Book Girl and the Famished Spirit (2 page)

“No! Absolutely not!”

It was lunchtime, and I was hurrying Tohko along despite her resistance. We were paying a visit to the school’s music hall. The luxurious building, which was made up of a large auditorium that could seat a thousand people and several smaller halls, belonged to the school orchestra. The orchestra had lots of members and had even won competitions, and it was as different from the book club—which met in a storage room and was barely active—as high-end Matsusaka beef was from beef jerky.

The president of the school orchestra was the conductor, a girl named Maki Himekura, who smiled in amusement as she listened to our story.

“Wow, is that what happened? And just how long have you been keeping watch in the morning and after school? You certainly are dedicated.”

There were windows set in the building’s domed roof, and the brilliant summer sunlight pouring through them made the room look like a cathedral. There were several sketches and watercolors hanging on the walls, and in the center of the studio was a canvas propped on an easel.

Maki sat down, crossing her legs grandly, still holding her paintbrush. Her deeply chiseled features, her long hair that spread like golden waves in the light, her figure that curved exactly where it was supposed to—unlike Tohko’s—all were commanding in a way that was unlike most Japanese people. Apparently her mother had been from another country, and Maki’s heritage was mixed.

She had actually wanted to join the art club, so she spent most of her breaks and afternoons drawing alone in a workroom inside
the music building. She was the school director’s granddaughter—which was why she got such special treatment—and since she had contacts and connections everywhere, she was a font of information.

“You should have come to me right away. I would have looked into it. Don’t be such a stranger, Tohko.”

When Maki’s mocking gaze fell upon her, Tohko bit her lip ruefully.

Before she could say anything, I smiled politely at Maki with my best good-guy face for public consumption. “We knew we could count on you, Maki.”

Tohko glared at me disapprovingly. I’m sure she thought I was implying I couldn’t count on her. On the other hand, the edges of Maki’s smile softened slightly.

“Well, that’s because I’m an indispensable source of information with all those alumni and relatives I have.”

“Then if you could—”

I leaned forward, but Maki countered in a syrupy tone, “But I have one condition before I’ll look into who’s leaving you these notes. I presume that you know what it is, Tohko?”

Tohko flushed bright red at that, all the way to her ears. She tossed her long braids and shouted, “You want me to pose nude for you, right? I refuse!”

Well, Maki
had
said that she’d had her eye on Tohko ever since they started school here, but I thought she would be much better off looking in a mirror and drawing herself naked rather than fighting so hard to render Tohko’s flat chest. I suppose people really do covet what they lack themselves.

Tohko balled her hands up fiercely, enraged.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to come see her. All she ever does is act like a horny boss, drunkenly harassing me at a party and trying to get me to take my clothes off. I’m a lovely and innocent
book girl. I’m very modest, unlike Maki. I am a bashful white lily. Just because we’re both girls doesn’t mean I’m just going to take my clothes off for her.”

Does a white lily sit with her feet pulled up on her folding chair, or straddle it and rock it back and forth, or munch on books in front of people?

“I see. Then I can’t help you. Too bad,” Maki replied heartlessly.

I became intently self-effacing. “Uh, maybe we can work something out?”

“Konoha! Don’t bow to her! You have a charming upperclassman you can rely on right here!”

Tohko grabbed my arm and started walking, the
Now let’s go!
unspoken.

Ugh, are we doing another stakeout? Midterms are next week.

“Sorry to bother you,” Tohko declared petulantly as she reached the door.

Maki smiled mischievously and said, “You know, it could be a real ghost writing these mysterious notes. There’s a ghost who wanders the school grounds every night, writing down numbers. That’s what I’ve heard from the alumni.”

“You can’t believe what she told us, Konoha. Ghosts don’t actually exist.”

After classes were over—well actually, at night—stars winked in the sky overhead.

“Yeah, okay. Can I go home now, Tohko? It’s past nine.”

“No, we’re not budging one step tonight until the perpetrators show themselves.”

Tohko’s eyes were fixed on the mailbox as she crouched low over the pavement in the shadow of the school building.

“We’re going to catch them and prove to Maki that there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Maki had told us that more than ten years ago there had been stories of a ghost who wrote numbers on the wall of the biology lab or on desks in the geography room.

“They were written in an oil-based ink, so they got washed off and you can’t see them anymore,” she said. “But this is a famous ghost story they’ve told at our school for a long time. Didn’t your alums ever tell you? Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot, the book club doesn’t have any.”

Tohko loved the book club, and that comment seemed to have injured her pride.

“We’re keeping watch all night, Konoha!” she proclaimed as soon as we’d left the music hall.

It terrified me, but she really did seem energized to stake the place out until morning.

“There are goblins who eat stories, so why can’t there be ghosts? Let’s just assume it was a ghost and get out of here.”

I wanted to go home as soon as I possibly could, but when I gave this hint as to how put out I was, Tohko glared at me with incredible ferocity.

“I am
not
a goblin! I’m an ordinary book girl who just eats her books. Even if I granted you that I’m a goblin—which I’m
not
—I don’t want to be lumped in with things like ghosts. It’s so cheap when it turns out it was all a dream or because of a ghost. It’s just wrong. I don’t accept ghosts.”

Did Tohko have something against ghosts? I suddenly remembered how she had stressed that if I ever ran into a ghost, I had to be sure to sprinkle salt around.

The way things were going, it didn’t look like I’d be able to go home anytime soon. My poor exams…

My mother thought I was studying at a friend’s house. Once I’d finished the after-school cleanup, I’d called her from a public phone on campus and explained, “I’m going to go study for the
exams at a classmate’s house. What? His name? A guy named Akutagawa. So I might be late getting home.”

“So you made a friend you’re that close with? I’m glad.”

She’d been so happy.

Ever since starting high school, I had never hung out with friends, so she had probably been worried about me. My chest ached with guilt. Plus, I’d lied about studying when what I was actually doing was playing detective with my goblin club president.

I’m sorry, Mom.
In an effort to study at least a little bit, I opened my math workbook and started working on problems by the light of the moon and streetlamps.

“You’re so serious, Konoha.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be taking your college exams this year?”

“I learn very well in class. I’ll be fine,” she declared haughtily, and bringing her small face close to mine, she peered at my workbook.

Her long braids spilled over her thin shoulders, and the faint scent of violets tickled my nose.

“If you have any questions, you just ask me.”

She encouraged me in the kindly tone of a volunteer tutor, lifting her chin slightly, her eyes shining sweetly. But as soon as she got a look at the formulas I had written down in the book, she choked.

“… Geez, you’re working on problems this hard? Are you in the advanced class or something, Konoha? Are you secretly trying to get into Tokyo University?”

“We don’t have advanced classes at our school. Besides, this is the easy stuff. You learned all this last year, didn’t you?”

“Um… did I? Math and machines and I don’t really see eye to eye.”

Tohko looked away abruptly and fidgeted. A thought suddenly occurred to me.

“Hey, now that you mention it… Can you eat numbers?”

“Technically I
can
… But I look at words first and feel them in my heart, and then I eat them. Numbers are just numbers, though. If I can’t get any meaning out of them, even if I put them in my mouth and chew, they’ll only taste like uncooked macaroni.”

I see
…

Tohko had told me that she could eat the bread or rice that we eat, but it didn’t taste like anything. It must be the same thing.

“What about the alphabet?”

“Same thing. If I don’t understand the meaning, it’s just uncooked alphabet macaroni,” she whispered sadly. Then a small smile spread over her lips, as if a violet was blooming. “But of course, I want to try reading stories in foreign languages in the original. It’s so sad that amazing stories that set my heart fluttering are just a string of letters to me. So I study English really hard. That and French, Italian, German, and Chinese.

“It’s frustrating to read things line by line while I look things up, but it makes me treat each word with care and makes them meaningful, and when I find a word glittering amidst the others, it gives me such a thrill. The words I have to hunt out like that taste absolutely divine when they pop in my mouth,” she said rapturously, her voice soft and lilting.

The clear moonlight shone on Tohko’s pale face.

She looked so mystical and at least three times prettier than usual, so I decided it might be all right to go along with her whims every once in a while.

“If you worked that hard at math and figured the problems out all the way, maybe they would have a flavor all their own.”

“Er, that… seems unlikely.”

Seeing her blush and mumble, I almost burst out laughing.

“Come on, there must be subjects you’re bad at, too.”

“That’s true. I guess sometimes I get a little turned around by classics class.”

“That’s one of my best subjects. I’ll help you! Quick, get your book out. What’s the test going to be on?”

She was shaking my arm, hurrying me on gleefully, when suddenly we heard the school bell ring.

“Eek!”

Startled, Tohko screamed. I snapped my head up.

There was no reason for the bell to ring after school had let out, but we heard it clearly.

I glanced at my watch and saw it was approaching ten o’clock.

“It’s still too early for the witching hour.”

“Don’t say that kind of thing, Konoha! Eek!”

Tohko screamed again.

The lights had turned on in all of the windows of the school building and rapidly began winking out.

On top of that, there was a sharp noise, as though two hands were slapping together—
clap! clap!
—and on top of all
that
, we heard the sound of a girl’s sobs mingling into it.

“Open it… Put it inside…”

I caught the sound of a reedy voice, and all of my hair stood on end.

Goose bumps prickled my skin and my senses sharpened. My neck and limbs tensed, and my body became cold as ice, though the air was clammy, and felt like it had turned to lead.

“It really was a ghost after all, Tohko.”

“N-no! No! We’re just hearing things. And those lights are only doing that because the fluorescent bulbs are getting old. They start flickering when they’re about to burn out, right?”

“Not like that, just snapping off all at once.”

The lights were still flickering, which left my head spinning, and the slapping noise continued to cut into my ears.

More than any of that, though, the undiluted anguish of the girl’s weeping sent us hurtling into a pit of terror.

“Gh-ghosts aren’t r-r-real. They aren’t,” Tohko said, her lips trembling. She had balled up my sleeve in her tenacious grip.

“Yeah, ghosts aren’t—”

Just then a human figure rose into view in the school yard.

Tohko sucked in her breath.

That girl…

Appearing out of the shadows, the girl carried a black schoolbag in one hand and wore a school uniform. But it was not the modern, cropped sailor-style shirt and pleated skirt like the one Tohko wore.

Her uniform was a more dowdy dress in the sailor style—I’d seen it in old pictures that hung in the school building.
It was the old uniform from before they’d changed styles!
And even though it was summer, she wore a winter uniform!

She walked up to the mailbox with delicate, airy steps and then plopped down on the ground.

After that, she took a notebook and writing implement out of her bag, wrote something down in the notebook, then tore the page up and started slipping it into the mailbox.

At some point the flickering had abated and the slapping noise had died away.

Silence reigned; even the wind was inaudible.

But she was still there. Bathed in silver moonlight, detached and silent as she continued to write in her notebook and rip the pages into little shreds, the sight of her was so unusual that I couldn’t look away.

Her arms were much too thin and made her look like a lifeless
mannequin. But no—it wasn’t just her arms. Her thin hips, frail shoulders, tiny back, her translucent chestnut hair, plus the sickly white nape of her neck floating up out of the darkness… Every part of her was thin, unnatural, pale. She simply didn’t look like someone still drawing breath.

A bitter lump slipped down my throat. My mouth felt dry, and my hands were slick with sweat.

What in the world was she doing over there? Was she the one leaving us notes?

“Er… ghosts aren’t real.”

Still clinging to my shirt, Tohko started walking toward the girl. I was terrified.

“Why are you taking me with you?!”

“You’re a member of the book club, too. Go and ask that girl what she’s doing.”

“Why me?!”

“That’s an order.”

When we started fighting, the girl turned around.

Tohko stopped in her tracks with a jolt. My breath caught, too.