“Which is a true statement based on a false assumption,” Shiro says with a dark grin. “My mother is no kitsune, and benevolent is probably not the best way to describe her. She was born a lady, but she was also born a witch. She adopted me when I was a kid. You’ll see.”
She sounds wonderful. I frown. “This is probably a stupid idea. . . .”
“Those are the best kind.” Shiro opens my window, drawing a deep breath through his nostrils.
Are you sure about that?
“Come with me,” he says, extending a hand to me, palm up. “I can’t promise you answers, but it will be an adventure.”
If I’m going to understand what happened at the shrine tonight—and more important, why—I’ll have to go out into the world and seize them for myself.
I clap my hand into his. “To Tokyo,” I say.
He grins. “To Tokyo.”
Six
Shinkansen Train to Tokyo
Japan
Two hours later, our shinkansen train speeds out of the city, leaving Kyoto’s twinkling lights behind. The tension in my spine finally loosens. I’m seated beside the window, with Shiro in the middle seat beside me. Like most trains in Japan, the shinkansen train is impeccably clean and quiet, with nothing but the gentle shush of the rails against the tracks to disrupt my thoughts. I lean back into my seat with a sigh, watching the dark countryside rush past.
In the window, the shadowy girl looking back at me isn’t dressed in a priestess’s hakama and kimono anymore, but in skinny jeans, mint green flats, and a formfitting hoodie with cat ears on the hood. Once Shiro and I reached Kyoto Station, we purchased new clothes from the CUBE mall inside, changed in the public restrooms, and ditched our bloodied shrine robes in separate rental lockers. I called Mother from Shiro’s phone while we waited for the train, reading lies off Shiro’s lips. I assured her that I was fine, but had an urgent matter to take to Goro in Tokyo. My little lie hides a huge, frightening truth.
Shiro and I aren’t on the run. Not exactly. But my mother wasn’t thrilled to hear that I was en route to Tokyo.
Plus, I sort of hung up on her.
“You okay?” Shiro asks.
Do I look anything close to okay? I half laugh and shake my head. “No. A hundred times no.”
“Yeah, me neither,” he says, reaching out and placing his hand atop mine. I glance up at him, surprised to see an honest, raw ache in his eyes. “Your grandfather made me feel like I belonged somewhere. It’s been a long time since I felt like I had a home.”
“Grandfather is good at that,” I say, and then I pause and turn away, staring instead at my reflection in the train’s dark windows. “Grandfather . . . was good at that.”
Shiro’s hand tightens on mine, then releases. Our train hurtles through the darkness, leaving what Grandfather was ever farther in the past. He will not be waiting for us when we return to Kyoto. I won’t find him tending his garden in the springtime; nor will he chide me for forgetting to tend to my family’s kamidana shrine. I’ll never catch him drinking sake and snickering at retro manga on lazy summer afternoons; nor watch as a rare smile breaks across his face during a Shichi-Go-San festival for the neighborhood children.
He’s gone.
The ghostly girl reflected in the window begins to cry. Silent tears spill down her cheeks. I turn away from Shiro, wishing I could tell the girl that losing her grandfather was a survivable event. I wish I could tell her that the hole he left in her life wouldn’t suck all the light from her universe.
But at sixteen, I’m still five years away from being old enough to legally own the family shrine. The ownership, no doubt, will revert to my mother in the meantime. Mother has no love for the place, and Father has made it clear that he’s grown tired of being one of the Fujikawa Shrine’s chief benefactors. I’m not sure the shrine can survive without his support.
Who will help me cleanse and purify the shrine? Who will help me mourn our dead, raise money to repair the damages to the structures, and hire new priests? Not my parents. And on top of it all, I left my schoolbooks and notes in the shrine office, which means I won’t even be able to study for my exams on Monday. Grandfather’s death may buy me a few condolence days, but how does someone explain to her teachers that one of the Three Great Evils will be resurrected in her front yard in a month’s time?
Short answer: she doesn’t.
“Hey,” Shiro says to me, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I’m here for you, okay?”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I say, brushing the rest of the tears off my face with my sleeve. “I’m embarrassing you.”
“Hardly,” Shiro says in a gentle tone. “Fujikawa-san deserves to be mourned.”
“That’s true . . . just not in public,” I say with a dark half chuckle. “I don’t want to make anyone on this train uncomfortable.”
“You won’t,” Shiro says, popping up from his seat and looking to the fore and aft of the train car. “Nobody’s sitting close, and nobody’s listening.”
“Well, then I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“You could never,” Shiro says, eyeing the woman heading down the train’s center aisle with a food trolley. “But I’ve found grief is easier to handle on a full stomach, and the trolley hostess has ekiben. You hungry?”
The thought of food makes my stomach squelch. “Not really.”
“Here’s the thing—you and I are sort of on the run,” Shiro says, lifting a hand to flag down the attendant. “Ronin’s yokai may try to follow us to Tokyo. We may have to avoid the police, depending on whether your parents decide to cover for you. Eat whenever you can. Doesn’t matter if you’re hungry. Eat.”
“Sounds like you’ve done this before,” I say.
“Yeah, kind of,” he replies. His gaze seems far away, as if he’s looking through time at a memory that still aches.
Before I can press him for an explanation, the hostess approaches with the food trolley. She offers us a shallow bow. We order several ekiben—bento box meals made specifically for train riders. I choose an ekiben containing artfully arranged rice, sautéed salmon, a tamagoyaki omelet, and vegetables. Pink and white tofu flowers accent the meal, making it almost too pretty to eat. Almost. Each part of the meal enjoys its own little compartment, beautiful, organized, structured. I wish my life made as much sense.
The moment I remove the ekiben’s wooden lid and the scent of vinegared rice hits my nose, my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten since lunch.
“Itadakimasu,” Shiro says, grinning at me. It means let’s eat and is customarily said before meals. He presses his palms together and bows his head over the food. The normalcy of the act comforts me. Rituals and cute tofu flowers can’t heal the loss of my grandfather or the shrine, but they do dull a little of the pain.
“Itadakimasu.” I’m not quite able to return Shiro’s smile, but I’m grateful all the same.
We eat in silence, listening to the musical whir of the train as it rushes down the tracks, carrying us ever closer to Tokyo. With the hour approaching nine o’clock, it’s not surprising to find the train so empty—we’ll be arriving in Tokyo well after midnight. Shiro promises me that his mother is “more active at night,” whatever that means.