Chapter 13 : July III

I started having bad dreams again.

Different from the nightmares I was getting before. In these, I wasn't blaming myself for the "disasters" starting and telling myself it was "all my fault"…

Who is "the casualty"…?

Dreams where I was alone in the dark, that question repeating constantly.

Who is "the casualty"…?

In answer to the question, different people's faces appeared, one after another.

Kazami. Teshigawara. Mochizuki. The guys I had kind of hung out with since transferring here.

Maejima from the kendo club. Mizuno/Little Brother. Wakui, who sat at the desk in front of me. Akazawa. Sugiura. Nakao. Ogura…The boys and girls that I wasn't on great terms with, but whose names I could match to a face with confidence.

And then…There was Mei.

And my other classmates from third-year Class 3—there were a lot of them. Which one of them was the "extra person" / "casualty" for this year?

Their faces, bobbing up from the darkness in random order. One by one, the contours of their faces would break apart into goop, then morph into something ghoulish that gave off a rotten stench. Like the standard-issue scary faces done with special effects makeup from every horror movie ever. And then…

The face that always appeared last of all was none other than mine—the face of Koichi Sakakibara.

My own face, seen only in mirrors and photos. Its contours broke apart goopily and I saw a ghoulish face more terrifying than any in this world…

…Me?

Was I…?

Could I be "the casualty" who'd snuck into the class and not even realize it myself? Impossible.

Raking my hands over my caved-in face, giving voice to an unsettling moaning sound…That's where I would wake up. And that happened every single night…

I couldn't actually be "the casualty," could I?

I tried to challenge the possibility with anything I could think of.

"The casualty" doesn't realize that they're "the casualty." He or she exists because of the corruption/modification of memories that tells them "I'm not dead. I'm alive, like I always have been." In which case…

Doesn't that mean it's possible that it's me?

At the beginning of April this year, there were enough desks and chairs in the classroom. Then May started and they were short one set. Because I transferred in partway through.

I was the student who had unexpectedly bumped the class up by one. And if that meant that I was the "extra person" / "casualty" for this year…

Maybe I just wasn't aware of it and had died last year, say, or the year before, and my grandparents and Reiko and my father and everyone else was forgetting that fact, and all the records had been doctored so that the details matched up…

…Hold on a second.

I shook my head firmly, and then pressed my palm against my chest. And so, verifying the steady beat of my heart, I calmed down and thought things over.

The fundamental rules governing the "extra person" / "casualty" that Mr. Chibiki and Mei had talked about.

"The casualty" for each year appeared at random from among the people who had lost their lives in the past to the "phenomenon" that had begun twenty-six years ago in third-year Class 3.

The range for the "disasters" was restricted to members of the class and their blood relatives within two degrees. However, even when a person is within that range, if they're in a location away from Yomiyama, they're not a target.

How did I look, in light of this rule?

In order to lose my life to this phenomenon, I would have to have lived in this town at least once before in my life. And then either I would have to have been in third-year Class 3 at North Yomi myself, or someone within two degrees of me would have had to. But that wasn't the case.

When my mother was in third-year—I know this goes without saying, but—I didn't exist yet. When Reiko was in third-year, I was born in this town in the spring of that year, but the connection between Reiko and me was aunt to nephew, which is three degrees. So that means I was outside the range of the "disasters." Even if it extended to my mom, Ritsuko, it shouldn't have affected me…

In July, fifteen years ago, my mother died; and I, her only child, spent the rest of my life in Tokyo with my father. Without the slightest connection to third-year Class 3 at North Yomi. Then, this April, I'd started my last year of middle school and come to this town for the first time…

…It's impossible.

Vmmmm…A mystifyingly deep, low-frequency sound revved up. What's that? A momentary flash of anxiety went through me, but even that vanished soon enough.

It's impossible, I reassured myself.

It was, indeed, impossible for me to be "the casualty."

I was certain that Kazami and Sakuragi had assured themselves of that in our conversation that day when they'd come to visit me at the hospital.

Yes, their questions that day had been…

Is this your first time living in Yomiyama?

I just thought maybe you'd lived here, even if it was a long time ago.

Did you ever stay for very long?

I had thought the questions were kind of strange, but that was how the two of them had felt out the possibility that I, the new transfer student, might be "the casualty."

And at the end of it all, Kazami had asked to shake my hand.

"That was part of the test, too."

Mei had told me that. That was before summer break had started.

"If you shake hands with 'the casualty' the first time you meet them, their hand is supposed to be incredibly cold. That's what people say. But I heard the story is kind of suspect. Mr. Chibiki says it's just one of the lame embellishments that got tacked on later, and there's not much credibility behind it."

But suppose I actually was "the casualty" for this year and that Kazami and Sakuragi had realized it that day. What had they been planning to do about it?

Mei gave the answer to this question that had gripped me.

"If that had been the case, I think that once you came to school in May, they would have made you the one 'not there' instead of me."

"Me?"

"Yeah. And everyone would ignore the 'extra person' who shouldn't have been there in the first place. There would be a nice symmetry in that. 'Cause that's got to be way more effective than making some random person 'not there' instead."

"And then the 'disasters' wouldn't happen?"

"Probably not."

"So then…" I hit her with a new question that had risen all on its own. "What if we eventually find out who 'the casualty' is? If we started treating them like they're 'not there' right away…"

"I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work."

Mei shot me down blithely.

"The 'disasters' have already started. So no matter how we try to bring things into balance now, it's too late."

2

It was the fourth day of summer break, the night of July 25, when I spoke to my father Yosuke in far-off India for the first time in quite a while.

"Hey, there. You're on summer break now, aren't you? How are you doing?"

The first words out of my father's mouth were as carefree as ever, since he was ignorant of everything going on.

"I'm doing okay, I guess."

And I replied in the same tone I always did. I had the feeling that it wouldn't be right to tell him about what was going on here. There was also the fact that I didn't think it would accomplish anything even if I did tell him.

"Incidentally, Koichi, do you know what the day after tomorrow is?"

When he asked me that, my heart skipped for a second. But I did my best to answer as if it was nothing.

"Wow, so you remembered, huh?" I retorted.

My father's voice got ever so slightly louder. "Of course I did."

The day after tomorrow—July 27—was the anniversary of her death. My mother, Ritsuko, who had died fifteen years ago in this very town.

"You're in Yomiyama right now, aren't you?" my father asked.

"Yeah."

"You're not going to go back to Tokyo?"

"Are you telling me to go visit her grave for you, all by myself?"

"No, I'm not saying you should do anything extravagant. We didn't set anything up ahead of time anyway."

"Yeah. I was wondering what I should do, too…"

My mother's remains weren't in Yomiyama: they were kept in the Sakakibara family grave in Tokyo. Every year, my father and I had gone to visit her grave together. As far back as my memories went, we'd never once missed a year.

"I was thinking about going back home by myself, even if it's just for a couple days…"

I had also tried to think up a way to stay in Tokyo the whole summer break, not "just for a couple days." Because if that got me out of Yomiyama, I wouldn't have to worry about calamities befalling me during that time, at least. And yet—

"I don't think I'm going to, though," I told him. "Mom was born here, after all, and this is where she died. So I figure I don't need to go all the way to Tokyo just to visit her grave."

"That's certainly true," my father backed me up instantly. "Say hi to your grandma and grandpa for me. I'll call them myself soon."

"Okay."

The reason I wasn't going back to Tokyo for summer break. The biggest one was…Maybe it really was because of Mei. I couldn't help feeling some resistance to the idea of leaving her behind in this town while I got myself "out of range."

Another reason was that I kept thinking about the class camping trip in August. Wasn't I obligated to go and be involved in anything that would put a stop to the "disasters"? That feeling was getting stronger, though only half-articulated.

"Hey, Dad?" I'd thought of something, the one issue I wanted to take this chance to ask him about, and I changed my tone slightly. "Can I ask you about Mom?"

"Hm? She was a beauty, your mother was. And she had excellent taste in men."

"That's not what I…"

The last time I'd talked with my father, I had touched on the subject of third-year Class 3 at North Yomi, but it didn't seem to trigger any memories for him. Did that mean that my mother had never talked to him about "the curse of third-year Class 3"? Or maybe that she had told him, but he'd forgotten? There was no way I could know which it was.

"Have you ever seen a picture of Mom from middle school?"

I could almost sense my father cocking his head at my question on the other end of the call. "Weren't you asking about Ritsuko's time in middle school before, too?"

"I'm going to the same school she did, so I guess it just…"

"I'm pretty sure she showed me her graduation yearbook when we were engaged. Her high school one, too, I think. She was a beauty, your mother."

"Are those yearbooks in Tokyo?"

"Yeah. Though they're probably in storage."

"Are there any other photos?"

"Hm?"

"Any other photos of Mom besides her yearbook. Did she leave any photos from when she was in middle school?"

"I don't think I threw any away…But were there any photos of her in middle school besides the yearbook? Hm. She wasn't really the type to treasure photos like that."

"So then—" I had to force the question out. "You never saw that picture? The one showing everyone in her class on the day she graduated from middle school?"

"Well, now…"

There was a silence that lasted several seconds. The signal crackled faintly, kkssh. Finally—"What about it?"—came my father's wary reply.

I stuttered, "Um-m-m…I mean, I heard it was kind of a weird picture. Like, a paranormal photo or something."

"A paranormal photo?" My father's voice sounded ever so slightly annoyed. "I don't know how a rumor like that got started, but really, Koichi. You're taking something like that seriously? I didn't think you would fall for talk about paranormal photos…"

"No, I just…I mean…"

"…Hm?"

And then my father's tone changed.

"Hold on. Wait a second, Koichi. Hm-m-m. Now that you mention it, maybe Ritsuko did tell me something along those lines a long time ago."

"Really?" My grip on the phone tightened. "What did she say?"

"She told me she had a disturbing photograph. Showing a ghost or something like that. And…right—from when she was in middle school…"

"Did you ever see it?"

"No." My father lowered his voice dramatically. "I just tuned it out, mostly. I didn't say I wanted to see it or ask her to show it to me or anything. Besides, she said she hated having it nearby, so she'd left it at her parents' house."

"Here?" I squeaked inadvertently. "You're saying it's in this house?"

"Well, I don't know if it's still there."

"Right…sure."

As I replied, I thought, I have to ask Grandma about this.

Maybe it was in the room my mother had used before she got married, or maybe it had been put away in storage. Somewhere like that. Or maybe her old stuff was still around. And maybe it would have…

"Hey, Koichi, has anything strange happened out there?" my father asked. I guess he must have picked up on my weird behavior.

"Nope, nothing. Everything's fine," I replied instantly. "Just, you know, it's a little boring, I guess. Oh—but I've got a couple friends here, and next month we're going on a class camping trip, so there's that."

"…I see."

My father's tone was unusually reserved.

"Your mother really was a captivating person, you know. My feelings for her haven't changed in the slightest, even now. So, you know, Koichi, you're very…"

"I know, I know."

Unnerved somehow, I cut him off. If he were about to tell me, "I love you, son," I would have to start worrying that the heat in India had started to affect his brain or something.

"I'll talk to you later," I said. And, as my thumb was feeling for the button to end the call on my cell phone, I added lightly, "Thanks, Dad."

3

Teshigawara called to summon me—"We need to talk. Can you come meet me in a few minutes?"—early the next week. On the afternoon of the anniversary of my mother's death, of all things.

I was kind of reluctant to agree right away, which made Teshigawara toss off a flip comment. "What, you got a date with Mei?" What an airhead—or maybe just a flip-flopper…But I guess by now I totally understood his reasons, and I couldn't really work up the energy to gripe about it.

The place he'd told me to meet him was a café near school called "Inoya." It was over in the Tobii area. I don't know why, but he said Mochizuki was with him.

He wanted to talk to me in person about whatever this issue was. If I actually did have a date, I should bring her along, since this was something that concerned everyone in the class…That was as much as he told me, so how could I not go?

I got directions to the place and left the house without any further ado.

Under the blazing sun of true summer, I made my way to Tobii on the bus. Then, dripping in sweat, I followed the directions Teshigawara had given me. It probably took me close to an hour to get there. And then, on the first floor of a building that stood facing a road running alongside the Yomiyama River, looking a little too fashionable for the area, was "Inoya." Apparently the place was a café by day and sold alcohol at night.

Desperate to escape the heat, I rushed inside. As soon as the relief of the moderate air-conditioning hit me—

"'Sup. We've been waiting for you, Sakaki."

Teshigawara lifted a hand and waved me over to the table where the two sat. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with a garish pineapple motif. Let me be clear: it was tacky.

Mochizuki, who was sitting in the seat across from Teshigawara, looked up at me as I walked over, then quickly dropped his eyes again, seemingly embarrassed. He was wearing a white T-shirt. It had a big picture on the front of it, so for a second I thought, A Scream T-shirt? but the picture was of a mustachioed man's face, which I felt like I'd seen somewhere before.

Before I even had time to think, Man, who is that? I made out the letters running diagonally below, brushing the mustachioed man's chin.

Salvador Dalí

Hm-m. He's less obsessive than I thought.

I lowered myself into a chair next to Mochizuki and took a quick look around the room. Contrary to the building's exterior, the decor was plain. I guess kind of a retro feel. The music they had playing was some jazzlike, slow, instrumental song that, as usual, I was utterly unable to place. Yeah—I didn't mind this place at all.

"Welcome to Inoya."

A girl in her mid-twenties came over immediately to take my order. Her bartender's clothes and her long, straight hair seemed to blend seamlessly into the look of the café.

"You're one of Yuya's friends, too, huh?" She gave a smooth bow. "I'm sure you're keeping my little brother out of trouble."

"Huh?!"

"I'm his big sister. Nice to meet you."

"Oh, right. Uh, I'm…"

"Sakakibara, right? Yuya's told me about you. What can I get you?"

"An iced tea, I guess. Made with lemon tea, please."

"Got it. Make yourself at home."

According to the explanation I got later, she and Mochizuki really were siblings, with more than ten years' difference in their ages, but they had different mothers. His sister, named Tomoka, was the daughter of Mochizuki's father's previous wife, who had passed away. A couple years ago, Tomoka had gotten married and changed her name to Inose.

So "Inoya" was the shop run by the man she'd married. Tomoka mainly ran things during the day and Mr. Inose ran things at night, and this broad division was how they were making things work.

"Plus it's close to school and they give Mochizuki's friends special treatment. That's why I come here sometimes. And when I do, there's a pretty good chance I'm gonna see Mochizuki. Isn't that right?"

Mochizuki answered Teshigawara with a quiet "Yeah."

"So, anyway: the reason you're here." Teshigawara straightened his hunched posture. "You tell him, Mochizuki."

"Oh…okay."

Mochizuki wet his lips with his glass of water, then—"Whew…"—let out a long breath. "Me and Tomoka—even though we have different mothers, we're still related by blood…So, you know, there's a chance that she might get pulled into our problems."

"When you say 'our problems,' you mean the 'disasters' this year for third-year Class 3?"

Mochizuki gave a firm nod at my clarification, then continued. "So I…I couldn't keep it a secret from her."

"You told her what's going on?"

"…Yeah."

"All the details, right?"

That was Teshigawara.

"Yeah. Most of them."

"Tomoka was…" Teshigawara shot a sideways look at the counter where she stood. "She came out of North Yomi for middle school, too. She said she wasn't in Class 3, but she still heard some disturbing rumors about it. That's why when Mochizuki told her the situation, she took him seriously right from the start."

"A couple people really did wind up dying, too. She's worried about me and everyone else in class."

As he spoke, Mochizuki's cheeks flushed a faint pink. So that's it, huh, kid? That's where your taste for older women comes from, eh?

"But it's not like this problem is going to go away just because she's worrying. The 'disaster' doesn't stop once it's begun. No matter what we do, it's…"

"So Mochizuki told his sis about our situation and the camping trip next month."

"…Okay."

"It was during that conversation." Teshigawara straightened his posture again. "Some new information has recently come out. Via Tomoka."

4

Katsumi Matsunaga.

That was the person who had brought the "new information."

He'd graduated from Yomiyama North Middle in 1983. Meaning he'd been there at the same time as Reiko. And to top it off, he'd been in the same class as her during their third year: he'd been a part of Class 3.

After graduating from a local high school, he'd gone to college in Tokyo. After his college graduation, he'd worked at some midsized bank, but then gave it up after a couple years. After that, he'd come back to his parents' home in Yomiyama and had stayed to help out with the family business.

This person just happened to be a frequent customer at Inoya.

"He comes a couple times a week. I knew he'd gone to North Yomi, but I only found out he'd been in third-year Class 3 at the start of this month."

At this point, Tomoka told the story to me firsthand, since I'd just gotten there.

"I've heard all sorts of stuff from Yuya, so I decided I would just ask about it myself. I asked Mr. Matsunaga if there was an 'extra person' hiding in his class during his year. He'd had a lot to drink by that point. He acted kind of startled, and then…"

He'd sat at the bar drinking, never answering Tomoka's question either "yes" or "no," until suddenly he cradled his head in his hands. Then at last, in a halting stutter, the story started to pour out of him without any further prompting. It went like this:

"The 'curse' that year…It was because…

"It…wasn't my fault.

"I didn't do anything wrong…

"Because of me, everyone…

"…I saved them. I saved them!

"I wanted to tell someone.

"I felt obligated…

"…I left it there.

"I hid it…

"I hid it, in the classroom…"

His tongue thick in his mouth and his voice a groan…

After that, he got so thoroughly drunk that he fell into a stupor, and he left the shop without another word.

"I don't get it. What does that mean?" I asked, the words coming unbidden.

Tomoka angled her head to one side, looking troubled. "I'm not really sure.

"What I just told you happened one night last week, and Mr. Matsunaga's been back here a couple of times since then. Whenever he comes in, I try to bring it up with him, but he doesn't remember it at all."

"What he said, you mean?"

"Right. No matter how many times I ask, he just gets this blank look on his face and tells me he doesn't know."

We were silent.

"I get the impression that he remembers the fact that 'disasters' brought about by a 'curse' kept happening fifteen years ago in third-year Class 3. But of course the essential questions, like who the 'extra person' was for his year or why the 'disasters' stopped that year, he doesn't remember at all."

"Do you think he might know and he's just hiding it?"

"It doesn't look that way."

Tomoka cocked her head once again.

"He was so drunk that night, maybe he just happened to recall a shadowy memory of something. That's more the feeling that I get."

After a certain point, the victims' memories involving "the casualty" for that year grow faint and disappear. Almost certainly, that's what had happened to this former student, Mr. Matsunaga.

Now, fifteen years after the fact, perhaps a fragment of memory had reawoken at a random moment in his drunken mind. And that? No one could definitively state that it was impossible. That was my opinion.

"There's something about this story, right?" Teshigawara asked, looking into my face.

"It totally gets into your head, right?" he asked, turning next to look at Mochizuki's face.

Mochizuki lowered his eyes and I, biting down on the straw in my glass of iced tea, replied, "Definitely."

That made Teshigawara nod solemnly and say, "I don't mind going on this camping trip and asking the gods for help, but I dunno about just hiding in a corner until then, you know?"

"…Meaning what?"

"Doesn't Tomoka's story kind of give you an idea? What was that guy Matsunaga trying to tell her?"

"So what's your idea?"

"I'm saying, he told her 'I saved them,' right? He said he saved everybody. But in order to pass that information on, he left 'it' behind."

"He hid it in the classroom?"

"Right. He left it behind secretly—meaning no one knows where it is. I have no idea what 'it' is, but you gotta know it's something tied to the 'curse'…It really gets into your head, right?"

"When you put it like that, sure."

"See? See?" Then, his face earnest, Teshigawara said, "We should go look for it."

I let out a loud "We should what?" and looked over to see Mochizuki's reaction. His head was bowed, his body hunched and small. I looked back at Teshigawara and mildly asked, "When you say 'we,' who are you talking about?"

"I mean us," Teshigawara said. His expression suggested the answer was obvious. Though it wasn't entirely clear just how deeply he'd thought out this suggestion. "You, me, and Mochizuki. After all, he got the info out of Tomoka in the first place."

Still curled into a tight ball, Mochizuki gave a grandiose sigh.

"I want to get Kazami in on this, too, but as serious as he looks, it's all an act. He'd be a quivering baby about something like this. Hey, Sakaki, why don't you invite Mei?"

I pursed my lips indignantly and glowered at Teshigawara. "Would you give it a rest already?"

5

That's what I said, but…

Just over an hour later, I found myself at the doll gallery "Blue Eyes Empty to All, in the Twilight of Yomi" in the town of Misaki. I'd called Mei's house after leaving "Inoya" and parting ways with Teshigawara and Mochizuki. I'd gotten into a frame of mind that made it impossible not to.

Kirika was the one who answered. Just like that first time I'd called a month and a half ago, her voice sounded slightly surprised—or uneasy—but when I told her my name, she acknowledged me right away—"Oh, it's you, Sakakibara"—and handed the phone to her daughter.

"I'm out near the school," I told Mei, donning as casual an attitude as I could manage. "Do you mind if I come by your house?"

Without even asking why I wanted to come over, she replied, "Sure. Let's meet in the basement of the gallery again. There probably won't be any customers."

"Sounds good."

The old woman, Amane, waived the entry fee for me, and I headed straight for the display room in the basement. Mei had already come down. She was standing next to the black coffin that sat in the back of the room, lined up next to the doll inside that looked exactly like her.

Her outfit was spartan: skinny jeans and a plain T-shirt. But her shirt was an ashen color, as if it had been coordinated with the dress on the doll inside the coffin…

"Heya," I said with a wave. I walked up to her and asked a question. It had been nagging at me for a long time, but I still hadn't worked out the answer. The words came out inadvertently.

"Hey, about that doll—" I pointed at the doll in the coffin. "It was modeled on you, right? The first time I saw you down here, you told me something…That it was only half of you? But what does that mean?"

"Maybe not even half."

That was Mei's response. Right—she'd said something similar that other time, too.

But she's only half of what I am. Maybe not even that.

"She's—"

Mei's eyes slipped over to the coffin.

"This girl is the child my mother bore thirteen years ago."

"Kirika? So then she's your little sister?"

But didn't Mei say she didn't have any sisters?

"This is the child that woman bore thirteen years ago, who died before she was ever born. Before Kirika even had a name picked out for her."

"Wh—"

Do you…have an older sister, or a younger sister maybe?

But when I'd asked her that before, Mei had shaken her head in silence. Why was that? If I were to ask her that now, I imagined I would get an answer like, Because your question was in the present tense.

"It's true that she used me as a model, but Kirika made the doll with her thoughts on her own child. The child she was unable to bring into the world. That's why I'm only half of it. Maybe even less."

I'm one of her dolls, see.

Which reminded me of the way that Mei had described her relationship with Kirika. It was…

I'm alive, but I'm not the real thing.

Feeling incredibly confused somehow, I couldn't figure out anything to say in response. Moving calmly away from the coffin, Mei asked, "Anyway, what's going on?"

She changed the subject smoothly.

"You called me up out of nowhere. Was there some kind of crisis?"

"Were you surprised?"

"A little."

"Actually, I met up with Teshigawara and Mochizuki a little while ago. They asked me to come out to this café Mochizuki's sister runs."

"Oh, yeah?"

"And then…Well, I thought I should talk to you."

Teshigawara's smarmy grin floated through my mind, seeming to say You're bringing Mei after all, eh? Inwardly, I glowered at him…while I told Mei the "new information" I'd learned at the "Inoya" café.

Once I'd run through it all, there was a brief silence before Mei spoke.

"Where's he going to look for it?"

"The old school building," I answered. "The classroom in Building Zero, the one they used to use for third-year Class 3. You said that's where they get the old desk for the one who's 'not there,' right?"

"Yeah. The rules say you're not allowed to go up to the second floor of that building, you know."

"Well, it's summer break…We said we'd pick a time when there probably wouldn't be anyone around and then try to sneak up there. Though who knows what we'll find—maybe nothing. But we have to try."

"Hm-m-m."

Mei sighed and brushed back a lock of hair.

"You're not going to tell Mr. Chibiki? I bet you he'd help if you did…"

"Yeah, I thought we ought to tell him, too. But Teshigawara…I don't even know. He's in this weird adventure mode now. He was saying we should do this on our own and I don't think anything's going to change his mind."

"Oh" was all the response Mei gave before falling silent. No way she's not interested…I thought, and then asked, "So then, did you want to come?"

"To search the old school building?"

A faint smile came over Mei's lips. "I'll leave the search to you boys. You can't have too many people involved in something like that anyway."

"You're not interested? Don't you wonder what's hidden in that classroom?"

Mei replied, "Yeah, I do," without any posturing. "So if you find something, let me know."

"Well, sure…"

"Anyway, I have to leave for a little while, starting tomorrow."

"Leave?"

"My father's back." Mei's face darkened a shade. "He wants to go to our vacation house with my mother. I'm really not thrilled about it, but this happens every time, so I can't exactly say no."

"You have a vacation house? Where?"

"By the beach. It takes about three hours to get there by car."

"Outside Yomiyama?"

"Well, yeah. There's no beach in Yomiyama, is there?"

"So you're making a break for it?"

At that, Mei shook her head firmly.

"I'm coming back in a week."

"So then…"

"I haven't told anyone in my family about the 'disasters.' And I intend to go on the camping trip after I get back."

"…Oh."

After that, I talked for a time about all the stuff I'd been doing. Mei was basically silent, her right eye occasionally crinkling in a cool smile as she listened to me talk.

"You got that convinced that you might be 'the casualty' all over again?"

That was the first thing Mei asked me after everything I'd said.

"How seriously did you question it?"

"…Pretty seriously. Once you start thinking about it, you just spiral out."

"You work through all your misgivings?"

"Enough, yeah."

Seeing my ambiguous nod, Mei turned languidly around. Then she disappeared beyond the black coffin without another word.

What's she doing? I thought, hurrying after her. Was she going upstairs in the elevator that was back there?

As I started around the coffin, I let out an involuntary cry. "Oh!" I hadn't noticed it this whole time, but something was different from before.

Before, a deep burgundy curtain had hung directly behind the coffin, but now the coffin was placed much farther out. And in the space created between the coffin and the curtain—

A second coffin had been placed.

The same size, the same shape…Only the color wasn't black: this coffin had been painted red. It had been set back-to-back with the black coffin in front of it.

I heard Mei's voice say, "She's working on a new doll up in her workshop. I guess she's planning to put it inside this one." Her voice seemed to have come from "inside this one," as she'd put it.

There was still a little space left between the red coffin and the curtain, rustling in the flow of the air-conditioning. I slowly moved forward. Twisting my upper body to push aside the curtain with my right shoulder, I peeked inside the red coffin.

Mei was inside it.

Mimicking the doll in the black coffin. It was much too small for her, but her knees were bent slightly and her shoulders hunched a little.

"…You're not 'the casualty.'"

Her face was only centimeters from my face as I peered into the coffin. She'd taken the eye patch from her left eye, though I don't know when she'd done it. The "doll's eye" resting in the socket was fixed on me, blue and empty.

"Relax."

Her voice was a whisper, and yet somehow forceful. Seeming somehow unlike her own.

"It's not you, Sakakibara."

"Y-you…uh…"

She was too close. I scrambled backward, off balance, trying to put some distance between us. My back ran up against something hard right away: the steel door of the elevator hidden behind the curtain.

"What about your mom's photo?" Mei asked, still resting inside the coffin. "That group photo from after the graduation? You said it might be at your grandparents' house. So did you find it?"

"No, not yet…"

I'd asked my grandmother and she was in the process of looking for it.

"When you find it, would you let me see it?"

"Sure, no problem."

"In that case—"

Finally Mei came out of the coffin and moved into the center of the room. Yet again, all I could do was chase unsteadily after her.

"Here."

Mei turned around and held something out to me. It was—

"If anything happens, call this number."

It was the size of a business card, with the contact information for the gallery printed on it. The number she referred to was written on the back in pencil.

"This is"—I accepted the card, then looked at the numbers written on the back—"a phone number? For a cell phone?"

"That's right."

"Your cell phone?"

"Yup."

"You have one? I thought you said they're awful machines?"

"They are awful." Mei's right eyebrow bunched in consternation. "It feels gross being connected by radio waves twenty-four hours a day. Really, I wish I didn't have it."

I looked hard at her face.

Mei repeated, "I wish I didn't have it, but…," then continued in a depressed tone. "She makes me use it."

"You mean…Kirika?"

"Apparently she goes crazy worrying sometimes…So she's the only person I ever talk to on it. I've never once used it except with her."

"Huh."

The whole thing felt surreal as I looked down once again at the cell phone number written on the card. Mei put her eye patch back on to hide her "doll's eye," sighing softly.

"If you find out anything with your search or that photo, let me know. Direct, at that number."

6

Before I started elementary school, back when I can only barely remember, I saw a video called Dracula. It was one of the most famous movies by a British company called Hammer Film Productions, filmed way, way before I was even born. It was the first time I remember watching a horror movie. After that, I constantly watched—or, should I say, was forced to watch—videos of the Dracula series my father had collected because he adored it so much.

Despite my age, I had some deep-seated questions back then, when I was little.

Why does the sun set as soon as the main character visits Castle Dracula?

Dracula is a scary monster, but he has so many weaknesses. Chief among them, weakness to the light of the sun. In the middle of the day, he wouldn't be any problem at all. So then if the main character is going to fight Dracula, why does he head out for the castle when he'll only get there right before the sun goes down?

I understand it perfectly now. The answer is "in order to advance the plot," obviously. But still.

It sounds strange, but when Teshigawara, Mochizuki, and I hammered out our plan to sneak up to the second floor of Building Zero, that was the very first thing I thought of.

Purposely waiting until nighttime to go was crazy. We weren't heading out to fight vampires or anything, but even so, we had to avoid the sun going down while we were up there at all costs. I guess it was kind of a personal obsession.

In contrast, Teshigawara wasn't convinced about going in the middle of the day. And sneaking in early in the morning "doesn't sound right, either," he had declared.

It wasn't purely a question of what we liked better, though. We had to choose the right time of day for three third-year boys to be wandering around the school grounds during summer break, or else we'd probably stand out in a bad way. That was a concern, too. And so—

After compromising between all of our different schedules and opinions and whatever else, we decided we would go at three o'clock in the afternoon on July 30. Sunset was going to be before seven o'clock, so it probably wouldn't get dark outside while we were searching the room.

In the end, we never consulted with Mr. Chibiki about our plan. And of course I didn't tell my grandmother or Reiko about it, either. Maybe Teshigawara's influence had gotten me caught up in the idea of "a secret adventure over summer break."

On the day of action, we gathered at the art club room on the western end of the first floor of Building Zero. Mochizuki had opened the room up for us ahead of time, since he was in the club.

We didn't want to stand out, so all three of us wore our uniforms. We had decided that if we happened to run into a teacher who said something to us, we would get out of it by saying the art club was having a meeting.

Then, after three o'clock…

The three of us headed up to the second floor of Building Zero, according to plan.

A rope hung across the entrances to the stairwells on the east and west ends of the building. A piece of cardboard hung from the center of the rope, with three words written starkly across it: "Do Not Enter."

We checked to make sure there was no sign of anyone nearby, and then slipped under the rope one by one. Then we stealthily ascended the normally untraveled stairs.

"Does this old building not have any of the 'Seven Mysteries of North Yomi'?" I asked Teshigawara partway up the stairs, half jokingly. "Like maybe the number of stairs changes sometimes? This place is just screaming for something like that, don't you think?"

"I dunno," Teshigawara answered harshly. "I couldn't really care less about the 'Seven Mysteries.'"

"Well, excuse me! When you and Kazami were giving me the tour of the school, you sure seemed into it."

"That was, I mean…Look, that was because I had no idea how to tell you about the special situation of third-year Class 3. I was trying my best."

"Huh. So then you really don't believe in that stuff?"

"In ghosts or curses, you mean?"

"Right. That stuff."

"To be honest, I don't think that stuff can possibly exist. Except for this one thing with third-year Class 3."

"So what about the predictions of Nostradamus? Didn't you say you thought they were going to come true?"

"How are they gonna do that?"

"Man."

"If I really thought that stuff was going to come true, I wouldn't be getting myself all worked up over this right now."

"Good point."

"The best-known of the 'Seven Mysteries' in Building Zero"—just then, Mochizuki cut in—"has to do with a secret in the secondary library."

"The secondary library? Is something in there?"

"There's a story that says you can sometimes hear a person moaning quietly in there. Did you ever hear it, Sakakibara?"

"Never."

"The rumors say there's a sealed underground room beneath the library. There's supposed to be a bunch of old papers hidden down there with secrets about the school and the town that absolutely cannot go public. And in order to guard the documents, an old librarian was supposedly sealed up inside the room a long time ago…"

"So that guy's still alive underground and people can hear him? Or does the voice belong to the old guy's ghost?" Teshigawara asked, and then snickered. "Not terrible for a ghost story, but…come on. Compared to the 'disasters' that are actually happening to our class? Stories like that just sound cute."

"…That's true."

We stepped out into the hallway on the second floor.

Light from outside shone through the bank of windows on the north side of the hall, making it much brighter than I had expected. But the fact that this place had been off-limits and unused for years and years was obvious from the grime and damage we could see here and there. The dust that had collected on the floor worked with a peculiar stagnant odor to fill the place with an overwhelming feeling of abandonment.

The room that had once been used as the classroom for third-year Class 3…

It was the third room from the western end.

This was information Teshigawara had verified with Kazami. He said Kazami, who was also serving as a tactical officer, had taken on the role of going to the old classroom with Akazawa and some others at the start of May to get the desk and chair for the one who's "not there."

The door to the room wasn't locked and, at last, fearfully, the three of us stepped into the classroom.

Inside the room, it was dimmer than out in the hallway.

A dirty beige curtain pulled across the southern windows was the reason for that. It had been more than ten years since this room had been used. So then why had they left these curtains here, just as they had been for ages? I guess it didn't really matter.

A circuit must have been tripped, because even when we tried flipping the switch, the lights didn't come on. If we opened the curtain, the room would probably get pretty bright, but we were reluctant to do that in case someone saw and took it as inspiration for a new "mystery" to add to the seven.

And so…

Keeping the curtain closed and the room dim, the three of us began our search.

Each of us had brought a small flashlight with us, anticipating a situation like this. I'd brought work gloves, too. We were kicking up horrible amounts of dust, so Mochizuki put a handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

The first thing we did was split up to search the thirty-odd desks and chairs one by one. As I searched, I couldn't stop all kinds of terrible images from running through my mind.

Twenty-six years ago in this classroom, none of the students had acknowledged the death of Misaki Yomiyama, "the one who had died," and over the course of an entire year they had treated him as if he were "one who still lived." And because of that…

This inexplicable "phenomenon" had begun, triggered by their actions. How many people had been dragged to their deaths because of it over the last twenty-five years? Third-year Class 3 had been in this room until fourteen years ago. So how many people had died right here?

There could very well have been people who lost their lives in this room, just like Mr. Kubodera had.

Someone could have fallen out of the windows to their death.

Or someone could have had some kind of attack in the middle of class that killed them.

As these solitary thoughts continued, I was seized by the sensation that, right this second, I too was being lured ever closer to death. Cut it out.

"Cut it out. Just drop it," I whispered aloud to myself, frantic. I paused for a moment and took a deep breath. I breathed in some dust and started coughing, but that actually helped me to shake the thoughts.

What you need to focus on right now is the search…Come on.

On the assumption that a graduate from 1983 named Katsumi Matsunaga had once hidden something away in this room…

So where was it, then?

I searched the desks and chairs thoroughly and then came to the realization, Probably not someplace like this. That would be way too easy to find to say it was "hidden."

So then it had to be somewhere else…

He would have hidden "it" in a place it wouldn't be found so easily, and yet somewhere that a person would eventually discover it.

I was pretty sure it wouldn't be somewhere that a person would never find, no matter how hard they looked. Otherwise it didn't mesh with his desire to "tell someone about it."

So it probably wasn't somewhere we'd have to pry up the floorboards or knock out the walls or ceiling. Which meant…

I took a look around the room. Maybe there? A row of student lockers built into the back of the room struck me immediately.

They were lockers, but not the kind with a door that shuts and locks. They were like wooden shelves, with openings about forty or fifty centimeters square, arranged in a grid.

Abandoning my search of the desks and chairs, I stood in front of the lockers. Teshigawara and Mochizuki soon came to stand beside me, apparently guessing what I was thinking.

"You think it's in here?" Mochizuki asked.

"Dunno," I said, cocking my head to one side. "Let's just go through all of them to be sure. There might be some dead space in the back."

"True. Well…"

But in the end, our labor was in vain. We searched inside every single locker, but we couldn't find a single thing that seemed like what we were looking for.

"Where else could something be hidden?"

I took a look around the dimly lit classroom. And finally I spotted something.

A closet in the corner of the room for the cleaning supplies.

Like the lockers, it was an old wooden fixture about two meters high. What was inside? Maybe somewhere people wouldn't normally look in…

I hurried over to it and pulled open the long, narrow door with the black steel handle. There were a couple of brooms, a dustpan, a bucket, and a mop. Old, utterly unremarkable supplies standing as they had been left long ago.

I felt no hesitation. I pushed the brooms and mop aside and squeezed myself inside the cramped box. Then I shone my flashlight overhead.

As soon as I saw it, the words tumbled out: "…Is that it?"

"What is it, Sakaki? Did you find something?" Teshigawara asked, running over.

"There's—"

I reached my hand out for it, standing on tiptoe.

It was on the top panel of the cleaning supply closet I had squeezed into. Something was taped up there with black packing tape.

"There's something up there. I can't tell what."

Several layers of diligently applied tape held it in place. Holding my flashlight in my mouth, I freed up both of my hands to try and yank whatever it was off the top panel.

Finally—

After a long effort, I pulled it off and went back outside. It hadn't been that much of a physical effort, and yet I was out of breath and my face was slick with sweat.

"What is that?"

"It was taped to the ceiling in there. I don't think anyone would notice this hidden up there unless they got inside like I just did."

"Probably not."

"I wonder what it is."

The thing I'd pulled off the top panel was itself wrapped up in several layers of packing tape. This tape wasn't black, though. It was brown cloth tape.

How big was the thing inside it? It was probably smaller than a paperback, once you got all the tape off.

We moved over to a nearby desk and set the thing down on top of it. The first problem was going to be getting off those layers of tape.

"Hey, hold on a second," Teshigawara said. "There's something written on the tape."

"What?"

Restraining my eagerness, I picked my flashlight back up and shone it on the thing. I had to look really hard, but…There it was.

There were letters written on the surface of the brown tape in red marker. The writing hadn't come off when I'd pulled off the tape holding the thing up in the closet—I guess because that side had been facing the ceiling.

───

To the students who come after us

who may be afflicted

by disasters that defy explanation…

───

That's what we could make out. The penmanship was sloppy, almost a scrawl.

"Bingo." Teshigawara snapped his fingers. "You know that guy Matsunaga wrote this."

We decided to set to work right then and there. Getting the packing tape that was wrapped around the thing off cleanly was a real pain. After several minutes of plain old effort, we finally revealed it for what it was—

An audiocassette tape. A totally nondescript TDK brand sixty-minute tape, at the start of the reel.

7

Taking the cassette tape we'd discovered with us, we fled the restricted entry zone and returned to the art club room. It was after five o'clock in the afternoon when we got there. I was struck by how much time had passed; it was later than I'd thought.

"You guys got a tape player?" Teshigawara asked Mochizuki.

"Not in here, no," Mochizuki replied, which caused Teshigawara to dig his fingers into his dusty brown hair.

"We've got to listen to this thing, at least. But seriously, a cassette tape?"

"They didn't have mini discs fifteen years ago."

"Well, sure, but…Hm-m-m. I don't think I've got anything that can play cassettes at my house."

"I do," Mochizuki said. "What about you, Sakakibara?"

"No idea…"

The only audio device that belonged to me was a portable mini disc player that I'd brought with me from Tokyo, and it only had playback capability. I'd never seen my grandparents listen to music on anything other than the TV. I wouldn't be surprised if Reiko had a cassette player in her office, but…

"Mochizuki's house it is," Teshigawara declared.

"Okay." Mochizuki nodded, then immediately changed the motion. "Wait, no…Look at this."

Gently lifting the tape in both hands, he showed it to us.

"Look there. It's hard to tell, but see? The tape inside is broken."

"Man…"

"You're right."

"It probably got stuck to the packing tape and snapped when we were pulling it off."

"Urgh."

"So now what?"

"It won't play like that."

"Are you serious?"

"Why didn't the guy put it in a case before he hid it? Blows my mind."

Teshigawara's face pulled into a fierce scowl, and he dug his fingers into his hair yet again. The buzzing of cicadas on the trees in the courtyard right outside the window had filled the background this whole time, but it seemed almost menacingly loud now.

"What should we do?"

Teshigawara hurled the question out restlessly, but Mochizuki's reply was distracted.

"I think we can listen to it if we fix the tape."

"Huh? You can do that?"

"It shouldn't be that hard if I try."

"Oh. Great, so the tape is in your hands now, I guess."

"Is that okay with you?" I asked, wanting to give Mochizuki a chance to refuse.

He nodded solemnly. "I'll give it a try anyway. It might take me a little while, though."

And so we left the art club room and the three of us passed through the school gates together.

Evening was approaching quickly and the western sky had begun to take on a crimson hue. It was incredibly vivid and more beautiful than it seemed possible for anything in this world to be. As I looked at it, I grew a little somber and my eyes almost started to tear up. During last year's summer break, I never would have thought that a year later I'd be embroiled in an "adventure" like this.

Then, interrupting my thoughts…

When we reached the bus stop, all of a sudden we heard a shrill, distant sound. The sirens of an ambulance and police cars wailing over one another.

"Must have been an accident."

"…I guess, yeah."

"We'd better be careful, too."

"Definitely."

That was all we said to each other.

8

I learned the news before lunch the next day, on the 31st.

About the death of Atsushi Ogura (age nineteen, unemployed).

They said that after graduating from a local high school, he had forgone regular employment and had instead spent every day locked away in his house. I suppose it wouldn't be wrong to call him a shut-in, one of the young people who'd become controversial of late.

July 30 at 5:26 P.M.

At that moment, a large construction vehicle that had finished up work nearby had lost control and plowed into Atsushi Ogura's house. The building had collapsed, dragging down the room on the second floor where Atsushi had retreated. His room faced the road, so it suffered an almost direct hit from the vehicle. Atsushi had suffered serious wounds over his entire body, worst of all being a fractured skull. Before dawn on the 31st, he drew his last breath at the hospital they'd brought him to.

The problem was his name, "Ogura."

There was a girl by that name in third-year Class 3 at Yomiyama North Middle. In fact, Atsushi Ogura, who had met such an unfortunate death in this accident, was her older brother by blood. The third "death of July," after Mr. Kubodera and his mother.