MINMEI SAKURA's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

MinMei touched the brown cloth in her hair and did not feel safe. The mirror showed a peasant girl, but Rin's warning still rang. Someone below the mountain had seen the red silk. Word was already climbing. She turned from the fire. "If they trace the ribbons here, your home is gone too," she said. "I brought this to your door." Rin set down her spoon. "Then we cut the trail before it reaches us." She pulled a jar from the shelf and shook out dried petals into a cloth. "People believe what they already fear. Give them a better story than yours." Orin stood by the door, turning his half-carved walking stick in his hands. He had led MinMei up this slope. He had chosen her safety over the searchers' reward. Now his jaw was tight. "What story?" he asked. Rin tied the crystal at her throat under her collar so it would not glow. "A traveling healer bought red silk in the valley last spring. That was me. Everyone on this mountain knows I hoard bright cloth for my remedies." She smiled. "If a girl was seen with silk near my path, she was my errand girl. Nothing more." MinMei stared. "They'll believe you?" "They owe me," Rin said. "I've mended their fevers for forty years." Orin shook his head. "The searchers won't believe an old woman's word alone. They'll want to see the girl." MinMei's stomach dropped. He was right. A rumor could be argued. A face could not. Then she looked at the cart, at the ribbons hidden deep among her books, and an idea rose. "Then let them see the silk," she said. "With her, not with me." She dug the ribbons out and pressed them into Rin's hand. "Wear them openly. Down the path, where the villagers watch. Let the whole hillside see an old healer with red silk in her basket. The rumor will find its ending." Rin weighed the ribbons. For the first time she looked uncertain. "This gift was your mother's." "It hangs me if I keep it," MinMei said. "It saves me if you carry it." Rin tucked the ribbons into her basket where they showed. She pulled her shawl over her bun and stepped into the gray morning. Orin watched her go down the path. MinMei watched from the door until the green gown vanished among the trees. Rin returned at dusk. She set the empty basket by the hearth. "I sold two remedies and showed the silk to six people," she said. "By tomorrow the mountain will say a healer had red ribbons. No magistrate's daughter. Only old Rin and her cloth." MinMei let out a breath she had held all day. The refuge held. The searchers had a false trail now. But she looked at the empty basket and understood the cost. Her mother's silk was gone for good, spent to buy this cave a few more days of quiet.