霊の病気
*** Ghost Sick (Shiomi POV) ***
“Ume, Ume! Speak to me.” I screamed frantically as I stood helplessly in the middle of the dining room. Ume’s head lay in a puddle of vomit next to the sweet bun she had just bitten. I thought at first the Mayoiga had poisoned her, but as she muttered about pain, suffering, and Nurse Uguisu, I thought, “Ghost sick.” It was like what happened after encountering Mikawa outside the cemetery, only this time it was because of our encounter at Himekawa Hospital.
“Don’t leave me, Ume!” I implored as I moved her head to a clean spot.
My thoughts swirled in a chaotic panic. “What can I do? A priest… I needed a priest, but there weren’t any. It’s just me and Ume.”
“Please, Ume!” I sobbed, on the verge of collapsing.
“I have to pull it together,” I thought. “If it were Ume, she wouldn’t stand around screaming, doing nothing. But what⁈ What could I do? What would a priest do? Salt and sake, that’s what they use.” I’d seen it enough as a kid to know.
I looked around wildly. The panic had ebbed, but not far. It threatened to overwhelm me any second.
“Salt! Sake!” I screamed at the house, but nothing happened. “Okay,” I thought, “there must be some around here. It’s a dining room, after all.”
I scanned the table. There had to be salt. “Fruit, sweet buns, candles, soy sauce, eating utensils.” I mentally listed each item as my frantic eyes ran over them. “Where’s salt?” My panic rose again, but I couldn’t let it take over. Ume was counting on me.
“Calm down,” I said to myself and took a breath. “If you can’t find salt, get the sake.”
“Sideboard,” I thought. “Sake will be on the sideboard.” I turned toward the sideboard and spotted liquor bottles at one end. In a rush, I searched through them. A whiskey bottle shattered on the floor, followed by a shochu bottle. To my relief, the next bottle looked promising. “Yes!” The label read “sake.”
When I reached Ume with my prize, she was retching with huge dry heaves. Her face and hair were slick with sweat. “Don’t think about it,” I warned myself. “Just work.” I started sprinkling her with sake. I wasn’t a priest or monk, but what else could I do?
“What would Kao and Kan-chan do? Bells; Kan-chan rings a bell. No, something else. Kao chants or wipes things off with candlelight.”
“Chant! I can do that. Kao taught us.”
“Okay, Shiomi, you can do this,” I said and started chanting. My words spilled out in a jumble, and panic set in again. “Breathe,” I thought. “What were the words? I know them. I used them in Himekawa Hospital. Think!”
Yatagarasu ga mamotte kureru
Anata no tsubasa ni tsutsuma rete
My voice trembled, but words came back to me. I didn’t know if the chant was helping Ume, but it helped calm me, and my panic ebbed.
Yatagarasu ga mamotte kureru
Anata no tsubasa ni tsutsuma rete
Relief swept over me. Ume had stopped retching, and her breathing had stabilized.
The sake bottle was still in my hand, so I resumed sprinkling while looking around for the salt. There it was, right in front of me, next to a fruit bowl. I’d knocked the salt over in my first panic, spilling most of it. I put the sake carefully down in case I needed it again and swept salt into my hand. Next, I sprinkled her with it and forced some into her mouth with trembling fingers.
Yatagarasu ga mamotte kureru
Anata no tsubasa ni tsutsuma rete
“Ume, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.” I pleaded between the renditions of the mantra.
Her eyes flickered, and she looked at me with glazed eyes.
“Thank goodness,” I said. “Ume, stay with me. Don’t leave.”
“Suffering, no more suffering,” she mumbled. Her tongue licked the salt that encrusted her lips.
“No, Ume. Don’t listen to her. Stay with me. I love you. I can’t do this without you. Please, Ume, stay with me.”
She licked some more salt.
“Shishi,” she muttered. Her eyes cleared looking at me.
It had worked. Despite her ragged breathing, she uttered my name instead of cursed words. I wiped the sweat from her face and sprinkled more sake on her.
“Ume, can you hear me?”
“Yeah. I feel awful.”
Thank goodness she was rational again. She was sick and pale, but conscious. I dipped up some salt, mixed it with sake, and fed it to her. She made a sour face but didn’t spit it out.
“Come on, Ume, let’s get you to bed,” I said and helped her rise to her feet. With my arm around her, we left the dining room and started up the stairs. She leaned on me, staggered, and had to rest twice as we went up.
“I need to sit,” she said when we reached the second landing.
“No,” I replied, afraid she wouldn’t get up again. There was no way I could carry her. “Lean on me; we’re almost there,” I offered instead. She nodded, and we continued.
Once on the next floor, I glanced at the red room, afraid something might be there. That’s where the bad things started. I didn’t see any spirits, so that was good.
I half dragged Ume into the Western blue room and pulled back the bedcovers. Without my support, she tottered and collapsed into the bed. She lay there shivering until I pulled the covers over her. I lay down next to her and held her until she stopped shaking.
“Go to sleep, Ume,” I said, stroking her hair. She remained quiet, so I slipped out of bed and left to get the sake. I hated to leave her, but I would need the sake to fight the ghost sickness.
I wasn’t gone for more than a few minutes, but when I returned, she was shaking. “Don’t leave me,” she pleaded.
“I’ll stay here with you,” I said, taking her hand. Her grip tightened, and she closed her eyes. I sat next to her, softly chanting. If she stirred, I sprinkled her with sake. Eventually, she dropped into a restless sleep. Her breathing was regular, though. Periodically, she would mumble. I could only catch snatches of it. None of it made sense.
“Ume, don’t leave me. I love you so much. Please, I can’t lose you now,” I whispered between repetitions of the chant.
In a bit, she opened her eyes and weakly gestured to me. I leaned over, and she whispered, “Ka-Shi-Ma,” and then collapsed.
I wiped the sweat off her and fed her some sake-moistened salt. “What about Kashima, Ume? Is this about her? I thought it was that nurse.”
“It’s important,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “Ka wa kamen no ka.”
I didn’t know if she was making any sense, but I dug Ume’s notebook out of her pack and wrote what she’d said. Halfway through, I stopped, puzzled. What I’d written was in the strange characters of this land. I leafed through the notebook and found Ume’s Japanese notes were indecipherable while my text remained legible. It was one too many mysteries for me, and I put it aside to finish writing what Ume had said. Then I returned to chanting and caring for Ume.
Outside, it grew dark, and my voice grew hoarse. I drank sparingly of the sake, wetting my throat; I wanted to preserve it for Ume. At the same time, I didn’t want to leave her to get water. When she woke again, she weakly beckoned to me, whispering, “Shi wa shibito,” and appeared to collapse only to force out, “no shi.”
“Okay, Umi, I’m trying to write it down.”
She tried to say something, but nothing came out.
“Ume, don’t leave me.”
I stopped as she muttered, “Shi wa shibito no shi.”
“But what does it mean?” I asked, but Ume had drifted to sleep again.
I needed water to wet my throat, but I didn’t dare leave even though she was sleeping peacefully. Instead, I continued alternately chanting and whispering my feelings to her. Time crawled tortuously by, but eventually, she stirred. Her eyes opened, and she spoke a third line, “Ma wa mamono no ma.”
“I don’t understand. What about a mamono? Is there a goblin?”
“Ma wa mamono no ma,” she repeated, ignoring my question.
The effort of saying the last line was too much for her, and she started retching; a thin, black liquid dribbled from her mouth. When I touched her, she was burning up. That decided me, and I rushed into the bathroom to fetch water. I hurriedly drank, returned to Ume’s bedside, and wiped her down.
I took her hand when she was cooler and said, “If you need anything, tell me. Please, I’m here. I love you, Ume.”
“Me too. I love you,” she said and then closed her eyes. She was so still, I thought she was dead. She didn’t even look like she was breathing. Then she coughed and muttered, “I won’t go with you.” Her eyes opened suddenly, and she said, “Shishi, do you understand?”
“No, I don’t. Tell me.” She didn’t reply. Her eyes were closed again. I stroked her head and chanted. Her fevered breathing slowed and became even again, to my relief.
Hours passed, and I finally had no choice but to get up and go to the restroom. When I returned, there was a ghastly figure in the door. The bandaged face left no doubt that Kashima-san had come for the second time.
I moved between her and Ume as Kashima-san spoke, continuing the dreadful ritual. “Do you need your arms?”
“I’m using them right now,” I responded, desperately trying to think of what to do.
“Do you need your legs?”
“We need them right now,” I said. Ume had warned me that what we had done last time wouldn’t work again. What was I going to do?
Kashima-san advanced into the room, and I thought, “If only I knew the ritual for the second night.”
My eye fell on Ume’s notebook, and I realized maybe I did.
“But I need them more,” Kashima-san said, drawing a huge nata-like knife.
“I hope this works,” I thought as I began reading.
Ka Shi Ma
Ka wa kamen no ka
Shi wa shibito no shi
Ma wa mamono no ma
I could hear Ume mutter along with me.
Kashima stopped moving when the chant began. When we stopped, a triumphant grin spread across her bomb-ravaged face.
“You won’t miss them,” she said, stepping forward.
Ume sat bolt upright. “We will,” she shrieked and began chanting.
Rei wa rei no rei
Ko wa jiko no ko
As Ume said the last words, she collapsed in a heap. But it was enough, and Kashima-san faded from view, revealing a figure behind her.
“My heartfelt congratulations,” the figure said, quietly clapping with just his fingers.
My heart sank as I asked, “Who are you?” But I already knew by his white corpse kimono it was another ghost. Our golden paradise had become a hellhole of sickness and spirits. Would it ever end?
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Note: Ghost, ghosts and more ghosts.
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Story by Nara Moore
Twitter/X:@nara_moore
Mastodon: sakurajima.moe
WordPress: Josei Yuri and Paranormal Romance
Art by Mai-sensei
Twitter: @Maiisheree
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