The Onryo

Search Finds Nobody

Along the cliffs that were on either side of the valley were a number of caves. Some could have been used as shelter. Only there were more animals held up in these caves. One had a black bear that was hibernating. Paul and Keyote had managed to back out of the cave without disturbing the sleeping animal. It had been a danger they hadn't anticipated.

Keyote was sufficiently convinced that whoever the girl was, she wasn't in one of the valley caves. They hadn't checked them all before the sun threatened to go down on them. Key and Paul would check the rest in the morning. Key of course could spend the night. It was possible that they could finish their search by the next day and Key would ride back home that afternoon.

Key was given Paul's bedroom, while Paul slept out in the dining area. Paul hoped the girl would tap at the window in his room again. So that Key could see the girl was real, not some figment of his imagination, or a ghost as Uncle Jack claimed her to be.

Key left the curtains open. She couldn't stand having them closed. Key needed to look out the window and see the stars and moon. As Key slept she wasn't disturbed by the girl who looked through the window at her. There was a look of anger over that strangely painted face. It seemed like it was a good thing for Key that the girl could not enter the house.

One window had the curtains closed. That was the room of the man who lived here with Paul. The girl moved to another window that looked into the kitchen over the sink. She could see Paul laying on the floor in front of the fire place. The girl tapped on the window trying to get his attention. Paul was sound asleep. She tried to find a closer window.

There was a back door which led into the kitchen from a back patio Jack and Paul had built onto the house. The girl didn't dare touch the door knob, it had burned her hand last time. She knocked at the door. Nothing unfortunate happened to the girl when she knocked on a door or tapped on the windows. As long as she didn't try to open either one of them.

Paul heard his name being called. He woke up to see the fire reduced to coals in the fire place. The red light of the cinders under the coals gave the room a dim light. Sitting in the fire was the girl. She seemed unable to pass through the fireplace's hearth inside the room.

Paul shook his head. As some people do when they see something they don't understand they go into a state of denial about it. Paul decided it was a waking dream. Something he saw while still asleep and for some psychological reason he continued to see it when he woke up. There was no way the girl was in the fire.

If Paul would have told Key about the girl in the fireplace she might stopped helping him look for her. Thinking it was either Paul's imagination or a ghost as Jack said. They searched the rest of the caves and the area around the valley for someplace the girl could hide. There was no place that the girl could walk to the cabin from. Not unless she wanted to walk for a few hours.

"Paul? What ever happened to that old storm cellar that we found? Where the body was?" Key asked. "Maybe she's hiding in there."

Key didn't mentioned that it was the one place that there had been a body. The girl who was killed, along with her family, by her stepmother. Her Uncle may have removed the girl's bones; that didn't mean her spirit wasn't still haunting the cellar. Key wondered if Jack had blessed the cellar as well as the cabin.

"Uncle Jack put a new door on it. I think it's locked up. There is an old ladder we used to use at the construction sites. So, it's possible she could get in or out. It's waterproof and may be warm if she used a fire down there. We would have noticed it though. If someone was living in that cellar."

"Not if she only comes out at night." Key and Paul had just arrived at the cabin. It was still early afternoon.

They went over to the cellar. Paul pulled on the padlock. It was locked solid. He slid his keys out of his pocket. Unlocked the padlock. He wanted to make sure, despite the evidence that the girl couldn't be in a locked cellar. Opening it up Paul went in. He had a small pinlight on his key chain. Paul shined the light around the cave. It was obvious that no one had been in the cellar recently.

Paul was now beginning to believe that the girl may be a ghoulie girl after all. A ghost or something similar. It was becoming obvious from the search; the lack of any spore, that no one was out this way, but themselves. He did not want to admit it. It was all that made sense at this point.

"One thing we don't want to do is let that thing in the cabin." Jack explained to the two kids. "I blessed this cabin myself. If we ignore the thing it might go find someone else to haunt since it can't get in here to suck the life force from us."

"Shouldn't we try to find out what the girl wants. I mean it's a person, not a thing." Paul said. "I think she is trying to communicate."

Jack shook his head. "Ghosts were people. It might not even be a ghost it could be a bad spirit of some type that means no good."

"What's the difference?" Paul wanted to help this girl, ghost or not.

"A ghost is the lingering personality of a human who died. A spirit usually is something attached to a place or thing, it may even be attached to a living thing. It was usually not human to begin with." Keyote explained. "You hear them described as 'non-human entities' on all of those reality ghost hunter shows."

"Thing is both could cause a lot of harm, especially if you let it into the cabin." Jack said. "Once it's inside it's hard to get one of these things out."

"Can't we try to talk to it. Find out what it wants. It may just want help or something." Paul suggested.

"What do you want to do? Have a seance, boy? Get a ouija board? Hire a shaman?" Jack asked.

"Uncle Jack, I thought you were a shaman." Paul remembered the incident where Jack had brought him into a sweat lodge and broke out a traditional ritual pipe. That was when Paul had his vision that he couldn't tell anyone.

"More of a sham than a shaman." Jack said. "I don't intend to talk to no ghost or spirit I don't already know."

"I could do it." Keyote said. "Jim taught me a lot. I mean we should find out the spirit's intent, human or nonhuman."

"Don't you dare try. You are young. You don't know these things the way I do. I'm telling you, you might want to defy me in this, but this is too dangerous." Jack told Key in a firm, hard voice. "You do this it could be dangerous to your soul. You've got problems of your own, so does Paul. You don't need to add a spirit to your problems or that spirit's problems whatever they may be."

Key sighed. Maybe Jack was right. Key wished Jim was here. He would know what to do.

Key went home late in the afternoon. She arrived at the trailer home to find Aunt Sophia and Kiona smiling at some secret joke. What ever it was it wasn't something that Mei shared. Mei was quiet and moody all night. She even slept in the spare bed in the guest room where Kiona was sleeping. Key attempted to find out from Kiona what had happened.

"Oh, she's worried about something. Maybe her nose is out of joint because we let you go to Paul and Jack's cabin unescorted." Kiona was lying, yet Keyote could tell that Kiona wasn't unhappy. She did seemed to be annoyed with Mei.

"What's up?" Keyote confronted Kiona. "Why are Aunt Sophia and you so happy, but Mei is so miserable. I mean, you really care for your Mama Mei, so I don't know why her being upset doesn't make you mad."

"We don't always agree. I want you know that. Mama Mei always wants her way. Sometimes it's nice to let her know she doesn't always get things her way." Kiona explained. "I love Mama Mei; that doesn't mean I don't see her faults."