InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Tale of Ever After ❯ Chapter 286

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

I do not own InuYasha or any of the characters created by Rumiko Takahashi

Chapter 286


At Miroku’s house, a heavy silence had fallen on the inside of the building as the monk and his companions prepared for Seiji’s expected visit.

Perhaps it was the silence, or perhaps it was some noise outside as Susumu and the others of the village guard arrived, but whatever it was, something registered in Maeme’s mind, and in the quiet of the sleeping room, she bolted upright.

“An awful dream,” she said. “Merciful Kwannon, all that water...”

She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, then rubbed her eyes. Opening her eyes, she let her hand reach out and brush the coverlet that had been draped over her body. It was a fine blue and white blanket, not the patched and worn blanket she used at home. “Seiji would never let me make anything like this,” she said, her voice merely a whisper. “He would have sold it if I had...”

She looked around her, and saw the straw pallet she was laying on, and her youngest son fast asleep right at its edge. Moving the coverlet, she snugged it around the boy. “You shouldn’t sleep cold, Nakao-chan,” she said, then gently brushed his face, hovering a finger tip just above the bruises on his face. “I might not be able to protect you from the hand of your father, but I can from the cold. At least for the moment.”

Everything that had taken place during the day began to rush back through a groggy fog, and she sobbed, but too quietly to disturb her son, as its full impact washed over her. “Too much medicine,” she said. “Everything’s like a cloud. Even my dreams.” She sighed. “So much water. I was lost in an endless sea...so blue. And now?”

Maeme curled into a ball, her hands over her head. “Kwannon, have mercy. What have I done? Why did you let me live?”

The darkness gave her no answers, so she got out of the bed, a bit shaky from the sedative Kaede had made her drink, but she moved slowly, being careful not to disturb her sleeping son. Once on her feet, she began to pace back and forth across the sleeping room floor. The small light that had been placed up on a shelf earlier flickered a little as the evening breeze blew through the room, making the shadows lurch as she walked.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she said. “It isn’t right. Houshi-sama and his family shouldn’t be tainted by the likes of me.” She kept her noises as soft as possible, not willing to alert Kaede to the fact that she was once again awake. “I...I’m...Death looked like the ocean. Maybe it could make me clean again. I was clean once, and new...I...”

There were noises outside, voices. She stopped and listened. Mostly they were muffled; she could make out Miroku’s voice and that of his wife. They sounded concerned. “I...look at what a trouble I am to them. How could I ever make it right?” She covered her mouth with a hand and shook her head. Sango sound determined. Maeme could just make out her name, and that of Seiji. At Seiji’s name, the monk’s wife sounded angry. As she listened, the people outside were joined by other voices. She recognized Susumu, Eiji, Kinjiro. Their voices seemed agitated.

“So much trouble,” she said, raising her fists to her forehead. “And now the village guard. I thought they would all be at the wedding of Daitaro’s son. Did something else happen?”

One of the men barked a bitter, unfunny laugh. It echoed inside her, reflecting just how she saw her life. “Cursed am I. Even the gods laugh at me.” She began to hum, then turned her tune into a slightly breathed verse:

“You promised me, river,
you promised me
a quick trip to forgetfulness,
but one last turn,
and I was caught like a fish.”

“Haha-ue used to laugh at how I would make songs when I was sad or happy,” Maeme said, plopping down against one of the walls where she could watch her son’s even breathing. She did that for a moment, then lifted her eyes. From where she sat, she could see the window. It was small enough to let in air, high enough to guarantee privacy. At this moment it was like looking into a black rectangle. The night sky it revealed was dark, and there was yet no moon. But even in its darkness, she could see stars. “Stars in the dark night. That’s what singing is for me. Sometimes, it’s the only way I can say what I need to say.” She closed her eyes.

“Ah moon,
do not rise upon my foolishness,
so often I have failed -
do not frown on the fisherman
who thought I was worth catching.”

As her song drifted away, footsteps neared, much clearer in sound than the voices from the front of the house. There was a thud, like someone dropping to the ground, followed by the sounds of scuffing feet, and the crack of a twig.

“Don’t drop the lamp,” a man’s voice said. It was gruff, but held no malice. Fumio’s voice, the blacksmith.

“What’s going on?” she said, but not loud enough for the two outside to hear and answer her. “First all that talk with the guard, and now this. What’s interesting here at the back of the house?”

“I promise, Fumio-sama,” said a younger voice. She knew that voice. Tilting her head, she listened carefully. “We can see the whole road to the temple.”

“That’s why we’re sitting here, son,” the blacksmith said.

“Ah, Sukeo,” Maeme said. “You’re too big a boy to stay with me anymore, aren’t you? You have to go off and be with the men. At least you’re with a good man.”

There were small sounds. Maeme imagined the two trying to get comfortable, scuffling and rustling in the darkness. “Go get me a branch, son,” the blacksmith said. “We can at least whittle. Waiting is a hard game.”

“Waiting,” Maeme said. “Waiting is hard. And now you’ll have to wait through all of this, my poor Sukeo. How will you be able to show your face to anyone?”

Maeme heard a sharp snap, and then feet running back towards her window.“That’s a good one,” Fumio said. “We’ll be able to make something useful with this, just in case. Sharpened sticks are handy.”

“Are we in danger?” Sukeo asked. “Yoshimi-ojisan was beat up pretty bad. Chichi-ue must be really angry.”

“I don’t think he’ll come this way,” the blacksmith said. “And I can’t see him going to the temple first. But it’s best to be prepared.”

“Chichi-ue always said bad things about Houshi-sama,” Sukeo said. His voice sounded sad, disapproving. “Ever since he put up the temple, he’s been complaining. But Houshi-sama’s a good man. Look at how he’s been treating Haha-ue. He didn’t have to do any of that.”

“Your otousan’s said bad things about a lot of people,” the blacksmith replied. To his credit, his voice stayed neutral. “I don’t know how much attention you need to give him when it comes to the monk.”

“He’ll come this way?” Maeme repeated. “Or to the temple?” Suddenly she felt like a cold knife passed through her.

“Why did Ojisan let him out?” Sukeo asked.

“Out?” Maeme said, her voice almost cracking on the word, a squeak. “Yoshimi?” If the men heard it, it must have sounded like a mouse or a bird, and neither reacted. But her heart began to pound in her ears and the world lost its focus. She felt trapped inside of some spinning wheel, the world going around her. “Seiji is coming here?”

“I don’t know,” Fumio said, after a pause, like it took him a moment to gather his thoughts. During that pause, Maeme, using the wall to steady her, stood up. All of her limbs felt weak as the conversation of her son and the blacksmith filled her head with dark images. She worked her way to the sleep room’s door, and even though her hand was quaking, she managed to slide it open.

Taking in deep breaths to calm her racing pulse, Maeme leaned against the door frame and looked out at the room. Kaede was sitting at the head of a person stretched out against one side of the room. The miko did not react as she stepped out of the sleep room. Her head was bowed down, and nodded once or twice, but she was sleeping sitting up. Only the wall behind her kept her from tumbling over. On the other side of the room, the monk’s children were sleeping. One of the little girls rolled over in her sleep, and snuggled closer to her sister, and settled back down. Nobody else was in the main room.

Maeme looked at the children. “I...I can’t let them come to any harm. I can’t. Merciful Kwannon. Maybe if I go...” she swallowed, then took a deep breath. “Maybe if I go find Seiji, I can keep him from coming here.”

Wrapping her arms tightly around her middle, she walked as silently as she could across the room, pausing a moment to look at the bruised figure of her brother-in-law. The shadows from the fire pit highlighted where he had been battered. “You laughed at me, but not this day. You carry his hand print too. Maybe,” she said, still too soft to hear, “we are both fools, Yoshimi. Who is the worst - me for trying to escape or you for trusting?”

A few more steps, and she reached the front door. She looked outside and found the monk talking to Eiji and Susumu. They all stood tensely, on alert.

“You know he’s going to be coming here,” Susumu said. He held a shovel in his hand, gripping it tightly. “We ought to get Maeme and her boys to my place. It’ll be easier to watch them there.”

Miroku tapped his staff on the ground. “You know he’s out in the woods here. Are you sure we can even get them there without him spotting us?”

“What’s one man against the rest of us?” Eiji said. “We can take her by the temple and the back way.”

“Too much trouble for the likes of me,” Maeme whispered. None of the men noticed her standing in the entryway.

“Even more places to hide and ambush us over that way,” Kinjiro said. He carried a hoe, and tapped it impatiently on the ground. “If I were him, that’s what I’d expect you to do.”

“But you have more sense, man,” Susumu said. “You’d never ever get yourself into a situation like this.”

Maeme eased herself along the edge of the verandah, hugging the shadows. It was very dark, except for the lamps the men had; the moon had not yet risen.

To the tune she was singing before, the troubled woman hung on the edge of the house, the troubled woman began chanting once more, so soft no one noticed, words that were more prayer than complaint:

“Have mercy, wind,
and let me slip away, unnoticed,
a leaf blown away in Autumn,
of no use,
except to the earth.

“Have mercy, night,
it was night when I was born,
or so my mother said,
let me return
all of my days.”

Taking one deep breath, she stepped away from the house, and began to run towards the main road.

Sango, talking to Koume along the length of the house, heard a branch snap, and turned just in time to see a flash of white fabric disappear into the darkness.

“What was that?” she said, looking at the older woman. “Someone running in an under kosode?”

“I...I’m not sure,” Koume said. She turned to the house and frowned. “You don’t think...”

Sango dashed inside, found the door to the sleep room wide open and only Nakao asleep on the bed.

Miroku and the others, having seen her hurry in, followed.

“She’s gone,” Sango said. Her eyes looked up at Miroku, full of uncertainty. “Maeme’s gone. What do we do now?”


Standing nearby, but unable to be seen by human eyes, a small crowd gathered.

“And so the endgame begins,” Daikoku the luck god said. He looked at Shimame-no-kami. “Remind me, I don’t think I want to ever play go with you. I don’t know if I have enough luck.”

The land kami laughed, and hid her face behind her fan.