Chapter 2: The Village sleeps at Night.
The baskets didn’t stop. But soon, they weren’t the only thing that appeared on my doorstep.
One morning, I was sweeping the stone path that led from my door to the main village, a task I had invented to give myself the feeling of purpose, when a small shadow fell across the stones beside mine. Hinata stood there, holding a broom twice her height.
"You're holding it wrong," she said.
"Am I?”
"The angle." She demonstrated, tilting her own broom until the bristles lay flat against the stone. "Like this. Otherwise, you're just moving dust from one place to another. That's not sweeping."
I adjusted my grip. She watched critically, then gave a single nod.
"Better."
She swept beside me for the next ten minutes. We worked in silence, the only sounds the scratch of bristles and the distant call of a bird I couldn't name. She was methodical, more methodical than I expected from a child. Each stroke overlapped the last. When she reached the end of the path, she turned and started back without being told.
I noticed, then, the small tongue poking from the corner of her mouth. A habit of concentration. Her small hands moved with a competence that seemed older than she was.
"You've done this before," I said.
"I live here," she said, as if that explained everything. And maybe it did.
Every morning, I measured the grains, rinsed them until the water ran clear, and set the pot over a low flame. It was the only cooking I trusted myself to do without disaster.
Hinata appeared beside me one morning while I was stirring. Without a word, she dragged a wooden stool across the floor, climbed onto it, and held out her hand for the paddle.
I hesitated.
"I know how," she said.
I gave her the paddle.
She stood on her toes, the stool wobbling slightly beneath her, and stirred the soup with a steady, circular motion. The same tongue poked from the corner of her mouth. The same small hands, sure and precise. She did not rush.
The questions came in between tasks, during the sweeping, the stirring, and the quiet moments when we sat on the step together and watched the garden do nothing.
Do cities have stars?
I was rinsing rice. She was folding a cloth into small, precise squares.
"Some," I said. "Not many. The light drowns them."
She nodded, as if she had expected this answer. "What kind of light?"
"Streetlamps. Billboards. Windows that never turn off."
"People leave everything on all night."
She considered this. Folded another square.
Why do you keep the curtains drawn even during the day?
When the soup was done, she slid off the stool, set the paddle aside, and began wiping the counter with a damp cloth. Her movements were economical. Practiced. As if she had done this a hundred times before.
That one came while we were sweeping. I had paused to wipe sweat from my forehead, and she had followed my gaze to the window, the one above my low table, the one I always kept covered.
"I don't like being watched," I said.
"There's no one to watch you."
"I know."
She looked at me then. Not with suspicion, exactly. More like she was trying to read a sentence written in a language she hadn't learned yet.
"The sun is good for you," she said finally.
"I know that too."
She shrugged and went back to sweeping. The question did not come again.
“What does snow taste like?”
"You ask a lot of questions," I said. It was not an accusation.
"You don't answer most of them," she replied, not looking up from sweeping.
I had no response to that. She was right.
That was later, on the step. I had given her a piece of shaved ice from a block I kept wrapped in cloth, a small luxury from the village's single shop. She held it in both hands, watching it melt between her fingers.
"Is it like this?" she asked.
"Similar," I said. "Snow is softer. Lighter. It doesn't need to be shaved; it just falls that way."
"Does it taste like anything?"
"Cold," I said. "Mostly cold. And maybe a little like the sky."
She turned this over in her mind. Then she bit into the shaved ice and closed her eyes.
"I'll see it someday," she said.
I watched the shaved ice melt between her fingers and let the future remain untouched.
She never asked why I was here.
Not once.
Not “Why did you come to this village?” or “Where is your family?” or “Why do you live alone in a room with drawn curtains and a single cup?” The other children in Ubumores, the ones I passed on the path, the ones who stared from doorways, they asked with their eyes. But Hinata never did.
She asked about stars and snow and why the curtains stayed closed.
At first, I thought it was innocence, the natural restraint of a child who had been taught not to pry.
She folded my clothes into precise squares.
She stirred my rice and swept my path and stood on a wobbling stool in a room with drawn curtains, and she never once asked me to explain myself.
It was the kindest thing anyone had done for me in years.
It was also, I thought, the strangest.
***
I was in the village's small market, little more than three tables and a cart that came once a week, when I saw it. A length of cloth dyed the color of a persimmon. Orange-red. Bright against the dark wool of the vendor's blanket.
I thought of Hinata's hair. How it fell across her forehead when she stirred the soup. How she tucked it behind her ear with the back of her hand because her fingers were always busy with something.
I bought it without deciding to.
The next morning, I held it out to her. She was sitting on my step, waiting for me to open the door the way she always did now.
"This is for you," I said.
She looked at the ribbon. Then at me. Then back at the ribbon.
Her eyes went wide; it was the first time I had seen her look genuinely surprised. She reached out slowly, as if the ribbon might disappear if she moved too fast, and took it between her thumb and forefinger.
"Thank you," she said.
Her voice was quieter than usual. Almost careful.
She never asked why, and I found myself grateful for it.
***
The wooden bird came a week later.
A traveling vendor passed through Ubumores, a rare thing, the villagers said, maybe once or twice a year. He set up near the well with a cart full of small carvings, needles, dried herbs, and things that had come from somewhere else. I wandered over after my morning chores, not looking for anything in particular.
Then I saw it.
A bird, carved from pale wood. The detail was rough but loving: the tilt of its head, the suggestion of feathers, and the two small beads for eyes. It reminded me of something. A sparrow, maybe. Or a memory I couldn't name.
I bought it.
Hinata was helping me sweep the path when I gave it to her. I pressed the little bird into her palm without explanation.
She held it up to the light. Turned it over. Traced the carved wing with her fingertip.
"Thank you," she whispered.
The same quiet voice. The same wide eyes.
She didn't ask why.
I didn't tell her.
“Because you remind me of someone.”
I thought it in the evenings, when she had gone home and the room was silent. I sat on the floor with my tea and saw her face in the steam.
Because I couldn't save her.
I had stopped saying that name out loud. Months ago. Maybe longer. But it lived in the back of my throat like a stone I had swallowed and could not pass.
Because maybe I can save you.
That one scared me. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what saving looked like in a place as quiet as Ubumores, where the loudest thing was the wind and the only danger was boredom.
But I thought it anyway.
The ribbon did not go in her hair.
I noticed the second morning after I gave it to her. She arrived at my door with her sleeves rolled up, ready to stir the rice, and the persimmon ribbon was tied around her left wrist.
Not loose. Not decorative. Tied in a firm knot, the kind you would use to secure something you did not want to lose.
I didn't mention it. Neither did she.
She wore it there for three days straight. Sweeping. Stirring. Sitting on the step. I saw her touch it sometimes, a small, unconscious gesture, her thumb brushing the knot.
On the fourth morning, I saw that the edge of the ribbon had begun to fray. A few loose threads, pale against the bright orange-red.
She did not replace it. She did not retie it. She wore it anyway, frayed and softening, as if the wearing was the point, not the keeping.
I wondered what she was holding onto.
I wondered if she knew.
***
That night, I sat in the dark with the curtains drawn. I went through my bag. My clothes. My papers.
Morning tea. The scratch of the broom on stone. Hinata's small hands stirring the rice pot. The ribbon around her wrist was fraying but never replaced. The quiet.
It became comfortable.
That was what made it dangerous.
I stopped counting the days. Stopped marking the calendar inside my head. The village of Ubumores had a way of softening edges, of making time feel like a slow river instead of a series of ticks and tocks. I told myself this was why I had come. The peace. The silence.
But at night, the voices on the path began.
Not every night. Not even most nights. But often enough that I had started to expect them. Children's voices, I thought. Laughing. Singing something I couldn't quite catch. They came from the direction of the old shrine, the one past the well, half-hidden in the trees.
I never went to look.
The old man at the bus stop, the one who had carried my bag, had told me something. Not a warning, exactly. More of a statement.
The village sleeps at night, he had said. Everyone sleeps.
I had nodded, assuming he meant the usual quiet of a rural place.
Now I wondered.
The curiosity grew heavier than caution.
It happened slowly, then all at once. One night, after the voices had started again, a distant, rhythmic sound, like a chant or a counting game, I found myself standing at my front door.
I had not decided to go outside.
But I was there anyway. My hand on the latch. My breath was shallow.
Not to investigate the voices directly, I told myself. That would be foolish. Just to see the village after dark. To understand what the old man meant.
I opened the door.
The stone path felt different underfoot at night. Colder, somehow. Or perhaps it was just fear. The mist was thicker than I had ever seen it, not the pale, drifting fog of morning but a low, dense blanket that clung to the hem of my clothes and dampened every sound.
The lanterns in the village were all extinguished.
No one was outside.
No one should be.
I walked.
I hadn't gone far, perhaps only to the corner where the path bent toward the communal well, when I felt it.
A hand.
Not a grab. Not a shove. A tug. Gentle but urgent, pulling at my sleeve.
I turned.
The landlady stood behind me.
Her eyes were wide. But not with fear.
With something like recognition.
"You shouldn't be out at this time, Hikaru-san."
I opened my mouth. The questions piled up behind my teeth: What's happening? Who are the children? Why won't anyone tell me? But she shook her head before I could speak.
"Go home," she said. "Lock the door. Wait for morning."
She didn't say please.
She didn't need to.
I turned.
I meant to go back. I swear I meant to go back.
But then, movement.
A flicker of light through the trees, down the path that led to the old shrine. Not the white-blue of electricity. Orange. Warm. Fire.
I stopped.
The landlady said something behind me, but I didn't hear the words. I was already looking.
Through a gap in the mist, I saw them.
Children.
Maybe six. Maybe twelve. It was hard to count; they moved in and out of the firelight, their small bodies weaving a pattern I couldn't follow. They were dancing around a bonfire, holding hands, spinning in a circle.
Their movements were wrong.
Too synchronized. Too silent. I could see their mouths open; some were laughing, I thought, or singing, but no sound reached me. Not even the crackle of the fire. The whole scene played out like a memory, or a dream, or a recording with the volume turned all the way down.
And their feet. I stared at their feet.
For a moment, it looked as though their feet barely touched the earth. A breath of space between sole and earth. Not floating, exactly. Just… lighter. Like the dew that barely bent beneath them.
Their faces were turned toward the fire, so I couldn't see their expressions.
Then one of them turned.
Just for a moment. A girl, maybe seven or eight, with dark hair and a familiar shape to her face. I had seen her in the village during the day. Playing near the well. Chasing the same chicken Hinata had chased.
She should have been asleep.
She should have been at home.
She should not have been here.
The fire did not cast shadows. Or if it did, they moved in the wrong direction, stretching away from the flames instead of toward them, like fingers reaching into the dark.
I could not breathe.
A hand found my arm again. The landlady. She pulled gently but firmly.
"Don't look," she whispered. Her breath was warm against my ear. "They don't like to be seen."
I let her lead me back.
We reached my doorstep. The landlady released my arm. I fumbled for the latch, my fingers numb, my mind still stuck on that spinning circle, those silent mouths, those feet that did not quite touch the earth.
I looked back once.
The path was empty. The trees were dark. The fire was gone: no glow, no smoke, nothing.
But the air smelled of smoke.
And something sweet. Like burnt rice.
I went inside.
I locked the door.
I sat on the floor with my back against the wood and waited for morning the way the landlady had told me to.
***
Morning came.
It took a very long time.
Dawn came gray and heavy.
I didn't remember falling asleep. One moment I was sitting on the floor with my back against the door, listening to my own breathing. The next light was seeping through the cracks in the curtains, not the gold of morning but a muted, clouded gray, as if the sky itself were still undecided about whether to wake.
My neck ached. My legs had gone numb.
I had not moved from the door.
The sound came then. Soft. Familiar. The shuffle of small feet on the stone path, then the quiet thump of a basket being set down.
I waited.
The footsteps retreated.
Slowly, I unlatched the door and opened it.
The basket was on the step as usual. Woven bamboo, lined with a cloth that had faded from blue to something almost white. Inside: onigiri, each one wrapped in a dark leaf. A small jar of miso soup, still warm enough to fog the glass. And beside them, nestled in the corner of the basket…
There was a note tucked beneath the jar. Small, careful handwriting on a scrap of paper that looked like it had been torn from a notebook.
“I made soup. I hope you like it.
Hinata was already halfway down the path, walking toward the village. Her back was straight. Her steps were sure. The frayed persimmon ribbon was tied around her wrist, the same knot, the same loose threads.
She did not turn around.
I sat on the step with the basket in my lap.
The onigiri were still warm. The miso soup fogged the inside of the jar.
I ate the onigiri.
They were warm. Rice, salt, a hint of something pickled inside. The miso soup was good, richer than the one I made for myself. I drank it slowly, sitting on the step, watching the gray morning do nothing.
The bird stayed beside me.
When I finished eating, I carried the basket inside. I set the empty jar by the sink.
Then I sat down.
And I waited.
Not for morning. Not for the mist to burn off.
I waited for the next night.
What will happen next...
Next time, same time, same place.
