Disclaimer: Still don't own it.

The Tenth Plate: Watanuki's Story

The man who came to the door of the shop was portly, with the kind of mustache that used to be called "mutton chops." He was in his forties and wearing a suit the same shade of gray as the mustache. He was also wearing the embarrassed expression I'd seen on a few of the shop's customers before. It was the look of someone who had been told to come to the shop, but didn't quite believe we'd be able to do anything.

He introduced himself as Odaka and gratefully accepted my offer of tea. He continued to look uncomfortable as he sipped at it, staring around the room as if surprised to find that a supposedly wish-granting shop would have such a normal appearance. When Yuuko-san asked what his wish was, Odaka-san hesitated for a few seconds before starting to talk about his new house.

"I was lucky enough to make a lot of money when the company I started went public," he told her. "With some of the money, I bought a beautiful old house on the outskirts of the city. The house itself has been rebuilt a couple of times since it was originally built back in the Edo Period. I wanted to have not just my wife and children, but my parents living there with me. They're starting to get older, you know, and I'd like to make sure they don't have to worry about anything in their 'golden years'."

"That's very admirable," she said.

"Well, at first, things were going great! I had the house renovated, the grounds cleared up, and so on. Planted a couple of trees and had a cover put on this old well in the front yard. After a few months of work, the place was ready for us all to move in.

At the end of the first day, we all collapsed into our beds, exhausted by the move. Just as I was starting to drift off to sleep, I heard a thump. It sounded like it was coming from outside. Then I heard a woman's voice. She was counting. 'One, two, three,' and so on. She went all the way up to nine. Obviously I was wondering who she was and why she was counting, but I didn't get to think about it very long. After she got to nine, instead of saying 'ten,' she screamed. It was this awful shriek, like something you'd hear in a horror movie just before the alien or monster or whatever pounces on its latest victim."

"What happened after the scream?"

"Well, of course my wife and I both sat bolt upright in bed! My wife was terrified, because she thought it was our daughter or my mother who had screamed. But my daughter ran into the room just then: she thought the wailing had come from my wife! We checked on my mother, and she was fine too. So obviously the screaming woman was outside. She sounded terrified, so we called the police. The shrieking had stopped by the time they got there, and even though they searched the whole property, they didn't find anyone in distress. There was one odd thing, though: the cover I'd had put on the well was sitting on the ground next to it. They were worried that someone might have fallen in, but of course that was one of the first places they looked when they were examining the yard, and there was no one there."

"Was that the only time this happened?"

"No! No, far from it. It's happened every night since then. None of us can get any sleep, and my children are scared out of their wits."

Yuuko-san promised Odaka-san that she'd look into the matter, and I showed him out. I was sure he was being troubled by some kind of spirit, and something about his story sounded familiar to me. Something about a ghost that always counts up to nine...

That night, when the moon rose, Yuuko-san and I went out into the backyard. She was carrying a long, thin scarf in one hand. Without so much as a word of warning, a circle filled with complicated symbols appeared on the ground with her at its center. At the time, I only knew what a few of the symbols meant: phases of the moon, zodiac symbols, things like that. It started to spin around, and the end of the scarf that Yuuko-san wasn't holding onto started to rise up into the air. The whole time, there was this feeling like the air was heavy somehow, the way it feels right before a big thunderstorm. The scarf kept floating up and up, until it was higher than the roofs of the buildings on either side of the shop. It seemed longer than any scarf could possibly be. I remember thinking, But I guess I shouldn't be surprised; everything Yuuko-san owns is weird. She just stood there for a while with her head tilted back to look at the sky, until the scarf fell back down and shrunk to its normal size.

"Now I know where it is," she said.

"Where what is?"

"The tenth plate."

"What? What does that mean? Why can't you ever explain anything clearly?"

"It's a long story, so you'd better go get some sake for me to drink while I tell it."

I brought out a bottle of sake, and we sat on the back porch and drank while Yuuko-san told me about Okiku-san and the ten plates. It's an old story that's been retold many times, which explains why part of it had sounded vaguely familiar. It's been adapted for the bunraku puppet theater, for kabuki, and even as an episode of a TV series! According to the story, there was this servant named Okiku-san who worked for a samurai's family. The samurai was in love with her, but she always turned him down. So he hid one of these ten precious Dutch plates the family owned. She was in charge of washing them, so naturally the assumption was that she'd lost or broken it. When she admitted her "mistake" to him, he said that he wouldn't fire her for it if only she'd return his love. But she refused again, and he got so angry that he killed her and threw her body into a well.

But as Yuuko-san once told me, the burden of killing a person is very, very heavy. That night, as the samurai got ready for bed, he heard Okiku-san's voice counting. She counted from one to nine and then screamed, a bloodcurdling scream just like the one the customer had heard. The samurai realized she was counting the plates and shrieking when she couldn't find the tenth one. That went on for night after night, and different versions of the story say different things about how the samurai handled it. Some say he moved away, some say he hired a priest to finish the count for her so that she could move on, and some say he committed seppuku so that he could finally be with her.

"Now I remember the story!" I told Yuuko-san. "But I thought it happened at Himeji Castle?"

"It's true that most people think that's where it happened, because the popular bunraku version of the story sets it there. But as with most old tales, there are myriad versions, and the details differ slightly from one to another."

"So it didn't really happen at Himeji Castle? It happened at this guy's house instead? That's creepy!"

"What do you think we should do about it?"

Yuuko-san was looking at me with that enigmatic smile of hers, and I got the feeling that she was testing me. "Well...one version of the story says that a priest was hired to finish Okiku-san's count, right? We could get Doumeki to do something like that."

"And do you think that would be enough? Would just hearing someone call out 'ten' be likely to placate Okiku-san's ghost?"

"It might make her think that someone had found the tenth plate."

"Think about the various spirits you've encountered. Would most of them be likely to fall for such a simple trick?"

I had to admit that they wouldn't. "So what should we do?"

"My, my, you can be a bit slow sometimes," Yuuko-san said. Needless to say, that annoyed me, and Maru and Moro chorusing "Slow on on the uptake!" in the background didn't help. "Didn't I just say that I had found the tenth plate? Now all we need to do is retrieve it."

Now, you have to understand, Yuuko-san often had me do things that seemed pretty outlandish at first. So I was expecting her to come out with something like, "Oh, it's in an art museum, but don't worry, all you have to do is break in and steal it!" But instead she told me that it was at Doumeki's temple.

"Does that mean we have to spend the evening with Doumeki?" I would much rather spend it with Himawari-chan!

"Well, then, you're in luck! She's offered to help Doumeki-kun organize the books in the temple's collection."

"...My inner voice just became an outer voice again, didn't it?"

Sure enough, we found Doumeki and Himawari-chan in the outbuilding behind the temple, sorting through stacks of books. Yuuko-san told them the story of Okiku-san. Himwari-chan stared at her with rapt attention, and Doumeki nodded periodically in a way that made me think he was already familiar with it.

"I do have that plate," he said when Yuuko-san was done talking. "In his will, my grandfather instructed that it should stay at the temple 'until it's needed.'" He led us into the main temple and showed us a beautiful plate mounted on the wall of a side alcove. It was about the size of an average dinner plate, with an exquisitely detailed blue design on a white background. The picture showed a tall building on the bank of a river. A boat was tied up at a dock alongside the building, with a willow tree hanging over it.

He lifted the plate down and offered it to Yuuko-san, who held it for a few moments and then pronounced, "Yes, this is definitely the right plate. Of course, Watanuki here will make you a full dinner to pay you for it."

"What! I never said I'd do that!"

When we left a few hours later, I assumed we would go back to the shop, but Yuuko-san led me in a completely different direction. "Uh, where are we going?"

"To return Okiku-san's plate, of course!"

"Now? Shouldn't we prepare or something? I mean, we're talking about going to meet an angry ghost here."

"She won't be angry when we give her plate back. Besides, you heard our client talk about how agonized she is when she can't find the missing one. Do you want to let her go through another night of that?"

"...No, I guess I don't."

We came to Odaka-san's house, and Yuuko-san just pushed the gate open and traipsed right in like she owned the place. The well was off to the side of the house, under a sakura tree. "Now what?"

"Now we wait for Okiku-san to appear."

It was the night of a new moon, so it was almost totally dark. Cicadas were buzzing and some kind of small animal was rustling around in the bushes. I got that shivery feeling I always got in those days when there were spirits nearby, and as time went on it got stronger and stronger.

After what felt like hours, I heard a soft rattling that wasn't coming from the bushes. It sounded like it was coming from the well in front of us. Because it was so dark, at first I couldn't tell what was happening, but then I realized that the noise must be the wooden cover our client had installed clattering against the stone of the well. A louder thump told me when it had finally been pushed off entirely. My palms were all sweaty, and when Yuuko-san shoved the plate into my hands, I almost dropped it.

"Why are you giving this to me?"

"So you can return it to Okiku-san!"

"You want me to do it? You're the one who has years of experience handling this kind of thing! What if I do something wrong? What if I offend her? Honestly, Yuuko-san, I think it would be better if you-"

But I didn't have any more time to protest, because now I could see movement at the open mouth of the well. A pair of dimly-glowing hands appeared, followed by a head and a torso. The woman climbed out of the well and sat on the edge of it. She had long, jet-black hair that fell down her back, and she was wearing a kimono with a classic cherry blossom pattern. Her face would have been beautiful if it wasn't so full of anxiety. She looked like a woman who had been kept from sleep for many nights by a persistent worry.

"One," she said, and even though her voice was soft, it echoed through the grounds.

"Two. Three. Four. Five. Six."

I glanced back and forth between Okiku-san and Yuuko-chan, hoping to get some clue as to what I was supposed to do. Should I just walk up and hand her the plate? Was there some kind of ceremony or ritual I had to perform? Yuuko-san was completely unhelpful; she just stood there looking at me and smiling.

"Seven. Eight. Nine."

Now or never, I thought, and stepped forward, holding the plate out. "Here! Okiku-san, I found your lost plate for you!"

Okiku-san looked at me, looked at the plate, then snatched it out of my hands. She bent over it, running her fingers over the designs and examining it closely for any cracks or flaws. Finally, she looked up at me again. "Ten," she whispered, and a tentative smile formed on her lips. "Ten!" she repeated, louder this time. The smile stretched into a grin. "TEN!" She started to glow, brighter and brighter until I had to close my left eye. With my right, I saw her turn into a shining mist that dissipated into the surrounding air.

The plate was left behind, and I just barely managed to catch it before it hit the ground. "I did it, Yuuko-san! I did it!"

"Of course you did, Watanuki," Yuuko-san answered, as though she'd never had any doubt.

"What do we do with the plate now? Give it back to Doumeki?"

"No, we paid him for it, so there's no need to return it. The person we should give it to is him." She pointed to the house, and I saw Odaka-san running toward us, dressed in pajamas.

"Ah! I'm so sorry for trespassing!" I exclaimed. "It was all Yuuko-san's idea; I'm entirely blameless!"

"What? Trespassing? No, no, I don't care about that. All I care about is that you got her to leave! My family can have a good night's sleep for the first time in weeks!"

Yuuko-san gestured to the plate in my hands. "This is what the ghost was searching for, and it is now yours to keep. Now, about your own payment..."

"Of course, I'll get my checkbook."

"Money is not what I require. The appropriate price for the service we have done you is the daisho mounted in your living room."

Our client's face fell. "But that daisho belonged to an ancestor of mine; it dates back to the Meiji era!"

"Yes, it did belong to one of your ancestors. A samurai, who once had a servant by the name of Okiku-san."

My head whipped around to look at Yuuko-san so fast, I was surprised I didn't end up with whiplash. "But Okiku-san was..."

"The ghost, yes. That is why the daisho is an appropriate price. It was the most prized possession of the man who wronged her, and so it's only fair that it should be given up to those who allowed her to rest."

A look of recognition passed over our client's face, and it was clear that he was familiar with the story of Okiku-san. "My ancestor did that?" His shoulders slumped. "When my children were young and asked about the daisho, I told them our ancestor was a proud warrior who embodied an ancient code of honor and chivalry. What should I tell them now?"

"The truth: that if you go back far enough in history, no one's lineage is entirely without blemish. The important thing is for each generation to strive to do better than the one before."

"Why Watanuki, that was unexpectedly profound," Yuuko-san said in a gently teasing voice.

"I suppose you're right," he sighed. "Please, come inside. You can have some tea while I wrap up the daisho."

"I remember that," Himawari said. "You told the story well!"

"Thank you," Watanuki acknowledged, inclining his head.

"It's great that you were able to help Okiku-san," Taiki said. "I read about her in a book of ghost stories once, and I thought it was more sad than scary. But what a coincidence, that guy living in the house with Okiku-san's well when it was his ancestor who killed her!"

Watanuki smiled, watching as tendrils of smoke from one of the candles curled around the edge of an ornamental screen like fingers. "There is no coincidence in this world. What there is, is hitsuzen."

A/N: A daisho is the set of two swords (katana and wakizashi) traditionally carried by samurai.

The story of Okiku-san is a classic Japanese ghost story. As Watanuki tells his guests, it's been adapted for a variety of media formats, one of which sets it in Himeji Castle. Apparently the castle is a major tourist attraction, and while it's closed at night, the supposed sightings (or hearings?) of Okiku-san's ghost have continued to this day.

Doumeki's story is going to be next, so stay tuned!