A Maddening Iridescence
Takahashi Maki
A woman with a short bobcut appeared in the triangular glass window that reflected a concrete wall. The warm light of an oil lamp gradually illuminated her bare back. Her skin seemed unnaturally dark, but as my eyes adjusted, I realized Ishiwatari-san—Ishiwatari Inez—had a tattoo engraved there.
"That shit's why I can't go into onsen." She drank a mysterious amber fluid from a plastic bottle with loud gulps. "Kill it," she instructed, handing me the remaining half.
"This is...?"
"Mead."
"But I am underage..."
"Well, just pretend to drink it, then. Doesn't matter, the ritual process is nebulous... and besides, I'm the only one He has business with."
I wanted to ask who 'He' was, but I instinctively paused at the venom in her voice.
A song with a nostalgic-sounding synthesizer played in the cramped space. It was as if I were at the massive night parade at the theme park in Urayasu.
Cold and misty morning // I heard a warning borne in the air //// About an age of power where no one had an hour to spare //// Where the seeds have withered // Silent children shivered in the cold...
The English lyrics were strange... despite the pop melody, they felt vaguely menacing.
"The octopus tattoo on my back is a revered clan symbol that has been passed down through generations of my family. In the West, octopi are a symbol of Hell and its demons, while Judaism prohibits their use as food for religious reasons. They emerge from the ocean's depths, and their lack of scales lends them a grotesque, monstrous appearance... Dread, reverence, worship... nourished by human fear, they are transformed into the manifestation of a god... the hell, this is giving me cravings for the takoyaki stand in Ameyoko."
Click. Ishiwatari-san placed her left hand into a device I did not recognize. It resembled a gauntlet affixed to the tabletop. There were screws along the back of the hand and long, metallic rods which extended from the fingertips. Keeping her back turned, she glanced at me.
"Right. Let's get started, shall we? Rin-chan... tell me a story."
"...A story?"
"Tell me about how and why we came to meet. In exchange, I'll tell you a similar story. The atmosphere of this room will change while we chat. We're creating an atmosphere that makes it easier to call Him... so, please... a story... tell me a story about that ability of yours."
The woman's eye was barely visible over her shoulder, but it was enough to see that her pitch-black pupils were dilated. I flinched at the sight, then resolved myself against the extraordinary pressure she exerted on the mood in the room.
Roll up! // Roll up! // Roll up! // See the show!
The song continued from the CD player. What... kind of show was I going to be shown after this?
A rattle came from the table. It was the piece of moldavite I had inherited from Grandmother. Although there had not been an earthquake, it was shaking on its own. Its strange, shimmering rainbow iridescence was on vivid display.
"The appraisal will begin now. Story, please."
"...Understood. It began when I was six years old."
The memory of a six year old:
I opened a large door to a vast, excessively bright abyss. Grandmother stared into empty space, connected to countless tubes. The beeps of an EKG filled the room as my family kept vigil over her silent rest. They turned to stare as I entered the room, and the unexpected eerieness of the scene sent a shiver down my spine. As Grandmother had something to tell me, Mother took me by the hand and led me to her side.
Grandmother looked at me and broke her silence with a whisper. "Can you see it?"
After speaking, she returned to staring at empty space, but it was clear she was looking at it. It was a strange rainbow mass on the ceiling. Although the day was rainy, I thought it might have been a reflection of the indoor lighting or natural light entering through the windows. I stared, silently nodding.
"Don't forget that color, Rin."
Those words were carried on Grandmother's final breaths. In my fingertips, I found the green-black tektite–moldavite ring she had always worn. I noticed it momentarily glowed with the same rainbow coloration I had just witnessed on the ceiling, then it suddenly ceased.
That evening, a sound awoke me from a fond dream of the past. Following the noise to the ground floor left me speechless. Grandmother's room had been so wildly vandalized, it appeared as if a storm had blown through.
"Don't forget that color."
I felt a sense of foreboding. Grandmother's words... I suddenly remembered them from the dream. That forboding proved correct once I returned to my room. The moldavite ring I inherited from her was nowhere to be found.
There was the sound of tapping at the window. I turned to look and despite my being on the second floor, there She was... a strange, plump woman with white skin, unusually droopy cheeks, long hair, and snake-like eyes. A demonic smile sprouted on her split cheeks.
It was around 11 am on that rainy season day just before midsummer. Not many people pass through Okachimachi on rainy days, for whatever reason. Oddly, my back hurt. It always felt like a bad omen on rainy days like this.
My eyes slid towards the items displayed in the shop window, and unsurprisingly, there she was. The girl was about my height—150 cm tall—and had pearl white skin, the small nose and mouth of a Japanese doll, and a side ponytail that left an impression. It all gave the impression of a well-to-do student checking out a moldavite ring on display.
I'd wondered which school she attended. She was dressed head-to-toe in navy-colored uniform, the prim, old-fashioned type. I looked it up on my phone and learned it wasn't from Taitō ward, but a reasonably elite girls' school in the neighboring Bunkyō ward.
She looked down in embarrassment when we locked eyes and, still looking down, disappeared from the window. My hunch was that if she was cutting class to come look at jewelry and rare stones in Okachimachi, then she liked gems as much as I did. But after that rainy day, she had come by every weekday at 11am on the dot, without fail. For the last two weeks.
My curiosity won out in the end. I'd swapped the moldavite ring for one with the same design but a slightly different dark green stone, and the girl immediately noticed the difference. She paced back in forth in the shop window in a panic, hunting around for it. I realized she wasn't just window shopping, so I called out to her.
"Welcome. Would you like to have a look inside the store?"
"B-but I..."
Window shoppers weren't uncommon in Okachimachi. She looked at the "Entry refused to members of the general public" sticker on the door and hesitated.
"Ah, that? Don’t sweat it. I'm welllll-aware you're not a member of the general public."
"...Thank you for having me."
I slowly opened the door and motioned for her to come in.
"Welcome to Ring Wandering. This store specializes in removing gems from old mounts to create jewelry with modern designs. I’m the third-generation proprietress. Coffee or barley tea?"
As she looked over the business card I'd handed her, the nameless girl replied, "No, please do not trouble yourself on my behalf, Ishiwatari..."
"Inez. My grandfather named me for inesite. Kept the surname, but gave me this weird kirakira name that means 'a stone-trading girl is the sound of minting money’. It does give the impression I'm from a long line of gem dealers, but I don't like it all that much. Did you know "ines" is Greek for 'flesh-colored fibers'? Don't like it at all."
I took the original moldavite ring out of the display case. "The stone mounted in this ring is moldavite. It's also called tektite. In Greek, it means—"
"Tektos... 'molten' or 'pressure-shaped'. A natural mineral from space that arrived on a shooting star and gathered from an ordinary meteorite, I believe."
"Ah... you know your stuff. It's true, that used to be the theory, but tektites are created by the shock, pressure, and heat of large meteorite impacts. They're natural glass."
There was a clack as I placed the ring on the counter.
"I may handle it barehanded?"
"Go ahead."
The girl picked up the moldavite ring and stared at it, wide-eyed.
"The rock sprayed out by the meteorite impact melted and quenched in midair. If you look closely at the exterior, there are pits and grooves, see? Those pits are called regmaglypts, and together with the melting grooves from atmospheric friction, they tell us the direction and angle the tektite flew at."
"The... direction?"
"Yes. It was created 15 million years ago by the formation of Ries Crater in Nordlingen, Germany, and 250 kg of the glass that rained down around the Moldau River has been found. That's why it's called moldavite."
"Ah..." The nameless girl acted like she was listening to my story, but I could tell she was brooding on something as she looked at the gem's color.
"That moldavite is a 15-carat stone, and there are two carats of natural SI2-class Malay diamonds inlaid in the lily flowers around it.
"Lilies?"
"It's a Chalmet, a jewelry workshop in Paris whose designs I happen to like. The shop frequently uses a lily motif, which are an emblem of the French king... they symbolize purity."
She put the ring back on the counter and stared into me. Her eyes were curious... a pale blue that resembled aquamarine. It was an eye color I often saw in Indians who came by for work.
"Ishiwatari-san. I beg your pardon, but would it be possible to purchase this ring?"
I’d had my suspicions, but I didn't think she'd actually try to buy it. There was no way a student had the cash, no matter how pampered she might be. It wouldn't be that expensive if it were just moldavite, but this gem... well, as the sign out front says, "Entry refused to members of the general public."
"Ah—I did show it off to you just now, but... this article's not for sale."
Most customers would leave it there, but the girl wouldn't drop it.
"Nonetheless... I am sure you have a price."
"...Young lady."
"Your price?"
I couldn't sell it to her, really, so I typed a ridiculous price on the calculator so she'd leave and showed it to her.
"One million..."
It was a rip-off, but enough to silence the type of students who flaunted their wealth. The girl stiffened as she stared at the ring and the price shown on the calculator. The mood soured.
"I'm getting some more tea."
I left my seat to fetch a tea bottle from the fridge in the back of the store. Through the crime prevention mirror, I watched her right hand slowly pick up the moldavite ring. I instantly let out a loud sigh.
"I don't get it, all things considered..." The girl startled. "I don't get why you're so attached to that ring that you, a young woman who’s way too polite for her age, who walks and takes tea with good manners, who’s dressed sharply in a spotless, wrinkle-free uniform of an elite girls' school, and who by all appearances was born and raised in wealth, would take the risk of stealing it."
"I-I... would not steal..."
"It's been known to happen at stores and exhibitions, you know. I'm pretty good at reading the patterns of jewelry-thieving punks. When people are stressed out, they blink a lot, their hands tremble unnaturally, they fiddle with their hair, stand on their feet like they're getting ready to run, look at the exit, that kind of thing... you should stop. You've been doing that in my shop. I've got dozens of cameras watching the front. I don't know your name, but I think your uniform and a photo of face are enough to expose you. We do that kind of thing here in Okachimachi. Turning to theft at your age would make your parents sad."
The ring the girl was clutching rolled onto the counter with a clunk.
"That would not make them sad... my parents... it's not as if Mother would be sad...,” she said, then covered her face and cried. Goddammit.
"I'm an embarrassment..."
I stared at the fallen moldavite ring. When I felt the pang in my back, it felt like the meaning of that bad omen made itself clear in some way.
"Shiina Rin... are you okay with Rin-chan?" Her given name used a kanji for jewel, and I thought it suited her blue eyes perfectly. We'd gone to a nearby café after I'd temporarily closed the store to hear about her situation.
"Yes," she quietly replied.
"So, you're telling me the moldavite in this ring was stolen?"
The story turned out to be extremely straightforward once I asked. The girl's parents worked overseas for the most part, so her maternal grandma raised her, and worse, died before the girl was in elementary school. She currently lived in her grandma's house, and a burglar broke in a few months ago and stole the ring she'd been left as a keepsake.
"...Yes, that is correct. As the ring was left to me by my late grandmother, I wanted to do everything possible to retrieve it."
"You say you'd do anything, but how do you know you were even stealing the same stone? I even swapped its mount."
"It was its iridescence. It has a rainbow play of color..."
My ears shot up. What did she just say? Moldavite was a mineral that didn't have opal-like iridescence, and it didn't exhibit the strange chromatic effects of star opals and cat's eye. So why did this girl named Shiina Rin just tell me that it did?
"O-obviously, I know that moldavite should not have rainbow iridescence! It may be due to my eyes..."
Instinctively, I seized the girl's hand. She might...
"Eh?!"
Might... no, she was definitely the same kind of person I was. She had the Sight.
"Eep!"
"You could see it? No... you should have seen it."
Goosebumps gradually rose on our arms.
"Did we almost drown? In water... just now? T-there were countless octopus tentacles... and... this feeling of intense rage... Ishiwatari-san... what on earth are you?!"
"Shiina-san... you don't have long to live."
"What?"
She said the moldavite was rainbow-colored. An empathic ability to see *that* memory of mine... I wasn't mistaken, Shiina Rin had the same power I did. And by extension, she was clearly related to them.
"Sigh... We're leaving."
"A-are you turning me in?" The girl looked up at me like a scared puppy.
"Wrong. We're going to find out whether this stone really belonged to your grandma. It's not like I can traffic in stolen goods, is it?"
In an instant, the scared puppy turned into one that looked happy to play fetch.
"I stepped out at 1am to catch the night breeze and sober up, but once I got outside, something from the direction of the mountains gave me an uneasy feeling. Something black stuck up behind the summit. What's more, it only swayed a little, but when it suddenly turned around, that thing looked like a person's face. The trees on the mountain were gently swaying like the hair of a giant."
Ishiwatari-san related a short, simple story to me... it could be described as a ghost story, but it was enthralling and persuasive.
"You familiar with The Legends of Tōno? At the start of the 20th century, a folklorist named Yanagita Kunio asked around a dirt patch named Tōno for traditions, ghost stories, and colorful tales and collected them in a book. It has incomprehensible stories like the one I just told you."
"Incomprehensible stories..."
"That's right... the book organizes them by the acts of yōkai, ghosts, and local gods, but ultimately, I think the stories all describe aspects of the same thing... in the preface, Yanagita wrote, 'My wish is to tell these stories and make people of the plains shudder', and in some cases, these spine-tingling stories were passed from person to person, spreading, being exaggerated and amplified, and getting updated for modern tastes. Just by coincidence, something similar simultaneously appeared in a region of America. A cycle of stories told to make people of the plains shudder with fear."
"...Where was it?"
"It was a place called 'Arkham'. A place where accursed customs swirl and old gods slumber. And then, there—"
—Inez. I felt a breeze, even though the room was sealed. Something carried on the wind... a person's unfamiliar voice. It seemed to have been directed to Ishiwatari-san.
"Seems like it's started."
Ishiwatari-san produced a deck of playing cards and dice from her bag and set them on the table, forcefully raised her hands and, as if she were diving into a crowded pool, twisted her arms in an impossible direction—in one smooth motion, she had dislocated her shoulders.
The instant Ishiwatari-san's hand touched mine, it became pitch black, as if I'd been drawn into the cup of coffee in front of me. A vision seemed to be playing back at double-speed. I felt myself being dragged into a deep, deep... infinitely deep pond. Some thing gradually approached from the dark depths... it had the slimy appendages of an octopus or eel and murmurated like a large school of fish, ensnaring the nude form of a woman I didn't recognize. The moment I saw that woman, I felt... of boundless, intense rage well up.
I will never forgive you, that rage seemed to say. It did not seem to directed towards the imprisoned woman, but at the thing in the dark water.
Ishiwatari Inez... just who in the world are you? There was no way she would have just abandoned me here if she was aware of this mysterious, secret power of mine. And besides, what she said, that I didn't have long to live... it may have had something to do with the image I saw a moment ago.
Ishiwatari-san brought me to a one-room space in an aging building in the same part of Okachimachi.
"The Heald Gemological Research Institute?"
"It's an appraisal agency. This is the best place for gem analysis, but..." Ishiwatari-san barged into the office and looked around uneasily. She was terribly vigilant of her surroundings.
"What is the matter?"
"Nothing, this analyst is just a little... you know."
I was about to ask what 'you know' meant, when—"I! Ne! Z!" There was a shrill cry of joy as a blonde foreigner with a half-updo hugged Ishiwatari-san without warning.
"Inez! Inez! My Inez! You finally started missing me! I'm not letting you escape today! I've already closed the store for today, so let's hit up a hotel in Yushima or Uguisudani!"
"Cool it, Carrie... this student's a minor..."
"W-who is this child?" I asked.
At that, the angelic expression of this girl named Carrie was instantly replaced with a nasty glare. "Who the hell are you, brat? Why the fuck are you with Inez?! Huh?" The swiftness of her changing facial expressions left me speechless.
"She's a customer, Carrie."
"A customer? Look at her, she's a student, isn't she?!"
And look at you, you're a child, aren't you...? Well, I could not bring myself to say that aloud.
"Well, actually..." Ishiwatari-san quietly whispered into Carrie's ear.
"Ooh... moldavite with iridescence... Oh, really?" Carrie ran her eyes over me like a tongue as she approached, then suddenly flipped my skirt.
"Hold on! What is this kid doing?!"
"Ahh, that's definitely... yeah, it won't be long now. Hey you, you've seen some nightmarish things since this moldavite was stolen, yeah? Say, dreams where some pale bitch is chasing you?"
She was on the mark. Every night since Grandmother's moldavite was stolen, I had strange nightmares. The nightmares that took place in unfamiliar homes, at school, and in my house—Gradmother's house—involved a pale, plump... strange woman pursuing me.
Although I called them nightmares, they did not only occur when I was asleep. She appeared in my waking hours with increasing frequency, gradually making school and everday life more difficult. I had been wandering the streets of Okachimachi in flight of that woman when I happened across the ring with Grandmother's moldavite.
"Seems to be the ‘Curse of Yig’, or something close to it... She takes on a snake avatar and chases dreamers."
"Pardon me a moment..." Ishiwatari-san said, slowly lifting my skirt, too. I heard her phone snap a photo.
"You too, Ishiwatari-san?!"
"You've got it wrong... Here, look at this."
What appeared to be a small coat of arms on my lower back that I would not have noticed in the mirror was displayed on Ishiwatari-san's phone screen. The three spots within a distorted circle resembled a face... rather, the spots themselves seemed to be patterns.
"What is..."
"Doesn't look like bug bites or a rash... it's old... looks like a pagan god's seal," Ishiwatari-san calmly informed me, but that did little to make the occult any more believable.
"So, it's this moldavite. Hold tight, I'll be done with the analysis in a jiffy."
The tiny girl took the moldavite from Ishiwatari-san and disappeared into her office. I thought to ask Ishiwatari-san about her background, but she had already begun to tell me.
"Her name's Carrie Heald. Doesn’t look it, but she's older than me. We graduated from the same university. She created the company here for my sake... ah, but of course, this is a proper appraisal agency. She obtained the qualification of Grand Gemologist from the Gemology Institute of America."
"I see... wait, what? Did you just say for your sake?"
When I looked over my shoulder, Ishiwatari-san had vanished. The office lights dimmed and began flickering.
Ahh... again? I felt resigned to it. Waking dreams like this were gradually becoming more frequent. Towards the middle of the office... there was a space that seemed to be a kitchenette. There was a water cooler, and there was something watching me from the darkness behind it.
A snake avatar... A girl—no, a woman's voice called out for 'Abigail'. She was always watching, not just here, but anywhere and everywhere. While it seemed like nothing would happen for now, sooner or later, She—
"Is that Her?"
I couldn't see Ishiwatari-san, but I felt her place a hand on my shoulder. It felt warm and tender. Just knowing I was not the only one who could see Her gave me a strange sense of security. I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Yes, that is right... wait, you are able to see Her as well?"
"Only vaguely, but... you're incredible, Shiina-san. It's unbelievable you're able to see that in broad daylight... Not only do you have the talent, you can keep your wits about you."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Between Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and New Religions, how many religious groups do you think exist here in Japan?" Why on earth was Ishiwatari-san asking about that now, of all times? "The answer is eighteen thousand. Not eighteen thousand believers, but eighteen thousand groups believing in different gods, just in this country alone. It's also called 'the eight million gods', but either way, it's an unusual number."
"Eighteen thousand..." I had a difficult time imagining that number of gods.
"Those religious groups believe in a different set of gods with a faith that diverges from gods in the mainstream. Only religious groups like those force their believers to pay for expensive objects like cheap rocks blessed by god, ordinary glass beads for divine protection, or crystals with exaggerated healing properties."
"I see, that is often said to be the case."
"Right, that is often the case. But what happens in the rare case of a true god getting mixed in with the fakes? There are true gods among those eighteen thousand gods, and if one exists in a healing crystal..."
"Are you telling me that when I see Her... I am seeing a true god?"
The plump snake woman vanished like smoke and the brightness quickly returned to my surroundings. The moldavite had been placed on the desk in front of me.
"All done!" Carrie Heald wore a meaningful smile that seemed to say she generally understood the situation. "Our job is to identify crystals and gems that contain a real god... or, well, were influenced by gods like that."
"Did you say, ‘contain a real god’...?"
"At the end of the day, if you look at the composition of moldavite and tektite, they're nothing more than lumps of glass. So, I compared it to past compositional data to determine if this was the real thing."
"And was it...?" Judging from the way she spoke, Ishiwatari-san already seemed to know the answer.
"Ehh... Even though I checked the past data for moldavite-like minerals, I couldn't find a match. It has the obsidian-like properties of tektites, and the silica and trace potassium resemble a type called georgiaite after the American state of Georgia, but it's not a close match. So, I measured its light spectrum and... see for yourself!"
Carrie spread a pile of papers with a great number of line graphs in front of us... but each line graph appeared to display different values from the stone they were compared to.
"...One of these is a match?"
"Right, one of these is a match. This mineral we thought was green moldavite actually doesn't have a color... that humans can perceive..."
A color humans could not perceive... I wondered if that explained the rainbow colors I could see.
"Meaning?"
"It's a peculiar thing our alma mater is very familiar with."
"...Get out, you hacked into the Miskatonic University archives again, didn't you?!"
"I most certainly did not! The university's not stupid enough to digitize something that peculiar. I got it from an acquaintance at the library inquiring about the results of a mineral appraisal from 1882."
"And what were those results...?"
Carrie loudly snorted at the question, and with a smug look, replied, "You see, it's hard to verify because the appraisal is from the 19th century, but random sampling of the spectrum shows a 90% match. Well... this moldavite-like thing is a perfect match to the minerals that fell in Arkham's western suburbs in the late 19th century, no doubt about it!"
I’d gotten used to dislocating my shoulders a long time ago, but I've never gotten used to the pain.
"Ow... OW OWW OWWW!"
While I wailed pathetically, I showed the tattoo on my back to Shiina-san.
"W-Why did you... your shoulders—?"
"For pain. Mental pain doesn't work on me, and He seems to have a particular taste for physical pain..."
"You have been talking about Him for a little while. Who on earth is He?"
There was a rattling noise. Shiina-san's moldavite shook by itself, even though there hadn't been an earthquake.
"Well, He is the same kind of thing as that moldavite, just..."
"...Just?"
"Slightly different... I think you'll find out personally how that moldavite and what we're summoning are insignificant parts of a much larger system."
A foul odor instantly filled the room. I thought I saw someone's feet in the corner of the triangular window... no, I definitely hadn't imagined it.
Shiina-san's home was west of Ueno Park, near the University of Tokyo-Yayoi campus in Nezu's so-called Mansion District.
"You live here alone?"
"Only if you do not count the servant... but I doubt you would believe me if I said I have one."
"A servant? For a student living on her own?"
"...I thought so."
Shiina-san's home was a mansion by Tokyo standards. It was a Taishō-era building that hadn't been damaged by fire in the war and was one of the few remaining in the city with the distinctive Western classical-style red brickwork facade. The house had been bequeathed exclusively to a very young Shiina Rin in her grandma's will.
"Mother and Father began treating me in a drastically different manner due to this house. I would quickly part with it if I could, but Grandmother's will stipulated conditions that must be met before inheriting this house from me."
"Let me guess, your death is one of those conditions, isn't it, Rin-chan?"
"Your assumption is correct... That is one of the conditions."
"...by the way, is there a well here? Or even just the ruins of one."
There was a disused well covered by a concrete lid behind the mansion. Beside it was an odd pile of dirt, so I dug into it with a shovel. Sure enough, I found what I thought I would.
"These are animal... are they snake bones?"
There wasn't just one snake skeleton. There were so many bones it had to have been hundreds. The more I dug, the more bones that jangled as they spilled out of the dirt.
"Hey, Rin-chan. Why do you think 'faucet' is written as 'snake's mouth'?"
"Is it because the pipes meander as a snake does?"
"Wrong. Originally, dragons were water deities in China and Japan. As dragons are modeled on snakes, a common type of public tap called the 'Snake Body Iron Post' appeared during the Meiji Period. They were designed such that water flowed from a sculpted snake's mouth, and it became the general term for faucets."
"That may be, but... how does that relate to these snake bones?"
"There are a huge number of snake bones buried next to a well with a water deity inside. Do you know what that means to do that in a place like this? It's like having your relatives murdered and buried inside your grave. This was a blasphemous act to summon Her."
"A summoning. ...Well, I never!"
"You'd better believe it. Your hallucinations are a curse of some sort from Yig, the snake god that was summoned."
"You say that, but where is the proof that it was directed towards me? And, if it was, would it not be better to involve the police?"
"In this country, you'll have a hard time pressing charges over something as vague as a curse. Besides, even if the curse kills someone, it wouldn't be a crime. You can't show culpability."
"Who on earth... Why would they do this..."
Who indeed? Placing an overkill curse like this on a girl who knows nothing of the filth of the world strayed far from the straight and narrow... strayed from the straight and narrow?
"Right, if they've strayed, we'll have to stray, too. An eye for an eye... poison for poison... hmm."
Shiina-san's face twitched when she saw the creepy smile that was unconsciously sprouting. As I frantically tried put on a straight face for her, I whipped out my phone to get in touch with Carrie.
"Is...that... room... still... functional..." I mumbled as I typed the message.
"I dozed off on the train and woke up at the station I got on at, even though I wasn't on the Loop Line. I tried waiting to take the train again, but it was weird. I figured out it was because there wasn't anyone in the station but me. I looked around and saw a black figure beckoning me from a corrner of the station."
"I went shopping at the supermarket and it sounded like someone was calling my name over the intercom. I tried asking an employee about it, but no one had called for me. I brushed it off as an auditory hallucination and finished my shopping, but as I walked home in the dark, I heard a voice right behind me. It was the same one from the supermarket."
"I was on the balcony smoking a cigarette and saw another person out smoking in the apartment across the street from me. Same hour, same timing. One day, I got curious and tried waving to them. That person waved too. Same timing. That's when I finally noticed that person waving looked exactly like me."
I matter-of-factly recited the ghost stories and weird tales I heard from other people in between breaks in Shiina-san's story. The sharp pain of dislocated shoulders radiated from my back... I was used to this ritual to some extent, but I had never gotten used to the pain. Still, it was necessary to summon Him."
"W-Why did you... your shoulders... a-and your octopus tattoo, it's as if... it's alive—"
"Oh, it looks like it's moving? That's a good sign."
"...!"
A man's laughter echoed from somewhere in the room. A... really good sign.
"Did someone laugh just now? Ishiwatari-san!"
I handed the cards and dice I'd put on the table to Shiina-san and told her to start dealing.
"W-what is this..."
The cards started coming up all hearts. The dice kept rolling snake eyes. Then all of the cards were queens. The dice rolled seven, even though they shouldn’t have that many pips. The joker's face was melting... Impossible phenomena occurred as Shiina-san kept dealing the cards and rolling the dice... before we knew it, the cards and dice faces were pure white... all of the markings completely vanished.
"...Is this a trick of some sort?"
"Space and time are growing indistinct. The probabilities represented by the numbers and patterns on cards and dice work best... clocks too... take a look at your phone."
The second hand on my wristwatch moved counterclockwise in fits and starts, and the digital clock on Shiina-san's phone read 88:88. Suddenly I was aware that the Emerson, Lake & Palmer song we were using as a kagura had the dissonant sound of playing in reverse, but despite that, <I'll be there> was repeating over and over. The moldavite on the table began to shake again, and as usual, She appeared in a dark corner of the room.
"Eep! ...how... did She?!" Shiina-san shot out of her seat to run, but I stayed seated. That snake woman hung back, still watching. "Ishiwatari-san! Let's run!"
"Huh? Run away? At a time like this? You kidding me? Even though we've got a good atmosphere going?"
Thump thump. Someone was knocking on the locked door.
"That must be Carrie-san... here to help us..."
"Wrong. That's definitely—" A wordless, discordant scream thundered from the other side of the room, as if the radio dial was broken. "Ah... thought so..."
"W-Who is it?"
"A loose acquaintance of mine. From back in my college days... more importantly, Rin-chan... I have a favor to ask."
I turned the glove on my left hand towards Shiina-san. It was a Russian-made torture device, a variant on a type of thumb-crusher called a pillywinks. Five screws rolled across the back of the hand, and when the screws were turned, a motor used the principle of leverage to twist the fingers backwards. Even incompetent amateurs like Shiina-san would have no problem torturing someone with this thing, which made it a bestseller.
"Why?! Do I really have to break your fingers, Ishiwatari-san?!"
The knocking and screaming continued. The manifestation of that snake woman slowly inched up on Shiina-san in rhythm with the knocking.
"Rin-chan... the person knocking on the door is an irreplaceable friend of mine who originally had an incurable illness. When I saved that woman, I—we attempted to contact with 'the world on the other side' to try saving her... to try to gift her with eternal life. Broken fingers are the consequence."
I grabbed Shiina-san's hand and used it to twist a screw. There was the sound of an electric motor, then a crunch as my pinky suddenly twisted backwards.
"IIIIIIÄ! IÄÄÄÄÄ! HASTUR! HASTUR! CF'AYAK! 'CULGTUMM!" As I felt the shooting pains from my pinky, I shouted the usual incantation. The room began to vibrate.
"Ishiwatari-san!"
"Trust in me, Rin-chan. Stare into the tattoo." I moved Shiina-san's hand to another screw.
"...No! ...Don't! ...Ishiwatari-san... Ishiwatari... Stop! Inez!"
"Sorry, Rin-chan." Using her hand, I turned the screw as hard as I could.
Ishiwatari-san informed me there are a large number of spaces beneath Ueno Station. In particular, the underground station of Naka-Okachimachi station on the Hibiya Line and the Ueno stations along the Toei Ōedo, Ginza, Keisei Ueno, and Hibiya lines were connected to one another by way of a subterranean passage more than a kilometer in length. While there is a busy shopping district above ground, the energy was completely different. The dreary passage continued into infinity without a single shop. While only 8 pm, and despite this building's purpose as a shelter from rain and wind, very few people came and went. I thought it strange that anyone would build such a meaningless, vacant passage.
"...So, the place we're headed was originally used by an institute attempting to place a curse on then-President Roosevelt in the closing years of the Pacific War. The dragon veins of Kanda Shrine have a strong presence beneath Ueno, and they performed a ritual to summon a pagan... no, a heretical god."
Carrie produced a large, unfamiliar antique key as she provided a dubious, occult-sounding explanation and opened an extremely old door along a stretch of the bleak passageway. The foul odor of dust, mold, and burning rubber that are often encountered on the subway wafted up as an old stone staircase continuing deeper underground came into sight.
"Seems they used the Necronomicon. A peculiar book soaked in the blood of many races, which they apparently translated into jindai moji."
"In the end, they were going to summon gods that were grotesque beyond description... well, our grandfathers prevented them before they could, though."
Ishiwatari-san and Carrie continued trading ridiculous assertions as we descended the stairs, but by this point I tired of attempting to understand what they were talking about.
A thunderous roar of a departing subway train penetrated the stairway walls. It was as if...
"Tokyo's subway is like a giant organism, isn't it?" Ishiwatari-san asked, as if she'd read my mind.
"We're here." Carrie opened a sturdily built door, revealing a square room of bare concrete, eight-tatami in size. The only things inside the simple room were an iron table anchored to the floor and a chair... but for some reason, the room was fitted with a peculiar triangular window that reflected the concrete walls.
"It looks like a torture chamber..."
"Actually, that seems to have been the purpose of this room. All for the sake of making offerings to Him, I believe."
Carrie took a lantern, plastic bottle containing a yellow liquid, and small CD player from her backpack.
"Which one do you want for the kagura?"
"Don't call it that, Carrie."
"I've got Metallica and Vader... well, those are uninspired... there's also Electric Wizard and Blue Öyster Cult... hmm..." Carrie handed a stack of CDs to Ishiwatari-san. It looked like metal music—all of the covers were frightening and extremely brash.
"What's this one?" Ishiwatari-san held up a particularly frightening CD jacket.
"Brain Salad Surgery? That'll do, won't it?"
"So, Carrie... where's the usual glove?"
"...You're using that after all?"
"Yeah, doesn't bother me."
"Well, it bothers me... I just don't want to see my Inez suffering anymore."
"Still, I'm not bothered. I've got to get to that place one way or another."
Carrie stared at me. "I'm jealous. You even look like that woman..."
"...Let's get started already."
The LED light turned out and plunged the chamber into pitch darkness. Before she closed the door, Carrie said to me, "Shiina Rin... everything you see from this point onward is real, and it’s steeped in insanity. Please be mentally prepared for it."
I would soon come to appreciate the meaning behind Carrie's words.
"Vugtlagln! Vulgtmm! Ai! Ai! Hastur!"
Ishiwatari-san continued shouting a mysterious incantation as her middle finger twisted in an impossible direction. As Grandmother's moldavite ring glowed, the snake woman unhinged her mouth to eat me, releasing the foul stench of rotten eggs.
"Rin-chan... open the door!"
I heard a metallic clanging noise from Ishiwatari-san's back. Goosebumps rose all over my body. Black... a gap between tentacles of her octopus tattoo was forming the same shape as the windows in the room and turning stygian black. Inside the black triangle... a person's... Ah.
"Welcome, Rin-chan. This is 'the world on the other side'."
I felt as if I had lost consciousness for a moment. When I came to, I was bewildered by the color of the room. It was pink. An intense, fluorescent pink that made my eyes sting, streaming in through the triangle window and staining every corner of the room. In addition, the room felt as if it were an elevator, descending... then it seemed to begin rising, as if the whole room was...
"We're moving... there's something carrying us..."
"Byakhee aren't a comfortable ride, but just bear with it."
"Byakhee?"
"Can't describe them... they're servants of the Nameless King. This room is traveling towards 'the world on the other side' at a high speed."
"...What you call 'the world on the other side', Grandmother's moldavite, and that snake woman a moment ago... they are all related, are they not? ...Actually, where did the snake woman..."
"Hmm? ...She'll appear momentarily. More importantly..." Ishiwatari-san shifted her gaze towards the triangular window where someone stood. I was unable to perceive their face due to the dazzling pink backlighting, but their hood was distinctly yellow. They studied us through the window.
"Yo, Nameless King! Been a while, huh?"
"<<Ishiwatari Inez...? Still a bit soon for you to be here, isn't it?>>"
Rather than a voice, it sounded like the speech resonated directly into my brain. While it seemed to be Japanese, it was as if they spoke in many languages simultaneously, and that was simply the language with the loudest volume. I had the odd sensation that I was perceiving both a man and a woman's voice... if I kept listening carefully to this voice, I would lose my mind entirely.
"<<Well, since you took the trouble...>>" The yellow-robed person looked as if they were eating food with their fingers. The room rocked and creaked as if there was an earthquake.
"Don't waste your time. Come on, I'm not an idiot who came here just so you could hurt me."
"<<But brain is my favorite food... Well, you said you had a reason for coming... Is it that girl?>>" The voice was directed towards me. My whole body exploded in goosebumps the moment I heard it. I avoided looking at the face of the man (woman?) in the robe by looking down at the floor.
When I did—what happened? There seemed to be a puddle of blood spreading at my feet. Whose could it be... whose... was it mine?
"<<Very interesting. Your accomplice's doing?>>"
A sharp pain radiated through my abdomen. Overloaded by pain, I fell out of the chair, screaming and begging Ishiwatari-san for help.
"It's one of your curses, obviously!" As Ishiwatari-san spoke in an icy voice, it manifested on the inside of my leg—the large, black snake stopped slithering, looked at her, and lunged.
"Inez! Look out!"
Then, the giant snake came to a sudden halt. Ishiwatari-san held Grandmother's moldavite... its sinister rainbow glow was pointed at the snake.
"I knew it, this gem was an amulet... I've got a trade for you, Nameless King. She's one of Yig's followers, a Great Old One like yourself... maybe we should call Her your family. You gonna leave family hanging? It's true, I've offered my existence to you, but... if I get a little careless and drop this... my soul wouldn't be yours anymore."
"<<......>>"
The giant snake suddenly stretched like a rubberband in the air. Then, in an instant, it shot towards the wall, as if an arrow had been fired and vanished with a pop that sounded like a balloon bursting.
"<<Ishiwatari Inez... to think an insignificant thing like you would take advantage of me... your soul grows, shall we say, increasingly appealing...>>"
"I'm honored. What happened to your relative?"
"<<Returned to sender, nothing more. At any rate, it is far too important for beings such as yourselves. It's blasphemy.>>"
The pink gradually faded from the room.
"Rin-chan... I'm glad. With this, you can..." Ishiwatari-san staggered partway towards me.
"<<Ah, that child's soul is too valuable to be a part of our deal!>>"
The instant the robed person spoke, the room's ceiling and walls contracted.. Was this how He intended to prevent my departure?
"Rin-chan!" Ishiwatari-san showed her back tattoo to me again, and I was pulled into the black triangle.
"Hey, Inez... I don't want to die, after all."
"Let you die...? You...?"
Were these... Ishiwatari-san's memories? Who in the world was she speaking with?
"It's this manuscript! With this book... you! Eternal life from Quachil Uttaus..."
The sight was instantly replaced with a pale light that shone from beyond the skies. Something that looked like a small person slowly descended inside of it.
"Ineeeeez!" An unfamiliar woman reached out, begging for help. It belonged to a young woman who instantly grew aged, and bathed in the light, crumbled to dust and vanished.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry! It's my fault... all my fault!"
Inside a strange cavern, faceless people in white clothes carved something into Ishiwatari-san's back... Her octopus tattoo.
"Wait... I'm coming too... be there in a second! ...Wait for me until then! Wa//ke up now! Rin!"
"Rin!" When I came to, I was cradled in Ishiwatari-san's arms. She looked down at me with a worried expression.
"Carrie! The sedative, quick!"
"Ishiwatari...san?"
"Rin-chan... can you tell me your name? Do you know why you're here right now?" Ishiwatari-san barraged me with a series of questions as I lay there vacantly. She seemed so desperate. As she tearfully watched over me crying, I wondered where the cool she had displayed until now had gone.
I couldn't help but say, "Oh my! You were incredible!" It unconsciously gushed out.
The person who cast the curse and the thief who stole Grandmother's moldavite had been identified. Both had been the work of my aunt.
"I was informed my aunt's body was discovered in her home. Both eyes had been stabbed with chopsticks, and she clawed at her chest as she breathed her last. How ghastly."
If what happened in that room was the rebound of what she intended for me... I shuddered.
"When you curse someone, dig two graves. That's the natural outcome of summoning powerful gods with half-assed magic. At any rate, your grandma was pretty slick, wasn't she? It's almost as if she saw your inheritance being targeted and made you the scapegoat to drain the pus from your family. That moldavite... no, that mineral was originally 'the color out of space' and wasn't meant to be handled by humans."
She stared at the moldavite ring that hung from my neck. The curse of the snake god was gone, and it no longer sparkled like a rainbow to my eyes.
"When did you realize?"
"Realize what?"
"That my aunt’s actions were how the curse befell me."
"...It's a pretty common story. A high school girl living on her own inherits a large mansion in Tokyo. The moment a powerful gem is stolen, she conveniently becomes the target of a snake god's curse. Common story, even feels like it could've happened to me."
A common story, huh... Ishiwatari-san's back tattoo, that incomprehensible 'world on the other side', the evil gods that emerged from there, Grandmother's relationship with those gods, the religious cult that worshipped them, and Ishiwatari-san herself... those memories, attempting to rescue that woman... I wanted to know more. About the strange gods of 'the world on the other side'... and—
"Well, Rin-chan... you're really okay with working part-time in my store? The pay's garbage."
"It is acceptable... it is essentially compensation for all you have done on my behalf up to now. And besides..."
"Besides?"
And—I wanted to know more about this person named Ishiwatari Inez.
"Grandmother was most certainly sly, but I am grateful to her. After all... it allowed us to meet."
I could see someone in the display window. Surely, it had to be someone like me, a person involved with 'the world on the other side'. Ishiwatari-san and I signaled one another with our eyes, waiting for the customer to step into the shop.
"Welcome to Ring Wandering. Do you happen to be looking for some gem in particular?"
I wondered what strange worlds this customer would show me.
TL Notes:
The theme park in Urayasu
Urayasu is a town located in Chiba Prefecture, on the border with Tokyo. It is the location of Tokyo Disneyland.
Song lyrics
The lyrics are taken from “Karn Evil 9” on the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery. Rin later mentions the cover art, which was designed by H.R. Gieger.
Takoyaki stand in Ameyoko
Ameyoko is a large open-air street market located near Ueno station.
Okachimachi
Okachimachi is the first stop south of Ueno station on the Yamanote line. It is generally a shopping district, and is also the southern end of the Ameyoko market street.
Taitō / Bunkyō Ward
Ueno and Okachimachi are located in the Taitō ward of Tokyo. Bunkyō ward neighbors Taitō to the west. Bunkyō became a center of literati and influential politicians during the Meiji era, and to this day maintains a reputation as a relatively elite neighborhood. The girls’ school referred to here is likely Ochanomizu University High School.
Kirakira name
A kirakira name is the term for names that use unusual kanji and non-standard readings to make the name stand out. Inez (Inesu in the original) is the reading of 鋳音子. Combined with Ishiwatari’s family name, her name could be interpreted as “the stone trade is the sound of casting coins.”
Hotel in Yushima or Uguisudani
Uguisudani is the first station north of Ueno on the Yamanote Line. Yushima is a neighborhood about 10 blocks west of the Okachimachi station. Both have a large number of 3- and 4-star hotels.
Yig
Yig, the Father of Serpents, is taken from “The Curse of Yig” by Zealia Bishop (with H.P. Lovecraft ghostwriting), published in Weird Tales, November 1929.
Kagura
A ritual Shinto dance. This dance involves a shrine maiden entering a trance, followed by possession. The possession is accompanied by music and poetry to entertain the visiting deity.
Hastur
Hastur the Unspeakable is originally a shepherd god in Ambrose Bierce’s 1886 stories “Haïta the Shepherd” and “An Inhabitant of Carcosa”. Robert W. Chambers’ 1895 “The King in Yellow” story cycle drew on Bierce’s stories as an inspiration, and associated Hastur with the titular King in Yellow. In turn, H.P. Lovecraft drew Hastur into the Cthulhu mythos by mentioning him as one of the unspeakable gods in his 1930 story, “The Whisperer in Darkness.”
Byakhee
Byakhee are a race of servants to Hastur. They are winged creatures capable of travelling through space at faster-than-light speeds. These creatures are taken from August Derleth’s contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. The chant Ishiwatari uses to summon them comes from “The Keeper of the Key”, published in Weird Tales, May 1951.
Dragon veins
Dragon veins are a feng shui geomantic concept referring to channels of energy that flow from the mountains to the sea. The perceived intersection of dragon veins was commonly used to determine the placement of shrines.
Jindai Moji
Jindai moji, “characters from the Age of the Gods” are written characters that are claimed to represent an ancient pre-kanji script for the Japanese language. The most infamous example of jindai moji are the Takeuchi Documents, which were produced by Takeuchi Kyōmaro, who in 1900 founded the syncretic Amatsukyo Shinto sect in Torai, Ibaraki. In the late 1920s, Takeuchi made public a collection of documents describing arcane Imperial Lineages, the Five Races of Humanity and their racial traits, and religious histories that indicated that the Emperors had been served by the Buddha, Moses, and Jesus (of whom the latter two died in Japan). The Amatsukyo sect began to gain influence in the early 1930s before historian Kōkichi Kanō publicly exposed the forgery. This culminated with the seizure of the Takeuchi Documents by the Higher Special Police in 1936 and a 1942 lese-majeste trial that failed to convict Takeuchi. Asahara Shoko viewed copies of the documents in the early 1980s, these informed the racial ideology and apocalyptic views of his cult, Aum Shinrikyo.
Quachil Uttaus
A Great Old One who appeared in the Clark Ashton Smith story, “The Treader of the Dust”, published in Weird Tales, 1935. The entity controls age, death, and decay, and has the ability to reduce any who come in contact with it to dust.
Nameless King
Taken indirectly from H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Nameless City”. That story involves an ancient city built deep beneath the sea by four-legged saurians, lifted into the Arabian desert by the cataclysm that destroyed Atlantis. The August Derleth story mentioned above describes the Nameless City as Hastur’s domain and a safe haven for Byakhee.
The Color Out of Space
Taken from H.P. Lovecraft’s 1927 story of the same name. It features a narrator attempted to deduce the origins of a local wasteland outside of the fictional city of Arkham, Massachusetts. The origin happens to be an object which landed as a meteorite in 1882, which at first brings a proliferation of life to a farmer’s field before slowly draining it (and the family) of their sanity and life. A fragment of the object was brought to the city’s Miskatonic University for analysis, where it is described as having a light spectrum that “only by analogy they called it color at all”.