Kayo and the medicine seller stood outside the geisha house entrance where they first began, this time not greeted by Mego at the side door.
"W- How did we end up out here this time?!" Kayo stared at the geisha house.
"It seems this geisha house is stuck in time," he said, setting down the medicine chest behind the fence. "Do you feel at all ill, Miss Kayo?"
"Ill?" she questioned. "Just confused. Why? Is it the jorogumo? What is that?"
"If an orb weaver spider lives very long, it may become a very powerful yokai," he informed her, kneeling down and removing the taima sword from its resting place. "It will grow large enough to feed on humans. The toxins are slow and painful."
"That's unsettling!" Kayo shuttered.
"It is capable of creating illusions of a beautiful woman," he continued, tucking the sword in his obi, "but in becoming a mononoke, it has somehow become entangled with a geisha house. Perhaps it is creating larger illusions as well."
"Ai? Could she be the mononoke?" Kayo recalled how each time Mego spoke, she referred to Ai as exceptionally beautiful.
The sword did not respond. "I do wonder how she is involved." He had encountered illusions before, but this geisha house was caught in some manner of illusionary loop. He wasn't quite sure if they were simply experiencing the mononoke's memories or that they were tangled in its web. Either was possible.
The jorogumo had already consumed several people. Each time they had followed Mego into Ai's room, the husks of men had been different. The bodies were piling up like a stack of papers already and they had only arrived at the geisha house a few hours earlier.
He peered at the busy street behind him. Jorogumo could operate right in the center of a town and none would be the wiser.
Two men broke away from the crowd. They wore layers of delicate brocade and folded kimonos, marking them as upper class. The commoners on the street didn't seem to acknowledge the pair as they bustled by about their business. A few stopped to peer at the noodle shop next door but most went about their normal lives.
The pair stopped in front of the geisha house, not even acknowledging Kayo and the medicine seller. "This is the one, Lord Genbei," the samurai proclaimed. "Miss Ai is known far and wide for her musical talents and her beauty."
The lord peered up at the house entrance. "Then we must hear the beautiful tunes she plays. If she is as beautiful as the rumors say, I want her to be mine." He slid open the entrance, removing his sandals as he stepped inside. His samurai followed suit.
"Well that guy is a little possessive," Kayo folded her arms. "Geisha don't marry. Doesn't he know that? What is it with demanding lords?" She frowned sharply. Nothing good ever came from demanding lords. She thought of House Sakai and how badly that one went, creating a mononoke from a terrible, disturbing set of events.
She just didn't like dealing with them. The ones at the freaky candle inn were generally bossy and handsy. A few of their customers when trying to peddle medicine had thrown them out instead of paying for the goods. The only one who seemed decent was Lord Ii, even if the young lord was paranoid that mononoke were in every dark corner. Not that she could blame him after that horrifying tatarimokke incident.
She shuttered, peering back at the geisha house recalling the repeating events. The maiko informed Mego that someone was harassing Ai, Mego grew upset and found Ai in a terrible situation, then the door shut and they were back outside. "Do you think that lord is connected to the truth?"
The medicine seller peered back at the street. There was no grand entrance, no caravan to mark the lord's arrival. The only attendant the lord had was a single samurai. It was unusual, to say the least. "Perhaps." He headed towards the entrance, slipping his geta off at the door.
She frowned. A vague answer, but everything about this geisha house was weird. She rubbed at her arm, shaking her hand out. It felt strangely tingly like she'd been leaning on it and it fell asleep. Perhaps it was from being stuck in the time loop. Ignoring it, she followed suit, kicking her sandals off and shuffling through the place in her tabi socks.
The melancholy shamisen tune was the only sound in the whole house despite being a popular place to stay. The wall was decorated with elaborate tapestries of large orb weavers and scribbles of ornate scripts.
Once were we loved
Once we were not fighters
She'd lived in the kitchen
That beautiful spider
He turned, finding a large web in the corner near the kitchen. It was empty, no spider currently in sight. Perhaps a yokai had lived here. Orb weavers were known to have beautiful ornate colors, much like the delicate patterns of a kimono. It was possible that orb weaver had lived in the geisha house long enough to become magical or perhaps it was a simple, regular, non-magical spider.
They went and squished her
Mego's beautiful friend
But with such sorrow
The misery did not end
"The mononoke's story," he reasoned, listening to the tune. He paused, feeling Kayo tightly grasp the back of his kimono. "Miss Kayo. It is just a shamisen."
She didn't respond, grasping his kimono with the second hand and pulling on it tightly. She leaned against him, her face bearing into his back as her legs seemed to no longer support her own weight.
"Miss Kayo?"
Ai was distraught
She was terribly scared
For what would come next
None were prepared.
The grip soon loosened as Kayo slid down his back. He quickly turned, grasping her kimono before she'd hit the floor. Her face was contorted into an expression of pain as she grasped at her shoulder. "I…. I can't feel…. My….. Help…. Mr. Medicine Seller….."
Concern tugged at his face. Jorogumo most often consumed men, but somehow Kayo had been struck by its venom. He thought back to all the interactions where she was at risk and he wasn't. She had been with him the entire time, never heading off on her own. "The tea." He refused the offer of rose tea on their first visit but Kayo drank an entire cup.
He knelt down, carefully picking her up in his arms. He had yet to locate the jorogumo in the geisha house, so she was at risk of becoming a husk much like those men in Ai's room. There was Ai, the most favored geisha in the house. Mego ran the house and served the poisoned rose tea. There was the messenger maiko plus several other geisha who appeared in the hallways. It all made sense now. None of them were real, all illusions created by the jorogumo. But which one had become a mononoke?
Kayo weakly grasped his kimono as she leaned into him. The poison was spreading, and if it spread too far, she might not recover. He had to concoct a remedy though with a mononoke lurking about, creating such a delicate concoction might prove difficult.
"I told you to get out!" Mego's voice carried down the hallway. "I do not appreciate anyone treating my geisha in such a manner. I do not care who you are."
"Those are threatening words," the samurai said sharply.
"Are they? Well good, that's how they should be. Now get out!" Mego shouted.
"Lord Genbei won't take kindly to such threats," the samurai warned. His heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway followed by a door shutting.
The sound of the door echoed through the hallway but instead of being thrown out of the house, they were now stuck inside as a fire crackled in the distance. It lit the spider tapestries ablaze and consumed the front entrance.
He took to one knee, cradling Kayo in one arm as he pulled the taima sword from his obi with the other. This could very well be an illusion, but if the tea was any indication, illusions could be very real. She gripped his kimono, her breaths becoming strained. She would die if he couldn't create an antidote for her. He'd come to care for his human companion. Letting her die wasn't an option.
His attention turned to the hallway, finding Mego and Ai burning in the flames. They stood there, their expressions hollow and forlorn as the fire engulfed them. They were nothing but the shells of their former selves. They had once lived, strong-willed women running a successful business that ended in an instant, consumed by flames of jealousy and desire.
"I know you are here, mononoke."
The husks of the women crinkled in the fire like paper kindling. Tucking the taima sword in his obi, he flipped the mirror on his necklace, flashing the light of the fire and revealing the hidden jorogumo in the hallway. She stood tall in a long kimono of brilliant yellows, blues, and reds. Her hair was pulled into a distinguished geisha style, adorned with decorative combs and flowers. Her face was painted with white makeup and red accents. Spindly spider arms stemmed from her back, extending nearly to the edges of the hallway. Flames bent around her, only touching the walls as they billowed upwards.
"There you are." He pulled the taima sword from his obi. The jorogumo's appearance, the tapestries, and the memories. The conversation down the hallways made it quite clear who the mononoke was originally. "It is time to end your suffering, Miss Mego."
...
Author's notes
Oh boy this is quite the hairy situation, isn't it? Kayo is down for the count and now there's a mononoke and fire. First case in and they already can't catch a break.
So symbolism! I said there was quite a bit last chapter
- Arrangement of the tea kettles: The reds are at the bottom where blacks are on the top shelf. They are arranged like fire and smoke billowing upwards
- Kimono colors: maiko have brightly colored kimono with brilliant patterns of flowers and fans and balls. The further up the ranks you go, the designs get more muted and more elegant. On their second iteration of the time loop, the kimonos suddenly turn red to contrast the flowers and brilliant colors in the first chapter
- the deflated men: they changed clothes a few times because the jorogumo has multiple victims. Jorogumo can pile up desiccated victims. Since this is happening quickly, they become deflated paper instead of dry bones.