Chapter 2: Not the Only One

"She appears human."

"Aye, in the queerest rags, she is."

"She's one'em 'Kitsune' foxes using magic to look a girl, I say."

Demon or not, more of them crowd around me. The men had set me down dead center of a tiny village and not even a second later I'm surrounded by the townspeople dressed in medieval Japanese clothing that remind me of the Sengoku period…They have been whispering, demon and war, the entire time. Shouldn't I be surprised that they are dressed the way they are?

The men wear their hair in topknots, the women have long hair tied near the ends, none wear pants and their clothes are all bland in colors of grays, dull blues and greens. This place obviously has not seen or been touched by modern society.

Either I am still in a coma or I somehow magically got lost in the woods. I remember hearing about civilizations never touched by modern men, who's to say there isn't one here? But how did I get mixed up I all this?

Yeah I must be dreaming. However, if I am just in a dream, why do I hurt? The pain got worse the further I was carried away from the forest and now that I am stuck in the center of the village the pain feels like a cigarette bud on my soul. The strange pulling from before is still tugging at my shoulders but I am unable to reach this itch.

I stopped wasting my breath after trying to yell – my voice didn't go up an octave as I expected. I've never needed to yell in my life but apparently my apathy affects my vocal chords also. The men weren't listening anyways and it doesn't seem like there is anyone here for miles.

Their voices drone out while I'm caught in my own thoughts and soon their conversations sound all the same. 'Where am I from? Am I a demon? What kind of clothes are those?' I should be asking the same things. They look just as out of place to me as I am too them but I don't have them tied up.

"Make way! Make way! Lady Kaede the priestess is here!" Yells a man from behind the crowd. The villagers shift to one side or the other when the voice echoes over them but none truly leave. An elderly woman wearing the garb of a Shinto priestess and an eye patch over her right eye comes towards me with a small pot in her left hand and a long bow in her right. I eye the bow and quiver more than the mysterious pot she carries.

She marches up to me showing no fear or curiosity, unlike the others around us – just certainty. She pauses a foot away, shifts the bow off her shoulder and hands it to a younger gentleman who had been trailing behind her the entire time. The elderly woman, known as Kaede from what I hear, reaches into the pot and pulls out a handful of fine salt and before I have a chance to respond she whisks it at my face. The specks burn my eyes and I groan in response from the tiny pains.

"Demon be gone!" She chants in a strong voice; quickly throwing another handful before I can recover from the last.

I move my head just in time for the second handful and it misses me, "I'm not a demon." My eyes meet hers, now red and irritated I'm sure, and she pauses. Her lone eye scans over me, taking in my attire and my apathetic state, probably wondering the same thing my foster parents had – why lack of…well this? I can just see the mental image of me: I lack everything: fear, concern, surprise, pain and anger. Though I can feel the pain…I can't express it.

At least she stopped throwing salt at me.

"I sensed a demonic presence on ye."

Really, do you really? "Do I look like a demon?" That could be the wrong question to ask given my expressionless-ness, but she seems to be mulling over my appearance. Slowly her hands lower.

"Then why were ye in the Forest of Inuyasha?"

Instinctively I look over my shoulder towards the forest but the villagers surrounding us block my view and then I look up towards the sky where I had floated down. So maybe this could not be a dream, I'd sound crazy if I say I'd come from the sky.

"Ye is right," she grabs my attention and I look back up at her. "Ye does not look like a demon but they would be a half-wit if thy ignores the presence surrounding ye." Maybe she means my clothes? It feels like a long few minutes before anyone makes a sound, they all just watch us – while we watch each other. I'm waiting for her while she waits for me but for what? Finally, she closes her eyes, separating our line of sight. "Untie her; she is not here to harm us."

The surrounding crowd gasps in surprise, something I know I should be doing as well.

All the children of the village follow us, their happy faces glowing as they travel at Kaede's side but when their glowing faces turn to me a sense of unknowing overtakes what was happy and leaves them curious instead. They keep up with us as we go through the entire village until we reach the other side where a hill raises the land with a torii gate right in front of it.

The scenery reminds me exactly of Kagome's house – a stack of stairs leads up to a burial shrine on top of the hill and next to the torii gate is a tiny one room hut. When we approach it, I eye the torii gate, still rubbing my raw wrists of the aches the rope had caused.

Kaede leads me through the reed door and into the one room hut, we settle around a fire pit whose fire still burns in the middle of the room; she must have left in a hurry since the fire is still heating up a kettle full of some kind of stew and rice.

For a few minutes we just remain silent. Kaede stirs the stew and I glance around at everything, recognizing most of the tools, outfits and wooden furniture from books, television shows and even one time from a museum one of the many schools took me too. When I was at the museum most of the items were in protective cases or up in beautiful displays and I always felt this awkward longing when I went to see them up close. Which was odd since I truly never felt.

"I am curious as to why ye has such hollow eyes. Ye almost appear as a demon. Did ye get cursed by one before the villagers found ye?" She breaks the silence.

Demons, demons, demons. "No. Not even my therapist knows what's wrong with me. No meds seem to have fixed it either. They think I have some kind of psychiatric mental condition but don't want to put a stamp on my records yet. Apparently I have always been this way though."

We stare at each other for another long moment trying to figure each mother. She breaks the ice again with, "is the therapist ye's shrine priestess?"

Okay, this is going a little too far. "No, a doctor." I take a long deep breath, "Where exactly am I?"

She smiles. I guess I asked the right question. But before she can answer there is yelling erupting from outside and she responds immediately the same way I am sure she did before me. She grabs her bow she brought back with her and the quiver along with it, and rushes outside leaving me alone with a brewing stew and time.

Okay I am sure by now the stew is burning. I've been stirring and stirring but the smell is getting stronger. It has been about twenty minutes since Kaede has left and if I hadn't been here, her hut would have been burned down by the fire by now. There is so much to think about, I don't know where to start. What I know for sure is that the torii gate is definitely to blame and the only reason I can think of to why this is so goes back to an old myth.

The myth goes that they are entrances or transitions from the profane to the sacred. I am not entirely sure what that means or why it involves me but from what I can tell it has taken me from the present to the past. It sounds totally insane but the longer I think about it the more real it is for me.

But why me?

I'm sure there have been many people, visitors, friends, tourists and family that hav been through the same Torii gate at Kagome's house but why did I transition. No one can give me a better answer than the person who comes walking through the door with Kaede.

"Kagome?"

She looks utterly surprised to see me, eyes wide and full of brown wonder.