Thomas Randall - Spirits of the Noh

Hachiro stared at her. “You’re from Boston. Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be telling me?”

It was Kara’s turn to shrug. “I don’t care about baseball. You do.”

He couldn’t deny it, especially not with the Boston Red Sox cap perched firmly on his head. Hachiro seemed to think it over a moment, but then he warmed to the subject.

“They’re in a slump, actually. But that happens every year after the All-Star break. People lose faith in them, and then they come back. If we’re lucky, they don’t let it all fall apart in the end.”

Kara laughed. “Choke,” she said in English.

“What?”

“In English, we would say we hope they don’t ‘choke.’” Then she repeated the word in Japanese.

Hachiro nodded. “Choke.”

“There you go,” she said, reverting to Japanese. “Now you’re ready to live in Boston.”

His smile vanished, confusing her a moment before she realized where her words had led his thoughts. Kara would go back to Boston eventually. Without him. That knowledge hung over them always.

Her cell phone jangled. Saved by the bell, she thought as she slid it open. Sakura was calling.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?”

Kara glanced around. “Exactly where we agreed. More or less.”

The day they had gone to the beach together, they had sat on the seaside of Ama-no-Hashidate. Today, they needed to be on the bay side so they would be able to see the lanterns and the fireworks after it got dark, and they had decided to meet at a halfway point along the sandbar.

“No, you’re not. We’re here.”

Kara glanced around. “They’re here,” she said in response to Hachiro’s curious look, and he started to glance about as well. Both of them stood up, Kara turning in a circle, scanning the beach. A sea of faces looked back.

“I don’t see you,” she started. But then she caught a glimmer of bronze in the sun. “Oh, wait. Ren’s hair!”

Smiling, she waved, and a few seconds later, Miho, Sakura, and Ren weaved their way through the crowd and began to make camp with them. Towels and mats were spread out, Miho hid under the umbrella Hachiro had already set up, and Ren opened a greasy paper bag and pulled out a wooden stick skewered with a fried piece of unidentifiable fish. He grinned happily.

Sakura laid down on her belly, feet poking up, legs crossed at the ankles. Kara thought she looked beautiful, a modern, post-Goth version of the classic 1950s beach bunny. If only she would smile.

But there was little chance of that.

“Okay, we’re all here,” Sakura said, glancing at Miho. Then she focused on Kara. “What do we do now?”

Kara took a breath, preparing to speak. Why were they all looking at her? How had she become the one who made decisions like this? She didn’t know the answer, but it was obvious that they all needed a purpose-something to make them feel like they were doing something, instead of just waiting for the darkness to swallow them-and if she had to give them that purpose, she would.

“Step one went smoothly, as far as I can tell,” she said.

Miho nodded. “I think the police believed me.”

“Of course they believed you. It isn’t like you were pretending to be terrified,” Ren said.

Miho gave him a glance that was part grateful and part bemused. All of the awkwardness she had once displayed around him was gone now that she knew he was gay. But the moment Miho realized that the others were looking at her, she shot a blank look at Kara as if to urge her to continue.

“There isn’t much more to say about step one, really,” Kara said, shrugging one shoulder. “My father got Yamato-sensei worried enough to bring the police in. They’re not going to say it officially, but my dad tells me the police are taking the possibility of abduction more seriously in the cases of Daisuke and Wakana.”

“They talked to everyone from Noh club this morning,” Miho confirmed.

“Not just from the club,” Ren added, glancing at Sakura. “They talked to everyone who’s been volunteering, too.”

Kara nodded. She knew this already. Sakura had hated every minute of it. After the way they had handled her sister’s murder, she had thought them a bunch of idiots, but when they had interrogated her after Chouku and Jiro had died back in April, Sakura had come to despise the police.

Hachiro threw up his hands, smiling, apparently sensing the tension and wanting to move on. “So, step two?”

“Step two,” Kara agreed. “We turn into bodyguards.”

She studied her friends, normally so open and trusting and-the attitude Sakura adopted notwithstanding-happy, and she hated to see the shadow of Kyuketsuki’s curse hanging over them.

“It’s a big job,” Ren said.

“We can handle it,” Miho piped up from under the umbrella.

Kara smiled at her. “Yeah. We can. At least while everyone’s at school.”

“What do you mean?” Sakura asked.

“Well, it’s not as if we can follow anyone home, so after the commuters go home, we only have to worry about the members of the Noh club who live in the dorm,” Kara explained. “Miho can keep in touch with the others by e-mail.”

“We can’t protect them all,” Sakura said.

“We might not be able to protect them at all,” Hachiro replied. He reached out for Kara’s hand, lending her his strength and support. “But we’re the only ones who know what’s really going on. We have to do what we can.”

“Without getting ourselves killed,” Miho whispered.

Ren sighed. “That would be nice.”

The taiko drums began again, startling them all. Kara hadn’t even noticed that they had stopped. Her mind had been elsewhere.

“All right,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Enough of that for now. Food and fireworks today. Let’s ‘eat, drink, and be merry.’”

She didn’t bother to finish that old saying.

For tomorrow we may die.

M ai had always loved the Toro Nagashi Festival, and today had been the perfect day for it, hot and breezy. The beach on Ama-no-Hashidate had come alive with people. Really, she thought, it was the people who had come alive. Even the normally sedate adults had seemed to laugh more, and swim more, and play more. She’d seen mothers and fathers tossing brightly colored beach balls to their toddlers and older couples splashing in the shallows. Faces that were usually buttoned up and serious had discovered their smiles, as if everyone over thirty had sipped one glass of wine too many before coming down to watch the fireworks. It should have made her happy to see them.

And perhaps it would have, if she had been able to stop thinking about Daisuke and Wakana, or if her soccer club friends had allowed their mouths to fall silent for just five minutes. Was it so much to ask? Mai had never been the most talkative among them, but it wasn’t just the talking that bothered her. They gossiped and complained, and when they weren’t doing either of those things, they talked about shopping and clothes and boys, and other things of little real consequence.

I miss you, Ume, she thought.

An elbow nudged her. Mai had been sitting on the sand, knees drawn up to her chest, watching the lanterns float out on the water. Seven o’clock had come and gone and the day had begun to slip away. Dusk spread its wings across the sky. The paper lanterns were beautiful in the twilight, the lights burning within them brighter and brighter as twilight deepened.

The nudge came again. She turned and looked at Emi, who sat beside her wearing a mischievous grin. The square glasses perched on her nose made her look far more intelligent than she had ever managed to be.

“Wouldn’t you like to trade places with her?” Emi said.