Free A Winter of Ghosts (The Waking Series) by Thomas Randall Christopher Golden Page A

softly.
    She wiped at her eyes and looked
up at him. "I saw Sora. He was right over there."
    But there was nowhere around
those bare trees where anyone could have hidden themselves — even if Sora
had some reason to do so — and they were close enough now to see one
additional detail that filled the hollow place inside Kara with dread and
grief. There were no footprints in the snow beneath the cherry trees.
    "Did you see him?" she
asked.
    "I was watching you,"
her father said. "I'm sorry."
    Kara turned to see Sakura and
Miho approaching them. Miss Aritomo and the other teachers waited back on the
path, watching curiously.
    "You saw Sora?"
    Kara couldn't answer. She
swallowed hard. All she could think of in that moment was the story Hachiro had
told her about seeing Jiro's barefoot ghost on the train into Miyazu Station.
    "Hey," Miho whispered,
kneeling beside her in the snow, neither of them paying any attention to the
dampness soaking through the knees of their pants — they couldn't feel it
anymore.
    "I think I saw him, too. Just
for a second," Miho went on.
    Kara stared up at her, then
glanced at Sakura and her father. "He's dead."
    "You don't know that,"
her father said quickly, brows sternly knitted.
    But she did. What she had seen
could only have been a ghost. She bit her lip, took Miho's hand, and the two of
them stood. They exchanged silent glances with Sakura and then, as one, the
three girls started back toward the path.
    "Come on, Dad. I'm
freezing."
    Her father followed, but she saw
him glancing back at the cherry grove, although there was no longer anything
there to see.
     
     
    All through the rest of the walk
down to Takigami Park, where they boarded the bus, Kara felt torn by warring
emotions. She grieved for Sora, whom she'd liked very much, but she also
nurtured a flickering, guilty hope that Hachiro and Ren would be all right. She
had not seen their ghosts, after all, only Sora's.
    On the bus, she sat with her
father. Miho and Sakura had each other, so Kara did not feel like she was abandoning
them. Miss Aritomo busied herself with the grim business of making sure there
weren't any other students unaccounted for and then got off the bus to talk
quietly with a police officer for several minutes. When she boarded again, she
sat behind the driver and told him to take them home.
    Kara turned to look up at her
father. "We can't leave them up there."
    "We aren't. I promise you,
honey. The police are heading up onto the mountain now with a bunch of
volunteers, and more on the way. But my first responsibility is to you. Let's
get you into something warm and dry, and by then, the boys will be down off
that mountain."
    Not all , she
thought.
    As the bus rattled out of the
parking lot and back toward school, feeling began to return to her feet and her
body started to warm up at last, but inside she felt more numb than ever. She
huddled against her father, taking comfort from the solidity of his presence. He
spoke to her with quiet strength that soothed her far more than the words he
chose. Any other day she would have been embarrassed at such a display, a girl
her age being so dependent upon her father, especially in Japan. But she could
not bring herself to care.
    Kara opened her eyes, jostled as
the bus went over a pothole, and was surprised to see the outline of
Monju-no-Chie school through the window. The snow had stopped falling and the
sky had lightened somewhat, though cloud cover still blotted out the sun. Moments
later, they turned into the drive that ran alongside the school and led to the
dormitory beyond.
    "Did I fall asleep?"
she asked.
    "Maybe for a minute or two,"
her father said.
    Fresh anguish filled her. "How
could I do that? Hachiro and Ren are —"
    "Kara," he replied,
taking her hand and squeezing it. "Rest is good. You're not going to be
any help to your friends if you're falling apart."
    She took a long, shuddery breath
and then nodded. "Okay. You're right."
    "Honey . . ."
    If any sleep