Standing outside the shade cast by the trees, the sun beat down mercilessly on me. As if the sun might burn me away as “impure,” since by rights I was a creature who had departed the world of the living and wandered the darkness of the underworld. The instant this thought occurred to me—
The bright afternoon scene changed in an instant.
It felt as if I’d suddenly been thrust into a bizarre world flipped like a film negative. I squeezed my eyes shut reflexively and weakly shook my head.
“Look, see?”
I heard Mei’s voice. She had opened the sketchbook and was showing it to me, beckoning me into the shade of the trees.
“This drawing. See?”
She had sketched it in pencil. She had drawn the mansion and its surrounding scenery from this vantage point in neat strokes. As well as several tiny windows nearly on a level with the ground…
“Ah. This is quite a good drawing.”
I said exactly what I was feeling, but when I spoke, she chuckled.
“Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Ghost.”
Then, her voice sharpening slightly, she asked, “Don’t you sense anything when you look at this picture?”
“Like what?”
“Compare this drawing with how the building looks from here right now. It’s not a photo, so it’s not a perfect representation, but even so…”
I took another look at the mansion.
Compared to the drawing, weeds had grown tall in front of the entire building, no doubt because nothing had been tended since spring, giving it a wild look. In some places, the wall of the first floor and the lower windows were hidden in the shadows cast by the tall grasses…
Which is about all that I noticed.
“Those windows on the bottom there, are they skylights for the basement?” Mei asked, pointing.
“Oh yes, they are.”
“I’d like to take a look at the basement eventually.”
“That’s fine,” I answered, then shook my head. “But my body isn’t in there. I already searched it.”
“—I see.”
The sketchbook still open in her hands, Mei Misaki stepped out from the shade of the trees. She walked slowly closer to the building, then—
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing again. Turning to look back at me, where I still stood under the trees, she said, “That’s not in this picture from last year, either.”
She was pointing at a spot in front of the right end of the building. There was something half buried in the rampant weeds, some kind of white ornament.
“Oh…you’re right.”
A somewhat tall object about three feet in height…Looking closer, I saw it was the statue of an angel with both arms spread out, head thrown back and gazing upward.
“I don’t think this was here last year. When do you think it was put here?”
All I could offer was a faltering “I’m not sure.” I didn’t know. I had no memory of it.
It couldn’t be— At this point, a slight doubt lifted my head.
I had overlooked it up till now, but was it possible that my body was buried there? That the angel was a marker? But—
Together with Mei, we observed the ground around where the statue stood, but just like at the grave markers in the backyard, we couldn’t find any signs even hinting that a human body had been buried here in the time since spring.
3
Next, as Mei Misaki requested, we headed to the garage built next to the house. Once inside the dim interior, I felt strangely relieved. Perhaps the midday sunlight really didn’t suit ghosts after all.
When Mei walked up to a dirty station wagon and peered into the driver’s side window, I told her with a sigh, “I looked inside the car.
“I also looked in the backseat and in the trunk, and there was nothing suspicious about any of it. Of course, I also looked under the car…”
“When was the last time you were in this car?”
She asked the question as if speaking to herself, but I heard her and murmured, “I’m not sure.” I don’t know. I can’t remember.
“When you went over to Tsukiho’s, did you always use this car?”
This question I could answer: “Yes, I did. It was much too far to walk.”
“Did you let Sou ride in it very often?”
“Well…”
I dug sluggishly through my memories, then shook my head.
“Um, no. I hardly ever let anybody ride in it. When I was driving, it didn’t matter if it was Sou or Tsukiho…”
…I wonder why.
As soon as I asked the question of myself, I could see the answer.
“To be honest, I don’t think I liked being in the car. But I got a driver’s license and had a car because it seemed necessary, and I drove around like everyone else.”
“But you didn’t actually like it?”
“No. Basically, I think it was…yeah, I think I was scared. Very scared. Deep inside, I couldn’t help being scared all the time. Just being in the car was scary…So I didn’t like having anyone else in my car, either.”
“Is that—?”
Taking a step away from the driver’s side door, Mei Misaki narrowed her right eye.
“Is that because you would remember the bus accident eleven years ago?”
“Probably.” I nodded as I groped for memories like that. “Because it was a terrible accident.”
—Because it was a terrible accident.
“I could never forget that tragic scene.”
—I could never forget.
“People tried to tell me that was a special kind of ‘disaster.’ But car accidents happen even when you’re not linked to disasters like that.”
“…”
“It would be one thing if I were to get in an accident because of my own driving, but when I imagine someone else being in the car with me, I just…”
—If it’s just me dying, that’s okay.
—If it’s just me dying…
“…So.”
“So that’s why you didn’t want to let people ride with you?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmmm.”
Mei turned her back on the car.
“You’ve always had that limp, right, Mr. Sakaki?”
Again, she spoke as if to herself.
Then she walked around the garage for a little bit, checking the pegboard where the car keys hung and peering at shelves where all kinds of tools, various components, and junk with no obvious purpose were arrayed. As I watched her do this, I began to grow a bit annoyed.
“I’ve already looked in every corner of this place. My body isn’t here,” I said to hurry Mei up. “Isn’t that enough? If you want to look, let’s do it somewhere else…”
It was then that a strange noise sounded, scre-re-reee.
Scre-re-reee…crash!
I had barely thought, What is that? before—
A huge noise shook the darkness of the garage.
I didn’t know what was causing it.
Maybe the bag on Mei’s back had caught on a tool sticking out from one of the shelves? This thought wasn’t related to Mei’s movement, but rather to the fact that the shelves were extremely old and unsteady and may have chosen this moment to collapse. In either case—
The source of the noise was that a set of tall shelves up against the wall, along with the many objects arranged on it, had tumbled over.
“Aah!!”
Mei Misaki was trapped under the fallen shelves…
“No…”
I could see her delicate body. Being crushed without the least resistance…
“…This can’t be happening.”
The huge amount of dust swirling in the air was like a thick fog. My vision was obscured and I couldn’t tell what was going on. But soon enough—
The girl’s form resolved into visibility.
Mei had been right next to the shelves, but it appeared she had made a very near dodge. She had escaped the danger
of being trapped under the shelves, but she had been knocked to the floor by the momentum. And then, into the spot she now occupied—
The impact had caused the shovel, pickax, and other tools that had been propped up beside the shelves to fall in rapid succession. The sound, reverberating continuously, was both destructive and brutal. The dust that had been kicked up enveloped her prone form like a thick fog…
“A-are you okay?” I ran over to her in a panic. But—
She remained prone, unmoving.
Her backpack was caked in dust, obscuring its original color. Her cap had been knocked off and the point of the pickax was right next to her head. God, if that had been even an inch farther over…, I thought with a shudder—
“Are you okay?!” I shouted at her, wrenching out a grotesquely hoarse voice. “Hey! Mei…!”
I had run over to her, but now that I thought about it, what more could I possibly do? What could a ghost like me accomplish?
Help her get up?
Do first aid?
What could I possibly…Argggh, what should I do?!
I was maddeningly confused and frantic, feeling like I was going crazy. But that didn’t matter—
Mei Misaki moved.
She put both hands against the floor, then her knees…and slowly, under her own power, she got up.
“Oh…”
A sound of utmost relief escaped me.
“Are…you okay?”
“—Guess so.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
Mei stood and picked up her cap, then brushed the dirt from her clothes. When she saw the bandage around her right elbow had started to unwind, she frowned slightly and removed it entirely, then looked down at the shovel and pickax lying on the floor.
“Ugh. That’s pretty unsettling,” she muttered with a sigh. “But…well, I guess it’s a good thing we’re not in Yomiyama.”
4
Leaving the garage, again in accordance with Mei Misaki’s wishes, we went for a walk to the shore of Lake Minazuki.
“When I met you here last year, Mr. Sakaki—”
Mei stood on the bank. Her face, touched by sadness or anxiety, she turned to the rippling surface of the lake reflecting the brilliant sunlight.
“Something you said to me that day about my left eye…We talked about it recently, but I had also remembered it. It was a memorable conversation.”
“Oh…yes.”
“Your eye. That blue eye.”
Yes. That’s what I’d said that day.
“With that eye of yours, you might be seeing the same things I am…looking in the same direction.”
“When you said ‘the same things’ and ‘in the same direction,’ you were talking about death. Weren’t you?”
Mei watched me, then repeated, “Weren’t you?”
“Why do you think that?” I asked her in return.
She replied, “Because…that is the only thing my doll’s eye can see.”
“You can see death?”
“The color of it, yeah. So—”
She stopped speaking and raised her right hand slowly. She cupped her palm over her right eye.
“That’s why I said what I did that day. That if you were like me, I didn’t think that was a very good thing.”
That’s right. She had said that when we stood here on the shore that day. I had taken it in with a terribly odd feeling. I…
“…Your body.”
Mei turned to face the lake.
“It could be in there.”
“In the lake?”
The possibility had occurred to me, too, to be honest.
“Why do you think that?”
“Here seemed more likely—more appropriate somehow—than the ocean.”
“More appropriate?”
“This lake is half-dead, right? So it just seems somehow…right.”
On the dead floor of this brackish lake, in which nothing living existed.
“But…that would mean…”
“It might float to the top eventually, or it might not. Do you want to know for sure? Do you want to see if it’s there?”
“What…”
“You’re a ghost, so we’re not talking about anything too hard here. Though the thought of a living person diving down there to look would be kind of daunting.”
When she explained, I realized, Oh, that’s what she means—and yet I didn’t move.
In essence, all I needed to do was leave the relic of life that stood here now and take only my consciousness of “myself” (my soul?) below the water.
I didn’t have the first idea how I was supposed to do that, though. I suppose that as a ghost, I was too imprisoned by this relic of life, too bound up with it.
I turned my eyes away from the surface of the lake and shook my head limply. Through my mind flashed—
The voices from that night (What are you doing…? Teruya?) again.
Awakening once again (…Stop it).
As if seeping out into my consciousness (…Don’t worry about it).
Yes—this one must be Tsukiho’s (You can’t…Don’t do it!). And in answer came my own voice (Don’t worry about it…) (It’s…too late for me)…
When I tried to grasp at the meaning in their words, the voices faded away as if fleeing from me. What emerged to take their place was—
My own face reflected in the mirror on the verge of death.
The movement of my trembling lips. And my own faint voice.
Saying “tsu” and “ki.”
That was— As I had decided earlier, I must have been trying to say “Tsukiho.” Had my strength given out before I could speak the “ho,” despite managing to say “tsu” and “ki”? Or perhaps…
Was there another possibility?
Was there no chance I had been trying to say something else?
I tried to think it through, aware that my emotions verged on the frantic.
For example—
Yes, for example, the name of this lake. Lake Minazuki…Minazuki-ko.
I had only moved my lips for the first two syllables “mi” and “na,” not managing to speak them aloud, and had only said “zu” and “ki.” “Zu” could have sounded like “tsu.” The last syllable was “ko,” which had the same vowel sound as “ho.” And that matched the shape my lips had ended in.
Minazuki-ko…Lake Minazuki.
But why would I have needed to say the name of this lake right before I died? No. I guess the theory is wrong.
In which case, it must have been…
“What’s wrong?”
The question from Mei Misaki slowly brought me back to my senses.
“Did you just remember something new?”
“Oh…no,” I answered, but then all at once…
(…here)
I heard another voice from somewhere. Fragments of words.
(At least…here)
What was this?
I had heard a voice like this before once…
(…in this house)
…Tsukiho?
So this was Tsukiho again. But even given that—
When was it…and what had been going on?
Utterly confused, I had fallen silent. Glancing at me, Mei Misaki said, “Let’s go.”
“Oh, um…where are we going next?”
“Inside the house,” she replied, her tone suggesting she might as well add, “obviously,” then turned her back on the lake. “We’re going to search the haunted house.”
Sketch 7
But aside from all this talk about religion and whatever a ghost is, I…
What?
I…When a person dies, they can connect in some way with everyone. I get that feeling.
Who is “everyone”?
I mean everyone who died before them.
They die and then connect? By going to heaven or hell?
No, that’s not what I mean.
…
Do you know about the col
lective unconscious?
Ummm…what is that?
Some psychologist came up with it, but it’s a concept saying that the unconscious in the deepest parts of a person’s spirit might be linked in something like a “sea of the unconscious” shared by all peoples.
Wow.
I don’t think that’s correct in those terms, but…I somehow feel like when people die, they all melt into this “sea” kind of thing. And maybe in there, everyone is connected.
So then, when I die, I’ll be able to see my dad there?
You won’t see him, you’ll connect with him. You’ll connect and, how should I put it? Your souls will become one…
1
We went around to the back entrance and entered the house, then headed for the grand entry.
It was the middle of the day, but due to its large size and lack of windows, the whole foyer was dim.
After sweeping her eyes around the room, Mei Misaki took quiet steps up to the mirror that hung on the wall. Tilting her head slightly to one side, she stared at the mirror, then turned around to look at me and asked, “Where did you fall?”
“There.”
I pointed at the floor. Not quite six feet in front of the mirror.
“I was lying on my back and turned my face toward the mirror…”
My limbs bent at bizarre angles. My forehead and cheeks covered with the blood streaming from somewhere on my head. A pool of blood gradually spreading over the floor…The horror of that night came vividly back to me.
Mei nodded cursorily and took a deliberate step toward the spot I’d indicated. Then she looked up.
“So around there in the second-floor corridor. Where the railing was broken.”
“Right.”
“It really is pretty high up. You really could die from that if you weren’t lucky.” She gave another cursory nod, then continued. “Also—according to the story you told me the other day, you were trying to say something right before you died. Do you remember what it might have been?”
I told her the unadorned facts.
The movements of my own lips that I had seen at the time. My own voice that I had heard at the time. As well as my thoughts from earlier on the shore as to what it might have meant.
Another Episode S / 0 Page 10