Shiraishi soon went back inside the house, leaving Akiko standing alone in the precincts. Everything seemed normal, apart from the large audience of crows, but the atmosphere was still oppressive, and a faint, acrid smell of smoke remained on the air. Looking around, Akiko noticed that the path was still rather muddy from the rainstorms, and that the area in front of the shrine needed tidying up. Shaking herself in an attempt to dispel the lethargy, she went to fetch a broom.

The mud was easy to clean up, and for a while Akiko lost herself in the simple, repetitive task of sweeping the path. She knew that she should be thinking about her future, but she just couldn’t concentrate on it. All she could think about was the broom, sweeping back and forth across the stones, scraping the mud off to either side and leaving the dull grey surface of the rocks clean.

An insect scuttled across, but Akiko paid it no mind. Then there was another, and another. They looked like large cockroaches, but they looked soft, rotten. More appeared, running around on the path as if not knowing where they were going, and the smell of rotten flesh reached Akiko’s nose. One ran over her foot, and even through the shoe she could feel its legs touching her, a slimy, repellent chill.

<em>Through the shoe?</em> Akiko looked up, sharply, and then down again. The insects were gone, but there was a dark mist in the air, smelling chemical, taking on the colours of corrosion when she wasn’t looking directly at it. Clutching the broom, she started walking slowly towards the shrine.

The ground shook, enough to rattle the windows of the house and ring the bell at the shrine, and to send the crows skyward from the trees in a cacophony of screeches. Akiko stumbled, but didn’t fall. The bell rope was swinging wildly, and there seemed to be something hanging on to it, although she couldn’t make out the details.

The ground shook again, and for a moment Akiko thought she saw parts of the shrine roof, shaken free, falling like rain onto the veranda. In a moment they were gone, however.

Akiko realised that she hadn’t purified herself. Was that why there was an earthquake? She was almost at the water basin before it struck her that she was taking seriously the idea that an earthquake might be a personal message from the kami.

The water in the basin smelled foul when she got there, a layer of green scum covering the surface, apart from a couple of areas where oil glistened in many colours.

<em>This is not real,</em> Akiko told herself. <em>The water is still flowing through the basin. It can’t be stagnant.</em> She closed her eyes, breathed out, and then opened them again as she breathed in. The water looked clean again, and she quickly rinsed her hands and mouth, before turning back to the shrine.

She could see fungus growing on the walls, forcing the boards apart, pushing through the copper plates on the roof. As she watched, a cloud of spores rose from a cluster of greenish-grey puffballs, and drifted towards the shrine house.

<em>Not real.</em> Akiko thought for a moment, then corrected herself. <em>Not real fungus, anyway.</em> Sure enough, when she looked away and looked back, the shrine was back to normal. Determined to find out what was going on, she steeled herself and started walking up the path.