Father Mateo gave Hiro a knowing look. “Just you, you say.” The priest stepped into his room and beckoned. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me where you’ve been the last few hours?” He frowned. “What’s on your clothes?”
“Three years ago, I promised I would not lie to you,” Hiro said. “It is better you don’t know about my clothes.”
The Jesuit frowned but didn’t press the issue.
“As for the other half of your question, Basho has made a miraculous reappearance.” Hiro explained about his conversation with the missing merchant, though he left out all the details of his journey there and back.
Father Mateo shook his head at the thought of Suke tackling Yoshiko. He frowned when Hiro mentioned Kaoru’s words about angry ghosts.
“Phantoms don’t exist,” the Jesuit said. “Not in the sense you mention, anyway.”
“I agree,” Hiro said.
“You do?” Father Mateo looked surprised. “I thought all Japanese believed in ghosts.”
“Most do,” Hiro said, “but I do not. If vengeful ghosts existed, I’d have seen them.”
Father Mateo slid the shoji closed. “What makes you say so?”
Hiro didn’t answer.
The Jesuit gave him a searching look. “Do all shinobi think this way?”
“My training is not the reason.” Hiro didn’t intend to say more, but found himself continuing. “When I was nine years old, I spent a night with a murdered man.”
“You what?” Father Mateo ran a hand through his hair, too startled to prevent the nervous gesture. “What kind of parent leaves a child alone with a corpse?”
“My parents had nothing to do with it.” Hiro knelt, facing the priest. He had never told the tale but felt the Jesuit should hear it. “In fact, I doubt they even know it happened.”
Father Mateo knelt and waited for Hiro to continue.
“The spring I turned nine,” Hiro said, “a spy infiltrated the Iga ryu. My elder brother uncovered the truth, and my father interrogated the spy until he confessed his mission. It took four days, despite my father’s excellent skills at persuading men to talk.
“The enemy died of his wounds within a day of his confession. Hanzo ordered the body moved to an empty, defiled storehouse in the woods about a mile from the ryu.”
“They kept the body?” Father Mateo asked.
Hiro nodded. “Iga doesn’t miss a chance to make a point. Hanzo wanted the body stored until the stiffness that follows death had ended. After that, he planned to return the body to the enemy’s lord—in several pieces.”
“That’s barbaric,” the Jesuit said.
Hiro raised an eyebrow. “Civilized people would nail him to a cross?”
Father Mateo pressed his lips together.
Hiro stifled a smile and continued, “That morning, while exploring in the woods, I saw a group of older boys on the path that led to the storehouse. The rules forbid our going there, but some boys do not care so much for rules. I followed at a distance.”
Hiro paused. “I did not think they would notice me.”
“But they did,” the Jesuit said.
“Not right away,” Hiro answered. “They dared each other to enter the storehouse and look at the dead man’s corpse. I moved too close, drawn by curiosity and overinflated pride in my own skills. The oldest boy saw me and called me forward. He dared me to enter the storehouse too. Refusing would brand me a coward, so I did it.”
“You were nine.” Father Mateo shook his head. “No one would call you a coward.”
“You are not shinobi,” Hiro said. “You cannot understand.”
The Jesuit leaned back, lips tight with disapproval but unwilling to start an argument. “They locked you in with the body, didn’t they?”
Hiro hadn’t expected the priest to guess. “Correct. They did.”
“No one noticed you missing?” Father Mateo asked. “No one heard your cries for help?”
“I did not call for help.” Hiro considered the Jesuit’s furrowed brow and downcast eyes. “I did not tell this tale to cause you sorrow—and even less to earn your pity. I speak because it proves a vital point about the dead.”
Father Mateo folded his hands in his lap, as if to demonstrate a willingness to listen without any further questions.
“At first,” Hiro said, “the terror felt like fishbones in my throat. I breathed too fast, grew dizzy, and sat down on the wooden floor. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed little slivers of light coming in through cracks in the storehouse walls. I saw the spy’s defiled body, barely out of reach across the floor.
“I thought I saw the body move. I thought I heard him breathe. I pushed my back against the wall, too terrified to move or make a sound.
“I sat that way for many hours. Evening came, and darkness, and I passed the night in silent terror, listening for the vengeful ghost I knew would come for me. I heard a rustling noise and screamed—just once—when a rat ran across my toes. But it was only a rat. No ghost appeared. The body did not move.
“By morning, terror left me. As the cracks around the door grew gray with dawn, I realized I need not fear the dead. My father tortured that spy to death. If a man could return as a ghost, to take revenge, he would have done so.
“I do not know where the life inside a man may go when the body dies. But the corpse of a man is just like that of a fish, or a bird, or a dog. It is dead, and only dead, and nothing more.”
After a pause Hiro added, “Since the dead cannot return, no man can persuade a ghost to do his bidding, which means Kaoru had some other plan to force the sale of Ginjiro’s brewery.”
“Perhaps some kind of trick?” Father Mateo asked. “A trick that went wrong and killed Chikao?”
“I don’t know,” Hiro said, “but I know who does.”
The Jesuit nodded. “Kaoru.”
“No,” Hiro said, “Mina, Chikao’s wife. She mentioned a need to atone for her husband’s wrongful acts but wouldn’t give details.”
“That could refer to anything,” Father Mateo said. “Husbands and wives have many private conflicts.”
“True,” Hiro said, “but Mina’s words suggested something serious, and judges of the afterlife don’t bother much with trifles. Men don’t endanger their souls by minor quarrels.”
“Don’t be so certain,” Father Mateo said. “Still, it can’t do any harm to try and find out what she knows.”