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There it was again. The feeling of an icy river flowing up her spine. Kagome was used to it now, but that did not make the feeling any less unpleasant. She looked around, trying to find the source of the ice: a woman, with razor-cut black hair tied with a ruby bow that matched her lips (and… perhaps her eyes? the glint of red hiding just under their soft brown surface).
Do not stare, her mind warned her. Lingering too long was dangerous; lingering too long might betray her gift.
That was always what her grandmother called it: a gift. The ice spoke of something lurking just under the surface of the day-to-day, unseen and unacknowledged. As if the monsters under beds were walking amongst the masses.
Why must I have this curse? Kagome had cried. She did not like the feelings that trickled up and down her spine, pointing here and there at people simply going about their day, mundane save for the alarm that her body screamed at her.
Someday you will know, Grandma Kaede had answered, a warm smile dancing across her face. But it is not for me to say when you will entirely understand your gift.
It took a while, but her grandmother’s words slowly became reality. Kagome remembered the day she started to see them: the ones who provoked the ice. They did not look as ordinary people looked, auras glowing in gossamer golds and silvers and blues. No, they were surrounded by black and burgundy and navy: vibrant, but obscuring something beneath. Something sinister, Kagome was certain.
Yet her grandmother never insisted she be afraid of the ice, or of those beings who provoked it. She never spoke of the foggy auras as evil, nor the pearlescent auras as good, simply that they were as much a part of a being as their hair or body or voice: a sign of the soul that lay within.
The ice was not a warning bell for wickedness, either. Kagome learned that the hard way in the third grade, when the despicable Onigumo pushed her off the jungle gym and she broke her wrist; his face twisted into a terrible smile, but no ice crawled up her back.
Kagome once thought to follow one of those auras that brought her those sensations. To see if she could decipher the difference, the specialness, to them that evoked it. But every time it occurred, there was just a person going about their regular day, and she knew it to be intrusive to confront them and ask why they affected her so. Would their eyes turn cold and dangerous were she to ask? Would their black aura lash out and swallow Kagome whole in a noxious miasma? The moment never felt right. Grandma Kaede said to trust that when the time came, all would be revealed, and Kagome trusted her grandma.
Yet there was something in the air that day; Kagome’s ice had not abated when the woman with the black aura disappeared from view. No, the ice was getting stronger.
“Is this the sign?” Kagome asked the air around her, wondering if Grandma Kaede was guiding her still, even from beyond the grave.
Then, something new, something she had never seen before. A pearlescent ribbon that intersected her path, twisting and twirling in some invisible wind, beckoning her forward. Kagome swept her hand over it: cold to the touch, as if the ice that had plagued her so long had been given form and liberated itself and was leading her toward something, though she did not know what.
One step forward, then two, then more. Every stride the ice ribbon danced, past the coffee shop, around the corner, through the park and into the market. Then down a side street lined with lush green trees, until finally—finally—the ribbon marked its destination: a… bookstore.
“W—why?” Kagome clapped her hand over her mouth before she continued.
Why had the ice led her here?
Had she been wrong about Grandma Kaede’s words?
Keep going, Kagome. The words in her mind were both familiar and alien, a call from a spirit not quite hers, and yet Kagome knew to heed them. To trust in the ribbon of ice. To trust in the word of her grandmother. To trust that even as this aura overpowered every one of her senses, she was meant to confront its owner.
The ice made her special. She knew this. It was her ever-present reminder that she could see beyond what others could see.
Kagome strode forward and faced the storefront: Mikazuki Books. There was something to this place: the wood-framed windows let one peek inside and see the shelves, filled to the brim with leather-bound books. Upon the door hung a small sign, adorned with a crescent moon, stating in neatly inked letters: Open, Please Come In, as if written specifically for her.
How was it that this was the first time she was seeing such a store? This was her neighborhood, after all, and the shops down this particular path were all familiar to her. Except this one.
“Where did you come from?” Kagome asked the storefront; she craned her neck, trying in vain to make out something—anything—that would reveal why the ribbon of ice led her here.
But whatever secret was waiting would not reveal itself until Kagome stepped inside.
“I see,” Kagome said, mostly to herself. So it would take a leap of faith. “Okay, okay. I will trust.”
A small bell tinkled when she opened the door. The aroma of leather-bound books hit her nose the moment her foot crossed the threshold into the store, as if the place itself had a soul, which was thanking her for trusting to step forward.
“Welcome.” Where did that voice come from? It was low and smooth, like someone had taken a bass and allowed it to speak. It came from the back corner, around a maze of old books: the terminus of the ribbon, Kagome knew. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Would the owner of that voice be able to answer all those questions? The ones that Grandma Kaede had always said would be answered when the time was right?
Kagome had to know.
She wended around the shelves, taking in the ornate sponges of each and every book as she passed. It seemed that nearly all of them were myths and fairy tales, speaking of worlds beyond the mundane, whispering of legends untouched and unspoken, narrating the world of the ice, the world of the auras, the world that Kagome could touch, but had never been able to understand.
She hadn’t even realized that her pace had increased, from a walk to a trot and now, finally, to a jog. The owner of the smooth bass voice, who worked in the book shop full of legends, would give her the answer!
Finally, one more shelf, one more corner. The ribbon of ice tickled her fingers as she reached out for it, smiling as it sent cold familiar tingles through their tips.
“Is this where you were—” Her breath stopped; golden eyes peeked at her from behind thin-rimmed glasses, assessing. “...leading me.”
He sat behind a desk, book in hand. A fang pressed against his full lips. Maroon stripes adorned his cheeks, and his hair—his hair—streamed down his back in a waterfall of silver. Kagome had never seen anyone look this way before, as if one of the angels or demons had come to life from a fairy tale.
“It has been a long time since one like you found my shop,” the man—demon?—said. “It is so rare for the calling to lead someone here. I was beginning to worry that there were none of you left.”
“Calling?” Kagome asked, striding forward, nearly against her will. She should be afraid of this man, of the claws on his fingers and the fangs in his mouth, and even sitting, Kagome could see that he would tower over her. She should back away from the glint in his eyes and the way he traced over her form, reading her aura as plainly as she could read his. It was an electric green, powerful and crackling with excitement.
“Surely you feel it, too,” the man—demon?—gestured at the ribbon of ice that stood between them, connecting her aura to his. “That you were meant to find me, and I am the one meant to give you the answers you seek.”
“Who are you?” Kagome took one step back, but no more. Her curiosity kept her still, and even as the ice wrapped around her like a suffocating vine, she felt strangely safe with this man.
“I have many names, but the one that suits me best is Sesshōmaru,” the man said. “I am a demon.” At least he thought to solve that mystery. “Did your reiki lead you to my bookstore?”
Kagome looked at the ribbon of ice, the one that had wound itself around her like an overly familiar snake, and frowned. “So this feeling is called reiki.”
“So it is,” Sesshōmaru answered, his faint smile growing brighter, as if fed by the fuel of Kagome’s words. “I know not the lore, only that there are still a few humans that can see us as we are. And… you show no fear of me, which makes me believe that there was another in your family with this gift.”
“My grandma,” Kagome admitted. “She was the one who—who explained.”
“She has my thanks,” Sesshōmaru said; he then opened the drawer of the desk he sat at and pulled out a book. It was not like so many others in that bookstore. This one was drab and weatherworn, as if it had passed through dozens of hands over hundreds of years. Its pages were frayed and the text of its leather cover had faded. He held the book across the desk, toward Kagome. “For you.”
“What—what is this?” Although she did not immediately take the book, she could not help but step forward, close enough to read the faded print, close enough to touch. “A World… Unseen?”
“The first step,” Sesshōmaru said, pressing the book into Kagome’s hand. “Toward understanding.”
“That demons walk among us?” Kagome tried. It made sense—so much sense! Every crackling and foggy aura, every spike of ice that whispered of something just beneath the surface, every moment that her eyes lingered for a moment too long and her quarry hurried away.
Because she saw something she was not supposed to see. Something that Grandma Kaede had always told her was different, but not scary. And finally, here she was, face-to-face with a demon, one who was not throwing the veil of a disguise over himself, but instead was smiling at the joy of opening Kagome’s eyes.
Who was… beautiful.
The fangs and the stripes and the otherworldly glow of his hair. The claws and the crescent moon adorning his forehead, the pointed ears and the twinkling eyes unimpeded by the glasses that sat on his nose.
Kagome was enraptured.
“This book is for you,” Sesshōmaru said. “Please read it, and decide if you would like to come back.”
“What is the book about?” Kagome asked.
“Us,” Sesshōmaru replied. “To know what it truly means to see us, and to let you decide if you would like to see our side of the world.” He then stood up and leaned over his desk, into her space, so that she could feel his breath on her neck. “This has always been the way that it is done. And if you find that you want to be a part of the World Unseen, then come back to my bookstore and I shall be happy to show you.” Then a flicker of… was it sadness?... sparked through his golden eyes, and he backed away. “Come back in a week, if you should decide to… return.”
There was a flash of green light, and a fog enveloped Kagome. When it cleared, Sesshōmaru was gone, leaving only the lingering crackle of aura. She tucked the book under her arm and left the bookstore.
It didn’t matter what was in The World Unseen; Kagome knew that she would return, if only for the lonely golden eyes and the silver hair that she knew were waiting for her, to show her the world that was now finally within her reach.
Artwork commission by gatovtina