I circle the shrine as best as I can, but I can’t find another entrance. I take a step back, studying the boards. They were nailed haphazardly and with little finesse, but there are small holes in the wood that I can peek through.
What I see makes my spirits sink even further. There is a large, gaping hole in the floor. Kagura isn’t here.
I ponder using my flashlight, hesitating only because I don’t know if this might attract more attention than I want.
A twig snaps somewhere behind me, and I whirl around. The road behind me is empty, and I don’t see anything moving among the houses. Still, I grip the spike tightly in my right hand, the flashlight in my left, in case it’s possible to bash a ghost’s head with it. After all, these bastards cheat.
I resume looking through the hole and blink. The shrine’s floor and the walls, in their varying shades of darkness, have disappeared. Now everything’s blue, as if a blanket had been draped across the opening when I wasn’t looking. In the center of that blue is a small black circle.
I still don’t understand.
Until the black circle in that pool of blue dilates—and she blinks.
Chapter Eleven
Purpose
I don’t recall how I made it from gaping at the ghost girl to cowering inside the nearest house. But I’m taping another ofuda across the sliding screen by the time I’m aware of what I’m doing. Then I sag to my knees, because if those ghosts don’t kill me, a premature heart attack will.
I can feel Okiku stirring, concerned.
“No.” My voice comes out hoarse. “I’m okay.”
It’s too early for her to have fully recovered, and despite all the evidence to the contrary, male pride insists I can handle the situation until she has.
I scan the room with my flashlight, trying to listen for any sounds of scratching and thumping, but I don’t seem to be sharing the space with anyone else, incorporeal or otherwise. Then I devote a minute or two to rocking myself on the floor and whimpering, because holy hell, that was scary as fuck.
Blue eyes. The ghost had freaking blue eyes. I’m the only Asian I know with blue eyes, and my dad is to thank for that. Kazuhiko Kino never mentioned any of the girls having a foreign mom or dad, which makes this even more confusing.
After I calm myself as best as I can, I take another quick look around. This room is much larger than the first one I entered. It’s also more fully furnished with an assortment of tables and chairs that have stood the test of time. What catches my eye are the books strewn about—some still on makeshift wooden shelves and bookcases, others tumbled about the floor—as if someone left in a hurry and didn’t bother to clean up before he went. When I examine one of the far bookcases, I find another writhing cocoon on the floor beside it, this time an old woman, which I take care of quickly.
A yellowed and moth-eaten old futon is folded in the room’s center. A small Jizo statue, complete with its own mini stone grotto, is built into one corner. It’s the only thing in the room that looks intact, though parts of its face have eroded over time.
The books are the obvious choice to look through, but I’m not sure how much information I can glean from these. Aside from being written in kanji, they are worn out and capable of crumbling into dust if I so much as touch them. There’s nothing sadder than a book that hasn’t been cared for, a book too broken to read.
Still, I try to thumb my way through the ones that seem most durable, hoping for an illustration or some clue as to where Kagura and the others might be. Some books look like they’ve been churned out of an old printing press, but others appear to have been written by hand. Those are the ones that I concentrate on. I find a book with a series of rough diagrams and a drawing I recognize immediately, given my previous scares.
Silkworms. The diagrams depict silkworms in varying stages of life, from egg to pupa to ugly flying insect.
I remember the white, shapeless mass thumping on the floor, and I shudder.
I find a few more drawings in other volumes—either raising silkworms was the occupant’s hobby or Aitou trade centered around it. There must be a connection between this and the large creature I had to kill, because there was no way that cocoon could have been natural.
Remember my pet spider? It’s back. I know even before I turn around that there’s a presence behind me. The tape recorder is within reach, but I’d need to dig into my pack for the dolls I brought with me. The wooden stake is my best hope.
I gulp in a deep breath and then whip around, taking several steps back as I do, in case it tries to lunge for me.
It doesn’t. It’s not the crawling ghost or the ghost in the videos or even the shrine ghost.