Finding You:
Chapter 5:
The following morning Mai was abruptly woken up by her alarm clock and she half heartedly slapped it to turn it off and sat up.
Last night's dream had been exceedingly weird. Admittedly stomach cramps at that time of the month were not an unusual occurrence for her, but the other parts had been strange. Naru was her boyfriend and referenced buying her necessities at an inconvenient time and hugged her to make her feel better. There was also that indirect kiss via his water bottle. She fought back a giggle and a blush. That dream had been very surreal.
The amnesiac stretched her arms and got ready for work. There was plenty of time to mull over her dream on the van ride to the house and it would give her something to do as Naru had always tended to glare at her when she tried to make conversation or flipped pages of a book too loudly.
Another surprise awaited Mai when she got into the van and Lin started the engine. The former narcissist held out of the case file to her.
"Read it and ask me questions of you get confused."
Mai stated at him for a few moments before taking the file. The 25 year old Oliver Davis was certainly a lot better mannered than his younger counterpart. She wondered how and why the change had occurred.
The case involved strange noises, furniture moving and the wife was unable to account for some of her time at night. Mai flipped to the next page, this case didn't seem to have anything too defining to it unlike the labyrinth case or the Gellerini case. In fact this case sounded like a bad ghost movie plot.
She thought back to the conversation she had overheard at SPR. If she remembered correctly Naru had said something along the lines of "it is perfectly obvious what is causing the hauntings".
The psychic searched the next page in the file carefully for clues. The house was built in the post war period where the infrastructure of Japan was hastily rebuilt, if she had the date correct. The following page in the file was a map of the area in the 1930s before the house was built. Mai squinted at the area that had been circled and then it clicked.
"The strange occurrences are because the house was built on top of a graveyard?" she consulted the expert.
He nodded. "Well done, Mai. You got it faster than I expected."
Mai resisted the urge to blow a raspberry and a question came to her.
"If you had already worked it out, why are we here? It isn't like you to waste time."
The scientist glanced at her shrewdly. "You are right. We did have a very similar case a number of years ago," he paused to pass her another case file. "It took us two days to solve it as we didn't manage to find out that the house was built on top of a graveyard during the property boom until later- the records were harder to find. Read this file and tell me how this case is different."
Mai opened up the completed case file for Case #38. According to the date she had been 19 when she had gone on this case. She scanned the first page... furniture moving...unearthly noises...possession of all family members...all occupants of house report similar occurrences. She checked the file for the current case, the last point was absent.
"Is it that none of the previous owners of this house reported anything and only the wife in this instance is being possessed?"
"Good, Mai. You are right. There is something different this time. I have an idea, but I need to investigate. As all activity occurs when it is dark, we will be staying the night."
"How did you prevent anymore hauntings last time?" Mai asked hopefully.
"Mass exorcism, courtesy of Takigawa-san, Matsuzaki-san and John. You helped a little too."
"But we only have John this time," Mai groused.
Her employer looked unhappy. "If the worst comes to the worst, I will call Takigawa-san and Matsuzaki-san."
This reminded Mai of Ayako and Bou-san's reaction to finding out about her working at SPR again. It had not been pretty and they had both hinted heavily that she should quit, both in complete agreement for once. Mai had told them that they should tell her why they had a problem with her working at SPR and they had completely backed down and not explained anything.
"When did you last work with Ayako and Bou-san?" she asked curiously, hoping to pick up some clues.
"Two years ago," he said shortly and looked out the window. "I'm not going to tell you why either, that is something you will have to remember yourself."
The amnesiac sighed at his answer and made a mental note to obtain all the files relating to cases from two years ago as she might find some clues there as to the turning point which caused Ayako and Bou-san to distrust Naru and for her to leave SPR. For now however, she should concentrate on this case. She plucked out the disk from its sleeve in the file and waved it at Naru.
"Can I watch this?"
Naru looked guarded momentarily and then he nodded and passed her his laptop.
"Try not to drain all the battery."
She inserted the disk and pressed play. This time it was Yasuhara who introduced the case.
"Case no.38. Osamu Yasuhara speaking."
The camera focused in on a modest two storey house with Ayako and Bou-san arguing off to the side. Mai caught the words "site bound spirit" and smiled, she definitely knew what they were arguing about.
"This case reeks of poltergeists- tapping, objects moving, the whole lot," Yasuhara observed. "Right, Naru?"
There was the sound of tapping feet and the manager of SPR made an appearance.
"Even Mai noticed that," he said simply and swept out of view again.
"Hey!" Mai heard her own voice screech.
"If you have time to be complaining, you have time to carry the equipment," he boss retorted. "Yasuhara, you can stop filming now, Mai is not going to be free to let her mind wander at the moment so we won't get any hints."
The amnesic Mai pouted and Naru, who had been discreetly watching her, smiled. He had missed Mai badly over the past two years and photos supplied, courtesy of Masako Hara were a poor substitute , but he still hadn't been willing to sacrifice his pride and apologise so he could see her again.
The case they were undertaking was not something that he considered to be dangerous so he didn't have to worry about her getting hurt again. The case that he was using as a reference had occurred when they were dating. Fortunately for his plan there were no mentions of it in the video that Mai was watching. It wouldn't do for Mai to know about their past relationship too soon.
4 Years ago:
Naru frowned over the floor plan again and the results of Yasuhara's brief research. He was missing the clue that he needed to solve the case. They had stayed one night and the spirits or whatever was causing the strange occurrences, was acting differently.
He pulled out before and after photos of the living room on the ground floor where all the activity was centred. There was something familiar about the new layout of furniture, but he couldn't place it for the moment. He needed some tea.
As if timed, a teacup was placed on the table he was sitting at and he looked up to see Mai standing behind him with a twinkle in her brown eyes.
"How did you know that I was about to call you for tea?"
She grinned and reached out to tweak his nose.
"I know you very well. There's a pattern in when you demand tea on a case."
"Your high school education did not go to waste, then," he took a sip of tea and gestured for her to sit opposite him.
Mai sat down and pulled the photos towards her and glanced at the stack of monitors on the opposite side of the base where Lin was sitting with headphones on.
"Did the cameras get anything last night?" she asked.
"We are still reviewing the footage," Naru answered. "But as you know the furniture moved to a different position and a name was written in blood on the wall."
Mai looked thoughtful and suddenly perked up.
"Last night I thought I heard someone walk down the stairs," she said slowly. "It was after I visited you in the base and fell asleep. The bathroom is upstairs, come to think of it, so it wasn't someone going to the toilet. It wasn't Masako or Ayako."
"What time was it?" Naru questioned sharply. "I went to bed after I put you in your futon and I normally get woken up when someone leaves the room I am sleeping in."
"I'm not sure, I went back to sleep straight after because I was tired. It was after 3, but before 5, I think because I woke up later on."
Lin took his headphones off and joined the conversation. "I've found the footage."
Mai and Naru crowded around the bank of screens and watched as the husband walked down the stairs and appeared on another screen as he entered the living room.
"The furniture starts moving slowly at this point," Lin pointed. "This is when it starts to get a little different to what we were expecting to happen."
They watched as the client moved into the kitchen and pulled a knife out of the knife block and returned to the living room. Mai clutched Naru when he cut his finger with the knife and wrote the name "Takeshi Yamazaki" on the wall.
"I sent Yasuhara off to research that name," Naru said and sat back down at the table once they had finished watching the footage. "We now know that the unaccounted time for the clients was caused by possession by spirits."
"But why?" Mai asked the obvious question.
That was the stumbling block now that they had worked out the how. To solve the case they needed to work out the why. He looked at his assistant curiously.
"I know you didn't sleep well last night due to stomach cramps, but did you have any dream?"
Mai nodded vigorously. "I had a nightmare which was what woke me up, but I had forgotten about it until now."
Naru sighed. Yet again Mai was keeping back information. Sometimes it was dreams that she had forgotten or small things that she didn't think would be vital to the case, she wasn't doing it intentionally, but it would speed up the solving of the case if she shared everything.
"Lin, get the camera. We can add this to the case file."
The omnouji retrieved the video camera from its bag and positioned it so both his charge and girlfriend were in view.
"You can start whenever you like," Naru said, notebook and pen poised to record details.
The psychic took a deep breath before starting. "It was dark and I was being stabbed and it hurt. I died fairly quickly thankfully. Although I was a dead person in my dream, I could sense things that occurred after I died."
"A restless spirit," Naru noted. "Carry on."
"I was placed in a coffin and buried underground. For a while it was peaceful and then there were lots of loud noises and I couldn't get any peace. Then I woke up. I don't think was able to wake up before that," Mai pouted. "I wanted to wake up when I was being stabbed."
Swiftly, Naru's mind noticed the similarity between Mai description of a first person vision and the dream that she had had at the Urado mansion 8 years ago. Clearly someone had wanted her to see their death."
As he was trying to deduce why, Mai had returned to poring over the photographs. He jumped when she let out a shriek.
"I've got it!" she waved a photo happily at him.
Naru took it and found it was one of the photos the clients had taken of the furniture after it had been moved.
"I don't see it."
Mai pointed. "It's like a graveyard. Everything has been moved to the middle of the room like the pathway in a cemetery."
Lin picked up a similar photo. "Mai-san is right. This house may have been built on top of a graveyard, disturbing those spirits not at rest."
"The spirits of murder victims are generally not at rest. Mai dreamt she was being murdered so it fits," Naru agreed. "All the previous owners of this house did not have any psychic abilities so the spirits took to possessing and poltergiesting to get them to free them. Then Mai came along. The name written on the wall must be the person who showed her that dream."
The case was moderately simple after that breakthrough. Yasuhara's later research confirmed their suspicions. That night they had waited for either the husband or wife to leave their room and go downstairs and had released the spirit possessing them and had performed several exorcism to ensure all restless spirits left the house.
Naru looked over at Mai again to see that she looked very shocked with her eyes wide and skin pale. He moved to look over her shoulder to see what had shocked her. The video was currently at the part in the base where Mai was describing her dream.
"What's wrong?"
"It's nothing," Mai answered a little too quickly.
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. :D
As a random trivia point some buildings were built on top of dead bodies in the post war period in Japan as they were rebuilt so fast.