“Hush. Hush.” Hana reached for the latch on the cage’s door.
“Don’t.” Toshio grabbed her wrist.
“But none of the birds have ever behaved this way. Is it hurt? Maybe I can try to calm—”
“No.”
The bird furiously pecked at the cage, rattling its bars.
“Never take a bird from its cage. You know this.”
“I will be careful. It won’t escape.”
Toshio shook his head. “That is what I said before a bird flew out of my hands when I was a boy.”
“You…” Hana’s mouth went dry. “You lost a bird?”
“My father caught it before it reached the door. If he hadn’t—” He closed his eyes, his bottom lip trembling.
“What would have happened, Otou-san?” Hana leaned closer, lowering her voice.
“It would have flown back to the moment it was made.”
“Flown back?” Hana’s eyes grew large. “To the past?”
Toshio nodded. “A bird that has tasted freedom would do anything to keep from ever being trapped again. It would reset time itself to change its fate.”
“But that would mean that…”
“Everything on the other side of the door would change. Small things. Big things. Forgotten stories would be written, lost lovers found. The path not taken and all its branching roads would lead the choice’s owner to a whole other life.”
“Would it be better or worse than the life they had before?” Hana asked.
Toshio glared at her. “Does it matter? Have I not taught you anything? If you lose a bird, what kind of life your client leads is the least of your worries.” He looked away, shaking his head. “Go. Take the cage to the vault.”
“Me?” Hana jerked her head back.
“Tomorrow, this pawnshop will be your responsibility. You may as well start now.”
Hana nodded and carried the cage over to the bookcase that hid the entrance to the vault. She reached for the notch at its side.
“Hana?”
Hana turned. “Yes, Otou-san?”
“The new moon is in three days.” Toshio lowered his voice. “All must be in order when the Shiikuin come to collect the birds.”
Hana’s fingers froze around the edge of the bookcase. Shiikuin was not a name either of them often said out loud. And though her father had barely whispered it, it was enough to corrupt the air with the memory of rot that filled their house whenever the Shiikuin came by. The layers of their kimonos and their pale white Noh masks did not conceal the stench of rusting metal and decaying flesh from their patchwork bodies. Hana clamped her mouth, trying not to retch.
“Are you all right?” Toshio asked.
Hana nodded, vomit and a realization rising up her throat. It fell to her, as the pawnshop’s new owner, to oversee the turnover of the pawned choices to the Shiikuin. She had grown up watching their silent visits from the top of the stairs, never daring to come any closer. Once, she had made the mistake ofallowing her gaze to linger over a Shiikuin’s mask a second too long. It had stared back at her with a hard, carved smile. Wells of darkness where there might have once been eyes swallowed her whole. “I…I will have everything ready. The records, the tags, the cages—”
“Yourself.” Toshio squeezed her shoulder.
“Yes, Otou-san.” Hana bowed and stepped aside as the bookcase swung open. The saddest of songs invited her in. Hana navigated her way through the rows of cages, searching for an empty hook from which to hang Takeda Izumi’s choice.
Chapter Seven
