“What about email?”
“We haven’t been in touch. What’s wrong?”
“She’s not home.”
Kotaro glanced at the clock on the wall. It was five past eight.
Kazumi stood up. “She told me she had to spend yesterday and today working on a paper for lit class. She was worried she wouldn’t finish it.”
“What about the library?”
“No way. Not this late.”
She took the phone. “Aunt Takako? It’s Kazumi. Did Mika go out without telling you where she was going?”
“What about Aunt Hanako?” Kotaro said quietly to his mother. “She must be home.”
“Takako says she’s been in bed with a bit of a fever since last night. It’s just a cold.”
Kotaro studied his sister’s profile as she nodded and said “Um-hmm, um-hmm,” into the phone.
“She probably just went to the store,” Asako said soothingly.
Kazumi had interrupted her photo project to have dinner. The PC was in sleep mode. Kotaro touched the mouse and the monitor lit up. Mika and Kazumi smiled back at him from the monitor, tennis rackets at the ready.
Kazumi slammed the receiver down. “Mom, what should we do?”
“I don’t think you need to get so excited.”
“No, I’m sure something’s wrong!” She shook her head stubbornly. “First of all, she wouldn’t have gone out and left Auntie Hanako in bed without telling her when she’d be back. When Takako got back, the porch light was out and the living room was dark. She didn’t just go out for a minute. She’s probably been gone for hours.”
Kotaro stood up. “Come on, don’t freak out. I’ll go take a look.”
“Thank you, Kotaro.” Asako put a protective arm around Kazumi’s shoulder.
He slipped his sneakers on and crossed the street to the Sonois’. Takako was on her smartphone as she opened the door. She hadn’t even taken off her summer suit coat. Aunt Hanako was in the kitchen, slumped in a chair. She looked wiped out and suddenly very old.
“Oh, it’s Kotaro,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry, I’ve been in bed all day.”
“If you have a fever, bed rest is the best thing. Auntie, when was the last time you talked to Mika?”
“Maybe ten this morning. She made me porridge. She seemed fine.”
Takako ended her call. She had the same worried look as Kazumi. “She’s not at her father’s. I didn’t think she would be, but I had to check. He hasn’t seen her.”
“I wouldn’t worry, Aunt Takako. She probably went out to get something and ran into a friend and they got to talking.”
Having said that much, Kotaro couldn’t resist the pressure he felt. If he didn’t say what he knew, things could end up a lot worse for Mika.
Mika, forgive me. I’ll apologize once you’re safe and sound.
“Look, I better tell you. Mika has a boyfriend. She’s probably with him right now. They must be having fun and just forgot the time.”
Takako didn’t seem very surprised. “So that’s it,” she said and nodded. A mother’s intuition.
“He was on the tennis team with Mika. His name is Gaku something, let’s see …” Kotaro was so nervous, he couldn’t remember the boy’s full name at first. “Gaku Shimakawa. His family’s pretty prosperous. He’s a high school freshman.”
Takako sat down heavily at the kitchen table, still holding her smartphone.
“They meet sometimes in the park near here,” Kotaro added. “That’s all, so far. They’re being so old-fashioned, it’s kind of adorable.”
Mika’s mother sighed. Hanako looked from one to the other, not quite grasping what was going on.
“We’ve never had a set curfew,” Takako said.
“She still shouldn’t be out late without telling anyone. It’s not like her. But they’ve got to be close by. I’ll swing around the neighborhood and see if I can find them.”
He rushed back to the house, leaped onto his bicycle and dashed at full speed toward the park.
Mika, where are you? You’d never worry your mother or Hanako. You must really be in love to do something stupid like this.
The most optimistic scenario was that he’d find Mika and Gaku deep in conversation on a park bench. He pictured her being surprised at hearing how late it was, and scolding her for being surprised.
It didn’t take long for this scenario to fall by the wayside. The park was small, and a quick circuit showed it to be empty. Mika was nowhere to be seen.
Maybe they’d decided to head for a convenience store, or a bookstore or McDonald’s. Summer days were long, and they might’ve thought there’d be no harm in staying out a bit later than usual. But Mika, you should’ve at least told your grandmother—
Then—though he couldn’t explain why—Kotaro closed his right eye. Even without the power, he sensed a presence. Or maybe he was just used to closing his right eye when he was looking for something or someone, or trying to figure out what to do.
It was lucky he did.
He saw no trace of a happy couple, but he knew instantly which bench they’d been using. There was something there.
It was the spider, squatting in the center of the bench. He could see its eight legs with nauseating clarity. It had grown since he’d seen it scurry through Mika’s window. It must be three times bigger—twice as big would be an underestimate. Its back rose to a rounded peak, mantled with a dense coat of fine black bristles, and its belly was swollen and pendulous. The spider sat motionless, as though it were digesting a meal. Its red eyes darted restlessly. The bench was dripping with red fluid—the residue of words that looked like blood.
Whose words? Whose blood?
He rushed the bench in a panic. He wanted to kick the monster off and stomp it to a pulp.
His sneaker crashed against the wood. Pain stabbed through his ankle. The bench existed, but the spider did not.
A silver thread crossed his left eye.
Fear is not your ally.
“Galla!” he cried out. “Why am I seeing this? I’m not supposed to be ‘seeing’ anymore!”
With his left eye he saw flecks of blood on his sneakers. The spider had skillfully evaded him by fleeing to the underside of the bench. Its upside-down eyes, almost the size of ping-pong balls, blazed red.
The power is already part of you. It is not something you can borrow and return as you please. When you have true need of it, it will be there.
The spider seemed to gaze at Kotaro with derision. It knew he was there. It was watching him with eyes that seemed to say, Now do you understand? We’re both monsters.
“Don’t fuck with me!”
Kotaro’s yell seemed to shock the spider. It fled the shadow of the bench, legs pumping clumsily, yet moving almost too fast to follow with the eye. It left a gleaming trail of slime in its wake.
Shall we pursue?
Galla again. She had touched down behind him. Beneath a streetlamp swarmed by insects, she seemed to occupy a black void of her own.
A portal to darkness. A gate to other regions. Galla herself was the gate.
Why do you hesitate? Her “voice” came clearly this time. Are you not curious to know why that insect waxes fat?
Mika was in danger now, this very moment. It might not be too late. It can’t be too late, he thought.
“Pursue. I’ve got to help Mika.”
Galla spread her wings and the darkness swallowed him. The black torrents bore him away.
What is this dump?
A house on a one-lane road. It was cheaply constructed but not very old. It also seemed completely untended. There were piles of trash, cardboard boxes and junk around the entrance, on the slab of concrete that doubled as parking spot and front yard, and even on the second-floor veranda. Some of the piles had toppled over, spilling their contents.
Towels hung from a plastic pole that extended across the veranda; they looked as though they’d been there for days or weeks. A pair of sneakers with nearly worn-through soles perched on the railing.
Someone’s actually living here.
This was not Galla’s sanctum, nor another region. It was somewhere in Kotaro’s world. He peered around; an ad for a medical clinic was pasted to a power pole. This was reality.
Yet for all that, he had no sensation of standing on solid ground. Even in Galla’s sanctum, he had all his normal physical sensations, which made it hard to believe he wasn’t really on the roof of the tea caddy building.
But not here. It wasn’t that his body felt lighter. He had no body at all. He felt transparent.
The light’s passing through me.
There was a porch light on the house behind him, and light coming from the windows, but he cast no shadow. As a small car passed, its headlights shone through him. He didn’t bother to get out of the way. Sure enough, it passed through him and kept going. He was like Galla now: real, but nonexistent.
He tried to step forward. He couldn’t see his body. He had no sensation of walking.
One moment he was in one location, and a moment later he was in a slightly different one. That was how he moved. It was like stop-motion, one frame at a time.
There was a nameplate nailed above the front door. IMAZAKI.
He passed through the door. The entryway was cluttered with so many pairs of men’s and women’s shoes and sandals that there was almost no space to stand.
The front hall was another maze of trash bags and assorted piles of junk. There were mounds of old magazines, including PC magazines. Some of them were far too specialized for the average user. Kotaro had seen one at Kumar.
I guess I’m still Kotaro Mishima if I can notice that.
The hall was dark, but light came from under a door to the right. Up-tempo music played softly.
Kotaro passed through the wall and into the room.
It was incredibly messy—large, but packed with junk. The center of the room was occupied by a long leather sofa facing the windows opposite the door. There were a few chairs with clothes draped over the back, and more clothes scattered around on the floor.
There were piles of magazines here too, but the most conspicuous object in the room was a large laptop PC on a desk under the windows. There were several windows open on the monitor. Some showed road maps. The window on the bottom was a news feed with text flowing from left to right.
Someone sighed. Kotaro’s invisible body flinched with surprise.
The sofa was occupied.
He slowly “walked” around it. If something in the chaos of the room blocked his way, he just passed through it without making a sound. Even so, he stilled his breath and tried to walk softly out of habit.
A woman sat cross-legged on the sofa, settled deep into the leather back. A stylish shoulder bag lay open next to her.
She was putting on makeup. She had a kit open on her lap and was in the middle of applying eye shadow with a hand mirror.
No—not a woman. She’s just a kid.
Her face was small under the makeup. She was slender as a wisp, fifteen or sixteen at most. She wore a backless one-piece dress, earrings and a necklace.
Kotaro felt an icy shock pass through his ghostlike body.
It’s her.
She sniffled. The corners of her eyes were slightly red. She dug around in the kit and came up with an eye pencil.
There was a sound of footsteps. Someone was coming down a flight of stairs with a regular tread. A woman in an athletic jersey, with long hair carelessly gathered behind her head, walked through the door.
“Oh my god, are you still crying?”
Her voice was husky. She was mid-thirties to around forty, thin in an unhealthy way, without makeup. She had no eyebrows.
“I’m all right now,” said the girl. She shut her makeup kit and looked up at the woman. “Are my lashes straight?”
“Very professional.”
The woman went to the desk and picked up a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She extracted a cigarette and lit it. “I don’t think he’s gonna come around,” she said.
“I know.”
“You ought to be satisfied.”
The girl tossed the kit in her bag and frowned. “This is not what I wanted. I didn’t ask you to grab him too.”
The woman leaned against the edge of the desk and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
“We had to make a quick decision. It couldn’t be helped. If we’d left him in the park, he would’ve called the cops.”
“I mean, really …”
“What’s the problem? You had a nice long talk.”
“I guess.” The girl bit her glossy lip. “I don’t think he even heard me.”
The woman laughed hoarsely. “What did you expect? If he was easy, you wouldn’t have had to hire us.”
Hire? The word didn’t match the setting or the people.
The woman stubbed out her smoke and turned to the PC. She leaned forward with her left hand on the desk and began moving the mouse with her right. A new window opened, with icons and lines of text.
“Where’s the final payment? You owe us half a million yen,” the woman said crisply.
The girl narrowed her precisely drawn eyebrows. “I’m going to pay you.”
“Mommy and Daddy aren’t onto you?” the older woman asked.
“Don’t worry. Mommy and Daddy don’t know I’ve got the combination to the safe. They don’t even know I know there is a safe.”
The woman’s shoulders shook with laughter.
“So please, let me take him with me,” the girl said. “You can’t get anything out of his parents anyway.”
“But I hear they’re loaded.”
“His father’s a pretty tough guy. If you kidnap his son, he’ll go straight to the police.”
“Are you nuts? We already kidnapped him.” The woman glared at the girl over her shoulder. She had an expanse of white under each iris. “You’re an accessory now, so clear off quietly, pay us and keep your mouth shut.”
The girl pulled her head in obediently and looked up. “You’ll keep me out of this, won’t you? Erase my mails?”
“After you pay us.”
“But will it really be okay? Getting arrested is the last thing I need.”
“Same here. Hubby and I want to keep on being friendly Mama and Papa for Teen911.com. And you’ll keep being a cute high school girl,” she said with a very friendly smile. “Of course, we might ask you for a little help someday. This kind of relationship is forever, you know.”
Kotaro felt something like the shiver he would have had if he’d had a body. He understood. Everything was clear enough to make him vomit.
Dear Teen911: I have a rival. She brainwashed my boyfriend and took him away from me. What can I do?
Glitter Kitty’s spiteful posts to the dark website were burned into his brain. Each one had been a savage attack on Mika, full of fantasies of possessing Gaku. Full of egoism and ill will.
The woman and her husband were likely monitoring the school site as part of their business. Glitter Kitty’s vitriol would not have gone unnoticed. Instead of giving her kind words of advice and support, Papa and Mama had sized her up—correctly—as needing a special service.
A revenge agency.
Kotaro had heard a lot about these websites and their services when he’d helped out on Black Box Island. The ones that made little effort to hide what they did offered relatively innocuous forms of revenge. The ones that provided more vicious services disguised themselves in various ways. Romance problems, conflicts with the boss, quarrels with in-laws—revenge agencies offered to help anyone who felt victimized. They offered counseling and helped clients troubleshoot ongoing disputes. Or s
o they said.
But their services were either illegal or just barely legal. Round-the-clock harassment, threats, even extortion. Sometimes they went straight to violence. Clients paid these agencies via the Internet without knowing much about who they were. Satisfaction was all that mattered. If clients got satisfaction, they usually didn’t consider the consequences.
The husband-wife team running Teen911.com presented themselves as kind and gentle Papa and Mama, but this was a snare for the unwary. When people like Glitter Kitty approached them for help, they reeled them in.
Doing business with teens wasn’t a great way to make loads of money, but then again, the risk of being discovered was lower than with adults, who were harder to threaten and manipulate.
Now Glitter Kitty was tangled in their net. She’d given Papa and Mama a down payment to take care of her problem: make Mika Sonoi go away. Make sure she never gets close to Gaku again.
Today they’d carried out the assignment. They’d kidnapped Gaku and Mika from the park and brought them to this house—
“What do you mean, this relationship is forever?” Glitter Kitty was indignant. “I’m just a client.”
The woman turned all the way around to look at her. She was grinning ironically.
“You know, you’re right. We took care of that girl for you, just as you asked. Just as you asked.”
Kotaro felt himself disappear. When he reappeared, he was moving up the stairs.
The upstairs hall was dirty but bare. Dust bunnies nestled against the walls and in the corners.
Three doors: left, right, and straight ahead. The door straight ahead was half-open. Light fell into the hall. He heard a voice.
A tearful voice. “Can you … promise … me?”
He moved toward it.
A bedroom. There were two spring mattresses side by side on the floor. Each was covered with crumpled sheets and blankets.
Gaku Shimakawa slumped in a corner, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. He was barefoot. There were flecks of blood on his chest. Otherwise he seemed unhurt, but his face was gaunt with fear and his jaw was trembling. His hands were confined in cheap-looking handcuffs. His ankles were bound with packing rope.
“If I go home … and come back … with my dad’s ATM card … you’ll let Mika … go?” The boy was sobbing and trying to be strong and negotiate at the same time.