Chapter 2: 1. Arrival

Hōrōheki (hor-oh-hic-kee)

[Japanese] lit: far-sickness.

Def: To be heart sick with longing for a place you’ve never been and may not exist.

Paul Holmes looked down at the map on his smartphone, then looked up at what lay in front of him. He was, without doubt, in the right place. Unfortunately. Even without cell service, the GPS didn’t lie.

The stone structure in front of him looked a little like a set of rugby posts, and had at some point been painted red judging by the traces in the pores of the stone. However, that was long ago, and it was in fact a Japanese ‘Spirit gate’ which marked the entrance to the temple grounds. Looking up he tried to make out the name in the shield or scroll at the top, but it was so weathered all he could make out was the kanji for ‘fox’...

Paul looked at the cracked and over-grown stone steps, which straggled upwards like an old man’s teeth.. and sighed. The estate agent had lied to him. Or at the very least, the pictures he’d seen of the place were at least a decade out of date. He looked around, and sighed again. It was a fifteen minute walk back to the bus stop, over an hour’s wait for the next bus, and it was already late afternoon. He didn’t really have a choice. It was press on or sleep here, in the open.

Then again, he hadn’t really had much of a choice even before he’d boarded the plane from England to Japan. So, it didn’t make that much of a difference.

Hitching his back-pack to a more comfortable position he took a firm grip of his hiking staff, and started the climb up the uneven stairs to the temple itself… which he hoped, rather against expectation, was in better condition.

Shoko watched the stranger from the depths of the bamboo forest that covered the hillside below her temple. So far he hadn’t acted much like the other gaijin that had occasionally wandered by. Yes, he’d looked at his phone, but he hadn’t taken any pictures. Then, instead of being daunted by the uneven stone steps he’d set off up them with the sort of determined air that reminded her of the pilgrims that once walked where he did now.

She didn’t like what it might portend… But, at least it wasn’t men in grey business suits, or yellow construction vests again. Actually even though they were modern clothes, if she squinted, what he was wearing could almost be a monks robes, though they were totally the wrong colour.

Shoko hopped from rock to rock, flitting up the slope through the bamboo forest to where a fallen tree had breached the stone wall that surrounded the temple gardens. She had a ‘welcome’ to prepare after all. He might be an unusually persistent intruder, but she'd soon send him running.

Paul wiped his brow a couple of hours later. He’d walked around the place first, inspecting the premises. The buildings were basically sound, still sealed tight, all except what looked to be some sort of warehouse, which had lost a few roof-tiles and then suffered with the rain getting in. The gardens were woefully neglected and over-grown, with weeds sprouting between the flag-stones and grass that was almost waist height in places.

He’d decided which building to spend the night in, and then after a brief search located a broom and swept and dusted, until the room was decent. The place had electric lighting, and Paul had managed to locate the fuse-box. But without knowing what the state of the wiring was, he didn’t dare turn on the power...even assuming there was any.

But that was ok, he’d back-packed over half of Europe when he was younger, and he was prepared as he could be with a day or two’s shopping in Tokyo. As the sunset stained the sky red, he set up the small solar powered lanterns and carried on working by their light.

It was full darkness outside, the night full of a myriad of noises as small things went about their lives. Paul had been sprawled in front of his laptop, writing, when the small gizmo he’d picked up in the aptly named “electric city” beeped.

Paul saved his work, and picked up the white plastic box. The real estate agent which had been involved in finalising the transfer of ownership had hinted, strongly, that the place was… well she hadn’t said the word haunted.. but it was very much implied.

Paul had smiled to himself, said nothing, and within the hour had bought a number of proximity detectors, cameras and other little battery powered gizmos intended to detect intruders. He’d had his own theory as to what was behind the ‘ghosts’… which might have a lot more to do with the rather generous offer for the land that the agent had informed him was already on the table.

He didn’t know who was behind the offer, yet, but he had some fairly strong notions about the hauntings. He just couldn’t decide if it was locals, trying to scare away any outsiders, or whoever it was wanting to buy the place trying to scare him off and get it for a knock-down-price.

He checked the gizmo, and slipped out quietly, he’d already scoped out the porch or veranda that surrounded the building, and readied himself.

Shoko was wearing an all white kimono, fastened on the wrong side. She had a small white cloth headdress on, and a bandage of thin white gauze over her eyes. The tips of her hair just brushed against her heels as she walked, she’d whitened it from it’s usual pale golden colour so it was now more silvery, and let it down loose. Shed’ also patted flour on her face, giving it a corpse-like pallor. Lastly she’d glued felt to the blocks of her geta, or wooden sandals, so they wouldn’t clatter on the flagstones and she could glide silently.

She giggled to herself slightly… she made a very good ghost she thought!

Carefully, so as not to trip, she stole silently up the steps to the small guest-house that was lit from within by the blueish-white light of the odd modern lanterns. She paused a moment, listening, but all she heard was regular breathing. Perhaps the stranger had fallen asleep?

She carefully inched open the door, and peered inside. The man was huddled under a blanket by a silver-grey slate-like thing on the floor. Shoko bit down on a giggle..and then did her best to produce a ghastly low moan…

The sound of the man’s snoring didn’t change.

Shoko tried again, louder this time. But still he slept… Was he really that tired, she wondered? He had spent most of the afternoon sweeping and tidying after all. She bit her small lips, suddenly feeling bad about this. He’d put in more work to make the place nice than it had seen in a number of years…

She decided to give it one last try… summoning foxfire to light up the room with eerie blue-green glow at the same time as she moaned like a damned soul..

Still nothing… she scowled. This wasn’t fair!

“Hey Bakka! Wake up! You’re being haunted!”

“Indeed?”

The voice behind her was deep and rich, and sent a chill down her spine making all her hair stand on end! Slowly she turned her head to look behind her.

Looming over her was a man. At least.. she thought he was. He wore a cape, and when he smiled he had long fangs which glinted at her.

“Good evening….”

“WAHHHH!!!!”

Shoko flailed, arms wildly wind-milling, and back-pedalled into the room. Her geta caught in the tattered edge of the mat, sending her sprawling and tumbling as she scrambled to get away.

The old man who’d lived here last had had a TV, and she’d sat outside his rooms, peering in, watching films. One of them had been about European vampires… which were SCARY!

And here was one of them in front of her.

“Aiiiii.. Scary! Vampire!!”

“No.. wait, watch out for the..”

There was a crash as her rear collided with something, and the snoring sounds stopped.

“.. Laptop. Dammit! All my work!”

“Keep away from me vampire!”

Shoko threw a hastily formed binding spell at the figure, and nothing happened! The vampire didn’t even seem to notice it as it bent and picked up the thing she’d sent flying.

“Phew! No harm done… oh for..”

He eyed where she sat, hunched up and trembling, and put a hand to his mouth taking out his fangs…

“See, fake! I’m not really a vampire, any more than you are a ghost.”

Shoko eyed him distrustfully.

“Idiot! That was mean, scaring me!”

“You tried to scare me first.”

“Only because I wanted you gone!”

“Sorry kiddo, it’ll take a lot more than that. Besides, if I go then the developers will move in and tear the place down. You don’t want that do you?”

“I’ll scare them away too!”

“Yeah, no. I don’t think they’d scare that easily either.”

Shoko glared at him, as he studied her. The man smiled slightly, and bowed, speaking in flawless and only slightly accented Japanese.

“Pleased to meet you. My name is Paul Holmes, no relation to the detective. I have recently inherited this place.”

Shoko frowned, but stood up and returned the bow. Politeness was important after all.

“A pleasure to meet you. I am Shoko. I live here.”

Paul raised an eyebrow, surprised.

“You do?! There was no mention of that by the real estate agent, and the buildings don’t look like they’ve been used recently.”

Shoko placed a hand behind her head, twisting a little in place.

“Well.. it’s embarrassing...but I live in my own place, a little way away in the forest, but I come here so often it’s almost like my home too. The old priest who used to live here didn’t mind me. I helped him and he’d cook meals for me sometimes”

“Ah, that explains it. An informal arrangement. Well, I hope we can be good neighbours too… despite the odd start.”

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“Maybeee… how good a cook are you?”

Paul laughed.

“Direct and to the point! Well the kitchen here is going to need some work before I can use it, so you’ll have to wait a bit to see. But no reason why you couldn’t still be a... oh what do they call it... shrine maiden? I think that’s the right word.”

“Nyahh... Oh well… say… you’re not Japanese. How could you inherit this place? Where are you from?”

Paul smiled.

“It’s a long story, but I have snacks, so why don’t we sit down and I’ll tell you.”

Shoko nodded, and plopped down onto the bedding, which she could now see had the man’s back-pack under it to make it look like he was asleep.

“Hey, I heard you snoring in here earlier?!”

“Oh, that was a recording… the simplest tricks work the best. You made a very cute ghost by the way. Although I’m sure if I was more familiar with Japanese mythology I would have been properly terrified.”

Shoko pouted slightly.

“Boooo…”

Paul grinned to himself. He was guessing she was maybe eight or nine at most; although her size made her look younger, her behaviour gave her away.

Producing a tube of pringles and a bag of salted caramel squares he put those down, and as he thought, a pair of eager little hands dived in.

“So, ready?”

“Yay! Story time!”

Paul chuckled.

“Ok.. well it’s not quite a story, more like a true tale. But it starts when the old man who lived here was quite a bit younger. He was a business-man and he travelled quite a lot, although from what I gather his family had owned and lived in this temple for many generations. I suppose it’s one of those things, that often children try to be different from their parents. Anyway, while he was in Tokyo, he became very ill, and suffered a heart-attack.”

“Oh no! Did he die!? No.. wait...”

Paul laughed.

“Well, he did... for about two minutes. You see, my father was a doctor and was at the same hotel for a conference. He happened to be passing and went to his aid, revived the man and saved his life. But he needed surgery to fix the damage to his heart and because my father was a world famous heart surgeon, and because he went with him to the hospital, they asked my father if he would operate on the man to fix his heart.”

“So.. your father saved the old priests life?”

“Yes he did, and from what I gather, that second chance at life made him change his mind about being a businessman. So the man moved home, studied and became a priest here… taking over the family business, so to speak. However, he never had any family himself. And as he got older I guess people moved away, and eventually he was by himself. I suppose he wanted to make sure the place was looked after, once he died, and he wanted to repay the debt he felt he owed. So, in his will he left the ownership of this place to.. and I quote; ‘to the youngest son of the man who saved my life and gave me the chance to live a life with more meaning’ unquote.”

Shoko looked at Paul…

“And you’re your father’s youngest son?”

“Yup, that’s me. Only son actually, so by default oldest and youngest. But I gather it’s traditional that a youngest son becomes a priest, or so I’ve read.”

“Hai! But wait, the old priest died years ago!”

“Ah, well. You see. My father is a very good surgeon, but not so much a father. We had a falling out some years ago, about things. I guess it was sometime after that the letter arrived telling him about this place. I don’t know if the old priest even knew that the man who saved his life was English or not, but someone at the lawyers found where to send the deeds and so on.”

“Ayyiii... and your father didn’t tell you?”

“No, he didn’t. I suppose he just shoved it all into the back of his desk and forgot about it. I only found out after he died and I was helping organise and tidy everything. I was curious, contacted the lawyers who handled it and found that the place still existed and so on, despite it being empty for years no-one else had come forward to claim it.”

“But, why would you come all this way then?”

Paul looked thoughtful, running his hands though his hair as he searched for the right words.

“Well-ll… partly because I used to enjoy going to new places when I was younger, and I sort of missed that. I’ve settled down a bit in the last few years, got a steady job and so on. But I’ve never been to Japan, even though I’ve always meant to. I even took language lessons for a while, but it never seemed to be the right time. However, at the same time I inherited this place, I hit a wall... oh, I should explain. I’m a writer of stories… of various sorts. But anyway, sometimes I seem to run out of good ideas and get stuck. Usually that’s when I go off to somewhere, to blow the cobwebs out of my head and so on.”

“Ahhh… so a good time to come here then?”

“Exactly! Although it’s a bit further than I normally go… quite a bit actually! But I thought, why not? This place is out in the country, quiet, maybe that’ll get the ideas flowing again. Although, it turns out it’s probably a good thing I didn’t just turn this place over to the lawyers and real estate agent to handle. It seems there’s a developer who wants to bulldoze the place, and build on it. Which would be a terrible thing to do, vandalising a bit of history like this. Not to mention turning you out of your home! So, I think I’ll stay here for a while, work on my book and fix the place up. I like doing handy-work while I’m thinking about what to write, it’s sort of … meditative, you know. And I’ll see if I can tie this place up in some sort of legal Gordian knot so the developers can’t touch it ever again. Make sure it’s properly looked after once I’m gone.”

“You can do that?”

“Well, maybe… I know it can be done. I make a point of trying to get the details in my stories right. So I do a lot of research on a lot of different subjects and I’ve had to research legal matters like trust funds and powers of enduring attorney. Which means, basically, I don’t know exactly how to do it myself, but I do know how to find someone who does, and how to tell them what I want them to do. Which is to ensure that this temple is permanently protected, legally. Even after I’m long dead.”

Shoko’s eyes went round as she thought about it.

“Ohhhh… sort of like summoning an elemental and binding it to a ward!”

Paul laughed.

“Yes, I suppose, if you want to think of it that way. I know how to summon a lawyer and permanently bind them to a ward of legal protection, so this place is protected from legal threats.”

“That’s clever! Sayyy... you don’t have any more of these, do you?”

Shoko indicated the empty tube of pringles.

Paul shook his head.

“No, sorry Shoko, I don’t. That was the last one I brought with me.”

“Ehh! Oh.. I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t do that, it’s terribly rude of me. Now I’m embarrassed!”

“It’s ok. I can get more, and their slogan is once you pop you can’t stop.”

“Eh?”

“They mean, once you open the tube, you can’t stop eating them.. because they’re so tasty. So, think nothing of it.”

“Huh.. that’s a rotten trick, putting a spell like that on food… Anyway! I owe you. You say you’ll help make sure nothing bad happens to my home. So, I’ll help you! I can tidy and cook and look after the place… and... other things. Anything!”

Paul laughed slightly.

“Ok, ok. Well, I won’t say I wouldn’t appreciate the help. It looks like there’s a lot to do here and if I’m tangling with lawyers, that’s less time I have to do other stuff… and I did come here to take a writers retreat, kinda.”

“Ok! Then it’s settled! One should always support artists anyway. So I will do the cooking and cleaning and everything, and you take care of protecting here and writing, and and fixing things as you meditate!”

“Ok then. It’s deal.”

Paul offered his hand, and Shoko rolled up her sleeve and took it. Her grip was surprisingly warm and firm… and strong. Paul blinked as he felt an odd prickling tingle run up his arm. As for just a moment, it looked like Shoko had a pair of large, cat or fox like ears sticking out of her hair… hair which seemed to form a long fluffy tail behind her.

Paul blinked and shook his head, dismissing it as a jet-lagged and weary mind playing tricks.

“Ok, well... it sounds like it’s going to be a busy day tomorrow. The first of many, probably. So, maybe you’d best run along home while I get some long-overdue sleep.”

“Ok Paul-san! I’ll bring you breakfast, in repayment for your snacks!”

“Alright, that sounds fair. Not too early please! I’m still on London time and it’s very, very late for me. I need to catch up.”

“Ok! Not too early then!”

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