The River Kami Asked Before Taking My Hand novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Open Gate
Akari took Nagi's hand, and it was warm enough to feel through her fever.
"What do I give it to?" Nagi said.
"To whoever you want."
"To the river?"
"You are the river."
"Then to you."
"I don't want it," Akari said gently. "Tomoe said never be handed over. I don't want you handed to me, either."
Nagi stared at her.
Her mouth opened, and closed, and a slow dawn of understanding went over her face.
"Then I give it to myself," she said.
She did not say it as a prayer.
She said it as a plain statement, the way she said she was the river, or that the tea was ready.
"I give this cord to myself. It was mine. I tied it because I was lonely and scared, and I thought a river that could not leave would at least never be left. That was a mistake. I untie it."
Her hand twitched, open, and let go of nothing.
In the silence after, a sound rose from the water.
It was not a snap or a crack.
It was a long, easy exhale.
The wind dropped.
The black water at the foot of the garden lifted, and glittered, and for one moment every stone in the bed showed through it, white and clean.
Nagi stood on the stone line of the gate.
She looked at her feet.
"Akari," she said.
"Yes."
"I am not stopping."
"Where?"
"At the line. My feet are not stopping."
She lifted one foot, set it down beyond the stones, and lifted the other.
Then, shaking, she walked.
The gravel crunched under her bare soles.
She went past the gate, and the milestone, and the first bend of the road where the lamp stood.
Sayo and her brother stepped aside with their mouths open.
She walked on, a slim pale shape in a wet robe, past the dark cedars and the shuttered shop.
She went as far as the bridge and stood in the middle of it, with both hands on the rail.
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