Barefoot on the Wind

by Zoe Marriott

  “What happened?” Itsuki asked, bewildered.

  I remembered … a nightmare. My waking mind had tried to fit the terrible images from my dreams into the place of my real, missing memories. That was all it was. The creature that stalked in my dreams could not be real. It could not be. Could it?

  If it was…

  If it was then Itsuki must know of it. Such a beast could only be a product of magic – the magic of this terrible, beautiful place. And Itsuki had said that he did not know what had happened to me.

  He was the one who had saved me. He had tended to me with as much care as a member of my own family, and shown me nothing but kindness. He’d just saved me again.

  What reason would he have to lie?

  And yet.

  I wished I could hold myself aloof from him until I had time to think this through, but I was too tired. My choice was to either let myself lean into Itsuki’s side, or slump to the ground again. And he was … rather nice to lean on – like resting your weight against a warm, cloth-covered tree.

  Belatedly I realized that he was still asking me what had happened, with increasing levels of anxiety. I managed to gasp out, “Ankle turned. Pebbles. Will be well. In a moment.”

  “I should never have let you go in alone,” he said unhappily.

  Without thinking I patted him. “Just an accident. Not your fault.”

  Both of us fell silent – but it was another of those uncomfortable silences, simmering with unspoken thoughts on both our parts. He was probably still castigating himself. To distract him as much as myself, I plucked fretfully at the dripping skirts of the robe. “Stupid of me. Now what am I to wear?”

  Itsuki stirred. He sounded almost sheepish when he spoke. “I … had another surprise for you.”

  “Oh?” I wearily lifted my head, gazing into the darkness under his hood as if I could gauge his expression that way: a habit I could not seem to break. “I shall get spoiled at this rate.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely to me, Hana-san,” he said with a small huff of laughter, as he set me carefully aside and stood up.

  He reached for a basket from under the roots of a nearby tree.

  “You know I had to get rid of your old clothes. They were ripped to shreds and … the blood … they were too ruined to save. I hoped you would get better one day, and have need of something else to wear, so I began work on these. And now you are better. I hope you like them.”

  This was one of the longest speeches he had ever made spontaneously, and he shuffled his feet as I blinked up at him. Began work—?

  “I’ll leave you to… Call if you need help and – I’ll be waiting. Outside.” He fled, vanishing from my sight nearly instantly in a flash of that incongruous speed of his.

  “What in the Moon’s name?” I muttered to myself.

  But the prospect of – apparently – clean clothes was too enticing for me to puzzle over his shyness, or brood on my misgivings for long. Impatiently, I shucked the oversized and grimy wet robe, towelled myself dry so that I least I wouldn’t drip on anything, and reached for the basket containing Itsuki’s “surprise”.

  Within, lying on a bed of dried rose petals, was a neatly folded kimono. I touched it, drawing it out, unfolding it, and rumpling my fingers in the heavy fabric to marvel at its fineness. The material was unembroidered, completely plain, without any pattern or decoration at all. But that only added to its loveliness – for it had been dyed a deep, coppery russet, so vibrant that it was almost iridescent, like the first, most beautiful new-fallen leaves of autumn. Nothing could have improved on such an astonishing shade, or on the quality of the weaving and stitching.

  The sleeves were short, wrist length, like the sleeves of a married woman’s gown, rather than the heavy and often impractical long sleeves of a girl’s furisode. Beneath it in the basket was a nagajuban – an under-robe of pale undyed cloth – and last of all, a pair of wide-legged trousers in the same material, gathered at the waist with a drawstring and with lacing that ran from ankles to calves so that, at need, the extra material could be drawn in tightly to the lower leg to prevent it from dragging in the dirt.

  Though these garments were simple and unadorned, they were undoubtedly the finest and most beautiful clothes I had ever seen.

  Itsuki had made these? Made them for me? He must have begun work on them weeks ago – when he had no guarantee that I would even survive! The weaving alone would have taken hours upon hours upon hours.

  It made no sense that it was this gesture, out of all Itsuki’s many kindnesses, that made tears spring to my eyes. But that he knew, or guessed, how an injured girl would feel trailing around in a borrowed, baggy robe that gaped and sagged and caught on things, not even able to wash it, and that he had cared enough to labour in secret, for days, on an entirely new gown for her to wear, modelled on her own lost things… And that he made his gift to her as beautiful as he could, as well, so that she would have true pleasure in wearing it… Such great compassion would be enough to comfort the whole world if only Itsuki were allowed out in it.

  He was good, Itsuki. Truly good. The way my mother was – the way Kyo had been. How could I believe such a man capable of deceiving me? I could not. I would not. The beast, the animal I had seen, must be a figment of my confused mind and hazy memories. That was all.

  Itsuki would never hurt me.

  I felt a smile dawn on my face like the sun breaking through storm clouds after days of endless rain.

  Quickly but reverently I donned the trousers and under-robe, and then the kimono itself, tying it closed at the waist with a simple jade green sash found at the bottom of the basket. Then, almost stumbling in my eagerness, I went out of the hot spring garden to find Itsuki.

  He was waiting by the opening in the hedge, his whole posture radiating uncertainty. He jumped when I appeared.

  “Thank you,” I said emphatically. “Thank you. They are the most wonderful things I’ve ever worn. I – I love them. Thank you.”

  He slumped a little in what seemed to be relief. “I am glad. I wanted them to be nice for you, but I have never had to make garments for anyone else before. I was afraid I would get them wrong.”

  I realized with some surprise that I wanted to hug him. He needed to be hugged. But although Itsuki had unhesitatingly wrapped me in his arms to warm me, and offered me the support of his hand or shoulder when my strength or balance failed, still he shied from my touch. Physical affection, anything more than a quick pat on his hand, turned him still and immobile, as if he were becoming the tree I had named him. I did not want to upset him now, of all times, after receiving such a gift.

  So I just smiled up at him, hoping my smile conveyed the depths of my happiness and gratitude.

  A few days later, something changed.

  Itsuki suffered a terrible attack that morning, while chopping wood for our fire. The axe had fallen from his fingers and missed burying itself in his foot by less than an inch. Dropping to his knees by the stump, he clung to it for support, and I watched in horror as his fingers snapped and reformed, curving into bent, claw-like shapes. Through it all I was forced to stand still instead of running to him, because I knew what he would say: “Stay back. Stay away. It will pass.”

  I was growing less and less able to accept those words.

  In only the short time I had known him, Itsuki’s suffering had seemed to double. His attacks came more frequently, and lasted longer, and seemed to leave more lasting damage each time. Itsuki limped constantly now. Sometimes he could not pick up or hold things, like the pestle for his mortar, or the small carved wooden jars that held his salves and powders and ointments. He would never let me help him, even when he was forced to slurp his noodles straight from the bowl because he had dropped the chopsticks too many times.

  That day, I realized his shoulders had taken on a permanent, crooked shape and that he could no longer fully straighten his back. I was moments from breaking the unspoken promise, and demanding he tell me what was wrong wit
h him, if it was the Yuki-Onna that tormented him this way and if so – for the love of the Moon – why?

  But as I watched him wearily pick himself up, as I approached him and snatched the axe away – with my bad hand, too, careless in my anger and worry for him – and sunk it deeply into the stump before he could fumble it again and lose a toe this time, a great, rushing gust travelled through the tall distant trees that guarded the maze on all sides. As if caught in an earthquake, the canopy of branches seemed to bend inwards, all at once, leaves rustling and shivering, bowing down towards us. Towards Itsuki.

  “The forest. Something has happened. Something’s wrong.” He took off at a run, his uneven, limping gait hardly seeming to slow him down at all.

  I remembered that Itsuki had told me the trees brought him things. Creatures that were dying as I had been dying, which needed help as I had needed help. And if that was what was going on now, then he would need my help – and for once he might even accept it. I gathered up the heavy skirts of my kimono in both fists despite the twinge from the right one, and went after him.

  He had said that the forest left me at his door, so I expected him to head for the ruined tower in the tree, the centre of his home. But instead he flew straight past it, and out of the garden altogether. He moved so fast that although he was heading down an almost straight corridor of thorns ahead of me, I could barely keep him in sight.

  I was not really fit enough for this yet. My side and arm still caused me pain, I was not perfectly steady on my feet, and I still needed a foolish amount of rest after undertaking quite ordinary activities. So I was surprised and pleased that although my lungs were working like bellows to keep me moving, and my heart battered violently at my breast, and I had an awful stitch, I arrived behind Itsuki only a few blinks after he himself had skidded to a halt.

  Here was an entrance in the maze I had never seen before. It was not like the straight openings, cut through the thorns, that Itsuki and I navigated every day; it was a true gateway, a Moon gate woven of twisted branches of bleached pale wood and other long, smooth fragments of white that might have been ivory. Or bone.

  This twisted gateway was grown into the hedge, so that the thorns wreathed and bristled through it. As I watched now, they were unravelling from within the circular opening, snaking back out of the way to leave the space clear. Beyond the circular opening, I glimpsed a dense forest of tall, dark pines, swaying and whispering in a wind that I could not feel.

  The Dark Wood…

  I felt a chill – a sort of instinctive recoil – that I didn’t entirely understand. But I had no more time to look, or to think of that, for there on the other side of the gate stood an animal.

  I recognized it at once as a wild cat of some kind – like the tiny, shy Iriomote cat, which I had only glimpsed on the mountain once or twice in my life, but at least five times the size – with a golden, black-spotted pelt, and smooth white fur on its belly, and black-and-white tufts on its long pointed ears. It had a tail like a hare’s, just a fluffy black nub. Its eyes were round in shape, and amber as topazes.

  It looked at us and snarled.

  A glowing white paw strikes out – the bristling white claws rake my arm, tear my flesh apart – I scream—

  No. No. This animal and its claws were no doubt deadly – but it was not the creature from my dreams. Its paws were not big enough to have caused the wounds on my body. Its front feet were not as broad as my own hands. And besides, hadn’t I decided for myself that it could not have been an animal that inflicted my injuries? No matter what my nightmares insisted. It had to have been something else.

  I was safe here with Itsuki.

  Still, every instinct screamed at me to back away. But Itsuki was bending over the animal, unafraid, making rumbling, purring noises in the back of his throat. What was more, the wildcat was clearly distressed. Its whole body shuddered; a moment later it fell down onto its side, ribs heaving, the snarl transforming into a yowl. I realized then what was the matter. The cat’s stomach was massively swollen, with ripples moving over its taut surface.

  The beast was pregnant, and the labour was going badly. The forest had brought the wildcat to Itsuki for help, so that it and its kittens would survive the birth.

  Itsuki laid one of his hands – the fingers bent and twisted but still gentle – on the wildcat’s abdomen, and she snarled again, but made no move to bite him, or to get away.

  “I know, I know,” he murmured to her. “I will do what I can for you, and the babies.”

  Then, just as if this deadly animal had been a domestic feline warming itself by the kitchen hearth, Itsuki scooped the labouring wildcat up in his arms. He turned to me, his head tilted questioningly.

  “Of course,” I said, before he could ask. “Go on, hurry. I will catch up as fast as I can.”

  He nodded briefly, then broke into a run again and disappeared, a dark blur. I didn’t have another run in me, but I could manage a cautious trot, and I used the extra time to think of the labours I had been at – cows and oxen and pigs, and once acting as a helper for my mother when she sat with her friend during a long, though trouble-free birth, because Kaede-sensei had been on the other side of the village dealing with a man badly injured in a fall. Our cats tended to hide away in the roof or other small dark places when they had their litters, so I had never seen one of them in labour.

  Regardless, Itsuki would need hot water to clean his hands, and the cat would need somewhere soft and warm to lie, and the babies would probably need to be rubbed dry, although perhaps their mother would lick them, as cows did their calves…

  I hurried into the garden of knots, went to the clear, fast-moving little stream, and filled a pail of water. Carrying it with some difficulty in just my left arm, I gathered up as much of the firewood Itsuki had just chopped as I could in the other arm, and went into the tower.

  Itsuki had laid the cat down on a pile of furs on his side of the fire, so that it was sheltered from draughts by the curve of the wall. He knelt over it, his hands feeling its belly as if the bulging fur might tell him something. Maybe it did. When he looked up at me and saw that I carried water and wood, his tense body expressed relief so clearly that my heart squeezed.

  “You’ve assisted at births before?”

  I nodded as I built the fire up and poured the water into the iron cauldron to heat. “A few. I’m not a midwife. What do you think the trouble is?”

  “I believe cats of this kind usually only have one or two kittens at a time. From what I can feel, she has triplets. One of them is lying in the wrong position and blocking the birth canal. It might be dead; it isn’t moving.”

  I nodded again, undoing my obi and pulling off my heavy outer kimono. “How can I help you?”

  He hesitated, and I heard him take a deeper than usual breath. “The kitten must be moved. Turned and pulled out, so that the others can be born. If we don’t do it soon, the mother will be too exhausted, and both her and the babies will die. But … my hands…”

  “Are too big,” I said as he trailed off, knowing that to acknowledge it was his bent fingers which had crippled his ability to help the wildcat would be impossible. I held my own hands out for him to inspect. “Will these do?”

  He let out that deep breath, nodding. “Thank the Moon for you, Hana-san.”

  “The water should be hot enough by now. I’ll go and wash,” I said, hugging the glow of his appreciation to myself.

  Twelve

  After I had tied the sleeves of my under-robe up with strips of rag and scrubbed my hands until the skin was pink, I knotted a clean blanket around my waist as an apron and went back to Itsuki and the wildcat.

  “Tell me what to do,” I ordered.

  Itsuki did.

  The process of reaching into the animal’s birth canal, turning and manipulating the body of the kitten inside it, and drawing it out, was by turns fascinating, disgusting and frightening. Itsuki guided my actions patiently, step by step, holding the wildcat’s head
in his lap as it panted, and yowled, and occasionally thrashed. I didn’t blame it at all. In fact, if I had been in its place, I’m sure I would have torn someone’s hand off with my teeth by now, and I didn’t even have fangs.

  After what seemed like hours, I was finally able to get my fingers around the kitten’s head, bring it into the correct position, and, with the contractions of the cat’s muscles crushing my bunched-up hand and sending sharp sizzles of pain into my scars, pull the baby free. The mother cat let out a long, low sound, almost a meow.

  “She’ll be all right now – the others should come out naturally, in their own time,” Itsuki said. He let the mother cat go, and sure enough she calmly rearranged herself and within moments brought a second kitten into the world.

  In my hands, the first kitten was surprisingly small. Hardly larger than the offspring of a regular house-cat, and half the size of its brother or sister, which the mother cat was now licking vigorously. It lay limp and unmoving. “Is it…?”

  Itsuki took the kitten from me and wrapped it in the bottom half of the blanket I was wearing as an apron. He rubbed quite roughly at its back, and then, when it didn’t respond, grasped its rear legs and gave it a sort of swing in the air.

  The runt let out a plaintive squeak and suddenly began to wriggle. Itsuki laughed – not that quiet huff of amusement which I had grown used to but a real, joyful burst of laughter – and stroked the wet, spiky fur once before tucking the baby in at the mother cat’s belly, next to its larger sibling.

  Within half an hour the third kitten, which was the biggest yet, emerged, and soon the stone room was rattling with the wildcat’s proud purring and the determined, birdlike cheeps of the kittens. I was so happy for Itsuki that I could have burst. Nearly, I wished I might see his face, because it was plain that if I had, a big, foolish grin would have been splitting it in two.