Suzume by Makoto Shinkai

Author:Makoto Shinkai
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yen Press

The box is full of books. Souta tells me to open one called Excerpts from the Closer’s Secrets. I’ve only seen this kind of traditional Japanese book in photos before. The rough paper is bound with string and looks ready to crumble any minute. Taking care not to tear it, I solemnly open the book.

Pictures cover both pages. The hair on my arms and legs stands up. One picture shows a volcano. A village and mountain are drawn in black ink, but the flames bursting from the mountain are painted with bright-red pigment. A crimson river writhes in the sky. I know that shape well.

“Is that…the worm?”

Souta nods, gazing at the picture. When I look more closely, I see that the flames are coming not from the volcano’s mouth but instead from a torii gate on the peak of the mountain. It must be a Gate. I can make out the word Tenmei and the number three in one corner of the picture. When was that, the 1700s? Souta tells me to turn the page, so I do.

The next picture is of a dragon. Between the curves of its long, winding body are mountains, villages, and lakes, as if the dragon and the land are one. What appear to be enormous daggers pierce its head and tail.

“Those are Keystones. The Western Pillar and the Eastern Pillar.”

The chair leg points to each one in turn.

“Keystones? You mean—”

“Yes. There are two of them.”

“So…there’s another one of those cats?”

“The cat is only a transient manifestation,” he says in a low voice.

I turn the page again. On each side is a stone monument with a throng of people praying to it. The word Keystone is written in red characters on each monument, and several people dressed like mountain ascetics seem to be trying to bury the stones in the earth. In the gaps around the pictures is fine cursive writing that I can’t read. The text next to the stones, however, I can just barely decipher. Something about “subduing the black Keystone” and “the terrible white tiger Keystone.”

“Natural disasters and plagues come from Ever-After to our realm through Gates and terrorize everyone nearby,” Souta says, gazing at the pictures. “That’s why we Closers go around shutting them. We return those places to their cradle—their rightful owners, the gods of the land—and quell the unrest. But there are some disasters, the terrible kind that occur only once every few hundred years, that can’t be fully suppressed by closing Gates. For those situations, two Keystones were bestowed on this land in ancient times.”

Souta points to another book. “Catalogue of Keystones” is written on the cover. This is also a traditional Japanese book, but it looks decades (or perhaps centuries) newer than the first one. I open it. Inside are what look like old maps. An amorphous shape like stones melted together is labeled “Map of the Land of Fuso”—at least I think that’s what the characters say. Large swords pierce either end of what seems to be an island.

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