Sakura Meadows's Arc

Chapter 2 of 1

Sakura came back to the grove at dawn with a fresh tag in her pocket. She meant to hang it and start knocking on doors. But the air had changed overnight. It bit her cheeks and turned her breath white. She touched a low branch and felt the cold in the bark. Above her, the pink blooms had begun to loosen. A few petals let go and drifted down while she watched. She understood the danger at once. The cold snap would strip the whole grove. Her one painted tag hung among blossoms that were already falling. Wind gusted, and more petals rained down around her feet. If the branches went bare, no neighbor would ever come to see her memories bloom. The canvas she had found would scatter to the ground. Sakura pressed her palm to the trunk and thought hard. She could not warm the whole grove. She could not stop the wind. But she could save what mattered most, the tag itself. If the blossoms fell, the memory did not have to fall with them. She ran back toward the town. She stopped at the first house with warm light in its windows and a wide, sheltered porch. She knocked. A woman opened the door, wiping flour from her hands, and frowned at the wild girl on her step. "You're the one hanging paint in the trees," the woman said. It was not a question. "The cold is killing the grove," Sakura said. "My tags will drop before anyone sees them. I need somewhere they won't freeze and won't blow away." She held up the small painted board so the woman could see the girl and the fireflies. The woman studied the tag for a long moment. Her frown softened. "That's old Marguerite's granddaughter," she said quietly. "I remember those fireflies." She stepped back and opened the door wider. "Bring them here. Hang them under the porch roof. The wind won't reach." Sakura raced back to the grove. She untied her single tag from the freezing branch, cupped it in both hands, and carried it to the porch. She hung it from a nail beneath the roof beam, out of the wind. The woman watched from the doorway. Sakura stepped back and looked at the tag swaying in the warm porch light. She had saved the memory. But the tag hung alone against yellow clapboard, not among pink blooms. The grove behind her kept shedding petals in the cold. Her mural had a shelter now. It no longer had its living canvas. The woman spoke behind her. "You'll want more of these, if you're doing the whole town." She wiped her hands again. "Half the folks around here won't open their doors to a stranger. But they'll open them for me." Sakura turned. The cold snap had cost her the grove. It had just handed her a guide.