Find me.
I take a sudden step back from the painting, and for a second, the background seems to move. Winds envelop the small black figure, reducing it to nothing more than a patch of white.
Knowing that we’d already captured Kajiwara Fujiko’s spirit makes being alone in the Kajiwara house easier, but my skin prickles. That sixth-sense spider is scuttling underneath my skin in warning. I’m not alone. There’s a presence nearby, but it doesn’t feel malevolent. Not like with the ghost brides.
I can feel it behind me.
I turn.
The old man—the same old man helping me, the one I think is Lord Oimikado—is thirty, thirty-five feet away and staring at me. As before, he doesn’t appear antagonistic. His hands are clasped as if in prayer, and he looks tired. He bows low to me. I’m at a loss for how to respond. Then he moves back toward a small bookcase, which houses the few volumes that have survived the village’s death. His arm lifts and he runs a hand along the thin spine of one and then, just as before, he winks out into nothing.
I take an agonized glance back at the Jizo statue, note that Kagura has yet to surface—it’s only been fifteen minutes at the most, but I still can’t help but feel worried—and then retrace the old man’s steps, slowly taking out the book he brought to my attention.
The bound leather, dry and crusty, is untitled. Its pages have definitely seen better days. There aren’t many, and careful investigation reveals that there is only one entry—two pages in small, prim writing, handwritten in Japanese. It’s a diary of sorts.
I feel Okiku stir and slowly detach herself from me.
“Okiku, you need to rest.”
She shakes her head. She looks better than she did—at least as far as dead girls go. She’s frowning deeply and looks almost anxious. “There’s something wrong.”
I ask her, not without some nervous trepidation, what she means by that, but she only shakes her head. She doesn’t act like there’s someone else in the vicinity though, so I show her the book.
“Can you make something out of this, Ki?”
She doesn’t hear me at first, staring off into the distance, lost in thought.
“Ki? You okay?”
She blinks and settles her black eyes on me. “Yes,” she says, though I’m not sure she believes it herself. She does little to explain. Instead, she settles herself on my right and slowly reads the words.
“‘I am the last of the village.’”
Slivers of dread run through me.
“‘It has all been for nothing. The sacrifice of my daughter, the sacrifices of those who have had daughters—we have failed. The dead walk outside, wearing the faces of those who have succumbed to the madness, the faces of those who have gone before them. Even my fellow priests have not been impervious to the sickness, but that is not the worst of it.
“‘I have seen the face of my poor Fujiko, gone all these years, and there is nothing of the beauty, the humanity in her now. She is among the damned, and her shrine sisters walk beside her.
“‘Oimikado Hotoke was brave. A victim like all the chosen brides before her—but the bravest of them. Ironic that she would prove to be his undoing.
“‘They will not rest. They will never rest until the final ritual is performed.
“‘It is all Hiroshi’s doing. I understand that now. He did not perform the ceremony the way he should have. He did not seek to close the gate but to rule over it. He betrayed us, sacrificed everyone in his mad quest for power. When I think of what we did to those poor boys…
“‘…the look my Fujiko gave me, dazed and drugged as she was, when she saw what awaited her in that pit…
“‘But it is too late. It is too late. We knew not what we had done, though our hands are stained guilty with their blood. It will make no difference to the dead.
“‘Kami willing, I will make my way back to the shrine. I hope to finish the ritual on my own and end things once and for all. I do not believe I will be successful—but I must try to atone for all my sins.’”
A muffled thump comes from somewhere nearby. I look around, wondering if it was Kagura or something else, but Okiku pays it no heed and continues.
“‘And you, oh poor traveler who has happened upon the writings of this unfortunate man! Let my words serve as a warning—leave the village immediately or be prepared to share in our fate. If the way out is barred, then find the Jizo statues and travel to the silkworm tree. Free those poor girls from its clutches and burn it with their fires. And if anything interrupts your quest—then may the gods have mercy on your soul.’”