Sanae loved visiting the old shrine. There was a giant lake behind it, where she could run on the shore and catch frogs and watch the fish. Every time they visited, Kanako had a present waiting for her. The building itself was old and creaky. Just visiting it felt like traveling to another world, and it somehow made her feel better about herself.

Sanae's mother... did not love the shrine. She always grew quiet a few hours before they left home. Even at her age, Sanae could see that she dreaded the visits. "It's a decaying old tourist trap," she had told Sanae once, on the train ride there. "Nobody thinks like Kanako anymore. She needs to understand that the world has moved on."

Today's trip was different. Her parents had been telling her for weeks what was going to happen. They'd packed up most of her things into cardboard boxes the night before. They were piled high next to her in the back seat now, jiggling and bouncing every time the car went over a pothole. A short ways from the shrine, they turned off onto a narrow side road. It meandered down the hillside, and ended at a small parking lot. Beyond, a walkway led down to the shrine's side entrance, bounded by torii overhead.

Sanae's parents got out of the car and piled boxes into their arms. She followed after them down the path. "Did you remember to pack your toothbrush?" her mother asked.

"Yeah." Sanae tilted her head back to look at the torii as they pass beneath them.

"Did you get your clothes from the dirty laundry?"

"Yep..." Sanae looked forward again, then paused and patted at her pocket. Her eyes went wide. "Oh! Um, crap!"

"What is it?"

"I forgot my Game Boy!"

"Why didn't you pack it when you did the rest of your toys?!"

"I, uh." She'd been playing it in bed after lights-out, like she always did, and left it on her nightstand. But her parents didn't need to know that. "Guess I didn't see it..."

Her mother sighed, and her father shifted the boxes in his arms. "It's too late to go get it," he said, without looking back. "And we're not going to have time to bring it here."

"... we'll mail it to you," her mother said. "Remind me to tell her to watch for the package."

"'kay." Sanae didn't like the thought of going that long without it, but it didn't seem like a good idea to make a big deal about it. Instead, she took the opportunity to look around as they passed through the last set of torii and into the courtyard. The place was almost empty, with only a few tourists who didn't pay much mind to them. The shrine hadn't changed much since her last visit. She knew how to climb half of the trees on the grounds, and a quick glance assured her that Kanako hadn't yet boarded up the entrance to the storage building's crawlspace. She wondered if she was still small enough to fit into it.

Her mother led the group down the familiar path back past the main hall, back to the living quarters. They all stopped to pile up their boxes, her father knocked on the door...

And Sanae noticed something moving from the corner of her eye. She turned, and found a blonde girl watching her with interest from a few meters away. The girl jolted in surprise, too. They stared at each other for a moment, and the girl clucked her tongue. "You can see me, can't you?" She sounded impressed.

"Huh? Um, yeah, why wouldn't I...?"

"Hey, not bad! You're already doing better than half your ancestors!" The girl hopped down and moved closer. "Going to be moving in with us, are you?"

"Uh-huh."

The girl crossed her arms and nodded thoughtfully at this. "What's your name?"

"Um, Sanae, but..."

"Sanae, are you talking to yourself?" It was her father's voice. Sanae turned around, and found that all three adults were looking at her. Kanako peered at her with interest from the doorway, Dad just looked confused, and mom looked concerned.

"Huh? No, I..." Sanae looked back to the girl. There was nothing there, and a quick glance around the clearing assured her that there was nobody else around.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Kanako said, before Sanae could gather her wits enough to put together an explanation. Sanae could almost swear that she shot a warning glance at the spot where the girl had been. "Do you need some help with the rest?"

"Sanae and I can start unpacking. Would you mind helping Saburo bring in the rest of the boxes?"

"Of course."

Sanae gave one last glance around the area before she reluctantly hefted a few boxes and followed her mother inside. They made their way to a room at the back, small and empty, but lived-in. The roof slanted down to the rear wall of the shrine, and the only furnishings were a dresser, a futon rolled in the corner, and a desk. The desk and dresser looked like they'd been there for ages.

Sanae's mother sat her box down and looked around, brushing her hands clean. Sanae dropped her own, but before she could straighten up again, she caught a single glimpse out of the corner of her eye: the girl, sitting on the edge of the desk.

She turned to look at her. The desk was empty. Nothing on it.

"Sanae, are you okay?

"O-oh, um!" Sanae gave the room one last lingering look as she debated whether to answer that truthfully. "There was this girl... I think she lives here."

"A girl," her mother repeated. She raised an eyebrow and took a glance around for herself. Seeming satisfied that there was nothing, she crouched down and felt Sanae's forehead. Apparently satisfied, she nodded to herself. "Well, nobody else lives here, so it must be your imagination."

"Oh, um." Sanae glanced toward the spot where the girl had been sitting. Still nothing. "Right..."

Seeing that Sanae wasn't convinced, her mother pulled her forward into a hug. "I know that this shrine is old and a little creepy, but it's just a normal building. I worked here as a shrine maiden for two summers, and I got through it just fine. Kanako is an old friend of the family. She'll take good care of you, I promise."

Sanae squeezed back into the hug, and slowly relaxed as she accepted the reassurances. "R-right, um, I'm fine! Just kind of nervous, I guess."

Her mother nodded, but didn't seem satisfied just yet. She pulled back from the hug and gave a lopsided reassuring smile. "This should only be for a year or so," she said, for what felt like the thousandth time.

"Yeah, I know."

"We'll be back as soon as your father can get a transfer back to Japan."

"Uh-huh."

"We'll call you every week, and you can call us any time you want, okay?"

"Yeah..."

"Good." Her mother pulled her into a half-hug, then pushed herself back to standing with a grunt of exertion. "Then let's finish unpacking."

Sanae spotted the girl five more times that night. She did her very best to ignore her until her parents had said their tearful goodbyes and driven home.


"Hey, mom, guess what?"

"Huh? What?"

Sanae shifted the phone around to her other ear. "I found out today, Suwako is a real goddess!"

She hadn't intended to reveal her big news first thing in the call, and now that it had spilled out, she wished that she'd built up to it a bit more. The first few times she'd mentioned seeing Suwako to her mother, her mom had written it off as the product of an overactive imagination. More recently, though, her mother had seemed increasingly worried whenever she came up. This time, Sanae could picture the way that her mother tensed up before she said, "A goddess."

"Yeah! Um, well, I mean..." She fumbled with the phone, and slid down to sit against the wall as she considered her words. "I got to talk to her more yesterday, and she's a real goddess. She's, like, really old, and she used to have a whole kingdom and stuff!"

"Sanae." Her mother's voice was thin and tense. "Remember, honey, we talked about this. Suwako isn't real. She's imaginary, like a fairy tale."

"No, she's real, I swear! You just can't see her because of the goddess thing. She says, um." Suwako had prepared her for this. Sanae closed her eyes, and tried to remember everything that the goddess had drilled into her head. "She says that when you were at the shrine to drop me off, you asked for her to protect me, and, uh, that it was a 'damn fool' thing to ask for, because she was going to do that anyway."

There was a pause at the other end of the phone this time. "... Sanae, that isn't funny. And please watch your tongue."

"That's what she said, though!" Sanae squeaked in her own defense. "And that one time when you worked at the shrine, you had a boy over, and he was being a jerk to you, so she made him trip and hurt his leg!"

The pause was longer this time. "... I don't know how you heard about that, but..."

"A-and!" Sanae wasn't about to give up so easily. She leaned forward, with the receiver held closer to her mouth. "She said that, when you were a kid, she used to turn into a frog and watch you sometimes, and one time you saw her sitting on your futon, and you got so scared that you lost a tooth when you ran into the door!"

"And you're telling me," her mother finally said, very carefully, like she was disarming a bomb. "That there's an invisible girl in the shrine who told you all of this, and she's a goddess."

"Uh-huh! Well, she's not invisible to me, but she says I'm special."

"And you know that it isn't good to lie, right?"

"I'm not lying mom, I swear!"

An even longer silence this time. "... can you please put Kanako on the phone? I'd like to hear her take on all of this."


"... hello? Yes, Mrs. Kochiya?" The teacher said. He paced anxiously around the teacher's lounge as he spoke. Combined with his lanky build, it made him look like some kind of bird, to Sanae's mind. "Yes. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, I know it must be late over there. This is Sato, Sanae's home room teacher. Yes. Yes. Ah, you see..."

Sanae scowled and shrunk down in her seat, bracing herself for what came next. She could almost imagine her mother doing the same, sitting in their apartment thousands of kilometers away.

"... it's about Sanae's behavior. She... I don't know how to put this. She brought frogs into school. Yes. Yes, frogs. Yes. two dozen. We're not sure how, but she put them in a boy's locker. I will admit that there have been severe issues with how other students treat her, but I'm sure that you can imagine how disruptive this was. Your daughter needs to understand that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated at...! Yes. Of course." He turned and looked to Sanae, offering over the phone. "She wants to speak to you."

Sanae pouted, already anticipating what was coming, but accepted the phone. "... hey, mom."

"Do you care to explain yourself?"

"The frogs didn't hurt anything!" It was the best defense that Sanae had managed to come up with in the time that she'd spent being chastised on the chair. "And I, um... didn't think it'd work..."

"You didn't think what would work?"

"... hold on." Sanae covered the receiver with a hand and looked to Mr. Sato. "This is kind of personal, can I get a few minutes of privacy?"

"If it has to do with today's events, you can say it in front of me."

"Come on, I can't escape or anything! It's just... you know. Girl things." Frogs were girl things, she supposed. Suwako liked them enough.

The teacher held his ground for a few seconds, but caved in with a sigh. "Three minutes," he said. "If you touch anything while I'm out of the room, I'm doubling your detention."

"I won't, I swear!" Sanae waited until he had walked out of the room and shut the door behind himself, then lifted the phone to her mouth again. "Okay, sorry. I had to get him out of the room. So, anyway! It wasn't just some frogs. It was a plague of frogs! I mean, it was a pretty tiny plague, but—"

"A plague of frogs," her mother said flatly.

"Yeah!" Sanae said, and reminded herself to try not to sound so excited. "I-I mean. I just sort of... felt like I could, and then I gave it a shot. I didn't really think it would work, though!"

"Sanae, I don't understand, I..." Her mother gave a slight sigh of exertion, followed by the sound of a switch clicking. Turning on the lights, probably. It was pretty late at night over there. "Where did the frogs come from?"

"That's what I mean! I think it was..." Sanae glanced toward the door. It was still shut, but she pulled the phone even closer to her mouth and lowered her voice. "I think it was a miracle. Like, a real one."

Her mother went silent. Sanae could picture her now. It had been a few years, but the way that her mom rubbed the bridge of her nose when she was brooding would be burnt into her mind forever. "Did you ever stop to think that maybe, filling a locker with frogs wasn't a good idea?"

"That's not even really the issue here! I mean, it was a miracle! This was just a start, but with some practice, I might be able to... heal sick people, or fight crime, or... oh man, I'm like a superhero or something!"

"Sanae, slow down," her mother said. She sounded like she wasn't sure whether to sound amused or upset. "Did... Suwako, put you up to this?"

"Huh? Oh, um, no. She can't really say much right now, actually. She's kind of... sick." Sanae shifted uncomfortably at the euphemism. This didn't seem like the time or place to explain what happened to a goddess who didn't get enough worship. "It just kinda came to me."

"I see." Her mother sighed. "A miracle, hmm?"

"Yep."

Sanae's mother went silent, and even without seeing her, Sanae could tell that she was struggling to fit this into her worldview. She really did seem to be trying to understand this stuff. She'd even tried her best to see Suwako on their visit over the summer, making small talk with the spot in the air where Sanae pointed her out. "I'm... very proud of you," her mother said,. "But I don't think that you should do this kind of thing anymore. You could get in trouble."

"I—y-yeah, but...!" Sanae stammered. She slumped in her chair. "It's a miracle, mom...! People ought to know that kind of stuff is real!"

"Maybe so," her mother said, carefully. "But you don't need to be the one to show them. Not right now."

Sanae bit down on her lower lip to stifle her protests, and let out a low sigh. "Okay."

"I know that this kind of thing is exciting, but you need to be focusing on school right now. All the frogs in the world won't help you if you can't get a job."

"Right..." Sanae wanted to melt out of the chair. Never had she been dragged from ecstasy to misery so quickly.

"Good." With that established, her mother's voice lost some of its seriousness. "I really do want to hear more about it sometime, though, okay? For now, what are you going to tell the teacher?"

"I dunno," Sanae mumbled. "I'll say I brought them in a sack or something."


Mornings were the best time to call her parents, Sanae had found. It usually worked out to be the evening over there, and while her father was more and more busy these days, she could usually catch her mom at home. And today was a gorgeous morning. There were just enough clouds to break up the sunrise a little, giving the sky a warm pink glow. The lake reflected it, and if she looked straight ahead, it almost felt like she was floating through the heavens.

It seemed like a good sign, and she focused on the lake's surface to try calming herself down. It didn't help much. Her hands were shaking, and she tightened her grip on her phone to make sure she didn't drop it. All the while, fragments of potential conversations drifted through her head. 'Hey, mom, I know this will sound crazy, but...' 'Okay, so, if somebody offered you the opportunity to...' 'Guess what I'm doing...!'

In the end, she didn't feel like she'd figured anything out by the time that she made the call. It just kind of happened. She hit the dial button on her phone and sank down to the ground. Sitting cross-legged, each unanswered ring still felt like it might knock her over.

A ring was cut short. "I was wondering when you'd call," Mom's voice said. Sanae almost wilted in relief. Her mother continued, oblivious. "It's been almost two weeks!"

"Ehe. Hi, mom. Yeah, sorry. I've been really busy lately..."

"I know, sweetie. Entrance exams will be over soon enough. It only feels like forever when you're taking them." On the other end of the phone, something was making distant sizzling noises.

"A-ah, yeah, I guess it won't be much longer, huh?!" Sanae said, with a nervous laugh. She hadn't taken a single entrance exam yet. Her teachers were giving her hell over it—not applying to a single college, with her grades?—but she'd somehow convinced them to not complain to her parents yet. "So, um! Are you making dinner?"

"Hmm? Yeah. Sorry, is it too loud?" The sizzling grew quieter.

"Oh, no, it was fine, I could just hear it. What's for dinner?"

"Omelet rice. Your father will be home late tonight, and I'm too tired for anything fancy, so..."

"Ah, yeah." Sanae had only asked the question out of idle curiosity, something to keep the conversation going and delay the inevitable, but nostalgia flowed over her like a river. She hadn't tasted her mother's omelet rice in seven years. It seemed like a really silly thing to miss, but right now, she would've killed for it. "... hey, mom?"

"Yes?"

"I kind of... I just. Um." She never had decided how to segue into this conversation. Nothing to do now but jump in and see where she ended up. "Can we talk about something?"

"Well, it would be awkward if we just sat here without talking, wouldn't it? What's wrong?"

"Lady Kanako's thinking of... moving."

"Moving? Did she finally get tired of that drafty shrine?"

"Not really. Well, actually, kind of." Sanae went quiet, and started idly plucking blades of grass out of the ground. It felt impossible to move further in this conversation. She'd performed plenty of miracles at this point, but some things were beyond even the domain of miracles.

"Sanae?"

"Sorry, just thinking. The place she's thinking of moving to is, um, really far away."

"Where?"

"It's called Gensokyo. I guess it's kind of where all the gods went after everything became modern and stuff? She found some way to move the shrine. They still, um. They still believe in stuff over there. It's supposed to be a lot nicer for gods." In a quieter voice, she added, "She thinks it'll be good for Lady Suwako."

There was a pause as her mother absorbed all of that. "Well. I'm glad that they've found somewhere they belong."

"Yeah, it's nice..."

"When will they be moving? If it's within the next few months, we'll have to find somewhere for you to stay until you're through high school. If you feel okay living on your own, we could probably afford to pay for an apartment for a few months, but..."

"It will be a few months, but I kind of." Sanae's vision blurred as her eyes teared up. She squeezed them shut. "I kind of... no, um, I-I definitely! I want to go with them!"

Another long pause. "Something tells me you wouldn't be coming back."

"I-I don't know." Sanae sniffled. "Lady Kanako thinks maybe there might be a way to come back out occasionally, but it's, um. It's pretty much... permanent, yeah. I-it's just!" Sanae's voice cracked, but her scattered thoughts were beginning to come together. "I don't wanna hide my miracles! I can control the wind and fly, and I can't even tell anybody or they'll think I'm crazy! That's bullcrap, mom!" Sanae trailed off into something halfway between a sob and a laugh, which itself ended in a violent hiccup. "I know that gods and stuff actually exist. I can't just ignore all that and go be a, a-an accountant or something! I can't!"

Sanae's mother took a long, steadying breath. "You sound like you've already made up your mind, haven't you?"

"Yeah, u-um." Sanae sniffled again. "We've been talking about it for a while."

"And you're sure it's what's best for you, not just Kanako?"

"Y-yeah."

This time, the silence was so long that Sanae started worrying if she'd hung up. It wasn't until she heard a soft moan from the other side that she realized: her mother was still there. She was just busy crying, herself.

"Tell me," her mother said in a quaking voice, after some time, "about this place you're considering."


In the end, Sanae convinced her parents to respect her wishes. It took two weeks and more than one hours-long phone call, but she convinced them. In the weeks leading up to the move, they came for one final five-day visit.

But, they couldn't be there on the day of the move. Anything on the shrine's grounds that was staying behind would be in for a rough time.

Sanae couldn't help out much with Kanako's plans—and most of them were a fair bit over her head, talk about the mythology of the shrine and how it interacted with human belief—but she did what she could. She dragged out old signs from the storage building to warn off the handful of early morning tourists. She double-checked the supplies they'd stockpiled to make sure nothing was missing.

And, once she was certain that she'd done everything that she could, she sat down on the shrine's front steps and pulled out her phone. This time, it barely even completed the first ring before her mother picked up. "Sanae?"

"Hi, mom!" It wasn't until she spoke that Sanae realized that her entire body was tingling with excitement and anxiety. She wasn't sure whether she felt more like running laps around the courtyard or throwing up. "Lady Kanako just started her thing a while ago. I don't know how much time I have, though... She didn't really tell me how long this would take."

"I'm just glad you called." Mom's voice sounded tired and thin, even though she was trying to sound cheerful. It sent a pang of guilt through Sanae. "Did you remember to stock up on your pills?"

"Uh-huh. I have a three month supply. That should cover it until we can find something over there."

"And winter clothes?"

"Mom, I have winter clothes already, all that stuff's coming with us."

"Aren't you still using that same windbreaker that—I guess it's too late now, isn't it? Well, look for something thicker once you're there. You don't know what the weather will be like."

"I will, mom, okay?" Sanae said. She was too jittery to even attempt her put-upon teenager voice at the moment. Besides, the little pieces of prosaic worry helped calm her down a little. They were comforting bits of familiarity after the increasingly strange events of the past few weeks.

"You sound like you have this all figured out." Mom sounded amused.

"Ehe. Not all the way! Lady Kanako's put a lot of thought into it, though. I'm still kind of nervous. I tried to read a bunch of books on youkai and stuff, but I don't really feel ready. Um, apparently the area we're going to end up has a bunch of tengu and kappa. Isn't that weird to think about? Having a bunch of weird monsters for neighbors? I guess it's pretty cool, though..."

"I'm not sure if 'cool' is the word that I'd use."

"R-right. Anyway, she's gonna teach me to defend myself too, so I'll be alright, I promise. I won't lose!"

"I'm sure you'll be fine," mom said, not sounding entirely convinced of it. "Your father wants to talk to you, hold on." (Somewhere in the background, she could hear him shout, "Hi, Sanae!") "… but, Sanae?"

"Yeah?"

"I know that having us so far away has made things hard sometimes... but I want you to know that we—" There was a brief burst of static. "—proud of you." A longer burst of static.

"Huh? You're breaking up," Sanae said... and then cold realization clamped down in her mind. She stood up and looked back to the shrine, but there still wasn't any sign that it was anything but a normal day. "Can you guys hear me?"

"—nae? Are you—"

Sanae looked to the sky, but it was still a sunny, cloudless day. There was nothing to disrupt the signal, unless... "H-hey, um, I think it's starting, so we've gotta make this quick, okay?! Are you still there?"

"—still here." It was her father's voice this time. With a harsh metallic distortion, but still recognizable. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's the ritual, I think...!" Sanae had been preparing for this moment for weeks, but still felt frantic. Somehow, even with all the forewarning, the reality of her situation hadn't quite hit her until now. She glanced down the walkway toward the rest of the city, and some part of her wondered if she was fast enough to get off the shrine's grounds in time. "Th-there's probably not much time, s-so, um...!" Sanae could feel tears running down her cheeks now, but the adrenaline vaulted her past her other emotions. "I-I promise I'll try to write to you or something, no matter what it takes!"

Sanae paused to wait for a response, but only unsteady static came from the phone. A sort of shudder ran through the air around her, and for a moment, the entire world seemed to split into two copies around her. The aftermath left her wobbling, but she wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand and pulled her phone closer. "I love you guys, okay?! Mom, dad, I love you! Can you hear me?!"

"Sana—" The voice was so garbled that she couldn't even tell which parent it was. "—be good! We love y—"

That experience of the world splitting around her returned, and for a second, Sanae felt like she was being stretched. Then, the tension released, like a rubber band snapping. A new sky unfurled overhead. Sanae's phone, now silent, fell to the ground, and she began sobbing.