landscape around her. There was the shrine . . . and not much else. The street ended under the streetlight. Down the hill, on either side of the road, were tall blank walls, over ten feet high, giving no clue to what lay beyond them. She seemed miles out of the town center with no idea where the nearest subway station might be or if the subway would still be running by the time she got there. Her wristwatch said it was nearly midnight. All told, she’d lost almost four hours to the blackouts.
“This day really, really sucks. What the hell am I even doing here?”
There was nothing to be done but go into the shrine. Something locked in her unconscious had brought her the whole way out here; she might as well find out what. Sniffing back tears, she took out her flashlight, turned it on, and walked into the temple grounds.
The gravel path disappeared into a grove of tall trees, cloaked in darkness. In the distance, there was a glimmer of a spotlight. She could smell smoke, and the odor grew stronger as she went deeper into the shrine’s grounds. Dread grew in her chest as if the dark and cold were seeping into her, tainted with wood smoke.
Her hypergraphia had spilled out scenes about a little Shinto shrine on the edge of Kyoto. While the daughter who worked as a shrine maiden had been vividly depicted as a wonderfully sweet and vibrant girl, everything else had been full of holes. Nikki had spent days exploring the temples of Kyoto, soaking in details to fill in what was missing from the scenes. While she visited dozens, she hadn’t been to this one.
Or had she?
What if she’d been having blackouts all along? What if she’d been living some dual existence, stealing ideas from reality and disguising them as fiction? What if the “flow” of hypergraphia was uncorking the bottled-up memories and letting them come out?
It made horrible, terrible sense. When she wrote, she always felt like she’d dashed through some massive elaborate stage, carefully only tracking what the point-of-view character saw and felt and ignoring everything else. She disregarded everything the character hadn’t focused on, and thus lost important details that she needed to fill in later.
What if the reason her settings always felt so real was because they were real?
Did she write the vivid scene of George setting fire to the shrine because she’d been here before? Found the fuel can sitting in the storage shed, the door unlocked because this was peaceful Japan and no sane person would steal from the gods?
She had written the sloshing sound that the kerosene had made inside the can as George splashed it on the back of the gift shop. The smell of the thick fumes as the dry wood soaked in the liquid. The heat of the fire as it “woofed” to life with a single flick of a lighter.
Beyond the deep shadows of the trees, there was a courtyard lit by a jury-rigged floodlight. The light shone on a jumble of blackened timbers. Only burnt skeletal remains were left of what had stood for a thousand years, but she recognized the buildings all the same. To the left was the gift shop that sold charms. To the right was the raised stage of the kaguraden where Yuuka would dance with the other shrine maidens, pretending to be so solemn and serene when she was giggling inside.
Straight ahead was the haiden or hall of worship, where Yuuka had been cleaning the day of the fire. Beyond it stood the honden , a small, upraised building with a steep gabled roof. The honden was the most scared part of the temple and closed to the public. Yuuka’s father only opened its doors on certain festival days. The katana had been kept within the honden ; “George” had set the fire to gain entrance to it.
“Oh, no,” Nikki whispered. “No.”
“I didn’t know he’d burned it,” someone said behind her.
She spun around, blinking away tears and raindrops. A boy stood in the pool of light. He looked fifteen or sixteen and was fiercely beautiful, with
“This day really, really sucks. What the hell am I even doing here?”
There was nothing to be done but go into the shrine. Something locked in her unconscious had brought her the whole way out here; she might as well find out what. Sniffing back tears, she took out her flashlight, turned it on, and walked into the temple grounds.
The gravel path disappeared into a grove of tall trees, cloaked in darkness. In the distance, there was a glimmer of a spotlight. She could smell smoke, and the odor grew stronger as she went deeper into the shrine’s grounds. Dread grew in her chest as if the dark and cold were seeping into her, tainted with wood smoke.
Her hypergraphia had spilled out scenes about a little Shinto shrine on the edge of Kyoto. While the daughter who worked as a shrine maiden had been vividly depicted as a wonderfully sweet and vibrant girl, everything else had been full of holes. Nikki had spent days exploring the temples of Kyoto, soaking in details to fill in what was missing from the scenes. While she visited dozens, she hadn’t been to this one.
Or had she?
What if she’d been having blackouts all along? What if she’d been living some dual existence, stealing ideas from reality and disguising them as fiction? What if the “flow” of hypergraphia was uncorking the bottled-up memories and letting them come out?
It made horrible, terrible sense. When she wrote, she always felt like she’d dashed through some massive elaborate stage, carefully only tracking what the point-of-view character saw and felt and ignoring everything else. She disregarded everything the character hadn’t focused on, and thus lost important details that she needed to fill in later.
What if the reason her settings always felt so real was because they were real?
Did she write the vivid scene of George setting fire to the shrine because she’d been here before? Found the fuel can sitting in the storage shed, the door unlocked because this was peaceful Japan and no sane person would steal from the gods?
She had written the sloshing sound that the kerosene had made inside the can as George splashed it on the back of the gift shop. The smell of the thick fumes as the dry wood soaked in the liquid. The heat of the fire as it “woofed” to life with a single flick of a lighter.
Beyond the deep shadows of the trees, there was a courtyard lit by a jury-rigged floodlight. The light shone on a jumble of blackened timbers. Only burnt skeletal remains were left of what had stood for a thousand years, but she recognized the buildings all the same. To the left was the gift shop that sold charms. To the right was the raised stage of the kaguraden where Yuuka would dance with the other shrine maidens, pretending to be so solemn and serene when she was giggling inside.
Straight ahead was the haiden or hall of worship, where Yuuka had been cleaning the day of the fire. Beyond it stood the honden , a small, upraised building with a steep gabled roof. The honden was the most scared part of the temple and closed to the public. Yuuka’s father only opened its doors on certain festival days. The katana had been kept within the honden ; “George” had set the fire to gain entrance to it.
“Oh, no,” Nikki whispered. “No.”
“I didn’t know he’d burned it,” someone said behind her.
She spun around, blinking away tears and raindrops. A boy stood in the pool of light. He looked fifteen or sixteen and was fiercely beautiful, with
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