Was I biased? Am I trying to convince myself that Okiku didn’t want to pass on so I can justify what I am going to do? The thought haunts me, half convincing me that I’m putting my selfishness over her happiness.
But I remember the sorrowful look on her face and the lingering way her lips pressed against me. I can believe that she would accept her fate, but I know with sudden certainty that she hadn’t wanted it to end like this. Not like this.
“I’m sorry, Callie, but I need to see Kagura. It might be important.”
I find Kagura in her room, looking over her father’s research as she carefully packs the notebooks and parchments back into the large trunk. Her eyes are sad.
I stand by the doorway, not sure if it is right for me to enter and break the moment. But Kagura speaks.
“I saw him too,” she says. “I saw my father for a brief moment. For all that happened in Aitou, at least it was closure.”
“Sometimes, you try to forget about the pain in your past,” I say, sinking to the floor beside her, “and you run as fast as you can, thinking you can leave it behind if you run far enough. But it has a way of sneaking back when you least expect it. Sometimes, the only way you can escape is to turn around and confront it.”
Kagura smiles wanly. “It sounds like you’re talking about more than just my father.” She holds up the photo of a younger Kagura with Kazuhiko. She sets the picture aside; the rest she adds into the trunk. “But I think you’re right. At least now I understand why his work filled up his life, so that at times, there didn’t seem to be any space for me or my mother. I hope he’s at peace now.”
I remember the last time I saw Kagura’s father, in that quiet meadow with Hotoke and the other spirits. “He is.”
“Are you sure you’re okay, Tark? I know you might not want to talk about it, but…”
“Actually, that’s what I came here for.”
The miko looks up at me, startled, and I pull The Book of Unnatural Changes from the trunk, placing it before her. I open the heavy volume and turn it to the page containing the ritual I had in mind. “I wanted to talk to you about this.”
Kagura’s eyes widen. “Tarquin. Are you…?”
Immediately, she is on her knees, her hand touching my forehead while her eyes look into mine, trying to sense what I already know. The darkness inside me responds to that touch, heat erupting from my forehead, and she jerks her hand back as if she’s been electrocuted.
“Kami-sama,” she gasps, falling back. “I knew there was something odd, but I never thought…”
“I’m sorry, Kagura.” I can feel the energy swirling inside me—energy I took into myself when I closed the hell’s gate, the power the kannushi so desperately wanted. “But I think you’re going to have to teach me everything you know about the Hundred Days ritual.”
Chapter Twenty
Mourning
I’ve got ninety-three more days to go.
Callie and I are back in the United States—her in Boston, and me in DC. We only spent a week in Japan, but it feels like a lifetime has passed. Leaving was hard, but I know the hardest is still to come.
Everyone’s still talking about McNeil after spring break is over and school starts. As selfish as it sounds, I don’t think I’ve spared a thought for him since leaving for Japan, and all I really want to do now that I’m back is hole up in my room and let the days pass. Dad doesn’t sense anything wrong, mainly because I keep up my usual flippant attitude whenever he’s around. I don’t want him to worry any more than he ought to.
A lot of students give me the evil eye during class and when they pass me in hallways. They’ll always blame me for Keren McNeil’s death, but I’m beyond caring at this point. I walk past a place in school where some of his teammates had erected a small altar in memory of the football jock, strung with flowers and handwritten notes. Someone had placed his jersey beside a large photo of him. I resist the urge to give in
we are power
to my baser nature and remind everyone just what kind of guy their hero was. I turn away instead. He’s dead, and despite everything he did, it no longer feels like he should matter to me.
I used to worry that being with Okiku brought out my darker, more depraved instincts. Now I realize it wasn’t her. The darkness was in me all along, and maybe that was what drew her to me in the first place.
True to her word, Kagura taught me everything I needed to know before we left. “I’ve never done this before, Tarquin,” she warned me. She was reluctant all throughout our lessons, but she knew that I had no choice. “I cannot guarantee that any of this is going to work.”
“It’s still better than nothing,” I pointed out.
Hanging on to hope is the only thing keeping me from going crazy, and I don’t want to think about what might happen if nothing comes out of the ritual I’m about to do.