Brave Story - Miyuki Miyabe [8]
“Sorry.”
“No biggie. Your mom is always like that to me.”
His friend said it like he really didn’t care, but it made Wataru a little sad to realize Katchan had noticed his mother’s judgmental attitude.
“Did she fall asleep or something? Hey, doesn’t she wait up for your father to get home? How did you get out?”
Wataru realized again how odd it had been for his mother to fall asleep.
He glanced back in the direction of his apartment.
“She…she fell asleep.”
“She sick or something?”
Wataru silently shook his head. Several questions rose in his throat, but none of them made the least bit of sense, so he swallowed them down like a bitter pill. Katchan, have you ever had everything go black, and pass out, but you didn’t fall asleep? Have you ever heard someone talking to you when no one was there? Is that strange? Would it be stranger if it were a girl talking? And has your mother or father ever fallen asleep sprawled on the kitchen table like that? Sleep so deep you could push them and pull them and they wouldn’t budge? Or shout in their ear and they wouldn’t wake up? It was almost like a mage from one of his fantasy games had cast a sleeping spell on her. He was afraid.
“Whatever, you made it. Let’s get going!” Katchan sprang from the top of the fence. With those words, all of Wataru’s questions went swirling away. He nodded and ran.
Chapter 2
The Silent Princess
At night, the flat light of the street lamps shining off the blue tarps of the haunted building made it look even cheaper and shabbier than it did by day. The houses in the surrounding neighborhood were quiet. All the porch lights were off, the windows dark. The Mihashi Shrine sat silently in a ring of dark trees, making the gaudy light on the building seem intended to accentuate its miserable appearance.
It felt good to run in his sneakers, even for a short distance, and now Wataru had finally remembered the night’s true objective: they were going to see for themselves once and for all whether there really was a ghost haunting the half-built building.
They were past the shrine and nearing the building when Katchan stopped abruptly.
“Someone’s there,” he whispered, pressing his back up against the wall surrounding the shrine. Wataru reflexively followed suit. He could see no one.
“Where?”
Katchan pointed. “On the other side of the building. See that light down the road?”
“Where? It’s just a street lamp.”
“Nuh-uh, there’s a car.”
Wataru squinted his eyes but he still couldn’t see anything. He moved away from the shrine wall and began to walk again. “Let’s go check it out. We’re just walking down the road, anyway—it’s not like we’re doing anything bad.”
So what if somebody had stopped the car there, he thought. As he approached the front of the haunted building one of the blue tarps lifted and he saw a figure standing inside.
Almost immediately, another tarp lifted and someone from inside the building looked out, right at them. They were spotted. “Who’s there?” a voice called out languidly. “What are you boys doing?”
The voice belonged to a young man. Wataru guessed he was about twenty years old. With some effort, the man worked his way out from beneath the tarp, and came out to the road. Up close, Wataru realized he was quite tall. He had on a slightly grubby T-shirt and jeans. His hair was cut short, and he was wearing glasses. In his right hand, he carried a flashlight.
From the direction where Katchan had seen a car came the sound of a large sliding door, like that on a van, opening. They heard another voice. “What is it, Noriyuki?”
This new voice belonged to a middle-aged man. Soon, its owner appeared from the direction of the van, a stout, blocky figure beneath the street lamps.
Wataru’s mind was racing, though his body was frozen to the spot. Who were these people? Burglars? Night patrolman? Were they searching for something? Were they burying something? Were they trying to set fire to the place?
“Hey, it’s just