My eyes opened and it took them a moment to adjust to the dim light.
Where am I?
I realized that I wasn't in my bedroom anymore but in the kitchen!
Eh? Eh?! EH?!
How did I arrive here?
It was past midnight.
I- I sleepwalked!
My expression turned awkward at this realization.
Out of the blue, two dark figures appeared in front of me in the kitchen, causing me to yelp and jump backward. I stumbled and fell heavily on my behind, unable to tear my wide-eyed stare off the two unknown persons holding themselves there.
They were a man and a woman. The man had slightly tanned skin, shoulder-length black hair combed to the back, with a small stubble on his chin and unusually sharp eyes. He wore a serious expression on his face and he was a bit of a giant, being extremely tall and heavy muscled. He looked intimidating.
By his side, stood a beautiful, pale, slender woman with straight light-blond hair that touched her hips. She looked very feminine.
The man was clothed in a pair of trousers and a shirt, with on top of that, a doctor's robe while the woman was wearing a blouse, over a long skirt.
'My dear husband, look! Our son has found himself a little wife!' jubilated the woman, squirming and holding her fists up excitedly.
'On top of that, he has good taste like his father! She's as beautiful as a small doll and she looks very gentle and docile to me!' said the man, jubilating too. Then, he exclaimed, flamboyantly, 'You are worthy of carrying my name, son!'
'But- But who are you?' I stammered, utterly bewildered.
Their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets at my question.
'My heart is broken, trampled; it is in tatters! I am devastated! My daughter-in-law doesn't recognize me!' wailed the woman, covering her eyes with her arm and turning her back onto me to cry.
'I'm in the same state as you, my wife! Today's youngsters aren't what they used to be in the old days! Once we're dead and buried, we don't exist for them anymore! Tsunan didn't show her our pictures. He probably didn't even talk about us with her!' wailed the man, turning half-around. He put his punch up then, sobbing bitterly, 'What an ungrateful and unworthy son!'
Isn't he the same person who was saying just the contrary only a minute ago? I thought, cynically, before I asked, stunned, 'Wait! Are you Tsunan's parents?'
I couldn't believe my eyes. How can they be here?
'That's exact! Which makes me your mother-in-law! In other terms, you have to accomplish my four wills, like massaging my feet, scrub the floor of the kitchen for me, or even wash my clothes when I ask you!' sniggered Tsunan's mother- Suna Hitachiin- her expression diabolical as she faced me again.
My mouth went slightly agape.
Frightening!
'And I, I'm supposed to mistreat you like the tradition wants it!' Tsunan's father- Sōjun Hitachiin- sniggered, his expression matching his wife's.
'Wait! There is a misunderstanding! Tsunan and I aren't married!' I told them, quickly, getting to my feet.
At this, their faces scrunched up and they put their fists up angrily, their eyes throwing daggers at the ceiling.
'Tsunan, you little runt! Is this how you treat a young girl? It would be the last straw if you get her pregnant and you abandon her!' roared Tsunan's mother.
What? What? What?!
How did the conversation take such a turn?
The commotion outdoors caught my attention at that moment and I peered my head out of the kitchen's window to take a look at what was happening. What greeted my eyes was a stampede; all the members of the Hitachiin clan were out of their houses and running amok.
'Watch out!' exclaimed a voice- Tsunan's- in all of a sudden and I was pulled out of the way of a set of knives that flew across of the kitchen. These planted themselves in the window frame, one of them slicing Tsunan's upper arm on the way.
My heart skipped a beat at the sight of his injury, the red flowing blood.
'Otō-san! Okā-san!' he gasped, in astonishment. His mother and father were holding their foreheads, their expression tortured, their unblinking eyes, vacant.
What's happening to them?
'I'm sorry, my girl. Tsunan. We don't know what's happening to us,' mumbled the older doctor.
Without any warning, Tsunan picked me up in his arms and he jumped out of the window of the kitchen with me. He put me down when he had rounded the corner of the house.
Automatically, I tore off a piece of my kimono and quickly, wound it around his wounded and bleeding upper arm, making a bandage; alarmed.
'It's alright! Don't worry about that! But what's going on?'
He stared at the members of the clan who were being pursued by what evidently were spirits of the dead. Some of the members were having their hair being pulled, others getting a good trashing, some even getting beaten with brooms!
'Do you know all these angry people?' I asked, and he replied, 'A few ones. They are the members of the clan who are dead. These spirits are becoming unstable very fast. We need to regroup everyone at a single place to evaluate the situation.'
'You do that!' I said, 'While I, I'll go fetch water from the shrine. It's most probably the only thing that can get the better of them.'
I turned around to hurry away when, he called out my name, anxiously, causing me to pause down to look around at him.
'It's okay! I'll be fine,' I reassured him and added in a promise, 'You took me in. I won't let anything happen to anyone.'
I made a run for the Shintō shrine next door and it came upon my realization that the spirits of the dead couldn't leave the perimeter of the domain. I climbed the long staircase as fast as I could, heading for the chōzuya.
Quickly, I filled two wooden buckets with water of the chōzubachi and hurried back to the residence.
***
In the meantime…
'Who's making such a commotion?' growled Sekien Hitachiin, the grand-father of Tsunan. He hated to be interrupted when he was writing his journal but he couldn't continue to ignore what was going on outside.
He got up from the low table next to his futon and went to take a look out of the window of his bedroom. When, suddenly, he felt a presence in the room with him.
Instantaneously, he turned around and what greeted his sight was his defunct wife.
'Ai!' he gasped out in shock.
'Tell me, Sekien, have you been good after my departure?' she asked, her eyes narrowed.
He broke into cold sweat at the question.
'Yes. Yes, of course. You know me!' he giggled, nervously, answering her, despite being disconcerted of seeing her.
'It's exactly because I know you that I'm asking you this question!' she exclaimed, her eyes flaring up with rage. 'Do you think that I couldn't see you from the here-after flirting with all those women half of your age, you little pervert!?'
She tackled him on the ground in a painful wrestling hold, contorting his legs and arms.
'As I can see, your hold is still as good as I can remember it! A real tigress!' he panted, trying to take the pain stoically.
She tightened her hold, muttering, 'Complimenting me will serve you nothing!'
Unable to hold it anymore, he smacked his hand on the floor in abandonment but this didn't make her release him.
***
As I made across of Tsunan's grand-father's house, suddenly, through the window of his bedroom, my eyes fell onto the old man in one of a situation with whom I supposed to be his deceased wife.
She had tackled him on the ground in a fabulous wrestling hold.
Comically, it was his wife who used to be the dominant in their couple while he used to be the submissive. It wasn't really the image the old man gave off.
Without wasting a minute, I barged into the house of the old man and going directly for his bedroom, I sprinkled some water over the spirit of his wife, from one of the two buckets in my possession, using the Chozu bowl I had borrowed from the shrine.
This caused her to turn into mist which evaporated into thin air.
The old man picked himself up, trying to recover from his emotion. 'How- How dare you enter into my room like this?!' he exclaimed at me, flushing up in embarrassment for what I had seen.
'You shouldn't stay here!' I told him, urgently, grabbing his forearm. He allowed me to drag him out of his house to get him into safety.
From afar, I caught sight of Tsunan who had regrouped the members of the clan he had found in the banquet hall.
It was a large single-room building which was used during family reunions for new year and other festivities.
He had trapped the door and windows with Ofuda. He had even placed Ofuda on the floor of the veranda and the steps of the small staircase that led up to it. But nevertheless, the spirits of the dead had mobbed around the building, unrelenting.
I had never asked Tsunan about the kind of weapon that he used when he was confronted to supernatural creatures. I discovered at that moment that he used needles from traditional medicine- these having probably been soaked into some concoction lethal to supernatural beings.
But his attacks were inefficacious against the spirits which- when hit by one of the needles he threw at them- evaporated into thin air, only to reappear a minute later.
This helped keep them from getting any closer to the banquet hall though.
Arriving from behind the mob, I sprinkled water over all of the spirits who were on my way, creating for Tsunan's grand-father and I, a path up to the front.
'Are you alright?' Tsunan demanded at the two of us when we successfully joined him under the veranda.
I nodded, taking an anxious glance at his injured arm. The bandage I had made was soaking with blood.
'What's going on here?' shouted his grand-father, in a panic. 'Why is the domain prowling with the spirits of defunct members of our family?'
'Tsunan!' I called out in shock when my eyes fell onto a familiar face in the mob of spirits.
It was his grand-mother whom, only several minutes ago, I had sprinkled with pure water. I realized with stupefaction that all the spirits that I had sprinkled with water were reappearing, just like when Tsunan had attacked them with his needles.
Either pure water had no effect on them or... something was conjuring them back again and again!
In that instant, something occurred to me.
The burning incense in the home shrine!
Hangonkō was magical incense that could conjure up spirits. I had read about it in one of Master Kagami's books on the subject at the organization. It needed to be Hangonkō. It was still burning; I could smell it.
'I know what's causing this!' I told Tsunan, staring into his eyes. 'I need to go to the home shrine to put the incense out. Stay here and protect everyone!'
I gave him a reassuring smile before he could protest.
Then, taking the bucket of pure water which was still full, I poured it over my head, drenching myself completely.
This was going to help keep the spirits off me.
I threw the remaining water from the other bucket at the spirits blocking the way to create myself an opening through the mob.
The home shrine was a good distance away and I made a run for it. I had nearly reached the building, when, I became conscious that some spirits were at my pursue and they were armed.
If they couldn't touch me with their bare hands unless they wished to disappear, they could still attack me with objects.
Since I wasn't paying attention in front of me, I tripped and fell over a rock abruptly. I turned around instantly and my heart fluttered as I realized that my pursuers had gotten incredibly close.
At that moment, out of nowhere, Tsunan's parents showed up in front of me, their backs turned onto me.
'Go on!' Tsunan's mother called at me over her shoulder. 'We have recovered a bit of lucidity. We're going to try to restrain them. Hurry up!'
Obeying to the command, I picked myself up immediately and rushed into the Hitachiin's home shrine, making for the altar. Getting my hands onto the bowl of burning incense, I sprinted out of the building with it up to the small pond in the corner where I doused the incense into the water.
Catching my breath, I looked around of myself.
All the spirits seemed to have recovered from their frenzied behavior and were beginning to disappear, fading into tiny orbs of light.
I gazed at Tsunan's parents as they came to join me where I was crouched down by the pond.
How much I wished that they could stay for longer!
'Although he is taciturn and austere, we will well ask you to take care of him,' Tsunan's mother said to me. 'And tell him that we love him from the bottom of our hearts.'
They both smiled tenderly at me, their eyes full of tears. They grabbed each other's hands then, locking gazes together.
'Let's go, my dear husband! Our son is in good hands.'
And they disappeared.
Thank you for reading!
Glossary
Chōzuya - Shintō water ablution pavilion
Chōzubachi - water-filled basins
Ofuda - paper charms