When the clock on the wall reached midnight, Saeki was curled up in a ball in the corner of his room with the lights out, hugging his knees and breathing softly in the darkness. He couldn’t stop shaking. He’d been like this since well before sunset, and he no longer knew if he was hot or cold, alive or dead.
The long hand of the clock moved forward another notch. As it did, it apparently moved into the perfect position to reflect the moonlight pouring through the window. It glittered white. The gleam caught the corner of his eye, and Saeki finally found his resolve. He stood up and went downstairs and to the garage. He picked up the trowel he kept there and a crowbar to pry the lid off the box, and then he went into the garden.
He had been waiting for the world to be submerged in darkness. He’d been afraid someone might look over the wall during the day and see what he was doing. But the longer he waited, the more his imagination had taken over, driving him half-insane. Overcome with terror, he had nearly passed out in the darkness, and before he knew it, he’d been curled up like that for more than six hours.
He passed the evergreens and came out in the clearing between the wall and the porch. Staring at the row of bamboo poles along the wall, he took another step forward. The back of his hand stung painfully, right where the girl’s nail had broken the skin the night before.
Saeki stood in front of the chest-high dry bamboo poles, the poles that connected to the girl’s coffin. His hand hurt so much he could have sworn it was bleeding.
First, he called out to the girl. She didn’t respond. Hands trembling, Saeki yanked the pole out of the ground and dropped it to one side. He brushed the straw aside, uncovering the hole where the pole had been.
He stabbed the tip of his trowel into the ground and began to dig.
He worked without light, to avoid attracting attention. The clouds that had covered the sky all day had been swept away by the wind. Like the night before, everything was bathed in the pale light of the moon. There were no sounds from the road beyond the wall, and he worked in almost total silence, the only sound coming from his trowel as it bit into the earth. He was still incredibly dizzy, his body weak like he was running a fever. As he dug, he remembered what the boy had said on the porch.
“It sounds like she had a pretty rough time of it, but she’s safe and sound now. I just spoke to her on the phone. I’m headed over there now—thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”
The boy had said all this before his tea was even cold, bowed his head, and then rose to leave.
Saeki had merely blinked at him, unable to parse the boy’s meaning. There was no way the girl could be aboveground.
But the boy had picked up his bag and headed toward the gate without seeming to notice Saeki’s confusion.
Saeki had stepped off the porch, slipped on his shoes, and followed after, through the trees.
“She’s … she came home … ?”
That had to be a lie. But he couldn’t stop himself from asking.
“Yes, she did. It sounded on the phone like she was still in a state of shock. But I wouldn’t worry; she’ll recover soon enough.”
The boy went through the gate, turning toward the park. Saeki stopped just outside the gate. He put one hand on the gatepost, supporting himself, and watched as the uniformed boy walked away.
The boy had stopped at the intersection not far from the gate, and he’d waved down the cross street. Someone Saeki couldn’t see must’ve been coming that way. Eventually, that person stepped onto the corner and stood next to the boy. It was a long-haired girl whom Saeki recognized at once.
He couldn’t believe his eyes. He stared at the girl’s face: even, beautiful features, pale skin. The girl he had buried alive. She was talking to the boy.
Was he dreaming? He was so dizzy that the houses and telephone poles were all bending. The road and walls were all moving like waves in a pond …
He’d glanced toward the bamboo poles where he’d buried the girl—and then he’d broken into a run. The moment he took his eyes off the duo at the corner, the boy had turned toward him. But all Saeki cared about was under those poles.
Saeki stood where he had buried the girl. He spoke to the poles that led into the coffin. There was no answer. No sound came from underground, and all he could see inside the poles was inky blackness, like dirty water.
The girl must have escaped.
No. Saeki dismissed the idea. The earth hadn’t been disturbed. So then … what the hell had he buried … ?
He called down the bamboo pole any number of times after the boy left, until it was dark. But she never once responded. No matter how hard he thought, Saeki couldn’t figure it out. Eventually, he decided there was nothing he could do except wait for dark and open the coffin lid.
In the moonlight, it was silent save for the sound of earth turning over. Saeki poured all his attention into the work. The black walls of forest stared down at him from either side. The damp night air made the scent of the evergreens all the stronger.
There was a white mist drifting through the trees, covering the garden. The trees were breathing. Saeki felt like this white mist was the breath of the trees he had planted.
He could feel the trowel stabbing into the ground, could feel the weight of the earth as he lifted it and tossed it aside, but he felt like he was trapped inside a nightmare. The repetitive, simple task he was performing didn’t help. He could no longer believe he really lived in the world; he was simply a human-shaped thing that had been trapped in the darkness for aeons, forced to turn over dirt for all eternity.
His hand hurt. He was sure the red scratches on the back of his hand harbored the girl’s curse.
What was it that lay buried under him? The deeper the hole, the less certain he was. Tears rolled down Saeki’s cheeks. With each scoop of earth, he had to wipe his eyes with his shoulders just to see. He was terrified of what lay underground. The embodiment of the sin he had committed lay there. He was sure it would be like a mirror, reflecting his inhuman inner nature.
He felt like he had been working forever, but then he finished at last. The wooden box he’d made had gradually appeared in the hole at the edge of the garden, surrounded by white mist and the scent of the earth, and bathed in the pale moonlight. The lid was still nailed shut. It didn’t appear as if it’d been opened. The thumb-sized holes in the lid were dark. The box terrified him. It was like some cold, otherworldly thing. Sobbing, Saeki pried open the lid with a crowbar.
The first thing that hit him was the smell of blood, so strong it nearly knocked him backward. Then he saw the uniform-clad girl in the box. She was lying on her back with her hands on her chest. Her face, the sides of the box, and the lid were all red. There was a deep pool of dark liquid in the bottom of the box.
It was blood, blood that had poured from the girl’s throat. In her hands was a mechanical pencil. Just as she’d said she would, she’d stabbed the pencil into her neck.
The blood must have sprayed out of her, coating the inside of the box. Saeki slapped his hands to his mouth, backing away from the hole. He needed to get away from her. He stumbled along the wall, collapsed on his knees near the evergreens, and threw up. But he hadn’t eaten a bite all day, and nothing came out but stomach acid.
“As you may have noticed, she was not Morino Yoru …”
As his shoulders shook with fear, Saeki heard a voice say those words. At first, he thought the voice came from inside his head, but it soon came again. It was the voice of the boy he’d met that day.
“Saeki, you only thought that she was Morino.”
He heard footsteps near him. Saeki looked up, and a figure appeared out of the mist. It stood in the trees, backlit by the moon, staring down at Saeki. He couldn’t see the figure’s face, but he knew it must be the boy.
Farther away came a different set of footsteps. There was someone else beyond the mist, through the evergreens. They walked right past Saeki, over to the coffin he had excavated. It was a tall, sturdy male, bigger than either Saeki or the boy. He appeared to be about the same age as the boy. Saeki saw his face in the moonlight, but he didn’t recognize him.
The man headed directly for the girl Saeki had buried but didn’t recognize. What was going on? He couldn’t understand. Was this real? Had he fallen asleep? He wasn’t sure. Saeki looked up at the boy and shook his head, demonstrating his confusion. Tears flowed down his cheeks.
“He’s another classmate. The girl you buried was his girlfriend. His name is—”
The boy said a name, a name Saeki knew.