Chapter Four…
Kagome woke feeling groggy, worn up, and used. She shook her head, hoping to clear away the spider webs incasing her mind, but she knew it was no avail. She'd been waking this way for weeks now, but at least her dreams had been blissfully silent. There was only the pounding headache, letting her know she was somehow keeping the demon from her dreams at bay. But the effect was getting harder and harder to bear, harder to take, harder to keep.
She rose on unsteady legs and somehow made it to the refuge of her bathroom to shower. The water only helped to let her know how worn and beat-up her body was despite not being truly physical in quite a while. Glancing at the clock as she left the bathroom, Kagome groaned and somehow fumbled for the phone, calling in sick for work that day. She didn't think she could take the boring monotonous routine of her usual day now without possibly vomiting on someone.
Dressing comfortably in a pair of old sweats and a tee shirt, she brushed her hair and teeth and then sat in her living room, staring at her walls. Her eyes focused on a single ray of sunshine that broke through the blinds and slowly crawled across the room and her ears heard only the sound of the ticking clock. When the pounding in her head began to match that of the clock, Kagome closed her eyes and squeezed herself into a tight ball. "Go away," she moaned quietly to herself.
"Never."
Jerking upright, her head turning to look around her, Kagome scanned the lonely and empty shell of her apartment. There had been a distinct answer to her demand, a voice she thought she recognized, and the very tone of it had sent chills coursing through her body.
She stood, giving the wall she'd been staring at for the last half hour her back. "Who's here?" she called out, her eyes darting around for any signs.
Silence was her answer.
Still Kagome remained standing, her body tense and on high alert. "I said, who's here?" she demanded to know again.
Still silence answered her, but there was a mocking feeling in the air. It was as if something was taunting her and Kagome didn't like in the least. She made a quick decision then, throwing on her shoes by the door and grabbing her keys and wallet from the table by it. She left her apartment right then and there without a specific destination in mind. All that mattered was getting away from whatever it was that stalked her.
Her only problem, she supposed as she walked down the flights of stairs to the ground level, was that whatever was stalking her was within her and went with her everywhere.
She reached the street and let her feet carry her where they may knowing she looked a horrible sight from lack of sleep and fright. Before she knew it she found herself at the base of the stairs leading to her family's shrine and her mind filled with thoughts of being wrapped up in her mother's warm embrace. She climbed the stairs resolutely, never faltering in her gait and keeping her eyes on the top. When she finally broke through the last torii, Kagome released a sigh of relief as the pounding in her head seemed to lessen some.
"Kagome?" came a familiar voice. "What are you doing here today?"
She turned and smiled at her grandfather, giving him a bow of respect. "I was in the neighborhood," she answered with a shrug, trying to appear nonchalant and carefree.
"You look tired, Kagome," he noticed right away. "Is something on your mind?"
More like someone, she thought to herself, but to her grandfather she merely smiled and shook her head no. "I just didn't sleep well last night," she answered, not exactly a lie but not exactly the truth.
"Meditation works wonders!" her grandfather replied. "And I just got in these charms that are suppose to keep the demons of dreams away."
He turned and hurried back towards the shrine's store, more than likely intent on fetching one of his "charms" for her to have. Kagome sighed to herself and continued onwards towards her mother and her mother's soothing presence. What was it about mothers that made everything bad turn good?
*FM*
Kagome found her mother in the kitchen rinsing the last of the dishes she had. Why was it always here her mother was to be found? A woman's work is never done, she said silently to herself as she stood back and watched her mother work.
Her mother finally noticed her when she turned to dry her hands. "Kagome!" she said with surprise, a smile blossoming across her face. Kagome only hoped she aged as her mother did, gracefully and with beauty.
"Good morning, momma," Kagome replied as she accepted the embrace she had so desperately wanted. She leaned into her mother's slight frame and wrapped her arms around her, hoping to leach out whatever it was that made this woman so powerful in her mind. Certainly if she had only a small pinch of that whatever haunted her nights would run in fear.
Her mother must have sensed something as she stepped back with concern darkening the joy in her eyes. "Kagome?" she asked, leaving the rest said but unsaid.
"Bad dreams," Kagome muttered, moving back to hug her mother once more. "I just wanted my mother."
"Kagome," her mother said, her tone softening now to one of motherly understanding. "Perhaps you should talk with your grandfather about these dreams."
At that Kagome laughed and then she realized her mother was serious. "Really?"
"He has a way with these things," she replied, the look in her eyes daring Kagome to laugh again. "While you may not think much of his spiritual powers, he does have them."
"Mom, you don't really believe in all that stuff, do you?" Kagome had to ask.
"Kagome Higurashi," her mother sternly replied. "You are being disrespectful to me, to our religion, and to our heritage."
She suitably lowered her head, realizing she really had stepped out of bounds with that statement. "I'm sorry, mother. Please forgive me."
"Speak with your grandfather about these dreams, these feelings you've been having, about this figure who has so haunted you and I will."
At the mention of strange feelings and of being haunted, something she hadn't spoken of to her mother, Kagome looked up sharply, but her mother had already turned away and was busying herself with something else. Taking the dismissal as it was, Kagome bowed her head and left to find her grandfather.
*FM*
She found her grandfather still in the back rooms of the shrine's store looking through boxes. "Jiji?" she said as she entered, wanting him to know she was there.
He jumped at the sound of her voice, upsetting a box filled with bells. "You scared an old man," he chided as he bent to pick up the mess he'd made.
Kagome moved quicker than he and tended to the bells before he could. He sent her a grateful look, one hand clutching his lower back that she knew pained him from time to time. Her grandfather was getting older in years and who knew how much longer she would be blessed with his presence. "Sorry, Jiji, but I wanted to talk to you."
"I was searching for those charms," he murmured, turning back to the boxes before him.
"I've been having those dreams still," Kagome continued, undeterred. For some reason she got the feeling that her grandfather didn't really want to broach the subject—which was entirely unlike the man she thought she knew—despite his earlier demands that she tell him the instant she had another one. "And feelings. Strange feelings. Like I'm being watched. And when I don't dream my head hurts in the morning, as if something has been trying to get in my mind all night long."
"Ah! Here they are!" he crowed triumphantly as he lifted several scraps of paper out of a small black box.
"Jiji, please," Kagome pleaded with closed eyes as the throbbing in her head suddenly increased and then she heard him sigh. Opening her eyes, she saw her grandfather in front of her, his back still to her but a bow of giving-in to his shoulders now.
"I should have known you would be touched. I always suspected…but I hoped it wasn't true."
"Touched?"
"You have spiritual powers like mine, Kagome. Neither your mother or brother seems to have gained them, but I should have known you would. Someone always bears them within a generation or two. Mine are not particularly strong," her grandfather admitted with a downturned head, "But I do have them. I sense…things. Vague, fleeting glimpses mostly, but sometimes I can hear the voices of those who are gone or who linger in secrecy."
"Linger in secrecy?"
"Spirits," he answered. "Sometimes I swear I feel the presence of a youkai." He turned and looked her over, taking in her tired expression and body fatigue with a new light. "Do you know that most of the items stored here, the holy relics and artifacts we guard and watch over, are of youkai decent?"
"I didn't."
"Of course you don't. You never listened to my stories," he admonished with a more playful tone. "We have those items because of our long line of spiritual powers. Our spiritual strength may be the only thing stopping them from gaining powers beyond any normal human's understanding," he continued, his tone losing its playful edge once more. "Yet sometimes it is not those items that we watch over that they want. Sometimes it is us that they require."
Kagome wanted to know who they were and what exactly it was that they required people for and all those questions were on the tip of her tongue when her grandfather held up a silencing finger. "There is a time and place for such discussion and this is not it, granddaughter." He approached her and laid his wizened hand against her cheek. It felt rough with age and callused, but at the same time as comforting to her now as the hug from her mother had been earlier. "Now go to your room and rest in peace. No youkai can reach you here. No wandering spirits can try to drain your soul. Here you are safe. Rest and we shall talk again when you are in a better state of mind."
"Yes, Jiji," Kagome agreed, knowing she would get no more from him until she did as she was told.
*FM*
Kagome opened her eyes and stared, slightly confused for a moment, at the familiar ceiling above where she lay. Then she recalled where she was and why she was napping in the middle of the day. Rising, feeling as if she'd had the best sleep in years, Kagome automatically grabbed a change of clothing and headed towards the bathroom. She didn't realize she'd slipped back into her old habits until the tub was already filling and shrugged away whatever guilt she felt.
She enjoyed a long, hot soak, remembering bygone days, and then dressed and went searching for her grandfather. It was time he told her what in the hell was going on. Oddly, though, the house lay silent and empty before her. Now this is a little off, Kagome thought to herself as she slipped her shoes on and headed outside. Never, in all her time here, had the house stood empty, but then again she had been off to school a great deal of that time.
Slowly prowling the grounds, Kagome took in the oh-so familiar surroundings of her family's home and the shrine. She'd been raised here, spent almost her entire life here among these trees and buildings. Always she'd felt something, but had ended chalking it up to an overactive imagination. There was a sense of relief—and foreboding—to know that there actually was something.
She found her grandfather seated under Goshinboku. He looked her over from head to toe as she neared and then nodded his head. "You look better rested."
"I am."
He indicated with a short nod of his head for her to sit and Kagome did. For a long moment he watched the clouds move across the sky and then let out a quiet sigh. "So you continued to have the dreams and did not tell me of them."
A wave of guilt washed over her at the remembrance of her deception, but her grandfather washed it away with a wave of his hand. "I would have expected such. You were not raised as I was. It was the wish of your father, after all…"
At the mention of her father, who had died when she was so young she could barely recall him, Kagome raised her head to comment on that, but the look on her grandfather's face stopped her. He was lost in his memories; seeing her but not. "He was a good son," her grandfather said sadly. "But his views of this world were so skewered by what was 'reality' and what was 'fact'."
Her grandfather's eyes suddenly focused more fully upon her and yet there was still a wall between them. It was as if he were speaking to her but yet not realizing to whom he was speaking. "Sparrow," he said quickly. "There are tales you need to hear and learn from."
Sparrow? Her grandfather had never called her anything other than her name or granddaughter. "What tales, Jiji?"
"Tales of woe and sorrow," he answered. "But first you must know the base of them. Long ago, in our very distance past, youkai numbered as many as humans. Humans and youkai co-existed—though youkai were as feared as they were admired. They were superior to us in almost every way; strength, speed, healing, lifespan, prowess, and—in some—intelligence. Despite those differences, we lived peacefully and together. Slowly, though, the youkai changed. They began looking down on humans as if we were a pestilence to be wiped off the face of the earth, as if we were born to serve them. Great battles were waged with the loss of life on both sides being so much that entire fields and rivers ran red with blood for weeks."
Kagome closed her eyes and pictures of her dreams came to mind. Had she dreamed the past? Or was she dreaming of the future to come?
Her grandfather continued, seeming enthralled by something and not noticing her emotional state. "The Kamis saw this and were dismayed. The two races they had created were slowly annihilating themselves. So they intervened and a truce was reached… Realizing how superior to us the youkai were and to keep the youkai from violating the pact, the Kami created a new breed of human, one touched by their spiritual hands. Those "touched" were able to protect humans from the youkai who broke the truce."
He paused, clearing his throat and turning his eyes down to the earth underneath him. His aged hands reached out and he ran his fingers across the ground. "Time passed and all seemed well. The balance was restored and, though there were skirmishes from time to time, humans and youkai lived amongst each other once more. But then the human population began to grow and we had no choice but to move out from those places designated as "ours" by the truce. The youkai rose again, angered and outraged that we were destroying the land, and once more the world was thrown into turmoil, but we were too strong and they were too few against our greater numbers. And so the age of the youkai passed and the age of man began."
"For some reason I find that saddening," Kagome commented, following the strange markings her grandfather was drawing in the dirt with her eyes.
His eyes seemed to snap back into the present and he studied the markings he'd made on the ground as he replied, "As did those others who were touched. Truthfully, we were more youkai than human. Able to heal faster and call upon forces no normal human could, we became as reveled and feared as the youkai had been."
At that, Kagome snorted. "I can see how long that lasted." A sad smile came to her grandfather's face at her comment and Kagome felt a wave of guilt wash over her. "Forgive me, grandfather."
"There is nothing to forgive. You speak the truth. Humans have such a short lifespan; we often forget what lessons time has taught."
"If the youkai are no more, Jiji, then what are my dreams about?"
"I never said youkai were extinct, Kagome," her grandfather chided briefly. "Some are still around. Here and there they struggle with life. But what is a youkai? A spirit. And spirits never die. Who and what we, those touched, are still stands and our mission in this life must still be upheld despite the fact that humanity has forgotten."
"So the man in my dreams is a youkai?"
"More than likely the spirit of one long gone who is searching for life, for physical presence, once more. As I said earlier, we have much in common with youkai and with that…bond…between us, they can—if they control us—gain power through us. The stronger the miko or priest, the greater power to be gained."
"And what would happen if he were to gain power over me?" Kagome asked, almost scared of his reply.
Her grandfather's eyes darkened for a moment and then he looked away. "Death," he answered simply. "If a powerful youkai were to unleash his fury upon us now, there would be nothing but death, Sparrow."
"You keep calling me Sparrow," Kagome finally remarked.
Her grandfather turned surprised eyes to hers and his surprise was only overshadowed by his confusion. "I have never called you such, Kagome."
"You just did. Don't you remember?"
Her grandfather lowered his eyes once more and studied the strange markings he'd made on the ground. He stared at them hard for a moment before lifting his head once more to look at her. Kagome drew back as she met his eyes again and saw only golden ones staring back at her. Then her grandfather spoke and it was his voice that came from between his lips. "Sparrow, be silent and run."
*FM*
a/n: Sorry about the pause, but I lost my way. Think I've found it again, though…
