Hotaka sits in a heavy late winter fog, under an ancient oak tree where monks of old paused on their travels. It’s at the four-way intersection on top of Monk Head Hill. He’s waiting for Osamu and Sakura to come on the road up from Omori-wan. They’ll then head west a couple of kilometres to the Shaman Lady’s cottage. As expected, his friends are late; Osamu has no idea of time.

Hotaka breathes in the early morning air and catches the unpleasant smell of diesel. He can’t see the town for the fog, but he can hear it. The racket of reconstruction has already started for the day, noises that have defined his town for three years now. Every day the same rumble rises from the valley – the relentless grind and growl of bulldozers, trucks, tractors, graders and excavators. It’s hard enough to endure where he lives, but must be unbearable for those in the town itself.

‘This is ridiculous. I could be still in bed!’

Hotaka knows the voice at once. It’s Osamu.

‘Well go back to bed. We’ll all be happy then.’

And that’s Sakura. Hotaka peers into the fog.

His friends emerge from the mist, Sakura stepping out at a good pace, Osamu metres behind, puffing as he pushes his bike. Hotaka nearly calls out, but holds back, amused at what a funny pair they make.

Osamu is long and thin like a string bean; he’s shot up in the last two years. Uncoordinated and gangly, with dishevelled hair, huge dark-rimmed specs and the dress-sense of a brick, he’s every inch the uber-geek. By contrast, Sakura is tiny, a good two heads shorter. She’s dressed totally in black, and rugged up against the cold. As she approaches, she throws back her hood, revealing a crop of spiky blonde hair with flaming red tips. The first time Hotaka met Sakura her hair was all red, fluoro red; she looked like a walking flare. At the time he thought she might be an attention-seeker. He soon changed his mind; it was her way of warning: Handle with Care!

‘Seriously though,’ Osamu complains, ‘what kind of idiot gets up at a quarter to sunrise and battles a miserable fog just to visit some crazy lady, when they could be tucked up in bed?’

‘Me,’ Hotaka calls, grabbing his bike and joining them. ‘I’m that kind of idiot. And it looks like you two are as well.’

‘You can say that again,’ Osamu mutters, leaning on his bike for a spell.

‘Don’t bother stopping,’ Hotaka says, hopping onto his bike. ‘We’re late already.’ He beckons to Sakura. ‘Come on, up you get.’ She climbs on behind and he pedals off.

‘Oh great,’ Osamu groans. ‘Just great.’

The Shaman Lady is waiting at her cottage door when they arrive. She bustles Sakura and Osamu in, but stops Hotaka as he passes.

‘One moment, wakaino, young man,’ she hisses, grabbing his arm with a surprisingly powerful grip. She peers hard at him. ‘Strange. Very strange.’

‘Is something wrong, obaba, wise old woman?’ Hotaka asks.

‘I could have sworn…’ She shakes her head and pushes him inside, muttering: ‘All is ready, all is ready.’

The air in the cottage is stale and musty, heavy with smoke and incense. It’s dark and cramped in there too, the ceiling so low that Osamu has to stoop. Once their eyes adjust, the teenagers soon see that the room is crowded with old people squatting and kneeling. The young ones keep back, close to the door.

The Shaman Lady shuffles past to the middle of the room and lights a candle. The crowd immediately begins humming. The hum gradually grows louder. When it reaches a deep throb, the old woman thrusts her hands in the air, and the hum stops.

‘Namazu,’ she hisses. ‘We know it is you!’

She shakes a bony finger at the figures squatting on the earthen floor, their wide-eyed faces flickering in the candlelight.

‘Namazu! That is who!’ She growls now. ‘Shaker of the Earth, harbinger of death and destruction, misery and misfortune.’

Heads nod, agreement grunts around the room.

‘Ever since time began you have lurked in the mud at the bottom of the sea, waiting to escape the god Kashima, to wriggle free and thrash your tail, making the earth quake and break.’

She takes a deep breath, slowly straightening her arthritic body.

‘Namazu! You are to blame,’ she wails, raising her withered arms, swaying in a trance-like dance. ‘You whipped up the wave that washed our world away!’

She chants in a high-pitched howl, claw-like hands lashing at the air.

‘Washed our world away!’

The squatting figures rise, bent and bowed. They shuffle forward and surround the shaman, swaying and chanting.

‘Washed our world away!’

The old people are wailing and weeping as Hotaka and his friends watch from the side of the room.

‘Washed our world away.’

‘Oh my god,’ Sakura whispers. ‘I know you warned me, Hotaka, but…’ She shrugs. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

He nods. ‘Maybe that’s because there’s nothing we can say. Us, I mean. Our generation.’

‘Crap!’ Osamu snaps. ‘I could say heaps – like crazy, weird, nuts, cuckoo welcome to the fruit-cake club.’ He raises his voice to match the wailing. ‘What a load of loonies!’

‘Osamu!’ Hotaka hisses. ‘Have some respect.’

‘Respect? I’ll have fresh air, thanks.’ Osamu turns and walks off, calling over his shoulder. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come. Freakin’ freak show.’

‘Wait, Osamu.’

‘Let him go,’ Sakura says. ‘He’s just being his usual stupid self.’

It’s not that simple, Hotaka wants to tell Sakura. Osamu’s stupid self, as she calls it, can sometimes be a front for his frightened self, the scared little boy who still wakes to nightmare visions of his parents in body bags. She knows nothing of Osamu’s deep depression for almost a year after the tsunami. It was only Hotaka’s loyalty that stopped him ending his life. But Sakura knows nothing of this either. Then again why would she? It’s all part of Osamu’s hidden self.

‘I don’t know why you brought him,’ Sakura adds.

‘I brought him because we all should see this. Us. Like Abe-sensei says: it connects us to a past we need to remember.’

Sakura doesn’t reply, but allows her hand to brush briefly against his, and they watch the ritual in silence.

Pain fills the room like a fog. Hotaka knows how deeply the tsunami hurt these old ones. Despite the years, the horror is still with them, wounds that will never heal. The wave swallowed their friends. Many here wish they’d been swallowed as well. So little of their past remains, and no future waits to welcome them.

Their grief tears at his heart. But he also cannot get Osamu out of his head. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to bring him. What if his friend’s rant about the Fox Woman was more than it seemed? What if it wasn’t the myth and make-believe that upset Osamu, but all the emotion in that room, all the memories threatening to drown him? Maybe he didn’t storm out in anger, but was chased out by his own fear.

‘Kuso, damn!’ Hotaka curses, annoyed with himself.

‘What is it?’ Sakura asks.

‘Maybe we should go,’ he whispers. ‘I’m sure the Shaman Lady will understand.’

They edge backwards to the low doorway, keeping their faces turned to the old people as a sign of respect. When they reach the door, Sakura opens it, bows and backs out of the room. Hotaka pauses a moment, then does the same.

But before he closes the door his gaze is caught by the Shaman Lady. For an instant he feels her eyes reach right into his soul.

He knows what she’s seen.