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bit lonely, graveyard or no graveyard, if it had so few residents,” Misao mused.
    Eiko gave an emphatic nod. “Yes, I think you’re right,” she agreed. “But especially for someone like me who would rather be where the action is, there are times when all the quiet just gets to be too much to bear. I swear, sometimes at night it feels as if we’re living on a stage set. My husband’s always teasing me about being the kind of person who expects life to be an endless party. He says I’d feel more at home crammed into a two-room apartment in some noisy high rise in downtown Tokyo, and I can’t honestly say he’s wrong about that.”
    When Eiko and Misao opened the glass door that led to the building’s lobby, Kaori ran ahead, then turned and beckoned to Tamao to hurry up. The two little girls seemed to have hit it off from the moment they met, Misao thought. That was a huge relief.
    Timidly, Tamao reached out and took Kaori’s proffered hand, then looked up at her mother with an expression of bashfulness tinged with doubt. As the group moved slowly through the lobby, Eiko seemed to be paying close attention to the nascent friendship that appeared to be developing between the two girls.
    Suddenly she wheeled to face Misao, as if something important had just occurred to her. “Oh!” she said. “I assume you know about the storage facilities in the basement?”
    â€œYes, I do.”
    â€œIt’s really super convenient. You can stash all your extra stuff down there, and then forget about it.”
    â€œI know.” Misao nodded. The agent had mentioned that each apartment in the building was allotted a designated storage locker in the basement.
    Eiko went on, “We’ve already put quite a few things in our storage unit: some chairs we never use anymore, and Tsutomu’s old tricycle, and so on. Have you gone down to check it out?”
    â€œNo, not yet,” Misao said, shaking her head. There were definitely some things that either didn’t fit or weren’t needed in their new apartment, but she had been too busy to explore the basement.
    â€œWell, then, why don’t we pop down now. I’ll give you the grand tour,” Eiko suggested, pressing the elevator’s down button as she spoke.
    As they were waiting, Eiko said, “Is it just me, or is the design of this building kind of weird? I mean, they went to the trouble of building a basement, but they didn’t bother to include a staircase? The only way to get there is by taking the elevator. I mean, what if there was a power failure or the elevator broke down—how would someone who happened to be in the basement get back upstairs? They’d be stranded down there. Really, it makes no sense.”
    While Eiko was grumbling about the building’s illogical construction, the elevator arrived. After they were all inside, she reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out a red leather key holder.
    â€œOh, you need a key?” Misao asked.
    â€œYes, every storage unit has its own padlock and key. It’s easy to get them; you just fill out an application and submit it to the resident manager. Though even if nobody bothered with a lock, I doubt whether any self-respecting burglar would touch most of the junk that’s stored down there,” Eiko said with a laugh.
    The elevator coasted to a stop, and the moment the doors opened Tamao and Kaori charged out into the basement, whooping with excitement.
    â€œCareful! Don’t fall down!” Eiko called after them. The large open space was shrouded in twilight, with the only illumination coming from a single exit sign above their heads. “Hang on a sec, the light switch is right here,” Eiko said. She touched the wall next to the elevator and the area was immediately flooded with ultra-bright light of the sort used on tennis courts at night.
    The walls were unfinished concrete and the ceiling