Detective Takuda and Reverend Suzuki dug into the clay with their boots as the ascent steepened, and then they hit the last three meters: an almost vertical climb to the stone lip. Wooden posts jutted from holes in the exposed stone, but the posts were rotten, spongy and wet to the touch. Takuda broke the posts off with his bare hands, Suzuki dug out the blackened pulp with a spoon from his backpack, and they used the empty postholes to climb the face. At the top, Takuda pulled himself over the stone lip and then pulled Suzuki up after him. The shrine lay above the shadow of the river’s passage. It was sun-splintered, dry as kindling. The door rattled in its stone track and finally refused to slide at all, so Takuda lifted it aside. “It’s been rebuilt in the last century or so, but no telling how long it’s been since anyone came here,” Suzuki said as he ducked inside. Takuda stayed at the door, playing his pocket flashlight over the faded red walls.
