Christopher Golden - A Winter of Ghosts

Kara frowned. She had neverheard the name before. But it seemed obvious to her that Sakura and Miho knewit well. They looked confused and then almost amused.

"Yuki-Onna is only a story,"Sakura said.

"So was the Hannya,"Mr. Yamato replied.

Kara thought they all shudderedat that.

"What is Yuki-Onna?" she asked. "I don't. . can one of you tell me, please?"

To her surprise, it was herfather who spoke. "I've read the story, or one version of it, at least. Yuki-Onnais the Lady of the Snows. She's sometimes referred to as a witch or a demon — "

"Like in The Snow Queen ,"Kara said.

"She is a popular figure inJapanese stories," Miss Aritomo said, her eyes haunted, her face pale, asthough she might be sick at any moment. "But my favorite version of hertale is one of the rarest, an ancient story in which a woman is killed by thewinter's first snow — "

Kara gasped. "Oh my God."

Miss Aritomo nodded and went on." — and the spirit of winter joins its essence with the ghost of thedead woman, inhabiting her corpse and transforming it from within to become Yuki-Onna,the Lady of the Snows. The Woman in White."

They were all staring at her asif entranced, and Kara realized that none of them had known this variation onthe legend.

The policeman broke the trance,rising quickly to his feet. He pulled out his cell phone and hit a singlebutton, speed-dialing.

"This is Captain Nobunaga. Sendsomeone to the family grave of Etsoku Reizei immediately," he said intothe phone, turning to regard the others in the room. Kara thought even thecaptain's eyes look haunted.

"Why?" he said. "Tellhim I want to know if the urn containing her ashes is still there."

Mr. Sato had spent his entirelife striving for an inner peace and balance that would make his parents proud.At forty-seven years of age, he had found purpose in moderation and attemptedto be a model of tranquility and proper behavior for his students. Once,several years before, he had overheard two students conversing about him; oneof them had remarked that he was as difficult to fluster as the guards atEngland's Buckingham Palace. Though they had been mocking him, there had alsobeen a sense of wonder in their voices, and he had been proud of that. The bestway to lead, he had always believed, was by quiet example.

It was a very good thing his studentswere not with him on Takigami Mountain this morning.

His feet still hurt from thefrigid temperatures and hours of searching from the previous day. He had notbeen dressed warmly enough for the blizzard and its aftermath and the cold hadgotten down into his bones and made him exhausted. Today he had thought aheadand dressed in many layers, including a thick green sweater and a heavy winterjacket he had borrowed from a cousin who was fond of snow sports.

Instead of keeping him warm infrigid temperatures, the layers made him sweat. The sun shone brightly today,making it far warmer than yesterday. With the jacket he was too hot, butwithout it the cold made his teeth chatter. His muscles hurt from a combinationof unfamiliar exertion and winter chill. Several times he had stepped intosmall windblown drifts that were deeper than they looked and snow had slid downinside his boots, quickly melting and soaking through his socks.

Mr. Sato did not feel verytranquil today.

Yet he kept his mouth set in agrim line and continued pushing his way through the trees, ducking branches,peeking into any hidden spot that seemed large enough to hide a boy. His handshad gotten sweaty in his gloves and now they were stuffed into his jacketpockets and he had pine sap stuck to his fingers.

"Sato-san!" calledOfficer Fuwa, the leader of their group of searchers. "Any sign of them?"

"Nothing!" Mr. Satocalled back.

He could vaguely see thepoliceman and another searcher through the trees. The officer checked theirlocations on a frequency so consistent as to be maddening, but Mr. Sato knew itwas necessary to make certain that no area of the mountain would be missed. Yesterdaythere had been far fewer searchers on the mountain and, though they had donetheir best, the net had been too wide. They had relied on the ability of theboys to respond to their shouts. Now, they all knew they were searching forstudents who might be sick, unconscious, or even dead, though no one wanted todiscuss this last possibility.

Officer Fuwa called out toothers in his assigned group and Mr. Sato heard their distant replies as hetrudged through another small drift that had accumulated amidst a thick standof pines. School had been canceled for the day, but he wondered what wouldhappen tomorrow if they still had not found the missing boys. One death wouldbe hard enough for the rest of the students, but if the others also did notsurvive. . it would be awful. The teachers had all discussed the arrival ofthe new year as a kind of cleansing, putting the horrible events of the prioryear behind them. But now it seemed that fate had further ugliness in store forMonju-no-Chie school. If Mr. Sato didn't know better, he would have thoughtsomeone had put some kind of a curse on the place.

He emerged into a clearing ofsorts, the sun far too bright for January, and finally the sweat of exertion onthe back of his neck became too much for him. With a grunt of displeasure, heremoved his jacket, wishing he had never brought it in the first place. Carryingit around was more work than wearing it, but he needed to cool off again. Glancingaround, he spotted Officer Fuwa in the trees off to his right and a man andwoman together at the western edge of the clearing.

A glance at his watch gave himthe strength for one more push. Officer Fuwa had scheduled a break in fifteenminutes, during which they could smoke or have a bit to eat or something todrink and restore themselves for another hour of hiking the mountain. Theirgroup had only been searching two hours this morning, but already his legs feltlike lead. Slim as he was, he had always assumed himself to be in fairly goodphysical condition for his age, but this experience had changed his mind.

With a deep breath he forgedahead, leaving the clearing and plunging once more into the thick woods. Fiftyyards or so later he came upon a fallen tree and paused to look beneath it,just in case one of the boys had tried to take shelter there the night before. Evensome sign of a fire or camp would have given him hope.

Movement in his peripheralvision drew his attention and he glanced to the right, thinking that OfficerFuwa had closed the distance between them. Through the trees he caught aglimpse of a solitary figure, pale and thin. Mr. Sato had worn the same glassesfor too many years as his eyesight had continued to fail, and he neededstronger lenses. He blinked and took a step in that direction, squinting as hetried to figure out which member of his search party had gone so badly offcourse.

The boy staggered out of thetrees, so white he seemed a ghost. Mr. Sato shouted in alarm and took severalsteps backward before he tripped over his own feet. The boy stumbled into himand the two tumbled to the ground together in a tangle of arms and legs.

Shock silenced him for severalseconds as he extricated himself. The boy's eyes were wide and glazed and hislips were blue. His skin felt like ice, but his chest still rose and fell withevery breath and a quick check of his pulse revealed that his heart remainedstrong.

Ren was alive.

"Officer Fuwa!" Mr.Sato shouted, cradling the boy in his arms. "I've found one of them! Overhere!"

His many years of practiced calmhad abandoned him. His emotions overwhelmed him. And yet he was not troubled bythis at all. There were times when tranquility was beyond the reach of mortalman, and perhaps even of the gods.

"I don't understand,"Kara said. "If this Etsoku Reizei was cremated, how could Yuki-Onna haveinhabited her remains?"