“I’ve tried to tell both of you so many times,” said Mae. “I just never knew how to bring it up.” She took a bite of her chocolate cow’s tale and let out a long breath. “I was born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. At the base of Mount Fuji. Not far from Tokyo. I left too young to recall much of my life there. Mostly it’s a blur of buildings, fields of purple flowers, and the snowcapped mountain always looming in the distance. Except for the night my parents died. That I remember perfectly.”

Amanda put her arm around Mae while Lester shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hadn’t known about Mae’s birth parents. Hearing her speak of it for the first time, he felt a twinge of guilt settle in his stomach. How often had Mae listened to him complain about his family when she’d lost hers.

“It was the end of a hot summer day,” Mae continued. “The sun was setting, and the pretty little lights of our neighborhood were blinking on, one by one. I was playing alone outside in the small yard in front of our house. That’s when I saw her. At first, I thought it was just someone taking an evening stroll. But as she came slowly down the street, I could see that something was off. Her walk was stilted as if she were missing every other step. And even though the sky was clear, her long dark hair was dripping wet, leaving damp streaks down the front of her white dress. I remember wondering why she wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“It was near dinner time, so there was no one else outside when she reached our house. As I watched her pass by, she turned and looked straight at me. Her face was so pale. Then, without a word, she pressed a single finger to her black lips, warning me to stay quiet. I was unable to move. It wasn’t until she finally disappeared around the corner at the end of our block that I found the strength to get to my feet. I was about to run inside to find my parents when the first tremor knocked me back to the ground.”

“An earthquake?” Amanda asked.

“Yes. Yamanashi, like the rest of Japan, has a history of them. But never one like this. It struck fast, hard, and without warning. My parent’s house was flattened in a matter of minutes. I like to think they tried to reach me, but they probably never had a chance.”

“I am so sorry, Mae,” said Lester.

Mae wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

“I don’t remember anything after that,” she said. “They say a neighbor grabbed me and ran. He and I were the only survivors.”

“And that’s why you’re in therapy?” asked Amanda.

“Not entirely,” said Mae. “After the accident, I stopped speaking. My adopted parents took me to a string of doctors and specialists, and each one told them the same thing. There was nothing physically wrong with me. I would talk when I was ready. Until then, they suggested I be homeschooled. My new mom was the local librarian. So she became my teacher and the library where she worked, our classroom. It went on that way for almost two years. Then one day, while I was roaming around in the stacks during a break in my lessons, I pulled out a children’s book of folklore from around the world. On the first page, there was a story from Japan titled, The Onryo.”

“Onryo?” asked Lester.

“It means vengeful spirit,” said Mae. “Anyway, I’d just gotten to the part about how Onryos could cause natural disasters to punish the living for wrongs they’d suffered in life when I noticed the drawing on the opposite page. It was the woman I had seen in the street the night my parents died. I dropped the book and ran to my mother, screaming the first word she ever heard me say. Onryo!”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“You were a little kid, trying to find answers to questions that don’t have any,” said Amanda.

“That’s what my mother thought, too,” Mae said. “She was convinced that I’d been read that book, or another like it, by my birth parents. And that I’d used the memory to make sense of their loss. She tried to explain that what I thought I saw that night was just a ghost story. Either way, once I started talking, according to my parents, I didn’t stop.”

Lester and Amanda shared a look. It was easy to imagine a young Mae, smaller but just as inquisitive.

“They were finally able to enroll me in school,” said Mae, “and things settled down into a happy little routine. Then, a few years later, Japan was hit by a massive tsunami. I was ten years old and hadn’t been back since my parents died, but it was all over the news. I started going online to look at pictures of the devastation. You know the ones with the before and after photos? And there she was, the same woman — same hair, same white dress, and bare feet. She was just standing there in an image taken minutes before the wave hit. As you can imagine, I kind of freaked out.”

“We don’t have to imagine,” Amanda said softly.

“No,” added Lester. “We don’t.” He let out a long sigh, and the alley behind The Mortician’s Eye drifted into his mind.

“Oh, right,” Mae said. “I suppose not.”

The three friends sat in silence for a brief moment, side by side on a bench in the middle of a costumed crowd, feeling utterly alone — together.

“After that, I became obsessed,” said Mae. “Every hour I wasn’t in school was spent researching Onryos and any other phenomenon that might give me some sort of clue. At first, it was every day after class. Then I started skipping school altogether. I took buses to other libraries, wandering endless aisles of books, desperately looking for answers.

“It wasn’t long before the school told my parents I hadn’t been showing up, and they confronted me. I tried to explain, but they wouldn’t listen. They believed the tsunami news had brought back the trauma of losing my birth parents. My phone and computer got taken away, and I was banned from all libraries within an hour’s drive. I think they thought if they could shield me from it long enough, it would eventually pass. But they were wrong. One night, I packed a bag, went to the airport, and snuck on a flight to Japan. A stewardess found me hiding in the bathroom as the plane was taxiing onto the runway.”

Mae’s voice quivered, and Amanda took her hand into hers.

“That turned into a whole thing,” said Mae. “All the passengers were evacuated on those big yellow inflatable slides. While fire trucks and police cars circled the plane like they’d found some radical terrorist. I was taken off in handcuffs. My parents were mortified. The lawyer they hired convinced a judge that I wasn’t a troublemaker, just a kid who needed help. He sentenced me to court-mandated therapy. Then my school politely suggested that perhaps I would do better in a calmer environment. So we packed up everything and moved to Giles Hollow.”

“And landed smack in the middle of our — situation,” Amanda said. “Exactly the kind of thing your parents were trying to avoid.”

“I’m sorry, Mae,” said Lester. “If I’d known, I never would’ve brought you into this.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Mae. “It’s not like I gave you much choice. Besides, finding out how messed up your two families are kind of makes me appreciate my own.”

Amanda smirked. “Glad we could help.”

“Anyway,” said Mae, “as for my parents, it’s not all bad. My father still hasn’t found work, but they’re both really pleased that for the first time in a long time, I’ve made friends.”

Mae flashed an embarrassed smile.

“Oh yeah?” said Lester. “Is it anyone we know?”

“Or are these friends, like, here now,” asked Amanda, “but you’re the only one who can see them?”

They all laughed, and Mae threw the rest of her chocolate cow’s tail at them.