Spirit's Princess (17 page)

He continued to mope about it until the day Father marched him to the blacksmith’s and said loud enough for half the village to hear, “The Matsu have enough hunters, but a hunter is useless without a good blade and sharp arrowheads. We are blessed to have a master of weapon making like you among us, yet a true master must also pass down his secrets, to save them from being lost forever. I believe you have the skill to teach your art to this son of mine. Show me that I’m right!” The blacksmith grunted his assent and took Masa into the forge. To everyone’s surprise, including Masa’s, he turned out to love the work and to excel at it.

On a midsummer evening when the fireflies danced and the hum of the cicadas was loud from every tree, I sat alone on our porch, lost in thought. The house behind me was empty. Masa was still at the forge, which had become his second home. Shoichi had gone off with one of the many village girls who trailed after my handsome middle brother. Father was conferring with some of the other nobles about how the crops were coming along, and Mama and our stepmothers were visiting friends.

Friends …

I turned my face to the crescent moon, who smiled at me through the branches of the great pine. “Is Kaya looking at you too, Lord Moon?” I whispered. “Do you think she remembers me?” I dangled my legs over the edge of the porch and swung them lazily, calling up all my memories of the Shika village. Every day when I woke up and every night before I went to sleep, I took the withered cherry branch from its hiding place in my bedroll and whispered a prayer to the spirits, asking them to let Father see that the Shika were not our enemies. If that happened, I could go back and visit Kaya, and Aki could see Hoshi again.

“Little Sister, what are you doing up there?” Aki’s voice reached me from the foot of the ladder. “If Mother saw you sitting like that, she’d die of fright!”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I do this all the time … when she’s not around.”

He laughed aloud and ran up the ladder to sit beside me. “Why are you all by yourself? Are you the only one at home?”

I told him where everyone else had gone, then said, “Isn’t it funny how happy Masa is, learning to be a blacksmith? I never would have expected that. He was always so eager to be a hunter!”

“So were you, remember?” Aki replied. “But neither one of you was right for it. I’m glad you both found paths that suited you better.”

“
Masa
did,” I said a bit ruefully. “Not me.”

“Of course you did. You’re becoming the girl you should be. Before you know it, you’ll have some lucky boy ready to give you a house of your own, and children, and
then you’ll remember my words tonight and say, ‘This is much better than anything else I could have done with my life. Aki was right’ ”—he paused to wink at me—“ ‘as always.’ ”

I sighed. The evening was too lovely to ruin with an argument. “Is that why you stopped taking Masa with you on the hunt?” I asked. “Because you knew what he wanted to be better than he did?”

In spite of my resolve to preserve the peace, I couldn’t manage to keep a slight edge out of my voice. Aki arched one eyebrow at me. “Noooo,” he drawled. “I did it because I saw that if he didn’t find a path other than hunting, it was only a matter of time before he killed himself or someone else. I didn’t want something like that happening to my little brother. He’s a good boy, but it turns out he’s better at making weapons than using them. The important thing is, both of you are happy now.” He gave me a quick hug.

I said nothing.

Aki sensed something wasn’t right. “Himiko?”

I didn’t answer him right away. I wanted to tell him,
I’m
not
happy, Aki. I try to be, so that Mama won’t worry and Father won’t try to shout me into cheering up, but I’m not. I miss Kaya. She was the only true friend I ever had and ever will have. I know you miss Hoshi too, maybe even more than I miss Kaya. You smile, but your eyes are always sad. You go away hunting for days at a time, even when we already have more meat than we can use, as if it’s too painful for you to stay near us. If I asked you about it straight out, you’d deny it, but I never see you courting any of the Matsu girls. What am I supposed to believe, your words or your deeds?

I’m glad that there are no more fights under our roof, and that you and Father are on good terms again, but why did we have to accomplish that by giving him everything he wanted? When did we make his temper into a god? Why do we have to be the ones who make the sacrifices?

I don’t want to see you so sad. I don’t want my own sorrow. Isn’t there a way that we can keep the peace and have our own happiness too?

That was when the idea came to me. It seemed like a good one, the solution to all our problems, but if I simply blurted it out, Aki would reject it as impossible.
I
was sure that it didn’t have to be impossible and that it was up to me to turn his thoughts in the same direction as my own. I reached for my brother’s hand.

“Aki, when Father changes his mind about the Shika and you can visit Hoshi again, will you take me with you to see Kaya?”

He blinked, startled. “What are you talking about, Himiko? Father will change his mind when water runs uphill.”

I shrugged. “You never know. He might. He hasn’t been in a bad mood for a long time, not since that awful fight on the day I came home. Remember that?” It wouldn’t be a pleasant memory for my brother, but I needed to guide him back to it if I was going to help us both.

“How could I forget?” Aki was grim. “I was nearly banished.”

“Would that have been so bad?” I asked. “You could have gone to live with Hoshi’s people.”

“And never see my own kin again? I couldn’t have lived with that. It’s one thing to leave willingly, knowing you can
return, but to be thrust out and the gates barred behind you?” He shook his head. “Perhaps I’m weak. Someone else might say that if I truly cared for Hoshi, I’d give up everything for her in a heartbeat. And what would that show her?”

“That you loved her?”

“That I loved convenience more than keeping faith. If she saw that I could cut all ties to our family and clan so easily, how deeply could she trust me not to walk away from
her
without a second thought someday?”

I linked my arm through his and leaned against him. “You could never do anything like that, Aki. That’s why I like you best.”

He gave me a wistful smile. “Better than Kaya?”

Clearly and deliberately, I replied, “Yes, because I’d never offer to become a slave to help her. I wouldn’t have done that for anyone but you.”

I felt his body tense. “You shouldn’t have taken such a chance, Little Sister. Father was lashing out in all directions that night. He might have taken you at your word.”

“I wasn’t afraid to risk that for you, Aki. You don’t think I can be a hunter and face wolves, but I want you to know that I
can
be brave, for your sake.” I took a breath and added, “Wouldn’t you do the same for me?”

“For the bold girl who faced the wrath of the storm god himself? Of course!” My brother chuckled and tweaked my hair. “You made him stop blowing up a tempest and got him to
listen
. That was what helped him and me mend our quarrel.”

“
And
that’s what got him to stop talking about sending
you away,” I put in. I wanted him to keep that in mind when I made my proposal. I leaned against him. “I was brave for your sake, because I love you, Big Brother, and I hate to see you sad.”

“I don’t like seeing you sad, either, Himiko,” he replied affectionately. “And I’m grateful for the way you saved our family.”

“Good. Aki … I did something
really
important for you. Now I want you to do something for me.”

“Ah! So it’s time to pay my debt to you, is it?” My brother laughed. He must have thought I had something childish in mind. “All right, what’s it to be? I can go into the woods and find you a honeycomb as a treat. I can give you a ride on my back all the way around the village—no, all the way around the
fields!
I can—”

“Take me to the Shika,” I said.

“What did you say?”

“Oh, please, Big Brother, I know you can do it!” I clung to his arm so violently that I nearly sent the two of us toppling off the platform.

“Himiko, be careful!” Aki sprang up and hauled me away from danger. We stood swaying unsteadily on our porch. “Have you lost
all
sense?” he demanded.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. I only wanted to—”

“I’m not talking about that; I’m talking about what you just asked me. You were joking, weren’t you?”

“No, I wasn’t, Aki,” I said, my voice rising and the words coming from my mouth so fast that I had no time to think about exactly what I was saying. “I want you to take me—to
take both of us back to Kaya’s village! It’s not so far from here after all. You know the way, and I’ve proved that I can travel almost as fast as you—sometimes even faster! Oh, Big Brother, you
miss
Hoshi; I see it in your eyes every day! And I miss Kaya. She’s my only friend. None of the girls here likes me—not really. Suzu hates me, and Ume’s a nasty, scheming thing, and the rest of them—Agh! You’re smart, Aki. You can find a way for us to go visit the deer people without Father ever knowing about it, or even suspecting. Who cares what
he
thinks of them?”

“Himiko, I gave him my word—”

I was too caught up in my own desperation to let my brother speak. “You shouldn’t have to keep such a promise. Why should we be miserable just because Father has the wrong idea about Lady Ikumi and her clan? We know the truth! If you don’t do this—if
we
don’t find a way to be with the people who mean the most to us—what will our lives be like? Friendless! Loveless! Do you want to live that way? I don’t; I
won’t
!”

“Little Sister, please, lower your voice,” Aki said urgently. “This isn’t possible. I can’t go back to the Shika village, and even if I could, there’s no way I could take you with me. You have to accept that.”

“No,”
I retorted. “If I ‘accepted’ things so easily, I wouldn’t have said one word when you and Father were tangled in your quarrel. I would have stood by and let him throw you out of home, village, clan, and family! You wouldn’t be here now if not for me. You’d be—”

I stopped. A dire change had come over my brother’s
face. It wasn’t the warning look of one of Father’s outbursts, or even a stern scowl. Rather, it was the silent, swift, unstoppable closing of a door made of iron and stone.

“Is that why you helped me, Himiko? So that you’d have a debt to hold over my head? To force me to play this-for-that with you?”

“Aki, no, I never—!”

“Forgive me. What I owe you will remain unpaid forever. There’s no remedy that I can think of for my shame but silence.”

He placed a cold kiss on my brow, climbed down the ladder, and shoved it over so that I couldn’t follow him when he walked away. I called out after him, but my frantic cries were just one more cicada’s piping song. I fell to my knees, sobbing because I thought he’d left forever.

My fears were groundless. He returned later that night in Father’s company, before any of our other family members came home. I had laid out my bedroll, vainly trying to sleep, and heard them joking as they set the ladder back in place. I decided to keep quiet, hoping that everything would be healed by morning.

But the next day, Aki didn’t speak to me at all. When our eyes met, his gaze went vague, as though there were nothing at all to see in front of him. When I spoke to him, telling him I was sorry, he turned aside, brushing my voice away like a stray gnat. That night I tried to change things by asking him a direct question at dinner, with the whole family present. With a frosty glance that flashed at me and was gone before anyone else could notice, he made a loud
business of needing to leave the house to relieve himself. On his return, he started an earnest conversation with Father that allowed for no interruptions.

It was like that the following day as well, and the next, and the next, until I stopped pounding my fists against the wall he’d built between us and sank into the darkness of its icy shadow.

“I swear by the gods, Lady Yama, I don’t know what’s the matter with the child,” Mama said, fluttering one hand in my direction. We were seated on the beaten earth floor of the shaman’s house while the eyeless skulls of a dozen small creatures stared at us from the walls. “She scarcely eats. She’s the last one to get up in the morning and the first to go to bed at night. She sits by herself in the house doing
nothing
.”

“Is that so?” The shaman peered at me, then looked back at my mother. “And how do you find the time to accomplish
anything
if you’re always busy watching her do all that
nothing
?”

Mama looked indignant. “Don’t you think I can take care of my household duties and watch over my daughter at the same time? I’m telling you, she hasn’t left the house willingly since early summer, and I’m worried to death about it!”