I think hate was the furthest emotion from my rational mind, as I stood staring out into the harbour. Edo Harbour, I named it in my mind, recalling the title from somewhere in my memories. The air was strong, blowing a damp kiss through my skin until it hit the very core of me. Time was frozen. I stood on a stage of rocky shoreline, looking out into the harbour at my audience of ships and fishing boats, as the points of the rocks pierced the bottoms of my feet. My kimono whipped around my body in the frigid wind, heavy with the moisture in the air, and I could hear the faintest, sweetest voice. As if beckoning me closer to the shore where the water lapped the sand and promised me the kindest way to escape. The voice echoed my song, but the stage of rocks was too small to dance on. From that point on the harbour, I could look back and the smoke from the blaze of Edo wasn't even visible. The wind had swept it all away from me, as now I would let it sweep me further from the land.
Across the water my eyes followed the vast shape of the mountain beginning at the water's horizon and lifting into the sky, close to where the Gods must live. If it meant being closer to them, perhaps, I thought, I could climb there myself to give them a reason to accept me. I felt like a criminal just at the thought. But the mountain trails were forgiving. The soft snow of the middle of winter gave way easily to my feet as I tread, the trailing hem of my kimono erasing the evidence of my trek. Should I have fallen into the snow, no soul would ever find my body. I reasoned, if I reached Heaven one way or the other, either would be kind enough. The trees lining the trail up the side of the mountain stood tall, towering into the sky above me, and I stopped now and then to gaze upward until I was dizzy, into the patterns of branches thrown across the scape of grey. Every inch of me remained damp with the humidity in the air, the sea spray travelling far and soaking me straight through my skin to my bones. My hair was heavy with the softly falling snow, collecting it and arranging it around me as if to burry me. The tips of my fingers were red, frozen, and I brought them to my lips to breathe out what warm air I had left over them. I walked, from the day and deep into the night, still I walked into the next day, as if with my every step I turned the earth. At every clearing at the edge of the mountain face I looked down to where Edo should have been. I watched for the billowing smoke to rise, but the snow fell softly around me, blinding me, and the silence around me was overpowering. How alone I was, I realized. No other footsteps in the snow, so sounds, no birds, nothing. Nothing but my sins as I dragged them reluctantly behind me. But out in the forest, they were all I had.
A tori gate stood alone, the trees around it black and dead, dark spots littering the snow around them, and the clearing feeling much larger than it should have been. I had never visited the mountains, and this holy entry way was unfamiliar, but the forest around it felt heavy with sadness. Amid the pure untouched white of the snow, grey ash was scattered, light, and it moved with the slightest breeze. Black marks as if drawn there with dragging fingers marred the stone of the gate. I placed a finger upon them, and it came away black as well, stained with burnt charcoal. I patted the gate three times as I passed through it, curious to visit the place where the God inside slept.
As I neared the end of the pathway to the Kamidana, I could hardly recognize the structure atop the stone pillar, the wood burnt black and peeling away from the surface. The roof had fallen inside, and if there was hope that the God had escapes the fire at least, it would not have escaped the collapse. How easy it was to kill a God, I thought. And yet they could not kill me.
The Honden behind was whole, comprised mostly of stone that would not burn away. I stepped inside, instantly sheltered from the frigid mountain wind and fall snow that soaked me. It had been abandoned in haste, wood for the fire left, tatami untouched, and a kimono meant for the shrine keeper. It was a space the size of my heart, much like the room I kept in Edo. I shrugged my soaked kimono down the cold of my shoulders, testing the air. My fingers like ice drawing lines of sharp pain across my skin, dropping my kimono to the floor. I struck the flint to ignite the wood left in the fire pit, warming my body against it and drying my skin. I held my hands out to the growing fire, watching it engulf the wood, peeling away layer after layer and turning it to ash. The shrine had already witnessed this destruction, I thought, and as I peered between my outstretched fingers I reasoned, at least I was offering my soul and baring my flesh as payment.
The small fire warmed the room with radiant energy, the stone glowing with the retained heat. I gingerly touched the shrine keeper's kimono left folded at the edge of the tatami. The white fabric smooth, giving in to my slight touch, dry, and it soaked up the warmth in the room. In one motion I wrapped it around my body, holding the hem of the opening to my face, against my lips, testing the smell. I recalled the day I met Sugai, he was dressed in the same kimono. I thought if I could breathe in deeply enough, his scent would return to me, or mine would call him. As much as I wanted to feel rage at my reaction to the memory, I felt only emptiness.
"You smell like you're missing something. Or someone." A voice behind me like music drifted around me as I closed my eyes, giving in to the sound of it. Fingers closed gently around my shoulders, and I greedily leeched the heat of a body my skin craved. "Where did you come from, you lonely soul?"
"I came from Edo. A small village I burnt to the ground."
Laughter came from behind me, a ghostly sound that was beautiful. "What is your name?"
I wanted to look. My eyes opened to slits. The hands upon me tipped with sharp points of nails, slender, a thing of beauty in contrast to me. "Seishin." I had always said my name proudly.
The hands turned me, I was in the face of a creature that put even my beauty to shame. In the shrine keeper's kimono, ethereal whiteness painted her, the red accents touched her like drops of blood seeping from a wound. Her face was human, but like the one I ached for, I could see hints of a fox in her features, her eyes upturned, her hair coarse. I held my breath the instant my eyes met her, drinking in her image intoxicated me.
"Seishin." Her voice was ghostly, ringing in my ears as she repeated my name. "I know who you are. A name as Godly as the one who bares it."
I wanted to lay my hands on her, the moment the vision of her filled my mind. Becoming so entrapped by beauty alone, I thought, what a waste. What talent was behind her eyes? I felt her in my mind, I felt her hear every thought I formed, and she twisted her fingers into the closure of my kimono, effortlessly pressing her body against mine. Warmth was good enough, but she offered me something else.
"I belong to Sugai." My voice cut through the moment of silence.
"Then why is your head screaming about how badly you want me right now?" She didn't withdraw from me, but simply released her hold on my kimono with a flick of her fingers. "I know Sugai. And you are as magnificent as he paints you."
"You know him? Tell me where to find him." I tilted my head back slightly, casting my gaze downward at her. I knew, even in the mountains, in the freezing cold, soaked to the bone by heavy snow, how to seduce my opponent.
"Sugai will not be found unless he wants to be. You should know that better than anyone."
I felt a light release of her from my body, but my hands worked against me to hold her in place. "I told you my name. Now what is yours?" I let one hand snake up her chest, my fingertips drawing lines of ice through her warm flesh, to her neck, and I took hold of her at her throat.
"I don't have a name. I am simply a spirit residing here. And if you have seen here, there is not much left of it. Not much left of me."
I released her, sensing she understood that I was in charge of seduction if it were whispered between us. "I want to stay here. I'll rebuild the shrine."
"Then I will rebuild you, Seishin." She was silent, her eyes on me, studying, learning my movements and breath. "My name is Mori."