“You poor sweetie,” she whined, and suddenly the spindles of the staircase felt too solid against my back, like the bars of a cage. “How are you doing?”
My mom is gone, Nan’s acting weird, my house is full of people who suddenly care about us and my whole life is destroyed. How do you think I’m doing?
“Um, I’m okay.”
“It will take time,” she said, swirling the punch around the wine glass. “But time heals all wounds, you know. She’s in a better place now, your mom. I know she’s looking down on you and smiling.”
I wanted her to butt out. How did she know what I was feeling? It’s not like I didn’t hope it was all true, that Mom was in heaven and happy and all that. But I didn’t need this clueless woman reassuring me. She didn’t know anything. She barely even knew me.
I had to get out of there before I lost it. I didn’t want to cry in front of all these people. I didn’t want them to swarm me with their empty consolations.
“Thanks for coming,” I said quietly and squeezed myself past her outstretched arm as it swirled the punch round and round. I walked along the wall to the foot of the stairs and bolted up them.
I shut my door behind me, sliding down to the floor. The air was familiar here, cooler than the living room. My eyes glazed over as I stared at my bookshelf, running my eyes over the colored spines and letting my mind go blank.
I was nothing now. I didn’t have to be angry, or sad, or confused. I could fade away, barely here at all.
It lasted about five minutes before I burst into tears.
I forced them back, unwilling to accept the truth. When my heart had calmed down and I could hear the birds chirping outside instead of the pulse in my ears, I mulled over why Gramps hadn’t come. He loved Mom, his eyes always shining when we visited. There’s no way he would’ve missed the funeral unless he was really sick.
One of the books on the bookshelf stuck out farther than the others, and my eyes kept drifting back to its odd shape. I rocked forward onto my knees and reached for it. The novels on either side of it toppled over with a thud as I pulled it out. No wonder it stood out beside them—it was the thick travel guide Diane had sent from Japan for my twelfth birthday, hoping she could convince me to visit. She’d just about given up on Mom, but at twelve I could fly without an adult.
“No way, José,” Mom had said when I’d asked.
“Why?” I’d whined.
“Send my baby girl to the other side of the world? You’re dreaming.”
“Just for a week, Mom!”
“And then? What if you want to live there forever? What if you never come back?”
“Like that would happen.”
“Diane never came back, honey. Why do you think you would?”
It was such a strange thing to say, I remembered thinking. Who wouldn’t come home from a vacation? But Mom’s eyes had filled with tears.
“We need to stick together, Katie. You’re everything to me.”
She was afraid. Dad had left her, and she was terrified I’d leave her, too.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll stay with you. Promise.”
I flipped the pages mindlessly, past glossy photos of cherry blossoms, Buddhist temples, markets filled with rows of gleaming fish.
When my tears fell, they wrinkled the pages until I couldn’t even read the words.
I’d kept my promise. I’d stayed.
And after all her worrying, it was Mom who’d left me.
Chapter Two
Tomohiro
The nightmares were getting worse.
I sat up with a shout, my fingers clawing into my comforter. The darkness in my room was disorienting. Where was I? Who was I?
The shadows. The beach. The Torii.
My chance to escape.
All gone.
But the worst was the simple truth—the woman in the kimono was right.
There is no escape, she’d said. There is only death.
It’s not like I wanted to be all dark and hopeless about it, but night after night of monsters whispering in your ear will do that to you. I used to think there was something wrong with me, that I needed medication or serious therapy. Like my mom—Kaasan always took a bunch of different pills for her nightmares, though she tried to hide them until she thought I was upstairs.
Now I know. There’s definitely something wrong. And it’s not something I can fix with any drugs.
I pushed my bangs out of my eyes and reached for my keitai phone on the table. I flipped it open, squinting as the bright LCD screen flashed into my eyes.
A couple texts from Myu, both from last night, wondering why I hadn’t called. I was a shitty boyfriend, I’ll admit it. I wasn’t really sure why she put up with me. She was tall, leggy, determined to have her way. Sometimes I wondered if Myu just saw me as a challenge, a puzzle to untangle like the Debate Club she belonged to. When Myu confessed her feelings for me, I was a little embarrassed she hadn’t seen through me. A lot of girls confessed because they thought I was some kind of mystery. I came late to class a lot, and sometimes I needed to skip, because of my...condition. But I worked late nights and pulled the grades I needed to keep my dad off my back. Tousan’s the last one I wanted involved in what was really going on with me. And somehow the girls thought this made me a disappearing badass who was boyfriend material. I’d thought Myu was smarter than that.
Why the hell would I want to be some mysterious badass? All I wanted was for the shadow to leave me alone, the nightmares to stop.
But they won’t. Not until I’m dead. I know that, because of what I am. Marked, chosen. Hunted, like Taira.
I scanned through Myu’s text messages and clapped the phone shut, tossing it on my pillow. Half a second later my alarm went off and I slammed a hand on it in the darkness.
Normally I would stumble downstairs to start on my school bentou, but lately Myu had insisted on bringing me a homemade lunch, the box wrapped in bright furoshiki cloths and filled with cream-and-strawberry sandwiches, cherry tomatoes and onigiri rice balls. Her cooking wasn’t too bad, but she always had trouble rolling the sweet egg right. It came out lumpy and crooked, which she tried to hide with strategic flower-shaped picks.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. I couldn’t get it right either.
In the kitchen, I wolfed down a bowl of miso soup and slathered a piece of thick toast in honey and butter. I grabbed my blazer from the hook by the door just as Tousan stumbled down the stairs.
“Ittekuru,” I mumbled at him, letting him know I was heading for school. He nodded, sleepy, rubbing his head with his hand. He’s not lazy, my dad. He likes to see how far he can push the notion of overtime, which means getting home at 4:00 a.m. and waking up late. Sometimes he ends up sleeping at the company because it’s just easier. We didn’t really get along anymore, not since I’d had to transfer schools. So it’s easier for both of us if he’s at work. He thinks I’m following his rules, and I don’t have to disappoint him with the truth.
He didn’t even say the expected farewell “Itterasshai” when I closed the front door. He just grunted, like that alone was too much effort.
I grabbed my bike and cycled as fast as could toward Suntaba Senior High School. One more year and I could vanish from Shizuoka City into whatever life I wanted. Everyone wanted to move to Tokyo but I wanted somewhere quiet—Kyushu, maybe, something really remote.