Temple Alley Summer

by Sachiko Kashiwaba

  We went upstairs and stepped onto the terrace. The surroundings were so bright I could barely open my eyes. Morning had arrived and the blizzard had passed. Stonebird had gotten covered in snow as she flew back, so the weather must just have settled. Pure white stretched as far as we could see.

  A boat sat on the frozen lake. A rope ladder hung from the terrace down to the boat. Without a qualm, the prince climbed down to the boat. When I led the woman to the ladder, she too managed to ease herself down slowly. After Stonebird and I got in, there was still enough space for several more people. My mind raced, remembering my first boat ride. I wondered if I would feel the same dreadful sensation in my stomach. Worrying about that was easier than wondering what would become of us if we didn’t find the pearl.

  Stonebird stood at the bow of the boat. The prince stood at the stern, as though his position were obvious, and prodded the ice with a long pole. The boat slid along at a steady clip, slicing through the crisp air. The wind no longer blew. Just as I was thinking I could handle the sliding motion, the ice beneath us cracked, and we eased into the water. It was as the prince had said: the lake did not completely freeze. I gripped the side of the boat. Stonebird squatted and held onto the sides as well. I realized that she was used to riding her broom and must get seasick on boats, like me. The prince placed the pole in the boat and took up an oar. Then he rowed us through the water. The boat rocked a bit, though not as much as when I had crossed the river. His rowing was skillful, but still I shuddered.

  “Your strokes are steady as ever,” Stonebird commented, turning.

  “I rowed every day as a child,” the prince answered.

  His voice had a hint of cheer in it. Perhaps he was recalling his childhood, when he believed that Stonebird was his mother, or perhaps he was happy to exercise his muscles after so many years in the dungeon. Maybe he was just happy to breathe fresh air again. As he moved the boat forward with confidence, his now-scrawny body did not seem weak.

  “I wonder how many children have ridden in this boat and dived in the lake,” the prince murmured.

  “I was the only one in my time,” the woman said, turning her sightless eyes to him.

  “You were special,” the prince told her. He looked meaningfully from the woman to me.

  He seemed to imply that she and I shared a unique quality. I too had dived alone.

  “What happened to the other children?” I asked warily. “Did they get shut in the dungeon and die?” I almost didn’t want to hear the answer, but I could not stop myself from asking.

  “No, none of them lived. Something in the mud of the lake bed disagreed with them—though I’ve never seen any dead fish rot and float on this lake,” said Stonebird, shaking her head. “I could count on one hand the number of children who made it to the dungeon.”

  “So, all the children you bought died,” I said, my body shaking as I understood.

  “Yes, they did,” the witch answered, nodding and bowing her head. “Except one. One child was utterly useless. I really misjudged that one! He disappointed me. He seemed so agile and observant.”

  Stonebird clicked her tongue in disgust. She spoke as if the child were nothing more than an apple she had bought and then found to be rotten inside.

  The prince looked up at Stonebird’s words. He had lived with her since the day after his birth. Surely, he remembered the child she spoke of.

  What had happened to this child who had proved “useless”? I wondered. He seemed not to have perished here, but I was too scared to ask what had become of him. I surmised that she had not killed him. The prince and the woman had been shut in the dungeon, but she had at least spared their lives.

  The boat reached a place where we could see the northern cliffs. The prince looked at me occasionally to check the direction. I pointed with a finger that was out of Stonebird’s view. The place I wondered about was at the eastern end of the cliffs, beneath a spot where a towering gingko tree flamed yellow in autumn. When I looked at the tree, the prince nodded.

  “The pearl can be found in an opening below that tree,” he said. “If it’s still in there, that is.” He skillfully spoke as if my idea were his.

  The boat stopped at a patch of thick ice. From here, it seemed possible to walk on the ice to the shore.

  “You can’t find it yourself, can you?” Stonebird said to the prince, seeming to suspect something. She looked at me.

  I removed the threadbare dress I was wearing. The hempen one I arrived in had grown too small in recent months, so I was wearing a castoff. I was taller now.

  No one asked if I was cold or expressed concern about me diving in frigid water. The woman and prince must have endured temperatures exactly like this. I was used to it too. Once I got in the water, it seemed warmer than it had in the boat.

  In the area I had glimpsed through the lake’s murk, something or someone waited. I had sensed a presence here beneath the surface. I didn’t know if there was a connection to the pearl, but this was the only place in the lake where I had ever sensed anything. The prince and the woman hadn’t mentioned a creature living here, so perhaps it—whatever it was—had not been alive when they were diving.

  Unlike the east shore, where I had always searched, the lake bed off the north shore had large boulders. The cliffs seemed to be crumbling into the water. Today I could sense nothing through the muck. I returned to the surface for air. To head toward the cliffs, I needed to swim under thick ice. I didn’t know if I could hold my breath long enough. The prince and Stonebird spotted me. The prince nodded firmly.

  I breathed deeply and dove again. Dodging submerged boulders, I swam toward the cliffs. Sometimes my hands or feet struck rock, but I could still half-see. As I kicked with my legs, thinking I could go further, I struck something sharp and cut myself. A rock, perhaps. Pain shot through my right calf. I kept going.

  When I reached the base of the cliffs, I detected movement. A large boulder seemed to be swaying in the current even though the current was weak here. I decided to turn back when my right leg got stuck. Caught, to be more accurate. Though not between two rocks. Had something grabbed me?

  No sooner did I wonder this than I felt teeth sink into me. I would have screamed, but I was underwater. I kicked with my left leg at the mouth that bit my right, when an arm swatted my leg away. I thought it might be a giant fish, but it had arms. When I leaned toward it, thinking to pry its jaws loose with my hands, I saw a large red eye. The creature had jet-black fur and no ears—a face like a rat. It swung my body about. Its fangs enveloped my leg. I needed air. But I couldn’t rise to the surface.

  As I began to lose consciousness, I suddenly floated free. I shot to the surface and gulped in air. I saw the blind woman gripping the rim of the boat and staring at the water. Stonebird frowned next to her. The prince wasn’t there. Then I saw him surface in front of me, gripping the long pole from the boat. He must have worried when he didn’t see me resurface.

  “What was that monster? A giant otter?” He glanced around wide-eyed.

  “Is something living in the water?” Stonebird asked as she peered closely at the lake.

  “Are you all right?” the blind woman shouted, her voice echoing all around.

  I began to nod, to agree it must be a large otter, when it bit my leg again and pulled me under.

  “It smelled her blood!” I heard the prince say.

  The beast had been lured by blood and followed me. It seemed to have fixed on me as its prey. This time it would not let go so easily. As it dragged me through the water, I could do nothing but flail my legs and arms helplessly.

  Above my head loomed a large boulder; as if to circle the base of it, the beast rose to the surface with me in its mouth. In the base of the boulder yawned a cave. That cave must be the animal’s nest, I thought. There was a shelf of rock inside, on which the beast flung me. Above the shelf there seemed to be an air hole. I could breathe now and see in the light.

  I can breathe, but I could die here, I though
t. I ground my teeth, angry. I had once thought that eating well was reason enough to live. I had changed. I felt different now.

  Once I was on the shelf, the creature released my leg. It seemed to want hold of a softer spot. With a low growl, it lunged for my throat. I threw a rock at its head. I heard a pop, but the beast stopped only an instant before coming at me again. Furiously, I felt for more stones as I scrunched backward on my bottom. All the rocks were too small. Then my hand came upon something sharp. The beast attacked again. Before I knew it, I was stabbing its red eye with what seemed like a needle. The beast persisted. It wanted my throat. I thought I was done for. Suddenly, the animal’s body was dragged away from me. It dropped from the rock into the water.

  I could see the prince pulling the beast’s leg. It began to attack him. With the needle in my hand, I jumped into the water. But before I could stab the creature again, the prince slashed its belly with a dagger. The cave filled with the smell of blood. The beast’s body sank to the bottom.

  “You saved my life,” I said as we returned to the rock shelf.

  “Let’s rest here a minute,” the prince replied. He pushed me onto the ledge and clambered up. “We have to stop the bleeding.” He used the dagger to cut a strip from his shirt, and he wrapped my leg.

  “Where did you get that?” I asked, glancing at the blade.

  “Stonebird loaned it to me,” he replied. “Where did you get that pin?”

  My hand still gripped it, unable to open. As I eased my fingers off one by one, I answered, “It was here. I felt it with my hand.”

  The needle flashed gold and had a blue stone at one end. I realized it was thicker than a sewing needle.

  “We used to find those often in the lake, when I was small,” the prince told me. “It’s a weapon disguised as a woman’s hairpin.”

  The prince now turned to explore the rock shelf. I got up and did the same.

  We searched the shelf on all fours.

  “It’s here!” The prince held up a pearl attached to a chain. It was the moon that Stonebird sought.

  “It’s gigantic!” I said. It was so beautiful it took my breath away. Along with the pearl and pin, we also found a jeweled hair comb carved from an animal’s horn. The creature had hoarded these objects.

  “At last …” I went limp with relief.

  “You were right,” the prince replied, clapping my shoulder.

  “Should we really give the pearl to Stonebird?” I asked.

  “Well, we agreed that if we were released—”

  “But her spell will be complete! Instead of you, Stonebird’s son will become king!”

  “I could care less about becoming king.”

  Gripping the pearl, the prince dove back into the water.

  I had no time to tell him that if Stonebird’s son should become king, the world would grow dark. As I made to follow him, I remembered the hairpin I still clutched in my hand. It would be enough to give Stonebird the pearl, I decided. I stuck my arm up through the cave’s air hole. I felt ice-cold air above, and snow. I stabbed the pin and comb in the snow near the hole.

  “You found it,” Stonebird said, her eyes flashing, as we hauled ourselves into the boat.

  The prince held out the pearl, as large as my palm. The witch snatched it hungrily.

  “Mine at last!” She giggled. Then she cackled, unable to staunch the emotions that welled deep inside her.

  The blind woman found me with her hands and wordlessly touched my head, shoulders, arms, and legs, checking me. It was the first time I had been examined that way. I didn’t mind it.

  “You made us a promise. Now release us.” The prince looked toward the shore.

  “Push the boat over there. You can cross to the rocks.” Stonebird pointed to the west shore of the lake. From there, we could walk the frozen surface to the cliffs beyond.

  The boat slid onto the ice again. The three of us disembarked. Stonebird took the pole from the prince and turned the boat around. She did not look back.

  The three of us watched for a while. We watched as birds cried noisily and circled like smoke above Stonebird’s mansion. The prince looked not only at the mansion, but also at Stonebird’s back as it grew smaller and smaller. It must have been hard for him; after all, he had once believed her to be his mother.

  Though I had dived, today I would not be able to warm my body by a stove, and I soon began to shiver. My bare feet grew numb on the frozen ground. The blind woman wrapped her arms around me. The prince was wet too. At this rate, we would freeze to death before we starved.

  “We’re free,” the prince muttered, seeming to come back to himself. “No shoes, but we’re free!”

  Forcing his eyes from the place where he had lived for twenty years, beginning with his second day of life, the prince looked at us.

  “And we have no place to go,” I reminded him. But his high spirits were catching. I knew now that living meant more than surviving. With no shoes and no shelter, I stood in possession of my own will and strength. I was as happy as the prince himself.

  “We need to warm up. Say, I believe there’s a house south of the lake,” said the prince. “Let’s try to find help.”

  The prince turned resolutely from the shore.

  “I remember that place,” the blind woman said, nodding. “I only ever saw an old man there, though. I wonder if he lives alone.”

  I had never dived on the south side, so I didn’t know of any house. That was how big the lake was, and that house was the closest shelter.

  The sun sank rapidly. Snow began falling again. Still, we walked on toward the south. My body grew numb through and through, and my legs barely functioned. The blind woman held one arm tight around my shoulders, and the prince held her by her other hand. The two of us moved as if pulled along by him. It was easier to walk the frozen fields than the lake surface. At times we got stuck in deep snow and struggled to free ourselves. I badly wanted to go to sleep in those snowdrifts.

  “Adi! Wake up! Wake up!” the woman roused me each time, slapping my cheeks. Somehow, I would open my eyes and move my legs again. My mind went blank. Except for one thought: How did she know my name? I had never told her.

  I was naked. The woman was naked too, her body wrapped around mine to warm me inside a worn wool blanket. I had slept.

  When I stirred, she spoke. “Good! You’ve come to.” Deeply relieved, she rubbed my back with one hand.

  This room was not as warm as Stonebird’s mansion, but a fire crackled in a crumbling stove, and a roof sheltered us. We had reached the house on the south side—though it was more hut than house. Snow blew in through cracks in the walls and formed mounds inside. Still, this was the kind of house I was used to.

  “These are men’s clothes and have holes in them, but there’s still some wear left,” the woman said. She gave me a shirt and trousers that were faded, but dry.

  “You might have frostbite. Put your feet in here.” The prince poured lukewarm water into a basin for me.

  “The man who lived here must have left several years ago,” he said. “Everything’s coated in dust.” He brought some dried-out potatoes from the pantry. “We started a fire. We have a place to sleep. There’s even food to eat,” he added. “Not bad!”

  The prince put the potatoes in the pot and hung it over the fire.

  The potatoes were rock-hard, even after we boiled them, but having something to put in our mouths gave us peace.

  “If we sell that pin the giant otter had, we’ll have food till spring,” the prince said. He planned to retrieve the pin from the cliffs north of the lake when the snow stopped.

  “Adi? You found something besides the pearl?” the woman asked, turning her blind eyes toward me.

  I said yes, and then asked, “Why do you know my name?”

  “I’m Hami. You don’t remember me, do you? I knew you were kin from the moment Stonebird said you were Polonia. Polonia is what they call us in this land,” the blind woman answered.

 
; Hami was the name of my eldest sibling.

  “You’re my sister? My sister!” I gripped her hand, with its fingernails like mine.

  “That’s right, Adi,” she answered. She embraced me.

  Her embrace was warm. My sister. I had found her in the last place on earth I could have imagined. The hands that had checked me when I came out of the lake had been the hands of my own flesh and blood.

  “They say Polonia have ancestors who died, then came back to life,” the prince explained. “Your bodies are different from other people’s. The sludge in the lake doesn’t affect you as it did those other children.”

  I realized that the people the prince called Polonia were those of us who had minded the royal graves.

  “My eyes were sharper than the other children’s, but they worsened more quickly,” Hami said. “But, Adi, your sight should be unaffected. You dove for less than a year.”

  Hami brushed tears from my cheek with her finger.

  “So we really are descendants of the reborn,” I muttered.

  “I hear that Polonia have an especially strong attachment to life,” the prince said. “Must be because your ancestors tasted death once. They wished to live, no matter what. But they say that if your desire for life goes out, you fade away instantly. I’m amazed at how Hami here has clung to life, despite everything she’s faced.”

  The prince turned to my sister. I wanted to tell her just how his eyes looked at that moment, but I did not have the words.

  My sister Hami had been taken to the capital and sold when she was ten. The buyer had been a prominent purveyor of furs.

  “I was happier not being home, just as Father had said,” Hami told me. “I had plenty to eat. At first, I only did household chores. The furrier and his wife took a liking to me, and they began to teach me how to handle furs in the shop. At that time, Stonebird came to buy a pelt and saw my fingernails. She asked to buy me, but the furrier said no. He knew she was a witch.