"No kidding," Hoshino said. Still facedown, he took a gulp of tea and munched on some crunchy snacks he'd picked up at a convenience store. "So you really were dead?"

"I was."

"Where were you all that time?"

"Nakata doesn't remember. It felt like I was somewhere far away, doing something else. But my head was floating and I can't remember anything. Then I came back to this world and found out I was dumb. I couldn't read or write anymore."

"You must've left your ability to read and write over on the other side."

"Maybe so."

The two of them were silent for a time. Hoshino decided it was best to believe whatever the old man told him, no matter how eccentric it sounded. At the same time he felt uneasy, as if pursuing this dead-for-three-weeks idea any further would lead him into some chaotic, out-of-control situation. Better to turn the conversation back to more practical matters. "So, now that we're in Takamatsu, Mr. Nakata, where are you planning to go?"

"I have no idea," Nakata replied. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"What about that entrance stone?"

"That's right! Nakata completely forgot about it. We have to find the stone. But I don't have a clue where to look. My mind's floating and won't clear up. I wasn't too bright to begin with, and this kind of thing only makes it worse."

"We're in a bit of a fix, then, aren't we?"

"Yes, I'd say we are."

"Not that sitting here staring at each other's all that much fun. This won't get us anywhere."

"You're right."

"I think we should go around asking people, you know, if that stone's somewhere around here."

"If you say so, then that's what Nakata wants to do. I'm pretty dumb, so I'm used to asking people questions."

"My grandpa always said asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime."

"I agree. When you die, everything you know disappears."

"Well, that's not what he meant, exactly," Hoshino said, scratching his head. "Anyway, do you have a mental image of the stone? What kind of stone it is, how big it is, its shape or color? What it's used for? If we don't have some details, it's hard to ask. Nobody's going to know what the heck we're talking about if we just say, Is there an entrance stone anywhere around here? They'll think we're nuts. You see what I mean?"

"Yes, I do. I might be dumb, but I'm not nuts."

"Okay."

"The stone Nakata's looking for is very special. It's not so big. It's white, and doesn't have any smell. I don't know what it's used for. It's round, sort of like a rice cake." He held up his hands to indicate something the size of an LP record.

"Hmm. So if you spotted it, do you think you'd recognize it? You know, like-Hey, here it is."

"Nakata would know it right away."

"There must be some kind of story or legend behind it. Maybe it's famous and on display at a shrine or someplace."

"It could be, I suppose."

"Or maybe it's just in some house, and people use it as a weight when they make pickles."

"No, that's not possible."

"Why not?"

"Because nobody can move the stone."

"Nobody except you, you mean."

"Yes, I think Nakata probably can."

"After you move it, then what?"

Nakata did an uncharacteristic thing-he pondered this for a good long time. At least he looked like he was, briskly rubbing his short, salt-and-pepper hair. "I don't really know about that," he finally said. "All I know is it's about time somebody moved it."

Hoshino did some pondering himself. "And that somebody's you, right? At least for now."

"Yes," Nakata replied, "that's correct."

"Is the stone found only in Takamatsu?"

"No, it isn't. It doesn't really matter where it is. It just happens to be here right now. It would be much easier if it was in Nakano Ward."

"But moving that kind of stone must be risky."

"That's right. Maybe Nakata shouldn't bring this up, but it is very dangerous."

"Damn," Hoshino said, slowly shaking his head. He put on his Chunichi Dragons cap and pulled his ponytail out the hole in the back. "This is starting to feel like an Indiana Jones movie or something."

The next morning they went to the tourist information booth in the station to ask if there were any famous stones in Takamatsu or the vicinity.

"Stones?" the girl behind the counter said, frowning slightly. She'd been trained to introduce all the usual tourist places, but nothing beyond that, and the question clearly had her flustered. "What sort of stones are you looking for?"

"A round stone about so big," Hoshino said, forming his hands in a circle the size of an LP, just as Nakata had done. "It's called the entrance stone."

"'Entrance stone'?"

"Yep. That's the name. It's pretty famous, I imagine."

"Entrance to what, though?"

"If I knew that I wouldn't have to go to all this trouble."

The girl thought about it for a while. Hoshino gazed at her face the whole time. Kind of pretty, he judged, though her eyes are a bit too far apart, giving her the look of a cautious bovine. She made a few calls, but it didn't look like she was getting anywhere.

"I'm sorry," she finally said. "Nobody's heard of a stone by that name."

"Nobody?"

She shook her head. "Excuse me for asking, but are you here just to find this stone?"

"Yeah, I don't know if it's just to see it. Anyway, I'm from Nagoya. The old guy's from Nakano Ward in Tokyo."

"Yes, Nakata's from Nakano Ward," Nakata chimed in. "I rode in a lot of trucks, and even got treated to eel once. I came this far and haven't spent a cent of my own money."

"I see…," the girl said.

"Not to worry. If nobody's heard about the stone, what're ya gonna do, huh? It's not your fault. But maybe they call it something else. Are there any other famous stones around here? You know, something with a legend behind it, maybe? Or some stone people pray to? Anything like that?"

The girl looked timidly at Hoshino with her too-far-apart eyes, taking in his Chunichi Dragons cap, his hair and ponytail, his green-tinted sunglasses, pierced ear, and rayon aloha shirt. "I'd be happy to tell you how to get to the city public library. You could research the stone there. I don't know much about stones myself, I'm afraid."

The library, however, yielded nothing. There wasn't a single book in the place devoted to stones in or around Takamatsu. The reference librarian, saying they might run across a reference somewhere, plunked down a stack of books in front of them: Legends of Kagawa Prefecture, Legends of Kobo Daishi in Shikoku, A History of Takamatsu, and the like. Sighing deeply, Hoshino started leafing through them. For his part, Nakata carefully turned one page after another in a photo collection entitled Famous Stones of Japan.

"I can't read," he said, "so this is the first library I've ever been in."

"I'm not proud of it," Hoshino said, "but this is a first for me, too. Even though I can."

"It's kind of interesting now that we're here."

"Glad to hear it."

"There's a library in Nakano Ward. I think I'll stop by there every now and then. The best thing is they don't charge anything. Nakata had no idea they'd let you in if you can't read."

"I've got a cousin who was born blind, but he goes to see movies," Hoshino said. "What fun could that be?"

"I can see, but I've never been to a movie theater."

"You're kidding! I'll have to take you sometime."

The librarian came over and warned them to keep their voices down, so they stopped talking and went back to their books. When he finished with Famous Stones of Japan, Nakata put it back on the shelf and began flipping through Cats of the World.

Grumbling all the while, Hoshino managed to look through all the books piled up next to him. Unfortunately, he couldn't find any matches in any of them. There were several references to the stone walls of Takamatsu Castle, but the stones in those walls were so massive that for Nakata to pick one up was out of the question. There was also a promising legend about Kobo Daishi, a famous scholarly monk of the Heian period. It was claimed that when he lifted up a stone in a wilderness, a spring gushed out and the place became a fertile rice field, but that was the end of the story. Hoshino also read about one shrine that had a stone called the Treasure of Children Stone, but it was more than a yard tall and shaped like a phallus. No way that could be the one Nakata was looking for.