Hana drew a heavy breath.
“I win,” Keishin said.
“My father is missing,” Hana said, allowing the words to slip from her tongue before she could change her mind.
“What?”
“I thought that he might have heard the intruder and chased him outside. But now…” She squeezed the coin. “I think that I was mistaken.”
“Mistaken? How?”
Hana fixed her eyes on the gold-rimmed glasses and the hand-painted playing card on the table. “I suspect that my father set all of this up to look like a theft.”
“You think that your father did this on purpose?” Keishin’s eyes flew around the room. “Why?”
“Because of these.” Hana picked up her mother’s glasses andToshio’s playing card. “And a childhood spent searching for tea boxes.”
—
Eleven years ago, when Hana turned ten, the tea boxes her father hid became harder to find. She had spent the morning searching for one but had nothing to show for it except the sweat dripping down her neck. Toshio’s clues had sent her up and down the stairs, in and out of her bedroom, and through the kitchen thrice. The latest led her to their dining table. She scanned the deck of playing cards laid on it.
Her father’s Hanafuda deck was a set of forty-eight hand-painted cards that were divided into the twelve months of the year. Each month was a four-card suit that featured a unique flower in its design. When arranged in a row and in the right order, the four cards formed a panoramic scene. Her father seldom played with the cards, using them instead to teach Hana sleight of hand. He made cards disappear from his hand and reappear behind Hana’s ear or in her pockets. The tricks, he said, honed two of the most important skills of a pawnbroker: misdirection and manipulation.
Hana carefully looked through each row of cards. January was a crane among pines, February a nightingale in the midst of plum trees. March. April. May. June. July. August. September. October. November. December. Every month appeared as it was supposed to be. She looked through the cards again and stopped at August. Hana closed her eyes, trying to recall what the scene was supposed to look like. Susuki ni tsuki—kari.Moon over Pampas Grass—Wild Geese.Hana stared at the cards and caught the mistake. The geese card that was meant to come after the moon now appeared before it. Hana smirked, creasing a dimple on her left cheek. This was her father’s favorite type ofclue, subtle and small. If only she knew what it meant. She picked up the two cards and held them in front of her.
Hana studied the cards, making two lists in her mind: what she knew and what she didn’t. August, she thought, was the month of falling leaves and changing seasons. In the traditional calendar, it was also the month for Tsukimi, the festival for viewing the autumn moon. Hana ran her thumb over the full moon on the first card and checked the time. It was only a few hours until sunset, and she doubted her father would let the treasure hunt run for so long. Dinner to him was as sacred as the sake he drank before bed. But she also knew that the cards’ misplacement in the row was not an accident. Toshio had wanted her to notice the moon for a reason, and Hana could think of only one place he intended the clue to direct her to. With a well-rehearsed flick of her wrist and a grin, she made the cards vanish up her sleeve.
At this time of day, the pond in the middle of their courtyard garden reflected the blue sky. On cloudless nights, it revealed its true purpose. Hana made her way to the pond, thinking about how generations of her family had followed the same pebbled path. She stood at the edge of the pond and watched the sun sparkle inside it. Though pretty, it was not half as beautiful as the visitor who swam in its water at night. The pond existed to catch the moon, and when the moon was full it filled the pond to its brim.
Hana pulled out the moon and geese cards from her sleeve, wondering what she was supposed to do next. On the table, the geese had been on the left side of the moon, but now Hana held them in their proper place on the right. She walked over to the right of the pond and knelt on the grass. The corner of a wooden box stuck out from behind a bush. Hana grabbed it,grinning wide. She pulled off the box’s lid and looked inside. It was empty. Her father usually packed the box with different kinds of sweets, and this was the first time he had not put anything inside it. She wondered if he had simply forgotten to fill it or if it was another clue.
Toshio walked up from behind her. “Have you found it?”
“Yes, Otou-san. But it is…”
“Empty? You found the wrong box.” Toshio strode to the left of the pond and retrieved a box from behind a rock. He opened it, revealing little wrapped bars ofyokan,sweet red bean–flavored jellies Hana loved having with her tea. “This is the correct one.”
“But the geese card is supposed to be on the right side of the moon.”
“Not in this pond.” He took the cards from Hana and held them over the pond.
Hana looked at the reflection and saw where she had gone wrong. In the water, right was left, and left was right. She sighed, dropping her shoulders.
Toshio held out the box of sweets to her. “Here.”
“But I failed. I did not find it.”
Toshio smiled and unwrapped a sweet for Hana. “This time, it found you.”
“Thank you, Otou-san.” Hana took the sweet and popped it into her mouth. A fat raindrop splattered on her forehead.
Toshio looked up at the darkening sky. A flash of lightning broke through a gray cloud. Toshio’s smile slipped from his face. “Hurry inside, Hana. It is about to rain.”
Chapter Eleven
The God on the Shelf
Droplets condensed on the dark brown bottle of ice-cold beer. Keishin wiped them away with his thumb before tipping the bottle into his glass. The golden liquid burbled and the sound blended into the restaurant’s hum. Conversation, punctuated by bursts of laughter, added to the melody of clinking plates and silverware inside the cramped Indonesian restaurant. Keishin sipped his beer, determined to enjoy it even if it wasn’t real: The imaginary Ramesh who lived in the back of his mind always chose this restaurant for their conversations.
