“She did. She hid in a—” Keishin’s brows shot up. He jumped from his seat, knocking over his beer. “Thanks, Ramesh. I can take it from here.”
“You’re welcome.” Ramesh sighed, looking longingly at the food they had barely touched. “Good luck.”
—
The spinning coin fell from the side of the mountain, taking Hiroko’s deafening refusal to reveal the field’s location with it. In the silence, Keishin heard all the words she did say. “She hid in a ruined temple…that’s it.”
“What are you talking about?” Hana said.
“I know how to find the field.”
“You do? How?”
“Hiroko may not have told us its exact location, but whether intentionally or not, she gave us a chance to find it. I think that a part of her did want to set the secret free. She told us three things about the field that we didn’t know before. First, there are ruins of a temple near the place her father buried the creature. Second, the field is covered in wildflowers. Third, there is a stream close by. Temple ruins. Wildflowers. Stream. That should narrow our search considerably.”
Hana jumped to her feet. “We need a map.”
—
It looked more like a campsite than a train station. An assortment of colorful tents ran alongside the tracks, some as large as decent-sized homes. People cooked over bonfires on the platform while others hung their laundry from ropes strung along the station’s posts. Some had even managed to plant vegetable gardens. Children chased one another between tents, giggling as they ran. No one, Keishin thought, seemed to be concerned that the sign meant to announce the arrival times of the trains was blank.
Hana walked back to Keishin with a handful of maps. “This is everything I could find.”
Keishin stared at the makeshift village on the platform. “Why are they camped out here?”
“They are waiting for their trains.”
Keishin raised his brows. “How long have they been waiting?”
“A while.”
“How often do the trains come by?”
“This is not like Tokyo Station. The trains here do not havea schedule. They arrive when they arrive. Some of the passengers were born waiting here, and some will die without even getting a glimpse of their train.”
“And they’re okay with that?”
“They do not have a choice. The railways do not always stay in one place, especially the ones that travel over oceans. Currents change. The train tracks can drift and send the trains on very long detours,” Hana said. “Come. We need to find a place where we can take a look at these maps.”
—
They walked over to a less crowded part of the station. “Do you want to hear something weird?” Keishin said.
“Stranger than trains that get lost at sea?” Hana knelt on the floor and set down the maps.
“Not that strange.” Keishin smirked. “I don’t like maps.”
“Why not?”
“They remind me of all the things people pretend to know, all the things we make up to make us feel like we understand everything and are in control. Maps are more of an art form than a science. They’re designed at the discretion of their makers. Some things are shrunk, others are enlarged, some places are kept, and some are left out. We draw thick red lines around spaces we claim as our own as if we could actually see where one space ended and another began. But borders are simply constructs. They exist only in our minds.”
Hana kept quiet, unsure how to completely yet politely disagree. Borders were real, and the ones that were the most difficult to cross were not the invisible lines between towns, but the walls people built around themselves. Borders were necessary. They kept secrets safe. “Then you will be happy to know that our maps are a bit different from the maps you are familiarwith.” She spread out a map over the floor and revealed a blank page.
“I can see that.” Keishin crouched next to it. “How do we find anything on it?”
“We do not. The maps will find the place for us. If we ask nicely enough.”
“Given that I’ve never had a conversation with a map before, you should probably do the talking.”
