Chapter 11 The Secret
If somebody had later asked Wataru how he had spent the next several days before summer vacation began, he would have given them a blank stare and said nothing. He was in a daze. Details blurred and faded in the space of hours. Those days, he lived for nothing, and did even less.
Not that there was much of a change in his daily routine. Uncle Lou visited again and they hammered out the details for his summer trip. Late in the evening, he saw him speaking in hushed tones with his mother, but he wasn’t told what they were discussing, or whether they had reached any conclusions.
Kuniko settled into the exact same patterns she followed when Akira was on one of his long business trips. In that respect, what she told Wataru wasn’t exactly a lie. They would watch TV together at night and laugh, and if Wataru went to bed without brushing his teeth, she would get angry at him, as always. When Katchan called after nine o’clock at night, she would say, “He has to understand. Our family isn’t run like his family.” It was the exact same thing she always said. No special treatment. Same old Mom.
When Wataru woke up in the morning before the last day of school, his right cheek was swollen and red. It hurt so much he could barely open his mouth. His mother took a look. “Your gum’s swollen,” she announced. “You need to go see a dentist. No school for you today.”
Not that it really mattered—the classes for the year were pretty much over, and he wouldn’t be able to get in the pool for P.E. in his condition anyway. Wataru did as he was told, and before lunchtime rolled around, he was sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office.
It wasn’t a cavity, said the dentist, it was gingivitis. “Don’t normally see this in children,” he said, and asked whether Wataru had eaten something hard recently, maybe cut his gum? Had his mom said anything about him grinding his teeth at night?
The dentist fixed him up, and though the swelling didn’t go down, the pain wasn’t so bad. He was told there was a chance that he might run a fever, and sure enough, he was starting to shiver. Even under the hot summer sun he didn’t break a sweat.
He got home to find his mother out shopping. There was a note on the kitchen table that read, “Put on your new pajamas and get some sleep.”
He wasn’t that sick. A quick snooze on the couch sounded like a better idea. He had just flopped down when the phone rang.
Maybe it’s Grandma? Or Uncle Lou. Or it could even be Grandma in Odawara. The last time she called she started crying right away. Wataru didn’t fancy the idea of talking to her right then.
Reluctantly he picked up the receiver. He heard a woman’s voice, unfamiliar, maybe a salesperson.
“Hello, Kuniko Mitani?”
He tried to tell the caller that his mother wasn’t home, but the swelling in his mouth and the lingering effects of the anesthesia made it hard to say anything coherent. Meanwhile, the woman on the line continued talking.
“I heard from a colleague that you called the office yesterday. I thought we agreed last time that you wouldn’t call here…did you forget, perhaps?”
It was a pretty and polite voice, but Wataru could hear a little bit of anger simmering beneath the surface. She was talking a little too high, a little too fast. What kind of a salesperson talks like this?
“…This sort of, well, harassment—look, I’m human too, and there’s only so much I can take. I don’t think that us meeting and talking would be particularly fruitful either, to be honest.”
You’ve got the wrong number, Wataru attempted to explain, when the woman with the strange voice began talking faster, each word hitting the receiver with the force of a punch.
“Akira says that if you insist on carrying on like this, a divorce trial isn’t out of the question. He’s quite angry. I really think you might want to reconsider your actions. That’s all I wanted to say. Don’t call the office again. I’ve already received complaints from my superiors about personal affairs intruding on work.”
Wataru sensed that she was about to hang up the phone, so he blurted, “I’m noph my mother!”
The silence that followed rang in his ears. The receiver echoed Wataru’s voice.
“Heffo?” Wataru managed through swollen lips. “Thiff ith Wataru. Wataru Mitani.”
He heard a faint noise like someone swallowing on the other side. Then there was a click. She had hung up.
The telephone call had lasted only a few moments, but it caused Wataru to break out in a cold sweat.
Without a doubt—that was her. Dad’s other woman.
That was the woman Akira Mitani was living with. The woman he wanted to end his marriage to Kuniko for. The woman he wanted to marry.
She had a pretty voice—like a television announcer’s—Wataru thought. He hated himself for thinking it.
The strength went out of his knees, and he knelt down on the floor. That’s when he heard the other voice, sweet and small—a voice he had completely forgotten about.
“Wataru, are you okay?”
Wataru jerked upright and looked around from where he was on the floor. No one was there, of course. That sweet, mysterious girl’s voice.
“Don’t cry, Wataru. I’m with you now.”
The words seemed to come from nowhere. Immediately, Wataru felt the pain in his chest lighten.
“Where are you?” he asked the air around him, and the girl answered, “With you, like I said.”
“Then why can’t I see you?”
“I can see you, but I’m afraid you can’t see me.” He heard a light sigh. There was nothing to see, no touch of breath upon his cheek, but he had the distinct impression that if she were here, her breath would smell like candy.
“You’ve forgotten about me, haven’t you, Wataru? You’ve forgotten what I told you.”
This was true. With all that was going on, Wataru had run out of room in his head to ponder the mystery of a girl who couldn’t be seen.
More than that, all his memories of that time, the mysterious girl’s voice, searching his room for the source, taking pictures—all those memories seemed vague, shrouded in a misty veil. They were there when he thought about them, but they seemed so distant.
“You’re right…I-I forgot about you.”
“Because the Watchers didn’t pass you as a Traveler,” the girl said, a sharp edge to her voice. “You came here once, didn’t you? But they kicked you out. That’s why your memory of me has faded.”
Wataru didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. It all seemed to make sense in an odd way, but he couldn’t imagine why. “Wait a minute, where is ‘here’?”
The girl sighed again. “Why Vision, of course. Not that that word means anything to you now.”
No, no it doesn’t.
“In any case, I’m your friend, Wataru. If you can make it over here, I can help you out in lots of ways. Please, try to find another way into Vision. I know you can do it.”
Wataru started to wonder if he was dreaming. Maybe the shock of the phone call had knocked him out. That had to be it.
Wataru didn’t tell Kuniko about the phone call from the other woman.
His mom already seemed tired enough as it was. He wondered where she had been out shopping, because when she came home after the long summer day, her shoes were worn and caked with grit.
That night, when Kuniko fell asleep, Wataru snuck outside.
He didn’t know where he was going at first. He walked aimlessly, gazing up at the night sky, thinking maybe he would cool off a bit before going back home. He could go to the park and ride on all the swings. He could do whatever he wanted, anything to get his mind off the earlier events of the day.
As he walked he had an idea. I know, I’ll go see Katchan. Summer vacation was the day after tomorrow. Mr. and Mrs. Komura would undoubtedly allow him to stay. Then they could play Streetfighter Zero III all night. His mom wouldn’t get mad at him for staying at Katchan’s, either. Not now.
He walked, slowly formulating his plan, and when he looked up again he noticed that he was standing in front of the haunted Daimatsu building. Trees at the Mihashi Shrine swayed back and forth in the thick summer night air.
This isn’t the way to Katchan’s. Why did I come here? He had a funny feeling that someone had called him here.
Someone was inside the building—behind the wall of hanging tarps. It was more than one or two people. They were talking in hushed voices. Actually, they were arguing.
Wataru lifted up a stretch of tarp and slid quickly inside. He immediately bumped into a pair of grimy legs and feet wearing rubber flip-flops.
“Whoa! What the—who’s he?!”
The owner of the legs cried out and stumbled back, then lashed out with a foot. Wataru quickly rolled away so as not to be stepped on, but he was too late. A well-aimed kick caught him in the side at full force, knocking the wind out of him. Everything went white.
“One of your friends?” Wataru heard someone saying through a haze of pain. He clung to consciousness for dear life.
“Don’t tell me you called him to help?”
“Not much of a backup, heh.”
Gradually, the world came back into focus. His side smarted where he had been kicked, and he felt nauseated, but he still managed to sit up.
The area inside the tarps was lit by a large flashlight. The bright light made the shadows of everyone inside long and dark, more real than the people who cast them.
There were three others besides Wataru inside the building. The one holding the flashlight was Joto Elementary’s very own Kenji Ishioka, scourge of the sixth grade. It took a nanosecond for Wataru to identify the other two kids. They were Kenji’s ever-present goons.
Wataru shook his head and forced his eyes to focus. That’s when he realized that a fourth person was also present. This unlucky soul was on the ground with his face pressed into the dirt. One of Kenji’s boys was on his back, grinding a knee into his spine.
Most of his face was obscured by a sticky patch of duct tape, but it was still clear who it was.
“Ah!” Wataru yelped, the effort sending a stab of pain through his side. He clutched at his belly with both hands.
Pressed to the ground, his mouth wrapped in tape, and one of the Ishioka gang pressing him into the dirt, was Mitsuru. His eyes were opened wide as he looked back at Wataru. He was asking something. He wanted something.
“Wh-what do you think you’re doing?!” Wataru said. He meant for it to be a shout, but he was afraid it would hurt his side too much, so the words came out in little more than a hoarse whisper.
Kenji and his pals laughed until they were practically rolling on the ground. It was harsh, evil laughter. They’ll hear you outside. What about the nice priest at Mihashi Shrine, where is he?
“You’re a funny guy, you know that?” one of them said.
“What are you doing?” Kenji parroted with a sneer.
Wataru found himself unable to stand, so he got up on his knees. Slowly, he was able to move forward on his knee toward the spot where Mitsuru was lying. One of Kenji’s crew took a step in Wataru’s direction, and kicked him swiftly on the side of the head, sending him sprawling on the ground with a loud thud.
Why aren’t any grown-ups coming to help? Can’t they hear all the noise they’re making in here?
“Bull’s-eye!”
“A perfect headshot, that one.”
“Let me take a swing. Gotta practice!”
Wataru tried to sit up and lurch aside to avoid the next blow, but his head rattled and his eyes spun. He took the knee square in the back.
Collapsing on the ground, he came face-to-face with Mitsuru. Their eyes locked.
Wataru clung to the edge of consciousness. He felt no pain. He felt nothing but a low burning sensation, like a bad fever. His vision narrowed, and he couldn’t tell up from down. All he could see were Mitsuru’s big black eyes staring into his own. Somehow, that powerful gaze gave Wataru an anchor, something to cling to, a life rope thrown to a tiny craft on the choppy seas of awareness.
He’s trying to tell me something —his mouth is moving beneath the tape.
—Take it off.
You want me to take off the tape?
—Take it off, quick!
Kenji chortled triumphantly and slammed a foot down on Wataru’s backside, causing him to bounce. He moved his right hand a little bit.
—That’s right, use your hand, take it off.
But I’m losing it. I can’t—I can’t breathe.
Unbelievably, Wataru saw his right hand move of its own accord, inching toward the tape covering Mitsuru’s mouth.
A shadow flew over his head, and Kenji’s bodyslam scored a direct hit. Wataru was pressed to the ground, and he was afraid his ribs would snap.
“Crunch!” came Kenji’s literal battle cry.
Who knew why they brought Mitsuru here in the first place, or what they wanted from him? It was clear they had forgotten that themselves, but now that they had started playing there was no stopping them. The brakes are off. They might even kill us.
Wataru’s right hand moved again, grabbing the edge of the tape.
I bet it’ll smart if I just rip it off.
He thought for an instant, but his hand moved from right to left without hesitation, ripping off a piece of tape. He took off one layer, then another.
“Hey, what’re you doing?!” said one of Kenji’s friends when he saw Wataru’s hand move. But before he could do anything, Wataru pulled the last piece of tape off Mitsuru’s mouth—a sticky mass of goo stuck to his fingers.
Mitsuru’s eyes shone darkly. His swollen, bloodied lips opened, and he spoke.
“Great lord of the Underworld, by the Pact I call upon thee. Winged kin of darkness and the dead, by the promise of blood, black and ancient, I summon…”
Suddenly, the flashlight in Kenji’s hand went out.
“Whoa! Wh-what the…?!”
Kenji staggered back, his shadow wavering on the tarp behind him.
His shadow. Even though the flashlight had gone out, it was strangely bright inside the tarps. He could see everyone’s faces even more clearly than before.
Mitsuru’s voice continued in a rhythmic chant. The words were clear, crystalline.
His voice—it’s beautiful.
“To those who oppose me grant the eternal sleep of death, and in ice unmelting bind them. Sacuroz, helgis, metos, helgitos! Come, Balbylone, Daughter of Darkness!” he was saying. The words were like a spell, and when he was finished, Wataru realized why it was so bright. The ground surrounded by the boys was shining white, casting a pale glow on the space inside the haunted building.
What’s going on?!
The glowing area was a circle, a little smaller than a manhole. As he watched, it seemed to rise, swelling. It was almost like something was being born from the ground.
That’s impossible.
The otherwise firm-packed dirt looked, in that one shining circle, to be as malleable as clay. And there he saw a head—a person’s head—emerging. First the top of the head, and the neck, then shoulders, and the chest with two arms folded across it. It was a slender body, lined in graceful curves.
A woman.
It was a female mannequin made of the darkest, blackest clay.
Kenji and the two others stood with their mouths open, trembling. The dark figure emerging from the ground spread her arms. She was facing Mitsuru. Her breasts were bared for them to see, yet they too were as dark as night.
Then, two eyes split the smooth featureless face—eyes of gold, without a trace of white. The only sign of pupils were thin, jet black lines running through their middle. Like the eyes of a panther.
“Welcome, Balbylone,” Mitsuru sang, his face bright. He lifted his head as high as he could from where he lay upon the ground. “I bring sacrifices…sacrifices to your beauty.”
Hands still spread, the dark mannequin turned to face Kenji and his gang. They crouched stupidly, unable to scream or even run.
From the tips of the mannequin’s fingers, long sharp claws began to grow. At the same time, two black wings, darker still than her body, spread from her back.
Wataru turned his head to stare at the unbelievable sight before his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or overjoyed, but before he knew it, he was smiling. He said nothing, and grinned so wide he looked nothing so much like the Cheshire cat from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The strange dark woman that Mitsuru called Balbylone walked on long slender legs, advancing toward Kenji and his friends step by step. Her wings had spread to their full span of more than six feet. The claws on her hands were hooked, and they made a clicking noise as she swung them gracefully through the air.
Kenji’s group backed up until they hit the far wall of the building. No place left to run, they clung to one another and, like Wataru, stared at the otherworldly creature. They were all pale, their faces bone white, eyes open wide, jaws hanging slack. They looked stricken with fear, and yet at the same time, they seemed strangely happy.
Wataru was looking at the back of Balbylone, while everyone else was staring at her face. Kenji was transfixed as he gazed upon her face—his mouth opening and closing without a sound. But in reality, he was saying something that nobody could hear. His voice was too low, and besides, Balbylone’s claws were going…
Snick. Snick.
Wataru suddenly wanted to see her face. What does she look like now? Is she smiling? Are her golden eyes staring at Kenji?
“Okay…” Kenji muttered vacantly, “I’ll go.”
It sounded as if he were answering a question, like Balbylone had asked him, “Will you come with me?” But no one had said anything. Kenji’s lost it.
Kenji’s face melted into a broad smile. Then he stood up, swaying unsteadily, and began to walk toward Balbylone. His gang remained behind, clinging to one another for dear life, unable to wrest their eyes from Kenji. Their mouths trembled.
“K-Kenji!” one said in a voice like a sob. “N-no! Don’t go!”
Kenji heard nothing. He saw nothing. He only stared stupidly up at Balbylone, walking until he stood right before her. There, he dropped to his knees, and spread his arms. “I’ll go…”
Balbylone lifted her shoulders. The movement spread down her arms, and then down to the tips of her wings, until her whole jet black body rippled and shook. Somehow, with utter confidence, Wataru knew what was going on. Ecstasy. She’s trembling with ecstasy. Like a beast of prey the second before it makes a kill.
Her wings extended outward with a taut snap, and like a switch had been thrown, the smile faded from Kenji’s face.
Then he screamed. It was a scream beyond conscious thought, beyond his ability to control—a raw, primal scream.
Balbylone launched at him. Two slender black arms writhed like serpents, encircling his body. For a moment, she seemed to be crouching before him, then her jet black head wavered and, like an amoeba, became formless, swelling to ten times its original size. Kenji, wrapped in her arms, was lifted into the air. Flipping him toward the top of her head, she swallowed him whole. Kenji’s scream cut off cleanly, as if snipped by a pair of scissors.
One of his sneakers rolled to a stop by Wataru’s foot.
Wataru’s eyes were stretched open wide. All he could see was the expression of abject terror on Kenji’s face the moment before she swallowed him, his last milliseconds of life replaying in crystal-clear slow motion, frame by frame.
After she swallowed Kenji, Balbylone’s head immediately shrank to its regular size and shape, and she was once again a goddess of ebony beauty. Her nails clicked and pointed at the remaining hoodlums in front of her.
“No way!” they screamed.
Balbylone flew soundlessly with a single beat of her wings, and scooped them up from where they huddled. Wataru could see their legs jutting out from beneath her wings, futilely kicking at the air.
A gust of wind like a cyclone passed over Wataru’s head. Even though he was lying down, Wataru closed his eyes and clung to the ground, feeling as though he might be lifted away at any moment. Then, just like that, it was over.
Fearfully, he opened his eyes and lifted his head to find everything around him in darkness.
From someplace far away, beyond the tarps, outside the haunted building, an intersection away, he heard someone gunning a car engine.
Then a flashlight clicked on only a few feet away from his hand. The bright light hurt his eyes. A hand touched him on the shoulder.
“You all right?”
It was Mitsuru. His face looked terrible. His lip was cut. A line of blood trickled from his right nostril. Yet he moved smoothly and competently, helping Wataru up.
Wataru sat up, and suddenly felt quite dizzy. Then he was lurching backward, sticking out his arms to catch himself. Every bone in his body ached, but the sensation of pain seemed somehow distant, like his body wasn’t entirely his own.
Beside him, Mitsuru sat on one knee, rubbing a fist below his nose.
“Wh-where’d they go?” Wataru managed to ask. There was an unfamiliar, acrid taste in his mouth. Maybe it was blood.
“They?” echoed Mitsuru, raising an eyebrow.
“Kenji…and his idiot friends,” Wataru said, looking up at him. He felt dizzy again, and his vision blurred. He tried to read Mitsuru’s expression, but he couldn’t get his eyes to focus.
“They went bye-bye. Hard,” he said with a wry grin. “Can you stand?”
Wataru’s legs felt like rubber. Still, he tried to get up. His sneakers scraped uselessly at the ground.
“What happened to them?” he asked again. “Where did they go? What was that just now? That creature—the dark woman.”
Somehow it all felt unreal. He heard himself saying things he didn’t entirely understand, then his voice trailed off like someone talking in their sleep.
“There’s no monster,” Mitsuru said quietly and assuredly, using the same voice he used when he answered the teacher’s questions in cram school. “You were dreaming. It’s nothing. Just a dream.”
“It’s not a dream,” Wataru said, with much more confidence than he felt. Unable to stand, his body swayed, and he fell to the ground once again. Or he would have, if Mitsuru hadn’t caught him at the last moment.
“Why did you come here?”
“Huh? Why…”
“I didn’t call for you,” Mitsuru spat. He sounded upset.
“I don’t know. I just came…”
“You came even though I didn’t call for you—you have nothing to do with this…” Then, suddenly, Mitsuru smiled. “But you saved me.”
What is he talking about?
“You really are a handful,” Mitsuru said, and he mumbled something under his breath. It sounded like another spell. Wataru felt a warm white light spill down on him from above. The light wrapped around his body, suffusing him, and unbelievably, the pain began to fade. It felt good.
He looked up in a daze to see Mitsuru waving.
So long. Goodbye.
And Wataru slept.
When his eyes opened, he was lying in his own bed and the alarm clock was ringing.
It was seven in the morning. He wouldn’t have believed the clock if he didn’t see the morning sunlight spilling through the checkered curtains of his room.
It was already getting warm, and his pajamas clung to his body.
“Wataru, time to get up!” he heard Kuniko shout from outside his door. She was knocking at the door now. “Don’t be late on the last day of school! You’ll be the laughingstock of your class!”
The last day of school.
Wataru cradled his head in his hands. He was here. His head was on his shoulders. He blinked his eyes. He could see. He could smell. Mom was frying an egg in the kitchen.
But what was that? What did I see last night?
Was I dreaming?
Did I stay in last night? Did I only think I had gone out, while I was really here under the covers? Was I only dreaming that I wanted to sneak out to Katchan’s house?
And what was that—that monster?
His memory was foggy, but some details were clear. Mitsuru, and the jet black creature in the form of a winged woman. Those golden eyes. The snick snick of hooked claws.
Kenji Ishioka screaming.
Wataru rolled out of his room and into the living room. Kuniko, about to set a piece of toast on his plate, gave a startled cry.
“Wh-what is it? What’s wrong?”
“Mom, I…”
“What, Wataru?”
Wataru’s shoulders sagged. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t put what he’d seen into words. No way. Not going to happen. Impossible.
“Don’t tell me you were still dreaming?” Kuniko said with a smile, picking up the piece of toast from where she had dropped it on the table. “Go wash your face. Why, you’re covered in sweat.”
Wataru nodded, and went to the bathroom. He peered into the mirror to see an average-looking sleepy kid’s face staring back at him. No wounds, no scars. Just messy bed hair, and that was all.
The last day of school! A fond farewell to books and classes. Forty days of summer vacation lying in wait. The sun singing warmly in the sky. Don’t let us down, make it a hot one, because today is when real summer begins!
The principal had begun his usual address to the entire school assembled out in the schoolyard, and Wataru felt displaced from reality—lost in thought about the dream that wasn’t like a dream at all the night before. Around him, his classmates giggled and told jokes, and the teachers frowned and looked stern, and Wataru couldn’t care less. Katchan, sitting way ahead of him, would occasionally turn when the teachers weren’t looking to shoot some sort of signals in his direction. Wataru noticed, but didn’t bother to respond.
At last the principal’s speech finished, and everyone began shuffling toward the classrooms. Katchan came running up to Wataru.
“Oh man, can you believe it?!”
Wataru stared blankly at Katchan.
“Yo, sleepyhead wake up! What, don’t tell me you were up playing games all night?” Katchan seemed extremely excited, even for the last day of school. “Wait, don’t tell me you haven’t heard? Oh, well I guess your mom isn’t on the PTA, so maybe you wouldn’t have—of course neither of my parents are on it either, but my old man’s a volunteer at the fire department see—” Katchan rattled on at an incredible speed, answering his own questions before Wataru had a chance to get a word in edgewise.
“So, what is it?” Wataru asked flatly. No matter what Katchan could possibly have to say, it couldn’t begin to compare with what he had experienced last night. He could tell him the world was ending, and it would have all the excitement of going to a lizard exhibition after watching Jurassic Park.
“You don’t know. Wataru. You don’t know?!” Katchan looked astonished and overjoyed all at once. “Oh goody, I found someone who hasn’t heard yet! Now I get to be the one who tells him!” Classic Katchan.
“Kenji Ishioka’s gone missing!”
The two boys had just reached the landing of the staircase that went up to the second floor classrooms. Wataru stopped short, and a girl walking behind him smacked into him.
“Oh, sorry, Wataru,” she said, giving him a playful slap on the shoulder. “Don’t stop all of a sudden like that!”
Wataru rocked to the side. His eyes were fixed, staring at the space above Katchan’s face. He looked like he had completely lost his mind.
Katchan stepped back. “Whoa, Wataru, you okay? How hard did ya hit him, Sanae?”
Saying nothing, Wataru took a step closer to Katchan. His friend quickly took a step back. The girl Sanae walked over, a look of concern on her face.
“Kenji Ishioka? You mean that Kenji Ishioka?” Wataru asked, barely breathing.
“The very one,” Katchan said with authority. “Sixth grade. Mean. You know any other creeps with that name?”
“He’s missing?”
“Gone without a trace, since this morning,” Sanae joined in. “They called the cops, made a big deal about it. His mom called the school. That’s why the sixth-grade teachers are all upset this morning.”
“That’s right, you live near him, don’t you,” Katchan said to her. “My dad’s a volunteer at the fire department. He says they’re out looking for him now.”
“If you ask me, they’re making a big deal out of nothing,” Sanae said, brushing her hair off her shoulders. “Kenji goes out every night. You know Makiko? Her parents own this building by the station, they’ve got a video game parlor there. They say that Kenji and his gang are there until all hours of the night sometimes, and they won’t leave no matter how many times they get warned.”
“Sure, he may go out at night, but this is the first time he hasn’t come back,” Katchan explained. “And today was supposed to be this big day—something about him being in an audition for a television show.”
“So there’s no way he wouldn’t come home?”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Sanae said with a sickeningly cute smile. “Maybe he was afraid he’d go to the audition and get cut again, so he ran away from home? There’s no way they’d let someone like Kenji go on television, anyhow. He looks like a bulldog.”
Katchan was ecstatic. “Totally! He’s got the nose for it and everything.”
“Like an idiot gorilla.”
“You know it. I wonder why no one has ever told him to his face.”
“Be my guest!”
“Me? No way.”
“Chicken!”
Katchan did his best impersonation of a chicken clucking, and the two burst into laughter. A strange high-pitched voice interrupted the laughter. It took Wataru a split second to realize that it was his. “Is it only Kenji who’s missing?”
Katchan and Sanae turned back to him. “Huh?”
Wataru averted his eyes. Mechanically, he repeated his question. “Is only Kenji missing? Did any of his friends go missing too?”
Katchan and Sanae looked at each other. “I don’t know…”
“But maybe…” Katchan began, catching the scent of another potential rumor. “If three of them disappeared together, now that would be cause a-plenty for all this fuss.”
“Hey, Wataru, what’s wrong?” Sanae asked, grabbing Wataru by the elbow. “You look pale.”
The school bell was ringing. Students were shuffling into their classrooms.
Wataru opened his mouth, saying something.
“Huh? What?” The other two leaned toward him. “What did you say?”
“Mitsuru. What about Mitsuru? Is he here today?”
“Mitsuru? Is he talking about the kid in the next class?” Sanae looked at Katchan. Katchan shook his head. “I don’t see what Mitsuru has to do with anything.”
“Oh, but maybe—hey, hey, Misa!”
Sanae caught a face she recognized in the crowd of students going by them on the stairs. One of the girls stopped and looked around.
“What?”
“Mitsuru’s in your class, right? Is he here today?”
“Nope. Didn’t see him at the morning speech, and he’s never late to class.”
“No kidding. Thanks!”
Misa waved and ran off to class. Wataru’s vision dimmed, his skin felt cold, he could barely stand. Ashikawa took the day off. Ashikawa was gone too.
So long. Goodbye.
Was that what he’d said?
Sanae’s grip on Wataru’s elbow tightened. “Katsumi, wake up! Your friend’s anemic or something. He’s gonna collapse. Quick, get a teacher!”
“No, I’m fine,” Wataru said slowly. “I’m really fine. I’m not going to faint.”
“Are you sure?”
“Um, Sanae…”
“Huh? What? What’s wrong?”
“You’re hurting my arm.”
Sanae stood flustered for a moment, and then quickly released his arm.
“Oh, sorry! Sorry.”
“Don’t know yer own strength,” Katchan said, grinning, as she smacked him on the shoulder.
Still concerned, the two of them got on either side of Wataru and walked with him to the classroom. Katchan looked like he wanted to say something, but Sanae kept him quiet with a stern glare.
Wataru stood in the doorway to the classroom, but his mind was somewhere else entirely. The scenes from last night played through his head like he was skipping through a movie on DVD, jumping to each moment, replaying them in vivid clarity.
The classroom was buzzing. It was clear that Kenji’s mysterious disappearance was the topic for the day. Their teacher left the room twice during the first class, returning each time with a clouded expression on his face.
Report cards were handed out, and just before they were released to go home, their teacher was called out again. Left on their own, the students erupted with worried chatter and mounting curiosity. It was the same in every classroom. The sound spilled out into the hallways until it seemed like the whole school was participating in one giant conversation.
When the teacher finally returned, he announced that all students would be going home in groups, escorted by PTA-appointed parental chaperones. They would all go down to the schoolyard in order, so until their class was called, they would have to wait patiently at their desks. Message delivered, the teacher left them again.
The excitement had risen to a fever pitch by this point. A few brave souls sneaked into other classrooms to gather information. Some students had brought in contraband cell phones in their bags, and they called home. Their friends clustered around the desk, trying to hear what was being said.
In the middle of it all, Wataru sat listlessly in his chair, half of his mental energies committed to the sole task of replaying last night’s events. Katchan and Sanae got up and went over to him.
“Something is definitely wrong with you, Wataru,” Sanae said seriously.
“What’s the matter?”
How easy it would be if it were something he could explain, something they would believe.
A shriek rose from one of the clusters of students in a corner of the room.
“What?!” Katchan shouted, whirling around. “Don’t shout like that!”
The circle broke up, leaving one girl in the middle with a cell phone still pressed to her ear. She was gripping a friend’s hand tightly. They both looked ready to cry.
One of the other girls from the group walked into the middle of the room, her face drawn, and told the class, “They found two of the sixth graders.”
Wataru looked up.
“Two? You mean Kenji’s friends?” Katchan wasted no time in asking.
“Yeah. Collapsed in Senkawa Park.”
“Both of them?
“Both.”
“Were they dead?” someone asked.
“No, not dead, but it’s strange.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘strange’?”
“They weren’t hurt at all, but they say they don’t remember a thing—where they went the night before, how they got there—nothing!”
Somebody started crying, which set off a few of the other girls. Sniffing could be heard throughout the classroom. A boy looking out of the classroom window shouted, “Hey! It’s a television crew!”
A few students ran over and threw open the windows. They could hear the sound of helicopter blades coming closer. Not one, but several.
Wataru stood. He couldn’t stay here. Not even for another minute.
Everyone was distracted, except Katchan and Sanae.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Home.”
“Home? You can’t…”
“I don’t feel good. I’m going to go talk to the teacher.”
He brushed them aside and walked out of the classroom. His ears were throbbing. Everything seemed muted, like someone had pushed the mute button on the world. He ran down the stairs, then down the hall toward the back entrance to school, taking care to avoid the teachers’ room. Luckily, no one saw him or tried to stop him. They had bigger things to worry about. Wataru went outside, still wearing his school shoes.
In contrast to the heated atmosphere inside, the town looked as normal as ever. The hot summer sun beat down on deserted streets. Wataru didn’t pass anyone on his way out. He ran and ran until he was out of breath, then ran some more until once again, he found himself standing in front of the Daimatsu building.
He looked at the blue tarps covering the haunted building. They hung undisturbed as always, a veil shrouding a secret. A closed lid on a jar.
Wataru lifted one of the tarps as he had many times before, and slid quickly inside. He realized this was the first time he had ever come here during the day. The light shining through the gaps lit the inside rather brightly. The tarps gave little shade—in fact, it felt more like a greenhouse.
For a full thirty seconds, Wataru stood still and held his breath. A drop of sweat trickled down the small of his back. His heart was beating wildly in his throat. He swallowed once, then twice, trying in vain to force it back down into his chest where it belonged.
He saw where he had lain sprawled on the ground the night before.
Where Kenji and his goons had pushed down Mitsuru, where they had kicked him.
And that monster—that’s right! Balbylone, wings of death, daughter of darkness—that horrible thing had been here.
Wataru took a step, walking closer to the place where Balbylone had spread her wings, where she had attacked Kenji and swallowed him whole, where his scream had ended in cold, abrupt silence. He walked like he had irons chained to his ankles, dragging them with every step.
And then he saw it.
A single sneaker lay on its side on the dirt floor—like it had just been taken off and discarded. Wataru crouched down and picked it up. It was white, with blue and yellow stripes. It bore a famous sporting brand logo. It was brand-new.
Kenji’s sneaker.
Wataru screamed silently, and threw the sneaker down. It hit the floor and bounced two or three times until it fell with the laces facing away from him.
He ran.
Ripping up the tarp, he barreled out into the street. He was running so fast he tripped and slammed down onto the concrete. He was startled by the sudden heat of the pavement on his palms.
He had stood up and brushed himself off when he started to cry. Crying wouldn’t do any good—he wasn’t even sure why he was crying, but the tears fell all the same.
Mitsuru—I have to talk to him, to get him to help Kenji. He can’t do what he did, it’s not right. He shouldn’t call on things like that. Maybe it’s not too late…
Tears clouded his eyes, until he could barely see where he was going. He stumbled forward, until he ran into something soft. The soft thing had hands, they were grabbing him.
“What’s this? Something the matter, son?”
It was the priest from the Mihashi Shrine. He was wearing a white kimono and flowing white trousers, like always. His round face looked kind, and his bristly eyebrows, streaked with white, loomed closer.
“You—ah, we met recently, did we not?”
Wataru found he was standing at the entrance to the shrine. He could see the red crossbeams of the torii gate just behind the priest. Leafy green trees swaying gently in the breeze. Doves perched on shrine roof tiles.
“Have you…” Wataru began; then a ray of light stabbed through the chaos in his mind. He can help me. He grabbed the priest’s sleeve tightly with both hands. “Have you seen a boy, like me? He comes here a lot. He’s got a pretty face, like a doll. His name is Mitsuru. He lives near here—have you seen him? Do you know where he lives? Have you ever talked to him?”
Wataru yanked on his sleeve, but the short stocky priest stood firm and unmoving—though his expression was one of surprise. Peering at Wataru, he asked, “This boy, he’s around your age?”
“Yes, that’s right!”
“Mitsuru, yes, I see him here quite often. I’ve even spoken with him. He lives in the apartment building behind the shrine here. Is he a friend of yours?”
“Which apartment building is it?”
Two apartment buildings stood behind the Mihashi Shrine, one with a miniature red water tower on its roof, the other one taller, with chocolate-colored siding on the walls.
“Now that I’m not sure of. Never asked for his address.”
Wataru turned and tried to dash off, but the priest caught him by the arm. “Son, wait. Tell me what’s wrong. You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Forgive me, but I don’t have a second to lose.
“I’m sorry,” Wataru said, knocking the priest’s hand off his arm. He ran straight into the shrine grounds, feet pounding over the gravel, and out the rear exit. The priest didn’t follow. He probably wouldn’t have been able to catch up to him anyway.
Wataru headed first toward the apartment building with the water tower. It was closest. He ran into the main entrance lobby, and stood before the mailboxes. Breathlessly, he checked the nameplates. The name Ashikawa was nowhere to be found.
He checked a second time. Nothing. He ran back outside. The other apartment building with the chocolate-colored walls stood with its back to the shrine, so he had to run down the length of the building to get to the entrance. Sweat ran into his eyes, making them sting. As he ran, wiping at his face with his hand, an ambulance siren sounded in the distance. It came closer and then faded away. It went off in the direction of the school.
He finally reached the entrance, finding a doorman in a moss green suit sweeping the floor by a pair of open automatic doors. He turned and looked over his shoulder, broom still moving, as Wataru ran past.
This building had almost twice the number of mailboxes as the last one. Before he could start checking them, he doubled over and put his hands on his knees, catching his breath. The tiles were so brightly polished he could see his reflection. A single drop of sweat fell to the floor.
The Ashikawas lived in apartment 1005. Wataru charged headlong through the entrance hall, running straight into a set of automatic sliding doors with a loud smack! The sound startled him.
This building had a security system. To get to the apartments, he had to go through another set of locked doors, with an intercom for calling people’s apartments.
Just my luck!
There was a panel with a button and a microphone directly to the left of the door. Fingers shaking, Wataru punched in the number 1005, when someone grabbed his shoulder from behind. It was the doorman he’d seen on the way in.
“You all right, kid?”
The doorman turned him around, and the man’s hand on his shoulder made his legs go weak.
“You ran straight into that door! Look, you’ve got a bloody nose.”
Wataru felt a warm trickle down his lip.
“You don’t live here, do you? What are you here for? Shouldn’t you be at school?”
As he was talking, Wataru heard a woman’s voice come from the intercom behind him saying, “Yes, who is it?”
“Ms. Ashikawa?” Wataru said, turning back toward the microphone. “I’m a friend of Mitsuru’s! I’m looking for him. Is he home? Can I see him?”
There was a brief pause, and the woman responded. She sounded worried. “You’re in Mitsuru’s class? Then, he didn’t go to school?”
Wataru felt the blood drain from his face. If she’s asking that, it means Mitsuru isn’t at home either.
The doorman bent down in front of the intercom. “Ms. Ashikawa? This boy here is in elementary school, like he says. He seems to be in a big hurry.”
“Show him up.”
The automatic doors slid open. Wataru ran through, heading for the elevator. The doorman followed behind him. It seemed like he was going to show him the way, though he didn’t seem too pleased about it.
They got to the tenth floor and turned right out of the elevator. A slender woman was standing by the open door to the apartment.
“This is him, Ms. Ashikawa,” the concierge said, giving Wataru a push. “I don’t know what’s going on, but be careful. I don’t want any trouble like last time. If anything happens on my watch, it’s my responsibility, you see.”
The woman in the doorway thanked the concierge politely. He walked back, and disappeared into the elevator.
Wataru stood quietly, looking up at the woman. He could feel the warm trickle from his nose spreading. He was still bleeding.
The woman was very young. Wataru wasn’t sure exactly how old she might be, but there was no way she could be Mitsuru’s mother. She was really beautiful—a knockout. She wore a white sleeveless blouse and a light gray miniskirt. She was holding the door open with one hand, with the other resting lightly on her hip. A silver bangle shone on her wrist. Wataru was so sure the voice he had heard was Mitsuru’s mother that for a moment he stood there confused.
“Are you a friend of Mitsuru’s?” the woman asked, looking down at Wataru. It was the same voice he had heard over the intercom.
Wataru nodded silently. He only needed to nod once, but for some reason he kept nodding over and over, like a broken toy.
“Your nose is bleeding,” she said disapprovingly. She lifted her hand from her waist to her forehead and stood there for a moment. Then, sighing, she opened the door wider and waved him in.
While not particularly large, the room was bright and filled with sunlight. It was very clean. The furniture seemed like something from a designer’s catalog. Wataru’s head was spinning, so he couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t seem like the kind of house that people with kids would live in. He started to wonder if Mitsuru really lived here.
The girl shut the door and followed Wataru into the living room, taking a tissue out of a box on the coffee table and offering it to him. “There. Wipe your nose and tell me what happened.”
Wataru did as he was told. “I ran into the door downstairs.”
He pressed his nose with a tissue. It throbbed painfully. He hadn’t been able to feel it before, but now it hurt so much his eyes watered.
The woman pushed forward a chair on rollers for Wataru, and then sat down on a nearby sofa. Wataru sat in the chair. Sitting, their eyes were on the same level.
The woman looked like she was in even more pain than Wataru. “So Mitsuru really wasn’t at school?” she asked quietly.
“No, he wasn’t,” Wataru answered from beneath the tissue. His front teeth were hurting too. He was too scared to touch them, afraid they might be loose.
“What’s your name?”
Wataru introduced himself, and before she had a chance to say anything, he added “Mitsuru and I go to cram school together.”
The woman merely nodded silently. She didn’t seem suspicious at all. Wataru got the feeling that maybe Ashikawa never talked about school.
“Well, thank you for your concern,” she said, still looking pained. “You don’t have any idea where he might be, do you?”
“I haven’t seen him at all today.”
She nodded again. “He left a message. I think he’s run away from home.”
I suppose you could call that leaving home. So long. And where did he run away to? To some other place, some other world?
“Maybe you heard about me from Mitsuru. I’m his aunt.”
That explained her age.
“Mitsuru doesn’t talk much about home, so I really didn’t know anything. Just the rumors about him living overseas and stuff.”
For reasons Wataru couldn’t guess at, Mitsuru’s aunt suddenly looked even sadder. She put a hand to her forehead again. The bangle sparkled in the sunlight coming in through the window.
“But Mitsuru is really popular, you know,” Wataru added hastily. “He’s really good in class, and the girls are all over him.”
Mitsuru’s aunt looked at Wataru sadly; then she said in a whisper, “But he left. Leaving a note I don’t even understand.”
“What did he write?” Wataru asked, leaning forward. “He didn’t say anything about…about going to another world, did he?”
The woman looked up quickly, surprise in her eyes. “How did you know that? Did he tell you something?”
Wataru’s mouth snapped shut. He didn’t want to have to explain anything. If he could just read Mitsuru’s note first…
“You must have been a good friend of his, Wataru.” Mitsuru’s aunt reached over and touched his knee. Her fingers were warm. “You have any idea where he might’ve gone? I can’t let him do this. I can’t lose him…”
“Can’t lose him?”
She must think that when Mitsuru said he was “going to another world,” he really meant he was going to die. Come to think of it, that makes much more sense than the truth.
“He didn’t say he was going to die in his message, did he?”
“No, he didn’t, but…” Her face twisted like she was going to cry. Even so, she was still beautiful. Wataru noticed some similarity in the line of her nose with that of Mitsuru’s.
“It was about three months ago, I suppose. He tried to commit suicide. Had you heard?”
Wataru shook his head, dumbfounded.
“No, I don’t suppose you would have. I’m sure he didn’t want to talk about it. It was right after he came here—he was spending a lot of time at home, alone. He must’ve gone stir crazy. He tried to jump from the roof, but luckily the concierge found him in time.”
Suddenly what the concierge had said about “not wanting any trouble like last time” made sense.
“I knew I wasn’t cut out for this,” Mitsuru’s aunt muttered.
It was becoming clear to Wataru that there were a number of unusual things about Mitsuru’s family and he was only beginning to scratch the surface. If only he had some clue, some gut feeling of how to proceed.
Relax, Wataru. Just remember the Private Detective Meadows series. Wataru wasn’t particularly fond of text-heavy adventure games, but he had enjoyed that one. I’ll just pretend Mitsuru’s aunt is the client, and ask her questions like Detective Meadows would ask. How could that be hard? Mitsuru’s aunt was perfect for the role of the beautiful, mysterious woman who comes to visit the Meadows Detective Agency pleading for help.
“He said in his note that he was going someplace where no one could find him,” she said. “He said not to bother trying to look.”
“I-I might know,” Wataru stammered. “I might have an idea where he’s gone.”
Her grip on Wataru’s knee tightened. “Then take me there!”
“I would, but, I don’t…I don’t really know how to get there.”
She opened her eyes wide. “What do you mean? Is it far away?”
“Well, not exactly…”
“He didn’t ask you to keep it a secret, did he? Is that what this is about?”
That wasn’t exactly the truth, but, if you thought about it the right way, it wasn’t far from the truth. After all, the only people who knew about Vision were Mitsuru and Wataru.
“Yes, he did.”
“Well, we can’t leave him alone. He’ll die! When Mitsuru says he’s going to do something, he really means it. The last time he was already crawling up the fence on the roof’s edge when they stopped him. If the concierge had come a moment later…”
“Um, did Mitsuru call in absent today?”
The change in subject was so abrupt that for a moment Mitsuru’s aunt merely blinked. “Huh?”
“Did he call in absent to school?”
“Well, yes. This morning when I saw his note, I called his teacher and told him he would be absent today. I didn’t want there to be any commotion at school.”
Now that was odd. She didn’t want to cause a commotion at school? Wouldn’t that be the first thing she would want, as his guardian? Wouldn’t it be normal to call the school and ask for help?
“Did you call the school after that?”
“No, I didn’t, why?”
So she hadn’t heard anything about Kenji’s gang, though Wataru wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
The phone rang.
The phone was sitting in the far corner of the living room. It was a large unit, with a personal fax machine attached to it. Mitsuru’s aunt got up from the sofa to pick it up.
Wataru’s vision wavered, and he had a sudden feeling of dread. The summer before, he had gone with his father to a large art museum and seen the painting Cypress Trees by Vincent van Gogh. It was a bright, pretty painting, but he remembered being struck by the sky the most. It was filled with strange and crooked swirls. When he left the museum later that day, those swirls still turned behind Wataru’s eyes. When he looked up at the real sky, it seemed like it was spinning. And when he got on the train, the handrails were spinning. Everything was spinning! That night, when his dad took him to a restaurant for dinner, he was still obsessed with that van Gogh painting—he could barely eat a thing. That’s how it felt right now. If he looked out the window, at the sky, maybe he would see those swirls—a churning, swirling energy, flowing into everything, filling the world.
Mitsuru’s aunt seemed to be clinging tighter and tighter to the receiver as she spoke.
Wataru began to worry that maybe, by talking about school, he had tripped a flag.
In role-playing games and adventure games, the story typically followed a set course. Usually, you would have to ask a particular person a predetermined question to advance to the next stage of the story. Programmers set up flags to keep track of which of these turning points the player had passed. Once a flag was up, you were free to go on, but sometimes you could get stuck in the same part of a game for weeks, unable to find the event that would trigger the flag, scratching your head without a clue how to proceed.
That’s what Wataru’s conversation just now with Mitsuru’s aunt had felt like. Wataru knew things and she knew things that neither of them were telling each other. They were talking, but the story wasn’t going anywhere…until Wataru, unwittingly, said whatever the key word was that she had been waiting for. It had set off a flag. They were going to the next stage.
Mitsuru’s aunt hung up the phone. She looked pale. “Three kids in the sixth grade are missing,” she said, her voice trembling. Before Wataru could even nod, she ran over to him and grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. “Why didn’t you tell me? Wataru, you knew, didn’t you? Kenji and his friends were stalking Mitsuru—that’s why you came looking for him when you heard they had gone missing, isn’t it? What if Mitsuru did something to them? Well? Why don’t you say something? Answer me!” she shouted, then shoved Wataru away. She covered her face with her hands and slumped to the ground. Wataru felt dizzy, but not on account of the shaking. It was the swirling behind his eyes, the swirling in his heart.
What if Mitsuru did something to them?
It was one of the first questions out of her mouth—and she had sounded terrified. Wataru didn’t think she was worried about Mitsuru, either. She was worried about Kenji.
Who would think that?!
Did she know he could use magic? Did she know he could chant incantations and summon monsters to harm his enemies? She must. How else would she get the idea that Mitsuru could do anything, three to one, against Kenji’s gang. What do you know, Ms. Ashikawa?
“There were a lot of television reporters at school,” Wataru said in a quiet voice. “A lot of helicopters too. One of the girls in class told us that on the news, they were saying two of Kenji’s friends had been found. They were alive, but it was weird…”
Mitsuru’s aunt looked at him through her fingers. “Weird?”
“They couldn’t remember anything about the night before.”
Mitsuru’s aunt dropped her hands and stood. “Well, Mitsuru can’t do anything like that.” She spoke in a flat, even tone, as though she had resigned herself to some fate already and was just waiting for the pieces to fall into place. “But if the television crews were there—then I’m afraid he’s finished. They’ll find out he ran away, and they’ll come asking questions about his family.”
“His family?”
Mitsuru’s aunt merely shook her head. “I-I don’t know what to do.”
“Ms. Ashikawa…”
She began to cry. “You’re the same age as Mitsuru, right? Eleven?”
“Yeah?”
Wataru felt like crying too. He felt so sad, so sorry for her. She had seemed so perfect, so adult. Now it was like he could see her falling apart, just like Kaori Daimatsu must have. What if she became like her, a delicate, broken thing?
“How old do I look?” she asked, and then answered her own question. “I’m twenty-three. I graduated from college last year, and I just started working at my first job. I’ve only lived twice as long as you and Mitsuru. I’m no grown-up. I can’t—I can’t deal with all this.”
She walked over to the phone. “I have to tell the school,” she said. Then she looked at him. “Wataru, thank you for coming. You should probably go home.”
By early afternoon, the news of Kenji’s disappearance had gone national. Wataru recognized the buildings in the television coverage of his school, despite the fact that they tried to blur out the school’s name. He could even pick out some of his classmates walking home.
Wataru’s mom had heard about the incident the same way Mitsuru’s mom had, via the PTA emergency phone network. After that call, the phone had rung several times, mostly calls from worried friends and relatives who had seen the news. His mom told Grandma in Odawara, and Grandma in Chiba, that yes, Wataru was safe at home, and there was nothing to worry about. He got a little scraped up in a fall on the way home. Yes, he ran back from school scared when he heard the news.
There was a call from Wataru’s teacher, who said that Wataru had forgotten to pick up his report card and that he would mail it to them the next day. He wasn’t angry that Wataru had left at all. Apparently, there had been a big panic at the school. That ambulance Wataru heard while running to Mitsuru’s apartment complex had been going to pick up a girl from Wataru’s class who had fainted. Several sixth-graders had passed out too, until they ran out of ambulances and had to call in help from fire departments in the neighboring wards.
Wataru’s mom had tended to his scrapes (thankfully, his front teeth hadn’t been broken) and made him chicken rice for lunch. He could barely swallow it. Even though she had basically kicked him out, Wataru couldn’t help but think about Mitsuru’s young, lovely, sad aunt, all alone in her apartment. She didn’t have anyone to make her a bowl of chicken rice. He wondered if Mitsuru’s uncle (the one in America) was her brother. Maybe he was still overseas. She would have no one to turn to, no one to come running to her aid.
The afternoon news confirmed that sixth-grader “K” was still missing, and now there were further reports that fifth-grader “M” from the same school had also been missing since that morning. The newscaster added that M had left a note, and thus it was unclear whether his disappearance was linked in any significant way to K’s situation.
Wataru’s mom spent the afternoon glued to the television, eating lunch during commercial breaks. When the phone rang it was Katchan’s mother. She was asking for Wataru’s dad to come help the fire department’s search and rescue team.
His mom politely explained that her husband was going to be late at work and couldn’t come home. Mrs. Komura replied that any time would be fine—they would be out searching until quite late. She was speaking so loudly that Wataru could pick up her words from across the room.
“Of course, if they manage to find him before nightfall, there won’t be a need,” Mrs. Komura said, sounding as jovial as ever. “That Kenji was a real troublemaker. I’m sure he got mixed up with some street gang and had the sense knocked into him, that’s all.”
His mom apologized a few more times, then hung up and returned to the television. She seemed lost in thought.
“You father isn’t calling, is he?” she muttered suddenly.
“He just hasn’t seen the news, I bet,” Wataru offered.
“He says they have a television in their company cafeteria.”
“Then he doesn’t know it’s my school. They’ve been avoiding saying it.”
His mom was silent. Wataru kept quiet too. The news stations continued talking about it, and the variety programs were already being replaced by live feeds from the school. Unfortunately, there was no new information.
Sometime around four, while Wataru was lying in his bed, resting, the doorbell rang. Thinking it was Wataru’s homeroom teacher come to pay a visit, his mother took off her apron and straightened out her hair before running to answer the door.
But the unexpected guest was Sanae’s mom. Wataru knew her from having seen Sanae and her together several times at the mall and the nearby supermarket. Wataru had been nervous around her at first—she wasn’t just the mother of a classmate, she was the mother of a girl—but Sanae’s mom was the friendly sort, and it had been easy to talk to her when they met.
“I heard from my daughter that Wataru wasn’t feeling well and thought I’d drop by for a visit. She wanted to come too, but with all the commotion in town I thought it best to keep her at home.” She looked over at Wataru who had emerged from his bedroom to say hello.
“Oh,” his mom said, “I’m sorry—Wataru’s fine.”
“But look at those scrapes! And is that a bump on your head, poor child! Were you sleeping? You should go back and lie down, sweetie.”
Kuniko quickly shuffled Wataru back to his room, handing him the melon Sanae’s mom brought as a get-well-soon gift. Wataru sensed the vibe in the room almost immediately. They were going to talk about something he wasn’t supposed to hear.
Of course, Wataru pressed his ear to the closed door of his room and began eavesdropping in earnest.
“Mrs. Mitani, actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about,” Sanae’s mom began. “Your son goes to the same cram school as one of the missing kids, right. That Ashikawa boy?”
Wataru jumped. They were talking about Mitsuru.
“That’s right,” he heard his mother answer.
“I hear he’s quite a good student, and handsome to boot.”
“I’ve never met him, actually. He’s never come over to our place.”
“Oh, is that so? Sanae seemed to think he and your son were friends. Perhaps she was mistaken. Well, silly me, I thought that, if they were friends, you might know something about him. That’s why I came.”
“Know something about him? Such as?”
Sanae’s mother’s voice suddenly got quieter and more intense. “Well, I’m not one to spread bad rumors, but you see, my husband noticed something a while back. Up until now we had kept it to ourselves, seeing as how it had nothing to do with the children.”
What had they noticed about Mitsuru? In Wataru’s head, the image of Mitsuru’s aunt crying repeated over and over. They’ll come asking questions about his family. What had she meant by that?
“Four years ago, there was this horrible incident at an apartment building in Kawasaki, you see. A company man, age thirty, killed his wife and her lover, then committed suicide. Well, it just so happens that this man’s last name was Ashikawa, and they had a son in the first grade.”
Wataru’s mom was silent. Wataru held his breath.
“They had another child, a baby girl—she was only two or so. The father killed her along with her mother. I suppose he couldn’t bear to leave the child behind with her mother gone.”
Sanae’s mom continued in an excited whisper. “Now, the story went that Mr. Ashikawa discovered his wife’s lover was coming to their house while he was away at work. So one day he came home at lunchtime and caught them in the act. He killed the three of them on the spot. And, after that, he waited in the apartment for the son to get back from school. He was going to kill him…”
“Please, stop this at once,” Wataru heard his mom say loudly. “I don’t want to hear this story anymore.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Sanae’s mother replied, “but I’m not just making idle chatter here, you know.” She continued. “You see, the neighbors noticed something was wrong, and before the son came home, the husband escaped. He was on the run for a few days until he turned up someplace—Shizuoka, I think it was—dead. He had thrown himself into the sea.”
Wataru’s body froze. Was the boy Mitsuru Ashikawa? Was he the lone survivor?
Hearing no further protest from Kuniko, Sanae’s mother went on. “Now the Ashikawa boy in our school was living overseas for a while, but before that he lived in Kawasaki, and he’s not living with his parents now—when Sanae told us that, my husband and I knew he had to be the one. We wished the best for him then—really, we did. But with all the goings-on today, it’s starting to sound like the Ashikawa boy is tied up with Kenji’s disappearance somehow.”
“They don’t know that for sure,” Wataru’s mother said. “He could have just run away from home.”
“Well, I wish it were a simple coincidence too, but I’m starting to think it’s not.”
“But…”
“So I talked to my husband. Of course, the school must have known about the Ashikawa boy’s past from the beginning, right? They knew and they didn’t tell us, and now look what’s happened. Well, we think they should tell the PTA, they owe it to us. Other parents might have put two and two together by now too.”
Wataru’s mother was quiet for a while, then she finally asked in a weak voice, “And you wanted to talk to me why?”
“Well, when Sanae said your boy was friends with the Ashikawa boy, I thought maybe you had noticed something too, so I came to talk to you first. Of course, it sounds like they aren’t friends at all. I’m afraid I’ve made quite a mistake.”
“I’ve never heard Wataru talk about the Ashikawa boy. I’m sorry.”
“No, no, I owe you an apology.” Wataru heard the sound of a chair sliding. “I’m sorry to have taken up your time. It’s just, it didn’t seem like the sort of thing one could talk about on the phone, and you live so close. I’m sorry. I’m off to the school. Good night, Mrs. Mitani.”
Sanae’s mother was halfway out the door when the phone rang again. His mother picked it up. Then, after a few tense words, she hung up. Wataru heard her walk over and knock on his door.
“Wataru?”
Wataru opened the door and looked up at his mother. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t find the words.
“They found the missing sixth-grader. They found Kenji Ishioka.”
He had been discovered lying down on the lawn behind his own house. Wataru’s heart thudded once in his chest, loudly.
“He was unharmed. Not a scratch. But something…apparently, something was wrong. He doesn’t respond when spoken to. I’m not sure this is the right way to describe this, but on the phone they were saying it was like his soul was missing.”
His soul…missing?
“But the two kids they found first are fine besides that amnesia. Maybe they’ll be able to learn more from them. Wataru, there’s been an emergency PTA meeting called for tonight, so I’ll be out. I want you to stay here, inside, okay? You should lie down. You look pale.”
His mother fretted over him a few moments, then picking up her bag, she walked outside and locked the door behind her. He could hear her calling someone on her cell phone, probably the next person on the emergency contact list.
Kenji had come back. His friends too—with only a little memory loss to show for it.
But not Kenji. He lost his soul.
No, he didn’t lose it. Balbylone ate it. That’s what it was, Mom. I know what happened. I was there.
And it was Mitsuru who did it. I know.
Mitsuru, the little boy who lost his mother and his baby sister when his dad went on a killing spree. Mitsuru Ashikawa, the little boy who’d been next in line to be murdered. Mitsuru Ashikawa, who tried to commit suicide.
Wataru curled up in a ball on the floor. He couldn’t control his shivering.
His whole body shook until the bookshelf behind him was rattling.
So long. Goodbye.
Wataru knew now why Ashikawa had gone to the other world. He didn’t have a place in this one. Vision was his home now.