When school let out for the day, I met my classmate Morino in front of the station. There was a big bus terminal nearby and a square with fountains and flower beds. There were also a number of benches and a number of people sitting on them, killing time.
Morino was sitting on one of those benches, away from the road, in the shade of some bushes. She would always read when she had time—but not today. Her book lay closed next to her on the bench.
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.