Spirit's Princess (20 page)

As we ate our dinner that evening, I pushed away my bamboo plate and blurted, “Why didn’t Mama say anything about it?”

“About what?” Yama asked calmly, not looking up from her food.

“About my coming back with her. She didn’t mention it once the whole time we were working together in the fields, or when we—when she was walking home.”

“
That?
You were afraid she’d insist on it, and when she didn’t, you were heartbroken!” The shaman took another bite and spoke through a mouthful of food: “Do you want to stay here or don’t you?”

“I want to stay,” I said in a small voice. “But I want
her
to want me home. Why didn’t she?”

Yama reassured me: “Your mother loves you, Himiko, and she does want you to come home, believe it! But because she loves you so much, she doesn’t want you to leave my care until you’re healed.”

“Amn’t I?” I asked. To my consternation, she shook her head.
Is she joking?
I thought.
I
feel
better! The instant I knew she could restore my bond with Aki, my sadness fell away like a butterfly’s abandoned cocoon
.

“Don’t misunderstand me; you’ve made a start,” the shaman said. “I’d say you’re somewhat better, the way baked clay’s somewhat softer than stone. Healing the body takes time—I don’t have to tell you that.” She flicked a finger at my mended leg. “Healing a person’s spirit is no different,
except that it can take longer still and it’s often hard to tell if you’ve succeeded.” She stretched her arms over her head and groaned at the popping sound her joints made. “If only there were a way to heal old age, eh? The only one I know is to put your bones in a jar or to lie under the earth for a hundred seasons. It works, but I can’t say I’m eager to try it.” She showed me a crooked smile. “You didn’t care for being buried, either, Himiko.”

“Buried?”

“I think you know what I mean. Have you ever felt trapped, child? As though the earth itself were rising up around you to hold you down when you know you were born to fly?”

Her words hit home. I’d seen what lay past the boundaries of our village. My dreams were filled with images of the beauties and mysteries of the forests and the mountains as well as the faces and voices of people who were not Matsu—men and women, boys and girls I
hadn’t
known all my life. What else was out there, beyond our lands, even beyond the Shika territory? I longed to know.

But I never would. I was tethered to the pillars of my father’s house as certainly as though there were a rope around my waist and my feet were sunk ankle-deep in mud. I’d tried to break free, to set out again—even if it were only another journey to the deer people’s valley—but I’d gained nothing for my efforts and lost … too much.

“If I’d been born to fly, I would have hatched from an egg,” I said, trying to cover my bitterness with a joke.

“Don’t be so quick to brush away that notion,” Yama cautioned me. “You are a bright girl, but unless you have
the gift for visions, how do you know what the gods have in store for you? If the crane spirit favors you, he might lend you his wings! I do know this much: you were born for something more than an ordinary life. The signs of this were upon you from the day of your birth. I still owe you that story. Bring me those berries from your stepmother and I’ll tell it to you.”

“There’s honeycomb too.”

“Even better.”

As we feasted on the sweetness of berries and honey, Yama answered my long-delayed question at last: “Your father brought me to his house when it was time for you to be born. On the way there, he joked about how he was only doing it because it was customary for the shaman to be present at a birth. He said that your mama had already brought five children into the world and that he expected you to be out already, howling for milk, by the time we climbed the house ladder.” She snorted.
“Men.”

“
Five
children?” I repeated. Infants died—I knew that much too well from the grief Emi and Yukari had suffered—but I had no idea that Mama had lost children of her own.

“Before Aki was born, she gave birth to a girl, and another one after him. You’re very precious to your mother for many reasons, Himiko, but the sisters you never knew are two of the most important.” Yama popped the last berry into her mouth. “As it turned out, your father was right. I had one foot on the ladder when I first heard you yowling. I was glad: the louder the crying, the healthier the baby. I rushed into the house and called out, ‘Well, who is it that’s come into this world so boldly? Is it a young hero for the Matsu
clan, or do we welcome a little princess?’ But before your mother could tell me whether she’d given birth to a boy or a girl, the gods spoke.”

“The tremor,” I said. “Mama told me that.”

“Is that what she called it, a tremor? Then that makes our ancestral pine tree a blade of grass!” The shaman chuckled. “I can laugh about it now, but on that day, no one in the Matsu clan was laughing. A great dragon was stirring from his underground sleep. We’d felt him move before—the faint scratching of a claw, the quiver of his tail—but this was different. This time he arched his back, reared his mighty head, and stretched out his neck in a roar fit to shatter heaven!

“Oh, that roar! I hear it in my nightmares. The handiwork of its echoes is painted in fire across my memories. The earth didn’t just tremble; it quaked, heaved, and buckled. Houses were flattened, and the flames of the blacksmith’s forge broke free to devour everything they could reach. The rice paddies were drained dry when the ground opened a hundred mouths to gulp down their water. I was lucky that when the first shock struck, I was thrown forward, into your house, instead of backward, off the platform. Your father was partway up the ladder, and he was flung to one side as though he were an ant a giant
oni
had flicked off a piece of straw.

“How your poor mother screamed! How
I
screamed when the house lurched all around us. And then, with the marks of childbirth still on her, so much of her strength spent to give you life, your mother thrust you into my arms and commanded—yes,
commanded
—me to save you. Oh,
you should have seen her on that day, Himiko, wild-eyed and fierce as a swarm of demons flying off to do battle! But her battle was all for you. One look at her face and I knew that if I didn’t guard your life with my own, she would destroy me. Even if she died in the earthquake, her wrathful ghost would return to hunt me down and tear the flesh from my bones!”

“Mama?” I was amazed. “My mama?”

“She was fighting to save what she loved.” Yama spoke as though it were something so evident that it didn’t need to be said. “She would have carried you if she hadn’t felt too drained to trust herself with your safety. I was afraid she was so weak that she wouldn’t be able to move from her bedroll, but the gods saw her devotion to you and took pity on her. Somehow she found the strength to follow me out of the house and down the ladder—still standing, for a miracle!—before the next twitch of the dragon’s back.

“If I close my eyes, I see it all again: your father’s house was split, the pillars toppled, the roof fell. The ladder
did
fall then and went rolling away. The ruins swayed before pitching toward us. We turned and ran—your father on his feet again to help your mother, and I, carrying you. You had gone silent, and for a moment, I feared that your newborn spirit had been so shocked by this rude welcome to the world that it had taken fright and flown away. My dread was so great that I didn’t dare to look down at you, to see if it was so. Instead, I turned my face to where the great mountain stands—you know the one I mean, Himiko?”

I nodded. She could be speaking of only one mountain,
because all others were anthills beside it. Anyone with eyes knew that peak, awesome and holy, its shining majesty rising in the distance. I still treasured the memory of seeing its light-crowned summit from the top of the sacred pine.

“On the day I was born, my mother named me
mountain
. When I was older, she told me she’d had
that
mountain in mind. It’s not a very dainty name for a girl, but she wanted me to have endurance enough to stand alone, and strength enough to spare for helping others. ‘Be steadfast and let your shadow be a shelter for all,’ she told me.” The old woman looked thoughtful. “She was no shaman, but there must have been
some
reason that she gave birth to two—my half brother Michio and me. Even though she never walked our path, I think the spirits whispered to her too.

“Well, I can tell you that I didn’t
whisper
to them on that day. I
bellowed
my pleas against the sound of crackling flames, crashing houses, groaning earth, and the screams and shouts of our people! I called out to all the spirits of that sacred mountain and begged them for your life.” She sighed. “I’ve never been very good at begging. Everything that comes out of my mouth seems to sound like a demand. As I stood with you clasped to my chest, the earth reared up beneath my feet. The ground tore itself apart, I lost my balance and my grip, and you fell from my arms into a crack that pierced the heart of the world. I saw you plunge into the darkness, and I shrieked helplessly as the next shudder of the dragon clapped the sides of the fissure closed over you.”

I tried to speak and realized I’d been holding my breath
during Yama’s story when I had to gasp for air before asking, “If—if—if that happened, then why am I—
how
am I here now?”

“Didn’t I once say that you were born on a day of impossibilities? But all things are impossible until they happen. You are proof of that. I thought you were gone forever. I lay on the ground, pounding it with my fists, howling like a wounded animal. I heard your mother calling out for me in anguish, your father commanding me to answer, but all I could see was dirt and stones. I clawed at them like a crazy thing, trying to dig my way into the dragon’s lair until my fingers were stained with blood. And then, when the deadweight in my belly told me it was over, that there was no more I could do, in that very moment, the earth moved again and there you were, alive and blinking in the sunlight! I scooped you out of the ground and curved my whole body around you. I’d stopped shaking by the time your father reached us, but I hadn’t stopped weeping. I bet he thought I was just another silly woman, crying in terror. He couldn’t know that I was shedding tears of joy—no, of something greater than joy! I had witnessed a miracle, a child born twice in a single day, and in your tiny hand, this!”

Yama reached for a small pouch hanging from her belt and tipped the contents into her cupped hand. I couldn’t see what she held until she took my wrist, gently pulled it toward her, and dropped something into my palm. I looked down and saw a captive star, a shimmering golden stone whose surface had been polished smooth as the face of still water, but whose core held countless sparks of rainbow fire.

“This has been my secret since that day,” Yama said
solemnly. “I took it from you and hid it before your parents reached us and snatched you from my arms. I kept it to myself until I could decide what it meant when an infant was buried and brought back into the light holding a prize wrenched from the very talons of the dragon. I have been keeping it from you and for you, waiting for the right moment to give it back. Guard it, Himiko. It is proof that you are chosen to be the spirits’ own, but only if you choose to consent.”

I gazed into the stone’s cold golden fire and felt a wondrous warmth envelop me. I made my choice.

I remained in the shaman’s house for seven days. I didn’t go back to the fields during that time. That was her decision. She announced it to me the next morning as we ate our breakfast.

“Yesterday you saw your mother, and the meeting upset you. Next time, she might be the one whose heart would suffer for it. Also, if you return, there is the chance that you’ll encounter other members of your family. Who knows what harm such an experience might do to you or them?”

Especially if I meet Aki
, I thought sadly.
That’s who she means, I’m sure of it. She won’t mention his name to spare me pain
.