Shimada steps inside and draws a deep breath. “The death is fresh,” he says.
“Ten days now,” Goro says, halting beside me. He places a comforting hand on my shoulder, but it trembles. “I am sorry, Kira, but I should not take part in this ritual. Will you forgive me if I excuse myself?”
“Of course,” I say.
Shimada kneels on the floorboards. He glances over his shoulder at me, then inclines his head. I step inside and kneel beside him.
“Close your eyes,” Shimada says. “You shouldn’t watch this part.”
I do as he says. Closing my eyes, I listen to his chanting, which is done in a language I don’t recognize. Its words can’t possibly belong to this earth.
His voice grows stronger, bolder, as the room chills. Gooseflesh prickles along my forearms. A ghastly energy fills the room, one that digs into my shoulders like cracked fingernails and drags itself down my spine. The small hairs at the back of my neck lift and ache as if they are being plucked out, one by one.
My next inhalation is a shudder, not just a breath.
“Hello, wanderer,” Shimada says. I open my eyes, expecting—no, hoping—to find Grandfather there. Instead, a different specter flickers into sight before us.
I gasp and shrink back. “Grandmother?”
The old crone’s missing her lower half—intestines dangle from her rent body in ramen noodle–like loops and clumps. Half her face is crushed, deforming her eye socket. Her brow and eyelid are stripped away, leaving her eyeball naked. Grandmother’s been dead for several years, after someone pushed her off the station platform and into the path of a moving bullet train. Or so the story goes. I never saw the body . . . or what was left of it, apparently.
“Sit up straight, Kira!” she commands. “How many times have I told you it’s rude to stare?”
“Yes, Grandmother.” My spine obeys, snapping straight and rigid as a katana. My eyes finally settle on the space above the crown of her head, so it appears I’m looking at her. If she senses I’m not giving her my full attention, she’ll scald me with her words. “I’m sorry, Grandmother.”
Grandmother turns her gaze on Shimada. “And who are you? One of my husband’s lackey priests? Or another poor beggar taken in by the shrine?”
“Not exactly,” Shimada says with a grin. “Your granddaughter calls me Shimada.”
“You’re ugly,” Grandmother tells him.
“Well, Fujikawa-san, death isn’t kind to any of us,” he replies.
Grandmother glares at him for a moment. I open my mouth to defend him, to talk Grandmother down, to say anything to salvage the situation . . . but to my surprise, Grandmother bursts into laughter.
I don’t think I’ve heard Grandmother laugh before. Ever.
“Who knew a shinigami could have a sense of humor, eh?” she says. To my horror, I think she tries to wink at me. Her rent eyelid makes it only a third of the way across her eyeball. She plucks at a strand of her intestines. “On a scale of one to ten, how awful do I look? We don’t have mirrors in this realm, you know. Not like I can see for myself.”
There aren’t words to hide the truth, so I turn my eyes down to the ground.
“Must be bad.” Grandmother cackles, flinging her intestines at my face. I duck, but they pass right through me, misty and cold. “That’s why Ichigo’s always been my favorite grandchild—he tells the sweetest lies. Well, what do you want, anyway? I suppose it must be something awful, Kira, if you’ve enlisted the aid of a shinigami.”
“It is urgent,” I say, focusing on a chunk of hair still clinging to her head. “We need to talk to Grandfather, if he’s available.”
“Hmm,” she says, scratching what’s left of her belly. “So Hiiro’s dead, then?”
Fear strikes a fierce chord in my chest. I exchange a glance with Shimada. “Yes, for more than a week now. . . . You haven’t seen him?”
“He hasn’t come to greet the Elders yet,” Grandmother says. “Which means he hasn’t managed to cross over, the old fool. Just as directionally challenged in death as he was in life.”
“That’s not unusual,” Shimada says to me. “Time moves differently in Yomi, and souls will sometimes linger with their shinigami for the space of many human months.”
“What would happen if Grandfather’s soul wasn’t reaped by a shinigami?” I ask. “I was there when he died, after all. There was no shinigami to help him.”
Shimada slides his hands into his wide sleeves, as Grandfather used to do. “Shinigami would have been drawn to the shrine in the wake of so much death. Someone must have intercepted your grandfather’s soul.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” I say, balling my fists in my lap. “I want to know what happens to human souls when they are not reaped by a shinigami.”
“You know the answer to that question, priestess,” Shimada says.
I do, but I want my fears to be articulated so I know they’re real. Someone must have found my grandfather’s wandering soul. Someone must have given him respite, and sheltered him until he was ready to accept his death. I hope he and all the other priests here at the Fujikawa Shrine are guarded by someone wise, kind, and noble. I hope someone like Shimada found them, each and every one.
Because if Grandfather’s soul was allowed to wander, he most certainly would become yokai. My heart breaks over the mere idea of Grandfather being forced into such a wretched state.
“Don’t worry about that old prude, Kira,” Grandmother says with a rusty chuckle. “Unless there is a demon that enjoys giving lectures, your grandfather is too high and holy to become a yokai.”
“If he is not here”—I suck in a breath and steel myself, pushing away my fears for now—“might there be someone else Shimada-sama and I can ask about the missing shard of the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, sword of the Sun Goddess?”
Grandmother rubs her chin. “So, that’s what you’re after, eh? What would you want with that thing?”
“We need it to strike down Shuten-doji, once and for all,” I say.
Grandmother’s eyes open wide in shock—or at least as wide as they are able without tumbling from what’s left of their sockets. “Shuten-doji? Even I know the horrors of that name—what sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into, child?”
“Kira inherited her place in this,” Shimada says. “She deserves no blame for the conflict ahead.”
“And you’ve taken it upon yourself to help her, Lord Death?” Grandmother says with a scoff. “Do you think yourself a hero?”
Shimada doesn’t reply right away, nor does he flinch under Grandmother’s critical gaze. “I have my own mistakes to make amends for, Fujikawa-san.”
“And what happens if you find this shard, eh?” Grandmother asks. “You can’t slay a demon with a sliver of a sword, you’d need the whole thing!”
“Exactly,” Shimada says, arching a brow. “If we can find the shard hidden in the Fujikawa Shrine, our next step would be to steal the remaining shards back.”
“From Shuten-doji?” I ask.