A Promise to Return, 3/5
A Promise to Return, 3/5
She took a part-time job at a fabric store and finally went out on a few dates with someone who worked in the bakery next door to the store, although by now her high school friends had mostly moved on to new friends at university and didn't waste time trying to perk up her love life.
Ohno-kun was sweet and quiet and didn't mind that Shihori liked lots of time to herself. He picked her up after work from his own job at the bakery, and they had cheap meals together, took long walks. He waited three months to kiss her, behind a shrine in the neighborhood during a warm spring night. He smelled like freshly baked rolls and tasted a bit like one too, but somehow it didn't feel right.
He was short while Aiba-kun had been tall. He was quiet where Aiba had been brash and noisy. He was over 20 and bought them beers one night. They sat down on the riverbank, drinking and kissing, and she found herself telling Ohno-kun about Matsuo Village, about the people there and her experiences, about her Grandpa's warning the night he passed away. About leaving the books and supplies and how they disappeared.
Ohno-kun only nodded, leaning in to kiss her again. "That's a good story," he said, running his thumb along her jaw. "Are you writing a book or something?"
He hadn't been listening at all. Or he thought she'd made it all up. The beer settled in her stomach, her tongue bitter with its taste. She'd opened up to him, and he'd been as skeptical as everyone else. Well, she couldn't blame him. It did sound ridiculous. But the experience, opening her heart only for her truth to be brushed aside, hurt.
She made excuses before finally telling him one evening after a year of seeing each other that maybe they were better as friends. He only nodded his usual quiet nod, wishing her the very best and encouraging her once again that she should write stories. He was even kind enough to wait a full month before asking her co-worker at the fabric store, Satomi, on a date. They were a better match anyhow. Satomi didn't have a village in Iwate depending on her.
She went back into her routine, the hours she spent in Ohno-kun's company now used to improve her sewing. Her feelings for Matsuo Village grew stronger and stronger. As the weeks passed, she looked back fondly on her experiences with Ohno. He'd changed her life in a way that only became apparent once he had moved on - he'd told her to write.
So she did. She had boxes and boxes of letters under her bed, all the letters she and Maki had mailed back and forth over the years before finally turning to email when Maki's school life grew busy. Years of correspondence, years of hopes, dreams, and jokes about Matsuo Village and the people who lived there. She found herself typing them up, elaborating on the ideas. Soon it took on a life of its own. Shihori sat in front of her screen, smiling. Nobody believed her about Matsuo Village anyway. So why not make it into "fiction" for others to read?
She went to message boards, looked into publishing houses. She couldn't live on a part-timer's pay forever, and all her letters with Maki had strengthened her confidence in writing. She'd make Matsuo Village a novel. She'd change the names, create an elaborate story about the cursed town. It was all too easy - she had everything she needed already. If she sold the book, she could use the money she made to keep supporting the village.
It was just before Christmas, just after Shihori's twentieth birthday, that she had a decent draft ready to submit to a list of publishers. But it was just before Christmas, just after Shihori's twentieth birthday, that her Grandma passed away.
--
There wasn't much room in the bedroom for two grown girls, but she and Maki insisted on sharing even though they didn't have to. Grandma had lasted ten full years without stubborn, kind-hearted Grandpa, but they were finally reunited. The ache was different this time. She would miss Grandma terribly, her warmth and friendliness even after losing Grandpa. But she was happy knowing the two of them were together once more.
Maki would graduate high school in the spring and was planning to move to Tokyo for university. Maybe she and Shihori could get an apartment to share? "But what about this house?" Shihori asked her cousin's shape in the dark. "Now that Grandma's gone, my mom and your dad will want to sell it."
Maki was quiet then. They both knew it was true. Having Grandma here had been excuse enough for visits throughout their teen years. How could they help Matsuo Village if they didn't have Grandma's house as a home base? Had it really been eight years since that day? Shihori could still taste the rice and miso Eiko-san had kindly made for them. She could still remember the feeling of the wind in her hair as Aiba-kun pedaled the bike into town.
"Maybe you should take the house, Shii-chan," Maki whispered. "Maybe you should live up here."
To anyone else, Maki's blunt suggestion would have sounded a bit cold, as though it was obvious she had nothing better to do than give up her life in Tokyo to live up here in the north all alone. But Kanjiya Shihori had changed. Even if nobody believed her, even if she'd be an even worse hermit than her parents had always dreaded, she had a duty to Matsuo. So long as there were people to take the things she donated, if there was even one single person she could help, wasn't it worth it? Even if her memories of Aiba-kun had set him on this unreal pedestal, it wasn't the only reason she came north.
She waited until after the funeral to approach her parents, Uncle Taku, and Aunt Marina. They sat around the table in the living room, feet toasty under the kotatsu, while she laid out her plans to move north and live in Grandma's house. She mentioned the novel she was writing, how she'd be able to concentrate better away from Tokyo.
"But what about university?" her father asked, still hoping that she'd give up the part-timer life and go to the same college he'd attended. Her writing was just a hobby like her sewing, surely.
"But what about all your friends?" her Aunt Marina asked, not really knowing that Shihori didn't have many.
"It's too lonely here for a girl alone. And cold," her mother protested, remembering why she'd left Iwate so many years ago and assuming those reasons would be the same for anyone else.
Uncle Taku, though, sipped his tea and was quiet. She'd seen him walking around the house earlier that day, his fingertips drifting along the wooden posts. Then he'd bundled up in his coat, standing outside by the pond and smoking, his eyes drifting along as though he was memorizing every tree, every blade of grass. Maki had hinted that her father would be sad if the house sold to strangers, but he wouldn't admit it. The money to be gained from a sale would help both families. The older the house got, the more upkeep would cost.
The adults said they'd think about it, and Maki dragged Shihori from the house, pulled her to her family's car and insisted they go to town and have fun. It was odd now, seeing Maki take charge after Shihori had been so bossy to her when they were young. Her cousin was a bit taller than her now, slim and pretty. Smart and sensible. Every time Shihori teased her about Nino, about the boy she'd been drawn to so easily that day, Maki just laughed. She didn't do long-distance relationships. That fact, however, didn't stop Shihori from daydreaming about one of her own.
They went for karaoke, mostly letting the music play and the lights drift across their faces. They chatted about Grandma and Grandpa, about the house, about Matsuo Village. She squeezed her cousin's hand and tried not to cry. After all this time, all these years, only Maki could really understand her. Only Maki believed.
"You're twenty now," Maki said. "They can't keep you away. House or no house, if you want to be here, Shii, then be here."
They drove back, and the adults had already gone to bed. Only Uncle Taku was waiting for them in the living room, nursing a beer and offering a gentle smile. Maki made excuses and headed for bed, but Shihori found herself sitting down under the kotatsu. She and her uncle had never been close, but he looked at her with such kindness that she already seemed to know what he was going to say.
"I grew up in this house, and I hated it back then," Uncle Taku murmured, chuckling softly. "We were so far from everything, you know. All my friends lived in town, Papa was always at the mine. I couldn't wait to leave. I took the first job a company offered me, I married Marina, I moved to the other end of the country. Maybe it just comes with getting older. When you're young you want to leave, but when you're older you can't even understand those feelings you once had. You get nostalgic."
She slipped an orange from the bowl on the table, peeling it to let her uncle continue on without feeling the pressure of her full attention.
"With Mama passing, it's like a door has closed. But Shii-chan, it's like you're here with a key. Like you're willing to open it again." He tapped the beer can against the table lightly. "What the hell am I talking about?"
"I don't know," she said, even though she did know. She knew exactly.
"We can make do without the money," he decided firmly. "So many people are quick to look at their accounts before their memories. My parents never wanted that for me. Everybody from my generation ran away from Iwate, but my parents wouldn't leave. Even when they closed the mine, my father wouldn't leave, and he never said why."
Shihori knew why Grandpa hadn't left. She knew it all too well.
"Maybe it skipped a generation in our family," Uncle Taku said. "You and Maki are crazy about this old place, and just because we hated it doesn't make that a universal truth." He looked up at her. "We'll sign it over in your name first thing in the morning. But you have to promise not to complain. Being a homeowner isn't something to undertake lightly. This house is going to be your responsibility, Shii-chan."
She held out a piece of the orange in her palm. "Thank you, Uncle Taku."
He accepted it with a wink. "Take good care of the place."
--
Her mother was upset and had apparently been the lone dissenting voice. She would never understand Shihori's feelings for Iwate, and she never would. They parted with some tension, and her father did most of the coordination for her move. By the end of January, when the house was covered in snow, Shihori had fully moved in. Her father even took some time off work to help install newer faucets and fixtures for her, tinkering around with the bathroom and kitchen to bring it a little more up to date.
When he left, he could only tell her to be happy and to call her mother often.
The winter was hard on her. She'd used her small savings from the fabric store to buy a tiny car that brought her back and forth from town so she could buy things for herself as well as for Matsuo. The car stalled over and over again, leaving her shivering in the cold waiting for the town mechanic to come and help. She got sick countless times after trudging through thigh-deep snow to bring food to the village. She lost weight, sniffling and sneezing as she watched blurry TV Asahi come through on the one good channel.
Having Internet access installed in the old house was nearly impossible, so she worked on her stories and contacted publishers using the ancient computers of the town library. She received rejection after rejection, finally getting a job as a cashier at the town grocery store to keep herself afloat.
The winter was hard and she missed the easy living and convenience of Tokyo. But she'd never been happier, had never felt closer to Matsuo Village. Maki sent her letters, full of her excitement. She'd gotten accepted to the university of her choice in Tokyo. Maki promised to come up to keep her company on breaks, and hopefully in November as well. This would be their first chance in years. Their first chance to see their friends again in nine years.
As the snows melted, life got a little less difficult. She could bike into town again, and she made friends with some of the other women at the grocery store. She never told them about Matsuo, staying content with listening to stories about their boyfriends or their husbands, about babies on the way. Between writing and working and bringing things to the village, the year passed quickly.
She was in a bit of a panic when November finally arrived. Maki was coming north, and together they planned an exciting day for anyone in Matsuo Village who wanted to come. They were going to host a party at the house. Maki was cooking and Shihori was going to serve as hostess. It was going to be a grand reunion. She hand-made invitations, enclosing them in the books she left in the village during October.
But it had been so long. She had ideas of how the Matsuo Village residents had grown and changed. She had images of them that she'd spent years perfecting. Eiko-san was still a lovely woman but now with a streak of gray in her hair. The boys had grown up, and they were tall and muscled and ridiculously handsome. But surely she was wrong on some counts. And what would that be like? If she had expectations for them, maybe they had expectations for her as well.
She stared at herself in the mirror. She'd grown up - still not very tall. Was her hair okay? What about the rest of her? When they'd last seen her, she was twelve. Now she was almost twenty-one, a woman grown. As much a stranger as they'd be to her. She found herself worried about Aiba-kun. She'd spent half her life with this odd crush on him, comparing everyone she met to him. But what if he didn't like her that way? What if he'd just want to be friends? Or nothing at all? What could even happen in the span of a day?
--
Maki arrived full of cheer in November, toting along her own favorite spices to use for the grand meal. Neither of them knew how many people still lived in Matsuo, but Shihori's discount at the grocery store let them stock up to feed at least twenty people.
The university life suited her cousin quite well. She had a boyfriend and had cut her hair short. She hummed in the kitchen the night before their visit to the village, stirring pots and pans full of delicious things that Shihori struggled not to try. They decorated the main room of the house with flowers, scrubbing cobwebs out of corners and between the pair of them they made a glittery mess of a banner that read "Welcome Matsuo Village Friends!" and hung it up.
They knelt in front of the family altar, praying and chatting with Grandma and Grandpa. They apologized to Grandma for all the mess, told Grandpa they wished he could attend.
When morning came, it was chilly and cloudy, but the forest was painted bright red and yellow with fall color. She finally dragged Maki away from the kitchen before noon and they went directly into the forest, racing around like a pair of silly kids. Shihori's stomach was still twisted and knotted with worry, but her cousin's enthusiasm and eagerness helped her along.
When they made it to the edge of the woods, her cousin let out a rare shout, waving her arms. "Hello!" she cried, voice carrying out across the valley.
They were already coming, a small mass of people shapes walking down the road since Shihori had set the invites for lunchtime to give the villagers time to enjoy the rest of the day. They were really coming! They were coming!
The cousins hurried down the hill to meet the group in the valley. As they drew closer, they discovered there were no more than a dozen people, but their faces were smiling and they waved happily. "Kanjiya-san!" they shouted. "Horikita-san!"
Shihori almost felt like crying. They were wearing the clothes she'd given them, they were carrying the books she'd brought. They were shouting her name and Maki's too.
She saw Jun and Mirei at the front. Jun had grown tall and filled out. He'd been rather thin as a fifteen year old but now at twenty-four he was handsome, broad-shouldered, and carried himself proudly. Mirei was pretty and all smiles, racing ahead with her arms out. She got to Maki first, wrapping her up in a strong hug.
Shihori soon found herself the center of attention. There were teenagers who towered over her who had been small children the last time she'd seen them, but they knew her on sight, showing off their clothes, bragging of their full bellies thanks to all the food she brought diligently. Officer Katori was out of uniform, kitted out in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt she'd left behind.
She felt embarrassed, hearing all the thank yous, being embraced by the small group like she was a member of the village herself. Finally there was a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to find someone not much taller than her, but with that mole on his chin in its usual place.
His eyes were tired, his face was pale, and he was as thin as he'd always been but he held out his arms. "Well, if it isn't the infamous Shihori-sama."
"Nino!" She nearly collapsed against him, laughing and crying, feeling the warmth and solidity of him. The last time she'd seen him had been his back as he ran off to watch TV in Hachimantai, but nine years could have been nine seconds.
He rubbed her back, whispering quietly in her ear. "You've been our angel. Our guardian angel. Thank you."
"Come now, we can't all just stand around here when there's a meal waiting," came a voice Shihori knew instantly. Nino let her go, inclining his head and going off to greet her cousin. She turned, astonished by how close to the mark all of her imaginings had been.
Eiko-san was aging gracefully, still possessing the long, thin limbs her son had inherited. Her hair had grayed, and she had a few more wrinkles, but she was still beautiful. She wrapped Shihori up in a tight hug, pressing a kiss to her hair.
"Eiko-san..."
"My sweet girl," she murmured, carding her fingers through Shihori's hair. She felt twelve years old again, waiting for lunch. She felt safe.
"I'm so happy you got my invite."
The older woman laughed. "We wouldn't have missed it for the world. Do you have any idea how long it's been since any of us have had a meal like this?" She leaned back, addressing the others. "Let's all get a move on!" she told the group, and everyone headed for the forest.
Jun and Mirei stood on either side of Maki, linking arms and heading for the trees. The rest of the group followed Officer Katori's lead, marching along after them. It was then that Shihori counted the group. Counted Nino's back as he trailed behind Maki and the others. Counted Officer Katori, a few older residents, the children who were now in their teens.
Somebody was missing.
Eiko-san took her hand and pulled her along, her own eyes brimming with unshed tears. "He's not here. I'm so very sorry, but he's not here."
--
There hadn't been so many people in the house since Grandma had passed away. Shihori busied herself with helping Maki, scooping heaps of food onto the haphazard collection of plates in the kitchen. Eiko-san corraled everyone in the main room, and the teenagers took over Shihori's small stereo, laughing at some of the strange pop music that came crying out of the speakers.
Maki was never more in her element, bustling from pot to pot, making sure everyone got enough to eat. Nino stayed in the kitchen with her, sneaking a taste from every plate with a wicked grin. Jun poured drinks, arranging them on trays. Shihori carried plates into the room. The older residents had gathered around her table while the younger ones were content to sit with their plates on their laps, bobbing their heads to the music and laughing.
Eiko-san knelt before the family altar, her head bowed low. For the very first time, she'd been able to come and pay her respects to Grandpa.
Everyone was so happy that Shihori didn't dare show her disappointment. Eiko-san had explained things on the walk to the house. Aiba-kun was away, had been for two years. It wasn't the first time either. When they'd turned eighteen, he and Nino and Jun had all gone off together to work and explore. Nino had been the first to return a year later, standing right outside Matsuo Village on a cold November night waiting for home to reappear. Jun and Aiba had returned together at age twenty, tall and tan and with dozens of ridiculous stories to tell Nino.
But the wanderlust that hadn't really taken hold of Nino or Jun had truly taken over her son. The three young men had been from one end of Japan to the other, from Hokkaido to Okinawa and back again. They'd seen more of Japan than Shihori ever had. With Matsuo Village off the grid, they had no identification, no real existence. They hitchhiked, they took odd jobs that didn't ask questions. They experienced the world that had been denied to them, freely and without expectations.
Nino had returned because Matsuo was home. Jun had returned, Eiko-san admitted, because Mirei was home for him. Even now the two of them sat close together, Mirei chuckling as Jun wolfed down Maki's food. As for Aiba-kun, his mother explained, he'd always been so devoted to the village but getting out had changed him. He'd asked her permission to leave two years earlier, promising that one day he'd return, that he'd use his time outside to make enough money to support the village.
And she'd let him go, let him leave. Shihori had been petrified for months about the Aiba Masaki she would encounter on this November afternoon. But it had been needless worry entirely. Aiba had gone, and nobody knew when he was coming back.
She picked at her food, getting up to refill plates and glasses. When the meal was over, the older residents spoke to her one by one, shaking her hands, wishing for her happiness and health. She teared up at the sentiments, telling them to leave requests whenever they wished and she'd do her best to see them through. The younger kids were told the same thing, and they peppered her with wishes for portable DVD players and game units until Eiko-san finally scolded them.
Nino, Maki, Jun, and Mirei had made impulsive plans for an evening in town, and they asked Shihori to join them. A double date with herself as wheel number five. She made excuses about cleaning the kitchen, about working on her novel, but they dragged her along anyhow.
The five of them somehow fit into Shihori's tiny car. Shihori sat behind the wheel with Maki at her side. Mirei sat on Jun's lap in the back, and Nino met her eyes in the rearview mirror. He seemed to understand her feelings, nodding his apologies as she drove them to karaoke.
Maki was still underage, but that didn't stop the now worldly Matsumoto Jun and Ninomiya Kazunari from buying rounds of drinks and encouraging her to try them. Shihori passed, reminding them all who had to drive them home. Mirei tugged Shihori to her feet, insisting they duet on a song though Mirei didn't know anything in the catalog and was more content to just bang a tambourine against her hip while Shihori mumbled her way through song after song.
As the drinking went on, Jun and Mirei made excuses to leave. They blushed and looked nervous. Even with the emptiness of Matsuo Village, they probably didn't get much time to themselves. They departed with hugs and thank yous for Shihori, and she hoped they'd be able to get back to the village in time.
The alcohol made her cousin sleepy, and it was 10:00 PM when they left the karaoke place behind. Nino was smaller than most men Shihori had met, but he hoisted her cousin easily and piggy-backed her to the car. They settled Maki in the backseat, giggling a little when she started to snore. Nino joined her up front for the ride back to the house.
It was empty when they returned, and Nino helped again, carrying Maki into the bedroom and tucking her under the covers. Nino followed Shihori back to the living room.
"We see you, okay," Nino admitted, still a little buzzed from his drinks. His voice was a bit slurred but his eyes were serious. "Every single time you've come, we see you. We watched you grow up. We talk to you, but we know you can't hear us. He always talked to you, followed you like a creep. He thought he was really clever with some of the ways he teased you."
Shihori didn't have to ask. She knew Nino was talking about Aiba-kun. They sat down at the table. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear this, now that she knew they'd seen her more than she'd ever seen them. "I wish I could talk to you. All of you." She gestured around. "This is my house now at least. I get to visit whenever I want."
"And it means everything, it really does," he said. "We don't even have words for how thankful we are."
"Well I'm happy to be useful."
"You're more than useful," Nino insisted. "You're necessary. Without you we wouldn't have made it. Masaki knows that."
She looked down, shrugging a bit. "If things truly got tough, surely you'd all leave." Just like him, she almost said, but held her tongue. Aiba leaving Matsuo made sense. Anyone leaving Matsuo made sense.
"He left two years ago," Nino said. "If he knew you lived here now, he'd race back, I just know it."
There was no way to know if he was being truthful. If Nino was just telling her what she wanted to hear. He seemed to sense, though, that she was hurt and that she didn't want to say it aloud. That she wanted to see Aiba, to hear his voice. To see if Aiba at twenty-four was as kind and sweet as Nino at twenty-four, as Jun was. To see if Aiba at twenty-four was compatible with Shihori at twenty-one, Shihori who still remembered the day he'd run into her as though it was yesterday.
He changed the subject, finally taking his own turn to look embarrassed. "Your cousin leaves me letters, you know."
She looked up, shocked. "She what?"
He chuckled a bit, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, the ones with the cute teddy bear on the butt pocket that she'd stitched up more with Mirei-san in mind. He unfolded a piece of paper. "To Ninomiya-san," it read, and Shihori didn't dare read any further.
"She's left a note for me, and just for me, since the first time she visited by herself. With the cookies." Nino stared at the letter. "She told us about you, about her life, about all sorts of odd things. She filled in the blanks since we could only see you and there was no way for you to hear us."
Shihori stared at the piece of paper. "She never told me any of this. She tells me everything and she never told me this." It hurt, knowing there was a whole piece of Maki's life she'd never been party to. She told Maki everything, even her silly, foolish feelings for Aiba-kun.
"I could never write back, of course. We didn't really have pens and paper lying around. And what was I going to say? I'm five years older than her, so for the first several years that was extremely weird. And she always wrote to me like a friend. But, well..."
Realization dawned on Shihori. She saw Nino in a new light. The way he'd been gently watching her cousin all day. "You care about her."
Nino nodded. "I know she has a boyfriend at school. She told me all about him in her last letter." He snorted a bit. "She's really honest, huh?"
Shihori couldn't help laughing too. "The most honest person I know, save for the whole writing you letters for years bit."
"So I don't know, I really don't know," Nino admitted. "But if you leave some stuff to write with, I'll leave them out for her. Maybe you could mail them for me? I know a letter can't compete with a flesh and blood Tokyo boyfriend, but if anything, I'm a patient guy. Comes with where I live, right?"
She easily agreed. Shihori had always been so much better at playing matchmaker than at being the one matched. She dug through her cabinets, finding a bundle of mechanical pencils and sketch pads that had been her Grandpa's. Nino gave her a hug, telling her that everything would be okay. That his friend would come back someday.
She wanted to believe him, standing on the porch and watching Nino hurry off toward the trees, hollering his goodbyes.
Out of habit, she and a slightly hungover Maki wandered down to the village the following morning, finding the usual rot and decay, the lifelessness that made up the Matsuo ruins 364 days a year. But this time, sitting right at the entrance to town, was a very much out of place upside-down box that had once contained a case of freeze-dried noodles.
Maki upended the box to find the very first letter from Nino addressed to "the honorable Horikita-san," and Shihori had never seen her smile so big.
--
The winter was long again, colder, and she spent half of the time sick. A co-worker had a baby, and for the first time in her life Shihori felt a true pang of longing, holding the drooling, squirming little baby bundle in her arms. For a family of her own. To take care of people in person every day of the year instead of pushing a wheelbarrow full of sacks of rice. For a tiny little hand to hold as they walked through the forest.
The constant letters back and forth between Nino and Maki didn't help. She never read them, not once, although sometimes Nino wrote messages on the envelopes for her. "Katori-san is out of razors. If you please..." "Eiko-san won't say, but I think she needs new shoes." "You looked tired when you stopped in the other day. Are you getting enough sleep?"
As spring blossomed, everything seemed to be blossoming around her. Maki's messages from Tokyo contained next to nothing about her supposed boyfriend and much more about Nino instead. The strange adventures he and Aiba and Jun had gotten up to on their "study abroad" excursion as they called it. It seemed that Maki's strong beliefs about long-distance relationships were waning.
Mirei and Jun, Nino wrote to her in April, intended to marry and Shihori took one of the rings out of Grandma's old jewelry box and had it sized in town before sneaking it into one of her food deliveries to the village, care of Matsumoto Jun. She received a lengthy and ridiculously cute letter of appreciation from Jun, saying he was the happiest man on Earth and that he owed Shihori big time for her help.
Co-worker babies thrived, Hachimantai woke up from winter, and even her writing career started to show promise. After so many rejections, Shihori had almost forgotten about the query letter she'd sent along to a small publisher called Kisarazu Press. They didn't have the room for another novel on their schedule this year, but if Shihori trimmed things down, she was welcome to be published in a monthly serial of short stories that Kisarazu distributed in independent bookstores. She'd be one among twenty writers every month, but that suited her just fine.
She emailed back and forth with her newly assigned editor and manager, Sakurai Sho-san, whose enthusiasm for Mako Village (her chosen moniker) nearly matched her own. He was a rather harsh editor, exacting and strict, but he whipped her stories into shape, helped her make things stronger. By the time November rolled around, she had four monthly editions of the Kisarazu Mystery Tales serial to show for it. Four stories of Mako Village and its mysterious curse.
Maki came north once again, and despite Shihori's protests, the Matsuo Village party this year was also to be a joint celebration for Shihori's achievements. The village already knew about Shihori's stories, thanks to the ongoing letter campaign between Nino and Maki. Though Shihori had bought her share of copies, a giant box of them, postmarked from Maki's address in Tokyo, arrived at her doorstep a day before Maki did. It had to be expensive on a student's budget.
While Maki cooked, she kept checking in on Shihori, who had been ordered to autograph copies for each person in town. She was embarrassed at the thought of people in Matsuo reading mostly about themselves, but she signed the books anyway to satisfy her cousin.
When they met the villagers the following day, they discovered that not only was this to be a joint Matsuo and Shihori celebration, but Jun and Mirei had news as well. As Grandma's ring sparkled on Mirei's thin finger, she and Jun announced to everyone gathered in the house that Mirei was expecting a baby. For Mirei's health and the baby's as well, the couple had decided to leave Matsuo and start a new life together as a family elsewhere.
Where Shihori had expected people to be sad at their departure, there was nothing but joy. Wasn't it exciting, Eiko-san was telling everyone. Please send pictures! Shihori insisted that Jun and Mirei stay with her until they could find their own way, and they happily accepted. Finally the teenagers cranked up the stereo and the celebration truly began.
Shihori cleaned up the plates, moving to the kitchen with a bit of a spring in her step. Much as she had grown used to her own company, it would be fun to have Jun and Mirei in the house. She supposed it wasn't as much fun for the couple, but Shihori was thrilled to have people to dote on. Plus she could have two new people to read her stories before she sent them off to Sakurai-san and his zero tolerance for grammatical mistakes policy.
She noticed that two people were missing, and she couldn't help grinning. Unlike the previous year, where Nino had been so quiet and her cousin otherwise occupied with the party, Nino and Maki had been inseparable since that morning. Before the celebration began, the two had gone for a walk alone in the woods, both returning with rather satisfied smirks and not an ounce of shame. Love was in the air all around her.
The day wound down, and the second Matsuo Village annual dinner was finished. Shihori accompanied Eiko-san back to the village, walking together through the woods arm in arm. "Maybe you should stay and see it this time," Eiko-san said. "I've never seen it from the other side, but Nino has. And Jun-kun." The words 'and so has Masaki' went unsaid. Another year had gone by without word of her son, and Eiko-san had a few more worry wrinkles near her eyes.
She hugged the older woman goodbye, watching her trudge up the hill and back toward the nearly empty apartment blocks. She said they all lived in the same one now for company and conversation. Shihori waved, settling down in the valley grasses, the moon overhead and the village almost consumed in fog.
Her watch told her it was midnight, and that was when the fog took on a sinister character. She watched it swallow up the entire hill, reaching all the way down until it was nearly nipping at her feet. A rustle of wind howled through the trees, and when the fog started to lift she saw that the ruins were back in place, concealing the dying town once more. It had taken only moments, but her eyes hadn't deceived her.
For another year, Matsuo Village was gone.
Part Four
She took a part-time job at a fabric store and finally went out on a few dates with someone who worked in the bakery next door to the store, although by now her high school friends had mostly moved on to new friends at university and didn't waste time trying to perk up her love life.
Ohno-kun was sweet and quiet and didn't mind that Shihori liked lots of time to herself. He picked her up after work from his own job at the bakery, and they had cheap meals together, took long walks. He waited three months to kiss her, behind a shrine in the neighborhood during a warm spring night. He smelled like freshly baked rolls and tasted a bit like one too, but somehow it didn't feel right.
He was short while Aiba-kun had been tall. He was quiet where Aiba had been brash and noisy. He was over 20 and bought them beers one night. They sat down on the riverbank, drinking and kissing, and she found herself telling Ohno-kun about Matsuo Village, about the people there and her experiences, about her Grandpa's warning the night he passed away. About leaving the books and supplies and how they disappeared.
Ohno-kun only nodded, leaning in to kiss her again. "That's a good story," he said, running his thumb along her jaw. "Are you writing a book or something?"
He hadn't been listening at all. Or he thought she'd made it all up. The beer settled in her stomach, her tongue bitter with its taste. She'd opened up to him, and he'd been as skeptical as everyone else. Well, she couldn't blame him. It did sound ridiculous. But the experience, opening her heart only for her truth to be brushed aside, hurt.
She made excuses before finally telling him one evening after a year of seeing each other that maybe they were better as friends. He only nodded his usual quiet nod, wishing her the very best and encouraging her once again that she should write stories. He was even kind enough to wait a full month before asking her co-worker at the fabric store, Satomi, on a date. They were a better match anyhow. Satomi didn't have a village in Iwate depending on her.
She went back into her routine, the hours she spent in Ohno-kun's company now used to improve her sewing. Her feelings for Matsuo Village grew stronger and stronger. As the weeks passed, she looked back fondly on her experiences with Ohno. He'd changed her life in a way that only became apparent once he had moved on - he'd told her to write.
So she did. She had boxes and boxes of letters under her bed, all the letters she and Maki had mailed back and forth over the years before finally turning to email when Maki's school life grew busy. Years of correspondence, years of hopes, dreams, and jokes about Matsuo Village and the people who lived there. She found herself typing them up, elaborating on the ideas. Soon it took on a life of its own. Shihori sat in front of her screen, smiling. Nobody believed her about Matsuo Village anyway. So why not make it into "fiction" for others to read?
She went to message boards, looked into publishing houses. She couldn't live on a part-timer's pay forever, and all her letters with Maki had strengthened her confidence in writing. She'd make Matsuo Village a novel. She'd change the names, create an elaborate story about the cursed town. It was all too easy - she had everything she needed already. If she sold the book, she could use the money she made to keep supporting the village.
It was just before Christmas, just after Shihori's twentieth birthday, that she had a decent draft ready to submit to a list of publishers. But it was just before Christmas, just after Shihori's twentieth birthday, that her Grandma passed away.
--
There wasn't much room in the bedroom for two grown girls, but she and Maki insisted on sharing even though they didn't have to. Grandma had lasted ten full years without stubborn, kind-hearted Grandpa, but they were finally reunited. The ache was different this time. She would miss Grandma terribly, her warmth and friendliness even after losing Grandpa. But she was happy knowing the two of them were together once more.
Maki would graduate high school in the spring and was planning to move to Tokyo for university. Maybe she and Shihori could get an apartment to share? "But what about this house?" Shihori asked her cousin's shape in the dark. "Now that Grandma's gone, my mom and your dad will want to sell it."
Maki was quiet then. They both knew it was true. Having Grandma here had been excuse enough for visits throughout their teen years. How could they help Matsuo Village if they didn't have Grandma's house as a home base? Had it really been eight years since that day? Shihori could still taste the rice and miso Eiko-san had kindly made for them. She could still remember the feeling of the wind in her hair as Aiba-kun pedaled the bike into town.
"Maybe you should take the house, Shii-chan," Maki whispered. "Maybe you should live up here."
To anyone else, Maki's blunt suggestion would have sounded a bit cold, as though it was obvious she had nothing better to do than give up her life in Tokyo to live up here in the north all alone. But Kanjiya Shihori had changed. Even if nobody believed her, even if she'd be an even worse hermit than her parents had always dreaded, she had a duty to Matsuo. So long as there were people to take the things she donated, if there was even one single person she could help, wasn't it worth it? Even if her memories of Aiba-kun had set him on this unreal pedestal, it wasn't the only reason she came north.
She waited until after the funeral to approach her parents, Uncle Taku, and Aunt Marina. They sat around the table in the living room, feet toasty under the kotatsu, while she laid out her plans to move north and live in Grandma's house. She mentioned the novel she was writing, how she'd be able to concentrate better away from Tokyo.
"But what about university?" her father asked, still hoping that she'd give up the part-timer life and go to the same college he'd attended. Her writing was just a hobby like her sewing, surely.
"But what about all your friends?" her Aunt Marina asked, not really knowing that Shihori didn't have many.
"It's too lonely here for a girl alone. And cold," her mother protested, remembering why she'd left Iwate so many years ago and assuming those reasons would be the same for anyone else.
Uncle Taku, though, sipped his tea and was quiet. She'd seen him walking around the house earlier that day, his fingertips drifting along the wooden posts. Then he'd bundled up in his coat, standing outside by the pond and smoking, his eyes drifting along as though he was memorizing every tree, every blade of grass. Maki had hinted that her father would be sad if the house sold to strangers, but he wouldn't admit it. The money to be gained from a sale would help both families. The older the house got, the more upkeep would cost.
The adults said they'd think about it, and Maki dragged Shihori from the house, pulled her to her family's car and insisted they go to town and have fun. It was odd now, seeing Maki take charge after Shihori had been so bossy to her when they were young. Her cousin was a bit taller than her now, slim and pretty. Smart and sensible. Every time Shihori teased her about Nino, about the boy she'd been drawn to so easily that day, Maki just laughed. She didn't do long-distance relationships. That fact, however, didn't stop Shihori from daydreaming about one of her own.
They went for karaoke, mostly letting the music play and the lights drift across their faces. They chatted about Grandma and Grandpa, about the house, about Matsuo Village. She squeezed her cousin's hand and tried not to cry. After all this time, all these years, only Maki could really understand her. Only Maki believed.
"You're twenty now," Maki said. "They can't keep you away. House or no house, if you want to be here, Shii, then be here."
They drove back, and the adults had already gone to bed. Only Uncle Taku was waiting for them in the living room, nursing a beer and offering a gentle smile. Maki made excuses and headed for bed, but Shihori found herself sitting down under the kotatsu. She and her uncle had never been close, but he looked at her with such kindness that she already seemed to know what he was going to say.
"I grew up in this house, and I hated it back then," Uncle Taku murmured, chuckling softly. "We were so far from everything, you know. All my friends lived in town, Papa was always at the mine. I couldn't wait to leave. I took the first job a company offered me, I married Marina, I moved to the other end of the country. Maybe it just comes with getting older. When you're young you want to leave, but when you're older you can't even understand those feelings you once had. You get nostalgic."
She slipped an orange from the bowl on the table, peeling it to let her uncle continue on without feeling the pressure of her full attention.
"With Mama passing, it's like a door has closed. But Shii-chan, it's like you're here with a key. Like you're willing to open it again." He tapped the beer can against the table lightly. "What the hell am I talking about?"
"I don't know," she said, even though she did know. She knew exactly.
"We can make do without the money," he decided firmly. "So many people are quick to look at their accounts before their memories. My parents never wanted that for me. Everybody from my generation ran away from Iwate, but my parents wouldn't leave. Even when they closed the mine, my father wouldn't leave, and he never said why."
Shihori knew why Grandpa hadn't left. She knew it all too well.
"Maybe it skipped a generation in our family," Uncle Taku said. "You and Maki are crazy about this old place, and just because we hated it doesn't make that a universal truth." He looked up at her. "We'll sign it over in your name first thing in the morning. But you have to promise not to complain. Being a homeowner isn't something to undertake lightly. This house is going to be your responsibility, Shii-chan."
She held out a piece of the orange in her palm. "Thank you, Uncle Taku."
He accepted it with a wink. "Take good care of the place."
--
Her mother was upset and had apparently been the lone dissenting voice. She would never understand Shihori's feelings for Iwate, and she never would. They parted with some tension, and her father did most of the coordination for her move. By the end of January, when the house was covered in snow, Shihori had fully moved in. Her father even took some time off work to help install newer faucets and fixtures for her, tinkering around with the bathroom and kitchen to bring it a little more up to date.
When he left, he could only tell her to be happy and to call her mother often.
The winter was hard on her. She'd used her small savings from the fabric store to buy a tiny car that brought her back and forth from town so she could buy things for herself as well as for Matsuo. The car stalled over and over again, leaving her shivering in the cold waiting for the town mechanic to come and help. She got sick countless times after trudging through thigh-deep snow to bring food to the village. She lost weight, sniffling and sneezing as she watched blurry TV Asahi come through on the one good channel.
Having Internet access installed in the old house was nearly impossible, so she worked on her stories and contacted publishers using the ancient computers of the town library. She received rejection after rejection, finally getting a job as a cashier at the town grocery store to keep herself afloat.
The winter was hard and she missed the easy living and convenience of Tokyo. But she'd never been happier, had never felt closer to Matsuo Village. Maki sent her letters, full of her excitement. She'd gotten accepted to the university of her choice in Tokyo. Maki promised to come up to keep her company on breaks, and hopefully in November as well. This would be their first chance in years. Their first chance to see their friends again in nine years.
As the snows melted, life got a little less difficult. She could bike into town again, and she made friends with some of the other women at the grocery store. She never told them about Matsuo, staying content with listening to stories about their boyfriends or their husbands, about babies on the way. Between writing and working and bringing things to the village, the year passed quickly.
She was in a bit of a panic when November finally arrived. Maki was coming north, and together they planned an exciting day for anyone in Matsuo Village who wanted to come. They were going to host a party at the house. Maki was cooking and Shihori was going to serve as hostess. It was going to be a grand reunion. She hand-made invitations, enclosing them in the books she left in the village during October.
But it had been so long. She had ideas of how the Matsuo Village residents had grown and changed. She had images of them that she'd spent years perfecting. Eiko-san was still a lovely woman but now with a streak of gray in her hair. The boys had grown up, and they were tall and muscled and ridiculously handsome. But surely she was wrong on some counts. And what would that be like? If she had expectations for them, maybe they had expectations for her as well.
She stared at herself in the mirror. She'd grown up - still not very tall. Was her hair okay? What about the rest of her? When they'd last seen her, she was twelve. Now she was almost twenty-one, a woman grown. As much a stranger as they'd be to her. She found herself worried about Aiba-kun. She'd spent half her life with this odd crush on him, comparing everyone she met to him. But what if he didn't like her that way? What if he'd just want to be friends? Or nothing at all? What could even happen in the span of a day?
--
Maki arrived full of cheer in November, toting along her own favorite spices to use for the grand meal. Neither of them knew how many people still lived in Matsuo, but Shihori's discount at the grocery store let them stock up to feed at least twenty people.
The university life suited her cousin quite well. She had a boyfriend and had cut her hair short. She hummed in the kitchen the night before their visit to the village, stirring pots and pans full of delicious things that Shihori struggled not to try. They decorated the main room of the house with flowers, scrubbing cobwebs out of corners and between the pair of them they made a glittery mess of a banner that read "Welcome Matsuo Village Friends!" and hung it up.
They knelt in front of the family altar, praying and chatting with Grandma and Grandpa. They apologized to Grandma for all the mess, told Grandpa they wished he could attend.
When morning came, it was chilly and cloudy, but the forest was painted bright red and yellow with fall color. She finally dragged Maki away from the kitchen before noon and they went directly into the forest, racing around like a pair of silly kids. Shihori's stomach was still twisted and knotted with worry, but her cousin's enthusiasm and eagerness helped her along.
When they made it to the edge of the woods, her cousin let out a rare shout, waving her arms. "Hello!" she cried, voice carrying out across the valley.
They were already coming, a small mass of people shapes walking down the road since Shihori had set the invites for lunchtime to give the villagers time to enjoy the rest of the day. They were really coming! They were coming!
The cousins hurried down the hill to meet the group in the valley. As they drew closer, they discovered there were no more than a dozen people, but their faces were smiling and they waved happily. "Kanjiya-san!" they shouted. "Horikita-san!"
Shihori almost felt like crying. They were wearing the clothes she'd given them, they were carrying the books she'd brought. They were shouting her name and Maki's too.
She saw Jun and Mirei at the front. Jun had grown tall and filled out. He'd been rather thin as a fifteen year old but now at twenty-four he was handsome, broad-shouldered, and carried himself proudly. Mirei was pretty and all smiles, racing ahead with her arms out. She got to Maki first, wrapping her up in a strong hug.
Shihori soon found herself the center of attention. There were teenagers who towered over her who had been small children the last time she'd seen them, but they knew her on sight, showing off their clothes, bragging of their full bellies thanks to all the food she brought diligently. Officer Katori was out of uniform, kitted out in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt she'd left behind.
She felt embarrassed, hearing all the thank yous, being embraced by the small group like she was a member of the village herself. Finally there was a tap on her shoulder, and she turned to find someone not much taller than her, but with that mole on his chin in its usual place.
His eyes were tired, his face was pale, and he was as thin as he'd always been but he held out his arms. "Well, if it isn't the infamous Shihori-sama."
"Nino!" She nearly collapsed against him, laughing and crying, feeling the warmth and solidity of him. The last time she'd seen him had been his back as he ran off to watch TV in Hachimantai, but nine years could have been nine seconds.
He rubbed her back, whispering quietly in her ear. "You've been our angel. Our guardian angel. Thank you."
"Come now, we can't all just stand around here when there's a meal waiting," came a voice Shihori knew instantly. Nino let her go, inclining his head and going off to greet her cousin. She turned, astonished by how close to the mark all of her imaginings had been.
Eiko-san was aging gracefully, still possessing the long, thin limbs her son had inherited. Her hair had grayed, and she had a few more wrinkles, but she was still beautiful. She wrapped Shihori up in a tight hug, pressing a kiss to her hair.
"Eiko-san..."
"My sweet girl," she murmured, carding her fingers through Shihori's hair. She felt twelve years old again, waiting for lunch. She felt safe.
"I'm so happy you got my invite."
The older woman laughed. "We wouldn't have missed it for the world. Do you have any idea how long it's been since any of us have had a meal like this?" She leaned back, addressing the others. "Let's all get a move on!" she told the group, and everyone headed for the forest.
Jun and Mirei stood on either side of Maki, linking arms and heading for the trees. The rest of the group followed Officer Katori's lead, marching along after them. It was then that Shihori counted the group. Counted Nino's back as he trailed behind Maki and the others. Counted Officer Katori, a few older residents, the children who were now in their teens.
Somebody was missing.
Eiko-san took her hand and pulled her along, her own eyes brimming with unshed tears. "He's not here. I'm so very sorry, but he's not here."
--
There hadn't been so many people in the house since Grandma had passed away. Shihori busied herself with helping Maki, scooping heaps of food onto the haphazard collection of plates in the kitchen. Eiko-san corraled everyone in the main room, and the teenagers took over Shihori's small stereo, laughing at some of the strange pop music that came crying out of the speakers.
Maki was never more in her element, bustling from pot to pot, making sure everyone got enough to eat. Nino stayed in the kitchen with her, sneaking a taste from every plate with a wicked grin. Jun poured drinks, arranging them on trays. Shihori carried plates into the room. The older residents had gathered around her table while the younger ones were content to sit with their plates on their laps, bobbing their heads to the music and laughing.
Eiko-san knelt before the family altar, her head bowed low. For the very first time, she'd been able to come and pay her respects to Grandpa.
Everyone was so happy that Shihori didn't dare show her disappointment. Eiko-san had explained things on the walk to the house. Aiba-kun was away, had been for two years. It wasn't the first time either. When they'd turned eighteen, he and Nino and Jun had all gone off together to work and explore. Nino had been the first to return a year later, standing right outside Matsuo Village on a cold November night waiting for home to reappear. Jun and Aiba had returned together at age twenty, tall and tan and with dozens of ridiculous stories to tell Nino.
But the wanderlust that hadn't really taken hold of Nino or Jun had truly taken over her son. The three young men had been from one end of Japan to the other, from Hokkaido to Okinawa and back again. They'd seen more of Japan than Shihori ever had. With Matsuo Village off the grid, they had no identification, no real existence. They hitchhiked, they took odd jobs that didn't ask questions. They experienced the world that had been denied to them, freely and without expectations.
Nino had returned because Matsuo was home. Jun had returned, Eiko-san admitted, because Mirei was home for him. Even now the two of them sat close together, Mirei chuckling as Jun wolfed down Maki's food. As for Aiba-kun, his mother explained, he'd always been so devoted to the village but getting out had changed him. He'd asked her permission to leave two years earlier, promising that one day he'd return, that he'd use his time outside to make enough money to support the village.
And she'd let him go, let him leave. Shihori had been petrified for months about the Aiba Masaki she would encounter on this November afternoon. But it had been needless worry entirely. Aiba had gone, and nobody knew when he was coming back.
She picked at her food, getting up to refill plates and glasses. When the meal was over, the older residents spoke to her one by one, shaking her hands, wishing for her happiness and health. She teared up at the sentiments, telling them to leave requests whenever they wished and she'd do her best to see them through. The younger kids were told the same thing, and they peppered her with wishes for portable DVD players and game units until Eiko-san finally scolded them.
Nino, Maki, Jun, and Mirei had made impulsive plans for an evening in town, and they asked Shihori to join them. A double date with herself as wheel number five. She made excuses about cleaning the kitchen, about working on her novel, but they dragged her along anyhow.
The five of them somehow fit into Shihori's tiny car. Shihori sat behind the wheel with Maki at her side. Mirei sat on Jun's lap in the back, and Nino met her eyes in the rearview mirror. He seemed to understand her feelings, nodding his apologies as she drove them to karaoke.
Maki was still underage, but that didn't stop the now worldly Matsumoto Jun and Ninomiya Kazunari from buying rounds of drinks and encouraging her to try them. Shihori passed, reminding them all who had to drive them home. Mirei tugged Shihori to her feet, insisting they duet on a song though Mirei didn't know anything in the catalog and was more content to just bang a tambourine against her hip while Shihori mumbled her way through song after song.
As the drinking went on, Jun and Mirei made excuses to leave. They blushed and looked nervous. Even with the emptiness of Matsuo Village, they probably didn't get much time to themselves. They departed with hugs and thank yous for Shihori, and she hoped they'd be able to get back to the village in time.
The alcohol made her cousin sleepy, and it was 10:00 PM when they left the karaoke place behind. Nino was smaller than most men Shihori had met, but he hoisted her cousin easily and piggy-backed her to the car. They settled Maki in the backseat, giggling a little when she started to snore. Nino joined her up front for the ride back to the house.
It was empty when they returned, and Nino helped again, carrying Maki into the bedroom and tucking her under the covers. Nino followed Shihori back to the living room.
"We see you, okay," Nino admitted, still a little buzzed from his drinks. His voice was a bit slurred but his eyes were serious. "Every single time you've come, we see you. We watched you grow up. We talk to you, but we know you can't hear us. He always talked to you, followed you like a creep. He thought he was really clever with some of the ways he teased you."
Shihori didn't have to ask. She knew Nino was talking about Aiba-kun. They sat down at the table. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear this, now that she knew they'd seen her more than she'd ever seen them. "I wish I could talk to you. All of you." She gestured around. "This is my house now at least. I get to visit whenever I want."
"And it means everything, it really does," he said. "We don't even have words for how thankful we are."
"Well I'm happy to be useful."
"You're more than useful," Nino insisted. "You're necessary. Without you we wouldn't have made it. Masaki knows that."
She looked down, shrugging a bit. "If things truly got tough, surely you'd all leave." Just like him, she almost said, but held her tongue. Aiba leaving Matsuo made sense. Anyone leaving Matsuo made sense.
"He left two years ago," Nino said. "If he knew you lived here now, he'd race back, I just know it."
There was no way to know if he was being truthful. If Nino was just telling her what she wanted to hear. He seemed to sense, though, that she was hurt and that she didn't want to say it aloud. That she wanted to see Aiba, to hear his voice. To see if Aiba at twenty-four was as kind and sweet as Nino at twenty-four, as Jun was. To see if Aiba at twenty-four was compatible with Shihori at twenty-one, Shihori who still remembered the day he'd run into her as though it was yesterday.
He changed the subject, finally taking his own turn to look embarrassed. "Your cousin leaves me letters, you know."
She looked up, shocked. "She what?"
He chuckled a bit, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, the ones with the cute teddy bear on the butt pocket that she'd stitched up more with Mirei-san in mind. He unfolded a piece of paper. "To Ninomiya-san," it read, and Shihori didn't dare read any further.
"She's left a note for me, and just for me, since the first time she visited by herself. With the cookies." Nino stared at the letter. "She told us about you, about her life, about all sorts of odd things. She filled in the blanks since we could only see you and there was no way for you to hear us."
Shihori stared at the piece of paper. "She never told me any of this. She tells me everything and she never told me this." It hurt, knowing there was a whole piece of Maki's life she'd never been party to. She told Maki everything, even her silly, foolish feelings for Aiba-kun.
"I could never write back, of course. We didn't really have pens and paper lying around. And what was I going to say? I'm five years older than her, so for the first several years that was extremely weird. And she always wrote to me like a friend. But, well..."
Realization dawned on Shihori. She saw Nino in a new light. The way he'd been gently watching her cousin all day. "You care about her."
Nino nodded. "I know she has a boyfriend at school. She told me all about him in her last letter." He snorted a bit. "She's really honest, huh?"
Shihori couldn't help laughing too. "The most honest person I know, save for the whole writing you letters for years bit."
"So I don't know, I really don't know," Nino admitted. "But if you leave some stuff to write with, I'll leave them out for her. Maybe you could mail them for me? I know a letter can't compete with a flesh and blood Tokyo boyfriend, but if anything, I'm a patient guy. Comes with where I live, right?"
She easily agreed. Shihori had always been so much better at playing matchmaker than at being the one matched. She dug through her cabinets, finding a bundle of mechanical pencils and sketch pads that had been her Grandpa's. Nino gave her a hug, telling her that everything would be okay. That his friend would come back someday.
She wanted to believe him, standing on the porch and watching Nino hurry off toward the trees, hollering his goodbyes.
Out of habit, she and a slightly hungover Maki wandered down to the village the following morning, finding the usual rot and decay, the lifelessness that made up the Matsuo ruins 364 days a year. But this time, sitting right at the entrance to town, was a very much out of place upside-down box that had once contained a case of freeze-dried noodles.
Maki upended the box to find the very first letter from Nino addressed to "the honorable Horikita-san," and Shihori had never seen her smile so big.
--
The winter was long again, colder, and she spent half of the time sick. A co-worker had a baby, and for the first time in her life Shihori felt a true pang of longing, holding the drooling, squirming little baby bundle in her arms. For a family of her own. To take care of people in person every day of the year instead of pushing a wheelbarrow full of sacks of rice. For a tiny little hand to hold as they walked through the forest.
The constant letters back and forth between Nino and Maki didn't help. She never read them, not once, although sometimes Nino wrote messages on the envelopes for her. "Katori-san is out of razors. If you please..." "Eiko-san won't say, but I think she needs new shoes." "You looked tired when you stopped in the other day. Are you getting enough sleep?"
As spring blossomed, everything seemed to be blossoming around her. Maki's messages from Tokyo contained next to nothing about her supposed boyfriend and much more about Nino instead. The strange adventures he and Aiba and Jun had gotten up to on their "study abroad" excursion as they called it. It seemed that Maki's strong beliefs about long-distance relationships were waning.
Mirei and Jun, Nino wrote to her in April, intended to marry and Shihori took one of the rings out of Grandma's old jewelry box and had it sized in town before sneaking it into one of her food deliveries to the village, care of Matsumoto Jun. She received a lengthy and ridiculously cute letter of appreciation from Jun, saying he was the happiest man on Earth and that he owed Shihori big time for her help.
Co-worker babies thrived, Hachimantai woke up from winter, and even her writing career started to show promise. After so many rejections, Shihori had almost forgotten about the query letter she'd sent along to a small publisher called Kisarazu Press. They didn't have the room for another novel on their schedule this year, but if Shihori trimmed things down, she was welcome to be published in a monthly serial of short stories that Kisarazu distributed in independent bookstores. She'd be one among twenty writers every month, but that suited her just fine.
She emailed back and forth with her newly assigned editor and manager, Sakurai Sho-san, whose enthusiasm for Mako Village (her chosen moniker) nearly matched her own. He was a rather harsh editor, exacting and strict, but he whipped her stories into shape, helped her make things stronger. By the time November rolled around, she had four monthly editions of the Kisarazu Mystery Tales serial to show for it. Four stories of Mako Village and its mysterious curse.
Maki came north once again, and despite Shihori's protests, the Matsuo Village party this year was also to be a joint celebration for Shihori's achievements. The village already knew about Shihori's stories, thanks to the ongoing letter campaign between Nino and Maki. Though Shihori had bought her share of copies, a giant box of them, postmarked from Maki's address in Tokyo, arrived at her doorstep a day before Maki did. It had to be expensive on a student's budget.
While Maki cooked, she kept checking in on Shihori, who had been ordered to autograph copies for each person in town. She was embarrassed at the thought of people in Matsuo reading mostly about themselves, but she signed the books anyway to satisfy her cousin.
When they met the villagers the following day, they discovered that not only was this to be a joint Matsuo and Shihori celebration, but Jun and Mirei had news as well. As Grandma's ring sparkled on Mirei's thin finger, she and Jun announced to everyone gathered in the house that Mirei was expecting a baby. For Mirei's health and the baby's as well, the couple had decided to leave Matsuo and start a new life together as a family elsewhere.
Where Shihori had expected people to be sad at their departure, there was nothing but joy. Wasn't it exciting, Eiko-san was telling everyone. Please send pictures! Shihori insisted that Jun and Mirei stay with her until they could find their own way, and they happily accepted. Finally the teenagers cranked up the stereo and the celebration truly began.
Shihori cleaned up the plates, moving to the kitchen with a bit of a spring in her step. Much as she had grown used to her own company, it would be fun to have Jun and Mirei in the house. She supposed it wasn't as much fun for the couple, but Shihori was thrilled to have people to dote on. Plus she could have two new people to read her stories before she sent them off to Sakurai-san and his zero tolerance for grammatical mistakes policy.
She noticed that two people were missing, and she couldn't help grinning. Unlike the previous year, where Nino had been so quiet and her cousin otherwise occupied with the party, Nino and Maki had been inseparable since that morning. Before the celebration began, the two had gone for a walk alone in the woods, both returning with rather satisfied smirks and not an ounce of shame. Love was in the air all around her.
The day wound down, and the second Matsuo Village annual dinner was finished. Shihori accompanied Eiko-san back to the village, walking together through the woods arm in arm. "Maybe you should stay and see it this time," Eiko-san said. "I've never seen it from the other side, but Nino has. And Jun-kun." The words 'and so has Masaki' went unsaid. Another year had gone by without word of her son, and Eiko-san had a few more worry wrinkles near her eyes.
She hugged the older woman goodbye, watching her trudge up the hill and back toward the nearly empty apartment blocks. She said they all lived in the same one now for company and conversation. Shihori waved, settling down in the valley grasses, the moon overhead and the village almost consumed in fog.
Her watch told her it was midnight, and that was when the fog took on a sinister character. She watched it swallow up the entire hill, reaching all the way down until it was nearly nipping at her feet. A rustle of wind howled through the trees, and when the fog started to lift she saw that the ruins were back in place, concealing the dying town once more. It had taken only moments, but her eyes hadn't deceived her.
For another year, Matsuo Village was gone.
Part Four