The Little Ghost of the Grand Estate

It was nighttime when Midoriko woke up again. Having gotten used to waking up in the room in England, the change of scenery brought on a wave of confusion until she remembered how she got there. She rubbed her eyes and felt around for her glasses.

At some point, someone had rolled out a futon in that room and placed her on it after removing her shoes. Midoriko found her glasses lying neatly next to the futon. She put them on but flopped back down and sighed—the futon was just so soft and comfortable.

She closed her eyes, listening to the crickets chirping outside. It was so quiet, just like the house in England. This house was also probably somewhere in the countryside.

They must have finished with the acupuncture treatment by now.

Midoriko sat up to find a mound of blankets at her feet. It seemed like an excessive amount for the summer. She rubbed her eyes once more, trying to adjust to the dark. As Midoriko leaned closer to the blankets, she realized what she was looking at.

Engulfed in the blanket was a small, pale face with wide eyes peering at her through strands of long, dark hair.

“AHHH! GHOST!” Midoriko shrieked, retreating across the room. She backed into one of the sliding doors. “HELP! HELP! HELP ME!”

The little ghost also entered into a panic, cowering in a corner while Midoriko continued screaming. Racing footsteps from outside the room pounded closer. Suddenly, the door that Midoriko had been leaning against flew open, sending her sprawling onto her back into a hallway.

“What?! What’s happening?!” shouted Xiǎomíng.

Midoriko clutched at his ankles. “A GHOST! THERE’S A GHOST!”

“Huh?!”

“Exorcise it now!” she yelled, pointing to the trembling lump in the opposite corner of the dark room. “Aren’t you a Daoshi?!”

“What are you talking about?!” Xiǎomíng tried to pry her off his legs.

Enishi Ryouma lazily strolled towards them from down the hallway, now dressed comfortably in a yukata.

“What’s going on?” he said with a yawn.

“She’s shouting something about a ghost,” Xiǎomíng replied, sighing.

Ryouma stuck his head into the dark room. After seeing the lump in the corner, he sighed. With a snap of his fingers, the lights in the room flicked on.

“Come on out. You’re not in trouble,” he said softly.

The small figure, bundled in blankets, stood up and trotted across the room, stopping a few paces shy of everyone else.

In the light, it was now clear to Midoriko that the “ghost” was actually just a little girl. She relaxed, feeling embarrassed by the outburst, which was unbecoming of an academic. Looking at the fearful child, Midoriko realized that her screaming probably frightened her as well.

“Um…I’m sorry if scared y–”

“What are you doing in here?! Master Ryouma explicitly told you to stay away from this person,” scolded Xiǎomíng.

“Huh?” Midoriko looked back and forth between Xiǎomíng and the girl whose large, watery eyes were downcast in shame. Her lower lip started to tremble.

Ryouma crouched down to the child’s level.

“I understand that you’re curious, but it’s dangerous for you to be around others,” he said sternly but gently.

“I know that,” the little girl said, pouting. She looked up at Ryouma with doe eyes. “That’s why I was just looking. Not touching.”

“Still…” Ryouma insisted.

“But I’m in a blanket!” she argued, moving her arms underneath the thick quilt.

“That’s enough. I’m not arguing with a child,” he said, yanking the blanket over the girl’s face. Ryouma scooped her up into his arms and sighed. “I’ll take her back to her room.”

Xiǎomíng sighed as he shook his head. With the situation resolved, he took his leave. As Enishi Ryouma walked away with the little girl that looked like a pile of laundry in his arms, Midoriko found herself rendered speechless by the kind and gentle disposition he had towards the girl.

She had so many questions.

***

The house was like a labyrinth. Midoriko felt like she was going in circles with all the interconnected rooms and long hallways.

She had run into Xiǎomíng while wandering the hallway in search of the bathroom the night before. He explained that the building had apparently once been an inn during the late Taisho era. He showed her where to find the kitchen, toilets, and finally the communal baths. The grand estate had not only a large indoor bath, but also an adjacent outdoor bath fed by a hot spring.

Criminals certainly live decadent lives, don’t they?

After helping herself to some of the pre-prepared food she found inside the fridge, Midoriko relaxed in the indoor bath for a bit, then retired to the room where she’d woken up from her nap. Without her phone to tell the time or keep her entertained, she forced herself to go to sleep in the hopes of returning to a normal sleep-wake cycle. Bouncing back and forth across the globe was destroying her circadian rhythm.

When she woke up again at dawn, Midoriko decided to explore.

First, she took a walk outside around the perimeter of the building. It was expansive and mostly single story, but there was a second floor on the wing with the kitchen and bath. The center of the property had a beautifully cultivated garden, complete with a small koi pond, as well as a vegetable patch off the kitchen.

Dense forest surrounded the estate. While the area around the property had been relatively leveled, she could see that the rest of the area was hilly and mountainous. One thing that struck Midoriko as odd was the fact that she couldn’t find any roads leading to or from the place. They were perfectly isolated.

By the time she’d finished checking out the exterior, the sun had fully risen. Midoriko ventured back inside to see the interior. She could tell that the place had been renovated recently from the modern additions here and there. It was also well-maintained and surprisingly clean.

As Midoriko found herself getting lost inside the grand estate, she wondered if anyone else lived there.

At the house in England, it seemed like just Ryouma and Xiǎomíng lived there. But even after checking out all the rooms on the ground level, the only other person she’d encountered here was the little girl from the night before.

Who was that child? A relative of Enishi Ryouma? His daughter? The thought of such a secretive man having a daughter seemed strange. Who took care of the girl when he and Xiǎomíng were away? There was no way he had a wife, right?

Midoriko stepped outside to the veranda that wrapped around the exterior to reorient herself. As she walked around the outside of the house once more, she found herself at the vegetable garden again. Only this time, she wasn’t alone.

The little girl from the night before was stomping around the vegetable patch barefoot. In the daylight, her disheveled appearance was much more apparent. The girl’s hair was down to her hips and a tangled mess in the back. She was wearing a stained, plain white t-shirt that looked like it was meant for an adult man.

Midoriko watched her yank a decent-sized carrot out of the dirt. The girl brushed some of the dirt off the carrot before taking a bite.

“Hey, wait! You have to wash that first!” Midoriko called out. The girl nearly jumped out of her skin.

She dropped the carrot and took off running around the side of the building, away from Midoriko.

“Oh, great! I scared her again,” she said with a sigh.

Midoriko walked over to where the girl had been standing and picked up the carrot she dropped. She looked over the vegetable patch, then towards the direction the girl ran. Is she hungry?

Midoriko brought the carrot inside the kitchen. She washed and cut itinto sticks, then looked around the kitchen for other food she could prepare for the girl. Besides the prepped food in the fridge, there wasn’t much to eat in this place. After finding furikake and a bag of rice, Midoriko decided the least she could do was make onigiri for the girl.

With the rice set to cook, Midoriko headed outside with the plate of carrot sticks to look for her. She wandered in the direction that the child had run off in and found her playing in the garden with the koi pond.

Not wanting to scare her again, Midoriko watched her play, trying to figure out the best way to approach. The little girl plucked a seeded dandelion from the grass and began singing into it like a microphone. But instead of a nursery rhyme or a silly made-up song, the girl started belting out something old-fashioned.

Wait…is that…enka? What a strange little girl, Midoriko thought. She couldn’t help but laugh outloud.

The singing stopped.

“Oh! I’m sorry! Please don’t run away again,” Midoriko pleaded to the startled child. She held out the plate of carrots. “Here, I brought this for you.”

“Papa said I’m supposed to leave you alone,” the little girl replied, fidgeting with her dandelion microphone.

So she is his child.

“Why would he tell you that? You just scared me last night. I’m not bothered by you.” Midoriko sat on the veranda and set the plate down next to herself.

“It’s not that,” the girl said. She started walking around the edge of the pond. “Papa said you could get hurt.”

What does that even mean?

“Say, what’s your name?” Midoriko asked. She was more concerned about the girl’s apparent neglect than any emotional damage she might sustain from interacting with her. “You can call me Midoriko.”

“Everyone calls me ‘Good Girl,’ so you can call me Good Girl too.”

Huh? That’s not a name…

The girl began balancing on rocks at the pond’s edge. Would Enishi be offended if she disciplined his child? Midoriko decided not to care about that and called out to her. “Don’t do that!”

But before Midoriko could even utter the words “that’s dangerous,” Good Girl lost her footing and fell into the pond.

Midoriko shrieked as she flew over to the pond. She jumped in without hesitation and pulled ‘Good Girl’ out of the water. As she waded out of the pond with the child in her arms, Midoriko patted Good Girl’s back as she coughed up the water she swallowed.

She carried the girl into the house, directly to the bathroom to wash and dry her off. Despite her disheveled appearance, the girl smelled sweet like peaches. Maybe she wasn’t as dirty as her appearance suggested. Still, she’d just fallen into pond water, so it was best to wash that off her.

As Midoriko prepared the child for a bath, ‘Good Girl’ finally spoke up.

“Why didn’t you fall over?”

“Come again?”

“When I touch people, they fall over like this.” The little girl rolled her eyes back in her head and stuck out her tongue as she dropped to the floor.

“Huh?!” Midoriko’s experience with children was limited to interacting with the ones that visited the museum, but she was aware of their propensity for exaggeration and nonsense. She responded in kind by booping the girl on the nose. “Now you’re just being silly.”

Midoriko gave ‘Good Girl’ a bath, followed by a much-needed haircut.