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didn’t like this at all. But the woman said:
    “It’s an old hotel, you know. All kinds of things have happened here.”
    So all I could say was:
    “Well, at the very least, no one has really been locked out, and no one’s dying in one of the rooms now or anything, right?”
    “Exactly,” said the woman. “Don’t worry, it’ll be morning in a few hours. If anything else happens, come wake me up.”
    With that, she returned to the back room.
    I was left standing in the lobby with no choice but to return alone to my room. I would either go listen to more of the ghost’s complaints, or I would have another bad dream. The choices were far from appealing.
    So I decided to go outside and give my head a rest.
    There was an incredible wind blowing outside.
    No doubt all the beautiful leaves were falling like crazy right now.
    Here, and at the spot where I last saw Chizuru.
    I gazed up at the sky, my head full of these thoughts.
    The stars were beautiful.
    Looking back, I saw that, except for the window of my room and the hall windows, the entire building was dark.
    I remembered how lonely the woman had looked.
    Suddenly I realized that she had taken most of the pills on purpose.
    She hadn’t let him take as many as she did.
    That’s why she seemed so fragile.
    I don’t know how I knew all this, but I was convinced it was true. What was it about this night that made me so sensitive?
    Now that I had cooled off, I went back into the lobby. The woman was awake, standing at the front desk.
    “ You’re not a ghost, are you?” I said.
    “I’m just a woman who’s been working here for a long, long time,” she replied. “Thanks to you, I can’t get to sleep.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I’ll go soak in the bath again.”
    “Be careful. I’ll wait up for you—come by when you’re done.”
    Touched by the woman’s gentleness, I hurried off toward the bath.

5
    The Tatami Room
    The springwater that filled the bath was just as hot as before, so I was able to relax and take my time warming my now cool body.
    Peering through the glass at the clock in the changing room, I saw that it was almost four.
    What kind of night is this? I thought. I encounter something strange on a road in the mountains and end up leading it into my hotel... it’s too much, it really is. I was reaching the peak of exhaustion then, and the urge to sleep came welling up inside me; my eyes were about to close, all on their own.
    This time, no matter what happens, I thought as I gazed at the bath tiles, I am definitely going to sleep. 
    The tiles were old but the colors were really nice; they made me feel nostalgic. These tiles looked like the ones we had had a very long time ago, when I was small, in the bathroom of the house where I lived with my father and my real mother. Back then, it never occurred to me that my life would turn out like this. I thought I would grow up with my parents the way other only children did, and then go off and get married. Who’d have guessed that I would end up so far away...
    I kept gazing down at the tiles, getting a bit sentimental. When I glanced up, I noticed that the rim of the bath was decorated with a simple mosaic made out of ordinary stones.
    It’s not much of a hotel, I thought, but this is a nice bath. Just then, a shiver ran down my spine. Something inside me had frantically shaken its head.
    What was that? This bath is so comfortable, it’s nice and small, it has just the right feeling of age, and even the water is good... why do I feel this way? I kept mulling it over as I succumbed to another attack of drowsiness, until suddenly my gaze landed on something... In the midst of the grayish stones that rimmed the bath, there was one of a different color—one pitch-black stone, buried amid the rest in the mosaic.
    So that’s what it was!
    I felt a strange sense of satisfaction.
    This hotel is part of it all.
    Somehow one of those stones ended up being used here. That’s why all these