Christopher Golden - A Winter of Ghosts

"If you will all excuse us,Mr. Yamato and I are needed elsewhere," Captain Nobunaga said.

"Did they find Hachiro andRen?" Kara asked, almost pleading. "Are they okay?"

Captain Nobunaga looked first toMr. Yamato, then to Kara's father, and at last he answered her question, sterneyes suddenly kind.

"Your friend Ren has beenfound alive. Other than frostbite, it appears he will be all right."

Kara's throat closed on her nextquestion. She could not even put voice to it. Seeing this, Miho spoke for her.

"What about Hachiro?" she asked.

The policeman's eyes went coldonce more. "There is still no trace of him. And according to the officerwho found him, Ren cannot help them. He has no memory of anything that hasbefallen him since the blizzard began."

Kara lay on her side in bed andgazed longingly at her acoustic guitar, which sat bathed in moonlight on itsstand across the room. Sleep felt very far away tonight. Her head ached and herheart hurt, both crammed full with far too many worries. Strangely, she did notfeel afraid, only a little lonely. Her father slept in the next room and herfriends were not far away, but in the darkness of her bedroom, she always feltalone.

Back in the spring, when she hadbeen afflicted with terrifying dreams of dead girls with no faces and cats withdarkly intelligent eyes, she had sometimes longed for home. The life she hadknown, the friends she had grown up with, were so far away. Her mother wasburied back in Medford, Massachusetts, not far from the house she had lived inall of her life until she and her father had moved to Japan.

But though she still missed thatplace, it wasn't home anymore. Her father was here. Sakura and Miho were thebest friends she had ever had. And Hachiro. . she had fallen in love withhis kind eyes and gentle spirit. Yet in spite of her happiness whenever she waswith him, she had still felt herself holding part of herself back whenever shehad been with him, knowing that she would have to leave one day.

Oh, Hachiro. .

Her hands yearned for the feelof her guitar. All of the emotions bottled up inside of her needed release, andmusic could do that for her. It always had. She could play a song, somethingfull of love and anguish. She needed to play. To sing. It was like pulling downa wall between who she was on the outside and what she felt on the inside.

Kara and the girls had spenthours doing research on Yuki-Onna, first online and then at the library, butcome up with very little that seemed helpful. There seemed to be dozens ofvariations on the story, many of which had filtered into modern incarnations. Sheappeared in films and role-playing games and in stories and plays. Variouslegends portrayed her as a blood-sucking, vampiric witch or a demon, but inothers she seemed almost benevolent, or little more than a ghost herself,appearing during the first snow of the year like Jack Frost.

Miho had taken copious noteswhile Sakura had flipped through books, searching for something that would givethem some clue as to how to protect themselves. When they were sick of looking,the found a small storybook of Japanese folktales. Cover frayed and faded,published in 1913, it included the Yuki-Onna story that Miss Aritomo had toldthem about the Woman in White inhabiting the remains of a woman who had frozento death in the first snow of winter, but it told them little that they did notalready know.

At half past three, with the skyalready dimming toward the early winter darkness, they had left the library andhurried back to campus, hoping to see Ren, only to be turned away by MissKaneda, who insisted that they not intrude. Ren's parents had been with himsince the early morning and they had asked not to be disturbed. As far as MissKaneda knew, he had not regained any of his memory of what had transpired onTakigami Mountain.

Walking home from the dorm, Karahad seen Mr. Yamato exiting the school with a couple she recognized from photosas Hachiro's parents. They looked lost, cast adrift from the moorings of theirlife, and she wanted to go to them and try to lend them some comfort, to assurethem that their son would be all right — she would not allow herself toconsider another alternative. But Hachiro had told her they weren't thrilledwith the idea of him dating a gaijin girl, and she suspected that any wordsfrom her would give them no comfort at all.

So she kept walking.

Now she lay in bed, staring atthe moonlight washing over her guitar. She could almost imagine she heard asingle chord of music resonating in the room. Her pulse throbbed in hertemples. The clock read 2:27 a.m. Kara desperately needed to sleep but she didnot want to close her eyes. It seemed to her that as long as she remained awakeand thinking of Hachiro, he was not completely alone out there on the mountain,in the cold.

Ren survived a night on themountain , she told herself. Hachiro will be all right. They'll find himin the morning.

Had Ren seen Yuki-Onna? Had thewinter witch done something to them?

Her thoughts raced. Hachiro wasstill missing, but Mr. Yamato had ordered students to return to classestomorrow. How could anyone focus on learning anything? How could they act likeit was over? Yes, Sora was dead and Ren had come back, but Hachiro was stillout there on the mountain!

Kara sighed. Sleep seemed evenfurther away. The longer she lay in bed, the more agitated she grew, and shehad only a few hours before she would have to get up to get ready for school.

Frustrated, feeling the staccatobeat of her heart in her chest, she threw back her covers and got out of bed. Shelooked in what she thought was the direction of Takigami Mountain, wishing shecould see it from here. That would make her feel closer to Hachiro, which wasall she wanted right now.

In her faded Negima t-shirt andflannel pajama pants, she shuffled to the window and bent to look outside,hoping to see even the mountain's peak. But the angle was all wrong. All shecould see was the houses on her street, bleached white in the moonlight, andthe tops of some of the taller buildings in the city in the distance.

She started to draw back intothe room, but froze as she caught a glimpse of motion. A pale figure passed infront of a house diagonally across from Kara's, headed toward the trainstation.

Kara's mouth went dry. Sheblinked, moving to get a better look. The man had his back to her, but hissilhouette seemed to shift as though ticking in and out of focus. He turned hishead and for a moment she thought he would look back at her, but his face waslost in shadows.

The figure flickered, nearlytransparent for a moment, then solid once again. Another ghost on the streetsof Miyazu City.

Her whole body began to trembleand she shook her head. The height, the build, the thick, unruly hair.

Hachiro?

Forgetting the winter, Kararushed from her room and down the short hall, through the living room, and tothe front door. She unlocked the door and flung it open, letting in a blast offrigid wind. The door banged against the wall but by then she was alreadystepping out onto the stoop and then onto the sidewalk.

The January night embraced herwith fingers of ice, cutting deeply. Her teeth chattered and her skin prickledwith gooseflesh. Her thin t-shirt and pajama pants did nothing to protect herfrom the winter. A gust of wind whispered past her and she hugged herselfagainst the cold. The frozen street hurt the soles of her feet.

She ignored it all.

The ghost had paused a moment,just out of reach of the gloomy yellow light thrown by a streetlamp. It seemedalmost to be waiting for her, but did not turn to look at her. Instead itglanced up at the night sky, head tilting as though it searched the stars forsome vital truth that had eluded it.

Then it started toward the trainstation again.