Episode 37 - Shadows
The rain had stopped, but the house still sounded like it wept.
Reiko moved slowly through Otaki's old room, her footsteps muffled by the dust-heavy tatami. A scent of dried incense and lavender lingered, wrapped in silence like old breath trapped in fabric. This room had not changed in decades. The shelves sagged with worn sutra scrolls, charms faded to yellow parchment. The window refused to open, as if the house had sealed it on purpose.
She knelt before Otaki's dresser, fingers ghosting over lacquered wood. The mirror was covered by a black veil. Out of instinct or fear, she did not lift it.
Instead, her hand settled on a bottom drawer. No handle. Only a faint indentation, and the flicker of a binding talisman, long dried and cracked.
She exhaled.
A small voice in her mind said, Don't.
But her hand had already moved.
The seal peeled off like old skin. A bitter wind burst from the drawer—though the room had no draft—and Reiko flinched as it whispered past her neck.
Inside: a black wooden comb. Ornate, lacquered, ancient. Blacker than ink. As she lifted it, she noticed a faint carving on its back.
"S.A."
Sakuma Ayame.
Her mother had spoken her name once. A cousin or aunt who vanished in the estate long ago. Officially, a runaway. Unofficially, a suicide. The family never said more.
The comb felt warm in her hand.
---
That night, Reiko sat before her vanity mirror in the room next to Otaki's. She hadn't planned to use the comb. It had simply followed her, nestled on the table like it belonged there.
The moment its teeth touched her scalp, she gasped.
The air grew thick. Her hair felt heavier. The lights dimmed, and the mirror began to ripple.
She brushed once. Twice. A third time.
Then, the mirror cracked.
Her reflection did not follow her movements.
She froze. Her reflected self kept brushing. Her face was gaunt. Pale. Her eyes bled gray tears.
The reflected Reiko smiled, mouth widening far beyond what lips should allow. She dropped the comb. Too late.
The world fell away.
---
She was underwater.
Long strands of hair floated like kelp, tangling around her wrists, ankles, throat. Not hers. Blacker. Longer. They caressed her skin, then tightened.
She struggled, lungs burning. The strands pulled tighter, dragging her deeper.
Then she saw her—floating just ahead.
A woman in a white funeral kimono. Hair drifting endlessly behind her. Her face was half-shadowed. One eye missing. Her lips cracked open.
"You forgot me."
Reiko opened her mouth to scream, but the hair surged inside—forcing her mouth shut.
"You wear my blood, but you forget my name. Reiko Sakuma, little daughter of betrayal…"
The woman's eye flared red.
"Remember me. Or drown."
---
Reiko awoke gasping, clawing at her throat.
Her futon was soaked with sweat. Her scalp itched horribly. She staggered to the mirror, half-afraid she'd see the wrong reflection.
Instead, she saw herself. Pale. Shaking.
She leaned closer—and recoiled.
A single long gray hair hung from her mouth.
---
Yukishiro arrived that afternoon, unannounced.
He stood in the rain under a black umbrella, his white robes clinging to him. As always, he looked like a misplaced priest from an older world. When Reiko opened the door, he bowed, eyes sharp with worry.
"The air here is thick," he said softly. "Something's cracked."
She nodded silently and let him in.
---
In Otaki's old room, Yukishiro knelt before the dresser where the comb had been. He touched the drawer, then frowned.
"She sealed it well. But not permanently."
"She sealed it for Ayame?" Reiko asked.
He didn't answer directly. "Ayame died in this house. That's the polite version. The truth is murkier."
Reiko felt a chill crawl up her neck.
Yukishiro stood, brushing dust from his robe. "You combed your hair with it, didn't you?"
She nodded.
"Then the first seal is weakened. Ayame was the First Shadow. Her death was not natural, and her memory is full of pain. If she's stirring… others may follow."
He turned to her.
"You may still hold her back. But the more you acknowledge her presence—the stronger she'll become."
Reiko clutched her arms. "What if I already let her in?"
Yukishiro's gaze softened. "Then we find a way to let her out. Without letting everything else through."
---
That night, Reiko locked the comb in the shrine room under salt and prayer beads.
Still, she dreamed.
Not of drowning.
Of brushing her hair.
The mirror smiled back.
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To be continued…
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