We went through the profusion of sancta, putting anything we didn’t need back in the storage room. We pulled everything off the shelves, then rearranged what was displayed there with an eye toward making it neat and balanced. It was sort of like a gigantic puzzle that took days of continual work to solve. At one point I asked if there wasn’t a sancta that could make this job a little easier, a suggestion that was met with the reply, “Maybe you should go pray at the cathedral and make one.”
I asked if there was a sancta that could take the edge off the fatigue, at which Riviere shrugged again and said, “Try praying.”
That pretty much sums up how the days went. And it did take days. Maybe because everything in here held memories for Riviere, making it that much harder to throw away.
There were a bunch of sancta I was seeing for the first time. Some of them were so old that they couldn’t be used anymore. I would ask, “What’s this here?” and Riviere would inevitably smile and say, “Ahh, that takes me back…”
“And this?”
She smiled especially wide when I held up…a tree branch. A tiny stick of blooming cherry blossoms. Not something you would normally see in the winter—I guess that was the sort of thing sancta made possible.
“That’s called the Eternal Cherry Blossom,” she said, adding, So that’s where it went.
“What does it do?” I asked.
“Nothing much. You probably couldn’t even sell it.”
I gave Riviere a puzzled look, and she plucked the branch from my hand. “This sancta was created from a broken-off branch. The effect is very simple: The cherry blossoms on this branch are always in bloom. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Huh!” She was right that that seemed a lot less dramatic than most of our sancta. If you wanted to see cherry blossoms, you could always just wait for spring.
“You just thought, If you want to see cherry blossoms, you can always just wait for spring, didn’t you?”
“Erk.” I flinched and straightened up a bit.
Riviere’s expression, though, was still gentle. “And you’re absolutely right. Cherry blossoms are hardly something you need to pray for.” She shrugged, almost like she thought it was a little silly. “But a long time ago, there was someone so desperate to see them that they would even pray for it.”
“Who created this sancta?” I asked.
Riviere gazed fondly at the Eternal Cherry Blossom. “I wonder. It was so long ago, I seem to have forgotten.”
“Riviere, do you know what kind of tree this is?” Cururunelvia asked me. It was back when she was still well. We were in the cathedral’s garden, and her fingers lovingly brushed one of the trees that stood there.
She said it was called a cherry blossom: a tree that put forth the most beautiful flowers in spring. She’d first encountered them in a land far to the east and fallen in love with them, so she’d brought them here to this island.
“These poor trees live for only a short while, and they’re very fragile. They can’t thrive on their own, so they have to be stuck to the branches of other young trees to support them. They all came from a single plant originally, so one good sickness can kill them all off. That’s how this tree is.”
“Sounds like these ‘poor trees’ you brought take a lot of work,” I said.
Were they going to be all right? I must have looked pretty skeptical. I worried that they would soon wither.
“You’re right. So I need you and the people of this country to look after them, to make sure they don’t.”
“Excuse me, but you can’t just dump this responsibility on me.”
“I’m expecting great botanical things from you, Riviere.”
“Hello?”
At the time, I didn’t know she was nearing the end of her life. I thought she was just joking, giving me another job to do. So I puffed out my cheeks and said, “Why would you pick a tree that takes so much looking after anyway?”
She smiled, just like she always did. “It’s all the work that makes it perfect. If you still have time to look after these troublesome trees, it’s proof that this nation is doing all right.”
I gazed at our recovered treasure, the Eternal Cherry Blossom, and thought about those days when the country was new. I’d made this sancta so that she could see the cherry blossoms she so loved. Even now that its job was done, it was still covered in small, lovely flowers.
I placed it on the windowsill as a decoration, and suddenly it seemed like spring was already here, an early turn of the season inside my shop. A cold wind blew outside the closed window. Once we were done organizing the place, we reopened for business, with plenty of customers making the bell over our door jingle. First we started to see snowflakes on their shoulders, and then winter got really nasty. Through it all, the Eternal Cherry Blossom sat by the window, waiting for spring.
The snow-clad scenery at last gave way to piercing sunlight, the snow melting away without a trace. I opened the window to find a gentle breeze ruffling my hair. The blossoms on the little branch bobbed in time. The breeze proceeded inside, dancing around the antiques shop. I closed my eyes and savored the familiar aroma it brought me.
Spring had come again.
There was one thing you could see in this season—but only this season.
“What do you say we go cherry-blossom viewing today?” I asked MacMillia, and together we left the store, heading for the cathedral. Specifically, the garden.
The trees were there—trees I had tended and cultivated assiduously even during the difficult days after Cururunelvia’s passing, and the chaotic times during the transition of power. Trees standing in neat rows, as if with their arms outstretched. And, today, in full bloom. I looked up, and my vision filled with blossoms, so pale they were almost white.
So long as I lived, this country would continue.
So long as the flowers blossomed, this country would be well.
Cururunelvia…are you watching?
“Spring is here, and it’s brought the flowers with it. Like it always does.”
It gave me the confidence—the faith—that every yesterday could lead to a better tomorrow.