Tonight’s tale is not so much scary as it is eerie. It echoes some themes that we’ve seen in several of this month’s tales so far, such as dying from smallpox, spooky calligraphy, and possible connections to past lives.

The part that shocks me most of all is the ending, where the parents just decide “OK” and leave their six year old daughter behind…

A Strange Tale of Affection

On the road from Kanda Myōjin to Ochanomizu, there was once an inn for boatmen and travelers. The proprietors had a daughter who turned six years old in the third year of the Bunka era (1806).

From the age of two or three, she took up the brush and could write characters as skillfully as an adult. Her parents showered her with affection. In time, they closed the boat inn and moved to the vicinity of Ryōgoku. People increasingly praised the girl’s handwriting.

During the smallpox epidemic in the third year of Bunka, the girl contracted smallpox and became gravely ill. Her parents were beside themselves with worry, and nursed her day and night, but their efforts were in vain, and her body began to give up. Her mother, overcome with grief, began to ramble like a madwoman, lamenting and pleading. The girl told her, “I will see you again in Kanda. Do not worry.”

Her mother repeated those words as if in a trance, but there was nothing else she could do. She carried her daughter’s lifeless body out into the field and laid her to rest, then spent her days prostrate with grief.

Among their acquaintances from Kanda who came to pay their respects, there was a family who had a daughter the same age as the girl. This daughter repeatedly said that she wanted to visit Ryōgoku, so her parents took her there and visited the old boat inn. However, once they arrived, the girl insisted that she would not return to her old home and said, “Please leave me here.”

Her parents could not fathom the reason for the request. However, to their astonishment, although the girl had never held a brush before, her handwriting was exactly the same as that of the girl who had died.

Everyone was astonished and could only wonder at this mystery. The girl’s parents tried to take her home to Kanda, but she refused, insisting, “I am the daughter of this household. I will not go back.”

There was nothing they could do. The girl was left behind in Ryōgoku, and her biological parents returned home. People all over town talked about this.