Sumire led the three of them into a tea room. As soon as she slid the door open, Yui ran over to a closet in the back of the large room and began tossing cushions onto the tatami mats. Then she pulled out a low table and set it down in the center of the room.

Jiro raised an eyebrow.

“We used to come here a lot,” said Kaori, watching Yui with a smile. “When Yui was younger, there was a time when spirits were possessing her almost every day. I thought she might go mad from the stress of it … so I started to bring her here.”

“Why here?”

Sumire sat down on a cushion and motioned them over. “Here at the shrine there are wards and protective charms. They are not all-powerful but most pesky spirits prefer to stay away. Think incense smoke and mosquitoes: not perfect, but better than nothing.” Yui sat down next to Sumire and nuzzled up against her. Sumire stroked her hair.

“This place became a second home of sorts to her,” said Kaori. “A place where Yui could relax. Learn about herself. And a place she could feel like she was welcome.”

Jiro felt a little twang of pain in his stomach. So even Yui’d had that, growing up. A place where she belonged. As for him … he’d never had anything like that. Jiro shook his head. It wasn’t true. He had the bathhouse now. This was where he belonged.

Jiro watched with surprise and amusement as Yui sat with her hands in Sumire’s lap. Almost non-stop she whispered things into Sumire’s ear. Sumire responded by nodding or smiling tenderly back at Yui. Kaori disappeared somewhere and came back carrying a tray with cups of chilled green tea.

“Yui sees Sumire as a mother of sorts,” Kaori said, setting down a cup in front of Jiro.

Jiro took a sip. “If Sumire is Yui’s mother, then I suppose you’re her sister?”

Kaori smiled. “I suppose you could say that. Though we often do things that … no sisters should ever do.” She winked at him.

Jiro cleared his throat and looked away.

It was Sumire that saved Jiro from his embarrassment. “So, it looks like you three came here in a hurry. Care to tell me what is going on?”

Jiro and Kaori filled Sumire in on the details of the spirit attacks. By the time they were done talking, the atmosphere in the room had changed. Sumire looked worried and was no longer stroking Yui’s hair.

“So,” said Jiro “What can you tell us about this spirit?”

Sumire shook her head. “The situation is indeed very grave. An imposter that goes around manipulating others … using them as tools for its own ends …” She scratched her cheek with one finger.

“Well?”

Sumire shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

Jiro leaned back and tried not to sigh. Sumire was just as clueless as Kaori was. Why had they come all the way out here, when Aya was in jail and more attacks could happen at any moment? He suddenly felt guilty for relaxing here and drinking tea while Sheena, Ken and the others were working so hard back in Koko Town.

“Don’t misunderstand Jiro,” said Kaori. “We’re not here to sift my mother’s brain. As I mentioned, this shrine has a history that goes back thousands of years. It’s not just Sumire’s wisdom we can access … but that off all of our ancestors.”

“How are you going to do that?” Jiro suddenly had a vision of Sumire smoking from a pipe and sitting in communion with the spirits of the dead. Perhaps she was a medium of some kind? A more powerful version of Yui?

Sumire finished her tea and stood up. “Come on. Now that you’ve had your tea. I guess you’ll be wanting access to the library.”

Jiro did not know how he had missed the library when coming into the building. Most of the building was the library. At least two-thirds of the spacious wooden building was devoted solely to bookshelves, and the storage of books.

“There are so many of them,” breathed Jiro. “How many volumes? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand?”

Sumire smiled. “When it comes to the supernatural, there is a lot to learn and to study. But this is just the beginning …” She took them around a bookcase to reveal a panel in the floor with a keyhole. Sumire produced a key and turned it in the lock. The trapdoor clicked open to reveal a set of stairs leading downward. “The bulk of our collection is down here. The walls in the basement are stone.”

“To protect the books from potential fires?”

“Fires. Earthquakes. Thieves. Antagonists and atheists who wish the purge all knowledge of the spiritual.”

Jiro knelt over the trap door and slid his head through the opening. The room was dimly lit with a few naked lightbulbs. Shelves extended in all directions, as far as he could see. The underground room was even larger than the building itself.”

“It’s nice that you have such a large reference collection …” said Jiro, sitting back up. “But how are we going to go about finding the right book? Assuming you even have a book with information about our culprit spirit. Do you have a lookup system, Sumire?”

“Yes we do.”

“Oh, that’s a relief. So you have an index of some sort? Or a database? Can we enter the attributes of the spirit and get a potential list of candidates?”

“No, our lookup system is old-fashioned.”

“Old-fashioned?”

Sumire smiled. “It involves looking at every book … page by page until we find what we are looking for.”