Nagashibina Read online

kept a small dog who’d recently had pups. She was traveling on vacation with her photographer boyfriend to the outlying islands comprising Japan’s boundaries, for a week of beaches and mountain-hiking. She’d been friendly with the girls before and had asked them to watch over the dogs while she was away. Fumi readily agreed with Aimi in her own bossy way, claiming she would take responsibility for the pups care. Fumi had her reservations, but said little.

  During the time Yomiuri-san was gone; several of the girl’s classes entered midterms and she was quite occupied reviewing her notes. Enough so that late afternoon, she didn’t pay attention at first when Aimi left their house, nor noticed much when the neighbor’s dog barked. She did go to the window when she heard the dog’s barking change to a muffled yelp of pain. She saw movement down below and saw her sister dragging a spade from their garden shed through the connecting gate back into their yard. Fumi started for the stairs, taking them two at a time. She picked up speed and ran through the sliding doors in the family room out into the muted sunshine of the walled backyard. Aimi was nowhere to be seen but the gate between the yards had been left open and splashing sounds could be heard from the other side.

  Fumi went through and screamed at the sight that confronted her eyes. The mother dog had been chained to a post, beaten, bloodied, the broken body lay on the brick paved walkway, the tongue protruded obscenely from blackened lips. Aimi knelt beside a bucket of water provided for the mother dog, methodically plunging the plastered fur bodies of two pups into the water. Fumi snapped from her horror and ran over and slapped her sister down.

  “Why are you doing that!” She hollered, snatching the squirming puppies from the water spilled in the overturning of the bucket. The other three pups were crushed beneath spare brick pavers, their blood stained the ground. Fumi’s sob constricted her chest and she looked on at what her sister had done. Aimi took one look at her rage and said in a strangely calm voice, “I only wanted to see what death looked like.” Innocent. A car’s engine sounded in the neighboring driveway and she ran for the gate, disappearing through as their father disembarked.

  Fumi was blamed of course as some parents are with their favorites, that they’re simply blinded to the terrible things they sometimes do. She was made to dispose of the corpses of the dead animals and hose down Yomiuri-san’s backyard. Her father also made an appointment with a psychiatrist, a friend of his, who worked at the local university. On the day of the appointment, Fumi was dropped off at the school entrance. The appointment would be off hours.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Fumi.” Her father’s words resounded after her as she stepped out onto the campus steps. That, if anything else, caused resentment to well up within the girl. She waited until her father had left the parking lot, to take the east wing rather than the west where Shirosagi-sensei waited in his office. She passed a few students who were taking extra classes, most had gone to parties or returned to their dorms, therefore the sight of an older girl poring over a few old books in the library, didn’t surprise her. The girl sat at one of the back tables behind some of the specialty collection shelves.

  Fumi took a deep breath and sat at the table opposite her, taking up a vantage point where she could see the front and still be hidden. Naturally, curiosity about her neighbor grew as the older girl rifled through texts, frowning and shaking her head. She had a notebook open in front of her and a chewed pencil tapping the tabletop with her free hand. Fumi glanced at the titles sideways and upside down to her.

  Famous Doll Makers...Toys from a Simpler Time..., the titles went on in a similar vein. The other girl noticed her looking and glanced up with a quick, friendly smile. “Are you waiting for someone?”

  “Ano...ah...you were that girl...from the temple?” Fumi suddenly recognized her as the Miko who had guided them around during the festival. The other girl looked confused then brightened, introducing herself. “I remember now! How rude of me not to introduce myself, I’m Hinohara Mai, and you are?”

  “Oh! Sato Fumi. I’m not waiting actually...I’m...,” the word rebelling clung stubbornly to her tongue. Fumi looked down at her hands and then shyly to the books piled up around the older girl. “Are you studying old toys?”

  “Not exactly,” Hinohara-san said, gently pushing the open book aside. “Do you believe common objects can possess souls?”

  Fumi became slightly uncomfortable as her thoughts had revolved toward that eventual conclusion. “N-No, at least I don’t think so. It’s an old belief, isn’t it?”

  The girl looked pensive, “my grandmother did..., she believed in the old tales of yokai, vengeful onryo and other mysterious things. She once had an old doll that she’d found in the ruins of a shrine. This doll had a particular mark that I’ve been trying to find in the books. She wanted me to find out more about its origins, before she died.”

  Fumi’s heartbeat sped up, “why..why did your grandmother think that objects had souls?”

  Hinohara-san looked slightly uncomfortable herself and leaned closer, “well, she used to say that the doll could move on its own. It used to show her things in her sleep and sometimes come to her in the form of a little girl. The doll even told her, her name...Makiko.”

  Cold fear washed over the younger girl...the name...she had seen the name - where? Then, abruptly, she remembered the picture of the family. In her sister’s scrawl, the letters had formed an archaic spelling of the same name. “What happened to the doll...?” Fumi asked after a hushed silence.

  “The doll was burned that day in the temple fires.” Hinohara-san sounded almost embarrassed admitting her next words. “You might think it’s silly but, I couldn’t...couldn’t stand living with it after her death.”

  Fumi couldn’t keep it in any longer. She explained everything how her sister had taken the doll from the shrine, the inexplicable changes in her family, the strange dreams she’d been having seemingly linked to the doll named Makiko. While worried about Hinohara-san’s reaction, she finished with the dog killing days before. Hinohara-san paled, but didn’t look incredulous. “I didn’t want to say anything before, but my grandmother had noticed throughout the years how violence seemed almost intertwined with that doll. Small accidents, mysterious deaths. It was all very unexplainable.”

  “Do you think its cursed?” Fumi whispered, feeling silly for being afraid at the same time.

  “No...possessed, more like.” Hinohara-san bit her lip and pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll tell you what, let’s exchange numbers. Call me if anything else happens. If I find anything else out, I’ll call you then.”

  Fumi readily agreed and numbers were passed, a friendship began through that simple exchange and the two girls parted at the doors of the university where Fumi’s father waited, parental disobedience seeming the least of her worries. Violence, Fumi was left wondering. How could violent acts be associated with an object of clay and plaster?

  She kept her thoughts to herself for the most part, uncertain of her father’s reaction to the idea that her sister’s beloved doll had a spirit possessing it. Her parents had never been strong in the Buddhist faith nor proliferated religious icons in the townhouse. Fumi cast her gaze at the shadowed hulk of the next door townhouse and shuddered, unable to wipe her memory free.

  As punishment, her cell phone was taken from her and she was sent to her room for the remainder of the evening. When she eventually fell asleep, she dreamed and this time, the dream was different. She dreamed she was in her room, awakened by some sound. As she puzzled in the dream world as to her cause for awakening, the sound came again...a low, soft creak of hinges and her mouth parted in a silent gasp. Her body remained rigid beneath the bed covers, her eyes flew to the opening closet door and she became paralyzed with fear.

  A small figure gathered itself from the darkness and walked forward toward the foot of the bed. Fumi squeezed her eyes shut as the bed dipped down under a slight weight. She felt the bed dip down with each motion as the thing crawled up the covers. Fumi fe
lt her heart would burst from fright and wished she could pass out and not experience every moment with vivid clarity.

  The weight of arms wrapped around her middle and a little girl’s voice whispered, “Daisuke desu, onii-chan.”

  Fumi’s scream throttled her throat and she surged forward, her legs entangled within the blankets. Falling to the floor jarred sense into her and she picked herself up, quickly switching the light on. There was nothing and no one in her room. Bravely, she crossed the floor and flung the closet doors open, rows of her neatly pressed school uniforms hung on the bar while her loafers were below beside boots and sneakers.

  Calming down slightly, she went back to the bed and pulled on a loose robe over her pajamas. Her mouth felt dry and left her room to get a glass of water in the kitchen. The realization that it had been a dream, had sapped some of the fear from her. After getting her glass of water, Fumi pulled her robe over herself and curled up on the downstairs sofa, unwilling to return to her bedroom. An hour or two passed, she guessed in her narrative to me, when a new sound awakened her. Fumi’s gradual lapse from sleep to wakefulness blurred the outline of a small furtive form slipping past the open doorway.

  She was