Chapter 11: Yes

For a moment nobody in the shop breathed.

Then the snow woman on the bench began to clap.

It was slow, and a little frosty, and then the kappa joined in, and then the tanuki, and then the whole bench.

"I'm taking my name off that paper," the kappa announced.

"So am I," said the woman in the brown scarf.

"A keeper who tells the truth even when it embarrasses her," the nurikabe rumbled from the doorway. "That's the whole point of her."

Forty voices began to talk at once.

Hakuro stood in the middle of the floor holding his petition.

The names on it were wriggling and fading, one at a time.

"This is not what the paper was for," he said.

"No," Tsukumo said, hopping down from the counter. "It was for catching her in a lie, and she didn't tell one. Out!"

She herded him toward the door with her yellow sleeve, and the nurikabe leaned politely aside to let him pass.

Hakuro stopped on the mat and looked back.

He looked at Haruna, then at Kuzunoha, with a pale, thin, unreadable face.

"She doesn't have long," he said. "You do know that."

"I know," Haruna said.

"Then I wonder what you plan to do about it."

"Sleep next to her," Haruna said. "Every day."

Somebody in the crowd whooped.

Hakuro put on his hat and left.

Tsukumo shut the door, turned the lock and spread her arms.

"Shop's closed for the night!" she announced. "Emergency tea break! Everybody who needs a bandage can have a bandage in the morning! Out, out, out!"

The spirits left in bunches, patting Kuzunoha on the arm as they passed.

The snow woman squeezed Haruna's hand, and her fingers were cool and kind.

The tiny spirit in the patched coat tugged Haruna's sleeve on the way out.

"I think you should kiss her," the tiny spirit whispered, very loudly.

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