Christopher Golden - A Winter of Ghosts

Yet, though Christmas displayswere often up just as early as they were in America, the New Year was a muchbigger deal in Japan. People started preparing for New Year's celebrations evenbefore Christmas, sending tons of New Year's cards called nengajo totheir families, friends, and colleagues. Marking the passage of the old yearand recognizing the affection or support that others had given them, as well astheir hope for the relationship to continue in the new year, was a major partof the celebration. People spent the time leading up the end of the yearcleaning their homes and offices, inside and out. The faces of buildings — even temples — were cleaned, painted, or refreshed in some other way.

It had all sounded sweetlysentimental to Kara, right up until New Year's Eve, when she and her father hadgone out for a dinner of toshikoshi soba noodles at a sobaya shopand encountered an almost comical number of drunken people. Almost comical,because it stopped being funny when she saw a man walk into a lamp post,bloodying his nose and lip. It turned out that New Year's Eve in Japan wassoaked in even more alcohol than the holiday was back home in Massachusetts,and that was saying something.

Still, they had enjoyed it. MissAritomo had gone to her uncle's for dinner, but returned to watch the variouscelebrations on television at their house and ring in the new year with a toastat midnight, stepping outside to listen to the bells tolling from the city'sBuddhist temples. There were other traditions, of course. Many people would beat the shrines, offering prayers and hoping to receive a promising fortunescroll from one of the maidens in white kimonos who looked after the shrinesthat night. But Kara and her father and Miss Aritomo had opted to stay at home.Yuuka had spent the night for the first time, and had made them ozoni ,the traditional New Year's soup, the next day.

They felt like a family.

Kara tried not to think of itthat way — she still struggled with the idea that she was somehowbetraying her mother — but sometimes she couldn't help it. She liked thather father was happy. He deserved it. She thought they both did.

Now, as she made her way towardthe shop where she had seen the perfect boots for winter, arm-in-arm with herdad and Yuuka, several older people looked at them oddly. They did make aninteresting trio. Miss Aritomo usually tried to hold on to her very Japanesepropriety when out in public with them, but at the moment, she apparentlycouldn't keep the grin off of her face.

"Here we are," Karasaid, guiding them into the shop.

"How much are these boots,anyway?" her father finally thought to ask.

Kara gave him an innocent look."Dad, they're lined and waterproof. Can you put a price tag on keepingyour loving daughter's feet warm and dry?"

He gave a good-natured sigh."That much, huh?"

Inside the shop, where severalcustomers were lined up at the register and others milled about, trying onwinter coats and boots, Kara stopped and batted her lashes at him.

"Not that much, but.."

"But?"

"There's this jacket you'regoing to love just as much as I do. White and gold and puffy — "

Her father turned to MissAritomo and hung his head. "Save me."

The art teacher laughed and noddedto Kara. "Go on. Show us these boots."

Kara gave a little squee anddarted through the racks, leaving the adults to weave a path behind her. Shereally did need boots and a new jacket, and had known that her father would buythem for her, but she always enjoyed tormenting him just a little bit. Theyteased with love, never with malice.

Fathers and daughters ,her mother had often sighed. They'll indulge each other forever.

Kara thought maybe her mom hadbeen right.

After persuading her father thatthe white coat with the fake fur around the hood was an absolute necessity — with a little help from Miss Aritomo — Kara waited in line with him topay. Someone had apparently gone on a break and left an old woman with acranky, pinched face as the only clerk. Kara dared not complain about the wait.Instead, she leaned her head on her father's shoulder.

"Thanks, Dad."

"It's okay," he said."I don't want my little girl's toes freezing off."

"Yuck. Me either."

"So, everyone's due backtomorrow, right?" he asked.

Kara smiled. By 'everyone,' hemeant her two best friends, Miho and Sakura, and Hachiro, but he tried not topry too much into her feelings for her boyfriend. She didn't mind talking aboutHachiro with her father, actually, but he seemed very wary about seeming toocurious, which was probably for the best. As long as she was happy and Hachirowas treating her well, he didn't need to know any more than that.

Despite what her mother hadalways said, boyfriends were the one area where fathers didn't always indulgetheir daughters.

". . that's terrible,"Miss Aritomo said. "How did she die?"

Kara and her father both turnedto see the teacher talking to a short, fiftyish man whose glasses were too bigfor his face. His expression was grim.

"She became lost on themountain during the first snowstorm we had last month," the man said,shaking his head slowly, mouth set in a thin line. "They searched for herafter the storm, but two days passed before they found her. She had frozen."

Kara flinched at the word."God," she whispered, in English.

Miss Aritomo expressed hersorrow at the news and the man with the big glasses — who Kara nowrealized was an employee here, but also someone the teacher knew — noddedagain. Or perhaps they were small bows, accepting her condolences.

The conversation went on, butKara had had enough.

"I'm going to look atgloves," she said, forcing a smile.

"You already have gloves,"her father said.

"I didn't say 'buy.' I'mjust looking," she replied, and then she was off, heading over to acircular display upon which hung what seemed hundreds of pairs of gloves.

Things had been going so well. Theywere happy. Kara had had enough of death and ugliness and did not even want tohear about any more of it.

As she searched for a pair ofgloves that would match her new jacket, not really intending to ask her fatherto buy them, but curious, she heard soft voices whispering behind her, and thenone of them spoke up.

"Well, hello, bonsai .Happy New Year."

Mai Genji had seemed to be hernemesis for a while. She had inherited the position of Queen of the SoccerBitches when the reigning queen, a girl named Ume, had been expelled during thespring term. Ume had told Mai about the impossible, awful things that hadhappened in April of last year — about the curse that the demonKyuketsuki had put on Kara and Sakura and Miho — and for a time Mai hadblamed Kara for Ume's expulsion and for the horrible things that had followedit, during the autumn term.

Now Mai knew better, and she hada long, thin white scar on her right cheek that would remind her every time shelooked in the mirror. Now she knew that it had all started with Ume, whom theyall suspected of having murdered Sakura's sister, Akane.

Kara's first year in Japan hadbeen long and strange and sometimes awful. And though the curse still lingered,and she worried that it would draw even more evil to her and her friends, shewanted to focus on the new beginning that the winter term offered.

So she smiled at the Queen ofthe Soccer Bitches, and at her roommate, Wakana, who had nearly been killedherself back in the fall.

"Happy New Year," Karasaid.

They shared a dreadful secret,something other students at Monju-no-Chie school would never believe and shouldnever have to learn, and it had created a strange bond between them. Mai andWakana weren't her friends, and they never would be, but maybe they weren'tenemies any more, either.

"Your father and MissAritomo look very happy," Mai said, an edge to the words that seemed onthe verge of mockery.