The Woods Are Dark and Deep

by Blue Jeans

Chapter 15

It would take a while, but I would make this small house into a home. Some of the work had already been done by my father who had stayed there briefly, and then by Kaoru who was starting to plan out how to make it the castle for our kingdom. I had no such ambitions, so it would not be long before it became a house cozy enough to live in through the long winters and the cooler summers.

The fall ended and winter came and went.

I finished patching the house up, though sometimes rather clumsily before the first snow hit. I lived in my little house full of long forgotten memories and spent most of the evenings finding wood. While I did not like the cold, it did not harm me. I had taken down the ivy and cleared out the small animals that made their nests in my old home and patched what I could up with what was available.

It was not easy, that first winter, but I was a demon and not a human. I survived it. Sometimes, I wished terribly for the voice of a friend, but slowly, slowly I found that the memories were enough... so long as I held on to only the good ones.

I got into the habit of humming to myself and singing sad and cheery little songs. Some of them I had learned from Kodo, some I used to sing with Kaoru and the village children, and some had come from festival days in Edo and then Kyoto, when Harada and Shinpachi would sneak me out, holding my hands in theirs as we rushed through the crowds after their duties. There had been so much laughter and shouting then, and I was grateful to them for giving me such warm things to relive in my solitude.

I lived quietly and peacefully, the way I had once longed for, though perhaps this was not how I had ever pictured it. I never asked for anything anymore, knowing they would never come true. I only lived, day to day, trying to remember the good things about the past and being satisfied with the small comforts of what remained of my life. After how hard everyone tried to keep me alive, I had no right to end it early and I had no right to be unhappy.

Then spring came, after the snow receded, green and beautiful. With it, the warm breeze brought me my first visitor. The knock was unexpected, but when I opened the door my eyes widened in surprise and joy.

"Sen!" I gasped, a bit too loudly but I didn't care as I gathered her to me. Then I froze and pulled back, looking down at the bump between us. For a moment I felt a pain in my heart so sharp that my eyes watered and I had trouble hiding it. But it passed and a smile was back on my face when our gazes met. "Congradulations!" I told her and meant it, but I was too scared to ask her who the father was.

We chattered over tea, as if no terrible decisions had ever separated us. We laughed and cried. I showed her Kaoru's grave and leaned my head on her shoulder. We stood out in the chilly air for a long, quiet moment before I dragged her back into the house and cheerfully forced hot tea down her throat.

Not long after, she straightened as she looked outside, as if she felt something calling her before turning back and smiling at me. "I have to go," she said quietly, if not a little regretfully.

"Alright," I replied. I did not ask. Why ask after painful things? I was happy she had come at all. I walked her to the door and there, I paused. "Thank you, Sen," I told her with all of the love I felt for her.

Since we met she had always been my one true friend.

Sen looked back at me, her face sublime and her smile warm and sincere, just like I remembered her. In fact, with the child inside of her, she seemed to glow even more warmly and happily. "No, Chizuru-chan," she said to me with a shake of her head and love in her eyes. "Thank you."

We embraced for a long moment and then she finally pulled away, quietly leaving through my door. I wanted to watch her go, but I also did not want to see who was waiting for her on the edge of those woods. If it was not just Kimigiku by herself I think I might have cried.

I was so strong now. I didn't want to cry anymore. So I closed the door quietly and went back to my life.

Sen visited only two more times, bringing books and paper, some clothes and a variety of spices that I could not grow in my small garden behind the house. Finally, she was getting too pregnant to visit and she promised she would come again after the baby was born. She was still grumbling about it as she headed out the door, but I could only laugh at her waddling walk. "Goodbye," Sen said to me, her eyes searching my face as if she was trying to remember me.

"Goodbye," I replied and then I touched her belly and felt the baby kick. We grinned at each other. "Goodbye," I said to the unborn child.

Whoever this child will become, he or she was very lucky to have Sen for its mother. This time, even though I was afraid, I watched Sen disappear into the woods. No one came out to get her and I was glad for their thoughtfulness before I closed my door.

Then I was alone again, and it was alright.

Summer passed and fall followed. Sen did not come to visit me again. I missed her laugh, but I held to the memory of it and it was enough. A quiet, respectful knock came before winter began but when I opened the door there was no one there. I looked down and saw a trunk and a sack left at my doorstep. I pulled both in and examined it. The sack held food and sake, rice and spices. Sen must have known I was running out so she had it delivered. The trunk surprised me, for in it I found some of my old clothes, as well as some new clothes and a few more books.

Sen, I thought with a smile, must have asked someone to drop all of this off. Considering its weight and the discretion of its delivery, I guessed it was Amagiri. I was a little glad for it, because my own clothes, most of which Sen had brought to me before she stopped visiting, were getting a bit thread-bare.

I went to a small nearby lake and took a cold bath. When I got home, I was shivering but clean. For the first time in a long time I slowly dressed myself in my old kimono. I went through the motions that were familiar to me when I was girl from Edo, before her father left for Kyoto. In the small mirror Sen gave me, I brushed my hair out carefully and dressed it into something that reminded me of Kaoru, the first time I ran into him in Kyoto.

Standing in the house by myself, I found a package in my trunk that I had overlooked earlier. Curious of this seeming gift, I untied the rough strings that held it closed. The flap opened and I gasped as I saw the red silk tumbling out. My hand shook as I carefully lifted the sash from my clothes, and there I found a wet spot on it that surprised me. Then, slowly, I let the material fall back again. My fingers trembled as I reached up and touched my cheeks, realizing then where the moisture had come from. I blinked and more fell. I remembered so clearly suddenly, Sen's excited, laughing voice echoing in my ear, her arm around my own. "Isn't this better? Being able to shop for someone you like?"

For the first time by myself in my little house, I sat down in the kimono I had not worn for years and held the sash I had thought reminded me of his eyes. I grieved then, for that girl I was no longer. I grieved for the dreams she had when she had forgotten her other half. The dream that, even now, seemed so beautiful... But, it was a dream that could never be.

Just this once... I promised myself.

So I did not swallow the tears that fell, gold and red they shone from fire and silk. Instead, in each drop I finally let out each naive hope and unanswered wish, letting them quietly descend like the leaves of autumn outside my house. It had been a dream so warm and full that my heart ached at containing its memory, even though I had denied it until now. "Chikage," I whispered his name softly to myself. My voice carried with it the longing for all the happiness I had always known he could have given me if we'd only been given the chance. "Chikage," I repeated again, unable to help myself despite my heart falling to pieces again at the onslaught of memories. It was both painful and sweet to allow myself this one brief moment, reliving the past that I had put away and grieving for each cherished piece as I took them out...

Yes, we could have been happy. I admitted as I inspected each warm, remembered touch and teasing, exchange of words.

We could have been so happy...

To be continued...