Her mind whirled as she tried to make sense of what she had seen. All she knew was that Miho needed her. And then she thought of her father-her dad-who had fallen in love with the woman Kara had seen inside that classroom.
A woman with a demon inside her.
12
K ara and Hachiro ran along a path away from Monju-no-Chie school, passing beneath the arch that always seemed to welcome students and visitors. The moment they stepped into the street, Kara felt safer, but only when she had crossed to the other side did she slow to a walk, glancing back the way they’d come. The school sat up on its slope, a monolithic silhouette against the indigo night sky. Several lights burned within, but so few and so dim as to make the building seem ghostly. Haunted.
“Are you all right?” Hachiro asked, catching his breath. No matter how much baseball he played, their flight from the school had been a hellish sprint that left them both winded.
Kara nodded. She had told him, as they ran, what she had seen in Miss Aritomo’s art room. His eyes were wide and anxious now, unnerved, and that frightened Kara more than anything. Hachiro always seemed bold and confident, ready for whatever came next. Tonight, he had lost that edge.
She thought she might be in love with him.
Now they alternated between a quick walk and a light jog. Kara pulled out her phone and called Sakura, who picked up in seconds.
“Where are you?” Sakura asked. “I just talked to Ren. He said he’s outside your house, waiting for you.”
Breathless and halting, searching for words to express what she had witnessed, Kara explained.
“Mai and I will come over,” Sakura said.
“No,” Kara snapped. “No. You just stay there. Watch out for the Hannya, or for Aritomo-sensei, or whatever. After I talk to my father, I’ll call you, and we’ll figure out what to do next.”
Reluctantly, Sakura agreed, and Kara ended the call. As she pushed her phone back into her pocket, she noticed a look of dread and sorrow on Hachiro’s face.
“What is it?” she asked.
He shot a glance back toward the school. “There were a few kids still in the school. With her. Noh club kids. What if…?”
Hachiro let the question trail off, but he didn’t need to finish it. Kara felt the blood drain from her face. She had never paused to consider the fate of the kids they had left back in the basement of the school with Miss Aritomo-with the Hannya. Fear and disgust had sent her and Hachiro running.
Guilt began to grip her, but she shook it off. “We’re doing the right thing,” she insisted. “What should we have done? Attacked the Hannya, just the two of us? We have to get help. That’s the best way to help those kids, and anyone else the demon might prey on.”
As they approached the house, a figure emerged from the shadows that separated Kara’s home from her neighbor’s. Ren stepped nearer, and the three of them met on the edge of a pool of light cast by a nearby streetlamp. In that ghastly glow, Ren looked awful. Blood stained the right shoulder of his shirt and dappled spots all over it. His right arm was scraped and he moved gingerly, as though protecting the ribs on that side.
“Oh my God,” Kara whispered in English. She quickly switched back to Japanese. “Are you all right?”
Ren did not smile. “I will be, once we find Miho. I should’ve been paying more attention. By the time I realized we weren’t alone…”
The words trailed off.
Hachiro stared at him grimly. “You cannot blame yourself. We were all trying to do our best to prevent anyone else getting hurt. No one is to blame except the Hannya.”
Kara felt a terrible weight forming in her gut, like a ball of cold iron. “That’s not true. We’re to blame. Me and Sakura and Miho. The curse is on us, not on any of you, or the school. If not for us-”
Ren stood up straight, wincing with the movement. He stared at her. “Don’t say that. We’ve been over this. Ume and the others who murdered Akane, they were the ones who started it. But even they are not responsible for the whims of demons.”
“I should have told my father sooner,” Kara said.
With a sigh, Ren nodded. “Probably. But it’s too late for that. We only have now.”
Kara let the truth of that sink in. Now was all anyone ever had. She glanced at the front door of the house she shared with her father-this neat, little Japanese dwelling that she had come to think of as home-and turned to the guys.
“Wait here,” she said.
“Kara,” Hachiro began warily.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “This is going to be hard enough for him to hear. Just wait for me. I won’t be long.”
Though she felt their eyes on her back, she didn’t turn again as she entered her house and closed the door behind her. A half-empty glass of water sat on the otherwise barren coffee table. The day had been hot and the wooden beams of the house ticked as they cooled. Otherwise, all was silent within, and for a moment she feared that her father had gone out.
“Dad?” she ventured, walking through the living room.
“In here.” His voice came from his small study.
Relieved, Kara hurried into the room. Her father sat behind his desk, face illuminated by the glow of his computer screen. Only a dim lamp in the corner provided additional light. His brow was furrowed as he gazed at the screen, wrapped up in work, or perhaps e-mails from home. But when she said nothing, he looked up and seemed to wake from a trance. Lines of concern appeared on his forehead.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, standing quickly.
It lent her a certain comfort to know he could read her that well, but when she tried to reply, she barely managed to make a sound when her lower lip began to quiver and she had to fight to keep her tears from returning.
“Kara, sweetie, what is it?” he asked, coming toward her, reaching out to cup her cheek in his wide hand.
“Miho,” she managed. “She’s gone missing, too. It… it took her.”
His expression contorted with horror. “Miho? Oh, my God. What… I mean, how did you hear this?”
“Ren was there. He’s pretty banged up, Dad. It could have killed him, like with Yasu. And it took Miho.”
She felt his hand pull away from her face. He almost seemed to shrink back from her. Hurt and confused, she looked up to meet his gaze and saw deep concern there-concern for her.
“Kara, what do you mean when you say ‘it’ took Miho?”
His tone alone told her how difficult the conversation was going to be. She hadn’t even begun to tell him the truth, and already he had decided that she’d gone a little crazy. But the Hannya had taken Miho, and if she was still alive- please, God, let her still be alive -Kara had no time to waste worrying about what her father would think.
“There are things I’ve been keeping from you,” she admitted. “And I hope you’ll forgive me for that. I just never thought you’d believe me, and-”
His eyes had narrowed. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”
Kara’s mouth had gone dry. She swallowed hard, went over and leaned on the edge of his desk, and started to talk. She began with Akane’s murder and the longer she spoke, the more pale he became. When he took his glasses off and massaged the bridge of his nose, she thought he might be angry with her.
“So all of the things that girl, Mai, told Yamato-sensei-” he began.
“Yes,” Kara interrupted. “They’re all true. Or mostly. We didn’t do anything wrong, Dad. All we wanted was to stop the ketsuki, and now we have this…”
Her eyes welled up a little but again she fought back tears, and the emotion that tightened her throat.
“You really believe you’re cursed, don’t you?” he asked, somewhat amazed.