A Place to Begin

by Richard Parks

  “If I were to release you then it would be my concern too. I want to know what I am doing by releasing you, if I choose to agree. There may well be more to that than one can guess, as well.”

  “Clever girl,” the creature repeated, almost admiringly. “But there’s no time now. Run along to White Willow or you’ll be late. And remember what I said about letting her find you out; you’ll be no good to me if she suspects. Come back when you are ready to bargain.”

  Umi was almost late again, because she came across a vision that was very startling. She thought about what she had seen as long as she could, then hurried on with the water. It seemed that White Willow stared at her long and hard for a bit, but in the end she had dismissed Umi without saying anything. Umi was relieved, but also certain that, if she kept drinking the Seeing Water, she wouldn’t be able to fool White Willow for much longer. Frankly, she was surprised she’d done it as long as this. Soon Umi found herself once more in Kyuko’s kitchen, where, as usual, her supper waited. Umi was nearly through with her meal before she finally worked up the courage to ask what was on her mind.

  “Kyuko-san?”

  The old woman didn’t look up from her washing.

  “Hmm?”

  “Did you ever wish your life had been different?” Kyuko paused. “What possesses you to ask such a thing, child?”

  “I just wondered…if you ever thought about it.”

  Now Kyuko did look at her, with an expression lost somewhere between a frown and a smile. “You are a strange child, Umi. What should my life have been, other than it is?”

  Umi shook her head. “I think your life is a fine one as it is. Yet aren’t there choices, or circumstances, that might make one choose or follow one path over another?” Kyuko smiled. “A passing scholar once tried to seduce me, in my younger days. He spoke of different paths and life’s potential, when what he really wanted was me under the maple grove. You sound a lot like he did, Umi-chan. Do you want something of me, too?”

  Umi blushed, but did not waver. “I want to know.” Kyuko shrugged. “White Willow bought me from my parents, as she did you. I suppose I might have wound up a farmer’s wife, and more likely dead now from overwork and too many children. Or perhaps a merchant’s concubine, married off or comfortably and discreetly retired. You may not believe this, child, but I was more than a little fair in those days.”

  Umi, looking at Kyuko’s sweet face, had no trouble at all imagining it and said as much, but Kyuko didn’t seem to hear.

  After a bit she went on, but Umi wasn’t sure she was speaking to her at all. “What should I have been? I was not born to be a great lady, nor a sorceress like White Willow. Those paths were closed, what was left? White Willow treated me well, my duties were—and are—easy to bear. What should I have done…?”

  Umi bowed her head. “Pardon my foolish curiosity. My head is full of fancies these days.”

  Kyuko looked up. It was as if she had only now remembered that Umi was in the room. She leaned over and tousled Umi’s black hair. “You are a strange girl, Umi-chan, but sweet. I don’t know the answer to your question. I can’t remember ever asking it myself. I—I guess at the time things seemed well enough as they were. Now run along and get your bath; it’s late.”

  Umi had more questions, but she didn’t think they were for Kyuko to answer. She finished her rice and hurried off to the bath house, where White Willow’s menservants would have already prepared the tubs. This time she didn’t avert her eyes from the bits of strangeness her new sight promised to reveal to her. She found herself actually eager for them now, and was a little disappointed when none appeared.

  Umi drank from the pail the very next morning. “I don’t suppose,” she said, “that it would do any good for you to swear to tell me the truth?” The shikigami grinned at her. “By what kami should I swear, that you would believe me?”

  Umi considered. “I do not think there is any power that you respect enough to compel truth. Nor do I know that your nature will even allow for the truth.”

  “My warnings were true enough.” The creature actually looked offended. “Consider, Umi—the shikigami are as much a part of the Divine as any venerated hero or goddess. We are family, in a way. What sibling really holds another more worthy than himself, proper forms of deference and respect not withstanding? There is no power by which I will swear, so instead I suggest this: test me.”

  “How?”

  “Ask me a question other than the one you really want to know. I’ll answer, and you can test the truth of my answer. It’s not as compelling as an oath, of course, but it will show that I am at least capable of speaking truth, and, perhaps, wise enough to know the answer you seek. After that, what you choose to believe from me is up to you. As it would be in any case.”

  Umi considered. “All right—why was Kyuko brought into White Willow’s service?” The creature sighed. “For the same reason you were, silly child; and therefore I won’t tell you that. Ask another, and don’t be so clever this time.” Umi blushed again. “Very well: Do you intend any harm to me or to Mistress White Willow?”

  The shikigami frowned. “Why do you care what happens to White Willow?”

  “She has been kind to me. You can well say that it only serves her purpose, but I am not certain of that, nor is that less reason to be grateful. I would not do anything to harm her.”

  “Such loyalty a dog might show its owner. You’re welcome to it, Umi, but this question doesn’t serve either of us. You will not know my true intentions until I act on them. Such is the way of things. Ask again, and be quick. Neither of us has much time here.”

  Umi put her hands on her hips. “Well then, tell me this: yesterday by the path I thought I saw a young woman, just for a moment. She was very beautiful, and wore robes of blue silk. I was distracted for a moment. When I turned back, she was gone. Do you know who she was?”

  “She was and is a ghost. She often walks the path.” Umi felt a little chill. “Whose ghost?”

  “Kyuko’s.”

  Umi stared at the creature. “This is a lie on the face of it! Kyuko is very much alive.”

  “Kyuko as you see her now? Certainly. But…” the shikigami waved a clawed finger at her, “Kyuko as she was, now that is a different matter. What you saw was an echo, a memory. Something remained after the Kyuko you know moved on down time’s river. Caught in an eddy along the shore, perhaps, or stubbornly clinging to a branch, who can say? Yet there it is. Those with eyes to see, will see.”

  “So how do I know you speak truly of what you understand?” The creature smiled. “In the hour after breakfast, when Kyuko washes the bowls and her eyes seem to look at a place beyond here and now, then come to the maple grove path where the stream crosses it. Say nothing. Do nothing, save take careful note of what you see. Then come back here and tell me if my words are weeds or blossoms.”

  Umi waited for the right time, and had no trouble seeing it. Kyuko grew distant, as indeed Umi remembered from many times before. She excused herself but doubted Kyuko heard her. She slipped out the back way to the maple grove path. She felt the need to relieve herself now, but she did not; the effect of the Water of Sight was already somewhat diminished and she did not want to lessen it further. At least not yet.

  Mists were gathering in the forest, summoned by the waning sun. Umi thought that, perhaps, she could see more than mist in the grayish-white wisps if she tried, but she did not try. She walked very quickly to the place the shikigami had spoken of, and there she waited. It did not take long.

  Umi watched the ghost approach. She wondered how she would perceive the spirit without the magic water coursing through her now. Perhaps a bit of mist, or the wind blowing leaves along the path; a flash of blue that might have been a bird, but not seen well enough to guess, or even wonder. Perhaps all those things, or none of them. What Umi saw now was a young woman in a blue silk robe, her glistening black hair carefully arranged. There was very little shadowy about her; Umi almost fancied that s
he could reach out and touch flesh. She remembered the shikigami‘s instructions and kept her hands still. She waited, and she watched.

  The grove seemed very quiet now. Umi heard the sound of her own heartbeat, not even masked by the tickly chatter of the stream flowing beneath the small stone bridge. Now and then she heard something from the water that sounded almost like a word, but she didn’t turn her attention away from the vision in front of her. Umi saw the pail.

  She hadn’t noticed it before; her attention was on the specter’s face, and clothes. It was Kyuko, or was. Umi was certain of that now; it had taken her a while for that particular seed to sprout, but now it grew fast and strong. When Umi saw the eyes, she knew. They were Kyuko’s eyes. Younger, clearer, perhaps not yet so weary, but very familiar. It was only after that certainty had arrived that the pail was clear to her, too. It’s the same as mine…

  Umi knew she should not have been surprised by that. The shikigami has said that Kyuko came into White Willow’s service for the same reason Umi had; it wasn’t unreasonable that she’d perform the same duties at first.

  Until when? Another of her servants dies and everyone moves a step forward, as in a dance?

  In her heart Umi did not believe matters were as simple as that, but she put the thought aside to consider later. She needed her attention for what was happening now. She watched Kyukoghost glide up the path in complete silence; not even the rustle of her silks carried on the faint breeze; it was as if Umi watched a moving reflection. The vision came to where the stream crossed the path under the small stone bridge. Umi looked directly into the ghostly eyes; there was barely an arm’s reach between them, but Umi saw no recognition there. The spirit, like Kyuko herself, seemed to be looking at something beyond. In this case, something off the path, deep in the maple grove. Someone, rather.

  Where Kyuko’s image was clear and bright, the man stood in shadow. Umi could not make out his face. His robes could have been those of a mountain monk or a scholar; she couldn’t be sure. Umi could easily guess, though, after what Kyuko had told her before.

  This isn’t a memory at all. This is a regret.

  Kyuko stood on the maple grove path. She didn’t move, or speak. She only stared out into the woods at something she obviously saw much more clearly than Umi did. Perhaps because it was only the shadow of a shadow, but it was real for this echo of the Kyuko that had been. Still, even after a while Kyuko’s younger image began to fade too. Umi almost let it go. She remembered the shikigami’s warning. Yet Umi found that, at the end, she could not do nothing, or at least the “nothing” that the creature had asked of her.

  “Why do you stop now?” Umi asked, aloud.

  Silence. Umi walked forward, into the spirit’s line of vision. Umi didn’t know if it could see her, but she wanted to try. “Why do you stop now?” she repeated. Umi knew the ghost didn’t turn its head a fraction, or look directly at her, but she also knew that, somehow, it answered her.

  I always stop. One cannot change the past.

  “That is true,” Umi said, “but this is not the past. Is he your regret?” Now Kyuko did look at her. She seemed to peer at Umi as if she were the shadow, fading, hiding. The spirit smiled faintly. There are two sorts of regrets, child: those things one does…and those things one does not do. The latter are the worst.

  “Then why hold on to it?”

  The spirit smiled sadly. Because it’s all I have of him.

  “Then make something else, something better. Go to him. Change what is.” That is not possible…She stopped.

  “This is not the past,” Umi repeated. “This is now, and all things are possible.” Umi spoke with a fierce conviction that surprised her. She spoke of things she could not possibly understand, and yet she did not see the mystery in them. She knew what she said was true, and she was certain that the ghostly Kyuko knew that too. Child, this doesn’t concern you.

  “You are my friend,” Umi said. “It does concern me.” The image was fading fast, but not before Umi saw it hesitate for the barest of moments, then walk slowly across the small stone bridge and take the side trail into the maple grove where the other shadow waited. Umi almost felt as if it were her will alone that forced the spirit in that direction; she wondered if that were possible. More than that, she wondered if it was right.

  Kyuko didn’t speak to her that next morning, or to anyone as far as Umi could see; the cook seemed to be in a daze. Umi wanted to speak to her friend, but she couldn’t think what she should say. In the end she had gone off to face the shikigami one last time. Umi stood before the basin at the end of the trail, the taste of the Water of Sight still cool and sweet on her tongue. The shikigami sat in its cage. “Did I speak the truth?”

  “As far as you did speak, yes,” Umi said.

  Another fierce grin appeared. “Don’t start laying traps and puzzles, Umi. I am far better at it than you are. Are you saying that there is truth I have not spoken?”

  “I’m saying that you lied without saying a word.” The creature frowned. “When did I not speak?”

  “You always spoke. Of many things and nothing. I think that was part of the problem.”

  “That’s no puzzle, girl. That’s a contradiction.” Umi shook her head. “Sitting in that cage, appearing to be what you claimed to be. That was the lie.” Umi leaned over and took up a handful of the magic water. With the first drink still working within her, Umi took another. The cage disappeared. Umi took another handful, another drink. The shikigami disappeared. White Willow stood in its place in a cleft of the rock, her white hair flowing around her like the glory of an albino sun. She was beautiful and terrible all at once. Umi was afraid, but she did not run.

  All choices operate in the “now,” as I said to Kyuko. This one is mine. Umi picked up another mouthful of the water.

  White Willow raised her hands. “I can’t stop you, Umi, but I would not advise it. Mortals were never meant to see the world with that much clarity.” Umi thought about it. She finally let the water drip between her fingers to fall back into the basin. “You knew all along, didn’t you?” White Willow opened her fan and considered. “Of course I did,” she finally said.

  “The real question is: how long did you know there was no shikigami?”

  “The second time I took a bit more of the water than at first. The edges of the creature were…shadowed, almost like a picture in a lantern. I knew he wasn’t what he seemed. I also never really believed that my perception could alter so drastically and still escape your notice, however fervently I might wish to believe that.” White Willow looked grim. “You’ve disobeyed me, Umi.” Umi bowed, but she did not falter. “As you knew I would. He—you—said as much. If you merely wanted to punish me for that you could have done it the first day. I assume there was something you wanted to know about me. I must be impertinent enough to ask if you found your answer.”

  “Yes, Umi. I have. Or perhaps more importantly, you have.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I dare say.” White Willow smiled again. “You have a great deal to learn. But will I teach you? That is yet to be decided.”

  Umi bowed again. “You own me,” Umi said frankly, “and may do as you will. Yet I think there is something besides obedience you require of me.”

  “And I would take it from you if I could,” White Willow replied with equal frankness. “but that is not the way this particular sort of magic works.”

  “What magic?”

  “Yours,” White Willow says. “Or rather, your potential. All human beings have potential all their lives. To be something greater than they are, or something worse. To choose one path and not another. To hone one skill and let another go fallow. Yet, before one path is chosen, all paths have almost equal potential, and are just as real. There is power in that potential, Umi. Power that one such as I knows how to tap, and use. Everyone has it to some degree, as I said, but no one has potential without limit. Some, however, come very close.”

  “Kyuko,” U
mi said. “I thought she was my friend. Why didn’t she warn me?” White Willow laughed harshly. “Warn you, child? How could she do so, without steering you toward one path instead of another, even though only you would bear the responsibility if you chose wrong? Do you think her so cruel, to deny you the same choice that she had?”

  As cruel as I might have been to her…“No,” Umi said. “Kyuko and I are the same?” White Willow seemed to consider. “In a way. You both have great capacity. As long as it exists, I can use it. In time it fades, since potential is a child of time and as mortal as we, but it never completely leaves so long as breath is in the body. As for us, so for it—there is a place to begin, and a place to end.”

  “So why say anything to me at all? Why test? Why tempt me to interfere, as I did with Kyuko? If I remained ignorant, couldn’t you continue to use me all the days of my life?”

  “Clever girl. Yes, I could,” White Willow admitted. “And there are many of my sort who’ve chosen that path. Yet if you think of potential as a well, then thwarted potential is poison to that well. Sooner or later I would choke on it. No, Umi. Kyuko drank from the spring as you did, and she made her choice. You’ll do the same because, in this one matter, there is no choice. In time you will stay or go, but which path you take will be up to you. Which will it be?”

  Umi thought of the ghost of Kyuko’s regret. What you do not do is always the greater regret. Perhaps Kyuko did warn me, in the only way she could. Umi looked at White Willow. She was still afraid, but there was something greater than her fear working now. A sort of hunger that Umi hadn’t known before. “Will you teach me what you know?”

  “Yes. You may not always like the methods I choose, nor what must be learned, but I will teach you. Learning those lessons is also up to you.”

  “Then I will stay,” Umi said, “and I will learn. I have already begun, I think.” White Willow smiled. “I can feel the potentials weaving their tapestry even now.” Umi fancied she could as well, but perhaps that was her imagination. No matter; she would soon know. For the moment, however, she took leave of her mistress and sought out Kyuko. She thought she might have an apology to make and, perhaps, gratitude to show. Umi wasn’t really sure, but that, too, seemed worth learning.