……Have you heard the story?
About the pond at Inokashira.
I cannot say with any certainty that it is true. Only — those who come to this place have told me the same sort of thing, time and again, and so I thought perhaps I ought to pass it along. Just a little of it.
It happened, so I am told, toward the end of one autumn. The hour when the bustle of Kichijoji had finally quieted, and the last voices were fading from the park entrance.
A young couple — a man and a woman, both in their twenties — were walking along the shore of Benten Pond. Sweethearts, apparently. Strolling slowly together, watching the night water. It was around the beginning of November, I believe — the streetlamps were reflected on the surface of the pond, trembling there in orange. The man described it that way, afterward … The fact that the man was able to describe anything afterward — well. That tells you something in itself.
They had just reached the far edge of the pond.
The woman stopped suddenly. As though something had caught her attention. The man was a few steps ahead, and he turned to ask what was wrong — and it was precisely then.
The smell of the water changed. Intensified, all at once.
That particular cold, green smell of the pond in late autumn — dead leaves and mud and something raw beneath it all. In an instant it multiplied, pressing itself against the back of his nose, clinging there. And at the same moment, a chill crept up from the ground beneath his feet. Not the cold of the air, but something rising through the earth itself.
He turned — and his companion was standing motionless, staring at the water's edge.
He called to her. No answer. He reached out to take hold of her shoulder — and that was when he saw it.
Something was pulling itself up from the surface of the pond. Slowly, wetly.
It was white. Draped in something white, like a robe. He could see arms. He could see legs. But above — there was nothing above. From the neck upward, there was simply nothing there.
The moment he understood what he was seeing, he ran. His legs moved before his mind did, he said. He could not bring himself to look back at the woman beside him … He told the story with his face turned down, full of regret — but he also said that if he had looked back, he did not know what would have become of him.
The woman was found later, outside the park. But from that day forward, she never spoke again. Whenever anyone asked her anything, she would only turn her head slowly from side to side. She said nothing. Nothing at all.
Whether any of this has some connection to the goddess of Benten Pond, I truly cannot say. Only — there have always been certain things about this pond. I will not go into detail. But the people of older times understood very well that what sinks beneath the water does not always remain there.
I have also heard it said that she wanders the grove of trees, searching for her head. Moving through those woods as though she has simply left it somewhere and cannot quite remember where. And that if you walk around the pond at night, you may hear footsteps in the fallen leaves — one more set of footsteps than your own.
One more.
That is all I will say.
If you should walk through Inokashira after dark … please. Do not look behind you. If you were to turn around and find something right there — something without a head — do you think you could run?
Or would you find yourself only turning your head, slowly, from side to side?
……Please. Do take care.
