It was Otaki's old bookshelf—half-rotted, warped with moisture—where Reiko discovered the hidden compartment.
The house had grown restless again. The mirrors pulsed faintly at night, like hearts behind glass. The whispers behind the walls grew louder, and the air around her door was heavy with breathless heat. Something unseen had begun pacing just outside her room.
She hadn't slept in two nights.
So she cleaned.
And there, behind volumes of sutras and faded texts on warding rituals, Reiko's hand brushed against a leather-bound book wrapped in twine and sealed with wax.
The name burned into the spine was nearly illegible, but she could still make out the kanji:
Sakuma Jiroh.
---
The journal smelled like ash and old incense. When she touched it, the wax seal cracked soundlessly—as if it had been waiting for her fingers. Not just anyone's. Hers.
Reiko hesitated.
Then she opened it.
Inside, the writing was thin, jagged—like someone had been carving thoughts into paper with a blade. The ink had bled in places. Pages shook in her hands.
The first entry was short.
> I gave her the voice. She didn't scream. But she never thanked me either. I suppose that's the price.
It's always the price.
---
The journal revealed pieces of a man lost to time—a Sakuma ancestor, once whispered of as a spiritbinder who had performed forbidden rites to seal entities that could not be killed.
Reiko read each line with trembling fingers.
> There are three things spirits use to haunt the living: Hair, Voice, and Flesh. I have made seals for each.
Hair is the thread they bind to us.
Voice is the echo that opens doors.
Flesh... is the price we pay to shut them again.
> To silence her, I had to give her mine.
That line chilled her.
Was her Ayame?
Or someone else?
---
The following night, Reiko heard it again.
The scratching.
It started near the bathroom.
Soft. Delicate. Like someone was running their fingernails down the inside of the wall.
Then, from the ceiling above the kitchen.
Then, from inside the shrine.
She pressed her ear against the wood.
There—barely audible—came a sound like breathing.
But not human.
It was heavier. Slower. Like something sleeping in the walls. No—not sleeping. Listening.
---
When Yukishiro finally arrived, the house groaned louder than usual.
He stepped through the threshold and stopped immediately. His sharp eyes scanned the space. The shadows around the corners warped, pulling subtly inward, as if the house were folding itself tighter around him.
"You opened the journal," he said.
Reiko nodded. "You knew it existed?"
"I suspected."
He walked slowly into the parlor. The air was heavy. Yukishiro moved like he was wading through something thick and unseen.
"She's closer now," he murmured. "Something's waking up the estate. The seals are weakening."
Reiko showed him the journal.
When he read the line about Jiroh's voice, Yukishiro grew silent.
Then, carefully: "His voice was never lost. It was given. He sealed it inside the house to keep her from escaping."
"She?"
"Ayame… or what Ayame became."
---
Yukishiro traced a sigil on the wooden floor. It shimmered briefly, then fizzled out.
"See? The house rejects wards now."
"Why?"
"Because the voice inside it wants out."
---
He pointed to the journal again.
"There were three seals: Hair, Voice, and Flesh."
Reiko shivered. "We broke the Hair seal with the comb."
He nodded. "And now the Voice seal is crumbling. Jiroh's voice... it's echoing through this place. In mirrors. In walls. That echo in your voice? Not a coincidence."
Her throat felt tight.
"Then what's the third seal?"
Yukishiro hesitated.
"Flesh," he said. "Someone in your bloodline gave up their body to seal the last part."
"Who?"
He didn't answer.
But something in his eyes flickered—guilt, maybe. Or fear.
---
That night, Reiko had a dream.
She was walking down a hallway with no end, lit only by pale lanterns. The walls breathed. Long strands of hair grew from the corners.
At the end stood a door.
It had no handle.
Only a keyhole in the shape of a mouth.
From behind it came a man's whisper.
Ragged. Soft. Familiar.
"She still wears my voice, Reiko."
She turned.
A mirror hung crookedly behind her.
Her reflection opened its mouth and screamed—
But no sound came out.
Only hair.
---
She woke choking.
More hair in her mouth.
Not hers.
Salt-wet and black.
---
The journal's final entry had been smeared, but Yukishiro tried to read it aloud the next morning. As he did, the walls began to vibrate faintly.
> The voice is not lost. It is buried beneath us. Beneath the shrine. Sealed in a coffin made of wood from the Mouth Tree. My body fed the roots. My tongue fed the lock. If she ever speaks again—
The ink ended there.
But Reiko already knew what it meant.
Ayame was trying to speak again.
And she needed Reiko's voice to do it.
---
The last page of the journal was blank.
But under candlelight, faint letters began to appear.
Don't let her use your mouth.
---
To be continued…