Pressing business summons Tarquin’s father back to Tokyo. The head miko, Machika-obaasan, is alarmed when she hears him making plans to leave to return to the city. “But we have not finished yet,” she protests. “Tarquin-kun has been doing very well since arriving here, and I do not think it will be in his interest to return to Tokyo, where his health may take another turn for the worst.”
Tarquin’s father pauses. He does not want his son’s unusual sickness to return, for doctors to worry and prod and run tests and find nothing wrong. Here in Yagen Valley, Tarquin has continued to steadily improve. Surrounded by the adoration of the other mikos, he seems happier here than he has ever been in Tokyo or in Applegate.
In the end, Tarquin’s father appeals to Callie. “I know that this is an imposition on you, but would it be possible for you to stay with Tarquin for the next few days? There’s a business merger I need to oversee, and I’ll return as soon as that’s finished.”
Much to his surprise, Callie is amendable to the idea, assuring him that he would not be forcing her to do something that she is already set on doing. “I like it here,” she says, a bright smile on her face even as her stomach churns over what the next few days might bring, “and it’s such a nice change from the city. I’d be glad to stay here with Tark.”
“Thank you,” the man says with a faint smile. He looks around the shrine, perhaps realizing for the first time how little he knew of his wife and how little he knows his son. “Take good care of him,” he says unexpectedly, a strange note entering his voice. “I never seem quite able to, myself.”
“That’s not true, Uncle Doug,” Callie says, startled.
“Not in the way I should have, perhaps.” He takes another glance at the room. “I didn’t really know Yoko, did I? I wish she’d trusted me enough to tell me about this part of her life.”
“Dad?” Tarquin has stepped into the room. “You’re going back to Tokyo?”
His father nods. “Don’t get Callie in any trouble.”
Tarquin rolls his eyes. “Yeah, ’cause that’s all I’m usually good for.”
“No,” his father says quietly but with unusual firmness. “I don’t always say it, but I’ve always been proud of you.”
The words throw Tarquin off guard. His face is a mosaic of expressions: surprise, gratification, embarrassment. “Sure, Dad,” he says awkwardly, though the grin on his face is genuine enough. He gives his father a quick hug. “Don’t be getting yourself conned by those Japanese businessmen in Tokyo,” he says, and both his father and Callie laugh.
Finally the man leaves, if still a little disquieted by the uneasy feeling there is something here that he is missing.
The obaasan is in good spirits. “This will give us all the time we need to finish the ritual,” she exhorts after Tarquin’s father has gone. She is optimistic for a reason, for she believes this ritual will succeed, unlike others that have gone wrong before.
Kagura takes Callie aside some time later. “This is how the seals were made,” she explains, selecting one of the dolls—the same doll Callie had seen her use by the Jizo shrine in Mutsu. She pulls the kimono sleeve up, and Callie is stunned to discover that it bears the same inked tattoos as on Tarquin’s skin.
“Every one of the dolls you see here has been hand inked by us.” Kagura turns the doll over and lifts the kimono over its back. Like Tarquin’s, more of the tattoos dot its sides and back. “To break this seal one must hate.” She touches the first of the seals on the doll’s back, then the other. “And to break this seal, one must respect. To break the seals on the left and right wrists, one must know fear and friendship. To break the seals across the chest, one must know love.
“On the dolls these are merely symbolic; on humans, much less so. Every day we take the dolls out and inspect them. If we see any one of these seals growing faint, we know that they have been compromised, and we perform another ritual to reinforce them or transfer them to another.”
“Can’t you do the same for Tarquin?” Callie asks, but the miko shakes her head.
“Human sacrifices are different. Dolls have always been sterile and unchanging things, but humans are not made the same way. To perform a repurification on a human sacrifice might harm more than it can repair. I have seen the seals on Tarquin-kun. I know that four of the five seals have faded. When the last seal crumbles, the poison inside him will be freed. So much blood has already been spilled for this that we cannot wait to allow her to seek more.”
“Blood?” Callie feels sick.
“To break each of the seals, another kind of sacrifice is required. The blood of people slaughtered must be placed against the seals to weaken them, and with each break she becomes more powerful. Whenever Tarquin feels frightened or angry, the malevolence inside him is at her strongest and can even control his body to some extent. What is the matter, Callie-san?”
“It’s nothing,” Callie says hurriedly, her heart pounding as her hand drifts once more to trace at the unseemly scar on her finger, a permanent mark of her very own seal.
“What’s this?” Tarquin enters the room, curious. The miko shows him the doll, and he winces.
“Would you like to hold it, Tarquin-kun?”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous for me?” He speaks in moderately broken Japanese, one of his many growing attempts to practice the language.
“The seals are in place. It will cause no harm, that much I can promise.”
Tarquin takes the doll, holding it by the hem of its kimono so it dangles in the air before him. “This is kinda creepy, Kagura-san. Why are its eyes so black? Most of the other dolls’ eyes don’t have any color in them.”
“It is because this one is already possessed by a spirit. It is the spirit’s eyes that you see, looking out at the world.”
Tarquin nearly drops the doll. Hastily, he shoves it back into the miko’s arms. He is trembling a little. “This is why boys don’t play with dolls. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and freak out in the next room.”
A day after Tarquin’s father leaves, there is an unexpected development. Voices call out from somewhere in the woods, and one of the mikos heads out to greet the new visitors. “It is a possession,” she reports once she returns, and her words set the other mikos off in a tizzy of activity. The obaasan becomes businesslike, barking out orders that the others scurry to perform. Unsure of how to assist, Callie and Tarquin sit and watch, fascinated.
Kagura heads out into the garden and returns bearing fresh clumps of sweetgrass and sage. Amaya moves from room to room, setting candles around the shrine in large, concentric circles, lighting each in turn. Incense is added to the small altar, and soon the air is filled with its sweet, smoky scent. The other miko, Saya, sprinkles rock salt everywhere before setting up ofuda, strips of paper bearing sutras, against the walls and shoji screens.
The obaasan takes one of the dolls from the glass display. With quick precision, she slits its body in half, emptying out the cotton balls stuffed inside it. She replaces these with grains of white rice, stuffing the doll before sewing it shut again with red thread. Next she brings out a large stone knife and begins cleaning it with hot, steaming water.
“We are ready,” she says, and the mikos view this as the signal to bring the possessed in.
It is a little boy, perhaps only seven years old. He is twitching uncontrollably as he is brought in by his worried parents and other concerned relatives. His eyes constantly roll into the back of his head, and his mouth spits horrible, snarling obscenities. Even Callie and Tarquin, who do not understand the words, shrink back at the venom bubbling from the froth of his lips.
“Lay him down on the floor,” the obaasan commands, and this is promptly carried out, though the boy now screams in agony. Each miko holds a limb in place to prevent him from sitting up or crawling away, as the obaasan dangles the doll above the boy’s head and chants in a long, sonorous tone.
Though the sun was shining only moments ago, a dark cloud quickly passes over the little shrine, over the whole of Yagen Valley. Something that sounds like thunder rumbles through the Chinsei shrine, and the boy’s howls grow louder. The boy’s parents, now looking very pale, clasp their hands together, mumbling prayers of their own.
For nearly half an hour, the boy twists and writhes in pain, alternating between uttering long frightful shrieks and cursing the obaasan in a deep, guttural voice that a seven-year-old should not possess. A small earthquake besets the building, earthenware rattling, the ground shifting and settling. The old woman is unmoved by these threats and continues her long litany until finally the boy begins to weaken. His arms and legs begin to tremble less, and his head rolls against the floor. Finally, he takes a long, deep breath, exhales noisily, and falls silent.
The obaasan keeps the doll hovering atop his face for several more minutes after the boy has fallen unconscious. She places it on the ground beside him and picks up the knife.
And just as suddenly, the boy sits up, knocking the knife from the miko’s grip. The young child’s face is twisted, almost a poor imitation of a human’s, little slits of teeth showing through an abruptly wide mouth. His eyes bulge, a bulbous black pair starting out from his head. With one loud, inhuman shriek, he rips himself free of the other mikos’ hold and bolts directly for Tarquin. The tattooed boy has little time to react, gaping open-mouthed as the possessed youth closes the remaining distance between them and leaps—
—only to hit an invisible barrier that sits between two of the dolls protecting the circle, knocking him backward. The mikos are on him immediately, still chanting, though the boy now seems to possess the strength of ten men. He manages to tear himself away from both Amaya and Saya, and is well on his way to pulling free from Kagura when his whole body suddenly jerks upward, stiffening before falling back lifelessly onto the floor. The obaasan has reclaimed the stone knife and, without hesitation, plunges it into the doll’s body. A sound much like a heavy slap reverberates around the room. From outside, Callie thinks she can hear a long wail of pain, louder than any the boy has made, before it stops abruptly in mid-scream.
A queer calm descends on Chinsei shrine. Even the birds do not sing.
“It is done,” the obaasan says wearily. Kagura gently mops at the now-sleeping boy’s face with the sage and sweetgrass leaves. “The spirit has left him. When he wakes, he will be just as he was before.”
The parents and relatives are effusive with their praise, offering the obaasan a few sacks of rice and vegetables, though the fear and awe do not quite leave their faces. It is meager payment for so violent an exorcism, but the mikos accept the offerings gratefully, with heartfelt thanks.
“And that is how a person is exorcised.” Kagura sighs once the visitors have left. Tarquin is staring with horror at the doll still draped on the floor, with the stone knife still stabbing through where its heart would have been. Its sightless eyes, once devoid of color, are now a deep, burning black. The other mikos are already busy, cleaning the floor with the rest of the sage and the sweet leaves.
“It is a part of the ritual,” Kagura tells him, as the obaasan picks the doll up and slowly twists the knife out from its chest. She waves it over the stalks of incense several times, murmuring all the while, before placing it inside a different glass case altogether, where other dolls with those same black eyes are kept. “The spirit is now trapped within the doll and shall be fully cleansed at Obon.”
“I gotta go through that, too, don’t I?” Tarquin asks suddenly. Perhaps in his mind’s eye he sees another ritual, one where he is strapped down on the floor, screaming and hurling vile imprecations. But his face is calm, as if he has already accepted this fate. “That’s how Obaasan is going to exorcise the ghost out from me.”
“If it comes down to it, will you agree?” The obaasan’s eyes are boring into his, a strange hush in her voice. Callie feels angry. It is too much to ask a young boy to accept such a horrible task so freely, and she opens her mouth to protest.
“It’s okay, Callie,” Tarquin says with a serenity that surprises her. “If this is what it takes to get her out, then I guess that’s what I have to do.”
“Brave boy,” the obaasan says softly, stroking his head with a smile. “Always, always you have been so brave. I promise that the ritual will be quick, and that you will not remember any of it, if this is of any consolation. Tomorrow is an auspicious date, the best day to perform the ritual. Do not worry, Tarquin-kun. It will be over soon enough.”
“I seriously doubt it,” Tarquin mutters to himself.
Dinner that night is a feast of flavor. To celebrate the successful exorcism, Kagura has cooked several more dishes than the shrine’s usual, simple fare—fragrant onigiri, balls of rice soaked in green tea, with umeboshi—salty and pickled plums—as filling. There is eggplant simmered in clear soup, green beans in sesame sauce, and burdock in sweet-and-sour dressing. The mood is festive.
“It is important to approach the next day with a good heart and better spirits,” Saya explains and laughs at the pun. Tarquin eats more than his fair share and shows little concern for what the next day may bring for him, instead laughing along with the others as the mikos tell jokes and recount funny experiences, for even living in the wilderness, there are still many stories to tell. When the meal is over, the mikos gather up the dishes, and Tarquin remains by the small porch, staring out into the world outside the shrine. His face is neither worried nor uneasy nor frightened, but curiously thoughtful.
“I could die tomorrow, couldn’t I?” he asks Callie, who sits with him. “Something could go wrong with the ritual, and I could die.”
“Don’t be silly, Tarquin,” Callie says, though her thoughts run along those same lines. “The obaasan knows what she’s doing.”
“It could happen. If it was going to be easy to get rid of her, they would have held that ritual for me days ago. Definitely before performing the ritual for that other boy.”
“Maybe they just needed more preparation.”
“I’m not afraid,” Tarquin says. “Isn’t that weird? But I’m not afraid anymore. I think it would be a relief to get rid of her, whatever happens. If anything goes wrong tomorrow, can you promise me something, Callie?”
“Nothing is going to go wrong, Tarquin.”
“Well, if it does, tell Dad I’m really sorry and that it’s not your fault I died. And it might not be so bad, anyway, dying.”
“You are not going to die. I will protect you every way I can. I promise you that much.”
Tarquin smiles up at her, though it is clear he does not believe Callie. “Whatever you say, cuz.”
“Do you think Okiku can beat her?” he asks again, much later. The light evening sky has deepened into twilight, and the only source of light in this darkness are the few candles the mikos have left for them, bobbing up and down and sending shadows across one wall.
“Beat the woman in black?”
“Kagura-san says the longer someone exists as a spirit, the more powerful they can be. Okiku’s ghost has been here for hundreds of years, but the other ghost hasn’t. Doesn’t that technically make her the one to root for?”
“I think Okiku would have defeated her long before we came here if that was the case. Kagura told me about it. You know that sometimes some gods have more power over some things? Like river gods can only control water, and earth gods can only control earth?”
“If you believe in gods, sure. I guess there’s a certain kind of logic to that.”
“Well, she thinks that maybe Okiku only has power over abused children, or children in danger, or people who died in the same way she did. Or power over people who murder kids. But not over anything else.”
“I guess that kind of makes sense, too. About as much sense as you can get hypothesizing about comparative natural laws that ghosts might follow.”
“Like lightbulbs,” Callie says with sudden understanding. “And newspaper stacks.”
“Lightbulbs?”
“It’s nothing important. Something just occurred to me.” Callie glances out at the sky. “Maybe it’s time to turn in for the night. It’s getting pretty late.”
“Callie? I was lying. I’m a little scared. But tell anyone else, and I’m gonna deny it and laugh all masculine-like.”
“So am I.” Callie squeezes his cold hand. Something tells her to look up.
I stand on the ceiling, watching them. Tarquin, too, sees me, but neither show any fear. Oddly enough, he smiles at me and the smile lights up his whole face. “Right, Okiku?”
Tentatively, I smile back.
Callie is less welcoming. Her eyes follow my movements as I drift across the room, disappearing out the window and into the night.