Chapter Six, in which I Strive to Forget Everything, then Remember Things I Never Did

* * * *

That night I lay in my own futon, since the only one the worn-down inn had available was a tattered mess. Buying my own futon was likely the best investment I ever made since leaving my home town. I had been let down by inns on more than a few occasions when it came to this matter, and there was nothing worse than having to sleep on a terrible futon. Well, other than dealing with real-life ghosts.

Perhaps my time with Spirit-san wasn’t all that bad, but it was a moot point now. She was gone.

I shut my eyes and already felt myself beginning to fall asleep. I was always good about that. It was the one true skill I had. Not exactly something to be proud of, but it was something I could count on at least. I didn’t have to worry about anything once I fell asleep. And I could restart my life again the next morning refreshed, then head off to search for some new tasks to pass the years away.

In the moments before I dozed off completely, my mind drifted back to Spirit-san. Was she going to be okay? I hoped she’d find something better to do with her afterlife. Or someone better to spend it with.

* * * *

I planned to just leave the inn once I awoke, but I ended up chatting a bit with the man running the establishment. And since he had a shogi board set up at his table already, I offered to play a game before departing. He seemed anxious for some company, and games like this always helped clear my head a bit.

The inn-keeper was an old man—not as old as the mansion owner, but still pretty old. More significantly though, he was really short. Even for old people, this inn-keeper was short. He had a light, thin beard and wore a dark green jacket and pleated hakama over his white kimono.

He was also quite good at shogi.

“You look troubled,” the inn-keeper said as he captured one of my pawns. His voice was much deeper than I expected for someone that short. “And it’s not just because you’re losing.”

“Who knows,” I said. “Do you have some sage life advice?”

“Be nice to your elders.”

“Okay.” I moved my rook a few spaces, my mind just barely focused enough to know where I was placing it.

“Let me guess,” the inn-keeper said, “you’re having some trouble with a lady friend of yours.”

“It’s slightly more complicated than that,” I said. “And it’s over now, so it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s a relief, because I don’t have any good advice for you there,” the inn-keeper said, his eyes on the shogi board. He made his next move—one I should have seen coming a couple turns ago.

“Guess you can’t be good at everything.” I picked up my knight, no longer really caring where I placed it. “Perhaps I could just… find some other way to help her out. Somehow.” I set my game piece down, my mind questioning every single aspect of the course of action I took the previous day.

Wait, don’t move there! Won’t he capture your territory?

“This isn’t go, Spirit-san.”

“Spirit-san?” the inn-keeper said.

I stood up and nearly bumped off the entire shogi board in the process. My eyes widened. Was I hearing things?

“Spirit-san?” I said.

Oh, I wanted to surprise you, Naoki-kun! I got so into the game though that I forgot to keep quiet while possessing you.

“When did you get here?”

I followed you to this inn, so… ever since you got here?

“Um, I’ve always been here,” the inn-keeper said.

“The whole time?” I shut my eyes and placed a hand in front of my face.

Yes, I had to run for a bit to catch up with you—which is hard to do in a woman’s kimono, I’ll have you know.

“Yes, I live here, you know…” the inn-keeper said, his eyes shifting back and forth.

I could only imagine what this man was thinking about my mental state.

And before I could try to come up with some kind of explanation, I suddenly found myself bowing toward him, my hands placed in front of my thighs. It was the way a woman would bow, so of course it was Spirit-san controlling me.

“I’m sorry, I’m confusing you and putting Naoki-kun through more trouble,” I found myself saying. I stood back up and covered my mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry, Naoki-kun.” I even felt myself blushing at this point, which I had to presume was Spirit-san’s doing as well.

“Okay, just stop talking,” I said.

“I didn’t say anything?” the inn-keeper said.

“No, you’re fine, you’re fine,” I said. “I’ll be on my way now, actually.” I picked up my pack and headed to the entry where my sandals were. I slipped them on and gave the poor inn-keeper a more proper bow. “Thanks for your hospitality.”

I slid open the door and was about to step out, but felt like I was forgetting something.

“Oh, and I resign.” I pointed toward the shogi board. Hated to leave a game unfinished.

And with that, I set out again, somehow reunited with Spirit-san once more. Or rather, she apparently had never left me.

* * * *

I walked a short ways from the inn before deciding where to begin with Spirit-san.

“So, you know everything then?”

Know what?

“You read my message at least, right?” I asked.

The omikuji? You said to wait for you to tell me when to look at it. It’s still tied up in the tree though. Are we going to go back there?

“No… don’t worry about it.” What did this mean then? Did Spirit-san not suspect anything? It was too unlikely, even for her. “Let me see if I understand what happened. You reached the top of the tree, tied the omikuji, then climbed back down? And seeing I wasn’t nearby, you ran down the path until you caught up with me, and for some reason decided to possess me without letting me know.”

That’s right!

“Why wouldn’t you say anything?”

I thought you were concentrating on the ritual, so I didn’t want to disturb you. You looked so serious. But after a while I guessed you might not have wanted to do all this work for me, and I felt bad and wanted to let you have some time alone. And then you were going to go to sleep, and it’s been over a year since I last got to sleep… It felt really good! Maybe I should have asked first though.

On one hand it was pitiable, but on the other it was actually quite unsettling. But it seemed she still didn’t mean any harm. And she still didn’t question my position as an onmyoji.

Have you had a good rest though? I’m hoping to find those ghosts today. Once we find them, they’ll be able to haunt me and I can make up for what I did to them. I won’t be in that mansion anymore after that, and your job will be done.

“I doubt you deserve to be haunted, Spirit-san,” I said. “Are you sure you’re responsible for anyone dying?”

Absolutely positive! You’ll see for yourself once we get back to the village. The ghosts will be able to explain it all better than I could.

I supposed that was true. I imagined Spirit-san’s account of the events would be rather skewed at this point, especially having spent at least a year as a ghost entirely focused on that retribution she continued to defy death for.

Seeing how determined Spirit-san was to go through with this, I couldn’t help but go along with her inane plans. Perhaps an opportunity would come where I could explain the futility of it all. Or maybe I could persuade her to move on to something else in her afterlife. For now, I could at least help her gather the mementos she had in mind, and maybe in the process of doing so she could come to some kind of a realization that she shouldn’t dwell so much on these regrets of hers.

I started to walk faster down the path, and it took me a few seconds to realize it was Spirit-san making me do so.

“This doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you should be excited for, Spirit-san,” I said.

I just noticed how long your legs are, so you can take really big steps!

“They’re not that long,” I said. “You’re just used to being shorter.”

What? You’re just used to being taller!

It was this sort of banal conversation that led the two of us back to Spirit-san’s village.

* * * *

Spirit-san eventually brought me near a more out-of-the-way house in the outskirts of the village. There were light trails of smoke coming from the hovel’s reed roof, so there were probably some people enjoying the warmth of an irori hearth inside.

“Is this your house?” I asked.

No, it’s my aunt and uncle’s. The item I need is behind their house.

So there were some relatives of Spirit-san who lived at the village. This was understandable of course—many extended families lived together in villages, sometimes all under the same roof. But if Spirit-san wanted to pick up an item here, did that mean her aunt or uncle died? Or both? The reasoning behind Spirit-san becoming a ghost felt more understandable if the people who died before her were related to her. It would have made things more personal, at the very least.

I took a bit of a walk around the house, trying to keep a safe distance to avoid suspicion. If I could get to the item Spirit-san had in mind without being seen, I could avoid having to explain why I was walking around here.

“What should I be looking for?” I asked as I approached a tall stack of firewood piled against the back wall of the house.

There’s a ball there, Spirit-san said. I looked toward the base of the wood pile and found a colorful cloth ball big enough to hold with two hands.

My mind conjured an image of Spirit-san tossing a ball to her uncle, hitting him in the head and somehow killing him instantly.

“Should I really take the ball?” I whispered. I was still a safe distance from the house, but I wanted to be careful not to draw attention to myself.

Don’t worry, nobody will mind. We can bring it back once we’re done with it.

Easy for her to say. But I decided that as long as I kept as casual about this as possible, I would probably not have to worry about a confrontation. If I was spotted, I could feign ignorance. I’m visiting some relatives for the first time and thought they lived here, for example.

I knelt behind the firewood and looked down at the ball. Though I knew of methods an onmyoji could use to establish contact with a ghost, I wasn’t sure what I should attempt in this case. I could worry about it once I was back in the forest though, or perhaps even after gathering the other three items Spirit-san wanted.

I picked up the ball.

And the entire world around me changed.

* * * *

I wasn’t outside anymore—I was in a room. My room? No. Yet it felt familiar. How did I get there? Spirit-san wasn’t saying anything in my head. Was I just imagining all this?

The room had only a few tatami mats, just enough room for a futon. It was rolled up now, though. And beside it was a shelf built into the wall, where rested a pile of origami works and a small wooden chest. I couldn’t recall ever having one, and yet it felt like it was mine. I set the ball down and reached over to the little storage container.

I stopped before opening it. My hand. The kimono I was wearing. They were… different? My hand looked small—delicate even. And the kimono—no, a yukata—it was red, and had a variety of flowers in its pattern. Was this something I used to wear? There was a clear sense of nostalgia to everything about this, but I could still recognize it made no sense.

Or did it make sense?

I opened the chest and picked out the first thing my fingers got a hold of. It was a circular mirror in a wooden frame. The bronze mirror itself was old and had lost much of its luster, but I could still make out my image clearly enough. It was Spirit-san’s face.

I blinked a few times, alternating eyes each time, then tilted my head back and forth. This was definitely Spirit-san, though she had color to her now. A normal skin tone, black hair, and dark brown eyes. Was she alive then? I was apparently Spirit-san, who was alive, and I was in my room. Kijimuta… Michiko. That was my name. But what was I doing here? Strangely it seemed like it was a normal day.

I smiled. This was kind of funny, wasn’t it? Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and somehow that made sense. The ball was a memento related to Spirit-san’s reason for existing as a ghost, and she was possessing me as I made contact with the item. I was reliving some certain event, then?

There was something I was supposed to be doing. I put the mirror away, picked up the ball, and stood up. Was I going to go outside? I felt like I was planning to go outside. I slid open my door and found my father sitting in the main room. He was holding his right foot up in front of his face, presumably in hopes of reading his fortune again.

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“Good morning, Father,” I said. For a moment I thought my voice sounded strange, but then I remembered it was Spirit-san’s voice.

“It’s the afternoon, Michiko-chan,” Father replied.

This man seemed to be in his forties, and had long hair tied back in a ponytail. His yukata was a bizarre patchwork of many different-colored fabrics—and his mouth seemed to always hang open a little, as if he were afraid he’d lose all air to his lungs if he closed it.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I put on my sandals and walked outside. It was a pretty cloudy day, with a refreshingly cool breeze passing by.

Outside was a middle-aged woman with frizzy hair, wearing a cream-colored yukata—she was spinning in circles with her arms outstretched. Mother was in a happy trance, as she liked to put it. I wasn’t sure what she got out of spinning around like that, but it was something she enjoyed doing. Or maybe something she just felt the urge to do.

I let her be and headed down the path leading to the lake. There was someone I was going to meet today. Someone to play with? I smiled to myself, though I knew there was nothing special about the occasion. Actually, it felt kind of silly, now that I thought about it. Here I was, twenty-one years old, and looking forward to throwing a ball with my twelve-year-old niece.

The young girl stood near the lake, waiting for me. What was her name again? I recalled always calling her Hana-chan, since she likes to wear flowers in her hair. She wore a pink yukata with a basic sakura pattern, and to go along with that several strings of cherry blossoms were tied into her long hair. Perhaps a few too many, to be honest—but who was going to tell her that? She loved the flowers.

“How are you, Hana-chan?”

The girl turned around, fell to her hands and knees, and threw up.

For some reason I didn’t feel surprised by this. Hana-chan threw up on a regular basis.

The girl got back up and gave a quiet, awkward laugh. “Sorry, Nee-chan.” She always referred to me as an older sister.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s go… somewhere else.”

We walked to a different spot near the lake, and proceeded to toss the ball I brought back and forth to each other. It wasn’t the most exciting way to pass the time, but it was nice just to be with someone else for a little bit.

“What have you been up to lately, Hana-chan?” I tossed the ball right to her, but it slipped from her grasp a couple times like a flailing fish before she got a firm grip on it.

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“Just helping my mom and dad,” she said. “Working on the rice field.”

She tossed the ball back to me, but it fell a good meter short. I wasn’t about to try diving for it.

We kept tossing the ball, and I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. There wasn’t anything going on in my life, that was sure.

“Have you done anything fun lately?” I asked.

Hana-chan missed the ball. “Not really.”

“Really?”

She tossed the ball again, but this time a gust of wind pushed it far to my right. While I went to get it Hana-chan responded, “Hmmm, I guess I made a kite with some friends the other day. And I went on a boat with my dad. Oh, and I spent some time at a neighbor’s house. We had some nice tea, and I learned some new string figures. I also ran into the girl from the metalworks shop, and she showed me this abandoned house that was supposed to have a ghost, but there wasn’t anything.”

That sounded like enough excitement to last a whole year. How did this girl have such an exciting life and not even think it was anything special?

“Have you had fun lately too, Nee-chan?”

I smiled. “Of course. It’s always fun to spend time with you, Hana-chan.”

“I mean any time other than now. Do you have fun with your boyfriend? What do you do with your boyfriend?”

I tossed the ball back to her and laughed. “Which one?”

Every time we played together she wanted to know everything about boyfriends. She never grasped the idea that I had never had one before, so I just made up stories for her.

“Nee-chan!” The ball bounced off Hana-chan’s head. “That’s two-timing, isn’t it?” She looked excited, rather than upset. “How do you do it?”

I raised a finger in the air. “It’s all about how you present yourself, Hana-chan. Looks will only get you so far, you know? Boys like it when you show you’re confident, particularly when it comes to matters of romance!”

Hana-chan threw the ball back to me with more force than before. “Tell me more, Nee-chan.”

I stepped back a bit as I caught the ball. “What’s this? Is there someone you like?” I emphasized the last few words with a rise in pitch.

Instead of giving the quick denial I expected, she turned away a bit. “I don’t know. I don’t have that confidence you’re talking about, I guess. I’m always kind of sick, so…”

I walked over to Hana-chan and bent down a bit so I could place a hand on her shoulder.

“You don’t need to worry about it so much. You’ll know what to do when the time comes.”

Hana-chan gave a hesitant smile. “Thanks, Nee-chan. You always seem to know best.”

If only that were the case.

To my surprise Hana-chan went on to give me a hug, but it was cut short when she needed to turn around and throw up again. I always had to worry when she did that, but it was just something she was prone to do from time to time.

We ended up tossing the ball back and forth for a little while longer, our discussion turning to what we were going to do for the upcoming sakura festival, and a debate over which kind of mochi was tastiest.

Our games ended when it started to rain—and not just a light drizzle; this was a dramatic downpour.

“Did you bring an umbrella, Hana-chan?” I asked. She simply held out her empty hands in response.

I should have thought to bring one. Though the sun was shining when I left home, I should have taken note of the dark clouds. My parents would have been fine with letting me borrow the umbrella.

The two of us waited under a tree a couple minutes to see if the rain would let up a bit, but it looked like the storm was just going to get worse.

Hana-chan rubbed her arms together. “It’s getting cold. I’m going to head on home.”

“You can come to my house,” I said. “It’s closer.”

Hana-chan glanced away and frowned. “Well…”

She didn’t want to say it, but I knew she didn’t want to stop by my house if she could help it. Not with my parents there.

“It’ll be okay. We can go straight to my room. Maybe you can show me those string figures you learned the other day? I only know cat’s cradle.”

She still looked hesitant, but when the roar of thunder echoed off the mountainside, she finally accepted the offer.

We hurried through the rain, but Hana-chan slipped on her way down one of the trail’s slick muddy inclines. She started coughing, and had a hard time of getting up.

“Are you all right?” I asked, raising my voice above the beating of the rain.

Hana-chan sneezed a couple times in response. It seemed ridiculous for someone to get sick just from being in the rain a few minutes—but as she said, she was always somewhat ill to begin with.

“Here, hold this and I’ll carry you,” I said, handing her the ball. She immediately did as I instructed—it seemed telling of her situation that she didn’t try to argue at all.

I attempted to carry her by holding her in front of me, one arm beneath her shoulders and the other beneath her knees. But to my surprise, it quickly proved far too strenuous for me. I wouldn’t have guessed Hana-chan to be that heavy, so it was likely just me being too weak to carry her.

I decided to try carrying Hana-chan on my back, which proved to be manageable at least. It was still more difficult than I expected, but I succeeded at bringing her to my home.

In the end Hana-chan spent the rest of the day lying in my futon. She had a bit of a fever it seemed, and struggled to keep down any food I prepared for her without throwing it up right away. My father went to get Hana-chan’s parents, but apparently they were out looking for her, not knowing where she had gone for the day. And it seemed my father got side-tracked a couple times while out in the storm, apparently finding a lot to be impressed with in it.

The entire time I sat beside Hana-chan. I intended to leave the room so she could get some sleep, but she insisted I stay with her, and try making some of the string figures she learned. Making a butterfly with a string pattern was quite different from folding one with paper, and it took many tries to position my fingers just right and arrange the string in the correct way. It was all I could do to try taking her mind off the pain.

Eventually her parents came to pick her up, but before leaving Hana-chan thanked me for spending the day with her. As she was carried out the door, I thanked her in return—but it didn’t look like she heard me. She was the one who had given me something to do that day. She was the one who had a life in general.

But there were only a couple days left for her after that.

* * * *

I was back outside, kneeling beside a stack of firewood. There was a cloth ball in my hands—the same one I had been tossing back and forth with Hana-chan. How long ago was that? Almost two years ago? I noticed my hand—and my black kimono. I was myself once more, and it looked like I was in the exact same position I was in before I experienced that memory.

Are you okay, Naoki-kun? Let’s go.

I set the ball down and stood up, trying to recall what it was I was doing exactly.

Don’t forget the ball! We need to summon a ghost with it.

“I don’t think there will be a ghost to find,” I whispered. “Hana-chan… I mean, your niece wouldn’t want to haunt you.”

How do you know about Hana-chan? Did you sense her presence just by touching the ball?

“I think I just lived through a memory of yours, Spirit-san. Your presence must have set it off somehow.”

That sounds ridiculous and impossible!

“You’re a ghost who makes blood pour out of her fingertips and proceeds to possess an exorcist for the sake of finding other ghosts to haunt her. A memory ball is acceptable.”

I guess so…

I started to walk away from the house, but stopped at the sound of footsteps coming from just around the corner. A man in a dark brown kimono and black jacket appeared. He had short hair and some beard stubble, but still bore a strong resemblance to Spirit-san’s father. This had to be her uncle, the father of Hana-chan.

“Good day,” the man said with a very forced smile. “Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry.” I gave a quick bow. “I heard some relatives of mine lived in this village, so I was just passing by. Thought they might be at this house.”

“I can help,” the man said. “Maybe. What’s your family name?”

I planned to go with something really generic, but ended up just saying the first name that popped in my head. “Kijimuta.” I realized what a poor choice this was just as I said it. That was Spirit-san’s real name, wasn’t it? Kijimuta Michiko, if I recalled correctly.

The man laughed. “Well, looks like you came to the right place! I’m Kijimuta Hachiro.”

I laughed as well, but not in the same way he did. “I’m… Takeshi.”

Takeshi? Spirit-san exclaimed. How ironic of you to make up a name, when your name is Naoki-kun! Isn’t honest part of the name when you write it?

I couldn’t tell Spirit-san to not sweat the details, for fear of a repeat of the incident with the inn-keeper. For now I had to pretend I was related to this man.

“How are we related, exactly?” the uncle asked.

“I’m not sure, I’d have to check.”

The conversation led to the man inviting me in for lunch. Spirit-san turned silent at this point, I noticed. Did she not want to go inside? She probably didn’t want to, considering how she felt responsible for her niece’s death.

What was I going to do for Spirit-san? To some small degree I could understand the remorse she went through. She genuinely saw her interaction with Hana-chan as a central element of the young girl’s death. If this sort of thing happened with two other people she knew on top of this, maybe it wasn’t that unbelievable for her to want to be haunted. To set things right, as best she felt possible. To allow that retribution she assumed each of the deceased desired.

I couldn’t summon a ghost, though. And even if I could, I still didn’t feel I’d ever want to. Wasn’t it just too much, to take responsibility for the death of another? There was nothing I could do to change what happened, and there was nothing I could do to make things better.

* * * *