I used to work evenings at a small library near Portland. It wasn’t a particularly old building, although people always assumed it was because the heating system made strange noises.
Most nights were boring. Students came in, older people read newspapers, and occasionally someone would spend an hour looking for a book they could have found in five minutes.
One of the shelves had a section for folklore.
I didn’t pay much attention to it until a woman started coming in every Wednesday.
She was probably in her sixties. She always wore the same gray coat, even when it wasn’t cold, and she would spend a long time looking through books about Japan.
One evening I asked if she needed help.
She said no.
Then she pointed at the shelf and said, “Do you have any japanese legends stories?”
I told her we had a few books about Japanese folklore.
She shook her head.
“No. The ones people don’t usually talk about.”
I thought she meant ghost stories.
I showed her the folklore section.
She thanked me and took three books to a table in the back.
She stayed there for almost two hours.
Before leaving, she brought the books back and asked if we had anything about people disappearing.
I said we had some books about local history.
She said, “Not local.”
Then she left.
The next Wednesday she came back.
This time she had a piece of paper with a title written on it.
I couldn’t read the handwriting very well.
She asked me to search for it.
I typed the title into the library system.
Nothing came up.
She wasn’t surprised.
She folded the paper and put it back in her pocket.
“Do you have a horror stories website here?” she asked.
I thought she meant whether the library had internet access.
I told her yes.
She sat at one of the computers.
For the next hour, she searched through different websites.
I wasn’t watching her screen, but once or twice I saw the same photograph.
It showed a narrow road beside a forest.
She printed the photograph before leaving.
I remember that because our printer was terrible. It made everything look gray.
The following week she didn’t come in.
Neither did she the week after.
Then, one Wednesday evening, a teenage boy came into the library and asked if I’d seen his grandmother.
He described the woman in the gray coat.
I said I knew her, but I hadn’t seen her recently.
He asked if she had said anything strange.
I didn’t want to get involved, so I said no.
Then he showed me a picture on his phone.
It was the same photograph she’d printed.
He told me she had been missing for twelve days.
I felt bad for lying.
I told him about the books and the computer.
He asked what she had been searching for.
I didn’t know.
He looked disappointed.
Before leaving, he asked me if she had mentioned some real life stories.
I remembered the phrase because it sounded strange.
I told him no.
He thanked me and left.
That should have been the end of it.
It wasn’t.
About a month later, I was cleaning the folklore shelf and found the piece of paper she’d left behind.
I don’t remember putting it there.
The title was still written on it.
Underneath it was another sentence.
It said:
“These are some real life stories.”
I don’t know when she wrote that.
I put the paper in the lost-and-found drawer.
A few days later, the boy came back.
He asked if I’d found anything.
I gave him the paper.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then he asked me something I still think about.
“Did she ever tell you why she was looking for japanese legends stories?”
I said no.
He said she believed the stories weren’t stories at all.
She thought they were records of things that had happened to people.
I told him that sounded like something she probably believed, but I didn’t see how it helped find her.
He didn’t answer.
He just took the paper and left.
I quit that job several months later.
Nothing dramatic happened.
I got another job with better hours.
But I still remember the photograph.
A few weeks after quitting, I searched for it online because I was curious.
I found the same road.
It was part of a travel blog.
The photograph was taken in Japan.
There was nothing strange about it.
At least, not at first.
The road looked normal.
Trees on both sides.
A small sign.
Nothing else.
I looked at the comments underneath.
One person had written that the road was known locally for people getting lost.
Another person replied that this was nonsense and that tourists just weren’t paying attention.
I closed the page.
I haven’t searched for it again.
I also don’t know what happened to the woman.
The boy never contacted me after that.
Sometimes I wonder if she found whatever she was looking for.
Then I remember that she had been missing before I ever saw that photograph.
So maybe she wasn’t looking for something.
Maybe she already knew where it was.
