Chapter Six

Ceremonial Offerings

Kagome stepped out of the shower delicately, her head swimming, still, from a restless night's sleep. She didn't bother wading through the steam to examine herself in the foggy bathroom mirror—she was well aware she probably looked like death warmed over. Mother had been so insistent on dragging her out of bed. True that it was already late in the afternoon, but one would think a girl could at least be permitted to sleep the day away when it was her birthday.

Ghostly images of pale-haired children clad in attire from eras long past had floated through her mind the entire night. Half way through she began to think that the next time she tossed or turned in bed, she might find herself face-to-face with such an apparition. It was not until slivers of pre-dawn crept through her windows to alleviate the darkness that she started to drift off to sleep.

But then she could hardly tell her mother why she was so very wrung out, therefore, letting the woman wake her had been her only true option. She found it odd that after the fuss her mother and grandfather had made about preparing for her birthday, Aiko had not said anything about it when she'd been in Kagome's room earlier. If anything, her mother seemed uncharacteristically anxious . . . almost jittery. It was enough, all on its own, to strip what meager rest she'd gotten this morning of any restorative ability, she wasn't certain she wanted to add it to the list of things that had piqued her curiosity about her family in the last week.

She wished that Sesshomaru had shown himself last night—that he could have comforted her in some way—even as she still puzzled and worried over him somehow being real. With a heavy sigh, she finally opened the door and stepped out into her bedroom.

Her damp skin prickled with a sudden chill that had precious little to do with the cooler air outside of the bathroom as she laid eyes on a new red dress carefully placed across her bed. Once again, Aiko had sneaked in while Kagome showered, but this time the girl was truly unsettled by the sight.

They had just made an offering days ago, why was she expected to dress for another so soon? She let her towel drop to the floor and stepped lightly toward her bed, reaching down with minutely trembling fingers to touch the beautiful, rich crimson silk. She tried to piece together what this could mean, but failed, knowing well that she did not possess enough information.

Perhaps it was simply a pretty dress her mother thought she would like to have—something special to wear for her birthday—the color could be a coincidence; there were many red dresses in the world, after all. Kagome shook her head. She knew these were just things she was telling herself to calm her nerves, but she couldn't deny the simple logic of it. The plain truth was that there could possibly be no meaning behind this gesture, at all, no matter how reluctant she might be to believe that.

She couldn't put off leaving the room forever, regardless of how much she might want to, so she picked up the dress and busied her mind with simply attiring herself as she would for any other celebration. Maybe she could pretend that she believed Mother and Grandpa were taking her out to dinner.

The dress truly was as beautiful as she'd thought at first glance—like a modern take on the Grecian toga, the gleaming red fabric gathered over one shoulder, but left the other bare, to drape down her back. She was a little put off that it was so formal, though, the hem swept the floor, but fit snuggly from neckline to hip, if not for a slit in one side that came up to mid-thigh, she doubted she'd be able to walk in the damned thing.

She slid her feet into her strappy black heels and crossed the room, but when she opened her door, what she heard from the house was . . . nothing. And the quiet chilled her to her core.

"C'mon, Kagome, you're braver than this," she whispered to herself when she found that her feet did not seem to want to cross the threshold of her bedroom.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened her spine and forced her legs to move, to walk her out into the hallway and down the staircase. Her fear only grew, hovering around her, draping itself over her shoulders like some great, breathing thing as she turned to look into the parlor, only to discover the room to be entirely vacant.

Where is everyone? She thought, her inner voice falsely calm as she continued to the first floor. But, as with the parlor, there was no one in the kitchen, or dining room, or even out in the garden. For a moment, she considered running up into the attic to check on Kikyou, but it would be just her luck that someone would walk into the house right then and catch her acting upon knowledge she was not supposed to have. She would not risk that—they might somehow find a way to blame Kikyou, and that was a thing she would not allow.

As she stepped back inside the house from her search of the garden, she spied the cellar door.

The open cellar door.

Letting out a trembling breath, Kagome shook out her hands and started across the room. "That's—that's probably where they are, I . . . ." She paused, forcing a gulp down her throat before she could continue coaxing herself. "I should have checked the basement first. Yeah, I'm probably just late, so they started without me."

By the time she'd finished speaking, she was standing in that open door way. But there was no sound coming from below, either. Odd, because she could see the flicking light of candles dancing along the wall and smell the incense—barely detectable from the rest of the house, but the thick plumes of it hanging in the air were quite visible in the staircase.

Nodding, she steeled herself against what might await her at the bottom of the stairs and proceeded carefully and slowly downward. The smoke invaded her senses, as it always did, making her head foggy and her limbs feel tingly, and the world around her slightly detached.

She was so out of sorts by the time she reached the bottom that she couldn't be certain on which step, precisely, she'd began murmuring the family's ceremonial chant purely out of habit.

Out of habit? That was what she told herself, yet it didn't feel only like habit. She understood, with an odd starkness to the thought, that she was free to turn around and leave, that she didn't have come down into the cellar. Kagome didn't have to do any of this and yet, it felt as though she had to.

It was an unsettling realization, as though she was giving a performance she'd never truly known she was rehearsing for.

Like this was inevitable.

She wasn't even surprised, as she stepped away from the bottom stair, to see that while the incense burned and the candles flickered, she was alone in the cellar. Yet the lack of expected family members did not matter. She knew this with a fuzzy, distant sort of certainty. What mattered was going ahead with the ceremony. Only then could she know what was happening.

She drew in a deep breath, forcefully holding back a cough from the sweet, thick air flooding into her lungs, and walked to the door of the little chamber. The sound of her heels hitting the stone floor kept her strangely aware of how alone she was down here, despite the dreamlike quality of all other sensations.

As she peered into the room, she saw the urn atop the stone platform. She almost wanted to call it an altar, but the connotation of that word, alone, scared her, threatening to pull that soft, dulling blanket from her conscious thoughts.

Kagome stepped into the chamber and up to the platform, only noting after having gotten this far that unlike their usual ceremony, this time there were incense and candles in here, as well. But it was not the same as outside, no. This incense was sweeter, richer somehow, allowing her senses to clear a little, but making her body feel light, her limbs languid.

The door swung softly, yet not silently, closed and she glanced over her shoulder, but was too relaxed and distanced from the moment to do much more than give a questioning furrow of her brow. Turning back to the urn, she reached out and touched it, immediately pulling her hand back.

It had felt warm and alive beneath her skin.

She recalled dully that she had been waiting for a moment such as this—unsupervised with the urn—and she knew with a strange finality that whatever was happening was what her family had been waiting for. This was what they'd been keeping from her, she had the right to know what she had been carrying dutifully for them all these years.

Gingerly removing the ceramic lid, she looked inside and immediately stifled a gasp. "Please, gods, no," she said softly, but she knew . . . it was blood. Kikyou's blood; it had always been Kikyou's blood.

But, as that beautiful quilt that had wrapped and cushioned her awareness only moments ago fell away, her revulsion and horror were already outweighed by fear at the sudden certainty that she was no longer alone. There was someone behind her.

Someone standing so close she could feel the warmth of their body against hers.