Winter

Miyuki couldn’t believe her eyes. She was so weak that she thought maybe what she was seeing in the distance was her mind playing tricks on her. But marching onward, the village before her became more real than mere vision.

Time had badly worn away the buildings. Many had collapsed while others looked to be on the verge of doing the same. One home, however, seemed to have stood the test of time. It stood out for that reason, but also because its windows and door had been boarded up.

With the weather beginning to take a turn for the worst, Miyuki felt she had no other choice but to seek shelter inside.

Fortunately the boards and nails were weak enough for Miyuki to pry them from the door, making it no problem for her to gain entrance.

Using her cell phone for light, Miyuki found the home looked to have been left untouched since it was last inhabited. Dust covered everything but, other than that, the home looked just as it had looked several hundred years ago.

Looking through some of the items in the home, Miyuki deduced that the home had once belonged to a woman. She was validated in her assumption when she discovered a journal lying in plain view with a familiar name written in it.

“Natsuko,” gasped Miyuki after flipping open the journal and finding the woman’s name on the first page. “This was her home.”

Miyuki had no real feelings about the home, but after realizing that it had once belonged to Natsuko, it became a sad and lonely place. The small bed, the table with only one chair and the scant amount of dishes now took on a new significance.

With great curiosity, Miyuki began reading.

The first pages that piqued Miyuki’s interest were those that concerned catching the eye of a neighbor named Kaito. But the further Miyuki would read, the more enlightening the content would become.

I caught Kaito looking at me again. I’m too shy to look back. What can I do? He’s so handsome and I’m so plain looking. And he’s a married man. He has a child. But I don’t care about those things. I can’t fight these feelings I have for him. I just want to be with him no matter what the cost.

I know that others have seen Kaito looking at me. I know they don’t like it, especially the women. I see them whisper to each other every time I walk by. They’re spreading rumors about me. I don’t care what they say about me. I just don’t want them talking badly about Kaito. He doesn’t deserve it. I just worry about what kind of rumors these women are spreading about me. I hope they aren’t saying things that will get me into trouble.

After flipping through a few more pages, Miyuki found that the infatuation eventually became an all-out romance.

Kaito and I have been meeting in the woods at night. It’s the only way we can see each other without being discovered. But it’s dangerous to go out at night since it sounds like there are wild animals running around. I think they’re the ones responsible for the missing animals from our village. But I’m not afraid. As long as I have Kaito by my side, then I know nothing will ever happen to me.

One particular journal entry helped to shed light on one mystery.

Everyone knows that Old man Yuta drinks too much. He spends half the day drinking and the other half falling down around the village. Everyone tells him to drink less but he doesn’t listen to them. I think he drinks even more when people tell him things like that, just to show them that they can’t tell him what to do.

The old man was drunker than I’ve ever seen him. He had a bundle of firewood with him as he stumbled home. He kept having to pick up his wood because he dropped it every few steps. I worried that something bad might happen. But I couldn’t tell Old Man Yuta to be careful. He just would have yelled at me like he did with everyone.

Later that night his house burned down.

As Miyuki read even further, she realized that more villagers eventually learned of the affair and it did not sit well with them. But no one dared to tell Hinata, Kaito’s now pregnant wife, for fear of what it would do to her.

We were as careful as we could be. But I suppose in a village as small as ours all secrets come out eventually. First it was just a few people here and there, then more people learned about me and Kaito. People tried to keep it from Hinata, but she eventually found out as well. Kaito said his wife wasn’t angry or sad. I don’t think it’s normal to have no reaction to learning about something like this. All she did was tell Kaito to stop seeing me. And so he did.

I was lonely but I understood that a wife needs her husband and a child needs their father so I stayed away from Kaito for the sake of his family.

Miyuki continued reading, finding nothing of any real significance until she came to a passage that would leave her breathless.

I think there’s something wrong with Hinata. She walks around the village like she’s dead. She doesn’t say anything to anyone and she doesn’t even look at people. She just stares straight ahead. I know it has something to do with me and Kaito. In her current state, I fear she might do something she might regret.

I was out by the lake when it happened. A group of children was playing when Hinata showed up. I was too far away to hear what she told them, but she gave them something to eat. The children all fell down after eating what Hinata had given them. She then tossed the children into the lake. It all happened so fast that there was no way I could have stopped it.

What can I do? People won’t believe me if I tell them what happened to those children. Their hatred for me is so strong that they might even blame me. If I keep quiet, maybe they’ll think that it was just an accident, that the children were playing too close to the lake and fell in and didn’t know how to swim.

I just hope God can forgive me for not doing something.

Tears began to form in Miyuki’s eyes. “She was innocent,” she said.

The door suddenly flew open, giving Miyuki quite the startle. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw Haru standing in the doorway.