“Ki, what the hell was that?”
“A wandering spirit.” Unlike when she’s mentioned the ghosts we’ve hunted, Okiku doesn’t sound eager or vicious or bloodthirsty. She frowns, lost in thought.
“How many?”
“Many. But there are—others. Other things. Vessels. Dolls.”
“Dolls?”
“I… It is hard to know for certain. But I sense them all the same.”
I dig into my backpack once more and bring out all the items I took from Kagura’s room: a dozen ofudas and a dozen wooden spikes, each about three inches long. Then I take stock of my other supplies: my tape recorder, two dolls stuffed with rice, the sewing kit, a pocketknife, two bottles (one drinking water and one salt water), a flashlight, extra batteries, and the emergency medical pack they handed out to volunteers that morning, which had another sewing kit, bandages, some ointment, and a small pen. It’s easy to see why I’ve been huffing and puffing for most of the day. Right now, I’m grateful for the self-imposed burden.
I slip the ofuda into the front pocket of my knapsack to make sure I can grab it quickly if I have to, which, given my luck, I probably will. I shove my tape recorder into my right pocket. I take a quick gulp of water, then return the bottle and the rest of the items to my pack, except for a flashlight and one of the spikes. Kagura never actually shared what I was supposed to do with the latter, but I’ve seen enough vampire series on TV to make a good guess.
The doll on the altar is still looking at me. It’s creepy, and I turn it around so it faces the wall instead.
That done, I sit and check the camcorder. I’m not moving until I’m at least eighty percent sure that whatever was outside has moved on to prey on something that isn’t me. Okiku hasn’t budged either, still deep in thought.
I play the second video. It begins with an image of Adams smiling into the lens. “This is Aokigahara,” I can hear him narrating, “one of Japan’s most beautiful forests—and also one of its most tragic.” The camera pans over to the familiar row of trees and unmarked trails where I walked earlier. “The deaths in the forest are well documented. Hundreds of suicides have been reported here, and the numbers only continue to rise every year.
“But the legend of the Aitou village within Aokigahara is a different case completely. There is literally nothing about Aitou in modern documents or personal accounts, and very few records about it have survived. If the village exists at all, Aitou has been very successful at keeping its secrets.”
A pause, then his tone becomes more relaxed. “What do you think, Henry? That sound good enough to add in later?”
The camera leaves Adams to zoom in on one of the other crew members. “I’m the writer, Adams. Stop doing my job for me.” Muted laughter. “But yeah, sounds good. I’ll have Jacobs look it through at post.”
The camera moves again, and my heart leaps when it focuses on Kagura, who was standing off to one side. “Miss Kino, where are we going next?”
“We’ll need to go deeper into the woods, though I cannot guarantee the exact location. My father’s map is very crudely drawn—mostly guesswork, I’m afraid.”
“It’s better than nothing, Miss Kino,” says whoever is holding the camcorder. “You still got your photocopied maps, guys?”
A chorus of yeahs.
Adams says, “To be honest, I’m not holding my breath. If nothing else, we can attempt to call out the spirits in the forest if we can’t find the village. But hey, who knows?”
“Yeah,” I mutter, “who knew?”
The video runs for another ten minutes. I don’t glean much from it. The crew is mainly silent as they travel, with only a few warnings from Kagura about how to proceed whenever the terrain proves particularly tricky. When not in motion, the video cam tends to linger on Kagura, who pauses every now and then to survey the area with a worried frown on her face.
More often than not, Stephen Riley is by her side, talking and gesturing at things out of the camera’s range. He sneaks glances at her when he thinks she isn’t looking, and I can tell from the unguarded look on his face that the man has a huge crush on the miko. The faint snickers from behind the camera tell me that whoever’s filming knows it too.
It’s only when the video’s about to end that I see the ghost.
What gets me is that, like Okiku, she’s very young. Unlike Okiku though, she is grinning, lips distended and stretched over blackened teeth, and her eyes are wild with madness. Her skin is paper-white; her short-cropped hair is bobbed and cut in the style of a kokeshi doll’s. She is clad in a heavy ceremonial kimono that leaves a silky trail on the ground behind her.