a serialized online story
by Tommy Schmitz
Chapter 8 - Superstition and allowance in Hebi-yama.
Oba-chan watched Taya-san and Kaneko-san
from the Japan Foreign Ministry,
discuss their alternatives and tactics
to find the girls;
first on the list:
Comb Hebi-yama with agents and dogs.
"They are not in Hebi-yama." Oba-chan said. "They are forbidden
to step foot in there. And for that matter,
I forbid you to search for them in there.
"It's . . . "
Oba-chan pauses.
"haunted."
Oba-chan pauses again.
"occupied,
you might say.
And you do know what I mean." she stated flatly.
She pauses once again.
"I'm might be a physicist," she continues,
"an electronics engineer
and a patent attorney,
but I am also a grandmother.
And I am sorry to say this:
if you enter, even with the best of intentions,
that bamboo sanctuary,
You will bring great hardship
upon my life
and upon all the lives in this home.
And I repeat: You do know what I am talking about."
The men stared at her without a word.
"Would you care to give notice to the neighbors
and get their opinions on this matter?
Every body around here knows these - things - about Hebi-yama,
and most have felt this way for generations.
And do you know why?" she paused.
"Perhaps you would like to test
what effect these spirits might have
upon your own lives?
Your own families and futures?
Surely you know
what sits beside us in Hebi-yama?
And how many
dozens of generations
of my ancestors", she paused, "and yours
are sitting-up right now
across that bamboo forest
taking notice as we speak."
The men just stared.
"Fifty? Sixty? Seventy generations?"
The men continued staring.
"Then," Oba-chan folded her hands in front of her, right over left, "Let's not put a fox hunt in Hebi-yama
at the top of the list of ways to find the girls, okay?" Oba-chan said.
"The girls are not in there. I can tell."
She was walking to the door, and grabbed the door knob.
"Gentlemen? she paused. "A thousand apologies for this inconvenience.
And a thousand thank you's for your help."
"Who are you? Katie asserted.
He let go of her arm, and took a couple steps back into the darkness.
"Who are you?" Katie repeated.
"I cannot tell you who I am at this time.
"You're an old man. I can run faster than you and turn you in."
"Yes, you may." he said.
"You'll never get out of here." Katie said.
"That, Katie, is another matter."
The man moved toward his dark makeshift hut,
pulled up a flap, and crawled inside.
Katie noticed the glow of a well hidden candle inside and followed.
"How do you know my name?"
"Is there anyone at the moment in Japan who doesn't?
"The television would never say our names." she said.
"You've been blogged."
Katie rolled her eyes.
"You can help get my mother and father back?" Katie said. "My brother?"
He was silent.
"Why are you here" she demanded.
He was silent.
"This is dumb. There are agents just beyond the opened window there.
Surely you know this.
I could scream no matter what your intentions are."
"Yes you may."
Katie took a long look at nothing into the glow inside the hut.
"Go retrieve your sister.
Or not.
or go finish your homework
and forget about this.
Or not." he looked in her direction, and continued.
"Susan, right now, is crawling your path."
He looked Japanese, all right.
But he didn't look like
he had been working and drinking
with the same salary men
for eighteen hours a day,
six days per week,
every single month
for the last 40 years of his life.
"Then again", she wondered, what other look do I know?
And on a sixty-five year old man in Tokyo Japan?
This look,
his look,
was not the same.
The muscles in his face sat differently somehow under his skin.
His eye brows
hard to say, she thought,
Soft. Relaxed. Accepting.
But intense, she decided.
No.
His face is not intense.
His entire presence is.
"Why the interest in us?"
" I cannot tell you at this time."
"Are you crazy?" Katie said.
"Are you going to retrieve your sister?" he countered.
She looked hard at him.
"Or not." he slowly added.
"Or maybe I go home like nothing happened." she asserted.
"Aren't you working on your math homework?
"Hmm." she nodded. "Yes I am, if I am still alive after Oba-chan finds out.
He smiled.
"Either way: we run, we stay," said Katie,
"we are big time screwed." And she began shaking her head to measure her words.
"Susan is not going to return here with me.
The moment she sees me, she'll run home. And so will I." Katie said, "Maybe."
"And you're allowed." he smiled, "no maybe about it."
"Yes she will," Katie kept going, "Susan will run... What? What did you say?"
He was silent.
And she grabbed the flap and lifted and took off out the door.
She followed her way back up the hill as best she could,
dodging fingers of moonlight.
"It's better I find her and not the other way around." she said out loud to herself.
It'll give me a slight edge in this upcoming battle of the O'Brien twins."
And with that precaution
she fairly ran
up the hill
nearly reaching the ridge and the trail
that headed back eastward, toward her bedroom window.
She felt movement in the bamboo stalks
several meters down and east from where she stopped now,
trying to breathe, if not more lightly, then at least a bit more quietly.
"Susan!" Katie whispered loudly.
Katie watched the movement stop.
"Susan, stop it! No. I mean, Susan, don't stop it. Get over here quick!"
Katie saw no movement, heard no sound.
"Oh, this is dumb. Susan! Get over here!"
"Here I am," Susan whispered excitedly, loudly
and from a direction that pointed a good 60 degrees north
of the movement of bamboo Katie just saw.
"Susan! Stop! Katie said. "Don't move!
There is someone else here!
I mean, right there,
a few meters down the hill from you!"
And both girls now saw vigorous movement coming from the same area.
"Susan-Katie, Katie-Susan."
"Ohmygod, it's Oba-chan," the girls said in concert.
And each of them froze suddenly in her tracks.
(end of Chapter 8)
(Chapter 9 coming Sunday, July 23, 2006, 11:00 pm Mexico City Time.)
