I sleep for a long time, lulled by the rocking of the car. Now and then my eyes pop open and I survey the scenery like I’m a deep-sea diver coming up for air. Then I go back under to sleep some more.

  Each time I open my eyes, the view is different. Sometimes the roadside is lined with chain stores, sometimes we’re in a village with only a scattering of houses, and sometimes we’re driving through valleys with nothing but green. After a certain point, the only other vehicles on the road seem to be big trucks. Large tarps attached to the front of the trucks say things like MINISTRY OF THE ENVIRONMENT, REMOVED SOIL, and CONTAMINATED SOIL. I don’t have the energy or will to think, so I let it all stream past my eyeballs and fall back asleep.

  One time, I open my eyes to find that the car is driving through a peaceful village. The road is smooth asphalt with no potholes, and the centerline is bright yellow like it’s just been painted. But if you study them closely, you can see that all the houses and shops we pass are abandoned, already half reclaimed by the surrounding vegetation. The cars parked slantwise in the parking lots, the windows left wide-open, the lunch signs left beside the doors—all of it has a peculiar sense of interruption, like life has been paused midstream. Everything on either side of the road is silently decaying. The village sits, emptied of its people, with only this well-maintained thoroughfare ferrying trucks back and forth through its heart. The whole scene feels like the continuation of a dream. After watching it for a while, I sink back into the mud of sleep.

  It’s the feeling of shaking that finally wakes me up and sends my eyes flying open. I’m sure it’s not just the usual vibration of the car. I glance at the seat next to me. Daijin is awake, too, looking around.

  “Did the car just shake?” I ask Serizawa, turning toward the driver’s seat.

  “Look who finally woke up,” he answers lazily. “Your aunt’s sleeping now.”

  I crane my neck around to look in the passenger seat. Tamaki is leaning way back in the cushion, breathing steadily.

  “Guess both of you needed some rest,” he says, half laughing. The phone next to the steering wheel dings.

  “…Hey, you’re right. There was an intensity three earthquake. It’s hard to feel it when you’re driving.”

  My phone buzzes, too, and I check the message. It says an intensity three earthquake occurred one minute ago.

  “Stop the car!”

  “What?!” Serizawa replies as he slows down and stops the car.

  I jump out on the shoulder of the road and look around. Lush, tall weeds extend on both sides. There’s a sign that reads DIFFICULT TO RETURN ZONE, DO NOT ENTER and a steel fence. A narrow road buried under grass leads away on the other side. Beyond that, I can see a small hill.

  “Hey, Suzume, what are you doing?” Serizawa shouts.

  I ignore him, slip through a gap in the fence, and run up the hill.

  When I get to the top of the hill and look back, everything is green. Houses and electric poles are hidden between the trees like they’re holding their breath. Breaking out in a light sweat, I scrutinize the scene.

  “I don’t see it…,” I murmur. A second later, the ground rumbles beneath my feet. I look down, and the earth is shaking very slightly. Pebbles buried in the weeds are clattering together softly. As I stare at them in surprise, the shaking stops. I raise my head and scan the landscape again.

  “Still don’t see it,” I murmur again.

  The worm is nowhere to be seen. The rumbling has stopped.

  Souta is holding it down, I think. Now that he’s the Keystone, he’s keeping the worm sealed underground. I remember the Gate I saw in Tokyo—the black hill with the chair stuck into it. My chest fills with emotion. It was such a lonely sight.

  Suddenly, the grass rustles.

  “…Daijin.”

  The cat must have followed me. It’s sitting at a slight distance, its bony back to me as it stares down at the town.

  “What do you want?” I ask harshly. The kitten doesn’t turn around. “Why aren’t you talking? Hey!”

  There’s no answer. I squeeze the ribbon at my chest, gripping the Closer’s key underneath my shirt along with it.

  “I was wondering,” I mumble, not expecting an answer. “Can anyone be a Keystone, even if they’re not a Closer…?”

  “Heeey,” someone calls out in a laid-back voice, and I raise my head to see who it is. Serizawa is climbing the hill, his hands in his pockets. “What’s up? Are you okay?”

  He peers at my face as he walks. He doesn’t sound very worried.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I’m fine. We’d better hurry…”

  As I start to walk down the hill, he passes me coming up. I stop and watch him. He stands at the top, stretches his interlocked hands over his head, and takes a deep breath.

  “Man, I’m stiff. Wonder if we’re halfway there yet.”

  He takes out a pack of cigarettes, puts one in his mouth, and lights it. He looks down at the town, his face sweaty, and inhales with obvious enjoyment.

  I give up on getting anywhere in a hurry and look out at the town, too. I’d forgotten he was driving the whole time I was asleep. I was too preoccupied to even think about it. I’m still anxious to get moving, but—

  “This wind feels great. Think it’s a little cooler here than in Tokyo,” Serizawa says.

  Green rice paddies and fields surround us. The wind bends the grass, filling the air with a sound like waves on the shore. The noontime sun glints brightly off the rooftops. A truck drives slowly through the landscape, like it’s drawing a line between the two sides. I can make out a thin blue horizon in the distance. Somewhere, a cuckoo cries.

  “I never knew this was such a beautiful place,” Serizawa says, squinting in the light.

  “Really?” I say despite myself, trying to figure out what he’s seeing. “You think this is beautiful?”

  In my mind, the memory of white journal paper covered with black crayon is overlayed on the scene before me. That’s why his words come as a genuine surprise. Beautiful?

  “What’s with you?” Serizawa says, turning me. But I don’t have time to explain.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, starting down the hill again. “We have to hurry,” I mutter. Daijin follows silently. I can hear Serizawa walking behind me, and I imagine him throwing his hands up.

  “Hey, you, cat!” he calls out to Daijin. “Your family’s got some serious issues.”

  …I can hear you, you know.

  I glare back at him and see a thunderhead flash in the distance. A moment later, the sky rumbles. When I look up, black clouds are rushing across the heavens like something sinister is chasing them.

  “What are you searching for? Is it something hard to find?”

  All the songs Serizawa plays on his phone are old. I don’t recognize many of them, but this one I’ve heard somewhere before. Oblivious to his passengers’ moody silence, he’s humming along as usual and occasionally chiming in.

  “Didn’t find it in your bag, didn’t find it in your desk…”

  “It’s raining,” Tamaki suddenly says from the passenger seat.

  “Seriously?!” Serizawa says, for once sounding upset. I look up. The sky over the convertible is completely covered in gray clouds, and black dots are filling up the asphalt. A big drop falls on my forehead.

  “This sucks…,” he says, strangely melancholy.

  “What? You must have a roof—why don’t you hurry up and close it?” Tamaki says.

  “Ah… Right… Guess I’ll do that,” Serizawa says, pressing a button next to the gearshift. A motor whirs behind me. I glance back. The trunk pops open, and a folded roof slowly emerges. I watch with rapt attention as it transforms into top and bottom sections, and the bottom part fits neatly over my head.

  “Wow…,” I say like a little kid. Convertibles are amazing. The top part slides forward and covers the front seat. But then, with a bang like something has caught, the roof stops moving. The back seat where I am is completely enclosed, but there’s a gap around thirty centimeters wide over the front seat.

  “What’s going on?” Tamaki asks suspiciously, just as the sky opens up. The rain is pouring down onto Serizawa and Tamaki. His jacket and her knit top are both darkening. I think I hear Serizawa laughing.

  “Guess it’s not fixed after all. Ha-ha.”

  “That’s not funny!” Tamaki screams. “What are you going to do about this?!”

  “No worries! There’s a rest stop just ahead!” he says, still laughing as he fiddles with the navigation system.

  “The next rest stop is in forty kilometers. You will arrive in approximately thirty minutes,” the automated voice says cheerfully.

  “That’s not exactly just ahead!” Tamaki shouts. As if in response, lightning flashes. The rain is pounding down even harder.

  I sigh, slumping in the back seat. I should have taken the Shinkansen by myself. But it’s too late now. We’re not that far from our destination.

  “Do you want to take a trip into your dreams, into your dreams?” a voice sings confidently over the car stereo like a fortune teller predicting the future.

  Enter the Minister of the Left

  When we finally reach the rest stop next to the ocean, the two of them look like some free-spirited couple who sneaked into a pool at midnight and went swimming with all their clothes on. They want to change, dry their things, get some food, and use the restroom. They invite me to come along, but I turn them down. Slurping ramen at a restaurant is the last thing I feel like doing right now. I’m not the slightest bit hungry. When I decline the invitation, Tamaki sighs and disappears into the building with Serizawa. I sit in the back seat of the parked car, hugging my knees and staring at the rain as it’s sucked into the dim ocean. Daijin is curled up silently by my side, sleeping.

  As I’m watching the rain, Tamaki is in the restroom, changing into a spare set of clothes she brought (a white tank top and a lavender cardigan) and quickly fixing her smeared makeup in the mirror. It’s enough to warm her chilly mood, if just a little. In the cafeteria, she orders the “fisherman’s pick of the day” and eats it at a different table from Serizawa. This rest stop was rebuilt just a few years ago, and the cafeteria is sprawling with high ceilings. The fatty mackerel is tasty, the air-conditioning is comfortable, and the customers are sparse. As she sips hot tea after her meal, Tamaki lets out a sigh of relief for the first time since leaving Kyushu.

  Not all the problems are solved, she thinks, but at least I managed to find Suzume. It seems we’ve ended up heading for her old home, and I don’t know anything about this Souta guy who’s supposedly there for some reason—but once we get there and she sees him, I’m sure she’ll be satisfied. Are they dating? It’s possible. But why go home after all this time?

  …Maybe it’s her way of finding herself. Tamaki thinks about that for a while. Suzume’s still young, still in the process of growing up and forming relationships. Maybe she felt the need to go back to her roots. Yes, that must be it. She’ll go back home, sort out her feelings, then return to her ordinary life. This is a perfectly normal rite of passage—the kind anyone might go through.

  She tries that theory on for size. She doesn’t feel the least bit convinced it’s true, but by telling herself it must be, she feels slightly relieved. Guess I’ll be back at work the day after tomorrow or so…which reminds me—I should call Minoru.

  “—So now you’re with the male escort?!” he shouts after she’s explained the basic situation.

  “No, he’s not really an escort. He just acts like one. A pretty low budget one, too… No, not at all. It doesn’t sound like there’s any manipulation involved.”

  She glances over her shoulder, still holding the phone to her ear. Serizawa is slurping his ramen with gusto at a table toward the back wall. Tamaki had considered the ramen, too.

  “But that’s so dangerous!” Minoru is saying. It must be sunny there, because she can hear the peaceful calls of seagulls in the background. She can imagine the old windows in the fishing cooperative office and the blue horizon beyond.

  “You’re two helpless women! A car is like a locked room, you know!”

  “Not this one. It’s a convertible—”

  “A c-convertible?!” he says, his voice leaping to a falsetto. “That’s even worse! Tamaki, where in Miyagi are you right now? The Oya Coast Travel Oasis? Got it. Hold on just a second—”

  She can hear him tapping furiously at his keyboard. She imagines him there, his big, tanned form dressed in a T-shirt—a guy who’s probably never driven anything other than a farm truck or a forklift in his life—working so desperately to help her.

  “There’s an express bus bound for Tokyo stopped in the parking lot right now. Plenty of seats are open. I can get tickets for you—”

  “Minoru, slow down!” she says frantically. She explains that since they’ve come this far, she intends to go with Suzume to her old hometown, and that she believes that will satisfy her. “It’s like a rite of passage,” she says, smoothly repeating platitudes she’s heard somewhere before. “You know how teenagers are.” But even as she does, part of her knows it’s not true. It’s completely wrong. As she speaks, she finally accepts the uneasy, foreboding feeling inside herself. I don’t think things are going to go as smoothly as I’m imagining. I think Suzume has something in mind that goes way beyond my little ideas. She doesn’t have anything to back up this feeling, but she knows instinctively that it’s true.

  “I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Can you handle things till then?” she asks Minoru, though she no longer believes what she’s saying. Then she hangs up.

  My destination is an hour and forty-five minutes away by car.

  I peel my eyes away from the map on my phone and take a deep breath. The air is damp with rain and sea spray. A little farther. Just a little farther. I slowly exhale the air from my chest, trying to soothe my anxious, racing thoughts.

  I tap the map menu to display the log of my movements. The map zooms out until all of Japan is on my screen, my route a blue line. From Miyazaki to Ehime by ferry, from there across Shikoku by car to Kobe, and then by Shinkansen to Tokyo. The line traces the Pacific coast through Chiba, Ibaraki, and Fukushima. My present location is in Miyagi. Next to this line spanning most of the Japanese archipelago is the distance, 1,630 kilometers. I’ve come so far. It’s going to be fine, I tell myself. I can make it to Ever-After.

  Suddenly, an unpleasant sensation bubbles up under my feet, startling me. A low rumbling has begun.

  “—!”

  My phone buzzes, and red letters spell out “Earthquake Early Warning” on the screen. Kneeling on top of my seat, I look around. The cars on either side are bouncing up and down with a creaking sound. The rain accumulated on the roof over our parking space is pouring off in a wild waterfall. But a few seconds later, the shaking calms, as if the earthquake had second thoughts. Eventually, my phone goes silent, and the strange sensation disappears. Only my own heart continues to pound.

  “…Souta.”

  I grip the key under my shirt as I murmur his name. “Souta, Souta.” Will it go on like this, for years, for decades? Every time there’s an earthquake, will I think of Souta, all alone on that black hill? Even if he can stand it—I know I can’t.

  “Souta, Souta,” I whisper like a prayer. I’m coming. I’m coming to save you.

  “Suzume!”

  Tamaki is running along the roofed area toward the car. “Did you feel that earthquake?” she asks, opening the car door and piling into the passenger seat. She’s changed into a lavender cardigan, and the color is back in her cheeks.

  “I hate that feeling…,” she mutters to herself, fixing her rain-wet bangs with her fingers.

  “Where’s Serizawa?” I ask, looking at her reflection in the rearview mirror.

  “Still eating, I guess. Are you sure you don’t want anything?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You haven’t eaten all day.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  I can hear her sighing softly. We fall silent as the rain continues. It’s only a little after noon, but everything is dim, like a phone screen with the brightness setting turned all the way down.

  “…Suzume?” Tamaki says, like she’s just made up her mind. “I want you to tell me something.”

  “…What?”

  “Why do you want to go home?”

  “There’s a door—,” I start to say, then stop. “…Sorry. It’s hard to explain.”

  “What kind of answer is that?”

  She stops looking at me in the rearview mirror and turns around. For the first time in hours, our eyes meet directly.

  “You’re causing other people all this hassle, and you can’t explain?”

  “Hassle?” I snap back at her. I want to say I didn’t ask either of them to come with me, but I resist. “You wouldn’t understand even if I told you.”

  I can sense her recoil. With a bang, she slams open the door, gets out, and grabs my arm from outside the car.

  “We’re going home. There’s a bus over there.”

  “What?”

  “You say you can’t explain, you’re pale as a sheet, and you’re deliberately not eating!”

  “Let me go!” I say, shaking off her hand. “Go home yourself! I didn’t ask you to come with me!”

  “You don’t get it! I was worried to death about you!”

  Her voice is shaking with fury. I snap back reflexively.

  “Your worry is getting in the way!”

  Tamaki’s eyes widen. She bites her lip, then slowly looks down. Her shoulders heave. She’s breathing deeply, like the air around her has suddenly become thin.

  “I’m so sick and tired of this…,” she says in a hoarse, slow voice.

  I glare at her. She’s standing straight and tall in the half-light of the covered parking area.

  “I took you in and spent a decade of my life raising you… What an idiot I’ve been.”

  This catches me off guard. Raindrops blow in on the wind and spatter my cheeks.