Christopher Golden - A Winter of Ghosts

Kubo struggled to get up on oneelbow, wheezing. From inside his robe he unsheathed a small, thin knife andhanded it to Kara.

"You bleed."

Kara took a deep breath. Theothers all stared at her. Hachiro and Ume looked horrified, but the others hadall been warned. Ren backed away from the old monk. The ritual to break thecurse did not involve him, and he seemed very relieved at that.

She tugged off her gloves. Placingthe small blade against her palm, she turned to look at Hachiro. Staring intohis eyes, she sliced her palm. As numb as her hands were, pain seared throughher and she hissed through her teeth but did not break her gaze as she gave theknife to Hachiro.

He kept his eyes glued to hersas he followed suit.

The moment the first drop ofKara's blood hit the snow, Kubo began to sing. How he knew the precise moment,she did not know, but he opened his mouth and began a chant that became akeening, almost mournful song in some dialect she could not translate at all.

One by one they all took theknife — Hachiro handed it to Miho, who gave it to Sakura, who in turnpassed it on to Ume — and one by one they cut, and bled, even Ume. Herexpression had become one of resignation, of guilt, and of sorrow. One by onethey each made a fist.

Yuki-Onna thrashed against theghosts. Kara could not help looking, and she saw that there were perhaps twodozen of them, maybe even more. Most she did not know, but the familiar faceswere there — Jiro and Hana, Chouku and Daisuke, and poor Sora — andthey were fierce and terrible to behold, but she loved them all so much in thatmoment.

Kubo's song grew louder and herose, gesturing to Mai and Ren, who rushed in to help the old man up to asitting position. He gestured to Kara, who put her bleeding fist forward, andthen to the others, nodding as he sang, and they opened their hands andtogether they bled. A crimson stain spread on the snow, steam rising from it,their blood merging.

The storm raged harder,buffeting them. Ren went down on his knees but managed to keep Kubo sitting up.Face and clothes coated in frost, the old monk glanced around at each of themin turn, his eyes weary, body swaying in the wind.

"Now you must be together,"he said, and somehow the wind brought his voice to Kara's ears instead of away."No matter what you feel for each other, in this. . you must betogether. Repeat after me. .

"I feel the wind as itpasses by, and I bend with it.

"I feel the rain as it runsdown my face, and I drink of it.

"I feel time rush by like ariver, and I flow with it.

"They touch me and aregone.

"Shadows vanish at sunrise.

"All things move on, exceptfor those I hold in my heart.

"The mark of evil is washedaway in blood,

"And cleansed by the watersof the river of time.

"The wind and the rain andthe river and the darkness touch me,

"But the seasons give way,the snake sheds its skin, and I am made new.

"Dark eyes and dark heartsturn from me.

"They have no power overme.

"And I am made new."

In unison they repeated thewords after Kubo, their voices rising in a forceful wave somewhere betweenchant and song. Wakana, Miss Aritomo, Ren, and Mr. Yamato looked on, but Karasaw they were only half-paying attention to the ritual. In the midst of thestorm and the rage of Yuki-Onna, the ghosts tormenting her, holding the witchback from finishing the job she'd begun of killing Kubo, they were terrifiedand freezing. They warmed each other, comforted each other, and stared, perhapseach praying his or her own private prayers.

Halfway through the chant, Karalooked up and saw something beautiful and unsettling. Sakura had become twopeople. She was there, across from Kara, open palm bleeding into the snow infront of Kubo, but beside and within her, a part of her and yet sliding away,was the ghost of a girl who seemed to be an older, sadder version of Sakura. Theghost had longer hair, thinner features, and eyes dark with a terrible wisdom,but as Kara watched, the spirit — it could only have been Akane Murakami — looked at Sakura with such love that Kara nearly wept with the heart-achingbeauty of it.

Kubo looked up when the chanthad finished. "It is done," he said.

As if in reply, the storm roaredand Yuki-Onna screamed with such ferocity that they all looked over at her. Thewinter witch tore away from the ghosts, leaving parts of herself behind. Herbeauty had fled and all that remained was her hunger for death, the cruelestpart of winter. She whipped toward them over the snow. They all scattered,forgetting for a moment about Kubo, before Hachiro and Ren rushed in to try todrag him away.

Yuki-Onna lifted Ren with awhirling funnel of snow and raging wind and hurled him into the trees. Karaheard something snap and hoped it was branches. She reached out long fingerstoward Hachiro's face and Kara screamed, knowing she would freeze him solid andhe would be just as dead as Sora, just another of the winter's ghosts.

Kubo stood in the way. Yuki-Onna'sfingers touched him and frost covered his chest, but the old monk smiled sadly,as though with pity.

"What's happening?" Miho yelled beside Kara. "It's supposed to be over! The curse is gone."

Kara's heart clenched with afresh dose of fear. Miho was right. Kubo had told them that if the ritual worked,the power that had summoned Yuki-Onna would be erased, and without that as ananchor, the Woman in White could not remain in this world. But he had also saidno one had ever driven Yuki-Onna away before. Had he been wrong about theritual?

Yuki-Onna lifted Kubo off theground, pulled him to her, and sank those rows of shark teeth into his fleshyet again. Ice crystals formed on his flesh as the witch drank his blood, andKara felt sure she was grinning all along. Kubo had been half-drained already,his vitality gone, withered away, and now his blood ran down the white flesh ofYuki-Onna's chin and throat.

"No!" Kara screamed,and she ran at the witch.

Hachiro shouted her name,reached out to stop her, but only managed to snag her jacket before she broke freeof him.

The ghosts darted about,grasping at Yuki-Onna, but they were not working in concert, now, their effortsin disarray, and the witch drove them off one and two at a time. If the spiritsdid not work together, they would not be able to restrain her again.

As Kara rushed toward Yuki-Onna,she saw Mr. Yamato doing the same from the other side. The old monk was theonly living connection between the principal and his dead father. Mr. Yamatohad deep respect and love for Kubo, and it showed on his face as he reached outtoward the Woman in White. Kara saw his hands take up fistfuls of the materialof Yuki-Onna's kimono and for a second it looked like he might get a grip onher, but then the fabric turned to snow.

Kara tried to grab the witch buther hands, too, passed right through, plunging instead into icy snow and air socold that she screamed in pain. But when she tried to pull her hands away, shecould not. They were freezing in place, inside Yuki-Onna.

The witch tossed Kubo away, theold monk little more than skin and bones where he landed in the snow. ThenYuki-Onna grabbed Mr. Yamato by the hair and turned to stare down at Kara, thewitch's black, bottomless eyes locked on hers.

"The monk's power is gone,"the Woman in White said with a bloodstained grin. "I can see you now."

The ghosts tore at Yuki-Onna'sface and hair and kimono. They existed in this world and the next, likeYuki-Onna, and so they could touch her. But Kara could not. Hachiro and Mihowere behind her now, trying to pull her away. Miss Aritomo and Ren were doingthe same with Mr. Yamato. Ume knelt in the snow by Kubo's still, unmoving bodyand wept, while Mai and Wakana screamed to the spirits of their dead loved onesto do something.

Then, Kara could move her hands.She could barely feel them, but she could move them.