Chapter 2 Mrs. Higurashi
Authors' note: I will be using the name Kimiko for Kagome's mother's name. (Mrs. H is an abbreviation for Mrs. Higurashi and I will use that as well.)
As Kagome appears in the blue star stream of the Time Rip in the Well, she bares her teeth in pain. The stars are NOT streaming by her like they should, but are twirling about her in a very chaotic pattern. 'No!' She thinks, 'I will not panic! I will see my family again!'
Bands of swirling white/pinkish power erupt from Kagome. The bands of power merge with the well's power and grab the stars. The stars stabilize and begin to flow past her like they should.
Kagome lands heavily at the bottom of the well. She leans against the cold stone wall of the well panting. She places her hands across her stomach and purses her lips, then a massive obnoxious belch spews from her lips.
"Gods . . . that was embarrassing. I sounded like Inu-yasha that time when Miroku and him got drunk and had a belching contest." She says in a low voice as she whimpers. "It's a good thing that we were so busy repairing the well that I didn't eat breakfast." She covers her mouth with her hand, "I would have been mortified if I threw up down here. Cleaning it up would have been a task."
She looks up, she the roof of the well house and smiles. 'I'm home.' She thinks. She reaches out for the rope ladder and slowly climbs it. Just before the top of the well, she stops and glances over it. "Good. Noone's in here."
A small blush appears on her face as she remembers an incident last spring. Someone left the door to the Well house unlocked and as she was about to climb out of the well, she noticed that a couple was kissing and fondling each other near the door. Luckily she wasn't yelling at Inu-yasha when she appeared, and he didn't follow her, so her appearance was quiet, not that the couple would have noticed, even if she and Inu-yasha were going full blast at each other, though, as they were very much engaged with each other.
The blush deepens as she remembers that instead of going back down the well and waiting for them to leave. She stayed at the top of the well and watched as the couple, a pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, masturbated each other, with their fingers in each other's clothes, to a climax, before they left the building. (They were part of a school tour from another high school, one that was visiting area shrines, so she does not know who they were. They were just a boy with a pigtail hairdo and a red shirt and girl with short hair wearing a traditional school uniform)
Since then, Kagome has tried to be more careful about the security of the well house and how she and Inu-yasha use it.
Kagome climbs out of the Well and looks back down it. "Do I go ahead and go back? I did leave my bag, Inu-yasha should be trapped by now, and I'm going to need the books that are in it." She bites her lips and looks in the direction of her house. "That was a rough trip though. Will the well work going the other way?"
She shakes her head and thinks, 'No. I'm going to see if anybody's home. If they are, I'll explain what's happening, then go back. IF not, then I'll leave a note.' She pauses, then whispers, "just in case."
She spins around, goes to the well house door, cracks it open, glances around to make sure that no one is looking, then quickly leaves the well house, closing the door behind her.
'It looks like rain.' She thinks as she walks to the door of her house. Her shoulders slump a little, 'and it rained most of the time on the other side of the well to. Sigh. I was hoping for a couple of nice days on this side of the well.'
Kagome is about to touch the door knob of the front door, when she stops, narrows her eyes and steps back away from the door. 'Sadness? Grief? Anger? Confusion? Why I'm I feeling that from my house?' she thinks. "Something is wrong." She whispers.
She quickly opens the door and enters the house. "Mother?" She asks in a trembly voice.
Even with most of the lights on, the house feels empty.
There is a lingering smell of cigarets near the door. She sees her mother sitting of the sofa in the living room. She is wearing her traditional house frock.
A book, it looks like one of the families photo albums' is clenched against her chest. On the low table in front of her is a half-empty glass of water and an unorganized pile of papers.
Her mother is crying, softly . . .
"Mom?" Kagome asks, again, in a louder voice, "What's wrong?"
Kagome's mother looks at Kagome, her red tear filled eyes widen. "Kagome?" She cries. She drops the album, it lands face-up on the sofa table, scrambles to her feet, and trips over Buyo, who was curled up around her ankles.
Kagome rushes over and grabs her mother before she hits the floor. "uff. Mom?"
"You're home." Mrs. H tightly hugs her daughter. "You're safe." She breathes in Kagome's ear.
Kagome hugs her mother back. "Mother?"
"Just hold me." Mrs. h whispers. Kagome clutches her mother tight. "I was so worried."
"Why?"
A pause.
"You're my little princess." Mrs. Higurashi whispers. "And you're living a fairy tale."
"Yes, mother." Kagome whispers back to her.
Kagome's memory flashes back to a conversion between her and her mother that happened after she returned from the battle with Yura of the hair.
"Kagome, I'm not going to interfere with . . . with whatever is happening with the Well and that, that cute dog-eared boy."
"Inu-yasha. His name is Inu-yasha, mom."
"Inu-yasha." A pause. Giggle.
A shared giggle.
"Anyway. You're my princess, so. Kagome, it's like you are part of a magical fairy tale, now. And I'm not going to be the Evil Mother, So . . . " A grin. "Tell me when your handsome prince comes to sweep you off your feet, marry you, and ravish you."
A blush, a deep red blush. "Mom!"
"Remember, the ravish part comes last." Short pause. "Unless he's really handsome."
"MOM!" down to her toes beet red blush . . .
"Kagome." Her mother voice cracks as Mrs. H speaks, her voice shaking with emotions, bringing Kagome out of her memory flashback. "You are going to have a live happily ever after ending, like in western fairy tales, aren't you?"
A startled Kagome replies, instantly, "yes."
"Good." Her mother sighs and relaxes in Kagome's arms. "I was so afraid that you'd have a Japanese fairy tale ending."
Kagome blinks in surprise. Her mother has never expressed anything but positive comments about her adventures, even after that time when she collapsed, due to injuries, in her arms.
Flashback; (loosely based on my story 'When friends find out' basically what is in that story, but without the presence of Kagome's three girlfriends.)
Kagome thinks: After that horrible fight with Inu-yasha, then that forty kilometers run to the well, then that final massive fight with him at the well, she made it through the well, and then collapsed at the front door in front of her mother.
While she was healing up, and after seeing how worried her mother was, she decided to open up and tells her mother more about her adventures. (Before this she tried to leave the details out of the stories.) She does tell her mother the truth, mostly, about the physical aspects of her adventures, although, even now she doesn't tell her mother everything about the emotional stress her adventure's causes.
End flashback
'What could have brought her to think that?' she thinks.
Kagome bites her lips, a pensive look appears on her face as she thinks, 'I want a happily ever after ending. I've read Japanese fairy tales, and I don't want that type of an ending.'
'How many Japanese fairy tales that I've read, end with the young, handsome, and in some cases rude, hero dying in one last glorious battle, trapped by fate and honor, leaving his wife or lover to raise his child? That is NOT going to happen with Inu-yasha. I'll save that idiot from himself, if that's the last thing I do.' Raw determination colors her thoughts.
Kagome, still hugging her mother, moves them and manages to get them both seated on the sofa. She, then, breaks the hug, grabs her mother's chin, and looking into her eyes, Kagome asks, "mother, I need to know what's happened. Is it Souta? Grandfather? Tell me, please?"
Her mother's arm sweeps to the low sofa table and points to the open photo album.
Kagome looks at the album. 'That is the friends of the family photo album. That a picture of Tenrousei Gina and her family. Mom's best friend.' She thinks. The picture is of three person family. A nice looking woman of her mother's age, a handsome, if bald, older man and a beautiful young daughter. They are smiling and happy.
"Yokio was kidnaped yesterday." Her mother says in a flat, toneless voice.
Kagome closes her eyes in pain. 'Yokio. Mom's best friends only daughter.'
Kagome mind instantly catalogs what she knows: Yokio is a couple of years younger than Kagome. Both her mother and Yokio's mother tried to push them together, to be best friends, like their parents are, but that never happened. Still, Yokio IS one of her friends. Not in the same category as Yuka, Eri, Ayumi, and defiantly not in Sango's class, but still a good friend, someone she played an older sister to, as they were growing up.
A pulse of guilt courses through Kagome. She thinks, 'a good friend, yeah. Like when was the last time, I've done more than say, 'hi' to her in the last couple of years. I'm such a good friend. Right . . . '
Her breath catches, as Kagome continues to think, 'Even the birthday and other cards I've, no, mom, has sent her and most of my other friends are fakeish.'
Early in her adventures with Inu-yasha, Kagome and her mother bought a huge stack of various greeting cards, birthday, get well, Christmas cards, etc. Kagome, then, signed most of them. If Kagome is home, she finishes them and sends them out as appropriate, but if she's not home, her mother finishes them and sends them out. It keeps up the appearance that Kagome is home and still active, even if due to illness, she's confined to her bed.
Mrs. Higurashi whispers. "A grayish or white van pulled up beside her as she and her friends were walking home from school. The doors of the van opened, somebody wearing dark clothing and a ski mask, grabbed her, threw her into the van and the van sped off."
A pause. "Nothing else?" Kagome asks in a quiet voice.
"No phone calls, no ransom notes. Nothing." Her mother's voice breaks as she speaks. She begins to cry again. Kagome wraps her arms around her mother's shoulder and hugs her.
'Now is NOT the time to mention about the potential problem with the well, or any other problem.' Kagome concentrates and forces those thoughts into the corner of her mind, where she can ignore them until she's helped her mother.
Kagome thinks, 'yesterdays and today's stress . . . I'm sure that talking to the police about a missing person brought up memories of the day that father vanished. And that must have brought out mom's doubts about my adventures on the other side of the well.' She grimaces, 'I'm sure that if this never happened, mom would never have revealed any doubts about my adventures. She always approved of them.'
"The police were just here, asking questions." Mrs. h whispers. "You missed them by fifteen, maybe thirty minutes."
'Well, that explains the cigaret smell.' Kagome mind flashes.
Kagome frowns. 'Where is Souta, anyway? Where is Grandfather? They should be here.'
Kagome's mind reaches out, trying to locate their aura's. 'I should know them well enough to detect them. Grandfather is at the tourist shop. I think. I hope that's him, anyway.' She thinks.
"Where is grandfather?"
"At the gift shop. A tour bus is due today and he wanted to make sure that everything was ready." A hint of steel shines through the tears as her mother speaks.
A flash of guilt hits Kagome. 'If I had been here, he'd be up here, with his daughter, not hiding in the store.' She squeezes her mother's shoulder tight.
'Souta. I can't find him. He must be too far away.'
"Where's Souta?" Kagome asks.
A pause.
"After the police finished with him, he left to visit his friends. It is a Saturday, after all." Her mother replies through the tears, her voice full of hurt.
"He should be here." Kagome states angrily through clenched teeth.
"I. . . I'm failing him." Her mother cries as she clutches her daughter. "He and I . . . "
Kagome opens her mouth to say something, then closes it. Her memory brings up various comments Souta has said to her over the past year or so. One comment, though, speaks loudest to her.
"Mom never lets me have any fun. Not like you and Inu-yasha. I have to tell her where I'm going and when I'll be back. You. You, big sister, you get to do anything." Bitterness oozes in Souta's voice.
'I thought', Kagome's mind reels, 'I thought he was just going through a phase, something normal, if stupid. But, if he vanishes on Mother during a time like this, something is really wrong.'
A huge swath of guilt slashes through Kagome, like inu-yasha swinging Tetsusaiga through her chest. 'I should have paid more attention. Even when I'm here, I'm so busy with school . . . I've lost touch with my family.'
Kagome begins to cry. "I'm sorry mother. I'm so sorry. I wasn't here." Her voice crackles with pain.
Both Mrs. Higurashi and her daughter cry into each other's shoulder.
Soon, though, Kagome begins to rock her mother back and forth gently and she begins to hum, a deep burring hum in her throat. Her right hand frees itself from hugging her mother and begins to stroke her mother's hair.
Her mother relaxes into Kagome's grip.
Kagome blinks, she stops humming for a second, then continues to hum. 'I treating my mother like I treat Shippo after one of his nightmares.'
Her mind flashes to a night a couple of days after Shippo joined them.
"Look you stupid human bitch. He's a kitsune! Not a human pup!" Inu-yasha yells at Kagome, as she is trying to calm a hysterically crying Shippo, late at night, with the only light a low fire to show what's happening.
"Then, you all-mighty, all-knowing, idiot, tell me what to do!" Kagome screams back at him.
Inu-yasha flashes his fangs at Kagome. "Purr, dammit."
"Purr?"
He grimaces and forces out from between tightly clenched teeth, "like this, purr . . . "
"brrr . . . "
"Try again. And stroke his hair. Grooming calms young kitsune's."
A few minutes later, as Shippo, finally, is calming down.
"Why?" Kagome asks quietly.
"Why, What? Bitch."
"Why did you help me? Do you care about him?"
Something flashes in Inu-yasha's eyes. "I need you to get a full night sleep. You need to be rested to locate the Shards."
Kagome glares at Inu-yasha and hisses. "Since he's asleep, I'm not going to yell at you, Inu-yasha. Good night." She finishes in a huff.
Kagome shakes her head, dispelling her memory of that night.
She frowns and looks at the kitchen/dining area. Souta's favorite cereal is on the counter, not up in the cabinets like it should be. And it looks like there are some dirty dishes near the sink. 'Souta and grandfather ate, but didn't clean up.'
"mom? When was the last time you ate anything?" she asks in a soft voice.
"aaaa . . . Lunch, yesterday." Her mother replies after a pause. "I tried to eat something last night, after I got home from visiting Gina, but I couldn't keep it down."
"How much sleep did you get?" she asks, as she still holds her mother against her chest.
"ahhhh. Most of the night."
"Try again, mom." Kagome replies in a dry voice.
"Four hours."
"Mother." Steel appears in Kagome's tone.
"Two hours. And that is the combined total of a bunch of ten, fifteen minutes catnaps."
Kagome, after a couple of deep breaths, breaks the hold on her mother, catches her mother's chin and looks her mother in the face. "Ok, Mother. I'm going to get some towels, and clean your face."
"You're pretty splotchy yourself." Her mother states.
"Our faces, then. Then I'm going to fix you some brunch."
Mrs. Higurashi's eyebrow raises and she starts to speak. Kagome places her finger on her mother's lips. "Today, for the next few hours, at least, mom, let me mother you." She whispers. Love and caring are shining from Kagome's eyes.
Kagome's mother's eyes tear up, but she nods.
"Then you're going to take a nap. I'll wake you up in a few hours. Then we, and that includes Grandfather and Souta, even if I have to hogtie them and drag them over there myself, are going over to the Tenrousei house and we are going to be there in their time of need." Kagome tone is the one she perfected against Inu-yasha. Her, 'this is the law, disobey and earn my wrath', tone.
Mrs. Higurashi licks her lips and nods.
Kagome cups her mother's check and whispers. "Mother. Your best friend needs someone strong to help her. Be that person."
Kagome's eyes and Her mother's eye lock.
Mrs. H takes a deep breath and nods. "I will." She shakes her head slightly. "I just."
Kagome places her finger on her mother's lips, again, stopping her mother's explanation. "Shhh. No blame. No excuses." A pause. "Are you ready?"
A nod, a strong, decisive nod.
Kagome smiles, one of those bright happy smiles that turns Inu-yasha into a drooling puppy. "Thank you, mother."
Kagome stands up and after a glance back at her mother, leaves the room.
Kimiko Higurashi looks at her daughters back. She sits up straight and adjusts her clothes, removing the creases. 'I was so distracted this morning, I put on my normal house dress, instead of something special, even though I knew that the police would visit, today.'
She thinks, 'my daughter has grown up.' Tears well up in her eyes. 'How could I have missed that?'
"Only a bad parent could miss something like that." She whispers.
In the bathroom.
Kagome looks into the mirror of the bathroom above the sink, and above the drawer where the face-towels are keep. She pulls out a couple of hand towels and wets them in the sink. She thinks, 'what else can I do?' her eyes flash.
"No" she whispers, "I didn't just think that did I? Inu-yasha's idea of a rescue would destroy a couple of city blocks."
'If that happens, the authorities will investigate and they'll discover him. They'll try to take him away, experiment on him. He'll escape, destroying more city blocks.' Kagome's mind races, as she thinks of about what might happen in the future. 'He'll go through the well. They'll find out about it. And seal it off and study it. They'll find out about me. They'll experiment on me, to find out about my Miko powers.' A shiver runs up and down her spine.
Kagome whispers, "We won't be able to complete the Jewel and Naraku will run amok. Or they'll discover how to operate the well, go back through time and change history."
She stares at her eyes and says in a harsh tone. "If they change history, then the entire time/space/history of the world changes, and maybe destroyed."
"I can't risk that." She says harshly to herself. "Not for one person, no matter who that person is."
'Souta's given me too many time-travel science-fiction manga stories to read. His stupid, if well-intentioned, attempt to try to help me understand the Well.' Kagome thinks. She blushes. 'In addition he gives me romance manga's, to help Inu-yasha and me . . . stop thinking about that, Kagome! Still time-travel paradoxes, I can't escape them.'
She turns to leave, but, stops turns back to the mirror and touches the image of her check in the mirror. "I can't. I really, really can't." She hisses to herself.
'But,' She thinks, 'how can I look myself in the mirror tomorrow, if I don't, at least, ask inu-yasha to help find Yokio.'
She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the mirror.
Time stops.
"I'll ask him. I've got no choice." She whispers. "Hopefully he'll say no. yes. Yes, that's the ticket, I'll ask, he'll say no and my conscience will be clear."
end chapter 2
preview chapter 3
"Shippo!" Kagome screams as she climbs out of the well.
"Kagome!" Shippo twists around, each finger a different color, they a bright red, blue, green mix.
"I come back to get Inu-yasha." Kagome states through clenched teeth, obviously angry. "I need him to help me in my time, and I need him in a good mood, and you're painting his face!"
"But! Kagome!" Shippo hides his hands behind his back.
"No buts, Shippo!" Kagome hisses. "This time you're going to be punished."
Inu-yasha, behind the scroll on his mouth, grins, evilly.
Shippo has written 'IDIOT' all over his face, in multiple colors . . .
Thank you for reading
jeff shelton