Day 7: Free Day

Chapter 1

Diana's mother died at midsummer. She had fallen sick so suddenly that some of the villagers wondered if the Izanami had come and taken her, for she was still young and beautiful. She was buried three days later beneath the cherry blossom tree behind the house, just as twilight was darkening the sky. The village priestess came that evening to perform the old rituals over the grave.

Aunt Daryl looked at Diana with an expression hovering between resignation and impatience. As her cousins hid behind their mother, they stared at Diana with narrowed mocking eyes.

Diana never liked them. They were mean to her, isolating her during social and family gatherings. Bernadette had told Diana to be polite to them, but all Diana could feel at the moment as they stare at her mother's gravestone was a thick, burning anger.

It licked at her belly when she heard her aunt comment that the ritual should hurry up for she needed to go to a party being hosted by the head of the Hanbridge family. The anger throbbed at her temples when Maril and Merrill demanded that Diana's own room be given up for them since it was bigger and fit for the two of them. It roared inside her when she could not do anything as her aunt and her cousins take her belongings now that Daryl Cavendish is the proxy head of the family.

She had seen her mother's body after she died, of course, but her face had lost all of the vibrancy that made her recognizable. And it was easier to believe the village rumors than to sit with the ache inside her. She stood with the others in a tense silence, waiting as the sun set over the mountains, remembering.

Everyone had always said that Bernadette had some magic in her, and everyone knew that yokais and onis—if they existed—were drawn to that. So Diana had ordered all the old rituals, even though her aunt did not believe in them, just in case. She was not entirely sure what she herself believed, but she knew that her mother would want them to do these rituals.

When Diana's aunt and her cousins left, she stayed there, wistfully gazing at the stone. The sky began to darken as if they shared Diana's grief. Diana could not shake the feeling that her mother had merely gone out on a task and would come home at any moment. It did not seem possible that she was buried there, at the foot of the sakura tree, in the ground.

"Do you miss your mother?"

Startled, Diana spun around her heels to find another child at the edge of the garden to find a lost wayward child—like the way Diana felt right now. She seemed to have sprung out of nowhere.

Diana stepped back, startled, but there was something about her that was somehow entrancing and warm. Even the sky opened up, revealing a small glow of sunlight.

"Of course I miss her."

"You must let her go," she said softly.

Diana felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

"Your mother was a great woman," the girl continued. She was a girl shorter than her but she tiptoed to level and looked at her closely. The lost girl had strangely red colored eyes but with a normal short brown hair. "She's happy where she is now. You must not wish her back. She would want that."

Diana blinked, and the tears spilled over; she felt as if the girl was tugging them out of her one by one.

By the time Anna—their head maid—came to collect her, she had stopped crying and was sitting on the stone bench at the edge of the koi pond, and the mysterious girl had gone.

Everything changed after her mother died. Diana had known every inch of her home in but now it was strange and large and cold. Everyone in the province knew and cherished her mother and now, she was pitied by others: Poor girl. Orphan.

Though Aunt Daryl had never treated her with much fondness, now that Diana's mother was gone, she no longer tried to hide her disapproval. It served as a harsh reminder to Diana of how much her life had changed since the summer, especially when the tax collector from the imperial palace from Edo arrived, bearing announcements and letters.

"Your mother's business was not doing well when she died." Aunt Daryl said bitterly during dinner one night. "I did not know this until now. This letter says that your mother has debts that I must pay in her stead now that she died." Her voice took on a steely quality as she said, "I do not have the money to pay for your mother's mistakes. My husband left me with only a few to support me and that's why I returned to my sister, to take what is left of my inheritance. But she was a thief."

Diana objected, "She was not. You—"

"Be quiet," her stepmother said. "I am telling you these things because you need to know what sort of trouble your mother brought me. You are not my child; you are your mother's, and you are going to pay her debts."

"What do you mean?" Diana asked in a thin voice.

"Because of these taxes, I must sell a few of the family's heirlooms that have no use to these changing times. That will solve some of these problems, but not all of them. I could send you out to service in the royal city, but I can make better use of you here. Therefore you will start by doing chores in the morning. In the afternoon you will review my children's lessons on your own, and then you will continue healing ill and wounded people who come to us, seeking our medical knowledge and prepare supper." Aunt Daryl paused, and then looked directly at Diana before saying, "If your mother had known how to manage her finances better, you would not be put in the position of paying for her mistakes. As it is, I will expect you to work off her debts without complaint, because you are her daughter and it is your responsibility. Do not shirk your duties."

Diana was silent. She felt numb.

Aunt Daryl rolled the scrolls that were sent to them. "Now go and find Anna. I have already told her about this because she won't be coming here again. I cannot afford to pay Anna when you can do the work instead."

Fall turned into winter and the family business as the province's local healers did not prosper. Aunt Daryl spent more on lavish pieces of jewelry, luscious food, and finest silks more than they can earn. With Diana as the sole practitioner of their ancestor's art of healing at the age of seven, they had still had mountains of debts.

When she reached the tender age of 15, her healing skills have vastly improved, but she still had to do all those chores for her aunt. She lacked the energy to earn more than she was capable of. And what she earned was always taken by her aunt and she did not possess the courage to run away in the cold world. Where was the emotional warmth when she needed it?

But there was something odd at the end of the year came in the country. Winters become colder and colder, and crops would lessen and animals get thinner. Summers did not bring warm glows upon the earth than it used to. It was as if summer turned into an endless spring. It was as if the sun was dying. Then the frightened villagers and old wives' tale circulated in the country. Stories about the Yuki-onna—a snow woman had emerged.

Diana had no time for such tales as she had so much to do. All she wanted was to save her mother's name. Along with her healing skills, she had also relied on farming for additional food and planting most of her herbal remedies.

If there was ever a thought that prolonged in her mind, it was that strange lost girl who talked to her when she stayed sobbing at her mother's grave. But the thought of her led Diana to think about her mother.

She stepped out of the farm into the shadow of the cherry blossom tree and looked back at the house where she had grown up. The windows were dark and empty. Diana went to the tombstone where her mother lay buried and knelt down on the new grass before it. She touched the stone marker, feeling the imprint of her mother's name with her fingers. Tears welled up in her eyes, falling down her cheeks and then she lay down, pressing her cheek against the edge of the stone where it met the soft ground and closed her eyes. She slept on the earth over her mother's grave, and she did not dream.

When she awoke, the dark greeted her. She was lying with her belly to the ground, breathing in the scent of the soil. She could feel the steady beating of her heart, the rhythmic pulsing of her blood through her veins, and beneath her, the dense, solid earth seemed to be alive. She rolled over onto her back and the night air was cool against her skin. She looked up through the branches of the tree; the new leaves a dark pattern against the black night sky.

She wondered if the strange girl with red eyes would be lost once more and stumble upon the same spot. But she never did. Disappointed, she woke up completely, the memory of the last several months flooding back into her with depressing efficiency. She sat up slowly and brushed the dirt from her hair.

A harsh winter had gone with no sign of spring. Diana had delayed planting at first, hoping for sunshine and warmth before she subjected her seedlings to the cold earth. But one morning she announced that she would wait no more, and the seeds went into the ground that day, followed by biweekly applications of the thick black fertilizer she concocted in the evenings. And despite the lack of sunlight, the seeds sprouted, though they were thinner and weaker than usual.

The Hanbridge family visited them during winter three years later. Whilst her aunt dealt with the negotiations with the Hanbridge Head, Diana was tasked to give his son—Andrew, a tour.

All throughout their childhood, Diana and Andrew never exchanged words or pleasantries. There was only one time when they have been introduced to one another. Yet as Diana toured him around, there were no words between them, only silence as it filled the air.

They passed a farmhouse burned to the ground, its roof about to collapse. They drove through a village that was empty but for a few hollow-eyed beggars lurking in the abandoned market street. And they passed many people in torn cloaks and kimonos were walking down the side of the road.

"Where are they going?" Andrew wondered aloud.

"To search for food," Diana answered, startling Andrew. Diana rarely spoke and Andrew had not yet determined whether she was disinterested in conversation or merely bashful.

"How do you know?" Andrew watched Diana struggle to contain some kind of emotion.

"It has been a difficult year, three difficult years. The Cavendish farm, we have done better than some of the commoners. We have received travelers for some time now, seeking food. Aunt Daryl was strict on helping if they cannot pay, so those who cannot pay, we send them east. We have heard that there are provisions there for the needy."

"It is all about feudalism and business." Andrew sneered.

"Lady Cavendish, oh please help us!"

Diana averted her gaze from him to see a girl in her twelve years, begging on her knees at her. She wore a faded kimono, probably from being handed down for three generations.

"Please, sovereign lady, we are freezing. My poor parents are bedridden, my sisters and brothers are sick. We have no food, we are unfit for travel! Please have mercy on us."

Andrew gave her a look, trying to dissuade her decision to help them, but Diana ignored him. This girl reminded Diana of the red-eyed child years ago. She was the only one who gave her soothing words that day. Like an emotional warmth that came like a finished cup of a warm green tea.

"I shall give you a stock of fermented beans and firewood. How does that sound?"

"Wonderful, Lady Cavendish," she smiled brightly despite her blue face. "Thank you for saving us."

"Why would you do that?" Andrew asked. Diana knew Andrew would not tell on her but knew the inevitable.

Diana could tell him a lengthy speech why. She could tell her a short phrase that held an enormous meaning. Instead, she asked him a question. "Where was the sun when we needed her?"

"Perhaps, Amaterasu is dying."

At nightfall with her bundles of wood, she gave them to the little girl's family. When she got home after the delivery, she dashed into the beautifully appointed room lit with two globe-shaped oil lamps, one on the desk, one resting on a dark wood stand carved with lotus flowers. One wall of the rectangular room was lined with windows, but curtains were pulled across them to block out the night and the wintry air. Beside the windows were six simple, elegant armchairs faced each other across a low round table on which a tea tray rested. A black earthenware pot of tea steamed there.

Her family and her guests were in the main room having dinner all the while keeping themselves warm with thrice the clothing and the thickest blanket. The adults have been talking and paid her no mind. Andrew did, however, and gestured for her to take a seat, pouring her a cup.

"Winter is unforgiving. It truly is the end of days." Aunt Daryl said.

"Hmmph," Andrew's father, Paul rebuffed. "Commoners are saying that the end is near because we are no longer giving sacrificial items to the gods and spirits. I do believe that winter is becoming colder because that is just the way the world is. The earth is cleansing herself with unwanted parasites."

"But father, we are no better than those people who had less." Andrew started to argue.

"Son!" he scoffed. "I told numerous times. To do something for free and not ask for anything in return is impossible! No one can survive, which is why we have a trading system to do business and to protect the people's lives from outside forces by having them to work for us. The more desperate, the higher the pay and taxes—that is how people make a living or become lords."

"That is very true, Paul. My sister, blessed be her soul, was not a sensible woman. And yet, she will help anyone regardless of their ability to pay for said services." Aunt Daryl's forehead creased. "At this rate, I mean, look how the mighty House of Cavendish fell into ruins. It is a good thing I became a proxy head until my dear niece would reclaim the title she turns to adulthood.

"Aunt Daryl," Diana began slowly, controlling her temper. "I am of age."

"I fear you are not ready my dear. I wait for you to learn not to continue to lose but to gain; we will have to postpone the ceremony until your 21st spring."

There was a full minute of silence that grew in the room before being disrupted by a servant. He was a stubby old man who the Cavendishes hired two years ago after Diana somewhat earned to afford his services. "My sincere apologies," he said. "Noble Masters and Honoured Guests, but we are in a dire sense of trouble."

"What is it, Carter?" Aunt Daryl asked, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"We are running out of firewood and coal. We don't have enough stock to go through another month."

Aunt Daryl gasped. "How can this be?"

"It is my fault," Diana admitted. "I gave some to a poor family who asked for my help."

"You insolent girl!" Aunt Daryl screamed. "You truly are your mother's daughter. Why must you disobey me like this? Pray, tell me, how does your heroic noble cause serve us when they are warm and we are cold? Is this what the family motto of affection leads us to? Help people until we all have nothing for ourselves? Why must you care for others when you cannot even take care of yourself or your family? This is why my beloved sister died with huge debts. Do you not care if you wound up like her—dead underneath the cold hard ground?"

"What must we do?" Paul asked he cared less about another family's drama. "I could send my caravan to retrieve some wood back home in the neighboring province."

"You do not need to concern yourself, Paul. You are the guests." Aunt Daryl said. "We can cut down some of the ancestral trees."

"Unforgivable!" Diana remarked, no longer able to keep her mouth shut. "Cutting down those groves when they were the ones giving us bountiful of fresh air and food, shame on you for wanting to rid the trees our ancestors planted and left for us!"

"The nerve of you dear, speaking to your elders in disrespect." Aunt Daryl slammed the table. "If you are so noble Diana, then you must prove that the decision you made was fine, you should go with Carter to the North Mountains and fetch us some wood or coal."

Two hours after leaving her home, the road narrowed and packed with dirt instead of paving stones. They had reached the end of most of the land, and now low hills began to rise in the distance. They were far from the mountains, and yet they still had more than a day of travel before they would reach their destination.

Diana felt the lack of sun with a brutal sense of futility: The whole world was gray, colorless. Her fingers were frozen where they gripped the reins. Diana could not help but dream of the day where the sun would stop hiding from the clouds and nourish the earth with her golden rays. It would be nice to be warm for once.

"I hope we would not encounter the rumored snow woman in these parts," Carter said, attempting to have a conversation with his kind master. "They say she dons a very beautiful white yukata, pale as snow and hair black as coal. Some folks say she's a ghost of a pregnant woman who died in the snow, so she is sometimes seen carrying a baby. She is known to kidnap children and asks a passerby to hold her child, only for them to find that it has grown incredibly heavy and freeze to death. Often they will appear to a human man, disguising her ghostly nature, become his wife and have many children with him. When the husband disobeys a request from her, she will leave him. She would kill travelers by making them inhale her icy breath. We have to stay warm and keep a fire around us so she will stay away."

Diana only smiled at him. Even if had been trying all morning to engage her in conversation, she felt alone. She knew he meant well, but he had no idea what she was going through.

The road sloped down toward the Tama River. Now she let her horse gallop at full speed, and caught sight of a lone tree at the top, stripped bare of its leaves. She loved the whip of the wind in her face. It was cool and faintly wet. She remembered the first time she had ridden a galloping horse: She had been a child, barely eight or nine, trying to keep up with her mother.

When the road curved close to the river, she turned her horse toward the water and dismounted at the riverbank. She watched as her horse lowered her head to the water while leaning back in the saddle.

Tama River was wide and deep here, sliding with a dim roar south toward the mountains. At this time of year, it should have been full of fishing vessels and ships carrying goods: seafood, lumber, stones and even game and clothing from mountain quarries. But the river was nearly frozen. Not even a water bird floated on its surface. Trade had halted last fall when the winter storms began, and business had not returned to normal. The empty river should have been a peaceful sight, but instead, it drove something that Diana had not fully understood until now: the country would die if the seasons did not change soon.

She sucked her breath in sharply. This was why she was here, standing on the river banks so far from her Aunt's grasp and her family's influence. She was here because she wanted to see why the villagers believed that somewhere out there beyond the mountains of the North was more food. Perhaps when all has been done, Diana could go east to look for the rising sun.

It stormed after that. Not heavily but steadily, sliding down their cloaks and dripping onto chilled hands. When it stopped, there was no sun to dry them off, and they were still damp when they arrived at the wooded areas of the mountain and took out their axes and do their work.

Carter and Diana finished by evening, when a great snowstorm overtook them, halting their journey. They luckily took shelter in an abandoned hut. Inside, there was no brazier, nor any place in which to make a fire: there were only two mats that were left by the previous owners, with a single door, but no window.

"Good thing we still have a lamp," Carter said. "The light from it will give us hope in the dark. Think of it as a little sun."

"Sunlight," Diana began, still shivering. "The most precious gold to be found on earth compares nothing to an impersonator. I wish we can make tea."

Diana assisted Carter as he fastened the door with a straw raincoat they brought and had a hearty dinner of packed onigiri. With stuffed bellies, they laid down to rest, with cloaks over them, hoping that the storm would soon be over.

Carter who was in his fifties almost immediately fell asleep; but Diana lay awake a long time, it was a terrible storm. She tried her best not to listen to the awful wind, and the continual slashing of the snow against the door; the roaring river outside and the swaying and creaking of the hut. The air was becoming colder, making her shiver despite being underneath her cloak. But at last, in spite of the cold, she was so tired and soon fell asleep.

Diana was awakened by a showering of snow in her face. The door of the hut had been forced open; the fire from the lamp has burned out and, by the snow light, she saw a woman in the room, dressed in a white yukata. It was so white that Diana wondered if the thread was made of gossamer.

She stifled a gasp. Diana's head spiraled. There she was—the infamous woman of snow.

She was bending above Carter and blowing her bright white smoke breath upon him. Diana feared for both of their lives, she slowly tried to reach for the ax by her side. At that moment, the girl heard Diana's creak on the floorboard.

The woman turned to her abruptly and stooped over her. This was it. She was going to steal her last breath away. She bent down lower and lower until her face almost touched hers. Diana saw that she was beautiful, although her black soulless eyes made her fear for what is to come.

For a little time, she continued to look at Diana then smiled. She reached out and stroked Diana's blonde hair, she could feel an icy chill emanating from the pale girl's hand, and wondered if the touch would spread a frost over her, snowflakes blooming over her skin like a dress of winter.

"I intended to treat you like the other man. But I cannot help feeling some pity for you. You are so young, you are a pretty girl, and I will not hurt you. But, if you ever tell anybody about me, even your own family, I shall know it; and then I will kill you. Remember what I say!" With these words, she turned from Diana and passed through the doorway.

Even as a few minutes passed, Diana was able to move. After quite some time, Diana sprang up, and looked out, the stranger nowhere to be seen; and the snow was driving furiously into the hut. Diana closed the door and secured it by fixing several billets of wood against it. Diana wondered if the wind had blown it open. She thought that she might have been only dreaming, and might have mistaken the gleam of the snow light in the doorway for the figure of a white woman. But she could not be sure.

"Carter?" she called.

Her fright grew because the servant did not answer. Diana placed a hand in the dark and touched Carter's face. He was ice cold.

Carter was stark and dead.

Diana sank to her knees, taking a deep, ragged breath. She was suddenly as cold as if she had been submerged in icy water. She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking. She became gradually aware of the heart-wrenching sound of sobs, crying at the body of Carter on the floor as still as stone, and his face ashen.

By dawn the storm was over; a little after sunrise, somebody shook Diana awake as she lied senseless beside the frozen body of Carter.

"She's here! I found them!" A male voice yelled. There were sounds of footsteps all around.

Diana's eyes fluttered open slowly, before absorbing her entire surroundings. "Andrew?"

His sleek black hair was disheveled. "What happened to you? You have been missing for three days—"

Diana's thoughts couldn't process what was happening when all of a sudden being wake for less than two minutes gave her another wave of exhaustion.

A/N

This fic is inspired by the Snow Woman version of Lafcadio Hearn aka Koizumi Yakumo. But welp this got longer than expected so I decided to cut it in two parts. Now you all know I'm a slut for these kinds of AUs.