Patience is not always the virtue we credit it for. Nor restraint. This, I had exercised over a lifetime of pain, and I was proud of how well I could thwart nature to keep Ansei safe from me. I was always learning, however, that life was not safe, and could not be made so.

It was late in the afternoon and I believed I was alone in the garden. The fruit trees were ripening and I sampled the flesh of a white peach. While wandering in the shade of a row of young maples, I almost stumbled over Ansei, who lied stretched out, and sleeping in its shade.

He had probably not slept at all during the previous night; he looked so weary—exhausted with the impossible work I had given him.

On impulse, I stooped to kiss him on the cheek. But before I could rise, his eyelids flashed and his hands fastened to my navel.

“I almost thought you were a dream,” he whispered.

I jerked away, a little too hard.

“I—I didn’t mean to wake you.”

His hands released me at once and I stepped backward.

Provoked, he rose to his feet and closed the distance between us again. Pulling me in, he whispered, “Furi. I’ve been waiting for you since we were children.”

Unbidden images surfaced in my mind, both strange and familiar. At once, I realized Ansei had planted them there: a doe-eyed boy, standing at the edge of the Ishiyama farm. Me, sitting beneath the eaves, eating that strange apple Ansei had given me. The sting of pine salve upon my damaged neck. Ansei’s voice in my ear pleading for me to wait.

Ansei would willingly perish only to love me. I couldn’t rationalize any selfish motive. He couldn’t secure a high position in a post-revolutionary Otoppon—he would never live to accept the rank, nor any other benefit in exchange for his valor.

Resisting, I whispered back, “I cannot be the cause of your death, Ansei.”

“Should I cling to my own life and not give way for a child?”

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“How will I stand it when you are gone, and at my own hands?”

“You will destroy me all the same, and waste my life in the end.”

So few months ago, our hearts had been stars, aligned across a universe of space. Now, beating inches apart, they were mere flesh organs, dissonant pumps without hope of agreement.

It was several minutes of impasse before he released me, and went away over a pathway into the woods.

I didn’t see Ansei again that evening, nor at all the following day. I wondered if he had finally left me, and I couldn’t blame him.

However, by the third morning of his absence, my anxiety for him was steadily climbing. I couldn’t sit and sew, work in the garden, or even eat or drink. By mid-day, I had invaded his apothecary, searching for clues of his whereabouts. I searched thoroughly and found nothing.

Failing everything, I knelt down on the tatami floor in the bedroom to think of where else I might look. I had searched everywhere within the house, the garden and apothecary. I might go farther afield in search of him, but if he had fled any distance, I was unlikely to find him. He may have changed into his spider form, in which case, I would never see him.

Only then did it occur to me to try Ansei’s cabinet. I had promised him privacy, but he had been gone so long. And he might return to his army. He might have given up and resigned himself to a war of violence. What use would honoring his privacy be then?

I stood in front of the old, rosewood cupboard, my heart beating in my tightened throat. I tried the latch. Against my expectations, the door swung swiftly open on a well-oiled hinge. I peered inside and flinched in surprise. Only one garment hung on a small hook within, and it was not Ansei’s.

It was almost certainly of his making, however, and I lifted it out gently to examine it in the light. The sun caught its fibers and shone through them, throwing a kaleidoscope of iridescence against the wall. The technique was exquisite, the most delicate weave I had ever seen, and must have taken many days to accomplish, but a close study did not reveal how he had achieved its effect. I smiled in creative curiosity and wonder. Forgetting myself completely, slipped out of my robe to try it on.

The gown opened at the side. Adjusting it slightly, the closure fused sleekly together until it hugged me like a second skin. I ventured a peek at the glass, then froze. I had never before seen the woman staring back at me then.

For the first time since discovering my mother’s identity, I felt what it was to be Orihime’s daughter. I flushed at my reflection, but one glance was already too much. I sank to the floor, curled into fetal position, and ached for Ansei to the point of physical pain.

The spasm passed, however, and I recovered enough to recollect myself. I had to get out of the gown.

I had thought I could simply pull the opening apart again, but when I tugged at it, I found that the webbed fibers had fused snugly closed. The tiny fibers were deceptively strong. I could not get out of them. I tugged harder, but had no heart to tear Ansei’s work.

I couldn’t bring myself to do it.