an online story
by Tommy Schmitz
Chapter 3 - Unseeing a gathering storm.
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Katie and Susan O'Brien negotiated their bodies and school backpacks and shintaiso gear through the maze of commuters on the train at Chofu Station and stepped onto the station platform and into a lesser maze and put their footsteps on autopilot for the twenty-minute walk home.
"Mom and Dad will be ... " said Susan, half wondering.
"back tomorrow night," Katie said.
"Been a long three weeks without them." Susan said.
"Yeah, I just hope they weren't kidding when they promised this would be their last trip together.
"Better be."
"What is it in Kashmir anyway."
"Sweaters?" Susan chuckled.
"Yeah, it's like 'my Mom and Dad spent three weeks in Kashmir and all I got was this dumb cashmere t-shirt'". Katie joked and gave a twin's nudge with her shoulder into the shoulder of her sister.
"Hey, don't start." Susan said.
"I thought we were doing the local train tonight, ya know, get off at Fuda Station so we wouldn't have to walk past Hebi-yama..."
"I know. I forgot."
"Me too. Until now." Katie said.
"Well, we'll walk fast, and hey, the full moon's out tonight. I love seeing how the moon reflects off the water in the rice paddies." Susan said.
"Me too. Not something we get to see very often... Katie said.
"Yep, only now... late May, early June..." Susan said.
"Just when the bull frogs are mating." Katie said.
"Guess they like this time of year as much as we do. Susan said.
"I'm hearing them already." Katie said.
Yeah me too - half mile away. Susan said. "Noisy little things."
Just one singing bullfrog anywhere close to your bedroom window... Katie said.
"They have us outnumbered a million to one, Katie-chan." Susan interrupted. "Don't encourage 'em."
"We shoulda got off at Fuda Station." Katie said.
"Let's not think about it." Susan said.
"Think about what?" Katie said. Pushing her shoulder into her sister's again.
"I can't remember." Susan said.
"Then why are you walking so fast." Katie said. "Hey, whatever the rumors are about Hebi-yama... who cares."
Susan was silent for a bit. "me. I care." Susan said.
Katie released a quick sigh. "Yeah me too. Well, there it is. Our wonderful neighbor, Hebi-yama, coming up."
"Oh stop it. You're scaring both of us." Susan said.
The girls became quiet now, vigilent, absorbing with their eyes and their attention the blackness of the bamboo forest of Hebi-yama now spreading out beside them for hundreds of meters to the left and to the very edge of the road they walked. Whatever or whoever was in there would only have to reach a single length of an arm to snatch them into the dark.
And the more they tried to see and to listen at the total blackness, the more blinded and defeaened they felt. The rice paddies were carved flat into the earth 10 meters below on the other side of the road and the racket from the bullfrogs coming up from there did not help.
"This was a bad thing to forget about." Susan said measuring out the words in monotone.
Katie countered to hold back her own accelerating pulse. "Not if you're admiring the reflection of moonlight off the water to our right!" Katie said.
"Yeah, keep walking." Susan said.
"Wait." Katie said.
"I'm walking; you wait." Susan said.
"No wait. shhh." Katie grabs Susan's forearm and lifts her index finger to her lips.
Now Katie is talking only with her eyes wide open, darting glances between her sister and into the forest.
Seconds tick by.
Katie's index finger still at her lips.
"Daijoubu?", suddenly came a man's voice from the blackness. "Are you all right?"
"No!" the girls screamed and took off at a sprint.
"Run!" Susan says.
"I'm running!" says Katie.
Two hundred meters from home, school backpacks and shintaiso gear nearly flying off their shoulders.
Katie and Susan spot two men in suits getting into a car in front of their house. And the car drives away in the other direction.
"Who's that?" Susan gasps.
"Just keep running!" yelled Katie.
The girls threw up their arms to slow themselves down, landing out of breath and making load thuds against the door.
Katie groped for her house key and the two stood panting and the front door slowly opened.
The lights were off inside the house and they couldn't see their grandmother's face.
"Oba-chan, Oba-chan," the girls chanted and stumbled into the house.
No response.
The girls stood at the door, their mouths still open and staring at their grandmother who walked soundlessly down the hall toward a bedroom and clicked on a light and turned around.
Katie and Susan O'Brien were seeing a blank and distant look on their grandmother's face.
"Oba-chan! There's a man..." Susan started.
And Katie grabbed Susan's arm again sensing trouble with their grandmother.
"Oba-chan, are you all right?" Katie said, and lay a hand on her shoulder.
"Are you sick?" Susan asked.
"Huh?" said their grandmother. "Oh. I'm fine." Her eyes floating back toward the present now. Her voice still in another place.
"You don't look so fine," Susan said.
"Who was that? Those men who just drove off?"
"Oh, that was nothing... that was... um... they were lost... stopped for directions."
"Why are all the lights off?" Katie asked.
Katie and Susan O'Brien stood looking at their grandmother. They had never in fourteen years seen such anxiety in her normally calm and loving eyes. Was this fear that tightened the muscles in her face?
"You're out of breath." said grandmother.
The girls grabbed each others hand.
"We were racing." said Susan.
Katie knodded her head rapidly.
"Go and start your bath. Dinner'll be ready soon."
