<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“That was the last,â€ Shiraishi said, as a journalist made his way down the steps. “Now I guess we just wait to see whether it works.â€</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">The television crew hadn’t been the only journalists to visit the shrine that day, but they were the most noticeable; the others were all from newspapers and websites, and needed no more than an interview and a few photographs. They had all seemed willing to ignore the protesters, which Akiko suspected was a good thing; no point in giving anyone ideas. For all that, it had taken a whole day, and she was glad that it was finally over.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“Do we let the guards out again now?â€ she asked, half smiling. Shiraishi smiled properly in response.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“They seem to prefer it inside. But yes, I suppose we should. I’ll go and tell them.â€ As the priest returned to the house, Akiko looked back at the iwakura. She could still see the flame in the stones, even though no-one else seemed to. What did that mean?</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“I feel <em>dreadful.</em>â€ Kazumi, breathing hard at the top of the steps. “Absolutely <em>crap.</em> I can’t remember school ever being quite so soul-destroying. Zombies, all of them. Or hollow corpses with perverted tentacle monsters hiding inside.â€</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Akiko had turned, and was about to greet Kazumi when the last sentence brought her up short. But Kazumi had also stopped speaking, and Akiko managed to collect her wits.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“Good evening.â€ As she spoke, she switched her vision to look at the kegare, and her breath caught in her throat.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Kazumi was totally hidden, wrapped in what looked like an enormously long scarf, old wool stained with mould and mildew, heavy with the damp and musty smell of years of neglect and decay. Something moved within the weave, something writhing, probably maggots. Even as she watched, things began emerging from the wool, things with too many legs, the wrong number of legs. Things that had hidden from the barrier of light.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“I’ll get Revd Shiraishi,â€ she said. “We’ll do you a harae.â€</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">The scarf fell away as the priest shook the ohnusa, crumbling into a cloud of dust that was swept away by the breeze. Kazumi breathed a deep sigh of relief.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“That’s <em>so</em> much better. I’ll go and get changed.â€</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Kazumi decided to go home a bit early, still feeling the lack of sleep, and the festival seemed to have caught up with Akiko and Shiraishi as well; at any rate, Akiko went to bed early, and it was well after dawn when she finally woke up, woken by the doorbell.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Shiraishi didn’t look much more awake when they met at the door, and they were both relieved to see that it was only Kazumi.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“I feel dreadful,â€ was her opening gambit. “Any chance of a harae?â€ Akiko quickly switched her vision over, and had to clench her jaw as she felt her stomach heave.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Kazumi was covered in open sores, sores that had eaten away half of her face, and much of the flesh of her arms and legs. Her school uniform was untouched, clean and well-pressed, but the body within it looked like it should be dead, and smelled like it already was.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Akiko looked away, in time to see Noriko enter the shrine grounds, two giant centipedes, one glistening green, the other blue, wrapped around her, their legs digging into her kimono, their mandibles waving in the air as they passed through the barrier of light.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">“Harae. Now,â€ was all Akiko could say.</p>