Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [39]
Kame drained the last of his tea. ‘If we weren’t on duty, I’d suggest we change to sake,’ he muttered. ‘Yes, that’s about Hungry Ghost Castle, up in the mountains. It’s a real place, I’ve been there.’
‘So have I,’ said Chris.
‘It’s haunted now. The ghosts of travellers who fell prey to the jiki-ketsu-gaki. I can remember when everyone avoided that pass in the mountains. You had to go around the long way – it took three extra days.’
‘What is a jiki-ketsu-gaki? Some kind of vampire?’
‘There are pretas which eat flesh,’ said Kame, ‘and pretas which drink blood.
She was one of the latter. Reincarnated as a demon, a ghost. Unable to move on to her next life.’
‘A vampire,’ said Chris.
‘She would offer hospitality to travellers in her Castle, but they never emerged alive. The head monk at Doa-no-naiheya Monastery fashioned a man out of snow, and recited sutras over it for three days and three nights until it took on the semblance of life. What are you smiling about?’
‘It’s a good story,’ said Chris. ‘Go on.’
‘The monk instructed him to go to the Castle, and allow the jiki-ketsu-gaki to drink from him. She would be drinking melted snow, of course, instead of blood, a trick which would destroy her. So the snowman did as he was told.
She welcomed him into the gates of Hungry Ghost Castle and bade him sit next to her fire. He came in, but he wouldn’t sit next to the fire!’
‘He let her drink his blood,’ breathed Chris.
‘Well,’ said Kame, ‘he got into the bed he was offered, and pretended to be asleep until he heard the hungry ghost coming to drink from him. But after she’d taken a few mouthfuls, he got up, jumped out of the window, and ran down the mountainside!’
‘He ran away?’
‘Now, the head monk was returning to the monastery after a visit, and was amazed to discover a snowman halfway up the mountain, as though it had been made by flying children! Suddenly he realized it was his snowman. “You must go back,” said the monk, “and finish your mission.”
78
‘The snowman protested, “But Roshi, won’t I die if enough of me melts away?”
‘The head monk said, “Perhaps you will. I cannot force you to obey me. You must decide whether or not to return.”’
‘He ran away,’ said Chris again.
‘In the end, the snowman trudged back up the mountain, and went back into the Castle. A month passed, and nothing more was heard of the snowman or the vampire. So the head monk sent a group of fighting monks up to the Castle, to see what had happened.
‘They found the body of the jiki-ketsu-gaki, quite frozen. But of the snowman there was no sign. The head monk once again recited sutras, and had a vision: the hungry ghost had slain the snowman, but, as his reward for destroying the monster, he had been reincarnated as a human being.’
‘He ran away,’ said Chris. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Facing a human foe takes one kind of courage,’ said Kame, ‘but facing the supernatural takes a very different kind. Even I, ferocious and bold bushi that I am, might think twice about battling a monster like that.’
‘Tea,’ said Chris.
Kame poured Chris another cup. The Adjudicator bowed automatically.
‘Why would you give someone tea?’
‘Eh?’
‘As a present.’
‘Only at funerals,’ said Kame, ‘because of the white flowers.’
‘Kame?’
‘Yes, Kuriisu-san?’
‘When you died. . . where did you go?’
‘Ah. . . ’ Kame put down his teacup. ‘I dreamt I was walking along a long, long road, towards the sun going down between two mountains, and then distantly I heard a woman calling my name. Over and over, louder and louder.
I did not wish to turn from my journey, but in the end I had to turn around, and find out what the voice wanted. And then I discovered myself on top of that old bamboo trunk, with an aching back and an aching neck, and a raging appetite.’
Chris frowned. It was a very ordinary near-death experience. Or perhaps it was just Kame’s way of putting that experience into terms he could deal with.
‘Don’t worry, my brave lad,’ said Kame. ‘If you want to find out what’s on the other side of death, remain