The Keeper of Night (The Keeper of Night #1)(25)

“What’s gotten worse?”

“Shh!” the woman hissed, looking behind her again. “We’re not like Tokyo,” she said. “We’re still a fishing village. Things are starting to change, more foreign ships are coming into port. But we’re still traditional people. We still believe. We still know what there is to be afraid of.”

“What should you be afraid of?”

One of the doors opened and a younger woman yelled something that I guessed was the older woman’s name, because she gathered her boxes and stood up.

“Go inside and don’t come out,” she said. Then she turned and hurried into her house. The door slammed behind her.

I stood up and turned to Neven. “They’re hiding from something, but I don’t know what.”

Neven’s eyes simmered dark blue. “Should we hide, too?”

I looked around at the street of locked doors and abandoned tents. “Maybe,” I said, “but where?”

Neven didn’t answer, shifting closer to me.

“It’s too soon to worry,” I said. “Humans are skittish because they die easily. They don’t fear the same things we do.”

“Right,” Neven said, sounding far from convinced.

“Come on, let’s find that graveyard now.” I tugged his arm.

It wasn’t yet dark, but the dimming sky and swelling shadows cast a gray tinge over the empty street. A fragile breeze stirred the shop banners around us, and they bowed deeply as we passed, brushing us with their silk. Something about their touch felt too deliberate, too gentle.

I raised a hand in the air and ignited the red-and-white lanterns around us with a weak glow. I thought it would disperse some of the darkness and put Neven at ease, but it had the opposite effect. The painted red circles in the vast whiteness of the paper lanterns became demon-red pupils, and with the backdrop of light behind them, it seemed as if the whole street had suddenly opened its eyes and looked directly at us.

From the end of the street came the sound of wooden sandals on the dirt road.



Chapter Six


The breeze faded away, and the only sound in the world was the thwack of wooden sandals. Beyond the paper doors, the murmurs of the humans in hiding fell silent, as if they’d gone to another world we could no longer touch. The sun descended into the jagged line of mountains before us, the orange glare of dusk deepening into crimson that bled unstopped across the entire skyline.

And still, behind us came the unhurried footsteps in a town that was supposed to be hidden away. Whatever walked down this road was not afraid like all the humans. Was this omagatoki?

Neven started to look over his shoulder, but I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him hard around a corner.

“Don’t,” I whispered. “We’re going to avoid confrontation with things that we don’t understand.”

“Okay,” Neven said, sticking close to my side even when I released his arm.

The crisp sound of sandals rounded the corner behind us, louder than before. Each grain of sand crunched and burst under its weight.

I took Neven’s sleeve and pulled him faster, glancing around for any door left partially open, any sort of hotel or church or unlocked place that we could hide in. But the houses and stores on either side of us looked less and less like dwellings and more like paintings of scenery, too far away and unreal to touch.

The footsteps came faster behind us.

“Ren?” Neven said, his eyes a queasy clash of colors. But I didn’t have the answers he wanted, and he must have seen the helplessness in my eyes.

He started to run.

“Neven!” I said, lifting my damp skirts off the ground and sprinting after him.

The footsteps behind us began to run as well, drawing closer.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my clock, yanking time to a stop as I grabbed Neven’s hand.

He jolted backward from the force of my pull, falling to the dirt and breathing heavily. He must have noticed me pulling him from the time freeze, or I was sure he would have kept running until he reached the mountains. He turned around, lips parted like he was about to speak, but then his gaze settled on the road behind me and his face went gray.

“Ren,” he whispered. “What’s going on?”

I turned around slowly, imagining a time-frozen beast inches from my ankles, jaw unhinged and claws striking out in the still air.

But the street was empty.

Carriage wheels had carved scars into the dirt road, filled with shallow rainwater. There was nothing but the utility poles standing as thin sentinels and the faraway hills blurred with mist.

An invisible creature? I thought. I hadn’t read about anything like that in Japan, except...

My throat went dry. I thought of all the Japanese ghost stories I’d read as a child, tales of evil spirits that cut your face open with scissors and drowned you with their hair. Japan had thousands of different spirits that wreaked havoc on humans, but they were supposed to be urban legends and children’s tales, not part of the mythology that built the universe.

Apparently, I was standing in the middle of one of my childhood stories.

“I think I know what this is,” I said.

“What?” Neven said, still transfixed by the empty road.

“Stand up,” I said, pulling his sleeve. He rose, holding my arm for balance when his knees shook.