“Spiritual energy.” She frowned. “What have you seen last night?”
He hesitated. “There’s a castle up on this hill. And a monster.”
“Is that what you saw?” she questioned.
“I…” He stared up the hill, then back at her. “I need to go.”
He rushed away before she could say anything else. Once he entered the forest, he stopped to take a breath, thinking about what theitakosaid. Dark spiritual energy. Seiho or the jikininki? Or both?
His hood had fallen back and his hair was dripping wet. Nagisa swept his palm over his face and continued on, his steps slowed by the mud. Up the path he walked, toward the Castle of Bones, still uncertain if he’d gone completely insane for returning here. The seed of doubt turned into truth when he reached the end of the path.
The castle was gone.
CHAPTER 4
“No.” Nagisa walked in circles, muttering to himself. “No, no, no. It can’t be.” He slid his fingers through his soaked hair, tugging on it.
Had it all been a hallucination? What if Eikichi was right and he really did sleep on the forest’s ground the entire time, dreaming of haunted castles? Now when he thought about it and with no actual castle in sight, he felt ridiculous.
But the smell on his clothes? The strand of hair? And the memories of last night, so vivid, so real. Falling to his knees, Nagisa palmed the ground, searching for any sort of evidence to prove that he truly saw a building here and didn’t imagine everything. And yet, nothing but mud, leaves, twigs and rocks lay on the forest’s floor. He couldn’t even find that enormous pile of bones.
Rain fell faster, the droplets ruthlessly slapping his face, pouring down his cheeks and jaw. With them fell his last hope of ever finding anything. He sat on a log under a tree with a rich crown, wiping his eyes with his sweatshirt’s sleeve, then put the hood back on his head. It hung heavy and didn’t help much, but he felt so disappointed and angry with himself, he just wanted to hide his face despite no one being around to see him.
Carefully pulling out his phone, and covering it from the rain, Nagisa checked the time. Three thirty. Nighttime was hours away, but he resolved to stay here ‘till at least nine or ten. Maybe the castle was only visible after dark, even though he had walked out of it just this morning. But it was haunted and such places had their own rules… right?
Theitako’s words came back to him. Nagisa had no idea what she meant was about him being touched by death. The jikininki hadn’t touched him. He’d have been dead if it had. But he’d slept inside the castle. Was he haunted now? He shivered and glanced behind him. What if the jikininki was here now, but invisible? Pulling the hood aside he listened for those pig-like noises and wheezes, but all he could hear was the sound of rain and the whistle of wind. It was so strange to hear these sounds when just yesterday he walked up the path in an eerie silence.
Two hours in, though the rain stopped, the temperature lowered and his wet, cold clothes plastered to his skin. He stood, trembling from head to toes, and decided to walk through the trees to warm up his body. The more he waited, the more he was convinced he’d dreamed it—the castle and Seiho too.
Soon, the last faint rays of sunset from behind the grey clouds disappeared and pure darkness descended. For brief seconds, a purple shimmering light reflected onto the leaves, rocks and even in the air. It twirled around Nagisa, like a colorful wind, and he stretched out his hand trying to touch it, but it disappeared before he could tell if it had been a play of particles in the atmosphere or something else.
He returned to his stroll, but stopped abruptly when something cracked under his boots. Stepping aside, he looked down.
A bone.
Small, frail, now broken. Human or animal, he couldn’t tell. But it was a bone.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Nagisa turned. Before him stood the Castle of Bones, just as he remembered it from last night. The walls were hollowed here and there, but for some reason, he had failed to find those exits. The roof reached above the crowns of the trees, and yet, the castle wasn’t visible from afar. The doors of the entrance were just slightly ajar. And the path he stood on was mostly clean save for the bone he stepped on.
The lord makes me clean up the path. Seiho told him that. This was his doing.
He needed to see Seiho and get him out of the castle.
Before he spurred into action, noises echoed from his right. Wheezes, snorts, something trudging heavily on the muddy ground. The monster.
Nagisa crouched down, holding his breath. Though his eyes adjusted to the blackness of the night, the jikininki blended in too well to be visible, but the moist sound of its slog told Nagisa the creature moved downhill.
He walked slowly, struggling not to step on twigs or more bones. If the monster heard him, he was done for. He doubted Seiho would be able to save him a second time. Reaching the tall stone base of the castle he stopped, thinking about his next move. The stairs leading to the main doors were out in the open and it would be easy for the creature to see him. If he kept on going around the building, he’d reach the back where the bones were and enter from there. Seiho’s room seemed closer to that side of the building rather than the front.
Snorts and wheezes reverberated in the distance. Ready or not, he had to go now. Keeping to the stone base, he moved, circling the building. Something wasn’t right. Though the castle was definitely imposing, there seemed to be a discrepancy between the interior and the exterior. Seiho had called the interior a maze and it definitely felt like that. Endless halls upon halls and rooms upon rooms. And yet, Nagisa reached the back of the castle faster than he expected. The jikininki’s curse had altered the dimensions inside the building, making it look larger than it was.
While keeping his ears focused on the sounds of the jikininki, Nagisa squinted trying to find the wooden stairs he’d used this morning when Seiho guided him out of the castle. A sigh of relief left his mouth when he found them and climbed. The creature seemed preoccupied with making the rounds through the forest. Nagisa prayed there weren’t others as reckless as him out there deciding to visit the castle.
The back door was ajar and he slid it open, entered, then slid it back exactly how he found it. He had no idea if the monster even noticed such details but he didn’t want to risk it either way. Just as he made two steps toward the rooms to search for Seiho, a strange sensation of being trapped overwhelmed him like the night before when he got lost.
Nagisa turned to look back at the door he’d left ajar, but a wall had appeared in its stead. Once again, he was trapped inside the castle and could only hope the jikininki didn’t know he was in here.
He patted his pockets for the little souvenir shop flashlight before realizing it was in his other jacket and decided to use the phone. His gaze fell on the time shown on the screen.