“If choosing to believe that this is a dream makes it easier to accept where you are, then I will not stop you. But if you wish to see the truth…” Hana handed him her mother’s glasses. “Wear these.”
—
Hana had first visited the Whispering Temple when she was seven years old. Her grandmother had asked Toshio to let Hana spend the weekend with her, and they had stopped by the temple on the way to her grandmother’s home.
Hana climbed out of a small puddle in the middle of the grassy field and stood up. “Where is the temple, Sobo?”
Oshima Asami smiled down at her granddaughter. She took her glasses off and offered them to Hana. “Look again.”
Hana put the glasses on. A towering, ornate building of red wax rose in front of her. A perfectly aligned row of more than a hundred red-and-black torii gates led up to imposing carvedwax doors. The shape of the painted wooden gates reminded her of the kamidana her father kept at home. The building, however, was unlike anything she had ever seen. Spires reached for the sky from a large domed roof, and winged wax creatures with monstrous faces perched on arched buttresses. Some columns writhed and twisted like trees. It was as though the building had been melded from different places and times and left to grow as it pleased. Hana gasped. “It is beautiful.”
“It is.”
“Why are we here?” Hana said, unable to tear her eyes from the temple.
“I come here whenever I miss your mother.” Asami stroked Hana’s cheek. “You look so much like her.”
“Was she pretty?”
Asami nodded. “Your father fell in love with her as soon as she stepped into the temple on their wedding day. He could not hide how happy he was. Before that meeting, they had not even seen pictures of each other, and I imagine that he was very pleasantly surprised when he finally saw the face of the girl he was meant to marry.”
“Why do you come here when you miss her? Is this where my parents got married?”
“No. This is a different kind of temple. This is where all our prayers go.”
“How do prayers come here?”
“They are carried by smoke.” Asami dug through the woven bag slung across her chest and pulled out a small candle that had nearly burned to a stub. “This candle is near its end. This will probably be the last chance I get to light it. I wanted you to be able to hear your mother’s voice before it burns out.”
—
Keishin stepped inside the Whispering Temple, his sharp jaw slack. As large as the temple was on the outside, it was nothing compared to the cavernous hall that opened up within. Countless votive candles, cupped by tiny brass hands mounted along the wax walls, made the entire hall glow. A soft wind kissed Keishin’s cheek. In spite of the flames, the air inside the temple was pleasantly cool and swirled around the hall as it would in a meadow. Candles flickered in the breeze.
Hana walked up from behind him. “You do not need the glasses once you are inside.”
Keishin took the glasses off, bracing himself. Every second he spent with Hana ripped a stitch from the fabric of all he knew. It was not going to take much more to leave him utterly undone. “How is this real?”
“I sometimes find myself asking the same question when I see the things our clients bring from your world.”
“Clients?”
“The people who walk through a ramen restaurant’s door and find our pawnshop instead. They have the strangest things. Tiny buttons that play music in your ears, shiny—”
“Hold on.” His head pounded with every impossible thing he had crammed inside it since meeting Hana. “What are you saying? I was looking for the ramen restaurant when I found the pawnshop. Does that make me one of your clients?”
“I will explain everything later. But now we have to listen to my father’s prayer. We do not have much time. If the Shiikuin find out that he and the choice are missing—” Hana clamped her lips.
“The Shiikuin?” Keishin tried to remember the meaning of the word. “The Keepers? Like the caretakers of a zoo?”
“Later. I promise.” Hana set the candle she had taken fromthe kamidana on a pair of empty brass hands. A tiny flame flared up from the candle’s wick as though lit by an invisible match. Loud murmuring echoed through the hall.
“What is that?” Keishin strained to hear what the voices were saying. They talked over one another, making it impossible to tell where one word ended and another began.
“Every prayer every single person throughout history has made. When one candle whispers, the rest like to join in.” Hana brought her ear next to her father’s candle. “You need to listen closely if you want to hear what the candle has to say.”
Keishin leaned toward the candle, his face inches from Hana’s cheek. The candle’s flame danced to the rhythm of their breath.
Help me find her. Please.
