Thomas Randall - Spirits of the Noh

“We really don’t have any reason to think the curse has anything to do with this,” Miho said.

Ren gave a short bow. “Thank you. That is what I’ve been saying for the past hour.” He took Miho’s hand and, with a gallant, courtly flourish, bent to kiss it. “Your heart is gentle, fair lady, but logic wins the day.”

Miho blushed deeply. “All right, all right.” She glanced at Kara. “But I hope he really did run away. This is going to haunt me until I know for sure.”

Kara forced herself to smile. “Anyone up for noodles?” she said. “I’m starving.”

But what she would have said, if she weren’t worried about troubling Miho even more deeply, was, Me, too.

Mai stood in the shower, warm water sluicing down her body, pushing her fingers through her hair to rinse out the shampoo. She took a breath and placed the palms of her hands against the wall, letting the hot spray massage her shoulders, hoping it would ease the tight stress knots in her muscles. Normally she got up early and showered before school, like most of the other girls on her floor, but tonight she just needed to be out of her room and away from Wakana.

The girls had nothing in common. Mai hadn’t even spoken to Wakana prior to the school year beginning in April. But Wakana had been new to Monju-no-Chie school, transferring in as a second-year student, and Mai’s roommate had not returned, so they had been thrown in together. Mai had tried to make the most of it-she was still trying. She thought of herself as a good person, and it wasn’t as though Wakana had ever been anything but nice to her. They were just such opposites that they had nothing to talk about, and Wakana’s natural shyness would have made that difficult even if they had.

For the past twenty-four hours, though, Wakana had been insufferable. All the crying had gotten under Mai’s skin so much that she could barely stand to be in the same room with the girl-which was a problem, since they were roommates. Wakana had been talking about Daisuke nonstop since May. The two of them had met in Noh club and were apparently boyfriend and girlfriend, although they never really went out anywhere, so Mai had her doubts that they could be considered a couple. If Daisuke really liked Wakana, he would have taken her to dinner, or done something romantic with her. At least, that was what Mai had told Wakana, over and over.

Daisuke did like to hang around, though. He commuted from home to school, but every day he seemed to linger, quietly flirting with Wakana. As her roommate, Mai saw a lot of Daisuke as well, and against her better judgment-as much as it drove her crazy how much Wakana talked about him-she ended up liking the guy. He had a cute smile and a nice laugh and a self-effacing sense of humor that charmed Mai completely.

Now Daisuke was missing. Her roommate’s boyfriend. Ever since Mr. Sato and Mr. Yamato came to their room last night to ask if they had any idea where he might be, all Wakana had been able to do was cry, and Mai couldn’t listen to her anymore.

She stood in the shower, the water too hot now, the spray like tiny pinpricks, her skin almost scalding, but she didn’t turn it off. If she did, she would have to dry off and go back to her room and listen to Wakana cry. She wished she could stay in here until her roommate had cried herself to sleep. Mai especially did not want to go back into the room until she could stop her own tears, for she was crying for Daisuke as well.

You shouldn’t be. He’s not your boyfriend, she told herself. Mai knew that there wasn’t anything wrong with crying out of worry for a friend’s safety. But the problem was, she had started to think of Daisuke as more than a friend-her roommate’s boyfriend or not. And if she went back into their room with tears in her eyes, she would never be able to hide that from Wakana.

Mai didn’t want that. Acting like a bitch to that teacher’s pet gaijin girl, Kara Harper, was one thing. But hurting Wakana, the most harmless person in the world, would not sit right in her heart. The other soccer girls, the ones who had worshipped Ume and were now turning that worship to Mai herself, would never understand such thoughts. They were merciless, those girls, and the only reason Mai stepped up into the queen bitch role was to prevent any of them from doing so. She had taken enough crap from Ume.

But Wakana… all she ever did was read, and try hard to stay out of the way. It was difficult enough for her to deal with Daisuke just vanishing, or running away, if that was really what happened. Mai just wished she would stop crying. And she wished that she could pretend Ume had never told her the crazy stories about ghosts and demons or whatever those things were back in April.

Mai hadn’t really believed Ume then, and though Daisuke’s disappearance had freaked her out, she didn’t really believe her now. But it had been clear from the fervor in her eyes that Ume had believed, and she found that deeply unsettling.

“Stop,” she whispered to herself, the word lost in the hiss of the shower. She took another deep breath. “Just stop.”

The command seemed to work. She turned and let the hot water spray her face, eyes tightly shut. When she shut off the water, grabbed her towel, and ran the soft cloth over her features, her tears had ceased. Mai paused a second to make sure they wouldn’t return, and then finished drying herself off before stepping out of the shower.

Clad in her robe with a towel wrapped around her head, she peeked into the hall to make sure there weren’t any boys out there. This time of night, the two sides of the dorm were off-limits to the opposite sexes, but rules were made to be broken. When she saw that the coast was clear, she darted down the hall, carrying the small shower caddy where she kept her shampoo and body wash, her room key dangling from a hook there.

Mai gave the door a quick rap and tried the knob, but it didn’t turn. She frowned. When she’d gone to shower, she had left it unlocked so that she wouldn’t have to disturb Wakana, but the girl had actually shaken herself from her sobbing long enough to lock the door behind her?

And people think I’m a bitch, Mai thought.

With a sigh, she pushed her key into the lock. As she turned it, she heard a noise from inside the room-a kind of helpless, plaintive sound that was neither sob nor grunt, but something in between.

The door trembled, pressing slightly outward, and she felt a cool breeze come underneath it, sweeping past her feet. As the door resettled, she turned the key and pushed it open. She entered to discover one of the two windows wide open, as far as its frame would allow, which made no sense because the air-conditioning was humming along nicely. Another gust of wind came through the window as she went to close the door, snatching the knob from her damp hand and slamming it behind her, making her jump.

The dormitory rooms were small. Two beds, tatami mats, two tiny desks, a small futon-chair, built-in closets, and a mirror.

“Wakana?” Mai said, an odd feeling creeping up her spine.

It might have been possible for her roommate to fit into one of the closets, but only barely, and not without spilling clothes out onto the floor. And then there was the question: why? Besides, Mai could feel the emptiness of the room.

Wakana was gone.

Brow furrowing, Mai glanced at the door she had just come through. Wakana must have gone out, locking the door behind her, knowing Mai had a key. It was the only thing that made any sense.

She went to the window and leaned on the sill, looking out, head cocked and all of her senses wide open. Something wasn’t right. No, more than that. Many things were not right. Her heart began to beat a little faster and the skin prickled at the back of her neck. The sound she’d heard, that tiny yelp-she had not imagined it. Mai might persuade herself otherwise if she let herself, so she fixed it firmly in her memory, pinned it there, confirming for herself that it had been real. And now that she considered it, her nostrils flared as she detected the strangest aroma in the room and just outside the window. The smell was neither pleasant nor unpleasant-or, rather, it was a bit of both, like dying flowers or fruit just beginning to turn.