…Would you mind listening, just for a moment?
You know of Izumo Grand Shrine, I'm sure. That celebrated sanctuary, renowned as the home of the god of binding fates. But there is a peculiar story that has been passed around — about the torii gate. I cannot vouch for any of it, only that it has been finding its way to my ears of late.
It is said to be a story heard from a certain woman.
It happened about three years ago, apparently. She had come to Izumo with a man she had been with for a long time, the two of them together. A shrine of bound destinies — it seemed, on the surface, a rather auspicious sort of visit. Early autumn, the sky still bright, a fair number of worshippers moving through the grounds.
The two of them passed through the great torii gate hand in hand.
They paid their respects, bought their charms, and by all accounts it was a perfectly gentle day. On the way out, they passed back through the same gate the same way — hands still joined, walking together.
That night.
They were in their inn room, spreading out the souvenirs they had bought, when the man suddenly went quiet. When she spoke to him, he answered in one or two words, nothing more. She assumed he was tired, and turned in ahead of him.
She woke in the middle of the night.
He was not beside her. The lights were out. As she lay there in the dark, half-adrift, she noticed a faint white glow beyond the paper screen. She thought it must be the corridor light bleeding through — but there, within that glow, was the shadow of the man.
Standing. Facing her way. Perfectly, utterly still.
…She was about to call out to him when the shadow began to move — slowly, slowly — retreating backwards. Without a sound. As though something were drawing it away.
She was too frightened to speak, she said. She pulled her knees to her chest beneath the covers and waited for dawn.
By morning, the man was sleeping quietly beside her pillow, as though nothing had happened. He had no memory of waking in the night, he said.
…If that had been all, it might have been written off as a dream, or the confusion of half-sleep. But the woman who told this story said that on the seventh day after they returned from Izumo, the man ended things with her. His reasons were never quite clear. The closest he came to an explanation was this: that somehow, without knowing why, his feelings had simply drifted away.
…Later, she heard it said. That if two people pass through the torii at Izumo together on the way in, and again together on the way out, the bond between them is severed. That before the god of bound fates, the power is too immense — what is to be joined is joined, and what is to be cut is cut. So the old telling goes.
There is no way to verify such a thing. It may be nothing more than a rumour.
And yet, she said one last thing before she finished.
…That night, the shadow on the paper screen had been a single shadow. If it was only the corridor light, if it was only the man standing there, there should have been just the one. But the more she turned it over in her memory, the more certain she became — there had been another shadow, slightly smaller, overlapping his from behind.
What it was, she could not say.
…The story is still told around the torii at Izumo, it seems. Enter from the side. And when you leave — if you can manage it — go separately.
Should you ever find yourself visiting that shrine, please — do keep it in mind.
