Thomas Randall - The Waking

With a deep breath, he inhaled the aroma of the cherry blossoms. The scent was so strong it had gotten into his clothes, into the walls of the room itself.

He frowned. The odor was so overwhelming that it seemed weird. The nearest cherry trees were in a small park across the street, and there weren’t even that many of them. Akane had loved the smell of cherry blossoms.

The light flickered again, but he glanced at the TV and realized it wasn’t the odd game show that had caused it. Something had passed in front of the television.

Jiro looked around the room, confused. He was alone. It had to be just a trick of the light. With a shake of his head, he focused on the TV again and laughed at the absurdity there, as three women tried to drink some noxious brew. The one to drink it the fastest without vomiting would win. He began to feel queasy himself and changed the channel, searching for a movie or something else to occupy his mind. He felt tired but wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet. Tomorrow was Sunday, after all, and tonight he could stay up as late as he liked.

Outside his window, a cat yowled.

Jiro shuddered at the sound, then laughed at himself, startled by a cat. Still, when the cat’s mournful cry came again, he felt a prickle of unease move up the back of his neck.

And then it let out a terrible cry, as though something had attacked it, and Jiro scrambled to his feet. His heart raced, pounding in his ears, and he stared at the open windows, waiting for the sound to come again. What had caused that cry, and why was the cat silent now?

He listened, but no other sound came… until he heard the tiniest mewling noise, like a newborn kitten or the sigh of something dying. Jiro didn’t even like cats, but he had to respond. If the cat had been hurt, he wouldn’t just leave it out there.

He started for the window but faltered at the sight of the dark silhouette that appeared on the other side, outlined in moonlight. Though he could not make out her face in the dark, the way the girl’s hair fell on her shoulders and the way she cocked her head, the curve of her body… he knew her.

A breeze blew in through the window, her hair dancing around her face, and the scent of cherry blossoms grew even stronger. She beckoned to him and he went to her, feeling as though he must be dreaming.

They stood face-to-face in the light of the moon and the blue flickering from his television, he inside the room and she beyond the open window. She reached in to touch him and Jiro closed his eyes, weak with relief.

Her fingers closed on his throat, and relief blossomed into terror.

When she dragged him through the window, he did not even have the breath to scream.

S unday morning brought a sun shower, the sort of thing that seemed only to happen in spring. Light rain fell outside Kara’s window, beading up on the flowers that were blooming around the house, but the sun shone down in spite of the rain and the colors of the flowers were vivid. When, in mid-morning, the rain stopped, she was almost sorry.

She spent the morning with her father, cleaning up around the house and talking about the week they’d both had. He seemed glad that she’d made friends already, just as she knew he would be.

“What about you, Dad?” she asked while they were making lunch. “You’ve been thinking about this adventure longer than I have. Is it what you were hoping for?”

He took the question more seriously than she expected, brow furrowed in thought. Then, slowly, he nodded.

“So far, so good. It’s certainly a big adjustment, and we don’t have as much time together-”

“We’re together all day!”

He grinned. “You know what I mean. With the long school hours, we’re just busier.”

“I’ll try to ask more questions in your classes,” Kara said.

Her father shook his head as he went to stir the chicken and vegetables they’d chopped into a frying pan. “We’ll be fine. It’s not just my adventure, Kara. It’s ours. All of it.”

She leaned against the counter. “Then you won’t mind if I go over to school after lunch? I have a study date with Sakura and Miho.”

With a fork, he split a piece of chicken in the pan to make sure it was cooked through, then looked up at her. “Like your father’s ever gonna stop you from studying. Or from checking out what it’s like to live in the dormitory. Go and have fun. Will you be home for dinner?”

“Definitely.”

The first thing Kara saw when Sakura opened the door to her dorm room were the masks. There were three of them hanging on the far wall, to the left of the window, lined up one above the next like a totem pole. The top and middle masks were ugly, monstrous things, but the bottom one was the pretty, elegant face of a woman.

“Wow.”

Miho looked up from the book she was reading. “English? You must like them.” She smiled and sat up on her bed.

“They’re amazing,” Kara said. “Noh masks?”

“Yes!” Miho beamed.

“She collects them,” Sakura explained as she closed the door. “Fortunately, she leaves most of them at home.”

Kara admired the masks as Miho stood and pointed to them each in turn.

“The top one is Karura, a great bird of legend, who flies in four heavens and eats dragons,” Miho explained, and now Kara saw that the green-painted mask did have a beak and a red crest so that it looked vaguely like a bird. “Next is Daikijin, Great Devil God, who protects festivals and ceremonies from evil spirits.”

Kara blinked. The white and silver mask had been crafted with such care that its beauty was undeniable. But with its horns and shaggy mane and the sharp fangs in its wide-stretched, blood-red mouth, it was also ugly and frightening.

“It looks like an evil spirit,” she said.

Miho frowned in disapproval. “You should not judge only by appearance.”

Kara gave her a small shrug. “Of course. I meant no offense.”

Sakura laughed. “Don’t let her get to you. She loves those ugly things too much.”

Miho shot Sakura an unpleasant look and then smiled and gave them a small shrug. “I can’t help it.”

“What about the bottom one? The woman?” Kara asked.

“That is Zoh-onna. She is not a goddess or spirit, only a woman of purity and serenity,” Miho said.

Sakura sat on a cushion in the floor. “I always ask if there’s one that is the opposite of those qualities. I’d like to wear that one.”

The girls laughed. They were both in T-shirts and pajama bottoms, and seeing them like that gave Kara a relaxed, familiar feeling. She’d worn black jeans and a green hooded sweater and felt comfortable enough, but Sakura’s silky-looking red pajamas and the cotton, very American-looking bottoms Miho had on-white and covered with the red and yellow S-crest that Superman wore on his chest-made her wish she’d worn pajamas as well.

Kara surveyed the rest of the dormitory room. There wasn’t much more to see. The beds were wooden boxes with soft futon mattresses that unrolled for sleeping. At first she thought there were straw tatami mats on the floor but then realized the whole floor was tatami. There were a couple of big zabuton cushions on the floor. The two desks were tiny, and a slender laptop sat open atop one of them. There were bamboo sliding doors that must have been closets and two bookcases. One held mostly school books, but the shelves of the other were lined with manga digests.

“I can guess whose bookcase that is,” Kara said, pointing to the manga.

“I’ll let you borrow some,” Sakura replied.

Miho crossed her arms. “Why not show her your art?”

Sakura’s smile evaporated and, for the first time since Kara had met her, she shifted and glanced around awkwardly, unsure of herself.