There was no clock in the room, so it was unclear what time it was. Probably an hour or so had passed since Buzzcut and Ponytail had left. If someone else had been there, he would have seen Ushikawa’s mouth suddenly begin to move. He would have been frightened out of his wits. This was a terrifying, wholly unexpected event. Ushikawa had long since expired and his body was stiff as a board. Despite this, his mouth continued to tremble slightly. Then, with a dry sound, it opened wide.

If someone had been there, he would no doubt have expected Ushikawa to say something. Some pearls of wisdom that only the dead could impart. Terrified, the person would have waited with bated breath. What secret could he be about to reveal?

But no voice came out. What came out were not words, not a drawn-out breath, but six tiny people, each about two inches tall. Their little bodies were dressed in tiny clothes, and they trod over the greenish mossy tongue, clambering over the dirty, irregular teeth. One by one they emerged, like miners returning to the surface after a hard day’s labor. But unlike miners their clothes and faces were sparkling clean, not soiled at all. They were free of all dirt and wear.

Six Little People came out of Ushikawa’s mouth and climbed down to the conference table, where each one shook himself and gradually grew bigger. When needed, they could adjust their size, but they never grew taller than a yard or shorter than an inch. When they grew to between twenty-four and twenty-eight inches tall, they stopped shaking and then, in order, descended from the table to the floor. The Little People’s faces had no expression. But they weren’t like masks. They had quite ordinary faces—smaller, but no different from yours or mine. It’s just that, at that moment, they felt no need for any expression.

They seemed neither in a hurry nor too relaxed. They had exactly the right amount of time for the work that they needed to do. That time was neither too long nor too short. Without any obvious signal, the six of them quietly sat down on the floor in a circle. It was a perfect little circle, precisely two yards in diameter.

Wordlessly, one of them reached out and grabbed a single thin thread from the air. The thread was about six inches long, nearly a transparent white, almost creamy color. He placed the thread on the floor. The next person did exactly the same, the same color and thread length. The next three followed suit. Only the last one did something different. He stood up, left the circle, clambered back up on the conference table, reached out, and plucked one frizzy hair from Ushikawa’s misshapen head. The hair came out with a tiny snap. This was his substitute thread. With practiced hands the first of the Little People wove together those five air threads and the single hair from Ushikawa’s head.

And thus the Little People made a new air chrysalis. No one talked now, or chanted out a rhythm. They silently pulled threads from the air, plucked hairs from Ushikawa’s head, and—in a set, smooth rhythm—briskly wove together an air chrysalis. Even in the freezing room their breath wasn’t white. If anyone else had been there to see it, he might have found this odd too. Or perhaps he wouldn’t have even noticed, given all the other surprising things going on.

No matter how intently the Little People worked (and they never stopped), completing an air chrysalis in one night was out of the question. It would take at least three days. But they didn’t appear to be rushing. It would be another two days before Ushikawa’s rigor mortis had passed and his body could be taken to the incinerator. They were well aware of this. If they got most of it done in two nights, that would be fine. They had enough time for what they needed to do. And they never got tired.

Ushikawa lay on the table, bathed in pale moonlight. His mouth was wide open, as were his unclosable eyes, which were covered by thick cloth. In their final moment, those eyes had seen a house, and a tiny dog scampering about a small patch of lawn.

And a part of his soul was about to change into an air chrysalis.

CHAPTER 29

Aomame

I’LL NEVER LET GO OF YOUR HAND AGAIN

“Tengo, open your eyes,” Aomame whispered. Tengo opened his eyes. Time began to flow again in the world.

“There’s the moon,” Aomame said.

Tengo raised his face and looked up at the sky. The clouds had parted and above the bare branches of the zelkova tree he could make out the moons. A large yellow moon and a smaller, misshapen green one. Maza and dohta. The glow colored the edges of the passing clouds, like a long skirt whose hem had been accidentally dipped in dye.

Tengo turned now to look over at Aomame sitting beside him. She was no longer a skinny, undernourished ten-year-old girl, dressed in ill-fitting hand-me-downs, her hair crudely trimmed by her mother. There was little left of the girl she had been, yet Tengo knew her at a glance. This was clearly Aomame and no other. Her eyes, brimming with expression, were the same, even after twenty years. Strong, unclouded, clear eyes. Eyes that knew exactly what they longed for. Eyes that knew full well what they should see, and weren’t going to let anyone get in her way. And those eyes were looking right at him. Straight into his heart.

Aomame had spent the last twenty years somewhere unknown to him. During that time, she had grown into a beautiful woman. Instantly and without reservation, Tengo absorbed all those places, and all that time, and they became a part of his own flesh and blood. They were his places now. His time.

I should say something, Tengo thought, but no words would come. He moved his lips, just barely, searching for proper words in the air, but they were nowhere to be found. All that came out from between his lips were swirls of white breath, like a wandering solitary island. As she gazed into his eyes, Aomame gave a slight shake of her head, just once. Tengo understood what that meant. You don’t have to say a thing. She continued to hold his hand inside his pocket. She didn’t let go, not even for a moment.

“We’re seeing the same thing,” Aomame said quietly as she gazed deep into his eyes. This was, at once, a question and a confirmation.

“There are two moons,” Aomame said.

Tengo nodded. There are two moons. He didn’t say this aloud. For some reason his voice wouldn’t come. He just thought it.

Aomame closed her eyes. She curled up and pressed her cheek against his chest. Her ear was right above his heart. She was listening to his thoughts. “I needed to know this,” Aomame said. “That we’re in the same world, seeing the same things.”

Tengo suddenly noticed that the whirling pillar rising up inside him had vanished. All that surrounded him now was a quiet winter night. There were lights on in a few of the windows in the apartment building across the way, hinting at people other than themselves alive in this world. This struck the two of them as exceedingly strange, even as somehow illogical—that other people could also exist, and be living their lives, in the same world.

Tengo leaned over slightly and breathed in the fragrance of Aomame’s hair. Beautiful, straight hair. Her small, pink ears peeped out like shy little creatures.

It was such a long time, Aomame thought.

It was such a long time, Tengo thought too. At the same time, though, he noticed how the twenty years that had passed now held no substance. It had all passed by in an instant, and took but an instant to be filled in.

Tengo took his hand out of his pocket and put it around her shoulder. Through his palm he could feel the wholeness of her body. He raised his face and looked up at the moons again. Through breaks in the clouds, the odd pair of moons was still bathing the earth in a strange mix of color. The clouds made their way leisurely across the sky. Under that light, Tengo once again keenly felt the mind’s ability to relativize time. Twenty years was a long time. But Tengo knew that if he were to meet Aomame in another twenty years, he would feel the same way he did now. Even if they were both over fifty, he would still feel the same mix of excitement and confusion in her presence. His heart would be filled with the same joy and certainty.