“Maybe we can get in around the back,” I said, signaling to Miyaki and making my way along an animal path that seemed to circle around the building. We proceeded through the woods, careful not to lose our footing in the mud below, but I couldn’t find any spots where the barrier was missing.
“What sort of religion was the Silent Voice? What was its deal?”
Miyaki climbed over a protruding boulder, breathing heavily.
“All these cults are the same in the end. It’s about money, and the rest is just window dressing… But apparently, their shtick had to do with malicious possession and some sort of salvation or other.”
“Silent Voice is a strange name for a cult.”
“It was probably meant to mean something like ‘Be quiet and listen to the word of god.’”
“Isn’t there something like that in Christianity, too, about not taking god’s name in vain?”
A tendril of ivy that was heavy with brown berries jutted out into the path, hitting my cheek.
“They also have a thing about not worshipping false idols in this village. Do you think the two are related…?”
“It’s hard to say…”
I was also running short of breath. I had seen a lot of distorted gods in my career, ones which incorporated all different kinds of faiths, but something about this god seemed different. There wasn’t anything definitive enough to latch on to. It was like mist.
“Either way, the Silent Voice has been disbanded now,” I said, ending that line of conversation and quickening my pace.
The back of the idol was directly in front of us now. We must have just traveled halfway around the building.
“Can I ask you something strange?” Miyaki said from behind. “Your wife wasn’t a member of this cult, was she?”
I felt a shock, like a cold hard slap across my chest. “No,” I said simply. Miyaki didn’t say anything more.
“But I have wondered before,” I admitted at last, unable to bear the silence or the sound of the wind screaming in the trees. “The remnants of the Silent Voice were still around back when Misaki supposedly disappeared from this place, so I had to wonder if she had turned to them. Something had been bothering her…”
The sun pierced through the remaining pieces of stained glass, casting rainbow shadows at our feet.
“I was going through her drawers after she disappeared and turned up a prescription from a psychotherapist. She’d been hallucinating, apparently, but she never told me. And she was from that strange village, too. Maybe she’d been seeing things. Something she knew I wouldn’t believe.”
I hadn’t noticed anything at the time. But what about now? Supposedly, this was where Misaki had disappeared from. Then why hadn’t I remembered all this while we were at the village where Misaki was born?
“So you think she may have turned to religion?”
“She probably assumed they would be more help than I would be.”
I meant for it to sound like a joke, but my voice came out raspy instead.
“Do you think her disappearance was your fault?” Miyaki’s footsteps sounded louder than before. She had approached from behind and was standing next to me now. “You can’t ask a person why once they’re already gone. It’s easier to blame yourself than it is to investigate the truth. But that’s no different than assigning any other random explanation to a mystery just to make yourself feel better.”
Miyaki was staring straight at me.
“You can be a real ball-breaker sometimes, you know that?” I said.
This time, I did a much better job of laughing. I thought we had been matching each other’s pace, but at some point, Miyaki had moved out ahead of me.
“Can I ask you something strange, too?” I asked.
“What is it?”
A thought had been on my mind ever since we had been locked underground in Misaki’s village. That wasn’t the first time Miyaki had come to my rescue in a tight spot, but something about that time had been different.
“When we were underground in that village and I was cornered by the accursed poison god, do you remember how you jumped out in front of me? When you did that, the god acted like it was scared. You’re not, like, from some long line of psychics or something, are you?”
Miyaki blinked for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“Psychic? Me?”
Based on how loudly Miyaki was laughing, she clearly thought I had just said something ridiculous.
“Don’t laugh; that’s how it seemed…”
“Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree, mister.”
“Does that mean you were just bluffing?”
“No…not exactly.”
Miyaki was still smiling, but her face tensed a bit.
“What happened, then?”
“That god feeds on people’s fears, remember? I don’t have any fears left, though. Not anymore.”
“Not anymore…?”
The tip of my shoe collided with something, nearly causing me to trip. Glancing down, I spotted a pink knapsack leaning against a root poking out of the ground. I crouched down and brushed the dirt off its nylon surface. There was a picture of some sort of cartoon green rabbit on the surface.”
“What is this? It looks pretty old.”
“Well, it can’t be that old.”
Miyaki crouched down next to me.
“That character is from a kid’s cartoon that just came out this spring. Lots of adults thought the character was cute and purchased merchandise for themselves, too, though.”
That meant that at the very least, this item must have been lost here sometime this year. This wasn’t the kind of mountain to attract hikers, however. And why would someone forget an entire bag like this? Maybe one of the locals had fallen while they were up here and needed to be lifted, and the bag had been left behind. That was possible. But it also didn’t seem like anyone from the area would bring so much stuff with them that they would need to carry a knapsack in the first place. Maybe someone had been surprised by a bear or a wild dog, then tossed their bag in panic before running. That explanation seemed the most likely.
At some point, we had made our way back in front of the stonework stairs again. We had walked all the way around the building.
“Maybe we should give up for now. We don’t want to deal with any wild animals,” I said.
Miyaki suddenly froze. Knock on wood, I thought. But it wasn’t an animal after all. I gasped as well.
I had failed to notice when we first arrived, but several patches of colors that didn’t belong were entangled among the bare brown trees. A sky-blue jacket hanging off one of the thick branches. A dark-scarlet handbag stuffed into a hollow. An orange sweater covered with dry leaves and nearly gray from mold. A pair of black-and-white-checkered gingham sneakers wedged in between the stripped roots.
Evidence that people had been here was strewn all around us. The idol loomed overhead, above the trees, staring down at the lost carcasses of these items.