Ghost sightings were the result of people’s easily confused sense of vision being mistaken, or hearing something that was just actually dry grass under a willow tree rustling. If a real ghost actually showed up, it’d mean the upending of all of humanity’s accumulated scientific knowledge.
Even Sakanaka wasn’t sure. “Please, just wait a minute,” she said. “I don’t know for sure that it’s a ghost. I might be wrong. I just can’t think of anything else…” Her resolve was starting to sound half-baked.
“Hey, Haruhi,” I interrupted hastily, since Haruhi had already started hurrying toward the equipment closet. “Calm down, okay? Let’s listen to what Sakanaka has to say. The situation isn’t that simple.”
“Don’t get in my way,” grumbled Haruhi, but she returned to her desk and folded her arms. Neither Sakanaka nor I could hide our relief. Now I finally had time to check Nagato’s and Koizumi’s expressions.
I probably shouldn’t have looked.
Neither of them looked any different from normal. In other words, Koizumi had his usual meaningless smile, and Nagato’s expression was totally blank. Like always.
However, both of them were watching Sakanaka, apparently keenly interested in her. For some reason I got the sense that matching words were written on both their faces.
—Ghosts? What is this person talking about?
Or something along those lines.
Now then, while I’m giving my views on things, I should say that I don’t believe in ghosts. I’m firmly convinced that those “paranormal documentaries” you see on TV are nothing more than well-crafted entertainment.
Of course, this conviction is like a house built in the sand, given that I’d found myself stuck in a group with an alien, a time traveler, and an esper, and spent a lot of time getting involved in all sorts of supernatural nonsense.
So somewhere in my mind I felt it was entirely possible that a ghost, phantom, or wraith might decide to pop out of somewhere if it got the notion to do so. But just as I’ve never met a person from another dimension, I’ve never so much as said hello to a ghost, and since there’s no point in worrying about a being you’ve never met, I sprinted away from such concerns. If they were going to come, then let them come! But I wasn’t going to go looking for them. Does my lot in life make any more sense now?
But really, all I could do was act aloof. And as for the other members—
“Ghosts, you say? How interesting.” Koizumi put a finger to his chin, apparently deep in thought.
“Um… is that, er…?” Asahina looked imploringly at the client with questioning eyes.
Nagato, as usual:
“…”
It seemed that, save Haruhi, the entire brigade felt the same way I did—neither Nagato, Koizumi, nor Asahina really had much of a serious expression on their faces upon hearing the word “ghost.” Asahina in particular looked as if she barely had any conception of what the term meant. Perhaps traditions like religion and ancestor worship don’t exist in the future. I’d have to ask about that later. Not that she would tell me.
I might not have been the most outgoing person in the world, but it wasn’t like the only people in Class 5 I talked to were Haruhi, Taniguchi, and Kunikida; I exchanged small talk with plenty of my other classmates, although admittedly the range of communication I used was somewhat more constricted when that classmate was a girl.
Groping around the inside of my brain, I could find no memories of having talked to Sakanaka, so it was hard to be sure, but I had the feeling that she wasn’t exactly a conversationalist.
So I’ll just relate the highlights of the conversation.
“Um, the first time I noticed something was strange was with Rousseau,” said Sakanaka, facing Haruhi.
“Rousseau?” said Haruhi, brows knitting.
“Yes. Rousseau is my family’s dog.”
That dog sure had a hell of a name.
“I take him for a walk every morning and evening. When I first got him, I used to take him on all sorts of different routes, but now I do the same walk every time. I’ve just totally gotten used to it—”
That wasn’t really important, I pointed out.
“Sorry. But it might be important.”
Which part, I wanted to know.
“Shut up, Kyon,” said Haruhi. “Sakanaka, please continue.”
“I was on the same route as always, and Rousseau was happily walking along, but th-then…” She stumbled over her words, speaking quietly. Was she performing a ghost story now?
“About a week ago, Rousseau started hating that path. He’d pull on the leash, like this—”
Sakanaka made a pose like an animal clinging to the ground. It looked just like Shamisen did when he didn’t want to move from a warm spot.
“He’d get like this, and he wouldn’t budge. He’d be fine halfway but then suddenly stop. It seemed so strange. And it was always like that. So I changed the route I used.”
Having gotten that far in her story, Sakanaka sipped some tea.
So her dog with the philosopher’s name had suddenly started hating the route by which he was walked. So where did ghosts enter the story?
My question was Haruhi’s question, evidently.
“What about the ghosts?”
“Like I said.” Sakanaka set down her teacup. “I don’t know if there are ghosts. It’s just a rumor.”
I told her we’d like to hear the source of the rumor.
“There are many. Lots of people have dogs in my neighborhood. I often chat with them when I’m out walking Rousseau, and he’s happy to see his friends, so I’ve gotten to know a lot of people in the area. The first was Mrs. Anan with her two shelties. She said the same thing, that when she walks them, she doesn’t even try to go down that street. Because her dogs started refusing to go.”
But humans could walk by without feeling anything? I asked.
“That’s right. I didn’t feel anything weird.”
We were getting off topic, I said. What was important was the notion of ghosts.
“Right, yes.” Sakanaka’s face clouded. “Since that day, none of the neighborhood dogs will approach that area. All the owners are talking about it. There used to be some stray cats there too, but they’ve all disappeared…”
Haruhi was listening carefully. She had a pen and paper as though to take notes, but when I sneaked a look, all she’d drawn were some scrawled dogs and cats. Then, she seemed to seize upon the rough logical progression.
“So what you’re saying is that there’s a ghost in the area, which is why animals won’t go near it? That only cats and dogs can see it, and it’s invisible to humans?”
“Yes. That’s the story that’s going around.” Sakanaka nodded firmly. “There’s another thing that bothers me. There’s a girl named Higuchi, and she has a bunch of dogs. Her puppies are friends with my dog.” She sounded terrified as she continued. “But one of them has gotten sick recently. He wasn’t out for a walk this morning. I didn’t have time to hear the details, but apparently he’s been taken to an animal hospital.” Sakanaka implored Haruhi with serious eyes. “Don’t you think that sounds like a ghost, Suzumiya?”
“Hmm, well…” Haruhi rested her chin on her folded arms, narrowing her eyes as she thought about it. She seemed to be thinking that there wasn’t much to this story, and that it would be a lot more interesting if there were ghosts involved. “At the present, I can’t be sure.”
It was a surprisingly prudent answer coming from Haruhi, but then the corner of her mouth quirked.
“But there’s a large possibility it is! They do say that dogs and cats can see things humans can’t. And maybe Mr. Whatever’s dog saw a ghost and got sick, then passed out from the shock.”
I couldn’t exactly raise my hand and shout, “Objection!” to this. After all, I saw Shamisen staring intently at a corner of the room with nothing in it all the time. I’m pretty sure most cat owners would agree with me, but who knows. But unlike dogs, even if a cat did s
ee a ghost, it wouldn’t fall ill from the shock. The cat owners out there know what I’m talking about.
As I was summoning the memory of the calico cat at my house, Haruhi jumped out of her chair. “I’ve got the gist of things.”
The only “gist” I had was that there was an area that cats and dogs refused to enter, I said.
“That’s more than enough. There’s nothing more to be gained in hypothesizing. We should head immediately to the scene. There must be something there that’s making animals sense danger—like a ghost, ghoul, or demon.”
Or something even worse. Imagining the formless monsters that roamed communistically around nineteenth century Europe gave me a chill. Depending on how we communicated with it, we might be able to lead a ghost to enlightenment, whereas with a ghoul or a demon we might need to find a Ghostbuster or a demon postbox. But what if some unnameable cosmic horror emerged to possess us—what then?
I naturally looked toward Nagato when the thought occurred to me.
Our last client had been Kimidori, the student council secretary, and she’d been connected to Nagato. Perhaps Sakanaka was too…
But I quickly abandoned this notion, because Nagato was looking up from her book, her interest surprisingly drawn by Sakanaka’s story. On her pale white face was an expression only I could read—I was quite proud of myself for this. Her expression was shifted one micron toward looking contemplative. Which meant that the story Sakanaka was sharing with us was an irregularity, from Nagato’s perspective.
I took the opportunity to check Koizumi’s expression. When I caught his eye, he shrugged minutely and smirked. Annoyingly, he seemed to have discerned exactly what I wanted to say. This isn’t my doing, his posture conveyed, and I hated myself for knowing Koizumi well enough to read his body language so well.
As for the third party’s state, it went without saying. Everything about Asahina broadcasted the fact that she had nothing to do with this—she could barely keep up with the conversation. Even if the source of the ghost-whatever had something to do with time travel, Asahina wasn’t involved—excluding Asahina the Elder, of course.
“All right, everyone,” Haruhi said spiritedly. “We’re heading out! Bring the camera, and… well, I guess we don’t have any ghost-capturing equipment. I wish we had some paper talismans with Tangut writing on them.”
“What we need is a city map,” added Koizumi, aiming his smile at Sakanaka. “I’d like to do some interviewing. Can I ask for the cooperation of your dog, Rousseau?”
It looked like Koizumi was on board. We hadn’t found any mysterious phenomena during our citywide patrols, but now we had a specific spot that we could jump straight into.
“Sure.” Sakanaka nodded at Koizumi’s handsome face. “If it’s during one of Rousseau’s walks.”
Asahina blinked her eyes in surprise. “Oh, um, I had better get changed.” She hastily smoothed her maid outfit. Asahina seemed to be worried that if she didn’t hurry and change, she’d get dragged out wearing what she had on, and Haruhi was certainly capable of doing so.
“Good point, Mikuru. You do need to change. That outfit’s not suited to this at all,” said Haruhi reasonably.
“N-no, it’s not,” said Asahina, sounding relieved as she reached up to take the kerchief off her head.
Which meant that it was time for Koizumi and me to make ourselves scarce. Whether or not I got to, I definitely wasn’t going to let Koizumi get a free peek.
I was turning to leave the room when Haruhi said something unexpected.
“But you’re not going to change into your school uniform.”
“Wha?” Asahina made a noise of confusion as I walked past her, as Haruhi strode over to the hanger rack. She cheerily selected an outfit and pulled it out. “Here, this one! This is perfect for dealing with ghosts, right?”
The outfit that Haruhi had produced involved a white robe and scarlet hakama trousers. It was one of the classic costumes of old Japan.
Asahina couldn’t help backing away.
“Um… that is…”
“It’s a shrine maiden!” Haruhi smiled the special smile she reserved for when she’d had a really great idea, pushing the outfit against Asahina. “This is perfect for exorcisms! I don’t have any priest robes, and even if I did I’d have to shave your head to make you look right in ’em, and I’d feel kinda bad about that. What do you think, Kyon? I don’t pick costumes without thinking about it! Look, this is gonna come in handy!”
I wondered whether a maid or a shrine maiden would draw more attention leaving the school, but before I could voice my reaction, Koizumi and I were shooed out of the clubroom door and into the hallway.
From inside the room, I heard the familiar sound of Haruhi’s delight at making Asahina change, mingled with Asahina’s adorable cries of dismay at the same.
I figured I might as well take the opportunity to ask.
“Koizumi.”
“Yes? I’ll just say up front that there’s nothing obvious that comes to mind when I hear the word ‘ghost.’ ” Koizumi brushed his hair aside with a finger, smiling placidly.
“So what the hell is it?”
“I can’t say anything for certain at the moment. It would be pure conjecture.”
Conjecture’s fine, I told him. Just give it to me.
“The situation is that all the neighborhood dogs have started avoiding a certain location. So here’s a quiz for you: what is it that animals, and dogs in particular, are much better at than humans?”
“Sense of smell.”
“Exactly. There is a possibility that somewhere along the course where Sakanaka used to walk her dog, something that gives off a scent that dogs hate is buried.” Koizumi pushed a wisp of hair behind his ear and continued, his smile never wavering. “One possibility is that there’s some kind of chemical weapon in the area. It might have fallen there while being transported by a paramilitary organization.”
That was ridiculous. They wouldn’t carry chemical weapons on the back of a little truck where it could easily fall off, I pointed out.
“Another possibility would be radiation. Of course, I’m not sure how sensitive animals are to atomic radiation.”
Forget all this talk about chemical weapons. An unexploded bomb seemed more likely to me, I said.
“Indeed, that is also possible. Or if we’re speaking more realistically, perhaps a bear came down out of the mountains and is hibernating in the area, and the dogs can sense that it’s about to awaken…”
No way. There might be wild boars in the mountains around town, but there weren’t any bears, I said.
“Essentially,” Koizumi said, folding his arms elegantly, “given the vague information we have now, we can think of any number of possibilities. The one and only way to see through to the truth will be a combination of gathering all the evidence, using logical inference and lateral thinking, and adding a little bit of gut instinct to direct our actions. The most important one of those is having definite information. Have we gotten all the clues available? Being sure of that is no easy task.”
If he wanted to give a lecture on mystery-solving methods, he should’ve been doing it at the mystery club. We weren’t going to figure anything out by just thinking about it. With something like this, it was just as Haruhi said—we were going to have to go to the scene and look for anything strange. It’d be obvious once we got there. If she decided to start digging, we might wind up excavating ancient coins from back when Himiko was the first empress of Japan, which would bring archaeologists from miles around—I didn’t really want to think about that, but anyway, if he wanted to do another mystery plot, he should wait until our next club trip, I told him.
“Revealing the truth via pure deduction is the epitome of the mystery genre. There’s no fun in an incident whose cause is obvious upon quick investigation.”
As he was speaking incomprehensibly, Koizumi removed himself from leaning on the door to the clubroom and stepped aside.
At the
same time, the door opened, and through it bravely strode our brigade chief, dragging Asahina behind her.
“Preparations complete! You look great, Mikuru! You’ll be able to banish any spirit you like with this on!”
“Mmn…”
Out came Shrine Maiden Asahina, timidly looking down as she stepped forth. I hadn’t seen this event since the hinamatsuri event on March 3.
I didn’t know when it had been made, but wearing that priestess outfit, Asahina was even carrying a ceremonial staff. If she waved it around and chanted the appropriate prayers, unquiet spirits weren’t the only things that would be sent to heaven. She was adorable.
Behind them followed Sakanaka, shaking her head as if to say, “You didn’t have to go to these lengths,” and then Nagato, herself walking like a ghost that happened not to be transparent. Our preparations to depart the school were complete.
I wanted to think that there wouldn’t be any actual exorcisms, mostly because of the person on whom we’d foisted the duty. If the part-time shrine maiden cosplayer waved her staff around and actually pulled it off, I’d feel like we’d owe the actual sorcerers and diviners of the Heian period an apology.
Heck, spring was here. This time of year could drive cats and dogs a little crazy. Who’s to say humans were any different?
At least, that’s what I would’ve liked to think.
Unfortunately, when Haruhi gets that look of anticipation on her face, the odds of us getting wrapped up in something totally bizarre are very good. On top of that, lately Koizumi, Asahina, and Nagato had been bringing their own incidents to the fore, and it was enough to make me think that maybe I should be causing some trouble of my own.
Of course, such thoughts were folly, as I was the only member of the brigade without ties to some crazy organization.
As I thought about today’s events, I considered that the girl who’d brought this case to us seemed like a totally normal, dog-loving girl no matter how I looked at her, and I simply couldn’t imagine her dreaming up a prank where she led us to a haunted street, so there was no way an actual ghost would show up. If there really were obvious spirits that Asahina could banish wandering around the city, I got the feeling that they would’ve made it to the clubroom long ago. And for one thing, this was the wrong season for ghosts, anyway; the Bon Festival wouldn’t happen for another few months.
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 12
