Beside him, Uraga cradled his head in his hands. “Ah … aaaah …” His body began to spasm violently as his moans rose to a scream. “Aaaaah!”
“Hey!” Sanemi grabbed Uraga’s shoulders and tried to shake him out of whatever was happening to him.
“Shi … nazu … ga...wa …” Uraga looked up at him pleadingly. Tears filled his eyes. Then he shook his head faintly, as if resigning himself to his fate. A smile spread across his tear-streaked face. “It’s no use. No one...can betray...Mother.”
He pulled a dagger from his uniform. In one swift stroke, he slashed his throat. A spray of blood bloomed and doused Sanemi in crimson.
“Uraga!” he cried.
With a final gasp, Uraga collapsed on the living floor, still spasming with pain. Before long, however, he stopped moving. Tears trailed down cheeks so hollow they were nothing but skin stretched over bone.
“You...” Sanemi growled, his voice trembling with anger. “What did you do to Uraga?”
“Dear me, what are you so upset about?” The demon was smiling again, the gentleness restored to her face. “That naughty boy tried to make me out to be the villain, don’t you see? My only desire is to live happily ever after with my beloved children. He was trying to spoil our joy. He took advantage of my generosity. Dying is the least he could do to make up for that.”
Inside Sanemi’s head, he felt something snap. “Damn you!” His fury filled the room.
“Sanemi?”
Masachika whirled around. He was sure he’d heard his friend’s voice, but there was no sign of him.
He’d returned to one particular room in the house. Before him stood the mirrored dresser the old man had described. Masachika wasn’t sure why it haunted him. But if Yae had become a demon, it might provide a clue as to what had happened to her.
He crouched in front of it. The mirror was covered by a fine embroidered cloth. The dresser was clearly an antique, but otherwise it seemed to be an ordinary piece of furniture. The handles on the drawers, however, were made of something that resembled the metal of a Nichirin Sword. If the dresser had been designed as a charm against evil, the artisan might very well have used iron from Mount Yoko. That iron, bathed in sunlight, held the power to repel demons.
Masachika put a finger on a dull handle and pulled on the top drawer. It was empty.
Just to check, he reached inside. The tips of his fingers brushed something that made a rustling sound. “What’s this?” he frowned. Something was stuck to the top of the drawer. He gingerly peeled it away from the wood, careful not to tear whatever it was. It turned out to be a piece of pulp paper, folded clumsily. Masachika opened it, not expecting much.
He froze.
Characters trailed along the page, written in red that had dried to black.
Mother made me drink poison.
Mother burned my throat.
Mother boxed my ears.
Mother tore out my hair.
Mother pulled out my nails.
Mother broke my bones.
Mother doesn’t hug me.
Mother says she didn’t want me.
Mother says she loves me.
Mother is trying to kill me.
Help me help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help help
The characters toward the end were badly drawn, half scrawls.
Masachika unconsciously raised a hand to his mouth, almost dropping the paper. Panicked, he grabbed it tightly with both hands. It made a dry crackling sound.
What is this? Did her mother...kill her?
He didn’t want to believe it. But judging from what the old man had told him, this had been Sae’s room.
Yae killed Sae …
The world turned inside out. Everything he’d been told about this sad, noble woman was drenched in black.
Masachika stared, stunned, at the dresser. She’d gazed into this mirror the whole time, admiring herself. The picture-perfect image of motherly love, nursing her child.
What about her husband? Had his death really been an accident? And who dug up Sae’s body?
Masachika’s breath quickened. The images that filled his head made him sick.
The page was smeared here and there with long-dried tears. Had Sae bitten into the end of her finger to write the note in blood? The characters seemed to writhe in pain, radiating the terror and desperation of a girl not yet ten years old living through a nightmare.
Masachika’s vision blurred. The poor girl... She must have suffered terribly. She must have been so afraid. A tear of his own dropped on the page.
Suddenly the choking fragrance grew weaker. He seemed to hear his friend’s voice again, this time more clearly.
Masachika leapt to his feet. “Sanemi! I can hear you! Where are you?” As he whirled around, the tip of his Nichirin Sword caught on the fabric draped over the mirror. The silk cloth slid away and fell to the tatami mat on the floor.
Masachika stooped to pick it up, only to stop when he caught sight of the glass. “What?” he gasped.
In the mirror, Masachika could see Sanemi behind him. He was standing in the middle of the room, facing a female demon—no, not facing her. For some reason, he had his blade turned in the wrong direction. The demon was watching him with glee from a safe distance.
The color drained from Masachika’s face. “Sanemi! She’s behind you!” Masachika spun around with his own sword drawn, but his blade sliced through empty air. “What? But...they were right here!”
Baffled, Masachika turned his gaze back to the mirror. In the room reflected there, Sanemi was attacking empty space with one technique after another. The demon continued to watch with a sneer.
As he stared in confusion, Masachika noticed something even stranger. He himself wasn’t reflected in the mirror. The display case in the corner of the room was also missing.
Realization crept over him. “That’s not … here.” Was the mirror showing him a different room?
As Masachika leaned in to get a better look, Sanemi disappeared, replaced by an ordinary reflection. Masachika grabbed both sides of the mirror and shouted into his own pale, desperate face. “Wait! Sanemi! Where’d you go?”
He shook the mirror frantically, then stopped. In one corner of its reflection, he could see the display case. An incense burner sat on the top shelf. But when he looked over his shoulder, the case was empty.
“What?” This didn’t make sense. His mind in turmoil, Masachika looked into the mirror one more time. He stared hard into the glass, watching reddish smoke waft up from the incense burner. The sickly, rotten—but somehow fragrant—scent hung in the air as it had since he set foot in the house.
Was the scent coming from that burner? “It couldn’t be...” he murmured, and the red smoke in the mirror wavered.
Somewhere, in a dark corner of his mind, he heard a girl crying. She whispered, barely audible, in the voice of the dead.
Help.
“Dammit!” Sanemi cursed as the demon easily deflected yet another attack. “Why can’t I hit her?”
“You are a little fool, aren’t you?” the demon said, as though chiding a disobedient child. “I told you before, you’re inside me. No one can hurt me here.”
Sanemi didn’t want to believe it, but she was right about the last part, at least. Not only did his blade never touch her, but the flesh walls around him seemed impervious to damage.
Those walls had swallowed Uraga’s corpse. Sanemi couldn’t even return his body to his girlfriend. The thought ground away at him.
“Do be a good boy and settle down,” the demon urged. “You’re my child now. Mother will keep you safe. She’ll be with you forever. You can stop all this pointless fussing. Come now, I’ll give you a hug. Or maybe you’d prefer a lullaby?”
“Shut up,” Sanemi groaned. She was toying with him, and he knew it. She hadn’t attacked even once. She seemed to enjoy watching him fail, letting him steadily exhaust his mind and body in futile attacks.
To have a chance at defeating her, Sanemi would have to get out of that pulsating room. But how? He kept coming back to that question and finding no answers. He was going in circles.
If I could at least get the kids out …
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the last two children. The boy was clearly very sick, his body shaking, perhaps from a fever. The girl seemed stable at the moment, but Sanemi had to get them both to a doctor as soon as possible.
To do that, he had to kill the demon. But in this room, he couldn’t lay a finger on her.
Dammit!
The demon watched Sanemi’s frustration with amusement. Then the smirk vanished from her face. “How?” she demanded.
“Huh?” At first Sanemi thought she was talking to him, but she was turned away, staring into space.
“This child... What is he?” Sanemi hadn’t seen this look on her face before. The mocking glee was gone. For the first time, she looked unsure of herself.
“He shouldn’t be able to see this,” the demon whispered.
Sanemi’s brow furrowed. “What are you going on about?”
From somewhere in the room, Sanemi heard the sound of pottery breaking. As he tried to figure out where it had come from, the scene around him changed. “What?” he cried.