But they were gone. Atsushi stopped, his mouth agape. The road ran straight and true for miles beyond his farmhouse toward Odawara. The group of samurai and the palanquin they escorted would not have gotten far; he should have seen them clearly. Yet, there was nothing; the road lay empty of life.
The sun came out from behind whatever cloud had hidden it. In the distance, a catbird trilled.
✥
Atsushi remembered the flood as if it were yesterday. He had been so determined to stay. He thought they would be safe. Why had he been so stupidly proud and stubborn? Look what it had cost him.
He sat at the wooden table in their house, a bowl of boiled cabbage and noodles sitting untouched in front of him, a bottle of shochu standing half empty. From his and Michiko’s sleeping room, he could hear his wife reciting verses. She had drawn the curtain and had been reading from the majo’s scroll into the early evening. He could make no sense of those parts he heard.
He sat slumped in his chair, staring into space, his head bobbing with the numbing effects of the shochu. He didn’t have the strength to confront his wife anymore, almost as if the majo had placed a spell over him as well. I have failed, he thought. I have failed to help my family. My son is dead and my wife is mad. What have I done to deserve this? What god or kami have I offended?
“It was my fault,” he mumbled drunkenly. “Not Michiko’s. Osamu-san, Michiko-san, forgive me, my son, my wife. Forgive me.” He put his head down on the table and began to weep. And, slowly, his eyes began to close as he drifted into a troubled sleep...
...and woke to the sound of singing.
What is this? Atsushi raised his head, trying to shake the sleep from his clouded mind. His mouth was dry, his head was pounding, his stomach roiled sourly from the shochu.
The voice intoned again, clearly, distinctly. He knew that sound though he hadn’t heard its loveliness in such a very long time. Michiko was outside, singing.
He stumbled into the cool air of early morning. He had slept all night! Squinting into the bright sunlight he saw his wife. Once again Michiko attended their household hokora shrine, giving clear, lilting intonation to a song Atsushi didn’t recognize. She stood with her arms crossed at her breast, dressed in the same clothes she had worn in the garden yesterday, her feet bare, her hair hanging loosely about her shoulders.
“Michiko!” he cried. “What are you doing?”Michiko began to glow. Atsushi stopped and looked away. A trick of the light! He was still half-asleep, still suffering from having drunk too much shochu. By all that was sacred, surely he was dreaming.
He looked back and fell to his knees, heart hammering in his chest. A shimmering blue radiance surrounded his wife, making her appear like some kami from the Invisible World. Her hair writhed serpent-like around and above her head as if alive. Her clothes clung to her as if blown by a great wind. Michiko held her hands out to him. “Atsushi-san,” she said, smiling. “Beloved husband. Do not fear for me. I am going back to save Osamu. And you must remember what has happened here. Look for my paper dragon! With the majo’s help I have placed it where you will only find it when the time is right. Do you hear? We will all be together again, I know it!”
Her paper dragon? What was she saying to him? “Michiko! Michiko!”
Like an earthbound star, the light erupted into an explosion of blue lambency. Michiko vanished within that azure cocoon, shafts of fiery radiance spreading outward like grasping tendrils. Atsushi cried out and covered his eyes.
✥
Atsushi rose slowly to his feet from where he knelt at Michiko’s grave. Once again he had placed some maiden lilies at the burial site. They had been her favorite flowers and fitting for one so brave and selfless and he had tried his best to keep them growing. It was one way of remembering her, of honoring her. Michiko had given her life to save Osamu from last year’s flood. Atsushi was nothing compared to her, she of the courageous heart. She had always hated war and killing and yet, in the end, displayed more courage and selflessness than an entire army of samurai.
Osamu. Blinking back tears, Atsushi made his way toward his house. He must see to his son.
Ever since Michiko had died in the fierce waters of the swollen Sakawa the year before, Osamu had never been the same. Only seven years old, he had been the light of Atsushi’s and Michiko’s lives. Full of energy and humor, mature and wise beyond his years, now the boy ate and spoke little and slept most days, crying for his mother.
As Atsushi stepped into his house, a momentary reverie came over him. He leaned against the entryway, feeling suddenly drowsy and weak. For a moment, a vision appeared to him—Michiko surrounded in blue light, a smile upon her face.
He shook his head, the sobbing of Osamu breaking the strange trance. What magic was this? Was he losing his mind? Did he even care anymore? With a shrug, he stepped into his son’s small sleeping room. There, Osamu lay, crying and mumbling in his sleep. Atsushi knelt down on the straw tatami mat and placed his hand on his son’s forehead.
Hot, so hot. Fevered, delirious. The flood still ravaged their lives so long after it had come and gone! What can I do? Atsushi thought, hanging his head. Pray? There is no one or nothing to pray to! The gods have deserted us if they ever existed at all.
It was then he saw the paper dragon. It lay on the floor near the foot of the mat. Atsushi stared. It looked like the cranes and other birds and animals Michiko used to make. He hadn’t seen this one before. How had it gotten here? Slowly he reached down and picked up the origami creature and through some urging not his own, as if another’s hand guided him, he carefully unfolded it.
There was writing within. Atsushi stared at the small chop mark printed on one side of the paper. It wasn’t familiar to him, but the script that flowed beneath it, so crisp and elegant, was Michiko’s.
With shaking hands, Atsushi started to read. “Dearest Atsushi-san,” the missive began. “I hope you and Osamu are well. If you are reading this, then that is because I no longer exist in the realm of the living. But I also do not abide in the afterlife but somewhere between, awaiting the next stage of our journey.”
He paused, holding his breath. Reluctantly, as if beckoned, he looked again at the letter. It was written in Michiko’s hand. Once more, he read.
“Have you remembered yet what happened? The majo explained it all to me. Those higher goals we seek must be reached in stages; nothing can happen overnight or with one simple act. Even the building of a house occurs in many steps. You, yourself, have always believed thusly. I have heard you recite this to Osamu many times and so do the gods themselves work their wonders—one step at a time.
“So I have gone to complete the second stage of this journey, Osamu’s death being the first, and you must now complete the third and final one. It is the only way that you and I and Osamu can be a family again. We could not do this together but only separately, as painful as that is. That is why neither the majo nor I told you before. It was not yet your turn.
“Heed what I say, my love. Osamu was not to be taken by the flood; he has to grow up to fulfill a great destiny and you and I must be there to aid him in achieving that. He will help to end this terrible conflict among the daimyos and restore peace to our land. You must remember, Atsushi. For all of our sakes, remember.”
Rage exploded within Atsushi. He ran outside, screaming at the sky above, giving voice to all the pain and frustration that had built up inside of him. “Michiko! Michiko!” he cried, shaking his fists at a passing cloud. “What does it mean? What are you trying to tell me?”
Madness! Madness! And yet... Atsushi sat down on the soft grass, suddenly weak and dizzy. It was happening again—in his mind’s eye, he saw his wife enveloped in a blazing blue light, returning to rescue Osamu from the flood, to sacrifice herself to save their son.
Could it be? Memories rushed back, cascading through his thoughts like the rampaging waters of the Sakawa. He lowered his head into his hands, gasping at the intensity of the images filling his mind.
Yes, yes. He did remember! By all that was sacred, what Michiko’s spectral message told of was true!
The third and final stage—Atsushi must now do the same to save all three of them as Michiko had done to save Osamu. Could he really do it? Could he? “Amaterasu,” he whispered, reaching out despite his disbelief. “Help me.”
A dull grayness enveloped the landscape as the sun vanished behind a gathering of thunderheads. Atsushi stood in the quiet, hearing only a beating of drums and a ringing of bells. He quickly walked to the road where, just at the crest of the hill, a procession of samurai, musicians, and a palanquin being borne by four attendants appeared, the palanquin’s occupant a white-maned man garbed in a black robe.
Just like the first time.
I know this, he thought, breathing quickly. I have seen this before. And now I must do what needs to be done. Joyous laughter bubbling in his throat, his spirit soaring, Atsushi ran to meet the majo.
✥
The heavens above Sagami province shone a brilliant blue. Small, fluffy clouds scudded here and there, adding their feathery shapes to a glorious morning sky. Birds flitted from tree to ground and back again. Insects buzzed and the sun warmed the very air itself, shining shafts of golden light everywhere.
Atsushi and Michiko stood in the doorway of their house, watching Osamu at play. “The wooden sword you made for him is being put to good use, it seems,” Michiko said with a playful smile. “He is pushing back the enemy attack.”
