"They Worship the Mountain." -- Mishima

9:10 AM: They denied hearing the noises.

It was an uneasy night--for both of us it seemed. The quaking only happened once, but it haunted my mind throughout the night as though it was snaking through the wrinkles in my brain. I couldn't cast it out. What on Earth could it have been?

Yet when we talked about it at breakfast, the whole family claimed to have never heard it. It would have been less creepy if they had. Even the maid didn't hear it, and she was sleeping in the next room over. You had to have at least FELT that damn thing the way it shook the whole house!

Mr. Furuya asked us why we didn't wake him up, but no way was I going to leave my bed while something spooky was going on out there. Mrs. Furuya laughed. 'A yokai must have invited itself in.' 

At first I thought she was making fun of us, but as she covered her mouth before laughing, her eyes didn't squint. There was something lurking behind her words.

I remember what she said next. Every single word.

'It does that every so often. The mountain, that is.'

The look Akane gave her was telling: a face of contempt for continuing this charade yet with a trembling lower lip. But Mrs. Furuya just went on and on, and it was at this point I began to feel my well of good will for their taking me in beginning to dry up.

'The mountain might be envious. We welcome guests into our home away from the cold, we feast and be merry, but we don't share our appreciation for its bounty. It may be time for another ritual.'

They might not have been her exact words, but I do remember her suggesting a ritual, and I remember how the rest of the family swelled in joy just from the mention of that word. Mr. Furuya clapped his hands and said 'wonderful!' and Mihara even stopped stabbing her fried eggs as a grin spread across her face as though someone dropped a present in her lap. 

Akane and I were the only ones still upset and confused. Mr. Furuya reassured us that everything will be be alright by tonight and that the ritual would just be a 'precaution'. All we would have to do is show up at the 4th floor in traditional yukata and 'be respectful to any spirits who might be watching'.

After breakfast, the Furuya family promptly left with the father saying he'll get all the props ready, leaving the two of us to ponder just what is going on. Akane looked straight at me and said 'I don't like this. We need to leave.'

9:18 AM: Where the hell are rescue services? I know for a fact I called them yesterday, and the storm's been dead for a while now, so what's taking so long? And with all the snow flattening out, neither of us are confident that we can find the trail ourselves. We're stuck here for another day.

2:44 PM: Truth be told, I had experienced a Shinto ritual just once in my youth so I've forgotten how it all goes, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't cool.

We donned black yukata in the style of funerals or solemn ceremonies, then Tanji led us up to the fourth floor where only one door awaited. The ceiling joined to a point in the middle: we had entered the capstone area of the mansion.

Candles burned bright along the walls and shelves, and Tanji lit even more as Mr. Furuya, donning priestly robes and cap, entered from the back with Mihara, who was wearing a cute shrine maiden uniform. We sat down where Tanji told us to as he began lighting incense sticks in the center. Then, without speaking a word, Mihara stepped delicately around the capstone, stopped in key places, and began swatting the air with a gohei stick, candlelight dancing left and right.

Without windows, the capstone was swimming in pulsating red and orange, yet at the same time, human movement looked so shadowy and foreboding.

Then Mrs. Furuya entered. Perhaps she was dressed even finer than before, but it was too dark to tell the difference. She stepped in the circle where Tanji had lit the incense sticks and sat down seiso-style across from us, but closed her eyes with her head held high as though we were simply part of the background.

I never took Mr. Furuya to be a priestly man, but for all of one ritual I've seen, he seemed to play the part well. Wherever Mihara went, he went elsewhere. He squatted down and poured what I guessed to be sake down each corner of the capstone before muttering something. From where I sat, I couldn't tell what, but Mr. Furuya spoke to each corner differently before leaving. Mihara then purified each corner he left behind.

Next, Tanji placed a miniature wooden shrine behind Mrs. Furuya while Mihara slotted two onusa left and right. Finally, Mr. Furuya sat down and began his speech. He spoke too fast for me to remember all of it, and I bet jotting down notes in the middle of a ritual would be a tad disrespectful to an angry mountain spirit, but a rough recount is enough for thinking back on.¹

"We dedicate this ritual to the spirit of the mountain, who allows us to live in her House.

Each House begats a Form, a Domain, and Law. 

The Form is the Master. We bow to the Master as the Servant, who are bound willingly to all. Through this ritual, the Servant seeks to rekindle the relationship with the Master and suture any offspring they may have sullied. 

Southwest. Southeast. Northwest. Northeast. The four points reach Up, and the Servant's wishes gleam to catch the Master's Eyes. Whosoever casts a Sign in the House where a Master watches, it shall be named Areki."

7:12 PM: I was wondering where Chihiro was the whole time and had my answer when we left the 4th floor. While the ritual was underway, she was working tirelessly in the kitchen, and as we walked in, the table was groaning with steaming plates of delicious food! Mr. Furuya laughed with a mouthful of fish when I told him how stunned I was with his priestly performance. They really do everything themselves in this house.

Everyone's spirits were high. It was like the ritual worked. Even Mihara was grinning and ate her food properly. Akane was skittish the whole day, and who could blame her, but a cup of hot tea seemed to calm her down. 'I've never heard a speech like that before,' she said. I haven't either, but again, I've only seen one Shinto ritual in my life. 

We thanked the chef, who blushed as she handwaved the whole endeavor, and Tanji went back to the capstone to snuff out the candles.

8:44 PM: Akane's been weary since dinner. We went back to the game room to let off some steam, and it's common to be sleepy after eating such a large meal, but even that shouldn't be enough to not move your fighter for seconds at a time during a match. I tried joking that Akane needs to be highstrung to be on top of her game, but she just stared at the screen without so much as a chiding remark. 

After two more matches where I won effortlessly, Akane complained of stomach pain while holding her head and nearly fell over! If I wasn't there to catch her, she would have been in worse shape than she already is. Maybe she inhaled too much incense. We were quite close to the circle after all, but why then was Mrs. Furuya unaffected?

I encouraged her to sleep it off and escorted her back to our room. My eyes were burning from watching the screen too much anyway. Maybe she'll feel better in the morning. Hell, maybe we can get out of here in the morning.

1:19 AM: Akane's not in her bed.

¹[After interviewing Shinto priests about the nature of this ritual, several of them scoffed over the 'childish misinterpretation' of a religious ceremony that 'barely had anything right', while others chastised the passage for 'bastardizing' and 'sullying' the sacred nature of Shintoism. One older Shinto priest while reading, however, lost the color in his face. "This is not at all how you pacify a spirit. This is how you provoke it."]