Spirit's Princess (11 page)

All that day I walked a weaving path that led me up and down and across the mountain. There were places where it cut like a knife between banks of earth and stone and tree roots looming more than twice my height. In spite of my desperate situation, I grew more and more drawn to the loveliness surrounding me. I never knew what each new step might reveal. Butterflies with sunrise colors on their wings danced past my eyes, swooping over thickets of slowly uncurling ferns. I caught sight of a tiny squirrel, bushy tail twitching as he watched me from the safety of a high branch. The stone I almost trod on turned out to be a turtle at rest, her ancient face slowly emerging from the shadowed haven of her shell to give me a reproachful stare. Still holding tight to my branch of fast-falling cherry blossoms, I saw its petals come to rest on the forest floor amid clusters of white and yellow flowers, dainty as raindrops.

I tasted beauty in the mountains, but the tang of fear was never far. A second setting sun caught me in a place where a slab of rock stood up on end at a steep slant from
the ground. It looked like the thatched roof of one of our village’s pit houses. I was tired, and I’d learned a hard lesson about the foolishness of trying to travel by night, moon or no moon, starlight or no starlight. I gathered armloads of fallen needles from the ground and heaped them as far back under the slanting rock as I could. With my makeshift mat in place, I broke some young, low-growing branches from the nearby fir trees and used them to screen off my refuge. As the darkness deepened around me, I curled myself up as small as possible, turned my face to the reassuring sturdiness of the stone, tried not to think of wolves, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

I wish I could say that the next day brought me home, but it only took me farther in my wanderings. At least I was able to find another patch of mushrooms, though not enough to do more than take the edge off my hunger. I grew so desperate for food that when I noticed a nest of ants working in the shadow of a fallen tree trunk, I lured some of them onto the broken end of my cherry branch and slid them into my mouth without thinking. Their taste was sharp and hot on my tongue, and the whole experience was so unpleasant I decided that I’d have to be not just hungry but starving before I tried it again.

That night I wasn’t lucky enough to find a rocky stronghold. I did the best I could to protect myself, choosing a place where the trees grew thickest and making my nest in the small space in their midst. It was a bad night. The ground under me was lumpy with roots, in spite of the bed of branches I’d laid down once again, and the woods were weirdly quiet, as though a presence greater than the birds
and beasts and insects was passing by and commanded their respectful silence.

Afraid to sleep, I sat with my back pressed hard against a tree trunk, my legs drawn up to my chest, both fists clenched so tightly around the cherry branch that for an instant I imagined I heard the tender wood beneath the black bark groan. I
know
I heard my heartbeat throbbing in my ears and the rasp of my breath sounding louder than the roar of a rushing stream in full flood. Peering into the blackness, my eyes glimpsed moving shadows darker than the outlines of the trees. Now and then I caught the flicker of lights that were the indescribable color of sunlight touching dewdrops, but they vanished before I could decide whether they were beautiful or terrifying.

In time, my heart calmed and my eyelids grew heavy. My head nodded, my weary limbs relaxed, and I slumped down to sleep with my head cradled on one arm there amid the tangled roots of the trees. A warm, moist breeze passed over my face just before I dropped entirely from the waking world. It felt like the breath of some monstrous creature, but it carried such a sweet scent of reborn grass and newly opening flowers that I shed my fear like an old cloak and slipped serenely into peaceful dreams.

Early light dappled my face with a pattern of shadows cast by the pine trees that had guarded me through the night. The morning was alive with birdsong and the bright chirr and hum of insects. My bones ached when I stood up and my head was a bit giddy on account of my empty stomach, but at least I was rested.

Much later that day I found a way beyond the dense
growth of evergreens into a more sunlit space where broad-leaved trees flourished. They were young oaks, not the grandfathers but the children of the woodland. I heard squirrels chattering in their branches and laughed to see the antics of a pair of the fluff-tail creatures chasing one another around and around a moss-stained trunk. I wished I could have moved half as nimbly as they, and that I had their knowledge of how to make the forest feed me.

I felt a brief surge of hope when I emerged from the oak grove and stood looking down into a flower-filled valley, scarcely larger than our village. There was something about it that lightened my heart. It reminded me of a cupped hand, freely offering up so much peace and beauty. A few deer grazed in the distance, their sleek brown hides stippled with white as though someone with more than human power had sprinkled them with stars. I sat down on the grass under one of the oaks to watch them and to rest awhile.

As I sat there, a strange feeling came over me. The short hairs at the nape of my neck prickled, and my skin tingled the way it sometimes did in the moments before a thunderstorm broke in fury over our village. There was another presence close to me—I sensed it, though I couldn’t explain the sensation. I turned my head slowly and found the answer.

The sharp, red-furred muzzle of a fox was pointed directly at me from less than two arm’s lengths away. The beast lolled in the shade of another oak tree, forepaws crossed, regarding me as calmly as if I were just another patch of moss. Suddenly he flicked his ears forward and sprang, pouncing on something in the grass. His snout
dipped, and I heard tiny bones crunch. When he raised his nose again, I saw the body of the luckless mouse he’d caught. Three snaps of his jaws and the mouse was gone.

He looked at me again, his eyes glittering with mischief.
Envy me, little human kit? The world feeds us, when we know where to look. You starve in the midst of a feast!

My mouth opened soundlessly. Had I heard that? I leaned toward him, but he flicked his tail and trotted away.

I
was
starving. How else could I explain having heard the fox speak? When I stood up, I had to lean against the oak tree for support. I laid my head against its bark and watched the deer herd.
They must know where there’s water
, I thought.
Even the fox knows. How could any of them live without it? Maybe I can follow them. I won’t get
too
close, just near enough to keep them in sight
.

As I gazed over the little valley, the stag who ruled the herd raised his head and looked at me.
Do I hear you rightly, little fawn? Have you finally grown weary of walking by yourself, of pushing us away?

“No,” I said aloud, beginning to shiver. “I’m not hearing this. I’m not!” The last word was a shout. All the deer lifted their heads and stared in my direction, but they stood their ground. Even with so much space between us, their eyes held mine.

My breath grew steadier, my heartbeat slowed. The longer I stared into their deep brown eyes, the calmer I became. My thirst, my hunger, my aching bones, and all my scrapes and bruises faded. The need to shout “No, no,
no
!” at what was happening to me became instead a whisper of
words that swirled through me, body, mind, and heart, gently murmuring
Why not?

There was a faint droning in my ears like insect song. The sound became a spiderweb of silver threads that I could see but also hear and touch. They drifted down over me with the sunlight, looped around me with the valley breezes, crept up from the warm springtime earth like newly sprouted vines. I couldn’t move without feeling the tug of those countless threads.

The sensation of being tied fast scared me.
What is this? What’s happening to me? I won’t be captive, I
won’t!
This is just a bad dream. Let me wake! Let me go!
I closed my eyes and fought to pull free, only to feel the web around me melt like a snowflake. I opened my eyes and raised my hands, turning them slowly. The threads that had held me had vanished, but were not gone. They were—as they had always been—a part of me.

In that moment, so much changed. My mind accepted what my heart had always known: no matter how loudly I denied that they existed, the spirits remained. When anger, bitterness, or sorrow filled me, when the world’s unfairness overwhelmed me, I turned from them, but they never turned from me. They were not the cruel, spiteful beings that filled my father with so much fear and anger. They didn’t send the fox to kill the mouse because the mouse had done something to offend them. I might never fully understand the reasons for their actions, but who could? Did I even understand my own?

None of that was important. The truth, the comfort
that I felt more strongly than my thirst or hunger or pain, was that they were forever as much a part of us and our world as we were a part of theirs. We shared balance and beauty, the soft breath of spring and the harsh cold of winter. If I was in the heart of my home, surrounded by my family, or here in an unknown land, far from Mama, Father, Aki, and all the rest, still I was not alone.

I never was and never would be alone.

I folded my hands more tightly around the nearly bare cherry branch and walked out of the forest.

The spell of wonder that had fallen over me at the edge of the woods lasted only until I’d half walked, half skidded down the green slope. The moment I set foot in the little valley, the stag tossed his head and snorted, then began to trot away. The does followed.

“Wait!” I called plaintively, stretching out my free hand toward them. “Don’t go! Not yet!” When I’d shouted at them before, they’d stood firm, but this time my cry startled them into a run. I stumbled after them, begging them to return. They fled beyond my sight in a heartbeat, out of the valley, up the hillside, and into the forest, their white rumps flashing. I stood staring after them, hoping for one last glimpse of their dappled coats through the trees, but the woods had taken them.

I sank down in the grass to catch my breath. My mouth was dry as ashes and my head spun. Almost without my being aware of it, I tilted sideways and was soon stretched
full length with my face pressed against the cool earth. My eyelids felt so heavy, I could hardly keep them open. Through the blur of my lashes, I saw that my fingers were still sealed around the branch I’d carried with me every step from the cherry grove. It seemed as though I’d been holding on to it for a dozen seasons. Not a single petal remained.

Oh, that’s too bad
, I thought dully as my eyes closed.
Now Aki will never believe me when I tell him I walked all that way. What a shame, what a shame, what a …

I slid into unconsciousness as swiftly as I’d slid into the valley.

The sound of an unfamiliar voice woke me. It was low and strong, like the stag’s, but there was something softer to it as well, reminding me of my mother. I blinked rapidly and breathed in the smells of dried herbs, steaming hot rice, and cooked meat. I was lying curled up on my side, my face no longer pressed against grass and dirt but the thin cushioning of a bedroll. The tunic I wore smelled very clean, but it was too big for me, and felt coarser against my skin. I squirmed and flipped myself over onto my back, eyes wide, and saw a strange woman’s face hovering above me.

“Ah! There you are, little one.” Bit by bit, the rest of her came into focus. She was a thick-bodied woman who didn’t look much older than Mama, though her face was much more heavily tattooed and her hair was more elaborately looped and braided. Her unfamiliar accent was striking, but that was the sole difference between her speech and mine. “I was concerned that you’d never wake. Here, I want you to try to sit up and drink this.” She slid one arm under my
back and lifted me upright, setting a shallow bowl to my lips with the other. When I took it from her hand and sipped the thin rice gruel eagerly, she smiled. “Good, that’s very good. So you were only hungry and thirsty, nothing worse after all. When I get my hands on Sora, I’ll teach him to go spinning tales of demons!” The arm supporting me tightened into a warm hug. “Nothing demonic about you, is there, pretty one?”

I didn’t reply right away. I was too busy gulping down the contents of that bowl. Once it was empty, I set it on my knees, took a deep breath, and said, “Demons?”

That made her laugh. It was a reassuring sound that made me feel immediately at ease. “Is
that
what you want to know? Haven’t you got a few more important things on your mind, child?”

“More import—? Oh!” I gaped at her for a moment, then let loose a flood of questions: “Where am I? How did I get here? Who are you? How long have I been here? Am I very far from my home? Can you tell me how to get back? Do you know if I—?”

“Enough! Enough!” She raised her hands in surrender, still laughing. “I’ll give you your answers, but one at a time, eh? And before anything else, you’ll answer one question for me.” She leaned closer, and her many necklaces clinked and clattered. “What’s your name, my young guest? I can’t go on calling you ‘pretty child,’ though it suits you. It makes you sound as though there’s nothing more to you than
this
.” She chucked me under the chin lightly.