MINMEI SAKURA's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

The fox led them up the slope and did not stop until the trees closed thick behind them. MinMei pulled the cart over roots and mud. Her arms burned. Then she saw others on the path. A woodcutter passed with a bundle on his back. A boy drove goats down the hill. Each one looked at her too long. MinMei touched her hair and felt the silk ribbons her mother had tied there. Fine red silk. No peasant girl wore silk. The boy stared, then hurried on. MinMei's stomach turned. One word from him to the searchers, and she was caught. "They see the ribbons," she whispered to Orin. "They'll remember me. They'll talk." Orin looked at the path ahead. "Then we get you off the road. Fast." He nodded toward the fox. The animal had stopped at a low door set into the hillside. Warm light leaked from the gaps. It was a cave, but a home, with dried flowers hung by the door. The door opened before they knocked. An old woman stood there in a deep green gown. Tiny spectacles sat on her nose. A crystal glowed at her throat on a silver chain. She looked at the fox, then at MinMei, and her round face softened. "So you brought them here," she said to the fox. Then to MinMei: "Come in, child, before the whole hillside counts your ribbons." MinMei froze. "You know what they are." "I know silk from wool. So does everyone who passed you." The old woman waved them inside. Rugs covered the floor. A fire glowed under a hanging pot. She was Rin, she said, and she healed what the forest let her heal. She sat MinMei by the hearth and studied the ribbons. "These will hang you," Rin said plainly. "Keep them, and the searchers have their proof. A magistrate's daughter does not wear rags in her hair." MinMei's hands closed over the silk. "My mother tied these. It's all I have of her." Rin sat beside her. "Then choose. The ribbons, or your freedom. You cannot carry both down this mountain." MinMei looked at the fire. She thought of her books safe on the cart. She thought of the word Orin had given her. Scholar. A scholar needed her life, not a ribbon. Slowly she untied them. The silk slid loose. Her hair fell dark around her face. She held the ribbons out. Rin shook her head. "Not to me." She pressed them back into MinMei's palm and closed her fingers over them. "Hide them deep in the cart. Wear this instead." She tied a strip of plain brown cloth in MinMei's hair. MinMei touched the coarse cloth. In the small mirror by the hearth she saw a peasant girl. No one would look twice now. "Good," Rin said. "Now no one on this mountain can name you. But someone below already saw the silk. Word travels faster than you climb."