Akiko was entirely on autopilot as she went home, to the point that she had been standing still for over a minute before she realised she had stopped, and long seconds passed before she could work out why she wasn’t walking anymore.

The road ahead of her was completely closed, with workmen all over it testing the drains and digging up sections of the surface. She briefly wondered which politician or bureaucrat had been inconvenienced by the water, before her attention moved on to the question of how she was going to get home.

She knew perfectly well what the best route was: past Tamao Shrine. However, she also knew that she didn’t want to go that way.

<em>It’s just a shrine. I’m just having odd dreams. The weather is even quite good today.</em>

Only the last point carried any conviction; a handful of clouds chased each other across the sky, but the wind wasn’t strong and there was no sign of coming rain. Akiko watched the workmen for a bit longer, and then gathered her courage, breathing deeply to calm herself.

<em>It’s not real. I’m just having strange dreams. Passing the shrine will be perfectly safe. I don’t have to go in. I won’t be attacked. I won’t fall in a flood.</em>

Choosing to believe herself, Akiko turned and made her way up the hill, her pace slowing as she climbed. At the corner where the shrine would come into view she paused, her stomach churning. She realised that she was shaking, but she blamed that on the amount of caffeine she’d drunk during the day.

She darted forward, running round the corner and along the road that followed the edge of the shrine precincts. The green of the trees was particularly vivid after the rain, and the leaves rustled in the breeze, a calming noise like running water.

As she came up to the torii there was a deep noise from within, and her stomach lurched as her heart beat faster. She didn’t stop, keeping running and picking up her pace as the beats of the drum also got faster.

And then she was past the shrine and running down the hill on the other side. Gasping for breath she slowed down, suddenly aware that she might lose her footing and fall. She risked glancing back over her shoulder, but the trees rising into the sky presented no threat. A small flock of birds burst into the sky from them, sweeping through the air over the shrine twice, three times in a rush of wings, and then settling back into the green of the leaves.

Akiko got home without incident, but the first thing she did after taking her shoes off was to look for her map of Kawasaki and check possible routes home from the office, routes that could not take her past the shrine, no matter which roads were blocked. The available options were all longer, of course, but if she stayed on the train for another two stops there was a road that wasn’t too long, with her flat squarely between the station and the shrine.

She put the map out ready to take to work with her the following day.