Koyasan (5 page)

Itako leant forward and crooked a finger at Koyasan. The girl shuffled closer to the old lady. When they were no more than a hand’s width away from each other, Itako spoke in a creaky, cautious whisper.

“You have one night and one night only,” she said. “In the morning, if it has not been restored to Maiko’s body, her soul will dissolve. If that happens, she is damned for certain. But if you can restore her soul before then... return it to its rightful place in her body... all will be well.”

“Restore her soul?” Koyasan echoed, frowning through her tears. “I don’t understand. How can I do that?”

Itako chuckled softly, without humour. “By crossing the bridge, entering the graveyard and stealing it back from the spirits,” she said.

OVER THE BRIDGE

K
OYASAN
DIDN
’
T
GO
home. She knew if she did, her parents would stop her. Bad enough to lose one daughter to the spirits, but if they lost two it would be utterly unbearable. Her parents, like most village folk, were practical. If one child fell down a well, you didn’t throw a second child down after her.

A large part of Koyasan wanted to be stopped. It had screamed at her while she’d stood, listening to Itako, absorbing the old woman’s instructions and advice. It had roared with every step she took when she left the hut and was roaring still. “Don’t be crazy! You’ll be killed! Go home!”

Koyasan ignored it. Somehow, finding strength somewhere deep inside her, she blocked out the voice of reason and the cries of fear, and skulked from Itako’s hut to the bridge leading over the stream into the world of the dead.

That was where she stood now, as rigid as Maiko had been when she returned. Koyasan had never been here at night. Never even been outside the village- after dark. It was scarier than she’d thought it would be. She’d often had nightmares about this, or had lain in bed, imagining what it would feel like if she came to this haunted graveyard in the dark of night. But this was real. She
was
here. She was going to cross. And the reality was far more terrifying than anything her imagination was capable of making up.

“Three spirits will attack you,” Itako had told her, back in the safe warmth of the hut. “One at a time, they will come. You must defeat these three before you can attempt to bring Maiko’s soul back.”

Koyasan took a deep, slow breath. Her bare feet were cold. Her legs and arms were cold. Her stomach was cold. Only her head felt hot, as her brain sizzled inside its skull like an egg in a frying pan.

There was a half-full moon. She could see the outlines of the tombs and headstones, and behind them the forested hill. Wisps of mist — or the breath of the dead? — lingered around the monuments and trees. No animals moved or made noise, not even owls or crickets. Nothing living ever disturbed the peace of the graveyard at night.

But Koyasan couldn’t see any spirits either. That should have given her reason to be hopeful, except Itako had told her it would be like this.

“They expect you to come. When they stole Maiko’s soul and called your name, they made a secret pact with you. If you honour that pact, and behave according to the rules which govern the dead as well as the living, they must behave in a certain way.

“The spirits will not show themselves until you’ve faced three of them individually. If you lose to any of those three, all of the dead can attack you as they please. But if you defeat the three they send against you, they must wait. And, if you act carefully, they cannot come against you at all.”

Although Koyasan couldn’t see the spirits, she knew they were there, hiding behind the tombs or slithering through the branches of the trees, peering at her, willing her to cross the bridge, drooling at the thought of getting their ghostly hands on a second young girl.

As she stood before the bridge, desperately seeking the courage to advance, Koyasan dug a clove of garlic out of her pocket and raised it to her mouth.

She often nibbled when nervous. It helped calm her. But tonight she stopped, regarded the clove silently, then returned it to her pocket.

“No,” she said softly. “That won’t help. The longer I wait, the less time I’ll have to find Maiko.” “You’ll never find her,” said the part of Koyasan which thought she was crazy to even try. “Go home. Eat your garlic. Stay away from here.”

Koyasan ignored the voice, but it wasn’t easy. She rocked forwards and backwards on the balls of her feet, staring into the darkness. She remembered the last time she’d tried to cross, the headache and sickness. If it had been that difficult in the day, how much harder would it be at night?

“Well,” Koyasan told herself trying but failing to chuckle, “there’s only one way to find out.”

Shutting out the fear, Koyasan walked on to the bridge. She immediately felt a pain in her head, and the bread she’d eaten at the waterfall tried to force its way up her throat.

Gritting her teeth, fighting off both the pain and the acidic remains of the bread, she walked forward quickly, breathing rapidly around her teeth, eyes wide with fear and disbelief. She hadn’t truly expected to do this. Up until a few seconds ago, Koyasan thought she’d lose her nerve and run away when it was time to act. She was astonished to find herself actually doing what she’d planned to do. Astonished... and dismayed. She wished now she’d said goodbye to her parents and friends because she doubted she’d ever see them again.

Across the bridge she marched* hands curled into fists, head pounding, stomach quivering, teeth clattering. She didn’t feel like she was walking across a bridge. She felt like she was crossing a tightrope. Only it wasn’t the drop she feared, but arrival on the other side.

And then, in a rush, she was off the bridge, standing on the drooping blades of grass in the graveyard which she had feared all of her short life.

The pain and sickness disappeared as suddenly as they’d come. For a second, Koyasan was filled with a sense of wonder and achievement. She felt like punching the air and shouting with delight.

But then the first spirit appeared out of nowhere and hurled itself at her, howling with vicious, demonic delight.

THE SNOW BEAST

THE SPIRIT WAS
man-shaped, but taller and broader than any man Koyasan had ever seen. It was white-skinned, a shiny, glistening white. It had a blank, roughly etched face, just a hint of eyes, nose and ears. But its mouth was fully formed and larger than it should be, full of long, sharp, icy white teeth — like stalactites.

For a confused second, Koyasan stared at the spirit. It reminded her of something, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Then a memory clicked into place. It didn’t snow very often where Koyasan lived, but there had been a heavy fall a few years ago, and Koyasan and the other children had spent a couple of days throwing snowballs at each other and making snowmen. This creature had that same appearance. It was made out of snow.

Koyasan had no time to wonder how a beast made of snow functioned, if it had a heart, lungs, a brain. What she knew for sure was that it had teeth, and if it got its snowy hands on her, it would bite into her with great relish and make short work of her small, fleshy form.

Koyasan could have raced back over the bridge. Escape was still an option. Flee to safety now and her life would be assured. The spirit couldn’t cross the stream.

But she had come too far. She was even more terrified than she had been crossing the bridge, but her fear no longer had control over her. She could fight it now, having overcome the obstacle of the bridge. So, instead of retreating, she raced left, into the graveyard, pursued by the hissing snow beast.

She shimmied around headstones and scurried over tombs, the spirit close behind. Her feet were soon scratched and bruised from collisions with hidden chunks of fallen stones and briars that couldn’t be seen in the dark. But Koyasan took no notice of such minor injuries. She knew she had a lot worse to fear if the snow spirit caught her.

She had no plan. Survival was the only thought in her mind. If she kept running, the spirit couldn’t catch her.

“Unless it doesn’t tire,” said the cynical voice which had tried to stop her coming here in the first place. “It’s not human. It doesn’t have muscles. Maybe it can maintain this speed all night. But you can’t. You’ll tire soon and slow down, and when you do...”

The voice was hoping to dismay Koyasan, to teach her a brutal lesson, to drive home the point that she should have paid attention to it earlier. But it had the opposite effect. Rather than feed Koyasan’s fears, the voice let her think about the situation rationally.

“That’s right,” Koyasan calmly said to herself. “I can’t outpace it. If I keep running, it will catch me. I have to face it and try to defeat it.”

Now that she was thinking clearly, she recalled what Itako had told her.

“Spirits have no bodies of their own. They’re naturally insubstantial. They can only assume a physical body when a human confronts them. They take their shapes from the thoughts of the humans they face. Because we provide them with their bodies, we always have the power to defeat them.”

Itako had gripped Koyasan’s hands hard, to make sure she understood how important this information was.

“Every spirit can be outwitted because their physical existence depends on the human they’re facing. If I went into the graveyard tonight, the spirits I’d encounter would look vastly different to those you will meet. They’d have to build their bodies from the thoughts inside
my
head.

“You can get the better of all the spirits you face because they will be physically dependent on you. Your manners, patterns and weaknesses are theirs. Without you, they are nothing but shadows. Conquering a spirit is the same as overcoming a bad habit, like chewing your nails or spitting. It can be done by studying the problem, thinking about it, then acting to solve it.

“You will panic in the graveyard. That’s unavoidable. But you must not surrender to fear. Keep a level head. Think of the spirits who attack as twisted images of yourself. Study them as you would study your reflection in a mirror. Look hard for their weak points. You
do
have the power to destroy or deflect them. You just need to use your brain and have courage.”

Koyasan was annoyed that she’d forgotten such key advice. Itako had repeated herself several times, to make sure Koyasan knew how vital this was. But at least she’d remembered before it was too late. Now all she had to do was figure out a way to stop the pursuing spirit behind her.

Koyasan glanced over her shoulder to examine the spirit again. It looked even more fearful than before, its arms spread wide, its mouth seeming to stretch off its face. And had it grown by a head or two?

Wrestling the spirit was out of the question. In a physical fight, it would beat her easily. But then Itako had told her that most spirits could defeat humans in hand-to-hand combat. You had to use your mind to trick them and bring them low.

Koyasan dodged round an especially wide tomb, then studied the spirit for a third time. She noticed a trail of water behind it. The snow beast was dripping as it ran. Although the night air was cool, it wasn’t cold enough to sustain snow. The spirit was using magic to keep its snowy body together, but the natural world was threatening to unravel it with nothing more than average, normal warmth.

Suddenly, Koyasan knew what she must do. Coming to a halt, she dug a clove of garlic out of her pocket, bit into it and chewed rapidly, keeping her mouth closed. The snow spirit saw her stop, and grinned. It thought it had her where it wanted her. Slowing, it moved upon her menacingly, growing a bit more, sprouting a fresh row of teeth behind its upper layer.

Koyasan waited, afraid but confident. Her knees knocked together, true, but her feet remained planted where she’d set them. If she was wrong, she’d die. But she couldn’t think about that.

When the spirit came within touching distance, blocking out the moon, trees and most of the graveyard, Koyasan leant towards it, as though to cuddle up to its snowy white chest. Opening her mouth less than a nose length’s away from the spirit, she breathed out at it.