Earthlings by Sayaka Murata

Author:Sayaka Murata
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2020-09-16T12:49:30+00:00

CHAPTER 4

Being back in Akishina, all kinds of childhood memories began resurfacing. Like, for example, how I killed the Wicked Witch at Mr. Igasaki’s place.

I don’t really remember much about what happened after that incident with Yuu; it all seems like a dream now. As soon as we arrived back home from Nagano, I was shut up in my bedroom. A large padlock was placed on the outside of the door, and when nobody else was home it was locked. If I wanted to go to the toilet, I had to wait until my sister or Mom came home.

Whenever I phoned my friends, either my sister or Mom would keep watch over me to make sure I wasn’t talking to Yuu. For the rest of the summer holiday, I spent pretty much all my time locked up in my room.

I passed the days in the gloom staring at our marriage pledge and my ring. Gradually something strange happened. I began to see my transformation mirror and origami wand become filled with particles of light. I could hear Piyyut’s voice clearly talking to me. He would often talk to me now that he’d been freed from the spell cast by the evil forces.

When I asked Piyyut if my magical powers were growing stronger, his answer came back crystal clear, “Yes, that’s right!”

All the same, my mouth was still broken. I couldn’t taste food, and eating wasn’t at all enjoyable. When I was called downstairs for meals, I would hardly eat a thing before going back to my room. Mom would say with a sigh that I was being “rebellious.”

One day I had just taken a single bite of a tasteless hamburger and was about to go back to my room when Mom told me, “You’ll be doing the intensive course at cram school again this year, you know.” It was just over a month since Grandpa had died.

“Why? I thought I wasn’t supposed to leave my room.”

“For heaven’s sake, stop quibbling! You’re going, and that’s that. And if you’re even slightly late home, I’ll inform the police. You got that?”

I’d lost all sense of the passing of days, and when I went back to my room I looked at the calendar. My countdown to Obon was still recorded there: Three days to go . . . Two days to go . . . The day we’d gone to Akishina was marked the end in small letters. After that I hadn’t made any entries. The calendar was completely blank. I recalled how I really had intended to end it all that day.

I searched in my bag and found the printout from cram school. The intensive course was due to start in three days’ time. The night before, Mr. Igasaki phoned and Mom answered so loudly that I could hear her from my room upstairs.

“Oh, Mr. Igasaki! Thank you so much for taking the trouble to call! You tried calling before? Well, you see, we had some unfortunate news and had to return to my husband’s family home.

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