Weeping Lady Hill, also titled Weeping Woman Way, is the first story in The Liminal Zone.
Plot[]
Yuzuru and his fiancée Mako decide to travel to Tohoku before their upcoming wedding. They stop at a rural village, where they are disturbed by the sound of a woman sobbing and screaming. They discover that she is a "weeping lady" - a professional mourner hired for a local funeral. As they walk up a hill, they pass the mourner. Mako is overcome by the woman's grief, and bursts into tears.
Mako becomes constantly sad and emotional, and can't stop crying. Her doctor prescribes antidepressants but it does not work. Yuzuru takes her to a fortune-teller, who tells them to return to Tohoku. They go to the village where they encountered the weeping lady, but the townspeople tell them that there was no weeping lady at the funeral; the local people no longer observe this custom. Outside, Yuzuru and Mako hear the woman's sobs again. They follow the sound all the way through a forest, and arrive in another remote village called Tears Hill.
At Tears Hill, Yuzuru and Mako encounter the weeping lady, who says she has been waiting for them. She explains that after death, people's spirits become aware that the universe is a fundamentally sad place. They express their grief through the weeping ladies, whose tears put the souls of the dead to rest. Mako has cried so much that she may even surpass the legendary Lady Rui; a weeping lady that saved the village from drought hundreds of years ago. Her tears created a lake that still stands, and her remains are preserved in a temple there. The weeping lady shows Mako and Yuzuru to the temple, and the local women follow them, believing Mako to be Lady Rui's reincarnation.
Lady Rui's desiccated remains are preserved within the temple. Her body has continued to cry after her death, but now her tears have begun drying up. As a result, the spirits of many dead people surround the village, unable to rest. If the pond dries, Tears Hill will face ruin. The weeping lady thinks that Lady Rui will begin to produce tears again if Mako cries in front of her. Mako agrees, and sure enough, tears begin to flood from the corpse. Lady Rui briefly revives, and all the village women begin sobbing hysterically, along with Mako. She tells Yuzuru that she wants to remain in the village as a weeping lady.
However, Lady Rui disintegrates into tears and the village women panic. The weeping lady announces that Mako must take Lady Rui's place, and can't be allowed to leave. Yuzuru tries to escape with Mako, and they somehow get away, even after being cornered by the trapped spirits of the dead. Mako continues to be afflicted with constant crying and her parents take her back to the family home, agreeing with Yuzuru to call off the wedding. Mako dies a few months later, her health depleted by the crying. At her funeral, Yuzuru notices her body is somehow still crying after death. The weeping ladies from Tears Hill interrupt the service and begin sobbing hysterically.
This causes Mako to somehow revive, and she sits up in her coffin. The room floods with tears and the weeping ladies declare Mako to be the true reincarnation of Lady Rui. They take her away amidst the chaos as the mourners run from the flood. Yuzuru supposes that the ladies took Mako to Tears Hill, but he can't find any evidence of its existence. Over time, he makes repeated attempts to look for Tears Hill, but is never able to find it again.