Chapter 3 (December 8, 2009) (3,874 words)

The next morning was as gloomy as mornings went, a fact which owed its existence to the densely clouded skies and the cold that resulted from the altitude of the hotel, and which in turn vindicated everyone’s obvious unwillingness to get out of bed (except for Akagi, who was an early riser by principle), despite Coach Takato’s repeated importuning and threatening. The Coach of Kainan, having tried multiple tricks to entice everyone into getting out of bed, and failing, decided presently that a final, dirty trick, which he had reserved for the end for a desperate situation such as this, and which he had initially planned on avoiding because of its harshness, was in order.

“Very well,” he said with a sigh. “I tried.”

Coaches Anzai and Taoka looked at him dubiously, as if sensing what Coach Takato was about to do.

“Takato…” said Taoka, slightly incredulously.

“Don’t worry, Taoka,” said Takato. “This will take only a moment.”

He strode over to the room he was sharing with the other coaches and produced from his bag a paper and a pen.

“I’m canceling the reservation for the basketball court this evening,” he asseverated once he had returned to the common room, making sure he was audible to all.

Immediately several voices went up in protest.

Maki rushed out of the room, still in his pajamas, and glared pointedly at his coach.

“You wouldn’t,” he said.

Coach Takato closed his eyes. He was enjoying this.

“Yes I would,” he said.

Maki rushed back into the room and was out less than five minutes later, all dressed and refreshed.

“There, see,” he said. “I’m ready.”

Everyone else duly assembled in the common room as well.

“Well, that’s that,” said Coach Takato cheerfully, flashing a complacent grin at his other coaches. He was this short of saying that they couldn’t have possibly come up with something as genius as that.

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Anzai, genuinely impressed.

Coach Taoka grumbled something about having his “own methods”, which would have doubtless been more effective.

“So what’s the plan, Pops?” said Sakuragi.

“Breakfast,” said Takato, answering for Coach Anzai.

Everyone groaned.

“You dragged us out of bed just for breakfast?” said Kiyota in indignation. (“You’re disgusting!” said Sakuragi, wiping spit off his face.)

Coach Takato straightened his glasses with dignity and pulled out a brochure from his pocket.

“Not exactly,” he said with an air of importance. “Breakfast is only the first thing on the list. After that, there’s this waterfall nearby that I’m sure all of us are dying to see.”

Few people nodded their heads: the others groaned.

Coach Takato cleared his throat and frowned.

“Yes, we will all enjoy the waterfall. According to this, it’s particularly beautiful this time of year.”

“Is there anything special about it?” asked Kogure eagerly. “Any stories about unknowing travelers falling and roaming the place in the afterlife?”

Coach Takato looked mildly uncomfortable.

“Er… not that I know of,” he managed. “But I’m sure there are plenty of mysteries you guys could uncover over there. Apparently it’s not a very frequently visited place, just like this resort.”

“Yeah,” observed Uozumi. “When you come to think of it, last evening we were the only ones in the dining hall.”

“Probably the only ones in the hotel!” said Hanagata, and Kogure and he exchanged excited looks. “Great minds think alike,” they seemed to say to each other.

Sakuragi laughed.

“Everyone’s afraid of the genius!”

His declaration went unnoticed.

Akagi glanced down at his wristwatch. It was 7 a.m.

“Since we’re the only ones here, we can take our time going down for breakfast,” he said.

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Coach Anzai. “Was there something you wanted to do.”

“Yes,” grunted Akagi. “I thought maybe I could take a walk around this place. You know, to stretch my legs a bit and get some fresh air.”

“An excellent idea!” said Coach Takato. “Why don’t we all take a short morning walk before breakfast? It’ll really help you work up an appetite.”

Akagi muttered something under his breath. He had been hoping to get some time alone.

It was settled. Shortly afterwards they emerged from the hotel in groups and went their own separate ways, going wherever the numerous paths that wound themselves around the hotel and its acres of gardens and lawns led them.

“This is refreshing,” said Sendoh, inhaling the cool, fresh air.

“Our coach is always right,” said Jin with a touch of pride.

“Hey, it was my idea,” said Akagi with no little pride himself.

“No,” said Jin flatly. “Your idea was to take a walk all by yourself: the coach’s idea was that all of us get some fresh air.”

“Look over there,” said Sendoh. “The mist is clearing. You can actually see the city: way down there.”

“It’s a steep drop,” observed Fukuda listlessly, as though he had spent his entire life around steep drops.

“Trust them to put up such a low fence over there,” snorted Koshino derisively. “I’ll be surprised if no one’s ever tripped over it and died.”

“That would be cool,” said Kogure. “I mean, imagine if someone just climbed over the edge right now and said, Hi.”

Someone just climbed over the edge and said Hi.

All but Kogure jumped. (“Excellent!” he said.)

“I’m the gardener,” said the man, showing them his pickax. “This fell over there, so I went to retrieve it.” Upon perceiving the expression on everyone’s face, he laughed. “What did you think I was, dead? That I’d tripped over this fence or something and died? And that I came back to haunt the place?” He laughed sonorously. “That’s way too fanciful. And besides, this hillside is not steep at all for the next ten yards. Then it’s flat land for some distance, and then there are some high rocks at the end. You wouldn’t fall all the way down that easily. There’s no way you’d get hurt climbing down this side, as long as you don’t slip on the dew. Want to try?”

“No,” said Akagi forcefully, placing a firm hand on Kogure’s shoulder warningly.

“Well, then, I guess I’ll get back to work,” said the gardener. “Nice meeting you kids.”

Akagi nodded, and then ushered everyone away from there.

“What do you think he was doing down there?” asked Sendoh.

“Easy,” said Kogure. “He was obviously haunting the place.”

Hanagata nodded.

“We have one of those at our house, too,” he said. “It’s my dad.”

“You don’t actually believe he was a ghost, though, do you?” said Sendoh.

“Of course not,” said Hanagata. “Believe me, if you ever saw a ghost, you’d know.”

“So have you ever seen one?”

“Not really,” he said. “But I have seen Fujima in a mud mask.” He shivered. “It was scary.”

“I see,” said Sendoh. “So you mean to say ghosts wear makeup?”

Hanagata was about to answer, but Akagi snorted loudly.

“There is no such thing as ghosts,” he declared, pronouncing each word deliberately, as if daring anyone to contradict him.

“I beg to differ,” said Kogure. “It’s scientifically proven that ghosts do exist.”

“That’s not right,” said Akagi. “It has not been scientifically proven that ghosts don’t exist. There’s a difference between the two.”

“Only in the way you see it,” said Kogure, grinning. “I think ghosts do exist, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s the gardener again, only a few yards in front of us. How could he have made it this far so quickly?”

Indeed, it was the same gardener, tending to an empty flowerbed. He touched his cap and nodded when he saw Akagi and the others.

“Hello again, kids,” he said.

Sendoh was beginning to think the morning walk wasn’t a very good idea after all.

“I agree,” said Koshino, feeling slightly freaked out himself for the first time.

“Is there anything I can do for you kids?” said the gardener, walking toward him, his pickax slung over his shoulder ominously.

Everyone took a step back.

“No thanks,” said Akagi in a plain tone. “We were just going back to the hotel.”

Everyone about-faced and went back the way they came.

“There he is again!” said Kogure gleefully when they reached the steep drop again.

The gardener smiled and touched his cap when he saw them.

“Hello again, kids,” he said.

This time they all broke into a run, and didn’t look back until they’d reached the hotel entrance again.

“That was cool,” said Kogure, who didn’t run with quite as much vigor as the others, and if it weren’t for Akagi’s fierce glare, he would have willingly stayed back and interrogated the gardener. (“When and how were you killed?” he would have asked.)

Sendoh looked at Hanagata and said in a rasping voice because of all the running, “You said you were sure he wasn’t a ghost.”

Hanagata shrugged.

“I guess I was wrong,” he said. “Although there still is a perfectly logical explanation behind this.”

Akagi nodded.

“Now that you mention it, yes,” he said. “The gardener must have had an identical twin.”

“I’m sure it was his twin,” said Hanagata.

Kogure shook his head, still grinning from ear to ear.

“Don’t be silly! They were the same person! Identical twins can never be that identical.”

“There was still some mist there. They would have easily passed for each other,” explained Hanagata.

“But I’m sure he was a ghost,” insisted Kogure.

Hanagata sighed.

“Look,” he said. “Let’s get this straight once and for all, and go ask the receptionist if they have twin gardeners working for them, okay?”

Kogure nodded.

“We’ll see that you were wrong.”

“Just follow me.”

Hanagata led them inside the hotel in a confident gait and walked up to the receptionist.

“How may I help you, sir?” said the little man in glasses.

“Do you happen to have a couple of twins working as gardeners in this place?”

The man raised his eyebrows.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we have had no gardeners in our employment since 1957 when the last one mysteriously disappeared.”

Everyone gasped. Kogure cheered.

“Right,” said Hanagata, nodding. He led the rest of them back outside.

“Did you hear that?” said Sendoh.

“Yes,” said Fukuda. “How can a resort not have a gardener? It’s ridiculous!”

“That’s not the point,” said Sendoh. “It means that the guy we saw back there really was a ghost.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Akagi. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“But you saw one with your own eyes!” said Kogure. “And you heard the receptionist: they have no gardeners!”

By that time the girls had returned from their walk.

“Hey, what’re you guys talking about,” said Ayako, joining the conversation eagerly.

“Nothing,” said Akagi. “We were somewhere over there and saw this gardener and probably his twin, and these guys think they saw a ghost.”

“But,” Haruko said, frowning, “that’s impossible!”

“Why?”

“Because we saw the same man!”

“And his twin,” added Ayako.

“And the two of us were way far away from where you were.”

“Yes!” Kogure said. “I can’t believe I actually saw a real ghost!”

“And what’s more,” said Hanagata, addressing the girls, “the receptionist insists that they have not had any gardeners in a long time, since the last one died.”

“Mysteriously disappeared,” corrected Akagi.

“Same difference.”

In the meantime, everyone else had returned from their walk and was apprised of the latest developments by an all too eager Kogure. A noisy discussion broke out regarding the credibility of what Kogure and the others were saying (with Sakuragi voicing out his own incredible theories), which ended with Uozumi declaring that he was hungry and needed breakfast before anything else.

“Yeah, let’s go inside and get something to eat,” said Coach Takato cheerfully, walking past Kogure and through the revolving door.

Everyone but Kogure followed suit.

“They don’t believe me?” said Kogure indignantly. “I’ll show them!”

He trotted off in the direction they had chosen earlier, determined to find the ghost, and prove that it was a ghost.

“Where’s Kogure?” asked Akagi once everyone had sat down at the table. He noticed that one chair was empty.

Everyone looked at their neighbors and concluded that Kogure was indeed not there.

“Maybe he’s still outside,” suggested Sendoh.

Akagi slapped his forehead.

“He’s probably gone looking for the gardener again.”

“Poor Kogure,” said Sakuragi.

“What do we do?” said Mitsui.

“Nothing. I’ll go bring him back,” said Akagi, rising from his chair, and getting Coach Anzai’s permission to leave the hall.

It was a whole hour before he returned with Kogure, all covered in mud and dirt and what looked suspiciously like blood. Everyone was back in the suite by then.

Haruko gasped and ran up to her brother upon seeing the condition he was in.

“What happened, brother?” she asked.

Akagi cast a deprecating glare at Kogure, who shrunk from it.

“Kogure,” he said plainly. “The fool led the both of us right over the edge of the hill.”

“The mist was too deep,” Kogure said meekly.

“Which was all the more reason not to try going into it, fool,” said Akagi. He went on to say, “Luckily—just like the gardener had said—it wasn’t too steep. But there was gravel, and dew, and we got ourselves cut. All thanks to Kogure, of course.”

Kogure smiled sheepishly.

“What a klutz,” said Sakuragi.

No one spoke for some time after that.

Then Coach Anzai stepped forward.

“That was a very irresponsible thing to do, Kogure,” he said. “But we’ll talk about this later. Right now, I think we should ask the hotel people to bring us a first-aid kit. Both Akagi and Kogure need to be tended to. Ayako, could you please call up the reception?”

Ayako nodded and went over the phone.

After several attempts at dialing, she said, “Nobody’s answering.”

“Maybe they’re busy somewhere else,” said Coach Taoka. “So you should probably go downstairs and get it yourself.”

Ayako nodded and left.

“And in the meantime,” said Coach Anzai, “I think the two of you should go take a shower.”

“So,” said Sendoh as Akagi was heading toward his room, “did you actually see the ghost again?”

Akagi shook his head.

“No.”

Ayako returned after a while, without a first-aid kit, and with a strange look in her eye.

“Where’s the first-aid kit, Ayako?” asked Coach Anzai.

“Coach,” said Ayako, “there really is no one there. I mean no one. Right from the suite down to the reception, no one. Not even the house keeping people who usually sit in their room.”

Sakuragi’s eyes widened.

“Does this mean this place is really haunted?”

Ayako raised an eyebrow.

“No,” she said. “It means no one’s there.”

“You probably just missed them,” said Coach Taoka. “I’ll go get the first-aid kit.”

And saying so, he marched confidently out of the suite.

He returned sooner than Ayako had returned, holding the first-aid kit triumphantly in the air.

“I told you just missed them,” said Coach Taoka. “There was a woman standing right in front of the house keeping room, who very promptly gave me this when I asked.”

“Maybe I did miss them,” Ayako said. The truth was, she was so wrapped up with the notion that hotel was probably haunted that she was quite oblivious to anything that suggested otherwise. It was a girl thing; something that the guys and the coaches wouldn’t understand.

Coach Takato produced the brochure from his pocket once more.

“Do you think we’ll still be able to go to the falls? With Akagi and Kogure injured like this?”

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Coach Anzai. “I’m sure they would enjoy it.”

“But their injuries…”

“They will be fine. They are tough.”

Something told Coach Takato that Coach Anzai was the one so keen on visiting the waterfall.

He turned around and regarded everyone in the room. Fujima was playing rock-paper-scissors with the other Shoyo boys; Maki was lecturing to Mitsui about the importance of practice; Koshino, with Sendoh at his side, was declaring to the other Kainan boys that theirs was the better team (Coach Takato scowled), since they had Sendoh (who didn’t look as though he wanted to be dragged into all this, and desperately tried to shut Koshino up), at which Kiyota let out a bark-like laugh and declared with equal vehemence that Sendoh was second-rate (Sendoh decided to let Koshino go on with what he was saying), and that he could never beat Maki; everyone else was idly watching the above drama unfold.

Presently, Akagi and Kogure returned, all clean and dressed in fresh clothes. Their injuries, it transpired, while not accentuated by the dirt and gravel, were limited to a few minor scratches, and a gash on the arm in the case of Akagi.

“Here’s the first-aid kit,” said Coach Taoka, handing the box to Ayako, who began to minister to her teammates’ cuts and scratches with the aid of some cotton and an antiseptic solution that stung.

“Will you be able to go to the falls with us?” asked Takato once Ayako had finished nursing Akagi’s and Kogure’s wounds.

Akagi nodded.

Coach Takato smiled.

“Wonderful. Then we’ll set off in about half an hour. It takes a further hour to get there by bus.”

“Hold on,” said Uozumi. “I thought you said this place was close by.”

“It is,” said Coach Takato. “Anyplace that takes less than two hours to get to is close by, Uozumi.”

“Old age,” said Coach Taoka grimly, nodding at Uozumi.

“Hey!” said Coach Takato. “If you want to see old age, I suggest you look at yourself the mirror.”

“Take that back!” yelled Coach Taoka.

“I won’t!” yelled back Coach Takato.

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Coach Anzai. “Now isn’t this amusing?”

Sakuragi couldn’t contain himself either, and burst out laughing. This made the coaches realize what a scene they were kicking up.

“Well,” said Coach Takato, clearing his throat in embarrassment. “That concludes the pep talk. Now I’ll call up the bus driver and ask him to wait, while the rest of you get ready. If you have cameras, you may bring them along. Just be careful not to lose them, or fall off the edge while taking a picture.”

He laughed mirthlessly.

“That’s the problem with these hilly places,” he explained to Coach Anzai. “You never know what might happen. Dangers lurk in every corner, just waiting to catch you off guard.”

“That’s enough, Takato,” said Coach Taoka, seeing how uneasy his players were visibly starting to feel.

“It’s for their own safety,” said Coach Takato coolly.

“Be that as it may—” began Coach Taoka, but was cut off by Coach Anzai:

“I think the best we can do is keep an eye on everyone.”

The two other coaches agreed that it was an excellent strategy.

“What time is it?” asked Kogure, staring out of the window of the bus without much interest.

“Eleven-fifteen,” replied Akagi. “Why?”

“Nothing. It’s been under fifteen minutes since we started.” He yawned. “This means we have more than forty-five minutes left to go. How are the others doing?”

He looked around the bus. Nearly everyone seemed to be immersed in something: books, videogames, cell phones. Fujima took a couple of pictures of himself on his camera just to see how his face contrasted with the color of the seat. Hikoichi was hopping around from spot to spot, interviewing people about various irrelevant things regarding their personal life. Nosey kid, said Kogure mentally. His eyes settled on Ayako and Haruko. They seemed to be talking about something. Kogure caught the words “gardner” and “ghost”, and instantly gravitated toward them.

“So what do you think?” he said, taking a seat behind the two girls. “Was that gardener really a ghost or not?”

Ayako shrugged.

“Personally, I don’t believe in ghosts—”

“No wonder you get along with Akagi so well.”

Ayako ignored him.

“But I admit that the whole idea is kind of thrilling.”

Haruko managed a weak smile.

“In a creepy way.”

Her eyes darted to Rukawa, who was unsurprisingly asleep. She sighed.

“So what do you think?” repeated Kogure. “Is he a ghost or not?”

“I still don’t believe it,” said Hanagata, sitting down next to Kogure, he, like the Vice-Captain of Shohoku, having become interested in the theme of the conversation. “There has to be some explanation.”

“You’re constantly changing your opinion,” Kogure said accusingly.

“I really don’t believe it’s a ghost. I mean…”

“You mean what?”

“I don’t know. It’s a feeling. That guy’s not a ghost.”

Kogure grinned. He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a rusty old pickax.

Hanagata’s eyes widened.

“Where’d you find that?”

“On the bottom of that not-so-steep slope,” said Kogure. “If there really was a gardener, and if he’d really gone down there to retrieve his tool, then I shouldn’t have found this.”

“And yet the gardener we saw was holding a pickax,” said Hanagata thoughtfully.

“Exactly,” said Kogure. He zipped his backpack up again.

“What does this mean?” asked Ayako.

“That we probably are dealing with a ghost after all,” said Hanagata.

Kogure was about to say something, but Coach Takato had begun to announce something.

“Would you look at this?” he said with the brochure in his hand. “There’s mention of that silly old legend in this: about the headless girl. Apparently the ‘last sighting’ of the body, as these superstitious people call it, was at the waterfall we’re going to now.”

He laughed at the naïveté of these rural folk.

Kogure, however, just got something to think about for the rest of the trip.

After what seemed like ages, the bus halted.

“We’re here boys,” said Coach Taoka getting to his feet.

The bus conductor pressed a button on the wall that made the doors open. The distant roaring sound of a swiftly flowing river became instantaneously loud enough do justice to the large, crashing waterfall from which it proceeded.

“It’s beautiful,” said Coach Takato, stepping out of the bus and walking toward the Bird’s Eye View point. “Like I told you.”

“And safe,” said Coach Taoka, observing how sturdy the iron railings looked. “Like he didn’t tell you.”

Coach Takato scowled, but decided not to say anything.

“Look, the body!” said Kogure ecstatically, pointing at something that was sticking out of the bush.

Everyone ran toward it. Akagi pulled it out by the tattered floral dress, and snorted.

“A china doll,” he said. “Too bad, Kogure.”

“Well, at least it’s a headless one,” said Sakuragi, laughing at his own joke, which wasn’t much of a joke.

They returned to admiring the waterfall.

Sendoh leaned over the railing to get a better view of the water crashing against the rocks, hundreds of feet below. It truly was a magnificent sight, and quite eerie, too.

“If someone fell over, they’d be pulp,” said Mitsui with a laugh.

“Hey, maybe someone did fall over,” said Kogure, squinting to see if he could catch sight of anything that resembled blood.

Rukawa, in the meantime, was staring unblinkingly in the direction of the dark woods some distance off.

“What is it, Rukawa?” said Ayako.

Rukawa pointed.

“Is that the gardener you were talking about?”

Ayako looked at where he was pointing and gasped.