Catch Fire and Keep Quiet

 

Welcome! This is my first story and it's unedited, so please bear with me as I at least try and get it all written. It's not a ghost story, but it certainly does have a haunted young man! 

Chapter credit: The haiku poem was written by Matsuo Basho (1644 ~ 1694).

 

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“Shit!“ Mamoru jumped, the heavy pack on his back teetering from its careful balance. Staggering for only a moment, he righted himself and scanned the sky. Ah. An angry cluster of ravens swooped overhead after their mountain-top burst in a shock of noise. 

 

 

“What the hell's wrong with them?!” He glared until they finally disappeared back into the thick forest. “Probably just a starving wolf’s failed attempt at a feathery meal.” 

 

 

Tightening the straps on his sack of merchandise, he peered through the late afternoon sun-dappled deciduous forest, and past it, into the darker edges, where the trees turned older, with gnarled and thick limbs, wrapping around themselves and one another.  As the inclined increased, the forest only grew darker.

 

 

“Huh. Don’t see that in the city.” Mamoru's sharp eyes landed on a series of stone steps going upward, long abandoned and almost completely reclaimed by the forest. Trees lined both sides of the ancient valley road that fell between the two mountains, but it was the side where the ravens had flown from that seemed  strangely… sad...? He stopped that sentimental imagining straightaway. Straining, he wanted to see as much of the stairs as he could, but they disappeared too quickly.

 

 

“Must lead to an old mountain shrine.... Well, whatever.” He shut his mouth quick, lips drawn thin and tight, and then gagged on the deep breath he tried to take in the still, warm air.

 

 

I must be lonely, he thought, to invite the forest into conversation. A low laugh began to bubble out even as he shut it down. People annoyed him. Lonely? Absurd. Delirious with prolonged delight, more like. It was taking an awfully long time to walk from the last village to this next one--the one he planned to stay the night in.

 

 

"I’m light-headed with the thrill of finally being able to speak at all, now that a certain person isn't gabbing at me constantly," he concluded.

 

 

This last village held him longer than he expected. On every gathering trip for his shop in the city, he made sure to only stay away for a week maximum, while scouting out his unusual treasures. This time, a month had passed since he set out on the road going North.

 

 

West was the busiest, gathering the most eclectic travelers, and therefore, the most profitable. The southern and eastern roads out of the main city also both had their good points. North held nothing but a sparse population of woefully ignorant farmers.

 

 

“Dammit,” he had muttered one early grey dawn, over a month prior. His tea had spilled all over his thrown newspaper. After turning the page with a sharp snap to stop himself from reading the rest of a ridiculous story about a ridiculous man who had killed his wife's lover, his scowled had deepened at the next article: "Boarder tightens laws on rural imports." 

 

 

“Shit.” He had pulled at his short hair. He depended on those slipshod guards for his business! Half the stuff he brought in and sold to... discerning patrons would be confiscated for one reason or another!

 

 

Crabbing about it over lunch, which his crazy old neighbour Hibiki had brought him like she always did, he had been interrupted. 

 

 

"Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. You're too chatty today. Hush. I'm thinking." Irritated at being "shushed" by the decidedly far noisier woman, he had set her homemade pickle that he had been about to crunch down on back into the lunch box, pointedly closing the lid and crossing his arms.

 

 

"Don't call me San--" 

 

 

"Ah!" She had shouted so abruptly that Mamoru had hit his knees under the counter before narrowing his eyes at her. The headache he had felt coming on had arrived later that night in full fury. 

 

 

"Yes, Kou! Kou is his name. He's a good man." 

 

 

Mamoru had waited, eyeing the door to his shop warily, hoping no one came in while his neighbour spouted her--sure to be full of questionable morality--explanation.

 

 

"Yes, he's a good man, that one."  

 

 

"'Good' meaning...?" Mamoru had prompted, hoping to get it over with and knowing Hibiki's "good" was not the same as other people's "good." Sometimes, he grudgingly admitted that was the very reason why he felt a not unpleasant warmth and lightness when she burst into his shop through the back door. Other times, when she didn't show up as he expected, he angrily wondered why she was allowed to roam free. 

 

 

She had run her finger along the grain of his wooden counter, eyes closed and then suddenly flashing open. "He works at the northern boarder. This time you'll go that way for your trinkets. Say 'Red' sent you. He'll let you through. No problem!" 

 

 

"Oh...?" He had tried to keep the doubt out of his voice and grit out of his teeth. Why did she insist on calling his rare art treasures "trinkets"?

 

 

"'Red'...?" he had encouraged again, knowing she wasn't done, and wanting, perversely, to gag her with the purple scarf around her hair. 

 

 

"Yes, well... he knows I'm a natural red head." Giggling, she had begun pleating the gold scarf that hung around her waist.   

 

 

"Are... are you blushing...?" Mamoru's voice had squeaked. 

 

 

"I'm not a stone like you, mister, living alone, never socializing, day after day, breathin' in dust and dank." He still had the bruise from that punch. 

 

 

In the end, he had agreed to rely on the connections of her youthful indiscretions just to stop her from describing another position she thought he'd enjoy if he ever found a willing partner that would put up with his sour disposition and who also didn't mind their neck getting a  permanent crick from looking up. His height "better come with some 'benefits'" she had stated, nodding briskly before looking down. There had been something oddly horrifying at seeing her eye his crotch. It was better when she was blushing.

 

 

So, he had gone north, and now, once he reached this final town in a hour or two, the boarder where he would remind "Kou" of his adventures with "Red" would only be a half day's journey away. 

 

 

Taking a long drink from his water pouch, he stared at the stairs as if they'd suddenly do something other than slowly erode. He really shouldn't dawdle. So much time had already been wasted while he had waited for the shop keeper in the last small village to dig up the name of the artist who had painted the small paintings he’d purchased. The little scrolls of beautiful handmade paper had immediately called out to him—transfixed, he had nervously unrolled them and was filled with a rare feeling of connection when he saw the exquisite paintings of flora and fauna, some with accompanying poems. Finally, after the shop keeper couldn't even answer how the paintings came to be in his shop, Mamoru had given up. Disgusted and discouraged, and more than a little drunk in the communal room of the inn, he had decided to head home the next morning. With growing annoyance at the evening chatter, he had stopped in his path when the inn keeper started telling a story.

 

 

“In fact, I bet this is the very abandoned temple in that ridiculous old man's... ridiculous... little story.…” He trailed off, wondering how these forest stairs looked ten years ago, when this supposed temple monk supposedly fell in love with an orphan, only to be entirely consumed by his love for the orphan, and, after the orphan died suspiciously, the monk went crazy, turning into a flesh-eating demon. Served the silly monk right. 

 

 

If the shrieks of the small children at the inn were anything to go by, it was an excellently scary tale. Mamoru had only thought it sad and somewhat pathetic as he grunted a barely polite thanks for the meal and excused himself. Looking at his nameless paintings had cheered him up far more than some foolish tale. 

 

 

The forest suddenly began creaking again, the trees somehow releasing from the silence after the ravens' wings. This time, his deep breath was full of cool, moist air. Little birds, with bright cheery songs and fast heartbeats, started a tentative song. Gazing one last time up the darkening mountain incline, he turned away. A small red bird hopped on a root-covered step near a large tree.

 

 

“See,” he chastised himself, “even the small creatures are doing what they should be doing.” Shaking his head, he moved forward.

 

 

Abruptly, he stopped. Slinging off his pack, his fingers fumbled with the knots. He shivered. It must be the breeze that brushed over his sweaty back. Reaching in, he pulled out the small paintings, gently sifting through them. Sure enough, the most hastily composed ink panting was a replica of the stairs! The artist had stood in this exact spot! But maybe several years ago, since the stairs were slightly clearer in the painting. Or maybe the artist was an old man, and this was from his memory? A poem, dashed out, ran down the right side:

 

 

Will you turn toward me?

I am lonely, too,

this autumn evening.

 

 

Another shiver ran through Mamoru. An odd, excited trembling started in Mamoru's body. He carefully re-packed his bag and urged himself on; the evening would turn cold soon.