Shigeko had come up to the entrance of the footpath and now stooped forwards, curving her back as she sniffed at the air as though to detect some trace or impression of the missing people. It was clear even to Hashiba that there were no discernible marks in the undergrowth, no broken branches, to suggest anyone had been forced down the narrow mountain path. The bamboo leaves stood straight, and the ground was soft with decaying leaves — if people had come through here he was sure they would have left obvious footprints. Had the search parties started out from somewhere else?
The shrine was remote and quiet as though nothing had happened.
A hollow, wooden clanking sound broke through the silence. It was coming from a set of wooden wish boards, the shrine’s ema, strung up on both sides on makeshift sets of wooden torii gates, two on either side. A few dozen ema hung from wooden bars along each of the structures behind a bench and a wooden box for donations to the shrine. Next to that lay a basket of blank ema, yet to have wishes written on. People would throw three hundred yen into the donations box, inscribe their wishes or words of gratitude onto one of the wooden planks with a marker pen, and then tie it to the bars along the torii with red string.
As though pushed from behind, some of the boards rippled, making the dry clanking sound. Each time they moved, a couple of them twisted around and reversed. Among mundane prayers for the safety of families and hopes to pass exams, one written with a thick red marker bore only the character for happiness. The character was bold and the ink had fanned out around it, bleeding into the wood. As was the custom, the name and address of the person that had bought the ema was inscribed on the back — Yoko Niimura from Gamagori in Aichi Prefecture. The same marker had been used for the name and address, but the touch was softer, the text neater. The ema suddenly jerked to the side, revealing a white, soft-looking thing wriggling behind it. The ema were clanking around despite the lack of wind because something was caressing them from behind.
Just as Hosokawa brought the camera into focus over Shigeko’s head, the six of them saw that the white thing could actually be a wing. Suddenly, the shape emerged through the sides of the boards and landed on the uppermost bar. The cameraman jumped backwards startled, and Shigeko actually pitched forward towards the boards, thrusting her hand forward to support herself and knocking a few off.
Perched on the beam, a seagull stared out inquisitively at them. Atami was close to the sea, and one could often see gulls circling the boats that ferried people out to Hatsushima Island. But they were hardly seen inland, and they weren’t even near the coastline here. The shrine was way up on a hillside over a hundred meters above sea level.
The gull pulled in its wingspan and fixed a careful gaze on Hashiba, Saeko, and Shigeko in turn. It seemed to be paying no attention to the camera or the sound equipment.
“Where have you come from now?” Shigeko asked.
The gull rapped its beak against the wooden beam at its feet a couple of times as though in answer to Shigeko’s question. Maybe it was just pecking randomly. It stood completely still apart from its head, which ducked left and right with its gaze. It looked strangely composed, like it was waiting for a signal.
How could a single stray water bird cause so much tension? Its dark eyes glared at the group of humans, as if commanding them not to move.
“What do you think? Do you feel anything different from when we visited the Fujimura house at Takato?” Hashiba broke the silence, whispering to Shigeko. It was a run-of-the-mill question, but he felt that he needed to diffuse the tension somehow.
“It’s too much for me,” Shigeko wailed, sounding defeated. She crumpled downwards, crouching on the ground. The gull cocked its head again, impassively observing Shigeko for a moment. Then it hopped upwards, spread its wings, and took off into the sky. At the same time the area around the shrine exploded in noise. What looked like hundreds or thousands of gulls pitched up from the grasses around them, casting upwards towards the sky in a flurry of beating wings. Had they all been there, hidden in the undergrowth all this time?
The birds continued to soar upwards in a deafening tumult of beating wings and birdcalls. The huge flock flew higher and higher, twisting upwards, cyclone-like. Saeko covered her ears and let out a piercing scream as the silence was violently broken. She wasn’t conscious of it, but her body reacted, subconsciously recalling the fear she had felt during the earthquake at the Takato house; she reeled backwards, wanting to cover her eyes and ears.
Hosokawa, unsure whether he should be trying to film the birds or Shigeko, tried to get Hashiba’s attention, but Hashiba and Kagayama both stood transfixed by the spectacle of the vast spiraling tornado of gulls in the sky; making his decision he pointed the camera upwards. Gradually the flock began to melt away into the distance. A heavy, black cloud obscured the green of the hillside below. All they could see now was a vast number of pinpricks in the sky, graying against the twilight coming from the sea. Eventually, the points were swallowed up in the swell of clouds beyond, vanishing completely.
Hashiba’s neck had become sore from straining upwards for so long; he massaged his shoulders. The ema with the red marker character on it had fallen back into place, but it looked different somehow, strange. Hashiba looked closer, staring now. He realized that the board was upside down. The character for happiness was symmetrical enough to still be readable upside down — in fact it looked almost the same. However, Hashiba couldn’t shake the feeling that the chance turning of the character wasn’t a good omen. Caught in his reverie he jumped when Kagayama put a hand on his shoulder.
“There’s something really strange about this place.”
Hashiba couldn’t help but agree; there was no other way to describe it. The atmosphere was odd somehow, but it was impossible to put your finger on why it felt that way. The sky was already getting dark now; they wouldn’t be able to film anymore in this light. He saw Saeko and Shigeko had managed to stand up.
“You both okay?” he asked, deciding that at this point it was probably best to go back to the hotel and call it a day.
He thought back to the Fujimura house at Takato. Even there he had not sensed an air as clearly odd as this. Any anomaly they had felt there was probably influenced by Shigeko’s reaction. Here, however, everyone could sense the odor of something in the air. Hashiba looked down at the goose bumps bristling on his arms — he couldn’t remember the last time he had them. Even at his childhood friend’s house in Mishima, when he’d bumped into someone that shouldn’t have been there in the outhouse, he hadn’t reacted like this. Hashiba rolled his sleeves up and saw that his hairs were all standing on end.
Hashiba saw Hosokawa approaching, head tilted to one side and left hand raised to it. Extending the hand he said, “Hey, Hashiba, take a look at this …”
The face of the wristwatch had a large dial for the time and a separate digital display in a small rectangular window that could display the atmospheric pressure, temperature, and bearings. It was the directional index that Hosokawa was drawing attention to:
350, 349, 345, 341, 337, 332, 322, 320, 314, 311, 305, 299, 256, 243, 219, 199, 172, 145, 123, 99, 33, 9, 321, 269, 190 …