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By the time the conductor announces the last stop at "Haka... Sura? Temple," there's already a foot of snow on the ground, and you step out up to your shins in wet. You traveled halfway across the country on the wisp of a ghost of a rumor, and you didn't even bother to check the weather forecast. But you're here at least - getting out was half the battle. You roll your socks over your jeans in a too-late attempt to stop your ankles from freezing and tighten the straps on your bag. All of the things they'd listed on the website and little else: a photograph, a set of clothes, a small fortune in wadded-up bills and rolled coins. You at least had the faint poor sense to dig into your 401K and rent a hotel room, along with a flight back. If this is everything they say it is, you're not going to be in a state to function afterwards.
You trudge through the snow to the lights of the town at the base of a too-high mountain, large enough to accommodate pilgrims to the temple a thousand feet above but small enough that they don't have a gas station. They do have a consignment shop though, and you pay an arm and a leg for a decent secondhand coat and handmade scarf and hat knit-set. You're so obviously a tourist it's physically painful: underdressed and exhausted and not even familiar enough to mince words.
"Here for Hazakura," the cashier asks as he rings you up, "Or just to enjoy the view?"
Your hesitation is probably enough answer as you shuffle your feet on the threadbare carpet. "To see an old friend." Maybe.
"Right," he sighs. For lack of a better place to direct your eyes, they catch on the racks of clothes, all shapes and sizes and colors. "The nuns go through those like wild. Can't really complain, they sell them back and then buy them again."
You think of the set tucked into your bag, oversized red flannel and jeans. You'd opted not to bring boxers, seeing as this whole thing sounded like it was going to get you murdered anyways, and that was just a little too weird for you. "What do they do with them?"
"Beats me. Guess you'll have to find out." He snips the tags off of your purchase and your legs propel you out the door.
The town's just waking up - the early morning flight to LA and the eternal train ride made sure of that - so you get to pass through to the base of the Eagle Mountain trail without much notice. You grip your bag and once again curse the decision to not buy winter boots at the store it's now too awkward to return to. The slush makes intimate friends with your sole inserts.
It's 9:30am. It's going to be a long hike up.
Usually, you're a CNA by day, burgeoning alcoholic by night - one achieved after three years and a residency, and the other begun the day your husband killed himself a year ago.
You don't blame him, not really, or at least not in any way you'd admit sober. Devastated in the way that makes you stupid. Furious in the way that keeps you up at 4am, stalking forum threads and sketchy advertisements. In pieces in the way where you still go to work for reasonable shift lengths and you don't even progress to tequila, just stay on the watered down garbage beer your husband always tried to convince you was good actually.
He liked cats, you liked dogs, so you compromised and got a turtle someone left in a box out near Main Street. He took your last name because he said it sounded better than Holtzoff. You made him breakfast and he brought you whatever candy they were making that day at the factory and you swept him off his feet and he pretended to drop you to the floor before catching you. You told him you loved him before you left for work and he kissed you dizzy and hugged you like your ribs would break. He left a body for you to come home to, slit wrists on top of a shower curtain so the clean-up would be easier. His name was Emmett. It has been a year.
Degradation over time has muddled everything together, and it's all his fault, really. You can't pull apart the grief from whatever shape the love took before. The afternoon you got married at the courthouse is as important as the morning you woke up hungover on the couch after the closed casket.
You hope he did it quickly. Hope he's happy, or at least not hurting. You hope when you find Emmett you break into a thousand bloody pieces and make him pick them up, see how he likes the cuts.
8 miles up a trail and 2,500 miles across the country and 365 days of sitting in hurt. You'll do anything to see him again. You're doing that right now.
The hike is strenuous and overwhelmingly lonely. You and Emmett were never really outdoorsy people, preferred ellipticals at the gym and pointing to mushrooms in your window planters and calling that nature. You grew up with two siblings, both scattered across the US, and Emmett was adopted into the largest foster family you'd ever met. You literally work in an ER. You haven't seen a single person in at least two hours.
There must not be lots of visitors to the temple - you spot animal tracks but no footprints - the trail itself is all un-compacted powder as you move further upwards. You almost miss the comfort of knowing other people slipped on that exact piece of ice on the sidewalk in town.
Some saint has set up a midway point in a small cave. There's a bag of food tied high: 'Hide From Bears,' the hand-painted sign near it reads. A bench-like alcove, weathered in the wall and a roof over your head. You pull the bag down, take out a few granola bars, and then hoist it back up to frustrate Smokey the Bear.
You slip a finger off your glove in the still air and page through your phone. You're in that inconvenient place where you're just too far from the cell towers at the base of the mountain and not yet close enough to the temple's advertised 'moderate-speed WiFi and cell service.' It's definitely for the best - the few people you know that have stuck around have probably noticed you took your first week off work in the last eleven months. There's not much point bringing the phone out here - you factory-reset it before you came in a fit of pique. But you swipe around a little and feel better about yourself anyways.
You booked an appointment at 2pm - they have hour-long slots and you're making good time, so you sit there for longer than necessary and try to spot color underneath the snow.
Hadley. His note might have said. Reminder: I love you. Something harmless and usual and a doodle of a caterpillar beneath just to take up space. Something you could hold in your fucking hands.
They did find a note, crumpled up in his hand and stained red. It looked like he'd tried to tear it up. You didn't ask. They didn't tell.
Dusky Bridge, a sign says when you reach it. The boards and rope almost look new, but you can still see burn marks on the stone cliffs underneath. Watch your step.
Stepping into Kurain Village is like stepping back in time, when you were a seven-year-old with your Nài-Nài, exploring the back alleyways of Tainan. Just similar enough to your memories that you can super-impose the buildings, with only a hint of ethnocentrism. Similar curved roofs, wood and stone paths, though the pine trees don't look quite right.
The temple is impossible to miss - everything else spirals out from it like a root system. You can peak and see a frozen pond beyond the gates, surrounded by what looks like a handful of chattering acolytes. There's a family grave tucked in the corner, a single name inked in red you can see from here.
A nun meets you as you move to walk inside. Her hood is loosely tied around her neck, hiding a complicated updo of pink beads and light brown braids. She can't be older than 21. "Oh, you must be Mx. Jiang - may I take your things?"
"I've got it, thanks." You shift the backpack to your other shoulder and hold out your hand, hoping that will excuse your rudeness. "Hadley, 2pm."
The nun nods. "Just in time. The Master herself is off on sabbatical, so we've arranged your channeling with another one of our mystics. Is that to your liking?" You nod, because what else are you supposed to do?
They must have done this thousands upon thousands of times, beyond even the multitudes of people posting in forums about them. There are two similar rooms near the back of the temple, which might as well be some sort of converted manor, insulated walls where everything else inside is rice paper. The nun takes you in and calls the resident mystic from her meditation in the corner.
"Mystic, your 2'o clock has arrived." The nun scampers out the door before you can make any further declarations, and slides it shut behind her. Your eyes meet the mystic's, and she steadily gazes back at you. No hesitation. And suddenly the bubble of hope you'd carried in your chest this entire time expands, crystalizes. You're actually going to see him again, and that is terrifying.
"Once I start, Mx. Jiang, you will have one hour. Last goodbyes, questions, love, revenge - whatever you can fit in that time." You nod your head, marionette string jerking with little finesse. "May I have the picture and clothes of the person you want to channel?"
You start, scramble with shaky hands to get them out of your bag. The picture was easy, some profile he'd taken of himself with Michelangelo the turtle where he couldn't stop smiling long enough to stop him from eating the lettuce too fast. You're suddenly regretting your choice in clothing, but you hand them over. The mystic looks them over with an appraising eye and you consider the hubris of what you're both doing for the first time. Alleged breaching of the veil for someone that might not even give you answers. Who you desperately want to see again and also would be happy forgetting he ever step foot in your life. She turns her back to you as she changes into Emmett's clothes and you refuse to go back now.
The mystic sinks to a seiza and you follow her down. There's nothing but your bodies and a thin purple cushion. You swear you can see both of your breath hang in the air as everything chills around you.
"Let's begin."
Everyone who'd sent you here had refused to describe it, saying a Kurain Channeling was something you had to experience on your own. It's not a flash, like you'd expected / it's a tear in the fabric of reality itself, concentrated in the mystic's hands and spreading everywhere else as another person steps in and takes her shape. A painful twist and her shoulders are broader, and she fills out the clothes you gave her. A single slash for the faint ghosts of wrist scars and deep brown eyes with a look of pure terror and joy that is surely reflected in your own.
And there's Emmett, right in front of you.
-
When Mystic Marie comes back to herself, Mx. Jiang is already gone - their husband's clothes left in a lump on the floor in front of her. There's the taste of cunt in her mouth, lingering on her tongue. Marie's cheek stings from a slap, and there's a light bruise on her thigh - Mx. Jiang did pay for full physical access, but stopped midway through any permanent damage. Curious. A drop of blood on the flannel and the remnants of peace of mind. Wet and come intermingled, dripping from her to the floor.
She takes five minutes to recalibrate, rediscover her body as her own. Runs fingers through her buzzed hair, feels the curve of her hips and chest and calves. Pulls the small mirror they're not really supposed to have out of her sash just to make sure. Her own reflection stares back at her, and isn't that reassuring. All things considered, this has gone extremely well for these types of channelings.
If Marie concentrates particularly hard, she can still reach the edges of Mr. Jiang's spirit - fuzzy around the edges. Devastated and bruised and wounded but no longer thrumming with unfinished business. He left a little bit more behind than the scars - a craving for pistachio ice cream and the memory of his and his spouse's wedding night. More to add to the collection of people-fragments floating underneath her skin.
In a few quick motions, Marie strips back to clinical nakedness, douses herself in the water pump near the back of the room. It's a ritual, same as the waterfall: each rinse, she wears herself back down to the base. Tabula rasa, if she wanted to make it sound exotic and interesting to her friends down the mountain. When she's done, she switches off the cold water and towels off. There's a fresh uniform waiting for her outside her door, folded neatly in a basket - Marie switches out Mr. Jiang's clothing with her own. Once again a mystic, once again Marie, and ready to do it all over again.
"Ms. Fey, the 3'o clock is here."