Chapter 11: Tetsu Tells the First Part of the Truth

Junpei walked the same path for four hours and twenty minutes.

Tetsu knew because he counted. He had arrived at the shrine at one-fifteen, intending to stay an hour, and he was still there at five-thirty-seven when the cicadas shifted register and the light went amber and Junpei was still walking, shoes raising the same small puff of grit at the same point in the path where the ground dipped slightly, and Tetsu sat on the stone steps of the outer hall with his elbows on his knees and watched and did not move.

The path Junpei walked was not arbitrary. That was the thing. It was not the wandering of someone lost in thought, not the loose ambling that Junpei had always done around this place, the proprietary drift of someone who knew every corner by feel. This was a circuit. Inner precinct gate, then along the east wall to the offering hall, then back along the line of stone lanterns to the torii, then down the short flight of steps and back up again, then east wall, then offering hall, then torii, then steps, then east wall —