by Otsuichi
Morino was leaning forward, her head down and her face hidden behind her hair, which acted like a veil.
As I approached, she raised her head and gazed at me. Her skin was pale as porcelain, untouched by the sun. There was a small mole just under her left eye. Her features were as lifeless as a doll’s. All she had to do was stop moving, and she could easily work as a mannequin.
She pointed silently at the ground. There was some dirt at her feet, on the white paving stones. When I looked closer, I saw that it was moving.
Ants were taking apart a butterfly and carrying it away. In the ants’ jaws, a butterfly wing stood up like a yacht sail, casting a shadow on the stones. Morino had been staring fixedly at that.
There was no particular reason why we arranged to meet here. It would have been equally convenient to leave school together, but Morino was a little too well-known. The way she looked and acted, and the rumors that swirled around her, meant that people often turned to look as she went past. She stood out, and I didn’t want to be seen in her company too often.
But Morino never worried about anyone around her, treating everyone like so much static. It was as if her nerves that were responsible for worrying about what people thought had burned out long ago. Or perhaps Morino simply didn’t notice how much attention she attracted. She could be a little oblivious sometimes.
“Let’s go,” she said, standing up and walking away.
I headed in the same direction. She had promised to guide me to a used bookshop she frequented.
“It’s a very small shop. I’m the only customer.”
When I’d asked the name, she’d told me—but I’d never heard of it. She had given a general description of the shop’s location, but that had not helped much either. So I had had her draw a map on the board—but the lines she had drawn resembled no place on Earth and were impossible to parse. And as she’d added yet another line of chalk, she’d been at a loss to explain how the bookstore had come to be constructed in the middle of a river. Therefore, we’d agreed that she would take me there directly.
As we walked, the shops gave way to rows of houses. The sky above was clear, and the sun beat down on our backs. The road ran straight ahead of us, middle-class homes on either side of us. Morino strode forward unwaveringly; she must’ve walked this way often.
“Have you heard about the pet kidnappings?” I asked.
“Pet kidnappings?” she echoed. Apparently she had not.
As we walked, I explained. Neighbors of ours had noticed their pet dog was missing that morning, and I’d heard my parents talking about it at breakfast.
“Not the first time,” my mother had murmured. I always watched the news, paying close attention to any strange cases, but my mother knew more about the local gossip.
According to her, about twice a week—on Wednesday and Saturday mornings—people had been discovering the animals they kept outdoors were missing, meaning that the animals had been stolen late Tuesday and Friday nights. All the stolen pets had been dogs. As the rumors spread, more and more people began keeping their dogs inside at night.
Morino listened with obvious fascination. When I’d told her everything I knew, she asked, “Anything else?” I shook my head, and she began to mull it over.
I was a little surprised that pet kidnappings were a source of interest to her. She had never once mentioned dogs, cats, or even hamsters, so I’d assumed she had little affection for animals.
“What does the kidnapper do with those things?”
“Those things?”
“You know, the stinky things with four legs that make a lot of noise.”
Did she mean the dogs?
Morino stared into the distance in front of her, muttering, “I can’t understand why anyone would gather a bunch of those things together. Is he training some sort of army? Baffling.”
It sounded as though she were talking to herself, so I didn’t respond.
“Wait,” she said, suddenly stopping dead in her tracks.
I stopped as well.
There was still a fair amount of ground ahead of us before the road ended in a cross street. I looked at her, waiting for some explanation for our abrupt halt.
“Quiet,” she said, holding up one finger.
Apparently, her feelers were so attentive right now that just my looking at her was enough to draw that response. I could see her ears perking up, trying to catch a sound.
I couldn’t hear any unusual noises—just a dog barking somewhere. Otherwise, it was an ordinary, quiet afternoon. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my back.
“Nope, we can’t go any farther in this direction,” she declared.
I looked ahead of us. There didn’t appear to be any construction blocking our way, and an old man on a bicycle was even pedaling past us.
“So much for the bookstore. This road used to work …”
I asked about her reasoning, but she only shook her head ruefully in response. Then she began heading back the way we had come.
Morino had a strong tendency to follow her own instincts, regardless of what anyone else said to her. She didn’t blend in with the rest of the class and paid no attention to anything people said to her. She spent the bulk of her time alone, without expression, so for her to look so upset and defeated … it must’ve been something significant.
I glanced down the road again. There were houses on either side of the street, and just inside a gate up ahead, I could see a doghouse—a brand-new one. Had they just bought a dog? I could barely make out the sound of the dog breathing inside. I listened closely for other sounds, never dwelling on the dog at all.
It took me a long time to work it out.
In that time, Morino had quickly placed a good twenty yards between us. I turned to follow her, but she had stopped again, raising one hand to signal me.
“Danger! We can proceed no farther.” Gazing directly ahead, she bit her lip. “We’re surrounded,” she moaned, tension in her voice.
A little girl with a big dog was walking toward us.
The dog was a golden retriever with beautiful fur. Holding a leash attached to its collar was a short, thin girl, probably in the third grade, with hair down to her shoulders, which shook with each step.
As she passed us, her dog met my eye, and as it walked, I could see my own reflection bobbing up and down in the dog’s eyes—dark-black, wise eyes. They stared up at me as if sucking me in.
Then my reflection vanished from its eyes; the dog had looked away from me to gaze up at the girl.
The girl and dog passed us by, turning into a nearby house, one story with a red roof.
“I’m home,” I heard the girl call out. The golden retriever went in the front door with her. There was no doghouse in the yard, so it must’ve lived inside.
When the girl and the dog were gone, Morino peeled herself off the wall and began walking away as if nothing had happened. I assumed she would have something to say for herself, but she said nothing. Her expression and manner were just like always, so I knew dealing with such circumstances must have been something of a daily ritual for her.
“I had no idea this road was so fraught with danger,” Morino said bitterly.
I asked if it was possible to get to the bookshop using some other road, but apparently that would involve a rather extensive detour. Morino had already abandoned the idea of taking me there.
Following along after her, I thought about the missing dogs again. Why twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday nights? What fate lay in store for the kidnapped dogs?
Morino and I found strange cases—and the people involved in them—darkly fascinating. Tragic human death ought to have torn our hearts in two—deaths so unfair that they made people want to scream. But we cut those articles out of newspapers, looking down the deep, dark well at the hearts of the people involved.
Most people wouldn’t understand such interests—but it bewitched us like magic.
This time, it was not an especially strange case,
nothing more than some missing dogs. But it was happening very close to home. A small disturbance right next door was much more interesting than a huge fire in some other country.
“Are you at all curious to know who’s kidnapping those dogs?” I asked.
“If you find out, tell me,” she said without expression. I took this to mean that she was hiding her own reluctance to have anything to do with this case … or with dogs.
†
Yuka and I lived in the house with Mama, but Mama was never home. She left in the morning and came back late at night. During the day, only Yuka and I were at home.
I had been with Yuka since I was small. My brothers were taken away right after I was born, and I had been with Yuka alone ever since.
Yuka spent most of her time sprawled out in front of the TV. I would go over to her, lie down on the newspapers spread out on the floor, and rest my head on her back.
When we were bored with TV, we stood up and stretched. Yuka would wander around the kitchen and bathroom, and I would follow after, trying to keep up.
Then we would go for a walk. I liked walks—Yuka and I, walking together. There was a string tying us together during walks. If I started to go the wrong way, Yuka would frown at me.
Sometimes a stranger would come to the house, a big man Mama brought home with her. When he was in the house, the air smelled bad. The comfortable house where Yuka and I lived would vanish.
When he came in, he always patted my head, smiling at Mama as he did—but he never met my eye. When I felt his hand on my head, I always wanted to bite him.
Yuka and I hated him because he would always hit Yuka when Mama was out of the room.
When I first saw it, I thought I was imagining things. Mama had left for the kitchen, leaving Yuka and me alone with him.
Yuka was next to him when he’d suddenly jabbed her with his elbow. Yuka looked surprised, gazing up at him.
He smiled, leaned over, and whispered something to her.
I was watching from the corner and couldn’t hear what he said, but I could see Yuka’s expression change.
I felt a terror run through me. Yuka and I were sitting far apart, but deep down, our hearts were connected. I could feel her shock and confusion flowing into me.
Whenever Mama came back into the room, the man would stop whatever he’d been doing. Yuka would look at Mama anxiously, but Mama never noticed anything wrong.
Yuka looked to me for help, but all I could do was pace back and forth.
Every time he came over, his treatment of Yuka got worse. He even kicked her in the belly sometimes! Yuka would groan in pain and fall to the floor coughing, and I would run to her, putting myself between them, to the man’s great annoyance.
He always came over on the same nights of the week. Those nights, Yuka and I would always huddle in the corner to protect ourselves. The house always felt very sinister when he was around. We could never tell when he might open the door and come in a room, so Yuka was always too frightened to sleep.
Eventually, we could stand it no longer, and we began fleeing the house.
Yuka started making me kill animals after the man began visiting. She cried a lot after he began coming over, and her eyes had a new kind of darkness inside them. That darkness made me very sad.
ii
“We first noticed at eleven o’clock at night,” the young housewife explained as she clutched her sound-asleep child to her bosom. We’d exchanged a few pleasantries at the beginning of the conversation, and she’d mentioned that the child had been born only three months earlier.
“Before bed, my husband went to check on Pavlov, and he wasn’t in his house …” Pavlov was the name of their dog, which had gone missing on a Tuesday night two weeks ago. It was a purebred dog, but of a breed I’d never heard of before.
The housewife and I were facing each other in the front door of a small home of Western construction, which was not much more than a mile from my house.
On the way home from school, I’d decided to make inquiries at the homes where dogs had been kidnapped.
I’d explained to the woman that I worked for the school newspaper and was investigating the series of pet kidnappings that had been occurring in the neighborhood. When I suggested that my work might lead to the capture of the individual responsible, the housewife had become extremely cooperative.
“Thinking back on it, I remember Pavlov barking a lot around ten. But he often barked when people walked past, so we ignored it.”
“And that was the last time you heard him?” I asked.
She nodded.
From here, I could see a tiny yard to one side with an empty doghouse—a fairly large one, with a metal hook out front for attaching the dog’s leash.
“The kidnapper unhooked the leash and pulled the dog away?” I asked.
She shook her head. “They left the leash—and there was a half-eaten chicken nugget.”
The kidnapper must have dropped the chicken, the woman explained.
When I asked if the nugget had been store-bought, the woman was unsure but thought it had looked homemade.
The kidnapper had brought something a dog might like from home to tame the dog and then taken it away. Using a bit of chicken made the whole crime seem rather prosaic—a very common sort of crime, not at all related to professional dog thieves or evil spirits.
I bowed my head and pretended to be grateful for the woman’s help.
She looked sadly at the doghouse, remembering her beloved pet. “I hope you find out who did this.” Her voice was quiet, but there was murderous fury hidden within it.
When the child in her arms began to sniffle, I said goodbye and turned away. As I did, I realized the house across the street had a dog as well. Through the gate, I could see a black dog—a big dog, about half my height.
“Its name is Chocolate,” the housewife said from behind me.
I mentioned that I hadn’t noticed it was there.
“Yes, it almost never barks.”
Chocolate’s house was in a much more visible position than Pavlov’s—but the dog was so quiet that the kidnapper might have simply overlooked it.
I went home, where my sister, Sakura, and my mother were making dinner. My mother was hovering over the pot, stirring, while my sister chopped vegetables.
My sister was two years younger than me and getting ready for her high school entrance exams. She was normally in cram school at this time of day, but she said the school was closed today. Until the spring, she’d worn her hair long, but she’d cut it boyishly short over the summer.
Her personality was the exact opposite of mine, and she helped out around the house a lot. She could never turn down a request for help. For example, if my mother was sitting in front of the TV snacking and she turned toward my sister, clasping both hands together and saying, “Sakura, do the dishes for me?” Sakura would refuse at first.
“Aw, no! Do them yourself!”
But my mother would hang her head and look forlorn—as if it was the end of the world. The moment Sakura saw that, she was done for. She would look totally shocked and hurriedly splutter, “Okay, okay! Don’t cry!” as if she herself were about to.
Then Sakura would jump up and race into the kitchen. As soon as this transaction had been completed, my mother would return her attention to the TV and her senbei. I frequently wondered if Sakura knew how much of what my mother did was a performance. Was Sakura really that naïve? It seemed she was doomed to look after my parents in their old age.
Sakura had a very special talent—at least, that was how I viewed it, although she seemed to think it was more a curse. Most of the time, however, she appeared to be a very ordinary person.
“Did you go by the game center again?” my mother sighed when she saw me come in. I wasn’t a big fan of video games, but that was my usual excuse when I returned home late.
I sat down on a chair in the kitchen and watched them as they cooked. They operated in silent harmony. As my mother st
ir-fried vegetables, she could hold out one hand silently, and my sister would know exactly what she wanted, silently handing over the saltshaker. My mother would taste the stir-fry, and before she could even ask for mirin, my sister would be bringing it over.
They were both talking to me, so I responded appropriately. They laughed. Sakura laughed a little too hard and gasped for breath.
“Stop making us laugh and set the table. So what did the teacher do?” Sakura asked.
Apparently I had been talking about school. I would occasionally lose track of what I’d been talking about or why people around me were laughing. Everything I had to say to them could be conducted by reflex alone, and the stories were invariably improvised, made up on the spot. Strangely, this did not seem to create any discrepancies.
It must have looked like I was part of a warm and joyous family. My family seemed to think I was an outgoing boy—good at making people laugh but not much good at school.
But to me, there had been no conversation between me and my mother and sister. I forgot what we said as soon as it happened. It was as though I were sitting there in stony silence while everyone around me cracked up for no reason at all, as if I were living in some surreal dream.
“Kiri’s dog is still missing,” Sakura said, washing the cooking implements. My ears had been muffled, barely able to hear anything around me, but suddenly they were picking up every noise. “She was sure it would come home on its own, but …”
I asked for details.
Sakura explained that her classmate’s dog had vanished on Wednesday of last week. There were rumors the pet kidnapper had taken it.
“And when they found the dog missing, it seemed like they’d used a bit of sausage to nab it.”
“My,” my mother muttered, adding that she had forgotten to buy sausage at the store.
“What kind of dog? A big one?” I asked.
Sakura frowned at me, alarmed. Apparently, there was a look on my face I usually hid from my family.
“W-what?” I stammered, covering.