Kami Cursed (Dragon and Phoenix) (4 page)

He turned to me,
his bottom lip between his teeth as he considered what to say.  “I’m sure it’ll
get better now that you’re back.  Just give him some time.”

I shook my
head.  “Is this why you drive him everywhere?”

He turned to
fiddle with the stove, but I didn’t miss his guilty look.

“Ryuu!  If he
doesn’t have a license, it’s not legal for you to be driving with him.”

He shrugged.  “I
don’t do it often.”

I put my head in
my hands and moaned.  “This has got to be a bad dream.”

Ryuu didn’t say
anything.  He put some pasta on to boil and started chopping vegetables.  I
watched him curiously.  Sometimes he seemed so adult.  It was wrong that he
made me feel like a stupid kid.  “Thanks,” I said awkwardly.  “I mean, for
taking care of him.”

He shrugged
again.  The house was quiet as Ryuu went about making dinner.  I got out plates
for something to do.

 “Hey Kit,” Ryuu
said lightly.  “Do you think you could come over to my house after dinner?”  He
kept his eyes on the salad he was making.  “I have something I want you to look
at.”

I watched him
curiously.  He was trying to sound casual, but I could tell he was excited
about something.  “Sure,” I said slowly.  “But only if you help me with my
homework.”

He rolled his
eyes.  “You got a tutor, right?”

I nodded. 
“Yeah, but I don’t meet with him until this weekend.  Can you help me try to
figure it out?”

He turned to wink
at me.  “I’d love to.  I’m gonna need to study hard if I want to go from
failing to skipping two whole grades.” 

I just stared at
him.  Failing?  Skipping grades?

  “Hey kids.”  Dad
shuffled into the kitchen, looking more like himself.  His long hair was pulled
back neatly, his glasses in place over his blue eyes, and clean, un-rumpled
clothes on his tall, skinny frame.  But he wouldn’t quite meet my eyes.  “What’s
for dinner?  It smells great.”

*****

I stood in the
middle of Ryuu’s bedroom, shaking like a leaf.  He hadn’t warned me, hadn’t
told me what he wanted me to see.  Instead, he calmly walked into the room and
tossed the book onto the bed.  It was like throwing a bomb into the room.  The
blood pounded in my head and my hands shook.  I was suddenly, inexplicably mad-
madder than I had ever been in my life.  I couldn’t say what it was that made
me want to destroy
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
.  Maybe it was the
sound it was making- a kind of faint, scritchy ring that demanded I silence
it. 

My lips drew
back from my teeth and a low snarl ripped from my throat.  I pivoted, searching
for a weapon.  Ryuu took a quick step out of my way and my eyes landed on the
baseball bat on the shelf beside him.  I crossed the room in a flash, and my
sweaty palms wrapped around the bat as if I’d done this a million times
before.  I spun and brought the sturdy piece of wood down on the demented book
with every bit of force I could muster.

I don’t know
what I was expecting to happen.  I wasn’t really thinking at all- I mean what
happens if you hit a book with a bat?  The bat made contact with the book… and
the book
exploded
. 

There was a
muffled
whump
and scorched pieces of paper were fluttering around us
like dirty snow.  I stood in the middle of the room, staring dumbly at the
charred spot on Ryuu’s comforter.  I was panting, and my fingers were numb where
they clutched the bat.

Ryuu calmly
crossed the room and stepped on a glowing piece of book cover that was
threatening to burn a hole in the beige carpet.  He cleared his throat
awkwardly.  “Well, that was…interesting.”

My legs folded
and I sat suddenly, still not letting go of the bat.  “What the heck just
happened?”

He sank down
next to me and stared at his bed.  “I think that’s what happens when you
destroy a cursed object.”  He shrugged.  “I’ve never managed to do it before.”

I shook my
head.  “You’re not making this stuff up are you?  About curses…”

“Um…no.”  He
leaned across my lap, studying the bat without taking it from me.  A chunk of
shiny black hair fell forward, hiding his face.  He poked at my weapon
experimentally.  “It doesn’t look like you hurt the bat.”

I looked down,
trying to relax my death grip on the thing.  “Sorry.  Uh, why do you have a bat
anyway?  Do you play baseball now?”

He laughed. 
“No.  It was my Dad’s.”

Ryuu’s father
had been American.  I’d seen his picture once, and been surprised at how
different the man was from what I had imagined- a tall, broad-shouldered
blonde, with a rugged, cheery face.  I’d always thought he looked like someone
I would have really liked. 

“Sorry,” I said,
shakily.

Ryuu only
shrugged.  “My Obaasan sent it to me with some of my parent’s stuff.”

“Oh.”  Ryuu’s grandmother
was regarded by his aunt as a crazy old bat.  But even though she hadn’t seen
Ryuu since he was a baby, she had always made a point of helping him to remember
his parents.  And that, I knew, made up for any faults the old woman might
have.  I handed him the bat, glad it wasn’t damaged.  “Sorry.”

Ryuu stared at
me for a minute, his dark eyes sharp and much deeper than they should be. 
“It’s okay.  Now we know you can get rid of the things.”  He sighed.  “It was
getting stronger again.  I don’t know- powering up maybe?  And I couldn’t so
much as scratch it.”

We sat side by
side staring at the paper littering the floor.  “So… you can see things no one
else sees.”  My voice was flat.

Ryuu took a deep
breath.  “Yeah.  In Japanese there is this word- Kami.  It has to do with Gods
or spirits but it can mean just about anything supernatural.  I think when
enough negative energy gathers in one place it can affect people who come into
contact with it.  There’s almost a will to the thing…and well, I think maybe
the objects have a kami attached to them- or something like it.”

I stared at his
smoking comforter.  “Like the book that made me go crazy.”

He nodded. 
“Like the book.  It was crawling with this black, glowing energy.”

I turned to look
at him.  He was so young.  My eyes widened.  “You’ve seen this since you were a
little boy…”

He closed eyes. 
“Yeah.  As far back as I can remember.”

“Your parents…”

He didn’t open
his eyes.  “I was just a little kid.  I tried to tell them that it was
dangerous- that something wasn’t right.  But they probably thought it was just
some make believe game I was playing.  The accident was because of me.  Because
I couldn’t stop them…”

I put my arms
around him and pulled him into an awkward hug.  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said
with feeling.  God, he’d been dealing with this crap the whole time and no one
believed him.  “I believe you,” I said against his silky hair.  “I’m sorry, and
I believe you.”

He hugged me
back, pressing his face against my shoulder.  I remembered how he never cried
in front of anyone else.  Not even when I’d found him cornered in an ally,
surrounded by bullies and covered in cuts and scrapes.  But he’d cried in front
of me later, when they’d all gone. 

He’d gotten
wider since the last time I’d hugged him, though he was still skinny and
springy, like holding a bird.  I patted his thin shoulders as they shook with
silent sobs.  Maybe there was more of the little boy I used to know left in him
than I’d first thought.

Finally, he sat
back, pulling away and wiping a sleeve across his face.  He kept his head down
and his hair fell forward to hide his eyes.  I reached out to brush it back,
but he avoided me and gave me a petulant, quelling look.  The look said
don’t
treat me like a kid
, which of course made him seem even more like a little
boy.

“We need to go
talk to my friend at the temple,” he said as if nothing had happened.  “I’ve
tried and tried to get rid of that thing and nothing worked.  It took me three
years to break the curse, and that whole time nothing could touch the book.”  He
gestured wildly.  “I tried ripping it up, burning it…I even badgered a
maintenance guy into putting it through a wood chipper once when no one was
looking.  Nothing happened- it bounced around and came out just like it went in.”

He lifted his
eyes to meet mine, and they were clear and dry, as if he hadn’t been crying
just seconds before.  “Even after I finally figured out how to break the curse,
I still couldn’t hurt the book.  I tried everything, but all that happened was
my hands went numb every time I touched it.”  He clenched his hands reflexively
as if remembering the feeling.

“Then why did it
do
that
when I hit it with a baseball bat?”

Ryuu shook his
head.  “I have no idea.  But it must mean something.”

Our conversation
was interrupted when Dawn peeked into the room, anger and fear warring on her
pretty face.  “Ryuu, what the hell are you doing?  I smell smoke.”  She stared
at the charred confetti scattered around the room.

Ryuu jumped to his
feet.  “Science experiment,” he said with a grin.  “Kit is really bad at
chemistry.”

His aunt raised
a dark, heavily tweezed eyebrow at me.  “Whatever.  Clean it up.  Kit, it’s
time for you to go home.”  Then, more gently, “You shouldn’t push yourself right
now.  Let yourself recover.”  Because she thought I was still crazy.  And I’d just
tried to set the house on fire.

I pushed myself
to my feet and beat a hasty retreat.  “Sorry Ryuu,” I said as I backed out the
door.  “I owe you okay?”

He looked around
at the mess.  “Big time,” he agreed.

W
e walked quietly
over broad stone pavers interspersed with well-manicured grass.  A few early fallen
leaves drifted across the path, like a spill of gold.  The temple looked like
it had just grown up out of the woods, the sway-backed rooflines, and wood trim
oddly right here, despite their Asian feel.

I followed Ryuu
up the steps and through the big wooden pillars by the door, a little in awe. 
Buddhist temple.  It sounded like something you read about, not something that
would actually exist in the middle of small-town, podunk Michigan.

“Do a lot of
people come here for church…or whatever it’s called?”

Ryuu glanced
back at me, and a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.  “Quite a few.  Huron
University isn’t too far away, so a lot of college kids come for the English
services.”

I raised an
eyebrow.  College kids?  I supposed it made sense, but it completely ruined the
vibe I had going in my head.  Ryuu pulled open the door and gestured for me to
go inside.  I went in, feeling way out of place.

The interior of
the temple was decorated simply.  The colors were neutral and calming, the
lines simple and clean.  Several robed men and women were moving about quietly,
doing chores.  They nodded at us politely, and went back to what they were
doing.  One younger man, probably in his twenties, stopped sweeping the floor
and came to greet us. 

He was just a
bit taller than I was, with dark brown hair, and light, golden brown eyes.  I
had expected to find a bunch of old men here, not someone so young and good-looking. 
He smiled and extended a hand to me.  “Hello, you must be Ryuu’s Kit,” he said
quietly.

I shook his
hand, glancing at Ryuu.  He inclined his head toward the man, sort of a half
bow.  “Kit, this is Fumio, the friend I’ve told you about.  He’s a monk here at
the temple.”

I looked at the
man in surprise.  Sure, from the robe it was obvious that he worked here, but I
hadn’t realized that he was a monk.  I had expected Ryuu’s mysterious friend to
be some wise old man with a long white beard or a shaved head.  Fumio wasn’t
much older than me, and he looked like he would fit in at the university.

“Come with me
and we can talk.”  The monk led us through a big room with a high ceiling and
shining wood floors.  At the front of the room, on a raised dias, was a statue
of Buddha.  Fumio paused to bow to the statue in passing.  Ryuu put his hands
together over his heart, but didn’t stop walking.  I didn’t know what to do
with myself, so I just nodded at the statue. 
Hey buddy, how’s it going?

I followed the
guys out a small door in the back of the temple and into a little garden.  The small
plot was very well groomed, and I could sense the constant attention the monks
must give it.  Even in the fall, it was bursting with color- filled with orange
marigolds and bright yellow sunflowers.  Ryuu went to sit on a low stone wall
by a little fishpond, and I joined him.  Fumio leaned against a big red-leafed
maple tree and watched me as I sat down and placed the baseball bat across my
lap.  Ryuu had insisted I bring the thing with me.  I already felt like a
lumbering ox here, and carrying a baseball bat around with me didn’t help the
situation.

“So what are you
guys up to today?”  Fumio’s voice was pleasant, as if he had all the time in
the world to chat with us.  I would have thought he’d be irritated, since he
had more important things to do.  Did monks even get irritated?

Ryuu broke into
a grin.  “Kit got rid of the book.”

Fumio
straightened and stared at me, his handsome face all lit up.  “How?”

Ryuu reached
across me and picked up the bat.  He held it out to the monk with a flourish. 
“With this.”

He came and
crouched in front of us, studying the bat.  “Do you know what kind of wood it
is?”  He traced a finger across the wood grain.

Ryuu shook his
head.  “Not for sure, but I think it might be white ash?”

Fumio nodded. 
“That makes sense.  Ash would definitely do it, in the right hands.”  He gently
picked up the bat, as if it was some sort of delicate treasure.

Ryuu was nodding,
like it all made perfect sense.  I glanced back and forth between the two of
them, lost.  What did it matter what kind of wood the stupid thing was made out
of? 

Ryuu caught the
look on my face.  “Different kinds of woods have different properties,” he
explained.  “Ash is for protection and healing.”

Fumio looked up
at me, a small crease forming between his brows.  “It’s credited with healing
the human spirit, and forming a link between humans and the spirit world.”

I stared at him
and wondered if maybe I was still asleep.  Maybe I was in my bed back at Birch
Hill and this was all a dream caused by too much medication.  “You guys think
this bat is a link to the spirit world?”  My mouth twitched.

Ryuu sighed. 
“Kit…”

Fumio
interrupted his lecture.  “Everything around us has an energy within it.  Some
things- or people,” he glanced at Ryuu and away, “resonate more loudly than
others.” 

He frowned.  “Maybe
you have some spiritual power of your own.  Or maybe just being in contact with
the curse for so long gave you a link to it that others don’t have.”

He handed me the
bat and I laid it across my lap.  I tried to keep the laughter out of my
voice.  “You said spiritual power.  Were you talking about what Ryuu can do-
how he can see the cursed things?”  I felt ridiculous even having this
conversation.

The monk stood
and stretched, then came to sit next to me on the wall.  “I think Ryuu has
strong spiritual energy.  But I can’t say for sure.”  He spread his hands in a
helpless gesture.  “I can hardly be expected to know.  I have absolutely none
myself.”

I looked at
him.  The last of my wise old man dream had just died.  “None?”

He nodded.  “I’m
basically just a really well-read historian.  I know a lot of good stories.”

Ryuu snorted. 
“He’s the one who helped me figure out what was going on,” he said softly. 
“Don’t let him fool you into thinking he knows less than he does.  Even without
being able to actually
do
any of the things he taught me, he was still
able to help me- to teach
me
how to do them.”

I glanced back
and forth between them.  “What kind of things?”

Ryuu shrugged. 
“Exercises- meditation, getting in touch with whatever it is inside me.  Being
able to actually
use
it when I want to.  I’m still working on that one.”
 His dark brows drew together so that they were almost touching.  “He helped me
figure out how to finally break the curse’s hold on you, even though he
couldn’t do it himself.”

Fumio held out
his hands defensively.  “It’s just stuff I’ve read,” he said hurriedly.  “A
mixed up combination of religious practices- from Shinto to Buddhism, to Celtic
rituals-with a good bit of imagination thrown in there along the way.”

I put my hands
over my face.  “So what now?  Why are we here?” 

Ryuu sighed.  “I
want to know why you were able to destroy that stupid book.”  His voice was
full of frustration, and I thought maybe he was mad that I’d done it so easily
when he couldn’t.

Fumio put a warm
hand on my arm and I wondered if he was feeling for
spiritual energy
. 
“You want to know if she can do it again, right?”

I looked at Ryuu
in surprise.  He wanted me to do it again?  I could see it was true by the
sudden fierce light that sprang up in his dark eyes.  “I can see the cursed
objects- and there are more of them than you would imagine- but I can’t get
rid
of them.” 

Fumio nodded.  Then,
seeing my vacant expression, he explained.  “It does something to him.  I think
maybe being in contact with an object like that taints his energy.”

I rubbed my
forehead.  “And you think
I
can do something about this?”

Ryuu took my
hand.  “Come on Kit.  You’ve done it once.  What’s to say you couldn’t do it
again?”

I looked down at
the stupid bat.  “Or, like Fumio said, it could just be because I had prolonged
contact with the dumb thing.”

Ryuu pressed his
lips together.  “No.  I think it did give you a link, but once you’re able to
do something like that, it doesn’t just go away.”

The monk lifted
one shoulder and let it fall.  “If Ryuu thinks you can do it, then you can.” 
He spoke with absolute conviction, though there was a twinkle of amusement in
his eyes.  “He has an intuition for these things that you and I are completely lacking.”

I scowled at
Ryuu.  I knew where this was headed.  He was going to make me help him hunt
these things down.  “What makes you so special,” I demanded.

I was being
sarcastic, but Ryuu answered me.  “My sousobo.”

The door to the
temple opened and a monk poked his head in.  “Greg, sorry to interrupt, but we
have some visitors.”

Fumio nodded. 
“I’ll be right there.”

“Greg?”  I
couldn’t help my smirk.

He sighed. 
“Greg Jones.  Fumio is my middle name, but Ryuu insists on calling me that.”

Jones?  The nonsense
of it all hit me.  I was sitting in the middle of a Buddhist temple with my
friend who apparently had
spiritual powers
and we were discussing it all
with a monk named
Greg Jones
?  I burst out laughing.  I was still
snorting occasionally when we left the temple.

I thought about
our conversation as we walked home.  “What did you mean when you said your
sousobo?”  I didn’t have much Japanese- just little snatches that I had picked
up from Ryuu and his aunt.  But I thought the word meant great-grandmother.

Ryuu ran a hand
through his hair, making it glint in the sunshine.  “My Obaasan was a Miko…um,
a shrine maiden.  Her mother was too.”

I frowned.  “You
mean the woman in the old pictures- the one with the long skirt who looks like
she’s dancing?  That’s her right?”  I had always been fascinated by the old
black and white photos that hung on Ryuu and Dawn’s living room wall.

He chuckled. 
“Yeah.  Performing kagura- the dance- is part of their job at the shrines. 
Nowadays, Miko are pretty much just symbols.  They take care the shrines and
perform for holidays.”  He shrugged, looking embarrassed.  “But they used to be
real- priestesses who had spiritual powers.  They protected their shrines, and
all of the patrons who visited.  They were kind of like intermediaries between
humans and the spirits.”

I looked at my
shoes as I walked, noticing that one of them was about to come untied.  Were we
really talking about spirits and powers?  “So was your great-grandma one of
those, the ones that were real?”

He took a deep
breath and let it out.  “I don’t know.  I think so.  I mean, I never met her. 
My grandma visited us once when I was really young.  I barely remember her. 
She talked about my sousousofu- um, my great-great grandpa- who I guess was a
priest, and Mom got really mad.  She didn’t believe in any of it, and I guess
she’d sort of disowned that side of the family.”

I pursed my
lips.  “Then maybe that’s why she didn’t listen to you when you tried to tell
her you were seeing things.”

He nodded. 
“Probably.”

I shifted the
bat.  It felt comfortable in my hand, though I’d never been much for sports. 
“So you think it’s like, your mission to find these things and destroy them
now?”

He took my free hand,
the way he always did when he was feeling unsure.  “There has to be a reason,
right?  I’ve always thought that I drew this stuff to me- but maybe it’s the
same everywhere?  These cursed objects; they make people’s lives miserable. 
Yours was bad, but it wasn’t the worst I’ve seen.”  His dark eyes were brooding,
and I decided not to ask.  If it was worse than losing your mind and being
locked away for three years, then I really didn’t want to know.  Besides, I thought
it might have something to do with his parents, and I couldn’t stand to make
him talk about it.

“Okay,” I said
finally.  “Okay, I’ll try.  But you know there’s no reason why I should be able
to help you.  I don’t have any Miko in my family tree.”

He laughed and held
up my hand, as if searching for something that I couldn’t see.  “No, probably
not,” he said with a wry laugh.

I shook my
head.  “Why could I blow that thing up when you couldn’t?  Is it just because I
was cursed for so long?”

He shrugged and
looked at the sky.  “Could be.”

For some reason
I got the feeling that wasn’t the same thing as if he’d said yes.

*****

I watched Ryuu
as he fiddled with the little Gundam model, moving the robot’s arms up into a
boxing position.  We had decided to study at his house after our visit to the
temple, but I had more important things on my mind than math.  “So,” I said
tiredly.  “I’m listening now.  Tell me again so that I understand it.  What
happened…you know, after?”

He didn’t look
up at me, keeping his dark eyes focused on the toy.  “Well they took you to the
hospital, of course.  It looked like you had a seizure.”  He sighed.  “I knew
what had happened, but I knew no one would listen to me.  I thought to pick up
the book- otherwise it probably would have made its way back to the library.” 
He shrugged.  “I thought I might need it.”