InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Nowhere to Go But Up/Demon in the Basement ❯ Enter Tamotsu, Conversation with an Old Friend, and Village Hear-Say ( Chapter 2 )

[ 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.

Also, apologies to all about the strange business with the italicized text in chapter one. (Hopefully it hasn’t happened with this chapter as well.) The formatting was not treated that way in my rtf document, and I’ve emailed Mediaminer for help with the issue (fat lot of good that’s done me). If anyone knows of a way to fix it, drop me a line.

Also, as of January 29, 2016, anyone who came back to this chapter because they got an update notice on it – no worries, I just corrected some grammar mechanics and typos- no story changes.

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MO11.16.15 (dateline primarily for writer’s use, don’t mind these)

Kagome woke almost an hour before her alarm went off. The fire had nearly died and the room was so chilly that her nose felt half frozen on her face. She groaned and burrowed down under her blankets, blocking out the gray light of the dawn coming in the windows. Finally, acknowledging that it would take her a bit to develop a sense of how big she needed to build the fire at night, she crawled out of bed and stuck her feet into booted slippers.

Wrapped in an old sweatshirt, she was grateful now that Souta had thought of moving the wood into the house. A peek out the window showed her that a heavy frost coated the quiet world outside. After she’d grabbed several small logs and kindling, she rushed back into the kitchen, which was still warmer than the rest of the house, thank goodness. As she rebuilt a fire on the remaining coals, she made a mental note to stack enough wood for the next morning inside the kitchen door each night. Then she wouldn’t have to leave her warm sanctuary until she was good and ready.

She put water and oatmeal in a pot to heat over the edge of the fire and got dressed in warm layers before she made a quick trip to the bathroom. By the time she got back the oatmeal was almost ready. After slicing an apple into her dish she sat on her bed and had her first breakfast in her new home. Even if it was only a small thing, she felt accomplished.

Thanks to her early wakeup, she still had an hour and a half to kill before she needed to leave for work. After some consideration, she decided it was a good thing. If she hurried, she could wash her hair and there would be enough time for it to mostly dry before she made it to work. She felt a little grimy from all the cleaning anyway; and if she was honest with herself, too dirty to be showing up for her first day at a new job. A sponge bath just wouldn’t cut it.

Moving quickly, she gathered a fresh set of clothes and shoved them into her pack, along with her toiletry bag. She paused briefly, experiencing a slightly surreal moment. This was the same huge yellow pack she’d hauled with her for five years all over ancient Japan. It had a few holes now, and the clothes were different, but how many times had she shoved this same toiletry bag, the same comb and shampoo bottle into this pack and headed off to a hot spring?

This time it was different. This time, she was in the era she belonged to, no matter how displaced she sometimes felt. Also… this time she was alone. There would be no Inuyasha charging in after her if she took too long bathing. There would be no Miroku sneaking around trying to catch a peek at her naked body. There would be no Sango to relax and chat with. There would be no Shippo begging to come with her, wanting to know is she still had the toy boat she’d brought him. A twinge of painful longing for the friends she’d shared so much with shot through her and left her breathless for a moment.

She pulled the gargantuan yellow backpack up onto the counter and dumped everything out of it, suddenly in a hurry. Kagome had realized that between one thing and another, she’d never fully unpacked this bag since she’d returned last from the feudal era. Frantically, she searched through the detritus that had fallen to the bottom until she’d found what she was looking for.

The experience was both painful, and a relief at the same time when her fingers found the little hunk of blue plastic. She’d felt justified in bringing this one toy along for Shippo to play with during bath time, because it was small-- something she could easily make room for; and the kit had enjoyed it so much. Part of her felt guilty that she still had it, that she hadn’t left it behind with her little friend. But she hadn’t known she was leaving permanently that day when she’d set out, had she? That was all Inuyasha’s fault. This was a piece of solid evidence that all her memories of those years were not just elaborate delusions.  

Kagome had several scars from injuries she’d sustained over the course of their adventures, but there was little else she could hold onto as a reminder that such a big part of her life had been real and not a wonderful, terrible dream. This little boat was evidence that the tangled bits of hurt in her chest that never really disappeared weren’t entirely irrational.

She sniffed once, eyes damp, before she pulled herself together and glanced at the clock on her phone. Time was slipping away and she still had to hike out to the spring and back. Quickly, she repacked the bag, tucking the little boat onto the window sill in the brightening morning. There it could wink at her in the sunlight-- a silent companion that knew her secrets and promised her she wasn’t crazy.

Kagome found that if she hurried, it was only about a six minute walk to the spring and when she got there she fervently wished she had more time. ‘When you get home tonight you can soak as long as you want,’ she reminded herself. ‘After all, it’s your spring now, right?’

This made her smile and she braced herself for the cold. Leaving her things where she could reach them, she stripped quickly and slid into the hot water. Not wanting to be late to work, she washed up quickly. Afterward, she grabbed her towel and climbed out in the lea of two large stones. Here, at least some of the warmth coming off the water was trapped and the air was a bit less chilly. Making a mental note to bring a broom out with her to sweep off the flat bit of rock here, she wiped the small stones and dust from her feet with her towel before she pulled on socks and stuffed her feet in her knee-high brown boots. Fleeced black leggings, a green sweater dress and a thin brown belt completed her outfit.

Back at the house, she brushed out her long, damp hair. Then she plopped down on the end of her sleeping pallet and faced her makeshift vanity. After applying some moisturizer to her face, she put on a little powder, a touch of eyeliner and called herself presentable. She wasn’t one of those girls that spent an hour or more on their war paint every morning. A) It was more than she cared to do. B) She didn’t think she needed it. And C) That much makeup would cost her an arm and a leg anyway.

Pleased with her appearance, she gathered her things and glanced at the clock. It was still early, but not so early that it would be unreasonable for her to show up. Decision made, she grabbed her coat and purse, banked the fire and left for work.

Her old car was a clunker, no doubt, but it ran well enough and got her from point A to point B. A functional heating system, she’d decided, would have to be a sacrifice for now. She drove down the old dirt road and about 20 minutes up a highway so narrow that it was hard for two cars going the opposite direction to pass one another without somebody winding up in the ditch. ‘Small favors,’ she thought. ‘At least it’s not icy.’

A small bell rang over the glass door as she entered the small market. It chimed in a friendly way and the shop was warm and inviting on a fall morning. Kagome sniffed appreciatively. The place smelled like fresh produce and a spicy cinnamon scent she expected came from the steaming pot of tea on the front counter. There were dairy and produce refrigeration units lining two walls and four isle shelves running perpendicular to the front door, so that she could see down the pathways when she walked in. The checkout counter was to her immediate right, behind which there were a few shelves of alcohol and tobacco product.

Kagome walked past a few stands containing the most recent newspapers and magazines. She looked up from the headlines when Mio Ishikawa bustled out from the back room. The old woman emerged from a doorway behind the counter and smiled brightly. “Kagome, you’re early dear. That’s wonderful. Go ahead and drop your purse in the cabinet back here if that’s alright. It’s locked most of the time-- the key is kept up there behind the extra rolls of register paper. There’s a lot to do this-morning.”

Excited to get started and make a good impression, Kagome bowed respectfully and quickly did as she was told. Mio led her back into the small stock and receiving area in the back, explaining that they usually took in freight on Mondays and Thursdays early in the morning-- though the driver’s schedule was subject to change without notice, and that this was something Kagome would be taking care of whenever possible.

They spent the morning getting to know one another as Mio showed Kagome the best ways to stack a load of new product on a cart and wheel it out to the store front. The young woman did her best to memorize where everything was supposed to go, but resigned herself to the fact that working the register might take her a bit longer. She was frustrated the third time she had to clear a sale ticket and start the process over from the beginning again, apologizing profusely to the customer, a young woman with a little boy who was impatient to leave.

The woman was kind enough about the whole thing, and Mio smiled in a way that made it clear she was trying not to laugh. She patted Kagome on the shoulder. “You did just fine. It’s your first day; don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ll soon be able to do it blind.”

The bell chimed and several people walked in. An older couple in their 80s, a tired looking woman wearing a damp rain coat, and a young man with fair skin and… Kagome did a double-take… a long black fox tail tipped in silver sticking out of his britches. He had triangular ears atop a head of thick, unruly black hair, dark green strokes of color marking his cheek bones and piercing green eyes that looked… familiar, somehow. He was a demon, no doubt, but despite the way his eyes tugged at her memory, she was sure she hadn’t seen him before.

Those eyes met hers and she looked away immediately, feeling as if she’d been busted doing something wrong. Staring at a demon’s inhuman features was a quick way to get into trouble. Kagome had learned quickly that on this side of the well, there was a reason that today’s people didn’t believe in demons anymore. On the whole, the demons alive today did a remarkable job hiding in plain sight.

If they didn’t want humans to know what they were, she wasn’t about to give them a reason to think she might know something she shouldn’t. It was just a good sense of self preservation, considering their usual temperament where humans were concerned.

Kagome had always wondered at it, because it seemed that normal human beings couldn’t see the things she could-- tails, ears, claws, and many other oddities. There had been one instance where she’d been forced to get off the bus two stops early because she couldn’t keep from staring at an old man with red eyes and strange scaled tentacles creeping out from beneath his shirt. One of the tentacles reached out and wrapped around a metal pole to help stabilize him as the bus moved. Yet another tentacle appeared to feel around behind him to pull his cell phone from his bag. He’d had a dangerous air about him and the whole thing had sort of skeezed her out.

All the years she’d spent in the city before she’d fallen down the Bone Eater’s well, she’d never noticed these things, never seen these people who were so obviously extra-normal. She could only suppose the Shikon no Tama waking within her body caused her own magic to surge to the forefront, working a change in her senses. The first time she’d noticed this, she’d seen a wolf demon walking the streets as if she were nothing more than a normal woman-- a lawyer, of all things, based on her attire and the law offices she’d come out of.

Still only about 16 years old and on a short visit home for tests at school, Kagome had gaped at her, unable to believe what she was seeing. The demon had noticed her attention and stopped. After a glance left and right at the others on the street, she’d come over to Kagome, hauled her bodily into an ally, and backed her hard into a concrete wall, demanding to know what she was staring at. The pieces clicked into place a little too late in her mind. Nobody else on the street had noticed the woman’s fangs, pointed ears or tail.

When the woman had growled and flexed her claws, cutting a little into her arm, Kagome had let her magic pulse through her, just enough to give the wolf a shock. The she-wolf had dropped her and snarled, ready to come at her, but Kagome had thrown up her hands defensively and said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I’m not looking for any trouble. I’m just trying to find the public records office. Is it on this block?”

The demon had been so taken aback by the normalcy of the question, and by the fact that the teenage girl she’d man-handled was an active miko, that she’d actually answered her question instead of attacking her further. The two of them had exchanged looks of mutual wariness-- a clear agreement to go their separate ways and mind their own business. The woman had left Kagome with some bruises and scrapes, as well as a few things to ponder.

Now, Kagome did her best to keep her eyes averted from the young man with the black fox tail, but it wasn’t easy. He was dressed in jeans and an gray t-shirt with a faded band logo on the front, his feet shod in old black sneakers. When he stopped to talk to the old man at the end of one of the isles, she couldn’t help thinking he had a nice laugh. He was much taller than the old man and she’d watched him reach up to a top shelf to help him get a box of vanilla cookies. The old man seemed to know him well and patted the guy on the shoulder in thanks before they bid each other a good afternoon.

The demon had turned his head, one ear twitching, and their eyes met a second time. Again, Kagome dropped her gaze and immediately made her hands busy where she sat at the counter, sticking price tags to a pile of candy that was going onto a discount display. ‘Mind your eyes,’ she thought. ‘You’re going to get yourself into trouble, and it would be a shame to make a mess in Mrs. Ishikawa’s shop if that man decides to take offense. Just pretend he looks like everyone else.’

This wasn’t too difficult at first. For the next 10 minutes or so she kept her eyes firmly forward on her task at the counter. But, when the young man came to the register it was a real challenge to hold her course. His basket had some basic groceries: a few apples, several packages of chicken and beef, and a big stack of ramen noodles. She flashed him an uncertain smile, careful not to look directly at him as she unloaded his purchases and rang them up. She was doing so well, really, but then he started talking to her.

“Hey, you gotta be new here? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

Kagome glanced up, and was caught for half a moment by his soft, fuzzy black ears. Her heart squeezed a little and suddenly seemed to be located somewhere in her throat. Those ears were very much like Inuyasha’s, but the face beneath them was very different, and actually quite handsome-- not that Inuyasha hadn’t been good looking in his own way. This demon had green eyes that were striking and his fanged smile almost infectious.

She swallowed and looked away quickly, her hands a little unsteady as she tried to hit the right keys on the computer. He sounded friendly enough. All she had to do was talk without sounding like a moron… or  like someone who knew he was a demon and might need to be done away with. From what she could tell in her cursory examination, he had quite a bit of magic at his disposal-- but then, she reminded herself, many kitsune demons did. Their power was particularly well geared towards illusions and tricks, but it could be destructive if they set their mind to it.

“Yes,” she said softly. “I just moved out this way. You live here in the village?”

He didn’t answer right away and she glanced up out of the corner of her eye to see him watching her, ears tilted forward curiously. Kagome tried to calm down-- knowing that he could likely hear her higher than average heart rate. His nostrils flared, sampling her scent and his brows drew together slightly-- not an angry expression, but more concerned.

“Yeah, I’m Tamotsu. Nice to meet you…” He trailed off, waiting for her name and she realized that in the effort to cover for her dangerously clear sight, she was being rude. Looking at him again, she focused only on his eyes. With a slight bow of her head, she offered, “I’m sorry, I’m Kagome. It’s nice to meet you as well.”

His ears twitched and she couldn’t help tracking the movement. She cursed herself for an idiot and looked back at her register, finishing her total. She realized he actually had twelve packs of ramen and she smiled again. “Running low on the important stuff, hugh?”

He laughed that warm, friendly laugh again. “Yeah, gotta have my ninja food.”

Kagome froze in the process of loading his shopping into a bag and met his eyes again, stunned. “…what?” she asked, not sounding terribly intelligent.

Tamotsu grinned and shrugged. “Ninja food-- it’s what I call it… well, any starchy, salty, junk food. Sorry, I forget not everybody’s nuts like me.”

Slowly, she looked down at the ramen in her hand, a child’s voice from 500 years ago ringing in her ears. ‘Did you bring us more ninja food Kagome?’

There was silence for a moment before Tamotsu leaned closer to look up into her face. “You okay?”

She sucked in a deep breath and looked up. Not quite prepared for his close proximity, she stumbled back half a step. His frown deepened a little and he held up his hands. “Hey, it’s alright, I’m not going to bite.”

His ears drooped a little as he finally realized she was slightly afraid of him and Kagome felt like a jerk. He was being nothing but nice and she was acting like a total ninny. If anyone was nuts around here it was most likely to be her. Kagome cleared her throat and arranged a friendly expression again, stepping back up to the register. “Of course, I’m sorry. Did you find everything okay?”

The question mostly normalized the awkward pause but he eyed her for a moment, as if waiting to see if she might freak out or explode before he shrugged. “Yeah, been coming here for years. I actually help Mio unload freight some mornings if I’m around. I mean, she’s 75 years old-- she shouldn’t be hefting that stuff back and forth anymore.”

Mio’s voice called from the back room. “I heard my name out there. Is that you Tam?”

“It is, Ishikawa-sama! Good afternoon to you,” Tamotsu called, grinning at Kagome’s surprised face.

The old woman didn’t come out of the office, but shouted back, “the day I can’t carry my own rice is the day they can spread my ashes on the mountain. You keep that in mind. I can still chase after you, too, if it needs doing!”

Kagome’s smile widened and became less tense as he laughed and whispered confidentially. “I used to come in here when I was a kid and make like I was going to carry stuff off, just to see how far I could get before she caught me.”

When Kagome gave him a look, he shook his head a little defensively. “I never actually stole anything. She knows I wouldn’t. It was just a game.”

The old woman must have heard him because she came out and arched a critical brow, her hands on her round hips. “Do I have to check your pockets, scoundrel? Tam, my dear you need a haircut, I can barely see those eyes of yours.”

Tamotsu flushed a little and muttered, “you always say that.”

“And I’m always right,” she said, nodding as if to agree with her own statement.

Kagome pursed her lips in amusement as the young demon shifted from foot to foot, apparently a little embarrassed. Tamotsu stepped forward, set his money on the counter and took his bags, giving them a loose salute of sorts. “I better get going. Mom’s waiting for these. Have a good day Ishikawa-sama. You know where to find me if you need me.”

“Yes,” Mio called after him. “I do at that. Tell your father I said hello, and that I haven’t forgotten his offer to shovel my driveway this winter. We’ll be having snow before long.”

Tamotsu flapped a hand as if to say, ‘yeah, yeah-- I know.’ The bell chimed once more, and he was gone. Kagome sighed, a little relieved, and Mio eyed her curiously. Kagome realized she was being stared at and almost squeaked out, “what?”

But then Mio smiled. “He’s a good boy, Tamotsu. A fine young man now, actually-- if you’re in the market.”

Kagome flushed red as a tomato and shook her head, busying herself with the discount stickers again-- too embarrassed to speak. Did Mio know Tamotsu was a fox demon? She’d treated him as if he were a normal human man. Heck, it sounded as if they shared a history back through the time he’d grown up here. Was it possible, she wondered, for human beings to have demons in their lives for all those years and never even know it? She couldn’t tell for sure, and she didn’t dare ask. She’d just do her job, keep her head down and mind her own business. That should keep her out of trouble… at least… as long as Mio didn’t try any match-making business.

The old woman made an amused ‘hmph’ sound, disappeared into the office again and Kagome was left in peace. The rest of the day went smoothly-- aside from a teenager coming in after school and managing to knock a display of cereal boxes over, and finally it came time for Kagome to go home. At about 4:30 p.m. Mio told her to clock out and advised her to come in at noon the next day. “I’ll show you what needs doing on a closing shift and we can work out your schedule for the next week. Sound good?”

Kagome nodded, bowed politely and thanked her new boss before gathering her things and heading out. All the way home she thought about her encounter with Tamotsu. It had really thrown her for a loop. Never in this era had she been approached by a demon like that. Generally they seemed to vehemently discourage any unnecessary human interest. That was what she’d become accustomed to. Tamotsu had looked about her own age, maybe few years older at most, though with demons one could never be sure. She wondered if she’d see him again. It sounded as if he stopped by the shop regularly, and Mio had acted like an endearing aunt. It was a strange business for sure.

She turned off the highway onto the dirt road, and was approaching her house when she noticed a man leaning against his car right by the entrance to her property. Kagome pulled into the drive and the man straightened, apparently waiting for her. When she turned her car off and got out, she found he was dressed awfully nicely to be standing out on a muddy country road. His dark suit and shiny shoes were sharp, his hat stiff and expensive. Dark eyes gleamed from behind silver framed glasses and he held up a hand to greet her.

“Hello!” he called in a reedy voice. “Might you be Ms. Kagome Higurashi?”

Kagome tucked her bag over her shoulder and walked back down the drive cautiously. She stopped about ten feet away from the man and instead of answering his question, she asked, “what can I do for you sir? Are you lost?”

The man smiled, but where Tamotsu’s smile had been warm and friendly, this man had an entirely dubious look about him. Kagome had always been of the opinion that the way a person laughed could tell you a lot about them, and this man laughed now-- a short, hard-edged and insincere sound. “No, no, not at all. The thing is, I heard through the grapevine that an enterprising young woman had finally bought this old place with an eye towards restoring it.”

Kagome didn’t confirm nor deny; only waited for him to go on. He took a step forward and she felt an unexpected flare of power. A barrier that she’d had no idea was there thrummed with sudden life, crackling like static and throwing off bright, pale green light. The magic that powered it felt the same as the demon aura that hung about the house and it seemed to wrap around her, as if double-checking to see that she was allowed within its parameters. She took half a step back in surprise, a little uneasy about the strength that surged in that demon energy, but then it had faded again immediately to an almost undetectable level.

The man’s eyes shifted enough that she was almost sure he’d seen the barrier as well and he stepped back again quickly onto the road. Kagome eyed the place where the road met the driveway at the boundary of the property and she wondered if the man had tried to pull his car through before she’d gotten home, or if he’d been aware of the protective barrier from the start. Either way, he’d opted to park on the road and apparently couldn’t get through, even on foot.

There was an awkward pause before Kagome asked politely, “can I help you with something? I’m sorry I just got home from work and my brother will be coming out soon to help me with some things.”

It was a bald-faced lie, but just at that moment Kagome wanted the man to know that there were people who knew she was out here and would fuss if she suddenly disappeared. This might not have been warranted, but the guy was strange. The fact that her home’s demon magic seemed to like her and her family just fine and then turn around to gnash its teeth at this man was enough to give her pause. It was certainly nice to know there was an active barrier around the property, and she wondered just how far it extended. ‘Good to know,’ she thought. ‘What a perk! But what exactly triggers it?’

The man smiled his hard smile again and pulled a white card from his pocket. He turned it over in his hands as he explained. “I represent a client who used to know a previous owner of this house. This client wishes to inquire as to whether you might have found anything in storage that you were interested in selling. They’d be happy to send out an appraiser and pay more than fair market price for whatever items of interest you might have inherited with the house.”

The man made a point of eyeing her worn boots and her rusty car. “Surely, some extra funds would be in good order.”

Kagome frowned, a little indignant. Okay. So maybe she wasn’t as snappy a dresser as he was; so her car looked like the great, great grandfather of the shiny black sedan he stood next to; so her house was a dusty old mess-- that was no reason for him to assume she was in desperate need of financial rescue. Sure, some extra money would make her life easier, but she wasn’t at all certain she wanted anything from this man.

She stepped forward, carefully staying behind the place where the barrier had burned a faint line in the winter-dead grass. The man’s smile faded a little as she made him come to the boundary and pass the card through. The barrier hummed with life again, but it didn’t zap the paper or his fingers, and he withdrew unscathed. Kagome glanced down at the card to see it had a simple black ink logo depicting an outstretched cat in a circle. On the back was a phone number and the name ‘Hyô Shôsha.’ The name was re-printed in English just below, and read ‘Panther Trading Co.’ with a phone number and address in the heart of Tokyo’s business district.

She flipped the card over and looked at the front again, commenting, “no name?”

The man’s hard smile returned. “I’m just a lowly underling; you understand how these things are, I’m sure.”

Kagome eyed him for a moment, thoughtfully. “I see. Well, I’ve only just moved in. So far all I’ve found is some old furniture-- and half of that isn’t in condition for anything but a burn pile. The place is sort of falling apart so it’s not even safe to do more than poke my head into some rooms yet. You’ll appreciate at this point I’m not altogether sure if there’s more or not.”

The man seemed to ponder his words, then said, “well, if you find anything… interesting. You know where to reach us. As I said, my client knew the original owner and he’s keen to take anything you don’t want off your hands. We’ll make it worth your while.”

Kagome’s eyes narrowed a little at his words. “You said your client knew a previous owner, but it was the original owner? The builder? That was more than two centuries ago.” It was only after the words left her mouth that the little voice in her head poked her in the brain and snapped, ‘shut UP Kagome… not a safe question!’

The man’s eyes sharpened, glinting red, and his smile widened, showing just a little fang. He was demon. Kagome would bet her last penny that his demon blood was what had triggered the barrier. That was often how these things worked. He must not have any magic of his own… at least-- she couldn’t sense any. It wasn’t uncommon for a demon to be simply that, and not to have any magical ability. Still, this man hid his true state of being well.

Instead of answering her question the man pointedly looked at the old house behind her. “It’s a nice house, but it will cost much to put it to rights. Think about it, Ms. Higurashi. Good evening.”

And with that he gave her a stiff nod and departed. She watched him climb back into his shiny car and disappear down the road. Studying the card for another moment, she wondered what all this meant. “Hm,” she said quietly to herself, and tucked the card into her bag. “Anything interesting, hugh?”

Later, after she’d fixed herself a dinner of chicken, rice and veggies in a heavy cast-iron dish over the fire, she remembered her promise and called her mother. Kagome filled her in on the day. She told her that she liked the job so far, and the woman she was working for. She’d told her mother in the past about running into demons now and then in the city, and how no one else seemed to notice their odd differences.

Indeed, the two of them had been in a local coffee shop one morning and Kagome had very discreetly pointed out a cat demon sitting two tables to their left. Kagome’s mother had found the whole thing fascinating, and insisted that while she believed her daughter, the young girl with the cat ears and switching tail looked entirely human to her. And so Kagome went on to share her story about meeting Tamotsu. “How interesting,” her mother mused. “You do seem to fall into the strangest circumstances, don’t you?”

Kagome shrugged, and then realized they must be on speaker phone because she heard Souta chime in. “Let’s not do another demon boyfriend, hugh? Do me a favor and find someone I have some hopes of beating up if they do something wrong.”

Her brother was joking-- she knew that. But the comment still sent a painful jab through her chest and she bit down on her lip. “Souta Higurashi!” she heard her mother cry out in reprimand. They didn’t often reference Inuyasha or her time spent in the Warring States Era these days. Her family knew it was a sore issue for her. The first year or so after she’d been back had been rough for many reasons and she’d had to fight her way back from it tooth and nail to be even a little bit normal.

Trying to convince both her family and herself that it didn’t hurt, she let out a soft laugh and spoke in a tone clearly referencing the late-night infomercials on television. “But wait… there’s more!” And she went on to tell them about the strange man she’d found waiting for her at home, and the barrier that had risen out of nowhere to protect the property from the foreign demon’s entry.

“Well…” her mother started, sounding a little apprehensive. “You said you’ve come across these-- what did you call them, barriers… before? I guess I’m glad you have that security, even if we don’t know exactly how it works. Still…”

“Yes, I’ve seen several different kinds of barriers, but they take a lot of power to put up and usually are attached to some kind of powerful tool or artifact…I know,” Kagome sighed. “It was really weird. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

“You should get a dog…” Souta said firmly. “A big scary one.”

Kagome smiled at the thought but shook her head. “I’m going to be at work a lot, and anyway, you know what it costs to feed a big dog? Then there’s tags, shots and vet bills…”

“Nope,” he said a little pitifully. “Mom wouldn’t let me have one.”

“Yes, you poor deprived boy,” Mrs. Higurashi crooned, a smile in her voice. Kagome smiled and chatted a little longer before she hung up the phone. After another good soak in the hot spring, Kagome put plenty of wood on the fire and curled up in bed with her book and a flashlight. She resolved not to read long, lest she use up the battery in her light, but she needn’t have worried. Within 15 minutes she found her eyes drooping and that was the end of that.

****  TU11.17.15

In the morning Kagome woke early. It was only just after 7 a.m. She’d forgotten how early she tended to fall asleep when she was somewhere with no electric lights. This made her a much more graceful riser in the morning, something her mother would likely have paid good money to see. Breakfast was oatmeal again. It was easy and did the job.

Kagome dressed in warm layers to sit out on the steps into the garden with her meal, watching the sun climb higher in the sky. The rainy clouds of the last week seemed to have moved on for the moment and she didn’t have to be at work for hours yet, so she decided she’d poke around the garden. Setting her empty bowl to the side, she wrapped her coat around herself. It would be warmer, as high as 50 degrees, later in the day, but this early the night’s chill still held the garden in a frosty grip. It had been a cold night, and as Mio had said the day before, it would be snowing before long. Winter was coming.

Turning to look into the North East, where the forest and the hot spring lay, Kagome wondered if she and Souta could get enough wood pulled in and cut. The odds weren’t good. It was so late in the season already and she couldn’t expect him to come way out here every weekend to help her. On top of that, she didn’t have a tractor to drag dead trees down to the house for cutting. Having watched the villagers of 500 years ago deal with this issue many times, she knew how to manage the task without such modern conveniences.

The problem lay in the fact that she herself was too small physically and didn’t have the man power. She remembered watching groups of men and horses with carts and ropes returning to the village with lumber for both building and burning. It was a lot of work; but with a team of men it was do-able.

Well, she thought, she didn’t have a team of men. She had Kagome, and that was about it. She’d just have to figure it out. If worst came to worst, she’d dish out the money for a kerosene heater and fuel this winter. By next fall she’d be better prepared.

She picked up the axe Souta had left leaning against the house and worked for a little while on chopping the smaller wood that her brother hadn’t managed to finish. An hour passed and she admitted defeat for the day, knowing she was already going to have sore muscles. Better not to let her hands blister, since there wasn’t much left here she was capable of cutting with only the axe anyway.

After the rest of her wood was stacked inside, she grabbed a thin branch and wandered the large garden, poking at the thick brush and pulling some of it aside to see what was underneath. Here and there she found small stone statues that looked like the little spirit houses people had built in centuries past. The idea was that, by giving these little nomadic spirits of the earth places to live, they wouldn’t cause you trouble in your home. Sometimes offerings were made to them at such places; things like bits of bread with honey or fresh milk, fruit and flowers.

As she walked down the hill to a field at the Eastern side of the house, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and decided to see if she could get ahold of one of her few remaining friends. If she remembered right, Eri had Tuesdays off work. Sure enough, the young woman with the soft, friendly voice picked up the call. “Kagome?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling and realizing guiltily that it had been a long time since she’d last called. “It’s me. How’s life?”

“Oh you know,” Eri replied. “Same old, same old. Loving my job at the book store and paying too much for my little apartment-- can’t beat the location though.”
 
“Good,” Kagome said, glad to hear her friend sounded happy. “I know what you mean. I’m driving almost a half hour each way.”

“Really? I thought the karaoke lounge was only a 10 minute train ride,” Eri asked, puzzled.

“I’m not at the lounge anymore,” Kagome said, feeling even more guilty. Had it really been that long? She hadn’t worked at the karaoke lounge for 10 months now… oops.

“What? Why? What happened? I thought you liked your job there-- Kagome you never tell anybody anything anymore. I worry about you, you know?” Eri fussed good-naturedly.

Kagome sighed and said, “I know, I’m sorry. This was actually a while ago. The manager there was getting way too touchy-feely.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line, “what does that mean, exactly? Did something happen? Did you report him?”

“No, nothing major, but I couldn’t make myself work with him anymore so I told him that if he wrote me a good recommendation I wouldn’t press any charges.”

“Kagome!” Eri cried in an admonishing tone. “But,” Kagome went on. “I also told him that I would follow up with whichever girl he hired on after I left and that if she had any bad experiences to share, he’d find himself in trouble.”

There was a sigh from her friend and she said, “well, I guess that’s not so bad. Are you okay?”

Kagome’s stomach swooped uncomfortably at the memory of the skeezy lounge host, but she shook it off and moved on. “I’m fine. I got a job at the coffee shop on block 42 in Shibuya for a while, and that was fun.”

“Was…?” Eri asked.

“Was,” Kagome confirmed, “until the owner decided it was more lucrative to shut the place down and put all his funds into a night club he was opening with some big-deal partner.”

“Ouch-- any severance pay?” Eri asked.

Kagome’s laugh was a little dry. “Hah! No. But he did offer me a job.”

“Really?” Eri asked, sounding interested. “So what are you doing then?”

“I turned him down… it was a dancing job, if you know what I mean…” Kagome said, sighing dramatically.

She could almost hear her friend rolling her eyes over the phone. “Oh good gravy. Kagome you have the worst luck with employment these days, I swear it. We have to find you something better… you know-- a good job, where you don’t get groped or offered a stripping pole.”

Kagome let out a snort of laughter and made a mental note to call Eri more often. She was so good at putting things into perspective. It made her smile. “Actually, I found another job, that’s part of the reason I called.”

“Oh? Do tell. Stop holding out on me,” her friend whined.

“Okay, long story short,” Kagome started. “You know where Mt Ôyama is?”

“…What?” Eri asked, totally confused. “Yeah, why?”

“I found a house out here and I love it,” Kagome announced.

There was silence for a moment and she waited for her friend to tell her she was bonkers.

Finally Eri asked, “you bought a house? Seriously? What were they paying you at that coffee shop? Or did you take the job at the club short term for some extra cash?”

“Eri!” Kagome hissed, scandalized. Her friend laughed good-naturedly. “I’m only joking, but really, what the heck?”

Kagome turned to look up the hill towards the house and started picking her way back along the ditch, on a path parallel to the one she took to the hot spring. “Well, it needs some work. But it’s a wonderful house. I’m only living in part of it for now. And I found a job in the village about 25 minutes up the highway.”

“No groping?” Eri teased.

Kagome laughed. “Nope, I doubt it. My boss is a lovely old woman whose husband passed away a few years ago. It’s only her and one other half retired woman running a little grocery market. Yesterday was my first day but I think I like it, so long as I can get the stupid computer register to talk to me.”

“Well good,” Eri said. “You sound happy, and I know that hasn’t been the case for a while now. When can I come visit?”

Kagome shrugged as she said, “I don’t have a regular schedule worked out yet, but I’d love to have you. We’ll put together some kind of plan. Maybe you could spend the weekend or something once I get stuff figured out at work. I’ll warn you now, though-- you might have to prepare yourself to rough it a little.”

“Rough it?” Eri asked, drawing the words out suspiciously. “What kind of rough it?”

Kagome winced visibly as she informed her friend, “there’s no electricity, or hot water, unless you boil it.”

“You’re kidding me… Kagome!”

“I know, I know,” she said quickly. “But really, it’s not that bad. The best part is I have a hot spring right here by the house. It’s a very short walk away down by the tree line, and Eri it’s wonderful! I used to swim in these all the time and I missed it so much.”

“You did?” Eri asked, slightly baffled. “When? The only natural hot spring I’ve seen is the one in the Oyashuki gardens by the park… and last I checked people weren’t allowed to just hop into it.”

Kagome cringed and scrambled to cover the lapse she’d made in her excitement. Her friends didn’t know about her years of travel all over ancient Japan. They were under the impression that she’d been very ill and either stuck at home or away for medical help all the time. “One of my doctors in high school had me visit a health center that had one on the grounds, it’s very therapeutic…”

“Uh-hugh…” Eri said, as if sensing Kagome was not being wholly truthful. “So this house then… it sounds like quite a project. I hope you aren’t trying to take on too much. The last thing we want is for you to get sick again. How are you going to do it?”

Kagome thought of the shattered Shikon no Tama, it’s completion a seemingly insurmountable goal from the beginning. She smiled faintly and said, “oh… the way I expect any great undertaking gets accomplished: one little piece at a time.”

She wished she could tell Eri the truth about the Feudal Era, the Shikon no Tama… everything. But what proof did she have, aside from her ability to speak and read nearly dead forms of Japanese? The story was so extreme, even her best friend wouldn’t be able to believe it. Demons and magic and time travel? Nope.

****

Kagome left for town early so she could stop by the hardware store and get herself a wedge and hammer for the wood block. With those items tucked in the trunk of her car, she prayed the wood she had available would last her until she could afford the kerosene heater.

Mio Ishikawa was sitting on a stool at the counter when Kagome came in, a half finished sandwich on a paper towel in front of her. The bell chimed over her head and the warm little market shop seemed to welcome her back; as if she were expected and part of the rightful order of things. The old woman glanced up and smiled, beckoning her to come in.

The two of them spent the afternoon on the basics of running the noon-to-closing shift. The front door was to be locked and everything cleaned and shut down at 8 p.m. Mio explained that depending on how busy they were, this could mean she would be headed home at ten after eight, or as late as 9:30, but that most often they were done somewhere around 8:20 p.m.

Business was relatively slow on this Tuesday afternoon, and around 6 p.m. the bell rang to announce someone’s arrival. Kagome looked up from the shelf she was dusting and her stomach tightened as she saw the young man from yesterday. What had his name been? She frowned to herself for a moment, trying to remember. Tam… Tamotsu… that had been it. His sharp green eyes seemed to search the store, looking for something, and when they found her he smiled and waved.

Kagome fired back a friendly smile and nod, but as Mio was there at the counter to greet him, she hurriedly finished dusting the shelf she’d been working on and disappeared for a bathroom break. Tamotsu watched her vanish into the back of the shop within moments of his walking in the door and he leaned against the counter opposite Mio.

After he’d greeted her and asked how the shop was doing, he glanced at the doorway where Kagome had yet to reappear. “What’s her deal, Oba? How’s she doing?”

Mio shrugged a little. “She seems nice, and she’s a good worker. I hired Kagome last week and she only just started yesterday, but I think she’ll work out well.”

When she saw the strange look on Tamotsu’s face, she arched a curious brow. “What is it you mean by ‘her deal’?”

His brows had drawn together a little and he looked more serious than was normal for the Tam she knew and loved. Something was clearly bothering him. After a moment of consideration, he surprised her by asking more quietly, “is she okay? Is she in some kind of trouble?”

Mio thought about the question. “Not that I’m aware of,” she said slowly. “Why do you ask?”

Tamotsu shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know. She was just a little weird yesterday.” He looked totally at a loss as he added, “all I did was introduce myself and it was like she was scared of me. She was so nervous she barely said a word.”

Mio frowned a little, having missed that part of the exchange between them the day before. “Well, she’s awfully quiet. Normally girls her age never stop talking, but she hasn’t said much and especially little about herself. From what I gather she’s just moved out here on her own somewhere and she’s from the city. Other than that, I’m afraid all I know about her is her phone number and that she’s had two jobs in the last year. Neither of those jobs lasted very long and both were in Shibuya.”  

Tamotsu still looked troubled. He wasn’t used to people, especially women reacting to him in such a way and it had bothered him. He didn’t consider himself to be a terribly intimidating individual. The kitsune was a happy-go-lucky sort of character, and had a personality that generally put even the most unsociable at ease with him—unless he consciously chose to have it otherwise.

Then this beautiful girl had shown up out of nowhere, taking a job with Mio-- and not only was she apparently disinclined to even look at him-- at one point she’d almost acted like he’d hit her, and he couldn’t figure it out. They had been discussing noodles, for goodness sake! Tamotsu had never run into a situation where someone had seen through his glamour ward, so it didn’t even occur to him to think she might see him as anything other than an ordinary human.

He turned the new information over in his mind. She was so quiet that he had a hard time picturing her in the raucous setting of Shibuya district. Mio gave him a reassuring pat on the arm. “Maybe give her some time to get settled. Once she gets to know you I expect she’ll see you’re not an axe murderer.” Giving him a knowing look, waggling her eyebrows as she teased him, she added “I told her after you left that you were available.”

Tamotsu flushed and gaped at her. “You did what?! Aggh…” He leaned his elbows on the counter and rubbed his hands over his face. After a second, one green eye peered at her through his fingers and he muttered, “why do you do this to me?”

Mio laughed and grinned. “Because it’s entertaining for the old to make the young turn funny colors. You’re almost as red as she was.” She gave his arm a smack and said, “you need to find a good woman and settle down, make babies. You’d be a wonderful father.”

Tamotsu groaned and hid his face again, now praying that Kagome stayed where she was. He’d wanted to see her again, but not while Mio was on this sort of kick. That might scare her away for good. He didn’t even know if he wanted to ask her out yet. He didn’t know anything about her. He only knew that she was beautiful, quiet, smelled absolutely wonderful, and he wanted to know more.   

****

Kagome had successfully dodged another potential trial with Tamotsu. It seemed he’d stopped by for a few minutes to see Mio, because she’d waited a little over five minutes in the back before she heard the bell ring again. Sure enough, when she’d ventured back to the shop front, he’d left. She went back to her dusting, but a glance at Mio revealed that the old woman had a knowing expression on her face, broadcasting her suspicion Kagome had been hiding.

The last two hours of the evening had been uneventful and she was on her way home by a few minutes after eight. She’d planned on having a better look at the contents of the house after what that strange man had said to her. However, it was already truly dark by the time she’d made it home and it looked as if she would be working more of the early shifts than the late ones. Deciding she could do more exploring after work tomorrow, she munched on an apple with some peanut butter for dinner and went to bed early. It would be easier to see during daylight anyway.

*** W11.18.15

For some reason, it seemed everyone in the little village had decided that Wednesday morning was the time to do their shopping for the week, and Kagome had been kept busy from the moment she’d walked in the door. On the whole, it had reminded her a little of working in the coffee shop in Shibuya, and she enjoyed it. Even so, she was happy to take a break when everything finally slowed down. She made a pot of tea and settled at the front counter with Mio around 2 p.m., and the store was blissfully empty for a bit.

Mrs. Ishikawa sipped her tea and sighed, leaning back to prop tired feet on a lower shelf. “Goodness me, that was crazy, but it happens like that every once in a while. You handle yourself well in a rush.”

Kagome gave her a small nod, stirring some honey into her tea. “When I was a barista at the coffee shop, I worked both the early morning rush and the lunch rush most days. THAT was crazy. People can be vicious when they’re fighting a huge crowd for a caffeine fix.” Jokingly, she added, “there was a few times I considered asking for hazard pay.”

Mio chuckled, but remembered Tamotsu’s concerns. She counted this as an opportunity and decided to find out a little more about the young woman. “I hear that city life is like that. I don’t go into Tokyo proper very often. I like a slower pace, myself. Most young people love the bustle, though. What brought you way out here?”

Kagome paused, then her fingers tightened around the warm teacup and she looked into its depths for a moment, pondering what to say. The answer to that question was truly complicated, and began with such inexplicable origins. She didn’t know what to say, or where to start. Mio watched her bite down on her lip. Tension was returning to the young woman’s face and Mio began to wonder if maybe the ever-perceptive Tamotsu hadn’t been right. Cautiously she asked, “are you alright, dear?”

The young woman looked up at her, resembling a deer in headlights for just a moment before she pulled her mouth into a tight smile and shrugged. She dropped her eyes to her tea again and said, “yes, of course…. I’m good.”  

Kagome struggled to find a way to explain her decision in a manner that made sense. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Mrs. Ishikawa said kindly. “But you should know that we’re here if you need us.” Kagome seemed to relax a little, relieved-- but she’d gone quiet again.

The old woman decided to give the girl an easy way to communicate some information that might give them a clue as to what was going on. “So, you’ve been here a few days now. How do you like the country life so far?”  

This must have been the right question, because Kagome brightened a little and said, “I love it out here. I mean-- so far it’s rained a lot and I haven’t had a chance to get out much, but it’s so much calmer.” Thoughtfully, she rolled a bit of crumpled receipt paper back and forth between her fingers as she went on. “I like a lot of things about the city. The dancing and restaurants are fun, the bookstores and parks are nice, but when I’m there it just feels so…”

She struggled to find a way to describe the way it just felt wrong, anymore, and sighed. “Everything’s covered in concrete and metal… and nobody seems to notice that the world isn’t supposed to be like that. It didn’t used to be like that. Out here… it’s easier to breath”

Kagome glanced at Mio again, a measuring look, as if she was unsure how many words she could trust the old woman with. Finally, she carefully admitted, “I can’t discuss the details, but over the last nine years or so, I’ve done a lot… and seen a lot, and at the end of it all I couldn’t seem to get any traction. No matter what I tried to do, no matter how hard I worked, it was like my feet just kept sliding out from under me.”
 
Mio considered this, patiently listening. Somehow, this young woman sounded so old just now. According to the birth date on her application she was only 24, but something in her tone, and the way the muscles of her face were set at this moment reminded Mio of how her own father had talked about his years as a man at war. She wondered what this young woman could have gone through to put so many years in her words.

When those words seemed to dry up, Mio said, “so, it’s a clean, fresh start you’re after.”

Kagome nodded, draining the last of her tea and setting the cup on the counter beside her. Her smile returned and the tension in her face eased again as she said, “I guess so, and I’m enjoying what I’ve found out here. Thank you for giving me this job. Everyone’s been very nice, and I love my new place.”

“No problem my dear, thank you for making it out to the village just when I needed someone.” She smiled and joked. “Too much longer and I would have had to put Tam to work here in the shop, and he’s an awful chatterbox. I love him like he’s one of my own, but he would be here all day trying to get the work done. I doubt that young man has ever met a stranger in his life.”

Kagome let out a soft, amused sort of laugh as she stood, gathering her things to head towards home. Mio looked out the big front windows of the shop and observed, “it looks like the good weather has finally found us again. It’s a bit nippy, but the sun’s come back. Any plans for such a beautiful afternoon?”

Kagome wrapped her scarf around her neck and leaned one hip against the counter, arms folded over her chest as she looked out the window appreciatively. “I’m probably going to do some heavy cleaning while I can open the house up. It’s a real mess and I expect I’ll be at it all winter, so I’ll take the nice days when I can get them.” A sudden thought occurred to her and she hesitantly asked, “I don’t suppose I could borrow that big push broom on the receiving dock? I’d bring it right back tomorrow. It would be so much easier than the little broom I have and there’s a lot of floor to cover.”

Mio raised her brows in surprise and nodded. “Of course, go right ahead. Where is this house you found then? It sounded like it needs a lot of work when you mentioned it the other day.”

Kagome nodded, and now her smile was bright. She seemed truly excited about her project. “If you go West on the highway about 25 minutes there’s a dirt road on the right that cuts into a few big old fields that haven’t been farmed in ages. My place is at the end of that road. It’s the only one out by that marker for several miles and you can see it from the highway.”

The old woman thought hard for a moment, then her brows furrowed and she said, “not the old demon place?”

Kagome went still for a moment, thinking immediately of the presence she’d felt around the house since day one. “What do you mean? Do you know it? The realtor couldn’t tell me much about the previous owners, but she said people here talked about the house sometimes.”

Mio seemed to think hard, hesitant to share what she knew and looking a little worried. The last thing she wanted to do was scare the girl, especially if she was living out there alone. Kagome raised curious brows and the old woman sighed. “Well, I don’t know that the stories are true, it’s just as likely it’s all a load of rubbish…”

Kagome looked amused and she sank back down in her chair to reassure the old woman. “I did hear that some thought it was haunted, and I guess I can see why they might think so. But I promise, you can’t frighten me off.” With a faint smile, as if she were amused by some private joke, she added, “I’ve seen worse than ghosts.”

The old woman’s mouth twisted reluctantly as she wondered what that meant. Finally she said, “alright, but remember I tried to warn you.” Kagome nodded and leaned back, crossing one knee over the other to listen. Hand over her heart, she swore, “on my honor, I promise I will not run away screaming into the night.”

Mio’s lips twitched in a smile and she set her tea down to start her explanation. “There are many different stories about that old house, but the one that people generally consider truth is that many years ago, the land from the center of Tokyo all the way south to Kagoshima was the territorial domain of a great Dai Yokai. They say he had great strength and powers, and lived many years, though no one can agree on just what kind of demon he was supposed to be, what kind of magic he used, or what he might have looked like.”

She waited, as if ready for Kagome to roll her eyes in disbelief. Young people these days didn’t buy into in things like demons, and even Mio had her doubts. Not since her own grandfather’s generation had anyone seriously believed they existed in more than old stories. However, Kagome didn’t even blink at the idea. On a whim, she asked, “do you believe such tales can be true?”

Kagome smiled and after a moment of consideration, she said carefully, “I’ve seen a great many things, Ishikawa-sama. I have no trouble believing in magic and demons.” Placing a hand up to her mouth and speaking in a staged whisper she added, “but don’t tell anyone I said so. They’ll commit me to a psychiatric center and you’ll have to hire more help.”

Mio chuckled and went on. “I see, your secret is safe with me. In any case, the story goes that this demon didn’t care for the massive urban center that was forming, even then, into the city of Tokyo… at that time, called Edo. People seem to agree on the fact that the house was built some time shortly before the turn of the century, in the 1870s or 80s. During this time the emperor had recently suspended the Sankin Kotai, which was a policy demanding all Daimyo spend at least half their time in the city. I imagine this demon wished to reside in a more rural area for the same reasons the Daimyo were moving their own households out to their country estates. They often owned large tracts of land for hunting and farming. It was cleaner, and quieter, likely more aesthetically pleasing than a turn-of-the-century city.”

The old woman wrinkled her nose. “It’s said demons had very strong eyes, ears and noses. Can you imagine the smell of human life at the time with such senses?”

Kagome wrinkled her own nose as well and shook her head. “Some of the back alleys smell today. With open sewage being more… ah… accessible, it would have been awful.” She remembered both Shippo and Inuyasha having trouble sometimes when they were in the rare, higher populace areas. They couldn’t go anywhere near the tanner’s work areas because the smell was almost enough to half blind them. But she pulled herself from those cobweb memories as Mio continued.

“So, our Dai Yokai had this house built, and he did most of his business from there by way of vassals and messengers. He and the local government seemed to have a strange sort of understanding. The story goes that this land was his territory, and his father’s before him, long before human men had built their cities and towns. And they deferred to that up to a point. They knew that he kept these lands safe from other, more destructive creatures. And they knew that if they challenged his claim, what they would have left afterwards would not be worth the loss of life it would cost them. Demons did not give up what was theirs willingly. I’m sure you’ve heard those stories.”

“This Dai Yokai had great wealth, and many human men sought to do business with him, causing his wealth to grow even greater. It is said that he was terribly vicious, but not unreasonable. When lesser demons in the area caused too much trouble, he killed them easily. Many other human warlords were hesitant to attack the area for fear of his retribution. In short, as long as the people of Edo did not cross him, it was good that he called this land and its people his. Some say his strength is why the city has prospered the way it has, even now.”

Kagome pondered all this, and after a moment asked, “so what happened? Where is he supposed to be now? I mean, demons like him-- ones that can properly defend themselves, they live for hundreds, and in rare instances thousands of years.” Seeing the odd look Mio gave her when she absently stated this as fact, she added weakly, “er… or so I’ve heard.”

After some consideration, Mio shrugged. “The story gets fuzzier from there, with a hundred variants. Some say the great demon was captured by Emperor Meiji and put to death so that they could take his wealth for their own and wouldn’t be forced to answer to him any longer. Others say that he fought a great war with an entire clan of adversaries and slew many before he was killed on the battle field. Yet another story says that he fell ill and died under a strange witch’s curse. Only his few trusted servants would know what really happened… if any of this is actually true.”

Kagome sighed, chewing her lip in thought. So her dusty old house had once been the home of a great demon lord. ‘But which one?’ she wondered. Absently, a painful thought she tried hard never to look at crossed her mind again. Where had Inuyasha been at that time? What about Koga, Ayame or Jinenji? She’d done a little poking around in history books, but had never found anything to tell her what had become of the demons and hanyu she’d counted as friends.

It was now almost 20 minutes past the time she should have clocked out and left, but she didn’t mind. It was all fascinating. “Do you think it’s true?” she asked Mrs. Ishikawa, curious as to the shop keeper’s stance on any of the story, considering her close relationship with Tamotsu.

The old woman smiled and threw her hands up. “Who can say? I don’t know for a fact that the story isn’t true, but at the same time I have never seen a demon.” With some consideration she said, “I like to think anything is possible. People, in my experience, are far too quick to believe they know more than they really do about what is, and what isn’t.”

So the old woman didn’t know about Tamotsu, or if she did, she was a very good liar. Kagome nodded in agreement. “Seems like sound reasoning to me. Thanks for telling me all this.” She stood and gathered her things up again, but paused. After a moment she decided out of gratitude to give the old woman, and potentially, a new friend, something very real to believe in. Chewing her lip a little nervously, she turned to face Mio and glanced out the front windows to be sure that no one was about to walk in and hear what she had to say.

Keeping her voice low, she made a concrete statement. “Demons were definitely here.” She couldn’t say that they were still here now, as she could give no evidence. But she had evidence of the ones that had lived here long ago. Mio looked at her curiously and she explained herself. “My family has maintained a shrine in the city for generations, and on the property there’s an old well house.”

“Indeed?” the old woman asked, sounding intrigued.

“Mm-hmm,” Kagome said, nodding. “See, when I was 15 our cat ran into the old well house and we couldn’t find him. My little brother was really upset about it, so I climbed down into the well to make sure he hadn’t fallen down there and gotten stuck.”

“I thought cats could climb their way out of anything,” Mio said with a chuckle.

Kagome shook her head, letting out a soft laugh of her own. “Not this one. I loved Buyo but he was sort of a lazy fatso. Anyway, according to my late grandfather, the well was referred to in the old records as the Bone Eater’s Well, and he always kept the place bound up with containment sutras just in case, just like his father did before him, and his before that, and so on.”

Mio winced and asked, “you’re not about to tell me some demon ate that poor cat, are you? I’ll tell you, that makes for a terrible story.”

Kagome smiled and shook her head again. “No, no, nothing like that.” The real truth, her battle with the Mistress Centipede and all that followed was more than she could share, but there was physical evidence down there for any who cared to believe it. “When I climbed down there, of course Buyo was nowhere to be found, but the bottom of it is filled with old demon bones.”

Mio’s eyes widened in surprise and she asked, “really? How can you be sure that’s what they are?”

Kagome shrugged a little and said, “they couldn’t be anything else. Some of these bones are disintegrating, but many are still whole. Many of them are enormous. There’s a few loose claws and teeth down there as long as my arm.”

The shop keeper frowned in puzzlement and asked, “but why would they be down there in the first place? Do those old records of yours say?”

“You’ve heard the stories about the clans of demon slayers, right?” Kagome asked. Mio nodded and she went on. “There was a very active clan right here in this region. Their village wasn’t far from here, actually.” Her heart ached as she thought of her friend Sango, and wished for the millionth time that she’d at least gotten to tell her goodbye.

“A whole village of demon slayers?” Mio asked, considering the idea. “Yes, according to the shrine records,” Kagome fudged. “This village had been around for several generations. It was their business-- what they did for a living. They traveled, training their children in the trade as they grew up. Other towns and groups would pay them substantial sums to hunt down and kill demons that were preying on their livestock or families. Then they would burn the carcass and haul the bones to our shrine, where the current monks or priestesses would purify the skeletons as best they could and bury them in that well where they could be guarded.”

“But, I don’t understand, why guard the bones?” Mio asked. The old woman appeared fascinated. She’d never had a conversation like this one in her life. The quiet Kagome was turning out to be quite an interesting character.

“Well,” Kagome started, turning to lean against the counter as she explained. “Just because a demon is dead doesn’t mean it’s no longer dangerous. Some of them can… er… could… regenerate and come back to life as long as there was anything left. It might take them a long time, but they could do it given the proper stimulus. If that wasn’t an issue, sometimes other demons would hear about it when a more powerful one was killed and they would come looking for the skeleton to harvest bits and pieces; fangs and claws especially. These could be very valuable because some witches could use them for powerful spells, and certain other individuals could smith them into tools and weapons that contained a magical identity of their own. Any demon in possession of these could do some pretty remarkable things.”

There was silence for a long moment, then Mio wondered aloud, “hm, how do you think our demon lord here would have fared with a clan of demon slayers around? You wouldn’t think they’d make good neighbors. Perhaps that’s what happened to him. I suppose it’s even possible that his bones are in that well of yours.”

Kagome thought about that and finally said with a sigh, “I don’t know. It’s possible, but I think it’s more likely they might never have run into each other. This clan I mentioned… their village was all but wiped out a little over 500 years ago.” She swallowed hard at the memory. This had happened about the time she’d first met her friend Sango, and she’d helped the young woman bury most of her family and friends. She’d seen the devastation first hand and it had been awful.

Her chest tightened and she wondered suddenly how she’d gotten this far into all this. The whole reason she’d moved out here had been to get away from the constant reminders, and now here she was, talking about the killing of Sango’s family with a woman she’d only met last week. It was strange.

Mio watched the young woman’s shoulders rise as she curved a little into herself, as if suddenly unhappy again, and wondered why this seemed to affect her so. It wasn’t as if any of this were recent history. Kagome pulled in a deep breath, flashing a tight smile as she said, “it’s possible there were decedents of those slayers around here when my house was built, but I don’t know. There were only a few survivors of the attack that leveled their village.” ‘And only one of them was left alive when all was said and done,’ she thought.

Kagome wondered idly if Sango had gotten her wish after all. Her friend had wanted to settle down and have children with the man she’d loved, and Miroku had finally straightened up his act and promised they’d marry not long before the final battle the group had fought with Naraku. Either way, she didn’t think Sango would have continued the tradition and trained her children to be demon slayers. By the end of it all she’d been just as weary of fighting as the rest of them, with the possible exception of Inuyasha.

Bitterly, a part of Kagome thought that she’d have let Naraku keep the final shard of the stupid jewel if she’d known what Inuyasha intended to do with it. But no, she thought with a sigh, that wasn’t true. She couldn’t have gone on knowing that Naraku was loose with that power, killing and maiming whenever it struck his fancy.  
 
Her internal workings were interrupted by the shop keeper’s voice. “And you learned all this from family records at the shrine? That’s quite something. It’s a wonder there isn’t more public interest in it.”

Kagome smiled sadly and shrugged, “yeah, something like that. But the shrine doesn’t get many visitors these days. People don’t believe in any of it anymore. You should have met my gramps. He was full of more stories than you could ever listen to. He loved the histories, and I guess I’ve turned into sort of a history buff myself.”

Mio chuckled and mused, “you’d think someone would want to put those bones in a museum, so people could learn about it-- so they wouldn’t forget that it was all a real part of our past.”

Kagome shook her head immediately. She’d never thought about that, but instantly saw the problems it could cause. “Hmm, maybe it’s best that people have forgotten then. Those bones shouldn’t be moved. Kept under lock and spell in the well house they can’t hurt anyone, but if anything in there were to regenerate…” She shuddered at the thought of Mistress Centipede wreaking havoc on modern day Tokyo.

“A lot of people could be hurt. It wouldn’t be pretty,” she said firmly. Then, choosing her words more carefully, she added, “some of them were alright, from what I know, but some of them were real monsters.”

Mio set her empty cup on the counter and asked, “you’ve made quite a study of demons over the years, haven’t you? I don’t think I’ve ever met with anyone who knew so much about it and yet was under the age of 90.” Kagome glanced at Mio nervously, then realized the old woman was teasing her and smiled. “Something like that.”

A glance at the clock showed her they’d been talking now for nearly an hour and the trip down memory lane had left her insides feeling raw. She was ready to go home and worry about nothing more complicated than dust and old furniture. After washing their cups in the break room sink, Kagome bid her new boss farewell, thanked her for the borrowed shop broom, and headed home.

****