The Bride Who Read the Contract novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Sixty Years

The keepsake box was paulownia wood, pale and plain, no bigger than a bread loaf.

Suzuna took it down from the high shelf in the east wing's inner room, where Fumika had never thought to look.

She set it on the tatami between the three of them and didn't open it.

Ibuki opened it.

On top lay a child's drawing on rice paper. A tall stick figure with horns, and a small one, holding hands.

"Mine," Ibuki said. "I was six."

Under it was a tin of rice crackers, still half full. A pair of reading spectacles with one arm mended with thread.

And at the bottom, coiled on a fold of white silk, a red cord.

Plaited. Knotted with the Hinase knot.

Cut clean through on one side.

It was faded almost to pink. Sixty years of sun on a wrist.

Ibuki picked it up.

He held it in his palm for a long time.

"She used to rub it," he said.

"When she was reading. Like this."

He turned the cord round his thumb. "I asked her once if it itched. She said it was her blessing."

His voice was quite steady.

"She sat up with me every night I was sick. Every night, for twenty years. She held my hand."

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