Unnatural Changes
I don’t remember how we stumble out of that accursed cave and back into the sunshine.
I am aware of Kagura at my elbow, keeping a firm grip to give me balance, and of her curt orders to Riley to do the same on my other side. I know they’re speaking, but I’m not paying attention. Snatches of conversation and “in shock” filter to my ears. They’re surely talking about me, but I find that I don’t care.
I feel strange. I’ve learned to recognize the signs of possession: a feeling of sinking into your own chest, as if something else has laid claim to your insides. Its claws dig into you and sap you of your strength when it goes against your wishes, like the masked woman who lived within me for years. It gives you sudden bursts of energy when you’re a willing partner, the way Okiku always was.
This presence is not being overt, but it’s lying on the edge of my awareness—letting me know it’s there but doing little else. For now.
In the meantime, my body is lead and sweat runs down my face. Once or twice, Kagura commands Riley to stop and checks my temperature and listens for my pulse. Her lips are pursed, but she says nothing each time.
They carry my arms over their shoulders while the rest of my body slumps against theirs, a rag cloth hung out to dry. I’m mindful of us moving past the silkworm hatcheries and their rotting wood, past the houses and their rotting souls. At the back of my mind, I remember that before all of this decay, there were dolls on altars, cared for by those who had been left behind. I remember a diary and a mother’s love.
It’s easy to look around and forget there was life here once. That there was love here.
The gate leading out of the village looms before us. Kagura and Riley fight to pull it open while balancing me between them. As we exit, I start to struggle.
“I can’t, Kagura.” I’ve run out of tears, and I’m short on words. I repeat them over and over, as if saying them enough times will make a difference. “I can’t, Kagura. I can’t.”
As irrational as it sounds, I don’t want to leave her behind.
“I am so sorry, Tarquin-san,” Kagura murmurs gently, “but we have to go.”
They pull through the creaking gate, and we are once more in the thick of the woods. I am weak. In the end, I can do little more than flail and whimper, so the miko gets her way. The ground is spoiled with twigs and rocks, but for all their own injuries, both Kagura and Riley hold me tight and don’t let me fall.
I blank out for a bit. I don’t know how long we wander before we’re found. It starts with a thrum of noise, a series of calls and whistles that penetrate Aokigahara’s silence.
Riley runs madly ahead, whooping and hollering and waving his arms in the air. I blink, and then I am on the ground on my back, and people are lifting me onto a crude stretcher. I can see Kagura being carried on another stretcher despite her protests, and then my vision is full of Callie, who has swooped down from somewhere in the noise to envelop me in a tight hug that robs me of the rest of my breath.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack!” She weeps, our combined weight forcing the medical personnel to lower the stretcher to the forest floor. “Where did you go? Why did you run off like that? I told you never to do anything like that to me again. You liar!”
I can only manage a halfhearted “Callie…” before the men lift me again and carry me through the woods on a babble of excited voices and cheers.
When I wake up next, it is to the sticky-sweet, sanitized smell of the hospital. Callie is huddled at my bed and dozing off, her hands clasped around one of my own, but my faint movement is enough to wake her. She lifts her head, her eyes red-rimmed, but the smile on her face is the widest I’ve ever seen.
“H’llo,” I mumble.
“Hi, yourself.” Callie dashes at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You have a cut on your back, but it looks worse than it actually is. They said you’re just mostly exhausted, and they can send you home tomorrow. But they wanted to keep you under observation tonight to make sure you didn’t have any other injuries. Which is why I can do this.” She gives me a light thwack on my nose, a swat one might use to belittle a puppy, and I yelp. “Whatever possessed you to run into the woods like that?”
“I didn’t—”
“You’ve been gone for two days! I thought Auntie was going to have a heart attack. Even Saya joined the search for you. We were all so worried. Every time the rescuers found a body, I kept expecting it to be yours.” A sob bubbles from her throat. “How did you find Kagura? And what happened to the rest of the Ghost Haunts guys?”