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Josie was in a peculiar situation as she stared down the sliver of a red door, stuck between the dilapidated old flower shop and the butcher’s downtown. Her eyebrows crept further and further up her face as she continues to stare, baffled at the current situation she was in. Her phone was held loose in her right hand, threatening to slip to the ground, as the screen shone white with the words “Japanese historical shops near me” typed into the google search engine. Josie faintly recalled the word shōji from her architecture lesson as she stared at the wooden tic tac toe frame covering the colored linen of the door.
The slight pitter-patter of shiny flats mingled with the faint winds of the city as Josie warily stepped up the connecting cement stairs. Her left hand grasped a section of the frame and pulled, as the door opened the low twinkle of a bell hummed in her ears. Her eyes wandered around the minuscule shop and widened as the shop seemed to travel further back until she couldn’t see anything but a black dot. She stepped back out onto the first step and back in the stop and back out and back in and back out until she finally stepped more than a foot into the shop.
As she walked past the front door she noticed a table covered with red charms tied at the top with brown twine, yellow-colored Japanese decorating the face. All shapes and sizes stacked one upon another like a deck of messy cards. An open crate near the bottom of the table held a plethora of golden coins. Josie neatly knelt down and turned one around in her hands as she examined the three raised lines in the middle of the oval-shaped coin. Her phone slid past her reaching hands as she accidentally kicked it from her crouching position as she tried to stand back up, hitting black ankle boots.
Black ankle boots?
Josie’s eyes wandered upwards and met the bottom of a beautiful black silk kimono, her eyes traveling up the dark green designs of forest vines trailing a battle between two shadows, taking up the entire back. The man with eight drums made of tiger heads placed in circle frame overarching his entire form stood tall with his right arm outstretched. Stitched clouds slightly covered his torn shorts scattered with scrawly open-mouthed skulls. Strands of lightning rained down onto the strong figure of a man in long creased pants [hakama, her mind supplied] colored with a red drawstring. In his grasp, a large bag ten times the size of him opened towards the angry god of a man. Spouting harsh winds depicted in a slurry of hatched lines clashing and fighting against the rain of bolts.
Two large dragons in shiny gold thread circled above, slithering bodies raced and twisted against each other, open mouths filled with delicately stitched fangs held frozen in time as their eyes slanted in anger against each other. The kimono wearing figure spun on their heel and bent at the waist to grab Josie’s obnoxiously bright yellow phone case littered with puffy stickers of Totoro and Snorlax. Josie’s eyes immediately shot down to her phone as she noticed the turning figure, the sound of rustling fabric rushed her ears and all Josie could do is watch as an elegant hand with short black colored nails picked up her phone and held it out to her.
Peonies.
That was the first thing that Josie noticed when she looked up. Peonies, tons and tons of silver-lined peonies littered the shoulders of the black silk kimono sleeves. Loose petals entangled with slightly pointed oval leaves fell down towards the open arms, like a rush of stars during a meteor shower. Josie’s pupils dilated in enthrallment, following up backward the garden’s voyage, she finally saw the wavy black curls of the kimono’s owner and stared straight into yellow painted eyes.
Josie’s entire being froze and goosebumps prickled the back of her neck as she gazed at the yellow-painted circles that served as pupils shadowed in black sockets. A Hannya mask stared back at her. Angry features carved into wooden stone with gleaming curved white fangs stuck out of the four corners of an open mouth, a dichotomy to the dark indigo of actual mask’s face and horns. A large gold scar starting from the bottom of the Hannya’s left horn, running like a river down till the bottom right side of the mask glimmered in the lowlights of the store. A bronze capped dark wood pipe hung out the mouth of the fanged mask. Josie caught the glimpse of parted full lips as smoke curled out of the opening of the left side of their mouth. Then the figure huffed. Josie’s nose wrinkled from the thick white cloud blown into her face. Her mind whirled as the nauseating yet familiar smell reached her nostrils and caused her body to slight soften from its tense position.
Weed.
The person was smoking the devil’s lettuce out of what looked like the antique fancy ornate Kiseru.
As Josie was preoccupied with wrapping her mind around the assault of visual information, the figure cocked their head and nodded their chin in a sharp jolt towards the mischievous pale green webbed hand that threatened to hook onto Josie’s dark blue sweater with their sharp claws. The low clack of a beak tangled in the background as water slightly splattered onto the floor, the slushing of wet feet walked back to the small gurgling fountain near the front entrance’s doorway. The tinkle of faint giggling replaced the swaying bronze bells adorning the wooden frame, high near the ceiling, as small swirls of frozen snowflakes began to paint the shop’s wood. The figure’s unoccupied left hand curled around the pipe in their mouth and blew a harsh stream of smoke above Josie’s head, in an over compassing cloud. Josie finally came back to reality as the giggling faded away and the ice began to melt down the walls in transparent strands.
Her cheeks flushed a light pink as she saw that the shop’s owner [??] still had her phone held in the palm of their hand. When Josie took her phone back, the owner’s face snapped back towards her and “stared” with painted features. The Hannya’s face inched closer and closer until Josie could see the grains of wood hidden beneath glossy varnished paint.
Josie tried to secretly scoot back from the intimidating frame and achieved her goal enough to stand back up and dust off her pants. When Josie stood, so did the figure. A mirror image of each other.
Oh, they are shorter than she thought.
Head tipped slightly down, Josie tried to keep eye contact until Josie averted her eyes further down, to escape the unsettling gaze of tattooed pupils. Her ears flared red hot as she caught sight of a black bra strap peeking out of partially unbuttoned white button-up tucked into modernized black hakama pants. Josie’s head twisted back and forth to look at every corner of the room, from the sudden stone fountain five feet away from her feet to the wooden panels of the walls, slightly tinged with reddish colored water.
“Huh, must be the pipes, makes sense they are rusty” Josie’s mind whispered.
Her head snapping forward at the muffled click of boots hitting the ground. Josie’s feet following the invisible footsteps of the haunting figure, the tips of sharpened horns peeked out of wavy black curls, that reminded Josie of high school memories she tried to forget. The figure of someone with bright emerald eyes and pearly white teeth shown in an infatuated smile shoved past Josie, ghostly fingers traced around the exposed part of Josie’s wrist her sweater couldn’t cover to the back of her hand. A feather-soft touch painted the path of her blue colored veins standing with the tan of her hands, and Josie saw her. Walking behind the figure, a white tinged 3D shadow and Josie’s heart unclenched with relief as she saw the difference between the two. The masked woman’s silhouette was bigger upper body-wise, the ghostly figure dwarfing the black kimono.
Josie began to relax more and more as she followed the woman, taking into account the panels and panels of Japanese tales puddling and spreading in black ink across the traditional papers. Some told tales of ancient families praying to a god [kami], bestowing gifts of fruits and treats as retribution for a possible bountiful harvest. To the war cries of battles splattered across the canvases like blood, painting helmets, armors, and faces red with anger as weapons flew across each other. But hauntingly and heart-achingly beautiful all the same. Just as the woman who hung these across every surface of the shop. Josie seemingly came to a stop as she bumped into the still back of the only other shop’s occupant and reflexively threw out her hands to the woman’s shoulders to catch herself. Josie immediately threw her hands to her side once she regained her balance and tilted her head to the direction of the hand pointing towards a dimly lit section of shelves hammered to the wall.
Josie’s lips quirked up into a small smile as she scanned the rows and rows of scrolls and tightly bound paper books, pages aged to a faint yellow, covered in centuries of knowledge transcribed by hand. Josie fell into the claws of the Japanese shop’s charm and fluttered across all the texts and charm bags spilling in and out of her hands until she felt the weight of several eyes land on the middle of her back.
Spinning on the heel of her foot, Josie met the permanently open gazed of tens of hundreds of masks, from little to big. The masks looked back at her in painted stillness as Josie examined the creatures’ faces that littered the walls. Ranging from closed mouths Hannyas to still faced angered tengus to the theatrical Nohs to the stereotypically popular kitsunes, etc. Josie moved closer to examine the intricacies of the wood carving when she caught sight of an open door, the room illuminated with bright white. Looking around and finding the masked woman preoccupied with tending to the garden of potted plants lounging in the artificial sun provided by fluorescent light bulbs. Josie has decided to take a calculated risk and open the door.
Upon opening the door Josie saw small shelves holding jars of carving tools and a small wooden table with a block of wood on it. After stepping fully into the room and closing the door Josie turned to the mess of paintbrushes on the floor and caught sight of unpainted wooden masks, seeming to float in the air. Magic, Josie thought in a hush. The copper taste was palpable on her tongue until she realized that it wasn’t only magic that gave her copper drowned senses.
A wet drop landing on Josie’s right cheek, startling her to jump back and kick a closed bin. The bin fell over and the contents thudded, splattered against the floor. Echoing in the room, mingling with the harsh breaths rattling out of Josie’s chest as she stared in shock. Mangled and disembodied pieces of arms and fingers rolled out of the blood laden bin, painting the stone floor in dark crimson wine. Another drop of red fell to the ground causing Josie to slowly raise her head and muffled a silent scream behind the cage of her entangled hands.
Irises of all colors, cloudy with death bore into her eyes as they laid like freckles against the large expanse of blood torsos and legs that cling against the ceiling, defying the principles of physics and gravity. Out of her peripheral Josie saw the swag of the wooden masks lift from the black spots of the room as shadow figures wearing their faces began to walk in slow footsteps towards Josie’s frozen body. Trailing the floor, Josie’s vision flooded with figures made of pure dripping obsidian holding onto statue faces and swallowed the entire room in shadow.
Then the door creaked open.
The Hannya mask-wearing woman glided in, as light as the clouds drifting above the trees at the Salvatore Academy. The figure slowly strutted toward Josie and clutched her waist in a delicate hold against her body as Josie relaxed and watched the gleaming scar and fangs and glowing green eyes. Green eyes?
Until another pair of arms, nails the exact same shade of black, gripped her face in a gentle touch as if she was made of fine china came from underneath the inky silver threaded kimono.
“Oh, Jojo."
"Didn’t your mother ever tell you to do your research before you go anywhere?”
One week later the police raided the small shack between the dilapidated flower shop and the resident butcher’s. They found an empty store and the open door of a storeroom, with the cold body of a teenage girl lying down.
Police Report Summary [confidential]: December 12, at approximately 4:25 am, a young teenage girl was found lying on the floor of an abandoned storeroom. Dressed in a black silk kimono, decorated with silver, gold, and dark green thread, depicting mythology of Japanese descent. The young girl is wearing a dark mask with around four-inch horns and a gold scar running from the top of the left half to the bottom of the right half of the mask’s face. Underneath the black kimono, the victim is wearing a dark blue sweater and dark pants. A bronze capped pipe is placed in her slightly closed outstretched left hand, lying against the floor. No means of identification found.