Chapter 2

A white ball arced through a brilliant blue sky that spread like spilled paint. Dressed in gym clothes for fourth-period PE, the students in the school yard watched it soar high through the air, yelling to one another about where it would land. It looked set to fall to the right, and if the right fielder Mifuyu Mikura caught it, they’d get the third out. But she simply gazed upward and didn’t even raise her gloved hand, instead standing straight as a pole. The ball bounced next to her, jolting Mifuyu from her stupor and causing her to belatedly chase it in a frenzy. Her classmates’ cries of “Come on!” and “What are you doing?!” pierced her back. By the time she finally grabbed the ball, the bell marking the end of class had started ringing. At lunch, the students moved about freely, chatting, digging into their sandwiches and box lunches, erupting into fits of laughter. The sounds of people running down hallways and playfully bumping into doors and walls filled the school with a ruckus that turned the words of someone standing a meter away into unintelligible noise. The rambunctious energy of teenagers seemed ready to break the classrooms apart. Mifuyu vented to her usual lunch companions as she bit into the yakisoba bread she’d bought at a convenience store on the way to school. “I’d care more if it was a club, but it’s just gym class,” she grumbled. “Forget about it. Punch yelled at me for not swinging the bat hard enough,” said her classmate Hirokawa, who was sitting across from her. Hirokawa was stuffing her cheeks with the meatballs from her lunch. By “Punch,” she meant Mr. Kikuchida, the PE teacher and their substitute homeroom teacher. A stellar gymnast in his school days, Mr. Kikuchida often pointed to his small frame and proclaimed that he might be small but he packed a punch, so the students nicknamed him Punch. These days, Mifuyu ate lunch with Hirokawa and Minoda. She’d been in school for about a month, and they had started eating lunch together because seat assignments were alphabetic and their last names were close to one another in the Japanese alphabet. Recently, though, Mifuyu was starting to think that it was time to break away from this group. No one wanted to be the first to leave, but the group could easily change after the long weekend that started the next day. Hirokawa adored manga and had recently found a classmate whom she would probably get along with better. She was tired of talking about PE class and leaned over to join a neighboring group’s discussion over some fictional character neither Mifuyu nor Minoda had ever heard of. Minoda, for her part, seemed a little uncomfortable spending time with these two, who disliked sports. She had been playing volleyball since elementary school, her tall, slender back curving like a bow when she sat her desk. She glanced away nervously when she noticed Mifuyu looking at her, and Mifuyu wondered why. “What’s up? Is something wrong?” she asked Minoda. “It’s just… During softball, why were you spacing out like that? Something on your mind?” “Oh yeah, well…” Now it was Mifuyu’s turn to look away. Her mind had been elsewhere during softball because something had consumed her thoughts. Had it not, she would have at least pretended to try to catch the ball in order to avoid any nagging. But she hadn’t considered that at the time. These days, she couldn’t stop thinking about the bizarre events she’d experienced the previous week. Mikura Hall, that palace of books built by her grandfather the book collector. She kept thinking about the thief stealing some books, how that had triggered a “book curse” that trapped the entire town inside a story, and her pursuit of the thief. Mifuyu was trying to convince herself that it had all been a dream, because when she had opened her backpack after returning home, The Brothers of the Lush Village—the book she’d had with her and the root of the curse—had inexplicably vanished. After a full night’s rest, she began to feel certain that the world she’d entered had just been a dream. She stopped by Mikura Hall the following morning and talked with her aunt Hirune, who was actually awake for once, but Hirune didn’t mention anything. “Thanks for the yakitori.” She’d said it so casually, too. Then she asked about Ayumu; after that, Mifuyu felt embarrassed even thinking about telling her that “some white-haired girl with dog ears appeared and made me read a book, then the town went all weird. The night sky was a giant black cat and it rained pearls.” She wasn’t a little girl who could amuse people by telling them about her dreams from the night before, or at least, that’s what she thought. In the end, she just told her aunt that she would pick something up for her today again. But Mifuyu still found herself pondering those distinctly clear memories. As she watched the white ball trace an arc in the air, Mifuyu had been reminded of Mashiro transforming into a white dog, and that image stopped her in her tracks. After rescuing that black cat from the silver pole high above the clouds in that world, Mifuyu had slipped and tumbled head over heels. But Mashiro, morphed into a dog, raced down to save her, so Mifuyu escaped unharmed. She wouldn’t die if she fell in a dream, but either way, when she closed her eyes, she could recall that beautiful white figure as though it was real. She vividly remembered the texture of that soft fur in her hands. Who was that girl? Was she some phantom that Mifuyu had created? One who only appeared in her dreams? Those thoughts tumbled through her head during her afternoon classes. As she walked down the hallway following the homeroom bell, she felt something like a folder tap the back of her head. Irritated, she turned around to see Punch, aka Mr. Kikuchida. Mifuyu secretly thought, What a jerk. He thinks he can do that because I’m a student, but she simply answered, “Yes?” Punch’s white teeth flashed across his sunburned face, his smile bursting with so much energy that she practically heard it buzzing. Like fluorescent lights glaring down from close range. “You’re a real space cadet today. You mean to tell me that your dad teaches judo, and you still don’t know how to focus?” Mind your own business. I didn’t choose to have a father who practices judo. Mifuyu scratched the back of her head where she had just been hit, messing up her hair. “How’s your dad doing?” Punch asked. “Fine as always.” “I’m going to visit him tomorrow. He’s in the hospital across from Yomunaga Station, right?” “Ew, why?” “…Don’t say ‘ew.’ Teachers have feelings, too, you know. Ayumu has done a lot for the judo club, and besides, I’ll be in Yomunaga tomorrow anyway.” As the head instructor of a dojo, Ayumu worked to give back to the community, offering kids free judo lessons once a month and giving seminars to local high school judo clubs, including Mifuyu’s. So she understood why Mr. Kikuchida, a PE teacher, would want to visit him in the hospital, and Mifuyu frantically considered ways to avoid going to the hospital with him if he asked. After all, the next day was the first day of a long weekend, and she didn’t want to see teachers outside school. As she racked her brain for excuses, he seemed to read her mind, because he put his hands on his hips in exasperation. “Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to join us. It’s just gonna be me and Mr. Miki. We’re both adults, so we know how to visit someone at a hospital. You enjoy your weekend.” “Oh… Wait, Mr. Miki, too?” “He said he needs to check out the Yomunaga Arts Hall in the morning. The man would get lost in his own house, so I’m going with him.” Mr. Miki taught Japanese and was the homeroom teacher for the class next door, but Mifuyu never interacted with him outside class. Almost a hundred and seventy centimeters tall with long, slicked-back hair and a pale face, he seemed completely lethargic, sighing unprovoked every ten minutes during class. His appearance and character were the polar opposite of Mr. Kikuchida’s—who was short, tanned, and had a buzz cut—but for whatever reason, they hit it off and spent a lot of time together. But something bothered her. Why were a Japanese teacher and a PE teacher going to the Arts Hall? And in Mifuyu’s town, too… Mifuyu went to school in Soba, the town next to Yomunaga, so they would normally use a building in Soba. Realizing this, Mr. Kikuchida said, “Right,” and nodded. “Mr. Miki runs the literary club. They’re doing a joint dramatic reading with Yomunaga High, and he’s going to scope out the venue.” That made sense. A collaboration with a local school would explain why these two would go to Yomunaga. But hearing the words literary club made Mifuyu’s insides immediately freeze. She stepped back, her body tingling. “Ah, I see. Um, well, have fun. I’m going home now! Feel free to visit Dad any time!” “Hey, wait! Tell your dad that me and Mr. Miki will drop by to see him probably first thing in the afternoon!” What a pain. But Mifuyu swallowed that thought and gingerly answered, “Will do!” as she headed toward the front door. Of all the things she wanted to avoid most in the world, the literary club was at the top of the list. Mikura Hall contained books from all times and places, but following a theft thirty years ago, her grandmother Tamaki had ordered it closed to the public and would only allow their family inside. So as a Mikura, Mifuyu had been approached on numerous occasions by used-book fanatics and bookworms looking to get access. Sometimes, they even tried to smooth-talk their way in. In one instance that stayed seared in her memory, she was just a first or second grader when she brought a lady who loved old books to Mikura Hall. Mifuyu just wanted to help a woman simply hoping to see the inside of Mikura Hall, but Tamaki, who was still alive at the time, ran over in alarm as the woman was removing her shoes in the entryway. She coldly chased the lady away before returning to scold Mifuyu so fiercely that Mifuyu burst into tears. “You foolish girl. That woman tricked you so easily. Why would you trust a stranger? Only trust a Mikura. And don’t forget—the books in this hall are worth more than your life.” After mercilessly unleashing her fury on her eight-year-old granddaughter, Tamaki walked back to the stacks on the second floor. Tears staining her puffy cheeks, Mifuyu stood alone in an entryway hall filled with the moldy scent of old books. She’d always had a hard time dealing with her stern, unforgiving grandmother, eventually growing to hate the elderly woman. That interaction was one reason why she distanced herself from all books. Ever since then, she stayed wary of anyone who used the name Mikura in a conversation. Some stranger had even recently asked her to join the school literary club—and if she hadn’t been careful, the girl might have taken advantage of her. Tamaki was no longer around, and Mifuyu didn’t have to do what she said anymore, but she was also tired of people trying to use her. She left school and boarded the train, crossing the river into Yomunaga. Picking up some cookies as a present at the small confectionery in front of the station, she headed toward the hospital, telling her father as he got ready for rehab that Mr. Miki and Punch would stop by the following afternoon. Ayumu scratched the thick stubble on his chin and smiled happily. “They don’t have to do that. I’ve been stuck with those two for ages. Could you bring some drinks and snacks for us tomorrow morning? Oh, and a book, too.” “I can bring snacks and drinks, but why a book? What about the ones you brought? You had five.” “I read them all. And the store here hardly has anything. The one I’m looking for is a translated novel. Wakaba probably has it. Please?” If Mifuyu was in Ayumu’s shoes, she would have just waited until she was out of the hospital, but she knew the nature of bookworms all too well. “I’m gonna add an entry to the encyclopedia of insects,” she said. “‘The bookworm: keeps a book it wants to read close at hand at all times.’” “That’s my daughter! That was pretty good.” “It was not! And you’re gonna give me money for the book.” Mifuyu took the note with the name of the book he wanted and three thousand yen for the book and snacks, stuffed some of her father’s laundry in her backpack, and left the hospital for the shopping district. She selected some delicious-looking, perfectly browned chive dumplings and Szechuan chicken in a thick leek sauce from the rows of dishes lined up in front of Koufukurou, the Chinese restaurant. The husband and wife owners had arrived in Japan ten years ago and were now quickly placing food into plastic bags under a bright-red banner waving in the breeze of a fan. “Any vegetables?” the wife asked Mifuyu. “No thanks. I’ll get some tomorrow.” The wife was dressed in her pink flower-pattern apron, and her eyes seemed to scold children who avoided vegetables; she added some shredded cabbage and pickled vegetables free of charge. Partway down the road home, Mifuyu crossed through one of Yomunaga’s key features, the booksellers quarter. More than just the large retailers, the area housed stylish stores run by individual owners, stores specializing in children’s books, small shops for leisurely reading, stores selling books connected to the adjacent expo hall, and many other bookstores that followed modern trends. However, things seemed a little different today. It was just past four in the afternoon, but the owner of the children’s bookstore was taking in the wagon parked in front of the store. Several bookstore employees in the expo hall were also hanging posters in the showroom window for an event by the suspense author Ansolv Dimistries, while customers came outside to ask for help ringing up purchases. Every shopkeeper looked flustered, and the customers seemed restless, too, soon leaving the stores. Only Books Mystery, which had been around since the 1930s, remained unchanged. The gray-haired owner, Kaname, smoked a cigarette in front of the store, as relaxed as ever. Mifuyu never really liked this skinny, hunched old man, but she asked, “What’s everyone doing?” Kaname pursed his wrinkled lips and exhaled some smoke. “Got reporters coming,” he said. “Same thing as always. They’ll be here tomorrow.” And with that, she understood. Yomunaga was known as the Town of Books; once or twice a year, some magazine or TV show would feature it in a report. Some people like Kaname cared about reporters as much as they cared about the weather, but others looked to take advantage of any opportunity to bring attention to their store and so tidied up in case they appeared on TV. Mifuyu thanked Kaname and continued down the curving road. She swung by Mikura Hall before finally heading toward her house. Heading to the apartment where she and her father lived required taking the road out of the booksellers quarter, going out onto a wide road, walking down the sloping hill away from Mikura Hall and rows of used bookstores, and continuing on past the dojo. At least twenty years old, the apartment complex consisted of two three-story, angled-roof buildings standing at attention like twins. Weeds and shrubs overran the grassy area surrounding the small parking lot, its current role as a home for stray cats a testament to Mifuyu and Ayumu’s black thumbs. The apartment’s original owner, the first landlord, was Tamaki, and Mifuyu had lived here since she was born. Her father, Ayumu, held the lease now, and between Mikura Hall and the dojo, he fell well behind on upkeep, as evidenced by the sagging gutters, sun-faded exterior walls that had been painted ages ago, and numerous black streaks running down the walls. Mifuyu opened the mailbox, which contained a flyer from a real estate agent looking to buy houses. Sighing, she tucked everything under her arm, gripped the decorated handrail she considered hopelessly outdated, and ascended the stairs. One might assume that the Mikura family had money because they owned Mikura Hall, but the reality was quite different. Preserving a personal library that didn’t generate income required funding—money to repair books, money to maintain the central building and annex, money for taxes. When her great-grandfather Kaichi, who built Mikura Hall, was alive, they covered these expenses by collecting entry fees and material provision fees and supplementing them with donations. But ever since Tamaki closed Mikura Hall, it earned nothing, and the family needed to allocate funds from other income sources. Her other relatives had cut all family ties to avoid dealing with Tamaki, Mikura Hall, and all its troubles. The only other properties her family owned were the apartment complex and the dojo. Rent from the apartments and fees from the dojo just covered their day-to-day expenses, education costs, and the funds required to maintain Mikura Hall. For ages, Mifuyu advocated for selling Mikura Hall and all the books inside. Doing that would free Ayumu from his caretaking duties, and Mifuyu wouldn’t have to concern herself with school expenses. To a new first-year high school student like her, not having to worry about life was the ultimate goal. Every time she brought it up, however, Ayumu would reply, “Okay, but then what happens to Aunt Hirune?” Unlocking the door to their second-floor apartment, Mifuyu turned on the lights in the hallway and living room. Announcing to no one that she was home, she felt the silence of the empty rooms was all the more profound, but she had been coming back to an empty apartment since elementary school, so it didn’t bother her much. She tossed her father’s laundry in the washing machine, cleaned her hands, walked into the kitchen while unbuttoning her jacket, and placed the food and mail on a dining room table cluttered with tissue boxes, newspapers, and remote controls. After changing into a T-shirt and sweatpants, she turned on the TV, microwaved some rice, poured boiling water into some instant seaweed soup, and sat down to eat her chive dumplings and chicken. The brightly colored studio set, the comedians she saw multiple times a day, the echoing laughter, the comedians’ banter, and the reactions from celebrities—she couldn’t pay attention to any of it. She had too many things on her mind and too much on her plate. Listlessly chewing the chicken, she counted the days on the fingers of her left hand. That strange dream had happened exactly one week ago. The girl who’d changed into a white dog, the thief who’d transformed into a fox. On top of that, a mountain of problems faced Mifuyu in the real world. The weekend had just started, and that was nice, but once it ended, she might need to find new people to eat lunch with—Hirokawa and Minoda would most likely do the same. She had to buy drinks and snacks for when her teachers visited her father, and a book, too. The apartment buildings sorely needed upkeep. Specifically, she needed to water the plants in the yard and call someone to fix the gutters. She had to talk with her dad about repainting the outside. And then there was a job. She wanted to do something to earn a little money. She couldn’t count all her worries on one hand. “And then there’s Aunt Hirune.” After buying the stuff for dinner, she had stopped by Mikura Hall to check on Hirune. But she hadn’t had the chance to talk to her. Mikura Hall stood wedged like a sandbank between two streets lined with old bookstores, and Hirune had been standing on the front landing talking with a young woman. Tall, the woman had tightly cropped hair and big, eye-catching earrings that resembled sea urchins. Wearing an orange T-shirt with a long, black pencil skirt and bright-white sneakers, she looked like she had stepped out of a chic magazine. This contrasted starkly against Aunt Hirune’s hair, which was held haphazardly with a hair clip; thick glasses, lint-covered gray sweater, and rubber sandals. Mifuyu would call the outfit, “Very comfortable, but one I’d hesitate even going to the convenience store in.” She couldn’t imagine a more unbalanced pair and figured that they must be struggling to find something to talk about. So Mifuyu had stepped forward to help her aunt—when Hirune laughed. The young woman must have said something funny, because Hirune broke into peals of laughter. Mifuyu grew annoyed seeing her laughing like that when she’d done all these things to help her. Before she knew it, Mifuyu had spun around and hurried off. She’d given all of Hirune’s food to Che, who was covering for her dad at the dojo. Even she wasn’t quite sure what had upset her so much about it. But irritation swirled incessantly inside her, and she flicked the TV off. The ticking of the wall clock’s second hand echoed around the silent room. Last night’s laundry hung in the living room and on the frame of the door to her father’s tatami room; Mifuyu had been unable to find the energy the previous day to fold it all and put it away. There was just too much to do. She ate the rest of the half-eaten dumpling, wolfed down some instant rice, and slurped some seaweed soup. “…It’d be nice to have someone I could ask for advice…,” she mumbled to herself before eating some more rice. Mifuyu woke the next morning to the sound of the timer on the rice cooker. Groggily opening its lid, she loaded some rice into a lunch box. She wasn’t getting ready for a picnic, though. She simply felt guilty for not bringing Hirune dinner the previous day and had decided to make up for it. She would pick up the book at Wakaba and then swing by Mikura Hall. If Hirune was awake, she’d ask her about that mysterious woman and what she’d been doing there. Repeating the plan to herself, she nestled a pickled plum and some soy-boiled seaweed deep in the center of the white rice. She got ready to leave as she let the rice cool to prevent it from spoiling. Dragging on a pair of black jeans and a green-and-white-striped polo shirt, she arranged her long hair into a ponytail in front of the mirror by the sink. She then removed a roll of bread from its bag and ate standing in the kitchen while sipping some barley tea—something her father would definitely have given her an earful about if he were there. Once the rice had cooled enough, she closed the lid to her lunch box. She then tucked the lunch box in the little striped bag that Ayumu had made with the clanking sewing machine, tied it tightly shut, put on her shoulder bag, and exited out the front door. Straddling the blue bicycle parked at the foot of the stairs, she pedaled away quickly toward her first stop, Wakaba. She raced down the gently sloping road, the tailwind fluttering the hem of her clothes. The voices of children and the sound of someone beating a futon rang out from the surrounding apartments and houses. Mifuyu glided by an abandoned pub and a supermarket with red banners proclaiming the day’s specials. She slowed down once she reached the arterial road, slipping down the lush green avenue to the main street. A little farther down the road stood the green sign for Wakaba, a bookstore her father frequented. Mifuyu hopped off her bicycle in front of the store and parked it in the dedicated space next to the shop. Walking through the automatic door, she saw new books filling a display for novels and essays from Japanese authors, with tags stating, Unbelievably moving, An absolute masterpiece, and other eye-catching phrases designed to reach out from the piles of books and lure over potential buyers. Magazines lined the right-hand side, comics filled the left, and hardcovers and paperbacks sat in the rear. The apron-clad shopkeeper was busy returning some bonus items that had fallen down from the display of how-to books running along the back wall. Books by foreign authors sat deep in the literature section, but new books were often placed on the display at the front. The book her dad had asked for was there, but it either had been selling well, or they hadn’t ordered enough, because a single copy lay toppled on its side. Even so, one of the employees must have been a fan of foreign literature, because the book’s tag read, Mysterious and amusing, with a hint of sorrow. It will touch your heart! Mifuyu picked up the book, careful not to knock the tag over. She might not like books, but she didn’t feel right ruining someone else’s hard work. Walking the book to the register, she recognized the employee behind the counter. Skinny and pale with a haircut in the shape of a mushroom, when viewed from far away, he looked like a thin shimeji mushroom. Stylish black glasses adorned his eyes, and he seemed like the type of person who would know a lot about underground authors. A nametag with HARUTA hung to the chest of his green apron. “Hello,” Mifuyu said with a quick nod. Haruta bowed lightly and took the book. Just then, someone loudly exclaimed, “Well, you see, when it comes to our sales,” from the other side of the counter. Curious, she looked in the direction of the voice and saw the owner of Wakaba, a slightly pudgy middle-aged man with scraggly hair like a well-worn scrubbing brush, talking to three people. Two of them wore business casual clothes, while the other looked like a photographer, endlessly snapping pictures with a DSLR camera. Mifuyu remembered that journalists were in town today to collect material for stories. “It’d be great if you did a piece on the shoplifting problem,” the owner of Wakaba told them. “Huh? You want something more upbeat? Come on, it’s been so bad that some stores have had to close.” Mifuyu was mindlessly watching the owner when Haruta said, “Um, your total…” “Oh, sorry.” She quickly paid, took the book, left the store, and headed toward Mikura Hall. Sunshine poured down from the expansive blue sky of early summer, shimmering off the green leaves of the giant ginkgo in front of Mikura Hall. The day was a little too hot to be invigorating. Mifuyu opened the iron gate to the yard and parked her bicycle in front of the flower bed, the light filtering through the ginkgo leaves to create a mesh pattern on the stepping stones as she crossed them. Just then, a gust of wind came from the direction of Mikura Hall. Sand and dust danced wildly, and the thick grass swayed. Mifuyu squinted and tried to cover her face with her arm, but the grains of sand stung her face and hands. The wind quickly abated; Mifuyu righted herself and walked up to the front door. She inserted her key, turned it, and pulled the doorknob—but the door thudded and would not open. “…What the?” She pulled on the door again to check that it really was locked, then inserted and turned her key again. This time, the door slid open. “I guess she forgot to lock the door.” The alarm above the door showed the same blue light as always. Just in case, Mifuyu yelled, “Aunt Hirune? I’m here!” and stepped inside. The hallway of Mikura Hall responded with silence, dust glittering as it danced in the thin rays of sunlight that poured through the tiny foyer windows. The resounding clicks of the grandfather clock’s pendulum made the silence all the more conspicuous. The rustling of her clothes sounded exaggerated as she removed her shoes, placed them in the shoe cubby, and stepped into the hall. “Aunt Hirune? You’re here, right?” The ceiling lights threw crystal-like patches of light on the ivory walls. The doors to the stacks on the first floor were shut, and nothing made a sound. She checked the shoe cubby and saw the rubber sandals that Hirune always wore. But something was different. The air felt off. Mifuyu’s heart stirred with a feeling that some hidden person was watching her, like when she played hide-and-seek. She walked down the hall and into the sunroom. In contrast to the dim light of the foyer, sunlight flooded through the large glass window that stretched from the first to second floor. A low table, chaise lounge, and a sofa sat there—remnants from when the general public was permitted—and in the middle of that scene, she saw Hirune. “…She’s asleep again.” Propped up on the sofa, Hirune snored gently. Mifuyu saw a thick ledger under her face, and she snatched it up without concern for her aunt to prevent her from drooling on it. Mifuyu heard Hirune’s head bounce following the loss of her pillow, but she continued snoring. Dumbfounded, Mifuyu gazed down at the ledger. It contained a list of every book in Mikura Hall arranged in alphabetic order, and it included the title, author, publisher, date of publication, edition, and more. Alphabetic thumb indexes like those in a dictionary ran down the right side. A thought struck her, and she flipped to B. Row upon row of entries filled both pages, and as she moved from Bo to Br, her hand stopped. The Brothers of the Lush Village was not listed. Her chest froze. Someone as detail-oriented as Hirune would never forget to include a book, which meant, at best, that the book wasn’t in Mikura Hall’s collection. Mifuyu had searched the internet but couldn’t find anything like it. So it had been a dream after all. Feeling the world lose a little of its luster, Mifuyu closed the thick ledger and tossed it casually onto the low table. Even the sound and vibrations from that seemed unable to rouse Hirune. She decided to just set down the lunch box with rice, then head to the hospital. But right as she pivoted toward the hallway, she noticed a slip of paper in Hirune’s hand. Convinced that everything that had transpired the previous week had been nothing but a dream and that this had to be a note of some kind, Mifuyu grabbed the piece of paper out of curiosity and slowly pulled it free. The strange design drawn in red ink reminded her of a talisman. “Oh.” Her heart hammered. Cramped letters of the same design as before described words that she could just read. “…‘Whoever steals this book shall be trapped inside a hard-boiled shell.’” The moment the words passed her lips, a wind suddenly blew in from somewhere and spun mischievously around her feet. It was the same as last week. Sweat moistened her palms, and she squeezed her hands into tight balls. “Mifuyu,” came a sudden voice. Mifuyu screamed and leaped backward. She saw a girl with shoulder-length white hair, a slightly large mouth, and an innocent face. “M-Mashiro.” As soon as that name left Mifuyu’s lips, she realized the whole thing had been real. That’s right—this girl really was here. She squeezed her eyes closed and opened them again to see if Mashiro was still there. She then scratched her palm; it hurt. “You remembered my name,” Mashiro said, grinning. “Well, you know… I thought that whole world had been a dream.” “A dream—you mean those things that humans have at night?” “What else would it be?!” She always says the weirdest things, Mifuyu thought with a chuckle. Mashiro looked genuinely confused. “Well, I don’t sleep,” she said. Then she glanced down at Hirune, who was passed out over the table. “She sure sleeps a lot, though.” Mifuyu worried she’d accidentally insulted Mashiro, who might’ve had a medical reason for why she didn’t sleep, but she couldn’t read the expression on Mashiro’s face. Plus, there was something odd about her clothes. Last time, she wore a high school uniform, but today, she was dressed in a white-and-green-striped polo shirt and black jeans, just like Mifuyu. “That outfit—are you trying to copy me?” “I sure am. But anyway, Mifuyu…” “Wh-what?” “Here.” Mashiro held out a book. The unassuming-looking black cover was actually quite intricate and shone sharply like snakeskin when the light struck it. White Gothic lettering spelled the words Black Book. “…A fitting title.” “Read it.” This was just like last time. Mifuyu had a bad feeling about this; she glared at Mashiro. “Don’t tell me you’re gonna ask me to find another thief.” “That’s right! You catch on fast, Mifuyu.” “Don’t get so excited about it.” “I’m just happy that you understood so quickly… Yes, there’s been another book theft. This time, it’s from the stacks on the first floor. The entertainment section. Light reading. Read it, Mifuyu. The book curse is already taking effect.” Mifuyu backed a couple steps away from Mashiro, who advanced like a friendly dog looking to rub its nose against someone they adored, but she accepted the book. Mashiro didn’t have dogs ears yet, but Mifuyu knew by now that she was no normal girl. Even though they had only met once, Mifuyu could relax more easily around her than with her classmates Hirokawa or Minoda, and their conversations flowed more smoothly. Mifuyu stroked the black book, her fingers tracing the rough material. “Wait a second. If I read this, then the world is gonna get all weird, right?” “The town will change, yes. But that was bound to happen the moment the thief stole the books. The town and the books are waiting for you, Mifuyu.” Mifuyu glanced out the sunroom’s large windows. Change. The sky was the same cobalt color as when she arrived, and her blue bicycle still sat parked out front. Looking carefully, though, a single green leaf from the ginkgo tree hovered in midair. The other plants were the same—frozen in the moment when the wind had blown through them. It was as though someone had taken a snapshot of a windy day and pasted it on the outside of the window. “No way—has time stopped?” Mifuyu said. “The town was frozen when I arrived. The only way to restore it is to read this.” “Okay, already. Not like I have much of a choice.” Mifuyu looked dismayed at this strange occurrence, but a tiny part of her grew excited. She started to open the rough, black cover, but Mashiro stopped her for some reason. “What is it?” Mifuyu asked her. “Sorry, but you’d better not read it here.” Looking apologetic, Mashiro gripped Mifuyu’s wrist tightly and exited the sunroom for the entryway hall. She took Mifuyu’s sneakers from the shoe cubby and arranged them neatly on the floor. “Here, put on your shoes.” “I don’t understand. Why?” “It’s the right thing to do this time. Then you’ll be ready.” Grumbling, Mifuyu put on her sneakers and, sitting in the entryway, finally opened the book. Ricky McCloy closed the blinds and lit a cigarette. Its bitter orange glow illuminated the otherwise blue night. “We’re both thinking the same thing, Joe.” Peering through the gaps in the blinds, he saw headlights shimmer down the dark road until they came to a stop directly in front of the building. Ricky tossed his cigarette and, snuffing it out with his shoe, tucked a bundle of documents inside his black coat. Then he hurried out the room, leaving its inky smell behind. Gaudy green wallpaper, a dim hallway, a luxurious chest of drawers, an elegant bouquet of dahlias arranged in a vase. A cacophony of footsteps raced up the stairs, drawing closer. Ricky removed the bundle of dahlias with a leather-gloved hand, shaking them violently as he knocked on the door of a room two doors down. The faded door opened a crack, and a woman’s blue eyes peered out at him. A stunning, glamorous brunette. Glancing over as a scream came from behind him, Ricky saw a swarm of cops with guns drawn rushing into the room that he had just vacated. “…Who are you? I didn’t order any flowers,” said the woman. Neither the sound of the police nor her unexpected visitor perturbed her. Ricky McCloy’s mouth edged up in a smile as he passed the dahlias to the woman and pushed the door open. A cheap glass chandelier shone down on the sofa in the living room. The floor plan was the same as the room he’d just left. “Would you at least tell me your name, Mr. John Smith?” The cops’ swearing rode the dry wind leaking in through the half-open living room window. The sounds of furniture being upturned, of glass shattering. Ricky turned to look at the woman. “If anyone asks,” he said, “tell them McCloy was here. Joe should know what that means.” “Joe? Who is that?” “My gravedigger.” Tilting his fedora, he slipped out the window onto the tiny iron balcony. Thin, dark clouds swept across a sky as black as bat wings, turning the moonlight into haze. The wind was pregnant with the smell of gunpowder as a siren blazed from somewhere in the unruly hedonistic town, creating a frenetic symphony. Gripping the handrails of the metal ladder with his leather gloves, Ricky slid to the ground. The stench of iron resembled that of blood. His back facing the building, he walked down the cold asphalt and felt inside his coat to make sure the bundle was still hidden there. The light-brown file held a stack of papers; within those were two photos. One was a covert photograph of two men in low hats exchanging what looked like a wooden box. A cloth covered the box, but from between the gaps in the covering, one could tell that it contained books. The other photograph was of a blond woman lying face down, dead. She was outlined in white chalk that looked like fallen snow, a damaged book at her side. The police were still inside the building. Joe the “Gravedigger” traced the dahlia petals—scattered like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs—down the hallway, not realizing that Ricky had slipped out of a window in the room two doors down. A dark, stagnant air filled a street littered with vagrants, their alert eyes and noses gauging the wealth and strength of those passing by. Ricky walked through the growls of street dogs, footsteps reverberating through the mold-scented concrete jungle. By the time a gust rustled behind him, Ricky’s right hand had already reached the Colt M1911 in his holster. “That was sloppy. You must be new here… Gotta be, what, a week at most?” Ricky turned around, his left hand grabbing the neck of the young prowler who had just tried to sneak up on him while his right hand thrust his M1911 forward. “Ten days, you bastard.” With sullen cheeks and dark circles under his eyes, the man looked like drugs had been keeping him awake for days. Dirt and filth ruined the snobby, gaudy tropical shirt he wore beneath his white suit, and he reeked of liquor and sweat. In the next instant, the man grimaced under the glare of an intense light. The beams of multiple flashlights captured the two from a distance. “Looks like Joe found Hansel’s trail.” “…What?” “The cops.” Ricky loosened his grip. The second he did, the young prowler struck, his long right arm looming before Ricky’s eyes. Ricky dodged swiftly and buried his right fist in the man’s solar plexus, causing him to grunt, collapse to the ground, and vomit on the spot. “Don’t worry. The cops’ll be here to take care of you soon enough. Forget about whoever hired you and go back to the sticks, kiddo.” “…Hmph, you’re no better than me. Keep trying to sniff out the books, and the only place you’ll end up is hell, Ricky McCloy.” “I’m no stranger to dancing with the devil.” Turning, Ricky lit a cigarette to the groans from the man behind him. The smokes weren’t quality, but they packed a lot of nicotine. They helped keep him sane, just like the booze. He left the alley for the main road. It was the night’s darkest hour, when the creatures who couldn’t live in the daylight felt most at home. Flamboyant neon signs, the timbre of a sax and a trumpet, rambunctious conversations. An expressionless bartender polished a glass on the other side of a cracked window. This town had a little bit of everything. Booze, violence, handsome men, beautiful women, blood, drugs offering temporary relief—and, of course, forbidden books. A young boy, a “newsie,” stood on the street corner, speaking to all who would listen. To tell everyone what had happened that day. The stores didn’t sell newspapers. Ever since the act of printing letters on paper had been banned, only verbal communication or personal, handwritten notes were permitted. Making copies was strictly prohibited. Where alcohol had once been illegal, printed words were now against the law. A government office towered over downtown, bathed in pale, prowling searchlights. At the top of the building stood a humongous billboard bearing the face of the city’s “Father”—Mayor Matthias Constantine Ellison. Pearly-white teeth, wrinkles ironed out with Botox. A million-dollar smile. Ricky McCloy tossed his cigarette butt into a stinking gutter. “…What a strange book,” Mifuyu muttered as she looked up from the book, having more or less skimmed the story up to this point. She was struck by how radically different this world was—it didn’t smell like her own. This was a city that required vigilance. The disturbing, stale air of that dark night seemed to waft toward her even now. A monochrome world. It wasn’t just in her mind, however. The wail of a siren suddenly pealed, and she heard a group of people outside Mikura Hall. “Mifuyu, this way. Hurry.” Mashiro gripped her wrist and dragged her outside, the book still in her hands. Mere minutes before she began reading Black Book, the blue of the midday sky had expanded to the horizon, but it had turned pitch-black as if the clocks had advanced twelve hours. However, Mifuyu didn’t have time to voice her surprise. A row of bright-white lights lined the wall of the yard, starkly illuminating Mikura Hall. She could only see backlit silhouettes, but what looked like a group of people crowded on the other side of the wall. “Hide!” At Mashiro’s instructions, they dived behind a hydrangea shrub next to the front door, peeping between the lush leaves to observe the scene. Just then, someone said, “Roger. We’re going in,” over a walkie-talkie. Mashiro and Mifuyu watched as bolt cutters broke the lock on the yard’s iron gate and a barrage of special forces and police officers carrying white shields rushed in. These officers were completely different than the ones Mifuyu usually saw at the police station. Helmets and hats were pulled tight over their heads, and their expressions were serious, with guns or batons gripped in their right hands. The officers split into two groups, one to enter through the front door and the other to head around to the back. “Wh-what are they doing?” Mifuyu hadn’t done anything wrong. Neither had Hirune, probably. Sure, a lot of people had complained since Mifuyu’s father had been admitted to the hospital, but none of that would warrant a raid by armed police officers. As Mifuyu watched, dumbstruck, Mashiro tightened her grip on her hand and urged her to get moving. Walking in a crouch behind the hydrangea bushes, they headed toward the annex. Once there, Mashiro leaped over the wall, out of sight of the officers trying to figure out how to get inside the annex. “Mifuyu, come on!” “Wait, I’m not that nimble!” Hands on top of the wall, Mifuyu set a foot on the surface and tried to climb, but her fingers couldn’t get a grip, and she slipped. She just couldn’t do it. Mashiro quickly jumped back over, said she would carry Mifuyu, and turned her back to her. Mifuyu scrunched her face up as though staring at a bright light, but eventually, she took a breath and climbed on. “Wrap your arms and legs around me and hold on tight,” Mashiro instructed. And with that, carrying Mifuyu on her back, Mashiro crouched and jumped, placing her hands on the top of the wall and deftly leaping over with her legs tucked to one side before landing on the other side. Dog ears had sprouted on top of her head again. “Are you a dog? Or a human?” “I’m both and neither. For now, though, let’s run. It’s dangerous here.” The two girls dashed down the dark streets. But something wasn’t right. The town was Yomunaga, but at the same time, it wasn’t. The area around Mikura Hall should have been filled with used bookstores, but every shop had changed. Strip clubs, jazz bars. A red neon sign reading FOX TOBACCO hung over the oldest bookstore, a variety of cigarettes and cigars displayed in place of aged used books. The customers seemed different, too. People who should care for nothing but books now buried their noses in cigars for a sniff, scrutinizing the wares with contemplative faces. “This is the world of the book I just read?” “Yes. Everything here is from Black Book.” After putting enough distance between themselves and Mikura Hall, they stopped running and began to walk. A trumpet played from somewhere. It wasn’t the energetic fanfare of a wind orchestra, but a moody tune imbued with the sense of the night’s corruption. For some reason, it made Mifuyu think of subdued tones like purple and rich navy. “Hey, Mashiro. What kind of story is this? I couldn’t quite tell…but based on what I read, it seemed like it was trying way too hard to be cool.” “Ricky McCloy is a private detective. His former partner was shot and killed by the police on suspicion of robbery and murder. But Ricky believes that his partner is innocent and is searching for the mastermind pulling the strings of the police union.” “And Joe was his partner?” “I can’t say more without giving the story away, but Joe isn’t that kind of character. He’s more like a slow-witted police detective.” “Okay. So then what were the police looking for at Mikura Hall? It doesn’t have anything to do with this, does it?” “They were just complying with the book-ban law.” “There’s a book-ban law?” “It’s kind of like a book version of Prohibition.” Mifuyu furrowed her brow and looked confused. She’d slept through most of her history classes. “‘Pro-hibishun’? Never heard of it.” “A long time ago in the USA, it was against the law to drink alcohol. This was about a hundred years ago.” “You can make laws like that? Wow.” Mifuyu was underage, so she’d never had alcohol. And Ayumu didn’t drink, so the only liquor in her house was cooking sake and sherry. But the assistant instructor Che drank pretty often, and he cried a lot when he did, which Mifuyu found annoying. She couldn’t stand people who lost control when they drank. “What’s wrong with that? Making it illegal, I mean. One of my friends ran away from home because her dad got violent when he was drunk.” At that, Mashiro blinked her large eyes and looked seriously at Mifuyu. “Is that what you really believe? That it should be illegal?” “Sure. It’d be better if people didn’t drink. If the law decided everything, then no one would get drunk and do stupid stuff.” “…The people who make the laws are only human, too, Mifuyu.” “What does that mean?” “It means that prohibiting harm is one thing, but can the people who decide what’s right and wrong really protect everyone’s freedom and equality?” Mifuyu considered this, and just as she opened her mouth to reply, a small dark orange fox darted in front of her. Thick tail, large ears, and long nose. “Hey, a fox!” Remembering what happened last time, she immediately chased after it. If she could catch the book thief, the world should return to normal. She knew Mashiro would follow her, but she couldn’t match Mashiro’s pace, and before long, she was panting behind Mashiro’s retreating figure. But the fox, being nimbler than Mashiro, leaped over the wall of a house and into the yard. Mashiro stood in front of the gray block wall, turned to Mifuyu—who was wheezing with her hands on her knees—and asked, “What should we do?” as though conflicted. “What—what should we…?” “We have to enter someone’s property, but how should we do that?” “Back there…phew…you jumped…over a wall. How about…that?” Mifuyu desperately wanted some water. Her calves had been sore since this morning, probably because of PE class the day before, and she had just about been pushed to her physical limit. She wanted to tell Mashiro that, but instead, she stood up straight, looked up at the night sky, and took a deep breath. Mashiro was still lost in thought. “…Oh boy.” Mifuyu finally caught her breath, then examined the nameplate at the yard that the fox had run inside. She knew the people who lived here in this blue-roofed house: a kind elderly couple who filled their yard with camellias, gardenias, and snow willows. Once, when she was a child, her rubber ball had rolled into their yard, and they kindly handed it back to her. The delicate white gate had been replaced with a rusty iron door—now that she examined the wall surrounding the house, it was tall and topped with a short, spiky iron fence. It looked formidable; maybe they even a vicious guard dog. She felt a touch uneasy but pushed Mashiro forward. “It’ll be fine. The people who live here are really nice.” Mashiro still hesitated, however, so Mifuyu pushed her forward once more, after which Mashiro steadied herself, jumped, and disappeared over the wall. Mifuyu stretched to peer over the wall and nodded in approval—in the next instant, the lights in front of the house flashed on, and an alarm went off. “Wh-what the—?” Just as Mashiro bounded up on the wall, they heard the door burst open and saw an old woman standing on the porch. Curlers in her white hair, she wore a light-blue nightgown and held a shotgun in both hands. As the alarm continued to wail, she pumped the shotgun with a sharp click. “Mifuyu, get down!” Mashiro hopped down, and the next second, the harsh sound of a gunshot roared in their ears as the concrete wall immediately to Mifuyu’s right exploded, leaving a large hole. Wide-eyed, Mifuyu froze in disbelief before Mashiro tackled her to the ground and covered her. More gunshots rang out, and pieces of concrete rained down on them. When the wall resembled something like a ragged sponge, the gunfire finally stopped. “What is it, Grams?” “Trespassers. I knew we shoulda put up some barbed wire. Think I got ’em, though.” The voices of the old couple drew nearer. Mashiro pulled Mifuyu up by the arm, and they ran through the now completely transformed town. “What the heck?! That old lady had a gun!” Guns and other weapons were, in principle, illegal in Japan. Even though Mifuyu understood that the town had transformed into the land of the story, she wasn’t sure she could ever get used to this. Looking around, she noticed the other houses also had tough steel gates, barbed wire on top of their walls, and severe security measures. When they passed in front of her apartment, she was shocked to see the building she knew so well enclosed by a tall wall and the cold glow of a patrolling searchlight. “This is horrible… I wanna go home,” Mifuyu said, her voice shaking. She was ready to burst into tears if she didn’t keep her wits about her. Mashiro squeezed Mifuyu’s hand. “We have to catch the thief,” Mashiro said. “The fox probably ran off and is hiding somewhere far away.” “How do we find it? Yomunaga is pretty big. And other people might have guns, too…” The thought alone sent shivers down her spine. She wasn’t even sixteen yet, and she didn’t want to die in a place like this. “Don’t worry,” Mashiro assured her. “I have an idea.” They left the residential area and walked onto the large avenue that would normally have rows of bookstores and miscellaneous shops. The road was wide, giving them a good view of a tall building far in the distance that had not been there before. It bore the same sign as in the story: the massive, almost vulgar full smile of Yomunaga’s current mayor, complementing a searchlight shining out into the darkness of the night. In place of Wakaba, where Mifuyu had just bought a book, there now stood an office with a crowd forming out front. Reporters in suits shouted questions, the flashes of their cameras buzzing as they took photographs. The building housing Books Mystery had been destroyed, the old man Kaname nowhere to be seen. The general store next door had become a gun store, the red-bandana-clad owner singing happily as they rested a rifle on the wall. The children’s bookstore had changed to a moneylender, and the nice owner who had once worked at a day care now sat behind a counter under blue light, feeding a cat while a cigarette dangled from her mouth. A boy in a flat cap ran toward them from across the street, almost bumping into Mifuyu. His bounding stride scattered some of the papers he was carrying. Mifuyu looked down to see a leaflet with RISE UP! FREE THE BOOKS! written on it in large letters. “Don’t pick that up,” Mashiro warned. The high-pitched wail of a police siren sounded from behind Mashiro as she gripped Mifuyu’s arm. The car stopped, and a policeman chased after the boy as he disappeared into the haze of night. “What sort of idea did you have?” Mifuyu asked uneasily. Mashiro’s nose elongated, her face changed to that of a dog, and she started sniffing the area. “…This way,” she said. Where Mifuyu could only smell the gutter, gunpowder, and booze, Mashiro’s glistening black nose followed the trail of some scent. Mashiro led them to the front of what used to be a bookstore with a space for readings and other events; now, though, it was a dance club with a red neon sign that read CLUB FUNERAL CAPRICCIO. By the front door, a small but tough man leaned against the wall, his sharp eyes observing the surroundings—it was Che, who should have been in the dojo. “Che!” “Mifuyu, you can’t speak to people like you usually do, even friends. Everyone’s acting out roles right now, and we need to play along.” As they watched him, several groups of customers approached, and Che searched them before letting them walk downstairs. “He’s a bouncer,” said Mashiro. “Let’s go. Just to be safe, though, stay behind me.” She ran a hand over her face, turning back into a human before Mifuyu’s eyes. Mifuyu stayed behind her as instructed, hunching her shoulders and trying to look as small as possible. Both she and Mashiro were wearing polo shirts and jeans. Clubs like this that only opened at night typically didn’t allow minors inside. She prayed that Mashiro could convince them otherwise. Though she and Che were very close in the real world, when she caught his eye, he looked at her like he had no idea who she was, just like the last time. Conspicuous with his buzz cut and leather jacket bulging with muscle, he looked exactly like the bouncer at a club. He glanced back and forth between Mashiro and Mifuyu as he smacked his gum. “Two of you?” he asked. “Yes,” Mashiro replied. “We thought we’d stop by for a drink. We’d heard good things about this place.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and tilted her head to the side. That natural-looking movement seemed like precisely what a character in Black Book would do, and Mifuyu looked impressed. “All right, head on in.” “Thanks.” Winking deftly, Mashiro walked gallantly down the stairs, Mifuyu hurrying after her. Club Funeral Capriccio was in a basement. Mifuyu felt dizzy the second the heavy iron door opened. The space was illuminated by a combination of red and blue lights on the verge of halation; nothing looked real. Just standing there was enough to make her feel intoxicated, from the gut churning bass, the frantic melody, the blue and red lights, and the people dancing in the reddish-purple shade. The bar sat on the right side, the center had seats covered in a haze of cigarette smoke, and on the stage in the back, a DJ was spinning records. Spotting a seat on the bar side, Mashiro sat Mifuyu down. “Wait here for a second.” “Huh? By myself? No way!” “It’s okay, I’ll be right back. I’m going to look for someone.” Mashiro squeezed Mifuyu’s shoulders to reassure her, then disappeared into the crowd bathed in red and blue light. Perched on a high stool at the end of the bar, Mifuyu swiveled in discomfort and then leaned against the wall so as to not draw attention to herself. But bartenders were always watching their customers. “Can I get you anything, miss?” “Oh, umm, er…” Flustered, Mifuyu searched desperately for a menu. But she didn’t see anything that looked like one—just kegs of beer, taps, and bottles of liquor lined up behind the bar. Nothing looked suitable for a teenager. Mifuyu examined the bartender more carefully; this woman was the owner of a bookstore that held a book club. She was around thirty and had a flattering pixie cut. Even though the bookstore owner was playing a different role from real life, Mifuyu felt relieved to see a familiar face. “I’m actually too young to drink,” she admitted. At that, the bartender spun around, then turned back a few seconds later with the same expression to set down a glass in front of Mifuyu. A white beverage—milk. “Um… Do you have anything more like, um, orange juice or…?” But the bartender just said, “It’s today’s special,” and went back to drying glasses. With little other choice, Mifuyu sipped her milk. From her position at the edge of the bar, she scanned the seating area and recognized many of the faces. The owner of Hashida Broiler; one of the nurses taking care of her dad in the hospital; the father of one of the tenants in her apartment building, among others. Then she realized: Anyone here who was human wasn’t the thief. She didn’t want to think that the thief would be someone she knew, but it was possible. If the rules were the same as last time, then the fox they’d just been chasing was the thief. So Che, the club’s bouncer, was thankfully innocent, and she checked the face of each customer. Sitting in the darkest corner of the seating area was Kaname, who hadn’t been in his shop. The owners of the Chinese restaurant, the people from the shopping district, the Bookstore Owners’ Association—and the owner of Wakaba, and the mushroom-haired Haruta. Come to think of it, was that woman here? The one who had been talking with Hirune in front of Mikura Hall the previous day, that young woman in the fashionable outfit. Mifuyu started looking harder. “Thanks for waiting, Mifuyu,” said Mashiro. “Oh yeah, sure.” At some point, Mashiro had returned. Mifuyu quickly finished her milk and jumped down from the stool. “I found who I was looking for. He’s in another room.” “Who?” Mashiro nodded, turned her back to the stage, and pushed Mifuyu toward the entrance. The room they were heading for was past the stairs, far on the other side of the club hall. Paint peeled off the bottom of the door, perhaps from too many kicks, while numerous holes decorated the top. Mifuyu prayed that they weren’t from bullets. “Wait, are we really going in there?” She didn’t feel good about this at all. Mashiro, meanwhile, nonchalantly opened the squeaky door. With its windows covered, the inside of the room was dim, and it seemed to Mifuyu like an old private karaoke room. An ashtray piled high with cigarettes butts sat on a white table, surrounded by empty shot glasses. Farther back, someone had plunked their feet on the table. A man lay sunken into a torn and dirty sofa, white smoke billowing up from his mouth. Mifuyu met the gaze of his sharp eyes as he observed them attentively. Black coat, fedora at an angle, a nihilistic gaze. Not that stylish girl. But Mifuyu almost broke into peals of laughter upon seeing the man’s all too familiar face. No matter how seriously everyone was supposed to be playing different parts, this was over the top. “Punch…!” Mifuyu whispered. It didn’t seem like her spirited PE teacher heard her. He made a show of lifting up the tip of his hat with a grin. “Well, what can ol’ Ricky McCloy do for you young ladies?” So spoke Ricky McCloy—or Mr. Kikuchida, the PE teacher at Mifuyu’s high school—resting somewhere that resembled a private karaoke room in the basement of Club Funeral Capriccio, a place that had been a bookstore hosting events just one hour ago. “This ain’t no place for little kiddies… What? What’s so funny?” Her teacher was the protagonist in a story—talk about hilarious. Mifuyu hid behind Mashiro, trying not to die of laughter, and cleared her throat to cover up her amusement. “Um…I just can’t stop hiccuping.” “You’re a horrible liar. If you’re here just for the hell of it, then do me a favor and scram.” Mifuyu’s smile faded at his cold response, and she quickly steadied her face. The normal Mr. Kikuchida was irritatingly upbeat, meddlesome, and said he was going to visit her father, Ayumu, in the hospital today. The diminutive teacher would proclaim, “I may be small, but I pack a punch,” and so the students nicknamed him Punch. Mifuyu called him that, too. She wanted to tease him for trying to punch above his weight. However, his cool treatment disoriented Mifuyu. Ricky McCloy tucked a pack of cigarettes and some matches into the inner pocket of his black coat, then sat up while steadying his fedora with his hand. They needed to stop him before he left. As he sat up, Mashiro whispered, “Leave it to me,” in Mifuyu’s ear, slapped her on the back, and stepped between Ricky McCloy and the exit. “I want to hire you. You’re a private eye, right?” Mashiro asked him. “You could say that. But I don’t run errands for kids.” With that, he tried to slip past Mashiro, but she pressed on. “This is no errand. I’m looking for a thief…a book thief.” Mifuyu noticed the detective tense up; she figured he must have been reacting to the word thief. But she was wrong. “A book?” he repeated. His face suddenly went rigid, like simply saying the word book was a mortal sin. But just at that moment, Mashiro took another step toward the detective. “Yes,” she said. “We came here because we heard you’re the person to ask if we wanted to know about dealings with books.” “Who told you that?” “It’s a secret.” Mifuyu knew that Mashiro was lying. They hadn’t talked to anyone about that since they’d arrived here, and Mashiro had gone to Ricky McCloy because he was the protagonist in Black Book, the book this world was based on. But the detective himself wasn’t aware of that. He looked at Mashiro and Mifuyu in total bewilderment, then exhaled a breath that reeked of cigarette smoke. “Let’s hear it,” he said. “A thief stole some very important books from us while we were traveling,” Mashiro explained, avoiding any mention of Mikura Hall. “Traveling? You two are foreigners?” “Something like that.” Mifuyu nodded vigorously in agreement to show that their stories matched. The detective looked at them in disbelief. “That wasn’t very smart. Don’t you know that books are illegal here? You were lucky to get them through customs. If the government found out, they would’ve deported you, or worse—you might’ve ended up six feet under if they chose to ‘interrogate’ you.” An interrogation… Mifuyu had seen that stuff on TV. The thought of being arrested was enough to make her sick, and she didn’t even want to imagine how the police might hurt her. She gently tugged at Mashiro’s polo shirt. “Hey, Mashiro, we’re in way over our heads. Let’s go.” “Mifuyu…don’t you understand? We can’t leave until we catch the thief. Don’t worry—Ricky McCloy is a brilliant detective. Isn’t that right?” Unlike Mashiro, Mifuyu wasn’t acting. She was truly terrified, but that sincerity seemed to make their case more convincing. “Okay,” said Punch—or rather, Detective Ricky McCloy—as he scratched the back of his head. “Got any leads? A physical description of the thief or any information about when the theft occurred? This investigation is dead in the water if we don’t have any clues.” “Oh, that’s simple. The thief is a fox.” “A fox? Is that some kinda code word?” “No, a literal—” Mifuyu quickly covered Mashiro’s mouth before she said any more. Yes, the thief had turned into a fox, though Mifuyu wasn’t quite sure yet whether that was because of the curse, and it had just gotten away from them. But if they told the detective that the thief was an actual fox, then he’d get upset and leave this time for sure. “Oh, umm, the thief has a fox with them,” Mifuyu explained. “I don’t know if it’s their pet or a bodyguard or something, but if you search for the fox, that’ll definitely lead you to the thief.” “All right,” the detective said as he stroked his chin. “A thief with a pet fox. Strange stuff, but that’s what you get in this town. Lots of oddballs around here.” He led the two out of the club and walked back into town. A bright-yellow taxi dashing in front of them blared its horn. Mifuyu felt tense. Even though the moon hung in the sky, the hazy night blocked every star, either because the air quality was too poor or the town was too bright. The detective turned right toward what used to be the booksellers quarter and headed for the shopping district. A young boy stood on a box on a street corner, calling out the day’s news, as adults stopped and turned their attention to him, tossing change into a yellow box with News: 15 minutes for 300 yen painted on it. None of the stores sold books, and no one sat reading a book in a café. The newspaper racks by the doors of convenience stores were gone, too. This world really didn’t have any newspapers. No newspapers or books, not even any e-books or the internet. In Yomunaga of all places. Mifuyu was taking in the changed townscape when Mashiro next to her suddenly said, “Thanks, Mifuyu.” “Huh? Why?” “For earlier. Your explanation about the fox was superb. If I had kept talking, the detective might have thought something was off and refused to help us. That was some quick thinking on your part.” “R-really?” It felt kind of nice being complimented. Mifuyu shyly scratched the tip of her nose as she grinned. Her one explanation, however, hardly compared with everything Mashiro had done so far. Mifuyu was at a total loss in this town, which had been absorbed into the book’s world after the book curse activated. She was utterly helpless and felt like she was relying on Mashiro for everything. “Hey, Mashiro. What happens next in the story?” “Right, you only read the very beginning. Ricky stole something from that room as part of a job, but the police were already after him.” “I read that far. Some hoodlum or whatever attacked him, but Ricky beat the guy up.” Ricky had made quick work of the young guy in the tropical shirt who’d jumped out of the dark alley. Looking at Ricky McCloy’s back as he walked in front of her, while she might feel disappointed that the role went to Punch of all people, she had to admit that a PE teacher definitely suited the physical demands of the character. “After that,” Mashiro continued, “Ricky goes to a room in Club Funeral Capriccio and waits for a client who requested photographs from him. That’s when a pair of twin women appear.” “And what do they ask him to do?” “They aren’t there to hire him; they’re assassins. They’ve already killed the client, and when they confront Ricky, he barely gets away with the photographs. The photos show people exchanging bootleg books as well as the corpse of a woman with a torn-up volume. Ricky is hunted by those who don’t want the photos to see the light of day. He manages to escape and is saved by the underground organization that makes the bootleg books. But as his investigation continues, Ricky learns that his partner, shot and killed for robbery and murder the previous year, was actually framed because he was close to smoking out the illicit book trade. And as Ricky tries to uncover the mastermind, he gets wrapped up in a giant conspiracy involving underground books and the whole city’s top brass. That’s the basic gist.” “…Wow, sounds kinda scary.” “Conspiracies and bootleg goods are pretty standard in hard-boiled fiction.” “‘Hard-boiled’?” “It’s a genre. A pretty popular one, too, but not many people write it these days.” “Hmm,” Mifuyu mumbled unenthusiastically, inadvertently glancing at the showroom window behind Mashiro and then stopping in her tracks. There was a beautiful dress and a mirror showing Mifuyu’s and Mashiro’s reflections. Both girls were wearing green-and-white-striped polo shirts with jeans, looking for all the world like twins. “Wait a second. Could we be those twin assassins?” Mifuyu wondered. “It’s possible. Let’s hurry up, though, Mifuyu, or we’ll lose sight of Ricky.” The detective kept walking without paying any heed to the two girls and turned right at an intersection about twenty meters ahead of them. They hurried after him, only to walk right into the glare of headlights, causing Mifuyu to gasp and shield her eyes. A classic, curved black car hardly ever seen these days idled in front of them. “Get in,” said the detective, who stuck his head out the driver-side window. The two girls clambered into the back seat, and the car took off before Mifuyu had fully closed the back door. “Whoa, that’s dangerous!” Mifuyu cried. “There’s gonna be more where that came from. Get down and cover your head.” The detective cranked the steering wheel, the car tilted at an angle, and Mifuyu screamed. With no time to duck, she fell over, and Mishiro pulled her down. Right as she wedged Mifuyu’s face between the seats, gunfire rang out, and broken glass rained down on them. “Stop! Stop it!” Mifuyu screamed. Mashiro covered Mifuyu to protect her from the falling shards of glass. The detective skillfully steered the car, swerving left and right, returning fire out the driver-side window. When he emptied his last clip, the detective accelerated away, flying out onto the main road. Horns from the cars on the road behind them protested noisily, but the detective’s expression in the rearview mirror was calm as he loaded a new clip in his gun using only his left hand. “I c-can’t do this.” The sound of gunfire finally stopped, and Mifuyu raised her head, her sniffling face a mess of snot and tears. Small holes littered the car door, creating streaks of white light on the seat. “I—I want to go home. I’ve had enough. I don’t want to do this anymore.” Her body shaking, Mifuyu cried like a child. Mashiro stroked her head and held her shoulders, but she did not stop crying. Over her sobbing, she heard the detective in the driver’s seat sneer. “I knew I never shoulda brought along a couple of kids,” he muttered. Mifuyu’s frustration and shame caused more tears to flow. Mashiro, on the other hand, began to change from a human to a dog for some reason; white dog ears sprouted from her head, and her nose elongated quickly, while her fingers became rounder, changing into a dog’s toes. She licked Mifuyu’s wet cheeks with her pink tongue, and by the time her wet black nose rubbed against Mifuyu’s face, she had turned completely into a dog wearing a polo shirt. “W-wait, Mashiro! Now’s not the time to turn into a dog!” Mifuyu was used to this, but she didn’t want to spook the detective. She hurriedly pulled the collar of the polo shirt over Mashiro’s head, but it didn’t improve the situation. Catching the eye of the detective in the rearview mirror, she got ready to be kicked out of the car. But the detective just sighed deeply. “Buncha oddballs who come to this town,” he mumbled and didn’t probe beyond that. It might have been that she was distracted, but her tears finally stopped, and the innocent dog-faced Mashiro resumed licking Mifuyu’s cheek. “…Mashiro, wouldn’t it have been better if we tried to catch the thief on our own instead of asking the detective? I mean, he’s on the run.” It was like they were going around looking for trouble. Mifuyu didn’t want to think about who had been shooting at him. “I should have known that we’d get mixed up in all this. Books are books; we ought to leave the story to the characters while we find the fox on our own.” The car raced down the road leading to Mikura Hall. Usually a place for normal, everyday people, the area was grimier than the booksellers quarters; the foul stench blowing in from the broken windows reminded Mifuyu of Shibuya or Shinjuku’s Kabukicho. The detective drove for another ten minutes, turning this way and that, passing by the government building decorated with its gigantic panel of the mayor, before finally stopping in the quiet, deserted northern district. This was the farthest area from the train station, with the Tobikoe River, one of the two rivers that flowed around Yomunaga, running next to it. In the past, this area contained lots of factories and worker housing, but they all closed decades ago, and now there were only a couple of restaurants and two motels with signs outside advertising their prices. Even after the transformation from the book curse, this place had changed little. They saw some silhouettes of couples sneaking into a motel, a few glimmering streetlights, graffiti covering the walls around the small underpass by the road, and the remnants of peeled posters scattered everywhere. A long-standing café with ivy crawling up the walls was open for business, looking just like it did in the real world. The red indicator lamps of an abandoned factory blinked like a pulsing heart but made no noise. The detective slowed the car on a rattling gravel road and stopped in front of the café, directing the two to get out. “You kids stay here. I’m gonna get some intel,” he told them as they left. They didn’t have a chance to stop the car as it sped away, kicking up dust in its wake. Its red taillights disappeared into the darkness as if consumed by the night, leaving Mifuyu and Mashiro the dog behind. The surrounding silence answered them, the echo of gravel the only sound. Mifuyu moved next to Mashiro and touched her soft fur. The warmth relaxed her a little. “…Guess we’ll go to that café,” said Mifuyu. They peered through the window to check it out. The seats were empty, with not a single customer present. Some of the lights in the café were out, making it hard to tell if it was open. A middle-aged man in an apron rested behind the counter, but he might have been sleeping, because he sat slumped motionless in a chair, his head on his chest. Mifuyu reached for the doorknob, then thought twice about it and pulled her hand away before looking over at Mashiro with a shake of her head. The two had nowhere to go, so they walked back and forth between the two streetlights on either side of the café, then gave up on it, returned to the front of the café, and perched on top of a brick wall that surrounded a flower bed. “I’m so hungry.” Mifuyu thought about the lunch box she had made for Hirune, propped her shoulder bag on her lap, and removed the cloth-wrapped package from inside. They had run all over town and been roughly tossed out of a car, but the white rice had only bunched to one side and was fine. “I’m glad I didn’t put anything moist in here.” Just to be safe, she checked to see if the book she’d bought for her dad was undamaged. It looked okay. Mifuyu was going to offer Mashiro some food, but she hesitated. “Guess you can’t eat in your dog form, huh? Turn back into a human, Mashiro.” Once she was human again, Mashiro insisted that Mifuyu eat the food. “Come on. You’ve been moving around a lot more, so you should eat first.” “I’m fine. We who live in purgatory don’t need food.” “…Purgatory? Are things about to get even weirder?” “Don’t worry about it.” Mifuyu decided not to press the issue. She grabbed the chopsticks and picked at her lunch of white rice with pickled plum and soy-boiled seaweed. The saltiness of the plum made her body tingle against the intense sweetness of the white rice, causing hunger to boil up inside her with each mouthful. But she closed the lid after only eating a third of it. She wasn’t sure if they would be able to get any more food later, and she knew she’d have to make Mashiro eat sometime. The sound of the river gurgling rose from the distance. The searchlight scanning the fully transformed city felt around the night sky. “Do you think Punch will really come back?” “Punch?” “That’s the name of the guy who became Ricky. Or his nickname, actually. He’s a PE teacher at my school. He said he was coming to Yomunaga today; he must’ve gotten caught up in the curse.” “Your school… So you attend school, Mifuyu?” “Of course I do… Well, I guess that’s not always a given.” She sneaked a glance at Mashiro’s profile, thinking she had said something insensitive. She felt different around Mashiro. Mashiro didn’t eat, and she obviously didn’t go to school. Mifuyu debated whether she should be more considerate to Mashiro, but Mashiro herself didn’t seem bothered. “Do you like school?” Mashiro asked. “Honestly, not really.” “You don’t?” Mashiro’s black eyes stared directly at her. They seemed filled with compassion. Mifuyu took a deep breath and dug at the gravel with the toe of her sneaker. “…I don’t actually have any friends. It’s not that people hate me or tease me or anything, though. It’s like a social thing, like I don’t really connect with anyone.” “Is that because you can’t open up to them?” “Kind of. Even if I did feel like opening up to someone, nobody would want to hear about my troubles, so I just don’t talk about them. I mean, listening to other people’s problems kind of sucks and takes a lot out of you, y’know?” Even now, she couldn’t believe that she was telling Mashiro all this. But she felt like she could talk about it with her for some reason. Mashiro responded earnestly to what Mifuyu said and wouldn’t suddenly start talking to someone else or make vague comments while keeping her face buried in a book. “There’s stuff that bothers me, and I have so many things to do. And eventually, my whole life is going to revolve around Mikura Hall, and I’d rather die than have that happen.” Mikura Hall loomed over her life. She desperately wanted to remove it, but it always remained there in her future. “…That’s tough.” Mashiro nodded, her eyes on the ground the whole time. “You need to think carefully about what you do and don’t want to do and stay true to that. I want to treat your decisions with respect. I’m on your side, Mifuyu. No matter what anyone says.” At those words, Mifuyu felt her nerves slowly calm down. Mashiro was hearing her out. There was someone right in front of Mifuyu who valued her opinions. But was Mashiro serious? “Do you really mean that?” Mifuyu asked. Just then, a child appeared in the parking lot in front of the café. Dressed in a white T-shirt and shorts, the child was maybe five or six years old, a finger in their mouth and their gaze locked on the two girls. Mifuyu looked back and forth between the child and the lunch box before holding it out to them. “…Want some?” Even after the kid walked into the light, it was hard to tell if they were a girl or boy. When they sheepishly approached Mifuyu and took the lunch box from her, they muttered “thank you” quietly. The moment they did, some large men materialized from between a group of bushes on the other side of the gravel road that had seemed to be nothing more than darkness. The kid grabbed the food and fled like a frightened rabbit. Mashiro stepped forward to protect Mifuyu even though she had no chance against so many people. They were all uniformed policemen except for the man in the center, who wore regular clothes. The most conspicuous point of all, however, was that Mifuyu knew him. “M-Mr. Miki…” If her PE teacher, Mr. Kikuchida, was the detective, then the next character to emerge was her Japanese teacher and homeroom teacher for the class next door, Mr. Miki, in the role of policeman. In his trench coat, he was tall enough that she had to look up to see his face. His greasy hair and pale face were the same, and he also seemed to have no idea who Mifuyu was. “Where is Ricky McCloy?” “I—I don’t know.” “Liar. He dropped you two off here, then ditched our tail. You know where he’s going.” Flanked by several police officers, Mr. Miki confronted Mifuyu, gazing at her with an expression both suspicious and concerned. Mifuyu gripped the strap of her shoulder bag, ready to hit him with it if he moved any closer. It contained a thick, hard book, which would surely cause some damage. The book, the book, the book. I’ll smack him with it. She was so obsessed with the idea that Mr. Miki’s next question caught her completely off guard. “Is that a book you’ve got there?” “Um, er, yes.” “Mifuyu!” Crap! She remembered that books were banned in this world, and that all printed material was forbidden. It was too late to lie about it; the police officers were already rushing toward them. Just as they were on the verge of apprehending her, Mashiro transformed into a giant white dog. Mifuyu grabbed her around the waist, and they ran off. “Wait!” Mashiro fled. But the escape happened so quickly that Mifuyu didn’t have time to get a proper grip and her bottom half dangled, her knees dragging painfully on the gravel. Mashiro noticed and slowed down. “The net! Throw the net!” someone yelled. Then a net was thrown toward them. Mifuyu shut her eyes tight when the net caught her and Mashiro. The next moment, there was an explosion, like gunfire or firecrackers, followed by a burning smell that assaulted her nose. Choking, Mifuyu thought she had been shot and that it was all over for her. She turned over on to her back and passed into unconsciousness. A cold liquid dripped on her cheek. Waking, she gasped for breath. It felt like she had been dreaming. Hazily checking her surroundings, she was flooded by a wave of utter disappointment when she realized that she wasn’t lying in her bed at home. She felt certain that she had woken up from a dream, but instead, she was still living inside one. So sleep wasn’t enough to break free of this world. But where was she? Where was Mashiro? The bullet hole–ridden concrete ceiling stooped so low, it looked ready to collapse at any moment. A pipe might have burst inside, because water stains spread across it. Considering the walls were the same gray as the ceiling, she got the impression that this must be a factory or warehouse of some sort. The room was cramped. The bundles of paper stacked against the walls and the waist-high reams of rolled paper made Mifuyu feel extremely claustrophobic. A rusty red door hung open a few centimeters, and the sound of machine pistons and conveyor belts combined with a strange odor in the air—the smell of ink. Mifuyu lay on top of some cardboard spread over the floor, a thin, grimy blanket covering her. Trying to prop herself up on her hands, she felt her elbows ache, and her knees seemed injured. How much time had passed since she lost consciousness? “Hello! Hey, excuse me!” she yelled, invigorated. The door opened, and a small child peeked out. The child was in a white T-shirt and shorts. It was the kid from earlier whom she had given the lunch box to. Their round, acorn-like eyes looked directly at Mifuyu. “Are you awake?” asked a young man who appeared behind the child. Glasses and mushroom-shaped hair. It was Haruta, who worked at Wakaba. Unlike Che, Mr. Miki, and Mr. Kikuchida, he hadn’t changed much, an apron covering his black polo shirt, still looking ready to work in a bookstore. “Um, where am I?” “Sorry if I scared you. We lit some firecrackers to distract the cops. We were trying to help you. I overheard you earlier. You know Ricky McCloy? The self-righteous private eye?” “I wouldn’t say I know him. We hired him.” “I see. And where is he now?” “I don’t know. He said he was going to gather some intel, but that was it. Um, where is my friend?” “The white dog? Don’t worry, she’s fine. She’s outside playing with my associates.” “Oh, okay… Uh, what is this place?” With the prohibition on books, it couldn’t be a bookstore. But it smelled of ink, and there were so many papers lying about. “It’s our underground hideout. I’m sorry to get you involved, but it’s the safest place right now. Especially for those in possession of books, like you.” “Underground hideout…?” Haruta didn’t answer her. He offered a hand and led Mifuyu inside. The other room also had a low ceiling and would never be described as spacious. A machine sat in the center, looking to Mifuyu like a thick, steel grand piano. A shiny silver platform, roller, and metal frame sat on a large, rectangular metal dais with a handle, levers, and an old-fashioned timepiece on one side. A desk and chair had been placed next to the machine, followed by row after row of shelves. Five people stood in front of the shelves, tightly hunched over while feverishly moving their hands, taking individual narrow rods like stamps one by one from the shelves and lining them up on a tray. “Is this a factory?” “A printshop. They take the letters from there, arrange them on the printing block, and use that press over there to print the text. We make leaflets and books here.” “So…you’re breaking the law, right?” “Yes, we are.” But Haruta seemed almost proud of that. Mifuyu remembered the boy in the flat cap running from the police, scattering leaflets through the transformed booksellers quarter. She wondered if they had been printed here. One of the women arranging letters walked toward the back of the room, her heels clicking, and said, “Boss, would you check this?” An old man sat by himself behind the biggest desk at the end of the room. It was the owner of Wakaba, with his distinctive fuzzy hair. “How’d it turn out? Good?” he asked. “We can’t go making inferior products, or else our readers will hurt their eyes. Like methanol during Prohibition!” Mifuyu felt a tinge of relief hearing that his enthusiasm and unique way of talking were the same as in the real world. The owner of Wakaba, whom the woman had called boss, removed his glasses and replaced them with a different pair, looking down at the letters arranged on the tray, then called, “Seb! Seb!” At that, Haruta walked from Mifuyu over to the boss. She couldn’t see him as anyone other than Haruta, but of course, he played a different role in this fictional world. “Go on, arrange the blocks! Neatly, like always! Come now!” the Wakaba owner said. Mifuyu made to follow Haruta, and she caught the eye of the woman who had picked the blocks. Upon closer inspection, Mifuyu recognized her—the school librarian. She helped run the literary club. She wore thick glasses and tied her long hair to one side over her shoulder. Mifuyu looked around to check whether anyone resembled the girl from the literary club, but no one did. “Seb, are you sure it’s okay to bring an outsider here?” the librarian—she probably had a different role now—asked loud enough for all to hear. Mifuyu took offense, but she also wondered whether she should be in a bootleg printshop. “She’s fine,” Haruta told the librarian. “She gave Toby some food. He was hiding and got hungry, and she helped him out. Plus, she’s got a book with her. That makes her one of us.” Haruta pleaded Mifuyu’s case, and the librarian shrugged, then went back to arranging the next row of blocks. Haruta took the tray from the boss, aligned the letter blocks in front of the roller, tapped them flat with a wooden mallet to make sure none stuck up, and set them in the printing press. He then inserted a well-used, shiny wooden board between the blocks and the roller, set a piece of paper on top, and flipped a switch. With a growl, the printing press roared to life, the top of the metal frame starting to turn. Haruta adjusted the printing paper closer to the roller, and Mifuyu studied how the machine would lift up one piece of paper at a time and quickly print something on it. She’d never cared much for machines, but this one was rather fascinating. After ten minutes or so had passed, she grew bored, yawned, scratched at a weird tingling at her backside, and felt something peculiar. Something soft but rough, furry, thick, and long—and when she squeezed it, she felt a little pain. Looking behind her, she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a tail. A fox tail was growing from the area around her tailbone. It was just like the previous week with The Brothers of the Lush Village. A certain amount of time after entering the world, she had grown a tail for some reason. She touched her head. Triangular ears had sprouted there. Orange tails swished from everyone’s backs, but neither Haruta, the librarian, nor the boss had noticed. Mifuyu didn’t know why people turned into foxes, and she didn’t know what it would mean if they transformed completely. Even Mashiro, Mifuyu’s guide, didn’t know. “I have to find that thief soon,” muttered Mifuyu. She couldn’t count on Ricky McCloy—no, Punch. No matter how much he acted like a private eye, Punch was still Punch. Mifuyu decided to search for an exit. Haruta had said that Mashiro was outside. There was one more door in addition to the one leading to the room Mifuyu had woken up in, as well as a shutter. The shutter was closed, so she should try the door. As the printing press roared and spun and everyone was absorbed in making books, Mifuyu crept silently toward the door. Sure enough, on the other side, she found a stairwell encased in damp concrete walls. The rough metal stairs continued upward—this place was underground, so the sound of cars driving outside murmured far above. Mifuyu closed the door carefully and placed one foot on the stairs. She climbed one, two, three, about twenty steps in total before reaching the second landing and stopping dead in her tracks as she turned the corner. A fox was there. In the corner of a landing stacked with crumpled cardboard boxes, an orange fox lay curled up in a ball. It must have been sound asleep, because it didn’t seem to notice Mifuyu approach, snoring soundly without a care in the world. Mifuyu extended both arms and crept closer, careful not to make a sound, finally leaping forward. The fox woke up and jumped to run at almost the exact same time that Mifuyu slid her hands underneath its sides. It flailed as it tried to flee, leaving scratches on Mifuyu’s face and arms, but she held on tight. “Yes! I caught the thief! I caught the book thief!” Admonishing the fox to calm down as it struggled, Mifuyu waited for the world to return to normal. It should happen almost immediately. She had caught the thief… It looked like a fox, but she knew it was human inside. Desperate eyes and a mouth flailing as though trying to say something. A real animal wouldn’t behave like that. But nothing changed. The stairs stayed the same, the sounds of passing cars and the hum of the printing press didn’t change, the fox didn’t turn back into a human, and even after Mifuyu closed her eyes and opened them again, the world had not returned to normal. “Why…? What’s going on? Look, I caught the thief! Do you see this? I don’t know who you are, but come on already! Turn everything back!” Mifuyu yelled. She appealed to the gods, to someone, to whoever was looking in on this world from afar. But her voice simply rebounded around the stairwell, disappearing as it seeped into the dark concrete ceiling. The fox still struggled in Mifuyu’s arms. “Hey, what’s going on up there?” She looked down over the handrail; the people from the hideout had heard her and were looking up at her in bewilderment. With no other options, Mifuyu descended the stairs. “A thief? This fox?” Haruta asked her. The print-shop staff placed the fox inside a wooden crate, closed and locked the lid, and then stacked some books on top. The crate was poorly made, with cracks between the boards, so there was no concern about the fox suffocating. “Yeah. It stole my books.” “Huh. Are you sure a human didn’t train it to steal? Foxes are more nimble and have better night vision than humans.” Well, the fox is actually a human in disguise, Mifuyu thought, although she didn’t feel like explaining all the complicated circumstances. Everyone in the printshop—Haruta, the boss, and librarian included—had already grown fox ears in addition to their tails. Mifuyu panicked seeing how little time remained, but she didn’t know where to start. “Hey, have you seen my friend…I mean, my dog?” “Oh, would you like us to bring her in?” Things might be a little better with Mashiro around, but even Mashiro didn’t understand this world’s cryptic rules. Mifuyu needed to figure them out on her own. The rules of the book curse. She didn’t even know how she got involved in this whole mess of catching a thief. If anyone from the Mikura family had to do this, excluding Ayumu since he was in the hospital, Hirune seemed like the best person. But most of the time, she was sleeping. Why did the thief keep trying to steal books from Mikura Hall anyway? Was last time not enough for them? Hey, wait a second. Arms crossed and scowling, Mifuyu pondered something. She had assumed that this fox was the same thief as the last time, but what if that wasn’t the case? Could it be someone else entirely? She didn’t think anyone would try to steal books from Mikura Hall again after being sucked into such a bizarre world and turned into a fox. At least, Mifuyu wouldn’t. She wondered if the books in Mikura Hall were so appealing that the thief would consider taking them again after a dangerous adventure. She had once asked her father how much Mikura Hall was worth. He just laughed and said, “Mifuyu, you really don’t care about Mikura Hall at all,” before looking serious and adding, “I’m sorry to say, but not very much. It’s too easy to get used books from the internet. Used bookstores are going out of business and selling off their stock. Great-Grandpa collected entertainment novels, and they might be valuable to some hardcore enthusiasts, but you wouldn’t get much for them.” But maybe Mikura Hall contained a book that was very valuable to the thief, and Mifuyu just didn’t know about it. If that was the case, though, they would try to steal the same book, and Mashiro said that this time, the books were stolen from the stacks on the first floor. The last time, it had been from the second floor. It didn’t make any sense. If the thief was someone different, then there had been two thefts in the span of a week. Tamaki had been more upset about being robbed than the books’ monetary value, and she went all out in installing a security system to prevent future theft. But Mifuyu didn’t know how often theft had actually occurred at Mikura Hall. Ayumu had never mentioned anything about any other thefts. But there had been two since he was hospitalized. “Hey, why do you steal books?” she asked, crouching down in front of the wooden crate holding the fox. “Who are you? Why did you come to Mikura Hall? There are books everywhere in Yomunaga. Choose somewhere else. Or did someone ask you to do this? Hurry up and confess, because otherwise, we could both be trapped here forever!” The book curse might not have lifted because she only caught someone working for the thief. Mifuyu shook the wooden box, and the fox tumbled around inside, crying as though pleading for something. But she couldn’t understand a word. “You can talk to that fox all you like, but I don’t think it’ll reply!” Ignoring the boss as he got his laughs, Mifuyu rose in a huff and paced the room angrily, chewing her nails—nails that were becoming sharp like a fox’s. How many hours or minutes did she have until she turned into a fox completely? Just then, the printers who had gone outside came back with Mashiro. The collar and leash perhaps being the reason she’d chosen to stay in dog form, she ran to Mifuyu when she saw her. Mifuyu gleefully petted her head the same as she would with a real dog. But something about Mashiro was different. “What’s wrong?” Examining her closely, she saw that her nose was red. According to the lookouts posted outside, the smoke screen from the firecrackers that’d been used to evade the police had contained something like tear gas that severely affected Mashiro’s keen nose. “Poor thing,” said Mifuyu as she softly scratched behind Mashiro’s ears. Mashiro let out a whimper. One of the people binding a book at a desk tried offering Mifuyu words of encouragement. “Seems you’ve had quite the streak of bad luck, but finding that thief by pure coincidence sure was fortunate, huh?” Mifuyu spun around, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Coincidence?” “That’s right. In a city this big, you almost never bump into the very person you’re looking for. Talk about lucky.” Time seemed to stop momentarily. Mifuyu looked around the cramped printing press with its low ceiling. “Yeah… You’re right.” The print-shop staff noticed a sudden change in Mifuyu and exchanged glances. “What is it?” the librarian asked her. “The books… Where are the books? The bootleg books? Where do you keep them?” “Where…? Behind that shutter—” Mifuyu strode over before the librarian had a chance to finish speaking. She pushed through people as she cut across the room, stood in front of the shutters, put her fingers in the opening, and tried pulling it up. But a lock connected it to the concrete floor, and it didn’t budge. “H-hey, what are you doing?!” the librarian cried. “Um, would you open this for me, please?” Mifuyu asked. “No way! Why would I do that for an outsider…?” “This is not the time to worry about outsiders. Open it and let me see what’s inside. The books that the thief stole from me should be in there.” A coincidence. It was true that the whole reason Mifuyu was here was because of the kid she’d happened to give her lunch box to, which led to the printers helping her when the police tried to apprehend her. But the fox, the thief—that was no coincidence. Last time, the fox hid the books in a train-station coin locker. Mifuyu, Mashiro, the thief, and the books stolen from Mikura Hall were the only things that hadn’t changed after the book curse transformed the world. So this time, what had the thief done with the books? In a world with a prohibition on books, just walking around with even one book would be conspicuous. And dangerous. Even if they wanted to hide them, there would be nowhere to do so. The best place to hide a leaf was in a forest. In a world where books were illegal, the only places with books would either be illegal book traders or underground printshops. The safest place to stash them would surely be with the printers. That’s why the fox had searched for this printshop and hid the books here. The fox must have been resting on the stairwell landing because it’d used so much stamina and cunning to hide all those books, which was a lot for such a small animal. In other words, the books that had been stolen from Mikura Hall were somewhere in the printshop. The thief alone wasn’t enough. She had to find the stolen books, too, to finally return the world to normal. At long last, Mifuyu understood the rules for lifting the book curse. As she went over this in her mind, the people around her continued their transformation into foxes. Velvety-soft orange fur grew from the confrontational librarian’s temple to her cheeks, and Mifuyu’s palms had begun to sprout a blanket of soft fur. Mifuyu grabbed the librarian by both shoulders. “I’m begging you—please open this shutter. We’ll be in big trouble if I don’t find those books soon!” The librarian looked at Haruta and the boss, shook her head in resignation, removed the key from her pocket, and unlocked the shutter. The warehouse was about the same size as the printing room. While the collection paled in comparison with the Mikura collection, the piles of books were enough to fill one small room at Mikura Hall. “Th-there’s so many…” “Quite impressive, isn’t it?” said the librarian. “And we made each one by hand. Books are bundles of knowledge. They contain far more information than the news pouring out of the mouths of those ‘newsies.’ That knowledge is something you get from the written word. Books must exist in this world. Banning them robs the people of knowledge.” “Books aren’t that big of a deal,” said one print-shop employee. “You just read ’em, and if they’re interesting, that’s good enough. And if they’re boring, then at least you learned something. That’s how you find what you like and what you don’t.” “I see it differently,” said another employee. “Books make money. That’s it.” “People with nothing but money on their minds should keep quiet.” Mifuyu failed to hear what the grown-ups were talking about. She stood dumbstruck—not because she was awed by the volume of handmade books, but because she was wondering how she would ever find the books stolen from Mikura Hall in this sea of tomes. She was completely at a loss for what to do. It would be easy if Mashiro’s nose was working, but she couldn’t smell much now because of the smoke screen. Should she ask the thief? But if it ran away, she’d be back to square one. There was a vent on the ceiling. The fox thief had probably come in through there. Wind passed through the opening, rustling Mifuyu’s fox tail growing from her. Mifuyu finally lifted her head, strode toward the mountain of books, and began checking each book one by one, starting at the edge. They looked completely different from the books in the real world. Each one here resembled the others, with a brown or black cover, no unique pictures or illustrations, all a simple plain hue. She took down more and more as she checked, moving five or ten books at a time, digging into the mountain of books. This would be simple; she would find the stolen books easily—but after ten minutes had passed, the book she was holding slipped from her hand. Her fingers were stubby, round, and the palms had swollen things that looked like pads. Face pale, Mifuyu swallowed back a scream, clumsily grabbing at books with both hands and tossing them aside. Perhaps inspired by Mifuyu’s efforts, the printers and Mashiro all began to help as everyone’s noses stretched and whiskers grew from their cheeks. Sweat dripping as they brushed books aside by the thousand, Mifuyu’s pointy ears twitched as she was pushing aside a third of a pile. She heard a siren. It was coming closer. Everyone raised their heads, several of them assessing the situation and frantically bolting for the door. The siren stopped directly above the hideout. “Bad news! It’s the cops!” “Retreat! Hurry up and get outta here!” “You’ve got to be kidding me. How’d they find us? Do we have a mole?” Everyone fell into a panic, running to and fro, while piles of books toppled to the floor. Someone tripped and fell against the desk, sending sheets of paper fluttering through the air. Everyone was screaming that the place was too deep for any bugs to transmit radio signals, that there was no way they should have been found out. Mifuyu didn’t care about all that. She kept digging through the pile of books. If she could just find the books, everything would be resolved. The police, the hideout, everything. The librarian grabbed Mifuyu’s busy hands. “Hey! You need to get out of here, too!” “No!” Just then, they heard a voice amplified through a bullhorn. “Criminal book-printers, listen up! We have you surrounded! If you value your friend’s life, then surrender! I repeat, if you value your friend’s life, surrender!” “Friend? Who are they talking about?” The staff all looked at one another, checking whether everyone was there. No one was missing. The man who had been binding books breathed a sigh of relief. “He’s bluffing. Don’t worry.” “You think I’m bluffing? Listen to this.” The voice spoke like it heard everything they said, but the next voice to reverberate out from the bullhorn belonged to a crying child. It was the boy whom Mifuyu had given her lunch box to. “Toby!” “No, he’s not here! Is that really him, though? When did he go missing?” Mifuyu felt her spine go cold. It had to have happened during the commotion when she found the thieving fox. The door to the stairs had been left open, and no one must have noticed the kid leaving as they focused their attention on the fox. “Do you think Toby tipped them off?” “No way! He’s only five years old. Someone must have grabbed him when he went outside and…” The librarian’s expression hardened as she realized something mid-sentence. “Somebody must have thought Toby was lost and called the police. He couldn’t have told the cops about this place, though. He doesn’t know the address.” “So then the person who found him told them?” “We’re underground, though. Above us is just a vacant lot with a little shack. Even if the cops came here, the cops wouldn’t think to look for a printshop underneath a vacant lot where someone found a lost kid. The only way they’d know about us is…” The librarian looked at Mashiro—the white dog. Mashiro had been outside. “But there are dogs everywhere.” “Right. Which leaves only one answer.” In the next instant, the sound of gunfire rang out in the distance, and everyone screamed. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Mifuyu shook free of the librarian’s grip and dashed to the wooden box holding the fox. Now wasn’t the time to worry about it getting away; it was all or nothing. The thief would know where the books were. Everything needed to end here with this foolish racket. But with just one more step to go, someone moved between her and the wooden crate holding the fox. “What do you think you’re doing, miss?” That someone was Haruta. Maybe he was feeling unwell, but his face was oddly paler than before, and oily sweat dripped from his forehead. Mifuyu tried to slip around him, but he stood his ground and pushed her away. “Please step aside,” she urged him. “I have business with that fox.” “I want you to refrain from doing anything suspicious, or else the police will arrest me, too.” Pushing the middle of his glasses up his nose as he spoke, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Something seemed wrong. “What do you mean, ‘you, too’? They’re going to arrest everyone.” Mifuyu’s throat was dry, but she somehow managed to swallow. “Haruta… I mean, um, Seb. Are you saying that you’re the mole?” Everyone except for Mifuyu and Haruta stared in disbelief. Haruta eventually looked away. “It’s your fault for coming here. I promised them a long time ago that I would hand Ricky McCloy over to them. To protect this place.” “What?!” The librarian pushed Mifuyu aside as she moved to confront Haruta, but the others restrained her. “Calm down!” “Let’s hear him out first, okay?” The librarian fumed as everyone tried to console her. Behind them, Mifuyu tried to make herself small and search for Mashiro. Now focused solely on Haruta, the printers were no longer interested in Mifuyu. The police wanted Ricky McCloy, and Haruta—“Seb”—had assumed that Mifuyu was Ricky’s associate, which was why he acted like he’d secured her in the underground hideout as a way to lure him out. “I pretended I was safeguarding this young lady in order to lure Ricky here. When I said I brought her here because she fed Toby, that was an excuse. I’m the one who let Toby outside. It wasn’t a tip—the police were waiting for my signal. Once he knew that one of his associates was in here, Ricky would have no choice but to show himself.” “You got the hideout involved for that? I can’t believe it!” “I’m very sorry to all of you, but I’m doing this for the printing press. They promised to spare it. You can be replaced, but the press can’t. If it’s lost, then books can never be made again.” They jumped Haruta at almost the exact same time that Mashiro walked out of the bathroom, having rinsed her now-human face. “Mashiro!” Mifuyu yelled as she immediately tossed the wooden crate with the fox toward Mashiro before it could get mangled in the ensuing brawl. Mashiro sprung up, caught the crate, and smashed it with terrifying strength. The printers leaped ferociously upon Haruta, tearing off their clothes to become fully naked—except that they were all now almost completely fox, so the brawl resembled orange colored tufts attacking each other through screams. Mifuyu just narrowly escaped the oncoming fray, running over to where Mashiro gripped the fox tightly. “Cough up where you hid the books!” Mifuyu shouted. “If you don’t, then we’ll all turn into foxes, and even you’ll get shot by the police, too!” Mifuyu’s vision blurred with anger and tears. Why did this have to happen to her? She wiped at the corners of her eyes with a hand covered in velvety fur. She was already growing whiskers, her nose was elongating, and her teeth were turning to fangs. Just then, gunshots rang out from up above. “It’s McCloy! McCloy is here!” an angry voice shouted through a bullhorn. Then came gunshots and an earsplitting howl. The protagonist of the story was above them. Mifuyu grabbed the motionless fox by the scruff and shook it. “Do you really want to die in this messed-up world? Because if you do, then just go ahead and die, you coward!” At that, the fox’s eyes burst open, and it almost bit Mifuyu’s hand as she pulled it away. The fox slipped free before bounding off and hopping from one pile of books to another. “Hey, did you hear me? Find those books you stole! This won’t end until you do!” The fox shook its tail as though saying it understood, jumped to the pile of books on the far-left side, and began feverishly burrowing like a cat digging up sand. Mifuyu and Mashiro removed their shoes and crawled up the pile of books to help the thief. Black cover, brown cover, black cover, brown cover, black cover—and underneath all that, she spotted the wonderfully familiar sight of a book with a real cover. A printed photograph and title in crisp lettering. There were more books beneath it. The three of them dug single-mindedly for the books, and when they lifted up the last book, a tremendous sound emerged from the open warehouse door. Mifuyu looked toward it and saw Ricky McCloy— No, it was just Punch trying to look cool— Waking up, Mifuyu found herself on the first floor of Mikura Hall, lying down on the floor in the middle of the visitor’s sunroom. The dazzling sunlight pouring in through the giant window made her squint as she gazed lazily at the white clouds traveling leisurely through the blue sky. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She was back. She still held Black Book in her hands. She knew that the story within it and the story she had just seen and lived must be different. If she and Mashiro hadn’t been there, Ricky McCloy would have most certainly done different things. What would Seb have chosen, and how would that have changed the future of the printshop? Mulling that over, she understood less and less. What was that world even about? Why did that story even exist in the first place? And what were the keys that triggered the book curses for Black Book and The Brothers of the Lush Village? Who wrote them? Mifuyu rose, holding the ink-black book. Hearing a gentle snore, she craned her neck to peer on the opposite side of the low table, where her aunt Hirune slept on the sofa. What did her aunt know about the book curse? She looked after Mikura Hall, so chances were good she had some knowledge. Mashiro seemed to recognize her aunt as well. “Come on, Aunt Hirune, wake up.” She shook Hirune’s shoulders, trying to wake her up, but like always, she didn’t rouse. She stayed neatly seated, continuing to sleep like Sleeping Beauty after she pricked herself with the needle of her spinning wheel. “…It’s hopeless.” Mifuyu placed the book on the low table and started to leave Mikura Hall. Checking the clock, she noticed that hardly any time had passed since she entered that world. She had to hurry up and get some snacks, go to her father, and give them to him along with his book. That’s right, those two were going to visit him later. Ricky McCloy and the police officer, Punch and Mr. Miki. What would she do if they showed up in fedoras? Playing with the idea as she walked toward the entryway, she noticed a note held up by a magnet on the metal part of the front door. The magnet was in the shape of a cat charm known for bringing good luck; she had bought it for her aunt as a souvenir on a trip. “What in the world?” The note was mint green; it was a brand commonly found in most stationery stores. Suspicious, she removed the note from underneath the magnet and read the words written there. Her heart thundered. Dear Mifuyu Mikura, I need to talk with you. Please call me. My number is ***-***-****. Sincerely, Fox Thief