In the Dark of the Night

Entry by Father Tavis

Sunday evening of May 18
by Reverend Father Tavis

I have read this entire journal in one day. I hoped to find out what happened in that God forsaken house. I need to know what evil lies in waiting to claim more lives and hopefully find a way to fight it. Dear God in Heaven, Father Joshua MacGavin was correct in saying that popular movies cannot compete with the horror of this house.

I am writing this one entry for the Kuwabara family, for they are too distressed due to the past two nights. It has taken me a few hours to decipher Jun's last entry. Not only was there that ghastly blood that appeared then disappeared, the page was badly smeared by her tears.

Here is what I believe how the entry read before being smudged=

Jun's Last Entry

May 15

I don't like writing in this thing. I'm only doing it for momma and the nice ghosts said it's important.

I miss my mom and I want her back!

The Irate Monk told me to be careful or momma may answer my cries and get trapped here, like Shino and Father MacGavin. Their ghosts showed up this morning to talk to me.

"Hey, we didn't hear about that before." Yusuke pointed out that discrepancy. "Do you think they showed themselves only to her?"

"Their ghosts may have shown to the others but with the murder of Mrs. Kuwabara then Jun's disappearance, this Kohaku may have forgotten to write about it." Keiko mused.


entry 44
Saturday, May 19
-Shoda

The day that the first son comes into the world should be a joyous day for a father. But I have mixed blessings for that day. It broke my heart since my son's arrival was coupled with my wife's death. It was not the childbirth that killed Amanda. Evil spirits, blood-thirsty ghosts are what killed my wife.

They also killed my father and responsible for my eldest daughter's disappearance.

Amanda wasn't due to give birth until June 29th.Those unholy beasts killed her and caused my son to be 'born' 47 days early. Little Kazumamaru is about a month and a half premature.

I now know why Amanda would write in this journal as if it was a letter and someone's going to read it. Perhaps on some level she knew that she would not be alive to raise our son. I feel I would get an answer if I read her entries in this book of nightmares but my heart still bleeds at loosing her, I can't read the earlier entries yet.

This journal first started out as a way to record the supernatural events around us. Now, it shall serve as letters to our children.

"Hello, Master Genkai," Greeted Kaito as he sat down with a box. Everyone watched as he pulled out two files and handed one to Kurama.

"I suppose that Kurama set you up to snoop and dig up information on the Kuwabara family, expressively a certain blockhead?" Genkai huffed, as she demanded more than asked.

"As matter of fact, yes. Both of these files are identical, Kurama, of what I have found out so far." Kaito needed no prompting as Kurama opened his copy. "You have been reading out of the journal that covers the months that the Kuwabara family was in the house, and they just escaped, correct? Well, they don't go into details in the official papers but it is mentioned as rumors that the house had a very disturbing haunting and the mother,paternal father and two holy men died while the oldest child disappeared and none have been explained to this day."

"That's about where we are. The 'official papers', you said. How about the 'not so official' papers?" Kurama asked as he picked out a photograph from the file. He examined the image of a grand house surrounded by trees. There were some faint images, about eleven in that photo. "Is this the Bogy House?"

"Yes, the infamous Shadow Manor. Even in that photo, it looks eerie, doesn't it?" Kaito commented as he pulled more photographs out of the box. "These are the same as the ones in the files but I thought that everyone would want to have a look. Don't just give them a glance, take a close look at all of them."

As the photos were passed around, Botan gasped and Koenma looked solemn. "Ghost photography. These photos have captured images of the ghosts of that haunted house. Most of you have some training on your spirit awareness. You should all, except perhaps Yusuke since when it comes to reikan he's the weakest, be able to feel the spectral energies that emanate from the pictures."

"Hey! Why pick on me? What about him?" Yusuke asked while pointing at Kaito, annoyed that he was singled out.

"Well, in all your training, Yusuke, you focused on increasing spirit energies and ignored your spirit awareness." Koenma grinned evilly. "To put it bluntly, your reikan is slightly stronger that it was when I returned you to life. If the level of your awareness was compared and categorized to the class system of youkai, it would be a low Class D, with Class E being equal to to what you were before your first death; no awareness at all. Kaito's awareness is just a little higher equal to upper Class D since his training with Genkai allowed some time to focus on awareness."

Keiko spoke up, she was curious since many times she was left out of the meetings. "Koenma-sama, if Yusuke has the lowest reikan, then who has the strongest reikan?"

"That is simple." Genkai answered instead. "Kazuma has always had the strongest awareness out of the four, but since the Dark Tournament, he quickly became the one to have the highest awareness in Ningenkai, period."

"Even higher than yours?" Keiko was surprised at that statement.

"Yes," That one word answer was all Genkai gave as she looked at Yusuke, Kurama and Hiei. "I understand that would surprise Keiko and Kaito, but it shouldn't you three. Kazuma rarely gave obvious clues to his reikan. Even as his own teammates, you were not aware of the majority of times he would use his awareness. You should have paid more attention. Yusuke! Remember when you went to rescue Yukina, both Botan and Kazuma went with you. You should remember that not only was he able to lead you to her but before that in the forest he told you two to go another was around. However Botan disagreed, saying the path lead straight to the mansion, and so went on not listening to his warning."

When Genkai purposely paused, it was Kaito that broke the silence. "What happened?"

It was with an embarrassed sigh that Botan spoke up. "I fell into a trap after walking into a wire. Well I think it was more like a thick silk thread. But it ended up snagging my foot and yanked me up to the treetop where there was a massive spider-web and I got stuck on it. I wasn't able to move at all. It was Kuwa-kun that got me down by cutting me free."

Kurama's eyebrow raised at Yusuke's snickering. All Yusuke would say it was a funny memory of the sight after the danger was over.

"That was just one example of his awareness." Genkai didn't say anything else as she looked at one photo that had the ghostly image of three wolves prowling in the forest. However, what really caught her attention was not an image, but a feeling that there was something hidden in the shrubbery. "Here's a good example of what Koenma was talking about. The faint images of three wolves can be seen, but there's something not seen in the bushes to the left of the picture. Ghost photography works by the film captures the 'feeling' of spirit energies, when the film is developed, it can show images that the present when the people that took the photograph didn't see. It can also catch energies but not show an image. Focus on your awareness on the energies caught by the photograph to see if you can guess what's in those bushes. Don't tell what you think it is until everyone has a chance to look. That means you too, Keiko."

Everyone was quiet as the photograph was passed around for everyone to get a 'feel' of it. Botan dropped the photo with a gasp as if she was burned.

"Hey, Botan, what's wrong? I didn't see anything besides those faint outlines that looks like wolves but I did feel like a predator was there, somewhere." Yusuke stated as he waited for an answer.

"Well, you did good to feel that." Genkai prevented a grin from forming. Yusuke did have potential to strengthen his reikan; it would never be even half as strong as Kazuma, only with decades of dedication to training the reikan, could he reach a fourth of the power of Kazuma's awareness. Giving Yusuke's attitude towards training, that will never happen. He only dedicates himself to training when there's an opponent that is immensely strong, like Younger Toguro and Raizen, and that training is for his energies not awareness.

Genkai's gaze swept over everyone gathered today. No doubt that Koenma and Botan would know what's hidden in the photograph, but what about the others? "How about anyone else? What did you see? Hiei, can you feel it without the Jagan eye? Try to look at it with it unblocked."

Hiei didn't bother moving from the wall as the answered. "I can tell there's a predator there, just as he said. Only I can tell what part of the picture it's coming from and it's not from the bushes on the left side."

"I never said the negative energies came from the bushes, only that something was there. That was with the Jagan closed, how about open? Do you see anything else. Just tell me yeas or no." Genkai gave a disturbing grin as Hiei huffed as he went ahead and removed his bandana. Genkai watched as the Jagan eye began to glow and Hiei took a second glance at the photograph. At Hiei's nod, Genkai rose a hand. "Before you say what you saw Hiei, I want to hear what the others saw. " Genkai then proceeded to ask everyone, expect Koenma and Botan, what they 'saw' of felt.

Even Keiko and Kaito 'saw' the mental image of a little boy hiding in the bushes on the left hand side., only Yusuke didn't catch that. While Yusuke was able to feel as there's a threat hiding in the photo, Kaito and Keiko felt as it was on the right side. Kurama was able to pinpoint it down to a log but only Hiei, using his Jagan, was able to to tell that it was a Forsaken Skin hiding under in a crack under the log.

"Genkai, I never had any training so how was I able to feel that from the photo?" Keiko wasn't the only on confused.

"Exposure to the rest of us can help awaken your awareness. It's happened around me once before. There was a girl that was sensitive to psychic activity in my class. Her awareness grew stronger in the year we were in the same class." Kurama didn't elaborate and gave off vibes to the others they were not to ask about the subject.

After looking at a few other pictures, the read the end of journal one.

Entry 45 - Shoda

Father Tavis came by to see me today. It's been one week since Kohaku had escaped that hell-house with my children. While I tended to my family here at the hospital,the holy men have gone over possible ways to deal with the former Shadow Manor,it's better to call that now-evil place as Bogy House. Despite the multiple attempts of various religious sects to exorcize the area, the evil persists. They have only managed to stall its spreading out further. Kohaku noticed that the evil stopped at the original stonewall and hasn't gone past it. Unlike the front gates, the stonewall has not shown any signs of corruption. I told both Kohaku and Father Tavis of a legend in Amanda's family that dates back to when the monks owned the land and a monastery stood on the northern part of the lands. It's said that the stonewall was erected by those Franciscan monks to separate the monastery from the local lands of a lord of ill repute. It's said they took the stones from the local lake and area, used holy water and carved holy symbols in the sides. Amanda always thought that the tale was just a funny story. But I now think they might be true.

It's been decided to make a massive wall to surround the house following the same methods those ancient monks used. There have been a calling to get many volunteers from many religions to help with this effort. Kohaku told me that there are any faiths represented that want to fight the evil. Along with building a stonewall that will eventually join up with the original stonewall, they will add copies of this journal to entryways after they add those spells that were mentioned before to draw attention to the books and alert the benevolent ghosts of anyone approaching the house/ This will be my last entry to this journal, as I will turn it over to Kohaku. He has advised me that if there are anymore hauntings, minor events or ever just plain odd happenings, that should start another journal. I told him that I already started a second journal while they were still trapped in the bogy house.

If there any adventures or merely curious persons that are reading this journal take the warning and DO NOT GO INTO THAT HOUSE!

Entry 46 by Kohaku's

This will be the last entry to this book. It has now been two weeks since Shoda gave me this journal. There are others standing guard saying prayers at the boundaries of the land as stones for the new wall are being quarried and cut day and night. Already we have laid the foundations for the additions. I will hand this book over to make twenty copies that will be individually blessed by many faiths. They will be placed at the five entry points of the finalized wall. The semi-corporal ghosts will take some and place them at certain locations within the lands and house.

It is our desire that the evil spirits will not be able to leave and follow the Kuwabara family. Even if that works, it doesn't stop other spirits from noticing the children's abilities. I have talked to Shoda about this and decided that I will not return home to Japan yet. I can teach the children some games that will help hone and train their reikan. Both the Kuwabara and Holmes families have games the had used for generations that work to that same goal as well.

I remember the evilness of the woman that sent that final attack that killed Amanda. That vile spirit is still out there, I do not think the terror was merely to scare us away or we could have escaped earlier. It is possible that more attacks will happen on the Kuwabara family. I hope to be there to help.

To any future readers I beg you to hake heed of the events in this journal and do not venture into the lands or building of the Bogy house.

~Kohaku, Buddhist monk