Chapter 6

It was mid-morning by the time Mai set out the next day to speak with the various residents living nearby. She decided to follow the same route as she had the day before and started to walk down the road towards Yodo station. The air was cool and fairly dry, but the lack of traffic and the dead vegetation gave the area a desolate feel. Shaking her head sharply, she continued down the road until she reached the Matsuda residence again.

She knocked on the door and was soon greeted by the woman she'd met the day before.

"Ah, hi," Mai said smiling to the mother. "I spoke with you yesterday about um... about this area."

The woman nodded slowly. She looked a bit wary about having Mai appear again on her doorstep.

"Um... I was wondering if it would be alright for me to ask your daughter the same things I asked you yesterday," Mai said. "My boss wanted to find out if there might be any rumours about the area going around among the kids as they sometimes hear and talk about things that adults might not be aware of."

The woman hesitated slightly before agreeing and letting Mai into the entranceway. She called her daughter Emiko to the front entrance and introduced her to Mai.

Emiko was a cute, albeit shy, five-year-old child with her hair tied up in little pig tails. She clung to her mother's pant leg as Mai knelt before her.

"Emi-chan, I was wondering if you heard anything from your friends about any scary places that you should stay away from in this area," Mai said carefully. She didn't want to scare the child, but she wasn't quite sure how to word her question.

Emiko cocked her head slightly. "Scary places?" she asked.

"Yeah. Umm... maybe a monster lives there or a scary ghost?" Mai explained.

"Umm... the big kids sometimes tell us little kids not to go near the old house down the road. The one that's got no one living in it," she said slowly.

"Did they say why?" Mai asked.

Emiko shook her head. "No. Just that it's a bad place and bad things happen if you go there. You're not going to go there, are you?" she asked wide-eyed.

"Umm..."

"You can't! The big kids said that if you go, bad things will happen. I bet something bad happened to Ai-chan 'cause she liked playing over there," Emiko said.

"'Ai-chan'?" Mai asked.

Emiko nodded. "She said her mom and dad and her were visiting her grandma and grandpa and that they were going to go see the maple leaves in the mountains. But something happened at her grandma and grandpa's place and I haven't seen her since."

Emiko had a serious expression on her face. "I told her not to go there because it was a bad place, but she wouldn't listen to me. She said she was bigger 'n me so she didn't have to listen to what I said."

Mai smiled at Emiko and pat her on the head. "I'm not planning on going there yet," Mai said reassuring the child. "I want to talk to everyone in the area first."

Emiko looked relieved at Mai's comment and Mai couldn't help patting her on the head again.

"You really helped me," Mai told her. "Thanks!"

Emiko smiled shyly up at Mai as Mai got back to her feet. Mai thanked Emiko's mother and after one last smile to her daughter, left the house.

Mai jotted down some quick notes from her chat with Emiko before continuing down the road. Remembering the woman who'd chased her off the day before without letting her say a word in edgewise, she wondered if she should've asked Emiko's mother about the woman and if she was like that with everyone, but it was too late now.

She found no one home at the second house again just like yesterday and wondered if the people who lived there were either away or if they worked on weekends. Shaking her head, Mai continued down the road to where the Ikedas lived. She remembered the mother mentioning that she used to live in the area some time ago as well and that she mentioned thinking or pretending that one of the places was haunted. However, the impression she'd gotten from Emiko was of something definitely being bad.

As with the Matsuda house, Mai didn't have long to wait after ringing the bell before someone answered the door at the Ikeda house. The woman who answered the door looked a bit surprised to see Mai again but let her in readily.

"I'm sorry to bother you again like this," Mai said apologetically, "but I was wondering if I could ask your son the same questions I asked you yesterday."

Mrs. Ikeda smiled. "Actually, I was thinking about your question yesterday. I'll go get my son, if you could wait a moment." Mrs. Ikeda disappeared into the upstairs of the house for a few moments. When she came back down, she had her ten-year-old son in tow behind her.

"This is my son, Yoshiaki," she said.

Mai smiled at the boy. "Hi, Yoshi-kun. I'm Taniyama Mai. I was talking to your mom yesterday about something, but she said she didn't know, so I was wondering if maybe you might've heard something," Mai said. "I was wondering if there are any places in this neighbourhood that the other kids told you to stay away from or that were bad places."

Yoshi had a strange look on his face as he looked at Mai. "What sort of 'bad places'?" he asked.

Mai blinked in surprise. "Umm... I'm not really sure. A place that's haunted or cursed or something?"

Yoshi frowned. "I thought adults didn't believe in those sorts of things," he said belligerently.

Mai smiled. "Yeah. A lot of them don't," she admitted. "But my boss is a bit different from them, so I'm trying to find out about those sorts of strange places in the area."

Yoshi stared at Mai for a long moment before relenting. "When we first moved here, a bunch of kids at school told me to stay away from the empty place down the road," he admitted. "I've never been there because it's a bit far and none of my friends live that way."

"Did they say anything else about why you should stay away from there?" Mai asked curiously.

Yoshi shook his head. "Not really. Just that bad things happen if you go there. Eh? Bad things happen? ...Or that you do bad things? ...I don't really remember, but I thought you had to go there alone, too," he shrugged.

"Bad things happen or you do bad things if you go there alone?" Mai asked cocking her head slightly. "Thanks Yoshi-kun. You really helped me a lot."

Yoshi looked up at his mother who was standing behind him. "Can I go now? I want to get back to my game," he said.

Mrs. Ikeda nodded and shooed him back to his game. "I guess he's talking about the abandoned farm close to where the Nishimuras live... lived," she said. "That might be the place I was talking about yesterday when I told you that my friends and I used to believe or pretend a place was haunted because it was abandoned and fairly run down," she said. "I was thinking about it last night actually. Back then, I guess it was when I was in elementary or maybe junior high school, I don't think we really took it seriously and we used to always go exploring in the area."

Mrs. Ikeda got a distant look on her face as memories from her childhood came back to her. "Come to think of it, I think we used to have fun and play around in that house a lot, too," she said thinking back on the memories fondly. "Ah! Yeah, I'm pretty sure we were pretending it was haunted and not that there were any actual rumours. I can't remember who lived there, but I remember my mom telling me that someone died in the hospital once and not really knowing who she was talking about. I think my friends and I tried to summon that person's dead spirit and stuff since we figured it was about as haunted as any place we knew of would get."

The woman laughed slightly. "That sure was a long time ago."

Mai frowned slightly. "You tried summoning a dead spirit?"

The woman nodded smiling. "You know how it is when you're that age. Kids do things like Kokkuri-san, hold seances and try to summon dead spirits, tell ghost stories in scary places... that sort of stuff. I remember doing things like that there when I was a kid." Mrs. Ikeda laughed again. "I remember doing those sorts of things quite often actually, but nothing ever happened. We were just playing really."

Mai scarcely remembered thanking the woman before leaving the house as she continued to walk down the road. The woman's casual comment, 'I remember doing things like that there when I was a kid' echoed in her mind. She shook her head slightly. 'I remembering doing something similar at school when I met Naru,' she thought slowly to herself. She and her friends, Keiko, Michiru, and Yuuri, were telling ghost stories in the A/V room when Naru interrupted them. Back then, telling ghost stories and doing Kokkuri-san were fun and harmless pastimes. Now...

'Kokkuri-san can call up some real nasties.' Bou-san had said when they were investigating Yasuhara's high school. But just doing Kokkuri-san shouldn't have been so bad. Yasuhara's school was an exceptional case as the area happened to be spiritual closed off such that any spirits that were called in were unable to escape and ended up devouring one another to be used in a curse meant to kill one of the teachers.

Mai stared at the area around her. Kyoto – the capital of capitals. Compared to Tokyo – the Eastern capital – Kyoto was renowned for its history and culture. So many historically significant things had happened in and around Kyoto that it was just about impossible to dig anywhere in the area without coming across some sort of artefact. And even if you went around Kyoto and saw a new temple or shrine every day for a year, you still wouldn't be able to see all of them.

Mai knew that there was a major shrine on top of the mountain next to Yawata station, and the remnants of a castle stood next to Yodo station. However, she couldn't remember if there was anything truly significant about the area itself. Certainly she didn't remember anything happening in the area, and the area around the road she was walking on didn't seem any different from any other lightly populated rural area. 'I guess I can ask Yasuhara-san if there's anything historically significant about this area later. But for all that whatever's happening here seems to be affecting the entire area, I just don't think it's some ancient curse or anything,' she thought.

Mai quickly jotted some short notes in her notebook before continuing down to the next house. It wasn't until she reached the doorway to the next house that she realised she forgot to ask Mrs. Ikeda about the woman who'd chased her off the day before. Mai sighed in resignation and steeled herself to ring the bell at the Sengoku residence, where the strange woman lived.