The splitting headache had receded slightly.
I realized that Miyaki was stroking my back now. I shook my head, which felt woozy, and stood back up. Accidentally glancing, I spotted the idol towering between bare branches that were as slender as needles. Those who attempted to make the unknown god’s existence known to others vanished. Somewhere. Did the god take them away to some place that was unknown? Did it make it so that no one could perceive those people any longer, just as I had been unable to remember Miwasaki and Izawa? Or did it do something even worse? Something beyond human comprehension?
“Misaki…”
I could still remember her name. The tear-shaped mole, which made her look sad even when she smiled. The hoarseness in her voice when she had whispered, “Do I really deserve to be happy?”
I wiped away my sweat and glared at the indistinct outline of the statue in the sky. It was fair enough to hide those who wished to be hidden, but what about those who didn’t…? Or— I suddenly felt a panic rise in my chest. What if Misaki had wanted to disappear?
“If—if—if…”
I shook my head, as if to dispel my fears.
“Miyaki, will you come with me?”
We weren’t going to be much of a match for a god that was capable of simply erasing people from existence, but we were better off together than we would be if we split up. Or at least, that was what I wanted to believe.
“Come with you? What does it look like I’ve been doing?! I just ran up this hill after you, didn’t I?” she said with an exasperated laugh.
I recognized that laugh. It was still familiar. Everything was all right.
“Where?” she asked.
“To Mount Fudaraku. To get to the bottom of whatever the Silent Voice was up to.”
Twilight set in, so the crumbling ruins appeared dim and dreamlike, as if in the process of dissolving into the dark.
As we progressed, picking our way between the items left behind by the people who had disappeared, the circle of light from my penlight shook like a frightened eye. Bare branches poked out like sword blades from in between the rusted iron bars.
“Now what do we do?”
I searched for a spot that seemed particularly rusted and then gave it a kick. The sound echoed across the mountain. On the third kick, a portion of the iron railing toppled over. A decrepit padlock and chain fell to the ground with a crunch. This had apparently been the gate.
“Some public servant you are.”
“You don’t have to be a public servant for breaking and entering to be illegal.”
There were more stairs past the collapsed section of railing, which led all the way up to the building. Miyaki appeared hazy in the dark. After checking that she was still with me, I began climbing the cracked stone steps.
I could hear the gravel biting into the soles of my shoes. The cries of birds occasionally rose up on the night wind. We soon arrived in front of the ivy-covered, Western-style building. The door to the entrance was leaning off its hinges, darkness bleeding out from within. I placed one hand on the thick wooden door and pushed it slowly open.
The smell of musk and damp leaves spilled out from within. Miyaki and I made eye contact and stepped inside.
The interior was desolate. It was not so much a room as a gaping rift between the peeling wooden boards and exposed earth below and the ceiling tile fragments that were scattered like mange overhead. Pews were piled up like barricades beneath the broken windows.
“A chapel?”
“Maybe.”
The edges of what stained glass remained in the windows were visible. The glass, which had been chromatic during the day, was the color of night now. Moonlight streamed through the missing patches of the rain-rotted ceiling. It dolefully illuminated a table and two chairs perched atop the sodden floor as if still waiting for guests. I could almost picture someone there now, turning toward us from one of the chairs. A chill ran down my spine.
“Well, everything looks normal here,” I said, half for my own benefit, but Miyaki’s voice answered me, ominous and tense.
“No, something’s strange…”
“Strange?”
“That table there—it’s too narrow. There’s a weird line down the middle. And there’s no backrest on the chairs.”
Examining it closer, I realized Miyaki was right. The table looked like it was about half the size it should have been, and the chairs, with their moldy cushions, were leaning crookedly to the side. It seemed as if they might have originally been affixed to a wall somewhere before being yanked free and plunked down here.
“Maybe they were meant for a confessional. Something placed inside a tight enclosure where you wouldn’t usually spend much time, so there wouldn’t be a need for a backrest. And there would be a screen across the table to separate the priest from the parishioners.”
“I don’t know…”
I was about to say that seemed like a stretch, but I soon spotted a wooden compartment, like an old-fashioned phone booth, sitting toward the rear of the chapel. It was decorated with Western-style engravings and looked like it was just large enough for two adult people to squeeze inside. Miyaki flashed me a victory pose.
“Well, I’m glad you’re having fun, at least,” I grumbled.
I began walking toward the booth, avoiding the light fixtures and wooden beams hanging down from the ceiling.
The confessional had double doors with a frame on top. The frame was decorated with a lily motif. I tentatively placed my hand on the doors. They opened without protest. A spider that was almost the size of my palm crawled out from inside, nearly making me scream.
“It looks empty.”
I flashed my light inside to investigate, discovering one section of the floor that was a different color than the rest. Unlike the rest of the floor, this patch was metal.
“A trapdoor?” Miyaki asked, peeking over my shoulder.
I squatted down and brushed away the dust. There was a knob or, at least, the suggestion of one. I hesitated for a moment before pinching it between my fingers and pulling as hard as I could. It was so heavy that I worried it was going to tear my fingernails loose, but the trapdoor did begin to open slowly. Once it opened all the way, the kickback almost caused me to fall on my backside, but Miyaki caught me by the shoulder and held me upright. The light, which I had set down on the floor, revealed a profound darkness within, as well as what seemed to be an endless set of stairs. It was an underground tunnel.
“Should we go down there?”
“We don’t have much of a choice.”
The nightmare we had seen in Rokuhara’s village was still fresh in my mind, but our hands here were tied. I pressed my palms against the wall on either side and ever so carefully began making my way down into the basement.
I extended my toes out in front of me, making contact with solid floor. We had reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Can you see anything?” Miyaki asked from behind me.
The texture of the wall down here felt dry and uncertain, like overlapping paper. Maybe it was some sort of partition or sliding door. My fingers encountered what felt like a light switch. I gave it a flick, doubting the power would still be on, but to my surprise, powerful light immediately assaulted my eyes. Once my eyes adjusted, I was left speechless by what I saw.