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Kwaidan:
Yurei-jo San-do
A Ghost Story: The Thrice Haunted Castle
Dedicated to Lorena, who has no idea, and never will know, that she was the inspiration.
Author’s Foreword. If you’ve read and enjoyed the ghost stories related by Lafcadio Hearn, I hope you’ll enjoy this story. Fans of supernatural fiction may also notice some stylistic hints borrowed from M.R. James.
*****
One
The Merchant
There are many beautiful places in Hirasanaka Prefecture of northern Japan and not a few that are frightening. There is only one place of which I am aware, however, that is both beautiful and frightening. It is a castle located on the shore of Lake Chosicho. The lake is bounded on the north by high cliffs and it is on the highest of these cliffs that there sits the castle. The castle is known by locals as the Thrice Haunted Castle. It presents a plain face to the road. When seen from the lake, it is an imposing edifice. The castle appears to be an extension of the cliff face and as it rises, it seems to become part of the very air into which it ascends. The effect is heightened by the reflections of the cliffs, the castle and the sky, for the water where it meets the cliff is as deep as the cliffs are high. The water is an azure blue. The castle extends into the deep water before mounting into the firmament.
Everyone who sees it, admits to its beauty. Not everyone admits to its terror. The locals shun the place.
They are a wise people who know that the heavens are filled not just with songbirds, but also dragons. And this is the story I was told by these wise ones.
The castle was once the home of a proud and noble family. The last member of the clan was a man named Yokunisi. He was accounted as a wise man, a good man, certainly a wealthy merchant, yet fair in his dealings with the local villagers. His business prospered and he added a shipping concern to his mercantile. Next he added a small bank that had originally loaned him money and had grown as his mercantile grew. Before long, he found himself much more than a merchant. His businesses outgrew his capacity to manage them.
Luckily Yokunisi had his sons to help him in his growing business empire. He had been a good husband – his honored wife had died a few years before my story opens and he was a contented widower and father. His four sons were wise like their esteemed father and he had so far been blessed with two grandsons from his second son. All his boys had married well and the prospects for the prospects were good for future grandsons. Yokunisi had reasonable hopes that he would one day see his grandsons assume the mantles of his companies.
Like many men of a certain age, the merchant took up a rich man’s hobbies. He began a series of orchids in watercolor. He studied the migratory and mating habits of the local variety of crane. He kept a fine stable of horses for hunting stags. He bought and bred a pack of hounds for use in the hunt and of these animals he was inordinately proud. These dogs he kept in a purpose-built kennel – more a courtyard than a kennel, actually – underneath one of the balconies off his bedchamber.
He had just entered his 60th fall when, as often happens to rich, healthy, and contented men, even the most wise among us, disaster struck Yokunisi. His eldest and youngest sons, while returning from India with shipments of spices and hardwoods, were met with a ferocious storm. The ships were lost with all hands. The loss of goods was sufficiently bad, the loss of his sons was tragic.
The merchant took refuge in the thought that, while he mourned the loss of his eldest and youngest, he still had two fine sons and grandsons. The loss of the cargo was merely a drop in the bucket to what was held in his warehouses. The ships had been insured and replacements were already in the ways.
Such are the ways of fate, however, that Yokunisi’s optimism was shattered. Not a month after the storm, his second son and the entire family were set upon by highwaymen while traveling to the shrine at Aori. Except for three elderly retainers who feigned death at the beginning of the attack, the party was wiped out, men, women, and children.
Yokunisi was again devastated. In a handful of months, his family had been literally decimated. He felt the cold breath of fate on the back of his neck. The merchant made fervent prayers towards the protection of his last son. He also begged his boy to take precautions in all he did, avoiding risks in travel. As young men are wont to do, he thought his father obsessed with the ideas of preventing personal danger, but agreed to some precautions. He also agreed that he and his wife would more quickly start a family.
The old man’s prayers were rejected, or perhaps answered in a negative fashion, when a week after the highway attack, a warehouse fire claimed his remaining son.
Disaster was total. Yokunisi’s world, at least the personal aspect of it, was destroyed.
For seven solid days, he did not leave the family shrine. For seven solid days, he took no sustenance save water.
On the eighth day, he sent for his major-domo. The merchant had decided. He had instructions. The trusted servant was to go out into the villages. He was to look for a bride for the merchant, searching among both the high born and the lowly for a suitable mate. Yokunisi knew he must begin anew his family. Time was short for the vernal equinox and its new moon were fast approaching and all knew that the most propitious time for begetting a son was the first hour of the first moon of the first day of spring.
The major-domo and three guards set out at once. They combed the countryside, missing not a village, not a hut or hovel, in their quest. And after seven days of searching, they came back with the only possible answer.
Two
The Beautiful Swan
That is how on the eight day after the merchant had ordered his man from the castle that Yokunisi found himself before the front door of a modest home set amidst a small but pleasant garden with its fragrant cedars and dappled pond.
The major-domo rapped on the red enameled door with his heavy stick. The portal was immediately opened by a graybeard. The servant steeped aside, allowing his master to ascend the stone step before the door. The merchant bowed deeply to the old man. Yokunisi made a speech explanation, describing himself as but a poor merchant who, bereft of family, had long heard of the household’s most beautiful granddaughter. He did not believe himself worthy, but Yokunisi presented himself most humbly for the hand of the fair maiden. He promised a small dowry and his undying faithful fullness to the maiden if she should assent to marriage.
The graybeard listened politely, nodding at one point or another, not appearing too anxious to give his granddaughter away. The terms of marriage had already been agreed to between the merchant’s servant and the grandfather, of course, yet it was well to listen to the merchant’s entreaties. The speech was indeed, well presented and obviously heartfelt.
At the end of his speech, Yokunisi bowed deeply again to the graybeard, who was called by the name Tagasura.
Tagasura made a speech of his own. His humble abode was unworthy of such an august personage as the merchant. If the great man would deign to enter however, the old man would do his best to entertain he and his retinue with appropriate diversions and Yokunisi could meet first hand the object under discussion.
Entry was made. A tea service had been laid out in the living room. As the men knelt on the mats provided, a young woman, head bowed, served drinks and cakes. A canary in a cage sang from one corner of the room. The room itself had its doors thrown open so the men could enjoy the view of the back garden where hyacinths and rhododendron prepared to bloom with the fast approaching spring.
The men made small talk. The young woman disap
peared. Yokunisi rose. With difficulty, so too did Tagasura. When the merchant bowed, the graybeard returned the gesture. Merchant and servants were escorted to the door. After more bows, the visitors made their departure.
Three
The Wedding
Four days later, the bells rang out at the nearest village’s Shinto shrine. Alone, for he had no one to stand with him, Yokunisi waited at the door to the shrine as the bride’s wedding party entered, led by Tagasura. Last of all came the bride. With bowed head, she passed her husband. The priest struck the gong inside the temple. As the last echo of the last reverberation faded, the merchant entered and stood before the priest and beside his soon to be wife. She raised her head and he saw that her name, Utsukushi Suwan, was most appropriate, for she was the most beautiful of swans.
As the priest droned on earnestly, Yokunishi watched as a lovely rose suffused his future wife’s cheeks. Out of the corner of her eye, Kushi, as she was called, saw her future husband give the slightest of smiles. She likewise smiled and in her heart of hearts she was grateful to him who had chosen her and she vowed in her heart of hearts that she would ease his pain, give him many sons.
Four
The Newest of New Moons
It was the appointed hour. The great hallway of the castle was at last emptied of guests. The servants departed. Bride and groom ascended to the wedding chamber and the great doors were shut. As the first sliver of the newest moon appeared over the distant Mount Anira, the beautiful swan cried as she lost her maidenhead and she became a woman.
Five
Omen?
It was nine months to the day – a propitious omen – that Kushi again cried out. This was a new pain, a greater pain. As the midwife instructed, she pushed harder than she had ever pushed before and it would not give, would not relent, so she pushed harder and harder still and filled the castle with her cries until they became screams of pain and effort and toil and at last the pressure was gone and her screams became sobs and a new, fainter cry, echoed among the stone walls and hung tapestries of the castle.
It was several minutes before Kushi, her arms trembling, could take the offered bundle from the nurse. It’s heft surprised her. She smiled up at her mid-wife who struggled somewhat to return the smile. The new mother opened the gap in the swaddled blankets. She smiled down at the bright dark eyes. What beautiful eyes!
Kushi began to say something to the mid-wife when she noticed how abnormally silent she and the nurse were. And the three servant girls who waited by the door. She wanted to ask what was wrong. It was the universal maternal instinct. She opened the blankets around her baby. Fingers. Toes. Then she saw…
She was sitting silently when her husband entered her bedroom. He strode in, his step that of a man many years younger than his real age.
The nurse took the child from the mother. Gave the child to its father. He, as his wife had done, smiled into the deep soulful eyes. The Yokunisi noticed what his wife had seen. Without a word, he handed the baby to the nurse. Without a word, he left the room.
His stride as he exited, however, displayed no youthfulness, betrayed his age. His steps became slower, his back more stooped as he neared the door. He closed it slowly behind him. He passed through the long hallway to his own wing of the castle. The merchant followed the stairs to his own private quarters. He crossed the polished floor. He paced the length and breadth of the room. His brow was deeply furrowed.
At last, Yokunisi paused before the wide windows that gave out onto the balcony above the private courtyard of his hunting dogs. He threw open the windows. He mounted the steps up the rail around the balcony. He rested his hands on the smoothly enameled wood of the rail. The dogs below saw him and began a baleful yelping. He called to them, each by name. The barking grew in volume. The hounds began to run in tightening circles as he called to them.
Yokunisi suddenly seemed to lose interest in the pack. He looked out across the broad cultivated fields that stretched across the landward side of his castle. Then, leaning out a bit, he craned his neck to see the edge of the lake with its deep azure water. It was a still day. Barely a ripple disturbed the blue surface of the lake or the green surface of the fields. Only the distant line of beeches responded to the breeze that failed to reach the castle.
Old. So old…
Yokunisi felt a sudden faintness engulf him. Sadness. Loss. Age. He barely felt himself sag as his legs gave way. He barely felt the smooth surface of the balcony rail as it slid beneath his suddenly cold fingers. He was unaware of hitting the hard packed earth of the courtyard. And he certainly did not feel the hot breath of his hunting dogs.
Kushi heard the sudden barking of the hounds, heard it change to growls. She had once ridden with her husband, before her condition prevented such outings, and well she remembered the sounds of the pack as it brought down its quarry.
The new mother looked down at her bundle. Her child was wailing. She looked at the mid-wife and the nurse and the trembling servant girls. She arose from the divan on which she reclined. Without word or sign to the five women, she removed herself and her burden from their presence. As quietly as had her husband, followed by the echoes of the wailing infant. The halls were empty as she descended to the ground level of the castle.
Her hands were empty as she left the castle and went to the cliff edge. The beautiful swan paused only briefly at the edge of the heights before slipping out of sight.
Six
Spirits Three
I have never seen nor heard the three spirits that infest the castle. My wife, who is sensitive to such things and who scoffs at my inability, claims to have both seen and heard them. The two she has seen are terrible, indeed.
The ghost of Yokunisi, my wife reports, presents itself as a stooped old man. It’s face is torn, as is the throat and blood has spilled down the front of specter’s robes. The right sleeve hangs empty and the right leg has been nearly ripped away, with the long upper bone crushed. The ghost shuffles slowly as it moans in pain.
The ghost of Kushi is bloated from a week in the cold waters of Lake Chosicho. Small fish have removed the eyes and lips. The flesh is wrinkled and deathly pale, the effects are heightened by the whiteness of the spirit’s robes. The ghost sobs softly, although the sobs are interrupted by louder cries.
My wife has never seen the third spirit, but reports that the sounds it renders are the most frightening of all. She is wise in such things and says they are the cries of a hungry infant in extreme pain. The wails last for several seconds and then cease – abruptly.
Afterword: Perhaps this site isn’t the best place to post such short fiction, but I wanted to show the readers out there that I’m not a one-trick pony.
The idea came while I was flat on my back in a local hospital with a massive skin infection on my right leg. My temp topped out at 104.6 and I’m told I was in no danger.
The second week of January, my laptop was stolen. On it were several erotic stories awaiting their time in the editing routine. Some were backed up on flash drives. Most weren’t.
Needless to say, January 2015 hasn’t been a kind month. If I live to see Groundhog’s Day, I’ll consider myself lucky.
As always, comments are appreciated. I lingered over the ending., I think thats where the ‘scare’ is. I’m curious to know if it worked.
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