Chapter Nine, in which I Aim to Bring an End to the Suffering, if Manageable

* * * *

Based on all I could piece together from Spirit-san’s memories, and by trying to examine the series of events from her point of view, I felt the idea of Spirit-san haunting her parents was a very likely possibility.

Kijimuta-san never really connected with other people in her village. She had peers and neighbors—but nobody she could call a close friend. She had her parents, and every now and then perhaps a relative or two would visit, but outside of those few family members Kijimuta-san simply did not interact with others very much.

It was difficult to say too much about Kijimuta-san’s personality, given how my interaction with her was solely through her ghost, and most of her memories I experienced were during traumatic events. But it at least seemed clear she wasn’t normal. Kijimuta-san and her parents were a blend of unusual that apparently didn’t meld well with the village at large. Everyone preferred to leave Kijimuta-san’s family alone, and the parents were perhaps content so long as some form of harmony could be feigned. Kijimuta-san was thus difficult to approach in more ways than one, and in this setting of isolation it was simplest for her to just blame herself for her lonely fate.

As a ghost, Kijimuta-san’s perception of things had surely been skewed over time. People were like that in general, naturally twisting their understanding of events, ideas, and memories how they or their subconscious saw fit. But based on everything I had ever read on the matter, the emotions of a ghost could become stronger over time—stronger, and more dangerous. There was very little to distract a ghost from her thoughts. A ghost didn’t need to do any of the daily chores of life, or eat, sleep, move, or even breathe or blink. She could just exist forever, with nothing but a single thought to base her entire existence upon.

What entailed Spirit-san’s thoughts when she killed herself? I doubted she was happy about it. She likely saw it as necessary, for the sake of everyone around her. She didn’t want anyone else to die; she couldn’t bear to watch any more people suffer because of her.

Based on all my experiences with her, she didn’t seem like a vengeful yurei. But perhaps that was because she already had her revenge.

Why was Kijimuta-san the way she was?

Wasn’t she the result of her peculiar upbringing?

Didn’t Kijimuta-san have two people other than herself she could blame for everything?

* * * *

Spirit-san didn’t respond, so I asked once more: “Did you haunt your parents?”

She made a sound in my head, something like a quiet sob. Silence again, and then… She had something to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“It’s okay. It’s normal for a ghost to haunt someone. It will be easier for me to help you though if I understand why you truly became a spirit.”

I didn’t want you to know, Spirit-san said. I’m… I’m really terrible. She said something more, but it was unintelligible at that point. She was crying too much.

I decided to just let her cry. There wasn’t much else I could do. Even if she existed in some corporeal form, I doubted I could really comfort her. I wasn’t good with these kinds of situations.

I’m sorry, Spirit-san said. I’m sorry… I’m sorry. She kept crying through each apology she managed to get out.

She had suffered more than I imagined, and I could feel some of that pain she was going through. I had felt some degree of it before myself. A life of regrets and guilt. A life you couldn’t do over. A life of poor decisions and bad luck.

“Take your time,” I said. “You’ve kept this buried away for a year. You can tell me everything you need to, Kijimuta-san. Whenever you’re ready, I will listen.”

She cried a little while longer, leaving me to imagine just what torment had kept her in this ethereal state. The bond between parents and their children was not something that could be taken lightly. Parents set a good example for their children, and the children follow said example. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Sometimes you’re just a disappointment though, and your parents don’t really mind if you go off and wander about aimlessly, pretending you’re actually contributing to society in some way.

And sometimes you realize you’re just a mess, but one that was brought about by a bizarre upbringing, and you can’t help but hold everyone involved in complete disregard.

Spirit-san’s weeping had finally dissipated, and she turned completely silent. I normally would have expected some kind of sniffling to follow, but maybe a spirit wouldn’t actually have anything to sniffle. She perhaps didn’t have any tears either actually, but it was likely a moot point when she was still possessing me to some degree.

I didn’t mean to be like this, Spirit-san said. I wanted to change myself. I thought if I pretended I was confident, likeable, and smart, I could actually be… some kind of good person.

I wasn’t sure how well she pulled off any of those traits as a ghost, but I decided not to bring that up now.

“I wouldn’t worry about it so much,” I said. “Confident, likeable, smart? It’s all overrated. Confident people often aren’t that smart, and smart people often aren’t that likeable. But you’re okay, Spirit-san. I don’t really mind at this point the little misadventures you’ve brought me, and I don’t think you did anything that bad when you were alive either. And if you haunted your parents… Well, that’s just the sort of thing ghosts do, isn’t it? I don’t hold it against you, and I wouldn’t be surprised if your parents don’t either.”

You don’t know what I did though! I really scared them. No, terrified them. They were so afraid. I left bloody messages everywhere in the house, and everything I wrote… I was just so sad and angry. I wanted to tell them everything—everything I had ever felt my entire life. What was the point of it all?

I drove them to tears, and every time they tried one of their rituals to purify the house… I simply redoubled my efforts. I could move objects. Wake them up in the night. Splatter blood on their meaningless trinkets. On their food. On their clothes. On their screaming, weeping faces.

Spirit-san broke into a sobbing fit again. It was too painful to talk about, too painful to even remember. But it had happened, and it could never be undone.

She had kept this secret from me all this time, and had perhaps been trying to hide it all away from even herself for who knows how long. But now, it was finally time to deal with it. It was time to free Spirit-san of this burden, the thing that kept her existing even after she had enacted revenge.

“How long did this go for?” I asked.

When Spirit-san got a hold of herself, she managed to respond: Almost two weeks.

The parents held out longer than I would have expected, especially if the haunting was as constant as Spirit-san implied. There was a good reason for this, I imagined, but I decided to wait for Spirit-san to continue.

I felt worse and worse with each passing day, but I couldn’t stop myself. Eventually my parents gave in though, and they decided to move away. They decided… to leave me for good. It made me feel even sadder, but I knew it was all my fault. A part of me couldn’t help but feel furious though. I wanted to keep haunting them—and keep doing so until I felt… relieved, or fulfilled, or just happier somehow.

But I knew I wouldn’t be able to follow them. Ever since I went from the lake to my home, I had been unable to exit the house. I was bound to that place, where I had spent nearly all my living days. So I planned to make them suffer as much as possible before they left. Again and again, I asked myself “Why did I have to die? What if my life had been even a little different? How did I become such a terrible, cursed, wretched, miserable, pathetic, worthless being?” I grew angrier and sadder, angrier and sadder, back and forth, on and on, and in the end…

My parents gathered what belongings they could and left. And they didn’t just leave. They tore the whole house down and burned everything as thoroughly as humanly possible. And all the while, I felt like they were tearing me apart. Burning me to the ground. Leaving nothing but a pile of ash to be left, forgotten in the wind.

My parents left, and I spent a long time just thinking of all I had done. It might have been days, or even weeks. It was hard for me to tell—my mind had become such a mess. I didn’t fade away; I just stood there. I had driven my parents away, and there was nothing I could do to fix that. My parents were already suffering enough. Their only daughter had killed three innocent people, and then killed herself. That was terrible enough on its own, but I had to make their lives even worse after I died. I even took their very home from them. There’s nothing I can do to make up for any of this.

That’s the thought that went through my head, again and again. I had to do something, I realized. I was still lingering on, and though I wished to find my parents, I couldn’t bring myself to go looking for them. What if I went straight back to haunting them? I was a ghost, and a part of me wanted to make others feel my pain. I didn’t really want that though. What I really wanted was to make up for all the terrible things I had done.

And so I formed my plan. I realized I was able to leave the place where my home once stood—perhaps I had been able to do so ever since it was destroyed, or maybe it was because I had found a new purpose for my existence. I don’t know. Like you said, it’s strange that a ghost doesn’t know anything about being a ghost.

I really wanted my plan to work though. I wanted to apologize to everyone. I wanted everyone to have their revenge. They deserved it more than I did. They had no reason to die. And my parents had no reason to suffer. And even now… You had no reason to be dragged into all this. But I had to try. I wanted so badly for anything to work out. I wanted to do something good. I thought if I could do anything good, anything at all, that would be enough. I wanted to make someone happy before I ceased to exist. I wanted to set things right with those I wronged. I wanted to see someone smile. Laugh. Say it was nice to meet me.

I wanted to live.

She stopped there, and I just let her account sink in for a minute. The air had turned colder once the sun lowered itself behind some clouds. The cemetery felt even more lonely than it had before.

Kijimuta-san had made mistakes, but they weren’t really her fault. She wouldn’t see it that way though—how could she? But her parents didn’t want to be rid of her any more than the three deceased wanted to haunt her. Kijimuta-san’s parents stayed in their haunted abode as long as they could because they regretted not being able to help their daughter, to give her the happiness they wanted so much for her. They wished to atone just as Kijimuta-san did, but they understood that she would linger on in a wretched phantom state forever if they didn’t find a way to help her move on. Once they exhausted the options they could think of, they decided they had to move on themselves, and hope their daughter would find peace in the process—this unfortunate culmination of her haunting.

Where were her parents now? Perhaps I could find out from Kijimuta-san’s uncle and aunt, but for now I needed to help her come to terms with her misguided plan toward self-directed hauntings.

“You’ve already lived a life, Spirit-san. But now, I think I understand why you are still existing as a ghost, and I believe I know how to relieve you of the pain you’ve kept bottled up throughout the past year.”

Since Spirit-san seemed to accept at this point that none of the deceased had lingered on as spirits or had any intention of haunting her, I felt I could go ahead and bring her plan to a close.

“Let’s deal with the final memento you had in mind. That may help us know how to proceed.”

Spirit-san pointed me toward her family gravesite, apparently not feeling up to taking complete control of my body at this time. The thin, flat wooden pole in question was labeled “Kijimuta,” marking the area where the remains of members of that family were buried.

“Which object will I need to touch?” I asked. There wasn’t too much at the gravesite other than the marker itself. There was a weathered incense holder, a strange-looking bowl likely for holding offerings, and a hollow bamboo shaft driven in the ground—presumably meant for placing flowers in. Was one of these items involved in the grandmother’s death?

The bowl, Spirit-san said.

“Did it used to be a soup bowl?” I should have known soup would become relevant again at some point.

It was, at least before my grandmother died.

At this point I knew better than to imagine the grandmother was killed by a bowl, but the mental image was difficult to avoid. Whatever the reality of the situation was though, it was probably just as unlikely to be Spirit-san’s fault. However, the fact this third death was another relative surely played into Spirit-san’s decision to die, to haunt her parents, and to seek retribution in this ghostly state.

Will you be able to find a way for me to… make up for what I did?

I hated to make promises I didn’t know if I could keep. But I hated to be wishy-washy as well.

“The retribution you seek won’t take the form you expected. I’m going to access this last memory, and then once you’ve thought things through you can decide what you’ll do next.”

I knelt down and placed my hand near the bowl. There was a bit of snow inside it, but it looked like a dark ceramic bowl covered in a variety of markings I couldn’t recognize at glance.

“Are you ready, Spirit-san?”

She took a few seconds to respond. If there’s no chance of summoning my grandmother’s spirit… is there really a point to this? I don’t want you to… She didn’t finish her sentence, but I presumed she didn’t want me to learn more about her than I already had.

“It’s up to you, but I really don’t intend to judge you based on the things that happened between you and your parents. In fact, I can probably relate. I never was that close to my parents, though they always meant well.”

What do you mean? What happened?

I didn’t care to share my life story at this time, but perhaps it was only fair I give her some insight in return for all she had exposed from her past.

“Nothing really happened,” I said. “And I suppose that’s the problem. We never connected very much.” It was probably my fault of course, but what was done was done. “My father and mother are farmers. I grew up helping them, but never because I wanted to. I didn’t like working in the fields. They helped me get a few different apprenticeships growing up, but I had no skill for woodwork or metalwork or any kind of trade. Many days I would go to town and just find a place to take a nap. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was usually playing a board game. I didn’t have any deep passion for any of them—it was all just to pass the time. I didn’t care to become an educated gentleman. Or a reverent ascetic. Or a contributing member of society in any particularly significant way.

“More to the point, I didn’t care to make my parents proud. And so I never did. And I’ve come to regret that for a long time now, and perhaps deep down have always regretted it. I’m a difficult person to love, so I’ve accepted the way things are between me and my parents. And in time I ended up in this line of work where I eke a living off by myself, and don’t have to interact with people very much. And that’s for the best. I don’t really like people in general.”

That’s… Spirit-san began to respond, but took some time to say anything more. That can’t be true. You’re not like that, Naoki-kun. You’re being too had on yourself.

“Spirit-san, you’ve been seeing me through the eyes of a ghost these past couple days. You naturally attach to an idea, and your perception becomes skewed in the process.”

Just as significantly, it seemed obvious Kijimuta-san had a pretty skewed understanding of romance. And as she likely had become aware of by the time she died, she grew up experiencing little social interaction in general. She likely never had to judge the character of someone like myself before.

What do you mean? You are easy to like, Naoki-kun. And you like people. You came to help the old man at the mansion. And you’ve been helping me a lot.

“People can help others without actually being nice. I’m not going to bother trying to argue about who I am to you though. My point is just that nothing worked out between me and my parents, so I’m not going to be upset with any of the thoughts or feelings you’ve held toward your parents. It will still be worthwhile to bring your memento plan to a close though, as it may point you in the direction you need to go from here.”

What if I won’t want to go in that direction? What if I… don’t know what to do at all?

She was afraid of where the truth would ultimately lead her, and I didn’t blame her. Was there such thing as a happy ending for someone who had already died?

“You may not think it likely right now,” I said, trying to word my response carefully, “but the time will come when you will want to smile again. And it may be sooner than you think.”

If you say so, Naoki-kun, Spirit-san said in a quiet voice. I’ll trust you. You’ve done this many times before, after all. You are the expert on ghosts.

A better man perhaps would have confessed at that point. I was no expert on ghosts. I wasn’t an expert at helping people through their emotional trauma, either. I wasn’t an expert at a single damn thing. But regardless of my lack of skills, somebody needed me.

I didn’t plan to care about Kijimuta-san.

But there I was, placing my hand on the lip of the bowl, ready to see this through to the end.

* * * *

I knelt in my room, thinking over all the things I had done wrong. When did it all begin? Was I always like this? Perhaps this was just how I always was. I was probably terrible in every life I had ever lived. Was there any way to get out of this?

I just wanted to live a normal life. If I had been more normal, would any of these bad things have happened? My parents raised me differently from everyone else. They were different from everyone else. And in the end, I couldn’t relate to them, or to anybody. Nobody wanted me around. Did even my parents want me around? They didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t know either. I didn’t know how to get out of this.

I rolled up my old, cold futon and wrapped my arms around it, squeezing it as tight as I could. I lay down on my side, still holding onto the futon, and banged my head against it repeatedly. I didn’t want to make too much noise—that would worry my parents even more than I already had. This was something I learned to do quietly, so long as I didn’t hit my head on the floor in the process.

I wearied myself out, screaming in my mind for some way to make up for my terrible life. Was there any way I could leave this house, leave the village, and leave my parents? Was it possible I could start over somehow? If I lived my life in some different way, could I make friends and be somebody that people liked?

Or was I just cursed to live the rest of my days beneath the shadow of my parents, waiting for another tragedy to happen? How many more people were going to die because of me? It was only a matter of time before someone else died. My parents couldn’t help me out of this. Who else could help me? I couldn’t go to anyone. They could die.

I had to stay here. Just stay here in this room. I couldn’t hurt anyone here. There was nobody to disappoint here, except for my parents. But what could I do about that? After all they’ve done to raise me, this is what I’ve become. When did I ever do anything on my own? I should have changed who I was years ago. What kind of person should I have been? Someone confident? Likeable? Smart? Would I even been me, if I had all those qualities?

* * * *

I left my room when I thought I might want to eat something. Though I wasn’t particularly hungry, I still felt the need to go through basic, daily actions like eating. Mother was sitting at the table, and it didn’t surprise me to see what she was up to. The entire table was covered with organs.

What animals these organs once belonged to, I wasn’t sure. They most likely came from local wildlife, though there were other possibilities I could imagine. But there were hearts, stomachs, livers, intestines, lungs, and all sorts of things I couldn’t recognize. The smell of vinegar or whatever the organs had been preserved in was overwhelming, but I couldn’t turn away. The fact Mother was attempting another one of these rituals… It left me with a detached feeling. Like I was observing something that only happened in stories, and wasn’t something actually happening here in this house.

While Mother bowed to the grotesque display and whispered a mantra under her breath, I noticed there were needles sticking out of each organ. Four in each one, to be exact. The number of death.

I had killed two people in such a short period of time. Perhaps two more would die by the time spring arrived? It was the worst thing I ever thought, but it felt like it really was just a matter of who and when. Would any of these rituals save my parents? I was probably going to be the death of them if I stayed here. But where else could I go? I had to just stay here. And if Mother and Father died…

I didn’t want to admit it, but I didn’t feel upset about that possibility. Perhaps that was the worst thing I ever thought. They had raised me, and even when I was this old, they were still caring for me. Despite my uselessness, they still hoped the best for me. But what did it matter? What did any of it matter? It was nonsense. None of it was going to lead anywhere. Nothing was going to heal my pain.

I noticed Father wasn’t in the house, and I didn’t hear him outside working. It was cold out now. There wasn’t any snow sticking to the ground yet, but winter had begun. Father usually had projects to keep him busy through the winter, though sometimes he would leave for a time to help with woodwork in a nearby town. Was it possible he had left recently? I realized I hadn’t spoken with him the last couple days.

I waited a few minutes for Mother to finish her chant, but she just kept at it without a moment’s pause. It was rude to interrupt, so I knelt down and waited. I didn’t want to smell or look at the organs any longer though, so I shut my eyes and pinched my nose. I could just listen for when Mother stopped whispering to whatever divine spirits she sought help from.

It might have been a half hour before she finally did stop. I quietly asked her, “Do you know where Father is?”

Mother grinned and placed a finger in front of her mouth. “He has been in a cave the past day, seeking temporary enlightenment.”

So he was living in a cave. Probably the one he showed me a couple years back—he felt certain it had recently been inhabited by some particular kami. Of course, Father suddenly disappearing didn’t surprise me, same as Mother’s table of organs. I could only guess what he was doing now. A week ago, he cut off all his hair and tied it all together in a circle, which he then set on fire outside. Not just the hair on his head, but all the hair on his body, supposedly.

I accepted all of this as part of my daily life. None of it made sense. But it wasn’t like I was doing anything better than my parents. They actually contributed something to the world, despite being separated from it for the most part. What purpose did I have? There was none.

“Would you like to join in?” Mother asked, motioning toward what I assumed to be a liver. “When you focus on the most basic elements of life, you can feel more at ease with the struggles you are facing.”

I tried to smile, but I wasn’t sure if I managed. “No thank you. I’m just fine, Mother.”

* * * *

Eventually Father returned, and he was as enlightened as Mother suggested he would be. He must have conducted a particularly exciting ritual, given how quick his speech had turned. He went from one tangent to the next, and I could hardly follow what he was talking about. Minute after minute, I just sat there, waiting for him to stop.

“What do you think?” he suddenly asked me.

“It sounds nice,” I said, my eyes glazed over.

“That’s the spirit!” Father said. “If you leave now, you should get there by nightfall.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but soon enough I found myself walking out the door with a bag of daily necessities and a crudely-sketched map to Grandmother’s house. She lived in the middle of nowhere, and apparently Father felt that it would be good for me to interact with her for a few days. Mother agreed wholeheartedly, believing that helping Grandmother with her illness would in turn help lift my spirits somehow.

It sounded like a terrible idea. I was going to kill Grandmother. Couldn’t they tell how awful of an idea this was? There was nothing I could do about it though. If they wanted to be rid of me for a few days, I could at least go along with their inspired plan.

Mother gripped my shoulder and patted my back. “Your grandmother is the wisest person I know. You can ask her anything, Michiko-chan, and you’ll get all kinds of wonderful advice.”

“I don’t know…” I said, looking out the door. I didn’t want to leave home. How many people would I come across on my way to Grandmother’s? How many lives would I ruin today?

“You’ll be a great help too,” Mother went on. “You’ll be able to help Grandmother feel better.” She handed me an oddly-decorated bowl and a small scrap of paper. “Over many centuries, mountain monks have made slight changes to the amount of each ingredient, until they perfected the ultimate miso soup recipe. You’ll be able to work a little magic for Grandmother if you use this recipe. And be sure to have her use this bowl for the soup, too. It was crafted with 108 natural healing properties.”

And with that, I was on my way to visit Grandmother. It was a cold, cloudy day, and I only had a thin jacket over my snowflake kimono to keep the wind off my flesh. I didn’t want to be outside. Being outside reminded me of everything I had ever done outside.

It had been years since I last saw Grandmother. She was everything eccentric about my parents, but also senile. Most grandparents wouldn’t live alone like she did, but that was something she always insisted on, supposedly. I didn’t know why. Perhaps the personalities of my grandmother and my parents clashed with each other.

I continued down a lonely path, wondering if I should go through with this plan. I couldn’t care for Grandmother. How would making some soup actually cure her of whatever illness she had? She was going to die, and it was going to be my fault. Perhaps I shouldn’t go see her? Perhaps I should go back home? Perhaps I should just wander off into the middle of the forest, and just lie down, and just lie there, and just stay there, and just never get up and never bother anyone again?

I gritted my teeth, tears streaming down my face. I hadn’t noticed when I started crying. My face was freezing. But I was holding a bag and a bowl, and didn’t feel like repositioning everything just so I could wipe the tears away.

I could just not go to Grandmother’s house, but wasn’t there a chance that doing so would condemn her to death? Maybe she really was counting on me. Me and that magical bowl of soup.

The clouds were so low today. I wondered if they went any lower, would they just flatten the entire earth. It was suffocating just to think about it.

* * * *

I sat in the dark and cramped room beside Grandmother, who lay in her futon, recounting another tale of some sort from ancient folklore. I had heard many of these stories over the years, and they tended to follow the same general pattern. Someone down on his luck does something nice for someone, doesn’t give up, or tries his best at something… And in the end some kind of yokai creature makes everything magically work out for him. My parents liked these stories, and so did Grandmother apparently. Perhaps they got them from her.

I couldn’t focus on Grandmother’s words for more than a few seconds. All I could think about was how she was going to die.

Grandmother was an unusual person. I was not fond of her, which I recognized as cruel on my part. She was tall for a grandmother—tall for a woman in general. Her feet stuck out past the blanket of her futon, so she had clean rags wrapped around her feet like thick socks, with a third rag draped over for a little extra warmth. This theme of random strips of cloth extended to her head scarf, rags wrapped around her hands, and a couple tattered shawls over her kimono. She always looked at me with a fierce squint, though sometimes she opened her eyes wide in utter disbelief for several long seconds—each time for seemingly no reason.

“Don’t you think it’s all too much, Arashima-san?” Grandmother asked me. “It seems every year they’re adding another tax to build some new road or dam, and I never see anything come of it.”

Grandmother’s eyesight was all but gone, and she had me confused for a man named Arashima-san. I did not know who he was, but it was clear she preferred his company to mine. I didn’t mind pretending to be this stranger though. It was nice to pretend I was somebody else, actually.

I kept the banal conversation going as best I could, but really it didn’t take much effort at all. Half the time she didn’t even acknowledge what I said and made up something else in her head for her to respond to instead. Again, I didn’t mind. I had nothing of importance to say anyways. I just hoped it made Grandmother a little happier, at least for a little bit. For however long she had left.

Really, I was just biding my time. I was here to kill my own grandmother, and I could hardly bring myself to care. What had happened to me? How had I become such a cursed thing?

If I wasn’t human anymore, what was I?

The hours and days passed, and all I did was listen to Grandmother. I played the roles she gave to me—a wide variety of people I had never known, all of whom lived lives that actually meant something to her. I wondered if she ever really knew who I was? She couldn’t see me here now. It was just as well that I didn’t exist at all.

Each day I made the soup Mother instructed for me. It was a very basic miso soup recipe. A bit more dashi than what Mother usually included, but besides that it was just regular red miso paste, some tofu, and a couple green onions. Grandmother’s supply of vegetables didn’t look that appetizing, but I had to make do with what was available.

The bowl I let Grandmother eat out of didn’t seem all that special either. A variety of old characters were sprawled about the edge—I could only make out a general sense of any of it, but it was just words of healing. Perhaps it was a mantra or some archaic form of poetry. But other than that, the bowl was adorned with small depictions of creatures I couldn’t readily identify. Some seemed like fish or squids, but floated in the air amidst strange birds with multiple long tails. In the water encircling the bottom of the bowl were an assortment of what appeared to be arms, reaching out from the waves.

Was this bowl really supposed to help Grandmother somehow? She struggled to eat much of her soup each time I made it for her, and went into a coughing fit almost every time she took a sip. Perhaps the soup and bowl could have helped her, but my presence negated any such positive influence.

With each passing soup I presented to Grandmother, I killed her a little more. I might as well have been serving her poison. Perhaps then I’d at least be honest about who I was. Instead I was pretending to be all these people she actually cared about. Pretending I wanted to make her feel better.

But she wasn’t going to get any better. Her condition was only going to worsen. It was only a matter of time before she died. Grandmother was going to be my third victim.

* * * *

By the end of the week Father showed up and brought me back home. Grandmother hadn’t gotten any better, but he and Mother hadn’t planned on making me stay for too long. Perhaps they had recognized the error in letting me anywhere near her, particularly when she was in such fragile condition.

Once I was home, all I could do was try to not think about anything. The days passed, and nothing happened. Wasn’t that for the best? I didn’t want anything to happen.

I lay on my futon and stared at the ceiling. I was laughing. I wasn’t sure why I was laughing. What was so funny? The fact I was still alive? Was Grandmother still alive? Maybe she wasn’t. Wouldn’t my parents have said something though? Maybe they didn’t know either. That was kind of funny. I laughed.

Some other day, or maybe it was the same day, I was pacing back and forth. What was I doing? Was there something I should have been doing? There was something to do.

I was lying in my futon again. Was I always this tired? I wasn’t tired. But I didn’t care to get up. How pathetic! But perhaps that was for the best. If I got up, if I left the house, if I did something with somebody—well, nobody would like that.

Mother let me know that Grandmother had died. I killed Grandmother, but I didn’t want to say it. I just cried into my pillow, and Mother assumed I was sad about Grandmother.

What was I sad for? I wasn’t sad. Maybe I was faking my tears.

“I’m not sad!” I tried to say, but it came out muffled in my pillow. Mother probably thought it was hysterical weeping. But it kind of was, wasn’t it?

How long had it been since I visited Grandmother? A day? A week? It took her a week to finally die? What a tenacious old woman! How much of that soup did she drink? I tried to kill her so many times! How could I be so cruel?

My normal day, and my normal days. How many normal days did I live? This long, quiet day. How many days must I cry? How many days must I smile? Can’t this day just end? I was so tired.

I sat silently beside a lake in the dark, all alone.

I stood on a boat in the middle of the lake, all alone.

I stepped into the freezing water, all alone.

* * * *

I was kneeling beside the grave marker, and it took some time to recall who I was. I didn’t have any recollection of my own being during this last set of memories. Everything Kijimuta-san had felt, I felt as well. Or rather, I had been Kijimuta-san for that period of her life, for all intents and purposes.

The experience certainly shed some light on what pushed the young woman to the very edge—a number of elements that composed her circumstances and a series of mishaps that formed the way she viewed herself and the world around her.

My witnessing of said events wasn’t going to solve anything though. Was there anything I could say to Kijimuta-san at this time, something that could actually make her feel better? What do you say to someone who has already given up all hope? I had already told her the various tragedies weren’t her fault, and deep down she surely understood that. What was it she needed to hear then?

You saw everything, didn’t you? she asked. You felt everything I felt.

“I did. I’m not going to pretend I understand you though.”

What do you mean? You’re a ghost expert…

“But what you’re really looking for is a Kijimuta-san expert. I’m not the one you need. You’re the only one who can settle this.”

But I don’t know what to do! Everything I try leads me nowhere. Where am I supposed to go from here? Is there anywhere left for me at all?

I stood up and shut my eyes so I could focus solely on the ghost in my head.

“Kijimuta-san, I’m not going to persuade you into thinking you’re not responsible for bringing misery to everyone you interact with. After all, you were clearly involved with a great deal of misfortune these past couple years. To start with, you were a shut-in who never did much to help anybody. And then your cousin died. Your neighbor died. And your grandmother died. Then you killed yourself. You haunted your parents. You haunted an old man. And you haunted me.”

That seemed to cover most everything, right?

I didn’t mean for any of it. I’m just… terrible. I’m so terrible.

“That’s okay.”

That was the point I had to make. It wasn’t much, but it felt right.

No it’s not. How can it be okay to be such a terrible, cursed thing?

“What’s it matter if you’re terrible? Some people are terrible.”

I don’t want to be terrible. I never wanted to be terrible.

“I don’t imagine many people set out to be terrible. But some of us just have a tendency to fail more than others. We strive to succeed, but how many of us actually achieve everything we hope to accomplish in life? It’s really not a big deal if you happen to fail at everything more often than not. It’s all right to be a pathetic good-for-nothing. It’s okay to be terrible.”

You’re not making any sense, Naoki-kun… Nobody wants me to be terrible. I have to undo my mistakes. I need to make everything better.

“You can’t make everything better! Nobody can make everything better. You have to just make the best of things. If you don’t want to keep striving at the same thing forever, move on to something different. That’s what you’re really hoping for, isn’t it? You’re trying to improve yourself, right? That’s good enough.”

No it’s not. Trying to be good isn’t enough. Nobody will be pleased with that. The people who died can’t accept that…

I gripped my fists tight. “Do you truly think your cousin, your neighbor, or your grandmother would hold a grudge against you for what you’ve done? Answer me honestly, Kijimuta-san.”

She was silent for longer than I hoped. I… I think they should hold a grudge against me.

“Kijimuta-san! Does anybody actually blame you for anything?”

My body trembled, ever so slightly. Was it me or Kijimuta-san? I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, my stomach caught up in knots.

No, Spirit-san whispered. They… moved on.

“That’s right. Their spirits did not for a single moment blame you for their passing away, regardless of the role you played in all of it.”

It was wrong though. I felt so bad for them. I had to do something for them.

“There’s not much anyone can do. That’s… something everyone has to face when someone they know dies.”

Maybe they don’t hate me… but my parents do. I haunted my parents. I did that all on my own. There was nothing natural about that.

“Do you really think your parents hate you, Kijimuta-san?”

I opened my eyes and stared down at the bowl beside the grave marker. The bowl Kijimuta-san’s parents claimed contained spiritual healing properties.

I… I don’t know.

“And that is why you exist,” I replied. “That is why you are a ghost, Kijimuta-san.”

I found myself leaning forward a bit and clutching my arms tight together—Kijimuta-san’s overwhelming reaction to the realization she was arriving upon.

I didn’t really hate them, Kijimuta-san cried. After I learned Grandmother died, I went to the lake that very night. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even say good-bye.

I made life so difficult for them, and I just left them without saying a thing. After all I did to them, they probably moved somewhere as far away as possible from here as they could. They’re probably on the other side of the country by now.

That was certainly a possibility, but I had a feeling I knew precisely where Kijimuta-san’s parents were at this time.

“You do need to see them again though.”

I need to tell them good-bye… don’t I?

I regained control of my body, but kept a gentle hold of my arms, the closest way I could comfort the weeping phantom.

I can finally tell them. I can tell them everything. But… if I do that, what will happen then?

I didn’t need to be a ghost expert to know the answer to that. If the foundational issue behind Kijimuta-san’s lingering on was resolved…

Well, she would have to say good-bye to me too.

There was nothing wrong with that though, right?

The answer was supposed to be obvious, but my mind was somehow drawing a blank. Kijimuta-san needed resolution, and now was the time for her to find it. How she felt about me didn’t matter at this point—her attachment to me was only because she was a ghost in the first place, after all.

And anything I might have felt about her… That didn’t matter either, obviously. These past few days were interesting, to say the least—but there was no reason to draw out the ghost’s existence any longer than was necessary. It would be wrong of me to not help Kijimuta-san finally find peace.

Naoki-kun… Would that be it then?

It would. Kijimuta-san would cease to be a ghost. I would never again hear her voice in my head. And all the unpredictable experiences that accompanied that presence would likewise dissipate.

How was I supposed to feel about that? I should have been glad for the prospect of finally returning to my normal day-to-day life. But I couldn’t help but wonder if that was what I really wanted. I didn’t actually like that life, after all. And though my time with Kijimuta-san was rather distressing, there was something gratifying about the way she always believed in me, despite the fact there was no reason whatsoever for her to hold such trust in me. It was kind of nice, the notion that somebody cared about anything I was doing. When was the last time I felt I had a legitimately good reason to get up in the morning?

There was no use contemplating these things any further. My time with Kijimuta-san was never meant to last long. It was time to set aside my aimless reminiscing and allow Kijimuta-san the resolution her spirit required.

“Sorry, my mind was wandering. We can leave this place behind now.”

* * * *

I hiked up the mountain trail, and every few minutes I wondered if I were walking too fast or too slow. My heart said I needed to slow down. To think things through more carefully. To just turn around entirely. But my mind knew better. I needed to pick up the pace. The sooner this was all dealt with, the better. This was likely cruel of me, and I hated to think how Kijimuta-san could be feeling about this immediate course of action I had taken. But it was necessary.

It was for her sake. I had to keep telling myself that.

Where are we going? the ghost in my head asked.

I was slow to answer. “I believe you know already, Kijimuta-san.”

I took a path separate from the one that led to the site of Iseki-san’s demise. There was still a ways to go before we would reach the reclusive cave I had set out for.

You mean… But how do you know? How could you know where it is?

“I was you, Kijimuta-san. I simply know.” The snow was slick on this incline, so I had to work my way up a little more slowly. And just as carefully, I had to choose the right words to say. I couldn’t back down now, and I couldn’t let Kijimuta-san either.

“Your father had a home away from home, as it were,” I said. “This point was brought up by your mother during the memories the gravesite soup bowl conjured up. You knew about the cave she was referring to since you had once been there yourself, so the location came to your mind at the time. I remember thinking about it.”

That’s not fair, Naoki-kun…

She didn’t say anything further on the matter. It was as if she were too exhausted to protest, to plead for a change in plans, to vent her frustrations, or to even attempt taking control over my body once more.

Or perhaps she had simply accepted her fate. She knew what needed to be done, and indeed, this was what she truly needed a ghost expert for from the very beginning.

Higher up the mountain I went, each passing minute wearing me down with waves of thoughts second-guessing one another. My eyes scanned over the frozen rocks and trees, everything glaring back at me beneath muted, ash-white layers.

Naoki-kun… I don’t know if I really should do this.

I found the large, burnt husk of a tree that marked the point I needed to turn from what semblance of a path was left at this point. The cave wasn’t much further from here.

“Why is that?”

I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m afraid.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m afraid too.”

What will my parents do?

“I don’t know.” I wished I could tell her anything more positive than that.

Will they understand, when you tell them I’m here? Will I be able to tell them… what I need to?

“You will find a way to reach them, Kijimuta-san. I will be there to help you.”

Naoki-kun… What will happen next?

I kept walking forward, pushing my cold feet over the snow.

After I speak with my parents… If they’re even here… If they’ll even listen… If anything happens at all… What then? Will I even need to… exist anymore?

At this point it was clear what attachment bound Kijimuta-san to this world as a spirit, so she had to understand what fate awaited her. It was a fate not nearly as bad as the one she hoped for when she first put together her strange plan—but it was still a fate that marked a separation from the afterlife she had experienced as a ghost. It was a sad fate, but ultimately a good one. Or at the very least, it was a natural fate.

“It will be up to you to decide,” I said. “But not just the you guided by your thoughts and feelings of the moment. The core of who you are, I believe, will determine what happens next.”

I don’t know… Is it really just up to me?

I couldn’t answer. What Kijimuta-san’s parents did in reaction to her arrival would certainly affect matters of course, but I was determined to set things straight. If there was any chance to reshape this series of tragedies, I had to take it.

Past one more thick grove of trees, and I came in sight of our destination. The cave was well-hidden, its small entryway covered by a large snow-splattered slab of dark, thick wood. If I hadn’t known what to look for, my eyes would have likely glanced right over it, and I never would have even noticed the site of what had become a meager, makeshift home for Kijimuta-san’s reclusive parents.

I took a minute to catch my breath. I had been walking steadily up the mountainside for some time, barely giving a thought to the toll it took on my aching body. There was little left to think about now though, and Kijimuta-san’s silence seemed to confirm that she wasn’t going to back out of this either. It was time to bring this all to a close.

All to a close. Kijimuta-san’s words returned to my mind: “I don’t know if I really should do this. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m afraid.”

Kijimuta-san was going to leave me. I knew this, but somehow it meant something more now. Now that I was here, at the brink of the point of no return.

This wasn’t just some voice in my head that was going to leave. This was someone… who loved me. Didn’t that mean something?

Kijimuta-san was going to leave me… but I was the one making her leave, wasn’t I?

And I was going to go through with it. All the suffering that had built up within the ghost of Kijimuta-san would only grow worse in time. And the ever-deepening attachment that perpetuated her spectral state would only continue to bring about more tragedies. I was not a ghost expert who could fulfill the desires Kijimuta-san had yearned for. And I was not a man who could be relied on for sustaining any semblance of a joyful environment. The peace this spirit needed, and the resolution Kijimuta-san and her parents yearned for—that was the best I could hope to give.

We all had to move on.

* * * *

I stepped toward the door covering the cave’s entry, but stopped at the distant sound of footsteps crunching in the snow. Once I grasped the general direction the sound was coming from, I turned to see two figures in the distance. A man and a woman were making their way up from a hidden path through the trees.

The man had truly ragged and disheveled hair, and wore a bizarrely patched-up kimono and jacket. The woman beside him had frizzy hair and wore a kimono adorned with a variety of good luck charms tied to her sash. They each carried a small sack of goods, though it was unclear from here what they contained.

I stayed standing where I was. I couldn’t move. Kijimuta-san couldn’t move. We just stood there. We waited. And we could barely breathe.

Once they noticed the presence at their front door, Kijimuta-san’s father and mother looked over toward us and stopped.

But only for a moment.

They dropped everything they were holding and ran straight for us. The father and mother both stumbled in the snow a bit, but they reached us at the same time. I had no time to react, no time to say anything. They just wrapped their arms around me and cried out her name.

“Michiko-chan… Michiko-chan!”

I placed one hand on the mother’s shoulder, and another hand on the father’s. I gripped them tight and shut my eyes. They had recognized her immediately.

“Mother… Father…”

There was nothing more we could say. We simply kept hugging each other, and I accepted the outpouring of love for their daughter.

“It really is you, Michiko-chan,” the mother whispered.

“You finally came,” the father said. “Every day, we’ve gone down to the cemetery, hoping to see you at least once… To at least tell you we’re sorry. And now to find you here, on our way back home…”

I couldn’t hold back the tears, as Kijimuta-san realized the truth in these words. The goods leaking out of the fallen bags revealed leftover incense sticks and rice, among other offerings.

Kijimuta-san’s parents had been visiting the gravesite every day this whole time then, placing offerings in a bowl expressly designed with healing, spiritual properties. Her parents hadn’t run away in fear—they had remained in sadness, hoping to correct the mistakes they had made, no different from Kijimuta-san herself. As I had felt would be the case, they had never gone very far at all. They couldn’t just abandon the village where the tortured soul of their deceased daughter still resided.

And as Kijimuta-san’s parents held me close, I couldn’t help but feel my own weary soul lifted in some fashion, my relationship with my own parents longing for healing, resolution, or even mere acknowledgment.

Kijimuta-san’s pain had felt real, but the feelings passing through me now—whatever they could possibly be labeled—felt even more real.

“I’m so sorry, Michiko-chan,” Mother said. “We didn’t know… We never understood how much you were suffering.”

“I’m sorry, my daughter,” Father said. “I regret… I regret everything. We could have done something more. We could have done anything more.”

Kijimuta-san loosened my grip of the two, more of an exhale than an actual pushing back from her parents. She then spoke through me, or I spoke the words she wanted to say.

“No, I’m the one who wanted to say sorry. I just left you, and I never even said good-bye. And then I haunted you. I made you cry. I made you suffer. I didn’t want to do it, but I did—so maybe I really did want to do it. I had kept all the pain inside me for all those years, and I just lost it. I’m really… truly… a terrible daughter.”

Father frowned so fiercely, it almost made me step back in surprise. “Michiko-chan, do you remember what I told you about that word, terrible?”

To my surprise, I did remember it. When Kijimuta-san was just a child, she was made fun of for who she was—for living an abnormal life with her abnormal parents. She was called terrible by some peers her age, and it made her cry when she returned home.

Kijimuta-san responded to her father’s prompt. “Terrible is just a word grumpy people use, when what they really mean to say is different.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” Father said.

“We don’t blame you for anything, Michiko-chan,” Mother added. “You’ve always been trying your best. And we’ll always recognize you, for who you truly are.”

I only cried harder at that. “Even after everything I’ve done… You’re going to act happy to see me? Just like that?”

“We don’t need to act,” Father said. “And even if you’re possessing someone, I don’t think you have to act either. You can tell us anything you need to, Michiko-chan.”

“I… I didn’t want to hurt you so much. But I was hurting so much myself. The way you raised me… It hurts to be different! It hurt a lot… You probably know that though. But I didn’t like who I was. I was upset with everything about me. How I grew up. Everything about being me. I acted like I was fine with it all, but deep down I despised you. And I just kept that hidden. But then, after all this, after all that I’ve gone through…”

I choked up, my throat growing tighter with each word I forced out. “I still loved you. You always tried your best to raise me. Even through the tragedies… you always wanted to comfort me… in your own way. You always loved me.”

I sobbed pitifully, and Kijimuta-san’s parents each took me by the hand—my mother holding my right hand, and my father holding my left.

“We’ll always be here for you,” Mother said. “No matter where you go from this point on… We’ll be here for you.”

And that was enough. I found myself letting go and stepping back—perhaps by my own will, or perhaps because of Kijimuta-san—but Kijimuta-san remained standing in place, holding onto her parents. Perhaps it was because of her attachment being fulfilled, or the offerings Kijimuta-san’s parents had brought, or the fact we had all just come from the gravesite itself—but we could all see Kijimuta-san: a plain, colorless ghost of her former self.

She was a visible spirit, just as she had been yesterday on the boat at the lake—back when she told me how she died. When she told me she loved me. Just for spending some time with her and being a little nice to her, she had told me that. And now she was going to leave. Just like that.

I wiped my face dry and stood over to the side of the spiritual reunion. Kijimuta-san let go of her parents’ hands and wiped her own face. And then she smiled.

“I feel… all right now.” She laughed, ever so slightly. “I feel alive again. Even more than when I was alive. I can… accept everything that’s happened. And I think I’ll be okay.”

“I’m glad we could see you one more time, Michiko-chan,” her father said.

“Please… find a place where you can keep smiling, Michiko-chan,” her mother added.

“I’ll miss you,” Kijimuta-san said. “I don’t want to say good-bye, but… that is what I became a ghost for…”

Her spirit had lingered on for this closure. Was she willing to go through with it? I worried for what would occur if she chose to remain, assuming that was even possible at this point.

Kijimuta-san looked over to me, still wearing a faint smile. “Will you remember me, Naoki-kun? Even in a hundred years?”

“I don’t imagine I’ll live that long,” I said. “But however long it will be for, I doubt it’s even possible to forget any of this.”

“You deal with ghosts all the time though, right?”

“You’re a special case, Kijimuta-san.”

She laughed. “The time you spent with me was different then?”

I smiled. “Different, yes. But certainly not terrible.”

Kijimuta-san looked relieved and gave a deep bow. “Thank you for helping me, Naoki-kun. I’m glad I got to spend my last days with you.”

I bowed back, and Kijimuta-san turned to bow to her parents. “I love you, Mother. I love you, Father. Good-bye.”

They each said their farewells.

And Kijimuta-san faded away. The last moment I could still see her, she was smiling.

There was no more voice in my head.

All was silent.

* * * *