NOW, ONLY FIVE DAYS remained of my summer vacation. On my way home from cram school, I decided to make a little detour. I bought some fireworks, took the train to the bus stop, and by the time I arrived at the abandoned airfield, the sun had already set. The sky’s brightness had left for the day and had turned a deep shape of blue. The summer constellations shone down on the runway on me where I stood—sparkler in one hand, lighter in the other.
Once I ignited the sparkler, the tip quickly swelled up into that familiar molten drop, and sparks began to fly.
As humans, we instinctively associated the dark of night with death. Our lives were just a flicker in the dark, after all—a tiny light that would surely fade soon enough, but we prayed would continue to shine with each passing breath. Perhaps that was why we found fireworks so compelling, so innately beautiful.
Before long, the sparkling grew fiercer, and the voices of the insects went silent. I could feel the flow of time slowing to a crawl once more. I could tell that she would be here before long, and sure enough, just as I thought that, she called my name.
“Fancy seeing you here, Tomoya-kun.”
I didn’t know exactly how long she was standing there in front of me—but the way she was doing so made it feel like she had been there all along and I simply couldn’t see her before. I let go of my sparkler, knowing full well that it would remain suspended in midair for as long as time was stopped.
“You’re looking as ready to die as always, I see,” she observed, sounding almost disappointed in me.
“Glad to see you’re looking well, Ayane-san,” I said, shrugging it off.
“Pretty poor choice of words to describe a dead person, don’t you think?”
“It’s just a casual greeting,” I said back. “No need to fixate on it.”
As always, there was an air of fragile ephemerality about her—like a gentle breeze could make her vanish like mist in the wind. Like she was a mirage, almost, because even though I could see her right here in front of me, it felt as if she were actually somewhere far, far away.
“So, what brings you here this evening?” she asked me.
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” I replied. “And I’ve got a proposition for you that I think you might be interested in.”
“Oh really?”
“Ever heard of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Ayane-san?”
“Is that the one with the headless horseman?” she asked.
“You got it.”
It was an old American fairy tale that had seen several adaptations over the past couple of centuries. It was about a haunted forest glen by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and the ghost of a decapitated soldier on horseback was said to roam there.
“I think I saw a movie based on it once.”
“You remember how the horseman’s riding around for eternity in search of his severed head, then, I take it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ayane said. “What about it?”
“Well, I was just thinking that sounds an awful lot like your situation, is all.”
“So, what—you think I’m gonna be roaming around this city for eternity in search of my lost body?”
“I don’t know. Are you?” I asked.
“I mean, I definitely was at first. But like I told you last time, I gave up the search. Because even if I found it, it’s not like I could do anything about it.”
“Maybe you couldn’t. But I certainly could—as your one ally who’s teetering right on the border between life and death.”
Perhaps the whole reason she started appearing before people as the so-called Summer Ghost was because she was waiting for someone to come along who could help her find her body. Someone not yet incorporeal who might listen to her plight.
“We can have you remove my soul from my body again, like you did last time, and then go searching underground,” I continued. “Once we find the suitcase, I can go back into my body and alert the police to its location. Or I can go there and dig it up myself if I have to.”
“You’d do that for me, Tomoya-kun?” she asked.
“I mean, unless you rather I stayed out of it, that is.”
“No, no! I’d be so grateful, actually.”
This came as a relief to hear; ever since Aoi and Ryo pointed out that there was a good chance she wasn’t looking for any help finding her body, I was a little concerned that perhaps I’d be overstepping some boundaries with this little proposal.
“But why would you go to all that trouble for my sake?” asked Ayane. “It’s not like there’s anything in it for you.”
“Just killing time until I die, really. But I guess that’s all life is in general, isn’t it?”
“Y’know, for a high school kid, you’re quite the little smart aleck,” she said. Then, her expression took a serious shift, and she extended her right hand out to me. Her slender arm almost looked painted, impressionist, with its ghostly form threatening to melt into the background at any moment. “Well, thank you, Tomoya-kun. So…when would you like to get started?”
“Right now, if possible. Gotta make sure we find it before summer ends.”
And with that, we shook on it. The moment her fingers touched mine, my field of vision went out of alignment—I assumed this meant my soul was now dislodged from my body. Ayane took me by the hand and pulled me all the way out, dragging me up along with her into the sky. She turned and looked back at me as we rose higher and higher into the ether—and the look on her face was one of genuine exhilaration. I was so glad I mustered up the courage to suggest doing this.
Leaving my body behind on the ground, we soared through the abandoned outskirts and went back toward the residential part of town where streetlamps and window lights spread out before us like glimmers of gold.
Really, though—where could her body be buried? I tried to think if there was any way we could narrow down our search area a bit. There were railway tracks running back and forth like stitches, sewing one neighborhood together with the next. Lines from several different rail companies passed through this area, and she and I looked down at the tracks.
“Do you remember hearing any trains while you were being buried?” I asked.
“Actually, yes,” she said. “They were pretty loud, in fact. Even through the suitcase.”
“What kind of sound did it make? Any characteristic motor sounds or anything that stuck in your mind?”
“No, not particularly… It just sounded like a regular train to me. Maybe if I were a train fanatic, I’d be able to tell you more and we could narrow our options down a bit, but I’m not, sadly. All I remember is the vague sound of trains passing by.”
“Did you hear any railway crossing bells?”
“Well… Now that you mention it, I guess I didn’t.”