Chapter 7

"Hey, why do we light a fire?" Katou Yuusuke asked his grandmother, who was bent over the road beside their house. It was already starting to get dark out. Along the road that followed the mountain stream, he could see yellow lights dotting here and there. They were the lights of flames. His grandmother Yukie was leaning over the road just like the others from the neighborhood, lighting a pile of wood chips on the asphalt on fire. 

"We do this to welcome our ancestors. That's because today is Obon. They're all in the mountains, so without a sign like this, they might not come back."

"Our an-ses-tors?" 

"Grandma's father and mother and their mothers and fathers, people like that."

Yuusuke's eyes widened a little. "Grandma had a father and mother, too?"

Yukie let out a light laugh. "Well, I must have! People don't come from trees, after all."

"From trees?"

"It means if there is a person, they must have certainly had a father and a mother. That's how everyone is born. I'm saying there are fathers and mothers all the way back."

"And those people, where are they?"

"In the mountains. They're allll dead, so they're in their graces in the mountains."

Yuusuke stiffened. "Dead people? They're coming back?"

"Yes. During Obon the lid comes off of Hell. Then they can return home,"  Yukie said, smiling at her grandson. "Yuu-chan's mother will be coming back, too." 

She was a bright, cheerful daughter-in-law. She had a frank manner of speaking, one that could certainly frustrate Yukie, but looking back she could only think she had indeed been a fine wife. She didn't dislike the business nor was she afraid of work. She worked at double Yukie's pace, swift in all she did, and while she did make mistakes for that, it was hard to hold it against her. The girl was the very picture of health; it was unthinkable that she would go first. She was burly, with thick arms. When those arms at some point became smaller, when Yukie had said to her, have you been losing weight, she smiled proudly. It's nothing to be happy about, you're too thin---by the time she had thought that, it was already too late. 

Yukie looked on as Yuusuke stared into the welcoming fire. Yuusuke had started primary school. He was smaller than the others but he was a healthy boy.

(Come back, have a look at him for yourself...)

Her son who had only just begun to walk after her at last back then was now already this big. 

Yuusuke compared the welcoming fire to those surrounding. Maybe he was looking for his mother in the darkness. Thinking such with compassion, she gave a lonely smile only for Yuusuke to suddenly rush over to the water bucket. 

"Grandma, let's put them out!"

"---Yuusuke!" Shocked, wondering what he was saying, she stopped his hands on the bucket.

"Let's put them out! Please!"

"If we put the fire out, your mom won't come back, will she?"

"But!" Yuusuke cried at Yukie when his breath stopped. Over his grandmother's shoulder, as she bent over the small fire, in the darkness, he saw a white shadow.

(If we don't put out the fire....) 

It swayed and grew bit by bit. Before he could grip the handle of the bucket, it grew bigger still. It was across the road, coming closer to the open air flames. Yuusuke hid behind his grandmother, clinging to her. The faded handle of the bucket warped in Yuusuke's hand. 

--When the dead return, that's a ghost. 

Yuusuke was fixated on the shadow that was approaching. Sneaking footsteps approached, until finally that tall figure's feet stepped into the light of the fire.

(Oni are coming down from the mountains.)

Yuusuke shrunk behind his grandmother's back, still unable to take his eyes from the approaching shadow, watching it pass by from behind that back. 

White clothing, white pants, a white face atop the slender figure.

"....Good evening." It said, with a smile. Yuusuke saw it as a demonic smile. Clinging to his grandmother's clothing, he took a step backwards but his grandmother showed no signs of fleeing, looking up and then bowing her head.

"Good evening," said Yukie, turning back to face Yuusuke. "Yuusuke, where's your 'good evening'?"

Yuusuke, still looking up at the man, shook his head. 

"Now be polite and give a proper greeting," Yukie chided, standing up. She pulled Yuusuke forward, with a light nod to the man. 

"It's a good Bon night, isn't it."

It is, the man smiled. Yukie examined the figure. He was in about his mid-forties, probably? He was slender, but still a man whose body line suggested dignity, in a suit that flattered his form. It may have been linen, and it was well tailored. His was an unfamiliar face but she knew who he was right away. He had no necktie but his clothing was color coordinated, adorned in leather shoes of a brown hue that went well with the linen suit. Of the villagers, there were none who would dress like this for walking the village at night. ---At least until now, there hadn't been.

"By chance, are you Kanemasa?" Yukie looked up at the Western mountain. "You are the good people who moved in there, aren't you?"

Yes, the man smiled with a light nod.

"Are you taking a walk?"

"I'd thought I'd seen open air fires about and recalled that it was Obon. I had completely forgotten," the man said, surveying his surroundings. Soon, his gaze returned down to Yukie. "I am Kirishiki Seishirou. It was a pleasure to meet you tonight."

"Oh my, likewise."

"Might this be your grandson?"

Seishirou looked at Yuusuke cowering behind Yukie as if he were leering over him. Yuusuke turned into her arm and tucked into her side as if to run from that gaze.

"Yuusuke, where are your manners?"

Good evening, a child's voice could just barely be heard to say, while he still refused to budge from Yukie's shadow. 

"You'll have to excuse him. The child has a terrible fear of strangers."

Seishirou smiled. "No, that's simply how children are, I suppose."

"Do you have children, Kirishiki-san?"

"I do have a daughter who has turned thirteen. My daughter as well is shy of strangers. ---Yuusuke-kun? A pleasure."

Being stared at by the man, Yuusuke all the more tightly gripped at Yukie's clothing. On that exceedingly white face, and beneath those slender eyebrows, the skin about and beneath his eyes made no motions of a smile, even while the corners of his thin lips rose. It was a bad type of smile, or at least Yuusuke thought so. 

(It's because of the open fire.)

They did something as crazy as lighting fires to lead ghosts to the house.

(Even though if it comes down from the mountains, it's obviously an Oni...)

[Note: Bon notes from chapter 1 expanded upon with information relevant to Chapter 7 : These include the cucumber horse and eggplant cow, a Bon tradition]