sound on the door stopped. 

"Come back tomorrow why don't you? Do you know what time it is? I don't take night-time customers."

That somebody outside the door began to bang on the door once again more furiously.

"Who is it? Why don't you give your name properly."

"...It's Yamazaki," a woman's voice said. "Yamazaki Waka from Kami-Sotoba. Please, let me in."

"I refuse. I can't open the door for you. Try coming again during the daytime."

"Please. I fled here. Save me!"

Tamae looked to her mother. Ikumi's brows furrowed as if thinking deeply on something. 

"...Yamazaki from Shimo-Sotoba, you said? Didn't you all move out just recently?"

No, Waka shouted out. "We were forced along against our will. My husband and children were captured. I'm the only one who managed to get away. Please, help me!"

Ikumi turned to face Tamae. 

"Bring me the incense powder."

"But..."

Do it, Ikumi said while taking up a rusted kitchen knife. She looked for the salt container. Tamae went to her mother's room and returned bringing a box of incense powder from the altar. 

"Open the door for her. .....Careful now."

Tamae nodded and held her breath as she let the string off the door. The glass door had been opened from the outside. She caught a peek at a small framed middle aged woman's face. Her hair was disheveled, and her clothing had a faint sour smell. Ikumi threw the incense towards that sight. The woman turned her body away in surprise, but unlike the man who had come the evening before, she didn't seem to suffer for it. Even when Ikumi chanted a litany at her, she only listened with a strange expression.

"At any rate it doesn't look like you're an Oni at least."

Ikumi murmured. Waka nodded.

"All right, get in." Ikumi said, as Waka slid inside and then collapsed there as if with relief. at Ikumi's urging Tama turned on the kitchen light. Under the light, Waka's condition was all the more pitiful. Tamae didn't know the full circumstances but that she was taken away and escaped would explain it.

"And? What happened with what?"

Waka looked up from where she sat. Her color was poor, and her voice seemeth lethargic and despondent. "Please help me. My husband and children are still captured. .....They'll be killed."

"If you don't tell the story from the start, it won't make sense."

Waka nodded. "How many days ago was it now... I don't even know what day it is now."

"The fifteenth. It's the sixteenth by this hour, though."

"Then... Five days ago, was it? It was on the tenth. ...On the night of the tenth, my daughter brought by the wife of the Kirishiki's."

"----Kanemasa's?"

Waka gave an energyless nod. She looked to be past the brink of exhaustion. Tamae thought it would be best for her to rest first but Ikumi continued to block her way. 

"We served her tea, and the next day my husband had been acting strange. He seemed unusually tired. The day after that he still seemed so, just when I thought he should be seen by a doctor, in the night," Waka shivered. "...In the night, men I didn't know came to the house. They died us up and took out our things. My husband was just watching..."

"A freight company?"

"Yes," Waka nodded. "I heard my husband talking with somebody outside about moving. Me and my children were gagged, we couldn't get out a sound... And then, we were put on a loading rack with the luggage."

Tamae took in a gasp. Then, Waka and her family really were kidnapped. 

"We were brought to an old house and closed in. It was a terrible place, there wasn't food or enough water..."

"And your husband?" Ikumi leaned over Waka.

"He was with us. Even when I tried to ask him what was happening, I couldn't understand. He was sick. It was like he was spaced out. He had a high fever..." Waka stopped midway in her words. She let out a faint sobbing noise. "For a while, my husband was taken out. After some time had passed, my child was too. It might have been the next day...I don't know. It was pitch black in there all the time."

"And you didn't see them since?"

Waka nodded and covered her face.

"And then?"

"I was left there alone with my daughter for quite a long time. And then someone came... The young man from Kanemasa. That's who I think it probably was. He took me out of there. I was drug down a dark hallway, changed to another cage like place. I was tied to a post. It was worse than before, a room that really had nothing."

"And you were the only one there?"

"...That's right. I was left there for a long while. That's when a person came in. It was....." Waka covered her face and shook her head. 

"Who came in?"

"I don't think that you'll believe me. But I was sure of it. I knew who it was. He was my daughter's classmate after all."

"Who came in?"

"It was Yuu-kun. From Sotoba. The son of Shimizu Gardening. It's true, I wasn't mistaking someone for him."

Tamae gasped, looking between her mother and Taka. It wasn't as if Tamae knew Shimizu Gardens. But she'd heard the gossip in the neighborhood about her mother having stormed in and made a scene at the funeral. 

It can't be, Tamae murmured but Ikumi nodded as if she understood. 

"The dead son. Ryuuji-san's grandson."

Waka nodded. 

"I'm sure you don't believe me, but it really was Yuu-kun. I was so surprised. And that's when--that's when,"

"What's when?"

Waka lifted her tear streaked face. She opened the collar of her crumpled bouse. She loosened the top area. At the dirt smeared base of Waka's neck were two small scar marks.

"This is..."

"I was bitten. It sounds like a joke, but it's true. Yuu-kun bit me here."

Tamae let out a small sound and stepped back. "Then that's....."

The word absurd came to mind. It really was absurd but she was afraid for she could only think it was true.

"Yes," Ikumi Ikumi said, her voice low. "I see, the Oni. It was them."

"For a while after, I was in a daze. My body felt sluggish, like it didn't want to let me do anything. But I was worried about my daughter, about my son. My head cleared little by little, and then I desperately fled out of there. I thought if I stayed there I'd be killed..."

"Yes. You did well to run away, didn't you?"

Waka nodded. 

"I think that I was lucky. When they came to see how I was, I pretended I was too tired and was sleeping. Then, they thought that I was dead it seems. They left without locking..." 

I see, Ikumi said tapping Waka's arm. "That's really some good luck you had."

"But my husband and children are still back there. I hurried to return to the village but, this, if I tell anybody about this, nobody would believe it...."

"That's right."

"Ikumi-san was the only one I could think of. During Yuu-kun's funeral, you were saying it was Oni weren't you? So I thought if it were Ikumi-san, she might believe me, and I...."

Ikumi nodded. "You're a sharp one. That's it exactly."

"Please, save my husband and children!" Waka grasped Ikumi's arm. Ikumi grimaced. 

"I want to do that so very much but. Where is it you were taken to?"

I don't know, Waka said hanging and shaking her head.

"If you don't even know that..." Ikumi sighed. "And what's more, I'm alone. The bunch in the village definitely won't believe a word we say to them."

"I've brought proof."

"Proof?" Ikumi braced herself. Waka gave a slow-moving nod. "When I ran away, I brought them with me. The kanjo. Notes with their posthumous names---"

[TN: Kanjo - charms or slips of paper written upon by a Buddhist monk and traditionally placed on the inside of the coffin lid. Sometimes in modern days they're rested on the body during the last viewing, as monks are not always the ones to prepare and place the body into the coffin any longer. Different sects have variations on how it's done, but the general elements on kanjo are the six kanji characters making up a familiar chant of "I believe in the Buddha" and the date of death, the age of when the person died, the dead's posthumous name, and often the mark of the monk who issued the kanjo. One reason for this charm is because it isn't considered good in Buddhism to worship a corpse, and yet when praying and focusing on the corpse during various funeral events it certainly seems worship is directed at it; the slip of paper marks not the corpse but the person who is going on to another realm of enlightenment, or alternately to make it clear that it's a prayer to a deity or Buddha instead.]

Tamae blinked. The kanjo were put into the coffins and buried in the village. There was no normal means by which somebody could get inside of a buried coffin. Having those meant that the grave were they were buried had been dug up.

"There were many of them. So, I brought as many as I could and ran away. Along the way I hid them in a shrine as I went, but."

"I see. It was probably clever to hide them in a shrine. They probably can't touch them there after all."

"With those, I wonder if the people in the village might accept it too. Ikumi-san, I'm begging you, please help me."

Ikumi nodded. "All right then. As soon as the dawn comes---"

Waka shook her head. "Even now, my husband and children could be being killed. That's why I came to you even at this hour. Please, hurry."

But, Ikumu murmured.

"If it's Ikumi-san, then there's nothing to fear from them is there? You can easily cast them out. And what's more, we're going to a shrine. It'll be safe, won't it?"

Tamae looked between her mother and Waka. She found herself feeling uncomfortable. She was sympathetic towards Waka but there was something strange about Waka's story. But after being in thought for a bit Ikumi nodded. 

"I understand. Lead the way."

"Mom!" 

Tamae tried to stop her but Ikumi turned to look at her, hard hearted. 

"You're so noisy! Be quiet. You wouldn't understand it, but this is important what's happening here."

"That's not what I..."

Tamae tried to speak but Ikumi wouldn't allow it. He returned to her room, took out her coat and put it on. She urged Waka.

"Let's go. Since I'm with you it will be all right now."

"Thank you so much." Waka said all but worshipfully, heading outside the kitchen door. She urged Ikumi to come along, and she followed.

"Mom, wait,"

"You just stay safe at home. You can't do anything, after all."

"But."

"No matter who may come, don't let them in. You understand?" Ikumi said, closing the kitchen door. Tamae was left alone in the kitchen. An ominous premonition rose in her chest. Something in Waka's story seemed strange. She couldn't help thinking that Ikumi's rushing out was a mistake.

(That shouldn't be....)

Her mother was more formidable than herself. Tamae was a dullard, compared to her mother, she really couldn't use her head well. She'd always been told that, and she thought so herself. What her mother was doing shouldn't have been a mistake. ---But. 

Waka said that she didn't know where she was taken to. That might have been true. But if she didn't know where that was, then how did she know how to get back to the village? She said the only one who would believer her would be Ikumi. That might have indeed been true. But she had that decisive proof, she said. She said that with that they could convince the villagers. If they had the kanjo, they could do it, was the reasoning but if that was what she thought, why didn't she bring those kanjo to a relative or a friend when hurrying?

"Mom..."

Unable to bare it, Tamae rushed out of the kitchen door but the darkness had fallen outside. Fear cramped her legs and she couldn't chase after her mother. The nights had changed these days. Something was strange in this village. 

Unable to stand it, Tamae loitered about the house. Several times she tried to peek outside, and on a whim she prayed at the alrar. One hour passed, two hours. When her mother returned, it was just before dawn.

"----Mom!" 

When Tamae came to greet her, her mother's face was thinned and ghastly pale. She looked dismayed, and Waka was nowhere to be seen.

"Mom, where is Waka-san?" 

Ikumi didn't answer Tamae's question. Without saying a word she returned to her room, then loitered around digging in that area.

"Mom?" 

Ikumi turned to face Tamae. Her face was as colorless as paper.

"Listen, don't say a word about meeting anyone tonight."

Tamae nodded. "I won't. But,"

"I'm going into hiding for a while." 

Turning her face away from Tamae who gave a surprised sound, Ikumi began packing. She crammed some clothing and accessories into a paper bag. 

"I've gotten my hands on something incredible. If they knew about it, they definitely wouldn't let me off easy. The same goes for you. If you run your mouth carelessly, they might come for you too. You've got to be sure to keep it quiet."

"...I will. But."

"Until the heat dies down, I'm going into hiding. Don't worry, I'll contact you soon, and I'll be coming back."

"Mom."

Ikumi changed her clothes and went to the entryway with her paper bag. 

"You hear me? Be absolutely quiet about tonight. If someone asks, tell them I've gone to a relative's house for a while. If you say more than you have to, it'll be your life lost after all."

Tamae gave an uncertain nod. Ikumi closed the entryway door. It was before dawn, it was still dark out, only the sky holding blue hints of dawn. 

Ikumi once more threatened her to keep her mouth shut, and then she left the house. Her gait seemed strange and off. Tamae was left behind, dumbfounded in the house. Unable to move she watched as her mother went around the corner, then distantly hear the sound of a car door closing, the sound of an engine running.

Tamae gripped at her chest. There was a strange pain there. When the sound of the car faded, the silence loomed heavily. She couldn't help feeling that she had been separated from her mother forever.