The rosary on the Bone Eater's Well was a beautiful thing. It was nearly a yard long, and gradiated in color from a deep sea blue all the way through pale rose pink; interspersed with delicate paper ofuda. Kagome had placed it there when she came back from the Sengoku Jidai early in the summer of last. She had fed jii-chan a story about how it had been blessed by seven great priests to sooth his ego, but she had privately confided to Souta that Kaede-bachan and the lecherous priest had helped her with it. Regardless, it would forever block the path to and from the past.
His sister had been uncommonly grim when she returned to stay, placing the rosary and purifying the well-house with a kind of enraged efficiency. After a few weeks of that, she had become confident that the rosary was performing its duty, and the Higurashi household attempted to regain the skewed normality it had possessed before its only daughter had been summoned to her destiny. Souta longed to ask his sister about her travels, but she had forbidden anyone to mention them.
It was autumn now: Kagome would rejoin her friends at her new school, miraculously cured of all ills and properly caught up, thanks to summer school. Souta's curiosity, however, had not diminished with time. He spent drawn out minutes gazing at the well-house, feeling inexplicably drawn there. Today nee-chan was out with her friends, mama working, and jii-chan was napping. With no one else around, he could sneak into the well-house without fear.
Many months without cleaning had gathered a coat of dust on the floor, but the rosary shone as brightly as the day it had been brought there. He brushed his hands on one of the ofuda, feeling its powers crackle beneath his fingers; his hand slowly curling around the beads about to pull . . .
"Souta! Don't!" The boy twisted around to face his sister, his hand jerking back. Kagome was breathing hard, mundanely elegant in her new high school uniform. She rushed forward, furious.
"Souta, do you have any idea what you might have done? I told you never to remove the seal on the well!"
He blushed, embarrassed, "I'm sorry, nee-chan. I just . . . I wanted . . ." He swallowed, "When will big brother Inuyasha come back for you?"
Tears now mingled with the fury in Kagome's eyes. "He will never come back, can't you understand? Never, never, never, never."
She darted into the house, choking on her sobs. Souta could hear her crying, but she would not allow him to enter her room. He finally crept in after dark, when she had fallen asleep, fully clothed. Clenched in her fist was a large piece of red cloth, the same shade as the haori big brother Inuyasha had always worn. Her breath came peacefully, the crimson shred held close to her heart.
Souta wondered again if nee-chan and the hanyouhad fought, but he knew no argument between them could last through the summer, not with Inuyasha's eagerness to find Shikon shards. Unless . . .Inuyasha had easily come through the barrier erected by jii-chan, but a barrier made by two miko and a houshii might be a different matter.
But why would Kagome not want Inuyasha to return? She had often been upset when they had fought, but so relieved when he returned for her. Souta crept out of Kagome's room and back out the house, into the dark. He glanced at the empty, surrounded by silence.
Months later, well into the school year, when the frost was on the fallen leaves, Souta thought of the rosary again. He was just returning from school when he saw that the entrance to the well-house was open. It creaked in the wind, bumping against the sill. Souta went to close it, trying, trying not to see inside; not to see the dust and the well and rosary, shining.
He slammed the door and bolted for the house, head reeling. He could taste the dust and feel the dry ofuda and the coolness of the beads seemed to tingle his skin. He turned, slipping his back on, going back out the unclosed door. The entrance to the well-house was open again; creaking, tapping, calling.
Souta closed the door with a satisfying snap. There was even more dust then before, churned up into a tiny storm by the passing of tiny feet. The rosary, still luminous in blues, lavenders, and pinks, lay against the Bone Eater's Well. The ofuda fluttered and Souta rubbed one between his fingers. Shaking hands knocked the beads, which clanked hollowly.
Souta ran is hand along the length of the rosary and grasped the blue end firmly.
He jerked it free.