The River Kami Asked Before Taking My Hand novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Village Thinks You're Engaged

Offerings pile up at the gate, and Sayo says the whole village expects a wedding.

On Saturday morning, someone left a bundle of daikon on the front step.

Akari opened the door and found it sitting on the stone with a ribbon tied around it.

There was also a bag of rice, a jar of pickled plums, and a small red envelope.

"Nagi," she called into the house. "Did you put these out?"

"No." Nagi came to the end of the hall and stopped.

She stood in the kitchen doorway with her hair brushed smooth.

Akari had slept eight hours for the first time in a month.

She was not sure whether to blame the futon or the river noise.

"They are offerings," Nagi said. "The village leaves them for the keeper."

"Why for me?"

"Because you are the keeper."

"I came yesterday."

"News is fast here," Nagi said. "Faster than the river."

Akari picked up the red envelope.

It held a card with a drawing of two cranes on it.

On the back, a shaky hand had written, "Congratulations on the engagement."

She read it three times.

"Nagi?"

"Yes?"

"They think I'm engaged to you."

"They think you are the next wife," Nagi said. "That is slightly different."

"It is not!"

"I did not say it was good." Nagi's ears had gone pink. "I did not ask them either."

Akari stared.

For a second she saw the whole thing at once.

A whole village had decided something about this woman without ever asking her.

"Okay," Akari said slowly. "Okay. First, I have a class to teach. Second, I'm taking this card back to whoever wrote it."

"May I come with you?"

"You can't, can you? You can't go past the gate."

Nagi looked toward the stone gate.

"No," she said. "Not yet."

It was the first time she had said it in that voice, small and tight.

Akari filed it away.

She took the daikon and left.

The village hall was a one-room concrete building beside the shrine stairs.

Six kids were waiting on folding chairs: three from the elementary school and three from the junior high.

They were the whole student population of Kawanobe, and her aunt had taught them every Saturday since they could hold pencils.

She taught for three hours.

It went well.

A nine-year-old told her she explained fractions better than "the old lady," and a fourteen-year-old stopped writing "I dunno" on her worksheet.

Afterward a young woman with a chestnut ponytail and a green shop apron leaned in the doorway.

"You're Akari," she said.

"Yes."

"Sayo Kurose. My family has the shop. You owe me for the rice."

"I didn't buy any rice."

"You're being given a lot of rice," Sayo said. "Everyone brought it to my store to be wrapped. You've also been given eleven daikon, a rice cooker, and a bottle of the good sake from the brewery down the road."

"I'm nineteen," Akari said.

"It's for the wedding," Sayo said. "They don't care."

Akari pressed her hand to her forehead.

"Sayo. Can I tell you something without you laughing?"

"No."

"There is no wedding."

"There's always been a wedding," Sayo said, and she looked honestly confused. "Your aunt did it thirty-one years ago. Everyone brought rice for that too."

"What?"

"She was married to the river." Sayo said it the way people say a bus runs on Tuesdays. "Everyone knows. You didn't know?"

"I got a lawyer's letter."

"Oh no," Sayo said, and began to laugh anyway. "Oh, you poor thing."

Akari did not laugh.

She walked out and stood on the shrine stairs for a minute in the wind.

Her aunt had been married.

Her aunt had been married to a woman.

It was hard to feel anything about that except a sort of stunned surprise that Tomoe had never said.

Then she thought of Nagi's hand on the table, held open an inch from hers, and the thought was not so stunned.

"Don't feel bad," Sayo said, catching up. "Most people say it's lucky. The river keeps the village from flooding. It's a good deal."

"For who?"

Sayo blinked.

"For the village," she said.

Akari said nothing.

The red card in her pocket had the priest's name on the back.

She went up the shrine steps because she wanted this settled.

The priest was sweeping the yard.

He was a small round man with white hair and a pale blue robe.

When he saw her, his whole face lit up.

"Akari-san!" he said. "I am Gen'ichi Ouchi, the priest here. My dear girl. Come, come. I was about to send word."

"Priest Ouchi," Akari said. "I don't want to be rude, but I need to say something."

"Of course, of course. First, the good news." He held up a hand to stop her. "I have chosen the date for the Autumn Wedding Rite. October twentieth, a fine day. The river and the new keeper, as it was for your aunt."

Akari's mouth opened and nothing came out.

"The whole village will attend," the priest said happily. "It's been thirty-one years since a rite. We have such plans."

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