Chapter 2

2 It was spring. As they turned off the immaculately paved Super Agricultural Highway onto a side road through a dark cedar forest, a magnificent cascade of terraced rice paddies came suddenly into view. Mountain snowmelt rushed noisily down the irrigation canals. From the passenger seat of a white municipal car, Hana gazed absently at this countryside far from Tokyo. A young city employee named Mr. Kuroda sped down the narrow roads, skillfully navigating the curves. He had been chattering nonstop for the entire drive. “We started advertising the empty houses at the town hall, and ever since, we’ve had a decent stream of people who want to live in the country…but they never last. No surprises there. I mean, as you can see, there’s not much out here. It’s a half-hour drive to the elementary school or the hospital, and once the kids get to junior high, they’ve got a two-and-a-half-hour commute by bus and train, and that’s just one way. Five hours round-trip. The nature is nice out here, sure, but if you want to raise a family— Oof!” The paved road suddenly ended, and the car bounced into the air. “—I think you’d have a better time in the city.” In the back seat, Yuki and Ame were flopped over asleep, exhausted from the long journey. Their eyes didn’t even open as the car jounced along the potholed forest road. Hana could see snowy mountains in the distance. She pulled out the photograph she’d stuck in her notebook and compared the view. They were the same mountains he had once talked about—the home where he had grown up. Mr. Kuroda pulled over to the side of the road, traded his leather shoes for a pair of rubber boots, and stomped up the hill, pushing his glasses up on his nose as he went. Hana followed with the sleeping children in her arms. The house was buried among trees lush with new spring leaves. “…It’s huge…!” Mr. Kuroda had said it was a run-down old farmhouse built a hundred years ago, but it was far grander than Hana had imagined. The sloping tiled roof supported by thick posts cast a heavy shadow under the morning sun, and the sprawling house recalled the bygone days when the forestry industry had thrived in this region. It was big enough for three generations to live in, let alone Hana’s three-person family. As Hana looked more closely, however, she saw that the cracks in the dirty glass doors were repaired roughly with packing tape. The earth walls were crumbling in places, revealing their bamboo framework. (Mr. Kuroda explained that black woodpeckers were responsible for the holes.) It was clear that no one had lived here for quite a few years. Across from the main house was a barn with missing doors, and on a hillside leading to a mountain path, a shed tilted so far over it looked ready to collapse, perhaps from the weight of deep snow. “The rent is just about free, but you’ll break the bank fixing this place up… It’s more of a ruin than an empty house… Oh, don’t worry about taking your shoes off.” Hana took her shoes off anyway. The floor creaked as she stepped up from the earthen-floored vestibule to the raised wooden entryway. The main room must have measured twenty tatami mats in size, about thirty square meters. Overhead, enormous wooden beams crisscrossed the exposed ceiling. The tatamis were discolored where rain had leaked onto them, and they smelled of mold. Screens and sliding doors with ripped paper coverings leaned at random against walls, and some of the old furniture remained as well. The tin woodstove in the room with a traditional sunken hearth was apparently the only source of heat. In the kitchen, dust lay thick on abandoned washtubs and cooking pots, and stream water gurgled from a plastic hose sticking out of the tiled wall. “On the upside, the electricity still works, the stream hasn’t run dry, and the owner says you can use whatever you want from the barn.” Mr. Kuroda slid open all thirteen of the glass doors on the porch running the length of the house to let fresh air in. Hana looked out at the weed-filled front garden. Beyond the grove of trees surrounding the house, she noticed an open area. “Is that a field?” she asked. She definitely saw something that looked like an overgrown rice paddy. Mr. Kuroda stepped down from the porch into the garden. “Oh, this land is no good for growing your own food. Wild animals will come down from the mountains and dig up your garden. There’s boars and monkeys and bears, and that’s just the beginning. You take the trouble to grow vegetables, and they eat ’em all. The reason there are so many empty houses out here is that the humans were chased off.” “So there aren’t any neighbors?” “Nope, not unless you go way down the hill.” “I see.” Mr. Kuroda sighed and looked around at the fields and forest. “Should we look at another place? There’s one in town that’s a little better…” “I’ve made up my mind.” “What?” “I’ll take this one.” Hana smiled at him. He blinked, dumbfounded. “…Why?” When the children woke up, Mr. Kuroda was already gone. “Wow! Where are we?” Yuki asked. “At our new house.” “Yippeeee!” she shouted, leaping off the porch barefoot into the tall weeds of the garden. She spotted the leaning shed right away. “It’s tilted!” she yelled happily, tilting to imitate it. She dashed around the garden well, then abruptly squatted down, greeted a procession of ants with a friendly “Hello,” and stepped carefully over them. In the back of the garden, she discovered the ruins of a demolished storehouse. With an excited shout, she charged forward, scaled the roof, and screeched joyfully from the top over and over again. Ame peeked out timidly from the shadows of a post in the main house, watching his sister. Just as he did, a gecko scurried across the post. Ame screamed, jumped off the porch in a panic, and flung his arms around his sister in an entreaty for her to save him as she skipped back to the house. Hana crouched down on the porch. “So do you like it?” she asked the two of them. “Yeah!” Yuki shouted, planting her feet sturdily on the ground. Ame grabbed the hem of his sister’s shirt. “I wanna go home,” he said weakly. Yuki was five years old, and Ame was four. Yuki was a bright, active girl with long black hair and well-formed features. She helped her mother often with housework, ate well, and laughed all the time. She quickly memorized her storybooks and liked to recite them back. Ame was quiet and introspective. He was also a stubborn, withdrawn mama’s boy who worried about everything and would burst into tears over anything. When he whimpered anxiously on and on, Hana would rub his back and murmur, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” like a magic spell. After Hana had decided to give up the apartment in Tokyo where she’d lived with their father, it had taken several years to choose the right place to live. Earlier, Mr. Kuroda had warned her that things weren’t so easy out here and she wouldn’t last long if she’d only come because she romanticized the idea of country life. But his warnings didn’t bother her. In fact, they did the opposite; she thought it was an ideal place to raise wolf children away from prying eyes. She believed she should give them the opportunity to choose their path freely, and that had led her here. The barn was crowded with possessions left by the previous inhabitants of the house. Of course, there were hoes, scythes, and other farming tools, but she also found a foot-peddled sewing machine and a bicycle with a child seat attached. Hana lugged out a box of carpentry tools she had found on a shelf and carefully sorted through its contents. Her first order of business was to at least make the house livable. A white municipal car was parked by the terraced paddies. “Seems she wanted a place without neighbors. She’s an odd one, I’ll say.” Mr. Kuroda was informing the village elders of the strange newcomer. “She married?” a man in tinted bifocals named Mr. Hosokawa asked, like a writer. “Dunno.” “Got any money?” a man with a hand towel draped over his neck named Mr. Yamaoka asked with arms folded, like a scientist. “Dunno.” Mr. Hosokawa and Mr. Yamaoka looked at each other with disbelief. “So how does she plan to live?” “Dunno…” Mr. Kuroda scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably and looked around. He caught sight of a third elderly man absorbed in his work banking soil against the sloped edge of a field with a hoe. “Excuse me, Grandpa Nirasaki…I’d be grateful if you could go easy on this one.” The tall, thin man called Nirasaki looked sullenly at Mr. Kuroda and said nothing, like a philosopher. The next day, Hana awoke at dawn, slid open the door, and looked around the front garden. The mountain air was cool and refreshing. The trees glittered in the sunlight as if in celebration of the new day. The stream burbled pleasantly in the morning quiet. Hana breathed in deeply. “Okay!” she said, firing herself up for the day, and got straight to work cleaning the house. First, she pried all the tatamis from the floor and propped them against the porch, along with the screens and sliding doors. She counted nine rooms and a mind-boggling sixty-some mats in total, if she included the main room, family altar, storeroom, hearth room, and all the others. She used an old carpet beater to beat the dust from the ceilings and posts all through the house, then briskly swept the exposed floorboards with a worn-down straw broom. Clouds of accumulated dust and dirt swirled into the air. The towel Hana had wrapped around her face to keep out dust proved absolutely useless, and she sneezed over and over, hard enough to send up bits of rotten floorboard. She looked up and noticed that the ceiling right above her was stained from a leak. She climbed a stepladder and pushed up on the rotted board, only to bring a family of huge poisonous centipedes falling toward her. Undiscouraged, she thrust her head into the attic and discovered several sunbeams piercing the darkness. She would have to start by repairing the roof. Leaning a ladder against the outside of the house, she climbed nervously up on top. She pulled off the tiles and nailed scrap wood onto the damaged boards underneath, nudged displaced tiles back into place, and exchanged broken ones for extras from the barn. When she peered into the attic again, the holes were gone. But when it rained the next day, the roof that she had supposedly repaired leaked all over the place. Soon, she was in a fix, with every pot and dish in the house scattered across the floor catching drips. She looked reproachfully up at the ceiling. The next day was sunny, so once again she climbed up to the roof and fixed the boards, this time with greater care. But the day after that, it rained again, and again the roof leaked. There were fewer leaks than before, but apparently, she had missed some spots in her repairs. She sighed, stared up at the ceiling, and resolved to stubbornly wage her war anew. For a while, it seemed that was all she did. After she had gained a degree of success with the roof, she wiped down the whole inside of the house with rags. The place was so huge she felt the task would never end, but she continued undiscouraged. Thanks to her efforts, the floor was so clean it was practically unrecognizable, but in exchange, her own hands and face grew dirtier and dirtier. Ame watched, enthralled, as Hana thoroughly scrubbed the floor of the porch. He obeyed when she asked him to move so she could wipe the spot where he was sitting and didn’t cause a bit of trouble. Not so with Yuki. “Look, Mommy, look!” she cried, flying in from the garden and dumping a pile of frogs and worms and roly-poly bugs and whatever else she’d caught on the newly cleaned floor. When Hana looked up, dumbfounded, Yuki gave her a mud-covered grin, waiting for her mother’s praise. While Hana was battling the housework, the children explored every corner of the garden. Yuki buried herself in meadow flowers to solemnly observe the honeybees and scrambled up the persimmon tree to reach out toward little birds whose names she didn’t know. Ame watched timidly from a distance, running away as soon as anything happened. Yuki even tried to pet the stray tabby who hissed at them, obviously threatening. “Here, kitty, kitty!” The cat defended its territory with a series of feints, revealing a set of sharp claws entirely at odds with its plump body. A few of its swipes almost caught Yuki, but she was undaunted and changed into wolf form, barking sharply. The tabby responded to this impossible transformation with a shrill yowl before turning tail in a panic. Wolf Yuki laughed and chased the tabby round and round an abandoned field. After that, every time the cat saw Yuki, it meowed, tucked its tail between its legs, and ran away. Meanwhile, Hana had reached the final stage of cleaning. She patiently polished every last corner of the house, and the more she polished, the more the house’s original dignity shone through. Once the grime was gone from the old cabinetry, beautiful etchings appeared on the glass. Hana paused in her work, spellbound by the delicate patterns sparkling in the sunlight. And when she scrubbed the old sink with a brush, she discovered colorful tiles beneath the dirt. She gasped at the lovely mosaic pattern, tracing the tiles as if to convince herself their colors were real. She could sense all the love the former owners had held for this abandoned house. With great care, she repaired the cracks in the tea cupboard and the frosted glass with cellophane tape and patched the newly changed sliding doors with pieces of paper shaped like cherry blossoms. She found a post marked with lines measuring children’s heights. She promptly stood Yuki and Ame against it and carved their heights in, too, to record them at ages five and four. She put away the modest collection of household goods she’d brought from Tokyo, then plugged in the little refrigerator and set the bookshelf and low table in the main room. Here in this mountain house they looked smaller than ever, out of proportion. She set a jar of spring wildflowers on the bookcase and propped his driver’s license against it, choosing that spot so he could look out across the room and the porch to keep an eye on the children. At last, the house was livable. Her final act was to wrap bandages around her own battered fingers. She wrestled the old bicycle from the barn and headed into the village to do some shopping. As she cruised down the hill at a comfortable speed, Yuki was wild with excitement; Ame cowered in fear. Rice planting was finished, and in the terraced paddies, newly planted seedlings swayed in the breeze. Hana realized the seasons had changed while she was busy cleaning. She found the goods she needed at a little general store and paid for them, but the thousand-yen bills were vanishing from her wallet with disturbing speed. A good selection of vegetables had been set out for sale under the shop’s eaves, and as she casually looked them over, she heard a female customer whispering with the shopkeeper. Hana bundled Yuki and Ame onto the bicycle to hide them from sight and hurriedly pedaled away. They headed back the way they’d come, the bicycle handles weighed down with shopping bags. The road home was all uphill, and Hana broke into a sweat as she rode. The sun had set by the time they arrived. On the dark mountain, everything was black except the light from their house. Hana put the food away in the fridge, made a quick dinner, and set one of the grilled chicken-and-pepper skewers in front of his driver’s license. After dinner, all three of them took a bath together. The freshly scrubbed bathroom was wonderful to sit in. Hana sighed deeply as she soaked in the tub. She was relieved to have the house in order, but at the same time, she couldn’t help thinking about all the money she’d spent to do it. The small savings he had left behind wouldn’t last much longer. “I need to budget more…” “Budge it more?” Yuki asked, covered in soap bubbles. Hana giggled. “Hee-hee-hee. We’d better at least grow our own vegetables,” she said. “I wanna help!” Yuki said, her eyes sparkling as she flung the soapy foam everywhere. Every two weeks, a bus repurposed as a library on wheels arrived in the village center. “Wait here for a minute,” Hana said, pulling up the children’s hoods and leaving them outside. Inside, she pulled book after book on vegetable gardening off the shelves and flipped through them. She didn’t know a thing about farming, but she was eager to learn so she could save money. Of course, she hadn’t forgotten what Mr. Kuroda had said about the land being poorly suited to a self-sufficient lifestyle. Still, she hoped to grow at least a few things, and she wouldn’t get anywhere if she didn’t try. After carefully selecting some books for beginners, she stacked them on the counter. “I’d like to check these out,” she said. “These, too, please,” Yuki added. She was holding up a pile of picture books that she must have picked out when Hana wasn’t looking. Her hood slipped back as she stood on tiptoes. Her wolf ears were exposed. “Yuki!!” Hana yelped, pulling the hood over them in a panic. “Umm,” the librarian said, craning her face around the stack of books, “you can only check out eight at a time.” Somehow, she hadn’t noticed. Hana sighed in relief. She would have to remind the children never to show themselves in wolf form, even by accident. When they got home, she drew a picture of Yuki and Ame in a sketchbook with crayons. “Are you listening? You’re wolf children, but it’s a secret just for us, okay?” “Okay!” “Okay.” Hana added wolf ears and tails to the two figures. “If you suddenly turn into wolves, people will be very surprised.” She turned to a new page and drew some people looking startled. “Surprise!” “Surprise.” “So you must never become wolves in front of other people. Promise?” “Promise!” “Promise.” She turned the page again and drew a bear, a deer, and a boar. “One more thing. Humans like to think they’re better than the animals in the woods, but you must never disrespect the animals you meet.” “Why not?” On the next page, she drew their father with wolf ears. “Your father was a wolf, too. He would be very sad if you did that.” “Got it!” “Got it.” The children stared at the drawing of their father. Lastly, Hana told them they had the right to freely choose whether they would live as humans or wolves, just as their father had. Ame was studying a picture book by himself on the porch. It was one of the books Yuki had checked out from the library on wheels. On the cover was a picture of a strong-looking wolf, its mouth open wide and its fangs bared. Inevitably, Ame empathized with the wolf as he turned the pages. He wondered what role it would play. But as he read on, his hopes were dashed. The wolf in the story was ferocious and cunning, a despicable character who thought nothing of harming the good villagers—even enjoyed it. On the last page was a picture of the villagers chasing the wolf away at gunpoint. His tail was tucked between his legs, and the lips on his big mouth curled back as he promised tearfully never to do it again. Ame looked up, silently comparing himself to the wolf in the storybook. While Ame was reading, Hana was standing in the overgrown field next to the house. She looked again at the detailed notes she had taken from the library books on gardening. She had found the tools she needed in the barn and bought fertilizer and a few other things from the home center. After pulling up the rampant weeds covering the entire field, she awkwardly broke up the soil with a hoe, picked up all the stones she could find, and tossed them over the sloped bank. The process took her several days. Next, she mixed fertilizer into the soil and raised ridges for planting, checking her work against the pictures in the books. She sowed the vegetable seeds one by one and, with some help from Yuki and Ame, soaked them with watering cans. She scrutinized the field worriedly, reassuring herself that everything would be fine. The seeds and fertilizer hadn’t been cheap. A few days later, she was relieved to discover seedlings sprouting from the earth as the children romped around them excitedly. Since she was a novice, she hadn’t expected everything to go perfectly, but now she had hope that the garden would turn out better than she’d initially thought. In the following weeks, she followed the instructions in the books for thinning the seedlings and adding more fertilizer. The plants were growing well. If they kept on like this, Hana figured she would be able to start harvesting food before summer. One day after a rain, however, she went to check on the garden only to find that each and every plant had wilted. “No, no, no!!” “What happened?” Yuki asked, looking out at the field of limp leaves. Confused, Hana returned to her books, insisting to no one in particular that she’d followed all the instructions to the letter. Maybe I skimped on the fertilizer because of money, she thought. As the village elders weeded the terraced paddies, they heard someone calling to them. “Um, excuse me!” “Huh?” Mr. Hosokawa and Mr. Yamaoka straightened their backs and turned toward the voice. Belatedly, Grandpa Nirasaki looked up, too. Hana was standing on the far side of the hydrangeas blooming on the paddy banks, pointing toward the woods. “May I take some fallen leaves from the woods?” she shouted. “What?” Mr. Hosokawa asked, surprised. “Fallen leaves!” “No one asks before they take those!” Mr. Yamaoka answered disdainfully. “Thank you very much,” Hana said, heading into the trees. Mr. Hosokawa and Mr. Yamaoka shared a look. “Wonder how long she’ll last.” “Pretty soon she’ll be complaining about the lack of convenience stores and karaoke.” “Ten to one.” They smiled cynically and returned to their work. “…” Grandpa Nirasaki stared silently at the woods for a moment, then turned sullenly away. Hana pulled up all the dead plants, emptied the plastic bags stuffed with fallen leaves onto the soil, and mixed in the leaves with her hoe. Next, she worked her newly purchased tomato and eggplant starts out from their pots and carefully planted each one. “Second time’s the charm,” she said. Truthfully speaking, if she had to buy any more seedlings, she’d be cutting into their household budget. Plus, it was almost summer. If she failed again, she would have to give up on summer vegetables and wait for the fall season. As she pushed the dirt up around the base of each plant, her hands came together as if in prayer for their success. Just then… “…Mommy.” She looked up at the sound of a faint, sniffly voice beside her. “…Ame! What happened?!” He was whimpering in half-wolf form, his red, swollen face covered in scratches. Hana picked him up and rushed into the house. Yuki was stuffing her mouth with snacks in the living room and explained the situation nonchalantly. “It was the tabby. She’s been after him ’cause he’s a wimpy wolf.” Hana wiped Ame’s tears and dabbed ointment on the score at the tip of his nose. “It’s just a little scratch. Nothing to worry about,” she said. “He can’t get by out there if he doesn’t fight back,” Yuki said. “Yuki.” Hana looked at her reproachfully. Ame leaned against his mother. “Say it’s okay,” he whined. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she repeated, gently rubbing his back as if she was casting some healing magic. As he buried his face in the safety of her lap, his behavior seemed to bother Yuki. She stood up. “I can even beat a boar,” she said in a loud, taunting voice. “You saw a boar?” Hana asked. “Yup. I saw some monkeys and a serow, too. But I wasn’t scared at all. They just run away when you chase them. It’s funny.” “Yuki.” “And then I peed—” “Remember what I said? About not bossing around the animals?” “But…” “Please.” Yuki was clearly unsatisfied, confused as to why her mother wasn’t praising her. Still, she swallowed her feelings and sat down obediently. “…Yes, Mommy.” “Thank you, sweetie.” Ame looked up at Hana. “Say it again,” he complained. “…It’s okay, it’s okay.” She rubbed his back. “But Yuki’s not wrong…,” she muttered, more to herself than to him. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get by out there like this. She might be able to teach him how to live as a human, but how could she teach him to live as a wolf? “How do wolf children become adults?” She looked up to their father’s picture. Hana took Yuki and Ame into the mountains near their house for a picnic. The abandoned hiking path was in its full summer glory, overgrown with bamboo grass so thick it threatened to block their way. But Yuki charged ahead anyway, pushing it aside with a branch she had found. “Slowpokes!” “Wait for us, Yuki.” Hana was pausing for Ame, who didn’t want to climb the path. “Come on, Ame.” “Carry me.” “Hmm? Already?” They had just started out, but Ame dug in his heels. “Carry me!” “Hurry up!” Yuki called down from the path ahead. Hana smiled at Ame, and he grudgingly trudged forward. When they stopped for a break, she read to them from a children’s book about wolf ecology. “‘Wolves begin to hunt about four months after they are born. They first practice by catching mice and other small animals, and when they get older, they form hunting teams with grown wolves.’” “Team!” Yuki grabbed Ame’s hand and linked arms with him. He shook free gloomily and hugged his knees, glaring at the ground. “I don’t wanna be on your team.” “Hmph. Fine.” Yuki sniffed the wind and ran off, leaving Ame behind. “Don’t go too far,” Hana called. “’Kay!” Wolf Yuki disappeared into the forest, her dress wrapped around her neck and her water bottle clattering on the strap over her chest. “I wanna go home,” Ame pouted. Hana picked a leaf, hoping to placate him. “Hey, I think we can eat this,” she said, paging through her field guide to identify it. “…” Ame poked discontentedly at the ground with a stick. Brilliant summer sunlight filtered into the forest through the canopy overhead while wolf Yuki tried her hand at hunting. Letting her keen curiosity lead her, she observed the sap on different trees, studied the shapes of footprints, compared the smell of this dropping to that one, and strained her eyes and ears to find the animals initially hidden from view. When she spotted something moving, she chased it wherever it went. She didn’t even mind when a stag beetle pinched the tip of her nose. She crept up on quails, dug up several field mouse nests, ignored an angry rat snake’s threats, and scampered tirelessly through the woods in pursuit of a hare’s tail. It was all the more exciting to encounter these animals in real life after seeing them in illustrated encyclopedias at home. When she caught one, she investigated by putting it in her mouth and smelling it and touching it with her front paws. She thought the six-legged insects and no-legged snakes were especially peculiar. She marveled in awe at the color of a bird’s feathers when she stretched out its wing; she was spellbound by the beautiful movement of the muscles in a rabbit’s hind legs. As soon as she succeeded in catching one animal, she challenged herself to catch an even more slippery one. Yuki’s hunt was not at all about filling her stomach, and it was also quite different from the “hunting instinct” of vicious predators. She simply found the animals spectacularly curious and interesting as she encountered them for the very first time. She was bursting with desire to one day learn everything about the entire forest. Ame didn’t take well to nature. He never approached anything unfamiliar, and it was all he could do to stumble after Hana. They came across a stony field of reed grass where a single dead tree stood. Ame rested his hand against its trunk, overwhelmed with nervousness and exhaustion. “Oh, Ame, look!” Hana called, turning back toward him. “Bleh!” He retched stomach acid onto the tree trunk. Overhead, a circling hawk seemed to eye the weak wolf cub as possible prey. Hana squatted beside the boy crouched on the ground. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, massaging his stiff back. He looked down, still huddled on the ground in apparent embarrassment at having thrown up. Yuki scampered up to them, triumphantly holding up a waterfowl she’d caught. “Look, Mommy, look! It’s a cormorant! There’s a stream over—” “Shhh,” Hana said, holding her index finger to her lips and rubbing Ame’s back again. Tears were rolling down through the stains of bile on his cheeks. Behind the tears, his eyes shone stubbornly. “Mommy.” “Yes?” “Why are wolves always the bad guys?” “Bad guys? You mean in picture books?” “Everyone hates them. People always kill them at the end. If that’s true, then…I hate wolves.” “…I understand.” “—” “But I like wolves. Even if everyone else hates them, I like them very much.” “—” Ame looked up at Hana, relieved. On the way home, Hana carried Ame on her back, and before long, he was snoring. Her chest tightened at the thought that such a little boy was already struggling with his identity. After they got home, she held him on her lap and stroked his hair as he slept. The summer sun dipped low in the sky. She heard Yuki calling from the garden. “Mommy! Mommy!” Hana went outside. “What? What’s wrong?” Yuki stood next to a tomato plant, calling over her shoulder. “They died again.” “What?!” Hana shouted in shock. She squatted beside the plant. The leaves were wilted and yellowed in places, and their tips were curled upward. They seemed to be withering from the ground up. “A plant disease… They’re all gone… I don’t believe it…” All of the plants had the same disease, and it was definitely a disease. She would have to do some research to find out what it was, but even a novice could see the entire row was wiped out. Hana felt faint. The tomatoes were just about to turn red, and now they wouldn’t be able to harvest a single one? She had tried so hard to take proper care of them. What had all that work been for? “Mommy…” She looked up with a start. “What’re we gonna do?” Yuki seemed to instinctively sense that something was wrong, and her question weighed heavily on Hana. She didn’t know how to answer, and she shook her head in an attempt to clear away the anxiety. “…Mama’s not so good at this. I need to study more.” She forced herself to smile and reached out to stroke Yuki’s cheek. She noticed her heart growing oddly calm as she caressed her soft skin. “Will you still help me?” “…Okay.” Although Yuki’s expression was still rigid, she nodded, and Hana felt relief wash over her. “Thank you.” She looked over the bank of the field and spotted an old Nissan Sunny pickup truck was pulled over by the side of the road. Someone was standing with their arm on the roof, staring their way. It was Grandpa Nirasaki, one of the old men from the village. Hana recognized him; she was fairly sure he had been there when she asked permission to collect fallen leaves. After telling Yuki to run inside, she walked over to him. “Hello.” “—” Instead of answering, he stared at her. Hana kept smiling. “I, um, I kept meaning to go introduce myself to your family, but I’ve been so busy…” “—” “Growing your own food is so hard, isn’t it? I try to follow the instructions in the books, but I’m not having much luck…” “—” “Um, this is a lovely area, isn’t it? Out in nature—” Suddenly, Grandpa Nirasaki broke in. “What’s nature got to do with it? It’s not like you can plant something today and expect it to grow tomorrow.” “Huh?” “It’ll never work if that’s your approach. Don’t you think?” His voice was ever so slightly contemptuous. Hana hesitated for a moment, confused, and then smiled awkwardly at him. “Uh…um…” “Stop smiling.” “…!” “Why do you always have that phony grin on your face?” “—” “Smiling doesn’t make the crops grow.” With that, he slammed the truck door coldly and drove off. Hana stared after him in a daze, her smile frozen on her face. It took her a few minutes to collect herself enough to move again. In the lingering light after the sun had set, she pulled up the dead plants. She didn’t have enough energy left to talk. “That guy was scary,” Yuki mumbled as she helped. “No, I’m the one who doesn’t know anything,” Hana replied. “But you’re a grown-up.” Grandpa Nirasaki had been so blunt, right to her face, and she couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said. What did she think she was doing? She was so embarrassed. “Oh… There are so many things I should have asked your father.” She sighed and looked up at the sky. It was a summer afternoon. Big raindrops beat down on the roof tiles as Yuki and Ame sat next to each other on the porch, following the drops with their eyes. At her desk in the main room, Hana paged through an agricultural manual to figure out why the plants had caught a disease. Sure enough, the cause and solution were right in front of her nose. She wished she had read this kind of book before she started; it was filled with information on several other diseases that weren’t even mentioned in her beginner’s books. She took notes on each one. Unexpectedly, a car pulled into the front garden, sending up showers of water from the puddles. Yuki and Ame scrambled into the house and hid warily behind the desk. A woman in a raincoat emerged from the car and ran toward the house, trying to dodge the raindrops. “What a storm!” Hana came outside and smiled stiffly as the middle-aged woman sat down on the porch, shaking the raindrops from her coat. “Hello. Uh…” “This is for you.” The woman turned toward Hana and handed her a plastic bag. “What is it?” “Seed potatoes.” “You mean for planting in the garden?” “What else would you do with them?” She laughed a friendly country woman’s laugh. “I heard Grandpa had some strong words for you, but don’t you worry about him. It’s just how he is.” Apparently, she was Grandpa Nirasaki’s daughter. Hana had seen her once at the village general store. She couldn’t help answering her amiable smile in kind. “No, I’m the one who should apologize,” she said. Ms. Nirasaki accepted Hana’s words with a self-satisfied smile. She craned her neck toward the back of the house and called out to the children. “Hello, there!” Instead of answering, Yuki retreated from the shadow of the desk to the far side of a door, glaring menacingly out. Ame followed his sister, an anxious look on his face. Hana felt terrible. “…I’m so sorry,” she said. “Don’t worry about it,” Ms. Nirasaki answered, smiling as if she didn’t mind a whit. The next morning, the rain clouds gave way to a brilliant summer sky. Hana spent the first half of August redoing the garden. She dug up the entire plot all over again, watered it, and spread plastic sheeting and bags on the ground. Ms. Nirasaki had told her that this would help the summer sun sterilize the soil, killing most diseases and pests. Even after the height of summer, the days were sweltering. Hana put hats on the children and brought them to the garden with her. While she dug holes, Yuki and Ame dropped in the seed potatoes Ms. Nirasaki had given them. Hoping fervently that this time would give them success, Hana covered the potatoes with soil. The Sunny truck stopped next to the field. Grandpa Nirasaki got out and marched up the bank. Hana greeted him, wiping the sweat from her face. “Oh, Grandpa Nirasaki. Thank you for the seed potatoes.” Grandpa Nirasaki did not reply. He just eyed her rows. “You wanna waste them?” he muttered, then began digging up the potatoes Hana and the children had just planted and rolled them onto the surface of the soil. “…Oh.” Hana’s smile froze. From under the bill of his hat, Grandpa Nirasaki gazed harshly at her. “Do it over. The soil, too.” “…!” Hana was speechless. As the summer sun scorched her skin, she picked up the hoe and began digging up the soil yet again. Grandpa Nirasaki walked silently and sullenly around the edge of the field without so much as a glance Hana’s way. He stopped abruptly, looked at Hana, and barked a short command. “Can’t you dig any deeper?” “I’m sorry.” Hana directed all her energy into following his instruction as he resumed his silent pacing around the field. The morning thunderheads were growing taller; the only sounds were the shrill song of a cicada and the even rhythm of the hoe. “What about fertilizer?” Hana panted. “You mixed in leaves, didn’t you?” “Yes.” “Then you don’t need any.” The sun had climbed above their heads. Finally, Hana finished the whole field without a single break for rest. Dripping with sweat, she leaned on the handle of the hoe to catch her breath. She wasn’t wearing gloves, and her palms throbbed painfully. “If you’re done over there, do this one, too.” Nirasaki was looking at another abandoned field. Hana wiped her sweat with the back of her hand and turned toward him with a tired smile. “I don’t need that much space. I’m just growing enough for me and the two kids,” she said mildly. All she wanted was a glorified kitchen garden, and since she didn’t plan to sell anything, she figured the one field would be plenty. Nevertheless… “…Are you deaf?” She gulped, taken aback by Nirasaki’s glare. The thought of starting in on an entirely untouched plot of land right now made her feel faint, but she didn’t have the energy to argue with him. She trudged over to the new field, cut down the overgrown weeds, and began doggedly hoeing the soil. Sweat rolled into her eyes. She was long past sore muscles; her very joints were beginning to creak. The shadow of a bird crossed the afternoon clouds. “Make ridges.” “Okay.” By now she had no energy even for smiling. She pushed the soil into ridges, her disheveled hair sticking out every which way. “Farther apart.” “Okay.” “The ridges are too low.” “Okay.” “Higher.” “Okay.” She focused her mind on remaking the ridges according to his instructions. Sweat dripped from her chin and hit the ground with an audible pitter-pat, and her hair was plastered to her mud- and sweat-covered skin. She couldn’t even think. She just stared at the spot in front of her and pushed on with her never-ending task. Before she realized, it was evening. Beneath the light of the setting sun, she evened out the ridges in the two fields. Grandpa Nirasaki carefully inspected each potato before slicing some of them in half with his pocketknife. When he finished, he straightened his back and looked at Hana. Sensing his gaze, she stopped working and turned around. He tossed a plastic bag full of the cut potatoes toward her. “A week from now, plant them with the cut side down. Don’t water ’em. Just leave ’em be.” Hana stumbled forward and gave her biggest smile. “Um…thank you for teaching—” Before she could finish, the door of the Sunny truck had slammed shut, and she watched in a daze as he drove off. The sun had tinted the world red as it set behind the mountains. An evening cicada sang its rhythmic song, then stopped. Yuki and Ame emerged from their hiding place and ran up to Hana. “Mommy, are you okay?” Their voices brought her back to her senses. Exhaustion washed over her, and she sank to the ground right where she was. Thousands of autumn darters descended from the mountains, filling the fall sky. The potatoes sprouted and seemed to grow bushier before Hana’s very eyes. One day, as she was snapping off extra sprouts and piling soil against the stems in a desperate struggle to keep up, two rugged four-wheel-drive cars pulled up next to the field. It was Mr. Hosokawa and Mr. Yamaoka, the two old men from the village. They gestured to Hana. “Come here a minute.” “Huh?” “We won’t bite; just come over.” “Huh?” “Come on, come on.” Without a word of explanation, they whisked Hana off to a garden outlet on the Super Agricultural Highway. Inside the row of big greenhouses packed with fall seedlings, Mr. Hosokawa picked up two plants and began explaining the principles of companion planting. “This is a cabbage and a chamomile. If you plant ’em together, the pests stay away and they both taste better.” Mr. Yamaoka interrupted, holding two different plants. “Don’t listen to him. Cabbage always goes with celery.” “No, no, no. These are the plants you want for a beginner.” “What’re you, nuts? Will chamomile fill your stomach?” “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “No, no, no!” Soon, they were arguing. Hana looked from one to the other. Once they made their purchases, they all went back to Hana’s garden and started planting them right away. “You should plant them about this deep.” “No, no. First you water the hole. Then you plant them.” “No you don’t. You can water afterward. First, just get them in the ground.” “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” “No, no, no!” Again, they were arguing. Hana looked from one to the other. After that, the two men often stopped by to check on the garden. “When you fertilize midseason, you only need a little. Too much and you’ll just attract bugs.” “No, no. Give it here. You can’t skimp on this stuff.” “Don’t listen to him. A little is plenty.” “Take his advice, and they’ll never grow.” “Speak for yourself.” “What did you say?” “What did you say?” More arguing. Hana looked back and forth at the cabbages each of them had planted. Both kinds were growing wonderfully. Shortly after that, the Horitas and the Dois—two couples from the village—came to Hana’s house. They set gifts of chicken manure and a water bottle filled with brown liquid on the porch. “Wood vinegar? What’s that?” “A natural pesticide, and it prevents disease. You can make it from the smoke when you burn charcoal.” “Thank you for coming all the way out here with this.” “Sorry we didn’t call first. I’m sure we caught you by surprise!” “Not at all…” As she poured tea for everyone, Hana looked at the two couples, both of whom were much older than her. She would never have guessed they were full-time farmers; they were dressed as smartly as businessmen and women vacationing in the mountains to escape the heat. They smiled kindly at Hana, clearly trying to put her at ease. “I suppose you’re having some culture shock out here.” “Yes, it’s all so new to me. Every day is a learning experience.” “A lot of people move all the way out here from the city, only to go back the moment something goes wrong.” “Were any of them young people?” “Nah, they’re all old geezers starting retirement. It almost makes you laugh; they just don’t have the grit.” Both couples looked at each other and smiled wryly. Mr. Horita took a sip of his tea and stared intently out the window. “Maybe I’m not the one to say this, but this isn’t an easy place to make a go of it,” he said. “Yeah, the soil here is very poorly drained.” “And it snows so much.” “We just have to help one another…” Hana studied the profiles of her four visitors. Their words struck a chord in her heart. The next to come were two young mothers driving economy cars. They’d both moved to the area after marrying a local. Their children, dressed in preschool smocks, were in tow. “It’s great to have another young mom in the area. There are so few of us out here. If you ever have a question, just give us a call.” “Oh, thanks…” They were astonished to hear Hana’s simple account of how she’d gotten by up till now. “Seriously? You’re living on savings?” “Yes, and I’ve got to find a job soon,” Hana said, resting her chin in her hands. One of the mothers peered at her. “It’s tough to find work here. It’s not like the city.” “Yeah, everyone puts their kids in day cares, and the commute is so far,” the other said. “Tell me about it.” They both nodded. Yuki and Ame seemed to have listened in on their conversation. “What’s preschool like?” Yuki asked, looking up at Hana as she cooked dinner. “Huh?” “Why can’t me and Ame go?” “Well, because—” “I wanna go to preschool!” She jumped up and down, just like when she was little. For a cheerful, curious child like Yuki, it was a completely logical demand, but Hana worried they would be exposed as wolf children and was dead set against letting them go. “Absolutely not,” she replied firmly. “I wanna go!” “Nope!” “I wanna go I wanna go I wanna gooo!” Yuki loped around the huge living room on all fours before stamping her feet in frustration. While they were eating, she rolled on the floor kicking her arms and legs. “I wanna go to preschool! I wanna go I wanna go I wanna go!” Her tantrum continued until Hana had finished cleaning up from dinner. “I know it’s a secret. I promise I’ll be good!” “I know you will. But I still can’t.” Yuki squeezed herself between the cupboard and the garbage can and hugged her knees. “I promise…,” she mumbled. The next month, things weren’t so busy in the fields, and Ms. Nirasaki started coming by to visit more often. After a while, she started to bring her husband along, too, and in the course of their chats over tea, Hana found herself regularly helping him keep the books for the village farmers’ cooperative that he managed. Accounting wasn’t at all hard for her once she learned a few tricks, but he was hopeless at math and immensely grateful for the help. “These are last month’s receipts.” “Got it.” Hana efficiently performed the calculations. Her work assisting him had taught her firsthand how full-time farmers planned their crops and managed their costs. There were many tips and tricks she could apply to her own garden. Suddenly, Ms. Nirasaki stopped writing down figures in her ledger and looked toward the garden. Her husband’s hand stopped, too, and he followed her gaze. Noticing that something had caught their attention, Hana raised her head and gave a start. Wolf Yuki was peering in at them from the garden, her dress wrapped around her neck. …Yuki! “Hana, you got a dog?” “Oh, yes…well…” As Hana floundered, wolf Yuki pointedly cleared her throat and howled. AWOOO! Struck dumb, Ms. Nirasaki pulled on her husband’s sleeve. “…Is that a wolf? It is, isn’t it, honey?” Hana broke into a cold sweat. “Oh, no, um, it’s—” “Don’t be silly,” Nirasaki’s husband interrupted. “You think there are still wolves in Japan? That’s some sort of a German shepherd mix. How ’bout it, Hana? Did I get it right?” He leaned forward, grinning. Hana groped for an answer. “No, it’s, um…” “Huh? It’s gone! Where did it go?” Ms. Nirasaki craned her neck in search of the dog. Just then, Yuki came in through the back door. In the blink of an eye, she had changed back to her human form. “Hi, Ms. Nirasaki,” she said. “Hello, Yuki! You’re very friendly today.” “Awww, you and the doggy have matching clothes. How cute!” Nirasaki’s husband commented. Yuki winked slyly at Hana and jumped off the porch. A moment later, wolf Yuki paraded through the garden. Yu… Yuki! Hana mouthed silently. She was beside herself with worry that the Nirasakis would become suspicious, but in fact, the only thing they seemed suspicious of was her own odd behavior. “What’s wrong, Hana?” Ms. Nirasaki asked, eyeing her curiously. “Ha…ha-ha-ha…” All Hana could do was try to deflect the question with a nervous laugh. As the mountain air grew chillier in the mornings and evenings, the leaves around Hana’s house erupted into their many colors seemingly overnight. She dug her hoe into the ridge several times, lifting up the soil, then grabbed a yellowed stem and pulled as hard as she could. A perfect cluster of potatoes burst to the surface. “Wooow!” Amazed, Yuki and Ame followed along next to Hana, giddy over their harvest. They copied her, pulling on the stems until comically huge clusters of potatoes broke the soil. After drying them for a while in the shade, they brushed off the clumps of dirt and placed them in buckets. There were so many, all the buckets Hana could find in the barn weren’t enough. She went down to the village, a bag stuffed with potatoes in each arm, and knocked on the Nirasakis’ door. She wanted Grandpa Nirasaki to be the first to see them, but no one answered her calls from the entryway. She peeked in the barn, too, but he wasn’t there. “…I wonder where he could have gone.” She finally gave up and headed to the Hosokawas. Mr. Hosokawa greeted her from his elegant house surrounded by a grove of trees. “Ooh, that’s a nice harvest.” “I couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help,” Hana said. He picked up a potato to inspect its quality, then disappeared into the barn with the bag. “Your potatoes are a real lifesaver. We lost our whole crop,” he said as he returned. “What do you mean? Lost to what?” “Boars.” He held out an armful of enormously fat daikon radishes. “Here, take as many of these as you want,” he said, pushing them into Hana’s arms. Next, she visited the Yamaokas. Standing near the power shovel in the front yard of their sprawling house, Mr. Yamaoka gratefully accepted Hana’s potatoes. “These darn boars can dig up a whole field early in the morning without making a sound. I heard they made it all the way down to the Sakais’ paddy this year,” he said. He chatted on for a while before giving Hana three thirty-pound bags of rice. “A little something in return. Careful, they’re heavy!” A few days later, the Horitas and the Dois stopped by Hana’s house with vegetables to share and stayed for tea. “You know, your field is the only one the wild animals didn’t get into.” “It’s so strange, since you’re way out here in the mountains.” “You must have some technique you’re not telling us.” “Everyone wants to know how you did it.” Hana couldn’t think of anything special. “Nope, no secrets.” The truth was, she’d simply done as Grandpa Nirasaki and Mr. Hosokawa and the others had told her. As Ame shyly asked what a technique was from his spot behind Hana’s back, Yuki ran up from the garden and jumped onto the porch. “Gotta pee!” The visitors watched, smiling, as she sped off toward the bathroom. “That girl has so much energy!” “…Uh-huh,” Hana said absently. A thought had just occurred to her. The secret that kept the boars away was none other than Yuki and Ame’s own. “What’s wrong, Hana?” Mr. Doi said, eying her curiously. “Oh…nothing.” She forced a smile and shook her head. Another day, after the trees on the mountain had dropped their leaves in preparation for winter, Ms. Nirasaki brought Hana a stack of cardboard cartons full of fertile eggs. “Wow, thank you!” “It’s nothing! Thank you for the potatoes.” “I haven’t had eggs in ages.” “Then I’m glad I brought them. Let me know when you run out.” Hana opened the refrigerator and tried to find a place for the eggs. The kitchen floor was already littered with gifts of food that wouldn’t fit in the fridge. Ms. Nirasaki poked her head in from the living room. “Oh my,” she said. “Well, isn’t that adorable?” “Huh?” Hana turned around to look at her, then back toward the little refrigerator. Adorable? Her refrigerator? That evening, Ms. Nirasaki’s husband and her son pulled up in their truck and unloaded a midsize refrigerator from the back. “One, two, three!” they called as they heaved it off. “I can’t possibly accept this,” Hana protested. She desperately tried to dissuade the man from giving it to her. While she was grateful for his kindness, she felt it would be wrong to take such an expensive present. But he just smiled and continued toward the entryway. “Just take it, really! This old thing’s been in our barn forever,” he said. “But…” “Take it. If we bring it back home, we’ll be in big trouble with Grandpa.” “Grandpa?” Hana echoed. Still gripping the refrigerator, father and son nimbly slipped off their shoes in the entryway. “Hana this, Hana that. You’re all he ever talks about!” commented the father. “He’s really fallen for you,” his son added. “Don’t be silly. He’s ninety!” “Come on, he’s always bugging everyone to look after her.” “Nice going. You know you weren’t supposed to tell her!” The younger man winced at his father’s scolding. “…Oh yeah. I forgot.” Hana gazed up at the sky far above. Grandpa Nirasaki was making his solitary rounds of the paddies. He fixed crumbled sections of stone walls and earthen banks and scooped dead leaves out of irrigation canals—all the little tasks that had to be completed before winter buried everything in snow. When he finished his work for the day, the sun was already setting. Hana was waiting for him on the farm road. She bowed to him, then smiled. “I finally realized why I needed that extra field,” she said. All summer, she’d been so confused, but now it all made sense. Her harvest was not for her and the children alone. It was for the whole village, to be shared by everyone. Through growing her garden, she had come to understand the ways of the village. She had been taught—by Grandpa Nirasaki. But he just looked down and tugged off his right glove. “I can’t stand it,” he muttered. “Huh?” He shoved the glove in the pocket of his well-worn foreign-made coat and looked up with a disgruntled expression. “Why do you always have that phony smile on your face?” Before she could stop herself, Hana burst out laughing. “Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee…!” “Stop laughing.” “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…!” Of course, she knew she was being rude. But the more she thought about how rude she was being, the more the laughter bubbled up inside her. Hana adored Grandpa Nirasaki. If she adored him, though, why did she think he was so funny? She laughed until she had to hold her stomach. She couldn’t remember laughing this much since he was alive. “What’s so funny?” he asked, spreading his hands questioningly and staring at this odd young woman and her fit of hilarity. Finally, he let out a perplexed sigh. The two of them remained standing there for a long time under the clear winter twilight. That night, light snow began drifting down. After Hana put the children to bed, she poured a cup of tea and reflected quietly on all that had happened since spring. “I thought I was coming here to hide…and now here we are, completely in debt to all the villagers.” She had found a tough mentor to teach her how to grow vegetables. She had made older friends who looked after her as if she was one of their own relatives. She had made younger friends with whom she could talk about raising the children. Her house was no longer isolated and neighborless but host to constant visitors. Despite all this, Yuki and Ame had managed to keep their secret. She pictured the faces of all the generous, immensely kind people she had met and silently thanked each one of them. “It was hard at first, but I think we can make it out here,” she said, looking at his driver’s license. He smiled warmly back at her. When Hana and the children woke the next morning, the world was covered in snow. “Ooooooooh!” All three of them cheered out loud. Crazy with excitement, Yuki leaped off the porch and landed in the snow with arms and legs outstretched. Whomp! It was incredibly soft and comfortably cold. She could feel the delicate ice crystals melting against her skin with a faint popping sound, a brand-new sensation. A primal sort of laughter bubbled up from her belly. “Ha-ha-ha-ha!” She rolled around everywhere her instincts carried her. Ame set out carefully across the snow, one foot in front of the next, but he quickly lost his balance and tumbled into a face-plant. “Oof!” He widened his eyes in surprise, shaking his snow-covered face. Hana filled her chest with the fresh, cold air and surveyed the snowy landscape, realizing that she felt much more at ease than she had in a long while. She could return to her own childhood, she felt, and the second it occurred to her, she dived with a shout toward the children and hugged them to her chest in the snow. She felt their warmth and breathed in their smell. Nothing could ever replace them. There’s no greater joy than this. “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” She lay on her back and belly laughed, and the other two joined her. Yuki started running, barefoot and still in her pajamas. As she passed through the little woods, she changed from wolf to human and back again in a flash. Ame chased her on all fours and then on two feet, then on all fours again. The transformation was so fast his pajamas fell away, until he was left wearing just his scarf. Hana followed after them in her duffle coat, picking up the clothes on her way. They ran away from her gleefully. The sky overhead was pure blue. The two wolf children circled down the hill with its lone tree all covered in fresh snow. Wolf Yuki slid down the slope and then sped up for a jump, and the wind seemed to carry her into the air, her long scarf flapping behind her. Her heart danced at the flying sensation. When she landed, she disappeared in a huge puff of snow. Wolf Ame copied her by jumping into the air, too. Surprised at how far he flew, he kicked his legs in panic and landed shakily. Snow sprayed up and showered down over his entire body. Not to be outdone, wolf Yuki jumped even farther, elegantly spinning as she soared through the air. The two of them jumped again and again, competing with each other and sending up flurries of powder each time. Hana chased after them into the clouds of countless tiny crystals in their gorgeous dance against the blue sky. AWOOOOOOO, Yuki howled. AWOOOOOOOOOOOO, Ame howled. AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, Hana howled. The three of them collapsed into the snow with arms and legs outstretched, and their voices echoed deep into the mountains. Yuki had returned to her human form. Eventually, her panting gave way to laughter. “Huff…puff…ha-ha-ha-ha!” When he heard her, the sweat-drenched Ame started laughing, too. “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” The three of them rolled around in their mirth. The snow crystals sparkled in the sun. The breeze provided a refreshing chill for their warm bodies. Hana opened her eyes and looked at the sky, pleasantly tired. Clouds drifted slowly by. It happened on the way home. Wolf Ame suddenly froze beneath the thin veil of clouds and pricked up his ears. He heard running water. Alone, he made his way down a slope toward the sound and discovered a peaceful snowy landscape amid a circle of trees with a stream running through the middle. He suspected this was the place where Yuki caught the cormorant. Suddenly, he spotted a crested kingfisher sitting on a branch. He was sure that’s what it was—he had seen one in the encyclopedia. The kingfisher dived into the water, sending up barely a splash. A moment later, it shot upward again with a small fish in its mouth and alighted on a snowcapped rock in the middle of the stream. Every movement was full of grace, and the black-and-white speckles on its wings were so beautiful. Ame was seized with a desire to examine its wings more closely. He crept toward it, hiding himself in the shadow of a rock. For a long time, he crouched there, breathing evenly and waiting for the right moment. The kingfisher repositioned the fish in its mouth. Just before gulping it down, however, it sensed something behind it and turned its head. That was the moment Ame leaped. In a stroke of luck, his front paws caught the bird’s tail. As the bird flapped its wings and tried to escape, Ame moved around the rock and managed to pin it down. The bird struggled for a few moments but finally grew still, only blinking its eyes. It was Ame’s first hunt. He hadn’t expected it to go so well right from the start. Perhaps the reason his heart was still pounding was the excitement of success. But after it was all over, he felt let down. When he replayed the events in his mind, it seemed easier than he had expected. He wondered why he had waited so long to try. In any case, he was eager to bring the bird back to show his mother and Yuki. What would they do when they saw it? Would their eyes grow wide with surprise? Would they gush over his catch? Just as these thoughts were running through Ame’s head, he stepped on his scarf, lost his balance, and slipped into the stream. A column of water rose up with a splash, and the kingfisher escaped and flew off out of sight. The stream was surprisingly deep, cold, and swift. He couldn’t believe it had looked so peaceful from the land. He tried to grab on to a nearby rock, but it was impossible. “Mo… Mommy!” He writhed desperately, switching back and forth from wolf to human. When she heard him calling, wolf Yuki returned to where Ame had left them. She slid down the slope to the stream as fast as she could, screaming to Hana. “Ame! Mommy, it’s Ame!!” Hana whipped her head around at the sound of Yuki’s unusually shrill call. “?!” Every hair on her body stood on end. “Ame!” She hurtled ahead through the snow. Her foot caught on something, sending her to the ground, but she got up and kept running. “Ame!!” Although she couldn’t see him, an image of Ame reaching for help floated before her mind’s eye. She knew with as much conviction as if she were standing beside him that he was on the verge of death. Mommy! Mommy! He was calling her over and over. She could hear him with a clarity that bordered on the bizarre, but she had no time to think about the oddity. She didn’t know how to reach him. “Ame… Ame…!” She crisscrossed the woods at random, crying out as she ran. Several times she lost her way as she ran back and forth to the stream. She could not find him. Time and her strength ebbed away. Before she knew it, a thick gray mantle had replaced the light clouds. As snow began drifting down, she finally caught sight of Ame. His naked body was far downstream, lying in the dry riverbed. “…Ame!!” She shivered with terror. Beside herself now, she ran to him, grabbed his shoulders, and shook him roughly. “Ame! Open your eyes! Ame!!” No matter how she shook him, however, he remained silent. His skin was bluish white and as cold as a rock in the riverbed. But she didn’t give up. “Ame… Ame… Ame!!” Unable to endure it any longer, she hugged his body fiercely to her own. Next to her, wolf Yuki—who, she guessed, had dived into the water and pulled Ame out—hung her head, panting and sopping wet. Hana kept holding Ame’s body close. Was this their last good-bye? Could he no longer hear her voice? Would her magic spell never work again? Could she no longer wipe his tears? Would she never see his adorable smile again? Would he become like another wolf, his wet fur exposed to the elements, still for eternity? At that moment, Ame moaned faintly in Hana’s arms. “…Mommy, I can’t breathe…” “Ame!!!” She raised her tear-soaked face and looked at him. He smiled weakly as his consciousness returned and whispered as if he were still dreaming. “…Mommy, I found a kingfisher…a really neat one… I thought I could catch something, too…” As he talked, his skin steadily regained its usual pink hue. “…It was weird; I didn’t feel like usual… I wasn’t scared… All of a sudden, I felt like I could do anything.” He sounded like a fairy-tale hero who had managed to return alive from his adventures. “And, Mommy…oh!” He widened his eyes, just then noticing the tears streaming down his mother’s face. “…Why are you crying?” Then he looked at Yuki and asked her confusedly, “…What are you doing here?” Yuki, who had returned to a stark-naked human form, stared at him openmouthed. Hana pulled both of them close to warm them up. Tears of relief flowed down her cheeks as she gave thanks for her good fortune to no one in particular. A fine dust of snow whipped up in the wind and swirled around them.