CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GHOST SONG

Her voice was like sand siphoning through an hourglass. Like silk sliding across polished stone.

 She could have been standing inches away, but I felt nothing. No warmth. No breath against my skin. The sensation was wrong, like hearing a voice through an old radio— distant, thin.

 "Okay… I'm… Ryu," I answered. Saying it was easier this time.

 "I know. I saw you yesterday. But you couldn't hear me. You're different now."

 I froze.

 She saw me yesterday?

 That meant she saw… who? The real Ryu? The one before me?

 "I was different? How?"

 The air shifted. Colder. I pulled my school jacket tighter, but it didn't help. The cold I felt wasn't physical – it seeped through the fabric and skin, like winter creeping into my bones.

 "You were… more like most people," Yuki said softly. "You couldn't pierce the veil into the realm of death. Into the spirit world. Your light… dim. Barely a candle. But now…"

 I exhaled, watching my breath turn to mist.

 Yuki was close. I could feel it. My cheeks tingled with cold. Shivers crept down my left arm. She must be standing beside me.

 I stiffened.

 "Now, you're closer to death, Ryu," her whispered voice dropped even lower, almost fragile. "You're no longer holding a candle… maybe a flashlight? But it's enough."

 "Enough for what?" I asked.

 A pause. Then –

 A slow, creeping sensation on my wrist. Not pressure. Not a touch. Just a cold, teasing drift across my bare skin.

 "Enough to notice me," Yuki whispered. "Most don't or can't. No matter what I do. They think it's the wind. Some mediums, some people with a connection to the spirit world can…"

 She was quiet a moment.

 And then.

 "People like you."

 Her voice trembled slightly when she continued.

 "Sometimes, if I'm very lucky, I can knock over a sheet of paper. Or a bottle of perfume."

 I swallowed hard. "Do they notice you then?"

 "No. Only the paper or perfume. Not me."

 The air grew colder. A deep, aching loneliness crept into her words – the way she lingered, her presence like frost against a window.

 I sat down on the chair beside the desk and looked outside, over the onsen.

 "That why… if it's okay… I'd like to come with you," she whispered.

 My stomach twisted.

 "What? Come where?" I asked.

 "Wherever you're going, Ryu. I don't care… I just don't want to be here anymore."

 I felt the temperature plummet. A deep, unnatural chill settled over my left side, near the window, as if she were looking out with me. I clenched my fist, forcing myself not to shiver.

 Yuki's voice wavered, raw from choking back years of sorrow.

 "Sorry… it's lonely here. I don't want to be ignored anymore."

 And I knew how that felt.

 The black iron gate loomed before us, its intricate bars twisting, reminiscent of flowering wisteria. A sickly purple light pulsed from within the metal. Not light, not energy, but something alive – slithering, worming, festering.

 No one touched it. No one even stood close, as the purple light seemed to slither and worm across the bars. Just looking at it made my insides feel like they were moving in time with the pulsing light.

 I tried to scan everyone's faces as we stood around waiting for the gates to open and "orientation" to begin. I must have seen dozens of students, mostly Japanese. I looked again, but not a single red head in the lot.

 Where the hell was Lana?

 A high, metallic whine ripped through the air, and the gates groaned, shuddering open, pulled by an hands.

 Then – out of the mist – it appeared. The yellow bus.

 Its doors creaked as they swung open, exhaling a handful of students onto the stone path to the school.

 The driver turned. Our eyes met.

 That damn grin again.

 "Shion, how did you get here?" I asked as we waited for the orientation to begin. The road back to Crescent Moon Academy had become much more crowded with students walking up the path to the academy and across the campus grounds.

 Shion sat to my right. Another girl sat to the left of me, brown hair and glasses. I gripped the armrests of the seat in the Anton Lavey Memorial Auditorium, wondering how many of the students around me were monsters in disguise.

 One of the nice things about being in a room full of other high school age students was that I didn't have to listen to Shion breath before she spoke. It made talking to her almost normal.

 "What do you mean? Like, when was I invited?"

 "No. I mean, how did you get to Shin'yume? I didn't see any train station," I said.

 She grinned at me. I pretended I couldn't see the tips of her fangs.

 "Getting smarter, Ryu. How'd you get here?" she asked.

 "Oh, come on, Shion, please don't mess with me right now."

 She studied my face for a fraction of a second before answering.

 "Fine, but only because I've got to be nice to you." She grinned, fangs flashing. "I'll be hungry later."

 "That's not even funny."

 She tilted her head, smiling just enough to make me uncomfortable. "I wasn't joking."

 Then, a second later, she turned to look at the floor and I heard her voice, barely a whisper.

 "My parents shipped me here."

 "They what?" I asked, not expecting that answer.

 "Yeah, Ryu. In a wooden box with… dirt. Shipped like a letter. Or Amazon package. That's why I got here so early – I didn't feel like waiting at the post office," she said.

 Damn. That's right. She couldn't cross running water, so the sea around the island would have been a problem for her.

 "Since you brought it up, how'd you get here, Ryu? What's the normal way to get to Shin'yume?" she asked.

 I could tell she sounded hurt. I hadn't meant to embarrass her, but I couldn't imagine having to sit in a box filled with dirt while going through the mail. It's not like Shion could just sleep to pass the time.

 "I took the bus," I said.

 "You took the bus to an island?"

 "Yeah. Through a tunnel."

 "Oh. Okay, the tunnel in the woods. I bet that's how most arrive, like the group we saw coming in," she said.

 There was a tunnel. In the woods.

 Could I get back that way?

 "Excuse me?"

 A voice to my left – close. Too close.

 I turned.

 And almost screamed.

 "Can you please tell me whether or not my face is being still? I'm having trouble concentrating with the noise, and I can't seem to hold onto a single image."

 The "girl" to my left wasn't stable. Her face shivered, unraveled, pulled itself back together– again and again. She looked like a mirage struggling, trapped between realities. Her eyes stretched too wide, then shrank to slits. Blue. Green. Brown. Grey. No color at all. Her mouth twisted – smiling, frowning, laughing, screaming – all at once. The words she said weren't hers. They weren't anyone's.

 "What are you?" I finally blurted out.

 She seemed to jump back at my question as though I'd struck her.

 "Wow! Jeez, I'm so sorry to bother you, jerk! I'm having trouble, you know! I can't find my glasses to help me focus!"

 She sharply turned away, offended. I had no words. I'd just insulted someone who needed help. I'd have to learn to stop reacting to the things around me. I need to learn how to respond.

 "Ryu," Yuki's voice whispered softly in my ear. "I found her glasses. On the floor. Careful, they're under her chair."

 I nodded, and whispered a thank you to Yuki.

 "It's okay. I don't think that girl is entirely tied to this world," Yuki said.

 I wasn't even sure what that meant. I reached beneath the girls seat and picked up her glasses by the frames.

 "I'm really sorry," I said to her. "I didn't mean to… Um… I found your glasses."

 I set them on the side of her desk.

 She turned towards me.

 "Thanks," she said, wiping her lenses and putting them back on her face.

 Her face slowly stopped flickering. The shifting eyes, the twisting mouth settled, like ripples on a lake smoothing after a stone is thrown.

 "My name's Azuki Konami," she said. She looked up at me, her glasses magnifying her yellowish-brown eyes. They were so wide and reminded me of the moon somehow. "A tanuki…"

 "What?" I asked

 "You asked what I was. That's what I am. You should at least tell me your name, you know. So, how 'bout it? What's yours? Don't hold out on me now," she said.

 "Ryu Kazeyama."

 Somehow her eyes grew even wider.

 "The dragon of the windy mountain?!"

 Before I could answer, the lights died.

 Darkness swallowed the room. In the black, Yuki's whisper slipped into my ear – soft and breathless but shaking.

 "Ryu… you're in danger here."