by Yusuke Kishi
“Guess we’ll just have to walk in.”
“Don’t you think there’ll be guards on the road?”
“Let’s go around, through the forest.”
We disembarked at a dock about a kilometer away and started walking in the opposite direction. On our left was a grassy field and on our right a forest of ferns, camellia, and evergreen trees. We made sure we weren’t being watched, then slipped into the forest.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Yeah, me too.”
The feeling grew stronger with every step. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, as if there were a magnetic field ahead pushing all the particles in our body away from it.
How far had we gone? After a while, the black and yellow stripes came into view. The rope had been extended all the way into the middle of the forest.
“You’re kidding. Who even comes through here?”
“I guess this thing goes around the entire village.”
Satoru folded his arms and stared at the rope. It was tied around the trees in a zigzagging pattern, but didn’t look as if it curved around anywhere.
“Well, we’ll just have to go through here then,” Satoru ducked under the rope that was stretched out at eye-level.
I followed right behind. My heart was pounding and I knew we seriously breaking the rules but there was no other choice.
“Sh,” Satoru suddenly stopped and gestured for me to be quiet.
I froze.
There was movement in between the trees some thirty meters ahead.
Satoru turned around and mouthed something to me. Qu-ee-rat… It appeared to be a sentry.
We crouched in the shadow of the trees, trying not to breathe. I created a gentle breeze with my cantus to blow our scent away.
It felt like an eternity, but in reality probably only ten minutes passed. A sharp call echoed through the woods. The queerat sprang to attention and rushed off.
“Alright, let’s go.”
We started forward again. Finally, we came across a dirt road cutting through the evergreen forest. On the other side was a large red pine forest for which the town is named after.
After double checking to make sure that there were no people or queerats around, we darted across the road into the pine forest.
Suddenly, all the little hairs on my body stood up.
Panicking, I looked around wildly. I only saw trees and grass. Nothing out of the ordinary. But something felt completely wrong.
“Just as I thought, there’s something weird going on. Something bad in the air. We shouldn’t stay here for too long,” Satoru said, apparently getting the same vibes as me.
“What do we do?”
“We’ve already come this far, we can’t turn back now, right?” Satoru whispered, though he looked uncertain.
We went another forty or fifty meters into the pine forest. An unbelievable sight appeared before us. There was another rope stretched out at eye-level. But it wasn’t a simple black and yellow striped one.
“The Holy Barrier! Why?”
It was a pure white rope hung with lots of streamers. Why was the Holy Barrier, which was supposed to protect Kamisu 66 from the outside world, here in Pinewind?
“Did the town’s borders shrink?”
“No, that’s not it,” Satoru said, inspecting the rope. “This is obviously newly made. The old Holy Barrier is probably still where it always has been.”
“Then what is this?”
“Another barrier inside the town that goes all the way around Pinewind.”
It didn’t make sense no matter how I looked at it. The Holy Barrier was supposed keep bad things out, but now it seemed like it was holding something in.
Satoru sighed deeply, “Anyway, if we want to keep going, we’ll have to cross the barrier.”
I nodded. Going beyond the Holy Barrier was completely different from crossing a simple “entrance prohibited” rope. If we were found out, nothing we could say would help us.
But I already knew that this was the only way to find Shun.
We ducked under the rope, careful not to touch any of the streamers.
At first it seemed that nothing had changed. But as we kept going, abnormalities began to appear.
The usually lush undergrowth in the forest looked as if it had been mown down by a hurricane. Everything was twisted and dying.
I couldn’t read Satoru’s expression. We continued in silence.
The sky was only slightly overcast, and the sun was still high in the sky, but our surroundings grew darker and darker. The trees were blocking out the light, their thick branches seemingly fusing together to form a roof above us. In comparison to the undergrowth, the trees seemed to have grown much more than was normal.
Satoru broke off a branch and lit it with his cantus. Even though it was still broad daylight, we couldn’t see where we were putting our feet without a torch.
After a while, we saw a sliver of light between the trees. We tried to get closer, but were stopped by the roots of the trees. They rose out of the ground like giant snakes, coiling this way and that, over and around, making it impossible to walk through. It looked like an alien world. I was just about to suggest that we cut through with our cantus, but realized that it would leave obvious proof that we had been here. I reluctantly started picking my way through the gaps in the trees.
“Saki,” Satoru turned around, holding the torch aloft. “Look.”
He was pointing at the tree trunks. Their bark didn’t have the usual tortoiseshell pattern like normal red pines. Instead they were covered in lumps that looked like tumors or cancer cells.
Then, I saw that some of them resembled human faces.
Faces twisted in unimaginable pain, screaming faces, faces of the dead.
I shivered and looked away.
“Let’s hurry.”
I was almost prepared to face even more horrible sights ahead. Instead I was amazed by what I saw.
There was a slope that had been more or less cleared by falling boulders. The trees were sparse and the ground was full of mountain azaleas. What was weird was that even though it was already autumn, they were all in full bloom, covering the slope with red and pink flowers and filling the air with the most fragrant aroma I had ever smelled.
“How pretty…” I said, breathing in their perfume and going for a closer look.
“Stop. Don’t touch them,” Satoru caught me by the arm. “There’s something wrong with these flowers. Look,” he pointed down at his feet.
The ground was littered with the corpses of innumerable ants, bees, beetles, spiders, and other insects.
“Don’t you think this smell is way too strong? There’s probably some toxic substance in it.”
“In the azaleas?”
“They’re not normal flowers, no matter how you look at it.”
His words seem to break the spell. I looked at the flowers I had thought so beautiful until now, and shuddered at their deceptive poison.
No, that wasn’t the only reason I had shuddered.
“Where is this chill coming from?”
There was a cold wind blowing from the depths of the forest.
“…let’s take a look,” Satoru said, looking as if he were preparing himself for the worst.
As if possessed, we made our way toward the source of the wind.
“Snow!” he shouted.
“It can’t be. It’s still autumn. It’s not snowing anywhere.” I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Satoru touched the white powder that covered the roots of the trees. “No…wait. It’s not snow.”
“Then what is it?” I didn’t have the courage to touch it.
“Frost. There’s a lot of it so it looks like snow. I don’t know why, but the ground is much colder than it should be so the water in the air froze.”
The only place where frost never melted was in the permafrost layer deep underground.
It’s all messed up, I whispered to myself. Everythin
g here had deviated from the normal rules of nature.
We took a detour around the frosted area. A hundred meters later, the forest ended abruptly.
“Careful,” Satoru said quietly.
We lay on the ground and crawled toward the forest’s edge.
It was a dizzying sight. Beneath us was a bowl shaped hole in the ground two hundred meters in diameter and a hundred fifty meters deep. It looked like a giant ant lion pit.
“Unbelievable. Did a meteor do this?”
“Sh,” Satoru put a finger to his lips. “There are people over there.”
There were human silhouettes at the bottom of the hole.
“…it wasn’t a meteor. One that’s big enough to make a hole this size would cause a huge explosion. We never heard anything,” he whispered in response to my earlier question.
“Then what is this hole?”
“Stop asking me about everything.”
“What? You don’t know the answer?”
Satoru looked offended. “I can only hypothesize. The hole was probably made by those people down there.”
“What for?”
“Sh,” Satoru shushed me again.
The two people were slowly floating upward. I was afraid they were going to come toward us, but they landed on the other side of the hole and started walking away. When they were out of sight, Satoru began talking at a normal volume.
“…they were definitely trying to excavate something.”
I stared down into the bottom of the crater. There was something down there, but it was hidden in the shadow cast by the hole. If I were on the other side, I would probably be able to see it. Suddenly I had an idea.
“Satoru, make a mirror over there,” I pointed.
He immediately realized what I had in mind. The air shimmered and blinding rays of light flashed in all directions. They gradually converged and a silver mirror appeared.
“Point it down more.”
“I know already! Yeesh.”
He slowly angled it downward. Soon we were able to see what was at the bottom of the hole.
We were stunned into silence. Hadn’t I come here time and again? Why did I not realize where we were until now?
The mirror reflected a large building almost completely buried in the dirt. Just one glimpse of the dark wood and I knew it was Shun’s house.
We didn’t talk much on the way back.
Even though we had come across many strange things in the pine forest, most of our thoughts were focused on Shun.
I didn’t know what had happened, but it looked like the Earth had tried to swallow Shun’s house whole. It seemed impossible to survive something like that. So why was I convinced that Shun was still alive?
Where was he now? Was he okay? Did he need help? All these unanswerable questions whirled around in my head.
“You said he left home, right? So he’s gotta be okay,” Satoru said, more to himself than to me. “Let’s go look for him tomorrow morning. I’m sure we’ll find him.”
“Shouldn’t we go right now?”
“The sun’s going to set soon. We don’t have a clue where Shun is right now. I know you’re worried, but we’ll have a fresh start tomorrow.”
How could he be so calm? Wasn’t he worried? Unlike Satoru, I wasn’t confident at all.
We arrived at the park where we were supposed to meet up with Maria and Mamoru, but there was no sign of them. We waited for a bit, but decided to go home.
“See you tomorrow, then.”
The words were unsuited for the situation. It sounded like we were parting after a picnic in the park. We went our separate ways; Satoru headed toward Hayring and I took my canoe back to Waterwheel.
Shadows stretched across the village as the sun went down over Mt. Tsukuba. Braziers were lit all over town, making the waterways sparkle with orange reflections. This was always my favorite time of the day, when I could enjoy the scenery as I reflected on the day’s events and looked forward to what the next day had to offer.
I tied up the canoe behind our house and went in through the back door. I was surprised to see that both my parents were home early.
“Welcome home,” mother smiled. “Dinner is ready. It’s been a while since we’ve eaten together.”
Father stared at me as I sat down at the table, then grinned broadly.
“Look at you. You’re all covered in dirt. Go wash up.”
When I came back, I expected my father to ask where I had been, but he didn’t. He was talking about the plans to install street lamps in the center of the village, as it seemed that using only braziers was not enough. But incandescent bulbs would require electricity, which was only allowed to be used to power the loudspeakers in the public hall. So in order to move forward with the plan, they first needed to revise the Code of Ethics.
“No matter how many times we petition, the higher-ups at the Ethics Committee never agree to it,” my father, the mayor, grumbled as he poked at a piece of fish with his chopsticks.
“It would be nice if you could do something about the lights in the library first,” mother said. Her job as head librarian put her in a position even higher than the mayor’s.
“The library already uses a fifth of our annual budget.”
“I know. But we’ve had to work late recently, and the phosphorescent lamps are too much of a hassle,” she pointed at the light above the dining table.
At that time phosphorescent lamps were widely used for lighting. Often called bontan balls, phosphorescent lamps are large circular vacuum tubes whose insides are coated with a special paint containing platinum or iridium. After you charge it up with your cantus the lamp would shine for a specific amount of time. However, it only lasts for about half an hour before the light starts dimming and you have to charge it up again, so that was annoying.
“Right now only Waterwheel has electricity to spare. But it’s impossible to lay down cables all the way to the library in Hayring.”
“Can’t you just build a new waterwheel next to the library?”
“That would be difficult. It would obstruct traffic, and the canals there flow too slowly to produce electricity.”
The more they continued their spirited discussion, the more I felt that something wasn’t right. It was as if they were purposely putting on this show to prevent the conversation from moving in an unwanted direction.
“…hey, do you know what happened to Shun?”
The two of them fell silent instantly.
I felt my pulse speed up. I knew full well this was a dangerous question, so why did I say it out loud? Was I angry at my parents for carrying on such a useless conversation at a time when we were so worried about Shun? Or was I gambling on the chance that I might discover some sort of clue?
“You mean Shun Aonuma?” father asked quietly.
“Yeah. He suddenly stopped coming to Sage Academy.” My voice cracked a little.
“It’s forbidden to talk about these things. You know that too, don’t you?” mother smiled chidingly.
“Yeah…but,” I looked downward, on the verge of tears.
“Saki…Sacchan,” father weakened as he saw my tears.
Sacchan was a nickname he hadn’t used since I was four or five.
“Dear,” mother said worriedly.
“It’s okay. Saki, listen. You will have to face many hardships in life. One of them is parting with your dear friends.”
“What happened to Shun?” I shouted, interrupting him.
Father frowned, “He’s missing.”
“Why?”
“A few days ago, there was a big accident in Pinewind. Shun Aonuma and his parents have been missing ever since.”
“An accident? What was it? No one told me anything about it. Why has…”
“Saki! Enough,” mother said severely.
“But”
“We’re worried about you. Okay? Don’t talk back, and listen to us. You have to stop prying into things that don’t concern you.”
&nb
sp; I nodded reluctantly and stood up.
“Saki, please,” my mother said tearfully as I was about to leave the dining room. “I can’t lose another… No, I don’t want to lose you. Please do as we say.”
“All right. I’m tired, I’m going to bed.”
“Goodnight, Saki,” father said. He put his arms around mother, who was pinching the bridge of her nose.
“Goodnight.”
As I climbed the stairs, all I heard were my mother’s words. “I can’t lose another… No, I don’t want to lose you.” And something else I had heard long ago. A pained voice shouting, “I don’t want to lose another child!”
I lay in bed with a million thoughts running through my head, unable to fall asleep.
I’ve always wondered whether I had an older sister. The first time the thought crossed my mind was when I was around ten years old. My mother had accidentally left me unsupervised at the library, and I came upon an old dictionary (class three material). In Harmony School, we had talked about how our names reflected our parents’ wishes and expectations, so I wanted to know what my name meant.
“Sa” had three definitions, ‘dawn’, ‘early’, and ‘young’, but I didn’t know which one mine was. Since I was still a kid I thought it was obvious that I was ‘young’. Next I looked up “ki”. ‘Very young’, ‘time’, ‘little’… Just when I thought that the two words meant exactly the same thing, I noticed the last definition.
‘Youngest child’.
Of course, this wasn’t definitive proof that I was the “youngest child”. But my mother was more sensitive to the meaning of words than anyone else. I got the feeling that if I were the oldest child, I wouldn’t have had “ki” in my name.
As I thought about this, dim memories from my childhood began to resurface. I think I was two or three at that time. There was a person who always took care of me wherever I went. That person was older than me, but much younger than my mother. My parents called me Sacchan and that person Yocchan.
That’s right. My sister’s name was Yoshimi.
There was no evidence that this wasn’t just a false memory created by autosuggestion, but after hearing my mother cry that she didn’t want to lose another child, the idea that I once had a sister was becoming more and more convincing.
