“Someone connected to both myself and Rokuhara disappeared from this village.”
There was no particular reason for me to tell them what Rokuhara and I had spoken about, but I found myself sharing much more than I needed to. Maybe Miwasaki’s strong Kansai accent had softened me up.
“I see.”
Though Miwasaki’s answer was blunt, his tone of voice was gentle. I chewed quietly on the filter of my cigarette.
“Me too.”
The voice had come from the direction of the footbath.
“My younger brother. We were about ten years apart, and my parents were divorced, so our last names were different. He disappeared from this village at the start of the year.”
Izawa extended her legs stiffly, resting her feet on the opposite end of the wooden frame.
“He was a college student. ‘Everyone else is heading home for the winter holidays,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got nowhere to go, so I thought I might use that time to get some fieldwork done.’ I told him to just stay with me, but he said he had already gotten a ticket for the overnight bus. ‘I’ll come see you in spring instead,’ he said. And that was the last I heard from him. Although I thought we were close enough that he could talk to me if something had been bothering him.”
Miwasaki and I pursed our lips. I remembered the list of names I had seen in the case file of people who had disappeared. Mahito Usuzumi, twenty-one years old. Izawa had removed her black ribbon barrettes at this point and was wringing out her wet hair. I had never heard a single pessimistic or self-pitying word come out of her mouth before. But she had chosen this line of work knowing full well the risks involved. She must have had as good of a reason for doing so as I did. Except, unlike me, she was better at keeping those feelings to herself. I don’t think I managed to smile for a long while after Misaki disappeared. It was only after teaming up with Izawa and Miwasaki that I found myself remembering how to do so.
Beside me stood a light-blue bench, faded almost to white, nearly leaning against the fence. The words on the ad printed on the bench had probably been for some sort of pharmaceutical or supplement, but they were almost completely illegible now. I stubbed my cigarette out in the standing tin ashtray, which lurched to the side, and glanced toward the sky. The idol loomed tall, the top of its head almost touching the white clouds. Somehow, it seemed slightly closer than before. Noticing my gaze, Miwasaki turned to stare as well.
“Those Silent Voice people were supposed to be greedy bastards, but they must have been sticklers for detail, because they called in all sorts of bigwig miracle workers and psychics,” Miwasaki said as he lit up another cigarette. The smoke collided with the frames of his glasses, meandering off to the side before wafting away. “There are all sorts of shrines and temples around Japan. But they didn’t just get priests and spiritualists. From what I was told, they even attracted people possessed by fox spirits, ghosts, familiars, that sort of thing.”
“Told? By who?”
“My mother,” Miwasaki said, smiling impassively. “She was one of their followers. She even brought me along to a meeting one time. We came all the way by highway bus from out west. This was just around when rumors about the Silent Voice were really starting to pick up steam. Someone came looking for help, saying they were cursed by some sort of awful thing, but after the guru laid hands on their head, they said they felt ‘lighter.’ It was probably all a show, though, with a planted shill.”
Miwasaki spoke calmly, finishing by blowing out a puff of smoke, as if to feign nonchalance.
“I guess we’ve all got reasons for being here…,” I muttered.
“Obviously,” Izawa shot back. “Do you really think any of us would run ourselves ragged all over the country like this, exposing ourselves to who knows what, if we didn’t have our reasons?”
Izawa wiped her feet off with a small towel from her bag. Bending her knee, she began slipping her toes back into her stockings. Miwasaki and I looked away.
“Do you think there are organizations like us in other nations, too?”
“Of course. America, China, and also the Soviets. I wonder if Germany has separate ones for East and West? I bet they do.”
“Who knows?”
“Say…,” Miwasaki muttered, staring off in a different direction. “Hasn’t that statue gotten closer?”
So it hadn’t been my imagination after all.
“Where? Where?”
Izawa shoved her feet into her pumps, steam still rising beneath her, and joined us, staring as well.
“Has it gotten closer, or has it gotten bigger? See, look at the head.”
The idol’s hazy silhouette had grown to about double in size. But how could that be? I peered closer, thinking it must have been a trick of the light, until I realized there was actually some sort of black mist clinging around the back of the statue’s head. There were eyes in the mist. Far more distinct than the eyes carved into the statue.
“Is that…a human face…?”
It was a pitch-black face. It resembled a baby, the way it clung to the idol’s neck and stared at us. The mist was layered, and the face carved into it was riddled with deep folds and wrinkles, like an old person’s.
“What is that? Maybe we should contact Rokuhara.”
“It…could be the god of this region…”
I stared. The black mist wasn’t moving.
“Are there any stories here about a god in this area?”
“There are. Nothing too detailed—it seems to be your standard guardian kami. But if I remember correctly, its name was…” Izawa placed her hand on her chin as she spoke. “…The Unknown God.”
The eyes inside the black mist blinked. I couldn’t believe what I had seen. But the god had turned toward us, closed its wrinkled eyelids, and then opened them again. Staring at the two of us. At Miwasaki and me.
“Katagishi, is something wrong?”
Turning at the sound of Miwasaki’s voice, I saw him standing nearby, staring at me with concern. I directed my eyes forward again, but nothing had changed. It was the same poorly carved white statue that I had seen earlier.
“No, it’s nothing…”
“You’re probably just tired,” Miwasaki said, stubbing his cigarette butt out in the standing red tin ashtray with a grimace. “Anyway, it doesn’t look like there’s anything here after all. We’ll have to tell Rokuhara we came up empty-handed.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
White clouds drifted across the blue sky. The only blemish on the otherwise peaceful surroundings were the remains of an abandoned railway track. In all other respects, it was an unremarkable scene. The Japanese countryside in summer. There must have been some sort of plaza here where the station had once stood. I spotted a two-square-meter, wooden-framed footbath nearby, gurgling with earthen-colored spring water.
“How long do you think it’s been since anyone’s cared for this thing? I can’t imagine people wanting to use it.”
“Just think of all the strange germs that must be swimming around in there.”
Glancing down, I saw two wet stripes soaking a corner of the frame, as if someone had recently set their wet feet across it. A black ribbon barrette lay on the ground nearby. There was no dirt on it.
“I guess some of the locals still use it after all.”
“You’d make yourself sick if you stuck your feet in that.”
Miwasaki had a point.
“Welp, we might as well head back.”
I turned on my heel and, together with Miwasaki, began hiking back down the hill we had just climbed. The chirping of a cicada caused me to lift my head. A section of the green mountainside had turned white, as if balding, the idol from earlier peeking out its head.