Yokai Read Online Free

ladles left strewn over the deck. “I will pay for the damage
I’ve caused to your equipment.”
    “ You do that,” Mr. Watanabe
said, crossing his arms. “Now, may I have the part you stole from
our autopilot?”
    Yumiko reached into her pocket and
held out a small cylinder with wires coiling out from each end. Mr.
Watanabe accepted it, looking it over with a shake of his head. He
glanced up at her with a mixture of annoyance and appreciation. “I
am grateful for what you’ve done, Miss Sato, and don’t take it
personally when I tell you that I never want to see you again. You
put my crew in danger.”
    “ I know,” Yumiko agreed.
“And you will never see me again.”
    “ See that you’re true to
your word.”
    Yumiko watched him as he rounded the
corner and disappeared, then turned to stare out over the calm,
dark water again. She reveled in the cool balm of the night air
following her fight, and felt satisfaction fill her chest. She’d
never desired gratitude for her work, hadn’t expected it, so the
captain’s cold treatment hadn’t come as a blow to her. But she’d
done well. No more sailors would suffer. No more families would be
steeped in grief after hearing of their loved ones’ deaths at sea.
She had made the world a little safer tonight. And she could be
happy with that.

Chapter Two

    Yumiko dreamed of it often, the day
she’d been spirited away.
    She was seven years old at the time,
drawing on the sidewalk with brightly-colored chalk. Sometimes in
her dream, she was drawing her mother and herself, other times an
elaborate image of the sun, and still others, large ogre-like yokai
called oni, with red skin and intimidating horns curling up from
out of their foreheads. Her mother had told her many tales of their
foul deeds, and they’d made an impression on her.
    The rain came on suddenly. One minute
she’d been drawing peacefully under the sunny sky, and the next,
shadows had raced over the sidewalk, like a curtain being pulled
over the land, sending it into darkness.
    She looked up just as the first rain
drop fell, hitting her squarely between the eyes and splattering,
causing her to close her eyes against the spray of shattering
water. When she opened her eyes again, the rain came full force.
She squeaked as she ran to the shelter her front porch afforded,
but then turned back to see her chalk lying on the sidewalk, the
rain beating the color from them until they bled rivulets of
crimson, gold and indigo. Unwilling to leave them behind to be
ruined, she dashed back out into the rain, squinting against the
onslaught of rain, her little blue dress quickly soaking
through.
    She reached down to scoop up her
chalk, but something caught her eye, from up the sidewalk. A woman
was standing out in the open in a gray kimono that matched the
clouds overhead, her black hair loose and dripping. She didn’t seem
to mind the rain, but rather enjoyed it. So much so, that she was
licking the rainwater as it accumulated on her hands and wrists,
like Yumiko imagined a cat would do.
    As if sensing Yumiko’s stare, the
woman looked up and met her eyes. “Hello, child,” she greeted
pleasantly, as if this were an everyday occurrence. “Come, you
should get out of the rain.”
    She lifted a hand to Yumiko, but
Yumiko turned back to her chalk, scrambling for the pieces. As she
grabbed for one of them, it slipped out of her reach and rolled
away, up the sidewalk. She stood to give chase, and paused when she
saw it roll up to the foot of the woman, who stooped to pick it
up.
    “ Very slippery when wet,”
the woman observed, lifting the chalk and turning it over, as if
appraising it. “What a wonderful shade of red. Almost like blood.”
She looked up at Yumiko and held it out to her. “Here you go. You
must want it back.”
    Yumiko hesitated. The woman, sensing
her indecision, smiled kindly. “There’s no reason to be frightened.
My name is Ame-Onna. What’s your name?”
    Shielding her eyes from the rain