fter they left the park, they walked out onto the main street and hailed a cab. Aomame told the driver to take them to Sangenjaya, via Route 246.

For the first time, Tengo noticed what Aomame was wearing. She had on a light-colored spring coat, too thin for this cold time of year. The coat was belted in front. Underneath was a nicely tailored green suit. The skirt was short and tight. She had on stockings and lustrous high heels, and carried a black leather shoulder bag. The bag was bulging and looked heavy. She wasn’t wearing any gloves or a muffler, no rings or necklace or earrings, no hint of perfume. To Tengo, what she had on, and what she had omitted, looked entirely natural. He could think of nothing that needed to be added or removed.

The taxi sped down Ring Road 7 toward Route 246. Traffic was flowing along unusually smoothly. For a long time after they got in the taxi, the two of them didn’t speak. The radio in the taxi was off, and the young driver was very quiet. All the two of them heard was the ceaseless, monotonous hum of tires. Aomame leaned against Tengo, still clutching his large hand. If she let go she might never find him again. Around them the night city flowed by like a phosphorescent tide.

“There are several things I need to say to you,” Aomame said, after a while. “I don’t think I can explain everything before we arrive there. We don’t have that much time. But maybe if we had all the time in the world I still couldn’t explain it.”

Tengo shook his head slightly. There was no need to explain everything now. They could fill in all the gaps later, as they went—if there were indeed gaps that needed to be filled. Tengo felt that as long as it was something the two of them could share—even a gap they had to abandon or a riddle they never could solve—he could discover a joy there, something akin to love.

“What do I need to know about you at this point?” Tengo asked.

“What do you know about me?” Aomame asked in return.

“Almost nothing,” Tengo said. “You’re an instructor at a sports club. You’re single. You’ve been living in Koenji.”

“I know almost nothing about you, too,” Aomame said, “though I do know a few small things. You teach math at a cram school in Yoyogi. You live alone. And you’re the one who really wrote Air Chrysalis.”

Tengo looked at her face, his lips parted in surprise. There were very few people who knew this about him. Did she have some connection with the cult?

“Don’t worry. We’re on the same side,” she said. “If I told you how I came to know this, it would take too long. But I do know that you wrote Air Chrysalis together with Eriko Fukada. And that you and I both entered a world where there are two moons in the sky. And there’s one more thing. I’m carrying a child. I believe it’s yours. For now, these are the important things you ought to know.”

“You’re carrying my child?” The driver might be listening, but Tengo wasn’t worrying about it at this point.

“We haven’t seen each other in twenty years,” Aomame said, “but yes, I’m carrying your child. I’m going to give birth to your child. I know it sounds totally crazy.”

Tengo was silent, waiting for her to continue.

“Do you remember that terrible thunderstorm in the beginning of September?”

“I remember it well,” Tengo said. “The weather was nice all day, then after sunset it turned stormy, with wild lightning. Water flowed down into the Akasaka-Mitsuke Station and they had to shut down the subway for a while.” The Little People are stirring, Fuka-Eri had said.

“I got pregnant the night of that storm,” Aomame said. “But I didn’t have those sorts of relations with anyone on that day, or for several months before and after.”

She paused and waited until this reality had sunk in, then continued.

“But it definitely happened that night. And I’m certain that the child I’m carrying is yours. I can’t explain it, but I know it’s true.”

The memory of the strange sexual encounter he had with Fuka-Eri that night came back to him. Lightning was crashing outside, huge drops of rain lashing the window. The Little People were indeed stirring. He was lying there, faceup in bed, his whole body numb, and Fuka-Eri straddled him, inserted his penis inside her, and squeezed out his semen. She looked like she was in a complete trance. Her eyes were closed from start to finish, as if she were lost in meditation. Her breasts were ample and round, and she had no pubic hair. The whole scene was unreal, but he knew it had really happened.

The next morning, Fuka-Eri had acted as if she had no memory of the events of the previous night, or else tried to give the impression that she didn’t remember. To Tengo it had felt more like a business transaction than sex. On that stormy night, Fuka-Eri used his body to collect his semen, down to the very last drop. Even now, Tengo could recall that strange sensation. Fuka-Eri had seemed to become a totally different person.

“There is something I recall,” Tengo said dryly. “Something that happened to me that night that logic can’t explain.”

Aomame looked deep into his eyes.

“At the time,” he went on, “I didn’t know what it meant. Even now, I’m not sure. But if you did get pregnant that night, and there’s no other possible explanation for it, then the child inside you has to be mine.”

Fuka-Eri must have been the conduit. That was the role she had been assigned, to act as the passage linking Tengo and Aomame, physically connecting the two of them over a limited period of time. Tengo knew this must be true.

“Someday I’ll tell you exactly what happened then,” Tengo said, “but right now I don’t think I have the words to explain it.”

“But you really believe it, right? That the little one inside me is your child?”

“From the bottom of my heart,” Tengo said.

“Good,” Aomame said. “That’s all I wanted to know. As long as you believe that, then I don’t care about the rest. I don’t need any explanations.”

“So you’re pregnant,” Tengo asked again.

“Four months along,” Aomame said, guiding his hand to rest on her belly.

Tengo was quiet, seeking signs of life there. It was still very tiny, but his hand could feel the warmth.

“Where are we moving on to? You, me, and the little one.”

“Somewhere that’s not here,” Aomame replied. “A world with only one moon. The place where we belong. Where the Little People have no power.”

“Little People?” Tengo frowned slightly.

“You described the Little People in detail in Air Chrysalis. What they look like, what they do.”

Tengo nodded.

“They really exist in this world,” Aomame said. “Just like you described them.”

When he had rewritten the novel, he had thought the Little People were merely the figment of the active imagination of a seventeen-year-old girl. Or that they were at most a kind of metaphor or symbol. But Tengo could now believe that the Little People really existed, that they had real powers.

“Not just the Little People,” Aomame said, “but all of it really exists in this world—air chrysalises, maza and dohta, two moons.”

“And you know the pathway out of this world?”

“We’ll take the pathway I took to get into this world so that we can get out of it. That’s the only exit I can think of.” She added, “Do you have the manuscript of the novel you’re writing?”

“Right here,” Tengo said, lightly tapping the russet-colored bag slung over his shoulder. It struck him as strange. How did she know about this?

Aomame gave a hesitant smile. “I just know.”

“It looks like you know a lot of things,” Tengo said. It was the first time he had seen her smile. It was the faintest of smiles, yet he felt the tides start to shift all over the world. He knew it was happening.

“Don’t let go of it,” Aomame said. “It’s very important for us.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t.”

“We came into this world so that we could meet. We didn’t realize it ourselves, but that was the purpose of us coming here. We faced all kinds of complications—things that didn’t make sense, things that defied explanation. Weird things, gory things, sad things. And sometimes, even beautiful things. We were asked to make a vow, and we did. We were forced to go through hard times, and we made it. We were able to accomplish the goal that we came here to accomplish. But danger is closing in fast. They want the dohta inside of me. You know what the dohta signifies, I imagine.”

Tengo took a deep breath. “You’re having our dohta—yours and mine.”

“I don’t know all the details of whatever principle’s behind it, but I’m giving birth to a dohta. Either through an air chrysalis, or else I’m the air chrysalis. And they’re trying to get ahold of all three of us. To make a new system so they can hear the voice.”

“But what’s my role in this? Assuming I have a role beyond being the father of the dohta.”

“You are—” Aomame began, and stopped. The next words wouldn’t come. There were several gaps that remained, gaps they would have to work together, over time, to fill in.

“I decided to find you,” Tengo said, “but I couldn’t. You found me. I actually didn’t do anything. It seems—how should I put it?—unfair.”

“Unfair?”

“I owe you a lot. But in the end, I wasn’t much help.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Aomame said firmly. “You’re the one who guided me this far. In an invisible way. The two of us are one.”

“I think I saw that dohta,” Tengo said. “Or at least what the dohta signifies. It was you as a ten-year-old, asleep inside the faint light of an air chrysalis. I could touch her fingers. It only happened once.”

Aomame leaned her head on Tengo’s shoulder. “We don’t owe each other anything. Not a thing. But what we do need to worry about is protecting this little one. They’re closing in. Almost on top of us. I can hear their footsteps.”

“I won’t ever let anyone else get the two of you—you or the little one. Now that we’ve met each other, we’ve found what we were looking for when we came to this world. This is a dangerous place. But you said you know where there’s an exit.”

“I think so,” Aomame said. “If I’m not mistaken.”