When Mikochi went into Kobone, she spied an empty seat, set her heavily-laden shopping basket down, and settled herself for a rest before the trek home to the tree. The Master was busy with another patron, but there was no hurry.
The chair next to hers also had a basket beside it, a somewhat smaller one filled with wheat heads and cheese and a few whole tea leaves poking like flags over the top, and there in the chair sat an elderly but unfamiliar mouse.
"Another out-of-towner come to stock up?" the mouse asked her.
"Oh, I don't have too far to walk," Mikochi answered.
"Me, neither. Found a nice place in the field above the seaside. It's a lovely town, but too noisy to live in."
"It can be," Mikochi agreed. It wasn't that she minded sound or people, but at some point Arabi's unofficial culinary consultant had needed some room to breathe. The quiet of the tree could be lonely, but she told herself this was the best of both worlds, being able to come to town when she liked, and to spend the rest of her time alone...
The mouse leaned in and whispered. "You have to be careful though, if you live out by yourself. Just yesterday I heard a knock on the door, and it was this wild, grinning person saying 'Do you need anything fixed or sharpened?' I was so scared I yelled 'Get out of here and don't come back!' and slammed the door."
"That was mean! They probably just wanted to help and were trying to make a living."
"Oh, you weren't there," the mouse said, and sipped her coffee. "I suppose you never had to worry where you came from. I suppose the cats were all perfect gentlemen."
Which told Mikochi all she needed to know about where the mouse had come from. She felt a sudden stronger wish that the mouse would be happy in her new home, enough that she could relax and be more friendly.
But it was a relief when the Master came over to save her from further one-on-one conversation.
A few days later...
Hakumei spied a house nestled in the next tree, hitched up her toolbag and gathered her spirits.
"No one wants to buy from a scowling merchant," she remembered Ol' Emerald Tail saying ― to another member of the caravan. She'd never had to say it to Hakumei while they were together, but since they'd parted, Hakumei had to remind herself sometimes.
It wasn't all bad. The woods were plentiful, the fishing was good, and peanuts were cheap, so thus far she'd always had plenty to eat. A shopkeeper had let her buy work clothes on credit without even narrowing their eyes. And while everyone near the main roads greeted a carpenter with "are you in the Guild?," the worst the Guild had done was to tell her they didn't need new members, nothing like the tales she'd heard of guilds in other places defending their territory. No one had so much as complained when she was hired to help repair that big house after the storm, and she'd even found a friend and ally in Iwashi, despite his rough words.
"Around towns and roads it can be uptight," he'd advised her, "but in the woods anybody can build whatever."
I could build something like this, Hakumei thought, having come into closer view of the house. Before winter, she would need to build herself something...
But she wasn't sure she wanted to. The stories that had drawn her here had been full of happy-end adventures, eccentric projects, and laughter around hearths. Someone had said, and it had stuck in her mind, "In Makinata, there's a place for everyone." The moment she'd arrived at the gate, that promise had been broken. Maybe there was something left in the pieces, but it had to be more than just being allowed to build a house.
As she padded up the long stairway over the tree roots, the air wafted a thread of music to her ear. Someone was singing, and the sweet tones lightened Hakumei's cheeks. It wasn't so hard, after all, to be a smiling merchant this time.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Sudden silence followed, textured only by the bubbling canner pot. Only then did Mikochi realize she'd been singing to herself. She put her ladle back down in the hot strawberry jam and went to open the door...
And there stood a person in tan coveralls, with bushy red hair curling around their face and standing out in wild, uneven tufts. With a bright, laughing-eyed smile, they asked, "Do you need anything fixed or sharpened?"
On instinct honed by years of fending off salesmen before her sister could mine them for story ideas, Mikochi heard herself saying "We don't need any" ―
And then she remembered the mouse.
She couldn't abandon her jam, she couldn't just close the door...
"You're welcome to come in for tea, though."
"Huh?" A moment of surprise revealed the visitor's deep, honeyed-amber eyes, then their face lit up again. "That sounds great! Thanks!"
Mikochi led the way into the kitchen and offered a seat at the table. She laid out bread and butter, and then, remembering the bowl of pearly pink foam she'd skimmed from her jam, she put a spoon in that and offered it as well. "Help yourself."
The repair person seemed to have forgotten about making a sale and was looking around the room with wide eyes until the food snapped them back to attention. "Ah ― thank you!"
"I apologize; you caught me in the middle of work."
"No, that's okay."
Mikochi put the kettle on, then went back to filling jam jars. As she worked, she heard the tap of the butter knife slicing off a pat, then the clink of the spoon.
"Oh, that's good!" A little pause, then muffled as if talking around a mouthful: "The strawberries here have a different kind of taste."
"Don't they?" But then, letting that stand would be as good as a lie, and a little too humble. "It's not just the berries, though. To make a hot item for the shops, you have to have a little secret." Mikochi wiped the mouth of a filled jar and screwed the lid on, then picked up one of the sachets she'd prepared for the rest of the day's batches and brought it to the table. "You can look inside if you want."
She left the repair person untying the little bundle and went back to filling jars. Behind her they explored the contents aloud. "Orange peel... Rose petal... What are these seeds?"
"Vanilla."
"Vanilla! You can get vanilla here!" A deep, clearly audible sniff. "Oh, that smells good!"
"It's an investment, but one bean goes pretty far."
"Say, what's your name?"
"Ah." She was brought up short by the oversight. "Mikochi."
"Mikochi, huh? That has a nice sound."
She couldn't tell if the heat in her face was a blush or had come from her bubbling pots.
By the time she'd finished filling the jam jars and lowering them into the boiling canner bath, the kettle was simmering. She took down her own mug and the guest mug, added minced tea leaf and hot water, and brought them to the table.
"So this is your job?" her guest asked, before she could raise her own questions.
"That's right. I do some sewing too, but I get too carried away at that to end up with a profit."
The visitor laughed. "I know how that goes!"
"So what about you? What's your name?"
"I'm Hakumei!"
"Hakumei..." Mikochi hadn't heard a name quite like that before. "And you do repair work?"
"Carpentry and sharpening."
"So you work with wood?"
"Brick and stone, too."
Hakumei's addenda drifted past, heard but unheeded. Mikochi had been struck by a sudden realization. "Maybe I do have something you could fix."
Hakumei watched her hostess's long, lacquer-black hair sweep out of the kitchen, deeper into the house. Moments later, she heard the clunks and shuffles of a search.
She looked around the kitchen again, at the cozy wooden fittings scented by a history of fires and good cooking. It would be nice to have a place like this, she thought, but then, the things she liked best about it were the ones she couldn't just build.
Someone inviting a stranger to tea in the middle of their work and giving away their secret recipe... That was at least a glimmer of the Makinata she'd heard stories about.
Mikochi came back with her arms full. She was carrying a bouquet of walnut-stained wooden strips and lathe-turned posts, a piece that looked like a half-sized chair seat, boards with tapered ends and dangling strings, and, nestled in one elbow, two pieces of a flywheel. Pale, bare wood, corrugated along the grain, glared from the end of each broken arc.
"Is something wrong?" Mikochi asked.
"Huh? No, no, you're fine!"
"You just got this amazing look on your face," she said, with an awkward smile.
"Really? Huh. That... That's a spinning wheel, isn't it?"
Mikochi nodded. "My grandmother lived with us when I was small, and she was always spinning with it. When I left home, she wanted me to take it with me. I took it all apart to carry it, but then when I first got here, I was carrying the wheel on my back and fell down boarding a bus..."
"And it was carved out of one board, so it broke right where it crossed the grain." Hakumei took the wheel pieces and ran her fingers over them. The wood had told her the rest of the story. She set it on the table and brought the broken ends together. One fit perfectly, but the other... "Oh, there's a piece missing."
"I didn't realize until I got off the bus," Mikochi admitted.
"It's shaped a little weird, too, like the board warped."
"It always was like that. It wasn't too bad to use, so Grandma didn't mind. I think someone she knew had made it for her." She fell silent for a moment. "Can you fix it?"
"Sure!" Hakumei knew that much right away; what was left were the details. "I can add a piece in the gap, and I can get the stain pretty close, just maybe not perfect. Or I could make a whole new wheel for it if you wanted. I don't have a lathe, so it wouldn't be as pretty, but it'd be stronger and straighter."
Mikochi poked at one of the pieces on the table, rocking it slightly over the warp in the wood. "A new wheel sounds like a good idea."
"Yes! Leave it to me!"
Mikochi glanced up. "Oh, it's time."
Hakumei belatedly followed her gaze to a wall clock as she went back to the stove.
Hakumei sat and stared at the broken wheel. Soon she would have to put the entire machine together to understand how it worked and what space the wheel had to fit in, but what she had now was enough to brainstorm. The hub looked fine, and the spokes were probably still useable; a couple of them had snapped, but cleanly enough to be glued back together. The problem was the flywheel. The grain needed to be aligned as near the arc as possible. Piecing lengthwise sections together had to be the answer. Dowel joints, she thought. Then round the outside and carve a groove like on the original. If the inside weren't rounded, too, she'd have to be careful about the length of the spokes...
A sizzling sound caught her attention. Mikochi was lifting her jam jars out of her pot; one must have dripped water onto the hot stove. Like when she'd put them in, she was wearing heavy leather gloves and wielding a wide pair of wire tongs. It looked just like something a carpenter or engineer might do, reaching with gear and tools into the billowing steam...
Suddenly Hakumei remembered ― she'd seen perfectly curved wood before. The first time, a merchant selling hooked staves and canes had only told her he used a "secret ingredient." Years later, she'd thought to ask the caravan's cartwright about it...
"Hey, Mikochi!"
"Yes?" Like a pro, she didn't even waver.
"Have you ever cooked wood before?"
That got her to turn around. "Huh? N- no."
"Wanna try it?"
Hakumei set out brightly into the woods, and soon Mikochi heard a commotion at the base of the tree. From the kitchen window, she could see Hakumei carrying in pieces of fallen branches and setting to work on them, and the sounds of her own cooking were punctuated with the whuffing of a saw and the rapping of a hammer.
It occurred to Mikochi to wonder how much this was going to cost and just what she'd gotten herself into, but when Hakumei came in to trace the shape of the old wheel, wreathed with the scent of leaves, somehow Mikochi never thought to raise any concerns.
It was nearly suppertime and she was cleaning up from the last batch of jam when Hakumei came in to show the results.
"Tah-dah! A steam box!" Hakumei lifted the lid off a flat wooden box to reveal a hole in the bottom. "You steam the wood in here until it gets soft, and then I'll use this to hold it in shape while it dries" ― a platform of planks with a half-round chunk of wood sticking out and holes dotting the space above. "This is probably about all I can do for today. I'll have to come back later and really get started on it."
"So, what do I owe you?"
"Don't worry about it! I haven't gotten anything done on your wheel yet."
Mikochi thought that Hakumei really did understand about getting too carried away to actually make money at something. That made her wonder, "Where are you staying?"
"Ah, I haven't found a place yet," Hakumei admitted, cheerful though a little awkward. "It's nice weather for camping, though, this time of year."
"No, that's ― !" Mikochi hesitated, but she pressed forward. "You can stay here tonight, if you'd like."
"Wha? Are you sure? You don't have to do that!"
"I'll feel better this way. And then we can try your box after supper."
Hakumei looked at the box; as suspected, that sealed the deal. "Oh- okay. I really appreciate it."
"I'll go and get a bed ready, if you want to bring your things inside."
The house had come with a bunk bed, and thankfully Mikochi had never gotten around to her plan of using the top bunk for storage.
When she was finished making it up with her spare sheets, she came back to the kitchen and found a jarringly different guest waiting for her. It was still Hakumei, the wild red hair made that obvious, but Hakumei dressed in a blue and white dress with gathered sleeves and a button at the collar, wearing a hat with ribbon tails. Mikochi barely stopped herself from blurting out "You're a girl!"
Hakumei caught sight of her. "Ah, is something wrong?"
"No, no, it's fine!" As the shock subsided, Mikochi found that there had been a hot, tight place in her chest all afternoon, like she really hadn't wanted a strange man in the house. Now that spot stayed warm, but relaxed and softened. "It's just a lot different than what you were wearing before."
"Those are my work clothes for big jobs. If I show up ready for anything, I'll look more like a pro!"
"I don't know if that's quite..." Then it occurred to her that the misimpression hadn't just come from the outfit. "But listen, I'll do something else for you if you'll just sit down for a while."
Mikochi went to fetch a towel and her sewing shears.
They never did try out the steam box that night. When Mikochi was trimming her hair and wondered how it had gotten cut so roughly, Hakumei held back just why she'd decided to suddenly cut it off, but somehow she still ended up talking about the past and her travels. Mikochi listened all evening, over leftover strawberry and cheese and tea and finally beer, until they were both too tired for more tinkering.
That night, Hakumei lay in the bunk stroking the braid in front of one ear ― Mikochi had left it long there, saying it needed something cute and girlish. It hardly seemed real, it was such a change from that morning.
"There's a place..."
She couldn't say that, although she could appreciate a taste of what it felt like.
But it wasn't for everyone.
"Hey, Mikochi."
A drowsy "Hmm?" answered from the bunk below.
"Why do you think there's a size limit?"
"'Size limit'...?"
"When you get to the gate of Makinata, if you're too big you can't come in."
"Hmm... Maybe so no one's big enough to eat people?" Mikochi supposed. "We do have cats, though..."
"Just because they're that big doesn't mean they'd do it!"
"That's true..."
But as Hakumei lay and thought about it, she grudgingly admitted that it made some sense. If someone with Ol' Emerald Tail's size and teeth but not her heart decided to cause trouble, there wasn't much someone like her could do. In the old story of the thieves' attack, Hakumei realized, they'd probably set fire to the camp because it was their best chance at hurting a wolf, and it still hadn't worked. In the end, they'd had to do whatever Ol' Emerald Tail said.
It wasn't fair to punish everyone that size just because one of them might be bad...
But Hakumei could understand it, a little.
"Say, do you like it here?" she asked.
"Mm-hmm. I'm glad I came." So Mikochi had come from somewhere else, too.
"What do you like about it?"
"I feel more appreciated here."
"That's good." Hakumei tried to imagine a place where Mikochi wouldn't have been appreciated: someone so practical and elegant yet open-handed, not like her own tinkering vagabond self ― but also not like the insular settled folk she was used to encountering.
Mikochi spoke again, distantly. "It's like there's something bigger here that's different... But I don't know what it is..."
"Maybe. I wonder..."
The next morning, it rained, and Mikochi was relieved when her guest decided to work on the spinning wheel rather than go out in the weather. She cooked two wren's eggs for breakfast; she'd need more eggs twice as soon, she thought. Afterward she got the oven ready to bake black bean cookies, and the stove top ready for a pot of water.
Hakumei padded the rim of the pot with a towel and placed her box on top, centering the hole in the bottom. She put a board inside, shut the lid, and weighted it down with another block of wood, then let Mikochi put it on the stove. When the pot came to a boil, steam slipped in wisps and then rolled out around the edges of the lid.
"All right!" Hakumei declared. "Now it needs to steam for about an hour." She laughed. "I'm glad ― I thought the lid might blow off."
"Now you tell me." Mikochi took it upon herself to keep watch that the water didn't boil dry.
While the wood cooked, Hakumei glued the broken spokes back together, then started assembling the spinning wheel frame. When Mikochi turned to bring her cookie dough to the pans on the table, she stopped. She again saw that "amazing" look on Hakumei's face, but now that it wasn't aimed at her, she recognized a craftsperson's focus and passion.
Hakumei noticed her and looked up. "Oh, sorry, I have pieces scattered all over."
"No, it's all right." Mikochi stepped daintily around the wooden bobbins. "I just wonder if I look like that when I'm sewing."
Hakumei turned back to her work, but she paused and prodded quizzically at her own face. Mikochi just smiled at her; she'd have to figure it out for herself.
Just after the first pan of cookies came out of the oven, the hour was up. Hakumei didn't wear the coveralls, but she did put on heavy leather gloves and a protective face mask ― at least she hadn't worn that when she knocked on the door. She opened the box, took out the board, lay it against the round projection on her wooden platform, and gave it a slow, firm push. To Mikochi's amazement, the wood really did bend like clay. Hakumei pinned it in place with pegs and wedges, forming it into a perfect arc.
"Right. Now it just needs to dry," she announced. "I only made the form to do one at a time, so it'll take a few days before I can put the wheel together."
"That's all right. You can stay until it's done," Mikochi told her. Then she thought about it a little more: a few days and then Hakumei would strike out camping again. "I wouldn't even mind, you know, until you find a steady job and a place of your own."
Hakumei stared at her in silence for a moment. "That's..." She broke into an awkward laugh. "You're overpaying me for the wheel, you know."
"Well, maybe I'll find more things you can do."
By lunchtime, Hakumei had finished putting the spinning wheel together, except for the flywheel. Mikochi even showed her how it worked, holding two loops of string over the pulleys built into the bobbin and the thread-guide she called the "flyer."
That afternoon, Hakumei went out to look for more work. Mikochi worried about her going out in the rain, and it was hard to walk away from those dark, concerned eyes, but her hostess didn't insist on anything except to send her with an oiled paper rain slicker.
At the second door she knocked on, Hakumei thought she had a job repairing a leak in a cricket's roof, but when she climbed the ladder to view the damage, it was clearly too much to take on alone. The shingles were worn out, and loose nails tore the rain slicker. For the time being, she just affixed a leaf over the hole ― the nails sank flush with one blow of the hammer, the wood was so soft ― and told the cricket she'd have to come back later with her boss. The cricket gave her a few coins, and she almost felt bad taking them, but then, she needed something to make it up to Mikochi for the rain slicker.
From there, she headed for Iwashi's place, but when she came to the brook and got her bearings, she found that it was too far away; she would have to go tomorrow.
As she walked along beside the brook, Hakumei came to a wide spot where the side-waters were murky but sheltered from the rush of rain-swell, and she got her fish-hooks and line out of her bag. She had a couple of hours, and she could use some fishing now, to let it all sink in.
She knew she had to be firm; she couldn't let herself presume on Mikochi's kindness, even though it was tempting ― especially because it was tempting. In her travels, she'd learned the dangers of overstaying your welcome, especially if you weren't working. She really should go once the spinning wheel was done.
At the thought of going back to camping, the image of Mikochi's worried face flashed into her mind, and Hakumei shook her head. No, that was no good. But she could build herself a little house, maybe raised up so she could sit on the porch and Iwashi could sit in the yard, face to face. Maybe she could try making a loft with dormer windows. And she would definitely invite Mikochi to come and visit, maybe go fishing or foraging...
As she thought about it, she kept adding nice, exciting touches, but fishing took longer than decorating the idea did, and after that it started to look a little flat, like it was missing something she couldn't quite define. But it had at least begun to seem worth doing. Worth trying for a while, anyway.
Nothing big was biting, which was just as well this time, but she was able to go back with a couple of pan-sized minnows. When she arrived, Mikochi did exclaim over the rain slicker, but when Hakumei offered to pay her back for it, she didn't seem to hear ― she was too busy looking for dry clothes to lend and planning a marinade for the fish.
Days passed.
A few days after the rain, Mikochi had to hurry home from gathering herbs so that Hakumei wouldn't get back and find the house locked. She'd have to make another key, she thought ― or should she? Maybe she should have asked Hakumei to come with her, but she didn't have any business getting in the way of her guest's work, right?
The day after that, in the afternoon, when she was spreading minced leaves in their drying racks and heard the door open, she unthinkingly called "Welcome home!" It was too much to say, but it seemed to be all right. Hakumei had had no luck finding work that day, but she came in smiling.
It was the day after that when Hakumei finally had enough bent wood for the spinning wheel. She worked on the porch all day, measuring and cutting and shaving and drilling and joining. Mikochi decided it was time for a day off from her own work and sat outside with her, watching and sometimes even lending a hand to hold a piece steady while Hakumei shaped it. Late in the afternoon, they finally had it all glued together, looking straighter than the old flywheel ever had.
Hakumei brought it inside and held it up inside the frame. "I still need to carve the groove and sand it, and then I'll try to match the stain."
"I like the color the way it is," Mikochi decided ― a wood-gold ring standing out in the middle of the dark frame gave it a special look, she thought. Making it match would only cover over Hakumei's work.
Hakumei looked at it. "Ahh, you're right. Anyway, I'll have it done pretty soon."
"Ah ― I guess so." The news was more of an ache than a thrill.
A worse blow came over supper. "Oh yeah," Hakumei said out of nowhere, "I have a job starting tomorrow."
"Great! That's good news," Mikochi replied, and she meant it. If things were working out for Hakumei, she was glad, but she couldn't help feeling stricken inside.
Mikochi got little rest that night. She gave up on sleep when it was barely light, and she went into the kitchen and made a quiche to send as a work-lunch. She saw Hakumei off at the door, telling her to "Go knock 'em dead!" ― which sounded more like one of her sister's lines, but at least she hadn't said "break a leg."
And then the house fell silent.
"Well," she said aloud, "today's the day to make tea blends."
The dried, minced leaves rustled as she gathered them from the racks and poured them into their jars. The smaller jars clinked as she set them out, and the paper crackled as she checked her restocking list. First she had some simple culinary spices to pack, and the leaves crunched lightly under the measuring spoon as she portioned them out.
"Until the spinning wheel is done," she'd said; "until you find a steady job." More than that would have been unreasonable, but she couldn't will herself to stop regretting her words.
By mid-day, the spices were done. She hadn't kept any of the quiche, so she made herself a bowl of soup with a slice of dried potato, cream and butter, some spare onion shoots and garlic, and sliced sausage. It would be worth it, she thought, to buy a block of fresh potato at the market and make it that way soon. It would have to be soon. Or, she thought, since Hakumei had found a job nearby, she could always ask her over ― but somehow that didn't solve the problem.
After lunch it was time to blend the tea. She labeled each jar, measured out the recipe ― crunch, clink, crunch, clink ― then gently rolled it this way and that until everything was well mixed. She could even hear the leaves ringing against the inside of the jar...
It was oppressively quiet today, quieter than ever before, for a reason she couldn't put her finger on. But she was beginning to understand why the silence felt the way it did.
"So I'm lonely," she admitted to herself. "So I like having a roommate." That was still no excuse to set upon Hakumei just because she'd happened along. Surely if that was what the issue, she could ask someone else. As she considered her circle of acquaintance, she soon dismissed the men as a category; that just didn't fit what she wanted. But even as she thought of the women she most liked and respected, none of them seemed like a good fit. None of them had Hakumei's warm yet unpredictable energy. None of them had Hakumei's uniquely skilled hands, the blended kinship and fascination of someone beside her making things with techniques beyond her own scope...
"I'm making too much out of this," she told herself, before she got carried away too far. "I was fine before. Things are just going to go back to how they were, that's all."
crunch, clink
Mikochi stopped with her measuring spoon on the lip of the tea jar, realizing that she had no idea how much mint she'd just added to the lemon balm. And that meant it was already too late. Once the two were combined, they couldn't be sifted back apart.
There was no going back.
She let the spoon drop on the table. "Oh, enough already!"
Hakumei didn't get back until dusk. She was sore and sweaty from a hard day, but she'd enjoyed the work and Iwashi's company, and she was satisfied with the cricket's snug new roof. She was in such high spirits that she was halfway up the steps before she noticed the strange silence.
Mikochi wasn't singing.
Hakumei glanced up; the house was dark.
She hurried up the steps, pushing down a surge of panic. Maybe Mikochi had just been called away. Maybe there would be a note on the door, nothing to worry about.
There was no note.
Hakumei tried the door, and it opened. "Mikochi?"
A languid "Yeh-ess," answered from the kitchen.
Hakumei hurried in to find her sitting slumped with her head on the table, surrounded by jars of herbs ― and, nestled among the jars, a stemmed glass and a mostly-empty wine bottle. "What's the matter? What happened?"
"Oh, nothing. I'm fine."
That obviously wasn't true, but at least it didn't look like Hakumei needed to fight anyone or fetch a doctor.
She knew that drinking alone was the worst, but she didn't know where Mikochi kept the wine glasses, so she took the guest mug from the shelf and sat down. Mikochi obligingly poured out the last of the wine for her, although it filled the mug almost to the top.
"What were you doing while I was gone?" Hakumei asked, more conversationally.
"I was just working." Mikochi slid a jar over. "I messed this one up, we'll have to drink it here."
"Well, that's no big deal." Hakumei sniffed the herb mix in the jar and found it cool and fresh; she didn't know what was wrong with it. "Are these herbs that expensive?"
Mikochi shook her head. Her gaze wandered as if she were literally looking for what to say. "Did you like the quiche?"
"It was delicious! My boss thought so, too. I gave him a piece and he said, 'Did you find a wife or something?' ― even though he knows I'm a girl!" With an impression of Iwashi's voice, Hakumei tried to make it into a joke.
Mikochi didn't laugh, just sat looking back at her, her dark eyes even deeper and darker in the dim evening light. Finally she lowered her face. "Listen, Hakumei. I know I said all these things. Like I said you could stay until the wheel was done, or until you found a job, or I'd find things you could do to pay for it, but now it's almost done, and now you got a job, and..."
"Er, the job is over already," Hakumei admitted.
"Wha?"
"Yeah, I thought it'd take longer, but I forgot how fast things go when I'm with my boss. We got it all done today."
"So, your new job..."
Hakumei finally saw the problem and gave an awkward chuckle. "Yeah, it was a 'project' type job, not a 'hired steady' type job. I'm still pretty much unemployed."
Mikochi stared, blinked, then broke into a wine-broadened laugh. "You need to tell me things like that! I didn't know you were a girl for half a day and now this! If you don't use your words better I'll have to start asking annoying questions."
Hakumei laughed, too, although her face was burning, and she took a swallow of the wine although that hardly seemed like the cure.
"But if you have to tell me things, I have to tell you things, too," Mikochi said, her tone softening again. She took Hakumei's hand, and her fingers were burningly soft and warm. "When I thought you were going to move out soon, I really hated it. I mean, if you want to go live your own life, I'll be okay, I don't want to keep you here, but you don't need to leave. You don't need to do anything for me. I just like having you... um... I'm just happy being together with you..."
Hakumei thought that a cloud might have moved away from the sunset, or maybe it was just the glow of the words making the world that much brighter.
"There's a place for you." A place you don't have to earn or deserve. That was what it meant ― the promise that had drawn her here, the warmth she'd known she couldn't copy anywhere else but right here with this person, the open hand she hadn't let herself reach for...
But now there was no need to hold back. She took both of Mikochi's hands in hers. "I'm the same way," she said. "There's nowhere I'd rather be. We can stay together as long as we want."
"I'm so glad!" Mikochi sighed, with a sparkle in her eyelashes.
For a moment they just sat there, hands clasped.
"Friends?" Hakumei proposed. She couldn't think of a better word for it.
"Absolutely!"
Mikochi lifted her wine glass, and Hakumei answered with her mug, clinking clay on crystal.
"To us," Mikochi said.
"Hakumei and Mikochi!" Hakumei declared. "Oh, that has a good sound."
"Why do you get top billing? Hmm, 'Mikochi and Hakumei.' No, you're right, the other way sounds better..."
The next morning, Mikochi woke to an unexpectedly empty bedroom. Before she wasted energy worrying, she padded out into the kitchen, and there was Hakumei, curled up on the floor and snoring ― next to the completed spinning wheel.
Mikochi snuck off to fetch a piece of string, then crept up and touched the finished work. The wood felt rich and smooth. Hakumei must have carved the drive channel, sanded the flywheel, and even rubbed it with oil before she installed it; there was no telling how late she'd stayed awake. Carefully, quietly, Mikochi placed a chair in front of it and tried the treadles. The wheel spun straight and smooth, with a sound totally unlike the rhythmic clunking that had been the sound of her grandmother's room; now it made a soothing, whispering whirr.
Hakumei yawned. "It's done," she announced thickly.
"It's beautiful." Mikochi tied the string on and started spinning it as a test. Just as it should, it twisted tighter and wound itself steadily onto the bobbin.
Hakumei pulled up a chair beside her and watched her hands. "So what are you going to make with it?"
Mikochi came to the end of the string, and she let it slip from her fingers. "Nothing," she said. "I'm going to sell it."
"Wha? But, it's from your..."
"I don't need to keep it to remember my grandmother, and the truth is I don't like to spin. It's so much more time and trouble to get what you want; I'd rather just buy thread and cloth."
"Oh," Hakumei said. It must seem like a disappointing end for such special handiwork.
"I always felt bad that I broke it, but I knew if I had it fixed, then I'd just feel bad that I wasn't using it," Mikochi explained. "When I heard the stories about tsukumogami, the first thing I thought of was my grandmother's spinning wheel, but I knew I wasn't going to help it turn into one, so it just made me feel guilty. The way it is now, we can sell it to someone who'll really love it, and I can know I did my best for it."
"Ahh." That was enough for Hakumei to regard it with a deep, sober smile, then she turned brighter. "And here I thought I was just fixing a piece of wood! I didn't know I could fix things that big!"
"Believe it," Mikochi told her; the work had fixed that and much more. "We can use the money, too." For days she'd been sick of watching Hakumei live out of a suitcase, and at last it was her business to do something about it: "We need to go shopping for a dresser."
"Oh? Oh! That'll be great! And I'll help you onto the bus this time."
"We're not taking the bus!"
And so begins...
Tiny little life in the woods
Hakumei & Mikochi
"Handmade Gifts"
Mouse: "I heard you have a spinning wheel."
Shopkeeper: "Right back here ― you can see it's had a new wheel put on. Please feel free to try it. Is it too tall?"
Mouse: "No, it's a good size. Smooth, too. I lost one before I moved here, but it wasn't as nice as this."
Shopkeeper: "So you've been spinning for a long time?"
Mouse: "Yes. Now I'm finally settled in enough to start again and make things to send to my grandchildren. I do like it, but why is your wool so expensive?"
Shopkeeper: "There aren't any sheep in Makinata, so it has to be imported. Locally we have cotton, linen, silk, combings from rabbits, mink, cats ―"
Mouse: "Cats!? Imagine! A mouse wearing cat!"
Shopkeeper: "It's very soft and warm. A good value, too. A bit tricky to spin, but I'm sure an old hand like you would have no trouble."
Mouse: "Oh, my, that is soft... All right, I'll take the spinning wheel and a bag of this."
The End