over time, those emotions took on a life of their own. They seeped into the land and, for whatever reason, became trapped here.”
“Daughter,” repeated the spirit of Kiyomi-sama. Her voice was low, hollow, as if trying to remember something painful. “Yes, I had a daughter. Once, a long time ago. She was...she was taken from me.” She began to shake, tendrils of black soot rising up to swirl around her. Her claws flexed, and the eyes behind the mask flickered red. “Stolen,” she whispered, the tenor of her voice beginning to slip into madness again. “Gone. All I have left are memories...memories and...” She glanced back toward the shrine, glowing black and purple against the cavern wall. “You will not take them.”
“Your daughter is alive!” I said, wincing as the demoness spun back, raising her claw. “She returned to the island and...” I trailed off, heart pounding, as those bright red talons hovered right over my head. “She’s...right here,” I whispered. “My...my name is Yumeko, Kiyomi-sama. I...was the child you lost. The daughter that was stolen.”
The demoness stared at me. “Yumeko,” she whispered. A tremor went through her, and the raised talon slowly dropped. “That...that was her name,” she whispered, as if in a daze. “The name I wanted to give her, the name I had chosen for my baby. Yumeko. Child of dreams.” She swayed, talons opening and closing, as if unsure of what to do. Behind the mask, her gaze shifted to me, eyes narrowing. “Why?” she asked, the faintest thread of anger nestled deep in her voice. “You were gone so long. I mourned you for so long. Why did you never come back?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. The reasons rose to my tongue—I didn’t know my past, I had been raised in isolation for years—but I bit them down. Excuses wouldn’t placate a spirit, not one so consumed with rage and despair. “I’m here now,” I told her, meeting the terrible gaze under the mask. “If it will bring you peace, take your vengeance on me, Kiyomi-sama, and release the curse on my friends. They’re not responsible for your pain.”
“Vengeance.” Slowly, one arm rose, crimson talons flaring wide a few inches from my head. I flinched, but the tips of the claws very gently touched my face, tracing my cheek and jaw. “I never wanted retribution,” the spirit of Kiyomi-sama murmured. “I only wanted to see her, to watch her grow, to share in all the blessings and trials life would give her.” Her other arm rose, both sets of talons framing my face, curling through my hair. “But she has grown up strong, beautiful. It is all a mother could hope for.”
My throat closed up. And even though my heart still pounded and my hands shook, I slowly reached out and touched the edges of the Noh mask covering the demon’s face. The porcelain was cold against my fingers as I met the stark gaze underneath.
“You’ve been in pain for too long, Kiyomi-sama,” I said softly. “It’s time to let go.”
Very gently, I pulled. The Noh mask came away easily in my hands, brittle and lifeless. The face beneath was Kiyomi-sama’s, human except for the horns still curling from her forehead, but ravaged with a lifetime of grief and despair. Her pupils were streaked with red, her gaunt cheekbones standing sharply against her skin, all her beauty worn away. But she gazed at me with eyes that, though they still held an eternity of sorrow, were clear.
“Home,” she whispered, and one talon rose to gently catch a strand of my hair. “You’ve come home.”
I swallowed hard as the spirit of Kiyomi-sama began to fray apart at the edges, black soot spiraling into the air and drifting away into the dark. The talon holding up the strand of my hair dissolved, as did the hand, and then the arm a moment later. From the corner of my eyes, I could see the carpet of flowers doing the same, black petals turning to dust and rising into the air until they vanished into the blackness overhead.
“Yumeko-chan.” The spirit was almost gone now. Just her face and a bit of her robes remained, though they, too, were dissolving rapidly. “Do not be deceived,” she murmured. “The tainted one, the soul who opened the gates of Jigoku,