All Too Human
"Hojo, thanks for a great day out," Kagome smiled as she stopped at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the shrine.
Hojo looked as if he would very much like to climb those stairs with her and spend a little more time with her in her family home, but she quickly moved away from him and waved goodbye. Respecting her unspoken wishes, he waved back and watched her longingly as she scaled the stone steps.
Kagome could feel his eyes on her back as she moved further and further away from him. At the top of the stairs, she stopped and turned to check if he was still waiting there at the bottom, and of course he was. She waved again and disappeared.
Once she was out of his sight, she breathed a little easier. He was the most kind and caring boy, and very nice looking too. Girls everywhere admired him. But he had been courting her for three years, and obviously wanted so much more than she felt she could give. They were both eighteen now, and had just enrolled in the University of Tokyo a couple of months ago. Gaining admission to that prestigious university had been relatively easy for them, as they had always been excellent at their studies – another reason why all their friends thought they made such a great couple.
She knew Hojo was hoping for a clear sign that she would be the "serious girlfriend" he could introduce to his parents as their prospective daughter-in-law, but that was hardly what she wanted.
"Won't it be good once we've graduated from university?" he had said to her only this afternoon, when they had spent the precious few hours of freedom from projects and assignments that a Sunday could offer them. "I know it's hard to find jobs at this time, but maybe things will be better when our turn comes? We can do our best to look for proper work then, and lead our own lives instead of having to study and study all the time. Although my parents would prefer me to continue living with them, I think I would like to look for an apartment just outside the city – would you like that kind of arrangement?"
It was one of many things he had said to her over the past year, especially when they were graduating from high school, which hinted that he wanted his plans for the future to feature her prominently.
Today, just after the movie, when he had alluded to her preferences regarding living arrangements, she had laughed lightly and replied: "Wow, you're thinking very far ahead, Hojo. I'm still very happy to be living with Mama and Grandpa – I really haven't considered the idea of living anywhere else."
But of course she had considered moving out. Of course she had thought about living far away. So far away that nothing could span the space between her old life and what was to come. Where had such ideas come from? She often wondered about that. Where exactly did she want to live? What did she want to do, or be? When had she become so dissatisfied with her existence while pretending that she was delighted with the way things had always been?
As Kagome entered the courtyard of the shrine, she felt the strange pull she had felt from the Goshinboku tree and the Bone Eater's Well for the last three years. She didn't know why she felt drawn to these things, which had always been there throughout her life – she had barely taken notice of them while she was growing up. She only knew that of late, she would often find herself staring blankly up at the massive tree and down into the ancient well, looking for something she could not identify.
Sometimes, she wondered what happened to the girl she had once been.
Up until the age of fifteen, she had been a cheerful person, happy and optimistic, looking ahead to a future that showed her nothing but bright and promising horizons. But after her fifteenth birthday, something strange had happened deep inside her soul. She had grown haunted by the disturbing feeling that something vital was missing from her life. She had no idea what it was, but the feeling would not leave her.
The closest explanation she could craft to account for the odd feeling was that some strange fate meant for her had somehow bypassed her, and it was fleeing further and further away from her as time passed, calling out to her as it receded into the distance. But she did not know what it was, or where it was, or how to grasp it.
When Hojo had first taken a romantic interest in her in their final year of middle school, it had only made her realise all the more that something crucial she wanted was not within her reach.
She stood under the tree now, gazing up at its mighty trunk, which was marked by mysterious old scars which surely hailed from long before the time of anyone still alive. She looked right up into its mysterious canopy of green leaves casting a calming shade which felt like the benevolent shadow of another world. Something was right there at the edges of her consciousness, just beyond her vision, just beyond her fingertips… something she couldn't name.
Frustrated, she shook her head to clear her mind.
"What am I supposed to do?" she whispered to the tree, feeling a little foolish, for she had never spoken to it before.
The wind whispered an answer through the rustling leaves and twigs, but it spoke in a language she could not understand, and the answer was lost to her.
"Kagome? Are you home?" she heard her mother's voice from inside the house.
"Yes, Mama!" she called out, walking away from the tree and heading for the house, where she slid the front door open and stepped into the hallway. "I'm back."
"I thought it was you," her mother smiled cheerfully as she stepped into the kitchen. "How was the movie?"
"Oh, it was all right," she sighed, slipping into her usual seat at the kitchen table.
"And Hojo?" Mrs Higurashi asked.
"He's fine."
"Why didn't he come in?"
"He wanted to, but I was tired, Mama. I just wanted to come home and rest."
"Are you feeling unwell? You can't be used to university life yet… I must ask your grandfather to prepare some of his best tonics…"
"Ohhhh no, Mama – no tonics, please," Kagome protested, wide-eyed. "I swear he puts dinosaur bones into those pots! They taste terrible! I promise you I'm fine. I just feel tired around Hojo sometimes – he's so nice and earnest, and I feel so sorry for him…"
Her mother looked at her so kindly just as she spoke the last bit that Kagome knew there was no use hiding it from her.
"I didn't mean for that to come out, but I really do feel sorry for him more than I feel anything else," the girl admitted.
"I know," Mrs Higurashi said.
"You do?"
"Of course I do. I'm your mother."
"You like Hojo, though, don't you?" Kagome asked curiously.
"I like him very much. I think he is the kind of decent young man who will grow up to treat his wife well and be a loving father to his children. I think he is a hardworking and honest boy, and I know he cares a great deal for you. If you were to marry him, I would feel assured that you would have a safe and good life. But if that is not what you want, then it is not what I want for you."
"It should be what I want!" Kagome cried softly, shocked to feel the tears starting into her eyes, for she had not thought that she felt this emotional about the matter. "It was just the kind of fairy tale I always wanted when I was a child, but I don't want it any more. The problem is that I don't know what I want… I don't know. What should I do?"
"Maybe it's time to stop thinking about what you should do, or what Hojo wants, or what I hope for, or what the world wants you to become. Maybe it is time to be still and quiet and look inside, to discover what it is that calls out to you."
It was almost as if her mother knew that something had been whispering messages to her that she could not understand. "What do you mean, Mama…?" she asked, wondering if she had read her mind.
Mrs Higurashi hugged her and said: "Do you know where your name comes from, Kagome?"
"You always told me it was the name of one of Papa's ancestors."
"Yes. Four to five hundred years ago, a Shinto priestess named Kagome lived in this part of Japan – possibly right where we live now. Her gravestone amongst the trees, near where the ancient village used to stand, still bears her name. She left a few writings, some of which survived to be copied down and passed on through the generations. One fragment of her writings – no one knows if it was part of a letter or a diary – recorded the words I just repeated to you about being still and quiet and looking inside to learn what calls out to you."
"Really? She wrote that?"
"Yes. That Kagome was a remarkable woman, from what family history tells us. She was said to have been so wise that she could see the future, highly educated, powerful and compassionate, a master archer and a great healer. It is said that she taught the people under her care many important things that stood her community in good stead over the centuries – do you know, there's even a rumour that she warned her descendants to stay away from Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War that was to come hundreds of years after her death? She seems to have been very unusual. Priestesses these days can easily marry, but back then, Shinto miko couldn't. However, she married and had children and grandchildren, yet remained a pure and powerful priestess. The old legend goes that the man she married wasn't fully human. Of course it's just a legend – your grandfather is her great-great-great and I don't know how many 'greats' grandson, and he seems perfectly human to me! All too human, in fact!"
Kagome wiped her tears away and giggled to hear her mother – who was always so kind and respectful – speak thus about her father-in-law.
"Your father and I named you after her, because when you were born, you looked so bright and good-natured and capable that we felt you were destined for great things. That was why we gave you the name of such an illustrious ancestor. And perhaps, like what the legends say of her, you shouldn't marry a man who is all too human to you."
"Oh, I don't know. Hojo is so sweet-natured that I wonder if he is fully human – sometimes I think he's a saint," Kagome sighed.
"Perhaps. But when you look at him, do you see a mere mortal?" Mrs Higurashi asked playfully.
"Yeah."
"Then maybe he is too human for you."
Kagome smiled and felt much better as she tucked into the hot, clear, gingery sweet potato soup her mother set down before her on the kitchen table.
...
Late that evening, she opened her bedroom window and looked into the warm spring night, which promised that summer would be here soon. She could see the lights of the city beyond the elevated ground on which their home and the shrine were built. But she was distracted from the bright lights by an odd sense that somewhere to her right – where her eyes could only just make out the wellhouse and the fence around the Goshinboku tree – someone was watching her.
She even thought she saw a shadow in the darkness.
It couldn't be. The shrine closed by about six pm every day, except on special occasions when night-time ceremonies were called for. It was true, however, that security was not exactly tight around the grounds, and there was little to stop trespassers from jumping over the low fences and gates – although such a thing had never happened before, as far as she was aware. Fortunately, the house itself was reasonably secure, provided one did not leave a window open at night.
Kagome quickly slid her window shut, closed and latched it, and reached toward her desk to switch off the light she had been studying by, so that she would be less visible to whoever was out there. She continued looking through the glass in the direction of the wellhouse and tree. It seemed that something was there in the shadows cast by the great tree. But as she gazed hard at it, willing it to move and show itself more clearly, she gradually felt a curious sense of calmness and peace, until she actually found herself smiling gently in the dark.
It was the oddest thing, but she had a peculiar sensation of being watched over, rather than watched.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but as the shadow seemingly merged with the deepest shades of night and disappeared, she thought she saw a twin-flash of beautiful colour – like a pair of emerald green eyes winking at her before they vanished into the darkness.
