THE WORLD WAS moving back and forth gently, and Taro thought, I’m back on that ship. I knocked my head and imagined everything after that.
I’m not haunted after all!
Then he opened his eyes and the abbot was before him, sitting cross-legged in front of him on the floor of the training hall, and his own hands in his lap were so thin they were like the hands of birds. It was all real, and he was still dying. Hayao stood beside the abbot. He looked at Taro with eyes full of infinite sadness.
‘Is that what I looked like?’ the samurai asked the abbot.
‘Yes,’ said the abbot. ‘But you had Taro to save you. He has no one. I fear for him.’
‘Can’t you do anything? Give him spells. . . sutras. . .’
‘I have tried everything, when he was sleeping. I have given him the charms. I have read him the texts. Nothing has helped. With you, he saw your ghost. None of us can see his.’
‘He mustn’t die,’ said Hayao. ‘He’s. . . I don’t know. He’s necessary, I think.’ This was an odd thing for Hayao to say, and Taro wondered if he was hallucinating, if this was all a dream.
‘I agree,’ said the abbot. ‘But I don’t know what I can do.’
‘Help. . . me,’ said Taro softly, and he was shocked by how weak his voice was.
The abbot looked at him, startled. ‘You hear us?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Taro.
‘Hiro and your other friend tell me you see your mother,’ said the abbot.
Taro managed a nod. The whole world was grey and colourless, and it was an effort just to keep his eyes open. He was not aware of how he had come to be on Mount Hiei. He had a vague memory of being carried by Hiro.
‘Hmm,’ said the abbot pensively. ‘Does she grow more solid?’
Taro thought. Yes, it seemed to him that the light no longer shone through her when she appeared to him. ‘I. . . think so,’ he said.
The abbot frowned. ‘And you are weak. I can see that for myself.’
Taro croaked a ‘yes’.
The abbot sighed. ‘This gaki will kill you, if we don’t do something.’
‘I know,’ said Taro. ‘I want. . . go to hell.’
‘I’m sorry?’ said the abbot.
‘My mother. . . she speaks. But I can’t understand.’
‘She is speaking in the language of the dead.’
Taro nodded – the movement caused his neck to ache, and he wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, but he knew it was important to get the abbot’s help.
‘Need. . . to know. . . what she’s saying.’
The abbot’s face fell. ‘It’s impossible. Only the dead know that language.’
‘Send me. . . to hell.’
The abbot blanched. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ he said.
Taro sat up, gasping with the pain of straining his muscles. His mother was standing behind the abbot – she was always there now – and she was nodding at him, encouraging, and he knew this was what he had to do.
‘Mokuren. . . went to hell,’ he said. ‘I need. . . also. Tell me how he did it.’
The abbot was staring at him in horror. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Here at the monastery, it’s said that Mokuren sat on the mountainside, and didn’t eat or drink for weeks. You want to know how he went to hell, Taro? He died.’
‘Died?’
‘The monks said he stopped breathing. They began to prepare him for his funeral, but then he opened his eyes again. And he said that he had been to hell, and had spoken with his mother.’
‘Good,’ said Taro. ‘Then I. . . will die. . . too.’