MINMEI SAKURA's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

The sky turned gray at the edge of the field. Dawn was coming, and with it the lantern men. MinMei knelt by her stack of books and tied them into a cloth bundle. She lifted it and stood. The weight dragged her arms down. She took three steps and stopped. She could not carry these books and still run. Orin watched her from the cart. He said nothing at first. He only ran his thumb along the ropes that held his own books in place. His donkey stamped in the harness, ready to move. "You can't carry them," he said. "Not on foot. Not fast enough." "Then I stay with them." MinMei set the bundle down. Her hands shook. "I copied these myself. Every page. My father said a girl had no use for books. I proved him wrong with my own hand. I won't leave them in a field to rot." Orin set down his walking stick. He came to her bundle and knelt. He untied the cloth and looked at the pages. He read a line, then another. His shy face changed. He looked at her the way no one at home ever had. "This copy is clean," he said. "Better than some I've paid for." He pointed to his cart. "There's room. I'll rope yours in with mine." MinMei stared at him. "You'd carry my books on your cart?" "A scholar shares the load." He almost smiled. "You are a scholar, aren't you? You just told me so." No one had ever called her that word. Not her father, not her tutors, not the men who came to arrange her marriage. MinMei picked up her books and passed them to him one by one. Orin stacked them beside his maps and pulled the ropes tight. The cart held. The donkey did not even shift. Then the blossoms rustled behind them. MinMei spun around. A fox stepped out from the low branches. Its coat was bright as flame. Nine tails spread behind it, slow and wide. It fixed its eyes on her and did not run. Orin went still. "I've traveled these roads for years," he whispered. "I have never seen that." The fox turned and walked toward the far slope, away from the road where the lantern men would come. It stopped, looked back, and waited. "It wants us to follow," MinMei said. "Or it's leading us somewhere we shouldn't go." Orin took the donkey's harness. Light spread across the field. Voices carried from the road, closer now. There was no time to argue. MinMei looked at the road, then at the fox. Her books were safe on the cart. She was free to run at last. She chose the slope. "Move," she said, and pulled the cart after the fox, away from the only road she knew.