Your Brief Moment
by EstiRose
“Come on,” Haruna said impatiently to her friend Masao. Haruna’s mother and Masao’s father had agreed to bring the two of them to the same park to play together, which Haruna really liked. It was partly because she liked Masao, because Masao could find the best adventures and knew all sorts of interesting things. Haruna was the leader, of course, and the best one at getting them both out of trouble. “Let’s find that haunted house.”
“Okay.” Masao looked over at the two adults, and Haruna knew that he was waiting for their attention to be elsewhere instead of Haruna and Masao. Masao, despite all his loudness, was good at sneaking out of sight. She knew that the plan was to duck behind one of the play areas and go from there. It shouldn’t be far, from what Masao said, assuming that they showed up at the right time. Because sometimes the house wasn’t there and sometimes it was, from what he’d heard. And then the adults got involved in a discussion about the security use of flying robotic cats, and Masao whispered “Go!”
The two of them raced off, and it only took a little bit of running to get to the lake in the park. Much to her relief, there was a small, traditional house with an open front door that was almost transparent if one looked the right way. “Let’s go!”
Masao nodded, and they hurried to the little house, dashing inside. It seemed more solid inside than it was on the outside, because they were there. She looked around, but couldn’t see any ghosts, though there was what sounded like crying coming from one direction. Nodding at Masao, she slid the door open slowly, revealing a hallway. There were two doors, so she chose the first one.
There was a girl standing there near a closet, maybe their age, maybe a bit older, dressed in a red kimono with butterflies on it. Haruna walked up to her - ghosts shouldn’t be dangerous, after all - and looked up. “Hi,” she said. Maybe the ghost would ignore her, but she hoped not!
The girl stopped crying long enough to stare at Haruna with a look of terror.
“My name is Terui Haruna and I’m here to help you.” Because maybe the ghost would send them on a quest or something that was exciting.
“I… I….” The ghost started crying again, and Haruna wondered what was going on, and if maybe the two of them should forget about her and start exploring. “My key!”
“Yes? How can we help you find it?” Haruna asked.
The ghost opened and closed her mouth, as if considering what to do. “I was supposed to give it to my big brother’s friend. But I… I couldn’t.”
It was an unfulfilled duty! That’s why ghosts hung around sometimes. Masao had said that they weren’t really ghosts of people, but Haruna disagreed. How could he really know anyway?
“Can we help you look for it? Me and my friend Masao are good at finding things. It’ll be fun! What does this key look like?”
“A bell….” This was all the ghost seemed to want to say, so Haruna just nodded. A bell key? Whatever.
“Let’s go find it, Masao,” she ordered, though she didn’t need to, not really. There was a sliding door right on the wall, and it was unlocked, so she pushed the door open. Somehow, this place was much larger than it looked on the outside.
“We’ll have to be fast,” Masao said. “My uncle says that this is sometimes how ghosts feed. And I don’t mean her. I mean the house. It could eat us when it vanishes.”
“Then we’ll have to be fast.” Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to find the key. “I’ll take this side of the room, you take that one.”
But there was no key in the room, or at least no bells and nothing she recognized as a key. Plenty of books, though. The door to the right probably lead back to the hallway. There was a ladder on the back side.
When Masao shook his head, she pointed up. “Let’s look up in the attic.”
So, the two of them checked the attic, as well. It was big - the whole place was big - but it was almost empty as well, though she saw some armor and some folded kimonos on her side. The two of them searched through it, but didn’t find the ghost’s bell. So, she led Masao down the ladder on the other side, coming down into a room that had a mirror on one side, one that was faded and cracked. She was aware that they didn’t have much time to stare at it or anything else, but she wanted to do her best for the scared ghost girl whose name, she realized, she didn’t know.
The bell wasn’t in the room, but there was a sliding door that took them out to an almost-identical hallway. The only difference was that there was a door on the right hand side this time. She led Masao into that room, surprised that this place was so empty, apart from a little clutter here, a little clutter there. It was like the ghost of the house couldn’t keep up that much stuff around. They split up again, and this time it was Masao who called out. “I found it!”
It was a little bell with a piece of wood attached to it. She smiled a bit at that, before remembering that there was a little girl who wanted her key back, and a house that might want to eat them. Or make them ghosts too, which was not going to happen. “Great, let’s get it-“
And then the house started fading around them.
“Or maybe we’d better get out of here!” She was already sprinting towards the door as Masao spoke, and she could see him at her shoulder as they ran out. Together, they ran into the hallway, and quickly opened the hallway door. Soon they were in the entryway, and then stepping out onto the lake shore, and then she turned around.
The house was gone. She looked down, realizing that she still had the girl’s key. Assuming the girl wasn’t the house and the house wasn’t the girl.
“I’m not returning this.” It would be a reminder of her adventure, and there was no way that she was going there again.
“I know.” Masao offered her a sloppy smile. “We’d better get back. Can I have the bell?”
“Yes!” And with that, she led Masao back towards where their parents were, handing him the bell along the way.
Her mother gave her a worried lecture, one she mostly tuned out. She could see Masao showing his father the bell key, explaining things, and maybe, just maybe, everything would have - had - turned out all right.
-end
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