Pathway to Japanese Literature

Hachiman Chōja’s young daughter, How skillfully she stood and performed. In her hands, she held two pearls, On her feet, golden shoes she wore, "Call this way, call that way," she chanted as she When she went through mountains and fields……

I

They called Miura’s Great Collapse a cursed place. The foothills of Sakura Mountain—partitioning Hayama’s coastline like a folding screen—plunged seaward like some unfamiliar beast, while on the opposite side lay Nagasanoen Beach, stretching from Zushi through Morito to Hayama, where during summer swimming season, most drownings in these parts occurred. In midsummer’s blistering heat, when cloud peaks charred small as roasted hailstones—crackling with sparks poised to shower down as embers at noon’s zenith—and when naked men and women, seemingly newborn into humanity, floated intertwined in waves, a golden-silver-bronze-iron radiance split open the sky where pure white molten heavens fractured—with a voice like a shattered bell—

“Swimmers, return!” it shouted.

Because of this curse, they say those floating sank with a gurgle, and the surroundings became white foam. There was also a boy of about seventeen who, having fallen ill with pleurisy, had come for recuperation; yet he grew morbidly obsessed with his health—studying pathology on his own, mixing compounds labeled "0," measuring his temperature morning and evening with a thermometer, eating precisely weighed meals three times daily. One autumn dusk at the deserted shoreline, pale shins protruding above his rolled-up hakama, bare feet scuttling sideways through his routine exercise, he clicked his tongue haughtily at the sea as if voicing profound discontent,

“Ah, how boring.” As soon as he muttered this, a strange voice rang out from midway up the cliff overhead— “At least show filial piety—” it shouted. Because of this, they say the boy was severely afflicted. Through such happenings, rumors about it being a Cursed Place grew ever more rampant. Whenever locals spotted someone unknowingly ascending the Great Collapse, farmers would prop their hoes like canes and boatmen stand at prows to shout: “Get down! It’s dangerous!” Even if not truly cursed, the summit of the Great Collapse resembled an upturned medicinal mortar—should one attempt to straddle it, there would be no stirrup for security. The narrow razor-edged ridge like a horse’s back formed a cliff hollowed from heel to toe; gazing down at white waves crashing against its base made one feel swayed to plunge.

Now at Longevity Garden Beach’s shore, the inlet waves spread calmly—busily yet serenely—with sounds like chicken wings flapping against a lone sheer rock formation; while on the other side, the Pacific’s great waves roared like bellowing oxen, surging slowly yet fearsomely, groaning “Ooo... Ooh...” as they crashed in massive swells against Misaki Highway’s outer coast. Even with just a slight shift of gaze from right to left, the scenery underwent as radical a transformation as between Yatsuhashi Bridge adorned with irises and Musashino Plain under moonlight—white-sailed gulls danced above the inlet while dragons of black smoke raced across the open sea.

Even this alone would have been dazzling enough—yet beneath one's tread lay rocks like the blade of a sword to cross. The pine branches clinging to the cliff parted the sea, carrying various wave melodies; yet when people clung to them, their roots trembled, and even as climbers' panting never ceased, the wind chilling their sweat never let up. Yet they must not mar this scenic beauty because of that. The skin of the Great Collapse's crags turned purple in spring, green in summer, crimson in autumn, and yellow in winter; wisteria wove through ivy entanglements while morning glories bloomed and gentians flowered—when pampas grass swayed, moonlight pierced through. Behold—a figure treading upon navy waves leapt toward thread-like Mount Ōshima between water and sky. There lingered the semblance of a bronze lion shaped by a master's chisel. This beautiful floral garment resembled peony adornments extolling divine might, while what crushed the tidal pearls clustering at its roots appeared as keen claws—great and free—now golden in sunlight, now silver under moonlight, at times wrathful, at times lethal.

II

It was when the itinerant monk Kojirou Houshi, still in training, passed along Akiya’s coast while touring various provinces via Soshu’s Misaki route. When he rested at a modest reed-screened shack by the roadside—where white waves crashed immediately below the cliff—its view overlooking from the Pacific side the lion-king’s belly-like protrusion of the aforementioned Great Collapse about a hundred meters ahead, with Enoshima and Mount Fuji visible as if drawn through a bamboo blind, the old woman poured bitter tea from a long-spouted iron kettle into an ornate Hakone woodcraft bowl—its lacquered surface overflowing with decoration from some imperial reign—and presented it.

The bench stood in cramped quarters; steam billowing thickly from the tilted spout of the freshly poured iron kettle drifted toward the monk's chest, yet even this was swept away by a swift, cool gust—his monastic robe sleeves, like cold mist settling, brushed against the reed screen before fluttering out toward the young pines beyond. In his refreshed state, he saw no need to unfold the Nagoya fan—inscribed with travel distances—that remained closed as he pushed aside the white cotton fastening of his small shoulder-slung bundle,

“A thousand blessings!” he gulped down, “Ahh! Delicious—this is splendid,” he said with a gentle smile. “Since it’s delicious—and that looks sweet too—please give me two or three.” “Ah yes—would these dumplings be the ones?” “Now these here, I must say, are country-made—not overly sweet—but in return, both skin and filling are made purely from millet and red beans.”

With a deft motion, she neatly arranged the small round dumplings—steaming and fluffy—on the serving tray. Having placed only his folding fan on the bench and still holding the bitter tea bowl, he was about to pick up one when—

“Eee! Eee-eee!” came the abrupt shriek of a single rasping-voiced cicada. Opposite the entrance where the monk had entered, at the far end of the bench facing the Great Collapse—where one had been perched on a bamboo pillar since earlier—sat Waro: chest bared beneath a soiled handwoven striped underrobe, his obi loosely tied, a hand towel dyed through boiling wrapped around his neck up to ears concealed by overgrown black hair, his rock-climber’s frame towering beyond ordinary stature. Though his eyes lacked the keen gleam their brightness promised—mouth agape with thick lower lip drooping—he kept darting his gaze about the tea shop’s utterly mundane interior. Farmers tilling fields, boatmen at peak earnings, laborers in their prime—by mid-afternoon’s decline, they all deemed this figure among them nothing but neighborhood idleness. Kojirou Houshi had paid it little heed initially, but startled by the sudden burst of laughter, found himself comparing Waro’s face to the tray of dumplings.

“This is no jest, Granny—your wit cuts sharper than appearances suggest.” “Whatever could you mean?” “Come now—these dumplings—aren’t they molded from mud or clay?” “What sacrilege to utter, Your Reverence!”

The old woman's face turned solemn, her upturned gaze gathering a multitude of wrinkles, "What are you saying? How disrespectful! Well now, I too am one who pays respects to Lord Hōnen. Do you think some miser could present dirt dumplings to a monk and have it suffice just because he claims his persimmon seeds have turned into small koban coins?" Having been earnestly defended against his jest, Kojirou Houshi felt a twinge of guilt. "Now now—if you take it so seriously, this becomes awkward. Invigorated by this coolness—half in jest, I assure you—but when one travels, all manner of things occur. They say in Suruga Province they craft Abekawa mochi entirely from wood—place them on trays and display them as shop signs. When that person saw someone about to eat this now—"

When he glanced over, Waro tilted his head back in bewilderment and began staring intently at the empty sky where not a single crow flew. "Because he laughed so suddenly—aha!—I thought perhaps these dumplings had their sign mistaken too." "Oh yes, yes—no, Your Reverence—"

Patting her tidy apron-covered knee, she drew nearer and hushed her voice,

“This one is, if I may say, quite mad.” “Yes,”

With that, the old woman nodded to herself. If one were to inquire, the details of the matter would be known.

III

Kojirou Houshi gazed askance at Waro’s face—tilted back beneath the tea shack’s eaves as though blowing bats toward heaven—

“Ah, so he’s mad?” “I thought he might also be mute—such a fine young man, how pitiable.” “Your Reverence, one part lies in his very nature indeed.”

The crone spoke of sin and retribution with a tone that seemed both enlightened and resigned. “Is it some possession by a spirit? Or what you might call despair over his circumstances?” She trailed off mid-sentence, clicking her tongue at the bitter tea once more as she brought a round tea sweet to her lips—though gazing elsewhere, as if possessing heavenly vision, she swiftly fixed Waro with a piercing glare, “Oh! That one’s chewing on stones.” Kojirou turned again, “You say such things, Granny.”

“That wicked brat.” “Yoshikichi! You there—off with you now!”

Her physical self instead set aside, she spoke admonishingly toward the hazy shadow that had crawled across the sandy ground.

The tide glittered, but the sky was thinly overcast. The monk too seemed darkened by this presence as he cast his gaze downward at Waro’s shadow. “Shall I share one with him? He might want dumplings—the very thought fills me with dread. If he truly turns to stone, that would be disastrous.” “He is no hunger-maddened lunatic—spare yourself the trouble, Your Reverence. When I said ‘stones,’ it appears he retains some memory of ordinary matters despite his state, and knowing that I always present them to guests, that must be why he made such a demand just now.”

“You mustn’t go calling them clay dumplings again, Your Reverence.” “Now, Your Reverence.”

With that, she placed both hands on the cypress hat the monk had removed and propped up, adjusting it atop his luggage while indicating with her eyes beyond the reed screen.

Amidst jagged rocks where roughly hewn Nio statues stood astride the sea—their wrathful forms emerging from interlocking crags—a thicket of bamboo sprouting at drunken angles separated these guardians from a six-paneled screen of stone that stood ghostly pale under the moon. Scattered pines pierced the view while waves wove intricate patterns below, their crests held aloft like armor sleeves glinting in spectral light. “Have you not observed that while passing by, Your Reverence?” Turning her back and bending slightly at the waist, the old woman clattered fire tongs against the brazier’s charcoal until the kettle’s base settled into place with perfect alignment.

“In any case, though Your Reverence may have no business with it—that crag jutting out there, glaring face-to-face with the precipice of the Great Collapse—”

She straightened up and pointed, but with one hand braced against her hip—*hng!*—while doing so,

“That—that there be the one.”

Waves surged and struck against the rocky crag, scattering as if shaped like shattered wind chimes. "That single rock there—what we call Childbirth Stones—range from small ones like periwinkles or go stones to those about the size of ritual rice cakes. When they grow large, they become perfectly round with a slight flatness—stones so big one person can’t possibly carry them—and they tumble out from who knows where." "Their flatness makes them stack neatly—when people place two high at household altars or shrine shelves for festivals, they say childless women will bear children year after year."

“There are quite a number of people who desire them, but these days, people have become so cramped in their ways,” “Your Reverence, even if they press them against straw-mat doors to carry them back—requiring two people to load them onto pickling stones—they’re simply nowhere to be found in haste these days.” “Since there are those who come from quite faraway places specifically to gather them only to lose heart, I’ve set up shop nearby like this—so morning and evening at low tide I go collecting them, and as souvenirs for customers, this old granny offers them up as a little charm each time—so word gets around, and students from places like Hayama even come visiting for fun,”

“Granny, I don’t need no kids—just send over one mother.” “Oh, how they do tease this old granny.” “Having seen this time and again—when that mad Yoshikichi tried to devour what I’d given him, thinking it was stones—he cried out ‘Stones!’ indeed.”

IV “In that case, Granny must be living a life of leisure—you must have a great many grandchildren.” As Kojirou Houshi listened while peering toward the Childbirth Stones, even the waves’ fascinating murmurs went unheeded.

She had started to bring out more tea, but placing the lacquer tray on her lap, she suddenly fell silent and leaned forward with an air of loneliness— "What are you saying, Your Reverence? At my age, I’ve yet to glimpse even the shadow of a grandchild. Alone with the Old Man, what with the loneliness of rain and the chill of dim lanterns leaving us forlorn and helpless, I can well understand the hearts of those who yearn for children—aye, that’s why I offer each Childbirth Stone with devout care."

“Over many long years, the villagers say of us—that we provide others with seeds of children yet bear no fruit ourselves—but now even this has become our true wish, a modest consolation to hold dear.”

Though her words carried a reproachful tone, her gentle face showed no trace of a frown as she smiled meekly, “If Your Reverence had a bride, I would offer you a pair of Childbirth Stones as well...”

“Nonsense! If these dumplings were to turn into stones, I’d make my alms rounds through the villages—but alas, I’ve no home across the three realms.”

“However, judging by what I’ve just heard, you two must be terribly lonely.” “Yes, yes—no, speaking before Your Reverence like this may seem mere flattery, but the Buddha’s compassionate expedience is truly a blessing. Even at this charmless old crone’s humble abode, when I serve tea to the kind souls who stop to rest, what with all the bustle and passing chatter, the days slip by unnoticed—truly they do.”

“Ah, excuse me—” —and toward the highway,

“Please do rest here,” she called out.

A summer butterfly large as a cartwheel—its wings banded crimson and white—fluttered where the riverbed lay hidden beneath grasses, over soil gleaming where clear waters had receded. At the mountain’s edge circled another pair of wings: a woman of about thirty in white gaiters and straw sandals, her kasuri robe sleeves rolled up to reveal arms holding aloft a Western parasol that served as her shop sign, a hand towel clutched in her grasp.

Wearing a hat tilted back in the Amitabha style, his striped underrobe sleeves rolled high with a red round fan tucked into his obi, arm guards and shin coverings securely fastened—the husband followed bearing their load. When the wife briefly nodded at the old woman’s call from the shop, strands of hair at her temples came loose from her Western-style updo—hesitating whether to quicken her pace or continue unchanged. With his slim waist cinched by a neatly tied front sash and leaning as if suspended from the eaves, the madman Yoshikichi peered out through his frayed sleeve’s torn underarm with a darting glance.

Staggering away from the reed screen, he had already moved six or seven ken ahead when—barefoot on the sandy path—he began briskly pursuing the woman’s retreating figure. He kicked up yellow dust, lunged closer, tried to cling—but from beneath the woman’s Western parasol loomed a peering monk specter. “Hee-hee-heehee.” “Now, now—don’t you go causing trouble.” The old woman stood on tiptoe to scold him as the laughter reached Kojirou Houshi’s ears almost simultaneously. At that very moment, the husband—as if startled—raised his voice in a high pitch,

“Repairs for umbrellas and Western parasols! —— Re-covering parasols, mending and restoring…” The cry pierced through the cicadas’ shrill chorus, echoing across the desolate vicinity where no travelers passed. Without missing a beat, he thrust the eerie Yoshikichi away from his wife, shifted the load to his back’s center, shot him a sidelong glare through narrowed eyes, then immediately quickened his pace—whereupon Yoshikichi shambled along behind, dragging his enormous shadow across the ground. "You see? Just as I said—it’s a right troublesome matter indeed." As the monk wordlessly watched them recede, waves seemed to approach from offshore only to cease abruptly—their heavy thuds against the cliffs mingling with pine winds to resound thrice in distant mountains. The red-and-white-striped Western parasol had shrunk to a handball’s size, people’s heads bobbing beneath it as they appeared to pierce the sky along a solitary path where not one thatched hut stood all the way to its end—the slope of that far-off Great Collapse dotted here and there before them.

V

“Ah, they’ve all vanished from sight along the path leading to that Great Collapse cliff.”

“They had just departed from that place—it was the lower beach. As for that madman you just saw—drunk and collapsed—well… yes, that’s Yoshikichi, a troublesome fellow from our Akiya village. “His drinking and idleness—to any decent person’s eye—were truly beyond sane reckoning, but even so, he somehow managed to celebrate the New Year and bustle about during Obon like any other, so he wasn’t truly out of his mind. He was always playing as if it were a village festival—it was practically an illness—but come spring this year, he took it into his head to enter service at a certain sake wholesaler in Miura Misaki of his own volition.”

At the height of summer—under his master’s orders transporting refined sake (though not in great quantity, Your Reverence)—they loaded about three barrels onto a boat—with one boatman and that wretch Yoshikichi as additional crew—and came to deliver them to this Hayama retailer. They were returning from Misaki toward Hayama Morito and such places when farmers and fishermen from these parts—acquaintances all—called out from along the way, 'Let us aboard! There's space on this boat!' though there was neither ferry landing nor proper dock. From rocks along the coast and pine roots on the shore, they shouted “Oy! Oy!” in Bandō dialect until finally five men crowded aboard—making seven people in all, I tell you.

Every last one of them was a good-for-nothing—opportunists making the most of their chance. The boat sped onward, tongues ran loose, the calm sea favorable—they boasted themselves weary, and Yoshikichi flipped over using a crossbeam between the hulls as his pillow, soon erupting in thunderous snores. Though their route held no rough waters, the sake barrels’ fragrance hung thick in air so still an octopus might float—such was the tranquil beauty. "At least let me get seasick from the boat," one jested, whereupon they proposed wagering a barrel—each could drink as they pleased, paying afterward based on the match's outcome; finding it amusing, they resolved to proceed.

They pierced holes in the barrels with pipe mouthpieces, hacked open crude drinking spouts—"You there, boatman! Got an empty lunchbox?"—rinsed misshapen cut containers with great splashes of seawater, then licked soy sauce dregs from their fingertips using leather wrappings as they passed around the liquor, egging each other on. "When they began gambling openly—untying their purse strings here, loosening their money belts there—the boatman did not remain silent." “Did he scold them into stopping?” “Truly a boatman through and through—even written as ‘ship’s head’!”

Listening to the monk’s words with perfect solemnity, the old woman assumed an air of pity—as if thinking *What innocence! One so young, already bound for monastic life...* "Oh my, you’re such a trusting soul. Now if you write ‘boatman’ in characters, it’d be ‘ship’s head,’ wouldn’t it? And being the very head of that ship, he settled things proper-like—made sure there weren’t any mistakes." "What did he do?" "Why, those five layabouts were lined up like dice pips—he cut through their midst and first struck sail, you see."

She smiled gently and looked at him. Without grasping her meaning in the slightest, “Why do you suppose that was?” “With pursuers on our tail, keeping the sail up would’ve brought us to Hayama in a trice. Best to let the boat drift like a jellyfish—buoyant and slow.” “That’s how it went. With seas calm under Toki-tsukaze’s favorable winds—not a wave stirring nor branch rustling, as if honoring our sovereign’s blessed reign—they garbled through what should’ve been a wedding song, all while beneath their drunken chorus came cries of ‘Place your bets!’ and the clink of coins changing hands. If hell lies beneath the planks, then above deck walked the path of asura.”

“So the boatman’s their accomplice? What nonsense,”

The monk carefully held a freshly filled tea bowl in both hands and gave a wry smile. “Well then, Your Reverence—those rascals I mentioned… ah, if you were to go out to sea and gaze upon the shore.” “Every crevice in the rocks became gambling pots with abalone-shell lids.” “Everywhere that wasn’t a crab hole bore traces of ill-gotten coins.” “There was nothing particularly strange or mysterious about it—but for Yoshikichi, well, a curse had taken hold.” “‘Oy! Let’s catch that ferry! Let’s catch that ferry!’ they called as they pulled the boat ashore—and then from cliff edges and beneath pines they came swarming aboard, all possessed by demons, I tell you.”

VI "That Yoshikichi seemed possessed and sank into deep slumber." "Though long accustomed to the waves' roar, when the prow swung shoreward and pine winds jolted him awake with a chill—Your Reverence... his state then." Though they'd scaled no mountain—merely sat circled in a boat—even those hard-bitten rogues turned ashen at the sake barrels' Sambasō dance of clattering and rolling. "Hey, you lot!" someone roared, planting himself like a wrathful temple guardian against the tilting hull's lurch, bellowing as the keel groaned.

“Quiet down!” “‘Quit your racket! Hey Yoshikichi! By the looks of it,’” he barked through clenched teeth while brandishing coins above his headband.

Yoshikichi, right there—yes—grasped the oar with a creak. With a face as though seized by a ghost ship’s crew, he began rowing away—yes—but couldn’t endure the reek of liquor… From the prosperous master came a cup of sacred sake—gulped down his throat—mouth gaping open—“C’mon, drink up!” they began pouring while calculating barrel deductions—you see—that much was certain. “Is this Hanzō Hasegawa—offering sake only to take coin?” “Don’t be stingy!” retorted the winning man.

“To spare everyone the ceremonial handover trouble—‘Here!’ he said—thrusting out a red ladle to receive it with a clatter. That brazen-faced one—Your Reverence—yes, pushing the oar with one hand while using that horse ladle to vigorously stir with the other, he did so.”

They tapped a barrel of sake without the slightest hesitation. As if welling up from the sea itself, the liquor permeated the air—"Another round! There—that one! Let’s make ’em drink a toast o’ good fortune! No charge!" "Homage to Saikoro Myōjin’s gaping skylight—shine-shine!" they fawned, pouring another ladleful into the crimson dipper. The more they stirred and guzzled, the more the oar strokes fell out of rhythm—the boat pitched violently, lurching between great swells and smaller troughs. "This ain’t right! The dice won’t sit still!" "Aye—if ye ain’t likin’ it, take yer turn at rowin’!" came the rough shout. Yet through this reckless prodding, they somehow rounded the Great Collapse’s craggy nose and rowed into Dejima Inlet.

“Now then—with minds easing as if entering the inlet’s blue-tatami parlor—that Yoshikichi demanded, ‘Hand over the sake money! I’ll collect the deposit till the match ends!’ Gripping coins in his oar-released hand—perhaps to stash in his breast—he lunged into the Chobō-ichi still clutching that red ladle, but—” “Well now, that damn water imp—more trouble than if he’d drowned himself.” “In this state, Your Reverence, there’s no shallows left to surface in.” “Taken and taken, until finally, you see, they rendered void the payment for that single barrel meant for the master.” “And then, in reckless abandon—the dice pips looked like ten while our heads became fifty—the shore spun round and round.” “‘Row if you’re gonna row! Kill if you’re gonna kill!’—and by the time he’d sprawled defiantly again, Yoshikichi alone had downed about a gallon’s worth.” “Even the seven heads and four-to barrel—once these were mostly cleared away—when they hauled the barrel onto the beach, thinking it heavy, he gripped it with both hands and gave a heave—only to be thrown off balance, lurching forward—the barrel thudded, Yoshikichi tumbled, and down he crashed—already as good as dead.”

“Until then, the boat had been circling round and round Longevity Garden Beach, drifting soundlessly without a whisper of wind or wave—exactly like one of those shipwrecks from the moving pictures,” she said. “The evening wind swept over the chest hair of their bared torsos and the leg hair of their splayed thighs; shuddering into momentary sobriety, they found even a single star had become visible.” “The great cliff darkened to ashen hues, looming before their eyes with such dreadfulness that they tightened their loincloths and pressed their knees together; then the boatman—crying ‘Hoi-hoi!’ in birdlike shouts—beached the vessel on the shore and began beating the insensate Yoshikichi.” “With that, he sat up abruptly—but finding the sake barrel lighter than expected and true to his nature losing heart—he promptly collapsed back to the right.” “Yes.”

VII

"Lying supine, he exhaled fiery breath as sake seeped from his body, sprinkling dew-like upon the sand. Even in the evening’s chill, mosquitoes and flies came swarming." "That wretch—beat him or strike him—he would not deign to rise, I tell you." There had been no avoiding involvement—so a man of modest strength lent his aid, but even working together with the boatman, this rabble proved utterly unreliable. Staggeringly, they managed to load and deliver the remaining two barrels to the retail shop. Such was the disposition of Yoshikichi. "It could have been settled by simply loading the remaining cargo onto the boat and returning, but since this was no corpse—merely a drunk whose courtesies upon sobering would prove troublesome—the boatman beat a hasty retreat, hoisted his sails, and vanished into the sea mist."

“Given there was no plausible pretext to offer, he was in no state to return to his master’s household; they resolved to first deliver him to his parents in Akiya—but then there was this cargo: a hulking man, as you can imagine. And then—yes—utterly at their wits’ end trying to budge this immovable lump, what with them puffing furiously on tobacco, ‘Your Reverence,’ sneezing here and there, crushing mosquitoes swarming their shins under their heels—they surrounded Yoshikichi, that great shark wallowing in drunken filth, at the water’s edge for an Odawara conference. Just when they were overwhelmed, someone happened to come pulling a cart—a day’s journey from Fujisawa—arriving at the embankment of Longevity Garden Beach along this highway…”

A madder-red headband sat tightly knotted at his white-haired crown. The protruding knot stood vigorous as the damp crimson pincers of a Benkei crab, while his mangled left arm bent against his flank—snapping open, then clenching. Fingers and palm twitched, but the elbow remained fused fast, refusing to extend. Bronze-cast in appearance... When pressed about the injury’s origin—though he claimed it mere temperament—the truth emerged: the year before last, thoroughly soused at a noodle shop, he’d spouted drunken witticisms about “lighting the underworld’s night,” then borrowed a passerby’s lantern adorned with well-curb and woodgrain motifs to navigate an oyster-shell path. Humming tunelessly, he’d shambled through Ansei Earthquake-fractured terrain with such unsteady gait the very earth seemed ready to crumble. When pleasant drowsiness overcame him, he tucked the bothersome light under his arm, crossed his limbs in a key shape, and bellowed: “How uncanny! You there! Will-o’-the-wisp or mountain goblin? Reveal your true form!” With glassy eyes fixed downward glaring at the lantern—thud—he collapsed beneath roadside trees. Earthworm-like snores rising from him as he neared the Great Collapse, the sea transformed under Pacific gales—the lantern’s wax toppled, bursting into roaring flames. Offshore fishing fires beckoned at his sleeve as chest hair sizzled—“Agh! Damned fiend! Hell’s chariot races too swift!”—grappling an imagined demon in sideways sprawl, he rolled and thrashed till flames died, yet lived. From those searing burns—at sixty-seven years, disabled since youth—emerged One-Clawed Crab Saibachi: Akiya’s famed elder bearing this epithet.

“...I am the Old Man.”

the old woman said and smiled.

Kojirou Houshi bowed deeply as though bestowing benedictions. "Ah, so you are Old Man," he intoned ceremoniously. "Nay—though I remain but a feckless ne'er-do-well—through your gracious protection, I've kept body intact. Couldn't bear idling round familiar lanes, see? Crossed Hayama way—from Hikage clear to Tagoe-Zushi yonder—shouldering this crab-claw basket with turban shells and sazae, split horse mackerel, dried round herring skewers—all to earn my drink-money. That time it was Your Reverence—the village's former headman, generations' patriarch Tsurutani Kijuuro-sama—"

Having courteously declared his name,

“This constitutes our humble relation to your esteemed household.” “It was on official business for that mansion that I went to Fujisawa on the Tokaido to make purchases.” “About once a month, I prepare various necessities—salt and soy sauce, down to small items like lamp wicks—each gathered into a cartload.” “Yokohama reeks of the West, Misaki lacks settled quality, and the surrounding areas are full of makeshift rush purchases and water-damaged goods—so for truly substantial, weighty items of proper firmness, we’re limited to old Fujisawa. The prices are reasonable and practical for economical use, though grand households do their shopping elsewhere,”

The old woman’s thread-spinning storytelling. Chattering away contentedly, she herself also sipped her tea.

For a time, there was no passing traffic.

VIII

“…Oh, Saibachi." “Old man, if you’re heading back to the village, take this one to the Childbirth Deity.” “Just in time—that cart’s a godsend,” they said. When they looked—Your Reverence—there was Yoshikichi, that wretch, in the very state I mentioned earlier. He’s among the same throng of Childbirth Deity parishioners. “I understand, but with these hands of mine—as you see—I can’t load the cargo properly.” “You folks adjust the balance properly—load it atop the cargo,” Old Man said, or so I’m told.

“What’s this, old man? Just load him up as he is!”—and already two men had seized that wretch Yoshikichi by his crown and legs, wouldn’t you know? Old Man had bought cotton in great quantity on Mr. Tsurutani’s orders, but they said it wouldn’t do at all to have it buried beneath soy sauce barrels and kerosene cans—so they’d loaded it as top cargo. “For Mr. Tsurutani Kijuuro’s sake—if that liquor-soaked monster were to crush the freshly packed cotton bales they’d taken such care with, it’d be a disaster! ‘Straighten this sloppy stacking!’”—clenching his useless hand into a fist, he strained with all his might.

"What a nuisance—should’ve done it this way!" grumbled the impatient crew bent on quick profits. “Your Reverence, they fastened the end of the upward-pulled rope around Yoshikichi’s midsection and bound him crosswise so he wouldn’t interfere with the cart wheels.” “Beyond the payment, dropping him mattered little.” “Now then, hurry back!” With crisp handclaps—whether they’d won or lost at gambling—once balanced against the drink they’d consumed, none came out poorer. In rowdy high spirits with their shins bared clear to the buttocks, they straggled off wherever their legs took them.

The Old Man gave a heave-ho as he readjusted his shoulder against the crossbar—the one-clawed push sent strength swelling in his chest. With few passersby, he hauled the cart over a dewy expanse of beach morning glories scattered in bloom, then—rattling. From Hayama to the Great Collapse stretched a gentle yet persistent upward slope. The rest was all downhill. The cart bounced along, rumbling, and when I arrived before this tea shop—so he says… “Hey! Give me a pillow! Give me a pillow!” was how Yoshikichi, that wretch, howled.

“What’re you spewing, you bastard? Quit your damn whining—you’ll get us mistaken for that pale-faced fox spirit from the roadside den!” Old Man muttered these reproaches under his breath as he hauled the cart onward without so much as a backward glance. “Did he glimpse some manner of dream?” “This was no mere dream, Your Reverence—he began shrieking as though being strangled, ‘It hurts! It hurts! My nose is bleeding! My head’s spinning! Lift the skylight up!’ ‘Hey! What’ll you do? Come on—kill me if you’re gonna kill me! Row if you’re gonna row!’—still in a frenzied state, Yoshikichi, that wretch, remained under the delusion of being aboard a ship, I tell you.”

The rope around his midsection had slackened, leaving the hatch scraping against the ground until it lay overturned. “Only natural, eh? A man’s in his worst throes.” “Ain’t this what you wanted—drunk and staying soused?” growled the old man as he swayed the cart. “With these useless hands o’ mine, you’ll bear it a spell longer!” But then came screams like spitting fire—*“I’ll die! I’ll die! Send a rescue boat!”*—or so they tell it, eh? “He is not inside this one,”

The old woman looked beyond the reed screen and,

“It would seem he was beneath the eaves. “The waves would nearly reach him.” On one side stood a woman of chilling beauty—her high lacquer-black topknot cradling the slender crescent moon, its pale glow pressed against her face. A fan draped over her robes like a garment cast cool shadows from her elongated form, the faint blue hue at her hem rippling with her movement, so unnervingly lovely it made the spine prickle. She smoothly brought him out to the roadside,

(…………)

Someone called out to Old Man—“Is this one a criminal?”—and pressed the question. Both food and goods—all newly purchased. “What an ill-omened affair!” “What’s one to do with a criminal stacked atop like cargo? Such is how it stands.” When she said, “How pitiful—this must be agony,” she took her fan and, like a thin feather, placed it straight across horizontally into his mouth. “At that moment, she turned her back toward Old Man and tilted her face at an angle like this—” When the monk interjected—perhaps recalling that faint lunar visage of the woman’s ethereal form—the old woman’s neck gleamed white in the fading daylight beyond the reed screen.

She smoothly drew her knees closer to the luggage,

“And then?” “Yes—she lowered both hands, pressed those white palms together, and propped up Yoshikichi’s lolling head against the fourth or fifth spoke from above. Perhaps weighted down, she contorted her form—shoulders narrowing as though refined—or so it appeared.”

Nine

“I shall tend to him. Pray unload him,” she spoke. With treatment that rough—could he even break a night sweat? “Throw ’im down!” “What a damn hassle,” he grumbled, tossing his head wrapped tight in its headband, whereupon she asked how far they were going.

Along the way, through various gaps and crevices, even Old Man grew vexed—"The Lord Myoujin enshrined in Akiya! We're delivering offerings to our birth deity!"—he prattled on insistently,

(“We shall take charge here—this place will suffice.”) (“And Your Ladyship?”)

"(Ah, I am the August Deity’s handmaiden.)" she declared. As though waves hung suspended from the moon, rustling—when the wind blew, the swaying shadow of this reed screen cast lattice patterns upon her sleeves, revealing even her snow-pale skin through them, while the surroundings held no shadow. When one looked up at the sky, clouds resembling white herons in flight appeared—then with a roar, a single wave crashed down. The Old Man shuddered, became obedient with "Yes, yes," untied the rope—then with a slip, Yoshikichi's massive frame thudded down from the cart. She lowered her raised hands as if placing them upon the ground, then set Yoshikichi’s head down.

His legs thrashed about, his hands tugged wildly, and he writhed so violently it seemed the cart's spokes might be kicked loose. "(Ah, you’ve done enough.)" she declared as if brushing off a nuisance, leaving Old Man mortally offended… “What of it? Even unoffended, he’s a cantankerous old wretch through and through, hoho, hoho.”

“No, no—merely hearing this account, it seems she handled him with deliberate malice. Yet given that she showed compassion toward that drunkard in turn, I cannot remain silent. It all leaves rather a bad taste.” “Well now, since she’d declared herself acquainted with the clan deity too at Kusarem, tying Yoshikichi to the cart as they did—it was akin to treating the August Deity’s own grandchild as some stepchild, which would sound most unseemly to your ears.” The Old Man defensively prattled on about how binding that wretch to the cargo atop the cotton bales wasn’t his doing, whereupon the woman cut in—*“Enough already—get over there.”*—or so they say.

“Ain’t right. “Ain’t no way I’m satisfied if you don’t state your reasons proper-like. “If Your Ladyship’s acquainted with the August Deity too, do hear this out. “What kinda nursemaid work for some young drunk d’you expect from this crippled old man? “Even the gods ain’t got a clue! With all your merciful consideration for this good-for-nothing lout—why in blazes haven’t you blessed even one child upon us old grannies? “That’s fine too—if there ain’t no children to be had, we should just give up. But why’d you stand there watchin’ silent when he got burned by that lantern? “If I weren’t crippled, I wouldn’t’ve bound ’im so rough-like to the same cart—wouldn’t’ve tied ’im down flat. “To your eyes seeing me for the first time, I must look downright cruel—sits ill with me,” he tossed his headband and—

"(Hurry home now—)" she interjected, leaving no room for protest. (‘Nah—ain’t no reason given,’) he tried to argue further when— "(Come here)," Your Ladyship said. She hid her face with the fan— Reaching a snow-white hand behind her, she pushed—Old Man and cart together—as if to send them away. "Her fingers—pale as bone—hovered over the cart’s spokes like a spinning wheel catching cotton fluff in moonlight, and round and round the wheel turned until—can you imagine?—the cart itself came rolling over Old Man’s back."

“Ooooooh,”

The monk's eyes flew open, and he held his breath. “Startled as a turtle flipped skyward, Old Man flailed his arms—only to be shoved from behind by his own clattering cart with a *wai!* In one breath, they reached the village outskirts, then hurtled down the pot-handle bend of the road all on their own—clear to the August Deity’s stone steps in the forest.” “As you can well see,” she continued, “while the road does slope somewhat downward toward the far side, it’s hardly what one would call a descent—and yet how swiftly it carried them! It was as though they’d slid down an avalanche; when they finally came to a stop at the base of the stone steps with a grunted *hrmph*, the cart—still charged with momentum—clattered over the rocks in empty spins, leaping about as if alive.”

"The forest sky above was dark—and Old Man, they say, shuddered."

Ten “He’s a stubborn old man, Your Ladyship. By moonlight’s distant gaze—the shape clinging there presses against the reed-screen pillar’s roots. That stone behind you—this old one shall lean it here and depart, lingering only in this camp stool’s shadow.” The view stretched clear to the Great Collapse, yet not a spider’s thread of Your Ladyship’s form remained visible. Peering through gaps in the foliage, clinging to the mountain’s edge, he stole back across ink-washed grasses, muffling his footsteps as he retreated. How Yoshikichi would be disposed of—to witness that outcome—such was Old Man’s intent.

The cart passed before the August Deity’s stone steps and reached the well-known Misaki Highway, where a side path branching off marked the village entrance; there they drew it in. The place lay utterly still—they had merely inspected the loaded goods, and with a sign proclaiming “For Lord Tsurutani’s Use” planted there plain as day, none dared interfere. Old Man crawled back while concealing himself, so it’s told. Though he hid his form well—did the gleaming canopy and madder-red headband vanish into the moonlit night? “Right then,” they jeered afterward, “through Your Ladyship’s sorcery he’d turned into a crab with pincers glowing crimson in the moonlight—still living! ‘Enough now! How eerie!’ he’d blink his eyes rapid-like,” they said of how he foamed at the mouth.

“They had themselves a grand old laugh.” “If he hadn’t committed that reckless act, it would’ve sufficed to keep you from saying ‘Begone!’—that’s how it would’ve been.”

The monk frowned upon hearing this, “It’s no laughing matter. Did anything untoward befall Old Man?” “Your mercy overlooks much,” the old tea shop woman replied with a deferential bow, her complexion shifting, “The old man remains under divine protection—no harm has touched him. Today too he labors in Lord Tsurutani’s fields.” “Then only Yoshikichi met with strangeness?” “That too springs from his nature. At first Your Ladyship—gracious beyond measure—deigned to bestow with her own hands... a rare medicine cool as chewed crystal, fragrant with crushed herbs... leaving it with water in... this very bucket—”...

The old woman looked back. Perhaps an offering—sandwiched within the reed screen beneath the Everlasting Summer flowers sat a single hand bucket in cool shade upon its ring. Across it stretched a shimenawa rope, likely hung since that incident—still fresh and new.

“She drew water and bound it tight. When Yoshikichi came to his senses—his misunderstanding having prevented return to his master—he used this as his excuse instead, and such a splendid treasure it was..." "That was a deep green pearl, Your Ladyship—glowing and beautiful."

It was when Old Man, having burrowed into the grass, stealthily peered out with his crab-like eyes and saw it, they say. Like this—upon the fingertips that Your Ladyship held aloft, a faint blue glow shimmered, and the translucent part of your white hand appeared as though clasping a great firefly, they say. Though it clung to Your Ladyship’s form, well—that light soon vanished into Yoshikichi’s dice-rattling palm, they say. Then she apparently departed—head slightly bowed, yes, still holding her fan before that face, jet-black hair adorned with a lightly placed hairpin at the front, wearing either zori or setta sandals as befitted her station—gliding smoothly alongside the moon like a woman-shaped wave.

This time too, Old Man seemed to shudder. “Now then—whatever they claim about her being acquainted with the August Deity—that’s naught but fanciful talk! More likely she was some incognito noblewoman from a Hayama villa—that’s what I’d reckon.” “She heads toward Akiya now instead. But wait... come to think of it—the strangeness didn’t end there.” “As for that Yoshikichi wretch—would you believe it? When Her Ladyship showed him mercy... He snatched that pearl in his drunkenness—at first just wanting to repay her kindness—begging to know her name—insisting on one glimpse of her face.” “He walked beneath willow boughs toward the weaving shed’s women—bawling like some night-stumbling drunkard’s field-song—no mimicry could match his brazenness! His audacity knew no bounds—tugging sleeves—groping hands—clutching from behind.”

Old Man seemed to break into a cold sweat. "But even so—as if her noble hem had caught on straw sandals—she went slipping right into Yoshikichi’s embrace and tumbled forward with him, they say! Your Ladyship, such insolence—!” "What an outrage—he’s done it again."

Kojirou Houshi scowled bitterly.

Eleven

The old woman assumed an air of prudent discernment. "A single glance at his wretched state would tell the whole story." "Whether Your Ladyship be divine or mortal made flesh, you'd never lower yourself to converse with Yoshikichi's sort." "Not that he deserved such generosity in the first place." "Even were he to pray at your retreating form—why, that'd invite divine wrath! For a wretch like him, Your Reverence—this is precisely when awakening should strike root." "He's no true villain—just an aimless fool fermented overnight like cheap sake." "That one can't tell pampas grass from reeds or patrinia flowers."

“If someone has long hair, they must be a woman—that’s his logic—behaving like a dog in heat. The grace of receiving that pearl meant no more to him than splitting half a sweet rice cake with Sister from Shinya’s place by the thicket. Oh yes—offer him food, and he’ll cling about thinking some kindness might come with it.”

Even upon Lady Benzaiten’s noble form—if flies swarm there—it becomes oppressive. “If one were to merely glance in passing—though called a path through the grass—it appears as nothing more than a parched and withered fissure in the rocks, but…” The old woman remained seated. Well, it wasn’t a distance that required leaning out— “Just beyond that—the path climbing up through the opposite thicket—is the shortcut to Akiya Village over yonder mountain. Though no carriage passes through it, when I close up shop at nightfall, Your Reverence, I bundle sweets and fruits and wares into my furoshiki cloth, hoist it upon my back with one hand gripping the kettle—and so beneath the sunset my shadow stretches long and leisurely, this bent spine of mine making light work of returning to my hut.”

Her Ladyship stood there. ……Her skirt hem fluttered. 'How strange,' marveled Old Man as he leaned halfway out—just as her figure slipped free from the waves and rose smoothly up the mountainside—when lo, what mischief had Yoshikichi wrought? She whirled around with such force that Her Ladyship’s fan flipped open—swinging down at an angle—and struck Yoshikichi’s cheek with a sharp crack. “Yelped!” he flipped back—then scrambled fifty yards down the path on knees and heels, hips dragging low—yet somehow managed a bizarre leaping retreat.

The Old Man—true to his nature—stumbled into his own panicked sweat at that “Agh!”, then burst from the mountain’s base with a “Whoa—!” only for Yoshikichi to crash into his chest like a headbutt, *thudding* them both apart until—what a sight you must have witnessed, Your Reverence!—they sprawled midway along the highway, spaced apart like ritual offerings.

Both of them landed on their backsides. "What the—what’s with this bastard?"—irritation simmering in his gut—Old Man Saibachi, half in terror, lurched forward with a guttural cry only to freeze mid-motion—his entire demeanor shifting alarmingly—bug-eyed stare fixed unblinkingly as I scrutinized Old Man Saibachi’s face. (Thud, thud, thud—) (Eek!) (Monster!) he seemed to exclaim—no sooner had the thought formed than he sprang up, stampeding back about ten paces before plunging face-first into the dirt.

Old Man Saibachi was startled twice over—his half-risen knees buckled beneath him once more as he collapsed to the ground, heaving a thick breath. He flared up—unable to even hear the waves. And yet—amidst this stillness, only the sea’s motion resonated in his ears as he followed the mountain path shortcut toward Akiya.

When the bell crickets chirped, her voice—lovely as overflowing dew—turned dreadful,

("Whose narrow path is this— A narrow path it is. *Tenjin-sama’s narrow path is—* *A narrow path it is.* (Please let me pass—please let me pass.)

It was heard in Your Ladyship's voice—pitiful and lonesome. The voice grew distant over the mountains as if wrapped in gauzy cotton. When white clouds draped themselves across the sky, the sound raced ahead with a sudden rush—capricious rain descended toward the sea while her voice curved around the mountain's far side, fading into remoteness. The rabbit-fur clouds he'd seen moments prior—though he'd thought they foretold a downpour—mercilessly withheld their rain. 'The cargo'll get soaked!' Old Man Saibachi came running back, hauled out the cart with a creak, then called first from the wayside stall at the village outskirts before going to confront that Yoshikichi wretch.

“Somehow—you see—that song’s voice might sound as if heard ten or fifty years past, yet resonates even in these old ears, so they say.” “Though the villagers seem to hold back—not speaking too plainly of it—since that incident, Yoshikichi became just as you see him now: a man transformed.” “Well—it’s become quite the talk of the neighborhood. The children began singing that song without anyone teaching them, as if by some unseen hand...”

Twelve (“Whose narrow path is this— A narrow path it is. Akiya Estate’s narrow path it is, A narrow path it is. Please let me pass—please let me pass, please let me pass. Whoever comes into view, we shall not let pass, we shall not let pass.) “Well now, wouldn’t they sing it like this? Nowadays, they teach proper songs at school—about cawing crows and pond carp eating wheat gluten—logical compositions free of error, Your Reverence. Yet all the children sing instead is what I just mentioned— (“Whose narrow path is this—

“Akiya Estate’s narrow path it is.)” In pitiful, lonely, thin voices, children among themselves would sing in chorus whenever their faces met—but until recently, this song had gone unheard for many years. Ever since word spread that Old Man Saibachi had heard it that night—with none knowing who began it—the tune started circulating anew. “Moreover—you see—the original song was—” (“Tenjin-sama’s narrow path it is— Please let me pass—please let me pass, We do not let pass those without business—”)

“Indeed, it was precisely like this.” “And then—”

("Akiya Estate’s narrow path it is— Whoever comes into view, we shall not let pass, we shall not let pass.") the song sang itself, you see. "But that’s not all." "The children play around there at dusk—such disturbing antics they get up to—well, what can one say?"

Each child would twist off taro leaves, cut two holes for eyes and one for a mouth—three gaps in total—then press those crude masks flat against their faces. From the largest to smallest, those pale-veined elongated forms—neither fox nor raccoon dog nor identifiable specter—bore leaf blemishes where insects had fed; stains like leprous apparitions or pox-scarred wraiths. With masks aligned, their lanky figures wove through patches of sun and shadow—before thickets, at valley mouths, along mountain roots—chanting that very song in groups not of one or two clusters, but three here and five there.

Their mischief had escalated—these days they dangled corn-silk tails from their waists, clamped akebi vines between their teeth, traced shadowed paths with eggplant-shaped lanterns, and roamed until nightfall. What unsettled me was how they’d clack stones together—click-clack clack-clack—keeping rhythm like bamboo clappers in their hands. As the song seeped deeper into their bones, just when all should scatter homeward, one child kept rattling those stones— (The bell now tolls—) Then when we’d say— (The fourth bell tolls—)

and one child went clack-clack—counting five tolls，six tolls，nine tolls，eight tolls... “The bell now tolls—” “The seventh bell tolls—” With those words as their signal— “That’s demonic bewitchment!”

With a raucous clamor, they vanished entirely as if disappearing—so it was said. It was such an unpleasant feeling—deceptively desolate, as if Obon spirits were ceaselessly wandering about—that weighed so heavily on the heart, one might as well be dragged into a pit cellar. "They should sing lively school songs," she continued. "'What *is* that?'—so the teachers at school scold them, they say. But if such reprimands could stop it, then among all these students attending school, there’d be none left catching dragonflies nor boys climbing trees—yet it persists without cease."

As for the households, the parents too offered stern reprimands. “The strong-willed ones—Dekusuke here, or rather that snub-nosed Heikichi with his taro-leaf mask—would lie in wait along the narrow path, thinking to seize those brats and thrash them proper. But when they peered through the twilight haze, all they saw were figures lined up tall to short, every last one wearing identical taro-leaf masks. Whether it was the stripes on their clothes playing tricks or their reflections against the Village Headman’s white walls in the dimming light, they couldn’t tell grandson from hired hand from little girl.”

"In the same way, they seemed possessed by spirits and under a demon's sway—it was impossible to lay hands on them, so the parents wandered about helplessly." "When the villagers gathered to confer—some sitting with knees raised and arms crossed, others slumped cross-legged with cheeks propped—their murmurs thickened with creeping unease: 'Strange! Unheard of! This can't be ordinary!'"

“Among them all, the one who let out a deep sigh and showed concern over it was Lord Tsurutani Kijuuro.”

Having spoken thus with due formality—and having named names—the old woman cast her gaze about the surroundings.

Thirteen

Now, as if they had been acquainted for ten years, they drew close and lowered their voices, “His Lordship deigned to listen to the children’s song—(‘Akiya Estate’s narrow path it is—whoever comes into view, we shall not let pass’)—you see—that’s how—” Perceiving that Kojirou Houshi’s nodding conveyed understanding—or perhaps feigned it—the old woman soon gave a firm nod of her own,

“...It must be.” "Now, in this Akiya area—when we speak of estates—why, there’s more than one household with earthen storehouses, white-walled construction, and tile roofs. But just as Lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi remains Hideyoshi and Lord Mitsukuni of Mito remains Mitsukuni, the estate here belongs to Tsurutani." Now, one is the main estate—this being the village’s foundational family—but there is another: the villa that Lord Kijuuro had built as his retirement residence. He had funds enough to make wisteria bloom along covered walkways and keep parrots in Western-style bay windows—models for such grandeur existed right nearby, and while his vision might have been realized, that old-fashioned stalwart deemed villa-building unfit for peasants like us. Thus at Tachiai-za just yonder, a great landowner of ancient lineage put his entire foundation up for sale—the roof tiles alone costing a small thousand ryō, the main pillar two armspans thick. Though built in Heian style with soaring ceilings—dozens of rooms illuminated high above—they loaded its components onto oxcarts and brought them here. With a great forest at its back, the black-lacquered gate stood deep among towering trees, constructed like a grand temple. When Lord Yoshitaro returned from his studies in Tokyo, his parents relinquished their position; thus the couple formally entered retirement.

Last summer it was, when Lord Kitarou—who had taken under his patronage a young lady from a certain noble family in Tokyo—heard her declare she wished to convalesce from nervous exhaustion during her summer holiday.

Even though the seaside was bustling, carriages passed by and raised dust. “She had desired a tranquil place with ample rooms—specifically requesting a retirement wing of about three bays and two maidservants—so when the young master broached the matter,” the retired lord had faced a dilemma: true retirement meant near-seclusion, yet returning to the main house felt burdensome, and having the young noblewoman cooped up with elders would surely stifle her spirits. “The young ones should keep to their own kind—we’ll take them to the main house and let them play karuta during the Doyō New Year celebrations. The bride would surely be delighted,” thought the parent—how considerate.

And so it was decided to set aside several rooms in the main house and lend them to the young noblewoman. "One evening she arrived by palanquin—her beauty so unearthly it set tongues wagging—yet we common folk never glimpsed her face. Even the menservants and maids kept sealed lips about it, as propriety demanded." "That young lady carried a belly near bursting, I tell you."

“Hmm, so she was pregnant?” "That’s improper—wasn’t that son complicit?" “That remains conjecture, Your Reverence—on that point.” “Not half a month had passed before a great commotion arose—Lord Kitarou’s bride had reached her final month of pregnancy.”

At the Main Estate lived Ni'emon—an old man kept idle for years, nicknamed Bitterbug—who went to visit His Lordship with a stern expression. Twisting his tobacco, he declared: "Well now, this has been said since ancient times. ‘If two were to give birth at once—whether first or last—one would surely suffer complications from their intertwined pregnancies; it’s beyond reason,’ he declared." Lord Kijuuro found himself in a predicament not even seen in famine years—"Setting aside questions of right and wrong," he reasoned, "given how dear our bride was to us, one couldn’t cruelly order another’s daughter in her final month of pregnancy to leave. However, to lend out an annex only to vacate the main house and withdraw one’s bride to a retirement residence—that’s an inexcusable affront to our ancestors’ memorial tablets." ‘We shall return to the main house and lend this retirement residence to the young noblewoman’—so the couple were made to depart through the Black Gate, as if heralding their return to society."

“Tsurutani once again became the retired lord.”

“Was his son disowned once he realized his misconduct?” “Hear this, Your Reverence—Lord Kitarou has passed away.” “Before and after, five funerals emerged from the Black Gate.” “Five!”

“Yes, yes, Your Reverence.”

“Who and who?” “The first was that convalescing young lady.” “She passed from childbed.” “Then right after the uproar—on the seventh day—the bride went into labor.”

"The tides were off by two cycles—from the sixth hour of morning to the fourth hour of night, it was a difficult childbirth that lasted through unrelenting agony."

“The entire village was in commotion like a fire scene, the main estate stood silent—the sound of sutras chanted here, a cough there…”

**Fourteen**

“The diviner cast hexagrams and declared, ‘This is a dead spirit’s curse.’ ‘We must not let this demon defeat us!’ Advancing from this direction toward that birthing room in the annex—guard sword held aloft as their vanguard—they hitched up their old hakama and stood up abruptly with such force that six people, taking positions at the four corners and both sides, tightly carried the woman in labor upon her bedding straight to the platform. The vanguard was none other than that diviner; he had thrust the sacred staff into his collar. Gripping the long bag of hexagram sticks like a dagger at his waist, he affixed weathered counting rods to an antique horseback lantern; thus they illuminated the sweltering ridge beneath black clouds looming low, and advanced with sweeping gestures.”

The indigo-shell-patterned long sword from the bridal trousseau—Ni’emon wiped its hilt clean and hoisted it upon his shoulder. At the procession’s center swayed the birthing platform bearing the laboring woman. Beside it walked Lord Kitarou, hat pulled low over his ashen face, trailed by a monk from Jimyoin Temple clad in crimson robes. Menservants and maidservants shuffled behind in a disorderly line. The midwife dashed ahead to ready the birth chamber within the Black Gate’s quarters. Along the path occurred a most uncanny sight—fireflies seethed about the ailing woman’s recumbent form like flies tormenting carrion. Though wracked by pain, some vestige of her graceful spirit remained; entranced, she began plucking at the luminous swarm with childlike hands.

The way she kept raising her hands upward—and whenever we heard of her condition, she would writhe as though clawing at empty air—it was too dreadful to witness. "Don't let the curse defeat you!" I urged. Though spilling backward from her upturned pillow, she clenched between white teeth the hair ends falling across pale cheeks not yet hollowed by wasting—this familiar gesture. When I clung to the platform and cried "Young Mistress, stay strong!" from my waiting place beneath the thicket, she answered "Ah—" in a threadlike voice and made that wan smile bloom. Crossing the bridge and passing beyond—there beneath hazel trees on that moonless evening—countless fireflies flickered restlessly in midair, and where the semblance of Everlasting Summer flowers bloomed near your face—so I closed my eyes and prayed for a safe delivery..."

Her voice too held such desolation, “The temple bell tolled.” “*Namu Amida Butsu*…”

"How pitiful—her first childbirth ended that very night."

“It was a dreadful business.” “When they reached the Black Gate and tried to arrange the birthing chamber—why, ’twas the very room where that convalescing young mistress had labored.” “‘Ah…the one with the blue headband lies sleeping—move me closer…’” so gasped the laboring woman. They ignored her, bellowing “Don’t yield! Crush through!” as they positioned the mattress—whether night dew brought ill fortune or not—by then no physician could’ve salvaged matters. “You too…how hateful,” she moaned in delirium, teeth sinking into the pillow—with that final gasp her body tore asunder. No infant’s cry followed; both lay still as stone.

Overwhelmed by the extremity of it all—appearing to have been driven to frenzy—Lord Kitarou threw himself into the rear well at dawn. Even though they cleaned the well, it was so eerie that no one would drink its water—and so the well frame had long since been hidden by blue pampas grass. Once every seven days, once every ten days, Ni'emon and my Saibachi here—the younger ones having been too frightened from the start to approach—would go out for annual duties: opening storm shutters, rolling up sliding windows, letting in sunlight and airing out rooms. Yet ever since that incident when Yoshikichi lost his mind, even full-grown adults would find their legs shrinking back when peering into the tree-shrouded darkness beyond the Black Gate’s depths—unable to advance a single inch forward.

Amid hushed whispers speculating that the hairpin’s azure-glowing bead must likely be fireflies, a small figure came shambling into view—its taro leaves crudely pierced with eyes and a mouth—and there before Your Reverence,

("‘Tis Akidani Estate’s Narrow Path, ‘No matter who might see…’) That must be how it was. “If the laborers cease, nothing but grass will grow there.” “Alas, the Black Gate’s annex is beyond saving.” “Only at the Akidani estate’s main house do they strive to keep laborers from dwindling—though what season brought this about I cannot say—but with Lord Kijuuro’s head having turned snow-white time and again, one wonders if Tsurutani’s lifespan has reached its end.” “Her Ladyship the Mother was a goodly person—oh how dearly cherished she was.” "Oh, oh—I’ve gone on far too long. The hour has grown late here and there—ah, it’s become the time when those detestable taro leaves with holes go about singing."

The old woman peered around her surroundings. The color of the waves turned blue. Silently, the traveling monk who had closed his eyes and listened intently now raised a face free from dreaminess. Through the reed screen he scrutinized the road ahead and behind, though there was no need to gauge the sun’s descent. “Entranced by your searing tale, the passersby have turned to mere silhouettes. In this world, there are all manner of things. Granny, thanks to your wisdom, I’ve learned a great deal. My gratitude…”

**Fifteen** “And where might Your Reverence be journeying onward from here?” As the traveling monk drew his bundle closer and made to leave, the old woman rose to her feet and inquired. “I had meant to pass through Kamakura and reach Fujisawa before nightfall, but at this rate they’ll be lighting lamps in Hayama.”

“Ah, now that you mention it—I can see flickering lights amidst Morito’s pines.”

“Your Reverence knows it well.” “I remain known in the mundane world. Thus I failed even to visit Kamakura—my intent had been to reach Tokaido’s main road—but now the hour grows late.” “My training proves insufficient—sleeping beneath trees, upon stones, enduring nights afield—all grows wearisome,” he smiled faintly, “I shall make for Kamakura.” “Oh dear me—how dreadfully inconvenient! This chatter took root in truth—ah, I’ve detained your esteemed self most unexpectedly.” “Nonsense—no need for such words. I am humbled.” “It felt as though I heard a venerable sermon.”

“Not at all. It’s no falsehood.”

As you can see, though it’s called a pilgrimage, there’s a certain diverting pleasure to this wandering journey.

Butterflies and dragonflies as companions on the path—the sleeves of his ink-dyed priestly robes dried their tears of pious resolve and naturally forgot even the ephemeral dews of this fleeting world. Unconsciously, he had grown distant from chanting the Buddha’s holy name—even earlier, you see.

In truth, he had arrived here. Passing beneath the stone steps of Akidani Shrine's forest and approaching the sunlit wheat fields, he encountered an uncommon sight for these parts—a fair-skinned girl of eighteen or nineteen wearing a merino-trimmed work sash and cloth headwrap, toiling in the fields. As he walked along, he turned back and—peering out from under his cypress hat—casually inquired, "Isn't there anything interesting around here?" "Yes, along the shoreline there are what we call Childbirth Stones." "This here counts as one of our local sights," she explained with hometown pride, then kindly pointed out, "From the stone steps, cut straight through the fields and go take a look."

However famous the Childbirth Stones may be, how could children be born with only men around? What now—Sis!—I peered at the Shimada hairstyle half-concealed in the wheat, my tengu-like grin sharpening—what disgraceful ineptitude. Even hearing tales of Yoshikichi and others—how they avoided madness—I found myself shuddering mid-conversation.

When I heard tales of the Black Gate’s annex and such matters, I found myself drawn into them, my spirits sinking low, until a solemn Buddhist prayer welled up from the depths of my sincere heart.

Throughout the journey, I shall chant the Buddha’s name with those young people as my focus. Should I close my eyes against this cheap wooden pillow, their forms would appear all the more vividly—thus I resolved to chant the Buddha’s name with redoubled fervor.

Let me hear it through, Granny—you could indeed be called a good spiritual friend—I wouldn’t mind continuing all night. So engrossed were we in speaking—and listening—that perhaps out of consideration not to intrude, four or five people who kept glancing our way simply passed by. They appeared to be locals. A white-haired old woman—with a cloth bundle tied at her waist, wearing straw sandals with her hem tucked up, leaning on a cane—who seemed to be someone you knew, called out from across the way. Because you were so absorbed in conversation and failed to notice, she simply went off looking quite pleased with herself.

I too had been listening raptly, but if our conversation were to be interrupted—well, I must say I pretended not to notice.

“I’ve caused considerable inconvenience to your shop—I truly must beg your pardon.” Resting his fan horizontally across his knees and supporting it with both hands, he offered a courteous nod. The old woman cast her gaze left and right once more, but— “Venerable Monk, how devout you are—how devout you are.” “What grace!”

and said with no small reverence,

“While the main house may be called the village’s foremost magnate—though it pains me to say—you, Venerable Monk, who fix no abode, have deigned to visit us.” “Even if entreated, you would depart to perform memorial rites.” “‘Let’s try this approach,’ ‘we’ll attempt that method,’ all covetous of ceremonial alms...” “...ceremonial alms...” she concluded pointedly.

“Now here’s one who speaks true—you who reveal your own transgressions and hasten ahead to chant prayers along the roads, unadorned as you are.” “On the road, even my overgrown hair comes to be revered all the more.” “I humbly beseech you to soon perform that memorial service at the Black Gate’s annex…” “I cannot say how much even Tsurutani might rejoice.”

Sixteen

Tsurutani's manservant—old Jin'emon 'Bitterbug'. Resembling a horned will-o'-the-wisp, he dangled a cloth-wrapped bundle while walking along the grassy bank of a stream.

“Hey, Saibachi,”

“Yeah.”

Crab-Handed Saibachi continued onward, his straw sandals traversing countless pockmarks as he stiffly planted both legs, bearing a massive bundle wrapped in white crane-crested cloth of yellow-green hue. The bedding bundle slung across his back evoked the image of Warring States-era refugees—common folk writhing in misery. “Say, about that young person staying at the Black Gate—the one you met—where exactly did they pick up the handball?”

“Straight ahead—right where you’re headed, there’s a thicket of catkin willows.”

“Oh!”

“There—at the base of those roots.” “The brim of the hat too—limp in its exhausted shape—there—” At the human voice that spoke, fireflies flew out from beneath the leaves. Yet amidst three or five stars, thinly along the mountain’s edge, the current ran white.

This river crawled soundlessly through the village of green rice fields like mist, dull and heavy.

“Here it is.” “Right here—”

Saibachi halted briefly. Having glimpsed the Black Gate’s forest ahead—for Akidani’s nights grew truly dark from this point onward—they drew near to their destination, their footsteps growing indistinct as shadows pressed close, seeming to assail the low grasses atop the embankment; thus when one halted, all halted.

From behind Saibachi came another figure—the village schoolteacher, following along with cane in hand. “An unfamiliar traveling student—reclining against his set-down luggage, elbow bent—you there, flinging your legs sideways onto the grass. Thereabouts, like the combs of white egrets, they bloom faintly pale upon the river’s surface—gliding smoothly—though by daylight they’re gentle pink blossoms. Hmm—this isn’t mugwort.” “Carnations, I tell you.” “A variety of carnation—what we call Everlasting Summer flowers.”

The schoolteacher straightened his posture, swung his cane around once, and—splash. “Oh! There’s no need to be startled,” he said. “That was a frog.” “That frog... y'know,” Saibachi replied, “it’s the Everlasting Summer. What’ll he do with those picked flowers—took a whole bunch in hand, he did. Ain’t nothin’ worth lookin’ at there.” Beautiful crystal eyes blinked beneath stars shining azure in the upstream sky—arrayed as if holding council. “Wearin’ straw sandals—ain’t from ’round here,” he continued. “If ya get lost, I’ll show ya the way—but I was ’bout to head home already, see? Nothin’ left for me and Granny but tea dregs from what we sold customers—just makin’ do with soggy rice and bitter brew. So I lumbered over and stood watchin’ his back a spell, and sure enough...”

He suddenly heaved upright—or so it seemed. "(Old man! Look there—)" At that moment, Saibachi leaned out over the river’s surface and inverted his billowing cloak in the water’s reflection.

“(A handball—the handball flows—comes drifting—Pick it up—offer gratitude.)” When he looked—there it floated without creating bubbles: that perfectly round bundle of Everlasting Summer flowers trailing a tail like lingering sunset. “Never mind the money—but gettin’ yer feet wet’s a blasted nuisance,” he barely had time to think. Suddenly came a splash—the young traveler grabbed their hem and plunged into the river. Had they spent half an hour arguing—but with this current that sweeps things off in a blink—there’d be naught left here, though outsiders wouldn’t know that. In a frenzy like grasping lightningbolts, they thrashed midstream; stirred by their flailing, water shifted and spun the handball once round. Ain’t it driftin’ shoreward?

(Blast!) That impatient schoolteacher. "If you want it that bad, figure out how to snap off a willow branch and drag it over yourself—look at this! Soaked through in some traveler’s clothes!" I grumbled while crouching with a grunt to grab what had washed ashore. Even a river like this gets churned up into waves—that’s just how it goes. You can’t gather turban shells without getting drenched! When I reached out my hand, the water snatched it away again—the handball ended up being grabbed by that person in the river after all. “Right here, Jin’emon—and you should listen too, Mr. Schoolteacher.”

Over the yellow hood of his bedding bundle, he twisted that crimson headband around,

"The worst part was... when they picked up the handball, there was a cat lying underneath it—wasn’t there?"

Seventeen

The schoolteacher forced a wry smile, “You’re spouting such absurdities—we haven’t heard the like since mad Yoshikichi’s days! You talk to these weird things as if they’re old friends, but diving into water—why, I’ve never even heard of such nonsense in ghost cat tales.”

“You there—this goes without sayin’—whether they fly ’cross skies or swim through currents, any livin’ cat in all Akidani, we’d know ’em.” “Nothin’ particularly foul ’bout it—but that critter’s fur hung matted from bein’ waterlogged, ’round the joints of its forelegs showin’ raw red skin.” “Ain’t that right? A gaunt carcass with bones protrudin’ out?”

The schoolteacher brushed it aside dismissively,

“What—a carcass, is it?” “What d’you mean ‘a carcass’? I’m tellin’ you—it bein’ a carcass makes it a nasty business. Them gilded orbs wouldn’t shut. When that person took the handball, the calico-patterned belly—squelch-squelch—swelled out once, an’ its eyes glared fierce-like. The water turned all filthy with mouse-gray bubbles an’ flowed thick-like, churnin’ gritty—then they clambered ashore, wringin’ out their clothes soaked clear to the waist. Took off their hat an’ flipped it over—plopped it right inside, see? Up close now—purple threads here, yellow stitches there—that five-colored handball wasn’t half as wet as you’d reckon.”

“Hey now, Saibachi,” “What’s that now?” Jin’emon spoke in a darkened voice, “What became of that handball?” “D’ya reckon that student’s still got it?”

From behind, the schoolteacher interjected again.

“It vanished into thin air.” “Like gold coins picked up in a dream.” “Heh, heh, heh.”

—a peculiar laugh. “Hmph,”

The bitter-faced one kept his scowl fixed in place as he trudged off. "You're lying! At it again with your tall tales. Most likely, you’d have vanished right before my eyes like a soap bubble—now that would’ve been something strange." "That’s wrong! Completely wrong!"

Following behind Jin'emon, "That person— (Old man—do they still make handballs in this village these days?) (Why?) (The children sing with gentle voices, their melody steeped in nostalgia.) Whose narrow path might this be? Akidani residence’s narrow path...) In this strange affair—with a gentle voice, a nostalgic voice—they ask whether to bounce the handball. That’s absurd! You—it was taro leaves with holes, I was about to say, but wait—no skill at all, blabberin’ village secrets—makin’ a fool of myself without a lick of sense—

(What—you with your school calisthenics. Scoopin' balls with soup ladles and leapin' about playin' tennis—chu!—ain’t no handball-bouncin’ business, I boasted before Mr. Schoolteacher with a single ounce of pride.) “What’s this ‘tennis leapin’’ nonsense? That’s not even a real—” “It’s tennis. Just say tennis.” “Well… I reckoned ’twas some Western-style leaping or whatnot—but aye, ’twill do.” “That’s not good in the slightest,”

The schoolteacher spat. “Even so—how refined! ‘Who could’ve bounced this handball?’ that young master keeps askin’.” “From the start I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it—but seein’ how the young master’s sleeves poured water like a waterfall, I figured I’d best come up with some notion. So I took that handball and gave it a look—” He shook out a yellow samurai cloak, “Wasn’t wet, but gave me a chill—perfect condition it was! The one that pulled back was my arm,”

“Heh heh,” he chuckled again to himself, “With this hand—here—I held it up high ’tween the Honorable Sun sinkin’ into the sea and the Honorable Moon caught in Black Gate’s forest, peerin’ right through the middle.” “Ain’t no soap bubble. The perfectly round handball’s shadow—it cast itself on the grass too, y’see.” “How could it’ve vanished again—preposterous!” As he pressed forward, the thrust-back tip of his cane plunged plop into the crab hole—whereupon the schoolteacher, pulling a disgusted face, leapt back in one bound.

“Go on—out with it.”

Appraising Tama-miso was a bit different from other things—no matter how much I twisted and turned it, couldn’t figure out where this one hailed from. (In the waves of a mist-like stream where everlasting summer flowers cast their shadows, to where—in the distance—the Narrow Path could be heard... a handball floated... For three years, five years, journeying from one travel to another, yet never again had I seen such a delightful village.) Even the droplets cascading from his soaked robes seemed like jewels spilling from his very body—such was the young master’s rapture.

Eighteen “If only someone could meet the owner of this handball—old man—I’d consider my life’s purpose fulfilled; why, my travels through field and mountain have all been for this very reason.” So he says. I don’t mind the village being praised, but to just toss aside whatever he’d been thinkin’ up till now without understandin’ a lick of it—well, I couldn’t abide that. “There, crouching in the grassland—though I scarce can credit it—she bestowed upon Yoshikichi a pale blue pearl…”

He fell silent for a moment, "If I were to speak of that matter, you see..." "In Mr. Schoolteacher’s presence—though he seemed about to disparage me with a 'You’re lying!' from the skylight—the young master," "Oh, what I took for that pearl must have been a handball no larger than a star," he remarked, gazing at that blue star once more. Even the cheapskate didn’t doubt it. "If so, there remains a matter I might speak of," he said, proceeding to tell of the Black Gate’s abandoned mansion. (Does the river flow through that mansion’s garden or back gate?)

He pressed on. “…(The current’s flow lies plain before your eyes)…”

Even now lingered that same atmosphere—winding through faint veranda-wrapped cottages enshrouded in violet smoke, passing beneath low-hanging mists that clung to back mountains’ roots like tattered silk veils. Following green rice fields’ undulations and foothills’ rugged contours meandered this flowing cloth—white handcloth in dawn’s haze becoming scarlet collar at sunset glow; transforming through sash then obi until dissolving into pampas-grass robes that even now slipped through valley’s mouth at village edge—vanishing from Myojin’s shrine toward Childbirth Stones’ shore without flowing anywhere particular. Taste its waters and salt stings your tongue—sea tides must reach here somehow. Where riverbanks grew ever more obscured by untended grasses stood Myojin’s purification basin lantern bearing verse naming these currents Kasumi River—though villagers simply called them Yu.

Blending into mist, mingling with haze—faintly white from where moisture ever rises—it came to be traditionally named.

That haze—that mist—here and there especially tinged with twilight: the distant pine treetops and the nearby willow roots all lay within these stagnant waters. A single field blocked the path ahead, moisture rising vertically in broad swathes—what floated dimly above was a slightly elevated foundation, Tsurutani's detached residence forming that very structure of the Black Gate, due to mist hanging distinctly thicker here than elsewhere in the forest's gloom.

The three of them began making their way toward that place. Here along the bank they followed, the river spanned barely six feet—yet near Tsurutani’s main residence, it widened to some eighteen feet, its waterlogged edges already swallowed by lush grasses from that point onward.

To reach here by coming upstream, between lies a bridge they must cross.

Bridges stood before Myojin—one along the Misaki Highway, another within the village. The village bridge visible from here—the one they just crossed—had railings installed by Tsurutani’s hand, but with the stream’s waters so calm, they seemed to lend an air of rustic charm rather than serve any practical purpose. It appeared to span from the blue mountains to the mist-shrouded foothills; resembled a ladder laid between the eaves of thatched huts along a low embankment; and could even be perceived as some wealthy patron’s capriciously constructed corridor stretching into the distance.

The lantern lights flickered faintly through the green rice fields. Downstream, where thatched houses clustered in rows, the sea mirrored a sky that still held brightness. ――The deeper one ventured into the waterway's upper reaches, the more thatched roofs hung from tree branches—small dwellings like bagworm nests dwindling from three to two then one, their windows unlit—only evening cooking smoke rising away from the river fluttered like slender white distress flags offshore, swaying with the wind's caprice. By the sea, dusk came late yet lights appeared swiftly; at the mountain's base, twilight fell early but lanterns were slow to kindle—or so it was said.

Yet even that—if one were to pull the scare-clappers—might bring convenience both near and far. Though houses stood spaced apart to face each other across the shore, the Black Gate's detached residence lay deep within a remote forest—a solitary structure stretching its limbs in all directions like a great spider, endlessly casting its dark shadow across the earth. The moon hung over it— …… Jin’emon, their guide, had already immersed himself in that night of lingering shadows cast by the mansion’s rise. Yet this gently curving riverside path—its belt-like slackness belying its apparent width—lay approximately eight cho from the main residence.

Saibachi continued, "...Since it flows round the outskirts, there's no call for anyone to be droppin' handballs from that abandoned house. Though if it's a cat carcass, can't say some fool mightn't have hauled it there to dump—place's choked with weeds and all," I said.

Nineteen “Then the young master proposed—‘What if I rented a room in that vacant Black Gate house? If I cook my own meals, I could rest from my travels awhile’—but.” “Say there, Mr. Schoolteacher.” “You see, with his current lodgings—neighbors squallin’ over a newborn brat—when he asked about rentals and they suggested the Black Gate back then, well, he dragged his feet mutterin’ ‘That place...’”

As he splashed his words sideways, the schoolteacher—caught off guard—stumbled and tucked his cane under his arm,

"I stayed because the path to school was treacherous and the road too long—there was nothing else to be done." "That's 'cause you lie abed late mornings, ain't it?"

Jin’emon spoke gravely. The schoolteacher spoke as if lecturing, "For one thing, the water’s foul." "How could anyone drink that—that vivid blue-green stuff like grass juice?" “Is that so… Hah—well, first things first.” “If we ask ’em ourselves, even goin’ to clean in daylight—that empty mansion’s hated through and through.” "When he said that was his wish—if you’d deign to live there, even just one room—why, the roof weeds’d disappear, keep the rot from spreadin’. We’d have our prayers answered, and the main family’s master’d be right pleased too—but that ain’t no proper house." "If you mean to pass through that Black Gate, best go prepared—you hear me?" he pressed,

(I’ve always been prepared for that much.) “Well, that settles it then,” he said. “Now then—with grit like this, you’d make even a bandit chief proud,” I remarked, keeping my guard up as we parted ways. “Jin’emon.” “Hm.”

“Earlier, when he jumped into the river to retrieve the handball still wearin’ what he’d had on since arrivin’,” “What’ll you do about your travel clothes? Couldn’t help askin’ when he brought it up—but feelin’ sorry for ’im, I hollered we’d best hurry ’fore the evenin’ shower soaked us through.” (I do have one change of clothes...) Wasn’t no act—not a bit of one. Made ’im spit out excuses lookin’ right uncomfortable-like—not brushin’ folks’ feelin’s aside—but as I glared at this one, ah—there I found myself caught proper.

A commendable, gentle, beloved soul. In that case, taking care of him wouldn’t be any trouble at all. “First of all, with that fair-skinned frame of his... mon... Jin’emon.” “What’s that?” “It’s gotten dark—” “Look here—it’s Cock’s Hour.” “Ha—Namu Amida Butsu! The Black Gate’s front is pitch black, I reckon.”

“Don’t worry—the moon will shine through.”

The schoolteacher looked up at the sky, "What became of that handball, eh?" “Well there y’have it—just listen now. That guest, with his dear-lovely looks… mon—” He began to speak again, but—amidst blue pampas grass along the riverbank, a thicket of trees, halfway through their hunched passage before the field—as if the mist at the field’s edge had inhaled in one breath, Saibachi abruptly— “Ha-CHOO!” He shuddered and shrank back, "Ain’t no wind, yet this thick spider web." “Jin’emon—you—hah—go on ahead. Ain’t nothin’ to fret over.”

“Not just a web—I grabbed a ground spider crawlin’ down from that tree branch.” “Gah!” “They say if the seven-day wind don’t blow, it’ll suck dry every soul in creation—but stew it half a day and you get this right quick.”

He opened his tightly clutched palm as if twisting it apart, then peered cautiously through his fingers.

“What’s this—a crab?” It plunged into the water with a splash. Behind them, the schoolteacher who had been swinging his staff like a waterwheel— “To let slip the serpent—” Cheered up, he proclaimed loudly,

"Behold! A great serpent lies across the path—draw your sword to strike, and it becomes but the shadow of an ancient pine!" "Aye—keep quiet now……we’re nearly there."

Jin'emon earnestly urged restraint.

“Hey—how’d that handball vanish? Damn annoying.”

“But here’s the thing—that earlier business concerns your person.” “The monster—well, even if it licks your face, you can’t just talk about salt from the skylight—so there, yes, I guided them to the Black Gate.” “As you well know, Jin’emon—today again—Granny took charge of hosting the reverend monk,…this makes the second time I’ve come out here hauling bedding from the main house like this.”

Twenty “Even when it was that student,” the master of the main house was overjoyed—‘Won’t you have some sake?’ “‘Pack just the evening meal in layered boxes, bake some rice cakes to serve with tea at night, and bring the tea in an earthenware pot.’” He had commanded thus—carrying a single furoshiki bundle and bedding roll on his back—and set out.

“Here you are, honored guest—everything’s been prepared in advance.” “…The main house has also conveyed their regards.” “Your personal effects and such shall all be delivered to you tomorrow.” “Just a simple meal for now.” “Tea, and then just some bedding.” I delivered the formal address—“Please take your ease here”—but they had already changed into yukata robes and settled by the candlestand… Now whenever Jin’emon or I made our inspection rounds, everything would be shut tight—so dark even at noon that we kept the candles secured there. …When I guided them earlier—that time when day had darkened—I went ahead and lit the candles for the time being. That honored guest of yours sat by the candlelight with head tilted and arms crossed—it was concerning.

(Did ya manage alright?) I inquired.

“Here it is!” Saibachi declared abruptly and sharply. “Well, something...,” the schoolteacher muttered, taking a step back. The old man paid no heed to their unease. “The handball’s disappearance—see here? The young master said clear as day, ‘The one that was right here’s vanished.’” That’s when it began—my knees nearly gave way, but I caught myself on the veranda’s edge. How’d it disappear? Hah—I’d heard tell of such things before. Three heavy thuds struck the roof… Like boulders falling. When they looked up startled at the ceiling—folks say—Jin’emon—that spot—the corner of the ten-mat room at Nishi no Hachimae. “During that big cleaning inspection—Police Inspector Sir propped his ladder and crawled into the attic with his gas lamp lit—the saber’s scabbard caught on something. The blade came loose when it fell—sliced clean through the udon shop owner’s face down below. Right here where one plate’s gone crooked in his nose bridge.”

With a thud, what came crashing down was a calico cat! “The same fur as the river corpse,” he exclaimed—realizing this, he rushed to the veranda’s edge—…the young master remarked, and I instinctively stepped back. When it descended into the garden and vanished among the overgrown grass, he hurried outside the shoji screen to look—and there, where the handball had been placed in the alcove… “Aye—gone sudden-like……right ’ere, see.” “Who’s to say ’twas vanished or just dropped?”

“Hah—ain’t no tellin’. ’Tis just strange, is all,”

“There’s nothing strange about it at all. In any place that has a school, there simply can be no such thing as mysteries.” “But sir—that cat, you see—”

“Whether it was a cat, a weasel, or even a rat—there’s no telling.” “It’s the forest, after all—there might even be rabbits.” “But you see, sir—that’s precisely what can’t be known.” “That’s why I’ll go tonight and see this thing’s true form for myself.” “By all means—I’ll gladly oblige.” “There have been folks in the village before who—hah—went off saying such things—eh, Jin’emon?”

Silence reigned.

“You went ahead and made them dizzy,” “Idiot,” he muttered in an indignant tone.

The stubborn Saibachi thrust forth crimson shears, “Even you—‘fool,’ ‘Jin’emon,’ ‘Venerable monk’—dared come tonight before this crowd! Hah! Not once ’til now did you speak of going to look!”

“Of course not—how could I neglect my school duties to involve myself in such trifling matters? I came to take a look while getting some exercise during my break.” “Hah! You lot’d get yourselves hurled clear across the room even if it’s just tatami mats flipping up.” “What are you—” “Even a coward like me’s grown accustomed to such things—I’ll hold fast like boarding a ship. Not at all—you’re still…” “Saibachi,” he said in a sepulchral voice.

“Oh,” “You’re always takin’ the other side—ain’t right to be allyin’ yourself with such queer things. So ’tis like I’m ’bout to be crushed under somethin’ heavy—that’s how it feels.” he said with a sigh.

The mist that veiled the Black Gate's foundation—as though shackling the mortal realm—swelled forward from beyond. As [he] trod upon grass steeped in twilight's murk and was swallowed into the thicket's depths—in that very instant—Niemon: "Gah!"

he cried out.

21 “On that first night—was it only the handball that vanished? Were there truly no other strange occurrences?”

And the traveling monk Kojirou Houshi adjusted the sleeves of his monastic robe. The one who had opened the shoji screen and sat facing near the edge of the veranda was the lone figure—that is, the guest of the Black Gate. The paper screens were wider than usual beneath a ceiling that loomed overhead. Though no bloodstained footprints marked its surface, the aged structure stood so weathered that had rain streaked down, it might have spilled ink rather than water. The patterns of rain stains—like those seen on giant temple walls—upon the soot-blackened surface, wind-battered and worn, resembled sleeves risen from the depths, their shapes seeping into forms that seemed to wear dome-shaped hats. Though faceless—without eyes or nose—this hat-crowned silhouette perched atop the lintel peered down at the tatami like some celestial overseer. Perhaps this revealed the wall’s very “heart,” longing for shelter from rain-leak desolation that made one crave such covering—so immense was this specter that it seemed lord of the great hall itself. Moonlight scattered scale-like through trees, illuminating upon the veranda’s edge the monk who faced it—a figure so motionless he might have been a karuta card illustration pressed within glass-paned paper screens.

“Yes,” The Black Gate’s young lodger struck a flint lamp far above the empty tobacco tray and quietly drew on his pipe. The lit tobacco’s glow reflected off his pallid cheeks, casting his long eyebrows into such stark relief that the room seemed steeped in twilight. The paper lantern was left there.

“It was even before that. If I speak of it, others might take notice—so in truth, there was an old man named Saibachi…” “Ah, Old Man Saibachi... I see.” “That’s correct. I hadn’t told Old Man Saibachi either, but it was just a bit before the handball vanished alongside the cat.”

First, I sat down here in this old mansion, but the old man said he was going to the main house and left.

At twilight, alone—the maid would come to guide me to the bath, ascend the stairs, and serve the meal. Even at an inn where routines like laying out bedding and sleeping were perfectly arranged, travel lodgings were entirely transient places where one’s heart found no rest… Yet whether the main house had consented to renting out this place—or had not—remained unclear. Even that old man I thought of as a contact was merely a brief acquaintance I’d met on a roadside path in some foreign land during my travels. Though I myself desired it—if one could call this tatami-laid space a house—Yawata Shiranu.

I couldn’t make sense of the layout at all. Merely by standing in the center and looking around this way and that, I became so disoriented that I could no longer even find the exit through which I had entered.

To put it dramatically—at that very “Well…” moment—there was no escape route to speak of. Though summer meant I could still discern colors, daylight waned—and while the weather had been fair all the way to the Black Gate, Venerable monk, what came pelting against the roof was not rain but these thickly clustered zelkova leaves falling in such a sudden flurry that one might gasp in surprise! Even knowing this, I found myself repeatedly drawn to peer through the garden’s foliage at the sky—leaning out from the veranda again and again.”

He drooped his shoulders and, tilting his head back, peered at the sky beyond the edge of the eaves. “It was a clear sky after all… just like tonight.” “Well then...” The traveling monk tilted his head back and gazed up at the lofty ceiling in the manner of his ancestors beholding Fuji, “This pattering that comes now and then—could it be tree leaves?” “Do look—it seems stars are about to fall,” “I see. Yet every time that peculiar sound occurred, a chill would creep into my very bones—it’s no wonder I thought a downpour had come.”

“If you are feeling chilled, Venerable monk, shall I close it?” “No—to rate a mosquito’s sting at five hundred ryō—a summer night’s coolness cannot be exchanged for a thousand gold pieces. This chill proves far more preferable.” He looked at his face, “Yet you must have felt quite lonely then.” “In truth, Venerable monk, I came to feel keenly how vast an expanse separates me from my homeland.” “Though I did think—while passing along the Misaki Kaido by daylight—that my birthplace lies in these remote parts, given both the place and hour, my hometown felt all the more distant.”

“If I may ask—your birthplace—” “In Buzen Province’s Kokura… My name is Hagoshi.” Hagoshi was his surname, and Akira his given name. “Ah, that’s quite a distant land,”

And even as his eyes looked upon the face once more, the monk felt as though gazing out across a vast sea. The weariness of travel pressed vaguely against his sleeves, its presence evident even in the striped pattern of his unlined robe.

“And you—” “My apologies for not mentioning this sooner—I hail from Matsumoto in Shinano Province, a most remote mountain dwelling.” “Then between us two,” he said gently with an affectionate air, “we can weave tales of sea and mountain.”

Twenty-Two “It is truly a mysterious providence, and nothing could gladden my heart more—yet I fear I make for poor conversational company.” “But—” “Merely listening suffices—nay, that alone stands as more than enough for me.”

The monk was courteous. Akira slightly lowered his head. His gaunt jawline pressed against the tight collar, "The story I speak of is truly so incoherent that I feel ashamed to recount it before you, Venerable monk." “Nothing of the sort exists.” “The tea shop Granny spoke of a possessing spirit in this mansion—well, even just hearing about it makes clear how restlessly they linger, how even the humblest Buddhas demand their memorial rites.” "In connection with this, your own account has come to light." “It seems you’ve steeled yourself with endurance and patience, but as these strange occurrences multiply, your pallor deepens by the day.”

“When I mention this, you insist it’s merely the reflection of the broad persimmon leaves in the garden that makes your complexion appear so pallid—that I shouldn’t worry—but given how frail you seem, the old Saibachi couple grow all the more concerned. “During the day, Saibachi or others would occasionally come by to check on you, but lately they’ve grown so timid that even those visits have become infrequent—which is why they earnestly entrusted me to convey their regards. “But you see—at first, when word spread of your stay here, those hot-blooded village youths grew emboldened. Three or five would come nightly—bringing side dishes for supper, carrying one-shō flasks—to keep you company during their vigils. While those gatherings began peacefully enough, soon they started arriving with blades, cutting tools, even firearms! Those handy with traps set up rat tempura snares in the garden hedges, gulping drink after drink as they lay in wait deep into the night—or so I’ve heard?”—

“Granny said.” “Since I can’t hold my liquor and couldn’t join in, I often used to watch your gatherings from inside the mosquito net before falling asleep.” “For a time, it was quite lively.” “Well, with people coming and going in shifts, it continued for about ten days—three or four at a time would visit—but lately, they’ve abruptly stopped coming.” “That is what you are saying, then.” “Ah, now that you mention it—regarding all that coming and going—there was something suspicious...” As he began to say this, he suddenly turned to look—the two sliding doors separating them from the next room loomed like mountains, their peaks divided by the paper lantern on either side, its light failing to reach the neighboring chamber.

His mind adrift and his nape hairs tugged as if held back, the monk stiffened his neck, became rigid, and turned to face forward.

“Even those mysterious forces keep altering their methods and means to intimidate.” “...That is to say... regarding those tatami mats rising of their own accord—is this truly so?” When he looked and listened intently, he lowered his head once more, “That’s precisely why I say my account feels so awkward—so utterly lacking in coherence.”

“Ah,”

Drawing himself up, the monk chuckled in a relaxed manner,

“I had even considered that possibility myself. Then these would simply be the villagers’ haphazard ghost stories. Are you saying they’re outright falsehoods in truth?”

“No, that is a fact.” “The tatami mats do rise.” “Venerable monk, they might start moving at any moment.”

“What! Oh, that’s—” Before he knew it, his hands slid across his knees in frantic patting, only to find the upper floorboards unyieldingly hard—so solid his nails couldn’t gain purchase. “Does this... move?” “That’s precisely why I say it lacks coherence.” When Akira said this quietly, he fell silent for a moment before blinking. “Indeed, it does not seem entirely without foundation.” “Then what manner of occurrence would befall those sitting here?” “Don’t panic. As long as you stay composed, nothing will occur.” “When I say they move, it’s not that they stand upright or flip over, so...”

“Indeed, if that were to happen properly, people would end up being thrown beneath the veranda, you see.” “Precisely.” “On days when that happens, you’d have to glue the soles of your feet down.” “Even if I tell them there’s nothing to worry about and not to make a fuss, the villagers refuse to listen—the seams of these tatami mats—”

Supporting his hand while sliding his palm along— "First came long triangles and small squares opening their edges—creaking together then clattering apart—their speed appearing like lightning." "That’s when it started—they’d shout ‘Whoa!’ as some leapt back or slashed wildly while others braced with ‘Hah!’ pressing down with both fists. Then there were those swinging tripod fire tongs or bamboo bellows through empty air—until inevitably one or two would bolt from the veranda and flee."

Twenty-Three “Crash, bang—what a tremendous uproar! “As the commotion escalates—*bulge, bulge, bulge*—the tatami mats lift from all four corners, Venerable monk. But two corners at a time—*thud, thud*—one after another, until all ten mats in the ten-mat room rise at once, as if fists thrust upward from below.” “They’ll scream about it being hairy or a woman’s arm, but no—the tatami corners just flip over in a dizzying whirl.” Once things reached that point, each frenzied person would kick over bowls with their own limbs, stomp down sake flasks, screaming, “It’s a tidal wave!”

In that chaos, people sustained injuries at the slightest provocation—even just stepping on an object would make them think their leg had been severed given the solidity of things, with some becoming bedridden because of it. He was a fisherman or something, I believe he said. One man had come all the way from the beach over the mountains—declaring it a warding charm against monsters—wrapping a stingray spine in a hand towel as makeshift helmet padding and tying it fiercely around the back of his head. But after stepping on a broken sake cup shard, he writhed in agony crying “A curse! A curse!” and had to be carried home on someone’s back.

“That’s how chaotic it got, you see. Since the oil lamp posed a danger, everyone would back away—each time that happened, I kept pressing down on it again and again.” As proof that those sitting weren’t being shaken enough from the floor joists to truly overturn, the oil lamp I’d been watching remained perfectly still—not budging an inch—even atop those wildly thrashing tatami mats.

“However, there was also a time when only the oil lamp—starting from its shade—spun around and around. Before long, Venerable Monk, it began dancing like a windmill yet stayed fixed in place—until as we cried ‘What’s this?’, the flame rounded itself out. As we watched, it turned white, then took on a bluish tinge, growing hazy before settling into that sinister glow. Their reflected hands—as if plunged into water—showed every sinew starkly translucent through pallid skin, while their faces turned as yellow as ripe muskmelons with features drawn on them. Exchanging glances, they held their breaths—and then it floated out weightlessly, suddenly alighting on the knees of that evening’s ringleader, the most brazen man of them all.”

When someone cried out “Whoa!”, I warned in the darkness—“You’ll get hurt if you panic!”—yet one person shouted “It’s a cat demon—kill it!” while fleeing into the garden. “Damnit!” he roared at me—“Venerable Monk! This isn’t just dangerous—it’s calamitous!” “Then *whoosh*—the lantern blazed back to full brightness! There sat that fool whose lap it had landed on—a washed-up middle-aged lout claiming naval service—thrusting his pre-stashed dagger straight down into the firebox!”

“It’s terrible... haah... haah...” “Just as I thought that—in an instant—they knocked over the oil jar, shattering it. With the oil gushing out, they were left worn out for two whole days afterward.” “Fortunately, at that time, he had only injured his hand in the act of forcefully breaking it, so the fire promptly died out without incident. But when everyone—prepared for such eventualities—lit candles and set about cleaning up, lo and behold: the dagger dropped during the commotion was nowhere to be seen.”

They were shocked. “This disappearance unsettled them far more than that lizard’s severed tail people say slithers into teakettles to curse you—at least when *that* thing vanishes, you know it’s gone for good.” “Is it in their collars? That itching feeling. Has it slipped into their loincloths? A sudden chill. They stand up, sit down, undo their sashes—checking sleeves, hems.” It was said that in this very room during a previous major cleaning inspection, an officer’s saber—propped against a ladder to reach the ceiling—had toppled over from some jolt, and whether because the hilt had come loose or it slipped out smoothly, someone below was cut.

“This was different from ordinary losses,” he continued. “Blades are dangerous—you must search thoroughly! Even when using needles, proper folk count them at both start and finish.” “Yet still they vanish—needles spilled between tatami seams fall through the abyss to sprout as grass on hell’s mountains,” Akira explained, his voice lowering. “There, the hungry ghosts get pierced.” “To atone, we hold *Himuro no Tsuitachi* each first of June—maidens cook rice in small pots, inviting and being invited as guests. But that gleaming dagger…” His fingers twitched as if tracing its path. “Whether beneath the veranda, in the ceiling beams, or mid-rafters—its absence cannot stand.” When the sake-soaked elder among them had barked, “Search through the damned night!”, the whole group surged upright.

“Even I found this unsettling.” The monk responded only with his eyes, nodding with his gaze.

Twenty-Four

“Even the oil lamp’s flame had already thoroughly spooked them—the stalwarts they’d relied on were injured—and now, with this strange tale stirring fresh unease, the night had surely deepened into profound darkness.” There was no predicting what might happen next or where objects might come flying from. “Perhaps whatever’s haunting us was holding back—or maybe none here have committed sins worth killing over. No lives seemed in immediate danger, but injuries—we’d seen plenty already.” When the time came to search, there was only a single candlestick beneath the skylight for five men. “Though we had wax to replenish them, burning all our candles at once would leave us without light come morning—so splitting up simply wasn’t an option.”

“Once it came to that, no one wanted to take the lead alone,” I explained, “so I offered to guide them—they trailed behind me like ducklings.” That night’s party included a self-proclaimed enlightened Zen monk from the administrative office of Tsurutani’s family temple. “He’d been puffing himself up since dusk, ready to bellow ‘Appear, shapeshifter!’ and conquer it with a single shout.” I added dryly, “This creates something of a conflict of interest here.” “No,” the monk interjected, “our sects differ.” He smiled faintly, though his eyes remained unamused. “With monks swelling our numbers...” I continued, gesturing toward the architecture. “This forms a wraparound veranda stretching from that curved corner ahead to the measuring point at the dead end.” We’d thrown open all the storm shutters along both sides, peered beneath the shoe-removal platform and veranda foundations, doubled back for thoroughness, even combed through the privy—yet found neither glint nor fragment, not even a shard from the firebox.

“Then to the next room...”

I turned back and pointed at the large sliding door.

“Since everyone insisted, I stopped them.” Having borrowed this place, even one room alone felt excessively spacious—so since arriving, I’ve yet to peek into the next chamber. “At such times, it must not be opened.” From the corridor to the privy, some had been passing through since evening. Amidst the commotion of toppling over—since someone might unwittingly stand holding it during some jolt and risk dropping it—I searched as a precaution. But given how it seemed to have gone into the next room that none had opened, something must have concealed it. Even if it had been there, should the other party so desire, it would cause injuries or inflict wounds. “Now, if it wasn’t there, it was only natural they remained unsettled.” ‘Peek into the closets! Inspect the shelves! Search the ceiling! Tear off the floorboards!’—even with dozens working on it, there’s simply no way they could thoroughly scour every last corner of this vast structure. “We should’ve limited ourselves to areas where laborers might’ve passed through—”

“Well, that made sense—if it had been concealed through supernatural means, whether in mountains or rivers, one could never know where.”

Well, they had resigned themselves to forces beyond human control, but the danger remained unabated. There was no telling when the blade might come plummeting down. Seeking even the flimsiest shield, everyone shared this singular resolve. As if choreographed, they moved one after another... With murmured apologies to whatever lay ahead, all six of us hunched low beneath the mosquito net I'd hung earlier. The air grew heavier still—as though we were awaiting some bizarre chastisement. “Is that so?” they whispered hoarsely, though fleeing into the night never crossed their minds. They shook like reeds in a storm, some collapsing entirely, until one simply curled up asleep—the sanest choice among mad options. All the while, the monk kept mumbling prayers through clenched teeth.

It was just as I had begun to doze off, listening to that knotted-tongue voice devoid of coherence amidst the mosquitoes' drone. Someone stealthily shook me awake, "(Can you hear?)," he said. "(‘Here it is, here it is,’ says a voice)," he whispered directly into my ear. Then gradually, they passed it along through hushed exchanges. (It must be informing us that the lost item lies here.)

“(We implore you…)” they whispered in hushed consultation. When they listened closely, it seemed to come from beyond the mosquito net’s paper screen—or perhaps the corridor’s storm shutters—or where the sliding door met the next room… or maybe near the pillar’s base—clatter-clatter, clatter-clatter it resounded. At times it sounded like a tea-pestle beetle’s rasp, other moments like bats chirping within walls, or a toad under the veranda thud-thudding its call. “Depending on your state of mind, Venerable Monk, they might have heard it as ‘here… here… here it is’ or ‘clatter-clatter’—or so it seemed.”

Since it concerned his own [matter], the bandaged sailor was first to emerge from the mosquito net. "If you mean to return it by revealing its location, there’s no harm done," the monk said as he crawled back out, pressing his ear to the tatami mats in intense listening. The sailor stood at the center, arms crossed and ears keenly attuned. Having apparently discerned something, they exchanged meaningful glances, nodded in unison—then declared, "It’s behind you, Venerable Monk."

“What?!” As if peering over an abyss, he shifted his seat and looked back— “I see.” “If you open the fourth paper screen in the northern corner—didn’t they prop the blade tip against that pillar with its handle in the gutter?”

25

“After that incident—given the danger—we instituted a complete ban on bladed implements.” “You’re welcome to visit for leisure; your nightly vigil would be appreciated; and should you wish to dispatch any fox-spirits while here—all that would be most reasonable—*but* swords, daggers, cleavers... indeed any edged tool whatsoever, along with spears, firearms—we’ve forbidden anything of that nature.” “My journey has been long,” “and I’ve wandered through every manner of place with that awareness.” “For emergencies—even should I need to cast it aside and brace myself—I do carry a single dagger. My mother’s memento—it steadies me when crossing mountain passes at duskfall. But as precaution demands, I’ve wrapped it in paulownia oil and sealed it fast within the knot of my cloth bundle.”

“So, does that mean you intend to draw it out after all?”

“There’s nothing wrong with this,” he said. “Even thieves won’t cut through sealed things, as the saying goes. Though mind you—even a blade meant for slaying monsters causes no harm if left undrawn. But what truly concerned us during the disturbances, Venerable Monk, was the Western lamp. That’s why we told Old Man Saibachi and switched to this paper lantern instead.”

“And regarding the paper lantern—no incidents,” “This one rises too.” “Does that one rise?” “...into the air?” At that moment, by the paper lantern’s dish, a pale hand lay face-down—poised to divide.

“With a whoosh, it rises from the tatami mats—” “Ah.” The monk’s eyes grew wary beneath Akira’s shadowed hand, watching lest the lantern’s light falter. “But try to press it down or adjust its position—that’s when it spills oil or tips its stand over completely.” “Leave it untouched—stay patient and yielding—and it’ll right itself by dawnbreak.” “Once, this very lantern stuck fast to the ceiling.”

“To the… ceiling,” “Since there was a mosquito net hung below, I—though aware of it—had been sleeping when I hastily rose up and, reaching through the net toward the swaying lantern stand, carelessly laid a hand on it. Then, as if someone had seized and pulled it up, it slipped over the lintel into the ceiling void and settled neatly on the other side.” Heaps of soot—what I took for rat mounds—were visible; far above loomed the forms of pillars constructed into the attic framework.

"How strange—if I could see the attic, a ceiling board must have come loose somewhere—but when I suddenly realized and checked, the frame hadn’t even warped."

"Whether someone had removed a board or not—it was all too strange," said the young lodger to you. Once your mind settles here, there’s nothing to it. The paper lantern remained properly outside the mosquito net where it had been placed since evening, its paper growing faintly pale—for beyond the storm shutters, dawn had already broken." “That night—were you alone—” “I was alone—and the night before last.”

“The night before last?”

He couldn’t help but startle once more.

“And so—might I inquire—have those nightly visitors ceased coming since that occurrence, properly chastened?” “Wait, t-that is—the night we raised such a ruckus over the watermelon—that did indeed follow that incident, did it not? Well—though it’s a trifling matter—we were thoroughly flustered……”

"Well—though this may seem trivial—it left me thoroughly flustered……"

It was definitely a group of three young men who appeared. "They’d brought sake along after all." "They seemed to have made thorough preparations—chewing on dried squid legs while gulping chilled sake straight from bowls." From their bamboo sheath wrappings—"In this heat, fish won’t keep overnight," they said—they brought out grilled kamaboko and such. “It was delicious—I partook as well,” he continued in a leisurely, unhurried tone,

“Nothing happened that evening. In a pleasantly tipsy state, they chatted about this and that without a single cricket flitting by. Come to think of it, there weren’t any mosquitoes either—most likely that monster devoured them all. For a monster though, that’s meager fare—why, even among bosses in the sea, they end up preying on smaller things! They were lively enough, spouting big talk like ‘Behold the whale! Mere sardines!’—but soon the sake piled up as night deepened.” “This might be called a place for tea, but tea invites logical scrutiny and lets evil spirits take hold. ‘Something good for sobering up,’ they said as they rolled out a watermelon from the veranda. When pressed, they admitted they’d stolen it from fields along the way—well then, isn’t that just inviting possession?”

Twenty-Six

“Look at my technique—whether it’s a fox or a raccoon dog, this’ll handle it! Since we’re well aware blades are forbidden, I’ve got no dagger—just these fists, Venerable Monk.” “They were young men with builds like small-time sumo wrestlers, gnarled and rugged, but…”

The location was also ill-chosen.— “In the same spot where, the previous night, they’d gone ‘click-clack’ while producing a dagger—they positioned the watermelon from the threshold to the pillar in a grand overhead stance.” They whacked it with a crack. "The moment they did, an indescribable, terrifying sound—like twenty or thirty oil cans being struck—was heard from the direction of the kitchen." Because it was so sudden—even those who’d been poised for action since evening, their souls snatched away in a gasp—they leaped back. “Venerable Monk—the watermelon—thud!—bounced up to strike the young men’s chests.”

They tumbled onto their backs—and another commotion erupted. It passed over their shoulders—yes—and landed on their legs. "Aaaaah!" "Clinging to their hems—a fireball!" "A blind masseur's bald pate! A monk's shaven crown! Or even a woman's severed head—nothing but absurdities!" "If it were a moonflower, perhaps—but a watermelon? How could that resemble a woman's severed head?" Whether to pursue or flee—amidst their frantic stampede—the booming *don-don-don-don* pierced through the ceiling from below to above, ridgepoles rattling loose, paper screens quaking. "An earthquake!" they cried, throwing themselves flat—but then all fell silent, utterly still, even the wind's breath extinguished.

On the thatched roof, grass grew so thickly that leaves intertwined until their overlapping forms were nearly transparent beneath a solitary moon. ——Now the watermelon glowed.

The forest pressed in heavily, and the paper lantern—needless to say—had been knocked over in the turmoil. It was as though we were hemmed in at the bottom of a deep, narrow valley, gazing up at the moon that had fallen atop a thousand-ren cliff. Speaking of which—something crawled onto the zelkova branch, dangling snake-like toward the moon—and when I thought it might be ivy leaves, the entire roof seemed to transform into a melon field with scarecrow ropes strung across. Stubborn damn tengu—someone got so worked up that they grabbed leftover cedar leaves from the evening’s mosquito smudge and hurled them alone at that moon.

Fragile—what was it?—the full moon crumbled like rotten wood, merging with dewdrops at leaf tips before sliding down the roof’s slope to vanish—but then came plink-plink, droplets starting to fall. It struck them—necks, shoulders—but when touched, clung thick and viscous. When I sniffed it—oh, Venerable Monk—the stench was sickly-sweet rot. In the sweltering depths of night, sweat-drenched and parched-throated, that odor seeped in. Unable to bear the blood-metallic reek any longer, I threw open the veranda door and plunged first into the garden—the others tumbling barefoot after me.

What startled me was that dawn had already broken. The mountain peaks had turned blue, while mist whitened the foothills. There was one who, upon seeing this unexpected vista in such a strange place, declared he'd been cast adrift to Holland; another bellowed, "I can't stand this—first relight the lantern!" Over there on the roof—where the watermelon had been—crows sat click-clacking their beaks. On the veranda lit by summer's short dawn, swarms of brownish-black things and what resembled pine crickets or bell crickets seethed before scurrying up the paper screens to vanish. They said it was the watermelon seeds that had transformed.

The group, staggering as if hungover, dazedly exited the Black Gate and returned to the riverside.

At the bridge, they saw a vivid indigo watermelon bobbing buoyantly against a piling, then fled in a frenzy, or so I heard.

In the early afternoon, Saibachi came and told that story.

I had been sound asleep until that hour. What struck me as odd then was how the old man took diligent care of me, saying he’d brew me some tea to wake me up—he even prepared a beautifully steeped infusion—but alas, no one had stolen any watermelons this time. I wondered if there was anything else and found some—sweet miso in the kitchen. Thinking “This must be for me,” but finding it too troublesome to carry each portion separately, I brought over the entire bucket. From time to time, the old man would tuck something into it.

“Since you’re alone and can’t finish it all—too plain to serve as-is,” he said without ceremony, having pickled eggplants whole with their stems still attached. “They must be well-pickled by now,” I thought. Noticing this, I went to the kitchen. (Oh honored guest...) (What’s this?) (They said there was a fearsome noise last night—but nothin’ fell down here.) Muttering this, he soon brought out about five whole ones in small bowls. “A soft grayish-blue.”

Twenty-Seven “Where fresh leaves cast their shadows, even the small white Seto bowl appeared arrayed like a celadon sweetmeat vessel—the beauty of its conception.”

When he took up his chopsticks, the densely packed eggplants—around their thin-skinned bellies—squish, squish.

When one made a sound, another would go squish, and yet another would go squish-squish—it was quite something.

Making a strange face, Saibachi, (Can you hear it?) (Ah, they do cry.) (Creak-creak, this thing.) When the old man pressed one with the tip of his sword bean-like finger, the compressed eggplant let out a squish-squish-squish; when he switched hands, another went squish-squish.

They seemed to cry with purpose, and somehow, even that stem’s handle had stiffened upward like a tiny horn.

"Thinking to stop it before anything flew out, I took a bite." "Did you eat it?" With a suspicious look, the monk remarked, "That was rather bold." "Well now—must be your ears ringing from listening too hard," dismissed the old man. "Nothing's amiss here. Eggplants don't make sounds." His jaw tightened. "Though mind—in my youth I ate all manner of foulness! Drank away funeral coins! I'd still stomach dog carcasses today—but noisy eggplants? Can't abide 'em."

"Of course, strange things are strange—but even among similarly eerie happenings, since our opponent was mere eggplants, this struck me as darkly comical." "If we speak of eggplants, that may be so—yet though the vessels are eggplants, the true adversary lies elsewhere." Akira looked down and smiled faintly—a smile devoid of particular meaning. "And this occurred during daylight hours, I take it?"

“It was yesterday afternoon.” “It’s no easy matter even in daylight,” he said as if half-muttering. “Then, last night must have been quite…” The listener furrowed his brows. “Yes, it was dreadful. After all, one can’t sleep at night anyway,” “That’s why you’ve grown so haggard—you, your complexion is dreadful!… The tea shop woman spoke of that very matter.”

“I have just now heard your account.” “With villagers no longer coming and the old man too frightened to visit after dark—leaving us unable to discern your condition—I ventured here under guise of performing memorial rites for your household Buddha while inquiring after your welfare. Yet I must confess—this situation defies comprehension.” “Though I shall eventually require lodging, I humbly entreat you to let matters remain at this present nuisance of eggplants’ murmuring.”

“Though I cannot name a specific place—having no lodging in the three realms—I came prepared to impose upon your kindness for a single night’s stay. I never entertained such noble notions as attempting to exorcise the house’s lingering ghosts, curses, and specters. In truth, I don’t even possess a monastic name—a presumptuous monk with no proper excuse for apology, this shaven-headed one. I cannot even chant the nembutsu with proper sincerity from my heart, and should I be thought of as some prayer-performing monk—well, first and foremost, it would shame me before you—but what do you say? Would there be any inconvenience if I were to request lodging here? Though I had steeled myself somewhat, having now heard your account firsthand, I find myself hesitating a bit.”

“If even a single guest comes, it brings joy to Tsurutani.” “Since the owner’s main house rejoices at this, why should anyone hesitate?” “I too am overjoyed to have company—you’ve no idea how pleased I am.” “While Lord Tsurutani’s—and your own—gracious intentions are deeply appreciated, that isn’t quite… Well, first, considering the owner being Tsurutani, this vacant mansion’s stewardship—that most peculiar… er, that is—”

“In that regard, I’m no different myself. “I think it acts up because it dislikes people living there, but—” That’s precisely it, Venerable monk. “As long as you don’t resist, the tatami mats and paper lanterns won’t cause any trouble, you see.” “Even if fire suddenly breaks out on the sliding doors and starts blazing fiercely all around, if you panic and try to put it out, the areas you extinguish will tear or get soaked—but when you look later, the rest shows no sign of being wet at all.”

“There are plenty of rooms here too, Venerable monk,”

As if struck by a sudden thought, “If this room troubles you, please move to the adjacent one." “Though one must not speak of trying to ascertain its true form, as a guest monk permitted by Tsurutani, you need not hesitate in the slightest.”

“If it won’t open smoothly—if it feels like something’s pressing against it—you must hold back. Resist, and it’ll only bring harm.”

Twenty-Eight “Resisting is quite beyond me—how could I possibly be particular about which room to take? Even were you to bid me turn and scrutinize that sliding door closely, I cannot readily face that direction—as you see, my neck has already grown rigid.” “To add to your account—in truth, when I myself passed beneath this Black Gate, supported by the grasses, my legs refused to move for some time.”

That said, at what I took to be the garden entrance, there came a shrill, grinding creak—the unmistakable sound of a massive well pulley hoisting a bucket. Though it is indeed an ill-omened mansion, your honor has nonetheless come to reside here. If people were living here, they would naturally need water—so there’s no logical reason to find the sound of a well pulley strange—yet based on what I’d heard from Granny, I had vaguely assumed that if it were a student residing here and cooking for themselves, fetching water in a kettle or flask would suffice. Perhaps because of this preconception, the sound of water being drawn now struck me as that of seasoned maidservants.

There was an air about it as if a tall, willowy noblewoman had passed by the To Kitchen at twilight with hurried swishes of her hem—a somehow bustling atmosphere, as though evening dishes simmered on a clay stove accompanied by what might have been the call of “Tofu-saaan” one would hear in town. “Ah—so Granny was testing me after all,” I briefly thought, but tilting my sedge hat to peer from afar: from the kitchen door stretching up to the ridgepole where ivy gourds tangled thickly overhead—despite all appearances, the structure seemed tightly sealed for months.

Wondering if there had been such a path, I trod through the thick gate-inner grass that tickled beneath my feet, thinking how beautiful it must be in early spring. Across the expanse of purple clover spread through their leaves—intermittently—a single pale-bluish bright thing crawled, floated, and fell. The moonlight filtering through the forest branches above seemed no different than usual, yet somehow resembled a woman’s black hair—its long tresses glistening at their ends.

Finding the footing strangely unpleasant to step over, I tried to detour around it—whereupon something came tumbling through the faintly glowing shadows to my right, momentarily revealing what seemed like a face—but upon closer inspection, it was merely a rabbit. As for that snake-like glowing shadow—it too came slithering toward my path, but the rabbit went rolling about through the grass toward the entrance platform. If this were reversed, one would be forced toward the old hidden gate. I lacked the courage to press further inside.

Before the entrance platform, I first offered my greetings. "O Lord, if You deign to exist—behold this humble devotion laid bare. By what reliance could I perform merit transfer for liberation and enlightenment? By what power could I utter incantations to drive You away? If You deign to reveal Your august form, I shall solemnly prostrate myself in worship. If You are a god who veils Yourself from this world, I shall not utter a word beyond the Buddha’s name. Humbly, I beg but a single night’s lodging—a single straw mat from Your august abode…" ——At that moment, the traveling monk chanted "Namu Amida Butsu" as he stood facing the entrance platform with its ripple-like cedar wood grain, made this vow with palms pressed together, then removed his sedge hat and offered a deep bow.——

“Then—just as Granny had instructed—I groped along the crumbling bamboo fence and pushed at the gate. It opened immediately with such force that I—ahem!” “Ahem!” Coughing all the while—(this ailment grows severe)—I followed the lawn through thickets of white powder flowers until reaching here. “I entered via the veranda.” “Those white powder flowers are indeed splendid.” “Though flecked with crimson among their blooms—even brushing against them with my robe’s sleeve made me shrink inward—their clinging fragrance remains overwhelming still.”

"Had what was once a flower garden become overgrown? Within stood a single white mountain lily grown so tall one had to crane their neck upward, its bloom hanging downward like a lowered head. 'No—even that made me shudder.' Whatever might occur, I would never dream of relying on my own power to attempt anything whatsoever."

“Yet you patiently endure such dread as you’ve just experienced—you truly are bold.” “None could be more cowardly than I.” “…Being hopelessly timid, I simply let matters follow their course—resisting nothing.” “Ah, there we have it.” “My foremost purpose in coming was to inquire about that very matter—might your purpose be to engage in some research of your own?”

“Not at all. Even were others to conduct research here, such notions would never cross my mind.” “Then perhaps elsewhere—” “Ah, regarding my wish—to speak plainly, I still cling to worldly desires.” “In truth, I keep vigil through these nights here for a purpose—something akin to prayerful observance.”

Twenty-Nine “That matter concerns that handball I began speaking of earlier, Venerable Monk.” “Ah—so you wish to see that handball once more.” “No—the handball song is what I want to hear.” Her eyes held a trance-like coolness as she murmured this. As if dreaming beneath moonlit visions, the clouds of suspicion—those doubts about her peculiar wish that had arisen in his chest—dissipated, and the monk leaned forward slightly. “Without relying on clouds in the vast sky—crossing seas when they appear, climbing mountains when they rise, lodging in villages and wandering through provinces—all amounts to, in a sense, a handball song…”

“The handball song… What has become of it?” “Neither dream, nor reality, nor illusion… visible yet unutterable—and tender, nostalgic, pitiful, compassionate, love-filled, full yet pure, cool, chilling enough to make one shudder, heart-rending, that ecstatic—well, to put it in words, like tasting fragrant pure milk while still unborn in the womb, gazing upon a beautiful mother’s breast through that darkness—such is this song. But having forgotten its lyrics, I would stake my life—yearn with my very soul—to hear it once more.”

Within these words spoken over mere minutes, Kojirou Houshi summoned every sound he had heard since birth—wind and water, temple bells and music, all human voices, insect hums, leaves’ whispers—repeating them like lightning across his heart’s chamber; then attempted to visualize in his mind’s eye, with golden characters on indigo, every sutra ever memorized—yet he could discern nothing resembling that song. “And have you yourself heard that song?” “When I was a child, my deceased mother sang it—it remains my final memory from when I first became aware of the world—but I’ve forgotten how it went—the actual words.”

"As I've aged, Venerable Monk—like those heart-wrenching romances from tales—I find myself aching to hear that voice, that song again." "Without even waiting to graduate from a Tokyo school, I returned home and asked everyone who might know—but no matter whose version I heard or how desperately I inquired, none rang true." "First there's my mother's elder sister—the aunt managing my tuition—who doesn't know it either." "What drifted into my mind like a dream were three girls of similar age from the same town."

(If the child she bore was a boy, We’ll send him to Kyoto for comic plays, To temple halls for letters and prayers— But the priest there, That pleasure-seeking monk, Got pushed from the high veranda’s edge— Hairpin Drop! Small Pillow Tossed!) “And so,” she continued, eyes misting with memory, “when Mother was still young, she’d play handball and battledore with me and those girls—games so vivid I might’ve been reliving them yesterday. That midnight realization—that if I sought them out, surely someone would remember the song—had me springing upright in bed, heart aflutter with hope. But Venerable Monk—” Her voice faltered. “One of those girls had already died on a Doll Festival night while Mother still lived.” “I know that tale too—”

“One of them has disappeared, they say…” “The third one, they say, had married into the household of the principal at the prefectural school. Deeming this worth pursuing, I promptly went to visit—a samurai district on the town’s outskirts where a small stream flowed past rows of wooden-fenced estates, each thick with red plum trees planted long ago. Those ancient trees still lingered here and there—it was a hazy moonlit night at the height of their bloom.” “At the entrance where you, Venerable Monk, have now come—you said you saw a rabbit slipping through the clover fields,” she continued.

“No, it would be troublesome were you to go mixing that into the main tale.” “It did appear so—though I never imagined it would lead to such a place.” “Or perhaps that... was a cat.” “With the mountain right at our backs here, you’ll often spot them—must’ve been a rabbit.” But there’d been a similar occurrence—that time with a puppy. “It had a little bell fastened round its neck.” The snow-white creature went tumbling past my feet, rolling about on its back while batting playfully with its paws. As if entranced, I followed until—checking the nameplate—it brought me to that very house.

"Since I couldn’t very well speak to the mistress about it," she continued, "I met with the master instead—and when I told him my intentions—" “‘What business brings you here at this hour?’ ‘You’re mocking me.’ ‘The mistress is ill and cannot receive you.’” He grimaced as he said this. “Given that his wife was a renowned beauty, they say the principal was fiercely jealous.”

Thirty

“My aunt gave her earnest opinion—(If I’d known from the start you meant to visit their house, I never would’ve sent you! You kept silent about it, so I did wrong without knowing)—and went on—(Childhood friends? Asking after some handball song? Improper! Do you think society would countenance such things?)” When they inquired about Mother’s friend and found suspicions of romantic motives absurd—why, it turned out the girl had been precocious, what with her crimson hair ribbons and artfully arranged locks putting on airs—so my childish heart had deemed her a fine elder sister. She stood two years my junior, one year older than another—the deceased being two years senior—while the wife was said to be one year older still—the vanished one’s whereabouts remaining unknown.

"The matter grew troublesome, you see—a messenger came from that wife’s family home to my aunt’s house, declaring, ‘The young mistress knows nothing of any songs,’ and with a curt ‘Well, for propriety’s sake henceforth,’ left in bitter frustration. Of course, she hadn’t been ill at all, it turned out. About a month later, a letter arrived containing over a hundred meticulously written songs—handball songs, lullabies, children’s rhymes, and more—each rendered in exquisitely beautiful detail. At the end, in crimson,"

“Songs that sing of marriage’s cruel uncertainties are also plentiful among them—” Only that was written.… I still cherish it carefully even now, but of course, among them lies not a single note of my mother’s voice I yearn for. “Well…there remains one other…the one who vanished without trace…” “Now, Venerable Monk—had she simply moved households or journeyed to some distant province, clues would abound—nothing strange in that. But what common folk term ‘being taken by the gods’—this my aunt and all firmly believe.”

Her name was Ayame. To begin with, that girl’s household consisted solely of mother and daughter—along with an elderly woman who served as either the mother’s or daughter’s wet nurse—in a simple rented house that was nevertheless a splendid residence. As for her mother—through my childish eyes—I dimly recall only that she blackened her teeth, had a straight nose and this oblong face, wore her obi knot long with either an underrobe or trailing hem loosely draped, and would occasionally stand at the dimly lit gate at dusk, gazing toward the mountains visible from town as she wandered listlessly. But whether she was someone’s mistress or lawful wife, or even a feudal lord’s illegitimate child—they said all these things—her origins remained utterly unclear.

As for the daughter, there was nothing particularly unusual about her, but her beauty was the finest among the three—when I think of it, even now, she appears vividly before my eyes. That girl—though she would come to play elsewhere—never once invited any friends into her own home. They would gather to play— Just when things were about to get lively—her mother would suddenly call for her, and that old woman would come out to drag her home. She’d vanish in an instant—the loneliness left in her wake was beyond words. "In the beginning, she’d be reluctantly dragged home—but later—whether out of reserve, coming to others’ homes yet never inviting anyone to her own—there were countless times she’d suddenly rise at odd moments and return alone."

And so somehow—that girl alone—unable to play as she wished, never freely invited out, never at liberty—from such circumstances came the saying, "Distant flowers bear fragrance," as the saying goes. All the more because someone like me couldn’t bring myself to say, “Ayame, come play,” I’d clack the signal stones and pass by her house. One night, at midnight, with the ten-mat room tightly shuttered, she vanished somewhere—or so they say.

“It being the Year of the Ox—driven by my longing to hear the song—I went to inquire… ‘How many years ago was that now?’ My aunt counted on her fingers… Many years have passed since.”

Thirty-One "In my hometown, unmarried women would purify their garments and cleanse their bodies on the Day of the Ox in the Year of the Ox..."

The traveling monk who had been listening with bated breath,

“I see,” he crossed his arms, “Devout abstinence.”

“Nothing so grand—”

She trailed off but nodded again. “After all, it’s what young women do.” “It may not go that far, but they wash their hair, bathe, tie that washed hair into a comb roll without a hairpin, and apply only a faint touch of rouge—so it’s said.” Then they would seal themselves in a ten-mat room, position the alcove at their back, face some wall or another, and place there a mirror to enshrine the woman’s soul. “Ushidouji, Madara no Mikami—if one focuses their mind on these names, gazes without attracting others’ notice, then during the Hour of the Ox on that Day of the Ox in the Year and Month of the Ox… it’s said the mirror will reveal… the visage of one’s predestined partner from past lives.”

"The girl performed that Ox Hour vigil alone in that house—a place no one knew well—and then was lured out by something, staggering away…… And that was the last anyone saw of her. There was nothing to be done about it. When the moment finally came, I grew desperate—thinking if only I could hear it, I might even see my deceased mother’s face—and went to the mountain temple where she lay. I shook her grave, pressed my ear to the marked pine to listen, but heard only the wind through needles."

Passing through the mountain temple’s forest to where the clear waters fell upon the village, I chewed upon stones scattered like jewels at the foot of the stream—praying, *Let this tooth-clicking resound, let this tongue-song rise*—yet could only tremble, my voice refusing to emerge.

Perhaps because I had been so absentminded, one day I injured myself on a mountain path, sprained my ankle, and ended up bedridden. And so, because of this, after fretting for half a month—when I could finally take walks leaning on my cane—I would hop toward the mountains from town like a bird freed from its cage—or rather, like an ungainly frog—both sides lined with houses, the road ahead sloping upward just as one sees at the Great Collapse’s highway—until the dead end formed a shape like a temple bell’s striker that opened into another thoroughfare. When I—Venerable Monk—had traversed nine-tenths of my own town, there appeared a beauty who—coming from the left along the opposite main street and seeming about to turn toward me—suddenly halted upon seeing my figure standing there in an unpatterned summer robe.

I hadn’t noticed any disguise—she seemed to have been holding a parasol, though whether shading herself with it open or using the folded one as support remained unclear—but when I thought, *Ah, how similar*, it was that very person whose whereabouts had become unknown. She too smiled faintly…… Then appeared a hunter-like giant wearing a deeply pulled-down straw hat and straw sandals, shouldering a gun with a light blue pennant tied to its muzzle and dragging a length of iron chains from which he led out a large bear with unhurried boldness.

With the mountain looming above at a three-way crossroads where towns met properly, they cut horizontally across the junction’s base—from before the storehouse at the left corner to where the sweets shop’s reed-screen awning protruded at the right—a span of barely two ken to traverse. Even moving at that unhurried pace, it took only moments. As the bear’s back loomed like a storm cloud over the halting woman’s chest, they began walking sideways in unison. A large group of children trailed after them in a disorderly crowd… likely because such beasts were rare in our province.

Since they had hidden to the right, I thought to go out to the corner to look—but when I tried to hurry off, unaccustomed as I was to limping, I forgot my cane resting against my arm, tripped, lurched forward, and tore off a fingernail.

For some time, I couldn’t get up. After some time, when I finally managed to go out and look, there was no trace left of where they’d gone. Afterward, during my travels through various provinces—whether spotting a woman carrying charcoal at the foot of Echizen’s Kinome Pass, catching a glimpse through a train window while crossing Usui Pass of a woman sitting backward at a tea stall between emerging from one tunnel and entering another, or countless times in the capital thinking *Could that be her?* among carriages speeding arrow-like through streets—none had left impressions as vivid and clear as that bear procession.

Returning home, (O noble one, your form so fair, *Claimed by the bear.*)

*At the town's corner, at the town's corner—* Dragging my lame leg in pursuit, yet never reaching.) When I asked my aunt, "Might there not have been such verses in the handball songs?" she rebuked me: "To see such things in broad daylight and speak of them—your body must be unwell." "You must not go outside for the time being," she declared, imposing confinement.

“In the past, there were those who came across the sea selling genuine bear gallbladders in that very form—but nowadays you never see them—or so I later heard.…”

Thirty-Two

“After some days had passed, my aunt came to my bedside and said, ‘If you’re so fixated, then go recuperate somewhere—travel where you please and ask someone about that song.’”

(I want to hear my sister’s voice too.) and bestowed a handbox of gold coins. Even now, my aunt continues to provide for me.

Five full years since I left my homeland! Every port and shore, every city, village, and hamlet—no matter where I inquired, there was no song I longed for. Even when finding similar verses—whether after, before, midway, or in that very space—I kept thinking… surely somewhere lay the voice I yearned to hear. “And since the children have grown unskilled at handball—unable to keep bouncing them through entire games—the longer chants naturally fade halfway through.” “This can’t be normal,” I thought, until I could no longer bear it—I simply burned to meet that one childhood friend whose whereabouts none knew… yet they say a demon had claimed me. Whenever clouds clung to mountain peaks, I longed to scale them by ivy vines; whenever mists crossed lakes, I wished to ride fallen leaves in pursuit. If I resolved to sound rocky chasms’ depths or peer behind waterfalls—if some karmic thread from past lives might let us meet again—I once stood alone at a remote Kōshin shrine mound, waiting through the twenty-sixth night for moonrise.

“Then, the other day—at a stream called Kasumigawa in Akidani, where those delightfully named Everlasting Summer flowers bloom—I found a beautiful handball. From Saibachi I heard—how he’d given a green pearl to that man called Yoshikichi and set out on a mountain path through moonlit village rain, (Here is whose narrow path? (A narrow path it is.) Lord Tenjin’s narrow path is, (A narrow path it is.) “merely by humming that nursery rhyme as I passed through, I could already hear her voice.” The monk appeared entranced yet sighed through pursed lips,

“Well now, that’s auspicious—so have you discovered that song?”

“As for the song—I’ve no knowledge of it—but the voice… no… it seems to be that very entity itself.” "The one toying with this handball must surely be that woman." "That woman somehow seems to manifest within this vacant mansion... No, rather, I choose to believe she does." "I badgered the old man into renting me a room here, but by the very day I moved in, that handball had already been reclaimed—I believe it was taken back—for in that beautiful, noble woman’s heart, she would never have permitted one such as myself to have picked it up at all."

“Perhaps this was meant to be delivered to Akidani Myojin at the stream’s edge—though one cannot say for certain.” So then, those Kosan Stones—scattered stones of the bay touted as a famous site—had since dyed the handball’s threads, which now burst forth in dazzling polychrome. “This color—shooting waves of violet, green, navy, and indigo—might well have laid a moonlit rainbow across the Pacific, though one cannot fathom it,”

Once more she fell into a trance, but lowered her head,

“It is that curse—that sin. All these supernatural occurrences—it must be punishment, I think—punishment for picking up that handball along the way for my own desires, for my own love—yes, that’s what I believe.” “Curse me if you will! I will persist in my original resolve to the very end—I must hear that song.” “I cannot say if this is confusion of the heart. I see before my very eyes—the eeriness, the dread—and think perhaps someone means these to hint at the song I seek. So I try humming it like this—” The paper lantern floated into midair.

(Your beautiful form— A pale green mosquito net— Around its gauzy veil, shapelessly gliding— The paper lantern's phantom trace—)…… "Of course, these verses aren't it." Or perhaps— (Your secluded dwelling— Casting shadows o'er the field before, Dew-drenched grasses on the roofbeam sway— The cassia moon above thatch-roofed clay.)…… "They don't resemble it in the least. When geese cry upon the roof, I think waves must be stealing them away; when a horse's shadow falls across the plank door, I shudder at how we might plunge into the Asura realm—yet still,"

(On the roof, geese cry and call, A horse’s shadow falls upon the wooden door.) "I hear it constantly even now, but my heart refuses to accept it. Enduring all hardships, I’ve undertaken this vigil in hopes of hearing that song—if this be a curse, then so be it; I’ll not shrink from any sin," she declared vehemently—then caught herself and turned a desolate gaze upon the monk. "But then—that she took back the handball—might that not be a declaration that she won’t teach me the song? When I think that, it fills me with despair."

“Ah—my tale has branched into eight heads—the handball... yes. Before that cat fell from the ceiling—back when I was sitting alone on the veranda—three children emerged from beneath those deutzia blossoms with taro leaves pressed to their faces like masks. They scurried out while eyeing me curiously, then nuzzled close like stray pups. Peering down from the veranda and spotting the handball, they exchanged knowing nods.” (“Give it here,”) they said.

("Does it belong to you?") When I asked, they shook their heads, so when I said, ‘Then it must belong to the old man,’ they answered as if insisting some man owned the ball, “(Wahaha!)” they laughed, and just like that, flitted off somewhere with it.’――

Thirty-Three

“What—so this is where they say I’ve been spreading tales… Ha! Just you two here, then?”

“Hmph!” He remained standing; as the veranda was high, the cloth-wrapped bundle he’d carried on his back now rested precisely at waist level. “Well, s’pose that’s fine, but...” He untied the knot to lower it,

“Can’t stand havin’ rumors spread in the ceiling void.”

Saibachi lowered his voice conspiratorially but immediately raised his tone, "Nah, weren’t just me alone." "Lord Kijuuro allowed Niouemon’s Nijuumushi and the schoolteacher—they came all the way to the gate with us." "Well, when we thought he’d plunged headfirst into that darkness under the tree—your honor—that old sourpuss Nijuumushi—no spring chicken himself—screamed like a newborn babe gettin’ snatched up, I tell ya!" "What happened?"

“What now?” And the monk too raised his head from atop the futon bundle to show his face. Saibachi tore off his crimson head wrap, “Here ya go—beggin’ yer pardon, Venerable Monk." "The main house sends their regards as well." “You’ll be meetin’ Lord Kijuuro soon enough, but first you oughta take your time restin’ proper-like.” “I’m this rough sort—don’t even know how to bow proper-like. Granny told me to give proper greetings—since you’re so kind, she sent along some dumplings.” “I’ve put ’em in the tea receptacle.” “Later on, I’ll manage the mosquito smudge while simmering up some bitter tea proper-like.”

“Anyway, your honor—s’pose you’re starvin’—so the main house sent over another tiered box. Nijuumushi was carryin’ it, but then he let out a scream—” “The three of ’em staggered and toddled through the grassland outside the gate like they was crossin’ a river shoal—took near half an hour with no damn excuse for bein’ so late.’” “You’ve gone through such trouble,”

The monk bowed his head courteously.

“What became of those people?” Akira asked. “Yes, well—on account o’ that scream—when yer askin’ ‘bout Niouemon, see, Nijuumushi here pulls a sour face: ‘Ah—saw somethin’ awful.’” “The tip o’ my nose—fluttering—that sickly pale taro leaf’s long face went flyin’ sideways all while grinnin’ creepy-like.” “Even if the gourd on the spirit shelf plopped down itself, I didn’t take it as no ancestors’ warnin’—kept swiggin’ without stoppin’, so ’course the vine withered.” “Ain’t no wind—no call for taro leaves walkin’ mid-air.” “Ah, vile—makes yer hackles rise. If I don’t get back under the futon ’n sweat it out proper-like, this head’ll near burst.)”

“He’d shrivel up like that, see. When someone suggested it must’ve been those children running out again, things only got worse. ‘I can’t stand hearin’ that voice,’ they said. ‘Oh, oh—the stones clatterin’, echoin’ through the valley.’ ‘It’s already seven bells,’ they turned pale, dropped their cloth bundles right there, and staggered home. ‘Teacher—then you—take up that tiered box,’ I asked ’em.”

(“Disgusting,”) he went.

(Hmm, why would he...) "Even before our guest here, you'd do well to mind your manners." If they'd at least been belting proper military marches—but some fool twiddling with lullabies and handball ditties? Carrying his lunchbox was beyond endurance. "Didn't he just blurt that out?" "He claims he heard it from a friend, but I reckon it must've been from those monster exterminators." "What brings you here, your honor—you're not cobbling together a lullaby, are you? That scribblin' you went and pasted on the closet's paper screen—that's it, eh?"

Akira wore a shame-faced expression. "I'm not fabricating anything—simply recording what I've heard." "There are too many to remember," "Hah—so I've wound up in this frightful place again...and here you sit settled in it too." "I thought it was an enemy-repelling talisman." Well now—couldn't say why exactly—but that ill word stuck sharp in my craw, (Can't be carryin' guests' belongings—but you're a schoolteacher, your honor.) "Fine—I ain't teachin' you nothin', see? No master here—we're comrades walkin' as friends." "(Crab Saibachi's bum arm ain't lendin' no hand.)"

“he declared flatly.”

He fixed his gaze from under his hat. "I don’t need friends like you—how rude," he said and turned back. "He tried to make some excuse, but being a coward at heart, he just ran away." "Look! Old Man Niouemon dashed out from under the trees like the wind, heading far off along the riverbank,"

“Hey! Hey!” “And he went and declared it’s all some damn Jōkuro farce!”

Thirty-Four

That night alone passed quietly, without incident. ……Just as he was about to sleep, the first watch had already passed.

Escorted by Saibachi bearing a hand-candle, the monk—having turned the corner of the wide veranda and traversed the distant corridor—seemed to cross beyond the row of storm shutters. In his homeland, he thought, a mosquito net would be hung and a friend waited alone in solitude.

“Here we are?” “Open that t’ th’ left—from th’ second plank at th’ entranceway’s board floorin’—there’s a man standin’ guard there. Y’can reach th’ northern veranda when passin’ through too—best not take th’ wrong way back now.” “These past two-three years, ain’t a soul crossed t’other side. These days, if y’get lost there—who knows where y’d end up? Won’t find your bearings nohow.”

“I understand now.” “No good—I’ll be waitin’ here, so y’ come out when y’ spot the lamp.” “Me—even with this endless stretch o’ paper screens here, all tattered at th’ edges like—hah—each one a white skull—I don’t feel alone standin’ here... but you bein’ a holy man gives me courage.” “Hosted such fine tea talk, kept th’ kettle boilin’ time an’ again—now it’s my turn t’do proper work. I’ll be waitin’ right here.”

The monk called out as he slid the door open,

“Excuse me.”

and firmly closed it. “Ah! Ah! How creepy.” “Who’re you makin’ greet anyone in there?” “Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu.” Hmm—he suddenly thought of something strange. If I peek through those torn paper screens all over there—Namu Amida Butsu, ah, Namu Amida Butsu… Ah! The candle’s flickering—where’s this wind coming from? If this goes out, I’ll be lost at th’ crossroads o’ th’ six realms right where I stand. “Namu Amida Butsu, Venerable Monk—still not here?”

“Hey,”

“Gah!”

The monk stood halfway inside in his mouse-colored robe, “Let me see th’ hand-candle for a moment.” “Yes,your honor—if y’d said somethin’ after openin’ th’door first, that woulda been fine. Did th’wooden door just make a noise? I thought in shock—hah, what was that?” “At th’entrance—beneath this bay window—there was a water basin I noticed when first enterin’, but this place is so vast an’ dark I can no longer make it out.” “Ah—so y’re washin’ yer hands, eh?”

and thrust out only the hand-candle, “Come dawn, y’ can see th’ basin proper—there’s a grand karakane bronze one they needed a whole ox to haul here when they built this estate. But I ain’t openin’ it now.…”

Ah, a soft breeze rustled through. “W-well, if there’s water in that basin, y’ can use it—if not, y’ can make do comin’ back t’ th’ sittin’ room, an’ I’ll pour what’s left in th’ teapot for ya.” “There is, there is.” With a splashing sound,

“Cold, beautiful water—it’s full to the brim.” “You ain’t lyin’, are ya? What kinda beautiful water’d even be there? Well water’s indigo-dark, stream water’s chalky white.” “Then perhaps it’s the candlelight making it seem so?” “And what’s this ‘filled to th’ brim’ nonsense?” “No—looks near overflowin’. Ah, Hagoshi-san must keep things spotless. A snow-white hand towel—”

He started to say, then fell silent for a moment.

“From this year forth, the eighth of Uzuki shall be auspicious!” “Smite the long-tailed maggots!” “Regarding this inverted script pasted here—who might have composed it?” “...Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu...” “Ah! What elegant brushwork!” With hieratic composure befitting an abbot, he pronounced this judgment—then abruptly shed gravitas like a robe, reverting to a junior monk’s flustered haste as he scurried forth.

“Yes, hurry up and let me out—I can’t hold on any longer! Need to get from the sitting room to the garden to do my business.” “Who on earth wrote this? It’s a woman’s handwriting, but...” Even as he had praised the hanging hand towel, he now produced a slightly soiled, folded one from his own sleeve. “Namu Amida Butsu—th-that’s… that’s… in the next… next small room where someone met their end… some young miss wrote it and pasted it up, they say… right there… now such things happening here—unbearable!” “From the very core, I’m shuddering with dread...”

“Is that so? Ah—when I tried to wipe my hands just now, this pristine freshly-cut towel was ice-cold and drenched—it gave me quite a start.” “Gah!” He lurched sideways with a heavy thud, then—as if suddenly conscious of his own footfalls—hoisted his hips awkwardly and teetered unsteadily in place.

35 “If you keep staggering about like that, the lamp’ll go out.” “Let me take it. I’ll hold that hand-candle.” “Please—here, take it, your honor—and while you’re at it, from that monk’s robe you’re wearin’, I pray some holy light’ll come blazin’ forth.”

The monk took the candle and stepped out— “Old man,” The urgency in his call made the old man jerk back his good hand—not the crippled one—and squat where his useless limb lay. He craned his neck upward with palm outstretched, until only his wrinkled face glowed crimson in the candlelight. The red-faced elder and azure-robed monk whispering at the corridor’s edge might as well have been demons trading secrets. “Y-yes…” “I hear moaning somewhere.” “Ain’t no act—what’re ya tryin’ t’ prove?”

“Listen to that…”

“Ugh… ugh… ugh…” came a repulsive voice. “Old man, are you the one moaning?” “Nah…”

with a strange expression on his face and his nose wrinkled,

“Hmph. The groans of difficult childbirth.” “Hah—that young bride’s moans’ll turn ’er into a childbed specter wailin’, I tell ya.” “Aye, ’tis comin’ from th’ inner chamber back there, I reckon.” “I know naught of inner rooms or chambers, but it seems not near the paper screens—perhaps the privy.” “Gah! Didn’t your honor just step in there not a breath ago?” “In that case—” He listened askance,

“Ah! The garden—the garden! It’s beyond the storm shutters!”

“Haa…”

Saibachi too strained to listen, lips pressed tight as he held his breath. “First off—it’s outside th’ grounds! These storm shutters’re a damn iron wall!” he pressed down forcefully, planting his feet again. “Go on in, bastard! The Venerable Living Buddha’s got your back, bastard!” “As a Buddhist, I cannot turn away—that’s a human voice, old man. Let’s open it and see. Someone seems to be suffering.” “Hey, keep quiet—it’s a trick, I tell ya! By that very trick, they’ll haul you out on their backs—your honor, sprinkle salt from the skylight! I’ve got my limbs all twisted up—like a moonlit crab with no meat—tryin’ t’ do somethin’. Ain’t nothin’ there—don’t you go openin’ it! Let’s hurry to the sitting room.”

“Ah—listen! Isn’t that someone saying ‘Help me…’?”

“Heh—quick on th’ draw, ain’t ya? Lurin’ folks in—knowin’ you’re a monk, they’re anglin’ with mercy now. I ain’t openin’!”

At that moment… it became clearly audible—a hoarse voice.

“Help me…”

“…………”

“…………”

“Saibachi…”—

And amidst the weed thicket，insects chirped． Crab-Hand trembled as he rose， “Gah! That bitter bug’s callin’!” “What? An insect calls?” “Aye—‘tis Niemon’s voice．” “Namu Amida Butsu—l-look yonder!” “That craven who fled our gate at dusk—what brings ‘im creepin’ back this hour?” “See—damned beasts! Hah! True t’ their brazen ways—too thick t’ notice plain truth．” “Hark now—‘tis mortal folk，I say!” “Curse it—Lord Aragami-sama stands with us! ‘Tis apish cunning—let’s thrash ‘em down!”

He left the storm shutters and shook one shoulder as he tried to move away. Toward what seemed to be the veranda’s far end—about two feet from the wooden flooring—a piece of white paper resembling a lingering lantern drifted out, and then the light began advancing in a perfect square. “Gah!”

Stepping back, he pressed his back against the monk, “Recite the sutra, please—it’s gotten in! Namu Amida... Namu Amida...”

The monk stood on tiptoe and peered forward in a half-crouch— “It’s merely a paper lantern. Since it proved too cumbersome, Mr. Hagoshi has come from the sitting room to investigate.” “Now that we are three, my resolve strengthens—shall we open this?” “Aye—but we weren’t meant to open this, yet—” “But that... that voice pleads ‘Help me’!” “‘Demons and gods know no compromise,’ as they say—no blade can withstand compassion.” The pivot rattled as they heaved the bolt upward. With a clatter, the door gave way. Their sleeves twisted in futile shielding as the lantern snuffed out beneath the night wind’s breath. Yet upon the stepping stone before them—where the cloud-veiled moonlight seeped through murky weeds, tilting to cradle its glow—what manner of creature crawled in fourfold paths?

Thirty-Six More certain than hearing the voice was seeing the form—the one crawling upon the stepping stone and groaning was none other than Niemon of the Bitter Worm. In the moonlight, as they definitively recognized him and Saibachi felt somewhat reassured amidst their shared doubts, Akira arrived carrying a paper lantern. Emboldened further, Saibachi resolutely ventured into the garden under their instructions—an old man who wouldn’t mind being drenched in dew if he could just reach that point. Rustling through the weeds, Akira drew near—“Grandpa, what’s wrong?”—and as he pressed closer, Niemon groaned, “Ah... Saibachi? Help me!” He pulled his hand and pointed as if in prayer. Saibachi yanked the left arm—“Too little fur for a beast—Ah! Ah! The genuine Niemon! Masterfully impersonated!”—and while muttering such things, hoisted him over a shoulder. As they left the stepping stone with footsteps as labored as if trudging through muddy fields, Niemon gasped for breath and clung so tightly it choked his throat. Muttering all the while, Saibachi—eager to swiftly resolve matters—dragged him heedlessly toward the veranda. By the time they arrived, Akira had already opened another storm shutter and stood waiting. “How’s your condition?” “Well, over here—” they helped bring him in—and there, gripped in Niemon’s right hand was a bamboo spear.

As they recoiled in shock—there was good reason. His tongue, which had tried to form the words *“A sip of water—”*, had stiffened; his lips had turned ashen. His wrists were cold and trembling uncontrollably, so they decided to take him to the sitting room... Since it was dangerous regardless, Akira took custody of the bamboo spear—such things being best handled that way. The sharp tip of what had been drawn out grazed the sleeve of his monk’s robes, so the monk standing behind hastily stepped aside, and the paper lantern that had been at hand now moved ahead. When Saibachi turned his crab-like claw and urged, “Let me carry you,” Niemon—who had just said, “No need for that”—clamped onto the monk’s hem and, scraping with his knees, crawled up onto the veranda.

Behind, taking the bamboo spear—its glossy blue sheen—by the long handle, Akira followed.

As someone behind them began closing the storm shutters, Saibachi jeered, evidently sensing an opportunity to taunt: “Grandpa’s legs given out? What a weakling.” But crawling on the floor, Niemon retorted: “Nah—my soles’re all bloody. Leave tracks if I walk”—and oh, the sheer clamor of it all— With a clatter, he slammed the shutters shut and clung desperately to Akira’s back.—At the forefront, the paper lantern floated eerily near the monk’s hem. The Bitter Worm—drenched in blood—lurched on all fours like a horse, while the bamboo spear pressed close behind. Through the darkness passed Crab…… As for this veranda-bound spectacle—no, this was no ordinary affair.

After they cared for him in the sitting room and he gradually regained his senses, Niemon glanced around his surroundings. Stammering repeatedly, he said, "This is inexcusable—sir, Reverend... Even Saibachi here—a comrade of forty years—acts as though he scarcely knows my heart. I've no face left to show."

This villa of Master Tsurutani’s—the strangeness and mystery of late. So extraordinary was the matter that he deemed it one requiring discernment—for three days and two nights, he stared unblinkingly in silent contemplation. Aha! A scheme! This was undoubtedly a grand fraud! You all conspired and have masterfully turned it into a haunted mansion. If left abandoned, it becomes a den for foxes and raccoon dogs; if not that, at least a lodging for beggars. Even a campfire’s sparks are carelessly handled—offer wages, yet no one will live there. Having seen it become surplus property, they plan to uproot the rotting pillars, trample the tiled roof, and stuff it all into the storehouse. Bullseye, bullseye. Hah! The oracle of the Bright Deity—glaring with bulging eyes, he realized that the wandering student who’d recently taken up lodging here, with his deceptively gentle face, was none other than Jiraiya from the picture books—the mastermind of the thieves! That traveling monk who came at dusk is suspicious too—their ilk, the tea shop hag’s also shady! Saibachi, who guided them, must have been roped in as well. Reason itself only adds fuel to these supernatural affairs. Wait, wait—this isn’t some madman’s charade at all. They made Yoshikichi drink a whole shō—those jesting bastards, where do you think they are? Don’t you know that in Akiyamura there’s a sweet persimmon and a bitter worm?—feigning cowardice, Sanada Yukimura fled at dusk, only to later devise the plan to seize the thieves’ den.

As usual, he loitered under the eaves at twilight, seized Yoshikichi, and securely entrusted him to his parents—a precaution by hooking a wild silk thread from the roof to prevent the paper lantern from being caught. Having long conspired in their scheme while feigning flight at dusk, they enlisted the school instructor and a spy from that organization—the Kitsune Udon proprietor—and these three made thorough preparations. The two positioned themselves at the front gate, while Niemon alone was to stab any suspicious entity. There was no need to hesitate in killing humans disguised as raccoon-dogs, he thought, gripping his bamboo spear tightly. From the gate along the garden, following the moonlight step by step, he approached the storm shutters and peered around the roof’s perimeter, searching for any trickery that might be concealed there...

Thirty-Seven

A crow appeared distinctly on the roof. Ah—when he thought of how two women in childbirth had met such brutal ends down there—deaths that defied any notion of natural fate—there was something... a figure on the roof. This figure—from the moment it began parting the weeds to creep closer—had appeared dimly before his eyes, yet seemed both to stand aligned with tall leaves and to lie lurking beneath roots, even to float upward skimming leaf tips. At first, Niemon did not suspect that such a shadow under the moonlight might have been formed by the combination of his own body and bamboo spear—but then the figure abruptly shifted to the rooftop.

When he looked, the smooth, gentle slope of its shoulders—though reshaped by moonlight into a frame meant to bear a hoe—struck him as far too delicate. Then came the realization: a waist supple as willow. Her slender waist angled toward him, the hem of her tilted back garment lay tiled with roof shingles near her shins. The kicked-out hem edge—narrow and supple—met no obstruction in midair, appearing both awkwardly suspended yet weightless as it fluttered lightly onto the large spiderweb beneath the eaves, resembling mist settling over a waterwheel. The flow of her spine, the faint pallor at her nape—neither stood distinct under the moon’s charge. The moonlight was hazy, yet her thick black hair—bound with green—stood vivid. Forest shadows fell like clouds, enveloping her silhouette from behind as she faced away, her posture slightly tilted skyward. The inner curves of her upper arms turned toward him, white as snow, while she calmly stroked the hair at her temples.

The pale fingertips moving through her hair like whitefish—though logically they shouldn’t have been visible at all—seemed to him like twitching ears. A shock—beast or human? They’ll trample this mansion down soon enough—living up there on the roof as they do. "Damn you! Look!” He stepped back and swung his bamboo spear with the practiced motion of skewering birds—swish! No sooner had the weapon’s tip slipped beneath her right sleeve than something beneath his planted foot let out guttural groans—groan—groan—groan. The ground suddenly softened, yielding warmly like cotton beneath his feet as if sinking into a marsh. Startled by his knee buckling helplessly, he looked down to find his foot resting on a bloom of white powder—no, a face powdered pale.

I thought, but that thought was mistaken. Wasn't this plump white thing—the chest of a woman who had fallen supine crying Namu Sanbō—specifically the solar plexus between her swelling breasts, being trampled beneath his dirt-caked feet? Niemon trembled violently, his gaze fixed intently on the white throat arched back in pain, her black hair disheveled, teeth gleaming pale through parted lips. A face with a straight nose amidst the grass—it was none other than Tsurutani's bride, the young mistress who had perished during her first childbirth. The old man was doused with ice from the skylight.

More than fear or eeriness, it was the sacrilege that made him hastily try to remove his trampling foot—only for his other foot to unknowingly slam back down. When a pained groan rose beneath him, his eyes snapped open and he stomped down with his former foot. The more frantically he panicked, the harder he pressed—and with each desperate shift of weight, the figure beneath him groaned, *groan… groan…*, vomiting thick streams of blood from her mouth. It clung to her throat, stained her chest, and cascaded swiftly beneath her breasts before dripping lukewarm onto the soles of Niemon’s feet. With a gasp, his legs gave out; bracing himself with his hands, he clutched at her black hair.

"Forgive me, young mistress! Forgive me!" he pleaded in desperate frenzy—yet beneath his trampling soles came movement. Her eyes snapped open wide, staring unblinkingly as her lips quivered into a faint smile... and blood seeped from her mouth. His feet clung as if glued by pine resin. When Saibachi’s voice reached him where he writhed trapped, all he could manage was a guttural moan for aid. Thus hauled upright by the arm—what Saibachi had perceived as stepping stones became, through Niemon’s bewitched sight, none other than the Young Mistress’s chest. Though his feet still oozed stickiness and his hands—"See this blood!" he insisted—when held against the paper lantern’s glow, they shone pale as dew-bleached bone.

“I’m done for—this sixty-year-old fool’s shut the ceiling window. Saibachi, late as it is, get me to the main house. I won’t stay another moment within three blocks of this cursed place—spare my life, I beg you!”

With that, Niemon bowed clumsily—to whom exactly, one couldn’t tell—his body folding like a poorly strung puppet. When the two who had gone around to the front gate—and everyone else who had rushed out to look—gathered, they found the instructor plopped down on the stepping stones before the entrance platform. The Kitsune Udon Proprietor was nowhere to be seen. It was later learned that he had fled at full speed, they said. What they saw that shocked them, they shook their heads and refused to tell. One had seen the figure of a court lady in scarlet hakama trousers—her eyes black and ears sharply pointed, sleeves layered like hazy moonlight—standing at the wooden gate; another had glimpsed a vermilion-masked great ape with a tail split into nine parts. It began to leak out in whispers—no one knew who first told it—after some time had passed.—

Thirty-Eight

Though two people could sleep comfortably, the spacious room required the mosquito net to be hung from hooks at two corners facing the entrance platform, along the paper screens and sliding doors, and midway across both lintels—enclosing roughly a third of the ten-mat space. Like night furnishings befitting a village headman, its pale green fabric cascaded with long crimson hemp hems trailing toward the veranda where pillows lay arranged. One day when rain fell from morning until night turned midday dark—she had just begun recounting that midnight incident when Aki fell soundly asleep. This too must surely be counted among the strange occurrences. ...Ah—this young one must have found some measure of peace in my presence as a companion tonight, Kojirou Houshi thought as he observed her sleeping so deeply despite days of accumulated fatigue. Yet even as he reflected thus, what showed beyond the mosquito net was a paper lantern glowing faintly white against the alcove behind it.

The paper lantern bore no auspicious inscriptions, yet it seemed poised to lift free from the tatami at any moment—its hem stretching out, its light threatening to spill forth, or perhaps to drift into the mosquito net itself. Come to think of it, even without being disturbed, Aki’s sleeping face was unpleasantly bright.

“You must not catch a chill in your sleep.” Perhaps finding sleep uncomfortable, she had exposed her pale chest—he gently adjusted the covers over her slender frame to avoid pressing against the solar plexus, relieved she remained unaware. But what if, like the Young Mistress Niemon had seen, this hand were to touch her and make her vomit blood while smiling faintly? Thinking this made sleep impossible. "I'll see nothing," he resolved, pressing his hands over his eyes—yet no sooner had he done so than his eyelids snapped open with an audible flutter of lashes. His mind remained cruelly alert, denying him rest.

When he pulled the quilt over himself, the bedding—from its sleeves to the collar—felt like a vast cavern. His legs dragged as if something were slowly pulling him deeper, an unease he could scarcely endure.

Slipping off his robe, he exposed his monk’s bald pate—but then it seemed to leer back with a “Boo!”, his own face unsettling him despite its familiarity. There he stood bolt upright, adjusted his collar, rearranged his pillow, and steadied his mind. “May all resentments be utterly dispersed,” As he chanted while lying on his back, his mind seemed to calm somewhat—but just as the traveling monk began to doze off, something came to his pillow with a *plop*. But before he could determine whether it was a raindrop or the sound of a blood-engorged mosquito collapsing—still hovering in that liminal space of perception—another *plop*... Then came a *plop-plop* of falling droplets, and this time, one struck his cheek with certainty.

Finally recognizing the coldness, when he brushed it with his palm, it felt icy. Shivering as he half-rose, the traveling monk peered fearfully into the lantern’s shadow—but fortunately, it wasn’t droplets of blood. Just when he thought it must be a roof leak—the droplets only trickling down the mosquito net—the rain began pattering down in a shower. When he strained his ears, it seemed a downpour was raging across the roof. In this unworldly temporary lodging, there was nothing as desolate as this. Yet the monk, well-acquainted with roof leaks, resolved to wait in silence for a lull—but the droplets only multiplied until the hem of his quilt grew sopping wet, threatening to spout upward in a deluge.

He had even heard a goose cry out on the roof. Could it be that the entire house had sunk to the bottom of the Kasumi River? ...he struck his forehead against the corrugated iron—water soaking into the tip of his nose despite the droplet's size—abruptly sat up, grabbed his pillow to scratch about while rising to a crouch, inching closer as he tugged at his sleepwear sleeve that had rolled up to his shoulder, “Excuse me—it’s leaking quite badly. Mr. Hagoishi?” he called out, but no answer came.

Startled, he shaded his eyes—expecting some sharp-eyed figure—only to find her breathing softly and steadily, like pampas grass plumes swaying in the breeze. Ah, she slept soundly. When he looked closely at her face, the glistening beads above Aki’s eyes—thick-lashed with split corners—were not merely dampened by the same raindrops.…

The past dwells within me as well—yet while your hair remains black and your face pale, mine has turned gray-headed and sallow-faced. Fellow orphans of this transient world—before he realized it, the monk's own tears of compassion had spilled forth, reaching into Aki's dreams. When he looked around, it seemed only natural this person remained unawakened. The rain’s droplets tangled like threads across my body alone, while on Aki’s bedding not a single flea prowled the night. Namu Sanbō—this is the evil spirit’s spittle!

Thirty-Nine

Though he recognized this as that same illusory rain, the chilling dampness soaking through him proved harsher than his childhood days as a temple acolyte—those times he'd been sent hatless from mountain monastery to village to fetch tofu. Unable to endure, he emerged by pulling the mosquito net's hem about him, only to confront a night's lodging that offered no proper place to dwell. With a heart that relied on the inn's fading paper lantern as one might shelter beneath eaves from a drizzling rain. The monk crawled closer on his knees toward the lamp's light. When he looked at his sleepwear, nowhere showed even the slightest dampness. He had even tried wiping his arm starting from around his cheek... yet there had been no sound of raindrops in the bedding to begin with.

Rubbing his arm at length and pushing it back, “May all resentments be utterly dispersed.” And once again focusing his mind—when he calmed his heart with stillness—whether through this merit, the sound of mosquitoes vanished, leaving utter silence in its wake. It was precisely when—overwhelmed by the excessive silence and gripped by the fear that his own body might dissolve into nothingness—he opened his tightly shut eyes as though awakening from a dream: dazedly, yet with perfect circularity, to gaze through the straight lamp wick. Reflected suddenly onto the paper lantern—a shadow cast through from within, which he mistook for a spider as large as a woman’s hand, instinctively drawing back his head—but no, it was not; brushing against the pillar, what eventually fell before the oil jar was a green maple leaf.

The monk instinctively reached out and picked it up. Whether it was indeed a leaf or not—whether he had tried to confirm this or not—even he could not say. Then, with a swish, a shadow swept by and fell lightly as if caught in a sudden crosswind. Unconsciously, when he picked it up again, the previous one—One—he unconsciously counted. Two—Before he could finish counting the next, the third one—a zelkova leaf as large as a shell—came fluttering past the lantern, its shadow immense.

“Three,” When he muttered under his breath, the fourth leaf had already brushed against the paper lantern with a dry rustle. “Four, five, six, seven,”

As he counted, the leaves gathered upon his knees had already buried every gap without space. When he looked up at the sky, the ceiling had no bottom—it felt as though he were in a deep mountain on a pitch-black night.

Ah, making this forest into a mountain pass—on such a night as this, perhaps the checkpoint permit that demons traversing midair abruptly present to the Demon King. Brushing off his knees, he stood up abruptly—and as the leaves rustled and swayed, he shuddered violently. "Hrmph!" He let out a crushed, rasping cough, turned his eyes to something, and tried to shift his focus—but there was no time to retrieve the sutra from the cloth-wrapped bundle. What finally caught his attention were four or five sheets of hanshi paper hastily pasted onto the paper screens.

This was something Akira had written down—the nursery rhyme he’d memorized since arriving here—which he both chanted and recited morning and evening, or so the monk had heard that evening. When he approached while still standing, the first thing that caught his eye was in thick ink: One fallen leaf, The monk shuddered all the more. One fallen leaf, Two, three, Ten piled high, The number of fallen leaves, the years you’ve shed, Your years— When he looked back, there it still remained—scattered in disarray, indigo turned black as if swept aside and abandoned. Ah, how nostalgic—the flowers of everlasting summer,

A shadow drifted across Kasumigawa. That vestige, oh vestige— Through the paper screen, that faint white vestige... seemed to peer through, and within the depths of his hardened ears, as he pondered—to the utmost limits of depth and distance—the height of heaven and thickness of earth, where even the constellations and Dragon Palace's lanterns lay equally distant, a koto resounded with a single note: clear as a golden bell's toll—*kororin*. When he looked at the Japanese paper with a start, a flicker passed through his pupils. *Kororin!* As if in response to the sound, the characters seemed to shift. Then—

The sound of the koto………… —so it was written.

Forty The traveling monk pondered, calmed his mind, adjusted his robes, and—since there was a Buddhist statue inside—borrowed the alcove to place it. He had just begun unpacking his luggage when this late-night activity took on an air reminiscent of bandits along the Kiso Highway. He presented a small black-lacquered miniature shrine—wrapped in a scrap of impurity-warding brocade and measuring about three inches tall—then folded his monk’s robe over the desk and placed it atop. Originally, this room was Kyoto-style, with a single alcove flanked by a tall built-in cabinet. Adjacent to it lay the veranda, while beside the cabinet was a full moon-shaped round window overlooking the garden. When one opened the sliding door, waves upon waves of densely forested Hayama mountains filled the sky—a view that now, though scorched, perfectly mirrored the study layout of his childhood home, evoking more than mere nostalgia. "Could this too be a sign that his wishes would be granted here?" Akira had said nostalgically, then immediately used this cabinet as a makeshift desk and had even set up his travel inkstone. He placed a footstool as a substitute for a chair. ……

Because the space was ample, he had also placed items like water jars and tea utensils there. Therefore, ever since first seeing this man’s traveler’s appearance, the kind Old Man Saibachi—having apparently made proper preparations—brought along a desk together with night supplies carried on his back; however, the monk did not use it, instead leaving it placed in the alcove’s corner without letting dust settle. "If you wish to stay here as your heart desires, please use it for your reading," Old Man Saibachi had said during supper. He brought that desk here now. After setting down the miniature shrine, when he looked around to decide where to reposition it, three thick cries erupted from within the mosquito net as Akira was seized by nightmares. But... it was only his own chest that ached; there was no need to rouse anyone, and fortunately, it grew quiet again.

Having opened the shoji—since he would pass through the veranda himself, and the other entrance led along the garden—though ordinarily it might be one thing, tonight there was nothing unusual about either. What particularly concerned him was the junction between the ceiling corner opposite—said to have a removable panel mechanism for major cleanings—and the partitioning sliding door beneath it that had never been opened. “May my Buddha grant protection.”

He offered a prayer, took hold of the desk, lifted it up, glared intently in that direction, and started to rise from his seat.

At that very moment.

“Stay your hand.” A resounding boom—a voice echoed to the depths of the earth. Within the mosquito net where he wondered if Akira had called out—the boy was again violently seized by nightmares, breath held— "…………" The hues shifted. Behind the sliding door, “Traveling monk, wait but a moment—there is a being who will now go there.” “They will not block your path.” “To force our way through is within our power,” he said, “but out of deference to the Buddha statue, we show restraint.” “No, we have no cause to bring harm upon you.” When he looked, there spanning from sliding door to ceiling were rain-stained specters lined shoulder-to-shoulder with a great figure whose head surpassed the lintel. Eyebrows thick, eyes round, nose prominent and mouth angled, cheeks full—a man splendid in bearing. Clad in a hemp robe adorned with lacquered patterns resembling drawer pulls, layered with a white collar, and wearing a plain hakama of matching color sharply creased, he stood imposingly filling the sliding door. Holding a folded fan in his short right hand, a gentle smile gracing his kind face, he settled heavily before the traveling monk with motion both deliberate and absent. Pressured by his aura, the monk felt as though crushed beneath a great tea-dappled ox.

Startled at the desk, he braced his chest as if to lunge forward— “Who are you?” he said. “One who traverses the sixty-odd provinces.” “What do you call yourself—who are you…?” “The Akuzaemon who dwells everywhere,” and poised his fan, “I who now reside in Akidani—that is to say, I am called Akidani Akuzaemon.” “Aku…” “The ‘Aku’ is that of good and evil.” “Oh, Aku... demon—do you curse humans?”

“Nay, we pass through while avoiding humankind.” “In heaven’s pure light dwell the glistening undersides of night-crow feathers and gleaming scales of rapids’ ayu.” “Even when beholding the shadowless moon, we neither enter abandoned skiffs nor alight upon mountain temple verandas.” “Are not midnight’s human-deserted places rather the roofs of thatched huts?” “Yet when mortals deliberately seek us out and suffer harm, it is their own doing.”

Forty-One “Even when traversing the world’s highways at midday, we avoid the way should mortals approach. When encountering them, we withdraw to the roadside; having let them pass, we circle behind. Yet when certain ones turn to look back too often—finding ourselves unable to fully hide from such vexation—their startled eyes become their own transgression.” “How now, traveling monk—do you still doubt this unworthy one?”

With a faint smile, he gazed down at the traveling monk’s shaven head from the ceiling,

“Do you still question our existence within this cosmos?” “Ah—you glare at me with such suspicion.” Those widened eyes blinked instantly.

"In all the realm, there may be those who never sleep through a single night, but there is certainly no human who does not blink. We of Akuzaemon’s ilk—who take the blink of a human eye as our realm—in that one-second blink when the sun’s light etches your every feature, garment, even eyelashes, do you know these imprints persist for hundreds of years after your lives end? Lingering as though still alive. When stone strikes tree—the fire gushes forth in the blink of an eye; its extinguishing too is but a blink; a bullet piercing flesh—all transpire in the blink of an eye."

“In the span of a single person’s blink alone—water flows, wind blows, leaves stay green, the sun stays red. If you comprehend that nothing in all creation truly vanishes—that disappearance exists only in that instant for the blinker—then you’ll find no strangeness in our dwelling within this world.”

he nodded composedly, “Therefore, O traveling monk— “Even if one might say these people bring misfortune upon themselves, they do not question when the moon is suddenly veiled by clouds and the world darkens, yet they shriek when a lantern’s flame extinguishes unexpectedly. They show no wonder at stars streaking across the heavens, yet scream when melons leap upon the earth. When such folk—terrified by the works of our kind—have their hearts shattered, spirits wounded, and bodies harmed, they inevitably withdraw. This becomes an impediment to our ascetic practices and consequently a hindrance of sin, causing us no small trouble.”

With that, he let out a slight sigh—but recomposing himself, spoke once more.

"Now, in this mansion, since the beginning of this month, there has been another guest lodging here. "He is a noble soul sharing this same predicament. "We and our retinue have been guarding what was originally an abandoned house where laborers ceased to come—a place we found convenient. But ever since this boy now sleeping here, driven by a desire surpassing life itself, staked his very being to force through the thicket and leave footprints, people have come and gone clamorously, causing all sorts of hindrances—thus we have taken it upon ourselves to drive them away one by one—yet the true quandary lies with this boy."

The firmness of his resolve, so unlike his appearance! “Though I’ve only spoken of fanciful tales and now shame myself for such folly, venerable monk—I’ll spare you further details—but in truth, this one here endured rather merciless trials.” At times we dropped a massive boulder upon his chest, straddled it to constrict his throat, entwined seven serpents about his limbs, and cursed him with bites from fanged lizards—yet he stubbornly refused to yield, calmly singing his song until we were utterly vanquished. “Therefore, as a final trial, just now we made the boy kill a person—and the slain one is you, venerable monk.”

And then, he stared intently. Having steeled himself and fought on, “Is this... is this... is this the underworld?” his eyes darting about—and seeing that face, he smiled broadly with plump cheeks, chuckling quietly, “Nay, there’s no harm done. “But at the very moment this boy was being haunted by nightmares, venerable monk—how your chest must have ached!” His chest throbbed sharply in response, “Oh,”

“Oh,” “In other words—the boy made you drink poison.” “—”

“It’s no different.” “That, that vermilion clay water jar placed on the door pocket—the water drawn into it is from the well, but being a long-sealed one, the water’s color runs deep blue, just like translucent plant sap.”

The traveling monks drank the tea; the old man had drawn and brought that—it was river water. Others used that whitish water, deeming it somewhat acceptable, but this boy—having seen a cat’s corpse float by before—could not bring himself to drink from this well. "It remains exactly as I said. Since we torment him with visible curses short of killing him—for shortening his life would not do—it is our custom that each night, unbeknownst to the boy, we have an attendant clad in silk robes with crimson sashes and a dog-like visage drip our treasured emerald wine from a lapis lazuli agate jar into that water as a reviving elixir."

Forty-Two

"The boy savors it, smacking his lips at this heaven-bestowed elixir. We commanded the youth's very soul to dream of offering that wine to you, venerable monk—to make you drink it through his vision. 'Just try a sip—it tastes refreshingly cool and fragrant,' he says—and so you hesitate all the more, your hand frozen mid-reach." With another smile, he continued: "'Since I've even tasted it for poison,' declares the boy, gulping it down repeatedly as he thrusts the cup toward you. 'At this point,'"—he leaned forward—"'when you finally drink in fearful obedience, after a brief while, you writhe in agony, frenzy overtakes you, you thrash wildly about... and spew forth a clot of blackened blood.'"

The traveling monk turned deathly pale. “The startled boy tends to you.” “But when recovery became impossible—at death’s very threshold—”

(I am a monk—if by sacrificing this body I can achieve benevolence, that would be my supreme fulfillment. You—pursue your true calling elsewhere and swiftly flee this accursed place.) he left his last words. "This is indeed our design."

Inside the mosquito net, the boy being haunted by nightmares—that was when he saw this dream, you see. If he thought, "Then they would leave," but ah, it was no use. Seeing that you, venerable monk, had fallen in, he shed tears and resolved to die together with you. After observing from behind the sliding door until he drew out the dagger—its blade glinting—that had been hidden in the wicker trunk,

(Ah, wait...) He had stopped—but killing would not settle matters. "As a result," came the explanation, "the guest we protect shall open this mansion of their own accord and depart elsewhere." "Prior to this," it continued, "having directly obtained your noble audience, there exists a matter we wish to discuss with the traveling monk." "As our guest happens to be a woman," declared Akidani Akuzaemon with ritual formality, "this unworthy one shall first present our petition." "For this purpose have I manifested." "I, Akidani Akuzaemon, shall act as intermediary," he proclaimed in thunderous tones before softening his voice—

"Might you grant us an audience—what say you?"

he said.

The monk instinctively— "I will," he answered.

Before his voice had even faded, his knees quaking like a small hill, he turned—

“Enter!”

The great sound—like that of a cracked bell—boomed forth. Dazzlingly, as if his soul were growing distant, the Great Demon's form withdrew swiftly—sucked into a corner's darkness—yet became far smaller, no larger than a firefly's glow. Still, the colors of its robe, hakama trousers, face, and every strand of hair upon its head appeared vividly to the eye.

“Pray forgive me.” A sliding door across the way abruptly shifted to azure, leaving behind only a disordered ring—the blurred outline of a rain-soaked demon painting—as a faint peach hue floated across its surface. There she stood—voluminous glossy black hair combed to snowy whiteness at the temples and gathered into a simple chignon secured with a comb; face bowed; sloping shoulders framed by sleeves drawn tightly together across her chest. Her robe’s stark white collar overlay a sky-blue undergarment swathed in plain ibis-hued gauze. A pale green obi—scattered like dewdrops on grass blades—cinched her slender waist. Delicate threads glimmered faintly in the dimness where ibis-white and pale turquoise hues turned translucent at her breasts and shoulders, her snow-pale skin faintly visible beneath.

Her black hair cascaded over her collar like strands kissed by lunar dew, her hemline undisturbed as she glided forward—soft-footed and light-touched—as though some presence bore her hips aloft. Dragging the endless night’s darkness behind her through an unfathomable chamber, she drifted closer to the traveling monk without seeming to walk at all. When the sliding door had opened unnoticed, two paper lanterns lined its sides, casting their glow toward the threshold where only the woman’s knees appeared poised in view. He had no time to even wonder whether either of them bore a dog’s face.

The monk peered furtively with a single glance at what had shambled forward before him. “Gah!” He immediately prostrated himself. Indeed, her face—blazing silver eyes glaring, dark purple shadows pooling at their corners; sunken cheekbones framing a pallid jaw; lips cracked and hollowed into pale turquoise; a mouth blackened with ohaguro; a pomegranate-red tongue; and at the roots of her ears, needle-sharp fangs clenched tight.

Forty-three

"Oh, I wanted to hide my own face. It was not my intention to intimidate you—I remained dressed to go outside... Oh, how embarrassing." With that, she took up a white demon mask beside her—graceful yet dignified, with elegantly arched brows and gentle eyes—and inclined that face downward, resting her hands demurely.

“H-h-h-how do you do,” With a flustered bow, she raised the mask to reveal forlorn cheeks where lips reddened with rouge curved into a faint smile,

“Earlier, you were so kind as to be present—I had the honor of meeting you in the corridor.”

The traveling monk, too, had now settled himself quite firmly.

“Who might you be?”

he inquired, but at that moment, he felt he almost knew who she was. The beautiful woman adjusted the hem of her kimono with care and leaned intently through the mosquito net. The pale green closed in, thinly enveloping the robe's hue. "This person’s mother’s acquaintance… and a friend to Akira as well…" She closed her mouth, her expression tinged with sorrow.

He inched his knees forward, “Ah, you...” “Regarding that matter—I have a request for you, Venerable Monk. Pray hear me out.” She peered through the mosquito net once more, “O most beloved one—how you have wasted away... "That one who knows neither sin nor retribution would endure such hardships—even risk his life—to hear the song. All springs from longing for his mother." "From that heart of yours which so desperately seeks to hear it—so consumed that you’ve forgotten both body and world—why, you’ve come to yearn for me, lost in this misguided love."

“That song—when he was young, his mother passed it down through whispered breath to mouth, and I remember it still.” “Though he yearns so deeply that I would gladly meet him once and let him hear it—were I to show my face now, that adoring heart of his would forget all else like a dreamer. He’d tangle himself in my sleeves, cling to my hands, press his brow to my breast crying ‘Mother! Sister!’” “How could you slip free? Be torn away? Shake loose? I’ll draw you near—I’ll clasp you fast.”

“Not sharing blood—a man and woman’s union is a taboo forbidden by both heaven and earth.” “We are free and unbound—but this body that has turned its back on the floating world would hinder my wish, which lies beyond.” “Even so—this castaway self of mine—though madness takes my spirit and turmoil claims my heart in the wake of such preciousness, such belovedness—if resolve remains mine alone, then I shall not despise this existence.” “I do not despise it... but should Akira-san do so, he would come to share the same circumstances as us...”

“By now—in his heart of late—Akira-san seems to have found his true wish... his true wish.”

She clutched her chest as though lovesick, but the bridge of her nose paled and she drew herself upright,

“Ah, look—do look.” “Even as we speak, Akira-san’s mother leans out from the rainbow railings of a towering pavilion peeking through the clouds—so ethereal she might be mistaken for blossoms crowning a treetop. Without so much as a scowl or reproachful glance, moved solely by her child’s dearness, she worships me—not deigning to call me demon.” “To gaze upon that beautiful, tender visage—even were love’s lifeblood to stain autumn leaves, I dare not voice that character for ‘fall,’ so awed am I by Akira-san’s name.” Even without exchanging a single word—merely glimpsing his noble countenance—my resolve faltered beneath such belovedness. “I am bound to my husband.” “Though wed to another, when that tenderness of heart which cherishes Mother seeps into one’s being, it becomes love—becomes transgression—becomes sin.”

“Even a birth mother, once departed from this world—though she may yearn to appear in visions, to nurse her child at her breast and lie beside them—finds that her heart’s longing for her own flesh becomes, in heaven, a taboo love. Out of reverence for this prohibition, she must restrain herself.” “All the more so for me—an outsider.” “It would be troublesome to impose such needless burdens.” “Though I never once revealed my whereabouts to Akira-san and kept myself hidden, a careless handball let slip by the young ones at my knee became our ill-fated bond.” “Both he and I have tormented our bodies and wounded our hearts, but since he refuses to leave this place even at peril of his life, I shall withdraw.”

The handball song you so earnestly desire—though it wounds your heart so deeply—will naturally reach your ears when the proper time arrives! That is—when I withdraw from this mansion now, every corner of the house will brighten. Akira-san too will reconsider and depart from this place to resume his travels. “Even now they’re becoming the talk—if these strange happenings at the mansion spread through the neighborhood—then at a nearby villa… that noble person…”

Forty-Four

“A certain noblewoman—exceedingly beautiful—has come to convalesce after illness. At her maidservant’s casual suggestion, she summoned Saibachi discreetly for idle diversion. (As for the spectral disturbances at Tsurutani’s mansion—they were all pranks I conducted with my helpers to dispel melancholy. I hear many were injured, and someone called Yoshikichi went mad—how careless, how pitiful—so do ensure everyone receives proper care.)...” and she bestowed upon him a great deal of silver and gold.

Now, as this matter became known to the world and rumors suddenly spread far and wide, the patients' hearts lifted in hope, and even those driven mad recovered peacefully—but bound by inescapable fate, when the noblewoman’s husband returned from his sea voyage and heard these rumors—he was a man of terrible jealousy, feared by all.—

“During those days of strange occurrences, there was said to be a traveling youth who secluded himself there... By then, he could no longer offer explanations—having become utterly convinced that this Akira-san and his own noble wife had committed unspeakable impropriety beyond doubt. ‘He shall acquire her from Tsurutani’s main residence and confine his noble wife within this vacant mansion.’ Venerable Monk.”

That beautiful noble wife, ashamed before others and disgraced in society, sealed herself within a solitary chamber, confining herself to eternal night. As days passed—though she neither saw nor heard him—the spreading rumors that had unjustly stained her reputation made that Akira-san seem somehow yearned for, achingly familiar, ultimately beloved, and worthy of ardent longing. This aching sorrow, this fierce love—now in my heart—was one and the same with Akira-san’s madness-driven yearning to hear the handball song.

A year later, or two, or three—Akira-san would wander through province after province once more, circling back to this village without hearing the song, and find himself longing for the vacant house. When that time came, the noble wife’s soul—dyed through with love—would become a five-colored glowing handball and flow into the Kasumigawa River. Akira-san’s breath, exhaling all his pent-up emotions, would rise as cold smoke to obscure even the moon in midair. The fires of their passion would merge into a white blossom of flame, and the paper screens too would burn. In a light that was neither sun nor moon, neither stars nor lamp, they would at last meet face to face.

The mansion was the world’s darkness—and yet. ……Yet this ten-mat room was dark. ……

To Akira’s bewildered eyes, soot appeared as flowers exhaling fragrances; spiderwebs swayed with the waft of rare incense. His heart raced as he compressed all earthly existence into a single chamber—then saw it expand into a palace vaster than the sea, glittering with gold, silver, and jewels. When he glimpsed the noblewoman, he revered her as a goddess of song, kneeling and prostrating himself in worship. Her long, cold black hair cascaded over shoulders like koto strings trembling as jade cords—resonating. Their unvoiced words became surging tides of blood beneath the skin, harmonizing in ears that could not hear. Fingers brushed faintly in the dark—five against five—clashing with the sound of crystal beads grating. Trembling robes and quaking knees rode drifting clouds as if buoyed by their very essence.

Ah, this is my mother... he clung to her, her breasts pressing heavily against his chest yet weightless in his hands, soft and pliant in his arms; the woman, forgetting herself entirely, embraced him— "My child is in peril! Have your eyes gone blind?" "Follow the lamplight of the lone house in the valley where sin has fallen!" The starlight from Mother’s finger pointing down from the heavens transformed into lightning that flashed across the walls; her voice—"Part! Withdraw!"—reverberated through the rafters like thunder; tears fell as rain; the dew of emotion drenched the trees, drenched the stones, even soaked the grass—until in dawn’s first light, all became droplets of lapis lazuli, navy, and crimson.

To those two noble souls in this sinful world—terrified by its dreadfulness—they pressed closer still. Unable to endure such pathos—as stated earlier, where even maternal love becomes forbidden passion—Mother defied celestial edicts and breached divine law. Leaning against jeweled railings of a cloud-borne tower, she drew a cassia branch near and clung desperately to it, escaping beyond palace walls. Her noble form floated in the sky—as she descended from within the moon visible to mortal eyes, clouds inverted into countless billions upon billions of waterfalls, roaring ceaselessly into the bottomless firmament below. Ah—there she was, perilously balanced on a single bending cassia branch, her mist-like robes trailing through that torrential void.

When her noble companions suddenly noticed one of their number missing, the celestial music halted abruptly. They fluttered up in alarm and began hauling the cassia branch upward. Restrained, her noble form reappeared before the moon—clad in pale robes, hairpin glittering against the stars.

In the drawing room—from the darkness—he suddenly perceived it. When Akira realized the woman whose hand he clasped was his enemy, the sliding doors and walls erupted into great crimson lotuses. The tatami mats beneath his knees became a bed of needles. Snakes coiled in his sleeves, lizards crawled upon his knees—confronted by this vision of hell before his eyes, his entire body turned to ice in an instant, and he recoiled in terror. Yet even if her resolve were shattered by a great iron hammer in that moment, would he release the hand he had drawn close? The passion in his breast blazed like flame—as though holding up a brocade painted with shimmering gold and silver to firelight. Her face flushed crimson where white lead blended with vermilion around her eyes, and seeing those scarlet tears fall, he found this love too could not be abandoned. Trembling with terror and shame—even the warmth of human skin against his own, even the burning of lips—he found no less yearning than for Mother’s pure and cool figure standing before the moon; he neither broke away nor yet moved to act.

In heaven, overwhelmed by emotion, she sang a song of the mortal world—praying that at least this voice might reach him—and sensing Mother’s heart, the many noble ladies too joined their voices in wondrous harmony. It was then that the song would be heard. "The song Akira-san yearns for will resonate in his heart through natural resonance and be heard."

With a countenance so divine it bordered on solemn rigidity...

The monk listened with his hands clasped in prayer.

And then—that person, in that moment—there was no need to wait for Akira. Should this beauty’s hand but touch me, I thought, I would hear that song right then and there.

Forty-Five

The beautiful woman resumed, “Venerable monk, you must keep this matter solely within your heart and never speak of it." “Without revealing even a dewdrop’s worth of this, for now, please kindly comfort Akira-san.” "Perhaps exhausted from his usual hardships—well, he’s sleeping soundly,"

As she glided closer, her form wavered—then abruptly she planted both palms on the tatami. The sharp scent of hemp pierced the air, her yellow-green robes chilling his shoulder as pale crimson bled through the fabric's weave,

“Akira...” As if crumbling away, she tried to press one cheek against his—then abruptly drew back and closed her sleeves. Tears welled in her eyes as she gazed at the monk.

“Then I shall take my leave.” “Though this childish act shames me before you, Venerable Monk, I shall bounce the handball for Akira-san—a full display of affection, that…” Beneath her lingering voice, a young girl with a cropped bob and rabbit-like face darted through the snow lantern’s center like a butterfly, offering up the handball cradled on her sleeve. Taking it, the beautiful woman—her pale palm cradling what might have been a demonic realm or perhaps a great red plum bud—stroked the ball while clutching her sleeve’s edge between pearly teeth. The hem fluttered down to drape over her sash.

She smiled a seasoned smile, ecstatically, "Oh my, it's not just me caught in this awkward position—have you all not come along too?" Fluttering around the mosquito net were bellflowers and miscanthus—"How beautiful!"—bush clover and patrinia—"How gentle!"—bell crickets and pine crickets—their voices—

(In the distant marsh, a serpent rises, Hachiman Chōja’s Otojo, How dare you rise and scheme, In your hands you hold two pearls, ...and on your feet you wear golden shoes...) Walls and sliding doors blazed in autumn hues, the drawing room transformed into a brocade of handballs—fallen leaves fluttered down in a crimson dance around the lantern. Entwined within as snow scatters—countless women’s hands upon hands. When those fingertips idly brushed against him now and then, the monk’s wrist naturally fluttered upward.

(Sent you up to the capital to perform kyōgen, Sent you up to the temple to make you study, The temple’s monk being a hedonist, Had you pushed from the high veranda,) She hurled it upward with force, let it drop with a thud, and it landed high. Wait. In my hometown’s Nirvana Festival, there was a custom where townsgirls—each carrying two or three handballs cradled against their skin or held in their sleeves—would dress identically and come to the mountain temple to play at competitive bouncing. The few men hesitated, peering from the bell tower as they grew weary of watching the game... At twilight in the grand temple, when the figures of many maidens had condensed into a scene indistinguishable from the vividly colored Nirvana painting hanging distantly on the wall—as if pressed into a single painted scroll—an enchanting woman emerged smoothly from the dark tatami corridor behind the main hall’s memorial chapel. Cradling a handball in her sleeve without haste, she glided past the lattice-patterned window separating them from the grave markers’ field. Yet by the time one perceived her, she had already blended into the crowd beneath someone’s shadow. That’s it—this person, no, she hadn’t changed a whit from that moment—

The monk thought to himself—Akira too must be watching this scene from the bell tower in a dream even now. In the midst of thinking that if by some chance that bell were to ring, he would awaken— As he shifted slightly, stray strands from this beauty’s hair brushed against his cheek with a silken whisper—their shadows merging into the dim haze—and a profound loneliness settled around his eyes. (Hairpin dropping, small pillow tumbling...) Taking in a swirling pattern—roots quivered—and black hair cascaded wildly over shoulders. Her disheveled appearance must shame her—she likely thought matters had already reached their end. Without regard for the girl picking up and cradling the dropped handball, she staggered to her feet—her form drawn toward the mosquito net—standing there with her hem disheveled.

She fixedly gazed up at the roof ridge, “Ah, ah—the clouds churn. “Amidst the flowers, her mother’s bosom sways.” “Oh, does she intend to nurse her most precious child?” “Or does my conduct stir disquiet within your heart?” “Though invisible to your monkly eyes, those who dwell beneath the earth gaze up at starlight even by day.” “Though your form is clearly visible, there lies the celestial palace, here is hell—no words can bridge them.”

“You who behold beautiful dreams,” “Ah—there resides Her Noble Mother! This single thought of affection alone remains unclouded by the demon realm’s dust—behold my sleeve as your mirror.” “Now, these teardrops dwelling within my eyes convey the dew of Her Noble Mother’s tenderness—drops of milk,” she murmured, tilting her sleeve as she drew near, leaning close until tears fell like fluttering petals. “Ah… Returning to my infant days, seeking milk… Ah, I awaken…”

“Farewell, farewell, venerable monk.” “While this one remains in dreams,” she murmured, leaning on one hand as she offered a parting bow. From the entrance to the garden’s edge came a clamorous uproar—clattering noises, rising voices. Rubbing his eyes, widening his eyes, wiping his eyes—the traveling monk parted from them, and soon all fell silent—a maid with a dog-like face clattered forward, soundlessly opening the storm shutters with flame-like crimson-fluttering sleeves that glittered like stars setting forth. In the pale moonlight of the fourteenth night’s dawn, her profile—revealing but one cheek—bore the grace of morning glories unfurling beneath wispy clouds; her loosened hair swayed as she turned once more toward the mosquito net.

“Hey,” With that, Akira swept aside the mosquito net and lunged forward to cling—

Before the traveling monk supporting his sleeve and the two struggling figures—at this very moment—loomed forth the colossal figure’s form: like a forest within mist, clad in yellow hemp robes that veiled the curtains as it stood with an imposing stance across the eaves, its thunderous voice— “Make way!”

he barked.

“Ha,” Speaking of which, what proved strangest was how the bucket Saibachi had filled to the brim at dusk—hauled back here—and placed near the veranda’s edge suddenly flipped head over heels with a splash, water spilling everywhere as it began stomping forward on its hands. Water raced in its wake as dawn’s clouds whitened above. Through the garden grass flowed a smoke-like deluge, where the sinking moon transformed into a boat—its bow riding up swiftly to glide smoothly through white-powdered blossoms. The archfiend’s sleeves and sails had transformed into rigging; the beautiful woman hid behind the ship’s curtained screen,

("Whose narrow path is this, Whose narrow path is this, The heavenly deity's narrow path is this, Whose narrow path is this, Please let me pass just a little…) Most intensely and nostalgically it was heard—as wind roared through densely standing trees, leaves rustling through green rapids rushing swift... Those horizontal clouds—ah, those horizontal clouds."

January 1908 (Meiji 41)