The Girl from the Well

as you will.

With shaking fingers, Callie traces the faded wooden frame, knowing that this was where, several hundred years ago, a girl named Okiku once laid her head to rest.

“The paths inside Himeji Castle were built to confuse invaders,” the guide continues, after Callie rejoins the group. “You will notice that the corridors are not built with the same sizes in mind. Hallways lead into secret passages not easily discernible to the eye. The stairs are of varying heights so invaders might trip while engaging the defenders in battle. Outside, I will take you to a hall farther on where a whole passageway can collapse with the removal of a single keystone.

“Himeji Castle’s builders created these complexities for one purpose, and one purpose alone: that in the event the castle was overwhelmed, its inhabitants would be able to defend its walls long enough for the lord of Himeji to commit hara-kiri. It was considered dishonorable among samurai to be taken alive after being defeated.”

For all its outside grandeur, the inside of Himeji Castle is wooden and sparse, nearly devoid of furniture and ornamentation. Empty suits of armor greet the tourists at selected corners as they climb the last of the steep stairs to have their brochures stamped with an authentic Himeji seal. From outside, the shachihoko, half-tiger and half-fish gargoyles, stand guard on the castle turrets, their tails lifted in haughty dismissal.

The castle itself is nearly how I remember it, and yet the turning of centuries has saddened me more than I care to admit. What had once thronged with warriors and daimyos—great leaders—who discussed and paved the paths to Japan’s great future, who held the lives of the people in the palm of their hands, the place that had once housed and protected the man I had once served and

loved,

has now been overshadowed by the hum of tourists, who, in their misguided appreciation, only consider Himeji Castle a memory of the distant, once-glorious past.

By the time the group wanders out of the fortress and into the series of almost labyrinthine mazes on the castle grounds, it is early afternoon. “We have time for one last place to visit,” their guide says, leading them toward a large imposing gate and beside it a five-story tower. “This is the Hara-kiri Maru,” he says, “known as the Suicide Gate. It is here where lords and dishonored samurai were forced to commit hara-kiri, sometimes to atone for their masters’ sins. And this is the donjon, the main tower of the castle keep.”

“Was this well used for drinking water during a siege?” Callie’s friend asks, peering gingerly inside.

“No, nothing of that sort. It was used to wash away the remnants of the disembowelment ritual of the hara-kiri. This is famously known as Okiku’s Well.”

For a moment, the sun seems to hide behind the clouds, casting the surroundings in a queer gray color.

“This is the well Okiku’s ghost is supposed to haunt, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. It is one of our most popular ghost stories, perhaps second only to the Yotsuya Kaidan. There are many different versions of Okiku’s legend. The Himeji version is that Okiku was a young maidservant working for the lord of Himeji Castle, whom she loved dearly. She alerted him to an attempt on his life, allegedly by one of his chief retainers. In revenge, the retainer broke a plate from the lord’s most prized collection, and Okiku was found guilty of the crime. The faithless lord allowed the retainer to torture her extensively before throwing her body down this well.

“Since then, her ghost rises from it and counts the lord’s collection of plates, traditionally between the Japanese witching hours of two and three in the morning. Each time she finds only nine, and each time her unearthly screaming and wailing would wake the lord from his sleep. In time, his health broke from her nightly hauntings. Unable to find peace in death, her ghost is said to haunt the well, even today.”