Diana always carried something wrapped in a cloth that seemed very important to her. She never revealed what it was or let it go. She held it tight against her chest during class. The girls around her were naturally very curious about it. Many of them asked her what it was, but she only smiled in response. Finally, one girl suggested that it might be a charm from her hometown, and everyone took that for the truth and eventually lost interest in the item in the cloth.
I only found out what it was by chance.
One day, I’d been so focused on studying I hardly realized it was morning. If I fell asleep then, I’d be late for class. I thought I should catch the earliest train to school and then rest in the nurse’s office until the morning assembly. A janitor opened the school gates for me when I arrived. When I went inside, I noticed a shadow under a tree in the courtyard.
Who would be here at this hour?
I stealthily edged towards the shadow in the morning fog. A shadow slowly and stiffly—indeed, dragged its leg as it moved. That’s right, it would make sense for Diana to be here since she’s staying in the convent, I thought. I was just about to turn back and head towards the nurse’s office.
Then, I saw Diana unravel the cloth. It was a doll.
Intrigued by the thought that Diana had been carrying a doll around all this time, I quietly tiptoed to a place where I could get a better view.
Diana held the doll against the trunk of the tree. She then took out a knife and with a powerful thrust, stabbed it into the doll’s chest.
Terrified, I stretched my neck out so I could see just a little bit more—and gasped.
The doll looked exactly like Itsumi Shiraishi.
The doll was attached to a cross. Diana had pinned it against the tree. She started to mumble. It sounded like Bulgarian. The dark, melancholy intonation of her voice trembled eerily in the air. She repeated the same words over and over again. Although I didn’t know the meaning of that phrase, which ended in a sharp syllable, I felt like it had torn into my heart. I was deeply uncomfortable. I took shallow breaths as I watched Diana continue to recite what sounded like an incantation. I wondered how much time had passed. Finally, Diana smirked with satisfaction and slowly pulled the knife out from the doll’s chest. She wrapped the doll in the cloth, held it close to her chest, and slowly made her way back to the convent.
After she left, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t understand what I’d just seen.
A few hours later, Itsumi Shiraishi came in late for the morning assembly, looking pale.
“You’re never late. Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t know, I was in a lot of pain,” Itsumi answered. “My chest suddenly started hurting this morning.”
…What did she say? For a moment, I doubted my ears.
“I panicked and rushed over to my father’s hospital to have it checked out. But they couldn’t find anything,” Itsumi explained.
The image of the blade that stabbed the doll’s chest floated into my mind. I looked back at Diana’s seat. She sat there stroking the doll from over the cloth with a mysterious grin on her face.
She was mumbling something. It was the phrase that finished with the harsh syllable, the one she had just been reciting before.
My eyes met with Diana’s. She looked frighteningly beautiful and far more alive than Itsumi.
✦ ✦ ✦
That was when Itsumi’s health started gradually deteriorating.
I had always sneered at the idea of fortune tellers and curses, and yet found myself worrying about Diana and her doll. According to my research, there is something called a “voodoo doll” that is used in black magic. If you cause pain to a doll that looks like your enemy, the actual person will feel the pain you inflict upon the doll. The more they look alike, the more effective it will be.
Why would Diana do this if Itsumi was her friend? After trying to wrap my brain around it, I finally came to a conclusion.
Diana did it because Itsumi had spoken with the principal and her father, the academy chairman, and recommended that this be the last year they invited a student from Levagrad to the academy.
Diana’s stay was incredibly beneficial to our school. The other students were able to meet a foreigner and learn about the lifestyle and culture of a country which is hardly ever covered in the media, and this was an immensely valuable experience for the students. So Itsumi suggested that rather than continuing to bring students from Bulgaria, the academy should invite students from a different small country each year instead.
Since Mr. Shiraishi and the principal basically left the matter in Itsumi’s hands, she began researching the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, and contacted their respective embassies to figure out how to make her idea a reality. If Itsumi had succeeded, Diana would’ve been our first and last international student from Bulgaria.
We Japanese are from a country far wealthier than Bulgaria, so it is hard for us to understand Diana’s situation.
Levagrad is a tiny, poor village in a small Eastern European country. Left behind even by tourism, it has no large manufacturers and offers a low standard of living. An invitation to Japan means a lot in a village like Levagrad. Diana’s sister, who works part-time at a travel agency to save her family from debt, coordinated all the travel arrangements for the study abroad program. Diana joyfully mentioned that, despite the fact that her sister is currently hospitalized, her sister’s company plans to keep her employed long-term and give her a huge bonus because they anticipate invitations to Japan in the future. In other words, without an invitation from our academy, Diana’s sister would lose her job and their family wouldn’t be able to survive financially.
Diana put in serious efforts to have this program continue, which is why Itsumi’s idea must have seemed like an unforgivable betrayal of trust. If Itsumi was weak, she wouldn’t have the strength to keep up her negotiations. If there weren’t any negotiations, the academy would keep inviting students from Levagrad—this must have been Diana’s thought process.
✦ ✦ ✦
The fresh green spring outside bloomed as Itsumi continued to wilt.
Her once rosy-colored cheeks became gaunt, and it seemed like breathing was painful. I often found her lying on the sofa in the salon. Itsumi’s life was being drained away—yes, that’s the perfect way to describe it. Concerned about her condition, I started taking her pulse, temperature, and blood pressure every day.
One day, when I picked up her wrist to take her pulse, her nail accidentally caught my arm.
“Ouch!”
I let go of her hand and saw a single line of blood trickling down my arm.
“Goodness, I’m sorry, Sonoko,” Itsumi apologized, rubbing my arm. “I didn’t notice how long my nails were. It’s strange, I cut them just a few days ago.”
Her nails were long and sharp, indeed. I knew Itsumi trimmed them regularly, so this was unusual.
“I’ll visit the nail salon today. I’m so sorry,” she apologized.
But the same thing happened just a few days later.
“Ughh, this is so annoying. I just went to the salon a couple of days ago,” Itsumi sighed, staring perplexedly at her nails. “It’s so weird. Why are they growing so fast? I’m sorry, Sonoko.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I replied.
While I figured that Itsumi had simply forgotten to go to the nail salon, this incident bothered me. Carefully observing her, I realized that her nails really were growing unusually fast.
It can’t be. I must be mistaken.
But even though Itsumi had just cut her nails, they had grown enough to break skin in just a few days. Once I started observing her more closely, I also noticed that her hair was growing at a rapid pace. One day her hair was at her shoulders, and just a couple days later it was almost hanging down to her waist.
Something was off. Something strange was happening to Itsumi’s body…
I was going to broach my worries with Itsumi. Then I saw something happen.