Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Ghost Hunt or even the story of Sleeping Beauty. However, I am fairly sure that the latter is in the public domain so….

Opening Talks – Part One

The second time, they stayed for a few days.

When she had realized that the rentable cabin a few hundred yards from the complex had been let out, she had quickly gone to go visit. A few years back, she'd met up with a newlywed couple who had, strangely, struck up a friendship with her and came to visit at least once a year and more often when able.

Excited at the idea of seeing them, she drew up short when she found three teenagers instead. It only took her seconds to recognize the twins from their previous encounter and they seem to have brought a friend with them as well as a bunch of equipment that looked to be designed for recording. Glad that she had not rushed over noisily, she slowly backed away and returned to her own place, curious as to what would bring the two back.

Her silent question was answered the following day when the three approached the same area. She hesitated to go out to them at first, but when they did not seem inclined to leave, she finally sighed and called out to them from her usual perch on the wall.

"Back to be rude some more?"

The three looked up at her quickly, the friendlier twin waving at her happily.

"Hello again! We just came to talk if that is okay?"

Mai considered it for a moment before making a noncommittal sort of gesture. If they wanted to spend their time in the middle of the woods talking to her, who was she to argue? No one else had come around since they had stopped by a few weeks before and she had been getting a little bored.

"Conversations are easier when all parties are at the same height level," the ruder twin prodded her.

"Conversations are easier when all parties aren't jerks," she responded quickly, but still took the hint and jumped down, stumbling slightly as she landed. Face red, she straightened her kimono silently before turning to the small group.

"Well, one can only ask so much from him," the friendlier twin commented with a smile. "Shall we introduce ourselves? I am Eugene Davis, you can call me Gene. This surly idiot is my brother, Oliver, and this magnificence of beauty is Hara Masako."

Attention finally pulled away from the cold glare of Oliver, she looked over at the other girl and almost gasped. Did these people only know other attractive people? While fashion had moved on past traditional clothing, Hara-san looked amazing in her own kimono and she couldn't help but feel jealous.

"It is rude not to return an introduction," Oliver murmured with a smirk.

"Oh," she blushed, equally irritated and embarrassed to have been reminded of her manners by him of all people. "I am Taniyama Mai. Nice to meet you. I am under your care."

She bowed as she said the ritualized greeting, unable to break the formal habit. As she straightened, she noticed that all three of them were continuing to look at her almost expectantly. It seemed like they wanted to say something more but were unsure of how to continue on. Finally, Hara-san stepped forward with a gentle smile.

"Taniyama-san," she began before Mai interrupted her.

"Oh! Please call me Mai."

"Of course," the woman smiled. "Mai-san, we have come here to talk to you if that is okay with you."

Mai nodded. "That is fine. I would invite you in but…." She trailed off with a small shrug.

"Before I begin, I would like to ask…," Hara-san began before pausing briefly.

"Ask me what?"

"Are you aware that you are…dead?"

Mai blinked at her then looked at the other two. Gene-san looked to be sympathetic, but also a touch confused as if he wasn't certain about what was happening. Oliver looked like a stone wall except for his narrowed eyes that betrayed his own interest in the conversation.

"Um, I am not dead."

Hara-san smiled at her sympathetically. "It is okay. You do not need to be afraid. We mean you no harm and are simply here to help you pass on to your next life."

Confusion clear on her face, Mai shook her head. "No, you don't understand. I am not confused."

"What do you mean?" Oliver cut in sharply.

"I mean…," she began slowly. "I am not dead. I am still alive."

"But, Mai-chan, you just disappeared the other day. Clearly you are not…." Gene-san began before trailing off, unsure how to finish his sentence.

"Normal?" Mai smiled. "No, I know I am not exactly normal."

"Explain," Oliver prompted succinctly.

"I am cursed. My body is over there, trapped in sleep," she replied with slightly narrowed eyes as she gestured towards her ancestral home. "After a while, I learned how to leave my body and interact with things sort of like a ghost. But I am definitely alive."

The three of them stared at her in startled silence – well two of them looked startled, the other impassive. Clearly, this is not where they were expecting the conversation to go. Finally, Oliver sighed.

"When did this curse happen?"

"Enpo 6." When the twins just continued to look at her, she clarified. "The Western calendar year of 1678."

The three stared at her in shock. "You mean, you've been trapped – alive – in that castle for…." Gene-san began, astounded.

"Almost three and a half centuries," Oliver finished.

Mai nodded. "Yes."

o(O)o

The investigation was not going as Oliver had planned. Upon finding out that a ghost inhabited the ruins, he had asked Gene to contact Hara-san to come with them on a return trip to Unzen-Amakusa National Park. The opportunity to interact with a ghost that seemed to have not only a strong enough presence for him to see easily – not something that happened in most circumstances – was too strong an allure. The goal had been to draw her out once more and see if they could record a conversation with her before helping her to move on.

Normally, Gene's presence alone would have been enough for this task, but he had expressed that this ghost felt different and had not been confident in his abilities for all that he was considered to be a 'perfect' medium. While he was able to commune with every soul he aligned with, not all of them were on his frequency and Hara-san was often able to sense those that he could not commune with so her presence was to serve as that countermeasure.

However, with Mai not actually being a ghost at all, Oliver was unsure how to proceed with the investigation.

Initially, he had just gone on as he originally intended. A short conversation let him know that the girl could leave the ruins and come to their rented cabin, a boon for everyone's comfort. Once they had asked her there, she had complied with their request to sit for a recorded interview.

"You seem to be very knowledgeable about modern technology for someone born centuries ago," Hara-san commented as she sat across from the girl while he and Gene set up the camera and infrared.

"I try pretty hard to keep up with the times. In theory, I might one day be released from my curse and it would be pretty awful to be suddenly living in a world I did not understand."

"Interesting," Oliver commented quietly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice tinged with suspicion.

"Given what I have seen of your personality, I would not have thought you capable of coming to that conclusion."

Immediately, she flushed in anger and called him a jerk and Oliver had to suppress the urge to chuckle. His comment was not entirely untrue, but he had also posed it in a way to purposefully get a rise out of her. Her reactions were proving to be quite amusing and made up for some of the irritation he felt at having his investigation go wrong from the start.

"I would have thought that someone of your years would have found some greater measure of maturity," he responded smoothly watching her ire rise before she visibly deflated.

"Yeah, I know," she admitted grudgingly. "I think it is because I am still, physically at least, only a teenager."

"That is an interesting idea," Gene commented, cutting Oliver off from his next barb. "I wonder how much biology would still have an effect on that."

Mai shrugged slightly. "I cannot say since I am still not exactly an expert on biology."

"How did you manage to learn so much?" Hara-san asked curiously before Oliver cut them off.

"Before you answer that, we need to ensure that the cameras are working. I would prefer to record this interview."

The girl nodded her understanding, her mood seeming to have lightened after a moment of introspection. A minute or two later, Oliver had plugged the cameras in to the live feed and found that she did appear on camera.

Interesting.

"Let us begin. For the record, could you please state your name and date of birth?"

She nodded. "I am Taniyama Mai. I was born on July 3rd of Manji 3, Western calendar year 1660."

"What is your family rank?"

"My father was a midranking samurai under one of the Tozama daimyo. He was very loyal so we had a larger han than typical of his status and, if things had not happened as they did, he probably would have risen higher in the ranks."

Oliver nodded and took notes as Gene asked the next question.

"Could you please describe your circumstances to us?"

"Certainly," she smiled. "I am currently sleeping. My body is in the castle, well the ruins really. I have been sleeping since Enpo 6 thanks to a curse put on me and my family by the local Land God."

"Are your family sleeping as well?"

She shook her head sadly. "No. Their part of the curse was to remain alive, but unable to get to me. My father died trying to protect the castle from a neighboring lord and my mother died of sickness a few years after."

"If you were sleeping, how did you come by this information?" Oliver broke in.

"I have dreams."

"Please elaborate."

She nodded with a sigh. "I sometimes have dreams about things that have already happened. That is how I found out about my parents."

"So, during that time you were not able to leave your body?" Hara-san asked.

"No," Mai answered, shaking her head. "That took…a long time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, at first I just had dreams," she began, thoughtfully. "Not the dreams of events, but dreams of being in a void space. Then, one day, I ran into another spirit there and when they touched me, the world around me rippled and I realized that I had moved out of my body and was standing in a different part of the castle. After that, I just had to practice. It took…a long time." She shook her head in wry amusement. "Eventually, though, I could do it whenever I wanted and was able to not only leave the castle but make my way to the next town."

"How long would you say that took?"

She cocked her head to the side in thought. "I could not say for sure. Time is very…strange for me. However, I would say that it took maybe fifty or more years."

Gene and Masako gasped in surprise. "You weren't kidding about it taking a long time!"

She laughed and shook her head. "Not like I had anything better to do," she commented.

"True," Gene smiled.

"Were you immediately able to interact with objects?"

Mai shook her head. "No. That took longer. I wasn't even able to appear to people for a long time. I just was sort of a ghost, I guess."

"What did you do then?"

She smiled with dry humor. "I was just kind of a creepy stalker for a while."

The comment made Gene laugh out loud and Hara-san bring her hand to cover her face.

"Elaborate."

Mai looked over at him with a narrowed look, clearly irritated at his continued brusqueness when everyone else was laughing. However, after a moment, she complied.

"I just sort of followed people around. That was during the time when Dutch learning was becoming really popular so I would follow people to schools and to study groups to see what was going on in the world."

"You speak Dutch?" Gene broke in amusedly.

"Ja," she giggled. "I also speak English, Portuguese, French, Latin, Spanish…." she trailed off.

"That is a lot of languages," Hara-san murmured.

"I have a lot of time on my hands and this area has always been a huge trading region so I got to see a lot of foreigners through the years."

"Have you been continuously astral projecting since you first became able to?"

"Astral projecting? Is that what I am doing?" she murmured curiously to herself before shaking her head. "No. I have not. I probably actually would be more mature if that was the case," she commented self-deprecatingly.

"Explain."

"After a while of being out in the world, I will get very tired and then just go back to my body. From there it seems like I am actually sleeping."

"How long does that last?"

"It depends. Sometimes, I will only sleep for a few months, other times for years. I don't really know what causes the longer sleeps so I cannot 'elaborate' on that further," she retorted, giving him an irritated look.

"What is the longest time you slept?" he prodded with a small smirk.

"I could not say for the earlier time since during my time we did not keep time so meticulously, but since I have been able to accurately keep track, the longest time was 30 years."

"That must have been a shock to wake up to," Gene commented sympathetically.

"No kidding!" she laughed. "I went to sleep and then woke up to find that the little girl I played with in the park was a mother with four kids!"

"You have said that you try to keep up with the passing time. Could you explain how you have managed that?" Hara-san asked quietly.

"Oh, I go to school."

Silence reigned in the small cabin for a moment.

"You go to school?" Gene repeated slowly.

Mai nodded. "What better way to catch up than hanging around with teenagers? Also, it allows me to update my knowledge."

"Is this an everyday thing…?" Gene prodded.

The girl laughed and shook her head. "Oh no. Kami-sama, no! That would be so boring! But, I will go through and attend classes for a school year about every five to ten years or so. More frequently in more recent times since technology seems to be moving ahead so quickly! Also, I don't actually sit in class. I can't exactly enroll. I just attend the lectures and sneak my assignments into the grading piles when I want to doublecheck my knowledge."

"God, can you imagine being a school kid for centuries?" Gene groaned. He glanced over at Oliver. "I mean, you barely lasted until you were a preteen before you checked out."

Mai looked over at him in confusion. "You didn't graduate high school?"

"Do not be simple. I graduated early."

"You graduated school before you were a teenager?" she asked, voice displaying grudging admiration.

"He's actually already graduated university. Twice," Gene supplied helpfully, giving his twin a secretive smile that Oliver could only guess at the meaning of.

"Really?" Mai exclaimed, all reluctance gone from her voice as she eyed Oliver. Instead, her face became the picture of envy. "I've never been able to go to university. The nearest one is just beyond where I can reach."

"That is regrettable. You strike me as the type most in need of it."

Mai blinked, processing the comment for a moment before she flushed in anger. "You jerk! How rude!"

"Naru," Gene chided with a soft chuckle.

Oliver shrugged, but made no further comment.

After that the interview petered off until finally Hara-san brought up the one thing they had not asked.

"Mai-chan, you said you were cursed. Why?"

The girl visibly deflated at the question. "I don't really know."

"How is that possible?" Oliver asked, curiosity overcoming him.

"I wasn't there when it happened. My parents had gone into town to discuss something with one of the neighboring lords and I was left behind. They had been gone for a few hours and then, suddenly, the castle began to shake, like an earthquake. Everyone began running around screaming and a strange howling sound with a strange wind began to rip through the halls and courtyard. It scared away all of the servants and soldiers. I tried to run with them but I was stopped. Next thing I knew, this figure appeared in front of me and said that my parents had angered him and that I would sleep until someone could break the curse. Before I could do anything, I blacked out." She paused in thought. "I guess he must have at least been nice enough to bring me back to my bed since I know that is where my body is right now."

"What is the condition to break the curse?" Oliver asked sharply.

At the question, the girl blushed crimson and looked down at her hands. She stayed silent for several moments before she swallowed visibly and opened her mouth to speak.

"Um, I have to find, um, true love?"

The three of them stared at her.

"That is very…Disney," Gene commented after a moment.

"I know!" Mai laughed with a groan, still clearly embarrassed. "I don't think those movies would be quite so popular if people were living them!"

"You've watched Disney movies?" Gene laughed. "How?"

Mai gave him a look. "I don't exactly have to pay for movie tickets, Gene-san."

"Oh. Fair."

Hara-san giggled softly at the abashed look on Gene's face at that comment, but Oliver had narrowed his eyes at the entire conversation.

"From what you have told us, the Land God cursed you to sleep until you find your true love, if such a thing even exists."

"Hey!" Mai interrupted. "Don't ruin a girl's hopes!"

"Then is the legend about not being able to enter the castle correct?"

"Yes..?"

"Then, how are you supposed to find love if no one can even come near you?"

"Yeah!" Gene exclaimed. "That is pretty messed up."

"Tell me about it," Mai sighed. "That is why I was pretty excited when I finally could appear in front of people. But, people mostly just get scared when they find out that I am not, you know, actually there with them. Hard to have a love life when everyone runs away from you."

"Or any sort of life," Hara-san commented sympathetically. "Have you not been able to make any friends?"

The girl smiled softly. "Oh, I have." She paused. "It is a…sad process. I have watched quite a few people grow up and live their whole lives. In some ways, it is nice. I can be a true lifelong friend to people who will take the time to get to know me. But…."

"But you always have to say goodbye eventually," Gene finished sadly.

She nodded. "For a while, I just stopped trying. But, I am not really good at staying away from people."

"Who would have guessed?" Oliver commented dryly earning him a fiery look.

"Do you have any friends right now?"

"Aside of you?" Mai giggled. "I have a couple who comes to see me when they can. A Buddhist monk and a Shinto priestess."

"That is an…unlikely pairing."

"You should see them fight!" Mai laughed. "But they are not your typical monk and priestess either."

"I imagine not," Hara-san smiled before bringing her hand up to cover a yawn. It had gotten quite late.

"Oh! You must all be sleepy. I will go and let you sleep! Unless there is anything more you wanted tonight?"

"That is sufficient for now," Oliver allowed, standing up to turn off the cameras. "Do you need an escort back to the castle?"

Mai gave him a funny look, a small spark of triumph lighting in her eyes as she replied. "Really? What is going to attack me?"

The question drew Oliver up short. Despite the entire purpose of the interview, Mai's presence in the room had been so solid that he had momentarily forgotten that she was, in fact, able to just disappear if she wanted. His brain scrambled quickly to come up with some sort of retort, but before he could, she just winked at him and disappeared.

The three of them just stared at the spot where she had been moments before for several seconds, unsettled by her sudden lack of presence.

Author's Note:

Thank you for all the kind words, especially considering the opening prologue was so little.

I didn't actually explicitly state that I would be keeping a Monday update schedule. Why Monday? to make the start of the week balance out.

Or something.

As I said previously, I have this story pretty well planned out, but some chapters do get away from me. For the moment at least, this visit and the next will be broken up into two chapters each. From there, it will probably move a little faster.

Who knows?

Anyone who has read my Human, Conditional story will understand when I say that my story just wanders away from me sometimes. That thing was supposed to be 16 chapters total. Not so much. We'll see though.

I hope your week has gone well and thank you for reading!

Til next time!