Three weeks into my trek, as I ascended a steep path toward Yokomine-ji, the 60th of 88 temples along the Shikoku pilgrimage, I found myself enveloped by an unforgiving fog. In an instant, the colorful forest around me — mostly red cedar trees and fern bushes — faded, leaving me in a world of muted gray. Able to make out only the faintest shapes in the surrounded trees, I was convinced that I’d stumbled into an eerie fairy tale. Quietly, in the distance, I began to hear a chorus of small bells. In the newfound clarity of daylight, I began to wonder: Had the courteous band of fellow pilgrims existed only in my mind?

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Persons: I’d