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The evening before the snowstorm had been beautifully still. Atsusane could recall it in detail. The near full moon, blue-white and somewhat chipped, brimmed with light like the sake cup they passed around on New Year’s. The snow banks glistened, while everywhere smelled and sounded of the snow.
(How could something smell of snow? And snow made no sound, the children said.)
Only on still nights like this could you know the smell and sound of snow. The smell came first to the very tip of your nose, like a lick from a cold and weary dog, and then settled in with fresh dampness. And the sound of snow!—it was a gentle and cottony thing that folded around you till everything else went away, as if going into a dream.
He had felt compelled by a wonderment at the scene outside his window and, against all advice, had slipped on his snow shoes and padded out into the field. Still, he did not go far; he remembered stopping at the first picket at what would have been a cucumber patch the rest of the year.
That was when the snow had begun to fall again, and he noticed a woman standing at the treeline.
“Please, can you help me?”
The woman wore only kosode, yet she stood amid the swirling snow as gentle as a sapling in the spring breeze, something cradled preciously in her arms. Of her face, Atsusane could only remember her beauty expressed in the starkness of her black eyes.
“Please, child, hold him for me.”
Atsusane received the precious thing from her arms—a baby, he realized, though it sank like a rock and brought him knee-deep into the snow.
A gust of wind picked up against his back, pressing ice into his bones. Atsusane looked back at the house from where he had come and saw only a blinding blizzard howling across an abyss.
When he looked back into the trees, the pale woman had gone, when the baby opened its maw and began to howl.
Oh, oh. Don’t cry now, he remembered saying as he bounced the baby in his arms, despite his own urge to burst into tears.
“Pa found me in the morning, buried three feet in the snow by the jizo statue down the trail. Everyone said I must have received O-Jizō-sama’s protection to have survived. And no matter how far the townspeople looked, no one could find any sign of a baby, nor of the woman I had seen that night.”
The fire in the hearth crackled in the rare hush that had come over the children.
“Sleep tight, and don’t go out at night, or you’ll meet the yukionna. With her breath as cold as ice, she’ll steal your soul away,” Atsusane said, and blew out the lamp.
One by one, they drew up their blankets and lay down to sleep. As always, it was Souji who fell asleep first, his breathing soft and regular beneath Ma’s snores. He was the most sensible of the four children, and could brag of having never cried on Setsubun. Fujiko, Mieko, and Souta tossed and turned, peeking through half-shut eyes at their uncle by the hearth.
Atsusane pretended not to notice. He drew his coat closer and warmed his hands against the fire. His bones were aching with cold again, as if something inside of him had never left the snowstorm that night. He hummed the tune to an old lullaby:
You may go in, you may enter
Where does this narrow path lead?
This path leads to Tenjin-sama’s shrine
Would you please let us through?
Those without good reason shall not pass
To celebrate the seventh birthday of this child, we’ve come to offer his ofuda
Going there is easy, but on the way back you’ll be scared.
You’ll be scared, but we’ll let you through, let you through.
At some point in the night, the baby in his arms had finally smiled. Seeing its smile, Atsusane was sure then that the babe and its mother must have descended to earth from the moon.
───※ ·❆· ※───
The fire had burned down to a dim glow in the hearth, and Atsusane was in that state between wakefulness and sleep, having waited out the pain in his bones, when a rap came at the door.
Knock, knock. Knock, knock.
It was too regular and insistent to be made by the wind. Yet the hour was late—long past midnight.
Knock, knock. Knock, knock.
“Dear! Kazuichi!” Ma called out quietly.
Kazuichi and Fujie emerged from the dark, rumpled with sleep. Daifuku ran out of Pa’s adjoining bedroom, ears standing at attention. Atsusane went to calm the dog, to avoid disturbing the children.
“Who is it? What do you want?” Kazuichi asked.
A man’s voice came from behind the door.
“My name is Ibuki.”
“I am in need of lodgings. I am willing to pay and work for my keep.”
“But it is late,” Kazuichi said by way of answer.
“A snowstorm obscured my path, and I wandered for hours before coming upon your residence. I fear there is nowhere else I can stay the night, for I’ve come from the capital to Ushū in search of my betrothed.”
“Why’s he talking funny?” Souta whispered.
“That’s how people from the capital talk,” Fujiko said. “I hear them speak like that all the time at Kobashi-oba’s inn.”
Ma’s side of the family had come from the capital, though that had been generations ago. Whether it was this tenuous connection that elicited her sympathy, or something about the man’s voice, which rang clear as the temple bell at Jion-ji, she nodded to Kazuichi, and he opened the door to the nighttime visitor.
A blast of wintry air entered the house, extinguishing the last embers in the hearth and robbing Atsusane of breath. Shaking, he lit the lamp beside him.
As the timbre of the voice had suggested, Ibuki was not a very large man, and everyone relaxed at the pale and pretty face that greeted them.
“Atsusane, take Daifuku and settle our guest in the kitchen,” Ma said.
With deep black eyes, their guest regarded him.
Atsusane coughed and put on his overcoat, then led the dog and the man outside. Souta insisted on tagging along; the other adults allowed it, resting easier in the knowledge that someone they trusted could care for Atsusane’s poor health.
The kitchen was as cold and dark as the grave, though one felt a homeyness in the decades’ presence of cooking oil lingering in the space. Souta worked on tending a modest fire in the stove, while Atsusane laid out a mat and some old bedding.
“The beast doesn’t like me very much,” Ibuki said. Daifuku had been fine under Atsusane’s supervision, but now it was baring its teeth at their guest.
“Stop that.” Souta nudged the dog with the stick of kindling in his hand. It whined and sat by the stove.
“Is the room warm enough, Ibuki-san?” Atsusane asked.
“Fine. Any warmer and it might be too hot,” Ibuki said, “and I would not want to put you out for the rest of the winter ahead.”
“But I’m still cold,” Souta complained. “I guess you’re tougher than you look, mister. When are you getting married? Who’s the girl?”
“I’ve only met them once, and it was when I was very young.”
Atsusane was glad that his nephew’s casual speech had not caused any offense. “Now, Souta, let our guest rest. Come lie down at my side with Daifuku. I also feel a little cold,” he said, and that was an understatement with how his legs ached, even with his overcoat tucked over his lap.
While Atsusane had resolved not to fall asleep until morning in order to watch over the fire, Souta could not sleep from the energy of his youth, and fussed and played tricks on the dog when he thought Atsusane wasn't looking. As for Ibuki—it was difficult to tell if the man was awake or not, so still was he from the moment he had laid himself down. Atsusane decided that their guest probably would not mind a lullaby before bed, and began to murmur a song from the capital:
Hush-a-bye, hush-a-bye!
Good boy, sleep!
Where did my boy’s babysitter go?
Beyond that mountain, back to her home.
As souvenirs from home, what did we get?
A toy drum and a shō flute.
───※ ·❆· ※───
Half a night in the kitchen proved to be too much for Atsusane, and he fell ill the next day, coming down with a fever that left him bedbound. When he awoke from delirium, he was surprised to find that it was Ibuki who was nursing him.
Apparently, within the few days that had passed with Atsusane in oblivion, their guest had become more of a family friend—less through the strength of his personality, which could only be described as strange and distant; but he had proven himself to be a hard worker and an outdoorsman, and to practical people like Pa and Kazuichi, there could be no greater virtues.
“Did you know? Did you know? Mister Ibuki doesn’t know the song you sang that night. I thought all mothers sang it to their children,” Souta said.
Ibuki was an attentive nurse. He spoke little, but Atsusane liked looking at him, and found himself missing his cool touch and gentle regard whenever night fell and Ma or Fujie took over his care.
On the third day of bedrest since he had awoken, Atsusane did not find Ibuki waiting by his side. He felt well enough then to walk around the house, and Fujie informed him that since it was a clear day, the men and the children had gone out; so he watched for them by the window with his overcoat wrapped around him and a kettle on the hearth, because Ma wouldn’t allow it otherwise.
Birds flitted through snow-laden branches. The sun rose higher. Fujie came by at noon with ochazuke. He continued folding origami envelopes for the New Year until the landscape grew golden-haloed in the afternoon light, and his eyelids began to droop.
A pale figure appeared at the treeline. It was a beautiful face floating there among the trees, dancing in the wind as red camellias bloomed beneath it in the snow. It must be a yukioni, he thought.
A cold and familiar touch woke Atsusane from his daydream by the window.
“Big brother Ibuki has caught lots of hares!”
The scent of blood hit him first. The sight of three hares strung together, hanging limp over Ibuki’s shoulder, jolted Atsusane out of the last of his drowsiness. They were snow-white, their underbellies matted with blood. Ibuki’s hands were snow-white too, and their paleness was a shock beneath the full light of day. They caressed Atsusane’s face, as if it were possible to physically manifest any and all bodily sorrows.
“Your fever seems to have returned,” Ibuki observed.
“Oh, no. I’m doing much better. Thank you for taking care of me these past few days. Let me get the door for you.”
Atsusane moved away and tried to smile through the heat flaring up his cheeks. Given how easily Ibuki had performed the gesture, this was not unusual for the man who had been nursing him, but Atsusane himself had no memory of anything beyond brief touches on the forehead. The image of this man caressing his face while he slept…
…Perhaps Ibuki was no man, but a bewitching spirit.
At first Atsusane attributed this thought to his recent dream, which remained vivid in his mind; then other details came to him, like how similar Ibuki’s eyes were to those of the yukionna on that fateful night, until he had convinced himself of the matter while also feeling silly to think so.
He wanted Ibuki, he realized.
“The trick is patience,” Ibuki was saying. “Arrive before sunrise and wait until the hares beneath the brush settle down, then move as gently as the falling snow.”
The dead hares lay belly up on the ground. Mieko looked like she’d been crying, while Souta couldn’t help but gag at the sight, until Fujie came over and drafted Atsusane into helping skin and dry the meat before dinner, and the carcasses were removed from the main living area.
Atsusane’s desire remained lodged in his throat all throughout dinner. It was his first meal with the family in five days, and everyone had grown used to the absence of his commentary, which suited him just as well. Yet frustratingly, nobody brought up the topic that most concerned him.
“Ibuki-san, when are you leaving?” he finally asked, when his impatience to know had overcome any sense of propriety.
Ibuki smiled for the first time since he’d arrived, as if he could read Atsusane’s thoughts.
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No, that is-”
“Atsusane, you’ll have to get used to another person living here, at least until the lad gets his house built. He’s decided to settle down in the area,” Pa said.
At that, the women mentioned how good it was that Ibuki was waiting to woo his betrothed, since they had not met since childhood and (as he’d said) “did not wish to scare them with the suddenness of his arrival.”
Atsusane went to bed that evening with a complicated ache that could not resolve, not even when Ibuki checked his temperature again and declared him healthy.
───※ ·❆· ※───
It was Fujie’s idea for Atsusane to make use of the bathhouse Pa and Kazuichi had built for him; she thought he looked rather pale after waking up that morning. A hot steam bath helped greatly with alleviating Atsusane’s condition, but the amount of firewood required to get one going made the treatment a luxury they could ill afford to keep up as a regular habit.
“Ibuki-san can feed the fire and rake the ashes. You don’t mind, do you?” Fujie said, since Pa and Kazuichi had gone into town.
“Not at all.” And Ibuki smiled that smile of his again.
The “bathhouse” was ten-foot-square, just large enough to manage two men sitting with their knees folded. Steam came up through the slats. Pa always wanted at least one other person to attend to Atsusane in case it ever got too hot, and this time the role naturally fell to Ibuki, who dutifully waited outside the sliding doors after raking out the ashes from the fire beneath.
Ibuki sat one thin wall beyond.
Atsusane, in his nakedness, could not relax enough to lie down on his rush mat, and he was certain he was sweating more than usual.
He wanted Ibuki to come in; he didn’t want Ibuki to come in. Finally, he decided that it was not in the spirit of a good host to leave one’s guest sitting in the cold while one enjoyed the fruits of said guest’s labor, and plucked up the courage to say something.
“Ibuki-san. Have you ever had a steam bath?”
“I can’t say I have.”
“Well, would you like to try? I can scrub your back.”
The silence beyond the door was excruciating.
“Sorry. I’m somewhat weak to heat. I would not want to faint before you,” Ibuki replied at last.
Of course, since Ibuki was a yukioni, Atsusane thought with some irony.
“Would you listen to my story first?" Ibuki asked. "I hear that you like stories, especially ones of the supernatural kind."
“There once was a peasant child who liked to go out to play. On a snowy evening, he came across a young crane, weak and abandoned by its mother. He nursed the crane back to health. On his twentieth birthday, when the boy had become a man, a beautiful woman called upon his home and expressed her wish to marry him.”
“He was overjoyed. But his good fortune did not last, as he soon fell ill, and the young couple did not have enough money for medicine. ‘I will figure something out,’ the beautiful wife said. ‘I only ask that you leave me to my work. You must not peek into my room, not even if you hear strange noises at night.’ The young man agreed to her request.”
Ibuki paused at this point. “Do you know the ending of this tale?” he asked.
“I do.” In the end, the man cannot resist peeking into his wife’s room, and he finds out that she is the crane he rescued so many years ago. Full of regret, the crane parts with the man forever.
“Then you must know my circumstances,” Ibuki said. “And you must know your own.”
To Atsusane, Ibuki’s story was as good as a confession.
“Come inside,” he said, “and I will give you my answer.”