Spirit's Princess (19 page)

“Could I—?” I hesitated, then forced myself to take courage and ask: “Would you let me help you?”

The shaman tilted her head to one side, like a bird.
“That would make things go faster, and I think the gods would approve. Unless you lied to me last night, the spirits have spoken to you, and you certainly spoke to them clearly enough. ‘Go home, Emi,’ indeed!” When I gaped, she patted my arm. “Pull your jaw up, child, or a toad will leap into your mouth. There’s no magic at work. You talk in your sleep.”

“Oh.” I blushed.

“Your stepmother needed my help with a serious matter. What it’s about doesn’t concern you. I know it kept me from answering your question, but you’ve already waited nearly twelve years for the answer. How much difference does one more day make?”

“That depends on the day,” I replied.

Yama threw her head back and cackled. “That’s true, isn’t it? You’re a smart one, under all that gloom. Smart enough to learn many things, including patience. No one enters my house unless they
must
. I think they fear what they might find. When someone does come to me, seeking help, I give it to them immediately. Will you ask the spirits to send
them
home too, every time that happens?”

“No, Lady Yama,” I said, chastened. “I’ll wait as long as it takes, and I won’t make a sound.”

She nodded approval. “You’ll wait, you’ll be quiet, and you won’t go bearing tales about anything you see here. If someone needs my help, it’s no one else’s business except for the spirits themselves.” She made a wry face and added, “Of course, if even one pair of eyes catches sight of someone entering my house, the whole clan will soon be gabbling
and guessing about what brought him to me. Your stepmother is lucky: she can excuse her visit by saying she only came to deliver your bedroll.”

“Do you think the people are talking about me being here?” I asked.

The shaman clicked her tongue. “Aren’t you a little young to care about village rumors?”

“Father isn’t.”

“That father of yours …” Yama muttered something under her breath. “A fine leader, a good man at heart, a much better chief than his predecessor, but—” She sucked on her teeth. “Don’t worry about him, Himiko. He’s more than a match for any gossip, and the people know it.”

“I just don’t want them pitying me.”

“Then let’s arrange things so they can’t, eh? Let’s see to it that they don’t dare.” She winked. “You said you’d help me with my spells. True?”

“Yes, Lady Yama. Anything to make things heal faster between Aki and me.”

“Well, helping me makes you my apprentice, and who’s going to be fool enough to get on the bad side of a future shaman?”

“Your apprentice?” I hadn’t felt happiness for such a long time that the sensation was like a blow. “Really?” I was overwhelmed with excitement, but excitement marred by doubts.
Can I do this? What if I make mistakes? Lady Yama thinks I’m smart, but what if I’m not smart enough? What if I harm instead of help? What if I offend the gods?

“Yes, child, my apprentice, but”—she dropped her voice to a comical whisper—“we won’t use that word. Your father
doesn’t have pleasant memories of women who work magic. If he thought that I was training you to follow me as the Matsu clan’s shaman—” She rolled her eyes in mock terror but spoke in earnest.

“Lady Yama, if you don’t call me your apprentice because of Father, how will the villagers know I’m going to be—?”

“You’re not going to be
anything
if you don’t get out of bed,” the shaman snapped. “Perhaps I ought to be glad to hear you talk about the future instead of lying there like a dead fish, but right now it’s just annoying. We have many steps ahead of us, Himiko, many paths to explore, and I have many,
many
things to teach you before you can do anything useful when we serve the gods. But we’re not going to accomplish the smallest bit of that on an empty stomach. Get up, get up! Today I’ll show you how to cook our meals, tomorrow you’ll show me you’ve learned that lesson, and in the meanwhile, we’ve got to help our people with the crops or there won’t
be
anything to cook at all!
Go!
”

I scrambled to get dressed while Yama calmly went about making breakfast for us. I watched her carefully, in case the shaman had some special trick for making rice porridge with the spirits’ help. I was disappointed when she followed the same method Mama and my stepmothers used.

“I could have done that,” I told her. “I can make dinner too. Mama taught me.”

“You haven’t been my apprentice for half a day and already you’re doing badly at your lessons,” Yama retorted.

“What lessons? You wanted to show me how to cook, but it’s something I already know.”

“I
wanted
to show you how to pay attention, to observe, and to listen to me.” She handed me a full bowl. “So much for that. We’ll try it again tomorrow.”

I expected to be punished for my unintended impudence, but Yama made no further mention of it. Instead of a scolding or resentful silence, she chattered pleasantly about the day’s work ahead, the new babies she’d delivered, her hopes for a good harvest, and her concerns about the health of one of our older men. Her cheerfulness spread to me. I was no longer embarrassed by my misstep, and I didn’t feel like my accidental error made me a complete failure in her eyes. Yet though she said no more about it, I knew I’d remember never to make the same blunder again.

Just before we set foot out of her house, I had a sudden misgiving. “Lady Yama? How do you think I should behave when we’re working in the fields?”

“
That’s
an odd question. Do you want me to count it as one of the three I permitted you?” she teased. “Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten that I still owe you an answer to the first one. You’ll have that tonight, provided you don’t fall asleep too soon.”

I fidgeted, favoring my bad leg. “I
am
worried,” I said. “Mama’s going to be out in the paddies with everyone else. She’ll see me!”

“I should hope so! See you and talk to you and work beside you and flutter and fuss all around you too. Nothing new there.”

“But she’ll see that I’m—that I’m better. She’ll want to take me home. What should I do? Should I pretend I’m still
sad? Should I act as if I don’t see her, or anyone else? Should I—?”

“Should I toss you in the stream until I wash all that nonsense out of your head, silly child?” Yama exclaimed. “You’re not going home today. We have too much to do before I’d even
consider
sending you back.”

I breathed a sigh a relief. “Thank you, Lady Yama.”

We were late reaching the fields. Some villagers were tending the rice, others were seeing to the yams and other vegetables, and a few were hard at work repairing broken tools. Unlike the busy planting season of springtime, it took fewer people to work the crops at that point in the summer. Someone in the rice paddies began to sing a comical song about an old man and a lizard, and soon everyone joined in. I heard Mama’s high, sweet voice rise above the rest and saw her working beside Suzu’s mother. Emi and Yukari weren’t there—probably in a different field or taking care of chores at home. I couldn’t see Father or my brothers, either. Masa would be at the forge, of course, and the rest of them might be hunting. I wished them well but thanked the spirits for their absence. The thought of how they might react on seeing me made my stomach burn.

I needn’t have worried. Mama saw me and waved, but when I went into the flooded paddy to join her, she only asked, “Did you sleep well, Himiko?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“And you’ve eaten?”

“Yes, Mama. Lady Yama’s rice porridge isn’t as good as yours.”

“That’s all right; you’ll get used to it.” She bent back to her work.

Minnows and small frogs swam through the sparkling water where the rice grew. I thought I spied an early dragonfly, hovering on rainbow wings above the nodding stalks of grain. Mama and I moved through the field without speaking to one another, though every time she glanced my way I saw a sad smile on her lips.

Yama stayed out of the water. As always, she took a position on higher ground, where she’d be visible to as many people as possible, and began to summon the spirits to make our fields fertile and our harvest plentiful. First she clapped her hands, then turned her face to the sun, invoking the glorious goddess of warmth and daylight. A flock of cranes flew across the heavens, and she shouted for the Matsu to look up and behold what a good omen we’d received. My heart beat faster at this proof of our shaman’s favor with the spirits: a crane had brought the first grains of rice to our land from some mysterious country across a great stretch of wild water, though some said it had been a heron. At certain times of the year, Yama would clothe herself in a cape and headdress of crane feathers and perform a ritual dance to call upon and honor the benevolent crane spirit.

We worked until the sun was directly overhead and it was wise to escape her power. Mama climbed out of the paddy and turned homeward. Without thinking, I began to trail after her, but we hadn’t gone more than twenty steps before she turned and said, “Go back to Lady Yama, Himiko. Tell her Emi is in the woods today, gathering berries as a gift
to thank her for her help.” She hadn’t said outright that I wasn’t supposed to go with her any farther, but she managed to make that message clear to me.

She walked on toward our house, and I went back to give Yama her message. The shaman was kneeling in the shade of a small stand of pines, examining the bronze mirror she wore around her neck along with many strands of beads. She greeted me with, “I thought you didn’t want to go home today.”

“I don’t,” I replied, taking a place beside her. “I didn’t. It was an accident. Mama says to tell you Emi’s going to bring you some berries today.”

“Ah, that will be nice! And someone else has promised me a fat chunk of honeycomb, if the bees cooperate.” She smacked her lips, then gave me a second look. “What’s this? You’re drooping like a heat-struck flower. You didn’t wear such a melancholy face when your mother brought you to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing.” I shrugged and tried to force a smile, but it was a weak one.

“Himiko, digging answers out of you is like digging kernels out of hazelnuts. I can hit the hazelnut with a rock, but I don’t think that’s the way to handle you. From now on, you’ll tell me what I want to know without this back-and-forth dance. I’m going to find out the truth eventually, so what’s the point of delaying it?”

“It’s silly, that’s all.”

“
What
did I just say? How do you expect me to teach you anything if you won’t learn to listen?” She sounded in no mood for anything but my obedience.

She learned at once that I was in no mood to give it. “If I wanted to tell you what’s bothering me, I
would
,” I said sharply. “Why won’t you let
me
be the one to decide when or if I talk about it? That day, when I went by myself to see the cherry trees, you were the one who told me to act for myself. If that makes me unfit to be your apprentice, send me home now.”

Yama’s eyes opened wider at my outburst. “That’s a good idea,” she said. She took the gleaming mirror from around her neck and gave it to me. “Go home and put this on the shelf, in the corner farthest away from our rice bowls. Then fill the biggest jar in the house with fresh, lively water. Oh, and while you’re there, see if we cleared aside our bedrolls. We were in such a hurry this morning, we might’ve forgotten to do it.”

I leaned back on my heels. “You’re not angry at me for saying all that?”

“If you’re afraid of making me angry, think
before
you speak,” she replied amiably. “But, no, I’m not. You’ve just shown me that you
can
listen to me. Even better, you can remember! Now go.”

I spent the rest of that day in Yama’s house. The errands she’d given me weren’t difficult, not even filling the big water jar, which stood half as tall as me. I wasted some time trying to wrestle it toward the door before realizing that using a smaller jar to fill it little by little would be easier, even if I did have to go back and forth to the village well many times.
I wonder what she meant by “lively” water
, I thought as I poured in the last drop.
There are always lots of frogs in the well
. They’re
lively enough! Should I have plopped a few of them in?
I giggled, imagining the shaman looking into her cup and seeing two tiny eyes looking back.

My work was interrupted once by a little boy who came by with the honeycomb his father had promised the shaman, and again when Emi arrived with a wooden tray piled high with berries. “Oh, Himiko, you’re smiling again; wonderful!” she exclaimed, gave me a quick hug, and dashed out before I could respond.

Yama came home shortly after my stepmother’s departure. As she surveyed the house, which I’d tidied without disturbing her things, I was delighted to see approval spread across her face. It grew even stronger when she asked me how I’d managed to fill the big water jar and I described my method. She dipped a cup inside and took a sip. Her look of satisfaction faded. “This water’s dead.”

“I’m sorry, Lady Yama. Next time I’ll remember the frogs.”

As soon as she stopped gawking at me as if I’d turned into a frog myself, the misunderstanding came out. “It’s a good thing that this village has a well, even though we’ve got a fine stream running nearby,” she said. “Streams can run dry, but wells hold deep water and last longer. A well inside the wall also lightens the burden of having to carry jars so far.” She sighed. “But well water is lazy. It goes nowhere, just lies there like a pregnant sow. When we make magic, Himiko, the ingredients we select to attract the spirits must
all
be pleasing to them, even the water.”

I thought this over. “We need
lively
water—water that rushes and swirls and tumbles along—because the spirits rejoice in
life
. Am I right, Lady Yama?”

She patted my head. “Mostly. There are some spirits that—Well, let’s not talk about them now. I’d rather they didn’t mistake our chat for an invitation.” She shivered.