—staggering, but Callie’s hands on my shoulders help me regain my balance.
“I felt some kind of wind,” she murmurs as I stop the recording. “Did it…?”
I show her the doll. Its eyes are now a rolling, endless black. I take out my knife and waste no time plunging it into the doll’s small body, ending the ritual.
“Fantastic. Can we burn it now?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“She’s over a hundred years dead. Civil War era probably, given most of the inhabitants in this graveyard. She called me a little coot.”
“Did you do that Vulcan-Jedi mind-meld trick with her too?”
“First of all, I do the Vulcan-Jedi mind-meld trick with everything I trap. Secondly, you do realize Vulcans and Jedi come from two completely different movies, right?” I stuff the doll into my backpack. When we return, I’ll add it to the growing pile of other similarly possessed dolls that are in my suitcase along with my clothes, toiletries, and books. The first time I made the trip to Japan with compromised dolls in tow, I actually worried if customs inspected visitors’ baggage for sentience. They didn’t. “Any spirit that’s been around more than a hundred years is harder to get rid of, so they’ll have to be burned at Obon.”
Burning the dolls traditionally takes place during the Nagashi-bina Festival in early March, but few places in Japan practice this anymore, so the Obon festival works just as well. Because it takes place in July, when I’m not around, Kagura usually performs the task in my place. Just thinking about her sends another stab of worry through me.
“And how many of these hundred-year-olds do you have at the moment?”
“Eleven.” There’s a decided dearth of exorcists in the United States today, so ghosts have been accumulating over the years. “I’ve been saving this one for your arrival.”
“Well, thank you so much. Can we leave now? That angel statue’s been looking at me weird.”
I spend the walk back to the car pointing out other statues that are looking at her weird, much to her irritation.
As I drive, I tell Callie about the old ghosts I’d caught this year: the redheaded little girl I found crying by the Lincoln Memorial, the no-faced woman wandering near a small Asian grocery, an old man haunting an abandoned house three blocks down. She doesn’t say much until we’re seated at Denny’s and halfway through our orders of country-fried steak and shrimp.
“I’ve been doing a lot of research about this Aokigahara Forest.” Callie eyes me, nibbling at her fingernail. “Tark, it’s known in Japan as a popular place for people to commit suicide. But there isn’t any information about a village inside it. Are you sure about this?”
“You’ve been asking me that ever since you’ve arrived, Callie. Trust me on this one. How about a more mundane question, like ‘How’s school?’ or ‘Why are you getting more handsome every time I see you?’”
“Never.” Callie slurps at a milk shake. “But I will ask how school’s been. The police still there?”
I lower my fork and scowl at my plate. “Not much. A couple of boys are still under investigation for the murder, but I don’t think the things McNeil’s done will ever see the light of day. I don’t think any of the girls are going to file a lawsuit against his family, especially because he’s the local hero.”
“How have you and Okiku been? Normally, I’d need a crowbar or a crucifix or something to keep you two apart, but I’ve barely seen her since I arrived.”
Okiku is the only ghost Callie can see nowadays. She isn’t sure why this is, but I’m assuming their shared personal ordeals may have something to do with it.
“She’s still around.” I can feel her inside the kitchen, counting orders and burgers.
“What about that heart-to-heart I suggested?”
“I already tried. She didn’t take things too well.”
“Oh?”
“It was kind of my fault.”
Callie rolls her eyes. “I’m shocked. I really am. How do you get into an argument with a ghost exactly?”
“I compared her to someone else.”
“A girlfriend?”
“Of course not!” But Callie catches me reddening.
“Oh ho! So there’s a girl involved!” She claps her hands in glee. “Who is she? Is she cute? When do I get to meet her? Do I get to meet her while I’m here?”
“Kendele’s not my girlfriend, and you’re not meeting anyone because break’s started, so there’s no way you get to embarrass me in front of people.”
“Ooh, so her name’s Kendele. Did she make Okiku jealous?”
“Do you even know how ridiculous that sounds? Okiku’s my…” I trail off, trying to figure out what Okiku is to me. I’ve never really thought about that. It’s always just been something I’ve taken for granted. She’s got her bloodlust and her unending need for vengeance—but I also know her as the young girl by the window, watching the daylight each morning. “It’s complicated,” I finally say, echoing what I’d told Kendele. “She’s special.”