The Fervor
Also by Alma Katsu
Red Widow
The Deep
The Hunger
The Descent
The Reckoning
The Taker
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
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Copyright © 2022 by Glasstown Entertainment, LLC and Alma Katsu
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Katsu, Alma, author.
Title: The fervor : a novel / Alma Katsu.
Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, [2022]
Identifiers: LCCN 2021055197 (print) | LCCN 2021055198 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593328330 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593328347 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945—Japanese Americans—Fiction. | Japanese Americans—Forced removal and internment, 1942–1945—Fiction. | LCGFT: Historical fiction. | Paranormal fiction. | Psychological fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PS3611.A7886 F47 2022 (print) | LCC PS3611.A7886 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20211116
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021055197
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021055198
Book design by Kristin del Rosario, adapted for ebook by Maggie Hunt
Cover design: Tal Goretsky
Cover images: (composite) Akihito Yokoyama / Alamy Stock Photo; Ales_Utovko / iStock / Getty Images Plus; 4x6 / iStock / Getty Images Plus; (background) Paule858 / iStock / Getty Images Plus; (background art) Courtesy of Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Title page art: Pattern © marukopum / Shutterstock
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Cover
Also by Alma Katsu
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Wasaburo Oishi’s Journal
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Afterword
About the Author
To my mother, Akiko Souza, for her stories of childhood in Japan during the war, and my father-in-law, John Katsu, for sharing his experience of the internment
WASABURO OISHI’S JOURNAL
MAY 1927
The island is windy and perpetually damp. Nothing but stone and tree and ocean, everywhere you look. Harrowing. You wouldn’t know it’s right off the coast of Shikotan, a bigger island broken off the northern tip of the country. It’s so completely isolated, it feels like the end of the world.
We arrived only yesterday and already the cold sea air has seeped into my bones and softened the pages on which I now write. You shouldn’t have come, the locals tell me. You shouldn’t have brought your wife and child. It isn’t safe.
Yuriko and Meiko have not complained, though this place could hardly be considered a vacation destination. They know the importance of this sabbatical from the Central Meteorological Observatory to further my study of the jet stream. This is my last chance, my superiors said when they approved this research trip. They are not convinced that the winds I have discovered are of any importance. Other scientists have ignored my work. The world has not taken notice of my papers.
It is not too late to take up some other research topic. “You are still a young man,” my supervisor told me before I was to leave. “You can find something else with which to make your mark.” They want me to stop making my measurements so they can use the money to pay for other work. I know that my discovery will prove to be important one day. My work on the jet stream will be my greatest contribution to mankind, I feel the truth of this in my heart.
Shikotan Island is my last chance to prove that there is something to “Wasaburo’s Winds.”
We have discovered that Shikotan also houses a colony for undesirables, the mad and the deformed, the people that society does not wish to see. They are sent here to this lonely outpost—to be studied and cared for, in theory. In reality, there is no other place for them to go. This is the place they are sent to die.
Because I am a scientist, I was expected to pay a visit to the hospital. But beyond such obligations, I was curious, hoping to understand what afflicts these patients, and how it may connect to the terrible lore of this place. I wanted to see them for myself. All the patients I encountered were distracted or deranged. Many violent. The sounds of their wailing and the rattling of their doors carried on the wind.
The man in charge said that everyone seems to get worse very quickly after arriving. He speculated that it had to do with the isolation. Even the attendants themselves tend to descend into a kind of madness here. For that reason, few leave the hospital alive.
But this year, he told me, things have gotten inexplicably worse. New arrivals have plunged rapidly into madness. He has no idea what is causing it. He advised me to send my family back to the mainland immediately and to stay as briefly as possible myself.
The island, the locals say, is cursed.
1
OUTSIDE BLY, OREGON
GEARHART MOUNTAIN
NOVEMBER 19, 1944
“Well gosh darnit, wouldn’t you just.”
Archie Mitchell gripped the gearshift of his 1941 Nash 600 sedan, but he could feel the loose spin of his tires over mud.
The late autumn rains had softened Dairy Creek Road into little more than a dark rivulet woven through the dense ponderosas and junipers blanketing the mountainside. Uncertainty spun in his gut. They should have known better than to take these logging roads this time of year.
“The kids, Arch,” Elsie warned from the passenger seat. Her blond waves, her pink lips. Hazel eyes darted to the rearview mirror. In its reflection: an assortment of brown and green plaids and corduroys, jumbled knees and slipping socks. The Patzke kids, Dick and Joan, plus three others—Jay Gifford, Edward Engen, and Sherman Shoemaker—made up the entirety of the field trip. All of them with their hair combed tidy for Sunday. Whispering and humming tunes. Dick Patzke pulled on his teen sister’s ponytail in the back seat.
“Are we stuck?” asked Ed.
“Everything’s going to be just fine,” Elsie assured the kids. “The Lord has brought us a little trial by nature is all.”
Trial by nature. Archie smiled. His wife was right. He ought to have watched what he said. It’s no wonder she had been the star pupil at Simpson Bible College, unlike him. Somehow, despite his many failings, God saw fit to give him Elsie.
He hit the gas again and this time the car lurched forward, a river of putty-gray slurry slipping out beneath them as the tires regained traction.
“You see, then?” Elsie patted his knee. He tried to feel comforted, but the bad premonition, the nervousness that had been ratcheting through his chest all morning, wouldn’t go away.
Which was precisely why they were here. This trip to Gearhart Mountain had been Elsie’s idea. She and Archie had been cooped up indoors, him fretting over her well-being all the time; they needed a change of pace. It was too easy to go haywire without a little fresh air, and it wasn’t natural for a young, happy couple in their prime. Besides which, she’d heard the Patzkes had just lost their eldest boy overseas. Surely it was the duty of their pastor to step in and offer a kindness to the family in grief. It didn’t hurt that a pair of avid fishermen in the congregation had told him the trout were still biting at Leonard Creek.
“My ever-hopeful fisherman,” Elsie had teased him later that night, when they were lying in bed together under the yellow glow of their matching bedside lamps. “Wouldn’t that be a nice thing to do for the Patzke kids? A little day trip some Sunday? The Patzkes could use some time alone to grieve, don’t ya think? And besides, I could use the practice
if I’m to be a mama soon.”
She was trying to draw him out of his thoughts . . . and it worked. Archie rolled over and kissed his wife’s round, taut belly. Five months and counting. This time it would all go perfectly. There was no need to worry. A healthy son was on his way—Archie reassured himself of it by the glow in Elsie’s cheeks.
He’d whispered yes into her nightdress, and now some Sunday had become today.
The woods thickened around them, the sky a blissful blue. Only a few wisps of cloud lingered from yesterday’s storm. Still, as they drove up the ever-steepening road, Archie could feel the knot of tension in his chest coiling tighter. He rolled down his window, taking in the crisp mountain air. It was cold enough to carry the scent of winter—and for a moment, he blinked, thinking he’d just seen a snowflake. An eerie feeling moved through him, as if he was in a room in which a door had suddenly blown open. But it was just a tiny seedling, some minuscule bit of fluff held aloft on the wind.
The kids sang hymns again as Archie maneuvered the Nash onto an even narrower service road. It was bumpier than Dairy Creek and he watched Elsie with a worried eye. She had one hand on her belly as they bounced over ruts.
He braked slowly, not far from an abandoned little cabin the fishermen had told him about. “Maybe it would be better to walk the rest of the way.”
Elsie reached for the latch. “How about if I take the kids down to the creek? Maybe you can get a little further in the car. That way you won’t have to haul the picnic things as far.”
She was right, as usual. “You sure you’ll be okay?”
Her smile was like sunshine. It filled him with something more than love, a thing he could not name, for it would insult God to know it. How he worshipped her. How he’d lie down on the mud and let her walk across him like a bridge if she asked. How he sometimes feared God had been too generous in giving him Elsie, feared what lengths he’d be willing to take just to make her smile, just to feel her gentle hands on him in the darkness, her curious little kisses that set him on fire with shameful thoughts. With Elsie, he was powerless.
“Of course,” she said now. “You know you must sometimes tolerate letting me outta your sight.” Another smile, and then he watched as the kids scampered out of the car like baby goats let out of the pen.
“I’m gonna catch the biggest fish,” one of the boys crowed.
“No, I’m going to . . .”
“I’m gonna catch a whale!”
“That’s stupid. There ain’t no whales in a creek,” the first boy shouted back. The voices reminded Archie of when he was a boy, fishing off a bridge with his friends. Children happy to be children, let loose to play. He wasn’t hardly thirty years old but he felt like an old man already.
“Last one down to the creek—”
. . . is a rotten egg, Archie finished to himself. Some things never changed.
They ran down the trail, goading each other to run faster. Elsie brought up the rear with the Patzke girl. Joan Patzke really was a good kid, Archie thought. Considerate. She knew enough to stay with Elsie, made sure she had company and a hand to hold.
If only every family in his congregation was as nice as the Patzkes . . . If all the parents in Bly could be as good as these children, everything would be all right, he thought. But still somehow, the thought failed to ease the tightness in his chest.
Once the baby was born, he’d be able to breathe again. The doctors all assured him that five months was well and good enough along to stop worrying—but they had said that the last time, too.
* * *
—
He parked as far off the trail as he could, but the Nash took up most of the road. There was no way around it. The trail was too narrow.
He opened the trunk and was enveloped in the aroma of chocolate. Elsie had decided that, if they were going on a picnic, they needed a chocolate cake. She baked the layers yesterday, setting them out on racks to cool last night. She’d made the frosting this morning, beating the butter and sugar by hand with a big wooden spoon. Elsie only baked chocolate cake once or twice a year, and the thought of it made his mouth water. He lifted the cake carrier and slung the wooden handles over one forearm, then hefted the picnic basket with the other. Inside were turkey sandwiches. A thermos of coffee for the adults and a jug of cider for the kids.
He put the basket on the ground and was closing the trunk when another tiny white seedling, no bigger than a snowflake, landed near his nose. He brushed it away, oddly unnerved by it. That feeling again: a wind surging right through him. He shivered and slammed the trunk.
A woman stood in front of him.
He jumped in surprise, but she remained perfectly still, observing him. She was a young woman and beautiful. She was dressed in a kimono, a nice one from what he could tell, but she was disheveled. Her shiny black hair was falling down in wisps, the ends of her obi fluttering in the breeze.
Where had she come from? There hadn’t been anyone on the trail or in the woods—Archie was positive. He’d been paying extra close attention as he navigated the mud.
Funny for someone to be roaming around the mountain in such fancy dress. Though Archie had seen Japanese wearing traditional garb in Bly—years ago.
No Japanese left in town anymore.
The strangest part was the look on her face, the way she smiled at him. Cunning. Sly. It stopped the questions forming in his throat. Kept him from doing anything except stare.
More of the white seedlings drifted between them, swirling playfully. She lifted a finger and gestured toward them. “Kumo,” she in a voice barely above a whisper. Archie didn’t know the word but he was pretty sure that was what she’d said. Kumo.
The sound of children yelling broke his concentration, and Archie looked away. Little Edward—or was it Sherman?—was shouting something in the distance. Had to be sure Elsie was okay, that the kids hadn’t gotten up to some mischief . . .
And when he turned back, the woman in the kimono was gone.
For a moment, he paused, confused. He looked down at the spot where she had stood, and there were no footprints. The mud was untrampled.
A chill ran down his spine, followed by a tremor of guilt.
But then the boys yelled again, in high-pitched, excited little voices, and Archie was forced to let it go.
“What’s going on?” Archie called out, picking up the food items again and beginning his trudge toward the tree line. He got closer, and the voices became louder.
“Whoa!” That was Joan’s voice.
“Honey?” That was Elsie now. “We’ve found something. Come look!”
He could see their forms now, through the trees. The creek in the distance, black and twisty as a snake. Something light and large in a clearing, covering the ground like alien moss.
“What is it?” Archie called out, hurrying.
He wasn’t at all sure what to make of the shape in the distance: it could be a piece of a banner come loose from a building or warehouse, or even a bedsheet escaped from a clothesline. It was weathered, grayish, and sprawling—unnatural in all this wilderness.
“Some kind of parachute?” Elsie shouted over her shoulder.
A knife of panic. He dropped the basket and the cake. “Don’t touch anything!” There’d been a news story a few months back. Something about a parachute falling out of the sky and catching fire on the power lines at a power plant near Spokane. Whole plant could’ve gone up in smoke but for the generator cutting off. The newspaper had called it a parachute, but onlookers didn’t agree. Some feared it was an unmarked weapon of war.
He ran toward them now. “Did you hear me?” His voice came out ragged, breathless. “I said be careful and don’t—”
Archie choked and stopped running. Something drifting on the wind caught in his throat. It looked like snow, but it couldn’t be. Too early for snow, though not unheard of this time of year. Another seedling—or maybe something else. Maybe it was ash. He saw loads of it in the air now: bits of white fluff, like dandelion seeds but smaller. No dandelion seeds in November. He froze, momentarily mesmerized. He lifted a hand to catch one but the wind carried it away.
His hand was still suspended in the air when another bit of white caught on his eyelashes. It was so close to his eye that at first, it was just a semitransparent orb. A mote.