Because of my job, I probably have been staying at an excessive number of hotels as compared with an ordinary person. What often becomes a topic of conversation there is whether or not the hotel is "haunted."

Since I have been traveling all over the country and staying rarely at a city hotel but most frequently at a hotel in such old districts as a castle town or post town, I sometimes happen to come across a few-hundred-year-old lodging or a hotel located in an ancient battlefield. So I guess it would be only natural if one of such hotels was actually "haunted."

However, I have never had any spooky experience until now. Or actually, as I am a coward by nature, I have been managing it by persuading myself to believe "I am such an insensitive person with absolutely no inspiration, and there is no way I can see such thing as ghost."

Despite being so timid, I happened to accept an assignment "to stay at a hotel believed to be haunted by zashiki-warashi" in last March. The location was the spa of Kindaichi in Ninohe City, Iwate Prefecture. The legend of zashiki-warashi, a mischievous child spirit, is an oral tradition that has been handed down in Tohoku area, but in this case, a haunted spot is specified precisely to a room named "Enju room" of a Japanese-style hotel called Ryokufu-so located in Kindaichi hot-spring district.

In addition, there are various theories about who zashiki-warashi really is, but a story handed down at this hotel is very concrete.

Iwate Prefecture is under the control of the Nanbu Clan, a powerful family of Kai district. When the Takeda Family of the same district was destroyed by Nobunaga Oda, a child of the late Katsuyori Takeda made his escape with the help of the Nanbu Family, and was harbored at the house of Itsukaichi, the ancestor of Ryokufu-so. The child soon died of illness, but in order to repay an obligation, he turned into zashiki-warashi and is protecting the Itsukaichi house. That is how the story goes. I heard that this story was traced out by a linguist, Kyosuke Kindaichi, who was born in this district.

The Enju room I was shown into was one of the rooms in a 300-year-old building made in Nanbu-magariya style, and it was filled with a great number of stuffed animals and dolls, which were given as gifts to express their gratitude by people who believe that meeting zashiki-warashi while staying at this room brought happiness to them. There were roughly about 2,000 items, and that alone scared me. It was such a strange room.

Now, guess if zashiki-warashi came out.

In fact, because I was drinking and having a chat with the owner of the hotel on that night, I got completely drunk and ended up falling into a deep sleep. I guess I felt easy as I was not by myself but with an editor. So, I saw nothing and felt nothing. But, the editor says that she heard a Pikachu doll making a sound. That doll was made to produce a sound only when being touched, but she argues that it really made a sound on its own.

While thinking "That is not something to make a fuss about," I happened to watch a TV program the other day attempting to catch the image of zashiki-warashi on the screen by setting up an infrared camera in that room. Zashiki-warashi did not appear on the screen after all, but those dolls and a toy piano began to make a sound on their own, and for three consecutive nights at that.

Zashiki-warashi is nothing like a vengeful ghost that haunts something and does harm, but is rather believed to bring happiness to the house. It is just that, because zashiki-warashi is a child, he wants to play with us and plays tricks sometimes to catch our attention. That is why there are lots of dolls and toys gathered up in the room, but was he trying to play with them?

A toy, which should not be making a sound on its own, actually made a sound, but I still have "So what?" kind of feeling about that. Yet, since the same phenomenon was observed as what we experienced there, I wondered if it might be solvable.

Now, that was not the end.

After two weeks, I stayed at a hot-spring hotel, which has been open since the Edo period in Hakone, on business. This time, I was by myself.

While sleeping in that night, I was suddenly awakened by a strange noise coming from nowhere. Getting a some kind of whiff at my feet, I turned my eyes on that way and found the sliding door, which leads to a corridor, opened noiselesslyÉ

To be continuedÉ

Translated by Maiko Noda