The following is from Mizuki Tsujimura’s Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon. Tsujimura is a bestselling Japanese author whose books have sold over 10 million copies, and whose readership continues to grow. Several of her books have been made into high-profile Japanese-language films and/or manga. Loved by booksellers and readers alike, she is the only writer to have won both the Japan Booksellers’ award and the more literary Naoki Prize.

“There’s somebody you wish to see, isn’t there?”

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The elderly woman asked this in a gentle voice. I didn’t know how to reply. We fell into a long silence, which I later regretted. The quiet in the air held too much meaning for two strangers making small talk.

“I thought so.” She smiled, though I hadn’t said a word.

“What makes you think so?” I squeaked, finding my voice. I looked and felt like an idiot.

“I just have a feeling. When you get to be around my age, you can just tell. I don’t know that I can be of much help, but if you have a minute, can I tell you a little story?”

On a regular day, I would be at the office by now, and it felt surreal to be lounging around eating tangerines by a sunlit window. This sense of dreamy disconnect did something to me.“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t imagine what was coming.

The elderly woman smiled again.

“Young man, have you ever heard of the go-between?”

*

I stared at the phone number the woman had given me. It was a Tokyo number, nothing unusual. I played back the story I’d just heard, placing the memo on the table. I lay down on my sofa and stared up at the ceiling, the fluorescent light stinging my eyes.

Any sane person would call the woman’s story absurd. There’s a person called a go-between, who can summon the dead and arrange a meeting?

The go-between receives a request from a living person and passes it on to the deceased. If the deceased agrees, the two parties are then able to meet.

If the elderly woman had spoken to me in a hushed, grave tone, I might have lost interest. But she chatted away casually while nibbling on her tangerine.

“But you can only meet once. If you use your one opportunity, you can’t make another request in your lifetime.”

My hand froze in the air, holding up a piece of citrus.

The woman finished her tangerine and took out a handkerchief from her gown pocket. She wiped the juice from her fingers and retrieved a folded piece of paper, which she held out to me. My hand reached for it automatically. A phone number was written inside.

“I don’t know if you’ll need it, but that’s the number. Take it with you. Some people search high and low and never find their way to the go-between, while others, the ones who really need it, don’t do anything and the information finds them. It’s not a coincidence that this information made its way to you.

“Well then,” she said as she stood.

Before she could turn and walk away, I said, “Uh,” as though I’d finally been permitted to speak. “Have you ever called this number? And met with—”

The woman’s face shone under the white sunlight, and I could barely make out the shape of her nose and mouth, let alone read her expression. But I did hear her say quietly, “I have.”

*

I turned my head and my eyes landed on the door of the long-shuttered room. Seven years. The number of years it takes for a person to kill a spouse.

The same number of years had passed since Kirari had disappeared without a trace. I’d looked everywhere I could think of, searching for clues she might have left behind. Did something happen to her? Was she in an accident, did she get caught up in some kind of crime? I contacted the police, and for the first year of her disappearance, I hardly slept.

It wasn’t until much later that I considered the possibility, or, more accurately, accepted the likelihood that she had meant to leave permanently.

I reached for the piece of paper and stared at the number

that would supposedly connect me with the go-between. The old woman had no reason to fool me. She believed the go-between was real, even claiming to have met one herself.

I didn’t know why Kirari had gone missing—not then, not seven years later. But as time passed, I came to my senses. She had left me.

Ohashi had shown concern in the beginning, helping me search everywhere for her. But at a certain point, he began to suggest I do myself a favor and forget about her. Pull yourself together. His tone had become impatient and critical. This was her plan from the start.

Even now he told me, Forget about her. Move on.

I closed my eyes.

Why did I continue to live here? It wasn’t as if I expected her to come back. But I also couldn’t say for sure that she would never turn up again. I understood that Kirari had left of her own accord. But what if she wasn’t able to come back because of something beyond her control?

I’d gone through this routine more times than I could count over the past seven years, feeling as though my heart was being ripped out of my body. Even as my head refused, my heart yearned to believe. There had to be an explanation. Which would include, unfortunately, the worst-case scenario. It was possible that she was no longer in this world.

There’s somebody you wish to see, isn’t there?

I opened my eyes and picked up my phone.

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From Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura. Copyright © 2010 by Mizuki Tsujimura. English language copyright © 2025 by Yuki Tejima. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.