About the Author

MIZUKI TSUJIMURA lives in Tokyo and is a well-known author of bestselling mystery novels in Japan. Her groundbreaking novel Lonely Castle in the Mirror combines elements of Japanese fantasy with highly relevant themes of emotional wellbeing and friendship. It won the coveted Japan Booksellers’ Award, voted by booksellers as the book they most like to sell, and became an instant no. 1 bestseller in Japan, selling over half a million copies. Tsujimura has also won the Naoki prize for her work. Rights have sold across the world.

Epigraph

Lonely Castle: (1) A castle situated off by itself. (2) A castle surrounded by enemies, with no hope of relief forces arriving.

Daijirin dictionary

Prologue

I SOMETIMES FIND MYSELF DREAMING.

A new transfer student has started at our school, and everyone wants to be friends with them. The most cheerful, kind and athletic person in our class. And smart, too.

Out of all my classmates this new student picks me out with a generous smile, as dazzling as the sun, and says, ‘Kokoro-chan, it’s been such a long time.’

The other students can’t believe it. ‘What?’ they say, looking at me meaningfully. ‘Do you two already know each other?’

In another world, we were already friends.

There’s nothing special about me. I’m not athletic, and I’m not smart. There’s nothing about me anyone would envy.

It’s only that we had the chance to meet before, and form a special bond.

We go everywhere together: when we move to a different classroom, when we go for break, and when we walk through the school gates at the end of the day.

Sanada’s gang may be dying to be friends with them, but all the student says is, ‘I’m with Kokoro-chan.’

So I am no longer alone.

I’ve been hoping something like this will happen for such a long time.

Though I know it never will.

I: First Semester: Wait and See

I

FIRST SEMESTER: WAIT AND SEE

May

BEYOND THE DRAWN CURTAINS floated the sound of the little truck from the local supermarket coming to sell produce. ‘It’s A Small World’ – the song from Kokoro’s favourite ride at Disneyland – boomed from the large speaker on the back, reminding her of the world of laughter and hope that lay just outside her window. Ever since she could remember, it always played the same song.

It was abruptly cut off, and an announcement followed. ‘Hello everyone. This is the produce truck from Mikawa Market. We have fresh goods, dairy products, bread and rice for sale!’

The supermarket along the highway was far away, and you needed a car to get there, so ever since Kokoro was small the Mikawa Market truck had driven over every week, and parked behind her house. Its melody was the signal for old people in the neighbourhood, and mothers with small children, to come outside and buy their provisions.