When I next opened my eyes, Nito was just in sight. She was crouched like a sneaking cat and holding the lit-up phone in one hand. Her other hand was reaching toward my shoulder. Her eyes were wide in fear.
“What’s up?” I asked once I’d grasped the situation.
“Keisuke...there’s a gh-gh-gh...”
“A ‘gh’?”
She opened and closed her mouth several times, swallowing her words as if she was afraid to even say them.
“There’s a ghost, it looks like.”
“Oh... Right. Say hi for me. I’m still sleepy.”
I rolled over and put my arm under my head, intending to go back to sleep, but the blows soon raining down on my back meant that that was never going to happen.
“What do you mean, ‘say hi’?! I-It’s a ghost! Now’s not the time to sleep!”
“Fine, fine. I give in. I’m getting up.”
The drowsiness was still muffling my mind as I sat up and stretched. Eventually, I woke up properly. Nito’s face was lit from beneath by the phone, which she’d abandoned on the bed, and she looked close to tears. I got myself properly seated, facing her.
“What happened, then?” I asked.
“I-I heard something. A slam and then a creeeaaak...”
“Are you sure you weren’t imagining things?”
She shook her head wildly from side to side.
“It happened several times. That’s why I woke you up... It sounds like it’s stopped now, though.”
“Maybe one of the windows is open and it’s the wind... Oh.”
In the middle of trotting out the usual suspects, I remembered something.
“What’s that look supposed to mean...?”
“I heard something too.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?!”
“Well, the old woman showed up while I was thinking about it, and then I forgot.”
“The old woman?! There’s a ghost of an old woman here?!”
“Nah, she was a real woman... It’s too much of a pain to explain it all.”
Nito must have been so focused on her painting that she hadn’t noticed when the woman went past, or even when she spoke to her.
“Anyway,” I said decisively, “I heard something, and you heard something...so maybe there is something here.”
Nito’s expression shifted to one of abject terror, and she went utterly still.
“We need to get out of here. Now,” she said.
“It’s not necessarily a ghost...”
“I...don’t want to meet that ghost lady.”
“Seriously, she was still alive.”
Nito didn’t want to hear it, though, and just started shaking her head. I couldn’t exactly leave her like that and go back to sleep.
“Want me to go look?” I asked eventually.
Her expression morphed into one of shock, like she wanted to say, “I can’t believe you! Don’t you know what could happen?!”
“I didn’t think your brain was that empty...”
“Well, that was five times worse than what I thought you’d say.”
I was scared too, obviously. Fortunately, I was still half-asleep, so I wasn’t really feeling it. Sleepiness was stronger than fear. I picked up my backpack from the floor and took out a windup lamp. The room was suddenly much brighter once I’d switched it on.
“You going to wait here?” I asked.
“You want to leave me on my own?!”
“You may as well come with me, then,” I said, standing up.
Though she pouted and frowned as she did so, Nito followed suit.
“What do we do if there is something?” she asked.
“I’ll keep it busy, and you’ll run away.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” she insisted.
Her voice was stronger than I’d expected, and I turned to look at her properly. She still had a look of fear on her face, but her lips were drawn into a firm, determined line.
“W-We’ll die together!”
“That’s not really funny,” I said, laughing all the same; I didn’t think we’d need to worry that much.
I opened the door and peered out into the corridor. A shaft of moonlight from one of the windows cut a line across the wall and floor. I strained my ears, but there was nothing to hear.
“S-So?” Nito asked.
“Well, I can’t hear anything...” I answered, before turning to look at her. “You’re bringing that with you?”
“It’s for self-defense,” she insisted, clutching her easel in both hands.
I just nodded wordlessly. As long as it makes her more comfortable.
We moved through the door and into the corridor. To the left was the path to the temple hall, and to the right, the path to the unknown. The sound we’d heard had probably come from the latter direction.
“A-Are we really going?”
“Well, there’s that saying about how ghosts are actually silver grass.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know when you think you see a ghost at night, then you go up and look and it turns out to be just withered, silvery grass?”
“Oh, so it means you can’t make out the details and your imagination fills them in, making you see something impossible...”
“There you go, just casually showing off how clever you are.”
“And what is that supp—”
Suddenly, she stopped. I held my breath as well. We met each other’s gazes and then both slowly turned our heads to the right.
Slam.
“I heard that.”
“So did I,” she replied.
The sound didn’t repeat, though. I decided that waiting in that spot trying to breathe as quietly as possible wouldn’t be any help, so I started walking. A moment later, Nito followed after me at a trot. We found a single door at the end of the corridor. I stopped outside it and waited, but there was nothing to hear.
I reached for the doorknob. Nito grabbed onto the hem of my shirt. The door opened with a soft creak, and a dim, yellow light that felt like it came from a retro-style lamp shone through from the other side. Behind the door was a library. Shelves of books lined the walls and a large table and chairs stood in the center of the room.
Someone was sitting in one of those chairs.
My eyes widened. This was no ghost, but she was a familiar face.
The girl in the chair looked up and met my gaze. The lantern beside her lit up her cheeks and the characteristic cat-eared hat she wore. When I’d first met her, she’d seemed like the type who usually wore a pretty blank expression, but even she had wide eyes at this sudden intrusion.