This was when I was in the third grade of elementary school.
My father and mother are both from Shimane, and one day during summer vacation, I went home to my mother’s side of the family.
Grandma and Grandpa, who I hadn’t seen in a long time, seemed to be very fond of their grandchildren and took good care of me and my brother.
The house was a rather large house with nothing unusual about it, but there was one strange thing.
(It seemed strange to my eyes at the time.) It was a safe in the living room.
It was an ordinary dial safe, about the size of a microwave oven, but it was placed ostentatiously under the altar.
It was placed ostentatiously under the altar, as if the safe were enshrined.
Children like to tinker with anything, and I, as many people know, was eager to open the safe.
Grandpa was watching me with narrowed eyes, not stopping me.
Grandma came into the living room and said to Grandpa, “Grandpa!”
But Grandpa left her alone, as if to say, “I’m not going to open it anyway.
I said to Grandpa, “Is there 100 million yen in there?”
But he said, “It’s broken. This is broken. Even I can’t open it..”
I gradually became bored and started to play other games.
That night, a dish with plenty of fresh fish was put on the table, and I ate a fish dish that was exceptionally better than the fish sold in Tokyo.
The adults began to drink, and when they finished eating, my brother and I went on another search around the house together.
Then we started messing around with the safe again.
With my brother watching over me, I soon heard a click…click…click from the safe.
I thought, “Maybe it’s open…?”
With that thought, I opened the door.
At that moment, every hair on my body stood on end.
Inside the safe, which was about the size of a microwave oven, was a slightly larger woman’s face.
And it was swaying. Like a shimmering flame.
I think there was a large amount of what looked like amulet spread out under her neck.
I screamed so hard, and my brother started crying so hard, too.
My parents and grandparents heard the screams and rushed to the safe.
Seeing us crying in front of the safe, my grandfather asked, “Don’t tell me you opened it?”
It would have been obvious if I had seen the safe open, but for some reason the safe was closed. I don’t remember closing it.
Grandma was jostling it a few times, but it never opened again.
Grandpa didn’t yell at me, but instead, as if admonishing me, he said
”XX-chan(my name), what did you see? He asked gently.
However, her expression was so unnerving that even a casual observer could tell she was upset.
“Oh, woman… woman!” I repeated.
“What did she look like?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. But she looked angry…angry…”
the woman’s face I saw was clearly furious. （She looked like that.)
Grandpa sighed heavily and gave Grandma some instructions.
Grandma rushed out the front door.
I was taken to the dining table and given a glass of what appeared to be sake.
That was the strongest impression I have. I thought I was going to die. My brother threw up immediately.
But Grandpa was trying his best to get him to drink, saying, “□□-chan, you’re a good boy.
After that, Grandma came back and took me to the bathroom, and for some reason, she and my younger brother were shaved into a round head.
At the time, my brother was dizzy from alcohol.
After that, I fell asleep quickly, probably under the influence of alcohol (or perhaps because of it).
The next day, I told my grandpa, “No squid fishing today. The waves are rough and dangerous.
But it was a clear day and there seemed to be no wind.
I wanted to ask him about last night, but I thought I had done something terrible, and in the end I couldn’t ask anyone!
When I grew up and became a college student, I remembered the incident for the first time in many years and asked my younger brother first.
He did not remember. It was understandable. He was in the first grade at the time.
Next, I asked my parents. They told me that it had never happened.
They insisted that they had shaved his head, and that they had made him drink alcohol, but I told them that they had not.
But they told me that they shaved their heads so that they could join the local baseball team, and that you drank alcohol on your own out of curiosity and fell ill.
It is true that I started playing baseball in the third grade of elementary school, but I do not remember shaving my head for that purpose.
Looking back on it now, I even wonder if that memory was a dream.
But even now, when I close my eyelids, I can still see the face of that terrible woman.
I wonder what that summer event was all about…
