‘Oh, just grab the lad,’ Yûgiri cackles, a little drunk on sake, ‘by his dragon!’

‘For shame, Sister,’ scolds Housekeeper Satsuki. ‘Let the Newest Sister read.’

‘ “Master Ueda replied that the Koyamas were well aware of my origins as the Daughter of a Shrine, but saw no objection. They want a daughter-in-law who is dutiful, modest, resourceful and not a” ’ – Orito’s voice is joined by Sisters who lovingly recite the sobriquet – ‘ “a prissy sherbet-guzzling miss who thinks ‘Hard Work’ is a town in China. Lastly, my master reminded me that I am a Ueda by adoption, and why did I suppose the Uedas to be so very far below the Koyamas? Blushing, I apologised to my master for my thoughtless words.” ’

‘But Noriko-san didn’t mean that at all!’ Hotaru protests.

Hatsune warms her hands at the fire. ‘He is curing her shyness, I believe.’

‘ “Ueda-san’s wife told me that my objections did me great credit, but that the families had agreed that our engagement could last until my seventeenth New Year -” ’

‘That would be this New Year coming,’ Hatsune explains to Orito.

‘ “- when, if Shingo-sama’s feelings are unchanged -” ’

‘I pray to the Goddess to keep his heart constant,’ says Sadaie. ‘Every night.’

‘ “- we shall be married on the first auspicious day in the First Month. Ueda-san and Koyama-san shall then invest in a workshop to specialise in obi-sashes where my husband and I can work side by side and train apprentices of our own.” ’

‘Imagine!’ says Kiritsubo. ‘Hatsune’s Gift, with apprentices of her own.’

‘Children of her own, too,’ says Yûgiri, ‘if young Shingo has his way.’

‘ “Looking at these lines, my words read like a dreaming girl’s. Perhaps, Mother, this is the greatest gift our correspondence gives us: a space in which we can dream. You are in my thoughts every day. Your Gift, Noriko.” ’

The women look at the letter, or else the fire. Their minds are far away.

Orito understands that the New Year letters are the Sisters’ purest Solace.

Early in the Hour of the Boar, the Gate opens for the two Engifters. Every Sister in the Long Room hears the bolt slide. Abbess Izu’s footsteps leave her room and pause at the Gate. Orito imagines three silent bows. The Abbess leads two sets of male footsteps along the Inner Passageway, towards Kagerô’s room and then to Hashihime’s. A minute later, the Abbess’s footsteps make their return journey past the Long Room. The candles hiss. Orito expected Yûgiri or Sawarabi to try to catch a glimpse of the chosen Engifters in the unlit corridor, but instead they play a sober game of mah jong with Hotaru and Asagao. Nobody so much as acknowledges the arrival of the master and acolyte in the Chosen Sisters’ rooms. Hatsune is singing ‘The Moonlit Castle’ very softly to her own accompaniment on the koto. Housekeeper Satsuki is repairing a sock. When those carnal negotiations the House terms ‘Engiftment’ are actually occurring, Orito sees, the jokes and gossip all cease. Orito also understands that the levity and lewdnesses are not a denial that the Sisters’ ovaries and wombs are the Goddess’s, but a way of making their servitude endurable…

Back in her room Orito watches the fire through a chink in her blanket. Male footsteps left Kagerô’s room some time ago, but Hashihime’s Engifter is staying longer, as an Engifter may when both parties are willing. Orito’s knowledge of lovemaking is derived from medical texts and the anecdotes of the women she treated in Nagasaki brothels. She tries not to think of a man under this blanket, pinning her body against this mattress, just one short month from now. Let me cease to be, she begs the fire. Melt what I am into you, she begs the darkness. She finds her face is wet. Once again, her mind probes the House of Sisters for a means of escape. There are no outside windows to climb through. The ground is stone and cannot be dug through. Both sets of gates are bolted from inside, with a guardroom between them. The eaves of the Cloisters jut far over the Courtyard, and cannot be reached or climbed over.

It’s hopeless. She looks at a rafter and imagines a rope.

There is a knock at her door. Yayoi hisses. ‘It’s me, Sister.’

Orito jumps out of bed and opens the door. ‘Is it your waters?’

Yayoi’s pregnant shape is fattened further by blankets. ‘I can’t sleep.’

Orito bundles her inside, afraid of a man stepping out of the darkness.

‘The story goes,’ Yayoi curls Orito’s hair around her finger, ‘that when I was born with these’ – Yayoi taps her pointed ears – ‘the Buddhist priest was called. His explanation was that a demon had crept into my mother’s womb and laid his egg there, like a cuckoo. Unless I was abandoned that very night, the priest warned, demons would come for their offspring, and carve up the family as a celebratory feast. My father heard this with relief: peasants everywhere “winnow the seedlings” to rid themselves of unwanted daughters. Our village even had a special place for it: a circle of pointed rocks, high above the tree-line, up a dry stream-bed. In the Seventh Month, the cold could not kill me, but wild dogs, foraging bears and hungry spirits were sure to do the job by morning. My father left me there and walked home without regret…’

Yayoi takes her friend’s hand and places it on her belly.

Orito feels the bulges move. ‘Twins,’ she says, ‘without a doubt.’

‘Arriving at the village that very night, however,’ Yayoi’s tone becomes low and droll, ‘so the story goes, was Yôben the Seer. For seven days and seven nights a white fox had led the holy man, whose halo of starlight lit his path, under mountains and across lakes. His long journey ended when the fox jumped on to the roof of a humble farmhouse above a village that barely warranted a name. Yôben knocked, and at the sight of such a personage, my father fell to his knees. When he heard about my birth, Yôben the Seer pronounced,’ Yayoi changes her voice, ‘ “The fox’s ears of the baby girl were no curse, but a blessing from our Lady Kannon.” By abandoning me, Father had spurned Kannon’s grace and invited her wrath. The baby girl had to be rescued, at all costs, before disaster struck…’

A door along the passageway is slid open and shut.

‘As my father and Yôben the Seer approached the Place of Winnowing,’ Yayoi continues her recital, ‘they heard all the dead babies wailing for their mothers. They heard wolves bigger than horses, howling for fresh meat. My father quivered with fear, but Yôben uttered holy incantations so they could pass through the ghosts and wolves unhurt, and enter the circle of pointed rocks, where all was calm and warm as the first day of spring. Lady Kannon sat there, with the white fox, breastfeeding Yayoi, the magical child. Yôben and my father sank to their knees. In a voice like the waves of a lake, Lady Kannon commanded Yôben to travel throughout the empire with me, healing the sick in her holy name. The mystic protested he wasn’t worthy, but the baby, who at one day old could speak, told him, “Where there is despair, let us bring hope: where there is death, let us breathe life.” What could he do but obey the Lady?’ Yayoi sighs and tries to make her distended stomach more comfortable. ‘So whenever Yôben the Seer and the Magical Fox Girl arrived at a new town, that was the story he put about to drum up trade.’

‘May I ask,’ Orito lies on her side, ‘whether Yôben was your real father?’

‘Maybe I say, “No,” because I don’t want it to be true…’

The night wind plays a rattling flue like a rank amateur plays shakuhachi flute.

‘… but certainly, my earliest memories are of sick people holding my ears as I breathe into their rotten mouths, and of their dying eyes, saying, “Heal me”, of the filthiest inns, of Yôben standing in marketplaces, reading “testimonials” to my powers from great families.’