The Priestess and the Altar

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The winds from the Sea of Japan carried through the tall grass of the Shakotan Peninsula, bringing with it the scent of salts and earth from ancient cliffs and rolling fields. Sparse villages, untouched by modernity, sat notably vacant, isolated, and decaying. It was a silent reminder of Japan's slowly aging heart.

The cemetery was exactly how Haruki remembered it. Quiet, except for the sounds of rustling leaves, the occasional dull chime of a bell somewhere, and the crunch of gravel beneath their own feet.

Haruki carried a small bundle of ajisai flowers low in one hand, and in the other, a bamboo ladle filled with clear water. It sloshed around with each step she took.

She looked over her shoulder to see if Mayumi was still tailing. Mayumi bounced over, catching up with her. She shivered with every gust of coastal wind. Haruki sensed she was nervous.

“Mayumi, if you’re uncomfortable…”

Mayumi quickly shook her head. 

“No. I’m fine,” she insisted. “I promised, I won’t leave you.”

They kept walking, weaving through the maze of headstones. 

Each one had a different shape. Some long and tall, some shorter and rounder... But they shared one thing in common... They had all been people once. They each had their own lives. Names. Families. Memories. Each a story worth telling. 

“We’re here,” Haruki said.

Before them stood a tall headstone, not unlike the rest. At its base was a small stone altar. A simple platform carved into the rock. The offering that once was there was now long gone.

Haruki knelt down. Mayumi did the same. She placed the flowers carefully at the altar’s edge.

Then, with practiced hands, she lifted the ladle and poured water over the stone. It trickled down the engraved name and puddled into a pool of dark on the dirt below.

Mizukake, the offering of water.

She pressed her hands together and closed her eyes. Mayumi joined her.

When they opened their eyes again there was a new pair of legs standing beside the grave.
Haruki slowly looked up. Mayumi stiffened beside her, clutching the hem of her skirt.

An old woman stared down at them.

Her stature was small. She wore a faded purple kimono and her hair was tied up in a bun. A tattered shimenawa rope drooped from the waist. Her face was scarred with age, but there was something ageless about the way she carried herself.

After a brief hesitation, Haruki rose first. Mayumi hesitantly scrambled to her feet after.
They stood there for a moment. A few petals from the ajisai blooms were taken away by the wind.

Then the woman gave a graceful bow.
The two girls returned the bow. 

The priestess gave a small nod, then turned around and began a different section of the path.

“Come.”

Haruki followed a few yards behind. Mayumi cautiously trailed.
There were no words.
None were needed.

The woman led them away from the headstones, down a narrow trail lined with wild grass that swayed with the direction of the winds, her shimenawa rope swayed with them.

Beyond it, tucked away against the forest which had begun creeping their limbs in, stood a small shrine. The roof sagged under many years… or perhaps centuries. The hinoki pillars leaned in uneven angles.

Yet someone had cared for it. Freshly tied charms fluttered from the beams, and the scent of burning senkō smoke drifted from within.

The woman slid open the paper door, and stepped inside without once looking back.

The two hesitated at the entrance. Haruki was unsure. After all they had gone through to get here, to learn the answers, she suddenly felt a sense of fearfulness. She exhaled, ignoring those thoughts and stepped across the threshold.

Inside, the shrine was dim and warm. Beams of light slanted through the paper screens.

At the center, a low table surrounded by three cushions, and a tea kettle with rising steam.
As if the woman had anticipated this visit.

They sat slowly.

The woman knelt down, setting cups before them and pouring golden-brown tea into each.
For a long moment, there was only silence and the rustle of leaves from outside.

Finally, the woman spoke.

“You feel it, don’t you? Like you are not alone anymore...”

Haruki tightened her fingers around her cup. “Yes…” 

The woman nodded. “You are no longer alone in your thoughts,” she said. “There is another.”

Haruki stared down at her teacup, fear was building inside. She raised her head to face the woman. Her eyes shined with wetness. “What’s happening to me?”

The woman didn’t answer right away.

She got up and moved to a different part of the room where a small shelf stood. Her fingers brushed across the wooden charms before selecting a single object. A little clay bowl.

She returned to the table and knelt down again, placing the bowl in the middle, and poured tea from the kettle into it.

Steam rose again and tea rippled gently before settling. Haruki and her companion silently watched her every movement.

When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter than before, wiser.

“There’s an ancient belief,” she said, “that all rivers are born from the same spring.”

Haruki stared into the bowl. The tea leaves floated to the surface. Then from the ripples, the leaves swirled wildly until an image appeared to take shape.

A mountain. Water trickling down its misty peak.

“Rivers flow strong and deep. But sometimes…” The woman continued.

The tea leaves formed delicate lines. Steady currents wind down from the side of the mountain, carving and bending through steep valleys.

“…They branch off, smaller, wilder.”

A ribbon of water split away from the main river, this one was rougher, less predictable.

“You,” she said, “are one of those rivers.”

Haruki’s eyes stayed on the bowl.

“You flowed free, you sang your own melody to the stones. To the trees… but the little wild river cannot hold its shape forever.”

The thin bright stream in the bowl fluttered wildly and then, dissolved.

Haruki teared her eyes from the bowl and met the woman’s gaze.

“But… what will happen to me?”

“You will still be you,” she said. “But your flow will blend with the other. You will reunite with the current from which you were born.”

“The other?”

“The other is the mountain,” she said. “It is it who is in control.”

Haruki squeezed her palms into an anxious fist. “But… I…”

The woman’s voice remained steady.

“You tried to carve your own path. But the mountain has called your name. The river you left behind, it is too strong. You will be absorbed.”

The tea leaves drifted to the bottom of the bowl, and it stayed there. The floorboards groaned. 

Haruki pushed back from the table, flipping the cushion over in her haste. She stood there. Her face was pale, her legs were shaking.

“I have to—”

She didn’t finish, instead turned and bolted out the door.

“Haruki!” Mayumi called out. 

But Haruki didn’t look back. She ran, gravel path skidding beneath her.

She ran and ran until she reached the grave again. The ajisai blooms were still there, but some petals were missing now, taken away by the October wind.

Haruki fell to her knees, her hands pushing into the soft black dirt, forming little craters. She leaned her head against the granite surface of her mother's headstone.

She wasn’t in control. She’d lost everything before, and now she’ll lose herself too.

When she raised her head again, her eyes met her mother’s framed photograph. 

The same loving smile. Frozen in time, eternally. 

Then she noticed something different.

In the reflection of the frame's cracked glass, she saw herself.
Her cheeks were stained with dry tears, her eyes red and puffy.
But it wasn’t her anymore. Not really.

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