Continuing from "Mimei Part 3"
After that, the two of us started off at the hot spring inn "Tanaka-ya" and hopped around several other hot springs in the vicinity. All of the inns allowed day-trip bathers. We paid the bathing fees, washed away our sweat, changed into fresh clothes, and then casually buttonholed the inn staff to fish for rumors about "Tokano." At first, the older-looking employees gave evasive, harmless answers, but as we kept persistently talking to them, they seemed to warm up to the idea. Gradually letting their guard down, they began dropping gossip about "Tokano" in lowered voices. It seemed the relations between the rival inns were indeed quite poor. Among the gossip were stories related to the ghost rumors we’d heard about. "It's a cursed place, you know," the proprietress-looking woman at our second stop, "Matsunoki Onsen Inn," whispered to me. Apparently, when the first owner of "Tokano" bought that land, he destroyed a small shrine that had stood there since ancient times. That was said to be the source of the curse. But if so, why a Shinto priest? Wondering about this, I started to ask, "Well, then..." but before finishing the thought, as if she hadn't considered it deeply herself, she wrapped it up on her own with, "Well, it just means 'get out of here,' doesn't it?" It sounded like a tall tale, but I realized we hadn't really checked what was there before the inn was built. Could there be some sort of dark history attached to it? Shisho listened to such stories with an amused look on his face. By the time our bodies were waterlogged from soaking in too many hot springs, after leaving our third inn, Shisho said, "Alright. Let's head back." "Are you sure? It looks like there's one more inn down this way." "I've had enough. If you still want to soak, you can go on ahead." "No, I'll head back too." It was clear that none of the hot spring inns thought well of "Tokano." Even regarding the ghost rumors, you could catch glimpses of them trying to exaggerate the tales. Unfortunately, however, we hadn't obtained any testimonies that cut to the core of the ghost's mystery. Shisho didn't look disappointed at all; with a slightly flushed face, he whistled cheerfully and greeted the overnight guests in a friendly manner. As we went to mount our bicycles parked in front of the inn, a single drop of water hit my cheek. The sky had clouded over at some point. "Looks like it's going to rain. Let's hurry." Shisho looked up at the sky, holding his palm open in front of his chest as if to catch the rain.
After that, the two of us sped back the way we came at full speed, but the raindrops gradually grew larger, and by the time we made it back to "Tokano," it had turned into a steady, chilly drizzle. "Ah, jeez," Shisho muttered, cursing as he returned his bicycle to the parking lot and swept back his wet hair. Just when we had warmed up nicely in the hot springs, we were already getting baptized by a freezing winter rain. Walking side by side with water dripping from our cuffs, it was somehow still fun. "What time is it? Past four? We still have a little time." With that, Shisho headed toward the entrance lobby. "What do you mean by 'time'?" "What do you think? It's *kure-mutsu* (dusk)." Time for our fun little showdown. Shisho smiled slyly as he said this. *Kure-mutsu*? The terrifying events of this morning's *ake-mutsu* (dawn) naturally resurfaced in my mind, making my legs feel weak with dread.
Hiroko-san was standing at the front desk, writing something down in a ledger. "Oh, welcome back. Was it raining?" "As you can see from this state," Shisho laughed, spreading his arms wide to show his wet clothes. "Where's the proprietress?" "Probably over at the large public bath. A plasterer is here working." |"I see. Oh, thanks."| I accepted the towel Hiroko-san handed us. Hiroko-san then exaggeratedly gestured as if to whisper a secret to Shisho. "Hey. Our old man is getting pretty ticked off. I heard you guys went off to soak in other hot springs. He looks like he's about to erupt." "Heard"? There was only one person who could have snitched on us. "Scary. And it was just necessary information-gathering activity," Shisho said. You've got to be kidding me! I shrank back and nervously looked around. Kunsuke-san's shadow was nowhere to be seen. "Oh, right. As for the harvest from that information-gathering, I heard that before this inn was built, there was a small shrine (*hokora*) on this land?" Hiroko-san looked blank for a moment upon hearing this, then nodded as if she had just remembered. "Ah, that little hall? The run-down one. It's behind the parking lot, but I think they moved its location when they built the inn."
If it's the shrine behind the parking lot, I felt like I'd seen it during yesterday's patrol. There should have been a stone enshrined inside. "I'm going to go take another look." Shisho said, and I followed along. Opening a borrowed umbrella, we stepped out of the inn into the lingering drizzle and headed toward the parking lot. In the corner of the grounds, a small, rotting wooden shrine quietly stood. Peering inside, I could see a stone enshrined beyond a lattice door adorned with small *shide* paper streamers. Wondering what he was going to do, Shisho suddenly reached out and pulled the lattice door open toward him. Then he casually reached in and grabbed the stone. The lattice door with its *shide* streamers was clearly a boundary separating the sacred realm from the outside world. Breaking that barrier so nonchalantly, fully knowing what it meant, felt so characteristic of him. I found myself vaguely wondering if there would be any way to stop him if he ever died and turned into an evil spirit that harmed people. "There are letters carved on it." Peering closer, I saw several lines of small characters carved into the surface of the stone. Between the moss and the old script, it was almost unreadable, but I could barely make out the hiragana characters for "Tokano." Nodding to himself, Shisho put the stone back. Had he actually been able to read it? "What did it say?" "That it protects this land in place of the gods. It's not a particularly rare thing for a sacred object." "We're running out of time." Muttering this, Shisho turned back toward the entrance. Then, calling out to Hiroko-san, who was wiping down the front desk area, "Lend me the phone, will you?" And despite having been here for only two days, he walked straight into the office behind the front desk as if it were the home of someone he knew inside out. He pulled a notebook from his breast pocket and dialed while glancing at it. "Ah, Professor? It's me. Did you figure out what I asked for yesterday? Eh?" Perhaps the connection was poor, as Shisho continued while turning up the phone's volume. "Yeah. Yeah. Ah, shrine registry books, large and small shrine surveys, you can forget about those. I figured it out through another channel. So, what about the older ones? Yeah. Yeah. …………There was? Seriously? It was in the *Engishiki*? Eh, local gazetteer? Yeah... Yeah. The eighty-five shrines of the *Engishiki* were only in the Kinai region, right? I see. So it really is a *shikidai-sha*. Still, I'm impressed you managed to dive into such a troublesome place and pull it off."
As his voice grew louder, noticing my gaze as I stood too close, Shisho waved his hand to shoo me away like an annoying bug and turned his back to hide the telephone. Having no choice, I backed away a bit. Shisho dropped his voice to a whisper, making it impossible to catch what he was saying. However, I could easily guess that the "professor" on the other end was Professor Nagano from our university. He was one of the leading authorities in the field, with strong opinions regarding Shinto and shrines. Even though he wasn't Shisho's academic advisor, Shisho regularly maintained a close correspondence with him— to put it nicely, asking for guidance; to put it harshly, using him as a convenience. I didn't know how he had wormed his way in, but he practically spoke to the professor on equal terms. It was enough to make me nervous just listening. Curious about what they were discussing, I strained my ears, and a few disjointed words drifted over: "Proprietress" "Shrine" ... The rest was mostly inaudible.
"Thanks a lot. I'll repay the favor eventually—spiritually speaking." Shisho gave a slight nod and hung up the receiver. Then, saying "Ahhh," he raised both arms and stretched. "Things are going smoothly." Having no idea what was going smoothly, I asked him about the thing that had been bothering me most. "Did something happen with the proprietress?" It had sounded like he was talking about the proprietress endlessly, but I couldn't figure out why. "What do you mean, *did something happen*..." She's the culprit. Whispering this, Shisho clapped his hands as if nothing were amiss and urged me along, saying, "Now then, time to prep, prep." Clueless and wanting to push back, I started to say, "Wait a minute," when the phone we had just hung up began to ring. Without missing a beat, Shisho picked up the receiver. "It's me. Did you forget to say something? ...Oh, oops. I'm so sorry. I dialed the wrong number. That's right, this is the Tokano inn." It seemed to be a call for the inn. Shisho flusteredly tried to cover it up. *"I'm sorry, too. I tried calling the house, but nobody answered. Um, is Kaede-chan there?"*
A young woman's voice leaked from the earpiece. "Ah, Kaede-san, you say? Just a moment, please." As she spoke, Shisho adjusted the phone's volume that she had turned up too high earlier, making the caller's voice inaudible. "Hiroko-san! Kaede-chan hasn't come back yet, right?" She confirmed this loudly toward the front desk before turning back to the receiver. "She went out to play and isn't here right now. I'm terribly sorry. Yeah. Yeah. ...Ah, well, I'll leave a message for her." Shisho scribbled hastily on a desk memo pad. "Eh? Me? I'm the new waitstaff. My name is Yukari. Nice to meet you." She was just making things up as she went. "Ah, could I ask for your name before you hang up?" Shisho said, nodding as her ballpoint pen raced across the paper, when suddenly, the tip of the pen came to a dead stop. "Understood. Then, excuse me." Shisho hung up the phone, greeting the empty air as if nothing had happened, but the moment I saw her face, I felt a shiver run down my spine. With her head bowed, the corners of her mouth turned up in a faint, smug smile, giving me the illusion that the surrounding air was sizzling with a pale blue flame. "Ahhh. It's almost too neat. All the pieces are filled." Down to the very last piece of the puzzle. Muttering this, Shisho slowly raised her head.
Fine, drizzle-like raindrops beat soundlessly against the inn's roof. It was already dark outside. It wasn't even six o'clock in the evening yet, but rain clouds covered the sky, and not a trace of the sunset remained. It grew increasingly bitterly cold after sundown. It was probably the coldest day of the week. Shivering and hugging my arms, I returned from the courtyard inside the building. The inn felt slightly more bone-chilling than yesterday. Since there were no guests, they must have lowered the thermostat on the heating. Though Kunsuke-san probably forced the temperature down thinking, *those guys aren't guests anyway*, even though my shisho and I were right here.
Heading toward the back of the first-floor hallway, everyone had gathered in front of the large banquet hall. Chiyo-ko-san the proprietress, Kunsuke-san the head clerk, and Hiroko-san the waitstaff—the family of three. Kaede, the proprietress's daughter. And Kazuo, the second son of Wakamiya Shrine who had just dropped Kaede off on his motorcycle. These five people, plus me and Shisho, made a total of seven humans currently in this inn. "What's about to start?" Kazuo asked me. His date seemed to have gone reasonably well. He looked in a good mood. As for Kaede, whether she caught onto Kazuo's schemes or not, she seemed to have enjoyed herself well enough. Her expression was soft. "She says she's going to solve a mystery," I replied, staring at the closed *fusuma* sliding doors just like everyone else. Apparently, Shisho was busy doing whatever "preparations" meant on the other side. Since I had helped out only at the very beginning, I roughly knew what the setup looked like on the inside, but I still had no idea what she was actually planning to do. "Will this be alright?" The proprietress wore a perplexed expression and looked restless. Kunsuke-san sat in dead silence, glaring with his arms crossed. Hiroko-san and Kaede huddled together, whispering about something. I checked my watch again. It was almost six. Once *kure-mutsu* passes, the rules of this world that we know so well shift just a little. It lies outside the boundaries of human society, where anything can happen. Especially in this land where the time-telling bell can be heard. I recalled my exchange with Shisho in the office. Shisho had explicitly said the proprietress was the culprit. What did that even mean? The ghost was real. I knew that because I had encountered it. It wasn't some human prank. And yet, was the proprietress the culprit behind these ghost disturbances? No matter how much I thought about it, it made no sense. Or perhaps there was a reason why the ghost started appearing, and the proprietress held the key to it. I stole a glance at the proprietress's profile beside me. She looked a lot like her daughter Kaede. She was a beautiful woman. I heard she had lost her husband, but surely one or two men must have pursued her after she became single. She had turned down those advances, single-handedly managing the inn while raising her children. Just how much resolve must be packed into that seemingly frail body? Resolve... Suddenly, I remembered the mention of calling a plasterer. When Shisho and I returned from our hot spring tour, the proprietress had been meeting with a plasterer near the large bath. She apparently wanted to fix the walls of the bathhouse.
The wall... There was that old story about burying a corpse inside a wall. Unpleasant imaginations bubbled up. I shook my head to regain my composure. Just then, right before our eyes, the closed *fusuma* doors of the grand hall slowly slid open. "Thank you for waiting. Please come in." With a solemn look, Shisho extended her left hand, inviting everyone inside. Once everyone entered the hall, Shisho closed the doors behind them. A murmur rippled through the group. In the center of the tatami-matted grand hall, a sacred *shimenawa* rope had been strung up. A rope enclosing an area of about five square meters was suspended in the air by threads hanging from the ceiling. hanging at about chest height, adorned at even intervals with the *shide* paper folded we had made together earlier. Needless to say, the *shimenawa* served as a barrier. A boundary signifying a sacred space and repelling the intrusion of evil things. What on earth was the meaning of preparing such a thing here and now? Especially going out of their way to borrow it from Wakamiya Shrine. "What are you planning to do?" The proprietress walked up to Shisho. "If this is a Shinto exorcism, previous ones had absolutely no effect whatsoever." "If you just sit back and watch, she's getting too full of herself," Kunsuke-san muttered, his face turning red as he uncrossed his arms. The eruption was finally about to start. Out of deference to the proprietress who had hired them, the temper he had held in check was finally boiling over. I instinctively cringed. "Come on, Dad," Hiroko-san stepped in to block him. The atmosphere was intensely dangerous. "Quiet, please." Ignoring the tension, Shisho bluntly declared this, bowed her head, and stepped across the *shimenawa* rope. "We don't have much time until *kure-mutsu* begins. Everyone, please step inside promptly." She glanced back as she spoke. "Oh well. Let's just do as she says for now." Kaede bowed her head just like Shisho and stepped inside the *shimenawa* enclosure. Following her lead, the others ducked under and entered one after another. Myself included, of course. Left behind at the very end, Kunsuke-san stood planted in his original spot with heavy, flared breathing. "Little brats, what kind of nonsense are you pulling?" Seeing this, Kazuo spoke up with a teasing tone. "Kunsuke-san. If you don't step inside the *shimenawa*, it's going to be dangerous. Probably."
Hiroko-san chimed in, saying the same thing and waving her hand, "Come on, Dad." "Dangerous?" Shisho opened her mouth with a faint smirk. "The dangerous place is right here on the inside." She pointed down at the tatami mats. I felt the air leave everyone's lungs in unison. Needles. Needles were stuck upright into the tatami. And an astronomical number of them at that. So this was how she planned to use the needles the proprietress had provided. I was just as surprised as anyone to find out now. "Please step into the spaces enclosed by these needles. You may straddle them if you need to." Looking closer, the needles were arranged in circles. Each was large enough for a single person to sit inside comfortably. Counting them, there were seven circles in total within the *shimenawa* boundary—just enough for everyone present. "Iguchi-san, you can stay outside if you like. However, no matter what happens from this point on, do not step inside this *shimenawa* boundary." Shisho stepped over the needles and entered one of the circles. Drawn in by her tense tone of voice, everyone else nervously stepped into their own circles of needles embedded in the tatami. Only Kunsuke-san let out a scoffing "Hmph" and looked away stubbornly. Six people inside the *shimenawa*, one outside. The grand hall was filled with an atmosphere of holding one's breath, watching to see what would happen next.
"Well, it's about time." Shisho said, checking her watch. Shortly after, the sound of a bell began to ring from afar. Vibrating through the clear winter air, the time-telling bell echoed from the distant Wakamiya Shrine. Leaving a gap of about ten seconds, the bell continued to chime steadily. The second strike. The third... The first three strikes were preliminary warnings. From the next onwards, it was *kure-mutsu*. The fourth. The fifth. The sixth... Everyone in the room fell silent. They simply held their breath, straining their ears to catch the faint sound of the bell. The seventh. The eighth. The ninth... The final bell stopped ringing, its lingering echo faintly remaining deep within our ears, reverberating like a phantom. "Now then," Shisho spoke. She was in the innermost circle, turned around to face us all alone, standing in a position facing the rest of us.
"The hour of *kure-mutsu* has finished sounding. From here on is a time zone belonging to the spirit world (*kakuriyo*). In that realm, humans are terribly frail beings. Just a single brush from things not of this living world (*utsushiyo*) is enough to blow out the flame of life... Please, be extremely careful. No matter what happens from now on, do not lose your senses and step out of this needle barrier." Understood? Shisho whispered in a quiet voice. Everyone listened in silence, nodding obediently. For some reason, I started shivering too. Making a grand, mysterious spectacle out of things was always Shisho's way.
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