Araki shrugged. He trusted Mitsuhiro on that, but still, it was probably better to place it somewhere less visible.
“Yes, the previous president also said that Mr. Hara enjoys drinking. But please don’t let him into the ritual hall intoxicated. As you know, falling would be very dangerous.”
“Ah, yes. I apologize. I’ll be mindful of that.”
“Drinking in the ritual hall itself isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes cups are exchanged during the ceremony, and sometimes the mi-keshi brings their own sake. However, you have to be sure to offer some to the gods. If only the mi-keshi gets drunk, the gods won’t come near them.”
“All right. Thanks for telling me. So, about the amulet…”
“I have it right here.”
Araki took a white envelope from his jacket pocket, shook it lightly, and dropped its contents into his palm. Sure enough, it was an amulet with “Tamai” embroidered on it.
“Your harvest offering,” Araki said, as Mitsuhiro started reach out to it.
“Oh, right.”
He felt a bit rebuked as he took his bag from the back seat, removing the envelope of bills from it. Handing it over was almost physically painful. It was an outrageous amount of money. But even so, when he exchanged it for the amulet, he suddenly felt a great sense of relief.
He put the amulet in his bag. It was expensive, yes, but now he believed his problems were behind him.
Araki put the envelope in his pocket with practiced ease, like he dealt in this kind of cash all the time.
“Now, about the ritual hall in the basement—do you think you could tell me the code for the door in the hallway? That way, if I find Yoshikazu Hara, I can take him there without any delays.”
He tried to present it as a favor to Araki, not a request for his own sake.
“Hmm… All right. But I’ll change the number once Mr. Hara is found, so please don’t try to go in after that.”
“Sure. Thank you very much.”
Araki told him the number, and Mitsuhiro made a note of it on his phone.
“Are you all right, Mr. Matsunaga?” Araki asked as he put the phone away. He was looking not so much at Mitsuhiro’s face as the cuts and bruises on it.
“It’s nothing serious.”
“No, I’m talking about curses. I know that it’s your job, but to be honest, I wouldn’t recommend continuing to be involved with the ritual hall. Even if you don’t get cursed, if you become too connected to the site, the previous president said that you could become its mi-keshi.”
Mitsuhiro was stunned by Araki’s matter-of-fact warning.
“Me? You mean instead of Yoshikazu Hara?”
“Yes. When I told the last president about you, he said you may wind up taking his place as mi-keshi.”
“You mean I’d have to stay in that hole for days on end?”
“You’d be lucky if that was all it was. Sometimes a human sacrifice is required.”
“A human sacrifice… You don’t, like, bury people in there, do you?”
Mitsuhiro gave Araki a joking smile. He couldn’t imagine such a thing happening in modern society. Araki was sounding like some yakuza thug from a bygone era.
But distressingly, Araki said nothing in response. After an uncomfortable silence, he changed the subject.
“As I mentioned earlier, if you ever see the deceased around you, please start keeping one of their belongings in your possession immediately. And if they continue to appear, please consult with me about it. I would…not recommend contacting our president or our company directly. As the manager, I will do my best to resolve any matters peacefully.”
Mitsuhiro wasn’t sure if Araki was making sense to him or not. But he seemed sincere, at least. So it was worth asking.
“What if…it’s not in reality? Just in a dream or something?”
“That would be more serious, actually. The heart is the center of a person’s spiritual barrier, so appearing in your dreams means they have penetrated that barrier. Have you experienced that?”
“No, I was just curious. I think the amulet you gave me will be enough.”
Araki pointed at Mitsuhiro’s bag. “Well, if it doesn’t work, I’m afraid you may need some more money soon, because the next step would be a full exorcism.”
“Right,” Mitsuhiro replied. He didn’t want to ask how much that would be. He knew he wouldn’t like the answer, and it might leave him completely hopeless. “Um, what about sprinkling salt or placing lucky charms around?”
Araki sighed at Mitsuhiro’s alternative proposals, a troubled look on his face. “If you make a mistake in setting up a barrier or performing the purification ritual, it could trap whatever’s inside, or even make them a permanent fixture. If so, you’d be far better off having done nothing at all. Either way, I hope you’ll consult with me first.”
“All right.”
“Well, I’d best be going now. Take care of yourself.”
Mitsuhiro felt like he was being treated like a terminal patient, but he simply replied, “Yes, thank you.” He watched Araki get out of his car and enter the construction site, the envelope of cash still in his pocket, and let out a sigh of neither relief nor regret. What Araki had said seemed logical enough, but at the same time it made no sense at all. It just felt like blackmail. That two-hundred-thousand-yen amulet was definitely in his case, though, so that was a relief, at least.
Regardless, he had to find Yoshikazu Hara. He couldn’t ever let himself become a replacement in that hole. The guy still had to be nearby, he told himself encouragingly, and as he reached for the parking brake, his phone rang from his pocket. Thinking Miyoko might be letting him know she’d been discharged, he took his hand off the brake and took out his phone.
It was his mother from over in Hachioji. It wasn’t like her to call on a weekday afternoon when she knew Mitsuhiro was at work. “No news is good news”—that was her motto in life.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Mitsuhiro? I’m sorry; you’re at work, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Well, that’s what I want to ask you, you know. Your in-laws called me up and said you were acting strange.”
“I’ve just been really busy. Miyoko isn’t feeling well, and I have some urgent work to handle.”
Mitsuhiro’s face stiffened with displeasure. Those sneaky bastards, getting his mother involved! He could barely resist calling his in-laws right away and telling those arrogant, unhelpful, selfish pricks that it was all their fault.
“Well, all right, but I had something strange happen here, too. I wasn’t sure whether to tell you about it or not…”
“What do you mean, something strange?”
“The grave was broken.”
“Huh?” Mitsuhiro exclaimed. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear. “What do you mean, the grave? Whose grave? Dad’s?”
“That’s right. Your father’s. The staff at the cemetery said that one corner of the gravestone suddenly made this loud cracking sound, and now a whole piece of it’s fallen off. They said they couldn’t just throw the piece out, so they sent it over here, and, um, it’s pretty big. They suggested we should hold another memorial service or purify the gravesite or something like that before we repair it, but really, I don’t know where to begin with that sort of thing.”
“What about the priest who came for the funeral?”
“I asked, and he said they don’t deal in grave maintenance. He said it’d be strange to hold a second memorial service after all this time. He suggested hiring a professional to repair it, but, I mean, is this our responsibility? It’s not an old gravestone, you know, and now it’s in two pieces. So I thought maybe your company might know someone who specializes in that kind of thing. When you guys finish a big building, you do purification rituals on the site, don’t you? Do you know any companies dealing in that?”