Shadow (paper gods) Read online

  “Let me get you some towels,” she said, rubbing the back of her head as she went, shy about the effort she’d made with my new room. It was a sweet gesture. It was.

  I stared at my new room, but exhaustion was taking over.

  This was my new life, no matter what happened.

  Face that mountain, Katie. Size it up.

  But I wasn’t sure if I could.

  Chapter Ten

  Tomohiro

  The dream started in darkness, like so many of them did. There was no beach, no cloud of shadows chasing. For once I’d wanted to relive that nightmare, to ask my questions about Taira the Demon Son. Not that I would’ve been able to change anything for sure. I usually realized it was a dream too late to do anything useful but wake up.

  A faint sense came over me that something wasn’t quite right. It was the fleeting thought that I was dreaming, but I couldn’t be sure. My mind felt sluggish, like it was too much effort to put together the pieces.

  At first there was nothing but darkness, an isolation so intense that claustrophobia soon followed. A flicker of blue light lit the crumbling brick walls around me.

  Then the whispers started.

  God, the whispers. Like a whole bucket of ice cubes tossed down the back of my shirt. Sometimes they swelled into moans, deep and horrible cries of pain, always talking over each other in swells like waves. And the footsteps that clicked like wolf claws on cement. Only they weren’t wolves, I knew. The beasts circled closer and closer, ready to gnaw my flesh off the bone. I shuddered. It was a labyrinth of brick, and I had no way to tell if the demons were really close or not. The fear was sharp, an intense pain I couldn’t ignore.

  “You are marked,” said a woman’s voice, and I jumped back against the jagged mortar crumbling on the wall. “You are chosen.”

  “Stay away from me,” I said to the darkness as I backed into the corner. But suddenly the hot breath of the woman was in my ear.

  “There is only death,” she said, and I stumbled forward. Her plain white kimono was pale in the blue light. She fused into the shadows and vanished.

  I heard snarling, scraping. One of the beasts, trying to dig under the wall. He slammed his body against the other side and bits of brick crumbled to the ground. I could see clouds of dust rising where his claws could almost reach under—sharp claws that would rip me to shreds.

  “Help me,” I said, terror taking hold. “I don’t want to die.”

  “You won’t die,” her voice laughed. “You will kill.”

  I opened my mouth, but said nothing.

  “Are you afraid of the inugami? You misunderstand. He’s gone mad with fear. He’s trying to get away from you.”

  He was scrambling under the wall because he feared me. He didn’t realize I was waiting on the other side to—to what? Kill him?

  “No. I’m just—I wouldn’t...” But suddenly I could remember something horrible. The taste of matted fur and bone, the stench of blood.

  It’s not real. It can’t be real. I wouldn’t do that, not even to a demon like the inugami. It had to be a lie, a fake memory. I wasn’t a monster. This wasn’t me.

  “You don’t know who you are, Tomohiro. We know.”

  I shook my head, but the sound of my name chilled me to the core. I didn’t want her to know anything about me.

  “You’re lost. You’ve forgotten.”

  My hands squeezed into fists as beads of sweat broke out all over my skin. The sweat trickled down my forehead like blood.

  “You’re wrong,” I said.

  “We are never wrong.”

  And then a second voice echoed in the labyrinth. “Yuu-chan?”

  My body went cold. Oh god. Myu. She couldn’t be here. She couldn’t.

  “Please,” I begged. “Leave her alone.”

  “Yuu-chan? I’m scared!”

  The scatter of wolf-beasts, footsteps everywhere.

  And then another faint voice.

  “Tomo-kun!”

  “Shiori!” I cried. I raced into the labyrinth, twisting and turning in the dark paths, until suddenly I slammed into a wall in the dim blue light. My body pulsed with sharp pain as I stepped aside, squinting in the darkness. I staggered forward, my hands in front of me. Walls rose up in the shadows, and I crashed again and again as I raced blindly through the maze, my palms scraped raw and stinging.

  “Myu!” I shrieked. “Shiori!” The sound of footsteps and claws echoed from everywhere, meaningless without reference. I didn’t know if I’d find the girls or the inugami around the next corner. My body shuddered with fear, with the anticipation of sharp teeth taking hold.

  “You are not like those girls,” the woman’s voice said, and suddenly she was in front of me in her pale kimono.

  A scream in the distance, muffled by snarls. Oh god.

  “Myu!” I shrieked. I ran forward and grabbed the woman’s shoulders, shaking her violently, desperately. “Leave her alone!” I cried. “Please!”

  The woman tilted her head, looking at me curiously.

  “It is you who is the threat,” she said, and suddenly it wasn’t the woman I was holding at all but Myu, drenched in ink as thick as blood.

  “Myu!” I cried, clutching her desperately to myself. Only she pushed away, flailing against my grip, splattering me with ink.

  And then the worst sight in her eyes. The worst thing imaginable.

  The truth.

  Because there was nothing but fear in her eyes when she looked at me. Fear and disgust. To her, I was the same as the monsters. One of them.

  “This is what you truly are,” said the woman’s voice, now behind me, and then there was nothing but darkness and the sound of rushing like a black waterfall, engulfing me, flooding my lungs with ink.

  I wanted to drown. Let me drown.

  And then I gasped for breath, and the ticking of the clock beside me filled the silence.

  I waited for a moment, letting myself come back to what was real. My heart thumped against my ribs, my blood coursing in a panic through my limbs.

  I couldn’t let it drown me, I knew. But sometimes it was easy to forget.

  I knew I would never hurt Myu or Shiori willingly. But I knew the accidents that had come before. The warped, twisted talent I had in me. And I didn’t know what it was capable of.

  I swallowed, the bitter taste of sleep lodged in my dry throat.

  I knew what I had to do, to protect that horrible truth.

  There was no place in my life for Myu. I had tricked myself into thinking it was love when deep down she feared me, maybe even despised me. If she didn’t yet, she would soon. Not answering her texts, spending time with another girl. Yeah, I was leading a second life—one she’d hate me for.

  I felt the shame, the anger, the uselessness of it all.

  I folded a corner of myself and tucked it neatly away.

  The price of being marked.

  Chapter Eleven

  Katie

  Diane practiced the walk through Sunpu Park with me for an entire week before school started and I still managed to get lost on the first morning of classes.

  “I decided not to send you to an International school,” she’d told me. “You’ll learn faster if you go to a regular Japanese high school.”

  “You’re joking,” I’d said, my mouth agape.

  She’d shaken her head. “You have it in you. I know it.”

  But apparently I couldn’t even make it to school without help. The paths through Shizuoka Station wound underground and split off into unmarked pathways. I’d been seconds away from asking a frightening Buddhist monk for directions, his face hidden under his giant pointy woven hat, a bell in one hand and a bowl for alms in the other. But then I’d seen a pack of students in the same navy-and-white uniform as mine and followed them sheepishly out of the labyrinth, all the way to the Suntaba School gate.

  I searched the numbers in the genkan for the cubby that was supposed to be mine. I pulled on the white school slippers and whirled
through the maze of corridors.

  Great. Lost again. But at least so were all the other freshmen.

  “Can I help you?” a girl said in Japanese. She held a clipboard list, and had a little badge pinned to her chest. But—surprise, surprise—I didn’t know the kanji on the clasp. I’d improved a lot with cram school, both in New York and the one I’d started since I arrived in February, but fluency still lay just beyond my reach.

  “Um,” I answered in Japanese. “I’m Katie Greene?”

  The girl stared at her list as my cheeks blazed red. It was like some sort of test, except we both knew I was a fraud. My Japanese embarrassed both of us.

  “Here we are,” she said. “1-D. Follow me.” I followed.

  We passed room after room with narrow windows along the side, until I saw the little white sign that marked the classroom as mine.

  “Thanks,” I said and the girl nodded, eager to get away. Funny. I’d thought making friends would be easier than that.

  The rows of desks were nearly empty, students gathered in groups discussing the winter break. The homeroom fell silent as I entered.

  “Um,” I said. “Hi.” I bobbed my head in a tiny bow. No one said anything. My legs felt like they’d give out, so I sat down at a desk near the back. Still nothing. I could almost hear the crickets.

  O-kay. Not the reception I’d expected. It was hard to breathe then, like my chest had constricted. What was I doing here anyway? I’d been wrong—there was no life for me here. This was all a mistake. God, I hoped Nan and Gramps could pull things together quickly so this could be done with.

  “Ohayo!” yelled out a girl as she entered the classroom, and the students buzzed with activity again.

  “Morning!” they shouted back as she joined the group, and the chatter enveloped the silence.

  I unpacked my book bag slowly, trying to look busier than I was. I dropped my pen with a clatter, and a few of the students looked over and giggled, then lowered their voices. Great. Now I was the topic of conversation. I reached down and wrapped my fingers around the pen as it rolled away.

  “They’re shy because they think you’re an exchange student,” said a voice, and I looked up from the floor. A girl sat backward on the chair in front of me, her shoulder-length hair pulled up in a messy bun. “And they don’t want to get attached in case we all cry when you leave.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “But I heard you’re permanent. Is that true?”

  Maybe? No—I couldn’t think like that. I just had to survive until I could go home. This world was too foreign for me. Mom was right to stick to home soil.

  “For now,” I said.

  The girl raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. She smiled. “I’m Watabe Yuki,” she said, using her last name first.

  “Katie Greene,” I said. “Wait, I mean, Greene Katie? From Albany. Well, New York.”

  “You can call me Yuki.” She smiled. “That’s more what you’re used to anyway, right? And I’ll call you Katie. You don’t have to reverse your name. We don’t expect you to.”

  “Okay,” I said. She spoke slowly, making sure I understood her.

  “Suzuki-sensei asked me to help you get settled into class,” she said, and my heart fell. So she was only being nice because she had to be. But then she waved a hand back and forth.

  “Chigau yo,” she backtracked. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She switched to English. “Someday I want to be a famous designer and live in New York. So let’s be good friends, okay? Then I can speak English better and we can help each other.”

  She spoke well already, but I nodded as she grinned.

  “Ohayo!” yelled a boy as he entered the room. Yuki turned her head and then pushed herself upright, the chair legs squeaking against the floor.

  “Tan-kun!”

  “Ohhhh, Yuki-chan!” Tan-kun shouted, striding toward her. He pushed his black-rimmed glasses up with the back of his hand as he approached. His hair stuck up in short, spiky angles, and he was tall and skinny, his smile broad and confident. “So you’re in this homeroom, too? Yokatta ne! Thank god. I feel so shy on my first day!”

  Somehow I doubted that was true. It was hard to follow all the slang they used, but I was pleased to understand fragments at least. They chatted and laughed for a minute before Yuki remembered my existence.

  “This is Tanaka Ichirou,” she said, waving her hand up and down like he was a prize on a daytime TV show.

  “Hi Tan-kun,” I said, and they exchanged a worried glance.

  “Um,” Yuki said quietly, leaning toward my ear. “You don’t really know each other yet. Maybe ‘Tanaka’ for now, okay? It’s more polite.”

  My face blazed red and the humiliation stung. “Oh god. I’m so sorry.”

  “Heiki, heiki,” Tanaka smiled. “No problem.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll help you.” Yuki grinned. “And Tan-kun, this is Katie Greene from New York.”

  “Oh!” he said, waving a hand in the air. “New York? Like with the Statue of Liberty and Central Park and everything?”

  “Uh, not exactly. I’m just from the state—from Albany.”

  “Ah.” His face fell.

  Wow. Ten minutes in and I’m a disappointment already.

  “Tanaka and I went to the same junior high,” Yuki said. “We took the entrance exam for this senior high school together.”

  “And of course I scored higher.” He grinned.

  Yuki smacked his arm. “You did not!”

  “Jealous!”

  They flailed at each other as I sat awkwardly watching them. Yuki was sweet, but Tanaka was so loud. He spoke rapidly with a lot of slang, and I found him harder to understand than Yuki. I hoped Diane was right about the learning curve, because I needed fluency to kick in right...now.

  Damn. Nothing.

  A chime trilled in the speaker above us, and a moment later Suzuki-sensei walked in. Everyone scurried to their desks, the room falling silent.

  “Good morning,” he barked. “Welcome to Suntaba. I’m your homeroom teacher, Suzuki Kentaro.” He turned his back to us and scrawled the kanji for his name on the board. I grabbed my pen and scribbled the name in the corner of my notebook so I wouldn’t forget the kanji. “I also teach math, so we’ll be together for that class. Let’s do our best this year, and I hope that you will all work your hardest to get the most out of your time here.” He bowed stiffly, and the students rose to follow suit. I rushed to finish copying the last kanji of his name and stood just in time for the last half of the bow, so I bobbed down as they stood up. “Time for the welcome ceremony,” he added, “so if you want to just leave your bags here, we’ll get going.”

  Yuki nodded at me and I tried to smile, but every cell in my body ached with nervousness.

  This was it. My new life was beginning.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tomohiro

  The winter break faded quietly away as part of me died. The nightmares ebbed, like the tide of fear had gone out. I didn’t want to be alone again, but it was stupid of me to let things with Myu go on as long as they had.

  I breathed in the fresh spring air. The pink blooms of sakura were late this year and Sunpu Park stood bare, not even any buds on the cherry trees. Everything was dead, as if I’d killed it.

  I coasted my bike through the courtyard and leaped off just before the tire crashed into the racks. In the genkan, I kicked off my shoes and reached for my slippers. My last year at Suntaba, the last year before I could vanish.

  I reached into my bag and placed my black notebook on top of my shoes. I wouldn’t need it until later anyway, when I left for cram school.

  Right. I don’t know why I lied to myself, but it was better than facing the truth of what I was doing.

  “Be good,” I said quietly, rubbing the corner of the book with two fingers.

  I walked to homeroom squeezing between students greeting each other. I couldn’t shake the anxiety inside me. Myu had texted almost every day during break. I�
��d never written back.

  It had been a nice dream, but it was time to move on. There was nothing for me, only death.

  Except protecting Shiori. That was something I still clung to. I couldn’t cut her off as easily. She needed me, and I needed her.

  When I reached my new homeroom, 3-C, I sighed with relief that Myu wasn’t in it. Seemed like Tanaka Keiko had been moved as well.

  “Oi, Yuuto!” called Sato from his desk. A ring of students clustered around him. Weird, because he was usually alone like me.

  “Why the board meeting?” I asked as Sato smirked.

  “New girl in school,” said one of the guys.

  “News flash,” I said, collapsing into the desk behind Sato’s. “There’s a whole freshman year of new girls.”

  Sato grinned. “Not like that. It’s a foreigner. An American.”

  I looked up, tucking my bangs behind my ears. “American? Like an exchange student?”

  One of the guys shook his head. “I hear she’s permanent.”

  “At Suntaba?” We had the occasional exchange student but never anyone long-term.

  “Now you’ve got him riled up,” Sato laughed. “I bet you have a thing for foreign girls, Yuuto. Poor Myu will have to share.” I smirked. He had no idea how far apart Myu and I had drifted. She didn’t belong in my world anymore. She never had.

  “She’s probably Japanese-American,” I said. “Parents moving back or something.”

  But Sato shook his head. “We saw her in the hallway this morning,” he said, running a hand through his bright white hair. He must have re-bleached it over the holidays; I didn’t remember it being so blinding. “She’s blonder than me.”

  “Well you better give her your keitai number before someone else does,” I said.

  “Please. Some of us have lives that don’t involve turning down half the school’s population, Yuuto.”

  “Shut up, Sato.” I didn’t want reminders of that now. Once Myu and I broke up, the confessions might start coming again, and the attention that I didn’t want...

  But what could I do? I couldn’t go back.