We North High students should know better than anyone else that there wasn’t anything like that. If you followed this river upstream, you’d run smack into the route we took to and from school. There wasn’t anything but mountains up there; it was deadly boring. It was so rural that there wasn’t even anyplace decent to buy a snack.
“About that,” said Sakanaka, explaining, “he doesn’t mind heading farther up, nor farther downstream. Higuchi and Mrs. Anan said their dogs are the same way.”
“Huh, interesting.” Haruhi watched Rousseau lick the palm of Asahina’s hand, then suddenly picked up the ball of fine white fur. “Okay, J.J.! You’re gonna guide us around this area. When we get to a point you don’t like, you just bark, got it? Here we go!”
Haruhi strode forcefully forward, but only got as far as the length of the leash held by Sakanaka—because the moment Rousseau had started to whine, his owner hadn’t taken another step forward.
She looked every bit as sad and scared as Rousseau and obviously didn’t want to see him traumatized. “I’ve never been angry with Rousseau,” she said, taking him out of Haruhi’s arms and stroking his head. “Did you know that there are dogs who die from the shock of their owners being angry at them? That’s why.”
I couldn’t believe how dog-crazy she was. Even for the spoiled daughter of a rich family, there had to be limits to such things. I wanted to make her put up my Shamisen for a night. I’m sure it would’ve been like paradise for him.
Haruhi, too, gazed at Sakanaka in surprise, her mouth half open, but Asahina seemed to agree with this, nodding emphatically. I was a little jealous of the dog having managed to steal Asahina’s heart so quickly.
“We weren’t planning on forcing him that much,” said Koizumi mildly as he cut into the conversation. The map fluttered in his hands. “Right now, we are”—he made a mark on the map in red pen—“here. The place from which dogs are sensing some sort of danger should be ahead of us. It should probably be considered an area rather than a point, but in any case, the farther we proceed, the harder it will be to narrow down the orientation of the phenomenon.”
Before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about, Koizumi gave Sakanaka a smile, like a door-to-door salesman giving a hard sell.
“Let’s head back for now. We’ll let Rousseau lead the way, and he’ll be able to enjoy a nice walk.”
Just as Koizumi suggested, we headed back down the path we’d taken, and after about five minutes of walking, we took a left at an intersection and proceeded south. The closer we got to the train station, the more people there were. Fortunately, Asahina was more interested in Rousseau than in her own outfit, so she didn’t seem too concerned about the looks she got from the passersby around us. Or maybe she’d just gotten used to going out in costume.
At the front of the group now was Koizumi, map in one hand. This was itself a fairly rare sight. He served as the trailblazer, handsome face, friendly smile, and all.
“This way next.” Having initially directed us south, Koizumi now turned our little parade east.
And then, after another five minutes of walking, Rousseau began to whine again.
“Maybe it is the river?”
The direction Haruhi pointed was the direction we were all facing, from which we could see the slope of the riverbank’s levee and the cherry trees that ran along it.
Once Koizumi established our exact location by checking some nearby addresses, he carefully marked our current spot on the map.
“And with this it starts to become clear. One more location should be enough.”
I had no idea what was becoming clear to Koizumi, but we started heading south again. This time we didn’t return to the street we’d taken to get here, rather taking a path that headed roughly toward the sea. Of course, we were nowhere near the actual sea, and it didn’t seem as though Koizumi was planning to go that far; we’d only walked this way for about five minutes. We’d walked just about as far as we had from the place Rousseau first froze to our second stop, then headed east again.
This time it didn’t even take three minutes.
Whiiiine.
For the third time, Rousseau refused to proceed. It was pretty sad, seeing the cute little stuffed animal–like dog get so upset, and I could understand why Sakanaka immediately scooped him up into her arms. It even got to me.
Asahina was agitated, Nagato was expressionless as ever, and Koizumi smiled cheerfully, as though satisfied. “I see,” he said.
He put another mark on the map, then turned toward us as if to explain that the real challenge would start here. I fully expected him to say something incomprehensible again, but I couldn’t very well keep ignoring him.
“What’s going on?” He seemed to want me to ask, so I asked. I hoped he was grateful.
“Have a look at this map.”
We all looked at the map Koizumi opened.
“The points marked in red are the points where Rousseau refused to continue. Including our position right now, there are three of them. Starting from the first one, we’ll call them points A, B, and C. Looking at them, is there anything that jumps out at you?”
What, was he giving an open-air lecture now?
I’d given up on any academic study outside of a classroom, so I refused to answer the question, but Haruhi jumped on it without so much as raising her hand.
“The distances between A and B, and between B and C, are just about the same.”
“Exactly so. That’s why I chose this particular route,” said Koizumi, satisfied at his model student. “The important concept to understand is that the individual points are not meaningful by themselves. Point B, in particular, is a mere checkpoint. Since evidence is better than theory, perhaps it would be easier to understand if I drew it.”
Koizumi took the red pen and drew quickly on the map. It was a curve that led from A to C, with B as the midpoint. There was now a small arc on the 1:10,000-scale map.
“Oh, I see how it is.” Haruhi seemed to have understood more quickly than anyone else. I had no idea.
“Kyon, don’t you get it? What do you see in this curve?”
I didn’t see anything other than a curve, I said.
“That’s why you’re so hopeless at math. You’ve got to understand this stuff intuitively. See? Koizumi, here—” Haruhi borrowed Koizumi’s red pen and dropped a new line onto the map. “I’ll extend the curve through the full sweep of its arc, and it makes a circle like this, see?”
Indeed it did. I was impressed at her ability to draw a nearly perfect circle freehand. It looked almost like the kind of mark you saw on a map that showed where the treasure was buried.
Oh. I finally understood. So that’s how it was.
“You’re saying that this circle is the area that dogs won’t enter.”
“It is merely a hypothesis,” said Koizumi. “If the area is indeed circular, then we can hypothesize it thusly. While we have no way of knowing whether the cause is a supernatural phenomenon of some kind or some kind of harmful man-made substance, this does make it a bit easier to understand.” He indicated the circle he and Haruhi had drawn. “If there is something here, the most suspicious point is the single place that’s the same distance from every point on the circle—in other words, the center. With only three points of reference, there is a sizable margin of error, but not necessarily mistaken. And that puts the center—”
Haruhi, holding the pen, beat Koizumi’s finger. “The riverbank!”
I didn’t need Haruhi to say it. The center of the circle on the map was the cherry tree–lined path that was very familiar to me, directly opposite the bench I’d sat on and had that memorable conversation with Asahina.
“Wow!” said Sakanaka, impressed. “I’m amazed you could think of something like that, Koizumi!”
“It is nothing,” said Koizumi with a smile.
Sakanaka looked keenly in his direction. I wanted to tell her she was better off staying away from him. You could never quite te
ll what he was thinking, plus he occasionally turned into a ball of glowing red energy.
I was about to warn her off, but I kept my mouth shut and continued to look at the map.
I got the feeling that every time something mysterious happened, I always seemed to find myself in familiar places. It was like I was being called there. I just hoped that this time I didn’t have to save a boy from being run over or deal with some foul-mouthed new character showing up. Back then it had just been Asahina and me. But now the whole gang was here. There was no telling who would do what, especially Her Excellency the brigade chief.
“Let’s go!” ordered Haruhi cheerfully. “To that mysterious spot. Sakanaka, J.J., you guys just relax and imagine you’re on a pleasure cruise. Once we’ve taken pictures of the ghost or whatever it is, I’ll be sure to exorcise it!”
“E-exorcise…?” Asahina hugged herself, apparently remembering what outfit she was wearing.
Haruhi grabbed her arm. “Now everyone, full-speed ahead!” she said, and took off running.
The spot in question was not far away, and we got there quickly thanks to Haruhi’s forced march. The mystery spot indicated on Koizumi’s map was right on the cherry tree–lined riverbank path, where the trees quietly gathered energy in preparation for their annual bloom.
Squinting at the map, Haruhi looked for the precise center, despite the fact that Koizumi’s calculations had been fairly rough, making such precision pointless.
“Maybe around here?”
“This should be roughly the location.”
In contrast to Haruhi’s intent comparison of map with landscape, Koizumi’s answer was vague.
Only the five full members of the SOS Brigade had come this far. Sakanaka and Rousseau retreated to their house—or rather, Sakanaka insisted that she “couldn’t possibly force Rousseau to go somewhere he doesn’t want to go,” and declined to accompany us. Since the dog and the girl were useful only as witnesses, neither Haruhi nor I objected to this. Although, I must admit that if we’re discussing utility, I myself was only worthwhile as an extra observer.
The one whose role was clearest was—
“Mikuru! Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s your turn now!”
“O-Okay…!”
From Haruhi’s perspective, Asahina was the only one to turn to now. That’s why she’d forced the poor girl into that shrine-maiden outfit. If we turned around and headed home now, the costume would have been totally wasted.
“B-but, um… What should I…?”
“Don’t sweat it! I’ve got everything ready. You just stand there, Mikuru. Right, and then hold this staff—”
Haruhi handed Mikuru a staff and made her take up a position in the grassy area near the river, then produced a rolled-up piece of copier paper from her skirt’s pocket. “All right, now.” Haruhi held the tremulous Asahina by the shoulders; Asahina looked beseechingly at the rest of us. “I don’t see any obvious ghosts, so let’s start the exorcism!”
“K-kanjizaibo… satsugyo…? Gyoujinhannyaa… haramiitajii… sh-shouken goun kaikuu… u…”
I was wondering what sort of “spell” Haruhi would come up with, but it was nothing—just the same Heart Sutra you could hear priests chanting at any Buddhist temple in Japan. I got the sense that the Shinto shrine maiden chanting a Buddhist sutra was sort of asking for trouble, but who was to say doubling up on religions wouldn’t double the magical effectiveness of the ritual?
As she chanted, Asahina stared intently at the paper Haruhi had brought. I felt like I wanted to beg the forgiveness of the religious workers at every shrine and temple.
Haruhi continued to act as Asahina’s assistant, flipping the phonetically transcribed pages of the Heart Sutra such that Asahina could keep reciting.
“D-d-doichi saiku yakushari… shikifu ikuukuu fuiishiki…?”
As Asahina continued to piously chant the sutra despite being a bogus shrine maiden, I took a look at the one person whose reaction I was very interested in. I think it goes without saying who that was.
“…”
With eyes as clear as glass wind chimes ringing in the night air, Nagato gazed at Asahina from behind. She didn’t look out of the ordinary, her slightly bored demeanor no different than usual. Her stillness was no different than when she was reading a book.
Maybe this meant I didn’t have to worry.
I had no intention of saying there was something here at this precise point where Asahina was employing her chanting. But instead of looking for something occult right at this point, there might be something scientific affecting the area. However, if that were the case, there’s no way Nagato wouldn’t have noticed, and there’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed her noticing. By which I mean, she would have told me. Just like she had back during the cave-cricket incident.
Perhaps becoming aware of my looking at her, Nagato first moved her eyes, then her head to look at me, then made a short comment as though having read my mind.
“There is nothing.”
No bombs or hibernating bears or atomic radiation sources or ancient coins—?
“No.”
Not even a trace?
“Nothing within my capabilities to sense,” said Nagato, as though she were reciting her times tables. “I detect no anomalous remnants.”
So why did Rousseau and the other dogs refuse to come near this area? If there wasn’t anything here, there was no reason for that.
“…”
Nagato moved her face like a wind chime stirred in a gentle breeze, looking diagonally past me.
I couldn’t help following her gaze.
“Wha?”
A tall man in sportswear was jogging up from the river’s downstream direction. I would’ve ignored him as a random jogger, but what drew my eye was the leash he held in one hand, the other end of which was attached to a collared dog. Not that a Shiba Inu was a particularly rare sight. It was a perfectly ordinary Shiba Inu.
But why was a dog here? Hadn’t this area become a temporarily dog-free zone?
“Huh?” Haruhi seemed to have noticed. Asahina, too, lifted her eyes from the text and looked up, following our gazes and falling silent at their object.
“Mucha muku… toku… Wha?”
“Oh ho.” Koizumi squinted at the dog running alongside the man.
The dog we were looking at had no trace of Sakanaka’s West Highland White Terrier’s reluctant conduct. It ran happily alongside its owner, panting steadily in its four-legged stride.
The young college-aged man and his dog regarded our far-more-suspicious group as he went to pass behind us, but then—
“Hey! Wait!” Haruhi jumped out and blocked his path. “We need to ask you something.” She eyed the dog with her palpably keen, laser-like glare. “Can we have a minute of your time? Why can that dog run around here like normal? Ah, hmm, this might take a bit of time to explain,” she said, then grabbed me by the tie and dragged me over. There, as the man looked on like he was wondering what our problem was, his dog’s tongue lolling out as it watched us, Haruhi whispered into my ear. “C’mon, Kyon, you explain this.”
Why did I have to do it?
Just as I was about to pass the baton to Koizumi, I found myself shoved by Haruhi in front of the dog and its master. Oh, well. I first apologized for disturbing his walk, then launched into the explanation. I told him that about a week ago, dogs had begun to refuse to enter this area. I explained that a friend of ours had asked us about it, and we’d thought it was suspicious enough to look into. That same dog had just minutes earlier refused to come near here. Just as we’d been sure we were close to finding something, he and his dog had come along, I told him. The clever-looking dog seemed perfectly happy, I said, but we didn’t understand why.
“Oh, that,” said the man of about twenty. He looked curiously at Asahina and her staff as he continued. “It’s true that about a week ago, this guy,” he said, pointing at the Shiba Inu, “started wanting to avoid our usual jogging course. When I’
d try to get him up on the riverbank, he’d stop moving. I couldn’t figure out why.” The dog’s athletic-looking master looked slowly between Asahina and Haruhi. “But this is the best road to walk him on, so I wondered if I could make him do it somehow. So the day before yesterday—or was it three days ago? Anyway, he really resisted at first, but as you can see, he’s now happily running on his old course. He seems fine now.”
I was no vet, but as far as I could tell, the well-mannered dog sitting at his master’s feet was perfectly happy and the picture of health. He didn’t seem worried about anything at all.
“I’ll bet if your friend forced her dog a little bit, he’d be back to his old self. I don’t know what the original cause was; maybe there was a bear or something, and its scent was lingering,” said the man, echoing Koizumi’s comment. “Will that be all?”
“Thank you very much. It really helped!” Haruhi honestly thanked him.
The young man looked at Asahina’s outfit, seeming for a moment like he wanted to say something, but perhaps he wasn’t the nosy type. We were lucky he was so nice. “ ’Bye,” he said, and jogged on upriver.
Left behind were five dunderheads: me, Haruhi holding the sutra, Asahina looking like she’d gotten lost on the way to the local shrine, Nagato watching the river flow by, and Koizumi stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“So what does this mean?”
It meant just what we’d seen and heard, I said.
“What about the ghost? I was really looking forward to that.”
Shouldn’t she be admitting there wasn’t one all along?
So what was happening?
Heck if I knew.
“… You seem weirdly happy. It bugs me.”
That wasn’t fair. I always tried to keep a straight face. It wasn’t as though I was deeply relieved that her expectations hadn’t been fulfilled, and that whatever was here was now long gone, I said.
“Liar.”
Haruhi turned on her heel and walked away from me, her strides long and quick.
The Indignation of Haruhi Suzumiya Page 14
