“Did Kagura say anything to you before she left?” Callie asks as I kneel before the trunk.
“She was worried. She said there was a reason her father had not been successful with his research. Kagura’s father is my brother-in-law, Kazuhiko Kino,” Auntie explains. “He was a noted historian who specialized in folklore and local legends in the Honshu area. The legend of the Aitou village was his particular specialty. He’d been obsessed with the stories ever since he was a boy. Many historians do not believe the village exists, citing a lack of proof, but Kazu always believed. He even claimed to have been to Aitou, but he never gave details. Whatever secrets he kept, he was always adamant that the village exists. I do not think any of his colleagues believed him though.”
“That’s odd. If Aitou village was his pet project and everyone knew it was, why wouldn’t he want to talk about the specifics?” I lift the lid of the trunk. It is filled with several old notebooks and smaller, intricately designed wooden boxes.
“Kazu had always been an odd man,” Auntie says. “He placed great importance on his work. In the months leading to his disappearance, he had uncovered something he said was vital to his studies and swore he finally understood the village’s curse. He pursued this research without thought to anything else, ignoring even my sister and Kagura.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Did you just say he disappeared?”
“Ten years ago in Aokigahara. I always thought one of the reasons Kagura decided to come with me here was to be closer to the place her father had devoted his life to researching.”
“Kagura never told us about this,” Callie remarks.
But Saya nods. “It is not something Kagura liked to talk about. She attempted to find her father shortly after we arrived by using the research he left behind, but she was never successful. She had come to terms with her father’s death—until this film crew came.”
“Oh,” Callie says, her voice softening. She’s uncovered a small bundle of photos, taken in the style of twenty or so years ago. She holds one up. It’s a picture of a girl grinning at us with her hair done up in pigtails. A solemn-looking man carries her on his shoulders. It’s obvious they’re related. They both have the same high cheekbones, the same upturned nose.
Upon closer examination, I notice the man is wearing something around his neck: an odd-shaped stone tied by a thin cord.
“Kagura with her father,” Auntie murmurs.
This is the only photo in the pile of Kagura taken at that age. The rest focus on the man. Kazuhiko Kino never seems to smile. In most of the photographs, he’s older. He stoops and has traded in the dark of his hair for gray-white. Lines and crow’s-feet are more evident on his face. Only one photo shows him as a young boy, clad in an uncomfortable-looking yukata, and he’s still just as somber. Even here, he’s wearing the strange necklace.
“He wears a magatama,” Saya tells us, following our gaze. “He seems to have worn it all his life. But what does he need protection from, I wonder?”
Magatama were jewels made from precious stones, each shaped like a comma or half of a yin-yang symbol. They were especially important in Japan, honored as sacred. Many shrines had their own versions that were considered religious objects.
“I think you should keep these,” Callie tells Auntie, depositing the photographs gently into her hands after we’ve looked through them. The latter nods, her eyes misting over. To dispel some of the awkwardness, I draw out the first of the notebooks and open it, trying to be as gentle as I can. “They’re in Japanese,” I report, disappointed.
“Kagura translated several of those she considered important for the Americans’ benefit. I believe she left most of them behind.”
It takes a few more minutes to find the notes in question, scribbled in the miko’s neat, even handwriting.
Aitou was said to have been built in the early 1900s, sometime after the rise of the Meiji government. Accounts regarding this village were sparse, for Aitou was considered a mysterious and troubling place even then. What is known is that the leader of Aitou was one Hiroshi Mikage, once a noted onmyōji in the court of Emperor Taishō before he fell out of favor for some unknown transgression. It has been speculated that the sorcerer was caught dabbling in forbidden magic.