The Girl from the Well

Kagura takes Callie aside some time later. “This is how the seals were made,” she explains, selecting one of the dolls—the same doll Callie had seen her use by the Jizo shrine in Mutsu. She pulls the kimono sleeve up, and Callie is stunned to discover that it bears the same inked tattoos as on Tarquin’s skin.

“Every one of the dolls you see here has been hand inked by us.” Kagura turns the doll over and lifts the kimono over its back. Like Tarquin’s, more of the tattoos dot its sides and back. “To break this seal one must hate.” She touches the first of the seals on the doll’s back, then the other. “And to break this seal, one must respect. To break the seals on the left and right wrists, one must know fear and friendship. To break the seals across the chest, one must know love.

“On the dolls these are merely symbolic; on humans, much less so. Every day we take the dolls out and inspect them. If we see any one of these seals growing faint, we know that they have been compromised, and we perform another ritual to reinforce them or transfer them to another.”

“Can’t you do the same for Tarquin?” Callie asks, but the miko shakes her head.

“Human sacrifices are different. Dolls have always been sterile and unchanging things, but humans are not made the same way. To perform a repurification on a human sacrifice might harm more than it can repair. I have seen the seals on Tarquin-kun. I know that four of the five seals have faded. When the last seal crumbles, the poison inside him will be freed. So much blood has already been spilled for this that we cannot wait to allow her to seek more.”

“Blood?” Callie feels sick.

“To break each of the seals, another kind of sacrifice is required. The blood of people slaughtered must be placed against the seals to weaken them, and with each break she becomes more powerful. Whenever Tarquin feels frightened or angry, the malevolence inside him is at her strongest and can even control his body to some extent. What is the matter, Callie-san?”

“It’s nothing,” Callie says hurriedly, her heart pounding as her hand drifts once more to trace at the unseemly scar on her finger, a permanent mark of her very own seal.

“What’s this?” Tarquin enters the room, curious. The miko shows him the doll, and he winces.

“Would you like to hold it, Tarquin-kun?”

“Wouldn’t that be dangerous for me?” He speaks in moderately broken Japanese, one of his many growing attempts to practice the language.

“The seals are in place. It will cause no harm, that much I can promise.”

Tarquin takes the doll, holding it by the hem of its kimono so it dangles in the air before him. “This is kinda creepy, Kagura-san. Why are its eyes so black? Most of the other dolls’ eyes don’t have any color in them.”

“It is because this one is already possessed by a spirit. It is the spirit’s eyes that you see, looking out at the world.”

Tarquin nearly drops the doll. Hastily, he shoves it back into the miko’s arms. He is trembling a little. “This is why boys don’t play with dolls. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and freak out in the next room.”

A day after Tarquin’s father leaves, there is an unexpected development. Voices call out from somewhere in the woods, and one of the mikos heads out to greet the new visitors. “It is a possession,” she reports once she returns, and her words set the other mikos off in a tizzy of activity. The obaasan becomes businesslike, barking out orders that the others scurry to perform. Unsure of how to assist, Callie and Tarquin sit and watch, fascinated.