“Just in time for Obon!” said Masahiro.
Kyla lost her happy focus for a beat. “What’s Obon?” she asked.
“What’s Obon?” Masahiro appeared almost insulted at Kyla’s question. “It’s only the best festival of the year.”
“A festival?” asked Kyla. Her countenance brightened again with the thought of another celebration.
“Yes. It’s when the gateway between the dead and the living opens up so that all of our ancestors can return home to visit.”
“You mean ghosts?” asked Kyla.
“Exactly,” answered Masahiro. A sly grin crossed his face.
“Don’t scare her, Masa-san,” said Sadako.
“It’s good that they come back and visit us, Kyla, to see what’s going on,” continued Masahiro, “but sometimes they won’t leave. Sometimes even the spirits of murder victims will return to haunt their killers.”
“What?” Kyla loved these types of stories. “Is that true?”
“Honest,” answered Masahiro. “I heard about one man who had been married for many years to his wife, but then he met another woman. Someone younger and more beautiful and he fell in love with her. So the man poisoned his old, crusty wife which not only killed her but disfigured the muscles on the right side of her face like this.” Masahiro made a grotesque face with his tongue dangling out.
“Ah, how mean,” said Kyla.
Masahiro continued, “Well, he threw her dead body down into a deep well out near the mountains. So now the man was free to marry his new bride and life went on as normal for them. Then, when the next Obon festival came around, the man began to hear horrible sobbings coming from outside his house at night. It was coming from some crazy homeless woman standing near his gate. Obon lasts for three nights. On the first night the man did his best to ignore the sobbing. On the second night, he yelled out his window ‘Whoever that is, you’d better stop crying! Get away from my home!’ But the crying and wailing didn’t stop. It grew louder. On the final night of Obon the man couldn’t take the noise anymore. So he grabbed an axe and ran out to where the woman was standing. He was about to threaten her with the axe when she looked up at him.” Masahiro acted out a dramatic glare at both Kyla and Sadako.
Masahiro continued, “And he immediately recognized the woman as his old wife. Her bloated and twisted face glistened in the moonlight from the well water that had filled her body. She began to move towards the man, but he was so scared he swung the axe to keep her away and it lodged deep into her ribs. CRUNCH!” Masahiro imitated the swing of the axe. “The woman fell to the ground and the man ran back to his house in terror. He jumped into his futon and pulled the blankets up over his head. The crying outside had stopped, and eventually the man fell asleep. Usually when he awoke, the man’s new wife would already be making him breakfast. Frying fish, boiling rice, heating tea. But that morning she was nowhere to be found. When the man stepped outside he saw the body of the woman he had attacked that night still in the front yard. He ran out to drag the body back to the well, but when he rolled the woman over he saw that it was actually the body of his new wife. She still had the bloody axe wound in her side. The first wife had gotten her revenge. True story.”
“Really? That’s not a true story, is it, Sadako?” asked Kyla.
“Well—“
“Of course it is,” interrupted Masahiro. The sly grin never left his face. “All the stories I tell are true.”
--from Time Trip #4: Killing for Country
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4
KILLING FOR COUNTRY
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2
A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3
WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING
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