Keiichirō and Toramasa had nearly reached the street where the Mori household resided when they heard the scream. It took Keiichirō a moment to realise it wasn’t the playful squeals of children but a woman in a panic, crying that she had seen a demon.
‘Ndamoshitan! What’s going on?’ said Toramasa, looking around.
Keiichirō’s gaze snapped back towards the dirt road they’d just walked down. Sloped roofs flanked it with some windows aglow with lantern light. It all looked so ordinary that encountering a real yōkai seemed unlikely, although something had obviously terrified the woman. Perhaps it was ronin, masterless samurai who had come from the east to stir up mischief.
Toramasa put a hand to his sword and Keiichirō did the same, their feet in a fighting stance.
The woman, now sobbing, ran towards them with difficulty, holding her kimono skirt. Some strands of her midnight hair were loose, sticking to her face.
The friends recognised her and relaxed a little. Hirayama Aiko halted before them, a delicate, pale hand fluttering to her chest.
‘Hirayama-san. What’s wrong?’ asked Toramasa.
Other footsteps smacked the road as several men appeared, some with swords drawn, alerted by Aiko’s scream.
‘There’s a yōkai in the forest. I saw it!’ Aiko cried. She nodded towards the west, at the hill near the bamboo woods.
‘A yōkai?’ The men who’d just arrived sheathed their swords, exchanging dubious looks.
Toramasa looked at Keiichirō. Yōkai, spirit creatures who wandered the earth, were a source of scepticism to most, and Aiko was unhurt.
‘We should check,’ said Toramasa all the same. ‘Just in case.’
Aiko’s pained expression melted into relief. ‘Oh, thank you for your kindness, Mori-san.’ She bowed low.
‘I’ll come, too,’ said Taguchi Hanzō. ‘Lead the way, Aiko-chan.’ He was a square-jawed man with a thin moustache that reminded Keiichirō of a tiny, furry caterpillar. Their eyes locked and Taguchi’s face twisted in disgust.
Keiichirō stared until Taguchi lowered his gaze, and Keiichirō had to swallow the urge to laugh.
Hirayama Aiko led them to where she’d seen the monster, ignoring those she passed who were bringing in clothes or cooking dinner for the night, filling the air with the scent of fish and meat. Keiichirō ignored the longing in his empty stomach.
‘It had bright red hair, like fire,’ Aiko said, her voice thick. ‘And long claws. Blue legs. It was over there, near the old shrine.’
This didn’t sound like any yōkai Keiichirō had heard of. There were ittan-momen, white-sheet monsters, which tried to suffocate you if you stayed out too late, and utan, which lived in the walls of abandoned homes. But no one went near the shrine if they could help it. The elderly ladies in town said it was evil, and everyone believed them.
‘Over there?’ asked Taguchi as they took a path between the bamboo forest and a copse of trees. The sky was clear of clouds, the hill bathed in starlight as an owl hooted.
Aiko stopped at the edge of the bamboo forest, fervently shaking her head. ‘I can’t go any farther.’
Keiichirō told her to return home. ‘Come on,’ he grunted to the others once she was gone. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
He didn’t for a moment believe they would find a monster. But then, moving towards the trees up ahead was a shape.
Toramasa inhaled sharply. ‘Over there. It’s going into the farmer’s woods.’
* * *
Isla’s confusion grew. She still hadn’t seen any sign of the city, and the woman she had seen had fled into a bamboo forest. Isla hadn’t tried to follow her through the whispering stalks that clattered in the darkness. She didn’t know what had spooked her, but it wasn’t exactly reassuring.
Isla hugged herself, clenching her teeth to stop them chattering. She was still damp and cold, her toes icy in her sopping trainers. She must keep going – if she walked in a straight line, she had to find civilisation.
Then an odd rustling sound ahead made her shiver.
Slits of moonlight shone through the gaps in the branches above her head, but it was almost pitch black. Isla suddenly found herself in a hidden clearing.
She took a step forward and tumbled into nothingness.
She yelped in fear as her stomach lurched. She hit the ground with a thump, legs crumpling beneath her as pain shot up her ankle. In the inky dark, she thought she might be looking at muddy walls around her. But this made even less sense than everything else had since she had set off on her run.
She tried to stand, putting her weight on her good leg, but her injured ankle had no strength. Isla had to set her teeth against the painful sensation of a thousand knives stabbing the strained tendons, and she fought a wave of nausea.
She hissed every swear word she knew, clutching her leg.
Then against the dark sky she saw silhouettes of heads above her, shown in relief against the starlight. There were three men, all with topknots, staring at her.
‘What are you doing? Let me out!’ she cried in English. Realisation fell on her. She had fallen into a pit.
She winced as her ankle gave a painful throb. She tried to put weight on it and her face twisted in pain. Then anger overtook her. She had fallen into this stupid hole, she was cold and exhausted, and now these men were looking at her like she was an animal in a zoo.
The men muttered something, their words so rapid and quiet Isla couldn’t make them out, although their tone didn’t sound aggressive.
Isla grabbed the muddy sides of the strange hole and tried to climb out, but her trainers slipped and she landed once more in a heap at the bottom of the pit. Someone above tried to smother a laugh.
She switched to Japanese. ‘I want to get out. Now!’
One man recoiled like she’d slapped him. ‘Nihongo wakaru.’
Fuck yes, I do speak Japanese, she thought, although she only glowered.
One of her onlookers knelt with a rustle of clothes and reached towards her. She flinched, but his empty palm faced upwards, inches from her face.
Was this a lifeline? Surely taking it was better than being left in this pit. She grabbed the man’s warm forearm, and he hers, and he pulled her out with remarkable strength.
She sank to the forest floor and caught her breath, clutching her sore ankle as she glared at them all. She was a mess, drenched from the rain, covered in leaves and muck, and with her running gear ripped on one knee. Two of the men were in jackets and waist-high, wide trousers with wrapping for belts. The glint of katana sword handles flashed at their hips.
Perfect. How typical that on the day she met a man who seemed nice, it was then going to be snatched away. Screw this, she thought, furious. She didn’t think that she maybe ought to have been intimidated.
‘You must be cold,’ said the man who had lifted her out of the hole. His voice was rich and smooth, and strangely calming. There was a freckle near his mouth, and, as a cloud scudded away from the moon, Isla could see serious eyes and sharp cheekbones. He shrugged off the outer layer of his kimono, a haori jacket, and placed it over her shoulders.
She stared at him in silence, convinced now she was in the midst of a particularly vivid dream.
‘What are you doing?’ barked one of the men. He was square-jawed and moustached, and frowned at her like she was something disgusting he had stepped in. ‘We need to kill it.’
‘This isn’t a yōkai,’ said Isla’s rescuer, to a snort of disagreement from the man with the moustache. But her saviour ignored his companion, saying firmly, ‘She is a woman. We have to help her.’
There was an even firmer huff of anger.
The jacket was heavy on her shoulders, and she noticed a white crest stitched on the front: a circle with a vertical cross inside. It was the same symbol as at the shrine.
If she was in trouble, Isla was glad it would happen while she was wearing this warm jacket.
* * *
‘Why did Hirayama-san think she was a yōkai?’ said Toramasa as he and Keiichirō guided the woman to the town, each with a hand on her arm, not that it seemed she could run away. For this obviously foreign girl with the deep red hair walked with a limp, gasping in pain now and again when she put weight on her left foot.
Keiichirō had expected an enormous creature with ugly, twisted features and the face of a demon, not a frightened woman. Though yōkai could be tricky, so he’d heard. Perhaps it had taken the form of a foreigner.
Even the idea made heat crawl up his neck. He looked at her again, and decided it was a silly thought – if this was a monster, it was a feeble one and not the least bit frightening. ‘Let’s take her to the academy. Kirino-san will know what to do,’ Keiichirō said.
Kirino-san, an ex-general of the imperial army and one of Saigō-sama’s close friends, wasn’t impressed at being called upon in the evening. The narrow-eyed, strong-jawed man ordered them to put the girl in one of the back rooms. Even at night, the scent of cologne wreathed him. There was a running joke among the shi-gakkō school students that you could always smell Kirino-san coming.
‘Shouldn’t we tell Saigō-sama?’ asked Toramasa.
‘Don’t be silly. We won’t bother him. You brought a gaijin woman here, of all things, and he will not want to hear this,’ Kirino-san snapped at no one in particular.
Keiichirō bowed to Kirino-san and took the trembling girl into the back room by the arm to await her fate. She still wore his haori jacket. She looked at him with frightened eyes as she slipped off her shoes at the entrance with a wince and half fell into the tatami mat room, still clutching her wounded ankle.
He went to get some bandages, and bumped into Kirino-san’s wife, Hisa. She had a proud face and a confident, straight-backed posture worthy of a samurai’s wife. She looked beyond her years, motherly and wise, despite her being only a few years older than Keiichirō.
‘Maeda Keiichirō-san. You’re too thin.’ Her eyes, dark as a new moon, glanced up and down Keiichirō’s form. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Not today, Kirino-san.’
‘Wait here then.’
She reappeared a few moments later with a bag in her hand, heavy with rice. She pressed it into his hands. Keiichirō swallowed a groan of delight; it had been so long since he’d eaten rice. ‘This came from traders yesterday. Make sure your little Yura has a full belly, too.’
‘Arigatou gozaimasu.’ He thanked her and bowed. He wouldn’t decline such a welcome and unexpected gift in these days of never feeling there was enough food on the table. Kirino Hisa would want Keiichirō’s family to enjoy her kindness.
‘You have been asked to take care of the foreigner until they decide what to do with her,’ said Kirino-san. ‘Killing her would be unwise for any of us. You must make sure she comes to no harm.’
‘Hai.’ Keiichirō bowed low to Kirino-san and left, slipping his socked feet into the straw sandals waiting at the entrance.
He needed to see the foreigner once more. He had the feeling this couldn’t wait until morning. He burned with curiosity about the flame-headed creature.
Keiichirō grabbed some bandages from the shi-gakkō’s stockroom and returned to where the gaijin, the foreigner, waited.
Isla jumped away from the door as he entered, a defiant look hardening her eyes as she glared at him. At least they were normal, a soft brown. He had heard of foreigners having strange eyes. Someone had described a Dutch trader as having eyes like the sky in summer.
She folded her arms, jaw tightening as she stood with her weight on her good leg. Unsure whether to be amused or exasperated, Keiichirō held up the bandages and knelt before her, watching until she understood that her bad leg needed wrapping. She winced with pain as she moved, and sat with both legs stretched in front of her, gazing sadly at her swollen ankle.
Aiko’s words flashed through his mind. What if this stranger was a yōkai, a monster from the dark, and her gentle attitude had lulled him into a mistaken security? But the way she moved was the same as any woman here, even if her clothes and hair were strange. She breathed hard, real fear in her face as she looked up at him.
‘Do you speak Japanese?’ he asked, taking comfort all the same that his swords were at his hip like always, just in case she sprang to attack.
‘Hai, chotto,’ she said. A little.
Keiichirō offered the bandage in invitation. She took it from him and wound it around her ankle herself, pain flitting across her face. It wasn’t done very well, and Keiichirō could have done it better. But he liked watching her. She had a dainty nose, full lips, and skin as pale as the moon. Lantern light from outside caught in her leaf-strewn hair, the colour of a sunset. He had never seen anything like that, and it made her seem otherworldly. He thought her fascinating as he watched her in silence.
When she had finished with her ankle, he gestured for her to follow, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword. She limped beside him, her hair hiding her face as she looked down to make sure there was nothing she would bump into. He could see the nape of her neck and his cheeks warmed at seeing such a private part of her body.
He made himself look away, and then Keiichirō led her past the sloping stone walls of the academy and the ruins of the castle that had burned down three years prior.
‘Kana,’ he called as they came to the sliding door of his home. Though it was night, this couldn’t wait. The foreigner looked cold even though she was still wearing his warm jacket. Gaijin or not, clearly she felt winter’s chill in her bones just like they all did.
‘Hai, hai, what is it?’ Kana stepped out in a kimono, her long hair down loose, not expecting a visitor. She gasped when her eyes fell on the woman beside him, and tightened her robe. ‘What’s that? Why is it wearing your haori?’
‘I will tell you about it later, but Kirino-san has asked us to take care of this foreign woman. Can you give her a bath and some food?’ He handed Kana the remaining fish he had caught earlier and the bag of rice from Kirino Hisa.
Kana snatched them from him, her lips pursed.
The foreign woman kicked off the strange things on her feet without anyone indicating this was what she should do. Then she hobbled over to the steps to the sliding door, nodding as she approached Kana. Kana flinched like the newcomer was a cockroach and ignored the gaijin’s bandaged ankle. Keiichirō prickled at her rudeness.
Kana wasn’t done yet. ‘It’s late,’ she hissed. ‘She’ll wake Yura. Whatever were you thinking?’
‘I had no choice,’ he said. ‘Nobody is at the onsen now. And this is our duty. What else would you have me do?’
Kana gave a huff of disapproval, but she opened the sliding door for Isla to go through.
Keiichirō felt strange. He hadn’t asked their visitor a single question yet, but he had the feeling she had been through a lot. How had she appeared here in Satsuma? And what might it mean?
* * *
Every moment that passed was more and more confusing.
Somehow, Isla had been swept away by the typhoon and had landed in a peculiar, traditional village. Here, they wore kimonos and hakama trousers, carried swords, and cooked over fires. Isla had had no idea such communities still existed, and she felt as if she had ended up in some kind of Japanese version of an Amish town. Her mobile phone was dead. She was definitely going to need access to a landline telephone if she was going to find her way back to her hotel.
She was lucky she had only suffered a sprained ankle through this whole ordeal. She let the man’s wife, Kana, guide her through the small rooms that held the scent of cooked sweet potatoes and woodchips. Kana went before her, sighing and muttering to herself, and Isla was left in no doubt that she was in this household under immense sufferance. They made their way through what Isla assumed was a living area, with a sunken hearth surrounded by square cushions in the middle of dark wooden floors. Kana lit an oil lantern and took Isla through a tatami mat room and through another sliding wooden door that opened on to a garden, Isla’s sprained ankle complaining with every step. Isla shivered as they went down a narrow path, the air icy now. Even with the young man’s haori jacket, it was freezing. The lantern bobbed along in front, casting a shuddering yellow light from the rhythm of Kana’s steps.
Then, unexpectedly, there was a shaft of warmth, and they came to a natural hot spring. It was the most welcome sight Isla had seen since she’d stepped into the shrine grounds. Steam rose from the pool and warmed the air around them. Kana said something Isla didn’t understand and placed the lantern on the grass. With the tiniest of bows, Kana shuffled off. Isla didn’t know if she was supposed to get in or not, but what was the worst that could happen? Kana would only tell her to get out again.
Carefully, she took off the haori and then the bandage around her ankle. She peeled off her still-damp workout clothes and slipped into the water, steam rising all around. The transition from the cold air to the hot spring water was divine.
The steam caressed her face and her body sank into bliss as her heartbeat slowed and her muscles relaxed. The water was a touch too hot, but it was heaven, soothing her throbbing ankle. The mud and grime from the storm and that horrible pitfall trap washed away as she dunked her head, loving the sensation of her scalp being warmed in the water. As the tension loosened across her body, Isla felt as if almost nothing mattered except this ecstasy.
But, of course, eventually she had to climb out, her skin pink, the steam providing a bubble of warmth. The clothes she had unceremoniously scattered on the grass were gone, she found, and in their place was a neatly folded simple robe and black obi belt, a fresh bandage curled on top. Kana reappeared and handed Isla a towel. Her expression was unreadable, though she didn’t seem to care that Isla was naked. When Isla had patted herself dry, Kana helped her dress.
It felt strange and intimate, and there was a painful awkwardness between them. Isla couldn’t conjure the words in Japanese to apologise, nor to explain how or why she was here and had appeared in the middle of the night with the woman’s husband.
Kana folded the kimono over Isla’s chest, her mouth a straight, tight line. But back in the house she gave Isla a bowl of warm rice and guided her to a room, closing the sliding door after she had nodded towards a futon mattress. Though it was dark, moonlight shone through the square washi walls of the room, which faced out. Isla perched on the edge of the mattress and ate quickly. The rice was bitter yet also bland, but she was so hungry that it didn’t matter. After everything, it felt like one of the best meals she had ever eaten.
Thank goodness they hadn’t sent her back to that cold little room where she had first been held. The men who had brought her there had spoken too fast for her to follow, and her sprained ankle had been hurting too much to do much more than follow them blindly through the darkness. As cold as Kana was being, at least she had given her a room, and had taken care of her.
Isla lay down, her bones heavy with drowsiness. A lantern, extinguished, sat in the corner, although the room still held the trace of burning oil. Though the bath had diffused the tension in her muscles and warmed her to the core, fresh anxiety spiked in Isla as she realised there was no smoke alarm, security camera or plug socket in this little room. There was no electricity.
Would anyone notice she was missing? She was due back in Tokyo in a few days. What would happen when they realised she wasn’t there if she couldn’t alert anyone to her predicament before then? Would Mum panic when she didn’t call her at the weekend? How long would it take for anyone to realise if she stayed missing? Would her friends in the international students’ apartment building notice she hadn’t returned from Kagoshima, or would no one take note of her absence until classes resumed later in January?
It hardly bore thinking about, and panic washed across her, fast and powerful as a tidal wave. Isla clutched the bedsheets, the air suddenly thick, the room too small.
Calm down, she tried to tell herself. She wouldn’t be gone that long, and she was safe and warm and fed. First thing in the morning, she would be able to find a phone. Everything would work out. The strangers had been stand-offish but had given her a place to stay.
Isla bunched up the covers and propped up her sore ankle, shifting until she was comfortable, and closed her eyes.
Things would be okay, she thought. Well, she hoped they would.
Somehow, despite the fizz of her unsettled mind, Isla fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.