“What was that voice?” Ami asks. “I-it felt like it was scratching the insides of my head.”
“I wish I knew.” I give the trapdoor a heave, but it doesn’t budge. Blood drips between the boards and spatters on the stone steps. I cringe as it strikes my cheeks. It’s still warm. “We have to go, okay? I’ll answer your questions later, I promise.”
“Okay,” she whispers, though I’m not sure it’s a promise I can keep. For now, my grief will hide behind the twin forces of my shock and terror. Once I get Ami somewhere safe, I can process my pain and choose my next steps. But until then, we need to survive. Using all my strength, I push up on the trapdoor, pressing my back into the boards. The hinges scream and protest. Grandfather’s body rolls off with a heavy thud.
The door blocks the worst of Grandfather’s injuries from view, though his arms and legs are angled in crooked shapes. My heart jolts. Not every part of him appears to still be . . . attached. A black pool stretches across the floor, puddling in the deep scores left by the ogre’s claws. The meaty air feels too warm. My stomach lurches.
In the distance, police sirens cruise closer.
I swallow hard. This violence may be my last memory of Grandfather, but it doesn’t have to be Ami’s.
“Close your eyes and hold my hand,” I tell Ami. We start up the steps and she stumbles, blind. I tug her up the last step and pull her against my side, shielding her from Grandfather’s corpse.
My sister and I creep out of the motomiya. Though I can’t see them, I can hear police officers shouting at each other, their voices harsh. Hurried. I wonder if I am condemning them to the same fate as the priests, should the yokai have lingered in the wake of the attack . . . but there’s nothing I can do to save them. My warning would fall on deaf ears. What could I possibly say in a police investigation? That my family’s shrine was attacked by yokai, and that those yokai were searching for a sword that was supposed to be kept in a shrine hundreds of miles away?
What do you say when the truth sounds like fiction?
“Where are we going?” Ami asks in a small voice. “What about Grandpa?”
“Grandpa wants us to run, Ami,” I whisper, biting my lip to hold in my tears. “No! Don’t open your eyes yet. Hold on.”
Ami and I sneak around the small shrine. Our footsteps crunch in the pebbles and dry leaves. A shout goes up. I freeze, fearing the police have spotted us, but no. They’re calling for backup, ambulances, and aid. They must have found the priests’ mangled bodies, not my sister and me.
My sister sniffs, but follows me obediently. I lead her toward the back gate, the one hidden in a high hedge. It’s so old, only my family knows about it. It groans as I tug it open, twigs snapping off and pattering against my arms and chest.
“Okay,” I say, “you may open your eyes.”
Ami’s eyes snap so wide, their whites seem to glow in the darkness. When I try to tug her into the thicket, she digs in her heels, leans back, and pulls at my arms with both hands.
“No, no,” she cries. “What if there are monsters in there?”
I can’t help but wonder the same. For Ami’s sake, I steady myself. “I thought you weren’t afraid of monsters?”
“I-it’s dark now.” She sniffles, rubbing her free hand under her nose. “And I still hear that voice inside my head. . . . Kira, it won’t stop—”
“Hush.” Kneeling, I press my palm to her mouth. “Listen, the only other way out of the shrine is through the front gate, which would mean we’d have to cross the shrine grounds. The shrine isn’t safe right now, Ami. We need to get you out. Now.”
Ami shakes her head so hard, she flings tears. “I’m scared.”
“Me too, okay? Can you be brave with me?”
She nods and grips my hand fiercely. We fight our way through the brush, using my phone’s flashlight to push back the shadows. I shove the branches away from my face with my hands, glad for my bandaged palms. Twigs grasp at my clothing with knobby fingers. I beat a path open for Ami, sneezing as the dusty air fills my nose. Bits of leaves and broken-off branches drop past the collar of my kimono, and something wriggles against the small of my back. Sap sticks to my skin. I grit my teeth against it all.
“Kira, there’s something in my hair!” Ami cries.
“Shush!” The sound barely escapes my lips when a barbed feeling curls around my spine, down my limbs, and pierces my gut. Something clicks and growls behind us. I startle, and my phone slips from my grasp and crashes into a large stone. There’s a glittery clink of breaking glass. The flashlight snaps off, plunging us into deep darkness. Ami sobs.
I stumble out of the bushes, dragging my sister behind me. “Come on,” I whisper to her. The bushes shiver and whisper with otherworldly force.
We run.
The road curves around the back of the mountain, dropping down into the city after a half mile. I urge Ami on, faster. We pass a bakery, a curry house, and a gas station. Two bus stops blur by, plastered with glossy photos of idols and actresses, before my muscles fill with fire and burn down my will to go on. My lungs feel like they’re full of phlegm and hunks of dirt. I don’t breathe, I hack.
My sister stops and collapses on a curb. Snot has clotted under her nostrils again. I hand her a battered tissue from my pocket. She takes it without looking up at me. I double over, hands on my knees.
“Come on, we’re almost home,” I tell her softly, straightening up to watch the shadows around us. Nothing moves, but the prickly sensation in my stomach doesn’t go away, either. I tug my sister back to her feet. We jog another few blocks before we reach our house.
Our family lives in one of the city’s older districts, where the rough-hewn stone walls have stood for centuries. Many of the homes, while new, are built to resemble the structures of a more ancient Japan. Our house sits atop a small hill, behind one of those fat stone walls. My family has owned the land for many generations, but my parents built the elegant home on the hill. Lights glow from within the windows. Father’s study lies dark. Our parents might not be home.
I take a few moments to knock the twigs from Ami’s hair and straighten her pigtails and school clothing. She’s trembling. I shake the debris from my own hair, and then retuck my kimono. There’s nothing to be done about the blood. It’s splattered all over my shrine robes. I rub at a red splotch on Ami’s face—at least she doesn’t know she’s wearing her own grandfather’s blood. No, that horror is mine to bear, and mine alone.
Our grandfather is dead. As my adrenaline wears off, those words echo in the hollowed-out chambers of my heart. His blood hardens to scabs on my kimono. Our family’s shrine has been defiled by demons, our trust betrayed by a kitsune meant to protect us. I have lost much of what I love because of Ronin and his yokai allies; and while I’m not certain what I should do yet, that offense cannot go unanswered.
Ronin. Ibaraki. Shuten-doji, I think, listing their names in my head so I don’t forget. You will pay for your crimes.
“When you go inside, make sure you don’t skip your evening bath or Mother will scold me again,” I tell Ami as I punch the buttons for the code on the garden gate. My fingers shudder on the keys, making them difficult to press in the correct order.