By climbing the hill above the village, it was possible to see the entire forest: an ocean of trees that seemed to have no end. The forest was a familiar sight to Touko, who had lived in the village all her life.
All those trees covered the earth like the dirt of a burial mound, only vibrant and alive. Trees grew everywhere, in every valley and on every mountainside. The village was like an isolated island in a sea of trees. People went about their business in ones and twos, disturbing the trees no more than a raindrop would disturb the surface of a lake.
“Your master is back there,” Touko said to the dog padding along at her side. She pointed into the gloomy forest. The gray-furred dog, Kanata, planted two legs out in front of him and indulged in a nice long stretch. A passing breeze made his ear twitch.
The village was higher up, clinging to a steep mountain slope, so the area around it was exceptionally hilly. Those hills served as a sort of protective fence for the village. A wide variety of plants grew wild in the hills as well. The villagers used one of the most common trees to make paper.
The outskirts of the village were at the base of a large hill. Beyond that boundary line was the forest, where the dog’s fallen master lay dead. He’d saved Touko from the Fire Fiend, even though he’d had no reason to. He didn’t know her at all.
None of the villagers knew the Fire Hunter, either, or where he’d come from, but that didn’t prevent them from showing common courtesy to his body. They made a coffin for him, laced it with a potion that would ward away Fire Fiends, and buried it.
Every day, Touko would visit the Fire Hunter’s grave, accompanied by his dog. The bereaved Kanata was always with Touko and would not be separated from her. The dog resisted being touched, even by her. When she tried to treat the dog’s wounds, he nipped at her, and when other people tried to pet the dog, he threatened to bite.
Touko couldn’t work in the fields with the other kids because of the dog. That put her in something of a bind. Everyone in the village had to work, and that included the children.
Touko took a rope from inside the house. She tied up the dog, then went outside to gather chestnuts. She never went very far from the house, so that the dog could always see her.
That seemed to work well, but Touko had more trouble when she tried going to the fields to work. When they were around halfway there, the dog slipped free of his rope and chased her down, staying--as he always had--at her side. She kept trying to go to the fields to work day after day, but Kanata always slipped free or bit through the rope that kept him away from her. The rope that Touko used to tie him up at the house became so worn and uneven that she was scolded by men and women in the village for ruining it.
And so it was that wherever Touko went, Kanata went with her. That was just the way things were.
The dog’s gray fur was thick. His nose was keen, and his sharp ears reacted to every sound. He seemed clever, but also strangely haunted. Even after the wounds he’d received from the Fire Fiend healed, the dog followed after Touko like a little lost child.
Once, Touko harvested flowers atop one of the high hills outside the village. She was descending the path from the hilltop with Kanata at her side. On the opposite side of the village’s gate, there was a small wayside shrine, and beyond that was the cemetery. A white-painted fence as tall as a full-grown adult separated the cemetery from the forest like a boundary between two worlds.
Kanata’s grave was the fifth in his row. Touko came to put flowers on it, and the dog sat down as if all his joints hurt and stared at the ground. His ears went flat to his head, then drooped.
Touko had never spent any time in the cemetery before this. It was strange, being in the same place where dead people were.
It was forbidden to jump over the fence and into the dark forest; entering the forest at all was prohibited. Touko had broken that prohibition. She was extremely fortunate that Kanata the Fire Hunter had saved her. Now he lay buried in earth, lost to the world.
The wayside shrine that marked the cemetery was decorated with scraps of colored paper of various designs. The shrine was sacred to the village’s guardian deity.
Touko felt eyes on her and turned toward the shrine. A teeny-tiny child stood concealed there. Their hair was worn like young child’s, loose and bowl-shaped around the head. The child’s hair and clothes were both pure white like fresh-fallen snow. Only the eyes were different: their color was a pale spring green.
This child was not one of the village children. They were the guardian god of the shrine, descended from a minor offshoot family of the goddess that was responsible for the entire nation.
“Great Goddess Warashi,” Touko said with a little bow. “Please forgive my intrusion.”
The goddess remained silent--perhaps she couldn’t speak--and stared at Touko and the dog. A short time later, the goddess melted into the shadows that the shrine cast upon the ground.
A stiff breeze blew over the hill. It was sunset. The wind and the sight of the god made Touko jumpy; she sprang to her feet as quickly as if she’d been struck and wanted to flee an attack. She ran down the hill at top speed all the way home.
All of the village houses were built on the western slope of the hill, so Touko was running uphill the whole way. The path that led from the cemetery to the village houses crossed a river that was bounded by an ancient bridge. The river water was always clear and clean, but very cold. Six warehouses where paper was made were lined up very close to the shore. The path from the warehouses to the village’s homes was lined thickly with paper mulberry trees.
“I’m home!” Touko called out. She opened the door and found her aunt preparing dinner with Rin. The inside of the house smelled of fish soup, salt, and boiling vegetables.
The floor of the entryway was nothing but packed dirt; the door was made of thin wood. The kitchen had a wood floor that was slightly raised up on more planking; this was where the family prepared food, ate and slept. Egg-shaped lanterns hung from the ceiling, all brightly lit. Every house in the village was similar to Touko’s, and they’d all been built at roughly the same time.
Touko’s aunt and Rin were busy laying out chopsticks and bowls of cut-up cooked vegetables on the small dining table and didn’t notice Touko’s return right away. Touko’s grandmother sat in a corner in the shadows, huddled in on herself like she was trying to avoid the lantern light.
“Hmph.” Rin noticed Touko, then thrust an old pan with a hole in the bottom at her. It was full of cold rice porridge. “Here’s the dog’s dinner.”
Touko accepted the pot. Rin pointed to a place on the dirt floor of the entryway, indicating the location where she wanted the dog to eat. She did this frequently, so Touko understood what she meant without her having to speak.
Lately, Touko’s aunt and Rin pulled sour expressions whenever Touko came home. They understood that there was no way to separate the dog from her, so they’d begrudgingly granted the poor creature a corner of the house on the dirt floor to live on.
Kanata voiced no complaint. He found his new home inside to be quite comfortable. There was fresh straw put down in his corner from time to time, and he liked to sit there and watch over Touko until she was ready to leave.
Touko shut the door of the house, then fed Kanata his meal. He wasn’t very hungry; he usually caught plenty of mice and voles to eat on his way to visiting his master’s grave every day.
Touko and her family ate their dinner quietly. The sound of Kanata standing up in his corner was louder than they were. Sometimes, one or the other of them would offer the dog scraps from the table. He gobbled them up eagerly enough, staying below them on the dirt floor.
Rin finished eating first. She got to her feet with a loud clatter, dropping her utensils on her plate. She was a small, thin woman, almost wasted, but her movements were always big and clumsy. She typically wore her hair tied back, just like Touko did, and the way she moved made her hair look like an animal’s tail.
Touko’s aunt finished eating next and set her chopsticks down neatly. She whispered to Touko’s grandmother while the latter took small bites of food, appearing troubled.
Touko’s grandmother lingered over her soup. When about half of it was left, she addressed Touko. “You know that dog will need to go home sooner or later.”
Those words, spoken in the half-darkness, stunned Touko into dropping her bowl on the table. Her grandmother sounded rehearsed, like she’d been thinking of broaching the topic of the dog for quite some time.
“But are his wounds really healed already, grandmother?” Touko asked. “It’s so hard to tell.”
Her grandmother blinked rapidly and frowned. The skin around her eyes was layered with wrinkles. Her mouth was open in confusion or astonishment, revealing a colorless tongue. While Touko had been careful not to oppose or deny her grandmother’s observation, she hadn’t said that she would take the dog home, either. Rin’s sharp-eyed glance fell on Touko from the corner of the room.
“The dog doesn’t belong to us,” Touko’s grandmother said. “Neither does the scythe or the Protector Stone. We must return them. You understand that, don’t you?”
The Protector Stone had been found among the Fire Hunter’s possessions after his body was brought back for burial. It was about the size of Touko’s palm. Everyone who dared to leave the village carried a stone much like this one with them at all times. These stones were granted to travelers by their local guardian gods. The stones usually came from the inner courtyard of a shrine.
The smooth Protector Stone that the Fire Hunter had carried with him was different from the ones that Fire Hunters usually received from the goddess that protected the country. There was a name carved in it--probably the name of another god--but Touko had never heard the god’s name before.
There was a small family shrine in the kitchen. Touko glanced over her grandmother’s shoulder to look at it. The Fire Hunter’s scythe was there, the blade wrapped in paper that had been blessed. The scythe was shaped like a new moon. The blade was undamaged and perfectly curved. The hilt was wrapped with rough cloth that retained fingerprints. The cloth was also spattered with blood.
Touko had expected to find a leather sheath for the scythe somewhere, but there hadn’t been one near the Fire Hunter’s body. She assumed that the Fire Hunter carried it bare, with his hand on the hilt. Or perhaps he’d lost the sheath. The most skillful paper-maker in the village had provided the paper that now covered the blade. Touko could still imagine what it looked like uncovered, the golden blade flashing through the darkness of the woods.
“We should take that to the factory,” Touko’s grandmother said, breaking the long silence. She was gesturing to the Protector Stone. She’d been ill-tempered for years and her constant frowns lined her face, making it so that she little resembled her daughter, Touko’s mother. Her thick and drooping eyelids kept her eyes half-shut most of the time. Though obviously old, her mind was as sharp as a tack.
“That stone wasn’t carved by hand,” Touko’s grandmother continued. “It must have been manufactured. The factory in the capital might be able to understand what it is and how it was made. Other Fire Hunters live in the capital, too. You should go there, Touko, and return both the stone and the dog.”
The rest of dinner passed without further incident or much by way of conversation. Everyone ate, and then Touko’s grandmother prepared to take her evening medicine.
Touko’s hand was awkward as it manipulated her chopsticks. She swallowed heavily, then stared at Kanata where he sat in the corner. He scratched his ear with his hind leg, yawned, then curled himself into a ball on his makeshift dog bed in the corner.
“So, Touko. When are you going to the capital?” Touko’s grandmother asked.
Touko caught and held her grandmother’s gaze. They’d come to live in the house at around the same time, and Touko’s grandmother was always making comments and commands that made Touko feel uncomfortable or angry.
“Have you been working hard, now, or being lazy?”
“You haven’t been getting in anyone’s way in town, have you?”
Touko was used to her grandmother’s stare, now—and her criticism. Her grandmother’s eyes were always alarmingly bloodshot. The concentrated weight of that stare made Touko feel like a burden on the family.
If Touko told her grandmother that she would go to the capital soon, her grandmother wouldn’t believe her. She didn’t want to go.
Rin rose from her seat and placed her empty bowl in the sink, then shuffled into the living room as if she was having difficulty walking. Her thin eyebrows slanted upward.
“Well, Touko?” Rin asked. Her voice was sharp and had an edge of cruelty in it.
No child born in the village had ever been to the capital. Touko had heard that it was a place of industry, where the buildings and factories were huge, and where so many people lived that it would be impossible to count them all. Their village was near the forest, and all the places nearby were small towns and villages just like theirs. The way of life in the city was far different. Touko couldn’t even imagine the scale of the wealth that a city would have compared to her home.
Touko didn’t answer Rin's question, or her grandmother’s. Her eyes darted between them in confusion. It seemed that they’d both decided for her, and she had no choice but to do as her grandmother said.
Sitting seiza, Touko adjusted her posture and tried to get a smoother grip on her chopsticks. “But I can’t go,” she said. “How could I?”
That Fire Hunter in the woods had saved her life, but Touko was still a child. If she went to the capital now—alone—there was no guarantee that she would make it there safely. She might never return home again. Fire Fiends haunted the dark woods. Even full-grown adults didn’t go to the capital alone.
Fire Hunters tracked and killed the Fire Fiends in the woods, of course, so it might be possible for Touko to travel to the city without being attacked again. But the Tree People were always watching over the forest, and they weren’t exactly friendly.
“Touko.” Her grandmother’s voice was as direct and barbed as a whip. Even Kanata, who was curled around himself and dozing, reacted to her tone by twitching his ears. “Fire Hunters are precious to society. Their work is precious.” Touko had heard the coming admonition about Fire Hunters a dozen times before and braced herself for a lecture. “In the old days, we had no fire. People like me—blind from birth--were trained to work in the dark, passing under the mountains. It’s only been about sixty years since people were able to crawl out of the dark and make villages inside the barrier.
“The Fire Hunters challenged the forest. With eyes wide open, fully aware of the risks, they cultivated the land. They fight the Fire Fiends back from the barrier. It is only because of them that we enjoy our rice around this table in the evenings. Your life, Touko, is full of wonder and visual splendor—you can see the river, take its fish, run through the grass, and pass by birds and insects. Those of us born before the barrier had no such riches. The reason you are able to live in this way is entirely thanks to the Fire Hunters, who take such risks to bring us villagers fire."
Touko looked down at her knees, silent. Her grandmother had told her all this so many times before. In her grandmother’s youth, there had been no Fire Hunters. People couldn’t risk living above the ground, so they hid in caves underground to protect them from the Fire Fiends.
That was no kind of life: skulking in ruins, moving slowly from place to place, never making noise, hardly daring to breathe. Fences and tall walls proved ineffective against the Fire Fiends. So did traps. They took the form of great blackened beasts. No weapon save for the Fire Hunters’ sickles could kill them. Other things might harm them, but there was only one way for a Fire Fiend to truly be defeated.
Fear of the Fire Fiends drove survivors deeper underground. Before the Fire Hunters came, there was no other way for them to be safe.
Now, the nation was at peace and the villages were defended by their protector gods. The god Warashi, whom Touko had seen, was one such protector god. Fire Hunters roamed the woods, keeping watch over the villages. Farmers tilled fields and removed stones from the soil, making more habitable land. Rivers formed natural barriers. Taken together, all of these factors helped defend people against the threat of the Fire Fiends.
“We have security now thanks to our protector god and the Fire Hunters,” Touko’s grandmother said. “They hunt down the monstrous Fire Fiends before they attack. You know this, Touko; a Fire Hunter saved you. That dog assisted the Fire Hunter in his work—it’s specially trained. We have no choice but to return the dog and the scythe. What if the Fire Hunter had a family? Would you really deprive them of a last memento of the man they lost? To say nothing of the dog.”
Touko’s grandmother had few teeth left, so she wasn’t always easy to understand. It was a good thing she repeated herself a lot. Her voice crept along the floorboards and up to the ceiling, filling the house with unpleasant croaking.
“There should be a collection cart coming to the village soon,” Touko’s grandmother said. “They always take away the highest-quality paper to the capital. They shouldn’t mind the addition of a girl and a dog on their journey. You live in the village and can tell them all about how we make paper.”
Touko’s grandmother nodded to herself. Her hands were restless; she stirred her medicine in its jar with one hand and poured in hot water with the other. Rin went back to the kitchen and brought over a teapot full of hot water, in case there was a need for more. The sickly-sweet smell of the medicine wafted through the kitchen.
Touko should have been used to the strange odor of the medicine—mostly sweet, but with something cloying and sharp underneath.
“Well, if Touko can’t go,” Rin said in her shrill voice, “why don’t I go instead?”
“Don’t be foolish,” Touko’s grandmother said. “Touko must go. Anyone else would get their heads bitten off by the dog.”
Rin’s presence might be missed more than Touko’s. She helped prepare grandmother’s food and medicine, and was at the house frequently.
Rin assumed her accustomed place heavily and glared at Touko across the table. Like many women in the village, Rin’s face was marked by sunburn. Touko avoided her red-rimmed eyes and looked down, pretending that she hadn’t noticed the stare.
After dinner, the family put out the lamps in the house. Light was precious and was not something to be wasted. The cart that came from the capital bearing new lamp oil and fuel only visited their village once every six months or so. Supposedly, there were dedicated Fire Hunters in the capital that collected a large amount of fire fuel to use in factories and to provide to villages around the nation. The Fire Hunter who had saved Touko might have been one of them.
The house fell silent as everyone went to sleep. Touko stared up, looking at the precious things that the Fire Hunter had left behind. Slowly, Touko stood up and retrieved the egg-shaped lantern light from the nail where it hung by a string, then picked up the paper-wrapped scythe. She went outside.
Sensing Touko’s movement, Kanata jolted awake and followed after her without making a sound.
Touko went around the back of the house, set down her light, then unwrapped the Fire Hunter’s scythe in her lap. The golden scythe shone in the light of the lamp. It was nothing like a farmer’s implement. Its hook-like shape and size marked it as a weapon. The blade was perfectly sharpened along its curve. She sat staring at the scythe and the Protector Stone until it started getting light out. In the new dim light, she could make out the letters that were engraved on the Protector Stone.
常, toko, meaning “unchanging.”
花, hana, meaning “flower.”
比, hi, meaning “comparison.”
命, me, meaning “life” or “fate.”
Tokohanahime. Even knowing what the letters meant in isolation, when taken together, they were gibberish. They didn’t appear to have been made by any tool that Touko knew of. It was like they’d emerged organically from the stone itself. Touko guessed that the letters were the name of some unknown god.
Kanata came in close and sniffed at the scythe and Protector Stone with great enthusiasm.
“You want to come inside?” a voice asked softly.
Touko nearly jumped out of her skin and barely repressed a cry. Who was behind her? Someone from her family?
“Don’t waste the light,” Rin scolded harshly from behind.
Touko leaped to her feet, then turned around. Rin was standing there.
“You have the worst luck there is,” Rin said. Her eyes barely passed over the dog. Most of her ire and attention was fixed on Touko. “Because of you, a good man died. Because of you, your mother and I were never able to move onto better places. The burden of caring for your grandmother will fall entirely on me when you go.” She shook her head. “Really, girl, you--”
Touko stared up at her. There was nothing she could say or do. This village was an insignificant speck on the map. Touko’s world had always been a small one--so small that she had no choice but to tolerate the cruel words of Rin, who was her cousin.
Doing nothing annoyed Touko, of course. But her options for what to do would have worse outcomes for her if she tried them.
“I hate you,” Rin said curtly. She bent down and swept the egg-shaped lantern out of Touko’s hand. She re-entered the house with her severe ponytail flapping behind her head. Touko and Kanata were left in the dark.
Touko made her way back to the house without making a sound. The paper she’d unwrapped was slippery in her fingers. There was no moon tonight. To her grandmother, who was blind, that made no difference. In the darkness, Touko kept looking at the curve of the scythe and remembering the scattering sparks she’d seen the day that the Fire Hunter had saved her.
***
The next morning, Touko went to one of the paper-making huts with her aunt. She carried a basket full of sweet sauce dumplings that her aunt had hastily prepared at dawn. Kanata padded after her, staying close to both Touko and the food as Touko and her aunt walked down the wooded path. Touko’s grandmother was left at home alone.
Touko’s house was on the western edge of the village on a high hill. To get to the paper-making hut, Touko and her aunt went down the hill and followed the village path in the the opposite direction that Touko had gone the day before. The handle of the basket bit painfully into her hand, but Touko didn’t complain. She stayed close to her aunt and kept walking.
The fields in the village were held communally by everyone. Most of the fields showed new green shoots and tender leaves. Beans grew on trellises; they looked healthy. Touko was one of around ten children in the village. The children were responsible for weeding and watering the fields. Working barefoot in the fields and looking after the vegetables as they grew was a common job for the village children until they were able to become apprentices in paper-making.
Since the attack in the forest, Touko hadn’t helped out in the fields at all. At first, the other children had offered Touko nothing but sympathy, since they’d heard the attack was a terrifying one. Now that more time had passed and Touko still hadn’t returned to help them work, most of the other children were content to ignore her. Certainly, they took no particular interest in her. She was unlucky, maybe cursed, and the children cautiously kept their distance.
As Touko and her aunt walked past the village fields, Touko kept her eyes cast down. Rin, who had been weeding, stood up and whispered to Kobeni and Akane, who were working near her.
Beyond the fields were the paper mulberry trees that the village used to make most of its paper. The leaves of the trees fluttered in the spring air. They were carefully tended; all excess branches and bark were stripped away. The remaining branches cast shadows on the ground, making pretty and peculiar patterns.
To Touko, passing through this wooded area felt like passing through a building in a foreign country. On the far side of the paper mulberry trees, there was a paper-making hut on the riverbank. A water wheel turned next to the hut, moving smoothly as the river cascaded through it.
Touko’s aunt knocked on the door of the hut. “Hello? I apologize for the intrusion.”
No one answered Touko’s aunt, but no one told them to leave, either. That was as good as permission to enter, so Touko and her aunt did. The door opened, bringing with it a waft of stale air from inside. Whenever Touko came to this hut, she felt like she was passing through some invisible barrier of air as she came over the threshold. Past the wooden door and closed shutters of the hut was a different world.
The hut was dominated by an enormous paper-making vat. Next to it was stone bucket that was filled with clear water at all times and a paper-making screen made of unvarnished wood. The screen was currently full of drying paper. It was large enough for an adult to lie down on, and the paper itself contained little splashes of color here and there: flower petals. Other paper in various states of dryness cluttered the rest of the room. After paper had dried sufficiently on the screen, it could be peeled off and set to dry in the sun.
“The dog can’t come in here,” said Shuichi, one of the workers in the hut. The waste collectors, paper beaters, paper driers, and the other paper-makers concentrated on their own work and didn’t even glance Kanata’s way.
“We’re here to talk,” Touko’s aunt said.
Shuichi shrugged helplessly, as if Touko’s aunt had given him a command. He turned away from his work and came outside. When he left the hut, he removed the towel wrapped around his head and invited Touko and her aunt to sit in the shade of the water wheel where the sun didn't shine quite so hot.
Shuichi was around thirty years old, and he was considered a master of his craft. He wasn't tall, but his sturdy shoulders were wide for his height, making him appear larger than he was.
Touko and her aunt sat down near the water wheel, guided by Shuichi.
“Now, Touko.”
Touko held out her basket of sweet dumplings to Shuichi. Shuichi accepted the basket, and Touko darted behind her aunt.
“Those are for everyone,” Touko’s aunt said.
Kanata quirked one ear upward, then stretched out his front paws in front of him and yawned hugely.
“That dog belonged to a Fire Hunter--a Fire Hunter who is no longer with us,” Touko’s aunt said. “I’ve spoken with her grandmother already, as well as others. The dog is untameable by anyone except Touko. We believe that the Fire Hunter came from the capital, so we’re thinking of sending Touko there to return the dog to the other Fire Hunters. To that end, we were hoping that you might consider leaving room in your cart for the girl and the dog for your next journey to the capital.”
Touko’s stomach soured. She felt like there were creepy-crawlies wriggling around in it. She scuffed the dirt underfoot with her sandals dejectedly, thinking that once again that the adults were making decisions about her life without asking her first.
Kanata sat placidly at Touko’s side with his ears up, seeming content to take in the sounds and smells of the woods. Compared to Touko, he seemed ready for anything that life or fate might throw at him. He, too, lacked choices, but that didn’t seem to bother him.
“And how much high-quality paper will you give me in exchange?” Shuichi asked.
Touko’s aunt had spoken with calm conviction up until now. She seemed surprised. “What do you mean, how much high-quality paper will we give you?”
“What I said.” Shuichi’s eyebrows drew together in a frown.
Touko’s knees locked from fright. She heard the river; the sound of the water flowing was so loud that it overwhelmed her senses. In the middle of winter, the water became colder and darker than ice, and in spring, the ice chunks break into smaller pieces, catching the sun as the water raced continuously past.
Shuichi the expert paper-maker scratched his head loudly, then sighed. “Just because you’re my mom doesn’t mean I can just do this, Akari. There’s not enough room for them to ride with us unless we make up the loss somehow. We’ve got our hands full here. You know we can only make the highest quality paper in the middle of winter. If we don’t keep working right up until the moment we leave, we won’t even make our current quotas.
“You know how valuable that paper is--what it takes to create it. We trade it for raihin, our precious fuel. And we’re supposed to give up space in our cart for what--that girl? Didn’t she ruin an entire batch of high-quality paper a few years ago by disturbing it when it was soaking in the river?”
Touko wilted into her own shadow.
“That girl, who knew she wasn’t supposed to go into the forest, but who did anyway and got the Fire Hunter killed for his trouble? And who can’t work in the fields because of that damn dog? Let her go with the traders from the capital when they come. We have no room for her; she’d just take up space. Send her off to the capital with the traders and we’ll all be well rid of her.”
“She should go with you,” Touko’s aunt said, her voice strong with conviction. She drew herself up to her full height and was almost tall enough to look Shuichi straight in the eye.
“This village is small, but it’s special. Plenty of villages manufacture goods--many even make paper--but the high-quality paper we make is an exceptional product. The gods use it to write their missives. Touko is from this village, and that is worthy of some measure of respect. It would be shameful of us to send her to the capital on her own, or with the traders. Her getting lost in the woods is one thing, but if she got lost in the capital on her own, what would the goddess Warashi think of us?”
Shuichi’s eyebrows angled up sharply. Touko’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked from him to her aunt. She’d missed half of what her aunt said and couldn’t follow what they’d said to each other at all.
Shuichi closed his eyes and thought deeply for a few moments. “There’s no other option, then,” he gritted out.“Half a bundle. Five sheets, no more. Give me that, and double the amount of dyed paper. Let the traders from the capital carry all of the dyed paper, and they’ll likely make space for her in one of their carts. Now, I have to get back to work. We’re behind schedule and won’t get any sleep otherwise.” He paused, then said, “Oi, Touko!”
Touko jumped and took a step back, startled to be addressed so suddenly.
“We’re going to a lot of trouble for you, so go fetch me some new red cobalt from the factory.”
Being given a task made something inside Touko twist uncomfortably. She hadn’t heard what he’d asked for clearly and didn’t know what she was supposed to go and get. Fortunately, Shuichi noticed her confusion.
“Red cobalt, d’you hear? We use it to make dyed paper. You’ll need to help us until we leave. Otherwise you don’t get a spot in the cart, yeah? Get moving.” He turned away from Touko and her aunt, preparing to go back to work, himself.
“Our cart leaves the week after next. We still have many preparations to make. Don’t get in the way, or we’ll run out of time,” Shuichi said as he walked away.
“I’m sorry,” Touko’s aunt said.
Shuichi didn’t acknowledge her apology.
Touko’s vision went dim, though the sunlight was blinding bright overhead. Once again, a choice had been made for her, and she’d had no say in the matter. She was aware that her knees were shaking, but she couldn’t make them stop.
“We’re going back,” Touko’s aunt said.
Touko lurched into motion.
Light peach-colored flowers growing on top of the hill blew gently in the wind as Touko and her aunt returned to their house in the village.
***
Touko followed after her aunt with tottering steps. The conversation between her aunt and Shuichi played in her mind over and over again like some kind of recurring nightmare. It was growing dark, so Touko didn’t catch sight of Rin or any of the other children working on the fields as she walked.
Kanata walked next to her in lockstep. She looked at him because she didn’t want to see anything else.
I guess I’m really going to the capital. The thought made something tighten in Touko’s chest. Out of breath, Touko called out to her aunt. “Uh, auntie…”
Touko’s aunt kept walking at the same pace and didn’t turn to face her. The path was shaded by trees that cast pale green shadows on the ground. “One thing that no one knows for sure is why you decided to go into that blasted forest.”
“Huh?” Touko asked.
Her aunt no longer stood proud and tall as she had while talking to Shuichi. With stooped shoulders, she said, “Were you looking for medicine, maybe? From the Tree People?”
Touko’s palms sweated. How did her aunt know that? She hadn’t talked to anyone about going to the forest before. She certainly hadn’t told her aunt where she was going before she’d left for the woods that night.
Touko’s aunt stopped walking and turned to face her. The expression graven on her face was hard to read; Touko had never seen it before. Her face expressed a deep sense of grief along with a stubborn refusal to submit to that emotion. Touko’s aunt was at war with herself.
“Touko. It’s no great secret that you went into the forest to get medicine from the Tree People. Your grandmother certainly knows, too.”
Touko nodded; she didn’t trust herself to speak. Her grandmother was blind, but not stupid. She supposed that Rin had guessed what she was doing in the forest that night, too. Maybe the whole village knew.
Touko remembered the fire that had caused her aunt to severely injure one eye. That fire had killed her parents, the father of her family’s nearest neighbor, and many others—nineteen in total. No one knew what had caused the fire. Maybe it had been the wind carrying a spark from the forest and spreading it to the outer part of the village. It had been the dry season at the time, after all. The people of the village often watered the trees near the village boundary to make fires less likely, but still, fires broke out from time to time.
Such a little, thing, a spark. Strange to think that a dry, broken tree branch and a gust of wind could lead to the sudden demise of nineteen people.
The village itself had not burned: no. The victims of the fire had burned from the inside out.
“I can still see out of this eye,” Touko’s aunt said, pointing. “Not that there was much I wanted to see, after the fire. People in the distant past had it easy. When they were attacked or suffered a tragedy, they could pack up and move away. We’re not so fortunate here.”
The voice of her aunt struck Touko strangely; the picture that she was painting of the fire was far different from the scene that Touko remembered. She’d been working in the fields at the time and had only seen the fire’s devastating effects from a distance. At the midpoint of the hill they were climbing, higher than most of the village’s buildings, Touko had seen people light up one by one like torches, one after another. At the time, she thought that stars had fallen to earth. She’d never seen any light so bright except for the sun.
Touko didn’t hear the screams until after she’d seen the lights. She noticed men and women rushing through grass dyed many colors from the light’s reflection.
Touko’s parents, the father of her neighbor, and so many others had burned that day, their bodies crackling and lit up as brightly as the noonday sun.
In her escape, Touko’s aunt had injured her eye. She’d nearly been affected by the same internal fire that had killed so many others, and spent ten days wandering in a fever before she recovered.
Touko had heard that the world hadn’t always been like this. A very long time before—before people like her grandmother had lived underground in caves, even—there had been a time when people could conjure fire freely, by various means. Fire could be freely used by everyone.
Now, of course, that wasn’t the case, but no one knew why mankind had lost this easy use of fire. Fire from the sky had rained down and caused the people it touched to combust, and ever since then, the way that humanity used fire had changed.
Touko had also heard that people in the past were always at war with each other. Lacking easy access to fire and with the emergence of the Fire Fiends out of the dark woods that covered more than half the world, war between humans was no longer practical. The disaster of death by fire raining from the sky was one misfortune, and attacks by the Fire Fiends another. Parents gave their children names that evoked fire, like “Flame” or “Light,” in the hopes that the fire from the heavens would pass safely over them.
For many cycles of the stars, humans lived in terror of both fire and darkness—until the Fire Hunters came.
“Touko.”
Touko’s aunt tapped her on the shoulder, shocking her out of her grim thoughts. Touko was crying, though she hadn’t realized it. Kanata was staring at her, dark eyes wide open in concern.
“Don’t worry,” Touko’s aunt said. “Your grandmother will take care of you. And your neighbors help you out, too. All you have to do is clean up after your own mess. The capital won’t be so bad. That dog will always protect you.”
Touko was still crying, so she didn’t catch much of what her aunt said after that. The sun was too bright and hot; the smell of the spring grass and sweat were overwhelming. Her aunt hugged her as she cried, and she gained an awareness of the sounds around her: the rustling leaves, the wind over the fields.
Then, Touko lost the sound of her own breathing. She lost the sound of the wind and her aunt’s voice. The next thing she heard was her aunt trying to encourage her.
“Now then, Touko. Come back to us quickly, y’hear? For now, go get that red cobalt for Shuichi. After you get that from him, come home. I’ll wait for you to get back. I promise.”
If Touko was really going to leave the village and go to the capital, she’d be leaving in ten days. On the tenth day in the morning, the traders' cart from the capital left the village, carrying Touko and Kanata along with it.
***
Every six months, merchant wagons came to the village from the capital. While the village was usually a quiet place, the presence of the merchants made it lively and bustling for a few weeks out of the year.
The merchant carts were made in factories in the capital, and they were enormous. Because they had to pass through forests haunted by Fire Fiends, the carts were painted completely black, including the window coverings. A cart’s appearance in the forest resembled a great black bull parting the trees.
The carts’ heavily armored, boxy hulls were larger than two villagers' houses put together. Mischievous children always tried to scale them. Save for the rugged wheels on the carts, there was no foothold anywhere.
It was rumored that these sturdy carts could run over a few trees and move on, taking no damage. A road has been cut through the forest over the years so that the carts could run the same routes to and from the province’s villages every six months.
Those who bothered to look closely at the carts would notice scratches and other minor wear from travel. Two carts visited Touko’s village at a time. They stopped inside the village gate, put up a red-and-white striped tent, and set up a shop. The women of the village opened a temporary kitchen, making fried sweet things for sale. Delicious smells wafted through the air whenever the carts came to town.
Red-lacquered combs, millstones, hand mirrors, knives, seeds, fabrics, brooms... the carts seemed to contain anything that anyone might need. Touko watched the carts set up shop with Kanata glued to her side. It was the second day since the arrival of the carts. Touko remembered going shopping here with her parents, her mother leading her by the hand. She’d purchased a barette with a red flower enameled on it. The carts that were here now were probably the same ones she’d seen then. There was a lightness to the mood in the village that everyone shared as they flocked to the carts.
My parents bought it for me, but I lost it, Touko thought. Where did it go? Flower petals fell from the trees high on the hill.
Rain clouds gathered in the sky above, dappling shadows over the flowering trees. It rained every year when the flowers were in full bloom. As the sky grew darker and darker, Touko and the dog sat a little off to the side, watching people make their purchases and hurry home ahead of the rain. Petals were still falling, dancing in the air slowly before landing feather-light on the ground.
In the evening, the carts closed up and no one shopped, because it would be a terrible waste of light. The villagers returned to their homes before full nightfall, and the cart crews slept inside their black vehicles.
After hours of waiting, the village square was empty and quiet. A shadow approached Touko in the gathering darkness. “So you’re the girl.”
Touko tried to stand up, but her legs were numb. She didn’t recognize the voice of the person who was adressing her. She reached out, flailing, and wrapped her arms around Kanata’s neck for support. She felt like she was frozen and couldn’t move at all. She was hugging Kanata so tight that he made an agitated, protesting noise.
Suddenly, Touko heard the scuff of shoes: heavy-looking black leather boots. Villagers didn’t wear boots like that; only people from the capital did.
Two people approached Touko, both wearing gray work clothes. One was a young man with glasses. The other man appeared much older; he was quite short. "It's you," said the old man. The toe of one well-worn boot rested near Touko’s own feet.
Touko nodded. The two adults exchanged glances. The young man crouched down to look Touko in the eye.
Kanata growled low in his throat, baring his fangs to threaten the newcomers. The young man leaned back quickly. He saw that the dog didn’t move to attack and placed his hands at his side, palms up, to show the dog that he wasn’t dangerous. He smiled.
“Don’t be afraid. We’ll be traveling with one another for a little while.” He turned to face Touko. “I heard it from Shuichi the paper-maker. He said you want to go to the capital. You can come with us, but this cart goes to other villages before returning to the capital. If nothing goes wrong, it’ll be five months before we reach the city. We won’t be able to drop you off right away, either. These carts need a lot of maintenance, and there are travel protocols that we have to follow. It would probably be better if you could find another way to the capital... if you leave with us, you might not be back in this village for another year or two.”
The young man pointed to the carts. Both were so dark that they were almost indistinguishable from the forest surrounding the village. "Also, these carts look sturdy, but it's never safe to go through the woods. It's a life-or-death journey for us crew members, and--”
"Hey, Enji. Don't talk down to her because she’s a kid. Spit it out, and stop pontificating,” the older man said. “Going into the woods--even in a cart--well, what it means is that you’ll probably die." There was a sharp edge to the old man’s voice. Touko’s fingertips were numb. She gritted her teeth against the unpleasant sensation. She felt as if she were being worn down bit by bit, eroded like stone turning into sand.
When Touko looked up, she saw the young man’s face: vaguely potato-shaped and framed by his glasses. "I'll go," Touko said. “I’ll go with you.” She didn’t trust herself to say anything else. Her thoughts were consumed by the journey, by Kanata and the care he would need, and the curt farewell that her grandmother had given her. “I’m ready to go. I tidied up the house. I also visited my father's grave. I’ll try my best not to get in your way. So please, give me a ride to the capital."
Injecting strength into her numb and weak-feeling limbs, Touko stood up straight and bowed deeply to the two men who were part of the cart crews. A white light flickered before her eyes, making her feel dizzy--but it wasn’t any light she’d seen with her eyes. It was all in her head. She felt like she wanted to throw up.
Stand up straight, stand up straight, she commanded herself desperately. The young man, who was still crouched down, stood up. Touko pointed her head down, in case she really did throw up.
“My name is Enji,” the young man said kindly. “This man here is Sakuroku. He’s the head of our crew teams. You’ll understand more about what that means as we travel. You'll learn names and faces of the other crew members, and maybe you'll be able to help them with their tasks, in time. I can’t say that it’ll be a safe journey, but all of us will do it together.” He offered Touko a kind smile from behind his glasses.
Though Enji seemed nice enough, Touko saw the same shadow haunting his eyes that haunted the other adults she knew in the village. The shadows that haunted her aunt and grandmother.
“Little kid, what’s your name?” Sakuroku asked. He scratched the short gray hair at the back of his head.
“T-Touko. And the dog is Kanata.”
“Oh? Is he your dog? Somehow I don’t think so.”
Enji beckoned Touko and the dog to follow him. Touko picked up her wrapped bundle of belongings and chased after Enji. Kanata followed immediately at her heels. They were heading inside one of the black carts--carts so black, they blended completely into the dark forest.
“This is where you’re going to sit while the cart moves,” a woman said. It was dark; Touko didn’t recognize the woman’s voice. There was a faint glow of light from a lamp from above them, and the woman came closer to Touko, limned in shadows.
The woman turned away from Touko, and her light revealed a steep iron ramp. The woman climbed up it, followed by Touko and Kanata. The light source was getting closer; Touko could see a lot more of the inside of the cart.
Touko looked back at the village through the open door of the cart--only once. She might never come back here. The village was almost entirely swathed in darkness, but in the distance, she saw something shining. What was it? A lamp? A spark? She couldn’t quite tell where in the village the light was coming from.
As Touko squinted, she identified the oval egg shape of a standard lantern. Someone was holding it, but she couldn’t tell who. The lanterns were precious things, rarely used because of the cost of fuel, which explained why only one was lit.
Or did it? Who was carrying a lantern at this hour? Where were they going?
The door to the black cart slid shut, dividing Touko from the village in which she’d spent her entire life. She couldn’t see the lantern anymore.
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