The Girl from the Well (19 page)

Callie looks back at the shrine. Though they will not be allowed inside until after most of the purification rituals are done, it no longer feels threatening to her.

“Tarquin is also something of a miracle,” Kagura admits. “I was relieved when he woke up from the ritual unharmed. When a spirit of such malignancy vacates a body, it leaves behind negative energy that can serve as a beacon to other less powerful but still dangerous demons. It would have been necessary to cleanse his body, for his spiritual energy would have been weak.

“But I was surprised by how strong his energy was upon waking.” She laughs softly. “In older times he would have been a fine
onmyji
the likes of the legendary Abe no Seimei, especially as he has kept the demons in his body at bay for all these years, far more than any of us ever could have, even Chiyo. With the proper training, he could have made an exceptional Buddhist priest.”

“Well, that's nice of her to say,” Tarquin says, when Callie tells him. They are standing by the shrine's well, looking down into the darkness, though they see nothing. “I think I'd look pretty good in a robe and those really big hats, too.”

They say nothing for a while, waiting by the well and continuing to peer down at its depths, looking for something that still does not appear.

“So,” Callie says, “‘Shut up, Callie. Let me handle this'? That's your choice for famous last words?”

“I was under a lot of pressure, all right? I'd like to see
you
come up with anything better at such short…” Callie is already laughing, and soon the boy cannot help but join her. But Callie's laughter begins to waver and break, until she now begins to weep, allowing the emotions from the last several months to catch up to her. Tarquin says nothing as she turns and cries on his shoulder. The laughter fades from his expression, and he stares over her shoulder, troubled.

Alarmed and shaken by the recent turn of events, Tarquin's father flies immediately back to Mutsu. He believes the police when they tell him of the landslide, but an inordinate amount of time is spent reprimanding his son for getting Callie into trouble. Surprisingly, the boy endures the lecture meekly enough, and anger eventually gives way to relief and tears. The three soon find their way back to Tokyo. Within a week, they return to America.

For now, the Chinsei shrine remains uninhabited, as almost everything else is in Yagen Valley during the cold months. Nothing moves within its boundaries, and if something does stir within the shrine, within the hundreds of dolls that still lie waiting to be sacrificed, or within those dolls where some things still lurk unseen, struggling futilely to undo the red threads that bind their forms, none go so far as to step out into the daylight and the world beyond. The shrine sits in repose, serene, to await the coming winter and the thawing, healing spring that comes soon after.

A year passes and, like all humans, they are older.

Callie meets Tarquin and his father for lunch at a small street in downtown Washington, DC, where the Halloways now live. Tarquin is now sixteen. He has grown five inches since Callie last saw him, with every expectation of adding more to his height in the coming months. His skin is darker, and he is quicker now to smile and talk than he was in the past. His natural gift with words has only improved over time, and he regales Callie that week with amusing anecdotes and humorous stories until she is laughing helplessly, pleading with him to stop. He wears a white shirt with short sleeves, and his arms are bare. The tattoos are gone.

Callie is also different. She is studying at a college in Boston and, like the Halloways, no longer lives in Applegate. She wears a long dress that reaches her knees, styles her hair shorter, and still has that scar on her little finger. She is on a scholarship, studying things that sound bigger than their purpose: a degree in education, with a minor in international and cultural studies. She does not always have time to see Tarquin, though they correspond frequently through emails and often arrange for small trips when one can visit the other. Today it is Callie's turn, and after lunch they make their way to the Washington Monument, where the National Cherry Blossom Festival is about to begin.

“I don't know why they don't just call it
hanami
,” Tarquin's father says. Of the three, the man is the most unchanged, though he has a faint stoop to his shoulders and a few more lines around his eyes.

Tarquin rolls his eyes. “This isn't Japan, Dad. It's an American thing now, so the general public will probably take ‘cherry blossom festival' over a Japanese word they don't understand.”

“Maybe I'm just too much of a purist.”

“I know. Mom probably said the same thing.” There is no longer any anger or fear in his voice when Tarquin refers to his dead mother.

But the National Cherry Blossom Festival viewing takes a backseat to what they call the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade. Dancers (sixty) litter the streets, holding various symbols and representations of
sakura
blossoms (sixty) over their heads as they prance down the street. Floats of differing sizes and shapes sail past the onlookers, thirty-nine in all, and giant helium balloons (twenty-eight) soar overhead, blocking out snippets of sky as they pass. Marching bands (fifteen) wail out an accompaniment, one of the many sources of entertainment to the crowds that pack the roads, nearly three thousand on this street alone.

Callie and the Halloways spend several minutes watching the parade before deciding to slip away. Though the parade is pleasing to the eyes, none of them are comfortable in the thick of crowds, and they retreat to lesser populated areas where vendors (twenty) hawk Japanese delicacies to mark the occasion.

There are signs here that say “12th Street” and “Pennsylvania Avenue,” and between them lies the
Sakura
Matsuri
, the Japanese Street Festival. The three pay the required fee to enter and wander among the small stalls. Most of the people are watching seven martial arts experts practice their respective disciplines. There are three stages in the six blocks allocated for the festival, which will soon host a vast number of performances by musicians and singers. Tarquin's father purchases
takoyaki
balls for them, and for several minutes they stand, watching and chatting and taking in the scenes set before them.

“We should do stuff like this more often,” Tarquin muses, several hours later. His father had wandered off to haggle with a nearby vendor for a small replica of a samurai sword. Dusk is beginning to settle, but the crowds are as thick as ever, awaiting the fireworks set to begin in another hour's time.

“College has been tough,” Callie admits, “but I should be free for the summer.”

Tarquin makes a face. “Isn't summer when you college students go to beaches and drink beer and post your little duckface photos on Facebook?”

Callie knew she should disapprove but laughs instead. “I think someone's going to need to talk with your father about the kind of things you've been watching.”

Tarquin is about to make another retort but then falls silent as they pass a small stall that sells different varieties of Japanese dolls, from
ichimatsu
to
musha
ningyo
warrior dolls to small Noh figures. Callie follows his gaze and understands, her fingers idly drifting back to her scar, as still is her habit.

“Did you ever hear news from Kagura-chan?” Tarquin asks suddenly.

“She and her aunt moved to Honshu, and they're running a small inn there. She and Saya go to the Chinsei shrine every now and then to put things in order and clean up. I guess there are too many painful memories there for them to stay long. Has she contacted you?”

“Once,” Tarquin says. “Dad and I took another trip to Japan a couple of months ago. Even stayed at their bed-and-breakfast for a few weeks.”

“Really? What—”

A roar fills the air. Two combatants fight each other with large
kendo
sticks, their faces encased in odd steel masks. The speed and ferocity in the way they attack, and the agility with which they dodge blows by their opponent, draw hearty applause from nearby onlookers.

“The dolls will need a lot of tending,” Tarquin says suddenly, after the audience has quieted. “That's what Kagura says. They say they can't have any more spirits breaking out.”

Callie has to smile. “I'm sure they know what they're doing. Remember Kagura mentioning you would make a fine
onmyji
if you'd lived in ancient Japan?”

“I looked that up. I'm not so sure I'd do well with the calendar-making and the astrology part of the job, though. Can you imagine me coming up with horoscopes for the emperor? ‘Today shall be your lucky day, so long as you don't behead your favorite court
onmyji
for no reason. Girls might like you better if you had a different face, but remember that patience is a heavenly virtue. Also, don't forget about the not-beheading thing.' Maybe I'd like to take a stab at kicking ghosts out of people myself. I've been doing a lot of research into those esoteric Japanese rituals.”

“Are you sure that's wise?”

“Dad always says the more you know about something, the better you can plan and protect yourself. So that's what I've been doing.”

In the next shop someone is selling
ukiyo-e
. One of these wall scrolls is of a young girl. Her arms are stretched out in front of her, the wrists dangling loosely, and her face is of a preternatural calmness, touched slightly by sorrow. There is a bluish cast to her skin, and she is slowly rising up from a well.

“You like this one? This from
Thirty-Six Ghosts
, one of Tsukiyoka Yoshitoshi's greatest masterpieces,” the vendor says proudly in broken English.

“I think I'll take it,” Tarquin decides.

He turns to look back into the crowd, and Callie gasps when I raise my head briefly past Tarquin's to look back at her. Nothing about me has changed, except now I seem to rise up from somewhere below Tarquin's chest. With my broken neck, it almost appears as if Tarquin and I are two heads sharing one body.

“Tark!”

“What?” Tarquin glances back at me, puzzled, and I retreat back into his frame. “What's wrong, Callie?”

“You see her, don't you?” Callie is excited, frightened. She had thought that memories of old ghosts would fade over time rather than linger in the present. In the past year she has seen no abnormalities of the senses, no other ghosts that haunt her vision, and she assumed the worst was over.

“Okiku?” Tarquin does not seem surprised. On the contrary, he is calm. Accepting.

“Tark, I know she protected us, but no good can come from keeping her with you. We need to get help—”

“I don't really have much of a choice, Callie,” Tarquin says quietly.

“I don't understand…”

“Kagura explained everything to me. Something went wrong in the ritual. With me. I shouldn't have survived, she said. Not given how it ended. She thought I lived because I had enough spiritual energy inside me to make it through, and some other things I didn't really understand. And then she tried to cleanse me again, a pretty simple ritual. Just in case, she said.”

And at this Tarquin pauses.

“She's inside me, Callie. She's been here ever since. There had to be something to fill the void that dead woman left in me, and the alternatives Kagura presented were either my dying or my being possessed by some other spirit who wouldn't be as nice about all this as Okiku has been. I don't have the seals anymore, and this is all strictly voluntary on her part—and on mine—so I don't think I can call this a possession. I know
she
doesn't.”

Too late, Callie finally understands the terrible decision I made on the banks of that unnamed river, while the fireflies glittered in the darkness, dancing up into the light. Now she understands why I did not follow the other souls into appeasement, despite her urging.

“Okiku and I have had a few talks since then—if you consider conversations with a three-hundred-year-old ghost talking. She doesn't mind hanging around long enough for me to get my karmic groove back or die of natural causes—whichever comes first.” Tarquin has the audacity to grin.

“She's a nice spirit, though. She doesn't mind that I don't always clean my room, and she respects my privacy every time I need to go to the bathroom. I've spent a good part of my life living with a horrible, terrible ghost, Callie. Living with Okiku is like a reprieve, in comparison. For the first time in a long, long time, I'm actually happy. I don't go to bed afraid anymore. And I'm pretty sure if there are any other spirits around hoping for a free ride, she'd be more than happy to kick their asses for me.”

“I don't think this is something you should be trivializing, Tark.”

He squeezes her hand. “I'll be okay, Callie. And thank you for being concerned—for always looking out for me. It's not like I have much choice, but if I had to choose to cohabit with any one spirit in the world, I'd choose her any day.”

“Tarquin, Callie, it's getting late,” his father calls out. “Do you guys prefer sushi or
okonomiyaki
?”

“How about both?” Tarquin counters. He pays the vendor and accepts the rolled-up scroll. “I think Okiku will appreciate having this on the wall.”

“Tark…”

“I don't want to die, Callie. You understand that, right?”

The girl nods. “But there has to be another way.”

Tarquin smiles again, but this time it is the smile of one who made peace with his inner demons long ago. “Come on. Dad's waiting.”

The teenager walks on ahead, waving to his father. Behind him, Callie can see the figure of a woman in white, flimsy and transparent at first, but eventually gaining substance and shape, keeping pace beside him. She watches as Tarquin turns toward the apparition and offers her his arm. She watches the figure hesitate before, haltingly, accepting it with a pale, withered hand.

This same apparition turns her head slightly, and Callie can make out the startling black eyes, the sunken cheeks, and the jagged cut of mouth that curves into hints of a smile as I bow my head gently in her direction before turning away.

I am the fate that people fear to become. I am what happens to good persons and to bad persons and to everyone in between. I am who I am.

But when you have resigned yourself to an eternity filled with little else but longing, to sacrifice what lies beyond that eternity for one boy's lifetime—it is enough.

Tarquin and I make our way past the shops and past the laughter, leaving Callie standing there alone in the crowd while up above, stars look down from the darkening sky and slowly, as they were born to do, begin to shine.