Prologue: A Peculiar Girl in the Land of Spirits

Prologue:
A Peculiar Girl in the Land of Spirits

 

AT THE END of an unremarkable back alley stood a holy tree. From the base of that tree, one could catch a glimpse of a large mirror mounted just within a shrine.

A world entirely different from our own lurked just beyond the glass.

The line separating the human world from the spirit realm is quite hazy—so hazy that people can easily lose their way and stumble into great danger. Every person—every thing, really—living in the spirit realm is some kind of monster. Any person unlucky enough to tumble into that realm of sunless darkness has to fight for their life against throngs of spirits eager to eat them alive. How do I know this? I’m Muramoto Kaori, and I was raised in the spirit realm.

Yes, I’m a human. One day, when I was around three years old, I wandered away from my parents and found myself there. A peculiar spirit took me in and cared for me—a very peculiar spirit. You see, children are a real delicacy in these parts.

“I’ve got something intriguing for a man of such interests,” I said.

I checked the paper bag in my hand one last time before hurrying to the station. Seeing my prize put a spring in my step as I made my way through a city painted by an auburn sunset. Everyone around me looked to be in high spirits; it seemed I wasn’t the only one enjoying the weight of my purse after payday.

I hopped on my train to make my way home. After one transfer, I stepped off in the middle of a run-of-the-mill residential area. The sunset had dimmed to twilight; lights winked on in the homes and buildings lining the street while the wafting scent of curry and other dinners sent my stomach grumbling. But no one paid me the least bit of mind as I passed all of this and stopped at an old deity watching over the roadside. The usual offerings of flowers decorated the red-bibbed deity. Quite fashionable, in my opinion.

This little Buddhist statue was a Dosojin, connected to the local folk beliefs. Positioned at intersections and right in the center of town, Dosojin warded off any evil spirits trying to sneak into the neighborhood while also promoting the health and prosperity of the local children. Nowadays, however, most people just walked past them without a second glance. In fact, I remembered hearing that it was mostly old people who took care of the little guys now. Perhaps it was just their fate to slowly fade away as time moved on.

Alas, that would be a bit of a problem for me. You see, these statues served as beacons to help me find my way home. I scanned the road to ensure I was alone before resting my hand atop the small shrine in which the statue sat.

“Back home,” I said.

The world instantly darkened, the sky slowly fading from lovely orange to black. Stars brightened the dark, too many to count, while waves of red, blue, and green washed through the sky in waving auroras. This was the sky of the spirit realm, the land of the dead, a world of perpetual night. That humble roadside deity stood guard over the very portal separating the human world from this one.

“Welcome back.”

I searched for the source of the voice until I found an adorable figure perched atop the shrine.

“Oh, Nyaa-san! I’m back,” I said with a smile.

The black cat lazing on top of the shrine stretched luxuriously, wagged her three tails, and gazed up at me with large, round eyes. “Well, somebody’s late today.”

I’d known Nyaa-san since we were both little, and it was her habit to wait for me to return every time I left the spirit realm. She could be a bit direct, but that was only because she was something of a worrywart—and my best friend.

“Well, it’s the busy period right now,” I said. “They’re working me to the bone.”

“Well, shouldn’t you just quit, then?” Nyaa-san asked. “Instead, you could just sit around and pet me all day long. See? That’s a pretty good idea. We should do that.”

What a cat-like way of thinking. I couldn’t help but laugh. “No can do. I’m working in the human world because I need money.”

“Huh, sounds annoying.”

I chuckled. “Working is actually a lot more fun than you’d think.”

“Hmm…well, I guess if you’re okay with it, then that’s fine.”

Nyaa-san hopped down and padded toward town. As I followed, I caught a whiff of the prize nestled in my paper bag. Oh, she was probably so impatient waiting for this particular gift! I smirked as I ran to catch up with Nyaa-san.

Side by side, we approached a town—yes, the spirit realm had towns. They were a bit old and mysterious, but undeniably beautiful at the same time.

The majority of the buildings were made of wood. The rusty signs dangling precariously before shops had names handwritten in kanji and katakana, like something out of a bygone era. There were the usual places like the Greengrocer and Butcher, as well as more dubious shops such as Eyeball Emporium and Flesh ‘R’ Us.

As we walked, lights from behind barred windows splashed into the street and voices spilled out from within shops. On the larger streets, we joined a crush of beings and savvy salesmen trying to pluck out customers from the throng. Alongside the usual wares, like fresh fruit and vegetables, we saw a wide variety of spirit realm-specific goods such as spirits shrieking unearthly cries, strange medicines, and clothes embroidered with ominous symbols.

Though the town was gas powered, the light glowing from every home and storefront didn’t come from burning fuel as it would in the human world. Here, we put little butterflies called glimmerflies into the glass bulbs that lit both streets and houses.

The glimmerfly, a ghostly butterfly particular to this realm, got its name from the scales on its wings and body. As it fluttered about, those scales cast a mystical glow, but sadly, the little creature would eventually burn out and fade. We always needed to gather more of them in order to keep the lanterns going, hence the need for butterfly hunters. These folks stalked the town with bamboo baskets brimming with butterflies, and they were a classic feature of the spirit realm’s landscape.

But the glimmerflies were special for more than just their ability to glow.

“Glad to see you back, Kaori-chan. I see you’re still quite popular with the glimmerflies,” a snake-haired woman called out.

“Well, it’s pretty nice to not need a lamp,” I admitted.

A flurry of glimmerflies clustered nearby, but they avoided the woman in favor of me. You see, they seemed to prefer humans.

I was certainly a sight to behold in the spirit town as I strolled through with a glimmerfly swarm fluttering around me. These days, it made me more approachable to the supernatural beings inhabiting this realm, but I had actually hated glimmerflies as a kid. Whenever they swarmed around me, it had reminded me that I was a stranger to this realm. As a child I had sobbed, thrashing at the little bugs, trying to push them away so they would stop marking me out as different—as other. It had been bad enough knowing I didn’t really belong; I didn’t need a constant glowing reminder.

But that had been a long time ago. Now I was grown up, and they no longer bothered me. In fact, the glimmerflies served as a convenient light source. Once I’d learned to deal with them, I could finally appreciate them for their beauty.

A woman with a face devoid of any features called out to me. “Hi, Strangeling. I’ll be by later to drop off some vegetables, so leave your door open, ’kay?”

She ran a Japanese confectionery shop so well known for its delicious treats that a line formed outside it first thing in the morning every day. I was still always the first one who got to sample her latest creations.

“Wow, that’s great! Thanks!” I called back.

“Swing on by sometime this weekend, Kaori-chan. I’ve got a new treat I’d like you to try.”

Nyaa-san perked up. “Oooh! I’m coming too!”

“Oh, this is for you, Strangeling,” another supernatural well-wisher said.

“For me? Thank you.”

I’d hardly made any progress down the road and already my arms were full of gifts. I had to jog to catch up with Nyaa-san, who waited patiently for me farther down the street.

“Looks like you’ve scored again,” Nyaa-san said. “Not bad.”

Even with all these gifts, we didn’t linger. Even though I was more or less accepted in town as the “Strangeling,” the spirit realm could be a dangerous place for humans. Thankfully, the local spirits regularly showered me with kindness—a side humans rarely ever saw.

“Myaaao.”

Nyaa-san mewed as we reached the end of the road, where a two-story wooden house that had certainly seen better days awaited us. Part of the first floor was dedicated to a retail space, marked by the decrepit wooden sign that clung desperately to the wall: “Book Rentals.” This was my home, the one and only bookstore in the entire spirit realm.

I slid the glass door open and called out, “I’m hooooome!”

The glimmerflies scattered as the smell of incense hit my nose. I flung the door wide and stepped into the shop. The creak of the floorboards transported me to yet another world—one where I was home.

The room wasn’t big by any means, only around sixteen square meters or so. The bookshelves covering the walls stood so tall, you couldn’t see their tops. Several old battle-scarred ladders leaned against the shelves. Glimmerfly bulbs dangled about the room, attempting to illuminate bookshelves that had gone amber with age. The bright spines of the books jammed on those shelves seemed to float in the dim lighting, almost as if they were hovering around the shop.

Mysteries abounded within the spirit realm’s only bookstore. For one thing, the ceiling loomed far higher than seemed possible from the outside. First-time visitors often gawked at the height of the shelves. Obviously, this implied the shop had more than one floor, and while there was a stairwell in the main house, sometimes you could find yourself on the second floor without climbing a single step. Moreover, no matter how packed those shelves became, we never ran out of space for more books.

How did it all work? Well, if the shop owner knew, he certainly wasn’t telling. Trade secrets, you know?

I called out again as I passed the bookshelf dedicated to new releases, which was placed smack-dab in the middle of the main room. “Hey, you asleep? I said I’m hoooooome!”

A thin, raspy voice finally answered. “Oh, you’re back.”

As I slid open the door connecting the store to the main house, my gaze fell on a man lying on the tatami flooring—my adoptive father, the very “peculiar” spirit who’d taken me in as a child.

An older man, around his mid-forties or so, he usually wore a stern expression that was easily undermined by his sleepy gaze and unkempt facial hair. When silent, he scowled, and when talking, he wore a perpetual look of disappointment, a lifelong habit as far as I could tell. In short, he was pretty much like any other middle-aged man. Only the two horns sticking out of his forehead and the light scale pattern covering his skin indicated that he wasn’t human.

I sighed and started to gather up the papers scattered across the floor. Glancing over at his tea table, I found the rest of his manuscript beside his uneaten lunch.

“Really, Shinonome-san?” I asked. “Looks like you got too into your writing and forgot to eat again. Listen, if you’re going to get so hungry that you pass out like this, you really should just eat. You’re going to get sick one of these days, you know.”

“Well, you were going to come back home sooner or later, so I figured we could just eat together,” he grumbled. Shinonome-san didn’t even bother to turn toward me as he spoke, running his long nails through his graying hair.

All I could do was sigh again. Here he was, wearing his best yukata, and now it was thoroughly wrinkled from his floor nap. Flashes of pale flesh peeked out from the rumpled folds.

Day in and day out, I was always chastising him for his careless behavior, but nothing ever changed. He just couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that I wanted a father figure who at least pretended to care about how he presented himself.

“Come on, grow up and stop being so shabby!” I moaned.

As per usual, Shinonome-san just waved his hand as if he were dismissing a bothersome fly. “I don’t get what all the screeching’s about. And I have no idea how you managed to grow up like this, considering how I raised you. Now, why don’t you just go get married and get out of my hair, you twit?”

“I’ll do no such thing until you finally learn how to take care of yourself,” I sniffed. “Just imagine if I came back here to have my first baby and had to show off a feeble old man for a dad. No thanks.”

“Harrumph.” Apparently, this struck a nerve, because he snatched up the rice ball from his lunch and started chomping on it.

“I’m making your favorite for dinner tonight: fried minced cutlets,” I sang. “If you don’t hurry and clean up this mess, I’m just going to have to eat them all by myself.”

“Really?” he choked, eyes flashing. “And…any alcohol?”

“I’ve got that, too, but just one bottle.”

“Fantastic!”

He chuckled ruefully, though he did finally start to clean. I tied on an apron and left him to it, turning toward the kitchen. Just as I was about to step out, though, a huge ball of yarn bounced past my feet.

“Watch out, Nyaa-san! I could’ve tripped,” I cried.

“Any fish for me?” Nyaa-san asked. She blinked up at me with large, bright eyes. She was usually a sleepy creature, so the effect of those twinkling eyes was not insignificant—they always made me feel a twinge of jealousy.

“Of course!”

A low growl reverberated deep in Nyaa-san’s throat like some kind of laugh. “Well, that’s good then.” She padded to the corner, snagged her toy in her teeth, and proudly carried it over.

At last, I’d gotten the whole, weird family together. Sighing with exhaustion, I rolled up my sleeves and headed to the kitchen.

 

***

 

I oven-fried the cutlets in the toaster oven until they were nice and crunchy before plating them with some potato salad and cherry tomatoes. I added bowls of freshly cooked rice, some seaweed and miso soup, and a pickled vegetable I’d recently found. Finally, I set down a bottle of beer for Shinonome-san.

“Huh, not bad,” I mused.

The minced cutlets were pretty big and made from Japanese beef, a delicacy we hardly could have afforded were it not my payday. I figured they’d be perfect covered in sauce with a bit of mustard. As I carried them to the living room, I heard Shinonome-san meeting a guest in the shop.

“Hello,” said Shinonome-san.

“Ah, uh…yes. Hi,” mumbled the guest.

The guest, Goblin, bowed his horned head when he noticed my arrival. It wasn’t too unusual for us to receive a customer so late in the day. The spirit realm didn’t have much in the way of entertainment, which made our bookstore fantastically popular. The spirits here could get their hands on various sundry items from the human realm, including books and other entertainment, but those kinds of things came in limited quantity and at a high price, all of which contributed to the popularity of our little bookshop on the outskirts of town.

“Well?” Judging by Shinonome-san’s perplexed expression, something was amiss. “What, don’t have enough? This is already heavily discounted, you know.”

“W-would this cover it?” Goblin desperately reached into his pocket and pulled out some colored pebbles from a riverbank.

“Sorry. I can’t just rent out my books for some pretty rocks.”

Goblin visibly wilted. He likely lived far out in the mountains, in a place where money had little worth. Like many of our customers, he’d arrived with few coins to his name.

Shinonome-san scowled as he studied the dejected Goblin. He scratched his face and took a long draw from his smoking pipe. “All right then,” he conceded, “if you tell me the most interesting experience you’ve had, I’ll consider you paid up. How does that sound? All you have to do is talk and you can borrow a book. Not a bad offer, I’d say.”

Goblin brightened and cheerfully launched into his story. Shortly thereafter, he hurried away with a book of fairy tales hugged against his chest.

“Do you really think a story about someone’s loincloth getting washed down the river will sell for anything?” I asked.

Shinonome-san huffed as he scrawled the story we’d just heard into his notebook. “Hard to say.”

This was one reason why we were poor. If we’d lived out in the mountains like Goblin, we’d have no need for money. But living in a home just outside a busy shopping distinct instead didn’t come cheap. Despite that, Shinonome-san often cut deals like this, further eating into our profits. If only he charged all our customers, we’d have more than enough for the two of us to live on. Instead, I had no choice but to go out and work a part-time job in the human world to make ends meet.

Alas, there was just no getting around the continuous flow of penniless mountain spirits who came down here yearning for books. As the daughter of a bookstore owner, I was an avid reader myself and also wanted to help get books into the hands of as many people as possible, so I sympathized, but it didn’t make our situation any easier to manage.

As we stood there in silence, our shoulders slumped in unison, and Shinonome-san finally spoke up. “…I guess dinner’s gone cold, huh?”

“Want me to reheat the cutlets?”

“No, it’s fine. They’ll get too dry if you do.”

“That’s true.”

Just as we finally sat down to eat, a commotion sounded outside. What now?

“What’s going on out there?” I asked. A spirit-related incident wasn’t exactly rare around these parts. I glanced out at the road running past the shop, figuring someone must be kicking up a fuss as usual. Right as I looked outside, a rush of air blasted past, and a flurry of glimmerflies darted off toward something.

“Well, that’s strange,” I murmured, “seeing a flurry of glimmerflies like that.” My heart began to race. Of all the strange things I’d seen in the spirit realm, this was entirely new.

I turned back to Shinonome-san, hoping he might know something. But before I even had a chance to ask, he was charging outside, wooden sandals in hand.

“I’ll be back!” he called. He hopped back and forth from one foot to the next before he finally slipped on his sandals and took off at a run, holding the edge of his yukata up and out of the way.

“Hey, wait up! What’s going on?!” I shouted.

“Nothing to worry about, Kaori! Just stay inside!”

“No way!”

“Waugh!”

My vehement refusal distracted Shinonome-san just enough that he stumbled. He took a few more wobbly steps forward before spinning around to face me. “Why?! I told you to stay inside! Who knows what dangers might be out here?”

“Fine by me! I’ll bring Nyaa-san. No problem!”

Nyaa-san was conveniently already padding around by my feet, so I reached down and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck.

“Nyaoo!” She let out a screech, but I didn’t have time to concern myself with her dignity.

“Just stop it and listen to me for once, you twit!” Shinonome-san howled.

“I don’t see what the big deal is! You’re just an overprotective old man!”

“Gaah! Where did I go wrong raising you, huh?”

“Oh, shush!”

I shoved my shoes on and dashed outside, but by the time I got there, Shinonome-san was already gone.

“Are you really going, Kaori?” Nyaa-san asked. Those big eyes were all worry this time.

“Sorry, but I have a bad feeling about this.” I shoved my anxiety aside and rushed ahead. I couldn’t shake the image of the glimmerflies. I knew of only one thing that could attract a swarm like that…

I skidded to a stop on the main road where the glimmerflies flitted frantically. My eyes darted everywhere, searching for Shinonome-san, but I couldn’t see him through the thick veil of beating glimmerfly wings. There was just no way I’d be able to find him in this.

“Shinonome-san, where are you?!” I called.

Before the words had even left my mouth, a fat droplet splashed to the ground. The rain rapidly intensified and, one by one, the glimmerflies fled the watery onslaught.

There!

As the curtain of glowing insects dispersed, I finally caught sight of Shinonome-san. Relief washed over me, but it only lasted a split second before cold dread rushed through my veins to replace it.

The glimmerflies fluttered about, illuminating the dark, gloomy world of the spirit realm.

My father stood among them, drenched in rain.

At his feet lay a boy with white hair, sprawled on his side with blood oozing out of his wounds. A human boy.