Mikage fled with a handful of followers and was said to have changed his identity to avoid the notoriety, as the name “Mikage” had become associated with evil and dishonor. No one knew where he went after that, and most believed he had succumbed to his own vices or that the demons he summoned had claimed his soul at last. But his contemporaries at court suspected he was harder to kill than that.
Only a few years later, there was talk of a mysterious village within the forests of Aokigahara. The village leader was said to have discovered a gateway to hell and tamed it with a complex ritual. A few exorcists from court tried to investigate these rumors, suspecting it was Mikage’s doing—it were not more than five years since his exile—but none of them were seen after entering Aokigahara, which only added more fuel to the fires.
The woods of Aokigahara bolster this mystery. No map has ever been made of the winding forests, and even those armed with the best compasses and equipment have lost their way.
Over the years, Aokigahara has become infamous as a place for suicides, and I believe that somewhere within that thick expanse, the Aitou village and its leader somehow encourage these dark deaths.
“I believe Kagura-chan lent another book to one of the Americans,” Auntie says. “A diary, I recall. It might still be in his room.”
“This is weird.” Callie, who was also rummaging through the trunk, holds up another notebook. “This one doesn’t seem to have anything written in it.”
She is right. It looks just as old and faded as the rest, but its yellowed pages are unadorned, while the others had been filled with spidery Japanese writing.
“Well,” I grunt, struggling to lift a heavy tome from the bottom of the trunk, “this one looks like it’s got too much stuff written in it. Let’s trade.”
“Nuh-uh.” Callie flips through several pages of the smaller book and then blinks. “Wait. There’s something here.” She turns the page toward us, showing us a few lines of text.
Her voice shaking, Saya translates:
To live forever, one must use the gate.
To live forever, eight must be sacrificed.
To close the gate, seven must suffer.
To rule the gate, the eighth must be willing.
The miko is trembling as she lays the book down and points at a drawing on one page.
“This symbol is that of a torii—a traditional Japanese gate that marks the entrance to sacred places. But it is different.”
Callie and I stare at each other.
“What do you mean by ‘different’?” my cousin asks.
Saya’s lips tremble. “Here, it is drawn upside down. It is a hell’s gate.”
Chapter Eight
The Diary
I take most of Kagura’s handwritten notes back to the room with me. Auntie protested, fearing that I would not be able to get a good night’s sleep if I dwelt too much on them, but I insisted. There must be some kind of clue in these pages, something to help me find Kagura or at least know what to expect when we head out to Aokigahara tomorrow.
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but the proclivity for it continues long after one becomes a ghost. I can sense Okiku’s interest as I stumble back into the room with an armload of reading and some tea Auntie prepared for me.
Okiku thumbs through the books while I settle in. There doesn’t seem to be much chronology or organization to the research. One moment, Kagura could be writing about traditional paper dolls and their relevance to the local culture, and in the next, she would start on arranged marriages with little segue. If this was the research her father left behind, I wonder just how sound Kazuhiko’s mind was to begin with.
Still, though no common themes string these notes together, there is a lot of information on every subject he tackled. I learn that traditional paper dolls were more common in rural villages than in the bustling metropolis because they were cheaper to produce.
Bridal dolls were used to represent young girls during special wedding ceremonies, Kagura wrote, though the practice was rare. They are, however, always used for ritual weddings in the village of Aitou. None of the villagers, not even the parents of the bride and groom, are present to witness these ceremonies, except for the kannushi and his assistant priests.
I lean forward, fascinated to learn more about Aitou, but I get my hopes up too soon. I turn page after page without any other mention of the village and instead come across a large section devoted to the preparation and herbal use of belladonna.
I skim through most of it, losing interest after reading long passages of medical terminology and obscure scientific terms. Immediately following that is a treatise on raising silkworms, which is even more tedious.
I’m about to give up when I find a note from Kagura addressed to one of the American ghost hunters.
I apologize for the lack of cohesion in these pages, but my father seemed to believe these details were important to his research. I have all his notes, but I can find no trace of the sources he used for his descriptions of Aitou. There is no corroboration from other records, which I also find odd.