‘Wakaino!’

Hotaka turns to see the old Shaman Lady shuffling towards him as quickly as her frail legs can go.

‘Let me see for myself.’ She cackles excitedly. ‘I must be sure.’

‘What is it, obaba?’ Hotaka has a cheeky smile, for he knows exactly why she’s after him.

‘Hush.’ The Shaman Lady grabs his arm with her bony hand. She squints, focusing on his head and shoulders. She wrinkles her brow and steps back, scanning the rest of his body. ‘Yes!’ she shouts. ‘You’re free. The Untethered One has gone.’ She grins broadly, revealing a row of crooked teeth.

‘I know.’ Hotaka laughs. ‘It’s wonderful.’

Wonderful. He’s felt this way ever since he leapt from the cliff, two days ago. A huge load has lifted from his shoulders, leaving him as free as the breeze, as light as the air. And even now he doesn’t yet feel as though he’s landed. He’s still floating down.

Hotaka is outside the school hall. The Memorial Concert for the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami has just finished and people are spilling out into the afternoon sun. There’s a lightness in the air that he feels sure has never been there after past memorial ceremonies. People are actually talking to each other, stopping to chat in groups rather than heading straight home with their misery. Quite a few are even smiling. This Memorial Concert has definitely been a success. The show went off like a dream.

His mind drifts back over snippets from the day. The opening speech by Abbot Etsudo, rich in simple wisdom. The kumi-daiko ensemble, drumming up a storm of rage and rhythm. The storytellers with their mix of comic tales and more serious kamishibai. The poems spread through the ceremony, plus the traditional folk songs and dances, performed by students. The old Shaman Lady, disturbing yet cathartic. And the marvellous Puppet People, their show an explosion of pure entertainment.

But of all the performances, the one that most deeply moved Hotaka was that of the elderly geisha, Miss Kosaki. She could have sung any song and made it special. But the one she chose was perfect – a song about memory and reflection.

My memories always join me when I walk along the beach.

They’re in the little waves that shimmy up the shore:

They whisper with the breeze. They’re in the morning sun.

Thoughts of people I have known, things that I have done

These memories stay with me when I walk along the beach

At dusk they warmly glow as the sun sinks out of sight

They sparkle in the stars, as night enfolds the day

My memories are my friends that never go away.

Her hauntingly beautiful voice is still echoing in his mind as he stands outside the school hall. It’s like the call of the bonsho, the Buddhist bell, never completely fading but staying with him forever. Perhaps it’s like jumping off that cliff, too, wondering if he will ever land.

The geisha was the final act in the concert. When the last note left her lips the audience rose as one and showered her in applause. Not loud, but soft as a sign of respect, it reminded Hotaka of gentle rain.

Mr Hashimoto then stepped forward, bowed respectfully to the geisha and escorted her to her seat. On returning to the front of the stage, he peered at the large school clock, and gave the audience a barely perceptible nod. Not even that was needed. The clapping stopped, everyone dropped their arms and stood solemnly. That time had come, the one seared into all their minds – 2:46 p.m. – the time the Tōhoku earthquake struck, triggering the tsunami that had washed their world away and changed their lives forever.

With that time came its own cocoon of silence in the hall – no ordinary silence, but a mingling of many personal silences. The hall was packed – most of the people of Omori-wan had come – so the sum of all those little silences was deafening, brimful of grief demanding to be heard.

The silence of remembering.

Hotaka heard the sorrow in the hall, saw the anguish and felt the pain – as he had on this day every year since 2011. But this year was different; there was something else in the air, something that had never been there before. He sensed it all around but couldn’t decide what it was exactly.

Miss Abe knew, though, and when the minute of silence finished she leaned over to him.

‘Hope,’ she whispered. ‘Feel it? That’s what our concert has done, Hotaka. It has planted the seeds of hope in these people.’

Perhaps Miss Abe was right, Hotaka decides as he watches the people flowing from the hall. They have the seeds of hope in them. The concert shifted the focus of the memorial day away from mourning the past to a reaching-out for the light ahead.

But if it was the concert that planted those seeds, it was Sakura’s closing speech that watered them, nourished them and made them sprout.

She began softly, a slight waver in her voice.

‘My parents died about a year ago. I will miss them forever. They have left a hole in my heart that will never heal. They also left a blackness that I thought would never leave me. But it has, thanks to all of you. You see, this little town has shown me something incredibly precious. It has taught me how important we all are to each other, how much we need one another.

‘This ceremony is just one example of what I mean,’ she continued, her voice strengthening. ‘We’ve been given something very special here today. We have been given the chance to reach beyond our pain. We have cried, of course, as we must and always will on this day. But for the first time we have been allowed to feel more: to laugh, to marvel, to wonder, to think and to ask questions. In short, we have been allowed to feel what it is like to live again as people of the Tōhoku region.

‘The tsunami stole that from us; tore it to pieces, buried it in the rubble or swept it out to sea. This Memorial Concert has allowed us to start reclaiming it. No more dwelling in the past where the sun never shines. It’s time for us to leap into the future. Tomorrow can be bright, and ours to own, if we do this together. So come.’ Sakura held out both hands to the audience. ‘Let’s do it!’

Let’s do it. Hotaka can still feel her hand in his as they stood on the cliff.

The applause that followed Sakura’s speech was loud and raucous, boosted by yells and whoops and whistles from her classmates, led by Osamu, of course. Hotaka chuckles to himself, remembering it.

‘Tell me, wakaino.’ The touch of the Shaman Lady shakes him from his thoughts.

‘I’m sorry, obaba. What is it you wish to know?’

‘The spirit. How did you break free?’

How? At the time Hotaka would have struggled to say exactly how it happened, just that it definitely did happen. That was beyond doubt. The moment he and Sakura leapt into the vast silence of the sky, it happened. The instant his feet left the ground he was a new person, his old self left standing on the cliff top. A split second separated the old and the new – a pinprick of time – and yet a world of difference stretched between them.

The old lady keeps pestering him. ‘Well? How?’

Hotaka knows now, though. ‘It was easy,’ he replies with a smile.

He’s looking across at a large crowd of students gathered around Sakura, scrambling for selfies with her, Osamu struggling to establish some sort of order among the rabble. As if she senses him, Sakura glances towards Hotaka. She shrugs and smiles back.

‘A leap of faith,’ he says. ‘That’s all.’