“I saw her.She was here,” she tells me in a shaky voice.
“Who?”I ask, even though I have a good idea who she’s talking about.
Kuchisake-Onna.
“The lights went out, and then I felt something, a freezing-cold air on the back of my neck, and then I heard a voice—hervoice.”
Hayami’s eyes dart around as if checking to see that we’re still alone, even though I don’t think we’ve ever been alone here.
“I thought I saw something, a dark shadow.It was hard to tell, as there was just blackness, but I swear I saw the flash of eyes.”
Her words come quicker now, as if she needs to set them free.
“I tried to run, but there was this burning in my chest, as if I was being flooded by something invading my body.My limbs weren’t mine.I had no control over what my body was doing.And then my thoughts were not my own.”
Her eyes settle on a spot on the balcony, her hair billowing behind her as the wind whips at it and the darkness caresses her skin.
“Memories came to me—not my own, someone else’s.It felt like a movie playing in my head.”She glares at me, but it’s as if she isn’t seeing me, her eyes glassy, her face drawn as she tells me exactly what she saw in a haunting voice that barely resembles her own.
“I was in the master bedroom,” she says, voice flat, almost mechanical—not her words but the words of whatever had consumed her.“It was evening.I remember shaking, hiding behind the en suite door because I knew he’d found out.”Hayami’s hands tremble.“Barrett… he was hammering against the door and shouting.‘Whore.’‘Bitch.’‘Cunt.’He kept hitting the door until it splintered, and that was when I saw the tip of the axe.I was afraid, not for myself but for the baby.”Her hands drop protectively to her stomach.“I deserved this.I’d been unfaithful in order to get pregnant, to give Barrett the only thing he ever wanted from me.But my baby was innocent.”She snarls like a dog guarding its pup, then raises her hand.“I smashed a mirror, grabbed a shard of glass, but—” She swallows hard, eyes flicking past me.“It was too late.He was in the room, laughing like a fucking maniac, spitting insults at me, swinging the axe like a pendulum.”
All too clearly, I could picture Barrett Devall, lord of the manor, betrayed, mocked, and in a fucking frenzy.
“He told me about Kuchisake-Onna—the legend from my country about a concubine who was unfaithful to one of the samurai.And as punishment, he slashed her mouth from ear to ear whilst she was still alive.”Hayami’s arms drop, eyes glazing over as she stares at nothing, but I see the horror, the bloodless pallor of her skin.Her hands move back to her stomach as if shielding an invisible child.Then she looks at me.
“He said I was a cheating whore.That he’d make me look like her.Then he grabbed the shard of glass from my hand.”
She touches her face like she can still feel the cut.“It was like a hot poker slicing through meat, tearing the flesh from my cheeks.”She hesitates, a gargled sound coming from her before she continues.“I stopped screaming when the blood gathered under my tongue, stopped breathing when it ran down the back of my throat and choked me until I couldn’t breathe.”
She blinks slowly, one hand cupping her jaw as if she’s trying to hold it on, the other rubbing over her stomach as if trying to soothe the baby she felt was there.
Her voice fades, like she’s lost all power, all purpose, because she knows this is the end.“The last words I heard him say were that no one ever defied him and got away with it, not even me, his wife.”
Hayami stares at me, eyes awash with memories that are not her own.
“Noa Devall,” I confirm, placing this detail amongst the others, letting it settle into the picture as if placing the last piece of the jigsaw.“Your dad’s second wife.”
She nods.“I was told she died in childbirth.Always believed that was the case.But now I know.I saw it.”Her eyes widen, fixing on me as if daring me to challenge her, even though she knows I’m not the one who needs convincing about the spirit of someone plaguing this house.Hayami has always been the sceptic, the one who reaches for an explanation, science, and facts.I thought, along with Junko, that it was Kuchisake-Onna.But no.It was never the legend that roamed this house.It’s the ghost of Noa Devall haunting this place due to her barbaric murder that happened in this very room.
“I felt it.”Hayami gulps the freezing air.“I felt it all, the glass on my mouth, ripping my skin as the shard cut through it.I tasted the blood, felt it pooling in the back of my throat, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, and all the while, I was looking into his eyes—the eyes of my father.”A sadness swamps her as she carries not only her own hurt but that of everyone who Devall’s destroyed.
“After Noa left my body, I wondered why she’d done it, why she was here and trying to communicate with me.Then I realised she was warning me, showing me the kind of man my father is, what he’s capable of and what he’ll do when he’s betrayed—just as she tried to do with my mother, although Mum never figured out who she was or what she was trying to tell her before leaving this house.”
Hayami looks out over the mountainside, and something in me crumbles, because she’s right.This is what will happen to her.I don’t care what happens to me; I’ve been on the brink of death, felt the lick of the flames, felt the heat of hell.But Hayami… I can’t let Devall find her.I can’t let him do this to her.I won’t.But how do I protect her from a man with eyes everywhere?A man who will tear the world apart to get what he wants?
She’s right.Her sensible scientific brain has worked it out, has come up with the only solution to the problem.The only answer that’ll ensure that he doesn’t get what he wants, doesn’t find her, and doesn’t win this war.
It’s why the dark shadow stalks her aura.It knows her time is almost up.Death’s so close now.There’s no escaping it.
My heart sinks as I look into her eyes.“You’re right,” I tell her.
Her eyes widen.It’s not the response she expected.
“This is the only way to stop him.”I take a step towards her, and she clings to the balcony.
“What are you doing?”she asks, watching me warily.
“I’m doing what we both need to do—the only thing we can do—because you’re right: Your father will find us and kill us.I don’t care what he does to me; I’ll probably take great pleasure in the pain he dishes out, because I deserve it.I’ve failed you, just like I failed my sister.”
