I told Mochizuki, who was sharing my room, the overall situation and then slipped out of the room before ten o’clock.
Putting my cell phone in my pocket before I left was a reflex. No, that’s not quite true. Everything that had just happened in the dining hall must have imprinted the idea on me. That it was better to have my cell phone with me in case of emergency. After all, I’d connected with Mei’s phone once tonight, even if the signal had been terrible…
I encountered no one on my walk down the shadowy second floor corridor from room 202 to room 223. Apparently everyone was following Mr. Chibiki’s instructions and obediently shutting themselves in their rooms.
Outside Mei’s room, I glanced through a window in the hall.
The wind was as fierce as ever, but it looked as though the rain had stopped. The clouds blanketing the sky had grown diffuse, revealing the ghostly round glow of the moon. In its light, I could make out the somber shapes of the wood surrounding the yard.
Just this side of the forest, in a corner of the back lawn, I noticed a small, one-story building. It wasn’t even big enough to be called an annex or a side building. Maybe a shed or a tool house.
Observing the scene absentmindedly, I watched as a window in the building suddenly lit up. Apparently someone had just now turned on a light inside.
It wasn’t enough to make me seriously question who it could have been. Obviously, it would be one of the Numatas. They’d probably gone out there to get something they needed.
I moved away from the window, took one slow, deep breath, and then knocked on the door to room 223.
After a long moment, Mei opened the door. She had a lightweight ivory cardigan on over her summer uniform and her complexion looked even more waxen than usual.
“Go ahead,” she said tersely, gesturing me in without even a smile. The night wasn’t that hot, and yet the air conditioner in her room was pumping at full strength. “Sit down, at least.”
It was the same thing she’d told me the first time I’d been allowed up to the living room in her house. I settled myself lightly in the chair at the table next to the window. Mei sat down on the edge of one of the two beds in the room; then, out of the blue, she said, “We were talking about Misaki.”
She turned an unflinching gaze on me. I nodded silently.
Naturally, the “Misaki” she was referring to was not the “Misaki” of twenty-six years ago, nor the “Misaki” of her own last name, nor even the “Misaki” that was the town she lived in. She meant her cousin, Misaki Fujioka, who had died at the Yumigaoka Municipal Hospital that day at the end of April.
“I’ve honestly been thinking about it ever since I first saw you at the hospital, wondering why you got off the elevator at the second basement level.”
I spoke as if to refresh my own memory.
“Misaki was hospitalized there, but that was the day she passed away, right? So her body was in the memorial chapel on the second basement level, right? And you said you were taking that doll to her. But even so…”
“You thought it seemed odd?”
“Well, yeah.”
“The situation is a little complicated.”
Mei lowered her eyes as she spoke.
“I never really wanted to tell anyone this, but…”
“Do you mind if I ask? Will you tell me?”
After a slight pause, her eyes still lowered, Mei replied, “Okay.”