Retribution by MissTeak

The Mansion

I do not own Inuyasha or any of the characters.

A/N: Here is my response to Freya’s ‘Haunted’ Challenge, and boy, was this a fun challenge to work on. Being a fan of horror flicks and stories, I was only too glad to put my favourite haunting scenes into words for all readers to enjoy. Of course, beyond the scares lie deeper themes, which I am personally very fond of writing. Do read and review, thank you.

Title: Retribution

Chapter 1: The Mansion

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“So this is it…” Higurashi Kagome allowed the breath she had been holding to escape her, feeling a rather tangible weight on her shoulders dissipate as she took in her surroundings. For all the hassle it had brought upon her, this place was indeed well worth the trouble.

The property agent by her side, a lady by the name of Kawamoto Sango, nodded and smiled in agreement. “It’s a gorgeous mansion, isn’t it? To think that all these while, it belongs to you, Miss Higurashi.”

“I still can’t believe it…this is just too…unbelievable.”

Feminine laughter came as instantaneous response to her statement. “Please believe it, it is very real indeed. The movers have done an excellent job at touching the place up and have replaced the aged furniture with the new ones which you have tastefully picked out, Miss Higurashi. This mansion would make a very comfortable home indeed.”

Kagome allowed a heartfelt smile to grace her face; the mansion in which she was standing had definitely seen better days, but the rustic colonial touch in its architecture, complete with the furniture from the 1970s and artefacts from probably centuries ago, captured her heart the instant she set her eyes upon it. There was something so…delicate and mysterious about the air of nostalgia that clung so heavily to the building.

Standing tall and almost majestic in the breathtaking Japanese countryside, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the three-storey mansion was every bit the dream abode Kagome had ever wished for. Just as Miss Sango had mentioned earlier, it was almost surrealistic whenever she thought about it – Kagome could never fully believe that this house had been left to her name since she had been a mere infant.

If it wasn’t for the letter from a lawyer by the name of Mr. Myoga, Kagome would never have returned to Japan from the United States. She had everything going well on the other side of the world for her; she had her nanny with whom she lived since she was a baby, her friends, her tiny apartment, her dream job as a historian and all her childhood memories there.

Yet all it took was an official letter telling her about a mansion which she had in her possession to draw her back to the land in which she was born.

Japan should have been familiar to her, for it was the Japanese blood that ran in her veins, but everything was so foreign. She did not know much about the culture, and neither did she have any friends in Japan. In fact, she spoke better English than Japanese. All she knew was that she had this mansion left to her by her family – ‘loved ones’ whom she never got to know.

Kagome never got to know them, for they were all dead.

According to her nanny Kaede, who was as close as a mother to her, her family members had all perished in a tragic aircraft accident when they were flying to New Zealand for a family holiday.

It was an unfortunate accident which took all the members of the Higurashi family away, except for the baby girl who had been left with her nanny as she had been too young to go on a family trip back then.

Kagome remembered the first time she had heard from Kaede that she had no Daddy or Mommy because they were all in Heaven; she had simply nodded and accepted the news as if the nanny had been commenting on the weather.

After all, how could one miss something one never had? There was no sense of loss because she never had them to call her own, and there was no accompanying sense of grief because she could never associate the names ‘Daddy’ and ‘Mommy’ with faces, voices and touches. All she had felt back then was firm, heavy loneliness in the pits of her gut when her young mind acknowledged and concluded the fact that she would never see the two people who gave her life.

Yet as she grew up and lost her childish naïveté, Kagome began to wonder more and more about what had happened. There were so many unanswered questions running through her mind - What had caused the tragedy? Which fateful flight had it been? Had it been an accident which could have been prevented? What explanation had the authorities given to the relatives of the deceased? Why were there no newspaper or internet articles to be found?

All she had were pictures; framed pictures of unfamiliar faces who actually shared the same Higurashi blood. They were supposedly the people who had loved and cared for her in the earliest stages of her life. Kagome had lost count of the number of hours she spent staring at the smiling visages, trying to make sense out of them until the faces became nothing but thousands of tiny colored dots in her eyes.

She had tried again and again to ask Kaede, only to be shushed into silence or have her questions hastily brushed off by the older lady. As the years went by, Kagome realized that Kaede was extremely uncomfortable with her growing thirst for the details of her family’s tragic accident. It became clear to the teenager that there was no way her beloved nanny would willingly sit down and tell her everything about the painful past. Kaede was probably still grieving over the tragic end that her young master and mistress came to, and wanted to do her best to protect their only daughter, Kagome, from the agony.

She had only been told that she been brought over to the United States by Kaede at the age of 6 months after her parents’ untimely demise. According to the older lady, the uprooting of the baby from her native country had been out of no choice. Little Kagome could never have lived her life without being labelled as the one who had escaped the Higurashi’s tragic fate by the media. In order to protect the only child of the family she had been serving for decades and to obey Kagome’s parents’ wishes, Kaede had left everything in Japan behind to move over to a land far, far away.

However, that had gotten a curious Kagome thinking again. How could it be that her parents could have pre-arranged with Kaede for the latter to take care of their baby should anything untoward happen to them?

Another mystifying point was how all the financial plans for little Kagome’s future seemed to have been made in advance for decades. At the time of the tragic plane crash, Kagome’s parents had been a young couple who had just welcomed their firstborn six months ago. Which young couple with everything in the world to live for would plan so much in advance? It was almost as if they were paranoid, or held the constant worry that they would one day no longer be around their baby girl.

Hence Kagome asked. Question after question, she would persist in seeking answers from Kaede, only to have the nanny tell her firmly to cease asking so much.

Such feeble attempts at brushing Kagome off did not work on the young girl. Curiosity continued to eat at her heart, and this hunger for the truth only exacerbated as the teenager blossomed into a young woman. If her nanny would not tell her what she needed to know, she would search for the truth herself.

She did not even know if she had become a historian because of the curiosity she held of the past since childhood. Everything with history behind it fascinated her to no end; it was as if those items and stories were friends to her, imparting knowledge and sharing secrets as long as she bothered to look deep enough. Or perhaps it was because she had no history to call her own, and that was why she was so intrigued by it.

Right now, she was practically standing in history itself. It was not just any random bit of historical fact – this mansion was an integral portion of her history.

It was rightfully Higurashi Kagome’s history, which constituted part of her early life and her heritage. A missing piece to her jigsaw puzzle; that was what it was. She had always wanted to visit Japan, but Kaede had refused to allow her no matter how Kagome had begged. It is dangerous to wander alone in a foreign land, she had insisted, despite it being a very feeble and unjustified excuse.

This was why Kagome had kept this trip to Japan a secret from Kaede. To her aged nanny, she was still holidaying somewhere in Europe and doing a history discovery trip at the same time. Everything was turning out to be perfect for her. She could work from home for her research, and she had taken care of the basics such as renting a small car to get around the countryside during her stay.

No matter what Kaede would say to this decision of hers should she eventually find out, Kagome was determined to stay in this place in which she had spent the first few months of her life. It was the only place where she could truly feel a connection with the parents she never knew.

Closing her eyes, she drew a deep, calming breath, taking in the scent of time and years in the vast interior of the mansion. The mansion was beautiful to say the least; it had a huge backyard and garden and seemingly endless corridors with a total of fifteen rooms, excluding areas such as the dining hall and living room. It would be even more magnificent after Kagome was done with settling into it; she had already drawn up countless interior design plans in her mind as she explored.

Kaede had not been lying when she recounted that Kagome’s ancestors had been wealthy. According to her, the Higurashi ancestors had been involved in trading and doing importation services in collaboration with the Westerners back in as early as the Meiji Restoration period. This mansion stood as perfect testimony to that fact; no one back in that time period could afford such a magnificent, Western-style house unless they were right at the top of the social ladder. It was such a shame that a place so beautiful had to left frozen in time because its owners had passed away.

That thought renewed Kagome’s determination to stay. She was a Higurashi descendent; she was the rightful owner to this place. She had a very strong feeling that her parents loved this place while they had been alive, just like she did right now.

“This is probably the most charming part of the entire mansion.” Sango said, before Kagome nodded and followed her line of vision.

An elegant spiral stairway meandered lazily from the ground level to the second one, before continuing its gentle ascend to the third level. The grand expanse of solid wall by the stairway was filled with photographs in ornate metal frames – some obviously from a long, long time ago, and some relatively recent ones from the era of colored photography.

Every picture brought a rush of excitement to Kagome; on a professional level, these photographs were frozen snippets of history to be explored and understood. On a personal level, they would tell her bits and pieces of her heritage and life which Kaede had not filled her in on. She would no longer be the Japanese native who grew up in the United States without knowledge of her culture and background; she would know who she truly was, and where she came from.

While all of the photographs were significant and fascinating to her, Kagome found herself most intrigued by the photograph in the centre of the wall. It was not hard to miss; it was the biggest and the most captivating sight in the entire stretch of gray walls.

It was a large black and white photograph of at least four feet in length and three feet in breadth, freezing the gently smiling visage of a woman in canvas. But it was not just any woman. It was a woman who resembled herself so much; it surprised both Sango and herself.

To Kagome, it was almost like watching herself in a mirror – so alike were they in physical aspects, sharing the same wavy midnight hair, rounded eyes of probably the same deep mahogany brown and small mouth with a full lower lip but an upper lip which was slightly too thin.

“Who is that?” Sango had asked in awe when she laid eyes upon the lady in the photograph. “She looks exactly like you. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought her to be you, Miss Higurashi.”

The young property agent never got an answer to her statement, for Kagome had already stepped forward to ascend the winding steps to get closer to the picture. It was hanging somewhere in the upper half of the wall, right beside the juncture where the second storey stairs met the third storey’s long corridor.

There was something so intriguing about the way the lady in the picture was smiling; her eyes were soft and gentle, as if she was welcoming the beholder into her world. It was Kagome’s face, but she knew that the resemblance was probably skin deep and nothing more. Behind the subtle and almost regal smile was probably a dignified and ladylike soul, probably soft yet resilient like the willow tree, embodying the most desirable of classic feminine traits.

Kagome, on the other hand, was different. She could be headstrong and stubborn as a mule when she wanted to, and most definitely had a rather argumentative streak within her.

“I…who is she?” Kagome whispered as she got closer and closer to the photograph with every step she ascended. It was really like looking into a mirror, only that the lack of color posed as a constant reminder of the number of years between these two young ladies. The nostalgic charm of the photograph beckoned Kagome to it, drawing her in with how uncanny yet real it was.

They had to be closely related, somehow. Kagome was feeling a sense of warmth and familiarity blossoming within her chest as she approached the photograph. Scanning the borders of the frame for any words or inscriptions which might give her a clue as to who this lady was, Kagome was disappointed to find nothing.

But even though she could find no hints of the woman’s name, Kagome did notice little bits of pictorial evidence on the wall which gave her insights to the woman’s life. There was one in the far end of the wall in which the same woman was dressed in a traditional kimono, and one in which she was sitting in between an elderly couple.

Another smaller black and white photograph captured the same woman’s stunning smile as she held a baby in her arms. Her eyes were shining with motherly pride, and there was a tall, bespectacled man standing beside mother and child. His arm was wrapped protectively around them, and he too, shared the same sparkle in his eyes. That person was obviously her husband, Kagome concluded.

They must be her ancestors; though she could not tell which generation they belonged to unless she could find out when the pictures had been taken and developed.

“These pictures sure are old…” The property agent, who had by now caught up with her, commented softly. “But they hold such precious memories of this place.”

Giving her companion a small smile, Kagome reached out to the picture with tenderness held in her eyes. It was surrealistic to know that these people in the picture were once residing in this house. Even if they were gone, their pictures and memories remained, and the same Higurashi blood ran in their veins.

“They look so happy, so blissful…they are my family-” Kagome smiled endearingly, only to have her voice die in her throat as she noticed a sudden movement from the corner of her eye. It was so abrupt; neither girl had the time to react as the largest frame of all, the one holding the photograph of the lady who resembled her, shook violently and plummeted from its place on the wall.

“Be careful!” Sango screamed, instinctively reaching out to pull the other girl back from the stairway’s railing.

Panicked, Kagome reached out frantically in a bid to catch the heavy ornate frame, but to no avail. Her voice escalated to an ear-piercing shriek as the frame plunged at least twenty feet to crash resoundingly onto the marble floor on the first level. The crash was deafening in the vast interior of the house as solid metal hit marble, followed by loud splintering which got Kagome and Sango ducking instinctively.

The glass shattered into a million tiny fragments below, and the two girls could only look over the railing in horror at the sight downstairs, breathing hard in disbelief and shock.

The photograph was lying face up, dislodged from its slightly rusty frame. It was with relief that Kagome noted how the photograph had not been damaged by the fall, though she had to admit the sight that greeted her sent a shiver down her spine.

Surrounded by the sparkling glass fragments and shards, the woman’s subtle smile was still frozen in the canvas, yet her large eyes which seemed to be looking right into Kagome’s appeared to be dead yet so expressive at the same time. In that instant, she appeared almost helpless and resigned…

“Are you alright, Miss Higurashi?” Sango asked, pressing a hand to her chest in a bid to calm the furiously pounding organ.

Tearing her eyes away from the photograph, Kagome nodded shakily, drawing a few more deep breaths to steady herself. It had been so unexpected; she could not believe why the picture would have fallen off by itself so randomly. She had not even touched it; the one she wanted to touch was the family photograph below it. “How…how did that…”

“It must have come loose from the nail at the back when the movers had been moving things in and out of the house. They were drilling additional holes in the walls for your new electrical appliances and so on…after all, the house is old, and it is actually not too surprising that some of the things are not as sturdy as they used to be…” The property agent went on and on, as if trying to convince herself.

“I’ll call the movers to come back immediately…this is preposterous, they can’t expect to do such a shoddy job and expect to get away with it.” Sango continued as she pulled her cell phone out and began scanning the phone book for the right contact. “…Hello? This is Kawamoto Sango, and I would like to speak to your manager…”

As Sango’s voice trailed off in the background, Kagome could not help but look over the railing at the photograph again. Her eyes flitted from the photograph to the empty space where its frame had been moments ago, and to the photographs surrounding it.

That was when she caught sight of the family photo with the woman, her baby and the bespectacled man again. Kagome’s eyes narrowed as she leaned in closer to look at the picture.

Was she imagining things, or did the woman’s stunning smile fade into a more subdued and forced upturn of her lips?

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To be continued...