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Touko reached her village in time to be with her grandmother in her last moments. The journey from the capital had taken only four days. She’d left the village in spring, but she was returning at the start of autumn. The leaves of the maple and dogwood trees were changing color already. They would be pressed into decorative paper as soon as they fell. The tips of the changing leaves blowing in the wind looked like dancing flames.
“Touko, I see you,” her grandmother said. “My eyes have always been poor, but I feel like I see you better now than I ever have. You’ve grown up.” She reclined in her sickbed, gesturing widely with her hands with every word. She reached out to Touko with one thin hand, beckoning her to come closer. When Touko sat at her bedside, she cupped Touko’s cheek with her hand and traced her face with affection.
A short time later, her hand dropped and she was still. She breathed a few times, slow like sighs, and then she stopped breathing altogether. Touko felt like her grandmother’s presence was gradually seeping out of the house, carried by the autumn air.
Rin cried the loudest. She clung to her grandmother’s shoulder, sobbing for hours until there were no more tears. Touko sat quietly at her grandmother’s bedside, keeping Rin company.
Her grandmother’s burial took place on a clear, sunny afternoon. Near the village cemetery, there was a small shrine where Touko had once seen Warashi. But Warashi wasn’t there now.
Touko’s aunt rubbed her shoulders and spoke soothing words in her ear on their way home from the funeral. “You made it, after all. You arrived in time for grandma’s last day. She thought she would never see you again. But you came back, and even brought the red cobalt.”
Rin had cried again during the burial. She’d been comforted by her close friends Akane and Kobeni, who’d hugged her and then returned to their field work together. This was harvest season, so everyone in the village was busy. Touko should be helping out with field work—picking up an iron sickle to reap the wheat, not using her borrowed golden sickle. But her hands shook all the time, so handling a blade would be impossible for her. She and her aunt returned to the house by themselves. Touko would help her cook and clean and do what she could.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Touko’s aunt asked. She was looking up at the tree canopy overhead.
Touko had been calm since her grandmother’s death, but her aunt’s words filled her with anxiety. “Can you see?” she asked. Her aunt was missing an eye.
“Yes, yes, I can still see,” she said. “But this might be the last year I get to see the autumn leaves. Who knows if I’ll be able to see the next spring.” She squinted and then stared hard as if she were trying to imprint the familiar forest path onto all her senses. “The sunshine is so lovely today.”
It seemed like Touko’s aunt glanced at her for a moment, but Touko couldn’t be certain. Perhaps she’d just imagined her aunt looking at her.
When Touko and her aunt returned home, Touko prepared dinner and waited for Rin to return from her work in the fields. Her hands shook the whole time, but she was able to make rice porridge with a bit of help from her aunt.
“If you say your hands are numb and refuse to work, I can’t allow that,” her aunt chided her.
Touko made rice porridge for three people. There was none for grandma. She looked into the pot and pouted. Surely this couldn’t be enough? She prepared a clear broth for Kanata and served the dog first, worrying all the while.
Kanata wasn’t inside. He was probably hunting for moles or small creatures in the woods. He wasn’t a friendly dog; he bared his fangs at everyone in the village except for Touko.
“Did you have to bring that dog back?” Touko’s aunt asked. “He’s like you and won’t work, so he’s just another mouth to feed.”
“Kanata has worked enough,” Touko said. “Now he can enjoy a quiet retirement. That’s what his family wants for him.”
Touko’s aunt raised an eyebrow. She smiled a little and then shrugged. “We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Warashi for weeks. There’s no point in tending the shrine, and grandma doesn’t need caring for anymore. Instead, I have to look after you and that dog. Rin and I are already stretched thin.”
After Princess Tayura left with the Millennium Comet, the barriers around the villages were no longer powered by Princess Tayura, but by the power that the Millennium Comet had left behind. The Guardian Gods of the village shrines had all been avatars of Princess Tayura, so none of the villages had a Guardian God to worship anymore.
Koushi had said that the barriers wouldn’t last long. A new system must be created to maintain them. He was working on creating that system in the capital.
Akira governed the capital as the King of the Fire Hunters. The villages needed to adapt and change now that so many necessities were lacking in the city. Touko thought about those changes. There would be so many for the capital, the villages, and the forest where the Tree People lived. She didn’t think anything would ever be the same.
But she knew that Akira would do everything in her power to help people for as long as she lived. The King of the Fire Hunters reigned over the world, and she would not abandon anyone in need.
The seasons would change and the world would turn as always. Winter would come soon, and then spring would come again. Perhaps her aunt would lose what remained of her eyesight by then. But her aunt would never lose the memory of sight. The sunlight shone down bright and kind on everyone Touko cared about.
Touko stepped outside. It was dusk, and Kanata had not returned. She waited for him. The evening air was chilly and carried the scent of other dinners to her. From what she could smell, most of her neighbors were having rice porridge, too.
Closing her eyes, Touko sensed the village at night through her skin: the worn wood of the old houses, leaves shifting in the night wind, the vital energy of the earth teeming with countless living creatures. The people of her village going about their daily lives.
Kanata barked in greeting.
Touko opened her eyes. On the horizon, she found a single gleaming star shining almost as bright as the sun.
Kanata ran up and put his head under Touko’s hand.
Touko petted Kanata’s ears and back. When she looked to the horizon again, the star she’d seen was gone.
Touko was certain that she’d seen the star. She looked into Kanata’s eyes curiously, wondering if he’d seen it, too.
Kanata held her gaze, wise in the way of dogs. If he could speak, he might tell her what he’d seen. His dark eyes sparkled in the gathering night.
THE END
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