15. If It’s Where You Are
Episode 119
“I’m so sick of this, so sick. Back home, spring flowers would be blooming around now and we’d have a festival, but here the snow still hasn’t melted. Just how long is winter going to last?”
“It’s because we’re deep in the mountains. Summer is short and winter is terribly long. Ah, Unni. Would you like some hot chocolate too?”
Rijan smiled faintly and shook her head. The chocolate that the younger girl who shared her dorm room had brought from home with great resolve was so bitter that they had to pour in milk and sugar to the brim. And after drinking it, she couldn’t fall asleep.
Sleep…….
These days, she couldn’t sleep at all.
Now she suffered from the same insomnia that had once plagued him.
In the mountains, the days were short and the nights were long. Naturally, the hour to retire was somewhat early. To lie in bed according to their agreed communal schedule, the peeping cries of birds, the wind rattling the windows, and the damp, cool scent of grass filled her senses.
Then it felt as if she had returned…… to some night in Derosa.
Was it because she had drawn near to that time?
The place, or perhaps the season.
Tossing and turning in an inexplicable void, before she knew it a bluish dawn light would stream in. It was around then that Rijan would finally fall into a deep sleep, only to wake again.
School life was more or less fine. The teachers and students asked Rijan—who had returned after a long absence and lost her voice—what had happened and expressed their worries, but in the end they welcomed her warmly. Among the students who had visited their hometowns, there were some who had vaguely heard rumors from the capital, but none could connect them to Rijan.
“I saw her tongue, it’s not cut off or anything, it’s perfectly fine. It’s just an illness where she can’t speak. There are illnesses like that. We’re not doctors, how would we know every disease in the world?”
“That’s right. Is she someone who would do something wrong or make a slip of the tongue? Where would you find someone as kind as Rijan-unni? Back when we first left home and were crying our eyes out because we missed our mothers, she took care of us like a mother.”
“Well, it’s not like we’ve only known Rijan for a year or two.”
“Then I guess she left school because something was wrong with her health, couldn’t get it treated, and just came back.”
Especially the younger girls whom Rijan had practically raised a few years ago took her side. Thanks to them whispering amongst themselves and exercising their imagination to add appropriate excuses, Rijan was able to blend back in naturally, as if she had never been away. At school, there was no one who couldn’t read or write, so communicating was considerably easier.
“Unni, what’s wrong? Are you feeling ill?”
Even though she had merely bowed her head and paused briefly, the younger girls who regarded Rijan as a patient suspected illness the moment her behavior was even slightly unnatural. Rijan pressed her palm against her collarbone and tried to gesture that she was fine.
The truth was, it was because of her necklace. After worrying about where to keep the diamond ring he had given her, Rijan had threaded the ring onto a necklace chain and hung it around her neck. She could have left it in the corner of her desk without touching it, but it was too expensive a jewel for her not to worry.
So she had chosen to wear it as a necklace. Hanging the ring on a slightly lengthened chain and hiding it beneath her collar was perfect for keeping it out of sight. However, the unfamiliar weight around her neck made her startle unwittingly from time to time.
“Right, you mentioning the festival reminded me. Want to hear a creepy story? I went home not long ago.”
It was a classmate from the north whose home wasn’t far from the school, so she often came and went.
“In our village, we have a tradition around this time where everyone gathers for a day to set a brush fire and make wishes. Because the village is small, not a single household is absent. That’s why I went home too……. Anyway, one of our neighbors hadn’t shown themselves at all for a while, but in the evenings the lights would be brightly lit behind the curtains, so everyone just figured they weren’t coming out because of the cold.”
“And?”
“But everyone has to attend the festival together, right? One of the village elders went and knocked to tell them the schedule, and someone answered from inside saying they understood, but the voice was completely unfamiliar. So when he asked if something was wrong, they said they had caught a terrible cold. He just accepted that.”
“What? Is this a scary story?”
“Seems like it.”
“I can’t listen to scary stories…….”
“Then don’t listen, cover your ears.”
“But I’m curious.”
The students who had been listening from afar had already huddled close together.
“On the day of the festival, that house was the only one that didn’t come to the square. Everyone was worried that they must have really caught a terrible cold, so we all went rushing over together. I was back home then, so I was there. It was a pitch-black night. The lights were out. No matter how much we knocked, there was no sign of anyone.”
“Why?”
“Weren’t they asleep?”
“We thought so too and were about to leave, but…… how should I put it, there was an eerie feeling that’s hard to explain. Anyway, feeling uneasy, the adults decided to force the door open together. I was just standing in the back. Then the people who opened the door and went inside suddenly started screaming. I ran over in surprise, and they told me not to come in. But the smell coming from that house…….”
The girl shuddered, her shoulders trembling.
“I heard later that they had all been stabbed to death. All five people in that family. And the really strange thing is, if a thief broke in, wouldn’t they normally scream? That way someone would hear and realize something had happened. But no one had heard any strange sounds.”
“What? They were killed without even having a chance to scream?”
“I guess so, but isn’t it even stranger? Can ordinary people kill others that professionally, like butchering livestock? It doesn’t seem like an ordinary thief. There probably wasn’t just one, right? If the culprit were alone, how could they kill an entire family of five without making a sound? The problem is why those kinds of men were roaming around the countryside. All the wealthy people live in the capital or big cities.”
One student who had been listening quietly chimed in.
“Apparently, really dangerous crimes happen a lot in the countryside. In big cities like Clarice, there are so many people that it’s easy to get caught.”
“Even so. What’s scarier is that, according to my parents, the bodies didn’t seem to be only a day or two old. Then who had been keeping the lights on at that house every evening? Just what kind of men were they? It’s truly horrifying that no one knew they had entered that house, lived there, and vanished without a trace…….”
❖ ❖ ❖
“Unni, let’s go pick mulberries.”
Weekends at the dormitory were relaxed. Having woken up late, Rijan set out with the younger girls to pick mulberries, carrying a small basket.
“Wow, there are so many mulberries here! Everyone, come this way.”
“But what are we going to do with mulberries?”
“Don’t open your mouth after eating them. Your tongue will turn pitch-black.”
Even when just a few students gathered, they chattered away loudly. Some excitedly picked mulberries with baskets at their sides, while others read books they had brought or gossiped. Taking care of the younger girls who had followed their unnis out was the duty of the eldest, Rijan.
When their stomachs began to growl, Rijan shared out the sandwiches she had prepared as snacks.
“This will be the last time I pick mulberries or raspberries with you, Unni. I’ll probably be going home soon to get married. The man I’m marrying is inheriting a pharmacy, and he wants me to help with the work. What about you, Unni? Doesn’t your family ask you to come home?”
Rijan was still worrying about what to do after graduating. Not long ago, the principal had secretly called her aside and suggested that if she didn’t have a suitable place to stay, she could remain at the school and take up work as an assistant teacher. Though she couldn’t teach directly, she could set exam questions or look after the young girls who couldn’t adjust to school life. After saying this, the principal had looked at her with a strange gaze, as if observing her, and added something cryptic.
“Rijan, Rijan……. Certainly, that is not a name one would call ordinary, no matter where one went. Isn’t that right?”
It was just as she had been about to resign herself to staying at the school for the time being.
A strange sensation suddenly swept down her spine. It felt as if the back of her head were being pulled taut, or as if someone were watching her.
Is there someone behind me?
Rijan turned and looked around.
There was no one. Naturally. While the students had little choice but to come to places like this for walks, since there weren’t many suitable spots near the school, this place was deep in the mountains, quite far from any dwellings. Perhaps a mountain trapper might come, but ordinary people rarely set foot here.
“Unni, what’s wrong?”
She must have imagined it. It was perfectly possible. She wasn’t Ezekiel, so there was no reason for her senses to be that sharp.
Ezekiel. Her heart plummeted with a thud at the name that rose to mind before she could prepare herself.
Rijan pressed down on the ring hidden beneath her collar and quickly shook her head.
It was around the time when the entire dormitory was forcibly blacked out for bedtime. One of the younger girls approached Rijan timidly.
“Unniii, I need the bathroom…….”
She was a child who had been especially frightened after hearing the horrifying story about the family massacre not long ago. The girl, who had begun suffering from nocturnal fears every night, couldn’t even go to the bathroom she had used to visit alone, so the older girls had to take turns accompanying her.
Rijan took the girl through the darkened corridor and escorted her to the bathroom. She stood waiting in front of the door, then took the child back with her, but the silence of the corridor, which grew more palpable as they approached the dormitory room, felt somehow ominous.
Already this quiet?
At this hour, the girls would normally still be giggling and whispering under their covers for quite a while after the lights went out before one by one drifting to sleep.
She told herself she was just being sensitive, yet an inexplicable unease kept clutching at her ankles.
Just in case. If someone was lying in wait to startle the girls who had left their beds in the middle of the night, it would be better for her alone to face it than her fearful younger sister who couldn’t even go to the bathroom by herself.
Rijan pressed a finger to her lips to shush the girl, then pushed her behind a shelf standing in the corridor.
Then she opened the bedroom door.
In that instant, her eyes met with a group of assailants smoothly sheathing their blades.
At first, she thought she was seeing things. But the heavy smell of blood wafting toward her sharply snapped her to her senses.
Rijan clamped both hands over her mouth. Even though she knew she couldn’t scream, her hands moved instinctively.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven…… twelve.
Frozen, Rijan counted the number of assailants with her eyes. They were all men with unfamiliar appearances, but among them was mixed a single face she knew. Even with one eye covered by an eyepatch, he was someone she couldn’t not recognize.
Akenaus smiled crookedly. That appearance, as though Ezekiel had been diluted into a slightly softer, more delicate version, was an impression she could never forget, no matter how much time passed.
“Hello, long time no see?”