Spirit's Princess (5 page)

I wanted to be the one to bring that smile of peace and contentment to his face. As soon as my leg healed, I would dance for him.

My decision made me even more impatient to get well.
I begged Mama to go ask our shaman for any charms or potions she could use to speed my recovery. I awaited her return eagerly, and as soon as I heard her feet on the ladder, I called out, “What did Lady Yama give you, Mama? How fast will it work? Is it medicine? What does it taste like? Oh, never mind, I don’t care, I’ll take it!”

Mama knelt by my bedside. Her hands were empty. “Lady Yama didn’t give me any medicine for you, little one,” she said.

“What, then? A charm? Magic?”

She laughed. “You act as if you believe a shaman’s magic is something an ordinary person could carry home, like a borrowed basket!”

“Well, then, is
she
coming here to cast the spell that will heal me faster?” I demanded.

“She’s not coming, and she didn’t send you anything but
this
message.” Mama made a long face, the corners of her mouth turning down sharply. She scowled so that deep lines furrowed the space between her eyebrows, turning her face into a crone’s mask, and when she spoke, it was in our shaman’s gruff voice: “ ‘Tell your little one that I’ll use my magic to speed things along, but first she must use magic of her own and turn herself into an old woman like me. Then she’ll see how much faster the days run by!’ ” I could almost hear Yama’s hoarse laughter echoing through my mother’s imitation.

“So … nothing,” I said sadly.

Mama stroked my brow. “I’m sorry, little one. I know it’s not the answer you wanted. I hoped that at least I could
cheer you by the way I told it. I suppose I’m not very good at pretending to be someone I’m not, but I
did
want to amuse you.”

“Oh, you were very good at acting like Lady Yama!” I was quick to say. “You looked and sounded just like her!”

“Hmph. I hope I don’t look
exactly
like her. Not yet, at any rate,” Mama replied with a sniff. But she was smiling.

I swallowed my disappointment and made the best of things. My body was confined to bed, but my mind was free. I passed the time imagining the dance I’d perform for Father the very instant Yama came to remove my bandages. I created countless dances in my head, stealing the movements of birds, clouds, flowers, reeds, a rushing brook, the iridescent wings of a dragonfly. When the shaman arrived to free me, I’d be ready.

On an early summer’s day, Yama climbed our ladder and made the house ring with her powerful voice: “Where’s that lazy child that everyone complains about so much? Who does she think she is, one of those twittering princesses from the lands beyond the sunset? A Matsu chieftain’s daughter must be made of stronger stuff. All day long she does nothing but lie in bed and make her poor family bring her whatever she wants! Ah, those days are over. I won’t stand for it anymore. It’s time for you to get up, Himiko! What do you say to that?”

“Good!”
I shouted so loudly that Mama’s face flushed. She was afraid that Yama would mistake my eagerness for insolence. Shamans knew the secrets of healing, how to read the weather signs, and the lore of plants and animals,
but their greatest power was the ability to speak to the dead as easily as to the living, and to reach the ears of the gods themselves.

“Lady Yama, please forgive my stupid daughter,” Mama said, kneeling before the old woman, her forehead touching the floor. “She meant no disrespect.”

Yama snorted so emphatically that it rattled the beads around her neck. “You needn’t tell
me
. Don’t I know her ways? I’ve had my eye on her since the day she was born. That was a day none of us can forget! I’m glad she’s making such a racket. It means she’s strong. Now fetch a stool. She’ll need to sit on it so I can unbind her leg.”

I began to fidget even before Mama brought the stool and helped me onto it. She had to hold me by the shoulders to keep me from wriggling myself right off the seat. I could hardly wait to be released from all the days of my captivity. I wished Father were there, but he’d gone off into the mountains with the boys and some of the other village men, on the trail of wild pigs.

It doesn’t matter
, I thought, grinning.
He’ll see me dance soon enough. For now, I’ll show Mama
. Why was Yama taking such a long time to remove the bandages? I had to hold my tongue or I’d start telling her to hurry, hurry,
hurry
, and Mama wouldn’t like that at all.

“There. All done.” Yama sat back on her heels and looked at my leg narrowly. “Hmm. That was not a good break, but it’s healed well enough for—”

“Mama, look at me! Look what I can do!” I squirmed free from Mama’s grasp and jumped to my feet, already
singing and clapping my hands, ready to show her my surprise.

I was the one surprised. I clapped my hands only once before I found myself toppling sideways as my newly freed leg crumpled under me. Mama screamed, but I was too startled to draw a breath. I hit the floor and lay there, staring at the cracks between the boards, stunned and bewildered. What had happened? Had my leg broken again? Did the spirits hate me
that
much for not having kept my promise?

“Little girl, what were you thinking?” Yama’s bony hands hooked themselves under my armpits and hoisted me back onto the stool. “You haven’t used your legs for almost an entire season. They need to
remember
how to carry you. Give them time.”

Head bowed, I took a long look at my unbandaged leg. If I’d done that first, I never would have tried to stand, let alone dance. It was all wrinkled, pale as the belly of a fish, and so scrawny that it made my kneecap look like a blown-up deer’s bladder. My body had betrayed and humiliated me. I was too miserable to utter a word.

Mama had other plans. “What’s the matter with you, Himiko? Thank Lady Yama for all she’s done for you,” she said crisply. When I mumbled a reply, she made me repeat it properly.

Our shaman was amused. “There, there, child, you go ahead and sulk. It’s all right if you want to blame me for your troubles. Easier than blaming yourself, even if that’s who deserves it. I didn’t force you up that tree
or
shove you out of it. I just picked up the pieces and stuck them back
together the best I could.” She rose from the floor and swept out of our house, her dry laughter crackling through the air.

The hunting party was gone for three days. I was able to stand up and hobble around the house with Mama’s help by the time they returned. Father was overjoyed to see me walking again. “I’m going to give the spirits
double
the thanksgiving offering they’re due—for our success in the hunt and for your recovery,” he declared, hugging me.

“And I’ll add to it,” Aki said.

“So will we!” Masa and Shoichi were beaming. They’d managed to make their first kills, even if all they’d brought down were some scrawny old birds. When our family ate their meat that night, it was like wood shavings in our mouths no matter how long Emi stewed it.

“They’d better not offer any of
this
to the spirits,” Aki whispered to me.

I didn’t feel like sharing in the joke. Why thank the spirits at all? I saw them as the ones to blame for my injury. Being confined to my bed had given me a lot of time to think about what had put me there. Perhaps I’d only imagined their voices that night, but it still hurt to remember how they’d taunted me, and that hurt pushed aside all memories of the encouraging words they’d also spoken. The pine tree had saved me from falling to my death, but I believed I wouldn’t have fallen at all if he hadn’t snapped the branch I was holding. I had called him Grandfather and thanked him with all my heart; it hadn’t been enough.

Why does Father say he’ll make a thanksgiving offering to the spirits when he knows it’s really a bribe?
I thought.
They don’t want our thanks; they want our gifts, and if they aren’t satisfied, they’ll hurt us. Sometimes they’ll hurt us anyway, no matter how much we give them. They’ll do it just because they can. It’s not fair. The spirits
—

And then I realized something about all the forces in my life that were bigger and stronger than I, the gods and the goddesses and all the lesser spirits of this world, the powerful beings who saw me as an insect if they noticed me at all:
they want our gifts, but the gift they want the most is fear!
It was a bitter revelation, so bitter that I didn’t want to think about it further. I was sure it was one of the great secrets that the grown-ups knew, and now, so did I.

Summer drifted to a close. Every day, I grew a little stronger. I hadn’t given up the idea of dancing for Father, and so I concentrated my whole attention on regaining the use of my legs. Nothing else in our village, our clan, or our household existed for me, unless it led me to walk, to run, and finally, to dance.

Whenever he could, Aki carried me down our ladder and let me walk around the village, leaning on him. It was a grand moment when I was able to take my first unassisted steps, even though my mended leg had a jerky, awkward gait.

“Never mind, Little Sister,” Aki said, patting my shoulder. “Enough practice and that will change. The important thing is, you’re walking on your own again. Wait until the rest of the family sees you!”

There wasn’t much chance of that, not on a day when most of the village folk, including our family, would be in the fields. The sun goddess stood at the midpoint of the sky, the time to leave work for a while. Aki had chosen to use his
rest time to come back to the house and help me, but the others would be dozing under the trees that grew near the rice paddies, far out of earshot no matter how loudly I called. I frowned.
Someone
should see what I’d done!

Then I remembered:
Emi’s in the house! She didn’t go to the fields today; she stayed home with the babies
. I didn’t give a second thought to how odd that was. The women always brought their infants with them when they went to work in the paddies. They’d take turns, one or two at a time, looking after all the children. Why had Emi remained behind? I shrugged away the question. Grown-ups did all sorts of strange things. Besides, it had nothing to do with me.

“Emi!” I lifted my head, cupped my hands around my mouth, and shouted her name. “Emi! Come out, Emi! I need you!”

“Himiko, no.” Aki’s hand closed on my arm. His joyful look was gone. “Don’t bother her now.”

I was alarmed by the sudden change in him. “I only want her to see what I—”

“Let her alone. Besides, you’ll—you’ll wake the babies with all your shouting.”

“But I won’t,” I protested. “They sleep through anything. They’re
always
sleeping, especially Emi’s son. She has to wake him up to eat, and he still falls asleep in the middle of it.”

“Himiko—”

I didn’t catch the note of warning in my brother’s voice, or hear the creak of floorboards from the house platform. “I wonder when they’ll start doing something besides eating and sleeping,” I went on. “They both used to cry a lot, but
they don’t anymore. Does that mean they’re going to start talking soon? Cousin Kura’s baby was born around the same time as they were, and he’s talking
and
walking! Remember the fuss everyone made?”

“Himiko, be
quiet
.” Aki’s sharp answer shocked me worse than a slap across the face. No one had spoken so harshly to me since before my tumble from the pine. How awful to hear Father’s old, stern voice come out of Aki’s mouth. “Stop chattering before—”

“It’s all right, Aki.” Emi’s haggard face looked down at us over the edge of the platform. “I’ll be right there.”

She descended the ladder slowly. I watched, lost and confused, as she and Aki gazed at one another for half a dozen heartbeats without speaking.

He broke the unnerving silence. “Is he—?” She nodded. When he tried to put his arms around her, she held him away.

“Don’t. I can’t bear it. Not yet.”

“Shall I get the others?” Aki lowered his eyes. I wanted to ask,
What are you talking about? Why do you both look so sad? You’re scaring me!
But something kept me from opening my lips.

Emi shook her head. “Tell them later. There’s no need for them to come back now. What for?”

“Then shall I fetch Lady Yama?”

“Yes.” Her voice broke, and she began to cry.

That was when I knew that what we had all feared for so long had finally happened: my baby brother, Emi’s son, was dead.

We buried him in an earthenware pot in the place
where we Matsu always gave our kin to the underworld. Yama performed all the rituals she knew to make his passage from life to death an easy one. I remember how she danced with two sacred bronze mirrors, catching the sunlight and making it leap back and forth above her head like a captive star. She sang and chanted and called out to the spirits in a dozen different ways, imploring them to come near, to guide my baby brother gently into the darkness, to have pity on our family.

I didn’t hear a single answer. I didn’t feel anything come near us except our sorrow.

We set aside our ordinary clothes and wore garments made of hemp. At the end of the period of mourning, Yama helped us purify ourselves with water, with evergreen branches, with salt, and by striking deep, resounding tones from the bronze bell she used to call out to the gods. When we put on our ordinary clothes again, I noticed that Emi was wearing a new dress. I asked her what she’d done with her other one. It hadn’t been
that
old.

“I wrapped
him
in it,” she said dully. “I didn’t want him to think I’d sent him away alone. Maybe this way, his spirit will be comforted, and he’ll remember me.”

That was a dreadful time. Just before the harvest, Yukari’s little one followed his half brother into the sunless lands. As we left the burial place, Emi put her arm around Yukari’s shoulders and said, “I’m so sorry, dear one. It’s my boy’s fault that yours is gone. I did what I could and begged his spirit to depart in peace, but he was too young and fearful to make such a journey by himself.”