Late: the sun hung low over the west. She hid in a hollowed scoop of rock beside the river, under earth and gnarled roots and a twisted apricot tree that rose like a curling hand into the sky.
“Hello?” A voice came through the dream, pulled her back to earth. An old farmer and her husband.
“Heavens, it’s another one.”
“Kouzeon be merciful,” the man prayed.
The woman said, “She’s still alive.”
They dropped their bundled wood, started climbing down the rocky bank toward her. They called out, but she was barely aware. “Hey! Hey, girl! Hang on!”
She felt the man’s arms lift her. up.No’in, she thought. She struggled, tried to speak:
“What happened to the monks?”
“Dead,” the old woman said. “They’re all dead.”
Rui sank into the blackness once again.
Once, in her old life, she went to no’in houses where children lived, and they danced at her approach. She was an orphan, raised by nuns. She knew what it was to be alone.
Once, in her old life, she told the children stories. They laughed. They sang, with her. Scuffed toes, dirty cheeks.
Once, she’d loved those stories.
Now, walking the long road to Tose, she wondered why.
They were stories of comedy and adventure, the rising of beasts and heroes, of the fight for peace.What peace?she wondered. There was a god in her heart who heard everything she said. A god who saw in all directions.
A god who didn’t answer.
Stories tell us something bigger is possible, she thought. Something powerful, and tremendous as love. Those stories, they showed that such things could happen, in this soul-eating world, even for no’in. Even for those who felt like nothing in their lives was right. Even for those who were lost.
And those who were lost still.
This is the story of your life, Rui Misosazai, her teacher once had said. It’s up to you to live it. There was a god in her heart who saw every variation, a god of the barrier that divided worlds, or brought them together. A god that saw she had a story yet to tell.
She’d never told her story, of being found in Azemichi town. The story of how she was saved. Of the only survivors. Of her and Sen.
As she walked the narrow road, fields expanding before her, she thought, maybe there will be a new ending. Maybe there is a way.
There was a god in her heart who told her,I have a use for you.
There was a god who said,You must always choose.
Well, I choose life, she’d told them, in anger and frustration, and in fear. I have a curse in my heart just as powerful as any god. It will never go away.
You have a role to play, the god had said.This isn’t over yet.
She walked the path until it met the larger road into Kiseda. She saw the smoke from cooking fires rising dimly overhead. She saw assorted flags, Gensei, Zusho, Tokeishi, Yamana, and Andachi, flying high.
The trees above Kiseda had begun to bloom already, unfolding from their winter sleep. What was it she felt? A shifting in the world. A moment where everything felt at rest.
She once sat at the edge of a pond in the mountains, water so still it seemed to be outside of time, unmoving: a door into another kind of world. A place where her family could speak. Could tell her they were there.
She once sat at the edge of the pond, and dreamed. Dreamed that she would find happiness, in her heart. A way, a place, that told her she was loved. But the world had other plans. It set her on this path. She could not see which direction it would go.
But she was still here.
