The Stepsister Who Followed Me Through the Shrine Gate novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Saint's Bath
Pulled through the family shrine gate with her new stepsister, Mai is told the saint's bath may only be attended by household, so she washes Hinata's back, and Hinata says she has wanted Mai's hands since the wedding.
The gate behind the Aizawa Shrine began to glow at five minutes past midnight.
Mai Kurosawa had her stepsister's hand in hers before she understood why.
Hinata had been rehearsing the autumn dance alone on the hill, in her white robe and red hakama, with a paper lantern at her feet.
Mai had climbed up with a thermos of barley tea, because Hinata's father had asked her to bring the girl home before one.
Hinata was her stepsister since last spring, when Mai's mother married the shrine's head priest.
They had met at the wedding.
There, Hinata's father had written both daughters' names into the shrine's household book, as the old custom asked.
On paper, the two of them were now one household.
Mai's mother had been oddly quiet on the phone all week, but Mai had not asked why.
They shared no blood at all.
In six months Mai had seen her stepsister exactly seven times, always across a dinner table with the parents talking.
Seven times was enough to notice the dimples.
"Mai-san, the stones are warm," Hinata said, and she lifted one hand toward the old gate.
Its two grey pillars were humming, and white light poured down between them.
The light took Hinata by the wrist.
Mai dropped the thermos and grabbed her other hand.
"Let go!" Hinata shouted. "Mai-san, it's pulling you too!"
"I'm not letting go."
The ground went out from under both of them, and Mai felt nothing but Hinata's fingers, small and hot and holding on.
They landed on cold white marble.
A hundred people in grey robes knelt in two rows on either side, and every forehead touched the floor.
Torches burned in iron rings, and above them a dome of blue glass showed a sky with two moons.
An old woman with white hair coiled on her head stepped forward and bowed to Hinata and to nobody else.
"Saint of the Dawn," she said. "The Gate has answered. Mirelle has waited three hundred years."
Hinata sat up on the marble in her red hakama with her mouth open.
Mai was already kneeling beside her, checking her pulse with two fingers, because checking things was what she did.
It was a hundred and ten, and fast but strong.
"Where is this?" Mai asked. Her voice sounded flat and professional, as if she were asking a customer about an allergy.
A tall thin man with a silver beard looked down at her.
"The Kingdom of Mirelle," said Chancellor Aldric Vernier. "And you are baggage."
"I'm her sister."
"The Gate brought you. That does not make you anything. Lady Saint, you will be shown to your residence."
The old woman was Odile, the High Priestess, and she said nothing more.
She looked at Mai for a moment too long.
The Saint's House stood in the temple garden, a white stone building with a roof of blue tile.
Inside there was one large room with a bed, a desk and a wall of shuttered windows.
Through an arch lay a sunken bath the size of a small pond.
Hot water steamed in it.
Six maids in grey stood in a line and curtseyed.
"The Saint must be purified before the first prayer at dawn," the Chancellor said. "The maids will attend her."
"No," said Odile, from the doorway.
Everybody turned.
"The law is older than this chancellor. No servant of the court may lay a hand on the Saint's bare skin. Only her household may."
"Her household is a dead world," said Vernier.
"Her household is the one who came through the Gate with her."
Odile nodded at Mai.
"The Gate does not carry strangers. Lady Mai, the bath is yours."
The maids filed out.
Vernier was the last to go, and he looked at Mai as if he'd been robbed.
The door shut.
It was very quiet, and the steam smelled of cedar and something sweet.
Hinata stood by the arch with her arms around herself, her robe damp from the floor.
"Mai-san," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you got pulled in. I should have let go."
"I wouldn't have let you."
Hinata laughed, a small wobbly sound, and wiped one eye with her wrist.
"Then please," she said. "Wash my back? I can't reach the ties, and I don't want anybody else."
Mai's glasses fogged.
She took them off and folded them on the edge of the bath, and the room softened.
Hinata untied her red hakama and let it fall.
She slipped the white robe down off her shoulders and stepped into the water wearing only a bath sheet knotted over her breasts.
She sat on the stone step with her back turned and her long chestnut hair piled over one shoulder.
Mai knelt behind her on the warm tiles and rolled her sleeves to the elbow.
She took the cloth, wet it and wrung it, and laid it against Hinata's shoulder blade.
Hinata's skin was soft and hot and slick, and it twitched under the cloth.
Mai washed slowly down her spine, one careful stripe at a time, as if it were a procedure.
She was very aware that her own hand was shaking.
At the small of Hinata's back she stopped, because the bath sheet was in the way, and Hinata sighed.
It was a low sigh, not a tired one.
"Mai-san," Hinata said, to the steam. "I need to tell you something, and I can't say it while I'm looking at you."
"Then don't look."
"I asked you to wash my back because I wanted your hands on me."
The cloth stopped.
"Not because the maids aren't allowed. I've wanted your hands since the wedding, when you fixed my father's cuff."
Mai heard her own pulse in her ears.
Hinata leaned back, until her wet shoulders pressed against Mai's forearms, and tipped her head so that her hair fell across Mai's wrist.
"There's only one bed in that room," Hinata whispered. "And I'm not scared of the court, Mai-san."
Her hand came up out of the water and closed on Mai's wrist, warm and wet.
"I'm scared of how much I like it when you touch me."
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