[story] school of seven wonders
author: meg (lazulisong)
email: lazulisong [at] gmail.com
The school is very old; they say it was built on the grounds of an older complex. Perhaps it was a palace; perhaps it was a shrine. Nobody knows for sure, but if you know where to dig, you can still find half-lacquered pieces of wood, the red almost startling against weathered grey.
1. The Pond That Nobody Can Find
There is a little pond in the back of the school grounds, half-choked with weeds and mossy stone benches arranged beside it. One of these days they're going to remove it, but they never seem to remember that it's there when it's time for projects to happen.
The best way to reach the pond is through an old path, overgrown with weeds. If you avoid the sticker-bushes and the stones lurking to trip you, the little clearing that holds the pond is very quiet and peaceful. From a distance comes the sound of teams practicing and people shouting. It's a nice place to spend lunch, if you know how to find it.
Not a lot of people know how to find it. Even the grounds-keeper is a little confused about its location. If you're very lucky or if you need to be by yourself for a while you might find a little path, and if you follow the little path, you might arrive at the little half-choked pond.
Besides the old stone benches there is also a little carved stone shrine: a common shrine, the type that is dedicated to a little deity of a little area. A fox, perhaps, a bird, or even a fish. Sometimes people who find the pond clean the shrine a little and pour water over it from the pond, and those people sometimes have a little luck for the rest of the day.
The little pond has a little spirit who lives there, and she can do little things to help people. She likes to sit on the old benches at night and comb her long hair. There's enough water left in the pond so that she can look at herself and the moon. Sometimes the other residents of the school grounds, the tanuki and the kitsune and the tengu, gather around and listen to her soft songs.
Once there was a human who came to listen to her, but she doesn't think about him much.
2. The Shadow of the Jilted Fox
If you go out to the archery dojo and look at the side of the shooting shed, you see a strange mark curving against the wall. It almost looks like a fox standing on its hind legs, nine tails fanning out behind it..
They say a fox fell in love with a royal guard and was shot with an arrow by a priest. It's a tradition to keep an arrow bound with white paper stuck in the mark. They say if you take the arrow out without replacing it with a new one, the fox spirit will escape and try to possess you.
Nonsense, of course, but nobody wants to try it.
3. The Cat
They say if you're in the school late at night you might hear a scratching at the door, scritch-scritch-scritch. Don't open the door, whatever you do, or turn around if you feel someone staring at you. If you do, you might see a lady in white grave clothes with little dead children clinging to her and mewing weakly.
Why did you kill them? she asks. Her eyes are golden, and the pupils split, in the whiteness of her face. No matter how fast you run she catches up to you, reaching out with her clawed hands. A life for a life, she hisses. Nine humans for each of my children --- nine humans for each of mine!
4. The Mysterious Melody
A lot of schools have a music room where haunting melodies play late at night. There are as many explanations as there are tinkling waltzes that drift towards frightened students. The music room also plays music late at night, but they say if you listen closely, the songs are cheerful. It seems to be a sensitive music room, responsive to the moods and feelings of its listeners.
There's a story going around about a boy and a girl working late on a project. The boy may or may not have had the usual designs on the girl -- if he did, he was concealing them fairly well. They walked together and the girl drew closer to him as they passed the empty music room. A tune was being picked out on the old piano. The boy wrapped his arm around the girl -- and she stiffened.
Men are wolves, maidens beware, tinkled the piano. They say what you want to hear and they leave you in tears.
The girl stopped and looked up at the boy. The next morning, he was nursing a black eye.
5. The Empty Classroom
Now of course, said the teacher, you will not want to go into this room. Mind you stay out of it.
And some students would obey, and others wouldn't. They'd see a perfectly ordinary classroom with old dusty desks and a chalkboard with characters scrawled illegibly across it, and be satisfied it was nothing but an ordinary empty classroom. Perhaps there was asbestos in the tile, or weak spots in the floor.
But some students, foolish or rebellious, or simply curious, would venture in and look at the old posters and textbooks, and the names carved into the desks. Finally they would look at the chalkboard, and read:
DON'T LOOK BEHIND YOU.
If they backed slowly away and out the door, they were safe. But if they turned around, the teacher who had warned them to stay out would be standing behind them with a sweet smile. "I told you not to come in here," she would say, gently chiding --
-- and in her hand would be a bloody axe.
That's what they say. But anyway, they blocked off that classroom a long time ago.
6. Mr Tanuki
Nobody dares to take a shower in the leftmost stall in the girls' dressing room. If you do, a pleased, rumbling chuckle booms out, and a strong scent of alcohol fills the room.
Pipes, says the principal.
Pervert, say the girls.
As proof they dig out a nest of leaves and tin and underclothes next to the dressing room. Nobody's ever seen him, but if you turn fast enough, you might glimpse a bushy, ringed tail whisking out of sight. Of course it's unpleasant to have a tanuki nesting beside the dressing room, but he does them no harm beyond peeping. Sometimes if a boy tries to look, the tanuki punishes him.
Still, nobody uses the last shower stall if she can help it.
They say that once one of the girls was showering by herself, and turned around to find a man, a horrible-looking man with a flat and terrible grin, standing behind her with his pants open. Nobody was there, but as the man reached for her, she screamed, Mr Tanuki, Mr Tanuki, help!
The next thing she knew, the man was slumping to the ground, a lump already forming on his head. A little, dark, furry clawed hand patted her comfortingly on her naked ass and Mr Tanuki took a solemn swig from his bottle before waddling off.
That's what they say.
7. The Bird at New Year
They say if you go up a little rise in the back of the school grounds, past the small pond, almost to the edge of the mountain, you will find a little stone shrine. It has a bell and a pair of crumbling stone guardian dogs. If you bow in front of it five times before a test, it will give you good luck.
Within the shrine is a little bird nest. The bird looks rather like a chicken, if a chicken weighed half a pound, had been well-singed in a fire, and was in the last stages of terminal mange. It was a bad-tempered, territorial creature, but it liked it when people left it pencils and paper and bits of shining things. It put them in its nest.
As winter wears on, the bird gets even more bad-tempered and territorial. It croaks angrily at anybody who comes near without an offering. It looks more and more mangy as its flight feathers fall out, and by New Year's Eve is as miserable and ugly little thing as you could find anywhere.
It spends New Year's Eve huddled on its little nest inside the nest, too tired and angry to even peck at people for coming near. Its little beady eyes glower out in the rain. As the day wears on, a damp, feathery smell begins to build around the shrine, warm and rancid. It grows stronger and stronger, as if the area around the shrine was being warmed by a particularly damp, smoky fire. By nightfall the scent is almost unbearable. The stone shrine is warm to the touch. The bird is almost dead.
If you can stand the stench long enough, at midnight a wind springs up from nowhere in particular, bringing a scent of burning pine-needles and resins. The stone shrine is red-hot. Inside, the bird shrieks in pain, a harsh, thin, discordant sound. The sound and the heat and the scent build and as the temple bells toll midnight there is an explosion of light and heat.
When the light dims, the shrine is empty save for a small mud-colored egg. Hovering over it is a bird a bit like a peacock, and a bit like a hawk and a bit like a bird-of-paradise. Its wings trail fire that burn evil. Its tail is like a column of incense-smoke curling. It opens its golden beak and sings a piercingly sweet song, flying around the shrine and the small egg, once, twice, thrice.
And soars away into the light of dawn.
the end
email: lazulisong [at] gmail.com
The school is very old; they say it was built on the grounds of an older complex. Perhaps it was a palace; perhaps it was a shrine. Nobody knows for sure, but if you know where to dig, you can still find half-lacquered pieces of wood, the red almost startling against weathered grey.
1. The Pond That Nobody Can Find
There is a little pond in the back of the school grounds, half-choked with weeds and mossy stone benches arranged beside it. One of these days they're going to remove it, but they never seem to remember that it's there when it's time for projects to happen.
The best way to reach the pond is through an old path, overgrown with weeds. If you avoid the sticker-bushes and the stones lurking to trip you, the little clearing that holds the pond is very quiet and peaceful. From a distance comes the sound of teams practicing and people shouting. It's a nice place to spend lunch, if you know how to find it.
Not a lot of people know how to find it. Even the grounds-keeper is a little confused about its location. If you're very lucky or if you need to be by yourself for a while you might find a little path, and if you follow the little path, you might arrive at the little half-choked pond.
Besides the old stone benches there is also a little carved stone shrine: a common shrine, the type that is dedicated to a little deity of a little area. A fox, perhaps, a bird, or even a fish. Sometimes people who find the pond clean the shrine a little and pour water over it from the pond, and those people sometimes have a little luck for the rest of the day.
The little pond has a little spirit who lives there, and she can do little things to help people. She likes to sit on the old benches at night and comb her long hair. There's enough water left in the pond so that she can look at herself and the moon. Sometimes the other residents of the school grounds, the tanuki and the kitsune and the tengu, gather around and listen to her soft songs.
Once there was a human who came to listen to her, but she doesn't think about him much.
2. The Shadow of the Jilted Fox
If you go out to the archery dojo and look at the side of the shooting shed, you see a strange mark curving against the wall. It almost looks like a fox standing on its hind legs, nine tails fanning out behind it..
They say a fox fell in love with a royal guard and was shot with an arrow by a priest. It's a tradition to keep an arrow bound with white paper stuck in the mark. They say if you take the arrow out without replacing it with a new one, the fox spirit will escape and try to possess you.
Nonsense, of course, but nobody wants to try it.
3. The Cat
They say if you're in the school late at night you might hear a scratching at the door, scritch-scritch-scritch. Don't open the door, whatever you do, or turn around if you feel someone staring at you. If you do, you might see a lady in white grave clothes with little dead children clinging to her and mewing weakly.
Why did you kill them? she asks. Her eyes are golden, and the pupils split, in the whiteness of her face. No matter how fast you run she catches up to you, reaching out with her clawed hands. A life for a life, she hisses. Nine humans for each of my children --- nine humans for each of mine!
4. The Mysterious Melody
A lot of schools have a music room where haunting melodies play late at night. There are as many explanations as there are tinkling waltzes that drift towards frightened students. The music room also plays music late at night, but they say if you listen closely, the songs are cheerful. It seems to be a sensitive music room, responsive to the moods and feelings of its listeners.
There's a story going around about a boy and a girl working late on a project. The boy may or may not have had the usual designs on the girl -- if he did, he was concealing them fairly well. They walked together and the girl drew closer to him as they passed the empty music room. A tune was being picked out on the old piano. The boy wrapped his arm around the girl -- and she stiffened.
Men are wolves, maidens beware, tinkled the piano. They say what you want to hear and they leave you in tears.
The girl stopped and looked up at the boy. The next morning, he was nursing a black eye.
5. The Empty Classroom
Now of course, said the teacher, you will not want to go into this room. Mind you stay out of it.
And some students would obey, and others wouldn't. They'd see a perfectly ordinary classroom with old dusty desks and a chalkboard with characters scrawled illegibly across it, and be satisfied it was nothing but an ordinary empty classroom. Perhaps there was asbestos in the tile, or weak spots in the floor.
But some students, foolish or rebellious, or simply curious, would venture in and look at the old posters and textbooks, and the names carved into the desks. Finally they would look at the chalkboard, and read:
DON'T LOOK BEHIND YOU.
If they backed slowly away and out the door, they were safe. But if they turned around, the teacher who had warned them to stay out would be standing behind them with a sweet smile. "I told you not to come in here," she would say, gently chiding --
-- and in her hand would be a bloody axe.
That's what they say. But anyway, they blocked off that classroom a long time ago.
6. Mr Tanuki
Nobody dares to take a shower in the leftmost stall in the girls' dressing room. If you do, a pleased, rumbling chuckle booms out, and a strong scent of alcohol fills the room.
Pipes, says the principal.
Pervert, say the girls.
As proof they dig out a nest of leaves and tin and underclothes next to the dressing room. Nobody's ever seen him, but if you turn fast enough, you might glimpse a bushy, ringed tail whisking out of sight. Of course it's unpleasant to have a tanuki nesting beside the dressing room, but he does them no harm beyond peeping. Sometimes if a boy tries to look, the tanuki punishes him.
Still, nobody uses the last shower stall if she can help it.
They say that once one of the girls was showering by herself, and turned around to find a man, a horrible-looking man with a flat and terrible grin, standing behind her with his pants open. Nobody was there, but as the man reached for her, she screamed, Mr Tanuki, Mr Tanuki, help!
The next thing she knew, the man was slumping to the ground, a lump already forming on his head. A little, dark, furry clawed hand patted her comfortingly on her naked ass and Mr Tanuki took a solemn swig from his bottle before waddling off.
That's what they say.
7. The Bird at New Year
They say if you go up a little rise in the back of the school grounds, past the small pond, almost to the edge of the mountain, you will find a little stone shrine. It has a bell and a pair of crumbling stone guardian dogs. If you bow in front of it five times before a test, it will give you good luck.
Within the shrine is a little bird nest. The bird looks rather like a chicken, if a chicken weighed half a pound, had been well-singed in a fire, and was in the last stages of terminal mange. It was a bad-tempered, territorial creature, but it liked it when people left it pencils and paper and bits of shining things. It put them in its nest.
As winter wears on, the bird gets even more bad-tempered and territorial. It croaks angrily at anybody who comes near without an offering. It looks more and more mangy as its flight feathers fall out, and by New Year's Eve is as miserable and ugly little thing as you could find anywhere.
It spends New Year's Eve huddled on its little nest inside the nest, too tired and angry to even peck at people for coming near. Its little beady eyes glower out in the rain. As the day wears on, a damp, feathery smell begins to build around the shrine, warm and rancid. It grows stronger and stronger, as if the area around the shrine was being warmed by a particularly damp, smoky fire. By nightfall the scent is almost unbearable. The stone shrine is warm to the touch. The bird is almost dead.
If you can stand the stench long enough, at midnight a wind springs up from nowhere in particular, bringing a scent of burning pine-needles and resins. The stone shrine is red-hot. Inside, the bird shrieks in pain, a harsh, thin, discordant sound. The sound and the heat and the scent build and as the temple bells toll midnight there is an explosion of light and heat.
When the light dims, the shrine is empty save for a small mud-colored egg. Hovering over it is a bird a bit like a peacock, and a bit like a hawk and a bit like a bird-of-paradise. Its wings trail fire that burn evil. Its tail is like a column of incense-smoke curling. It opens its golden beak and sings a piercingly sweet song, flying around the shrine and the small egg, once, twice, thrice.
And soars away into the light of dawn.
the end