The sympathy in his eyes almost killed her.
“Miho, I think you’re wonderful. You’re smart and kind and gentle, and passionate about the things you love, and you’re a very pretty girl,” Ren said, but as much as she ought to have been thrilled by those words, she could sense the but coming. “The trouble is, and don’t take this the wrong way, you’re really not my type.”
She shook her head, backing away, wishing she could disappear into a crack in the floor or snap her fingers and just vanish. The smile that appeared on her face came from nowhere, born of anything but humor, and it felt like it would crack her face.
“No, it’s… I understand… I’m-”
Ren sighed. “I really thought you knew. I can’t believe they didn’t tell you.”
Miho blinked. “Tell me what?”
He hesitated, then turned up his hands and gave an apologetic shrug. “I don’t date girls. It isn’t something I talk about. I mean, we’re supposed to ‘fit in,’ right? So only a few people know. But I just assumed the girls would have told you.”
After the first sentence, her cheeks began to burn.
Backing away, she shook her head. “God, I’m so stupid. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Ren said, sadness touching his face. “That would be terrible.”
Miho glanced down, realized she had taken another step away from him, and hated that he might be getting the wrong idea. But she couldn’t stay. Humiliation made her want to scream.
“That’s… that’s not what I meant,” she managed. And then she took another step away from him. “You are an excellent friend, Ren. I wish I could say the same for all of my friends.”
“Wait,” he said, getting it. “Don’t blame them. I told you, it’s not something-”
Miho uttered a strangled laugh. “I’ve got to go.”
She turned and fled the dining room, leaving Ren with the masks and the paint and the mess, and knowing he would clean it all up and take as much care with the masks as she herself would have. He really was a good friend.
The soles of her shoes squeaked on the floor as she rushed down the corridor toward the front door of the dormitory. Straight-armed, she pushed it open and went down the front steps, striding so quickly that she nearly broke into a run. The large school building, with its pagoda-esque roof, stood silhouetted against the dark sky ahead. Night had finally fallen, but any anxiety Miho felt had given way to her humiliation and anger. She cut a diagonal path along the grassy expanse that separated the dorm from the school, a lawn that doubled as a sports field. The moon was bright tonight, and her shadow ran alongside her.
On the east side of the school, perhaps thirty feet separated the building from the tree line, and at night it seemed a dark alley. She passed the ancient Shinto prayer shrine on the right, focused on the recessed doorway on her left. This was Sakura’s favorite smoking spot, but the shadows there were empty.
Continuing around to the front of the school, she headed north across the grounds, walked the path that took her beneath the decorative arch at the edge of the property, and then a short way down the street to the little house where Kara lived with her father. A quiet voice in the back of Miho’s head reminded her that it might not be the best idea to bother one of her teachers at home, but Harper-sensei had always been very kind and open, and Kara was her friend, after all.
Yes, Miho thought. My friend.
She made a fist, took a breath, and rapped on the door. There were lights on inside, but only a few, and it seemed very quiet. Miho fidgeted on the stoop for perhaps ten seconds before she knocked again, unable to help herself.
“Just a moment,” Harper-sensei called from within.
She heard the lock click and then the door slid open. The teacher wore blue jeans and a white T-shirt. He was barefoot and his hair stuck up at odd angles like he had been asleep or reading in bed. When he saw her, Harper-sensei’s eyes widened slightly.
“Miho? Is everything okay? Is Kara all right?”
She frowned in confusion. “She isn’t here?”
That seemed to bring him up short. He ran a hand through his hair distractedly. “No. She went out for a walk with her guitar a while ago. I’m a little concerned about her being out after dark. You, too, for that matter.”
Miho cocked her head. “Why?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but even as he did, she understood. Missing kids. Harper-sensei either did not believe Daisuke and Wakana had run away together, or he was being very cautious.
Whatever he might have said, he seemed to change his mind. Mustering a smile, he studied Miho more closely.
“You’re here looking for her?”
“It can wait.”
“Is everything all right?” Harper-sensei asked.
“Yes,” she lied. “Thank you, sensei.”
Without another word, she started to walk away, hoping it wouldn’t seem too rude. Kara’s father called after her, promising to tell Kara she had stopped by and suggesting she get back to her dorm before curfew, although Miho knew she had more than an hour before she would be considered late.
Time enough to keep looking, if she wanted to. But as she’d told Harper-sensei, it could wait. That part hadn’t been a lie. She felt stupid and angry, and doubted any of that would have faded by morning. If Sakura wasn’t already back at their room, she would be soon, and Miho would have it out with her tonight.
Tomorrow morning, it would be Kara’s turn.
The northern perimeter of the school grounds stretched for quite a distance, beginning with the bay shore where Akane Murakami had been killed. Perhaps two hundred yards west, a road began. Parking spaces were slotted along its termination point, made for people who wished to stop there and take in the scenic view of Ama-no-Hashidate. A left turn led into the school and dormitory parking lots. Traveling straight ahead, the road continued westward, away from Miyazu Bay, and a right turn led past Kara’s house, to the train and bus stations, and in the distance, to the heart of Miyazu City.
Kara hadn’t gone very far from home. She perched on a rock wall not far from the empty tourist parking spots at the bottom of the dead-end road. When she’d left her house, fuming at her father, she’d intended to head over to the grassy slope on the bay shore where Akane had died. It was the most beautiful part of the school grounds, after all, and if she really believed that these disappearances had nothing to do with Kyuketsuki’s curse, why should she avoid it? If her father didn’t want her to be out after dark, all the more reason to be in the place that would have frightened him most, if he knew what had happened there.
Instead, she had made it only as far as the dead-end, and decided she would be more comfortable on the rock wall, where she could dangle her legs while she played her guitar. That was what she told herself, anyway.
As dusk had closed in and night fell, she had kept playing, pretending that Daisuke and Wakana were not on her mind at all, and aware that she was pretending. Too many thoughts and emotions warred inside her, about her father and Miss Aritomo, about her mother and what it meant to start over, and about the way Mr. Yamato had behaved that morning.
Mostly, she kept wondering why, when there was no reason at all to think the disappearances were anything more than they appeared, she couldn’t convince herself of that. No matter how many times she tried to reassure herself, that niggling suspicion remained. It didn’t feel right. Perhaps that was Kyuketsuki’s real curse. Would Kara feel this way for the rest of her life? Every time something bad happened, would she check the shadows for monsters?
Not long after dark, her hands grew tired and her guitar fell silent. What she wanted more than anything was just someone to talk to about this, but she felt guilty bringing it up to Miho or Sakura. Either one of them would be happy to trade their two parents for one, if that one would have cared about them as much as Kara’s father did about her. But that didn’t lessen her frustration with her dad, or her anxiety about where this whole thing with Miss Aritomo would lead.