Thomas Randall - Spirits of the Noh

Unless, of course, something bad happened to them. With runaways, it was always a risk. Walking home in the fading heat of the August day, Kara shuddered a little, but didn’t allow herself to consider what other dangers the runaways might face in Miyazu City. A chill rippled up her spine but she ignored it, and told herself she had nothing to be afraid of.

Still, she shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other and picked up her pace, and in another minute she reached her front door. In that afternoon time of long shadows, with evening not far off, the windows seemed very dark. It would be a little while yet before her father came home, and Kara felt a tightness in her chest as she let herself in, turned on a lamp in spite of the soft light coming through the windows, and locked the door behind her.

For a moment, she considered making dinner, but there were no messages on the answering machine, and her father hadn’t called her cell phone to say he would be late. If he hadn’t asked, she wasn’t about to volunteer. Instead, she retreated to her bedroom, and her guitar.

As she picked out the first few chords of a song, the tension she’d been feeling since her father had woken her that morning began to ease away at last. Her muscles relaxed, and soon she lost herself in the song, opening her mouth to sing.

Halfway through, she heard the front door open and her fingers faltered on the strings, making a discordant jangle that she cut off with the flat of her hand. The rush of anger that came up from within felt unexpected, but a moment later she realized she should not have been surprised. Amid the anxiety about Kyuketsuki’s curse and the numb shock that came with lying to the principal’s face, the real source of her anger had been simmering since the night before.

A soft knock came at her bedroom door. Last night, she hadn’t answered. Now she sat up, rigid on the edge of her bed.

“Come in.”

Her father opened the door and poked his head in. He looked wiped out, even a little pale.

“Hey,” he said. “You doing all right?”

Kara held the guitar tightly, silenced. “Fine.”

“You ready for dinner?”

“I’m not very hungry, actually.”

That stopped him. He frowned, apparently trying to sort out what to say next. “That song sounded really pretty. Why did you stop?”

Kara could not think of a reply, so instead she let her fingers begin to drift over the guitar’s strings again, picking up the song roughly where she left off, but she didn’t sing. She hung her head, tuning him out and the song in.

“I know we need to talk,” her father said, stepping farther into the room. And why the hell was he doing that, when she’d made it so obvious that she wanted him to leave? “I figured it could wait until dinner, but maybe it can’t.”

Kara looked up at him. “Can’t what?”

“Wait.”

She kept playing, the haunting tune soft, lyrics in her mind if not on her lips. She hated girls who got all drama queen over something minor like this, but couldn’t help herself.

It isn’t minor, she told herself.

“Kara,” her father said. “Look, you need to talk to me. Nobody in the world knows you like I do. This morning, in Yamato-sensei’s office

… I know you were hiding something. You weren’t telling him everything, and that scares me. Not to mention it puts me in a situation that could get really awkward. I’m not saying you’ve done anything wrong, except for not telling him whatever it is you know-”

Her hands fumbled a discordant note and she turned to stare at him.

“Are you kidding me, Dad? Seriously?” Kara shook her head. “You could have prepared me better for this morning. You could have warned me. When we were in there, you could’ve taken my goddamn side! I haven’t done anything wrong, not that you even care about that, and you just let him interrogate me like that?”

Her father stared at her like she was a stranger. He cocked his head.

“I did take your side, if you recall. And Yamato-sensei called me on it. I don’t know what this is really about, Kara, but you can’t distract me from the fact that you’re hiding something by lashing out.”

Kara stood up, swung her guitar around to hang across her back from its strap, and turned to face him.

“Oh, I’m hiding something? I guess that means I’m the one who promised we’d start over together, that we’d be a team. Wait, no, I don’t think that was me after all. Just like it isn’t me telling the first woman to come along that he’s in love with her, but not letting his daughter in on that little detail. So much for the team supreme!”

Her father flinched. “That’s what this is about?”

Kara grabbed her keys and cell phone off her bureau, stalked toward him, and faced off with her father at the threshold to her room.

“Remember what you said, Dad? You said we were doing this for Mom as much as we were for us.” She gritted her teeth to keep from crying, hating the uncontrollable emotions surging up inside her but unable to put the brakes on. “So much for that!”

She started toward him and her father stepped aside, then seemed to think better of it and pursued her down the short hall and across the living room toward the front door.

“Kara, stop. You’re not going anywhere,” he said, voice stern.

At the door she turned, guitar still hanging across her back. “I need some me time, Dad. But you’re all about the me time lately, so I’m sure you understand. I’m going to go find a quiet place to sit and play my guitar.”

“I’m not sure it’s safe,” he said. “I don’t want you out after dark, Kara. Those kids-”

“It’s not dark yet,” she retorted, though night would not be far off. “Besides, they’re runaways, remember? And I’m not running away,” she said, voice breaking. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She slammed the door on her way out.

A t the rear of the dormitory, on the first floor, the students’ dining room faced the narrow strip of lawn and the deep woods beyond. The boarding students at Monju-no-Chie school ate breakfast and dinner-and picked up their bento boxes for lunch-in this room, and some commuting students had special meal plans that allowed them to eat there as well if they were arriving early for school or leaving late for home.

During the day, the tall windows provided a pretty, though limited, view, and even now at dusk, the well-maintained grounds and shadowed woods had an air of quiet peace. But when the night arrived in full, the windows would turn black. Very little moonlight made it into the gap between the rear of the dorm and the thick pines behind it. Once, it wouldn’t have bothered Miho at all. But now she didn’t like to be down here after dark. Not by herself.

Fortunately, she wasn’t alone.

“It’s very sweet of you to help me like this,” she said without looking up from her work. Her hand had to remain absolutely steady as she painted the eyes of one of the masks for the Noh play.

“I’m happy to help,” Ren replied. “This is much more fun than homework.”

Miho smiled to herself as she finished the upper line of an eye. Being around Ren made her feel flush with embarrassment. Not that she had anything to be embarrassed about. As far as he knew, Miho only paid attention to American boys-of which there were precisely zero at their school-so he couldn’t possibly know she had a crush on him, unless Kara or Sakura had told him, and she knew they hadn’t.

The embarrassment came from being so near him, and wanting to kiss him, which made her feel even more shy and awkward than usual. Ren always seemed so relaxed around her, so himself, and she envied that. He was funny and charming, didn’t care what anyone else thought, and, yes, it didn’t hurt that he was beautiful.