One Bowl of Millet⁠

Nine people shared one bowl of millet.

Hana added enough water that the grains seemed to multiply until the bowl was passed around.

They had not.

Hachi drank twice before noticing everyone watching him. He stopped with the rim still at his mouth.

"I'm full."

His stomach made a sound loud enough for Goro to hear.

Goro looked away to spare him embarrassment.

Kiku took one swallow and passed the bowl to Emi's mother. When it reached Taro, there were four grains caught against the wood.

He drank the water and chewed all four slowly.

Ken had gone hungry during exercises.

That had been scheduled hunger. Somewhere beyond the route, rations existed. Vehicles waited. An officer had signed a sheet saying when the exercise ended.

This was different.

Kurotake's grain sat below them under armed guard.

The future did not contain a supply truck.

Senta had not touched the bowl.

He sat near the entrance, staring toward the western path.

Taro watched his hands. They kept closing against his knees.

"Don't go," Taro said.

Senta looked up.

"Did I say I was going?"

"No."

"Then don't order me."

Nobody moved.

The word order had weight now.

Taro felt it land on every adult in the kiln.

"You're right," he said.

Senta seemed almost more offended by the agreement.

Taro continued.

"I think Genta expects someone to answer him. I think whoever goes to the western path will be followed back."

"My wife is already there."

"I know."

"You know?"

Senta stood.

"You saw her tied in the road and came back to count?"

Hana shifted but did not step between them yet.

Taro stayed seated.

"Yes."

Senta's face changed.

The blunt answer had taken away the argument he expected.

"You could have done something."

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"I could have shouted. I could have climbed down. I could have gotten Jubei and myself killed where your wife could watch."

Senta took one step toward him.

"You speak very calmly about other people's wives."

Taro felt heat rise in his face.

The old part of him wanted to explain risk. Probability. What a failed rescue would cost.

He stopped.

Senta did not need a lesson.

He needed someone to admit what the choice felt like.

"I was afraid," Taro said.

That slowed the room.

"Afraid of what?" Senta asked.

"Going down. Staying up. Choosing wrong. Watching Father get hit and doing nothing. Watching your wife stand there and knowing I had no way to reach her."

His voice roughened before he could control it.

"I was afraid of all of it."

Senta stared at him.

Some of the anger left.

Not enough to become forgiveness.

Taro was grateful for that. Forgiveness would have been too easy.

"I am sorry," he said.

"For what?"

"For having no way to bring her back tonight."

Senta sat down again.

"Tonight," he repeated.

The bitterness remained.

Jubei repaired the binding on an arrow near the entrance.

"Dawn doesn't wait for boys to become ready," he said. "Nor husbands. Eat if you plan to make bad decisions."

Senta looked at the empty bowl.

"Very helpful."

"I have been told so."

Hana collected the bowl.

"We leave this kiln before moonrise."

Jubei nodded.

Taro told them about the red threads beneath the western vents.

Kiku listened with her arms around her knees.

"The lower trench isn't near those vents," she said.

Jubei looked over.

"The one by the dye stones?"

"Yes."

"Visible from the road?"

"When the stream is low."

The shrine servant spoke.

"It is low. Rain came late."

Kiku frowned as though the stream had betrayed a childhood confidence.

Taro moved beside her.

"Show us what you remember."

For a moment, she did not answer.

The adults were finally waiting on her instead of talking over her.

"Three flat stones," she said. "The opening is behind them. First bend left. Then a drop. After that, the roof is held by burned cedar."

Jubei asked questions without looking impressed.

Distance.

Air.

Width.

Where light came through.

Kiku answered most of them.

When she did not know, she said so.

Taro noticed Jubei trusted those answers more than confident guesses.

"Could I fit?" Taro asked.

Kiku looked at his shoulders.

"Without the spear."

Hana set the bowl down.

"No."

Kiku turned to her.

"I have to show the way."

"No."

"Then nobody goes."

"Kiku."

Her mother did not raise her voice.

The girl's chin lifted anyway.

Taro looked between them.

He could intervene.

That would be the easy mistake.

This was not a disagreement for him to solve because he happened to have an idea.

He waited.

Hana rubbed both hands over her face.

"You are thirteen."

"Taro is fourteen."

"That does not improve the argument."

Kiku touched the ash line representing the trench.

"No. It makes us small enough."

Hana looked away.

For several breaths, only the faint pop of charcoal came from the fire.

Taro followed his mother outside.

Mist sat low between the cedars. Far below, the valley still glowed where roof beams smouldered.

Hana did not turn toward him.

"You should both have stayed children longer."

Taro leaned against a tree.

His ribs hurt more when he was tired.

"I don't think anyone asked us."

"That is why I am angry."

The answer was simple enough to hurt.

They stood together without speaking.

At last Hana said, "When you look at me, who do you see?"

Taro's mouth went dry.

He could say Mother.

True.

Convenient.

Not enough.

"I remember you giving me the larger piece of sweet potato and saying you had already eaten."

Hana's face tightened.

"You were eight."

"I know."

"Do you remember because you were there?"

Taro looked at the mist.

"I don't know how to answer that."

"Try."

He had been Ken Arai.

He had also woken knowing the smell of Hana's sleeves after rain, the sound Koji made when his hand cramped, where Kiku hid chestnuts and why Hachi hated thunder.

Memory had stopped feeling like evidence.

It felt like grief.

"I remember loving you," he said. "I don't know when it became mine."

Hana closed her eyes.

When she opened them, there were tears in neither.

"Good," she said.

Taro stared at her.

"Good?"

"A liar would have chosen an easier answer."

She touched the small scar under his eye.

"I will not ask what came back beneath that cart. Not while Koji is still below. But hear me clearly. You don't offer your life to Genta without speaking to me."

Taro looked down.

"I considered it."

"I know."

"If he wants me—"

"He wants a road. He wants silence. He wants witnesses. He wants many things. Do not make yourself so important that you become blind to the rest."

The words struck harder than accusation.

Ken had spent four years making one failure the centre of his life.

Now Taro had begun doing the same with one enemy's attention.

"Father might die because of me."

"Your father may die because armed men chose to move an army through his home."

Hana stepped closer.

"You are not allowed to turn every cruelty in this valley into proof that you should have been stronger."

He said nothing.

"And you do not get to become a commander only when it lets you sacrifice yourself."

That landed somewhere deeper.

Ken had believed courage meant entering danger before fear could stop him.

Hana was offering another version.

Remain in the room.

Let other people choose too.

"I understand," he said.

"No. You heard me."

A faint smile came and went.

"Understanding takes longer."

When they returned, Jubei had decided.

"Everyone moves to the split cedar shelter. Goro takes the families. Hana goes with them."

Hana started to object.

Jubei lifted one hand.

"The trench is for looking and speaking. Nothing more. If the roof is bad, we turn around."

"Who goes?"

"Kiku. Taro. Me."

Hana's jaw tightened.

Kiku did not look pleased.

She looked frightened.

Taro trusted that more.

Hachi raised one hand.

"I can fit too."

"No," Taro and Hana said together.

Hachi looked offended.

"Why not?"

Kiku answered.

"Because if we all crawl into the same hole, Mother will kill us before Genta can."

Goro laughed outright.

Even Hana almost did.

The sound lasted only a moment, but it changed the kiln.

People moved after that.

Bundles were tied. Warm charcoal scattered. Ash covered the place where the small fire had been. Goro led the survivors north.

Senta left last.

He looked toward the western path before entering the trees.

Taro saw it.

Jubei saw it.

Neither spoke.

Kiku guided them downhill after dark.

They reached the stream by memory and touch. Three broad dye stones rose beside the bank.

Kiku cleared wet leaves from a hollow behind the largest.

Cold air breathed out of the earth.

Jubei knelt and held a hand over the opening.

"No fresh ash."

"Good?" Taro asked.

"Means no one lit a fire in it recently. Says nothing about men."

Kiku lay on her stomach and slid feet-first into the darkness.

Taro crouched beside her.

"Your route. Your decision when we turn back."

She studied his face, perhaps checking whether he meant it.

Then she nodded.

"My decision."

"Yes."

Kiku vanished under the stone.

Jubei followed.

Taro entered last.

The valley bell rang once behind him.

Moonrise.

Genta was waiting on the western path.

Somewhere above it, Senta was waiting too.