Spirits of the Noh (15 page)

“It must have been beautiful once,” Mai said, studying the front of the house.

Sakura frowned. As far as she was concerned, the art teacher’s house had not lost any of its beauty. If anything, the ugliness of its surroundings only enhanced its elegance, though she understood why some people wouldn’t see it that way.

She and Mai stood in a small alley beside the laundry. Its windows were dark and the building silent, but the streetlights were bright and they did not want to be seen if anyone should look out the window of Miss Aritomo’s house.

Kara, Ren, and Hachiro had gone to the school. It would be locked up, but they had passed the point where locks would stop them. The police would be on their way to Mr. Yamato’s house by now, but by the time the principal explained to them what he thought was going on—or some version of the truth, at least—it might be hours before they did anything about it. Sakura thought Hachiro and Ren might balk at breaking a window to get into the school, but she knew Kara wouldn’t hesitate. Not now. But she knew that if they did that, alarms would go off, summoning the police, and those explanations would also take too long.

Fortunately, they wouldn’t have to break any windows. Sakura spent some time every day in the shadowy recessed doorway on the east side of the school. It was her quiet spot—her smoking spot. She contemplated life during those cigarette breaks, thought about the past and about the future, about her sister and their hollow, loveless parents, and the hopes and dreams she never dared discuss in detail, even with her closest friends.

She also worked to pry the lock open on the door.

It had been forgotten, that door. Locked for years, it had been painted over and ignored, an emergency exit from a time before the renovations to the school created new ones at the rear of the school and out through the gym. In fiddling with it one day, Sakura had found out that the school’s present alarm system was not wired to that door, that any wires were antiquated, and connected to nothing. All they’d need to get in was a fork or knife, anything to pry the lock.

That was the easy part.

“How long do you think it will take them?” Mai asked.

Sakura glanced at her, biting back a snippy retort. “I don’t know. If they get lucky, they’ll find enough bells right away. If not …”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Mai sighed and nodded, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.

“I can’t stand just waiting here,” Mai said.

“Patience has never been one of my virtues,” Sakura replied. “But what other choice do we have? If we have any hope of stopping the Hannya—or even just getting our friends back—we need some kind of advantage.”

Mai scowled. “And you think bells will give us that advantage?”

Sakura shrugged. “I don’t know what to think. But so far, the old stories have proven to have truth in them. We can only hope that this is one of the true parts. And besides, you said yourself it didn’t seem like coincidence that Aritomo-sensei left the bells out of the play.”

They fell grimly silent after that, no trace of friendship or even camaraderie between them. Sakura had given her the benefit of the doubt a few times, but despite Mai’s denials, she would never be able to shake the feeling that the girl knew more about Akane’s murder than she admitted—that she might actually have been there that night. At the very least, she had known more than she told the police. If she had told the truth, Ume might be in prison now.

Sakura frowned and glanced sidelong at her, there in the dark alley beyond the golden glow thrown by the streetlights. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Could she make Mai talk to the police now, after all these months? Given what the girl had said in front of Mr. Yamato, she probably could.

The thought made her happy, and for several minutes she stood and stared at the dark facade of Miss Aritomo’s house, fantasizing about what would happen if the police arrested Ume. Sakura had been forced to let go of much of her grief and anger in order to defeat the ketsuki in April, but that did not mean that her heart had healed. She still wanted justice.

They waited on. Cars and scooters flew by, and people on bicycles, but there were not very many, and no one seemed to notice the two girls in the alley. The house remained dark and silent. Sakura tapped her front left pocket, where she kept her cell phone, and then her right pocket, where her cigarettes were nestled away.

“I would love a cigarette right now,” she whispered, becoming jittery. “I need a smoke.”

Mai shot her a dubious look. “Why don’t you have one, then?”

Sakura sniffed, rolling her eyes. “You’re not very sneaky, are you? If there’s anyone in the house, they might see the match, never mind the cigarette burning.”

Affronted, Mai raised her chin, half-turned away. “You say I’m not sneaky as though it’s an accusation. Is being sneaky an admirable trait?”

“That was me being polite,” Sakura replied. “By ‘sneaky,’ I mean clever. Which you’re not.”

That ended any further discussion, and Sakura was glad. She fidgeted, both with impatience and with a craving for nicotine. Thirty or forty minutes went by without her exchanging another word with Mai. Fewer cars passed. After a while, all Sakura could think about was how idiotic she had been to take up smoking, and how she really needed to quit the habit.

In a way, that was good. The less she thought about the house across the street, the better. Whenever she let herself focus too much on Miss Aritomo’s lovely old place, she wondered if Miho might be inside, and if she would still be alive when they went in after her. Those thoughts made her want to scream.

Craving a cigarette helped keep the fear bottled up.

Mai stiffened beside her. “Did you hear that?”

Sakura frowned, edgier than ever. “What? I didn’t hear anything.”

They both stood frozen in the alley, necks craned, concentrating on the sounds of the night around them. There were no cars driving by now, and no distant roar of motorcycle engines or rumble of a passing train. In that moment, the neighborhood was probably as quiet as it ever got.

Sakura cocked her head. Had she heard a muffled cry in the distance?

“There it is again,” Mai said, turning to stare at her, eyes wide with hope and terror. “You heard that.”

Sakura bit her lower lip, thinking for a moment before replying. “I heard
something
.”

Anger flickered in Mai’s eyes. “That was a voice. Someone’s screaming for help inside that house.”

Sakura stared at the house, listening intently. Mai fumed, but when she seemed about to speak, Sakura hushed her. Nearly a full minute passed before Sakura heard the sound again, and this time she could not deny that it sounded like a person calling out, though she could decipher no words and the voice seemed so distant.

Still, it might have been coming from the house.

“I don’t know. It could be some woman three streets away yelling at her kids.”

Mai threw up her hands. “You know that’s not what it is!” she snapped, taking a few steps out of the alley, into the pool of illumination thrown by the streetlight.

“What are you doing?” Sakura demanded.

Mai turned to stare at her with a how-stupid-are-you? look on her face. “I’m not just going to wait here. If our friends are still alive, that could be them calling for help. I’m not waiting another second.”

Sakura grabbed her wrist. “Don’t be stupid. Kara and the boys will be here soon—”

“And what if it’s not soon enough? It was one thing when we weren’t sure, but someone’s in there. In the dark.” She yanked her arm away. “I’m going in. Are you coming with me?”

“Not a chance,” Sakura replied. “Someone has to be here to explain why you’re either dead or a prisoner in that house. You don’t have a weapon, or anything else to distract the Hannya aside from your incredible stupidity.”

Mai shot her a furious, withering glance, spun on one heel, and raced across the road. Sakura receded once more into the shadows of the alley and watched Mai run up alongside Miss Aritomo’s house and then disappear around the back.

Guilt filled Sakura as she worried what might happen to Mai, or what the Hannya might do to Miho and the others when Mai broke in, if they really
were
imprisoned within those walls. But she stayed put. Without the bells, on her own, she’d be no help to anyone.

Only after the heavy potted plant left her hands did Mai fully consider the danger she might be in, but by then it was too late. The pot shattered the window with a terrible crash, followed by an almost musical noise as broken shards hit the floor inside. She backed up, glanced around, and hid behind a tree that grew in the stone and flower garden that Miss Aritomo must have spent all of her free time grooming.

Mai held her breath and waited, but no lights went on inside the house. Faintly, she thought she heard that voice from inside, but somehow it seemed even more muffled back there.

Her mouth had gone dry and her whole face seemed to throb with every beat of her skittish heart, but at last she bent to pick up a small, decorative stone and went to the window, where she used the stone to knock out the fragments of glass that jutted from the frame. Without hesitation—for she knew if she hesitated again she would never go in—she boosted herself up onto the window frame, swung one leg over, and stepped inside.

The glass crunched beneath the soles of her shoes as she crept through what appeared to be a sort of artist’s studio, complete with canvases stacked against the wall and a fresh one atop an easel, covered with a sheet. Tempted by the urge to unveil the painting, to see what a woman possessed by a demon might paint, she pressed on instead, wanting to search the house and be gone before Miss Aritomo came home. But with every step, she regretted not having looked at that painting, and knew she would always wonder what image the canvas might have revealed.

Though it was not a small house, it was sparsely furnished, and it took Mai only a few minutes to peek into every room on the first floor and make her way to the second. While she moved swiftly through the art teacher’s immaculately neat bedroom, she heard a thump above her head. And then another. Stopping to listen, Mai heard a voice again, and this time there was no mistaking it as anything other than a cry for help.

She raced to the end of the hall, where narrow back stairs led up to what could only be an attic. Mai’s own house had no such space—most modern homes did not—but they’d be more common in an old prewar building like this.

The narrow landing at the top of the steps was dark, and she wished she had searched for a switch before coming up. She tried the door, found it locked tight, and threw her weight against it. Again someone shouted from within. Was there a note of new hope in that voice?

“Wakana?” Mai cried, throwing herself against the door again. But that was getting her nowhere.

Carefully, she hurried back down the steps, hands searching for a light switch. When she found it, a dusty old fixture flickered to life up on the landing. Heart pounding, aware every second of the possibility of Miss Aritomo’s return, she hurtled up the stairs and stared at the door.

Two locks. One was simple enough, a deadbolt, which she threw back instantly. But the other required a key.

Mai sagged backward, racking her brain. The heavy lock would not be easily forced.

“Think, think,” she told herself. Frustrated, she slapped the wall.

Something jangled right next to her. She turned to see a hook, upon which there hung a key. Mai grinned at the luck. The old metal key might have hung there for years, even decades, with Miss Aritomo having little need of it.

Now she snatched it up, pushed it into the lock, twisted it and heard the tumbles fall. With a surge of hope, she shoved the door wide. The light from the old fixture on the landing spilled into the pitch-black attic.

Something moved in there. Mai blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and recoiled at the horrid odors that wafted from the attic.

“Who is it?” said a weak, rasping voice.

“Wakana?” Mai said, crouching slightly to step into the dusty, low-ceilinged room.

Then she looked deeper into the attic, trying to make out the strange shape that had been revealed by the shaft of light from the open door. A dollhouse. And behind it, broken pieces of something that must once have been her friend.

Mai had to scream, needed desperately to release the shriek of horror that seemed to catch in her throat. She staggered backward and struck her head on the door frame. The impact jarred something loose within her, and then she did scream, loud and long.

Kara ran along the street, passing through illumination from a streetlight above. Her legs felt heavy, and the backs of her calves burned, reminding her that she hadn’t been getting enough exercise lately. She slowed to a walk, catching her breath, and glanced over her shoulder to see Hachiro and Ren hurrying after her. Ren had a small box clutched to his chest, while Hachiro carried a sack made of rough cloth over his shoulder.

They had run most of the way to the school from Mr. Yamato’s, but it had taken much too long to pry the lock on the side door and then locate the items they were searching for. The route from the school to Miss Aritomo’s house had started as a kind of mad dash, but all three of them had needed to slow down several times. Passing her own house, Kara had seen lights on inside. Her father’s little Honda remained parked in front, and Miss Aritomo’s bicycle was still locked to a lamppost nearby. Kara had been torn between relief that the Hannya had not gone home yet, and fear for her father, that he was still with her.

But if the Hannya was keeping Miho and the others in Miss Aritomo’s house—and Kara and her friends hadn’t been able to think of any other possible places—then this might be their one chance to find out. And if Miho and the others
weren’t
in the art teacher’s house, Kara feared they must be dead after all.

So she had kept running, and the guys had raced along behind her, each carrying his burden. Now they were almost there. Hachiro and Ren caught up to her, then they both slowed to a walk as well, out of breath. The street came to an intersection, where the main road jogged left and a narrow avenue ran off to the right, newish homes clustered all along it. They kept to the main road, bearing left beneath the gleaming dome of another streetlight.