Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

The Ishizaka family were large landowners who had farmed for generations on a delta in Shibane Village, Sawa District, Joshu Province, where the Karasu River—whose headwaters lay in a valley carved between the Greater Tone River, Mount Haruna, and Mount Asama—converged with another river.
This delta was said to be the place where Oguri Kozuke, during the Bakumatsu period, realized the impossibility of resisting the imperial army's eastward advance, escaped Edo Castle, transported several golden chest-like boxes by boat from Gyotoku in Kazusa Province with about ten retainers, headed toward his estate in Sannokura, Gunma District, Joshu Province; gradually sailed upstream into the Greater Tone River; rowed past Kawamata, Tsumago, Ojima, and behind Honjo; and finally landed at the confluence of the Karasu and Tone Rivers to carry up the chests.
The Ishizaka family residence spanned twelve ken in frontage and eight-and-a-half ken in depth across three full stories, featuring three storehouses, two storage buildings, a large nagaya gatehouse encircled by thick earthen walls—an imposing structure rarely seen in this region.
Their owned rice fields and farmland were said to apparently exceed thirty chōbu.

Looking west from this delta revealed the white-peaked Koshu's Yatsugatake, Mount Myogi, and Mount Asama. To the west and east lay the Chichibu Mountain Range. To the north lay Mount Haruna, Mount Tanigawa straddling the Echigo-Kozuke provincial border, Mount Hotaka, and Mount Akagi. To the northeast, Mount Nantai of Oku-Nikkō towered in the distance, cloaked in snow—truly, the Ishizaka family residence occupied a scenic location.

With a frontage of twelve ken and a depth of eight-and-a-half ken, the first floor alone spanned one hundred and two tsubo.
If tatami mats were laid throughout, it would exceed two hundred mats.
And yet, for generations, the Ishizaka family had never grown beyond four members.
In this palatial residence resembling a grand temple hall, for nearly a hundred years now, a mere three or four family members had been leading an utterly desolate existence.

Let us attempt to examine the Ishizaka family register.

Disappearance: Ishizaka Giemon (Bunsei 12 [1829])

Death: Wife Tami (Tenpō 4 [1833])

Disappearance: Same household – Yuhachiro (Giemon’s eldest son, Ansei 5 [1858])

Death: Wife Fuyu (Man'en 1 [1860])

Disappearance: Same household – Masae (Yuhachiro’s eldest son, Meiji 14 [1881])

Currently living: Wife Miyo (Meiji 16 [1883])

Disappearance: Same household – Seiichi (Masae’s eldest son, Meiji 37 [1904])

Currently living: Wife Kimi (Meiji 38 [1905])

Household head: Same household – Kenya (Showa 3 [1928])

Upon reading this, it becomes clear that the only ones currently living in this house are the nineteen-year-old household head Kenya, his forty-one-year-old mother Kimi, and his sixty-four-year-old grandmother Miyo.
Although this explanation alone seems quite ordinary, the fact remains that four men—Kenya’s father Seiichi, grandfather Masae, great-grandfather Yuhachiro, and great-great-grandfather Giemon—all vanished without a trace. To this day, not a single detail is known for certain: why they disappeared, where they died, or what caused their deaths.
Not a single detail has been clarified, making it a mysterious enigma that has persisted for ages.

II

In the spring of the sixth year of Ansei (1859), Ishizaka Giemon, having turned twenty-seven, left home with an air of nonchalance.
The will only stated that he would go to the Tōko School in Mito.
Two or three years prior, he had taken a wife named Tami from a wealthy farming family in Miyagō Village across the Tone River, and since the birth of their first son Yuhachiro last autumn, not even half a year had passed.

The household members were shocked by this near-unauthorized departure.
However, given that this was an era when fervor for Sonnō Jōi (Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians) ran high among young men, they concluded from Giemon’s usual conduct that his stated journey to Mito was likely not a deception.
They immediately dispatched someone to Mito to investigate Giemon's whereabouts, but could not ascertain any trace of him.
After that, they frequently dispatched people to Mito, but with Suifu (as Mito was then called) in turmoil around the Tōko School, there remained no means whatsoever to trace the whereabouts of a single young man.

The Ishizaka family subsequently abandoned the search for Giemon.
About twenty years later, the young Yuhachiro turned twenty-one.
That autumn, having obtained his mother's permission, he visited Shima Onsen at the Echigo-Kozuke provincial border for leisure, stayed at Tamura Shimosaburo's inn for about ten days, and returned to his family home in Numagami.
By that time, it had already become Meiji 12 or 13.
Yuhachiro had always been a cheerful man who enjoyed exploring historic sites, shrines, and temples as hobbies, and who took pleasure in reading—but upon returning from his trip to Shima Onsen, he suddenly became melancholy in disposition.
The plump, brown skin that had been so youthfully robust gradually grew gaunt, his face turning ashen.
Seeing her only child’s body waste away, the mother grieved day and night and questioned him about the cause, but Yuhachiro remained silent.
Even unkempt stubble had begun to grow beneath his nose and along his jaw.
He had always taken care to keep himself neat—had he forgotten even that inclination?

Just like that, a year or two passed.
The mother, thinking that bringing in a bride might restore her son's mood to its childhood brightness, broached the subject of marriage.
However, Yuhachiro neither opposed nor agreed to this.
He simply remained silent, no matter what his mother said, only nodding in response.

In late spring of Meiji 13 (1880), they welcomed a bride named Fuyu from Hattōjima in Musashi Province downstream along the Tone River.
Yuhachiro was twenty-three; Fuyu was a lovely bride of twenty-one.

In the early summer of the following year, an adorable plump baby boy was born; thus it could not be said that the couple's relationship was particularly strained. Tami, the mother, was delighted upon seeing her first grandchild. With the family now having grown to four members, they even hosted a lively feast inviting the neighbors. In contrast, Yuhachiro's personality seemed to grow even darker after the child was born.

That autumn, around the time when the day came that Yuhachiro had departed for Shima Onsen two or three years prior, he vanished without a trace one evening at lamplighting time. He left not a single word for mother or wife. There was no will either.

Ever since returning from Shima Onsen, Yuhachiro would always go out to the riverbank of the Tone River at the delta’s edge when autumn came, gaze north toward the pass between Mount Haruna and Mount Onoko, shield his eyes from the first snow crowning the distant Mikuni Mountain Range that stretched along the Echigo-Kozuke border, and mutter something under his breath—a figure several villagers had witnessed and come to recognize.

Both Tami and Fuyu were stunned, but there remained not a single clue to Yuhachiro’s whereabouts.

III

The Ishizaka family members had to live in their large estate with only three people once again.
It was the winter when their grandson Masae came of age at eighteen.
It was Meiji 31 (1898).

One day, a letter addressed *To the bereaved family of Ishizaka Giemon* was delivered to the Ishizaka household.
The sender was listed as a certain young man from Asō Town, Kashima District, Ibaraki Prefecture.
A few days ago, while I was strolling among the withered reeds of Lake Kasumigaura, I discovered a small stone monument four or five steps away from a path.
The front bore the inscription "Grave of Mito rōnin Ishizaka Giemon," while the back stated that Giemon—born in Bunsei 12 [1829] in Numagami, Shibane Village, Sawa District, Kōzuke Province—was killed in action at Tamatsukurimachi in Bunkyū 3 [1863], his corpse transported here and interred.
That was all that was written.
The monument was covered in moss-ridden earth, its top soiled with bird droppings, presenting a forlorn appearance with no one to mourn—but it was a most peculiar epistle that mused how if this letter were to reach the bereaved family’s hands, perhaps they might offer incense from afar.

The fact that there had been a man called Giemon who was Masae’s grandfather was known to all—not only at the village office, but not a single elderly villager was unaware of it. Therefore, this letter was delivered to Masae without the slightest hesitation.

Grandmother Tami read the letter, and her vision swam. Tami had turned sixty-five. Immediately, the three family members consulted together, assigned a middle-aged male relative from afar as Masae’s escort, and hurried him to Asō in Hitachi Province. The two visited the letter’s sender to express their deep gratitude and, guided by him, paid their respects at the grave of Grandfather Giemon. The grave lay among the withered reeds by the lakeside, entwined with distant Bakumatsu-era dreams. They requested a monk from a nearby temple and had sutras chanted. The incense smoke drifted low over the winter lake’s surface.

Masae inquired here and there with the town elders of Asō about what manner of death his grandfather Giemon had met, but there was no one who knew anything of it.
Merely with that alone, Masae returned to the Numagami house.

In Meiji 35 (1902), when Masae was twenty-two years old, he welcomed a seventeen-year-old bride called Miyo from Suekaze Village upstream along the Tone River.
The joy of welcoming a bride for her grandson proved fleeting, and Tami passed away at sixty-nine years of age.
The family once again became three—the mother, her son, and his wife—but in Meiji 37 (1904), the year the Russo-Japanese War began, the bride gave birth to a boy.
They named him Seiichi.
In the midsummer of Meiji 38, the year after Seiichi turned two, Masae also suddenly vanished.
What a fate that had enthralled the Ishizaka family.

When Seiichi was twenty-three years old in Taishō 15 (1926), he welcomed his bride Kimi from Ōhata in Kodama District, Bushū Province.
Fuyu, Yuhachiro's wife who had come as a bride from Miyagō Village across the Tone River, had ended her life in Taishō 13 (1924), two years before her grandson Seiichi’s marriage.

When the bride Kimi gave birth to a boy in Showa 3 (1928), Miyo—who had come to Masae’s household as a seventeen-year-old bride—became a grandmother for the first time at forty-four.
When the bride gave birth to a child, Miyo foresaw that the fateful day passed down through their household would soon arrive, and she never neglected to watch her son Seiichi’s every move.
She prayed not only to the village guardian deity but also to Zenko-ji Temple in Shinshu and Mount Koya in Kii Province for her family’s safety and prosperity.
When the grandson they had named Kenya turned two that spring, she prepared her own traveling provisions, journeyed from Zenko-ji Temple to Eihei-ji Temple in Echizen, paid homage to Kyoto’s gods and buddhas, proceeded from Mount Koya to Ise Grand Shrine, prayed at Narita’s Fudo-sama, and finally returned to the Numagami house.

But it was all in vain.

When autumn came around the same time Grandfather Yuhachiro had run away from home, he too vanished from before the nagayamon gate as if being erased.
Grandmother Miyo grieved as if mad, crying out “Seiichi! Seiichi!” every day, but it was all in vain.

The fact that every single bride invariably gave birth to a boy—and that when the child turned two years old, the family head always ran away from home and vanished without trace—had become a mystery throughout the surrounding villages.
This was because—or so the villagers believed—the Ishizaka family only produced beautiful boys who were then abducted by the snow woman called Old Woman Myotaro dwelling on Mount Yahiko in Echigo Province.

IV

It was the snowmelt season of Showa 21 (1946)—in other words, around the departing spring of this very year.
Kenya, along with several youths from the village, intended to travel from Kusatsu Onsen over Shibu Pass to Kumano Yu in Shinshu.
Kenya was nineteen years old.

Having departed Kusatsu Onsen and traveled one and a half *ri*, snowdrops were blooming near Kōsō Onsen—visible ahead with the pure white form of Shirakane Volcano towering in the distance.
Though it was called snowmelt season, the ascent from Kōsō Onsen still lay deep under snow, just as one might expect.
Moreover, the slope gradually took on a scented gradient.
By the time they reached the summit of Shibu Pass—a six-thousand-*shaku*-high elevation marking the border between Kōzuke and Shinshu—Kenya, not usually a strong walker, had fallen behind his friends by over ten *chō*.
He was walking alone, trudging through the snow.

Then, from behind,

“Kenya, Kenya.”

Then came a voice calling out.
In this snowbound mountain pass, there should be no one who knew my name.
It felt strange.
He wondered if it might be an auditory illusion but turned to look behind him anyway.
There walked an old man across the snow, his hair and beard pure white.
He wore a bear-fur jinbei over monpe work trousers and snow boots.
When he drew near,

“You must be Kenya. Then you’d be my great-grandson.”

Though white-haired, the old man’s face held a rosy youthfulness, his voice unexpectedly vibrant.
Even confronted so abruptly, Kenya couldn’t comprehend what this meant.
He could only stand dumbfounded.

“You don’t realize? No, I suppose not.”

The old man muttered to himself.
At that moment, a distant memory of a story heard from the grandmother resurfaced in Kenya’s chest.

“Then, are you not Grandfather Yuhachiro?”

Kenya stared fixedly at the old man’s face.

“That’s right. Have you understood?”

The old man smiled gently, his face breaking into a grin.

“You’re still in good health?”

“I’m in fine health—hale and hearty.”
“When you return to Numagami, give my regards to everyone.”

“But Grandfather—you’re already over ninety years old!”
“Why would you live deep in these mountains? Come home with me.”
“Everyone at Numagami house is waiting for you.”

“That shan’t be done.”

“Why won’t you tell me the reason, Grandfather? Please explain it to me.”

“You likely wouldn’t understand even if I told you—since leaving the Numagami house, I’ve lived as husband to the aged mountain guardian spirit in a cave on Mount Yokote that towers over the border between Shinshu and Kōzuke provinces.”
“For hundreds, even thousands of years hence, I shall remain here as I am. Should you ever wish to meet me, you may come to this summit of Shibu Pass at any time.”

“You mean the mountain guardian spirit?”
“That shan’t be explained.”

When the old man answered thus, Kenya realized he had fallen far behind his friends.
At the same moment, he glanced back slightly.
Of course, since those with strong legs had gone far ahead beyond Kenya's sight, when he turned back toward where the old man had been standing, not a shadow of anyone remained there.
Only the snowy mountain pass stretched endlessly onward.

The old man's figure had vanished like a phantom wind.

Five

Upon returning to the Numagami house, Kenya immediately recounted how he had encountered his great-grandfather at Shibu Pass's summit as soon as the greetings were concluded.
Grandmother Miyo, upon hearing this story, found a memory that struck a deep chord within her.

That was because she remembered how, when her mother-in-law Fumi had been alive, Fumi would sometimes tell her daughter-in-law that her own husband Yuhachiro had been ensnared by some distant mountain demon.
She remembered Fumi having spoken of it.
Grandmother Miyo listened spellbound to her grandson's story.

“Grandmother, what is the mountain guardian spirit?”

Thus Kenya asked his grandmother.
Grandmother Miyo knew about the mountain guardian spirit legend.

“What they call the mountain guardian spirit—that’s a great serpent,” she said.
“When a female great serpent lives a thousand years, they say it grows four limbs on its torso and becomes a fairy spirit.
“And since this fairy seeks handsome men to drink their fresh blood—perhaps your great-grandfather was bewitched alive by that mountain guardian, don’t you think?”

Having explained this, she had also reached her own conclusion.
However, Miyo’s conjecture had been correct.

In autumn between the eleventh and twelfth years of Meiji (1878–1879), when Yuhachiro ventured to Shima Onsen, he once strolled near Ogura Falls one day.
On that occasion, Yuhachiro encountered a young beauty along a mountain path near the waterfall; through a chance exchange of words, they ultimately pledged their futures together.

It was for this reason Yuhachiro became fated to consecrate his young life to the mountain guardian spirit dwelling deep within Mount Yokote—a full ten ri beyond Ogura Falls.

“Kenya, let’s stop this mournful talk now.”
“But you’re no longer a child—you must know the tragic destiny carried by Ishizaka men.”
“That same fate will come for you in time.”

“Grandmother, I understand too.”

Kenya smiled listlessly.

“By the way, Kenya—with a history of gaining one only to lose one, the Ishizaka family will never increase in number for all eternity.”
“So then, when you take a wife this time, couldn’t you bring home three brides all at once?”
“And couldn’t you have them bear three children all at once? Ha ha ha.”

Grandmother masked the sad talk with laughter.
Kimi, her mother, who was beside them, blinked her eyes upon hearing this.

“Grandmother, I don’t like the idea of taking three wives all at once.”

Kenya laughed with a face that said this was utterly absurd.

A draft that had sneaked in from somewhere licked at the embers of the hearth fire surrounded by the three family members and slipped away.

Six

When traveling to the hot spring villages of the Okutone region, after departing Ueno Station and passing through Takasaki, Shin-Maebashi, and Shibukawa Station, crossing the Sagiishi Iron Bridge over the Ōtone River, then leaving Numata Station—just before reaching Kōkan Station where Takahashi Oden’s birthplace stands—if you looked west from the train window, you would see a large gorge stream merging with the Tone River on the riverbed a few hundred meters downstream from Tsukiyono Bridge.
This was the Akaya River Valley.

The Akaya River flowed at a modest elevation of approximately 6,500 shaku yet remained notorious for claiming climbers' lives—a voluminous torrent originating from a deep gorge wedged between Mount Tanigawa on the Joetsu border and Mount Mantarō to its west. Through terrifyingly high cliff bases it threaded its way across terrain untouched by human footprints.
On the southern slopes of Mount Tanigawa and Mount Mantarō lay snow that never vanished across all seasons.
Because snowmelt water soaked decayed leaves and saturated ancient mosses while trickling into streams from spring through autumn，the Akaya River’s waters stayed cold enough to slice through flesh at any time.

As it flowed swiftly through the clefts of steep rocky ridges and reached the lower reaches of Sasayu Onsen five *ri* downstream, a mountain stream from a western gorge converged with it.
This is called the Nishikawa River.

In the valley one *ri* below Mikuni Pass—which connects Kōzuke and Echigo—lies Shima Onsen, and the Nishikawa River has its source deep within this hot spring area.
The Akaya River, after merging with the Nishikawa stream, further increased its water volume and rushed five *ri* southwest toward the main stream of the Tone River.

Along this course lay many deep pools, but about ten *chō* downstream from its confluence with the Nishikawa River—where the water’s force over millions, tens of millions of years had carved through the southern foothills like a trough—the rocky gorge gave way to a large, deep pool slightly upstream.
A bluish-green hue, as though indigo had been dissolved, suffused the pool; gentle whirlpools coiled in the shadows of rocks; ivory-colored foam floated and drifted; and where the water shifted toward the pool’s tail, it lay stagnant—thick and unmoving, like peering into the still surface of a jar.

When one stood at the water’s edge, this pool evoked a sense of desolation of its own accord.
The people of this region called this Aimata Deep Pool.

In this pool, from time immemorial, there had dwelled a terrifyingly large char. It was the master of Aimata Deep Pool. According to research by Kishinami Hyakusōi—an old man acclaimed as Japan’s foremost painter of fish illustrations—the char’s countenance comes in two types: male and female. The master of Aimata Deep Pool belonged to the female variety.

The char, ravenous and unrestrained in its movements, possessed sharp teeth within deeply cleft jaws, round large eyes, and fearsome facial features. However, compared to the male-type char, the female-type was distinguished by a touch of gentleness in its visage. Particularly, its back scales gleamed blue-silver while its belly shone white-silver; along both flanks from shoulders to tail base, lapis lazuli spots glinted vermilion as though inlaid—among multitudes of fish species, the char presented a rare spectacle of elegance. It is said that villagers occasionally glimpsed the grand form of this beautiful char swimming through the pool’s middle layers during late autumn’s crystalline midday hours.

Seven

It was told among the people of this region that the char spirit of Aimata Deep Pool revealed its beautiful form nightly in the baths of Shima Onsen.

Why—when there were hot springs like Sasayu along the Akaya River's main stream and Furukawa Onsen further upstream—did one forgo seeking nearby baths and instead travel all the way through Sarugakyō, Fujiro, Aise, and Nagai to soak in Shima Onsen's tubs?
That lay beyond human understanding.

When questioned about this matter, Okamura Kōsaku, the elderly proprietor of Shima Onsen, had laughed heartily without giving a clear answer. Yet he did reply that three or four years prior, on a late spring midnight, a figure resembling it had fleetingly appeared near the bath's hot water inlet—a phantom that had crossed his vision.
Judging by his words, there seemed indeed to be some truth to the tales passed down in this region.

Now, there was someone who had actually seen this beautiful char spirit in the baths of Shima Onsen quite recently.
That person was Ishizaka Kenya.

Kenya had traveled to Shima Onsen at the end of May last year, when the mountains had just welcomed early spring.
At Mikuni Kaidō’s entrance near the Tone River’s Tsukiyono Bridge, the season had already shifted from young leaves to fresh greenery, a blue breeze shaking the heavy treetops along the flowing banks—yet the mountains and valleys surrounding Shima Onsen, eight *ri* west of Kōkan Station, remained cloaked in mixed forests where silver-gray soft buds had only just begun to pierce their sheaths.

The season when tree branches bud was the most pleasant of the entire year.
Kenya gazed northward through the window of the moving bus.
Within his field of vision, Mount Tanigawa loomed tall and near, its mountain ridges glittering with streaks of white residual snow resembling an old man’s eyebrows.

After arriving at the inn, nothing happened for two or three days.
By the way, one night Kenya read a magazine until late.
When he looked at the clock, it was nearly 2 a.m.
Thinking to bathe before bed, he took his towel and went to the bathhouse.

Kenya’s room was on the second floor of the newly built large annex—descending the stairs and turning left down a corridor that became a bridge over the Nishikawa stream, then turning left again where the bridge ended, at which point on the left side of where the dark corridor terminated lay the bathhouse.

In the bathhouse, the dim light of a small kerosene lamp faintly illuminated the surface of the bath.
Power lines still had not reached Shima Onsen.
In every room and the bathhouse, they used kerosene lamps.

When peering into the bathhouse through the lattice of the sliding door, there was someone soaking alone in one corner of the wide bath on the far side.
Wondering who could be here at this late hour, Kenya strained his eyes.
Due to the wavering steam, he couldn’t see clearly, but it appeared to be a woman.
Kenya hesitated slightly.
However, having another guest didn’t mean he could avoid entering the bath.
He threw his clothes onto the shelf in the changing room beyond the opened sliding door and quietly stepped into the bath.

Sure enough, it was a woman.
Kenya had intended to lower himself quietly into the bathwater, but the water made a sound.
But the woman showed no particular sign of surprise, remaining steadily facing away from Kenya as she stayed immersed in a corner of the bath.
Therefore, Kenya found himself looking at the woman’s back.
Judging from the figure seen from behind, he thought it certain she was a young woman.

The rectangular bath at Shima Onsen was extraordinarily large.
From one corner to the other, it must have measured at least four and a half *ken*.
Through steam drifting across the bath surface while gazing at the hazy figure of the woman from behind, Kenya quietly stretched his legs into the hot water.

After a while, the woman emerged from the bath, stepped up to the washing area, and revealed her entire body.
When Kenya saw that figure from behind—as if all the blood in his body rushed to his head in an instant—a piercing chill ran through him.
Plump flesh: a smooth white nape, both arms, and skin covering the curve from shoulders to back.

But from the waist down was a massive piscine form.
The neatly arranged silver scales were clearly visible.
Kenya jolted and momentarily closed his eyes, then looked again with greater intensity.
But compared to when he had first seen it, there was no change whatsoever.
The woman wrung out the towel and, after finishing wiping her face and body wet from the bath, turned around and sent an amiable gaze toward Kenya.
A faintly rosy face, clear eyes, a straight nose centered in her smile, long black hair.
She was a young beauty just coming into bloom.
She had probably not yet passed twenty years of age.

As if enchanted, Kenya gazed in a dreamlike trance at the beautiful woman's face. Simultaneously, her body floated upward of its own volition and vanished through the bathhouse window as though being swallowed by the outer darkness.

From the window's darkness came only the ceaseless murmur of Nishikawa Valley's rapids.

For a while, Kenya remained solemnly still; then, regaining his senses and seized by the fear of being grabbed from behind, he dashed back to his room still clutching his yukata.

VIII

The next morning, Kenya hurriedly departed from Shima Onsen.
With school finished and having no further obligations, he had planned to stay at a leisurely pace; yet he could not bring himself to remain there any longer.

He began hurrying along the three-ri mountain path that followed Nishikawa Valley toward Sarugakyō’s bus terminal. After descending several dozen chō from the inn, he came upon a path along a precipitous cliff where the mountain stream of Nishikawa had carved itself even deeper into the valley floor, cascading down as a waterfall. There, where the path bent sharply to the right along a towering cliff face, it became impossible to see anyone approaching from ahead. Kenya was about to turn left around the corner of that cliff when he abruptly encountered the figure of a person who had rounded the bend from ahead.

“Ah!!”

Kenya shuddered as if cold water had been poured down his back.
The mermaid-like beauty he had seen in the bathhouse at midnight was walking gracefully toward him just a few steps ahead.

But this morning, she was not in her half-human, half-fish form.
She wore a lined kimono of splendid yet dignified hues and leather sandals on her feet.

The beautiful woman and Kenya's gazes met.
Yet she wore no smile like the one from last night upon her cheeks.
The path measured roughly two and a half ken across; the woman walked demurely along the cliffside edge as they passed.
When she withdrew her gaze from Kenya's, she promptly lowered her eyes and continued onward.
Kenya had never before laid eyes on a woman of such beauty.

He ran.
He ran headlong.
Was it fear? Awe? Had his very soul fled? Struck by this indescribable turmoil, Kenya ran the three-ri downhill path to Sarugakyō’s bus terminal in a daze.
When he finally reached the bus terminal, he could no longer support himself and inadvertently staggered to collapse into the grass by the roadside.

That evening, upon returning to the Numagami house, Kenya told his grandmother and mother about the bewitching woman he had seen at Shima Onsen.
Upon hearing this, Grandmother and Mother merely uttered a single word,

“I see.”

That was all they said, but a dark expression swept across the faces of both.

The rural village of Numagami clustered upon the delta where the Tone and Karasu Rivers converged.
Kenya’s house extended eastward to the dry riverbed of the Tone River, while to the south, the Karasu River flowed from west to east, offering a distant, bright view.
Nishikawa Valley plunged into the Akatani River, the Akatani converged with the Ōtone, and the Tone River flowed onward thirty ri downstream to wash against the shore near Kenya’s house.

After that, summer passed uneventfully, and autumn came.
It was twilight on a late October day with a refreshing breeze, shortly after the sun had sunk behind distant Mount Arafune on the western border of Shinshū.
Perhaps because the autumn air was clear, even as the sun set and dusk crept from the shadows of trees and houses, the faces of passersby remained distinctly visible.
Kenya grew tired of reading, stood in the garden, and gazed vacantly beyond the gate.

However, the figure of a young woman walking along the road outside the gate from east to west appeared before Kenya’s eyes like a single film frame flashing across the silver screen.
The profile of that beautiful woman—one he remembered.

That’s right—the woman from Shima Onsen—

Kenya’s body trembled faintly.
Yet his legs were already carrying him toward the gate’s exterior.
He stood beneath the gate’s eaves trying to glimpse her retreating form, but the twilight road lay empty.

After that incident, Kenya saw that beautiful profile pass outside the gate four or five times within evening scenes.
Yet never once did she turn to face the gate’s interior.
Always in profile, she would glide past the gateway.

Since November began, when evening fell, he stopped lingering in both the garden and beneath the gate’s eaves.
A premonition of the uncanny began to hang thickly over Kenya.
However, regarding this uncanny occurrence, he kept his mouth firmly shut and did not utter a single word about it to either grandmother or mother.

IX

A night where stars shone keenly in the clear sky, and the winter wind sent fallen leaves fluttering down onto the water’s surface.
At Aimata Deep Pool along the Akatani River, hundred-foot cliffs soared up like folding screens on both banks—a place pervaded by aqueous gloom even at midday. Then, from the cleft where cliff faced cliff, the gibbous moon cast its cold light onto boulders at the water’s edge.

Bathed in moonlight, what was projected onto the boulder was a colossal ape.
Mantarō Ape had come to visit the ailing char spirit at Aimata Deep Pool.

Along the Echigo-Kuni border traversed east to west by the Mikuni Mountain Range—from whose eastern end extended Mantarō Mountain, Tanigawa-dake, Mogura-dake, Asahi-dake, Usagi-dake, Ushi-ga-dake, Hakkai-san, Naka-no-dake, Komagatake, and Ginzan-daira toward Minami-Aizu—the mountainous region of Echigo Province’s Minami-Uonuma lay sprawled across Oku-Jōshū’s hinterlands, where troops of wild monkeys had dwelled since ancient times.
Now, the ruler of these massive simian troops was an age-old ape dwelling on a high cliff facing Echigo—behind Mantarō Mountain, which lies immediately west of Tanigawa-dake.
In other words, the deep mountainous region spanning Jōshū and Echigo was this giant ape’s territory.
Although hunters from Jōetsu and those who came to work from Dewa occasionally caught sight of this old ape on distant high banks, the hunters collectively called this simian Mantarō Ape.
And as if by prior agreement, they had refrained from pointing their gun barrels at this ape.

The fur from Mantarō Ape's occiput down his nape and back glistened golden-brown. For some time now, he had been peering into the pool's surface—where the shadow of the crescent moon floated—with his large, round eyes. After a short while, a hue resembling a black cloud stirred in the pool's middle layer. Then, just as its shadow disturbed the moonlight reflected on the water's surface, a woman's figure appeared dimly above the water. The Char Spirit.

When he observed the woman approaching the water's edge across its surface, a gauntness that hadn't shown even a trace in early summer now marked her cheeks and shoulders. Perhaps because of this gauntness, the Aimata Char Spirit's form appeared all the more eerily beautiful.

Seeing this figure, the old ape smiled.

"How fares thee these days?"

From atop the boulder, he inquired of the Char Spirit at the water’s edge.

“Yes, I am grateful.”

Green-black hair swayed gently in the small waves at the water’s edge.

“There’s no need to rush, ahahaha.”

The old ape laughed loudly.

“But...”

The Char Spirit struck a shy pose.

“Even if you fret, ’tis no use unless the season comes round—you know that full well, aye?”

“Well, that may be so, but—”

“He’s a man who can’t go anywhere else—you know he’ll surely end up in your embrace, don’t you?”

The old ape was looking down at the Char Spirit from atop the boulder with a compassionate expression.
The Char Spirit raised her clear eyes on her gaunt face and looked up at the old ape.

“The Ishizaka family has followed this ancestral law for generations: until a son takes a bride and that bride bears one child, spirits like us cannot abduct that son—no matter how we wield our supernatural arts.”
“In other words, even if we were to attempt to alter the destiny held by the Ishizaka family, ’tis impossible.”
“Well, you should calm yourself and wait for the season to arrive.”
“I don’t believe that season will be long in coming.”

“But please try to understand this maiden’s heart.”

“A maiden’s heart, ahahaha—now then, you must know Kenya-kun’s great-grandfather has been dwelling in a rocky cavern in Mount Yokote’s valley west of Shibu Pass alongside the Mountain Guardian Spirit for nearly a century now. I grew concerned about your distress, so two or three days ago I went to Mount Yokote and consulted with your great-grandfather. ‘I want to bring Kenya to Aimata Deep Pool as soon as possible to put the Char Spirit’s mind at ease,’ I said—but was flatly dismissed with a single word.”

“That is most kind—I offer my deepest gratitude.”

“Your gratitude honors me—but should anyone abduct Kenya before he takes a wife and fathers a child, the Ishizaka family’s lineage would end there.”
“If some fool were to rashly lure him out through such recklessness—that Aimata char wretch would be crushed with a single twist.”
“At that time, thou wouldst share the guilt and face consequences—so declared Great-Grandfather in his stern rebuke.”
“Yet once conditions ripen—this being the fate woven through Ishizaka blood—whether thou wouldst boil Kenya or roast him matters not—”

“I see. Then there is nothing else to do but quietly wait for the season to arrive.”

“Exactly so. There, you would do well to suppress your burning passion for a time and instead consider how to heal your afflictions.”

“I will calm my heart.”

“That is how it must be.”
“And you must keep yourself healthy to welcome your lover.”

“Oh ho”

The moon gradually wheeled westward through the sky, disappearing behind the shadow of a high cliff on the opposite shore.
The pool’s surface and riverbed, now bereft of moonlight, were abruptly sucked into the depths of dark shadows.
The colossal ape’s form and the fish spirit’s shadow were both erased into the depths of the abyssal darkness.

X

When New Year came, auspicious marriage proposals were brought to the Ishizaka family from all around.
Though none in the surrounding villages remained ignorant of the supernatural phenomena that had haunted the Ishizaka lineage for generations, curiously enough, through the ages they had never wanted for marriage proposals.
The Ishizaka family stood as one of the region's foremost landowning households, living in prosperity, and their castle-like mansion no doubt contributed to the esteem they commanded in society.
Such was their fortune that through successive generations, grandmothers and mothers could make such lavish selections of brides for their sons from among the many proposals.

Kenya’s marriage proposals were no exception.
The one now being singled out by Kenya’s grandmother and mother was a beautiful young lady from Bushū—another wealthy landowning family—across the great Tone River.
The matchmaker, attempting to finalize the auspicious match, repeatedly took the ferry boat to visit the Ishizaka family.

When would Kenya meet his fate of dwelling eternally in the abyss alongside the Char Spirit?

(February 1st of Shōwa 22)