Akiko put her bags down on the road and shook her aching arms, wishing, for the fifth time, that she had called for a taxi. Again, she considered doing it now, but she didn’t know how to give directions to where she was, and anyway, she was very close to the shrine now.

Why did I think trying to carry all my worldly possessions from the storage room to the shrine was a good idea? She knew the answer, of course; a taxi cost money, which she didn’t really have, while carrying them only took time and energy. And she had thought she had plenty of both of those. Groaning, she settled the rucksacks, back and front, once more, and gathered up the other bags, grabbing the handles of the cases. Feeling like a pack animal, she started off again.

At least the weather was good. The rain had stopped soon after the sun came out, but some clouds remained, keeping the temperature pleasant. The streets were still damp, but they were drying out quickly, although the river had been high again when Akiko passed it. She wondered whether she should be thanking Tamao for giving her good weather to move in, and, with a shock, realised that that was a serious question.

After two more pauses for breath, she finally reached the bottom of the shrine steps. They looked twice as steep and three times as high as she remembered, and she carefully unloaded all the luggage, piling it at the bottom.

I am not trying to get everything up the steps at once, she told herself.

In the end, she did five trips, heaping everything just outside the torii so that she didn’t have to go through and bow so many times. On the last journey, Shiraishi appeared, having apparently heard her.

“Do you want any help?” Breathing hard, Akiko put the last bag down on the pile, and stood there for a moment, trying to catch her breath.

“Yes… thank you. Help… would be… very good.” A bit earlier would have been better, she thought, but she knew she couldn’t say it, not to someone who was offering her free accommodation. Shiraishi picked up a couple of bags, taking them to the house, and Akiko followed. They stacked everything in the entrance to start with, then Shiraishi stepped out of her sandals and up into the house.

“Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”

She led the way down the hall, and slid a door open, indicating that Akiko should go in.

The far wall of the room was large windows, overlooking the pond in the garden, with the shrine wood as a backdrop. There was a large alcove, with shelves, and the door panels were painted with scenes of mountains, dragons, and waterfalls. Akiko had no idea what to say.

“This was the main guest room. It seems a real shame for it not to get any use, so…” Shiraishi sounded almost apologetic. Akiko was still trying to get over the sheer size of it; her whole flat would have fitted inside. “There are futons in the cupboard, but I’ve put a couple out on the veranda to air.” Akiko could see them, and she slipped out of her slippers to walk into the room. The sun sparkled off the surface of the water, and the iwakura came into view beyond the other wing of the shrine house.

She still had no idea what to say.

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At first, Akiko did not know what had woken her. The house was quiet, isolated from the noise of the city by the shrine grounds, the room illuminated by a gentle light from outside. She sat up in bed, straightening the yukata that Shiraishi had lent her, and looked around the room, glancing out of the window.

In the heart of the iwakura, she could see a red light, pulsing to some inner rhythm, casting changing shadows across the precincts towards her windows. She pushed the futon off her legs, and walked over to the windows. They slid open easily, and the night air was surprisingly warm around her as she walked out onto the veranda. She walked along it a short distance, until the shrine building came into view as well. A warm, golden light, much steadier than the red glow among the stones, spilled out of the front.

Curious, Akiko stepped off the veranda, into the sandals left there for when people wanted to go into the garden, and made her way carefully over the stone bridge crossing the pond. A stone basin of water stood at the gate out of the garden, and Akiko quickly rinsed her hands and mouth, pulling the yukata more closely around her as the chill of the water made the air feel cooler.

As she stepped out of the garden the red light among the stones started to fade, but the light from inside the shrine remained strong, and the faint rustling of bells teased at her awareness. She walked across the grass to the foot of the steps into the shrine, and looked up.

The doors were wide open, and the interior was brightly lit, the light spilling over the balcony, casting hazy shadows of the railings on the ground around her, dark bars on green grass. Akiko, on impulse, stepped out of the sandals as she began to climb the steps, almost holding her breath in anticipation.

Standing on the balcony, Akiko felt that there was something strange about the shrine, but for a long moment she couldn’t put her finger on it. The stools were lined up as normal, and a single square tatami mat sat on the raised platform, directly in front of the doors to the inner shrine. She stepped into the building, and was climbing the steps to the dais before it struck her.

The lights were all out, but the room was filled with brilliant illumination.

Her breath now coming quickly, Akiko walked to the tatami mat and knelt on it, facing the doors. As she settled herself, the doors swung outwards, opening apparently by themselves.

Tamao filled the doorway, his golden eyes fixed on her as lightning played around his lips, refracted into dazzling colours from the red, green, and purple jewels of his skin.

Akiko bowed her face to the floor, twice, then, sitting straight, clapped her hands together twice in front of her chest, before bowing her face to the floor once more.

As she raised her face she saw the doors closing, and the light within the shrine began to fade. Hurriedly, she got to her feet, turning at the door to the shrine to bow once more before leaving. The precincts were rather darker now, but there was still enough light for her to find her way back to the garden, and back to her room. She carefully, trying not to make any noise, closed the window behind her, before lying back down on the futon and soon falling asleep.

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Akiko woke to light flooding in through the windows. She was very relaxed, and for a few minutes she just lay still, enjoying the feeling.

Then she remembered seeing Tamao in the night, and sat up. Had it really happened? She went to the windows, and opened them, stepping out onto the veranda. There were sandals waiting where she remembered, and a stone bridge over the pond. The stone water basin was still there at the garden exit, but when she walked round to the shrine, the outer doors were closed and, as she discovered when she climbed the steps, locked.

She stood on the veranda, wondering, until she was distracted by someone coming into the shrine through the torii. She looked round quickly, and then relaxed when she saw that it was Mr Takenaka. He had noticed her as well, so she came down from the shrine and walked over to greet him.

“Good morning.” He bowed slightly in reply.

“You’re here very early, Ms Tanahata.”

“Oh.” Akiko felt herself blushing slightly. “Yes. I’ve just moved in here. For a while.”

“Ah. Patched up your problems with our priest, then?” He was smiling slightly as he said it, in a way that seemed significant, but Akiko couldn’t work out why, so she just nodded.

“That’s good.” The smile vanished, replaced by a worried frown. “Is she up?”

“I don’t know.” Mr Takenaka looked a little surprised, but then just walked over to the house and pressed the doorbell. Shiraishi appeared moments later.

“Oh, Mr Takenaka, good morni…” He cut her off before she could finish.

“I have a business appointment, and I need a prayer before I go. I know it’s early, but I’d be very grateful.”

“Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll go and get changed.” She looked around, and then picked up some keys and held them out to Akiko. “Could you open the shrine, Ms Tanahata?” Mr Takenaka looked between them quizzically as she said that, and Akiko could have sworn that Shiraishi blushed, but the priest hurried into the house before she could be sure.

Mr Takenaka was now paying no attention to her, and had started pacing back and forth in front of the shrine house, so Akiko went to unlock the main building.

She slid the heavy wood-and-glass doors aside, and looked within. The stools were lined up much as she remembered them, and there was a small tatami mat in the centre of the dais. She couldn’t see any signs that she had been there in the night, but then she didn’t remember leaving any, either. Frowning to herself, still unsure, she quickly paid her respects and then came back to the house. Mr Takenaka was still pacing, muttering to himself and fidgeting with his pockets, so she didn’t disturb him. Putting the key back where it had been, she was about to go into the house when she remembered that she had taken the sandals from the garden.

As she turned to pick them up to take back, her gaze passed over Mr Takenaka, who seemed to have something like a cloud of dark, greasy smoke hovering over his shoulders, stretching black wings out to shelter him. Sucking in her breath, she looked back, but there was nothing to see now but a businessman, pacing in the morning sunlight.

03: Takenaka, Episode 15 | 3 Comments »

After a quick shower, Akiko sorted out some more of her clothes, deciding what to wear. She hung her work uniform up, her heart sinking as she realised that she was going to have to return it at some point, but chose jeans and a sweat shirt, because she planned to spend the day collecting as much litter as she could from the woodland. The kami certainly didn’t seem to mind her doing that, and she wanted to take advantage of the good weather.

She passed Shiraishi in the entrance hall, and the priest mentioned breakfast, but Akiko wasn’t hungry. She just wanted to get outside and into the woods.

Once in the shadow of the trees, she started sobbing, and at first she could not understand why. Although her tears blurred her vision, she kept going deeper into the woods, trying to get far enough from the shrine buildings that no-one would notice. The sobs got stronger as she walked, until finally she could go no further, and sat down, leaning against a tree, and let herself cry, crying for everything that she had had, been, and hoped.

At length, her tears stopped, and she wiped her eyes, looking up at the leaves of the tree waving gently in the breeze as shards of sunlight scattered across them. Something white fluttered above her and, twisting round, she realised that there was a rope with white papers on it tied around the tree. She got to her feet, and slowly walked around it.

The twisted trunk had its own beauty, and as she touched the bark she felt shivers run down her back. She was sure, then; she had seen this tree before, when cleaning the shrine in the rain. It smelled of sap and life, and its solidity, stretching up into the sky, was somehow reassuring. Your problems are smaller than you think, it seemed to be saying to her. Every ending is also a beginning.

She smiled to herself, a little wryly. Very down-to-earth wisdom, she thought. But still, not without elements of truth. She walked round the tree once more, tracing a line around the trunk with her fingertips, and found herself wanting to embrace it. She looked around, feeling slightly foolish. Why did she want to hug a tree? She did, though, and there didn’t seem to be anyone to notice. Biting her lip, she stepped back a bit, considering the best way to do it, then stretched out her arms and pressed herself against the bark.

All of her tension and worry disappeared, as if washed out of her. She pressed her cheek against the bark, rubbing against the wood, breathing the the smell of the tree in deeply, feeling every lump and whorl of the wood against her skin. For long moments there was nothing but the tree, but then she became acutely conscious of the fabric between her and it, cutting her off, isolating her.

She stepped back, and looked at the tree again. She was still calm, and it was with a slight smile that she said,

“No way am I going to get naked to hug you.”

Then she realised that she was talking to a tree, and looked round to make sure no-one was there. She relaxed again on finding that she was alone, and, remembering her original intention, started looking for litter.

03: Takenaka, Episode 15 | 2 Comments »

The light filled the room, dazzling Akiko as the thunder’s crash seemed to shake her to the bone. She turned to look out of the window without thinking, and found the view almost entirely obscured by the falling rain, its roar quiet only compared to the thunder that had heralded it. She stood, leaving her book on the table, and went over to look out properly.

Thunder crashed again before she could reach the windows, rattling them, while the lightning scattered off the raindrops in a wall of light that left her blinded for a moment, blinking to get her vision back. The rain was churning the surface of the pond into froth, spray bouncing off the veranda in a cloud to be lost in the raindrops. The drumming on the roof sounded like a cry of rage to Akiko, and she stood still by the glass, staring out in fascination.

Lightning and thunder again, and she flinched back from the window.

“Quite a storm, isn’t it?” Akiko turned to face the priest.

“It certainly is. I don’t remember anything like this in the weather forecast.” Shiraishi shook her head in response.

“Clouds, at worst, I think. There seems to have been a lot more rain than expected the last couple of weeks.” Akiko nodded, glancing back at the rain, which showed no sign of weakening, let alone stopping. “Anyway, I was just checking that all the windows were closed properly.”

“Oh, yes, good idea. I’ll help.”

“Thank you.” The priest seemed genuinely pleased, but Akiko quickly noticed a problem.

“Er, I don’t really know my way around…”

“Oh, true. We can go round together, then. It’ll still be quicker in each room. Come on.”

Checking the windows and doors did not take much time or effort, although the house was larger than Akiko had thought. They did find one that wasn’t closed properly, and, after closing it, fetched cloths to clean up the water that had got in. The thunder and lightning did not let up, and continued to come at the same time.

At yet another flash and bang, Akiko looked up from wiping.

“This storm seems to be parked over the shrine,” she commented. Shiraishi wrung her cloth out into the bucket, and nodded.

“Maybe we’ve been cursed by the kami,” she suggested, with a smile. That didn’t seem such an amusing possibility to Akiko, and her reaction must have showed, because the priest hurried on. “That was a joke, you know.”

“Mm, but what if? It could be a curse, you know.” Akiko started to get really worried, and she glanced nervously out of the window.

“Why would Tamao curse his own shrine?”

“Why would he curse me?”

“Well… ah.” The priest fell silent, and when Akiko glanced back she was looking at the floor, not making any move to clean up. Akiko looked back out of the window, but she could see very little in the darkness. Lightning flashed again, turning the whole scene white and brilliant as the window rattled at the thunder’s roar.

Kami’s curse? Akiko didn’t want to think so.

She and the priest both jumped when the doorbell rang.

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Akira Takenaka was waiting under the porch, wearing a raincoat but soaked to the skin anyway. He barely seemed to register Akiko’s presence, speaking to Shiraishi as soon as the door opened.

“Have you seen my father today?” Shiraishi was as surprised by the question as Akiko, and didn’t answer immediately. “Please, it’s important.”

“Yes. Come in out of the rain, Akira, and tell us what’s going on.” Shiraishi sounded a bit worried, and Akiko withdrew a little as Akira came inside, dripping on the floor in the entryway.

“When did you see him?”

“This morning. He came early, to have a ceremony done. Why?”

“He’s missing.”

“Missing?” Shiraishi’s tone was quizzical. “What do you mean?”

“We haven’t heard from him today.” Shiraishi glanced at her watch.

“It’s only half nine. Maybe he’ll be back later. He does have his favourite bar, after all.”

“He’s not there. Did he say anything this morning?”

“Anything?” Akiko could tell that Akira was really worried, more so than seemed reasonable. You got worried when a child was late home, not when it was your father.

“You know what I mean.” Akira sounded almost angry, but Shiraishi shook her head.

“No, Akira, I don’t. Of course he spoke to me, and he didn’t say anything that sounded particularly strange.”

“But what did he say?” Akiko remembered how tense Mr Takenaka had appeared, and found herself starting to get worried. Maybe there was a good reason for Akira’s nerves.

“He wanted a ceremony to ask for success in a business negotiation. We didn’t have a very long conversation.”

“A negotiation today?” The question seemed very important, judging from the urgent tone in which Akira asked it.

“Yes, I think so. Yes, I’m sure it was.”

Akira’s face fell, and for a moment he looked wildly round the entrance hall, as if expecting to find his father hidden there.

“Akira, what is it?” Akiko realised that Shiraishi was talking to Akira almost as if he were a child. He stopped searching with his eyes, and took a deep breath.

“I’m worried. My father has been under a lot of stress, and he had a meeting today. I heard him say something about “last chance” to the foreman when he thought I wasn’t listening. No-one, not us, not his employees, have heard anything from him since he left this morning.”

“What about the company he had a meeting with?” Shiraishi now sounded concerned as well.

“I called them. The meeting happened, but they weren’t able to give him any contracts. They were a bit surprised to hear from me, I think. They said he had left their offices around two.”

“And you say he isn’t at the bar?”

“No. I wondered whether he might be here.”

“Here?”

“He used to come sometimes, in the night, to think.”

“Really?”

“He did; I met him a couple of times,” Akiko said, and Akira, seeming to notice her for the first time, managed a weak smile.

“So, have you seen him tonight?” Shiraishi shook her head.

“I haven’t, but I haven’t been out since I closed the shrine building at sunset. He could have come after that. Ms Tanahata, have you seen him?” Akiko shook her head, and Akira slumped a little.

“Could I look for him? Make sure he isn’t here?”

“Of course,” the priest replied. “We’ll help.”

03: Takenaka, Episode 15 | 1 Comment »

Akiko and Shiraishi had to get changed before they could go out, and as they headed back into the house, leaving the impatient Akira in the entrance, the priest spoke to Akiko in a low voice.

“We have to calm Akira down; that’s why we’re helping.”

“Do you know where his father is?”

“Pachinko, I guess.”

“Pachinko?”

“Mm. It doesn’t really fit the image, does it? I think that’s why he kept it secret from his son, although his wife knows. He only goes when he’s really stressed, and he always turns his cell phone off. I guess this is the first time Akira’s been involved enough to notice it.”

“So, you don’t think there’s anything to worry about?”

“Not immediately, no.”

“Not immediately?”

“Hideo, er, Mr Takenaka is under a lot of pressure at the moment, just like the shrine. He’s not the kind to worry about nothing, so I’m sure there are real problems.”

“Oh.” They had reached Akiko’s room, and she stepped inside while the priest continued on. Outside, the rain continued to come down in sheets, growling on the roof and veranda, still interrupted by shouts of thunder. She frowned, really wishing she didn’t have to go out in it, but not willing to challenge Shiraishi’s assumption that she obviously would.

Akiko beat Shiraishi back to the entrance, where Akira was pacing, peering out through the door in the direction of the shrine building. Given the weather, that was the obvious place for Mr Takenaka to be, if he was here at all, but Akiko doubted Akira could see anything in the darkness. Akira did glance her way as she put her shoes on, but said nothing, simply turning back to stare outside.

Shiraishi soon joined them, carrying a couple of torches. She ducked into the shrine office, and the external lights came on. They illuminated little more than the rain falling around them, however, and Akiko resigned herself to getting drenched.

“OK, Akira, let’s see if he’s here. Come on, Ms Tanahata.” The priest pushed the main door open, and the spray from the rain immediately struck Akiko in the face, cold, almost hostile. She pulled her coat more tightly around her neck, bringing the hood forward as far as she could, and took the torch that Shiraishi offered. They stepped out into the night.

Shiraishi shone her torch over the shrine building, its veranda empty behind a curtain of rainwater cascading from the roof. Akiko followed suit.

And had to swallow a scream.

While Shiraishi’s torch had revealed nothing, she could see something like a huge, dark lizard, squatting on the roof of the shrine over the steps, its head swinging blindly in the rain. Rain that seemed to be falling straight through it to bounce off the copper beneath.

Where the thing’s feet touched the copper, Akiko could see corrosion spreading, but as it shifted its footing, six limbs, she now saw, the metal seemed almost unharmed.

She swung the torch away and back again. There was nothing there.

The other two were too preoccupied to have noticed her reaction, to her relief, and she hurried to catch up, shining her torch on the shrine again when she did so.

The light fell on the doors, closed as they always were at night, but the small panes of glass looked clouded, as if green and white mould were growing over them. Akiko held the beam in place, pressing her lips tightly together to maintain control of her voice, and watched as the wood of the doors seemed to warp and crack. She swung the light away and back. This time the panes of glass seemed cracked and broken, while the wood was marked with gouges that looked like claw marks, where fungus grew.

Once again she hurried to keep up with the other two, carefully choosing her words.

“Shouldn’t we look inside the shrine?” she asked, as she reached them. Shiraishi turned back to look at her.

“I said, I locked it. He certainly wasn’t there then.”

“Doesn’t he have a key?” Akira asked, and Shiraishi turned to look at him.

“Oh. He does, doesn’t he.” She turned to the shrine, playing her torch over it. As before, everything looked normal in her light, but when she turned it away and Akiko swung her torch’s beam to cover it she saw smoke, and charring, and small flames breaking out in the wood. Her stomach was tying itself in knots; she was sure that this couldn’t be good.

“Well, I suppose we had better look.” The priest led the way to the shrine and up the steps. The wood felt somehow soft under Akiko’s feet, yielding and grasping, as if it were thick mud, and she drew breath in a sharp hiss as she passed through the rain curtain; for a moment, it burned like acid on her skin.

As Shiraishi set a foot on the veranda, lightning flared again, the thunder shaking the shrine. And then again, and again, and again. Shiraishi and Akira stopped still, staring out at the precincts, illuminated in the harsh glare of lightning. Every flash revealed decay and destruction in the shrine building, but every flash showed different decay. Swarming cockroaches, clutching vines, graffiti, fire, flood… Akiko couldn’t look away.

Finally, the lightning stopped, and Shiraishi turned to the door. She put out a hand to push it, and it slid open. The priest stopped, and glanced at Akira. Akiko realised that Shiraishi wasn’t so confident that Mr Takenaka was at Pachinko any more.

“Mr Takenaka?” Her voice wasn’t as loud as it needed to be, and, clearing her throat, she called again. “Mr Takenaka?” Still no response. She pushed the door open further, and Akiko saw hundreds upon thousands of tiny spiders spill out, scuttling round her as they flowed down the steps. She closed her eyes, willing herself to stay still, even though she could feel them running over her feet, but they weren’t staying on her, and now they were gone.

She opened her eyes again, and looked into the shrine building. Shiraishi’s torch revealed the stools, looking the same as ever.

The thunder was loud enough to drown any words, any cry, even any thought, but the lightning was bright enough to show Mr Takenaka’s body hanging from the ceiling. Bright enough for that, and long enough to etch the image on Akiko’s memory.

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.”

Shiraishi had seen him as well.

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