On a sharp winter’s day, on the barren branch of a tired old tree there sat a huntress. She was perfectly still, one leg dangling high above the ground while the other was crossed beneath her. Snow had built up upon her shoulders into a mound, hiding her figure in the forest’s early morning mist. She breathed slowly and quietly, clutching a bow in her right hand and an arrow in the other. Her fingers were reddened by the cold, but they did not shake. She was here for a purpose, and she could hear it bristling through the bushes behind her. Hooves on stone, weary breath, and finally she saw it: a deer, an old doe, limping and grunting painfully.
She was heading for the brook, just out of sight on the other side of the hill ahead of her. Tracks had shown that she was heading South, and the huntress saw that they were uneven. She knew that she could be faster than the doe, and she knew that it would pass through this brook, so she had rushed to this spot the night before, and waited patiently.
The doe scaled the hill slowly, nearly falling when its hoof slipped on a sheet of ice. When it reached the top, when it was about to disappear on the other side, the huntress pulled back her left arm, and released her arrow. The pile of snow on her back fell down, and the arrow struck the doe in the left hind leg before it hit the ground. The doe shrieked, and lost its footing, tumbling down forward down the hill.
The huntress leapt down from her perch, stretched like a cat, and shook the rest of the snow off her squirrel fur coat. She pulled down her cowl, revealing short and wavy dark hair tied in a bun, olive skin and a youthful face with cunning, black eyes. She stepped up the hill, her feet landing silently in the doe’s tracks.
It was there, right next to the brook, its head stretched towards it as if trying to steal a last sip. The shot was precise, perfectly aimed to remove the doe’s ability to stand. The huntress knelt down next to the doe, and it looked back at her. It howled in panic, thrashing around as she held it firmly against the ground. She took out a knife, and plunged it deep inside its neck. Slowly, the doe fell silent.
The huntress saw movement from the corner of her eye, and looked up. Perched on a rock on the other side of the brook, there sat a red fox, staring her down.
“I am Akira,” I said.
I blinked, unsure of why I had blurted that out to a fox in a forest. My left hand was already red with blood, so I cut a slice of deer neck with my knife and tossed it towards the fox. It caught it in mid air and swallowed it in a few bites. It did not move, as it sat there observing me. Strange beast, I thought.
I shrugged it off and hauled the carcass over my shoulders and bound it around my chest with linen ropes. I stumbled to the side when I tried to stand up; my legs were still stiff, and this deer likely weighed more than I did. The fox kept watching, and did not move when I turned around. I trekked my way up the hill, and then down again. I was not a long way from home, I would be there not long after noon, but it would be hard. There was no road to speak of, only a dirt trail covered in a thick layer of snow, treacherous roots and rocky cliffs. That too, I had done a thousand times before, so I ignored the pain creeping up my hands, arms and shoulders and carried on. The sun was out, warming the back of my neck, and it had stopped snowing. It was a bright winter’s morning in Umeshima, one like any other.
Yet it felt strange. The snow looked brighter, the air felt colder, the birds chirped louder. I saw movement on my side, and jumped to face it, expecting to see the fox from the brook, or perhaps another deer. There was nothing but a frozen pond, and in it the reflection of a girl with traces of blood on her forehead, sweat rolling down her neck and tired, black eyes. That was me, I thought, yet it felt like a stranger. I had no memory of tying my hair that way, of the wear that carved this face. I would have tried to touch it, feel it between my fingers to know that it was real. I would have tried to wipe that blood away.
“Carry on, carry on,” I muttered to myself.
This month I turned twenty-two. It still felt strange, as I mouthed the words silently: “twenty, two.” I had not seen myself age; in fact, I did not remember seeing my own face in years.
The sun was high in the sky when I saw the first wisps of smoke over the trees, above Himura. Slightly ahead of the village, close enough to hear the distant sound of civilization but uphill enough that no one would wander over, there was home. It was a simple hut of straw and earth, and a shed where I stored my tools and dried my meat, enclosed by a crumbling stone wall older than I could remember. There was also a dry stone well, and a dead cherry tree that I had never once seen blossom.
The snow was clear of tracks: no one had walked here since last night’s snowfall. I hauled the carcass to the shed, kicked the latch up with my knee and dropped the deer onto the workbench. The shed was nearly empty, with only a few pelts and strips of salted meat left. It was a small island, and I was the only hunter by design: if there was another, or if I were overzealous, then Umeshima could be stripped barren of prey. There were no more than a handful of deer herds and a single drove of wild boar, so meat was rare.
We subsited mainly on fish, which flocked to our shores in great numbers throughout the year, and plums – our island’s namesake. We harvested so many that there were over two dozen distillers and confectioners in the village, turning the plums into wine, liquor, vinegar and syrups. Traders would sail to our harbor every few months and exchange these goods for metals, cloth and grain, as well as whispers and rumors from the mainland. None of what I made, however, would leave. Each and everyone of my kills we shared amongst ourselves: meat went to the market, pelts for the tanner, bones and antlers for the craftsmen. We had little, but we made the most of it so that none would come to disturb our peace.
The deer was skinned and quartered neatly when I heard the sound of a flute outside; fragile notes jumping up and down in the breeze. I stepped out, and the creak of the old shed door momentarily broke the spell.
A man was standing there, facing away from me and towards the dead cherry tree in the middle of my yard. He was leaning on a walking stick carved from an old branch, from which hung a large calabash flask sloshing with liquid. He was wearing a simple dark robe, like a shinto monk, and a large, dangling wicker basket in lieu of a hat, covering his entire head. He was playing from a strange flute, a crude triangle of reeds and strings, while staring at the upper branches of the tree. There was a songbird there, a speck of black and red in the pale gray sky. They were conversing, it seemed, each singing a few notes in reply to the other.
The bird flew away when it saw me, and the man stopped playing. He turned around, his wicker basket now facing me. A deep voice came from underneath.
“Art thee Akira?” he asked, in a tone that sounded more like an order than a question.
“I am, who are you?” I asked in return, clutching my carving knife behind my back. He was not one of the villagers.
“Thou dost not remember me, Akira?” he asked again in the same strange language.
Something about him made me uneasy; the basket, the dress, that voice and his manner of speech. I shifted my stance, right foot forward, ready to defend myself.
“Old man, give me a real fucking answer–”
I blinked, and suddenly he was standing within an inch of me. He grabbed my face with a calloused hand wrapped in old bandages. He smelled of alcohol; not like a drunkard, but like sweet vapors of wine.
“Be not afraid,” he said, as he peered at my face from every angle. He pressed my mouth open to look inside, as if searching for a rotten tooth. His eyes were still concealed behind the basket, but as it moved I saw the hint of a bearded chin with thin red lips.
I was like paralyzed, but he let go of me before I could react. He took a step back and opened the flask hung on his walking stick. It did not smell like sake like I expected, but of fruits that I had never smelled before. He drank for a long few seconds, then put it down, staring at the dead cherry tree.
My arm was still behind my back – the knife still held firmly between my fingers – but I could neither move nor speak. He took a few steps back, and the basket wobbled back, as he gazed into the sky.
“Thou art… a mystery,” he said. “Undeterred and unprepared, but thou shalt carry on.”
He took another glug from his flask.
“Fear not,” he said. “Thou wert chosen.”
And he disappeared, as if he had never been here at all.
I felt a weight lift from my chest and shoulders, and fell on one knee, gasping for air.
“... the fuck…” I whispered, wiping drops of sweat from my brow.
There was not a trace of him, not a footstep, and not a shadow as I looked around. Was he some sort of spirit, coming to warn me of some impending tragedy? From the way he spoke, he would certainly fit in an old folktale – like a ghost appearing to scare a king into conquest.
Nevermind, I reasonned, I had too much work today to dwell on what may be a spirit, a ghost, or just a figment of my imagination.
I went back to the shed to finish up, and sorted my haul into three neat packages: one bag of meat and fat for the market, one bag of bones and sinew for the craftsmen, and one roll of skin for the tanners. I stacked all three on my back and headed for the village. I had walked that trek so many times I could have made my way there blindfolded. Every step of the road was familiar, but the scent of smoke alone was enough to guide me. It took less than half an hour, walking at a steady pace down the hill and out of the forest.
Himura was a quiet village of two dozen wooden cabins, arranged in a circle around a main plaza where celebrations and assemblies were held. Southeast of there, down in the valley were freshwater and warm winds came down from the mountain, a dozen plum orchards, farmsteads and the fishing docks laid waiting for the sunset. As always at this time of day, the fishermen’s wives were tidying up their stalls to return home, but they were strangely silent. I saw my friend Tsumugi folding her apron by her spot, while her husband slept sitting on the ground, reclining against the wooden trunk she used as a bench. As I approached, I noticed that her hair was done roughly, with only a semblance of a bun held together by threads and patches tangled together into nests. Her plain gray dress was wrinkled all over, worn down near her ankles like it had been grinded by stones. I called her, and when she looked at me I saw deep pockets under her eyes, as if she had not slept in days. We were the same age, and still I only now noticed the strands of gray hair framing her face.
“How are you?” I asked. “You look like you’ve just escaped death’s grasp!”
“I am alright,” she said, in a flat, neutral tone. “What brings you this day, Akira-san?”
I was left speechless for a second. I saw how thin her wrists were, how long her nails were and how the cold had almost turned her fingers blue. As I looked around, I saw that she was not the only one; all the women at their stalls moved slowly, as if exhausted. Even her husband, while sleeping, breathed like it caused him pain.
“What… what’s going on, Tsumugi,” I asked, carefully observing her emaciated face. “You looked alright yesterday…”
“I am… alright, Akira-san,” she muttered, before breaking into a cough. Her eyes remained still.
I swallowed my discomfort and said: “I got some deer for you all.”
Tsumugi took the bag of meat from my hands and shouted “DEER!” so loudly that it resonated around the whole plaza. One by one, heads turned towards us, as Tsumugi brought the bag to the communal cauldron. The villagers gathered around excitedly, whispering amongst themselves while Tsumugi lit a fire and threw the meat into the pot with a few handfuls of snow.
I took a few steps back and turned around, shaking my head. I had no idea what had gotten into Tsumugi, or the rest of the village, for that matter – or why they looked so starved in spite of the fishermen hauling in more fish than ever before in the winter – but I had learned not to ask questions.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Near them, at the exact center of the plaza, was a broken tree stump so large I could lie flat on it without touching either side. It had always been there, as far as anyone could remember, and on it was set a round stone the size of my head and covered in moss. The stump had not been cut by human hands, as it was broken and jagged all around as if torn down by some monumental storm. A futile attempt at regrowth had nestled the stone at its center in branches, dead and dry for so long that they had been polished to shine like glass. This was the shrine of Hanagami, the flower god and Umeshima’s patron.
I knelt down in the snow before her, and prepared my offering: the deer’s heart, which I impaled on one of the stump’s edges. Some critters would come fetch it for them, and devour it in their name. We did not truly pray for Hanagami, so I said nothing. Every one of our actions was done in worship; the fishermen brought fish, the distillers brought liquor, and I offered my spoils.
The workshop was another of the cabins in the circles, only with another chimney from which smoke spewed at all times of day. A boy, slightly younger than me and yet almost three heads taller, was sitting behind the counter. Like every time I came by, he was staring into the distance and bored out of his mind. His face lit up when he saw me and he sat up on his stool.
“Akira-san, irasshaimase!” he said, with enough enthusiasm to warm my heart after the glacial exchange with Tsumugi. I saw that he had the same pockets under his eyes, but at least he was well fed.
“How’s your day, Daisuke-kun,” I said, returning his smile.
“Same as always,” he said. “Better now that you’re here!”
I chortled awkwardly. He was already way bigger than me, and they had him sitting on a tall stool behind a tall counter. I felt like I was breaking my neck just looking at him.
“That’s nice… Say, did you see Tsumugi today, did she look okay?”
He concentrated for a second and shrugged: “Same as always, I’d say.”
Better to let the matter rest, today.
“I got some skins and bones here, is your old man back there?”
“Yeah, in fact he’s about to bring some wood blocks over, so you just stay put. How’s your day been?” he asked, somehow smiling even wider.
He was a kind boy, I thought. Not the brightest, but so eager all the time.
“Tiring, I haven’t slept, I’ve been up since last night tracking… Well, this,” I said, shrugging to bring his attention to the skin bags on my shoulders.
He stood up on his seat to have a better look and his eyes widened.
“That deer must have been huge, you truly are amazing!” he said.
“Alright now, stop bothering the poor girl,” roared a thundering voice from the darkness behind, as a gigantic bear of a man emerged.
He was even bigger than Daisuke on his stool, his black and gray mane brushing against the ceiling as he walked.
“Gin-san,” I said, bowing my head slightly.
He glared down at me, shiny black eyes under bushy eyebrows, his mouth hidden behind a frizzy gray beard with burnt extremities. He gazed over my bag, and gestured for me to come in with a nod.
“Thank you son,” he grunted as he left a handful of wood blocks on the counter.
He wiped off some wood chips off his leather apron as he walked me through the workshop where his men worked. Some carved wood into bowls and chopsticks while others were fastening leather into boots and straw into hats. I could hear the smiths working in their forge outside, and felt dust and dirt get blown into my eyes and mouth.
He tapped a boy on the shoulder, no older than twelve, as he was carving a spoon with a knife. Like Tsumugi he looked hungry, but his eyes, at least, were lively.
“Take the pelts,” Gin-san said, nodding towards me, “and take them to the tannery.”
The boy’s eyes flickered between the old giant and me.
“I’ve never been,” he stuttered out.
“Follow the road West to the sea, you’ll find it,” Gin-san said in his gravel voice.
“I… What about wolves?” the boy said weakly.
“There are no wolves on Umeshima, but take Kokenmaru if you want. He knows the way.”
The boy nodded frantically and jumped up from his seat, standing in front of me expectantly.
“Gambate, Aoto-kun,” I said with an encouraging smile as I put the bag on his shoulders, and his cheeks turned bright red.
He mumbled something under his breath and scurried off to a corner of the room where laid what looked like a pile of black and white pelts. It was nearly as tall as him, but he pushed it with all his weight, and Kokenmaru woke up with a reluctant grunt. He yawned, exposing his fangs, and drooled over the floor as Aoto-kun struggled to wrap a leash around his wrinkled neck. Off they went, as the boy dragged the waddling, old giant of a dog behind him.
“He seems to be settling in,” I said with a smile. I had known him since he was six years old, only a snotty brat hiding in his mother’s skirts.
“He’s a dimwit,” Gin-san said, already paces ahead of me. “But he does the work.”
He hunched over to pass through a doorway at the other end of the noisy workshop.
“Leave your things in that box,” he said. “Haruki-kun will get to work on them.”
I obliged, and asked: “What have you got back there then?” as I followed him into the dusty corridors of the reserve.
“Traders came today, they brought some good things,” he grumbled as he walked through one final curtain.
It was a small room with random pieces of wood and metal laying all over the floor. I found a box that would support my weight and sat down on it, after wiping away a thick layer of dust.
“Let me see here,” Gin-san mumbled as he rummaged through the pristine new crates stacked in a corner of the room.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the black printed sign some of the boxes had on their side. It looked like an open arrow pointing down, with a circle on one side and an open ring on the other.
“The seal of the North Raiku trading company, from the West, one of the traders struck a deal. It cost us a fortune but… there!”
He leaned forward to grab a long rectangular box hidden behind a rolled carpet and carefully placed it next to me. He opened it, and I jumped down from my crate.
“What in Enma is this?” I whispered, in shock.
Gin-san chuckled as he pulled it out of the box. “The latest breed of Dutch rifles,” he said. “They call it a “shou-zen”. Go on, give it a try.”
It was a beautifully crafted piece of wood and metal, both sturdy and lean with artistic engravings around the stock, shaft and trigger. I had never seen a rifle before, but as my hands wrapped around it its weight felt familiar. I armed it on my shoulder and aimed down the sights as naturally as I pulled the string on my bow.
It felt strange.
“Did you ever train me with a rifle, Gin-san?” I asked.
“I think we’d both remember that,” he mumbled. “So what do you think?”
“It’s a bit heavy, but it looks pretty, how do I use it?”
“It’s muzzle loaded,” Gin-san explained, “you begin by pouring powder into the muzzle with this measurer and into that funnel, here. Then you slide in the bullet, and push it down using the ramrod.”
He pulled out the long metal stick from underneath the gun’s barrel.
“You make sure it’s nice and tight, then you cock it, place this little cap on the nipple – won’t fire without it – aim, and shoot.”
As I obeyed his orders, it all felt natural, and I executed every step flawlessly.
Gin-san took me outside, right by the forge where smiths were hammering away at knives and sickles. He pointed at the target where he would usually test his arrowheads and said: “shoot.”
I took aim, my feet and shoulders placing themselves naturally at an angle, and fired.
The explosion rang my head like a bell and I fell down to one knee. I heard a sharp and painful whistle in my ears and tried to speak to cover it. I felt my chest tighten, as if I was being crushed under a pile of rocks. When I opened my eyes I saw flashes, and I heard more explosions, and screams that were not my own. I had fallen to the ground now, and I felt it shaking, my hands held above my head in a vain attempt to protect it from… from what?
Sound came back to me suddenly, and the first thing I heard was Gin-san saying my name softly. He had knelt down next to me, with his gigantic hand firmly holding my back.
“You are all right now, Akira-kun, what happened?”
“I’m not sure,” I said between gritted teeth, holding my still painful head. “I have been feeling strange today, and especially around this… thing. I think it is better that I stick with bows.”
Gin-san sighed deeply.
“I know, child, but I fear it might not be enough.”
“What do you mean,” I asked as I struggled to stand back up.
“You said you felt strange today. I have been feeling uneasy for years. Something is changing. I am not sure why, but I do not want you unprepared.”
Unprepared.
“Gin-san, have you ever met a man in a dark robe with a wicker basket on his head, speaks kind of funny?”
“A… wicker basket?” Gin-san mumbled, and his eyes got lost in the distance. His eyebrows curled as he thought. He brought a hand to his head, like it was starting to hurt for him too, and he suddenly collapsed.
I was standing next to him so I did my best to hold him up. Despite the fact that he was almost three times my size and at least five times my weight, he felt surprisingly light.
I pulled his massive arm over my shoulders and dragged him over to a bench lined up against the workshop. He fell down with a grunt.
We stayed there for a moment, both slowly catching our breath while the smiths worked in the background. Gin-san erupted into a thundering cough and I tapped his back gently. When he calmed down, he raised a shaking finger and pointed it towards the plum orchard lower down in the valley, by the sea.
“Hanagami,” he said in a whisper. “Look, spring’s coming.”
He was right; I could see spots of pink underneath the snow and the leaves of the orchards. The plums had blossomed, spring was coming and the snows would melt.
On my way home, one of their flowers fell into my hair, and I liked it, so I pushed it into the side of my bun. I smiled. No matter the troubles, the sight of Umeshima’s plum blossoms always made me feel happy inside.
After Gin-san had returned to his senses, on that bench, he had remained silent. He did not mention the rifle, and I did not mention the man in the wicker basket. He brought me to another room in the reserve, where he had stored his own, latest creation: a light bow of Qin design.
“It is powerful and accurate at medium to short range, you could pierce a boar through with that. I dare say that, in your hands, it may even be deadlier than gunpowder.”
My new bow was hanging on my shoulder proudly, curved backwards like a goat’s horns, small, light and compact. It had a dark red frame with a white handle and white tips; it looked swift and lethal, nothing like the piece of junk I had used this morning. With this new bow, I could have gone for a kill shot first, instead of letting the deer suffer needlessly.
“Do watch out, it is made with horn and sinew; it may loosen in the rain,” Gin-san said as I was leaving his workshop and Daisuke waved me goodbye.
The sun was setting, so I looked over the island one last time as I neared my home. From my hill, all of Umeshima was at my feet, its valleys of plum orchards glistening pink in the golden hour. I could not help but smile.
When I crossed the stone wall around my home, one more time something felt out of place. This time, however, I knew why; tracks in the snow leading towards the shed, and they were not human.
I shifted my weight to the tip of my feet to move in silence and approached the shed slowly. I heard rumbling inside and grunts. I left my bow in the snow and took out my knife; I knew exactly what it was in there.
In a swift movement, I shoved the door open with my shoulder and found my thief: the fox from this morning, face first in a bowl of salted meat. It looked up at me and screeched, flashing blood soaked fangs. It leapt under the table then between buckets and chairs in the tiny little shed, pushing tools and shelves over as it frantically tried to escape me.
“I was just going to throw you outside, don’t make this harder than it needs to be,” I shouted, as if it could understand me.
It had probably followed me home, and snuck into the shed while I was distracted by that wicker basket stranger. The fox tried to cross the room and I dove over it to pin it against the ground, but it slithered through my arms. As I stood up I saw that it had climbed on the table down on all fours and spitting at me. I noticed too late that I was standing between it and the open door. Before I could step aside, it leapt at me like a flash of red and its fangs closed around the side of my neck. I felt warm blood flowing down to my clavicle as it gnawed on me fiercely.
I screamed in pain, falling back against a wall of the shed and trying to rip it away from me. It was surprisingly strong, for such a small beast, and it clawed at me with all fours while I tried to grasp its neck. Finally its grip weakened and I managed to push it back, holding it with one hand at arm's length. Just as I was about to throw it out through the door, with my right hand pressed against my neck to stop the bleeding, it bit into my arm and I dropped it on the ground. It seemed uninterested in the door now, which was wide open on its right side. It climbed on the table again at full speed and leapt towards me once more, going for the throat again.
I did not want to kill it, it was just a hungry fox, but still I felt anger building in my chest. Just as the fox was about to reach me once more, I caught it in mid-air with my left hand, and threw it towards the door with all the strength I could muster.
I regretted my actions the second I felt the fox leave my hand. It flew back, and I heard its body strike against the door frame violently, before tumbling into the snow outside. I saw the plum flower that was in my hair, now on the ground, stomped over and torn to pieces. It was deadly quiet, all of a sudden, with only my hurried breath and the wind outside. I saw that parts of the door frame had broken down into splinters. I just killed that fox.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I mumbled, still holding my right hand against my neck as I stumbled outside. Night came quickly in winter, and it was getting dark. In the last rays of sunset, I saw what was perhaps the pinnacle of the strange series of events I had seen today. It was incomprehensible, weird and utterly incoherent. I stood there for several seconds trying to piece my thoughts together. In the place where I expected to find the fox that I had just killed in anger, there was a woman lying unconscious, naked in the snow.