A spray rose up from the rusty red pipe.
“Geez, that’s hot! It must have come straight from the source,” Izawa shouted, jumping back, her hand dripping wet. Even her hair, which was tied back with a black ribbon barrette, had gotten sprayed, steam rising from the strands.
“That’s what you get for shoving your hand straight in like that. You’re gonna get yourself burned,” Miwasaki said, his eyes scrunching up into a smile behind his glasses.
Miwasaki was around thirty, but he came off as very calm and composed for his age. Almost like a teacher leading a field trip.
“But the sign says hot springs.”
“There’s a footbath right over here.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?!”
Hot-spring water spouted from a pipe that stuck out of the stone wall bordering the gently sloping hill. The two began fooling around, splashing water at each other. I sighed.
“You two are supposed to be the senior agents here. We’re not here to have fun, remember?”
Izawa clucked her tongue softly. She was my senior by several years, having been with the department for five years already, but ever since I was assigned, I had spent far more time admonishing her than she had spent admonishing me. I shook my head and glanced up at the faraway sky, which was hemmed in by a profusion of leaves.
Japan in the middle of summer—it was the perfect, bucolic scene. The verdant trees looked even more rich and green beneath the rays of the sun, almost as if giving off a light of their own. Reddish-brown patches, the remainders of a trailing fence, were visible through the trees, with some old, abandoned railway tracks on the other side.
There must have been a railway station here long ago as well. A simple structure and roof still stood, just a few wooden boards across a steel frame, where a single train might have idled for hours. Directly underneath this roof sat a two-square-meter, wooden-framed footbath, which was spewing a steady stream of earthen-colored spring water.
“You’re too serious, Katagishi. Our main case is over, remember? Think of this as a half day and try to relax.”
Before Miwasaki and I could look away, Izawa removed her shoes and stockings, holding them up like a fish she had just caught. She placed her lily-white toes into the murk, sat down on the wooden frame, and began splashing the water with her feet.
“I don’t know how you can stick your feet in that stuff. Who knows what kind of weird germs are floating around in there?”
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s been taking care of this place for years.”
Izawa smiled, undeterred, and beckoned for us to join her.
“There’s no way I’m putting my feet in there,” I said, but it was tiring holding a conversation from so far away. I gave in and moved closer, staring down at whatever it was. Maybe it was dirt, or maybe it was the original color of the springs bubbling up inside the footbath.
“I was pretty upset when they asked us to look into another case. I don’t care if it was on our way back; we’re supposed to be done for the day. But you know what…” Izawa leaned back and stretched. “I don’t think there’s anything here. We’re basically just sightseeing at this point!”
“You might be right. Case or not, it’s only the occasional disappearance every few years. At this stage, it’s hard to know if there’s even an actual incursion involved.”
Miwasaki rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and checked the temperature of the water with his fingers.
“Apparently, we’ve sent out a few people over the years, but no one’s ever turned anything up. They’d probably have better luck solving things if they relied on the police like normal. You’ve never heard of this being like a suicide spot, have you, Katagishi?”
“No. But there’s too many disappearances for it to just be a coincidence,” I answered briefly, before looking away.
A makeshift sign fluttered on the links of the fence. It was made out of normal drawing paper, covered with vinyl to keep off the rain, and held together with packing tape. The words were written in marker and mostly worn away by the steam. It read, DUE TO DISRUPTION TO THE TRACK, THIS LINE TEMPORARILY ENDS HERE.
Behind the platform on the other side of the fence, I could see a mound of boulders and dirt atop the track. Farther back sat a yellow bulldozer and a stack of logs. There must have been a rockslide or something, and then later, maybe the track had been abandoned once construction funds ran out. A red pillar of some sort stuck out from the dirt. It looked like a torii arch.
“Wait. Do you guys see something over there?” Izawa said, leaning to the side and pointing toward the peak of one of the mountains.
“What?” I asked.
Peering in the direction that Izawa was pointing, I could make out something huge, white, and round poking out from between the green mountains. Looking closer, I realized that the round shape was chiseled with bumps and hollows, suggesting eyes, a nose, and lips. It was a humongous face.
“It’s a giant…,” I murmured.
Miwasaki laughed. “I’m pretty sure it’s just a huge Kannon statue. Wait, no, maybe not Kannon. It kind of resembles the Virgin Mary, doesn’t it?” he commented.
“Oh, I thought it was real,” Izawa said, plopping back down on the wooden frame, disappointed. The displaced image of her feet swayed back and forth in the spring water, which glittered underneath the light.
“Some cult used to have a building around here, didn’t they? I remember something about them having trouble with the locals, who were all against the place.”
“You mean the Silent Voice? The core members were supposedly all arrested on suspicion of fraud.”
“Yeah, them. Their headquarters were dismantled in a hurry, so maybe it’s some sort of statue or idol they left behind.”
Although massive, on closer inspection, the face was obviously a man-made object and a poorly made one at that. It looked like a wooden artist’s mannequin with a white cloth draped over its head, and it didn’t really resemble Kannon or the Holy Mother Mary that closely.
“Things generally don’t turn out great when someone brings a sham from outside into a place where there’s already an established faith…,” I muttered caustically.
Miwasaki pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and laughed.
“Well, they don’t call them incursions for nothing. Check it out, Izawa. It looks like the new kid is coming along fine all by himself, no thanks to us!”
“What’s that’s supposed to mean?!” Izawa said, furrowing her brow and laughing. I couldn’t help but laugh along with them. It was hard to play the tough guy while Miwasaki and Izawa were around.
Miwasaki pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket, and I followed suit. I lit my cigarette with the lighter Miwasaki handed over, before passing it back to him with a thank-you and blowing out the smoke. White clouds hung about the lush mountains.
“Finally managed to relax?”
I lifted my head in surprise at Miwasaki’s words.
“You’ve been on edge ever since we got here.”
I massaged away the lines between my brows, which I hadn’t even noticed until now, and sighed.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. Rokuhara can be a real slave driver sometimes. It’s probably hard to cut loose when you’re new and he’s got you working around the clock.”
“Tell me about it…”
“Did…Rokuhara say something to you?” Miwasaki stared at the remains of the abandoned train track as he spoke. “I can’t remember him ever asking us to check out another village on our way back like this before. You were talking to him about something afterward, too, right? Rokuhara can come off as cold sometimes, but he isn’t really like that.”
“Yeah, he’s always been that way.”
Miwasaki’s eyes flickered faintly in my direction behind his glasses. A bird cried softly overhead. The sound of bubbles rising and popping in the water and the wind shaking in the trees permeated the summer air.