Roshi regained his composure and began barking orders. This sent the monks scurrying to the cabin where they waited restlessly for him to catch up.
“I’m afraid you might have joined us on an unfortunate day,” the head monk said, turning to Yoichi. His sleepy eyes looked more tired than usual. “Come. You have an important lesson to learn.”
It wasn’t until Yoichi reached the others that he realized the front door was standing ajar. While Roshi calmly searched the stone lantern and the ground around it, the other men fidgeted and hissed nervous whispers to one another between clenched teeth. One of them—a round-faced man with wire-rimmed glasses—kept glancing back over his shoulder and into the forest again and again. He was making Yoichi jumpy as well.
“The key is missing,” Roshi announce
