…This is something I heard from someone else, mind you.
In Nikkō, there is a place called Kanmangafuchi. Some of you may know it — a long row of stone Jizō statues standing quietly along the banks of the Daiya River. A hundred or more, perhaps many more, all seated in stillness upon moss-covered pedestals.
The locals have called them the Bake-Jizō — the Phantom Statues — since time out of mind.
The reason being: no matter how many times you count them, the number never comes out the same.
The count on the way in never matches the count on the way back. Sometimes there are more. Sometimes fewer. Count them again and again, and you will never arrive at the same figure twice. …Well, with over a hundred statues, most people would chalk it up to miscounting. That's the sensible explanation.
But not long ago, a certain man paid the place a visit.
He was a meticulous sort. On his way in, he counted each statue one by one, pointing at each with his finger and saying the number aloud. One, two, three… slowly, carefully, without rushing. He reached one hundred and sixteen. He typed the number into the notes on his phone and continued on his way.
On the way back, he began counting again in the same manner. One, two, three…
He had made it partway through when something made him stop.
Every single Jizō was facing him.
On the way in, he was certain they had all been facing forward — toward the river. But now, without his noticing, every last one had turned to look in his direction. Their stone eyes caught the dim light filtering through the trees, gleaming a pale, dull white.
He stopped counting at once and quickened his pace, trying to pass through without lingering.
That was when it touched him — a cold current of air, sliding along the back of his neck.
It was a November evening, and the day had been genuinely cold. But this coldness was different, he said. The instant it met his skin, it carried a weight to it — the damp, heavy chill of wet stone. Not wind. Something had touched him. That was how it felt.
He turned around.
No one was there.
Only the row of Jizō statues.
Except — the one at the very end, the last figure at the far edge of the row, was seated at a slightly different angle from all the others. Not facing the river, not facing the path, but turned obliquely — toward the far bank, toward a section of rock on the opposite shore that had been cordoned off from visitors.
That rock, apparently, bears some kind of ancient inscription. But no one — not even the locals — has ever been able to read what it says.
The man left without delay and returned to his inn.
That night, curiosity got the better of him, and he opened his phone to check the note he had made. He went to confirm the number he had entered — 116.
The number was there, just as he had typed it.
But it did not read 116.
It read 117.
A number he had no memory of entering, in a note only he had ever touched.
He still tells himself it must have been a typo. A simple mistake. That's what he says.
…Only that coldness, he admits — that coldness on the back of his neck — is not something a typo can explain.
