Chapter 17
1. The God of Making Ends Meet
On both ends of the shopping street, cheerful lanterns in pink and white or light blue and white hung from the utility poles.
Some of the strings were tangled, perhaps by clumsy hands, but that was the better case—others swung so high they looked like they might touch the power lines. From afar, muffled drums and festival music could be heard, as if echoing underwater.
"Katagishi-san, lucky you. Looks like today is a festival."
Miyaki said cheerfully.
"We're here for work, you know."
It had been a while since we had a conversation like this.
"But I don't see any food stalls or anything."
Miyaki looked around the shopping street.
The street was unexpectedly deserted. An old man lined leather shoes in a dusty display case, and a woman smoked a cigarette in front of a kimono shop, neither showing any signs of excitement.
"Maybe it's just the preparations and not actually the day of the festival."
"But I can hear the festival music."
I shrugged my shoulders.
The festival music was distant, but it felt like it was gradually getting louder.
"So today really is the festival?"
Holding a netsuke shaped like chili peppers and a papier-mâché dog, Miyaki spoke to the shopkeeper of a general store.
"Seems like it. It was all quite sudden, though."
The elderly woman shopkeeper, wearing a hand-knitted cape, smiled.
"So even you didn't know about it? Does that mean you've only recently moved here?"
"No, my family has been here for three generations."
Miyaki gave a polite smile to hide her puzzled expression at the elderly woman's calm reply.
"Does this village often have sudden, impromptu festivals like this?"
"Yes, when you hear the festival music, it means the festival is starting. Everyone hurries to clear the roads so the portable shrine can pass, hang up the lanterns at least, and get ready so it can begin at any time."
Miyaki looked at me as if asking for help.
This kind of situation was dangerous. I gestured with my chin for her to come back.
Miyaki wrapped things up quickly and trudged back to my side.
"What's going on here... Are they coordinating with a neighboring village for the festival or something? If even the villagers don't know, then who's playing the festival music?"
"Who knows, maybe it's just a custom. Some priest or shrine official up in the mountains plays the music whenever they feel like it, and they rush down carrying the shrine. If the villagers are ready by then, they say good fortune will come or something like that."
"That's a pretty strange festival, but I guess it's not impossible..."
Tilting her head, Miyaki looked up at the lanterns swaying in the sky.
The uneven way the candy-colored lanterns were hung wasn't due to clumsiness. It was because people rushed to hang them after hearing the festival music.
"The festival itself is strange, but what's even stranger is that it doesn't seem connected to the god here at all."
"Yeah..."
Right under a green and white lantern stood a secondhand bookstore, its name carved in white letters into translucent brown glass that looked like mouthwash.
Inside the store, among notices of newly arrived literary award-winning books and temporary closures for inventory, a piece of straw paper with handwritten notes—probably from the shopkeeper—was posted.
Absolutely no shoplifting. Even if you think no one is watching, someone always is. Divine punishment will fall upon wrongdoing.
It was the kind of old-fashioned warning even kids would scoff at nowadays, but thinking that it was posted by a bookstore in this village gave me chills.
After all, the god worshipped in this village doesn't deal in heaven or hell but rewards secret good deeds and punishes hidden evils.
"The secretary who ran off with money died with gold bars stuffed in their belly, and the mother and child who tormented their stepchild to death with silk were found dead coughing up cotton. The unfortunate child was reborn to the infertile woman who had loved another's child like her own... That's the god of this land."
"Sounds like some preachy old folktale."
"I can hear you," Miyaki said with a wry smile.
"But if it's that kind of god, wouldn't most people be glad it exists? Would anyone even ask us to investigate it?"
"Well, someone did, which is why we're here."
Passing under the fan-shaped arch of the shopping street, we found a few izakayas and Western-style restaurants with their second floors clearly used as residences, and beyond that, a residential area.
Apparently, the person who requested our help lived there.
I urged Miyaki to pick up the pace.
As the line of lanterns ended, we saw a festival stall with only a tarp-covered old cart underneath it, displaying masks like you'd expect at a festival.
There was no stallkeeper. The old-fashioned fox and Okame masks had dust settled in the grooves of their outlines.
A house buried in a camellia hedge came into view.
A branch from a plum tree jutted out from the house's yard, stretching into the road like a trap.
"Only fools don't prune their plums..."
I murmured and rang the doorbell.
After ringing it twice, a pale, slender young man who looked like a spoiled college student and a timid-looking couple appeared and bowed.
The house interior showed the family's effort to modernize their inherited traditional Japanese home with floral wallpaper and foreign furniture, giving it a quaint atmosphere.
We were led to a neat table and chairs where one might usually imagine a happy family scene, but the entire living room felt strangely stagnant and dark.
The family introduced themselves as the Tomois. They said they had a distant relative in a similar line of work to ours and had reached out through that connection.
"We felt we had to do something before the elders in the village found out..."
The head of the household began, his face pale.
"So you know what kind of work we do, meaning this isn't something the police can handle, right?"
The only son of the household, who had somehow been seated at the head of the table, nodded fearfully.
"Can you tell us what happened?"
Instead of answering, Tomoi's wife stood up.
The sound of the chair legs scraping the damaged floor echoed for a long time as the woman disappeared into the darkness of the back room.
We waited in silence for her return.
The chair rattled.
"Ryo, stop that."
Scolded by his father, the young man flinched. Thinking the noise had been his leg bouncing nervously, I peeked under the table and saw he was still trembling slightly.
The returning woman held something in both hands, wrapped in newspaper like a long cylinder. It reminded me of how daikon radishes are packaged at vegetable shops in rural towns like this.
But it was too thin and soft to be a daikon. The upper half drooped over her shoulder.
With a gloomy expression, she placed the bundle on the table. Despite its soft appearance, it made a hard, light sound like a glass tapping the rim of a cup.
"You might be shocked, or maybe you're used to this sort of thing, but could you please take a look?"
Taking her place, Tomoi reached for the cellophane tape sealing the newspaper.
Miyaki and I nodded, and the young man, called Ryo, squeezed his eyes shut.
With a dry rustle, the wrapping opened.
Between articles about an arson case, dull flesh-colored skin appeared. A new bluish bruise stood out on a bent section with open pores.
Miyaki leaned over the table.
"Is this... an arm?"
A human arm lay atop the newspaper. Judging by the thickness and firm muscle, it likely belonged to a slender adult male.
It had been cleanly severed below the upper arm. The five pale fingers were neatly trimmed into square shapes.
"Sorry to ask, but... whose is this...?"
At my question, Ryo shook his head repeatedly, his voice trembling as if he were about to cry.
"I don't know. The day before yesterday, I woke up and before heading to university... it was hanging on the garden hedge..."
"Could it be a cruel prank?"
Miyaki asked with concern, but no matter how well-crafted, no fake could look this real.
"We don't know whose it is or who brought it. It never comes to light, but sometimes things like this happen in this village."
Tomoi said, staring at the arm on the table.
"So you want us to investigate the cause?"
"Please!"
Ryo suddenly shouted and stood up.
"If the villagers find out, it's over. If it were just a person, fine... but if it's found by that thing..."
The young man's thin arm clung to my shoulder. I couldn't tell where the strength came from.
"Calm down. What do you mean by 'that thing'?"
It had been a while since someone clung to me in desperation. I suppressed the gloom and tried to soothe Ryo, when Miyaki spoke up.
"By 'that thing,' do you mean the god of this place?"
Ryo, having somehow sat back down, nodded with trembling lips. His mother held her terrified son's shoulders.
"I heard it's a god that judges hidden sins. If that's true, shouldn't we just leave it to the god..."
"It's not that simple."
Tomoi shook his head.
"If there were a clear culprit, maybe it could be resolved that way. But in a bizarre case like this—"
The sound of festival music interrupted Tomoi's words.
It was so loud it felt like it was ringing right next to my ear. The whole family trembled together.
Drums, flutes, and many bells clanged together, playing a frantic festival tune.
"You'll understand if you look... Please, go outside."
The woman spoke without lifting her face. Miyaki and I exchanged glances, stood up, and left the living room.
The dark hallway echoed with the festival music. It was as loud as if a recorded tape was playing indoors.
When I put on my shoes at the entrance, I noticed something strange.
Despite the lively festival and the sound of instruments, there were no human voices at all.
Miyaki opened the door, and we stepped outside.
The hedge had no flowers, only dense, vibrant green leaves.
When we leaned over the hedge to look down the street, the portable shrine was just passing under the protruding branches of a plum tree.
Miyaki and I gasped at the same time.
Those carrying the portable shrine, which was solemnly adorned with golden carvings and red decorative cords, were not men in festival coats. They were human-shaped somethings, completely covered in white garments and white hoods like funeral attire.
There were no holes for eyes in the hoods, so they shouldn't have been able to see, and yet they carried the shrine with terrifying speed in perfect unison.
Aside from those carrying the shrine, there were no other figures in white garments.
There were no visible musicians either, yet the deafening festival music only grew louder.
"What are those? Are they even human..."
Miyaki muttered in a daze.
"Doesn't look like it..."
The portable shrine carried by the white-clad figures passed through the residential street and headed toward the shopping district.
That's when it hit me. It's not that the portable shrine comes out because there's a festival. It's the other way around. They call it a festival because the portable shrine comes out.
That eerie presence descends to the world suddenly.
When the villagers in the shopping district hear the festival music, which signals its arrival, they quickly prepare the appearance of a festival.
Not because something creepy and incomprehensible is rushing through, but to convince themselves it's a festival for the god.
I had thought the god of retribution and the sudden appearance of the shrine were unrelated, but I realized something I didn't want to.
For sins, punishment. For good deeds, reward. When the music plays, a festival.
It gives reason and consequence to things that cannot be questioned.
In short, it's just a way to make things add up.