InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Nowhere to Go But Up/Demon in the Basement ❯ A Mysterious New Home ( Chapter 1 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

A/N: All Inuyasha characters and references belong to the creator of Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi and published by Shogakukan. Any other characters are more than likely my own creation. If I borrow directly from another story I will do my best to make sure I give credit where credit is due.  

To any readers coming here from my other story, Patchwork Family: I DO intend to finish Patchwork. I’ve spent a ton of time on it and I love it, but for some reason this story is coming easier to me at the moment, whereas getting more copy written on Patchwork has been like pulling teeth for the last 6 months. I’m taking a break to work on a few other things and I’ll go back to it to see if some time away helps. It’s been like a breath of fresh air to be able to write properly again.

Feel free to let me know what you think and thanks for reading.

*** A New Home / No. 1 ***
TH11.7.2015 (dateline primarily for writer’s use, don’t mind these)

"You like... this one...," the realtor said, her tone making it clear that she was experiencing a moment of doubt in either the young woman's honesty or her good judgement. "…Are you sure?"

"Yes," Kagome said, nodding to herself thoughtfully. The realtor remained silent, apparently surprised, and Kagome shifted her gaze from the large house back to the older woman. The realtor had a kind face, beginning to fall into lines of old age, her dark hair liberally streaked with gray and twisted into a knot. She was dressed in a smart, professional pant suit of charcoal gray, her small feet clad in sensible black shoes.

Kagome was approaching the age of 24, and in contrast was wearing a faded blue sweater and a black pleated skirt over dark leggings. A worn pair of brown leather boots came nearly to her knees. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a neat braid to fall down to the middle of her back. She summoned a warm smile that seemed to reassure the woman that she was earnestly interested in the shambles of a property.

The realtor looked back at the old house, perhaps checking to see if maybe it had morphed into something more appealing; but no, it was the same sprawling mess she'd shown dozens of times. She’d personally been trying to sell the place for a little over two years and without exception her clients had taken one look and said it was too far from the main centers of Tokyo, more trouble than they were interested in, or asked whether this showing was her idea of a joke. However, this quiet young woman seemed to brighten at the prospect before her.

They'd looked as several properties in the city that were more modern; in short, the kinds of places that normally appealed to young, first-time home owners. Kagome hadn't cared for any of them. It was too noisy, too crowded and too expensive. Here in the countryside she felt like she could breathe again and it made her realize how much the constant noise and clamor of the city had been grating on her. Until now she hadn't considered that the Tokyo’s sheer crush of humanity was a part of the weight that had been suffocating her ever since shed been snapped back from the past for good.

The house before her was old and beginning to fall apart; but it had a good basic design that reminded her of the simple, elegant homes of certain lords and high class merchants she'd seen- and occasionally been invited to take lodgings with during her travels in the far distant past. That past was a part of her heart now, and though it hurt to think about the friends she'd never see again, this old house was a comforting sight. She thought perhaps she'd finally found a place where she might feel at home, as she couldn’t seem to do anymore in the bustling city she’d been born in. Her childhood home at the Higurashi family shrine was still a place she’d always love, but it was full of memories that were painful reminders of what she’d lost, and she’d worked hard to be able to afford a fresh start.

Kagome shook herself loose from the trails of thought and memory that so often these days trailed through her head like cobwebs, and she turned to the real estate agent. "Can we look around?"

The realtor pulled herself together, grasping the possibility that she might just sell this deadweight house after all, and led the way with a smile. "Of course, Ms. Higurashi, please, follow me. The front entrance is around the side here... And keep one eye on your feet. The path is a bit overgrown. Initially there was a grounds man coming around once a month to do basic maintenance but--"

The woman broke off suddenly, as if she hadn't meant to continue that sentence, and was sorry she had. Kagome wondered what it was the realtor had started to say, but when the woman gave her an uncomfortable side-long glance, she decided not to press her about it just now. Besides that, she was suddenly distracted by a tug of... something… almost a hum of energy against her own magic.

If she hadn’t known any better, she might have said it was a demon brand of magic. It was settled about the place as if it had been there a very long time, and was almost a part of the place; just the same as the nails and beams. Whatever it was, she decided after a cursory examination that it didn’t worry her. It wasn’t active, but felt more residual; not at all like something alive and hungry, which was usually how demon power felt.

As the realtor opened the front door, Kagome smiled again. The old house had a large, rectangular entry area, with the entrance on one of the short sides. The long, floor boards were covered in dust that looked as if it had been undisturbed for quite a while. The older woman glanced at her, a bit shame faced. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid the place is somewhat of a mess. It’s been on the market for a long time… and it’s been sitting empty for even longer than that. This is why the asking price suites your budget so well.

Kagome raised her eyebrows curiously. “How long is that, exactly? Since anyone lived here, I mean.”

The realtor went quiet and looked thoughtful, moving her fingers in such a way that it was obvious she was conducting some kind of mental math. Finally she said, “I suppose it’s been at least 70 years since this property had a regular resident.”

Kagome’s brow arched higher in surprise and the woman confessed, “this structure is about 200 years old, at its foundation, and has stood empty for the majority of the last century. It’s a beautiful building, as you can see-- but I’ll admit, it needs a great deal of work and it has its…quirks.”

‘Quirks,’ Kagome thought. ‘I wonder what THAT means.’ She sighed and crouched down to wipe a fingertip through the dust on the floor, finding that the wood beneath was a beautiful, warm, rich brown. The walls were framed in with large beams of the same dark wood and faced in what looked like old, and in some cases, damaged plaster. The agent watched her nervously, waiting for the girl to shake her head and walk right back out the front door.

Instead, Kagome flashed her a friendly smile. “Let’s poke around and you can tell me about it.” And so they did. The agent led Kagome into a small-ish room off to the left of the entry. It appeared to be a kitchen, but a very old fashioned, traditional one. “You can see here,” the realtor said, “that the wood floors continue and they go on through the whole house. This kitchen’s rather badly out of date…”

And here she paused to give Kagome another side-long glance. “You see,” she went on hesitantly, “the last owner actually made the arrangements to get the house wired, bought appliances and everything to go in here, but… then changed his mind and built his own place much farther to the south.”

Kagome frowned slightly, running her fingers over the side of a chimney that ran above a wide stone-tiled fire pit built into the floor near the far end of the room. There was a cooking grate sitting over a mess of old ashes, but the metal was rusted through and beginning to fall apart. This was, indeed, the only clear place to produce cooked food, or heat for that matter. “Why?” she asked. “What happened?”

The older woman’s lips pursed and it seemed yet again that she was reluctant to share something. “I’m still interested, “Kagome reassured her. “I just want to understand what happened-- you said the previous owner was going to have the place wired... Does that mean the house doesn't have any power at all?"

The realtor looked around uncomfortably again and Kagome realized she had walked through the front hall and the kitchen, and so far had yet to see one electrical outlet. The older woman began resigning herself to another opportunity dying in the cradle. A young attractive twenty-something wouldn't want to live in a home with no lights, no central heat or hot water, no place to plug in a cell phone or computer... no one would. But again Kagome surprised her.

Slowly, the girl began to smile and she glanced back at the fire pit along one side of the little kitchen. With a sigh she gave her companion a little smile. "Show me the rest?"

The realtor blinked at her in surprise. "My dear, you said you wanted space but that you were on a rather tight budget... A full electrical installation in a building this old, with no previous wiring... Well... I mean to say... It would be quite beyond the numbers you gave me to work with." Kagome smile faltered a little when she was reminded of how little she had to work with. She'd had a very hard time finding work in the city and those jobs she had found hadn't lasted long for one reason and another... even the work she’d gotten hadn't generally paid well.

Still, she’d managed to save up enough money to make a place of her very own-- provided she was frugal and handled everything carefully. This house was simple and old, but beautiful in its own way; and the combination of things that made it unattractive to most people made it both appealing and affordable for her.

"Oh, I know," Kagome reassured her. "I'd just leave the wiring until I had enough saved up again to get it started... I can live without electricity at home for now." The realtor looked at her doubtfully but Kagome gestured at the fire pit and the aged water pump at the big stone sink. "Really, I've actually spent quite a bit of time living like this, sometimes with even less. I can manage the basics fine without power."

The woman looked floored and Kagome flushed, a bit self-conscious, and mumbled something about several years of mission work in places without modern infrastructure. It wasn't a total lie... she supposed. One could consider the years she’d spent roaming ancient Japan and hunting demons with her friends to be mission work... maybe... in a pinch. The woman’s expression softened with understanding and she smiled, once more sensing the hope of a sale.

"Oh! I see. Well then, let's just take a look at the other side of the house, and there’s an upstairs portion as well over the far side." Kagome followed the woman back through the front hall and through a set of sliding doors that clunked along their tracks in protest. It had been a very long time since they'd been moved and they seemed to have settled into place as the frame aged, the wood expanding and contracting with the weather and changing seasons. They walked through a long sitting room lined on the exterior wall by sliding panels that could be opened to the back garden. Outside was a set of wide steps leading down to ground level.

Kagome loved the idea of sitting here in the morning with a cup of tea and her book, watching the sky, the garden, and the field beyond start the day. At the end of the room they passed through another set of traditional sliding panel doors and into a large room that turned out to be a study or library. Kagome looked around curiously. In the previous rooms there had been a great deal of dust and dirt, but they had been empty.

This room had furniture standing like forgotten ruins, all of it draped in gray cloth. "I'm not completely certain,” the realtor said. “But I believe this room has remained mostly undisturbed since the original owner of the house disappeared."

Kagome looked up and raised a brow. "When did they pass away? It must have been quite some time ago."

The older woman seemed to consider carefully before she answered. Despite all the issues the property had, this girl seemed to love the place, and she felt bad holding back information when Kagome seemed so interested. "Well," she started. "Actually... It’s been about 200 years since the house was built, so obviously the original owner is long dead; but no one is sure what became of him. I don't know much… there's virtually nothing in the records. The little we do know is essentially based on stories from the locals in the village about 25 minutes away. All we have is that the home was owned by T. Mitsubishi Corporate and then was sold twice over the years to private parties, the first time in 1941 and the second in 1982. Neither owner did anything with the property and didn't seem inclined to stay long. The man who sold it to our company in the 80s had some ridiculous idea that the place was haunted. Between you and me, I think he spent a bit too much time in his bottle, if you know what I mean."

She paused, pursing her lips in a small frown. "It’s really very strange. It’s true that the house needs some serious work but the grounds are absolutely striking in spring. That's when I usually try to show it off."

Kagome walked to a tall window with old, uneven glass panes that slightly warped the view of the expansive garden against the back of the house. She expected the bushy trees had started their lives as well-kept shrubs. Long grasses swayed like ocean waves in the chilly wind. A gray November sky tinted the dead plants and bare branches until they were pale imitations of what they might have looked like in summer.

Still, she could see the potential. There was lots of room and she could have a great big garden. That would go a long way towards defraying grocery expenses. Turning to the closest of the gray sheet-covered mounds, she pointed and glanced at the realtor. "May I?"

The older woman smiled and nodded. "Certainly-- all of this was left here; it belongs to the house." Kagome pinched a bit of the cloth in her fingers and pulled it back. Her eyes widened as she was struck by two things at once. Firstly, the sheet slithered softly to the floor, and a great deal of dust fell from its surface to reveal that it was not gray. It wasn’t cotton or muslin, but fine, pearlescent white silk. Who on earth, she wondered, would use such beautiful fabric for dust covers?

The second thing that hit her was the piece of furniture that came into view. It was a tall case of sorts, made from a dark wood, and the doors on it were paneled with frames containing silk paintings. Black ink swirled and soared across the cloth, depicting a great and mighty wolf with gnashing fangs, flying among swirling clouds. The image tugged at her memories and she felt that twinge in her magic again, as if whatever power it was that she was sensing was alive, but breathing very slowly, deeply asleep… but vaguely aware of her presence.

The silk paintings were a little discolored, but in decent shape for their age-- which she knew had to be at least 150 years, but then… it was entirely possible they were older. The finely crafted handles on each door were made of bone, she realized, as she grasped them and gently pulled. The hinges swung open with a creak and both she and the realtor gasped. Inside the case were stacks of scrolls. They had wooden end caps painted in careful black ink labels—each one containing a single character and a number. Below those were several shelves of beautifully bound leather books, spines etched with meticulously scribed gold characters.

The two women exchanged glances and Kagome asked, “no one wanted this stuff, even if they didn’t want the house?”

The realtor shook her head sadly. “Mostly people never even made it in this far before they decided it wasn’t for them-- and even if they had, there’s a legal stipulation in the file that says nothing is to be removed from the house except by the private owner. The two men that have taken possession of the house since the original owner a century ago were rather determined to have nothing to do with the place. They took nothing with them.”

Kagome shook her head at the craziness of it all and reached up to carefully pull a book down. The book was about 16 inches tall and the leather was stiff and dry, so she only cracked the cover open a few inches to peek at the inside. She could see just enough to read some of it, and after a moment she murmured, "hmm... interesting. This looks like a ledger, I think."

The older woman exclaimed with interest. "You can read this?"

Kagome nodded, confused. "Well sure, it's in Japanese. See?" She cracked the book open another inch so that her companion could get a better look, and winced when the binding creaked in protest. The realtor studied the book for a moment and shook her head. "I can understand a few words here and there but most of it is beyond me... Some of it looks similar to how my grandfather wrote-- but even that is only a small amount. Our language has changed much over the years since then; much of what is written here looks older still."

Kagome blinked, momentarily at a loss, before she looked back at the book again and comprehension dawned on her. The characters written there were like what she was used to reading back in the Edo period, and she hadn't noticed. She’d just automatically adjusted and read the text without trouble.

It had been difficult at first, when she was a teenager, trying to learn how to function in a version of her own culture that was half a millennia removed from her own birth date. But over time she’d learned from her friends to read, write, and speak Japanese the way it was used then. More than once she'd slipped and used an old version of a word or a long outdated grammar mechanism and gotten strange looks from people in the city. Once or twice someone had recognized what she’d done and made a comment similar to that of the realtor's. ‘Wow,’ they'd say. ‘You just sounded kinda like my great uncle Mushin... Weird…’

Kagome flushed, embarrassed by her mistake and back-pedaled a little. "Oh... Uh... It's not like I can read all of it... Just a bit... Enough to tell it’s a record of financial transactions."

When the realtor continued to look at her curiously, she remembered her past experience and muttered a little dryly, "my great uncle Mushin taught me."

The older woman nodded in understanding and appeared satisfied with the explanation, much to Kagome’s relief. She put the book back and peaked under a few of the other sheets, thinking that perhaps some of it could be sold to pay for the work she'd need to do on the house. There was a wide, low desk with a faded silk sitting cushion beneath it. A case of disintegrating brushes and a pot of dried out cake of black ink was tucked in the drawer.

There were several book cases and crates full of more scrolls and ledgers, and the realtor—who was thoroughly enjoying their exploration, found a large drawer that seemed to contain hand-drawn blueprints, the edges of which had been chewed on by mice. It was fascinating to Kagome especially, who could read all of it with no trouble. Something in her knew, though, that she’d never sell the cabinet with the wolf paintings. Something about it was familiar, and comforting in a way she couldn't quite put her finger on.

Both women were filthy by the time they got the silk covers back in place and Kagome felt her eyes and nose itching with the dust. The realtor led her through a few spare rooms; most of a decent size, and then a few that were much smaller and likely had been servant's quarters. The windows in these were much smaller and they didn’t have exterior doors to the garden like the larger rooms.

Most of the house seemed to be empty and Kagome wondered why the large study had been left intact. The majority of the rooms were devoid of all but dust and memories of empty years, however, there was one more room on the lower level that contained something more. Through a door in the back wall of the large sitting room, they entered another room about the same size, if perhaps a little more narrow.  As they entered, Kagome could see a door at the far end that led into the front hall, making the three rooms into a big circle.

The floors had creaked and shifted a bit under foot, as all old wooden floors do, but here they nearly seemed to moan and cry under Kagome’s slight weight. She glanced nervously at the realtor who shrugged and said, "mostly, the structure itself is in good condition for the lack of attention its received, but there are a few places that might need to be reinforced. We'll go upstairs in a moment and I'll show you. This--" she said, waving a hand at the space," was a formal dining room, or so we think, based on architectural history around the time it was built."

Tucked against one wall, there were several mounds and shapes under large silken drop cloths that turned out to be a long, low, solid dining table, a few odds and ends of furniture including two armoires and something that looked oddly like an old weapons rack to Kagome’s practiced eye. There were several stacks of crates that were nailed shut and a few large (and half rotted) area rugs rolled up in the corner behind it all. Twice more, both women stopped and backed away from a spot when the floor seemed to complain more than normal.

A steep flight of wide stairs was found behind a wall at the far end of the dining room, leading to the second floor. The top of the stairs opened onto a tight space that held nothing but a single wall with a large set of wooden doors carved beautifully with the same images of an enormous wolf, this time in a night sky of clouds and a crescent moon. The large rings at waist level used to pull the sliding doors open were made of bone, just as the cabinet downstairs. Kagome realized as she grasped them that they were solid pieces, and she paused for a moment to wonder what kind of animal they had been taken from, that had bones so large.

She glanced at the realtor, who smiled, now looking a bit excited as she said, “go ahead, open them.”

As she pulled on the doors, she found they were very heavy, the wood slightly warped, and she had to put more muscle into it than she’d anticipated. As one of them slid back, she felt that strange sense of peculiar demon presence shift against her and she stopped, frowning and looking around, reaching out with her power to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake.

Was there a demon here? She hadn’t seen demons often in the city, and when she had they were rarely strong ones; nothing like them could produce something like what she was feeling. Often they were hanyu, like Inuyasha had been. Something in her twisted painfully and she shook herself. She couldn’t think of Inuyasha. He wasn’t thinking of her, after all. After all they’d been through together, he hadn’t wanted her.

No, she decided… whatever it was, it didn’t feel like a malevolent possession, demon or otherwise. It troubled her that she couldn’t understand it, couldn’t figure out what it was that pulled at her senses; but even at those odd moments when it seemed to pulse against her, it was muted and slothful, as if a great something was turning in its sleep with a frown or a sigh. What set her at ease was that, whatever it was, it didn’t feel threatening. Well… no, that wasn’t it. It felt like it could be threatening, but that it wasn’t a threat to her. It was odd, to say the least.

The realtor looked over at the young woman, clutching the bone door handle and asked, “are you alright, Ms. Higurashi? Is the dust getting to you?”

Kagome came back to the here and now with a thump and shook herself, smiling at the other woman. “No, I’m fine. I’m sorry, I was just… thinking about how heavy these doors are. I’d probably just leave them open. They’re beautiful, I wouldn’t want to damage them.”

The realtor nodded in understanding and the two of them walked into a large space that had more cloth-covered shapes pushed against the left-side wall. A large section of the right side of the room was marked off with what had once been bright orange tape—now faded a weak peach color from years of sunlight pouring in the large windows on either side of the room. The corners of it curled up, the adhesive losing tack in the damp cold.

“That area there is unsafe to walk on,” the realtor warned her. “When the previous owner had people in to inspect the place, they found that the joists beneath the floor needed to be replaced.” She looked a little apprehensive and added, “frankly, it’s amazing that part of the floor is still intact, if it was that weak back in the eighties.”

The older woman sighed and fixed her ‘sales’ smile firmly in place. “Still, it should be alright as long as you stay to the far right side. The paperwork I pulled said that was all safe.”

Kagome chewed her lip for a moment, wondering if she was taking her life in her hands to satiate her curiosity. But then, it would hardly be the first time. Despite her fears, however, the boards seemed solid and she tugged the edges of the dust cloths to find a large futon with a broken wood frame and half the padding leaking out through holes in the mattress where mice had found it.

She wrinkled her nose and let the cloth fall again, guessing that if she looked closer, she’d find a clan of very happily warm mouse families had made homes in the thing. It would have to go, and she made a mental note to call an exterminator and see what it would cost for someone to come do a basic pest control work-over of the place. Perhaps she would get a cat… then she remembered the farm fields and the forests all around her potential new home. Perhaps she would get several cats. Poor Buyo was long gone, and anyway, he’d been so fat and lazy that he’d have been no help in this situation.

Kagome sighed and moved on to find another large armoire, three locked cedar trunks and a few rolled up rugs, one of which seemed to be an enormous animal skin with thick fur poking out of the ends.In the center of the floor, about five feet from the nearest taped off section was a large square fire pit, likely used to heat this big open space in the winter. There was a strange wood cut of sorts directly over the stone pit, likely to serve for smoke ventilation. She pulled on a sliding panel door at the far wall to see a long, narrow room beyond, also running the full width of the house. Several stands, stood in a jumble at one end. They were made of some kind of light colored wood and reminded her a bit of sewing mannequins.

When she tried to pull the sliding panel shut again, part of the frame stuck in the track and there was an unsettling splintering sound. She looked guiltily at the real estate agent but the older woman only smiled and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. With the amount of fixing to be done here, I doubt it makes much difference. Do you want to see the grounds? There’s a secret out there that happens to be what sold the man who bought it in the eighties.”

Kagome followed the realtor out one of the sliding doors in the sitting room, into the back garden. At the bottom of the wide steps lay a stone path that was only barely visible through the grass and weeds. A hike along this winding path led through the long, dry brown grass and took them out about 30 yards from the house. There, the path turned abruptly right, and was reduced to more of a deer track through the brush running along an irrigation ditch. They made their way forward for several minutes, embraced by the shushing whispers of dry hay in the breeze.

Kagome looked out across the field to their left when a group of birds, spooked by their noise, flew burst out of the tall grass and winged their way into the sky across scudding cloud cover. This area looked like farm land that had been let go, allowed to become wild again. She wrapped her sweater clad arms around herself in the cold wind and remarked, “quite a hike from the house, this must be some perk if the guy was so excited about it.”

The realtor, who was marching along quite nimbly despite her attire and age, smiled over her shoulder and gave Kagome a wink. “Oh, it is. I sometimes wish I had such a place available for my own private use. We’re almost there.”

She waved a hand out at the overgrown field and offered, “all this land for about two miles around the structure is part of this property; it all comes with the house. Originally a great deal of the land in this area was all owned by the home’s builder. There was another legal stipulation that this much of it was to be kept whole and could not be sectioned into separate parcels, though if you buy the house you may soon have farmers from the village making you an offer. It’s very good land and we’ve seen some interest in it, but they never wanted the house or the land directly around it, so our hands were tied.”

“You can’t sell it, but I could?” Kagome asked, ready to jump on the idea. She’d need the money and it wasn’t like she was about to start a full scale farming operation all by her little lonely self.

The realtor nodded, glancing at Kagome over her shoulder as she explained. “Yes. A private party owner could section the land and do what they wish with it. Our real estate holding cannot. It’s part of the legal tenets laid down a very long time ago-- the stipulations under which it was originally sold by T. Mitsubishi Corporate.

“Hm,” Kagome said, thoughtfully. “How did Mitsubishi come to sell it? Did the original owner will it to them or something? Or did he owe them money?” She was curious, but it didn’t surprise her that the place had once been under the umbrella for T. Mitsubishi; everyone knew they were the largest financial group in Japan, and the second largest bank holding company.

True to her word, the realtor led Kagome to the tree line where the forest had grown up along the field. Vines, dry and brown for the winter clung to tall, thick trees; and the track became a little wider, as if it was more often traveled here by the local wild life. “Are we going into the woods?” Kagome asked, curiously. She was beginning to wish she’d grabbed her coat from her car before they’d left the house.

“Not really,” the older woman said, gesturing ahead and to the right. “It’s just through there. See those rocks?”

Kagome narrowed her eyes a little, peering through the trees at what looked like large boulders jutting up out of the earth. Several huge trees grew crooked around them, marking the fact that they had been there for a very long time. Then the heavy, humid, mineral smell hit her, and Kagome knew what it was. Her booted feet felt lighter as she jogged forward, a grin on her face. Climbing up onto a stone, she peered around a larger rock at the hot spring laid out in the small clearing.

Part of her wished she could shed all her clothes and jump in. It had been so long since she’d last been in a wild spring like this. Technically, she thought, it had been about 520-something years. The realtor was standing on the ground next to her rock when Kagome turned back and asked, “really? This is all part of the property belonging to the house?”

The older woman nodded, smiling in the face of Kagome’s excitement. “It is. Yes.”

Kagome hopped down off the rock after another longing look at the waters and sighed. She wanted to say, ‘I’ll take it NOW, all of it!’ but she knew that would be the height of irresponsible behavior. She would have to have a building inspector come out to look at the house and give her the full run-down of all its ‘quirks’ and problems; and figure up what it would take to make the place livable—and whether that was in the realm of possibility. After she had that information, she could either resign herself to the fact that it was too good to be true, or do her happy dance. It had been a long time since she’d last had a reason for a happy dance, and it was long overdue.

****

“Kagome, are you sure about this? It can’t be safe…”

A week later, Mrs. Higurashi stood next to her daughter’s car in the long, muddy driveway of the old house, situated far back from the highway among a half-hearted copse of tall pines. Her expression was slightly horrified as she turned to Kagome, who was walking up the path towards the entrance. The young woman turned back and nodded. “Yes! Mama, the inspector said it was still in very good shape in most of the important places. He said as long as I stay to the lower level until I can get the upstairs floors fixed, it’s safe enough.”

Her mother looked at her doubtfully, “safe enough… that you’ll only break one leg instead of two? For goodness sake, there’s no phone line, no electricity, what will you do if there’s an emergency? How would you call for help? We’re over an hour away the shrine.”

“Mama I have a cell phone and I get service out here just fine. I can keep it charged by plugging it into my car charger whenever I go out. The village is less than a half hour away. I’ll be looking for work there anyway. Please, come look, you’ll see what I mean.” Kagome turned begging eyes on her. Mrs. Higurashi sighed heavily and followed after her. It had been a very long time since Kagome had been this enthusiastic about anything.

This whole plan sounded utterly insane to her, but for Kagome, she’d take a look. The poor girl had worked so hard, had helped so many people; had given up so much for something no one else would ever understand. She deserved to be happy, and if this broken down patch of nowhere would do that, Mrs. Higurashi would at least consider the idea. Not for the first time, she wished that she’d had the money to pay for her daughter to retake the entry exams and go to University, but the simple fact of the matter was that she didn’t.

Kagome took the key the Real Estate office had loaned her that morning,unlocked the big front door, and the two of them stepped in. Rain was beginning to patter down outside as they closed the cold rain out and Kagome led her mother into the small kitchen. “I’ll clean this up first and set up camp in here until I can get the rest of the house in better shape. Even then, I won’t be using the whole thing. There’s just too much of it, but it’s cheap. No one else wants to be way out here. The bordering properties are a ways out and they’re all farms.”

Kagome conveniently decided to leave out the mysterious disappearance of the home’s builder and the subsequent owners’ sudden need to be rid of the place and far away. She thought it was likely they could feel the undercurrent of energy that hung about the place and found it unsettling. It had disturbed her a bit too at first, but the second and third time she’d been out here, it had felt less and less like something to be worried about.

It didn’t feel like anything was hiding just upstairs, waiting to come out of the walls and eat her. From all she could tell, this feeling could be from something that had lived in the area a very long time ago, and had left residual magic behind when it died or left. That sort of thing wasn’t terribly uncommon. There were several places in the city where she’d run into situations like that. It was a part of life. She’d actually decided it was nice to be able to feel someone else’s magic. It made her feel less alone and reminded her that the part of her that was special was still alive and well, if perpetually out of use.

Mrs. Higurashi studied the large fire pit and had to admit that it looked very well constructed. She worked the handle on the old water pump up and down, and though it squeaked, after half a dozen pumps it produced a splash of water that looked almost clean and smelled right. Kagome jumped in to reassure her. “The pipes are old, but the inspector said they should be okay as long as I have someone run a snake through them. He told me he has a friend that can do that, I have his number. There’s probably some roots creeping in because it’s been so long. The good thing is that the line that runs from the well doesn’t run back into the forest and there are only a handful of trees around the house, so hopefully it’s not too bad.”

Mrs. Higurashi tried to work her face into something that resembled acceptance and followed Kagome through the rest of the house. At the end of her tour, she had to admit that it was a neat old house, if in great disrepair. The kitchen end where Kagome intended to make her home-- at least initially, seemed in good condition apart from the potential pipe issues. And she could close those doors, light a fire and stay warm without having to worry about the rest of the house. Thought there wasn’t electricity, the well was in good shape and at least there was indoor plumbing and running water. There was even a flushing toilet in a water closet built into the closer end of the sitting room.

The garden did have great potential, and she had confidence that Kagome knew how to work that to her greatest advantage. Between her own years teaching her daughter at the shrine and the time she’d spent among farming villages in the Edo period, Kagome knew more than your average young woman of Tokyo how to plant corn, potatoes, beans and carrots, among other things.

They were standing in the sitting room looking out one of the open doors at that overgrown yard, watching the light rain when Kagome remembered something else. She tapped the floor with her toe and said, “the inspector said he tested the foundation and it was all strong, but that he thought there might be a basement of some kind under this part of the house. He said that it had probably been sealed off for some reason because he couldn’t find an entrance anywhere.”

Mrs. Higurashi thought about that and offered, “it might be some kind of root cellar for food storage. That’s what they used sometimes back before everybody had refrigerators. Storing supplies underground can make it last longer. Maybe when we get the grounds cleaned up we’ll find a door somewhere in the yard. Usually a trap door or something would be near the kitchen.”

Kagome grinned. Her mother had said ‘when’ they got the grounds cleaned up. She was warming up to the idea. Once Kagome showed her the hot spring Mrs. Higurashi was starting to honestly see the appeal of the place, even if it was sort of a filthy mess right now. “And there’s lots of room, so once things are straightened, we can set one of the rooms up so you and Souta can come out on weekends when you want to and stay to visit and use the spring. What do you think?”

Mrs. Higurashi thought long and hard, her eyes turned out to the filling puddles and the dark clouds over the old fields. Finally she nodded once and said, “alright. If this is really what you want. I say go for it… AS LONG as you can find work in the village. I’d go make sure of that first. This place has been sitting here this long, so it’ll still be here after you find a job. You don’t want to sink your savings into this place and then lose it because you can’t keep up with the rest of the payments, even if they aren’t asking much.

Kagome jumped forward and hugged her mother tightly, truly excited about something for the first time in years. It was time to do a happy dance. She’d found herself a home… she could belong here.

****

It was only the work of a few days to fill out half a dozen applications and ask around the small town nearby before Kagome met with a kind old woman who ran the local grocery market. Mio Ishikawa was a widower whose children had grown and moved into the city with families of their own. She had lost the two part-time high school kids she’d had working for her in the late summer when they’d left for University.

It turned out that Mrs. Ishikawa needed help in the shop, stocking, cleaning, running the register, and keeping a general eye on the place. It was only Mio and one other woman in her mid-50s running the place and it was a simple case of needing an extra pair of hands. Kagome was happy to be that pair of hands-- especially when she found out it would give her a 20% discount on her own groceries. At this point she was just happy to find a job with halfway decent pay; and the decrease in food costs could only help the budget she was going to have to suck in tight as it was.

In a week, she’d signed the papers and the house was hers-- or at least… as hers as it would be until she’d made the final payment to the bank, anyway. With her salary at the market, and barring any major crisis, she would have it paid off in about 8 years… which wasn’t half bad, all things considered. Living as lean as she was, she could get the house fixed up in that time and still pay the bills.

****

Souta, now 17 years old, coughed again and rubbed his eyes as he leaned on his broom. “I don’t think I’ve seen this much dust in all my life sis. I’m going to be blind and you can explain to my teachers why I can’t do my homework.”

Kagome rolled her eyes, but smiled as she poked her brother in the side with the end of her own broom before she went back to work. Mrs. Higurashi and Souta had come out for the weekend to help Kagome get the little kitchen area under control so she had a clean place to sleep and eat while she got everything else started. Her little brother had been stunned at first, but had quickly decided that he liked the place, even if he didn’t like the idea of Kagome living way out here all alone.

Souta had always been protective of his sister; those tendencies had increased as he’d gotten older, and especially after Kagome had returned through the ancient Bone Eater’s well four years ago, covered in cuts and bruises, weary from the battle field. She’d never talked about what had happened with anyone but her mother. All Souta knew was she’d been exhausted and injured, but this time she’d never gone back to the feudal era. Once or twice, he’d seen her trying to make the journey and had listened from outside as she cried in the bottom of the old well house. It seemed that the decision to stay permanently in her own time from now on hadn’t been one she’d had a choice in.

Mrs. Higurashi had told him how rural and remote the area was, and Souta had come prepared. He’d showed Kagome a power bank that he’d brought out with them, strapped safely in the passenger seat of the family car. It was a black, boxy looking thing about 12 inches tall and 8 inches wide with an industrial plastic handle on top. “This thing holds a decent amount of electricity to keep your phone charged. If you start running music, or a laptop or something off of it, it’ll drain it fast, but there’s a gage here on the side that will show you how much juice you have left. When it gets low, you can see if they’ll let you charge it at work while you’re on shift or you can run it back to the house at the shrine and charge it at home.”

Mrs. Higurashi smiled and teased her. “That way you’ll remember to come visit us on a regular basis.”

Kagome rolled her eyes, smiling, but gave her brother a look. “You didn’t have to do that Souta, but thanks.”

“You’re not staying out here with no way for us to contact you. It’s just common sense sis. Get over it,” he said with a shrug.

She thanked him and admitted, if only to herself, that he and her mother were right. It would be a relief to have a bit of power just in case she needed it. Her mother had also packed several tanks of propane and a small, two burner stove into the car… despite Kagome’s assurances that she was happy to just use the fire pit. Mrs. Higurashi reminded her that there would likely be days she didn’t feel good, or was very tired after work, and that a more modern way to heat up something to eat would be a good idea when she didn’t want to deal with the more arduous process of old fashioned food prep.

Souta had driven the small trailer Kagome had rented to haul all of her things out to the house and they’d gotten to work. It was a cool day, but not so chilly that they couldn’t throw all the windows open while they swept out piles of dust and debris. Everything in the kitchen was wiped down several times until their cloths came away clean. Kagome and her mother divided the space to scrub the wood floors until they gleamed while Souta spent some time in the back garden pulling together a pile of wood and kindling.

The women came out to sit on the step and wait for the floor to dry and Souta put down his axe. Gesturing at the pile of large hunks of wood he’d dragged out of the trees, he said, “you’re going to need a hammer and wedge to get that lot cut. If you can, leave it for me to do when I come out to visit.”

Kagome and her mother exchanged glances and smiled. “Oh, yes of course,” Kagome said, teasing. “Because you’re a big strong man now and itty bitty old me can’t do it?”

Souta smirked and let out an amused snort that reminded her distantly of Inuyasha, the half demon that the boy had nearly idolized when he was younger. Her brother had picked up a few of his mannerisms over the years from the times her half-demon friend had come to visit, usually with the goal of getting her back through the well to his time faster. Souta didn’t likely realize he did this, and she didn’t hold it against him; but it still made her heart hurt a little in the face of the reminder. Her family home was full of those constant reminders, and having her own new space would help her not to feel that sadness so acutely, or so she hoped.

While Mrs. Higurashi went into the village to pick up a few pizzas, Kagome and Souta worked together to cut more wood. Souta pointed to the chilly gray rain clouds in the distance and said, “you know, since the rest of the house is a mess at the moment anyway, how about we take what we have and stack it inside the door to the sitting room, against that inside wall? Then it’ll stay dry and you won’t have to come outside for it.”

Kagome thought about it, and when she seemed hesitant, he reminded her that the small amount they’d managed to prepare wouldn’t last her long and would likely be gone long before she got to cleaning out the sitting room anyway. This made sense, so Kagome agreed, having a great deal of first-hand knowledge about the difficulties of starting fires with rain-soaked wood.

They’d moved nearly all the wood inside by the time night had fully fallen and the headlights of the family car could be seen coming down the old dirt road. “Yes!” Souta cried, tossing down his logs. “Food!”

The little family of three sat on the floor in Kagome’s newly clean, if bare kitchen and ate their pizza with paper napkins, sipping from water bottles and feeling satisfied with a day of good work. Kagome put together a fire in the pit to fight back the chill and they hauled in their sleeping bags and pillows. Souta even pulled out a battery operated lantern. Mrs. Higurashi admitted that, despite her reservations, they hadn’t spent time together accomplishing something quite like this in a long time, and there was a sense of satisfaction in it that was almost fun. Once they closed the interior door to the kitchen, the heat from the fire warmed the place nicely and it was almost cozy.

They all looked up to the ceiling as thunder rolled and the rain began to drum on the roof above them. Exchanging glances, Kagome knew they were all thinking the same thing and she reassured them with a smile. “Well the bathroom might still be a little grody, but the roof is in solid condition. The real estate company that was holding the property had to put a new one on it after a bad storm about ten years ago. It was pouring the day I was here with the inspector and we didn’t see a leak anywhere.”

Her mother looked relieved, offering her a small smile as she said, “and we can work on the bathroom more tomorrow. I think it’ll be fine once we can give it a better scrub down.” With that said and their stomachs full, they all snuggled down in their sleeping bags to talk for another hour before the long day caught up with them and they slept.

**** SU11.15.15

The next morning they made due with granola bars for breakfast and did a little more scrubbing. Later, everything was hauled in from the trailer without tracking too much mud across the front hall. Most of her things were piled against the wall in the kitchen for Kagome to deal with later once her family had gone home. The rain had finally moved on and last part of the afternoon was spent hiking around the grounds. Kagome took her mother and Souta out to the forest past the old field to see the spring.

She hadn’t told them about this part, but had wanted to keep it for a surprise, and she smiled at the looks on their faces. Souta whooped and striped to his shorts in a matter of seconds to jump into the steamy water. Kagome and her mother sat on a large stone and Mrs. Higurashi nodded approvingly. “Okay my dear,” she sighed. “The place looks like it will clean up well-- with a LOT of work, and having a spring of your very own is an absolute gift. I suppose I see why you like this place.”

Souta floated on his back and said, “I’m coming out to chop some wood again next weekend. I’ll have killer abs AND get to soak afterwards. By next spring I could be totally cut.”

Kagome rolled her eyes and groaned. “Lovely, we’ll have to beat the ladies off him with a stick… until they smell his socks anyway. Still, if he wants to chop my fire wood I suppose I shouldn’t complain.” Her mother burst into laughter and when Souta looked slightly insulted she just shrugged and said, “well… it might be true. You could change those socks a little more often.”

Kagome grinned and kept poking fun. “I don’t think it would help Mama. I think all teenage boys are just smelly. If we’re lucky he might grow out of it.” Souta splashed her and they squealed with laughter as they tried to scoot out of range.

It wasn’t long before it was time for Souta and Mrs. Higurashi to leave for home. The trip was a little more than an hour and a half to get back to the shrine from way out here, once traffic was accounted for; and Souta had school in the morning. Mondays will insist on coming every week no matter our druthers.

Kagome hugged them both and thanked them profusely for all their help. “No worries, this was fun-- like camping, but with a roof and pizza,” Souta laughed. “We’ll try and come next weekend to do some more cleaning, maybe.”

Kagome’s mother hugged her again and said, “have a good first day at work tomorrow, and call me when you get home to tell me all about it okay? Promise?”

Kagome smiled and hugged her back. “I promise. I’m sure it’ll all be fine. Thanks again Mama. Love you guys.”

And within a few minutes, Kagome found herself alone in her new home for the very first time. She spent her evening unpacking and trying to put things away. There were a few shelves and she found her mother had bought her a few bags of groceries and stacked them onto the top shelf without her realizing. Moms were sneaky that way, she supposed, and the thought made her smile.

She took a basic inventory so she could make a list of what she needed to bring home from work tomorrow. As she shifted things around, she found her list was a short one, thanks to her mother’s generosity. There were several boxes of cereal, a large container of oatmeal, a bag each of brown and white sugar, an enormous bag of rice she expected would last her until the end of next summer, several packs of rice noodles, jars of chicken and beef bouillon, vanilla and some of the basics for pan baking and spices, a small case of pre-made canned soups and a bag of fruit. Kagome’s eyes were a little wet for a moment and she texted her mother. ‘Just saw the load of dry goods. Thank you so much. You didn’t have to do that.’

Within a minute her phone pinged with a return message and she smiled. ‘Mom’s driving, this is Souta. She says consider it a housewarming gift. Call if you need anything sis. Cool place.’

With a contented sigh she set her phone on the old wooden counter top and started unpacking boxes and putting things away. She’d made rounds to second-hand shops to find what she needed for very little money, and was satisfied with her purchases. An old set of dishes, four place settings minus two broken salad plates was set on another of her kitchen shelves a few spaces below the groceries. A few food containers, a platter and her utensils found a home just below them.

Laundry baskets were tucked into the tall shelf at the bottom level, cleaning supplies stacked on the floor with her bucket beneath the old stone sink and pump. She’d spent some money on a set of plastic Rubbermaid drawers to tuck some of her most often used clothes into, and a small dry-cleaning stand to go next to it so she could hang a few things up. It wasn’t much, but it did the job. Everything else stayed folded in her large steamer trunk, and she set her mirror up atop its lid to serve as a working vanity where she laid out her few cosmetics, hairbrush and elastics. This way, at least she’d know she looked decent before she left for work every day.

She had a hair dryer, radio and other such items, but there was no reason to unpack them right away with nowhere to use them. Her laptop fit in the large tote purse she carried around with her, and she thought she could just stop at the library in the village to charge and use it when she wanted to. Shoving her boxes of books and such aside for the moment, she found what she was looking forward to the most. There had been one item she’d spent real money on, as she’d known she would be sleeping on the floor in the tiny kitchen for what was likely to be a long time. A thick memory foam pad had set her back about 1500 yen but she was sure it would be well worth it. The sleeping pad expanded as she tore it from the plastic wrap and let it unroll itself.

Once she had the foam pad laid down as close to the softly crackling fire pit as was safe, she made up her bed, happy to see that the sheets from the twin mattress at the shrine fit the foam pad. Okay… so the fitted sheet was pretty loose, but she could live with that. It wasn’t like she was trying to impress anybody, after all. Tossing her two pillows on top of the fluffy comforter, she eyed the fire and decided that after her first paycheck, she might purchase a standing metal screen like what people used in front of fire places, just to be safe. The last thing she wanted was to wake up with her bedding on fire when a log split and threw sparks.

The little bathroom was old fashioned but serviceable; and thanks to her mother’s help, clean as a whistle. At least the builder of the house had added the extra plumbing for a sink that had only just begun to come into style around the turn of the century. Kagome took her toiletry bag with her and as she was brushing her teeth, flashlight standing up on the short wooden counter, she realized what she hadn’t quite figured out yet. She’d seen a nice old wooden tub upstairs in the master suite, and another, much smaller one at the end of the hall where the smaller bedrooms were, but the upstairs wouldn’t be safe for quite some time, and the downstairs was still a wreck everywhere but the little kitchen and bathroom.

She sighed and resigned herself to sponge baths for a few days until she could come up with a solution. She didn’t want to fork out the money to install a modern bath tub yet. Who was she kidding? It wasn’t a matter of ‘want to.’ She simply didn’t have it. When she was done brushing her teeth, she wrapped her sweater around herself, flashlight in hand, and picked her way down the long, skinny central hallway that ran between the big sitting room and dining rooms, all the way to the lower level bedrooms at the other end of the house.

As the dusty floors creaked beneath her feet, she tried not to think about the potential creepy-factor of being alone in this big old place at night. The darkness was complete in this inner hall where there was no access to windows or starlight, and she bit down on her lip. Pausing in the hall, just about at the center of the house, she noted a faint pulse in that residual demon energy that seemed to live here.

‘I am such an idiot.’ She thought. ‘What if this place IS possessed by some ancient weasel demon or something and it’s only been waiting for a chance to catch me alone and eat me?! How does that line go? For you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup…’ She shook her head at her own silliness, letting out a soft chuckle, as much to reassure herself as anything else. ‘No Kagome, that’s dragons. There’s no dragons here… surely they would have started sneezing by now with all the dust and alerted you to their presence... if there were dragons, I suppose I might charge them rent.’

Kagome shook herself and started walking again. That was nonsense. Whatever this was, it didn’t feel like a weasel demon… or a dragon… or anything of the sort for that matter. It had been strong at one time, but was now only a whisper of its original self, and it belonged here. She could tell that much. Beyond that, it almost seemed to recognize her magic, sliding against her every now and then as if it were a dog at the foot of her bed, stretching in its sleep and settling again. Despite the occasional moment of unease this all caused her, it mostly made her feel less alone, so she wasn’t inclined to try and dispel whatever it was so long as it caused her no trouble.

As she turned left down another hallway and made her way to the corner of the house, she wondered how often other people might feel this power. Others-- especially ones without the experience with demons that she had, might find it more unsettling, even frightening. Maybe this was the cause for all the stories about the house being haunted? She hoped that’s all it was. She didn’t care to be living with real ghosts.

The door to the smaller guest or servant bathroom (she wasn’t sure which, perhaps it served as both) slid open with a grating complaint, and she resolved to just leave it open for now. The last thing she needed was more broken doors. There was a set of medium sized windows set high in the exterior wall on the right, but as the moon was new (a human moon, as she’d forever think of it after her days with Inuyasha) these provided no real illumination. Her flashlight beam showed her the dusty old tub and a sort of wood and metal contraption alongside it that Kagome knew was meant for a small fire to heat the water.

After a cursory examination she decided it was more work and trouble than it was worth to try and use the small furnace. She had to set the flashlight down, pointed at the ceiling, and use both hands to haul on the long water pump’s handle. It was stiff and screeched in protest, having settled into the long years of disuse. But finally a gush of water spilled from the spout into the tub. She pulled on it several more times, thinking she’d have better muscles in future after filling a tub this way regularly. It took more work than the small pump in the kitchen sink.

Picking up her light again she pointed it down at the water. She wrinkled her nose and sighed. With all the dirt that had settled in the tub it was impossible to tell anything. She’d have to look at it again in daylight after she cleaned the tub out. No doubt the water was freezing, and she didn’t like the potential for accidents if she had to carry big pans of boiling water all the way across the house. No, this wouldn’t do at all.

With another heavy sigh she pulled the ancient stopper from the bottom of the tub and watched the dusty water drain away. If she could just find a tub big enough for her to climb into, she could keep it in the kitchen and fill it there every couple of days, alternately from the pump and with boiling water from the fire pit. Then it hit her and she grinned like an idiot. She could bath in the spring! ‘Duh Kagome,’ she thought. ‘It’s not as if you haven’t done it a million times.’

It was sort of a hike from the house, and she’d probably smell a little of the minerals in the water, but she didn’t particularly mind that and the scent tended to fade after a few hours. Nobody would notice it unless they were practically wrapped around her, and if they were that close, either they needed to back off or they’d both already decided the way she smelled wasn’t an issue. Her cheeks pinked a little at the thought and she smiled again. She was being ridiculous. She wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, and all her close female friends were either gone or so busy with their adult lives that they’d mostly left her behind.

Pleased with her decision, she marched back through the house and closed the kitchen door behind her. Changed into flannel pajamas, she crept into bed and snuggled down into the blankets. After making sure her alarm was set for 7 a.m., she drifted off to sleep in the soft glow of the fire, listening to the wind surge across the dark countryside.

****