Chapter Eight, in which Everything Comes Together at the End that was the Beginning

* * * *

Spirit-san guided me toward the site of the remaining memento, neither of us wishing to speak during the walk back into the village. Despite the silence, it didn’t feel like a long walk. Possibly my mind was less aware of the flow of time with a ghost controlling my body. Or perhaps more likely, I was just tired. Either way, it wasn’t too late in the afternoon by the time I reached the village’s temple grounds, which meshed well with the natural scenery round about.

As expected, the temple itself was small—a single building that likely served the functions of both a main hall and a lecture room. It was a squat structure with a proportionally large arcing roof, looking somewhat like a toddler wearing an adult’s hat. Amidst the leafless trees and bushes I noted a plain gateway marking the entry to the grounds. It was patterned much like the temple, with little elaboration and a steep tile roof, and in the end looked a bit like a wooden cube with an opening serving as an oversized doorway. There weren’t any large statues or a pagoda of any sort; a village this small was likely to keep things simple.

Beyond the temple I could only see more of winter’s variety of lifeless fauna, which blended with the nearby cemetery’s legions of thin wooden posts serving as grave markers. Each village had its own customs when it came to death, and though cremation had become commonplace among the devout, it was a practice too expensive for most villagers. It looked like the various families of the village didn’t need too much space to work with for their cemetery, and only a dozen or so stone grave markers rested near its center. Most of these stone markers also included holders for various offerings, such as incense, candles, food, or drink.

The gravesite for the Kijimuta family had to be nearby, and presumably Spirit-san’s grandmother was buried there. But it made me wonder—wouldn’t Spirit-san’s body be there too?

This is… This is…

Spirit-san’s voice trembled in my head. I glanced around, wondering if anything was out of the ordinary.

No. No. No. No.

I wanted to ask what was wrong, but my whole body started trembling. I held my arms together and clutched my elbows, as if trying to withstand the shivering of an intense hypothermia. At the same time, a bout of dizziness struck me. When I tried to ask Spirit-san what happened, I realized I was on my knees, my body hunched over and slick with a cold sweat.

Why am I here? Spirit-san screamed, and in my state of nausea I wondered if it was me yelling.

I killed myself! Why didn’t I stay dead? Why do I continue to exist and make everyone miserable? My dead body… My dead, wasted, meaningless life!

The situation gained a sudden clarity with those words. If random objects loosely associated with deaths she witnessed could trigger a reaction from Spirit-san, wouldn’t her own dead body buried at this cemetery have an even greater effect on her? Simply entering this cemetery and letting Spirit-san’s sense of sheer mortality sink in had sent a deluge of emotion coursing through my body. She had died, and yet she continued to exist. The thoughts that passed through her mind when she first truly wished to end her life… Did she really intend to become a ghost?

How many more were going to suffer because of me? I needed to stop existing. Should I have ever existed? I can’t exist anymore. How long do I have to exist? I must not exist. Why couldn’t I just not exist?

I fell onto my back, all sense of feeling escaping me.

* * * *

I lay in a futon, staring at the ceiling and its empty cobwebs. It was one of those days where I didn’t want to do anything at all. I just felt like lying there, moving as little as possible. I didn’t even want to think about anything. Perhaps if I didn’t think, move, or feel anymore, I’d just disappear. I could just fade from existence, and maybe even slip from everyone’s memories. Like sand sifting between your fingers.

These weren’t thoughts I ever had before, save perhaps for the desire to just lie in a futon all day. I had often wished that. But these must have been Spirit-san’s thoughts. I was Spirit-san, lying on the floor, not moving a muscle. Was it the middle of the day? How long had I been here?

I stared at the ceiling, afraid to close my eyes. I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep, and if I closed my eyes my mind would inevitably wander back to… them. An endless series of questions I would never be able to answer. I didn’t want to keep falling down that hole, but there was nowhere else for me to hide. So I just focused on lying there.

Sometimes I would count the grooves in the wooden boards holding up the roof. I could do it for hours. My eyes would lose focus at times and I’d start seeing double. I tried to maintain that double vision for as long as I could, and counted the grooves again—including the lines that didn’t actually exist.

My eyes would always regain their focus after a while. But it was funny. Adjust your eyes ever so slightly, and everything you see becomes disjointed. The world is distorted. It made my head hurt.

* * * *

I was still staring at the ceiling, but I felt different. The room seemed colder. I sat up and stretched my arms and back, yawning in the process. I thought of lying back down. Perhaps I could fall asleep again? I certainly felt tired enough to.

But I would feel tired again when I woke up later. And at that point I wouldn’t want to leave my futon the entire day. I had to keep myself busy. It didn’t matter what I did. Helping Mother around the house and helping Father with his work… None of it made me feel better, of course. I was still doing nothing with my life. And I never felt any closer to finding any answers. But it kept me from drowning in self-pity.

I helped Mother cook breakfast, and after I ate with her and Father, I went outside to help Father with whatever project he was working on. My parents and I helped with the community’s rice fields at various times, such as during the weeks of planting and harvest, but for most of the year my father worked with carpentry and repairs. His projects were never anything too big, and overall it was just something he was okay at rather than something he was truly skilled in. His true passion was for reading the works of obscure philosophers, ascetics, diviners, and wandering priests—none of whom anyone in the village was familiar with.

As I helped sand down a misshapen slab of wood with flattened horsetail stalk, Father quoted from a number of these figures and shared his rambling thoughts on each subject they brought up in their writings. I usually just agreed with whatever he said, but deep down I didn’t really care for any of it. None of it helped me feel any better. It was just another thing that made me unable to fit in anywhere. Though I was pretty sure my parents had the same general beliefs as anyone else in the village, they certainly went about their days in an unusual manner—often in the form of strange rituals and questionable methods of fortune-telling.

Their efforts never helped me avoid tragedy. But I only had myself to blame for that. It was my fault Hana-chan and Iseki-san…

I couldn’t let myself get depressed again. Not in front of my worried father. I knew my parents were leaving wishes for me at the shrine almost every day. I had become such a burden for them. Any normal woman my age would have been long married by now, starting a stable, dependable family that would make her parents proud.

Or at least be doing something with her life. I was always making everything worse for everyone.

I stopped sanding and just stared at the wood for a minute. My father kept working, though I could tell he was glancing over at me from time to time to see if I was okay. Perhaps he just assumed I was tired. I did get tired easily.

After a while Father paused and brushed his bangs off his weary face. “You can warm up inside for a bit, Michiko. I can finish this up.” He never wanted to push me too hard with any of this. In part he likely assumed I didn’t care for this sort of man’s work—and admittedly I didn’t. But it was something to do. I really just needed something to do.

I left as Father suggested and walked around to the front of the house. I noticed Mother lying on the ground with her arms against her sides and her eyes closed. There was a perfect circle of fallen leaves around her, and what purpose this served I could only guess. I let her be and went to my room.

Perhaps there was something else I should be doing? What was I supposed to be doing? I didn’t like asking myself this question. It always made me think of all the things I could have done differently these past several months. These past few years. My entire life.

* * * *

Another time, but always the same place: my world, this little room. I collapsed into my futon and shivered beneath my blanket. It would be winter soon. The time of year nobody ever seemed happy about. It made me feel kind of relieved though—the idea that other people could be suffering, if only for a little while. Wasn’t it terrible of me to think that? It was pathetic. It was the middle of the day, and all I could bring myself to do was lie on the floor.

Hana-chan and Iseki-san would be living their lives to the fullest right now, if it weren’t for me. Why did they have to die? I knew there was no answer, but I still couldn’t help but ask.

I clutched at my hair and slammed my forehead against the floor.

They must hate me so much. And why wouldn’t they? I deserved whatever awful fate they could give me. They could tear me into pieces, burn me alive, or stab me with a thousand needles. What did I need to do for them to end this cursed life of mine? Did I need to call out their names?

Hana-chan! Iseki-san! Hana-chan! Iseki-san! Hana-chan! Iseki-san!

“Hana-chan! Iseki-san!”

I screamed their names into my pillow until my entire body trembled. When my throat turned dry, I continued screaming in my head. For the hours that followed I clutched at my hair and wept, just waiting for the end.

* * * *

I sat up, my gaze fixed on nothing in particular. All around me were grave markers. My heart beat rapidly—so much so that it hurt to breathe—and it took a minute for my dizziness to pass enough for me to attempt standing up again. It seemed that Spirit-san’s memories had passed, and now I had to decide what to make of it all.

Spirit-san had never been particularly close to anyone outside her home, apparently—and the two deaths she felt responsible for were individuals who could be deemed a couple of her very few acquaintances. There was a trend of ever-despairing hopelessness in all the memories I had experienced this day, but was there anything more for me to work with? I needed to pin down something more specific for the reasoning behind Spirit-san’s current state of being.

Did you feel what I felt, Naoki-kun? I didn’t want you to go through all that…

“It’s all right. But it did make me wonder… Why did you feel you could be haunted by ghosts? That isn’t something that happens often to people in the first place.”

Shouldn’t you understand by now? How if I wasn’t around, everyone would be better off? Hana-chan and Iseki-san have every reason to hate me. They couldn’t live the wonderful lives they should have enjoyed, so if there is any way they can at least have their revenge, or have their justice, or just have everything be settled in some way between us… I want you to help me do that, Naoki-kun.

I don’t want everyone to be suffering forever. Is there any way you can help them move on? I’m helpless by myself. I’ve never been able to do anything right on my own. But I have to do something. I died for the chance to do something. I lived on like this, hoping as hard as I possibly could that I could do something.

What was that something, though? There was something more than Spirit-san was alluding to. The answer had to lie in those memories. What enabled Kijimuta-san to live on like this?

There were no ghosts to summon for her, of course. Spirit-san had to understand this by now. Nobody wanted to haunt her. Even if she had in some obscure way been responsible for anyone’s death, nobody would want to linger on just to make one innocuous eccentric suffer more than she already had. So if Spirit-san wasn’t truly lingering on for the sake of haunting anyone, why did she become a ghost?

It couldn’t have been just a desire to stave off her loneliness. Loneliness was a pervading element of her supernaturally-revealed memories, but there’s extraordinarily little chance of a ghost ever making friends. Such a desire would much more likely propel her to a new life.

She may have killed herself in an effort to keep any more people around her from dying, but that didn’t explain becoming a ghost. What was the element that linked all of Kijimuta-san’s experiences together? The causes of death were beyond her control. And indeed, she had always felt powerless, unable to do anything about her unusual life’s circumstances. This perhaps added to her likelihood of lingering on, but what was the motive that compelled her to remain in this mortal realm as a ghost?

Spirit-san said a great deal about her unfinished business with those who died. But if none of them had sought to curse Kijimuta-san while she was alive, the odds they would wish to do so after she died were even less likely. Could Spirit-san then have had some unfinished business with the living?

Of course. It was her parents. All this time, Spirit-san had to have strong feelings buried deep inside her in regards to her parents. She had kept these emotions hidden, but there had to be something there. And something needed to be done about it.

“Spirit-san, what did you do after you died? Right after you became a ghost?”

Spirit-san didn’t respond.

Perhaps this meant I was on the right track, so I continued.

“Did you haunt your parents?”

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