“Hey,” Tamaki says suddenly, still facing forward. “Those things I said in the parking lot…”

  I look at her. The wind is ruffling her short hair, which is damp with sweat. For the first time, I notice a few white hairs mixed in with the black.

  “I’ve had those thoughts…but that’s not the whole story.”

  “I know.”

  “Those aren’t my only feelings, not at all.”

  I laugh a little, just air escaping my lips.

  “…Me too. Sorry, Tamaki.”

  I put my hand on her sweaty shoulder and fit my cheek against the nape of her neck. It smells like her—that sunshine scent that’s always made me feel safe. I love that smell.

  “Returning home after twelve years, huh?” she says.

  I nod without saying anything. Far in the distance, I catch a glimpse of a gray seawall.

  Hometown

  “I’m back, Mom!” I used to shout as I ran up the short hill to my house after a day of playing outside. Twelve years later, standing in the same place, the memory comes back to me. When I got back, my mom would often give me something sweet to eat. Sweet potato cake, or fried bread with cinnamon sugar, or tofu mochi with kinako powder. For a long time, I’d forgotten the way the rooms connected in the house, the soft sweetness of those snacks, and the sound of my mother’s voice when she called me. But they rise now from the depths of my memory with a freshness that shocks me. I can almost see our two-story house as it was back then. And in that house—

  “I’m back, Mom,” I say quietly, pushing the memories aside. I open the little door in the rusted gate with both hands and step onto the lot where our house once stood.

  The ruins are buried in weeds. Only the low concrete foundation remains, covered now by brightly colored plants. My house isn’t the only one—the whole area is the same. Where rows of houses once stood, only a field of ruins remains. The little grove of trees that should be here is gone, and there’s nothing but wasteland as far as the eye can see. Everything that used to be here was washed away by the tsunami twelve years ago. A seawall looks down on the wasteland from maybe two hundred meters away. The sinking sun tints everything pink.

  When I was four years old, there was a big earthquake. A really, really big one. Big enough to shake the whole eastern half of Japan.

  When the earthquake hit, I was at nursery school, and my mom was at the hospital where she worked. I evacuated with the nursery-school teachers to an elementary school nearby, and I think I ended up staying there for about ten days. It was a long time ago, so I’ve forgotten most of what happened. I vaguely remember that it was really cold, the emergency siren was ringing all the time, and every day we ate rice balls, bread, and instant ramen. And I remember that even though the other children’s mothers and fathers came to pick them up, my mother didn’t come. I’d never been sad about not having a dad (my mom was the only parent I’d ever known), but there at the shelter, I envied the children with two parents from the bottom of my heart. I faintly remember being so lonely and afraid at the shelter that it became like a physical pain in my whole body.

  One day, my mother’s younger sister, Tamaki, came from Kyushu to get me.

  In the end, my mother never came back.

  The little well in the back garden is still here.

  Back then, the well had a wooden lid with a stone on top too heavy for a child to move. Sometimes I would drop little rocks through the gap under the lid, counting until I heard a splash. There was still water in the well then.

  Now the well is filled with dirt, and weeds grow all around it.

  I’m digging next to the well with a little rusty shovel. Tamaki is sitting on a strip of concrete foundation sticking out of the weeds, watching me silently. She must be curious, but I think she made up her mind not to ask questions, for my sake. The cats are sitting silently by her feet.

  The tip of the shovel hits something hard.

  “…Found it!” I blurt out. I widen the hole, plunge my hands into the dirt, and lift out the object.

  It’s a cookie tin. In the middle of the lid, big, childish letters read, “Suzume’s Important Things.” I brush the dirt off, set it on the foundation, and open the lid. For a second, I think I smell fresh tatami mats—same as our house back then.

  “A diary?” Tamaki asks, peering inside.

  “Yes,” I answer. Inside the tin is my picture diary. There’s also a little egg-shaped video game that was popular back then, jewelry I made from beads, and my favorite origami. It all looks as new as if I put it there last week. The plastic is smooth and glossy, and the folded paper is as vivid as if it were just dyed. I used to carry these things around in my backpack everywhere I went. Before I went to Kyushu with Tamaki, I came here alone and buried them next to the well. The memory is vague but still with me. One of the reasons I’m here now is to look in my diary.

  “I don’t remember that time very well…,” I say, flipping the pages. Clumsily written words and colorful pictures sprawl across the paper with such energy they seem ready to jump right out. March 3. I did the doll festival with Mom. March 4. I went to a karaoke contest with Mom. March 5. I went in the car with Mom to play at Aeon Mall.

  “I got lost inside a door. I’m sure I would have written about it in my diary.”

  I keep flipping.

  March 9. Mom cut my hair, and now I’m cute.

  March 10. Mom’s thirty-fourth birthday. Happy birthday, Mom! I want you to live until you’re one hundred!

  Another page.

  “—!”

  March 11.

  Black scribbles cover the whole page. The wax is as glossy as if I just colored it.

  I remember all of it. My cold hands, gripping the black crayon. The unpleasant, bumpy feeling of the cardboard under the white paper as I colored it black. The feeling in my fingers and my emotions, ready to explode. It all comes back so vividly. Long-frozen memories melt and overflow. I can’t hold them back any longer.

  I turn the next page. It’s all black.

  The next page. All black.

  The next page. Black.

  When I was living at the shelter, I walked around searching for my mom every day. Every day until it got dark, I walked around alone in the rubble of our town. Wherever I went, whoever I asked, they all said they didn’t know where she was. “Sorry, sorry, Suzume” was all they said. Every day, I wanted to write in my diary that I found my mom. But I couldn’t, and I wanted to forget that, so every night I colored my diary black. I colored it meticulously, frantically, filling in every bit of white with the black crayon.

  I turn the page. Black.

  I turn the page. Black.

  Black, black, black.

  I turn the page.

  “…!”

  I gasp. The tears gathered on my eyelids plop onto the diary.

  This page has a brightly colored picture.

  It’s a picture of a door. And inside the door, a starry sky.

  On the next page, I see two people standing in a meadow. One is a little girl, and one is a woman with long hair wearing a white dress. They’re both smiling.

  “It wasn’t a dream…!”

  I touch the two figures softly. The thick pigment of the crayons comes off faintly on my fingertips, like I’ve managed to actually touch the past. It wasn’t a dream. It really happened. I wandered through a Gate into Ever-After and found my mother there. The door I can go through is here, in this place.

  “I remember now—the moon was out that night! It was shining on that radio tower!”

  Next to the drawing of the door is a moon and what looks like a skinny tower. I look up from the diary and scan my surroundings.

  On the far side of the twilit wasteland, I find it. Like a matchstick standing alone in the dim landscape, the radio tower is still there.

  I take off toward it.

  “Suzume, wait!” Tamaki shouts, panicked. “You’re looking for that door?! But there’s no way some rubble from twelve years ago will still be there!”

  Her puzzled voice fades away behind me.

  I run straight across the darkening ruins toward the tower. Sadaijin runs next to me, like my shadow. Sometimes I glimpse concrete floors among the weeds, or short staircases, or piles of tires and scrap wood. I keep running until the radio tower looms above me, and then I stop and look around.

  “Where is it?”

  Panting, I scrutinize the landscape. Just like that night long ago, a full yellow moon hangs to the left above the tower. It should be nearby.

  “Suuuzume,” a childish voice says. I look toward it and see a kitten sitting a short distance away in the shadows.

  “Daijin…”

  I run to the cat. It scampers away from me without answering.

  “Hey…what are you doing?!”

  I follow. We pass what must have been a gate, judging by the concrete base that remains. Daijin stops there and looks up at me. What appears to be an ivy-covered board is leaning against a low stone wall.

  “Is this it?”

  I kneel in the weeds and look more closely. It’s a door. I start pulling the ivy off with both hands, driven by some unseen force. The roots grip the door firmly, and I need all my strength to tear them off. My palms bleed a little from the sharp leaves and stems, but I barely feel it. I’m totally absorbed in pulling off the ivy. When the door is exposed, I lift it with both arms and prop it against the stone wall.

  It’s a very ordinary wooden door, the kind you might see inside any house. It’s hung on hinges in a three-sided wooden frame. The veneer is flaking off, and at around waist height is a rusted metal knob. No doubt about it—this is the door I opened as a little girl.

  “Daijin…,” I say. A thought has just occurred to me. “Was I wrong about you opening the Gates? This whole time, have you just been trying to lead me to them?”

  Daijin stares up at me with those wide-open yellow eyes in its gaunt face. I give voice to the emotions welling inside me.

  “Thank you, Daijin!”

  The kitten looks surprised—and as I watch, its bony body swells until it’s plump and round. Its slack ears and tail perk up happily.

  “Let’s go, Suzume!” it says brightly, once again looking like a fluffy ball of mochi.

  “Let’s go!” I say, grabbing the knob and opening the door. A gust of wind blows out and pushes against me, like I’ve just opened an air lock. Inside is a sky full of gleaming stars.

  “Whoa…”

  I can’t help gasping. The night sky I’ve seen so many times in my dreams is here before my eyes. And I’m not just seeing it. The wind has a familiar smell, and the stars look so real I think I could touch them. I can go in. I know this with a strange certainty. This is my Gate. Sadaijin and Daijin are standing beside me.

  “Suzume!” someone calls from behind. I turn around and see Tamaki running toward me.

  “Tamaki, I’ll be back!” I shout.

  “But where are you going?!”

  “To see someone I love!”

  I leap through the door, and the cats come with me. Brilliant, multicolored light surrounds me like I’m inside a prism.

  According to Tamaki, it looks to her as if I suddenly disappear inside a door frame.

  Thinking her eyes must have deceived her, she runs to the door, but no one is there. Not her niece and not the cats. Only a quiet, dark meadow without the slightest breeze. But the door propped against the stone wall is swinging and creaking, as if blown by wind from an invisible world.

  “Suzume…,” she whispers hoarsely. She doesn’t understand what happened, and she can’t believe what she thinks she saw. She’s confused. She had an uneasy premonition that simply coming back here wouldn’t be enough. But this is far beyond what she’s capable of understanding.

  Sister, she thinks as she gazes at the door to nowhere. If you’re in there—please protect Suzume.

  Eventually, the door stops swinging, and insects begin their soft calls, as if they are secretly beginning their preparations for the coming fall.

  The Town That Is Still Burning

  I’m falling through the starry sky.

  When I look up, I can see the door I passed through. On the other side, in miniature, is the full moon over the radio tower. I blink, and the door is gone, leaving only a large, round moon. I’ve fallen through the moon from the earthly realm to Ever-After, I think. My sensations are strangely clear, like I’m in a waking dream.

  Sadaijin and Daijin are falling, too, on either side of me, the wind ruffling their fur. The Milky Way sparkles brilliantly before my eyes, and below, black clouds roll toward the horizon, blocking out the ground like a tightly fitting lid. As I fall through the clouds, they hide the stars above me, and for a time I’m wrapped in darkness.

  Finally, the ground comes into focus through gaps in the clouds. I can see something glinting. At first, it appears like several rivers of light flowing across black earth. The rivers of red light form a complex pattern on the ground, like the veins of a leaf.

  “—Huh?”

  The veins are slowly moving. A particularly bright part of the ground seems to be rising up toward me. It winds slowly in a circle, like the earth itself is coiling up, and then a section rises toward me like a snake’s head.

  “…It’s the worm!” I scream, my eyes wide-open. The entirety of the land below me is a single enormous worm. The countless glowing veins are magma circulating inside its body. In our realm, its body is like a muddy river, but here in Ever-After, it’s clear and distinct. The thing before me looks exactly like a monstrously large earthworm.

  “It’s trying to get out the Gate!” I shout, following the movement of the thing’s head with my eyes. It slowly stretches its giant form toward the moon.

  Suddenly, I hear what sounds like the howl of a wild animal.

  It’s Sadaijin. The black cat is yowling at the rising worm. The next instant, the cat’s body starts quivering and puffs up as quick as an explosion.

  “—!”

  My eyes go wide. Sadaijin has become a beast as big as a house, its black fur now white like it was repainted with a single stroke. Its tail and whiskers elongate, flapping against the black sky like white wings.

  As I continue to fall, I watch the rising worm and the falling cat collide. Sadaijin sticks its claws into the worm and continues its fall, like it’s trying to pull the huge form back to the ground. A whirlwind catches me and spins me in circles like a washing machine. As the world rotates wildly before my eyes, a white cat flies past. I reach out frantically and grab it.

  “Aaah!” I let out a scream as I’m pulled abruptly downward. I open my eyes with difficulty as wind pounds my face, and I see Sadaijin below me pushing the worm back to the ground. I’m holding one of its whiskers.

  We’re falling faster, and the ground is flying up at me. The worm’s long body is curled like a spiral hill. Something is glowing blue at the crest.

  “Is that…?”

  I try to see through the violent wind.

  “Souta!”

  It’s a chair. The worm’s body is as red as flame, except for a circle of black around the chair pulsing with faint blue light. Souta’s lonely form is holding down the worm, just as it had when I saw him through the Gate.

  The earth roars. The worm’s head has crashed to the ground. Sadaijin stomps on it, and the ground shakes violently. Sadaijin turns its head and swings me through the air, until the whisker slips through my fingers.

  “—!”

  I plummet toward the ground headfirst. Another scream rips itself from my throat. Daijin, who’s clinging to my shoulder, sucks in a breath. There’s a popping sound, and I’m suddenly enveloped in soft fur. A second later, I crash into the ground.

  “…Daijin?!”

  I sit up. I’m resting on the stomach of a white creature the size of a bear. Daijin must have puffed up to protect me from the impact. Its eyes are squeezed tight, its face quivering from pain. Its body begins to deflate, like it can take no more. I climb off and kneel on the ground. Its covered in slushy mud, with corrugated metal and wood scraps scattered around. Daijin is a little kitten again, still sprawled faceup amid the wreckage.

  “You protected me…”

  The kitten’s eyes pop open.

  “Suzume, are you okay?”

  It flips onto its feet, lithe as always, and I exhale in relief. I stand up and take another look around.

  “What is this place?”

  A burning town surrounds us. Some of the houses have collapsed, some have crumbled, and some are leaning over, their roof tiles missing. A traffic light dangles from a tilted utility pole. Cars and trucks lie on their sides like colonies of plants. A short distance away I see the silhouettes of a fleet of fishing boats thrown onto dry ground. The ground under my feet is a black slurry of mud, oil, and salt water.

  And all of it is burning, like the horrible disaster that caused this wreckage took place only a few hours earlier. I don’t see any people. Only the scene from that night remains, cut off from humanity.

  “This is Ever-After…?”

  I remember what Souta’s grandfather said—that this place looks different to each person. In a strange way, it makes sense. It’s been burning this whole time. For twelve years, the town as it was that night has existed beneath my feet. Burning eternally, deep underground, just like it was then.

  “—!”

  In the corner of my vision, I glimpse a blue light.

  “…Souta!”

  I run toward it. Daijin leaps onto my shoulder. I can see the black hill between the burning roofs, and on top, the blue light. It’s not very far away. I dart through the flickering flames, kicking up sludge.

  Behind me, I hear the earth rumble and Sadaijin howling. I glance back and see Sadaijin trying to pull the worm’s head back down as it snakes once again toward the moon. The cat is holding it in check. I turn back toward the hill and pick up speed.

  A second later, a burning column falls right in front of me, and I collapse backward. A swirl of sparks grazes my face, and the smell of someone’s home briefly surrounds me. A wave of heat follows, and I scoot back. The column, along with a cupboard and a table, are burning before my eyes. Right next to my foot, buried in the mud, is a stuffed giraffe. The flames are roaring so close I could touch them.