InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Every Day Is Halloween ❯ Feel it come to life when I see your ghost ( Chapter 3 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

 

 

Chapter three: Feel it come to life when I see your ghost

 

 

 

 

The next morning there was a kind of unspoken agreement between Mama, Souta and I to not discuss what’d happened the night before in Grandpa’s presence, since as I’d suspected he’d slept right through all the shouting and had been none the wiser. Breakfast concluded uneventfully. Then, after the three of us discreetly went up to my room where I’d proceeded to show both my mother and brother the video from Halloween night like I’d promised I would, I gathered up all my stuff, courage included, and made my way out into the world, borrowing Mom’s car with her permission.

 

My destination? Kikyou’s house.

 

That encounter did not go as smoothly as planned.

 

When a woman looking to be roughly around my mother’s age answered the door I’d assumed correctly that she was Kikyou’s niece, Tsubaki, the current owner of the long-time family home. I politely introduced myself, and figuring it wouldn’t be wise to just come on out and say I’d had a confrontation with her deceased aunt two nights prior and wanted to see if her ghost was currently around so that Inuyasha and I could try talking to her again in the calming environment of her childhood home instead of the crazy hecticness and bad memories of the college campus, I said instead that I was a novice paranormal researcher and that I’d been drawn into the story of Kikyou because of the decades-old legends on campus, and that because I’d found an article that talked about how they’d already opened their home up to a paranormal investigation team a few years ago I was hoping that I’d be permitted to try my own hand at it for a research paper I was currently doing.

 

Tsubaki had, politely, told me to fuck off, in not so many words.

 

She’d said that her mother Kaede, Kikyou’s younger sister, had still been living there at the time, and that since it’d technically been Kaede’s house, she had been the one who’d allowed the paranormal team to come in and ‘disrupt their lives’ as Tsubaki had put it. She said the whole thing had been a giant waste of time, and money, because it had not been for a ‘reality show’ and therefore had not been free. Apparently, it’d actually been somebody that Kaede had called in, herself, rather than anybody asking her for permission to do it, like I was.

 

I’d immediately thought that that might’ve been my in, and so I’d stressed how I had no intention of charging any kind of a fee whatsoever, and that she’d be doing me a huge favor by allowing me to indulge myself and that maybe, just maybe, it would be beneficial for the both of us, but she just hadn’t been having it. Unlike how my mother up until the night before hadn’t believed in ghosts, Tsubaki had been living with the proof of it her whole life, and she actually told me in that moment that she knew damn well the ghost of her aunt was still around, but that she was also equally sure that Kikyou did not want to be poked and prodded like a guinea pig. She’d told me to leave both her and her aunt alone.

 

Realizing then that I’d actually sabotaged myself by trying to pretend I was a wannabe ‘ghost hunter’, since I actually agreed that Kikyou should not be treated like a science experiment, hence why I’d wanted to help her release her anger and move on, I tried to switch gears and tell Tsubaki the truth then, admitting that I wasn’t really a ghost hunter in training just doing it for the kicks. Pleading for her to listen as she tried to close the door in my face, I told her in a rushed explanation that I’d actually already made contact with Kikyou once, and that I sympathized with her, was presently in contact with Inuyasha, and that the two of us wanted to help Kikyou because he’d been just as miserable as her for the last fifty years, watching her suffer in her pain without being able to console her because she thought he was the cause and wouldn’t listen to anything he had to say.

 

Tsubaki paused for a moment, looking me over, and I’d assumed it was because I’d mentioned Inuyasha’s name, since like I’d originally pondered on Halloween night there were no legends on campus about his ghost, and so therefore stating that I’d spoken with him had to have given me more credibility in her eyes, right? But then after looking me up and down for a minute, she merely frowned, and told me that she didn’t know what I was playing at, but that whatever it was, I’d better go find myself somebody else’s haunted house for my fun and games.

 

Feeling both angry and desperate, I bravely, and stupidly, cried out for Kikyou directly.

 

“Kikyou, are you here?! It’s me, Kagome! I’ve come to talk to you!”

 

Even with knowing her spirit was real as factually as I knew the sky was blue and grass was green, I hadn’t been prepared for Kikyou’s apparition, complete with a horrible blood stain marring her beautiful dress, to suddenly appear in the entryway behind Tsubaki. She glared at me with genuine hatred, and my shocked expression must have taken Tsubaki aback because instead of just continuing to slam the door in my face she paused again, and actually glanced behind herself, where I was staring. Apparently, she couldn’t see what I was seeing.

 

“What’s your angle?” she asked me suspiciously then, eyes narrowed, and completely ignoring her I met Kikyou’s eyes and held out my hand.

 

“Kikyou, let’s just talk, like two girls. I brought some newspaper articles I want to read to you.”

 

Before Tsubaki could respond to my obscurity, Kikyou’s eyes did a freaky Hollywood thing and turned solid black, as her hair became frizzy, as if electrically charged.

 

“Lies!” she shouted, which caused me to flinch in surprise while Tsubaki remained unresponsive, either not having heard her aunt’s voice or having gotten completely used to it by that point.

 

Then Kikyou raised her fist and angrily punched the framed mirror hanging on the wall beside her, and that got Tsubaki’s attention as she whirled around to stare agape at the broken glass.

 

Kikyou’s ghost had also completely vanished the very instant her fist made contact, and I had the sinking suspicion that she wouldn’t be showing herself again any time soon, nor would I be allowed to stay and wait for her.

 

“I think you have your answer,” Tsubaki had said then, sounding shaken up while also clearly trying not to sound shaken up.

 

Slumping my shoulders in defeat, then, because I knew she was right, I’d turned and left, saying “Come on, Inuyasha, let’s go,” more for show than anything else, since I knew he’d obviously follow me.

 

During the drive back home, the radio in Mom’s car, which had been off, turned on by itself and started changing stations away from Mom’s favorite station, going up just a couple of points until all that came through the speakers was static. I didn’t bother fixing it. Then I heard Inuyasha’s voice come through.

 

“Don’t give up,” he said, and I had to smile at his encouraging tone.

 

“Easy for you to say,” I replied as a bit of an inside joke, since during the ride there he and I had already established how it was in fact easier for him to speak through the radio’s static than all on his own.

 

“Kikyou always had a temper.”

 

That had been an interesting and unexpected thing to hear him say, since one of the aspects of the ‘legend’ about them had always been how perfect their relationship was until Naraku had shown up and ruined it.

 

I told him as much in that moment.

 

“I thought you two were the perfect couple. I can’t imagine Kikyou ever being angry with you before all this happened.”

 

“I can’t imagine her not angry with me.”

 

Surprised by both his words as well as how articulate he was becoming – although I had definitely noticed how cold it was getting in the car – I’d cranked the heat and asked him to elaborate. The rest of the drive home was spent with me listening to Inuyasha talk over the static, the mildly annoying aspect of actually trying to make out his words through all the pops and crackles the furthest thought on my mind because I was so into what he was saying. Like I’d thought the night before, while playing with Souta’s Ouija board, Inuyasha had indeed needed somebody to talk to, and I was only all too grateful that I was somebody who could listen. Even though I’d previously thought of Kikyou becoming like my first patient, I’d felt in that moment as if Inuyasha might qualify, instead.

 

I’d learned way more in the next half hour than the rumors floating around campus had ever revealed.

 

I’d learned that Inuyasha and Kikyou had most definitely not been the perfect couple, but that instead, they’d had their share of petty fights, although they’d always made up afterwards. I learned that Inuyasha had been completely aware of Naraku’s attraction to Kikyou because the guy had been threatening him on the side, telling him that he wasn’t good enough for Kikyou and that she deserved somebody better, namely Naraku. I asked Inuyasha if it was because his father was American, assuring him that that fact didn’t bother me in the slightest, and he confirmed my hypothesis that that was definitely part of Naraku’s beef with him, although as far as he knew it hadn’t been an issue with Kikyou, either.

 

It had been his lack of money that had upset her most of the time, he explained; he hadn’t been able to buy her nice enough dinners, nice enough jewelry, etc. When I asked him if she’d been aware of Naraku’s infatuation and whether she might have even been leading Naraku on, or even having an affair with him, Inuyasha had actually laughed, and reminded me that it’d been the early 1960s at the time and that Kikyou had been far too ‘proper’ to have actually been sleeping with Naraku on the side, although whether or not she had been aware of his attraction, and whether or not she had tried to discourage it, he didn’t know.

 

Thinking of Inuyasha’s parents for a moment, I’d asked him then, as way of changing the subject, if he had any family members he’d like me to go speak to on his behalf, Ghost Whisperer style, but he’d told me then that both of his parents were dead and that he’d never been that close to his older half-brother, who was getting on in years, and so no, he didn’t have anybody he wanted to speak to through me, although he’d thanked me for the offer.

 

Pulling up at the house, I told Inuyasha we’d talk more in a little while and changed the dial on Mom’s radio back to her favorite station. After telling my mother how things had not gone according to plan, she offered me an encouraging hug and told me not to give up, that everything would work out as it was meant to, and that she had faith in me and was proud of me. Awestruck, humbled, and feeling my eyes tearing up, I’d grabbed a quick lunch from the fridge and headed back up to my room so that Inuyasha and I could talk some more.

 

It was less draining on his energy, and mine, if he spoke at a frequency that normally only a voice recorder could hear, and so even though it slowed our conversation down a little bit I used the recorder I’d borrowed from Eri to continue speaking with him in my room that afternoon. I’d ask him a question, wait a few long seconds, and then run it back to hear his reply. Most of the time I actually did hear his voice with my own ears, live, but just couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, hearing it like a mumble, and so the voice recorder was a huge help.

 

I figured an average person wouldn’t have heard his whispered words with their own ears at all. I did have a gift, but I was also dealing with a very weak, tired ghost, who’d probably used more energy in the last two days than he previously had in the last two decades. I knew I’d need to come up with a steady way of powering him up so that we could communicate more normally, but one thing at a time.

 

Using the voice recorder, I learned that Inuyasha had actually been wanting to break things off with Kikyou for a while by the time that fateful Halloween night had rolled around, but that he’d been stalling, unsure of how to break it to her. He hadn’t been about to indirectly tell Naraku that he’d won, giving the guy permission to be with Kikyou, because he’d been able to tell that something just wasn’t right about that man, and so one of the main reasons he’d stayed with Kikyou even after wanting to break things off with her had been because he’d been worried that she’d be vulnerable to Naraku if left heartbroken.

 

He’d never thought in a million years that the man would actually do what he did, but he had been worried about Kikyou being taken advantage of, of being used up and spat out afterwards, if she’d hypothetically fallen for Naraku on the rebound. He’d known the guy was trouble, he just hadn’t known how much trouble until it was too late.

 

Inuyasha said that on the night of their deaths, that Halloween party fifty years ago, he had been pulled aside by two of Naraku’s friends, just like the story on campus said, and at first they’d just engaged him in random, normal chitchat, until he’d tried to politely brush them off to get back to Kikyou. They had suddenly become aggressive, then, holding him back, saying they’d had orders – as if Naraku had been their crime boss or something – to not let him through just yet. Inuyasha explained that that’d already had him seeing red at those words, and he’d been just about to deck them both when Kikyou’s bloodcurdling scream had sent chills down his spine.

 

He explained that the lackeys hadn’t tried to hold him back after that, looking just as shocked as he’d felt, and that together the three of them had all rushed toward the sound of the scream. He said he believed that Naraku had probably told them he’d only wanted to talk to Kikyou, to try and woo her and he’d wanted Inuyasha out of the way in order to do so. He didn’t believe they’d been in on her murder, if their looks of horror had been anything to go by.

 

Arriving on scene, Kikyou had looked dead, although looking back on it now he told me that she’d probably been unconscious and not actually dead just yet.

 

I agreed that that was the most likely explanation, since it would explain the gap in time I’d previously been puzzling over. Kikyou’s ghost couldn’t have witnessed Inuyasha’s fight with Naraku if she hadn’t actually been dead yet, still alive but unconscious, in the process of bleeding out. That would explain why she didn’t know what’d happened immediately after her death, because it’d technically happened right before her death.

 

He’d then explained that seeing Naraku dressed in his exact costume, something that had obviously taken a lot of premeditation and planning on his part, had been the last straw, realizing that Kikyou had probably died believing he’d killed her. Why the hell else would Naraku have pulled such a stunt? Losing it, Inuyasha said his mind had just snapped, and even though Naraku hadn’t murdered the woman he’d loved, since he’d no longer ‘loved’ loved Kikyou, that hadn’t mattered in that moment, since he’d still cared about her as a friend and had wanted to protect her from Naraku. He’d failed, in the worst way possible.

 

Ripping his mask off not because he’d wanted the spectators to see his face and know the other man was an imposter, but simply because it’d hindered his vision, not even thinking about the fact that there were witnesses since he’d had tunnel vision, focusing only on Naraku and himself, he’d immediately gone after Kikyou’s slayer, tackling him to the ground and making a grab for the knife in his hand. The rest of it had played out pretty much just like how the legend goes at school, that he’d managed to slash up Naraku pretty badly but had unfortunately missed any major arteries, and then when Naraku had gotten his hands back on the knife again he’d managed to work it into Inuyasha’s own chest.

 

After he finished relaying all that, I’d then gotten to hear what I imagined no other living person ever had. A first-hand account, from a ghost, on what it was like to die.

 

Inuyasha described his pain, both physical and emotional, as he knew he’d lied dying, feeling his lifeblood pour out of him, feeling his body grow colder. He remembered calling Kikyou’s name, but couldn’t remember if he’d been trying to ask her to wait for him, or if he’d simply been letting her know he was on his way to join her. He’d gotten sleepy, then, finding it difficult to stay conscious, and with all the screaming and panicked voices buzzing all around him slowly fading away into indistinguishable white noise, he’d allowed himself to fall asleep.

 

The next thing he knew, he’d said, was that he was looking down on the whole scene, as if floating a couple dozen feet above the ground. He recalled seeing the paramedics rushing up to Naraku’s body as well as his own, his own body getting draped with a sheet once they’d realized there was nothing they could do for him. He’d then seen the same thing happen to Kikyou’s body, and he’d felt a pang in his heart. His spiritual one since his physical one had no longer existed. How he’d longed to see her again, to talk to her again, even just one last time, to say he was sorry, to say goodbye.

 

He’d suddenly found himself standing on the school grounds, then, firetruck lights flickering all around, seeming out of focus, people buzzing all around him even though they couldn’t see him, and it’d been hard for him to focus on what anybody was saying or doing, as if they’d been moving at a different rate of speed than he was, even though he hadn’t been able to tell if they were moving slower than him or faster than him. It’d seemed like both at the same time, somehow. It was very confusing.

 

He’d seen Kikyou, then, standing just a few feet before him, her body still, with the blurred, rushed craziness passing by behind her and all around them. He’d reached out his hand towards her, called out her name, and she’d narrowed her eyes at him and clinched her fists, letting out a horrible shriek like the banshee she had become; an earsplitting screech that had snapped him out of his fuzzy state and had plunged him back into the ‘real’ world, the police and students rushing around them suddenly coming into perfect clarity.

 

It had only taken him a fraction of a second to get his barrings, spotting Kikyou still standing before him, and ignoring the people who were ignoring him, knowing they couldn’t see or feel him as some of them even walked right through him as if he were made of air, he’d called out Kikyou’s name again, and then she’d turned her head, looking away from him, and then her body had slowly faded away from sight, simply vanishing. He told me how it’d been like that ever since then, that every time Kikyou would be somewhere, trying to talk to the students who were trying to talk to her, he’d approach her and she’d leave. He could ‘sense’ her even when she was invisible to him, but whenever he started to apologize, started to explain, she’d actually disappear, and he could feel her absence, knowing she had left completely.

 

He also revealed that she could tap his energy, and that one of the reasons he was so weak whenever the two of them were together was because she’d strengthen herself off of his own spirit, literally consuming his life-force, both to fuel herself and to shut him up, since it’d make him unable to communicate with her. He assured me that she couldn’t really hurt him, that a ghost couldn’t really cease to exist – you can’t kill what’s already dead – but he said gathering their energy into themselves to maintain themselves was sometimes difficult to do, and that if weakened enough then their consciousness was more or less just there without form or substance until they were stronger again.

 

Trying to wrap my mind around that concept, I’d likened it to how we need to sleep in order to recharge ourselves, and he’d said it was a close enough analogy. Ghosts didn’t really sleep per se, but they could lose focus of their consciousness for a while, their thoughts everywhere but at the same time not really anywhere at all, until they became aware of themselves and their surroundings again, once again able to focus their energy to a single location. So it was kind of like being asleep, sort of, or really, really zoning out in a daydream.

 

So every time he’d tried to approach Kikyou and explain himself, she’d sucked his energy away until he’d fallen asleep and then disappeared on him.

 

What a bitch.

 

Too bad for her she couldn’t pull that same stunt with me.

 

I was definitely not done dealing with her yet. I was determined I’d find a way to get through to her, with or without her family’s help.

 

With Inuyasha having just about used up all the energy he’d had left in that moment to finish filling me in on all the details I’d needed to know, I’d told him to go ahead and go do whatever he needed to do, go wherever he needed to go, even if that was technically ‘nowhere’, until he was able to communicate again. I told him to just contact me again in a simple, non-draining way to let me know he was back whenever he was ready, and with that said we said our goodnights and I went back downstairs for dinner, keeping the topic of conversation light since Grandpa was still none the wiser.

 

`````````````````````````````````

 

The next day I’d left Inuyasha alone, knowing he’d contact me again when he was ready, whenever he was able, and so after a quick shower I’d spent a good chunk of the morning doing additional online research, beyond just the story of Kikyou’s death, as I explored other ghost stories and basically the paranormal field in its entirety. I’d wanted to know how I could help fuel Inuyasha, for one thing, and also if there was such a thing as a way to ‘trap’ Kikyou and force her to listen to us.

 

So okay, that went against what I’d previously thought about how you can’t force a patient to talk about what they didn’t want talk about, but under normal circumstances you still had your patient in your room with you for the duration of the hour or however long your session was; they didn’t run away from you at first sight. It had been the getting her to sit still part that I’d needed help with, and then I was sure that I could be as patient as I needed to be with her until she was finally ready to listen to what I had to say.

 

I hadn’t wanted to accidentally exorcise or otherwise hurt her, though, and so I’d known I had to be careful with whatever methods I tried. Now that I knew ghosts were real, I also believed in witchcraft. ‘Magic’ was just a fancy word for science that the laymen of the time hadn’t understood. Since there was obviously such a thing as spiritual energy, that had to mean there was such a thing as screwing with that energy in the wrong way. I’d feared a mishap straight out of Beetlejuice or something, where Kikyou’s soul would wind up in the lost souls’ room. I also hadn’t wanted to try and summon Kikyou with a spell that’d leave the ‘door’ open afterwards for whatever else might have wanted to come through besides or even instead of Kikyou.

 

Figuring it wouldn’t hurt anything to sit on the Kikyou problem for a few days as I mulled over my various options, I’d decided to at least take care of Inuyasha’s energy source, and after deciding that it’d be as good an idea as any other, I ran out to the store and bought a little electric space heather. The kind that looked like a small desk fan but didn’t actually have a motor or blade to move the air at all, and instead just used infrared, radiant heat. Getting it home, I put all the loose items on top of my desk away in the drawers so that the area was nice and safe, no risk of scratch paper catching on fire, and then turning the heater on I said in a playful tone, “Here, I bought you a present,” before exiting my room, shutting the door behind me as I headed downstairs for lunch.

 

Going back into my room a few hours later I immediately noticed that it didn’t feel anywhere near as warm as it should have felt, and after double-checking that the unit was working properly, which it was, I smiled to myself, pleased, as I grabbed a fresh set of pajamas and went into the hall bath to change. I knew I was being silly, especially since, if he’d wanted to peep, I knew he could have still very easily done so, but it was just the principle of the thing, I’d supposed.

 

Going back into my room afterwards it still didn’t feel as warm as it should have felt with the little heater going full bore, and I asked my empty room, “So is that going to work okay for you?”

 

I immediately heard a very distinguishable, male “Yes, thank you,” in reply, and I smiled, reining in my sudden urge to squee in excitement like a teenager. I was such a genius.

 

“Good, I’m glad,” I replied, explaining how I wouldn’t be able to use the space heater at the dorm because they weren’t allowed, but that I planned on coming home every weekend for the time being so that we’d always have the weekends free in order to figure the Kikyou thing out.

 

“You’ve already done so much...”

 

“Well, you’re welcome, but I’m not giving up, so if you were going to tell me that if I can’t get her to listen to me to not worry about it then just forget it. This is apparently my calling, and even though I can’t say why I’m obsessing over helping your ex I will help her, for both our sakes as well as hers. I feel sorry for you in your own torment, too, you know. Wouldn’t you like to be free from this guilt? And I know I’d never be able to walk away from you two now without it resolved; I’d hate myself forever and feel like I abandoned you. Once I start something, I see it through to the end. That’s the way I’ve always been.”

 

“You can’t walk away...I’d just haunt you...” had been his reply to my mini-speech, with a noticeable chuckle added to the end so that I knew he was just teasing, and I laughed, too.

 

Heading downstairs for dinner, the evening meal with my family passed by uneventfully, as normal, and then going back up to my room afterwards I excused my early retirement by saying I had some school assignments I needed to study for, instead of staying up downstairs to watch TV with the family for a while like I normally would have. Even though I did have school work I needed to get to, I put that off, and Inuyasha and I spent the next hour or so talking before I went to bed. I needed to get up early the next morning, after all, since it was a school day and I had to first go back to the dorm to drop off my overnight bag. Mom gave me a ride in the morning, and she also agreed to come pick me up after my last class the following Friday, understanding the real reason why I’d be coming home every weekend until further notice while we just told my grandfather that I’d been feeling homesick lately.

 

Meeting Eri in our room before class Monday morning, she’d asked me excitedly how it’d gone and I’d had to tell her the disappointing truth, that my first attempt at being a ‘ghost whisperer’ hadn’t gone as well as planned and was still a work in progress. She’d slumped her shoulders at that one, clearly bummed out, as she told me she’d been hoping she could post our Halloween video online and how Ayumi and Yuka were both just dying to tell their other friends about our experience, ‘no pun intended’.

 

Chuckling at that one, I’d made an executive decision in that moment, telling her to go ahead and post it and spread word all she wanted about what’d happened at the graveyard, on one condition. People were already aware of Kikyou’s ghost on campus, after all, or at least the rumors of it, and a lot of them tried to summon her on a semi-regular basis, so aside from having previously wanted to spare Kikyou the added hassle of even more people trying to talk to her I hadn’t honestly seen any harm in adding yet one more story to the rumor mill. But there were no stories of Inuyasha’s ghost still hanging around, and I’d wanted to keep it that way. If she and the girls could fib a little baby bit and omit the Inuyasha parts, then they could tell everyone the first part of the story, of everything up until our video cut out right after the flashlights went crazy, and the story could just go that we hightailed it out of there right after that’d happened, like any sane person probably would have done, anyway; like they’d all wanted to do before I had felt the need, the urge to stay.

 

Why I’d been so adamant that nobody else find out about Inuyasha, I hadn’t been sure, although I’d told myself it was just because I hadn’t wanted random people to bother him, if he’d feel his spirit start to get pushed and pulled in different directions from different people trying to summon him or something. Honestly, I’d still had no idea how that whole thing worked, since that was one thing we hadn’t talked about yet. I wasn’t sure if it was like on Beetlejuice, where he’d have no choice but to appear wherever summoned, or if he’d have the ability to ignore them, like not answering a phone call. I had supposed it probably depended on if they did the spell right, but I hadn’t wanted to take any chances.

 

I’d also admitted, silently to myself, that a little part of me was just being selfish in that I simply hadn’t wanted to share him. Inuyasha was my ghost friend; everyone else could go find their own.

 

Of course, I’d originally wanted to spare Kikyou what would probably be an influx of people trying to summon her, too, just to be nice, as a courtesy, since I’d thought that maybe it was annoying for her, but in that moment I just hadn’t cared. After the way she’d yelled at me two days prior and had broken that mirror in my face, I’d been kind of irked with her in that moment and so I’d figured that if she got bothered by pestering students trying to play with her as a result of us talking about what’d happened then that was what she got for not letting me help her over the weekend.

 

Bitter?

 

Maybe a tad, but really, I’d still wanted to help her, no matter how much of a bitch I was beginning to realize she actually was. Nobody deserved what’d happened to her, and so stuck up bitch prior to her murder or not, I’d still genuinely felt sorry for her and her plight. I’d also really begun to feel like I was developing a genuine friendship with Inuyasha by that point, and so I’d still wanted to help Kikyou for his sake, as well, and so I’d refused to let her bitterness discourage me for that reason, if nothing else.

 

Maybe if it’d only been between me and Kikyou I would’ve let her chase me away by then, I would’ve given up, knowing she didn’t want my help and figuring that I should just leave her be, then, but this wasn’t just about her. Her continuing to wallow in her own misery was in turn making Inuyasha miserable, as well, and while I’d felt sorry for her I’d really felt sorry for him, and had actually wanted to help him more than her by that point. I would help Kikyou, for Inuyasha, no matter what.

 

For Inuyasha...

 

Eri must have been able to tell how serious I’d been with my condition, with how passionately I’d felt that Inuyasha’s existence needed to stay our little secret, and so whatever thoughts had gone through her head at the time she’d readily agreed, telling me she understood and that she’d make sure the girls understood as well. Fortunately, our video evidence only featured the flashlight trick with Kikyou; Inuyasha hadn’t shown himself until after I’d thought to try and call out for him, and that hadn’t happened until after the camera had gone dead.

 

We had audio evidence of him from the voice recorder, but so Eri had agreed to not share that part, and only post the actual video online. People were much more into video files than strictly audio, anyway. Half the student body or more would probably just assume the audio recording had been faked. Seeing was believing, not hearing. So since the best of our evidence was Inuyasha-free, it had actually made Eri ecstatic to know that she could now post it on her homepage without facing my wrath; I’d told her I appreciated what a true friend she and the others were being for actually complying with my wishes in the first place and not just posting it anyway even back when I’d asked them not to.

 

Brushing off my gratitude while stating again that she understood, Eri had excused herself for class, then, and I wasn’t far behind her, my first class of the day starting in about an hour.

 

`````````````````````````````````

 

The rest of the week seemed to zip by in a blur. I was pseudo-famous for a couple of days after Eri’s video went localized-viral around campus, but she, Yuka and Ayumi got the majority of the attention seeing as they were actually in the footage while I had been the one behind the camera. That was fine with me, though; I was happy to let Kikyou’s fan club hound those three and leave me alone. Whether they hounded Kikyou herself or not I wasn’t sure, and didn’t honestly care. I, as strange as it seemed for a college girl, spent the time concentrating on my studies.

 

Of course, those studies were split between my actual schoolwork and those of a more ghostly nature, but I had been studying nonetheless. Inuyasha did a few little things whenever I asked him to, just to reassure me that he was still with me, but we usually didn’t speak for more than ten minutes at a time whenever I could squeeze it in, using my cell to my ear for him to give me ‘yes’ and ‘no’ taps more often than anything else. When I wasn’t in class I was at the library, lamenting its lack of an ancient occult section as seen in so many TV shows and movies; I spent most of my time online.

 

Come Thursday night, having decided I’d given Kikyou enough time to cool off after our last encounter, I decided to try and discreetly contact her on campus after hours. There weren’t any parties that night, so the paths between dorm buildings had fortunately been pretty deserted. With Inuyasha giving me subtle double-taps on either my left or right shoulder to indicate which direction he’d wanted me to turn, it didn’t take long for him to steer me towards the exact area on school grounds where Kikyou had been murdered.

 

He’d told me that he could feel that Kikyou’s energy often lingered in that area, and once I got there I heard him murmur quietly in my ear that she was there before I felt his presence back away from me, like a spot of cold air moving away, the area around me feeling warmer all of a sudden. I knew why he’d backed off, so that Kikyou would hopefully not feel as if the two of us were ganging up on her.

 

Sitting down on the lawn right beside the concrete path where her body had fallen, I didn’t worry about pretending to speak on my cell since nobody else was around, and called out Kikyou’s name, asking her if she was there. Getting no reaction, and not sure whether to feel disappointed or relieved, if it’d meant she had already left or was actually going to listen without throwing a tantrum, I decided to plow forward, figuring I had nothing to lose.

 

“Maybe you’re unaware of the story we’ve been telling about you here on campus for the last fifty years,” I’d started. “Maybe you’ve never heard it, never noticed, but the story that every student here knows is that Naraku had gotten jealous of you and Inuyasha being together, and somehow finding out what costume he was wearing, Naraku bought the same one and had his friends distract Inuyasha while he took his place. That walk you took, to this location, that man by your side had been Naraku, not Inuyasha. The man who’d suddenly pulled out a knife and stabbed you in the heart had been Naraku, not-”

 

I paused as a sudden, chilly gust of wind flowed through the area, rustling the drying leaves of the nearby deciduous trees.

 

“It’s true, honest,” I’d said then. Imploringly, I’d added, “Just hear me out, please.”

 

I’d then proceeded to quote from memory what I could about the original police report, and how Inuyasha had been found DOA, as had she, but that Naraku had been rushed to the local hospital, suffering from some severe knife wounds but none that had been immediately life threatening. He had been in critical condition, but they’d saved him, and then he’d stood trial, although it’d pretty much been an open and shut case. His state appointed lawyer had attempted a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but they’d decided it’d been premeditated, seeing as how he’d been wearing Inuyasha’s costume and had been in possession of a hidden knife and all that.

 

The jury had thankfully realized the same thing Inuyasha himself had realized when he’d first arrived on the scene to witness Naraku as his double standing over Kikyou’s body; it had been meticulously planned out.

 

The wind had gotten stronger and stronger, and colder, as I’d continued speaking, but I hadn’t given up, even when sand had started flying in my face again. Turning my head away I’d still continued to tell her about how Naraku had gone to jail and was still alive, still in jail to that day. Basically I’d told her all the same things I’d already told her one week prior, on Halloween night, and basically she’d reacted the same way as she had back then, too, but I at least knew she was hearing my words. I’d seriously doubted that ghosts could cover their ears and go la la la since they didn’t really have ears anymore.

 

“Kikyou, appear to me, please. Speak to me. Let’s talk this out,” I pleaded then, not caring that I’d sounded like I was begging her, since I was. I’d felt out of options, unsure of what else I could possibly do if she would simply never believe a word I said.

 

Miraculously, she appeared in that moment, standing directly in front of me, over the spot on the concrete walkway where she’d fallen. She was still dressed in her Halloween costume, a very beautiful, kind of old-world-y looking off-white dress, but the gruesome blood stains were fortunately absent this time around.

 

“Inuyasha betrayed me,” she stated, her voice strangely distant despite the fact that she was less than three feet away. Her words, and her eyes, were angry.

 

“Betrayed you how?” I asked.

 

Sure, I knew Inuyasha hadn’t actually been in love with her anymore, and had wanted to break up with her, but I wasn’t going to bring any of that up unless she did because I had no idea how much of that she knew, if any. That wasn’t really a betrayal in my book, though.

 

In fact, the fact that he’d stayed with her to protect her, despite his feelings, because he had in fact still cared for her deeply enough to want to protect her from harm, that was the exact opposite of betrayal. I could see the (unfair) argument that he had failed her, but he most certainly hadn’t betrayed her.

 

“Inuyasha betrayed me,” she repeated, that time with her voice sounding like it was actually coming from the person standing before me.

 

“He failed to protect you from Naraku, and he’s sorry. He tried to avenge you and lost his own life in the process, so he’s already paid his penance for failing to protect you. A death for a death. You should forgive him.”

 

“He wanted me dead,” she answered, and I furrowed my brow.

 

Well that didn’t make any sense.

 

“Inuyasha didn’t want you dead,” I said then, my tone confused. “He’d had no idea Naraku was going to-”

 

“Naraku told me!” she interrupted, shouting the words so violently, with such a burst of energy, that her hair flew crazily and I got blasted in the face with icy wind and sand.

 

I’d had to close my eyes against it, protecting my face with my hands, and once the air seemed to calm down and I opened my eyes again Kikyou was of course no longer there.

 

But I wasn’t alone.

 

“What did she mean, Naraku told her...?” I questioned myself, just talking to myself out loud, as I got to my feet.

 

“I have no idea,” Inuyasha said, suddenly standing right beside me, which caused me to jump in surprise with my hand on my chest.

 

In the week we’d known each other he’d usually only spoken to me as a disembodied voice, so I still hadn’t been used to it whenever he’d put forth the extra effort needed to fully manifest.

 

“Jeez, give a girl a heart attack,” I scolded playfully.

 

Not disappearing right away, he actually chuckled, and said “Keh” before his body faded away slowly, becoming transparent before disappearing entirely.

 

I had gotten used to his Kehs by then, and their various shades of meaning. That one had been a fake apology, the kind of ‘sorry’ you say when you think it’s funny and you aren’t actually sorry at all.

 

“Anyway,” I spoke back up as I began walking back to my dorm, knowing he was still with me even though I could no longer see him.“You don’t know what she meant by saying Naraku had told her? You don’t know what he could have told her?”

 

“Lies, apparently.”

 

“I agree with that much. Clearly, Naraku told her something about you that’s now making her think you betrayed her, that you wanted her dead. I wonder if he’d somehow previously told her that he suspected you might kill her, so that when it happened she’d especially believe it was you because Naraku had forewarned her that you would?”

 

“You should ask Naraku.”

 

“If only it were that simple,” I replied, before realizing, Hey, wait a minute, why can’t I ask Naraku?

 

He was still alive, after all, and it wasn’t as if he were in a maximum security penitentiary that wouldn’t allow any visitors. There was no legitimate reason why I couldn’t go about making a trip down to the prison where he was being held and arrange to speak with him just like other visitors of other prisoners often did.

 

“You’re a genius,” I said then, since he’d been silent the last minute or so while I’d contemplated.

 

“I know,” he replied, and we both laughed.

 

`````````````````````````````````

 

I never, ever want to visit a prison ever again, but I made it through it.

 

Having decided to skip my morning class on Friday to look into it, I’d gotten all of my arrangements figured out and went out there first thing Saturday morning, one week after what I was playfully calling the ‘Tsubaki debacle’. I’d prayed my encounter with Naraku would be more successful.

 

My mom had offered to go with me, but I’d braved going it alone, figuring I was a grown ass woman and could handle myself. It’d helped knowing I had my invisible body guard with me every step of the way, of course, Inuyasha having sworn he wouldn’t let anybody hurt me. It wasn’t really as if anyone could have hurt me, of course, unless a jail break riot had just happened to go down while I was there, which thankfully didn’t happen. I got lewd comments shouted at me left and right, but I’d known that that would happen going in and it honestly hadn’t fazed me that much.

 

My uneasy feeling hadn’t really had anything to do with the various living prisoners ogling me. It’d been all the ghosts of all the prisoners who’d died there, that I could sense, that’d given me the heebie-jeebies. I’d never been around a heavy concentration of ghosts like that before, and my ‘ghost whisperer’ question had been answered once and for all with all the scores of shadow people, and even a few full-bodied apparitions, I’d seen coming and going all over the place. Having been working out that particular muscle lately, as it were, my gift had steadily been getting stronger, and in that moment I hadn’t been so sure if that was a good thing.

 

I didn’t know how to turn it off.

 

Once they’d realized I could see them, a lot of them had just disappeared, but some had actually stayed and glared at me, as if offended by my audacity. How dare I look upon them? Murmuring under my breath, so the guard wouldn’t hear, for Inuyasha to stay close to me, I’d felt relieved when the air around me had suddenly gotten much colder, as if he’d wrapped himself around me like a spiritual blanket. He could feed off of my body heat to stay tethered to me as much as he wanted; in that place, in that moment, I’d known I’d much rather be freezing than alone.

 

Escorted into a room where the guard had thankfully stayed with me, another guard who was followed by a man in cliché orange entered through a different door not long after, the latter taking a seat at the table opposite me. The prisoner was clearly an older gentleman, but he’d taken care of himself and seemed to be in pretty good health. I’d supposed that having nothing much to do with your time but work out in the yard lifting weights would keep most people in pretty good shape. His hair was short, and mostly gray with just a hint of black at the temples. Being so much older now he’d really looked nothing like the photos I’d found online, but I knew right away that I was sitting face to face with Naraku.

 

I wasn’t afraid.

 

And as it’d turned out, I’d had nothing to be afraid of, anyway.

 

The man was somber, but didn’t seem violent, and he’d easily bought my cover story that I was writing an article for the school paper because of the fiftieth anniversary of the murders. He didn’t question me on why I was late, seeing as the actual anniversary had been nine days prior. In fact, it’d seemed like he’d been waiting all that time for somebody to talk to. Either that, or the anniversary had weighed heavily on his own mind – or Kikyou really had paid him a visit, but if so he didn’t say.

 

He had immediately broken down the story for me, though, giving me all of the details from his perspective that up until that very moment had remained a total mystery to us all. I was glad I’d borrowed Eri’s Kodak again and, with his awareness, was filming the interview. I’d expected him to maybe be defiant, like the prisoners on Law & Order who don’t want to talk, wanting to know what was in it for them, but he was an old man with a weight he’d wanted to get off his shoulders for a long time now, and so it all came pouring out.

 

First and foremost, he’d told me how he’d just found out in passing what their costumes were going to be, through a friend of a friend’s girlfriend who’d been friends with Kikyou, and that the idea for his ‘master plan’ hadn’t come to him until after he’d realized that since Inuyasha’s costume had included a face mask he’d be able to pull off becoming his doppelganger. It’d just been too perfect of an opportunity to let it go to waste, he’d said, explaining how all the wheels in his head had started turning. He told me how he’d already known by then that Kikyou was a lost cause to him, and he’d already known going in that he was going to kill her, but then he’d told me the one little piece of the puzzle that the rest of us had never known.

 

He’d admitted that, at the moment of plunging the knife into her heart, he’d told her that Inuyasha had hired him to kill her. His exact words to her had been ‘Courtesy of Inuyasha, he said to tell you he never loved you, and asked me to get rid of you for him.’

 

When I asked Naraku why he’d gone out of his way to say such a thing when she would have just thought Inuyasha had killed her anyway, since he was wearing the same costume and all, he’d said that that had been his original intention, to just silently kill her and let her wonder why Inuyasha had done it, but he’d said that Kikyou had actually realized who he was, and had suspiciously questioned what his intentions were to pull such a stunt as replacing Inuyasha, and so then saying he’d been there on Inuyasha’s behest had just popped into his head at the last minute as a way to salvage his agenda.

 

He’d succeeded, since Kikyou had believed him, and that explained why everyone had stated how she’d died repeating over and over again ‘Why, Inuyasha, why’ and such. Never once had she said Naraku’s name, because in her mind she’d still thought that Inuyasha was ultimately to blame, and so that explained why the legend on campus had developed the way that it had.

 

Telling Naraku really vaguely that some people on campus believed the ghost of Kikyou still walked the grounds, and asking him what he’d like to say to Kikyou if that were true, I had him look directly into the camera, and he’d complied, telling Kikyou herself that he was sorry, and that he’d been a sick man back then and had been jealous of Inuyasha’s happiness, having wanted Inuyasha out of the picture so that it could be the two of them together, instead.

 

Feeling as if Inuyasha had actually been the one who’d stolen Kikyou away from him, because, as Naraku explained it then, in his mind Kikyou would have been his had Inuyasha not gotten to her first, he’d then felt like paying him back by taking Kikyou away from him, as well, so that neither of them could have her. Beginning to cry, he’d begged Kikyou to forgive him, and then Inuyasha, too, since of course he’d ended up killing Inuyasha as well. Still looking into the camera, he apologized to Inuyasha for the entire thing, for killing Kikyou and blaming him, and for killing him, himself, as well as how he’d previously been harassing and threatening him behind Kikyou’s back, trying to bully him into dumping Kikyou so he could swoop in on the rebound.

 

I felt the pocket of coldness that’d stayed with me the whole time, my little personal, perpetual winter, start to shift around me in that moment, the left side of my body feeling warmer, and then I felt the sensation of a hand gripping my right shoulder, patting it gently a couple of times.

 

I smiled, truly proud of Inuyasha in that moment.

 

“I think, for the sake of everyone just needing to accept that the past is the past and it cannot be changed, that Inuyasha would forgive you, for the good of both of your souls.”

 

My words only made Naraku cry even harder, and starting to feel kind of awkward I gave the security guard a look and he quickly rushed to Naraku’s side and ushered him to his feet and out the door. Before he left, Naraku turned my way and actually thanked me for coming to see him. He said I was such a pretty, young thing, and that I could come back to see him again any time I wanted.

 

Uh, no.

 

“You take care of yourself, Naraku. You’ve let your burden go, so now it’s time for you to forgive yourself, as well,” was my reply.

 

He’d only nodded, and that was the last I saw of him. I quickly had my own guard escort me out of there and once I got in Mom’s car I didn’t even look in the rear view mirror until I’d turned and the prison was no longer in its reflection.

 

Feeling the temperature start to drop in the car, which I’d suspected Inuyasha had started doing at times as a subtle way of letting me know he was there more than just because he’d needed the energy, because I knew he knew I didn’t like being startled when my mind was elsewhere, I reached for the control panel and clicked on both the heater and the radio, tuning the latter to the static for him so he didn’t have to waste any energy changing the channel himself.

 

During my drive back home we discussed his decision to forgive Naraku, and he’d explained that he’d just felt sorry for the poor bastard, seeing how pathetic he’d become, as well as feeling grateful that at least Naraku had admitted his guilt and had admitted he’d been mentally deranged at the time. The tragic irony of it all, which I would never tell Naraku, was that if he hadn’t come off as being so creepy, and hadn’t been threatening Inuyasha so much and making his obsession for Kikyou so obvious, then Inuyasha’d said that he probably would have broken things off with Kikyou long before that Halloween, and unconcerned, he wouldn’t have interfered if Naraku had started to date her afterwards. Naraku was unaware that Inuyasha’s feelings for Kikyou had waned and that he’d only stayed with her to protect her from him, and during the drive Inuyasha and I had both agreed that neither Naraku nor Kikyou needed to be made aware of that minor detail.

 

Getting back home, new video evidence in hand, Inuyasha had agreed with me that it’d be better to let Kikyou cool back off again before trying to shove the truth of Naraku’s admittance in her face right away, and so we took it easy over the remainder of the weekend. He went off to go do whatever ghosts do and I actually spent time enjoying my family, watching TV in the living room instead of staying holed up in my bedroom upstairs obsessing over ghosts.

 

`````````````````````````````````

 

With the weekend zipping by it was back to school again on Monday, and having saved the video to my laptop I gave Eri back her digital camera, telling her what’d happened. She’d told me I was crazy for actually going down to the prison to speak to Naraku in person, but had then commended me for doing something so ‘totally awesome’, saying that it was phenomenal how well my encounter with him had gone. I’d readily agreed.

 

Feeling that it was time to get back to my studies, my college related ones, I’d put thoughts of ghosts on the back burner for the next few days, for the most part at least, and had actually spent my time in my dorm room studying schoolwork in between classes. Go figure. I did let Inuyasha pick all the music on my iPod, though.

 

Testing his limitations simply for curiosity’s sake, we’d discovered together that he couldn’t manipulate electronics fully, and couldn’t go into the ‘brain’ of my laptop to select whatever song he wanted in my iTunes library while the program was ‘behind’ the one I was working in, but manipulating my old style iPod was just like the flashlight trick, slowly turning applied pressure around on the wheel and pushing the button. That, he could do, and so with it connected to some speakers I was listening to what I’d playfully dubbed ‘ghost shuffle’ as I did my homework. Eri thought that that was ‘totally awesome’ too.

 

Try as I did to let the whole Kikyou thing rest for a few days, I was still plagued with thoughts of her. I’d tried my best to put her out of my mind, but by the time Wednesday rolled around I was already arguing with myself over whether or not I should try to contact her again the following night. It wasn’t as if I’d thought Thursday was an auspicious day for some reason, it was just the fact that letting it go for more than a week between ‘sessions’ had seemed like too large of a gap to me. Kikyou might’ve had eternity, but I sure didn’t, and so a large part of me had been anxious to get the whole thing over and done with, even though I’d also still felt like I was up against a wall, in a way, unable to really do anything no matter how hard I tried.

 

I had felt as if I’d made progress, of course, finally knowing what Kikyou had believed all this time and knowing what I needed to tell her, but I’d been unsure of how to get her to actually listen, to actually cooperate and watch the video of Naraku. She thought Inuyasha had filled my head with his lies, and so I knew I had to tell her that I’d gone and seen Naraku, I knew she had to hear it from Naraku himself and not me, but what if she didn’t believe me and wouldn’t even watch it? Or worse, what if she didn’t even believe that it was Naraku on the tape, since he looked so different? My ‘what if’s had been running away with me. The one thing I knew I had going for me was how Naraku had quoted the exact words he’d whispered to her, something that obviously nobody else would know, but she had to be willing to actually watch the video, first. That was the part I’d been struggling with in that moment.

 

I’d tried to let go of my obsession as I’d settled into bed that night, but thoughts of Kikyou refusing to listen to me had apparently stuck with me more intently than I’d realized. Unable to fall asleep for what had felt like forever, I’d lied there awake for what had to have been at least a couple of hours, the last two weeks replaying in my head over and over again. I tried to tell myself it was what it was, and that since I was so new at this I should cut myself some slack, but what’d made me feel like the biggest failure wasn’t my inability to pacify a ghost, like I was a bad medium, it was my inability to comfort a hurting twenty-year-old woman, like I was a bad therapist.

 

If I’d really been thinking of Kikyou as a patient no different from any other then what did that mean for my future in psychology? Because I knew just yelling the truth at people and telling them to suck it up wasn’t exactly the best way to bring about the ‘healing process’ in most cases. If Kikyou’s situation really was different because she was a ghost, and therein lied the difference, then I needed to learn to think of her as a ghost in my head, and accept that difference. Otherwise, I knew, if I really did feel in my heart that she really was still a real woman no different from any other, then I needed to find a new approach. A gentler approach. A therapeutic approach.

 

I don’t know what time it was when I finally nodded off, but I’d eventually drifted off into dreamland. It was a visit to dreamland I would never, ever forget.

 

Now, I’ve always been able to remember at least bits and pieces of my dreams the following day, though I never used to pay very much attention to my dreams for very long after waking up, as I’m sure is the case with most people. Aside from the occasional really awesome dream, or really creepy nightmare, it would normally all just fade away after a little while, blending together into obscure nothingness.

 

That would never be the case with this dream, however, which I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life. Like most dreams I can’t really remember how it’d started, but the vivid part that still sticks out even to this day is how I’d been talking to Kikyou, standing with her one-on-one in my dorm room, and she’d been dressed in normal clothes for whatever reason, and we’d been arguing. I’d been almost to the point of tears, pleading with her to listen to me, and I’d felt so horrible, so stupid and useless and worthless for not being able to help her let go of her hatred, to realize Inuyasha had not been responsible for her murder and that Naraku had lied to her, and that even he was repentant now and so really what would be best for her would be for her to just forgive and forget, put the past behind her, let it go, allow peace to wash over her and just move on into whatever place it was that she was destined to ‘move on’ to.

 

She had been saying things back to me like ‘why should I listen to a stupid, ugly nobody like you’ and other really hurtful, but also really vague replies, not really rebuffing my arguments directly like the real Kikyou had done when she’d called me a liar, not that that’d dawned on me within the dream, of course.

 

Almost feeling at my wit’s end, I remember that it was in that moment that Inuyasha had suddenly appeared. I’d turned around and there he was, also standing in my dorm room, still dressed in his Halloween costume, and even though my addled dream-mind apparently hadn’t remembered Inuyasha’s existence prior to his appearance, because looking back on it I hadn’t been wondering where he was or wishing he were there prior to his arrival, as soon as I’d seen him I’d nearly knocked him over in my relief, I’d rushed up to him so fast. Proclaiming my gratitude that he was there I’d asked him, desperately, to help me get Kikyou to listen.

 

Instead of jumping into it, though, he’d merely stood there looking at me with a soft, caring smile on his lips, and then reaching up with his right hand to brush some stray hair back behind my left ear, he’d told me in a gentle voice, “She isn’t the real Kikyou, Kagome. This is just a dream. You’re beating yourself up over nothing.”

 

I remember feeling surprised by his words, but then a sense of realization had come over me, as I’d suddenly known he was right, it was a dream, and as I’d turned back to look in Kikyou’s direction, she was no longer there.

 

I’d then looked back in Inuyasha’s direction, and he was still there, smiling proudly at me now because I’d made my phantom Kikyou go away.

 

“I guess that means you’re not really real, either, if this is a dream,” I recall I’d said in that moment, and his smile grew the tiniest bit playful.

 

“On the contrary, I’m the real deal.”

 

I gasped in surprise.

 

And that’s when I woke up.

 

Bolting into a sitting position in my bed, Eri, who’d already been awake and getting dressed, jumped because I’d startled her and immediately asked me what was wrong. I’d quickly brushed it off, telling her it was just a weird dream and that I already couldn’t really remember most of it, and then getting up and dressed, myself, I’d waited until she’d left for her first class and Inuyasha and I were alone to ask him if that really had been him and, if it was, to let him know that I’d lied to Eri and that I actually really did remember the dream, vividly.

 

“Inuyasha...this is going to sound stupid, but-” I’d started, a loud single knock interrupting me before I could even finish. A single knock meant no so I’d immediately wondered if he was rebuking my claim of my pending question sounding stupid.

 

Feeling a little optimistic, then, I’d asked, “So...was that really you in my dream just now?”

 

I immediately received two knocks.

 

Delighted, but also surprised, I’d told him how I hadn’t been aware that he could do that, and his response had been to whisper in my ear to turn on the voice recorder. I immediately did as asked, and over the next couple of minutes I could hear the sound of his mumbling, and correctly assumed he was conserving energy by speaking within the voice recorder’s range. I could pick up a few words here and there but couldn’t really understand him; if I hadn’t had my gift, I wouldn’t have heard him at all.

 

Once he was done with his speech I heard him clearly say “Okay, run it back,” and once again I immediately did as asked.

 

He’d explained to me that he normally couldn’t communicate that way with total strangers, entering their dreams like he’d done with me, because it required a temporary merging of his soul with the other person’s soul, and unless the recipient knew him and subconsciously found the feel of his aura familiar and welcome, such an invasion would almost definitely cause that other person to wake up the minute he tried it. He said he hadn’t known what would happen when he tried it with me, but that I’d been talking in my sleep, clearly distressed, and so he’d known I was having a nightmare about Kikyou and he’d just felt compelled to try and snap me out of it one way or another.

 

He knew he would either reach me, or the feel of him trying would wake me up, and so either way he would have stopped my nightmare so it would have been fine. He said he hadn’t been able to just sit back and watch me toss and turn because he’d really started to consider me a close friend, and so he’d wanted to spare me from my self-torture.

 

I’d felt truly touched when he’d said that part, and stopping the playback for a moment I’d told him that I considered him a close friend, too. He was quickly becoming my best friend.

 

Playing the rest of his recording, he’d also said that since he was usually too weak to communicate with anyone directly, anyone who didn’t have my gift, at least, it was in dreams that he’d spoken with his own loved ones back in the day, having come to both his mother and father in their dreams shortly after his death to tell them goodbye.

 

Reaching the end of his recorded message, I told him in that moment that he could enter my dreams whenever he wanted, if communicating that way with me would also be easier for him, although I’d warned him that the shock of knowing it was a dream and really him might wake me up again. I told him I’d never had a lucid dream before and didn’t know if I could master it, the ability to stay asleep while knowing I was asleep and dreaming, and that he might just have to play along with my dream-self to keep me from waking up, saying whatever he wanted to say, which I’d then remember and understand after waking.

 

As a whisper in my ear, he said it was something we’d have to work on, together, but that he had faith in me, that maybe one day I could know it was a dream and still stay asleep. His faith in me made me silently vow to myself that one day, I would master it.

 

I’d then proceeded to tell him that I wasn’t worried about the real Kikyou ever trying to enter my dreams like that, because first of all she didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with me, I’d said with a laugh, but then I’d also added that I knew that even if she did try to mess with me in my sleep, he would be able to feel it and also come into my dream to protect me from her. I felt him grab my hand and give it a little squeeze after I said that part, and then he whispered directly into my ear that he’d never let her hurt me, whether it was the real her or just my own fantasy.

 

Feeling my cheeks flush a little, which got worse when I heard him chuckling quietly, I excused myself because I had to get to class, inviting him to tag along as per usual. That said, I headed to my first class, not noticing much of anything paranormal throughout the day except of course for sometimes feeling that sensation of being watched, as if someone were standing directly behind me, peering over my shoulder as I sat at my various desks doing my schoolwork. It didn’t bother me.

 

That night, Inuyasha told me not to worry about Kikyou just yet, saying that he’d gotten an idea. He told me to sit tight, to focus on my studies, and that he’d do what he could to help me out. He said there was somebody he had in mind, if he could find her, that might become a third ally, but he wasn’t sure yet. He had to see if he could find her, first, and then see if he could communicate with her. He asked me to cross my fingers for him, and told me not to worry that I wouldn’t feel him around for a while, that he definitely hadn’t left me for good and would be back as soon as he was able.

 

Curious who he was going to try and find, but willing to trust him on it, I’d wished him good luck and went to bed that night for a blissful, nightmare-free sleep.

 

`````````````````````````````````

 

Early Friday evening I was in my dorm room, getting things ready to go back home again for the weekend, when there was an unexpected knock on the door. Eri was already out with the girls, enjoying her Friday night, so I knew it wasn’t Ayumi or Yuka, and my mother wasn’t due for another half hour or so, so feeling mildly curious but not worried I got up to answer the door.

 

Seeing an unfamiliar, elderly woman, I politely greeted, “Hi, may I help you?”

She had a friendly, grandmotherly smile, and she’d actually seemed relieved that I had answered the door.

“You’re Kagome, right?” she asked quickly, hopefully, which caught me off guard.

Beginning to feel both mildly confused and concerned I’d answered that yes, I was Kagome, and she’d immediately sagged in relief and told me how grateful she was to have found me, introducing herself as Kaede, Kikyou’s sister.

 

My eyes lit up in surprise.

 

Asking if she could come in I’d immediately and excitedly ushered her inside, admitting bluntly that I’d thought she was dead, from how her daughter Tsubaki had phrased things when we’d met. With a bitter laugh, Kaede had explained that while her daughter would like to pretend she was out of her life for good, she was in fact very much alive and well, relaying that Tsubaki had merely taken over the house when she’d relented and moved into a ‘community’, to put it politely.

 

I couldn’t believe it. Tsubaki had shipped her mother off to an old folks’ home.

 

Was everyone in that family a total bitch or what?

 

Although, as Kaede and I talked, I’d quickly realized how super nice she actually was. She reminded me of my own grandmother. She explained to me then how she’d found me, and why she had sought me out. Inuyasha had come to her in a dream the night before, she’d said, explaining that she’d immediately believed it was the real him upon waking up because of having lived with her sister’s ghost for so long and knowing what it felt like to speak with one in a dream.

 

As Kaede explained it, Inuyasha had broken everything down for her, basically sitting her down and saying ‘you need to listen to me’. He’d then proceeded to tell her who I was, and how and why I was trying to help Kikyou. He’d told her about Naraku’s lie, explaining that he hadn’t even been aware of it until I’d spoken with Naraku the previous Saturday, and he’d then concluded his visit by telling Kaede that we needed her help, and that together, maybe the three of us could finally get Kikyou to listen.

 

Kaede said she’d woken up with a start, and had immediately been a woman on a mission. Inuyasha had given her my location at the dorm, and the only reason she hadn’t come over first thing in the morning, she’d said, was because he had actually asked her to wait until after my classes were over.

 

I was dumbfounded, to say the least, but I’d obviously believed her, and I was so very grateful to Inuyasha for seeking Kaede out like that, since I hadn’t even known she was still alive. Apparently he’d been able to communicate with her in her dream because, as he’d explained the process to me the day before, there was an emotional connection there, between them. Kaede wasn’t a stranger, and so therefore he had been able to form that mental bond needed to enter her dreams without it feeling like a foreign invasion and thus waking her up.

 

She’d corroborated my belief in that regard when she’d said how she remembered Inuyasha quite well from her childhood, back when her sister had been alive and dating him. She said she’d always liked him back then, never once having thought he was a bad person, and she’d actually felt sorry for him even, having seen how her sister had treated him at times. She remembered Naraku, too, and told me that he’d always given her the creeps. Kikyou had not been encouraging Naraku’s flirtations, I learned then, but neither had she tried very hard to discourage him, more or less brushing him off, and acting unconcerned when a young Kaede had told her older sister how she didn’t like the man.

 

Kaede had then told me that having spent most of her life with her sister’s ghost she’d heard the story of her death from Kikyou’s perspective numerous times, and that even after finding out what Naraku had told her she’d still always had her doubts, suspecting Naraku had been lying, but unlike me, she said she’d never had the courage to actually go and ask Naraku about it.

 

A part of her had been afraid to find out that it really was true, she’d admitted, but beyond that, she said that she hadn’t figured it would really do any good to know either way. Nothing would bring Kikyou back. She’d wanted only for her sister to be at peace and move on, and she’d tried to do the same, getting married, raising a family. Acquiring their parents’ house, Kaede said she had chosen to stay there, knowing that Kikyou was hanging around and not wanting to abandon her, but that for the most part she’d moved on with her own life after the first few years of failed attempts to help her sister let go and find peace. At that point, they’d simply accepted the fact that their house was haunted and that there was nothing they could do about it.

 

Kaede explained that, until the night before, she’d never even realized that Inuyasha’s ghost was also still hanging around, because Kikyou had never once mentioned it. Kikyou had mostly come to her in her dreams, she’d said, and Inuyasha had also previously told me that he’d stopped going to Kikyou’s house long ago, to grant her that sanctuary away from him since her hatred of him had been clear, and so it stood to reason in my mind that even if Kikyou had explained the whole thing to her sister in the waking world where Inuyasha could have overheard it, he hadn’t heard it because he simply hadn’t been there.

 

Explaining that part to Kaede in that moment, I’d told her how all this time, Inuyasha had known that Kikyou blamed him for her death, but that he’d just thought the same thing everyone else on campus thought, that she’d actually thought that he’d been the one to drive the blade into her heart. I was sure that Inuyasha probably would have gone to Kaede long before then to defend himself and tell her it wasn’t true if he’d been aware of Naraku’s lie, but Naraku had never told a single person about what he’d told Kikyou in the moment of her death until he’d told me, and I had that confession on video, I’d told Kaede then.

 

Telling me how grateful she was to me for picking up where she’d left off, for continuing what should have been her job and how she now felt like she’d turned her back on her sister and how she definitely wanted to help us help Kikyou now, Kaede then went on to explain that she hadn’t seen her sister on a daily basis back then because she didn’t have my ‘gift’, and so while I was obsessing because I felt such a strong connection to that world it’d been easier for her to put it out of her mind most days, most of the time her days passing by uneventfully. Just like how living in a haunted house would be for most normal people, she said she and her family had heard the occasional knocks or footsteps, and had found the occasional object had moved on its own, but trying to communicate with Kikyou directly, outside of her dreams, had never been very successful. There had been enough activity here and there to verify that Kikyou’s ghost really was still around, but a lot of the time life had gone on normally for those in the house who were actually living.

 

Even when she’d wanted Kikyou to show herself and speak with her, Kaede said she usually hadn’t done anything, and that when she had, all hell would break lose. Just like I’d come to experience, Kikyou had usually reverted to throwing a fit – and sometimes objects – whenever anybody had tried to talk to her too intently about her death, and so Kaede had quickly learned that trying to talk with her sister was unproductive and, for the most part, she’d simply given up. Kaede said her angle, when she had tried it, had been to try and get Kikyou to see that it didn’t really matter who was to blame for her death, and that the past was the past and she needed to just accept her fate and move on to the next stage of existence, regardless of what had or hadn’t happened between Inuyasha and Naraku.

 

Kaede said Kikyou’s response had usually been a somber ‘Inuyasha betrayed me’, as if she hadn’t heard a single thing her little sister’d just said, as if she really were a residual haunting stuck in a loop even though we all knew she really wasn’t.

 

Having finally grown as frustrated as I was already feeling after only two weeks, Kaede said she’d given up trying to help Kikyou long ago, until the last ditch effort that had been bringing in that paranormal team, which she’d wanted to try before moving out of the house. Having them ask questions like ‘What would it take for you to find peace?’ or ‘What do you require in order to move on?’ Kaede had hoped that their more sophisticated, modern equipment would pick up an in-depth answer, but no such luck.

 

They’d gotten a few initial responses from her, again enough to prove that her ghost was in fact around, but none of the important questions had received any answers whatsoever.

 

I knew what would set Kikyou free: the truth, as cliché as that sounded.

 

I’d started to tell Kaede my ideas, but our conversation got interrupted when there was another knock on the door, and I knew it was my mother that time. Jumping up to answer it, I’d excitedly introduced my mother to Kikyou’s sister, and Mom was thrilled to realize that I might be successful in my endeavor to help Kikyou move on sooner rather than later. It’d already been two weeks, and my stupid ass had originally thought I could save her over that first weekend, but now, it at least looked like I wouldn’t be plagued by Kikyou’s ghost for years, as Kaede had been. Together, we would finally be able to get her to listen.

 

With Kaede excusing herself, after she and I exchanged phone numbers of course, we made quick plans to get together the next day and then I rode back home with my mom. My weekend was looking so much brighter all of a sudden.