Yasutaka Tsutsui - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

What’s going on? thought Masako. Maybe he just needs to stop by somewhere before work. But then, if that was the case, surely he would have left the house earlier than normal.

Masako couldn’t help but wonder whether she’d just seen something she wasn’t supposed to, so she quickly turned around before her father could see her looking. And when she got to school, the thought still bothered her. All day long she kept wondering why her father wasn’t going to work and why he was hiding something. In fact, she wondered so much, it was almost impossible to concentrate on her classes.

“Hey Masako!” said Bunichi a little later on. “Are you all right? You don’t look well.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” said Masako, but Bunichi wasn’t convinced.

All day long, Masako had wondered whether she should tell her mother about the incident at the station. And by the time she arrived home, she’d decided it was the right thing to do. Funnily enough, though, her mother didn’t seem in the least bit surprised.

“Well Masako, there’s something I didn’t tell you about before, because I didn’t want you to worry,” she said with a frown on her face.

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s not such a big deal as it might sound, but your father quit his job.”

“He did? Why?”

“Well, his company didn’t have as much work to do as they had before, so they needed to let some of the workers go.”

“Let them go? But that means he didn’t quit, right? He was fired!”

“I guess so. But there’s really nothing to worry about. Your father is lucky. He’s a skilled engineer. So he’ll have no trouble at all finding a new job. In fact, he’s already received an offer from another company.”

“Oh, I see.”

Masako couldn’t help but think it might have been better for her parents to tell her what was going on.

I’m an adult, too, she thought to herself, so I’m old enough to be told things as important as that. She felt especially frustrated with her father, and wished he would stop seeing her as just a child. So she decided to confront him about this on the way to the station the next day.

“So, dad, have you already decided on your next job?”

she said, out of the blue.

Her father’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Oh, so you know about that?” he said, then laughed out loud. “I guess you must have overheard me when I came home the other night, did you? I came home a little drunk and was probably talking louder than I should have, and complaining about how the company was going to ‘give me the chop’. I probably woke you up.”

Suddenly, Masako understood where Yoshio’s night vision might have come from.

“Did you say ‘give me the chop’?” she asked in a voice that was also a little too loud.

“I did,” answered her father. “But there’s no need to shout!”

“But I figured it out! The head Yoshio saw — it was yours!”

Poor little Yoshio must have overheard his father’s voice in his sleep and conjured up the image of a bloody severed head. Masako couldn’t help but giggle at how silly the whole episode had been, and so she told her father all about it.

“But this time might be a bit more difficult than last time,” she continued. “We need to tell Yoshio that you were fired. Then we need to tell him that there’s nothing to worry about.”

Masako’s father smiled and patted her on the shoulders with his large, warm hands.

“Oh Masako,” he said with a proud look on his face. “You’re such a clever girl. A born psychologist!”

Masako found herself standing alone on the bridge. The low wooden rails were old, and some were rotting or even broken. She could see the telegraph poles on one side at regular ten-metre intervals, and she slowly made her way down the middle of the bridge with the hairs on her neck standing on end. She was so very afraid. But she needed to cross the bridge to do the shopping for her mother. If only she could walk across with her eyes closed. But if she did, she might walk into one of those rotting rails and plunge down into the icy waters below. So instead she kept her eyes wide-open and fixed her gaze on the snow-capped mountains in the distance.

Why is everything so scary? she thought to herself. What is it that’s frightening me?

But no matter how hard she thought about it, Masako couldn’t figure it out. Then, suddenly, she froze on the spot. There was something hiding behind one of those telegraph poles! Something that just moved!

“Who is it? Who’s there?” asked Masako, her voice trembling.

Then, at that very moment, something in a white cloth leapt out from behind the telegraph pole and gave a terrifying cry before landing right in front of Masako, where it studied her carefully through its fierce-looking Prajna mask.

For a moment, Masako stood rooted to the spot, too scared to even scream. Then she decided to run for her life. But her legs wouldn’t move the way she wanted them to. Her knees were trembling, and each step was unsteady. Then one of her feet got caught in something, and she tumbled head first onto the railing — smashing right through it and over the edge into darkness. The sound of gushing water came closer and closer, and somewhere a voice called out.

“Etsuko!”

Who on earth is Etsuko, she thought to herself as she fell. Is it someone I should know?

Then the icy waters engulfed her and dragged her body deeper and deeper.

Masako woke up with a start. Her chest was pounding and she was gasping for air.

A dream ! she thought. It was only a dream !

But what an awful nightmare it had been. Her pyjamas were soaked with sweat, but fortunately Yoshio was still fast asleep beside her. Quietly, she got out of bed, changed into a new pair of pyjamas and crawled back under the covers. But, as much as she tried, she couldn’t get back to sleep.

Ha! Now I remember, she thought to herself. Etsuko was a friend back from when we lived in the countryside. She was a cute girl. I must have been six and Etsuko five when we last saw each other. I wonder what she’s doing now?

The next morning, Masako woke up earlier than usual. She decided to take the longer route to school and invited Bunichi to walk with her. As they walked side by side, Masako recounted her nightmare from the previous night. She thought Bunichi might be able to tell her something about her dream, since he seemed to have learnt so much about such things from his psychologist uncle.

“I think something must have happened back when you lived in the countryside,” said Bunichi after giving it some thought.

“I think so too,” nodded Masako.

“And what about that girl, Etsuko? Do you think she still lives there?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Is this place far?”

“No, you can get there and back in a day.”

“Masako, you should go there this weekend,” said Bunichi, stopping in his tracks. “I really think you’ll find some answers if you do. You’ll find out whatever it is that’s troubling you so much.”

Masako looked Bunichi straight in the eyes and said, “Will you come with me?”

“Of course I will.”

“Thanks,” said Masako, dropping her gaze. She was so happy to be returning to the place she’d loved after so many years away. And to go there with Bunichi was even better. But at the same time, she was a little worried about whatever horrible secrets she might find there.

Over the next few days, Masako wrestled with her mixed feelings. Then, when Sunday came, the weather was perfect, with not a single cloud in the sky. Bunichi came to pick her up early in the morning, and he seemed pleasantly surprised to see her wearing a very colourful dress.