A mountain bird on the old pine sings with intricate stitches.

… than what happens to me in the Engifting Week, if I don’t escape.

The walled stream enters and leaves the courtyard under the raised Cloister floor, feeding the pool. Orito presses herself against the wooden screen.

‘She supposes,’ says Hashihime, ‘a magic cloud shall whisk her away…’

Stars pollinate the banks of Heaven’s River, germinate and sprout.

Europeans, Orito remembers, call it the ‘Milky Way’. Her soft-spoken father is back. ‘Here is Umihebi, the Sea Snake, there Tokei, the Clock; over here, Ite, the Archer…’ she can smell his warm smell ‘… and above, Ranshinban, the Compass…’

The bolt of the inner gate screeches open: ‘Opening!’

Every Sister hears. Every Sister thinks, Master Suzaku.

The Sisters gather in the Long Room, wearing their finest clothes, save for Sadaie and Asagao who are still preparing supper, and Orito, who owns only the work-kimono in which she was abducted, a warm quilted hakata jacket and a couple of headscarves. Even lower-ranked Sisters like Yayoi already have a choice of two or three kimonos of fair quality – one for every child born – with simple necklaces and bamboo hair-combs. Senior Sisters, like Hatsune and Hashihime, have acquired, over the years, as rich a wardrobe as that of a high-ranking merchant wife.

Her hunger for Solace is now an incessant pounding, but Orito also has the longest wait: one by one, in order of the List of Precedence, the Sisters are summoned to the Square Room where Suzaku holds his consultations and administers his potions. Suzaku spends two or three minutes with each patient; for some Sisters, the minutiae of their ailments and the master’s thoughts on the same are a fascination second only to the New Year Letters. First Sister Hatsune returns from her consultation with the news that Acolyte Jiritsu’s fever is worsening, and Master Suzaku doubts he shall survive the night.

Most of the Sisters express shock and dismay.

‘Our masters and acolytes,’ swears Hatsune, ‘are so very rarely ill…’

Orito catches herself wondering what febrifuges have been administered, before thinking, He is no concern of mine.

The women swap memories of Jiritsu using the past tense.

Sooner than expected, Yayoi is touching her shoulder. ‘Your turn.’

‘How do we find the Newest Sister this evening?’ Master Suzaku gives the impression of a man perpetually on the brink of laughter that never comes. The effect is sinister. Abbess Izu occupies one corner and an acolyte another.

Orito answers her usual answer: ‘Alive, as you see.’

‘Do we know’ – Suzaku indicates the young man – ‘Acolyte Chûai?’

Kagerô and the meaner Sisters nickname Chûai ‘The Swollen Toad.’

‘Certainly not.’ Orito does not look at the acolyte.

‘The first snow,’ Suzaku clicks his tongue, ‘is not sapping our constitution?’

Don’t plead for Solace. She says, ‘No.’ He loves you to plead.

‘We have no symptoms to report, then? No aches or bleedings?’

The world, she guesses, is his own vast private joke. ‘Nothing.’

‘Or constipation? Diarrhoea? Haemorrhoids? Thrush? Migraines?’

‘What I am suffering from,’ Orito is goaded into saying, ‘is incarceration.’

Suzaku smiles at Acolyte Chûai and the Abbess. ‘Our ties to the World Below cut us, like wire. Sever them, and be as happy as your dear Sisters.’

‘My “dear Sisters” were rescued from brothels and freak-shows and perhaps, for them, life here is better. I lost more, and Enomoto’ – Abbess Izu and Acolyte Chûai flinch to hear the Abbot named with such contempt – ‘hasn’t even faced me since he bought me; and don’t dare’ – Orito stops herself pointing at Suzaku like an angry Dutchman – ‘spout your platitudes about Destiny and Divine Balance. Just give me my Solace. Please. The women want their supper.’

‘It scarcely behoves the Newest Sister,’ begins the Abbess, ‘to address-’

Suzaku interrupts her with a respectful hand. ‘Let us show her a little indulgence, Abbess, even if undeserved. Contrariness, often, is best tamed by kindness.’ The monk decants a muddy liquid into a thimble-sized stone cup.

See how painstakingly he moves, she thinks, to sharpen your hunger…

Orito stops her hand snatching the cup from the proffered tray.

She turns away to conceal with her sleeve the vulgar act of drinking.

‘Once you are Engifted,’ promises Suzaku, ‘your sense of belonging shall grow, too…’

Never, Orito thinks, never. Her tongue absorbs the oily fluid…

… and her blood pumps louder, her arteries widen, and well-being soothes her joints.

‘The Goddess didn’t choose you,’ says Abbess Izu. ‘You chose the Goddess.’

Warm snowflakes settle over Orito’s skin, whispering as they melt.

Every evening, the doctor’s daughter wants to ask Suzaku about the ingredients of Solace. Every evening, she stops herself. The question, she knows, would initiate a conversation, and conversation is a step towards acceptance…

‘What’s good for the body,’ Suzaku tells Orito’s mouth, ‘is good for the soul.’

Dinner is a festive occasion compared to Breakfast. After a brief blessing, Housekeeper Satsuki and the Sisters eat tofu in tempura batter, fried with garlic and rolled in sesame; pickled eggplant; pilchards and white rice. Even the haughtiest Sisters remember their commoners’ origins when such a fine daily diet could only be dreamt of, and they relish each morsel. The Abbess has gone with Master Suzaku to dine with Master Genmu, so the mood in the Long Room is leisurely. When the table is cleared and the dishes and chopsticks washed, the Sisters smoke pipes around the table, swap stories, play mah jong, reread – or have reread – their New Year Letters, and listen to Hatsune play her koto. The effects of Solace wear out a little earlier every night, Orito notices. She leaves, as usual, without saying good-night. Wait till she’s been Engifted, she feels the women think. Wait till her belly is as big as a boulder, and she needs us to help her scrub, fetch and carry.

Back in her cell, Orito finds that someone has lit her fire. Yayoi.

Umegae’s spite or Kagerô’s hostility encourage her to reject the House.

But Yayoi’s kindness, she fears, makes life here more tolerable…

… and ushers closer the day when Mount Shiranui becomes her home.

Who knows, she wonders, that Yayoi is not acting under Genmu’s orders?

Orito, troubled and shivering in the icy air, wipes herself with a cloth.

Under her blankets, she lies on her side, gazing into the fire’s garden.

The persimmon’s branches sag with ripe fruit. They glow in the dusk.

An eyelash in the sky grows into a heron; the gawky bird descends…

Its eyes are green and its hair is red; Orito is afraid of his clumsy beak.

The heron says, in Dutch, of course, You are beautiful.

Orito wishes neither to encourage him, nor wound his feelings.

She is in the courtyard of the House of Sisters: she hears Yayoi groan.

Dead leaves fly like bats; bats fly like dead leaves.

How can I escape? Distraught, she replies to nobody. The gate is locked.

Since when, mocks the moon-grey cat, do cats need keys?

There is no time, she is knotted by exasperation, to speak in riddles.

First, persuade them, says the cat, that you are happy here.

Why, she asks, should I ever give them that false satisfaction?

Because only then, answers the cat, shall they stop watching you.