Cicada song pierced the air in a ceaseless drone. Reminders of the Sanctuary’s inconvenient nature beaded all over Komakusa Sannyo’s body on the walk leading up to the house. To the hazy air, she questioned how she convinced herself it was a good idea to come here. The answer was only louder, more intense cicada song, screaming on her behalf after the heat had sapped her strength. Mountain hag though she was, she’d long grown unused to wilder, more unspoilt terrain.

Secluded paths inevitably gave way to clearings invisible from the air. Sannyo reached into her collar on instinct, confusing herself a moment before she remembered the bag in her hand. Shaking her head, she made her way onto the proper path, noting with some pleasure that the stones were at least not spattered with the absolute maximum of mud and filth. A bit of weeding would need doing in the diminutive garden, but it was hardly at the roughest it could look. Gazing out to one side at a distance, the privy looked as if it was yet to succumb to nature and collapse in on itself. What gave most pause was the roof of the house.

A wound gaped from the wood where a tile once sat, the cedar viscera dyed red in the dying light beaming through the treetops. Observation suggested the missing tilework had probably been split in half. Sannyo’s lips twisted at the thought of those clay tiles she had hand-selected, an artisan’s work for which she’d rendered destitute untold gamblers. Taking a deep breath, she fought down the urge to emptily reach into her collar again. All in good time, she placated herself.

“Ah,” piped a mild voice as Sannyo reached the threshold, “I wondered when I might see you again.”

“No issue, I trust?” Sannyo prodded her interlocutor with a chill in her voice that would have otherwise been welcome in the heat.

Standing in arm’s reach, though still a step back as always, Chirizuka Ubame peered at Sannyo in her measured, sororal way. A struggle between reaching out to her fellow mountain hag and retreating played out in her brow. At length, she softly shook her head before assuming a cheerier, if more temperate, demeanour. “Come, I’ll put on tea. There’s still those leaves you brought before.”

Ubame had indeed reserved enough of the fine tea, probably in anticipation of a day like this. The overheated Sannyo felt little enthusiasm for a hot drink but said nothing to dissuade her deep-mountain sister’s pretenses at hospitality. Questions arose around signs of Ubame’s lacking diligence in more minor upkeep, like the splotches on the shouji and a layer of dust in the barren alcove. A damp, incipiently mildewed smell also drifted from the far corners, layered atop a pervading stagnancy in the air. All the place lacked was notes of straw and dung. However much her nose crinkled, Sannyo had only herself to blame on that account. She breathed out in a great huff. Seasons had come and gone, after all.

The shifting sun of the coming evening had cast a gloom over the house interior. Reclining on the floor, Sannyo felt a lethargy wash over her, more than just fatigue from the hike. Her hand had unconsciously crept to her collar once more and listlessly fished between her sweat-slicked breast and the fabric of her kimono. Slowly, like treacle, her thoughts ran in an insistent ooze toward the bag she’d deposited on the floor upon entering. No, she tried to tell herself, Ubame would go into conniptions. However much she needed it at the moment. However little attention the lady of the house paid to other stains and smudges.

Without the indication of footsteps, Ubame materialised without warning from the dimness. She set the teaware on the low table and crisply slid the dirtied shouji open, indicating the veranda. “I don’t mind if you smoke…”

“No, that’s all right,” Sannyo replied with great difficulty. Once more, her thoughts oozed toward the bag, so she nudged it away with her foot. “I really shouldn’t. I’m cutting back, in fact.”

“Ah, is that right?” Ubame murmured, pulling the door to swifter than she’d opened it.

Sannyo sat up and took to her tea with only the barest enthusiasm. A long but shallow sip allowed her to pretend there wasn’t a searching gaze running across her face for a moment. She pulled one of her simple, inexpensive fans from her belt, waving it as much in the vain hope of blowing away the questions already lingering in the air like soot in the kitchen as to cool herself.

Mildly irritated by the humidity, she thrust the tea away from her. “Those windchimes I gave you. What happened to them? I’d have thought you’d hung them by now. It’s the season, you know. And I hope you’ve still got proper mosquito netting. I won’t tolerate it a single night if I’m being bitten. It’s my burden to live as much by my skin as my wits.”

“Your skin is looking quite lovely. You don’t even look to be powdering yourself,” Ubame appraised her hag-sister with no small trace of envy in her tone. Running a hand along her own arm, she showed traces of lightening her own complexion, her uncovered skin a sandy tan tone from sun exposure. She quickly blushed and hid her arm, eager to move on to other pleasantries lest she be teased. “I suppose you must be doing well with your… establishment. That kimono is new, isn’t it? It looks terrific on you. Far better than these drab old things I made.”

“I asked about the windchimes. I’d like to hope you didn’t drop them or smash them by accident.” Sannyo snapped her fan shut, rapping on the low table with it, the sharp noise causing Ubame as much visible discomfort as the sharp words.

Swallowing hard, Ubame ran her fingers through her long, blue-tinged silver hair, tossing it sheepishly over her shoulder. Her voice softened. She pretended to examine the shouji. “Not at all. I’d just thought of getting around to putting them up. Why, the other night, I found myself thinking it sure was humid. Summer caught me by surprise. The cold felt like it might well drag on for far longer. I did at least hang the nets. A while earlier, even. The bugs have been persistent.”

A deafening burst of cicada song ripped through the humid air before Ubame could go on. The house was left under a buzzing silence as the noise tapered off. Remembering herself admidst that reverberation, Sannyo resumed her more lukewarm cup of tea. The remaining orange-red beam of light that fell over the room disappeared and reäppeared as a breeze blew through the treetops. Previously overheated, Sannyo had forgotten that and now felt a slight chill. She stowed away her fan and found her handkerchief in her sleeve, swabbing the beaded sweat away from her skin. Even after she was done, she held the kerchief pinched between her unsteady fingers.

Ubame fidgeted where she sat. The paper doors had already undergone a thorough inspection, so she peered over her shoulder at the hearth. A pot sat suspended on the hook, but no flame danced beneath it. Looking at Sannyo a moment, she inclined her head questioningly. Instead of answering, the visiting hag-sister pulled herself up from the floor, dug in her effects, and produced the metallic dragon-patterned lighter she kept. If nothing else, the hearth was a good enough substitute for the moment. She felt the room already too dark as it was. Though her fingers wouldn’t coöperate, she did manage to finally catch the kindling, encouraging the sparks with a gentle breath. Content to be illuminated by the gentle glow of the fire, she sat down a short distance from the hearth, joined by Ubame after some hesitation.

The distance left between herself and Ubame felt vast in that gloom. In the rare times other hag-sisters gathered, some sat practically atop one another. Though never that type, Sannyo and Ubame were certainly far from distant. Of anyone, Sannyo sat closest to Ubame, even if there remained a distance. Then again, perhaps it made sense; the Sanctuary’s designated steward could ill afford to appear to favour anyone. Sannyo still found herself wanting for some small amount of warmth next to her and hugged herself.

Her handkerchief was still balled between her fingers. She laughed grimly, dropping it on the floor without much care. “You think I should smoke?”

“Have I ever said you shouldn’t?” Ubame countered softly with a surreptitious glance towards Sannyo’s luggage. She got up as if meaning to retrieve it but instead took the disused teacup, setting it where Sannyo could reach as she sat back down.

“You really don’t seem to like it. You’d probably like me to quit, wouldn’t you? Even with my job.” She picked the kerchief up and threw it in Ubame’s direction, the fabric drifting to a stop on the floor next to her. “Maybe because of it.”

“Your tea is getting cold.”

Sannyo drained the remainder of the cup. The cooled tea ran across her tongue with a bitterness she found hard to tolerate. How inconvenient to be able to taste again. “This was hardly the nicest I could find. There are far better out there.”

“But they’d be a waste on us, wouldn’t they?” Ubame collected the empty cup but made no move to do anything with it, sitting back down and twisting absently at the ends of her hair. “Well, on me, really. No one else has come by in a while. Except…”

“Who?” asked Sannyo, with full knowledge of the visitor’s identity.

“Do I have to say it? I know how it goes with the two of you. I’m not doing her any favours, just so you know.”

Sannyo sat with her chin cradled in her hand. The tea did little to take away from her worsening sense of fatigue. “Talking to her is a favour enough,” she said through an undecorous yawn.

“I couldn’t talk to anyone, in that case.”

“What a shame. Having to live a mountain hag’s life. Doomed to loneliness, filth, and exposure to the elements. Just defending your little plot of dirt from everybody ‘til the end of time.”

Ubame got back up to lower the pot over the hearth, chucking on more wood from a dwindling pile to feed the flame. “Yes, yes, doing chores. I need to split firewood tomorrow, in fact. Don’t feel obligated to help. Now, how about supper? I was down at the river today, and—”

“Sorry, the heat killed my appetite. If it’s all the same, I think I’d like to bed down. If you can believe it, I haven’t slept well lately.” Pushing herself off the floor, Sannyo rose uneasily, as if she were rusted over. She cursed under her breath at the soreness in her feet as she stumbled for the ladder to the upper floor.

“The guest bedding’s waiting for you in the far corner. Same as last time,” Ubame called after her.

Sannyo had barely needed the reminder, locating the futon and sheets straight away with relief. Feeling a twinge of guilt over her sudden retreat, she called back down to Ubame. “They look like they’re holding up nicely. You can hardly notice the patchwork.”

“I tried. Shame about that old kimono, but it wasn’t going to see much use here. Thanks again for letting me use it, by the way. Hope everything’s still comfortable.”

“I think so. Good night.”

“Sweet dreams.”

Even the early morning brought little respite from the summer. Sannyo lay on the upper floor with no small amount of misery holding her there. No matter the noise Ubame made on the lower floor, every inch of her refused to rise from the futon. Her thoughts wistfully circling her bag, which lay lost to the ages on the ground floor, she finally managed to roll on her side and curl into a ball, losing consciousness again amid the storm of early activity. Echoing across her mind, she heard her hag-sister call her name several times but didn’t stir. Silence eventually reigned over the house again.

That silence was broken by ever voluminous cicada cries and the tinkling of windchimes. At first, Sannyo thought they were phantasmal sounds from the depths of her dreams, yet they became more and more real. Hazy consciousness gave way to reluctant wakefulness. Sannyo tossed about on the bedding but found it too warm now. But for the ringing of the windchimes, the heat might have been unbearable. She could no longer hope to lie around anymore. She threw the covers off and crawled out from under the mosquito netting, obliged to credit Ubame’s small favours.

The humidity hadn’t lessened at all when Sannyo properly woke up, and plenty of sun penetrated the treetops to warm the Sanctuary’s primal forests, even as the day crawled into the gentle diminishment of early evening. Dragging herself into the daylight, she took a cold bath by the well to wash off the night’s accumulated sweat, a temporary relief before no doubt steaming yet again. Cold leftovers served as her breakfast before she set out to find Ubame, bag hanging on her shoulder.

From the look of it, the small fields a short distance from the house had been watered where necessary, and the summer heat accentuated a fœtid scent rising from them. Sannyo wrinkled her nose, cursing that her senses had grown so sensitive. She was ready to curse the whole idea of settled living in her daylight malaise but quickly spotted a silhouette some ways off. Ubame had traded her habitual crown for a more practical straw sunshade, but that wasn’t enough to make her totally unrecogniseable from behind. Seeing her working under the shade of an umbrella made Sannyo smile as she approached. Her hag-sister had the strangest priorities at times.

Raising her hatchet high, the metal glinting in the sunlight, Ubame gauged the piece of firewood in front of her with care before swinging downward. The wood split cleanly with a great thud. The hatchet buried itself in a rent in the stump the hag straddled. Sannyo stood back, watching Ubame repeat the same process, a pile of wood slowly gathering next to her. The glisten of sweat accentuated the toasty, sandy tone that the summer sun had lent to her skin. When she stopped a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow, Ubame finally seemed to notice Sannyo and looked a bit startled. She stood up, gathering some of the cut wood in her arms as she put a slight distance between them.

“Good evening,” the surprised Ubame offered, inclining her head gently in a quick bow.

“Evening. Allow me,” greeted Sannyo before bending down to take some of the wood herself. “Sorry for not being up earlier. Guess I must have caught you finishing up?”

“Ah? Oh, yes, finishing up. I was. Though I can’t be too sure, honestly. After all, you could be staying another…”

Sannyo pursed her lips. Already feeling heated by the sunlight, she ducked partly underneath the umbrella. “That much is up to you. If it’s a problem, I’ll go soon enough. Could be very soon, if you’d like.”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant!” Ubame shook her head sharply. The stack of wood nearly dropped from her arms in her vehemence. “I just wasn’t sure. That’s all. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like! I mean, it’s just as much… your place… as mine. Right?”

“By some rights, yes. But,” contradicted Sannyo, stabilising her hag-sister’s load with a gentle hand, “I still leave that decision to you. It’s your home, after all. I just helped where I could. That’s the only reason I like to have a look every so often. Call it pride.”

Some thought played across Ubame’s face, but she simply shook her head again and gestured towards the house, turning to carry her part of the wood. Sannyo laughed softly at Ubame’s evasiveness.

“I won’t be offended if you just ask.”

Ubame slowed her pace, adjusted her hold on the firewood, then came to a sudden halt. Reproach lingered around her eyes and lips, though so too did an admonishing sense of concern. “You can’t blame me, can you? When a sister hunts a boar without meaning to eat it — as they used to say — you can’t help but wonder. Sometimes that boar ends up fighting back. As we know you found out.”

That particular injury had scarred over to the point that it didn’t hurt all the time, but it did itch in that moment. There had been far more heated moments over the matter before. She looked over at a spot where she and Ubame had even come to blows some time ago, almost wanting to laugh. Part of her wondered if that willingness to laugh was the haggish fierceness having fled her. Then again, if that were so, Ubame had similarly lost some of that edge, judging by the ease with which she stood within arm’s reach. That, Sannyo felt, might have been among her sins wrought of leaving the Sanctuary.

Her hand had drifted closer to the bag, desperate to seek its comfort. Scolding it, she took a two-handed hold on her part of the firewood. “You’ve still got your life here. You don’t have to understand mine or anyone else’s. The yamanba way.”

“A river that throws up even kappa, I see. Good to know that side of you hasn’t changed,” Ubame huffed, allowing herself a naked frown in her otherwise measured face.

They resumed walking as if by mutual agreement; in truth, Sannyo had taken the first step. Sannyo assured herself that she wasn’t rushing, yet there was an undeniable urge on her part to see the house with fresher eyes. The sunlit glint of Ubame’s hatchet was almost blinding in her mind’s eye. The memory of the hatchet wound on the roof, gaping and viscerally red in the dying sun, caused her to wince as if she’d sustained the blow.

They’d made it back near the fields when she turned around. She’d pulled ahead of Ubame by several paces without entirely meaning to do so. Her unpainted, unprotected lips pulled into a narrow line even as she wanted to speak up. As she caught up, Ubame remained a step or two removed, glancing over her shoulder like she felt eyes on her. She shifted uneasily on feet that were eager to keep moving. She made mention of further chores that needed doing before the limited daylight exhausted itself.

Sannyo had come close to speaking when a song sped through the trees, a boisterous, rollicking ditty that announced its singer far ahead of their arrival. Spurred by the song, Ubame broke ahead of Sannyo, brushing past with less care than before, concern having clouded over her expression. The woodpile was in mild disarray when Sannyo caught up, and Ubame was scrambling about the kitchen, making tea in a hurry.

“Did I show up at a bad time?” Sannyo asked.

“I wasn’t expecting anyone. Not you, not anyone.” Ubame swiftly grabbed one of the pieces of firewood Sannyo was carrying, tossing it into the stove. Frowning at her empty water jar, she shook the kettle pleadingly. “Sorry, but would you fetch some water?” she asked Sannyo, on the verge of sighing.

“Right.”

The song grew louder as Sannyo retreated to the well to fill the water jar. She couldn’t place the singer right off, but a foreboding raised her hackles in much the same way as Ubame. Possibly worse. Her unoccupied hand was caressing the metal endpiece of her neglected pipe. Clicking her tongue loudly, she forced herself to unhand it, throwing down her bag without any care for the contents, cursing and reprimanding herself for carrying it in the first instance as she conveyed the water jar back around. A worried look from Ubame alerted her to an excess of tension in her face. She shook her head, silently continuing her denial that anything was the matter.

Though she’d long cast aside any notion of territory as her sisters understood it, an echo of the yamanba instinct, an inherent knowledge of intrusions upon one’s space, rippled across her body, and she stood stiffly around the doorway. Brief glimpses of Ubame showed her to be as affected, her grip on the kitchenware vice-like. Sufficiently startled, she might have hurled the boiling kettle at full force.

The interminable singing grew to a crescendo that almost drowned out the singer’s stomping footsteps and the undulating cicada song. Sannyo gritted her teeth, ready to lash out at soon as they were fully visible. The heat haze of the day and the scattered light rendered the approaching visitor little more than an outline at a distance. A swinging arm keeping time caught the light here and there. Silvery hair glittered at intervals. As they drew closer, Sannyo saw that the approaching visitor was hefting a hatchet of their own over their other shoulder. A ribbon prominently decorated the hatchet’s handle, an accent somehow meant to betray something of the owner’s tastes or make the fearsome blade appear less threatening. The effect was ludicrous to Sannyo’s eyes.

In a shock of recognition without even glimpsing their face, Sannyo quit the doorway, so devoid of tension that she felt likely to splay out on the floor. Ubame shot her a questioning look, but Sannyo merely shook her head, waving limply towards the doorway. She hadn’t the will or the energy to deal with the most likely appearance. Any of her myriad other hag-sisters would have been preferable, even feeling how she did.

“Hey, Sis! You alive in there? Can’t smell much over the fields,” erupted a full-throated call from the doorway. Dirt-caked feet pattered onto the step up without much regard for protocol. Ubame was already dashing to intercept, sloshing water from a tub in hand, forgetting the tea momentarily. “Woah, that’s some greeting! Not even a hello?”

“Sorry, but I really do wish you’d wash off first. You’ve been walking through mud, haven’t you? You could at least make some sandals. How many times have I shown you?” clucked Ubame, nudging the caller back onto the step.

“Sheesh, okay, but let me do it this time!”

“I’ve heard that one before. I’m not cleaning up any more mess because you can’t be thorough enough. Come on, hold still.”

Amid protests and the sound of a brush being applied to skin rigorously, Sannyo took it upon herself to at least see that the tea didn’t become a total loss. Working in the darkness of kitchen at least allowed her to tune out the struggle playing out in the entryway. It also allowed her to clean up after her flustered hag-sister, who truthfully had little room to speak on leaving messes. She was filling the teapot when she noticed Ubame returning, followed by a wavy mess of silvery hair poking through the entryway that jerked her back into the reality she had so hoped to escape.

Looking every bit the mountain hag she was, sans her beribboned hatchet, Sakata Nemuno scowled into the dim house, her previous flippant cheer erased all at once. Ubame quickly beckoned for Nemuno to join her at the low table in something of a diplomatic move, but the request fell on deaf ears. Nemuno rounded on Sannyo in the kitchen and regarded her with a self-satisfied flashing of teeth. She held in her hand the dragon-shaped pipe abandoned by the well.

After an initial furor, the two yamanba and their estranged hag-sister sat in a silence that, whilst not entirely companionable, was hardly disagreeable to the latter. Ubame maintained a studied neutrality at the table, sitting between the other two, offering in succession apologetic looks at Sannyo and a cheery face to Nemuno. Sannyo could empathise. Even if blowing her peculiar smoke often smoothed out the most hostile situations in a gambling house, it still behooved her to maintain a careful balancing act between parties most times. Especially for the sake of maintaining the most profitable of relations. The very thought provoked a minor ache in her temples at the moment, and by extension Ubame presented a mildly tiresome sight. If not for the barest sense of cultivated civility, she would have retreated to the second floor.

Nemuno, ever the coarse one, only registered her annoyed incomprehension at the care the other two were showing. The first things from her mouth upon spotting Sannyo had been bared-faced attempts at antagonising her. After being wrangled to the low table, she persisted for a short time before realising that Ubame would only continue to reprimand her and Sannyo would only continue to answer with icy silence. She now sat with her chin cradled in her hand, like a scolded child, propped against the table on her elbow, absently toying with the pipe she’d retrieved. If Sannyo could say anything, it was that Nemuno’s pale fingers, though she had callouses that were poorly disguised in patches, were flattered by the pipe, long and elegant in their own way. Her thin lips, too, had a glossiness that indicated she was applying at least rudimentary accents. Her skin tone also lacked the sandiness of Ubame’s even if she was clearly running around; perhaps she had given Ubame the idea to work under an umbrella. Sannyo allowed herself a little smile at her other hag-sister’s small vanities.

A calm eventually settled over the low table under the extended silence. Ubame had slid more to Nemuno’s side so they could exchange murmured news. At some point, seemingly at Nemuno’s request, the more senior hag-sister had begun to work out the tangles in the wavy mass of hair and fashion them into loose braids, tying them with ribbons that Nemuno had brought with her. Her pleased expression rubbed against Sannyo’s memory of prior antagonism, and some small chill from within iced over whatever pleasantness there was to be found in the sight. As if sensing the shifting current, Ubame hurriedly finished her work and moved to Sannyo’s end, refilling her depleted tea and gently touching her hand.

“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Hey, Sis,” Nemuno spoke up, breaking off from admiring her newfound braids. Reaching into the belt-like cloth wrapped around her waist, she produced a wad of paper. Peeling it open, she grinned wide. “I picked up some of these for you. They were still kicking when I found them, so they oughta make a nice snack.”

Ubame pulled away from Sannyo to have a look at the parcel. Though she registered no distress at what she saw, there was a certain cloudy look in her eyes. She gently covered the parcel with her hand, glancing towards Sannyo out of the corner of her eye. “They certainly do look fresh, but maybe we can have these a bit later.”

“Huh? Why’s that? They’re better fresh,” Nemuno groused, glowering in annoyance.

“They’ll be perfectly fine later, Nemu. Besides,” explained Ubame with a searching glance before settling on something in the direction of the kitchen, “yes, I have a packet of rice crackers already. Those would be better with our tea. Let me fetch them.”

Sannyo pre-empted her in heading for the kitchen. “Allow me. The shelf, right?”

Over muttered objections from Ubame, Sannyo searched the open shelf, coming across the aforementioned rice crackers. She hazarded a peek at Nemuno’s parcel as she set down the rice crackers at the table and pulled a face at what she saw. Catching sight of her reaction, the grinning Nemuno gave a sharp, cackling laugh. Sannyo refused to dignify the transparent bit of instigation as she sat back down.

“They look good, don’t they? Make good tsukudani, too, but I say they’re better as-is.” Nemuno reached for a rice cracker and plucked one up between her fingers. She bit into the crisp round in an exaggerated manner to accentuate the crunch. “These ain’t bad. Not nearly as crunchy, though. Right, Sis?” she nudged Ubame.

“I appreciate the thought, but you really didn’t need to bring anything.” Ubame smoothly scooted the packet off the table and into her lap, signalling her wish to end the exchange there. Despite the cheer with which she spoke, something in her voice hitched. Nemuno grumbled but said nothing.

The table fell into a tense silence that was broken up by the droning cicadas and the now less pronounced sounds of Nemuno’s crunching. Neither Ubame nor Sannyo shared in the rice crackers, contenting themselves with sparing sips of tea, over which they watched their hag-sisters. A subtle pressure exerted itself from Ubame’s gaze upon Sannyo. There was the unspoken wish that the latter would speak with her other hag-sister. Sannyo’s silent response was to fold her hands in her lap and merely stare across at Nemuno, who had at length abandoned snacking to examine the pipe she’d recovered from the yard.

Watching her hag-sister’s fingers leaving smudges on the brass, Sannyo felt the prior ache in her temples surging back. She already regretted not retreating upstairs, yet there was a part of her that dearly wanted the pipe back in her hands. Her mouth felt parched in spite of the tea. She tried taking a deeper sip but found it wouldn’t sate the need she felt deeper than ever, if anything worsening it. A visciousness over her own self-deprivation rose up in the back of her throat, and that translated itself into a grinding irritation at Nemuno dirtying her pipe. She sat with her jaw set, feeling the world drawing tightly around her. At the edges of it all, Ubame was watching her once again, lips drawn into that thin, cautious line.

Ubame clapped her palms together lightly as if remembering something and scooted a little closer to Sannyo. “That right, you never told me how things are going. Did you make it through that spell of weather all right? Things looked rather nasty up there not that long ago. I heard one fairly large tengu building even came down because of it.”

“That’s pretty quick for news to reach here,” Sannyo muttered. The storms had been almost a week ago and the collapse a day or two after, yet those happenings may as well have been yesterday as far as the Sanctuary was concerned. Glaring up at Nemuno, she huffed through her nose at Ubame’s transparent nice-making.

“You ought to seen the wreckage, all the birds and dogs running everywhere. There was mud and wood and bricks all over the place. Heard some other places got buried underneath, too!” Nemuno reported to Ubame, speaking over Sannyo. She set the pipe down on the table with a loud clack that resonated within Sannyo’s mind like the crunch of breaking glass.

The tense smile that drew up around Ubame’s lips showed a certain strain on her patience. There would be a point when her caution would collapse, and she was doing what she could to paper over that inevitability. “I’m sure, dear, but I’m asking San. I’m hoping her establishment didn’t suffer too badly.”

“Establishment? Oh, her gambling hole.” Nemuno rolled her eyes, the last two words dripping with contempt. For what exactly would have been hard to say, but Sannyo doubted she had any true moral objections. “Even if it slid off the Mountain, why would she need to care? She’s got all her money to build a new one.”

“I don’t think things are that simple, Nemu dear. And it’s ‘hall’, not ‘hole’.”

“Thankfully,” Sannyo put in sharply, “the hall is fine. We did lose a few days of business. Everyone was so busy scrambling to deal with the clean-up that there was no appetite for amusement, I’d imagine. There were some appointments I couldn’t keep as well. I won’t lie; it’s troubled me. Not that any one thing would sink me immediately, but…”

“How about now? If you’re not there, that would mean more days closed, wouldn’t it? Will everything be all right?” Ubame pressed.

Just thinking on the subject drew a sigh from Sannyo, and she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head slowly. “It’s hard to say. I’d been thinking of closing for a time, anyway, so it’s been a windfall in some respects. Still, it’s a difficult thing to explain to some important clients of mine. I have honestly lost sleep knowing some may abandon me.”

“Oh, San.”

Sannyo looked up at Ubame, silently beseeching her not to pry any further. There were doors she was simply unprepared to open at the moment. There was a conflict in Ubame’s face between her sisterly instincts of concerning herself with her hag-sisters’ affairs and maintaining the carefully cultivated neutrality she’d maintained for a long time.

There was more crunching as Nemuno took another rice cracker, loudly chewing with her mouth open. “She ain’t wearing any makeup. Kind of looks like crap without it. Maybe that’d help? Probably what hooks ‘em in the first place.”

“Please, Nemu, San isn’t having the easiest time right now. Be a little nicer.”

“I’m just saying,” Nemuno balked, “if she’s so damn worried, maybe she doesn’t need to be here. Maybe she ought to be back out there doing… whatever it is she does.”

“If it were that simple, I don’t think she would be here. Let’s be kind to her, okay? There might be a little more to it, but we can’t press it out of her. In the meantime, I have no problem letting her stay around and take her mind off things. We’ll give her time.”

“Why are you doing that, Sis?” Nemuno was frowning hard at Ubame.

Ubame looked as if she’d been slapped. She took a breath as if prepared to employ sharp words, but she caught herself immediately. “Why am I doing what, exactly?” she replied with an evenness that made it clear she wouldn’t tolerate much more.

“Taking her side. Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing. You do this all the time.”

Before Ubame could say anything, Sannyo jumped in. “It’s called having some civility and minding your own business. You ought to try it sometime.”

“Who asked you for your stuck-up opinion, volcano?” Nemuno snapped, throwing out an old childish insult she’d used towards Sannyo years ago.

“Sorry, too indirect? Here, I’ll spell it out this time: Grow up. Nobody’s ever asked for you to come around to pick your little fights. You could always come back, but you treat it like everyone else’s problem. Well, I hate to inform you that it’s not.”

Ubame’s face reddened and her expression hardened instantly. “Don’t you start too,” she scolded Sannyo.

“Yeah, smoke-breath, butt out.”

“I don’t know why you tolerate her. It’s written on your face that you can’t stand her either. This is your territory, isn’t it?” Sannyo chided Ubame in return. Like a creature rising from the muck, something of the hidden fierceness of the mountain hag was beginning to stir in her blood. From the moment she’d sensed Nemuno coming, it had writhed beneath the surface like a restive serpent, desperate to erupt. However much Sannyo tried to erase it, it refused to vanish.

“Which means it’s my call what I do and don’t do, and I’ll ask that you honour that,” cautioned Ubame, keeping an even, matter-of-fact tone with Sannyo in spite of her clear irritation. She gripped at her skirt, perhaps feeling a sanguine resonance with her hag-sister.

“I think I honour it well enough,” Sannyo monotoned. She hugged herself, gripping her own sleeves tightly with hands that were beginning to tremble.

Nemuno half-stood, though she was held in place by Ubame seizing her arm. She jabbed a slender finger across the table. Her blood was evidently beginning to stir, too. “See? There’s that attitude, that stuck-up little attitude you always bring. How can you talk to Sis like that? After letting you into her own home I don’t know how many times! Have a little respect, you ingrate!”

“Respect! What do you even know about respect?” spat Sannyo in return. A horrible buzzing like the endless calls of the cicadas rang through her head, and she could feel her blood reaching a simmering point. Unhanding her sleeve, she flung her hand around, gesturing at the entirety of the room. “Look around. You’re looking at respect. You’re sitting on respect. What have you done besides continue to be a spoiled child?”

“Can the two of you please stop it, already? I just wanted everyone to remain civil.”

“What does ‘civil’ have to do with anything, Sis? I’m not going to sit here and take this overdecorated wannabe’s crap! She has the nerve to say I’ve done nothing for you! For you! And you want me to be in the same room as her as if nothing’s wrong? When she does this every time? Wake up, Sis, you’re taking her side!” Reaching under the table, Nemuno grabbed at the hidden satchet, throwing it onto the table. The disarrayed package tore open, scattering the tabletop with half-crushed cicadas. That was followed by a hail of rice crackers that battered Sannyo and inundated the floor with crumbs and pieces. Ubame’s mouth fell open and she stood aghast.

“Stop that right now. You’re going to apologise, and then you’re going to clean all this up,” Ubame growled at Nemuno after recovering from her shock.

“And there you have it. That’s exactly what you get when you give her any room.” Sannyo gestured at the mess of bug corpses and smashed rice crackers littering the room. Turning to Nemuno, she stabbed an accusatory finger through the air. “Years later, you’re just the same jealous little child you’ve always been. That’s why you’ve got to smear your dirty fingers all over my pipe; you can’t handle others living on their own terms. Nobody can ever have anything you don’t have!”

Further incensed, Nemuno picked the pipe back up and hurled it at Sannyo. The projectile missed, bounced off of a wall, and landed with a loud impact on the floor next to its owner. “You can shove all your dice and pipes and other bullshit! Hell, you can keep your house, too! I’m just fine with what I got! Problem is that you never could be!”

“If you could keep your jealousy under control, maybe you’d have found a way to avoid having to eat bugs and smelling like animal shit half the time.”

“Real funny how you can’t handle that, but you can run off chasing boars just fine!”

All at once, Sannyo’s blood surged to the point that she could barely hold on anymore, rocketing from a low murmur to a full-on bellow, her voice hitching and breaking. “How dare you. I said nothing that warranted that at all, you little bitch.”

Ubame rushed to Nemuno’s side, poised to shove her out the door. Her face was a deep red, and she bared her teeth at Nemuno like a mad wolf. This was her final warning before she struck. “Stop it right this second,” she choked out through clenched teeth.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I got it all wrong! You went chasing dogs and birds instead! And I guess you didn’t—”

Seizing Nemuno by the arm, Ubame pitched her hard onto the floor. Her voice had become beyond strained in her anger, sounding like a lute string stretched to its breaking point. “Nemu!”

A choked, enraged cry burst from the surprised Nemuno. She thrashed about on the floor to free herself, but Ubame was already atop her, powerful fingers grasping her hag-sister’s neck. They struggled on the floor as Sannyo looked on, transfixed.

The banks of the river that was her wild rage were threatening to spill over for Sannyo. From within, a voice like the snarl of some blood-soaked beast commanded her to pounce on Nemuno whilst she was vulnerable and exact terrible revenge. She stood up on shaking legs but couldn’t will herself to move. Her whole body trembled as she stood bewildered, locked in a struggle over what she was meant to do. The intensity of her blood’s stirrings had overtaken everything so suddenly, and now she couldn’t tell just what was driving her, the river surging well over its banks and washing away all sense. The bounds between herself and all else had become loosened. Little felt tangible to Sannyo in that moment. By chance, she grasped the pipe that had fallen at her feet.

All at once, she burst past her fighting hag-sisters and into the sweltering air of the outdoors. She forgot all decorum, ignored the need for shoes, and paid little heed to the dirt and debris that battered her clothes. Absent reason, only an unconscious draw to that spot near the well guided her, and she fell to her knees to catch sight of her bag once more, rifling through the contents in a frenzy. Frustration at her unsteady hands nearly inspired her to hurl it further than before, but she finally shook out the most precious of the cargo. In that moment, even covered in dirt, the silken pouch made Sannyo’s eyes tear over in relief. She clasped it to her breast like a protective amulet, rocking back and forth with words of thanks on her lips.

Struggle still sounded from over her shoulder. As if newly awakened, Sannyo ceased her panicked scrambling and focused all of her mind on her pipe. The finely shredded leaves had thankfully suffered no ill effects from lying outside, so they packed in with only minimal trouble from Sannyo’s uncoöperative fingers. The operation itself slowed the river’s flow until it returned to being little more than a quiet mountain stream. All that remained of the reverberations of her anger were drowned out under the full chorus of crying cicadas. The clear ringing of a windchime mingled with the cries and shouts, until one was indistinguishable from the other.

Incense-like coils of smoke from a mosquito coil wound about the house in a vain attempt to beat back the nightly encroachment of insects. The treetops offering little passage for moonlight, wavering candles provided the majority of the light following the sun’s flight. Ubame and Sannyo chilled their feet in tubs of water in an attempt to cool themselves. No one, save Nemuno, who lay curled in a sweaty ball apart from her hag-sisters, exhausted from her senseless thrashing, had any will or ability to sleep on account of the heat.

Mingled with the scent of the coil was the grassy, oddly mild smell of Sannyo’s pipe. With the doors all thrown wide, there was little room for Ubame to complain, though she did sit a bit closer to the sleeping Nemuno. Sannyo was of little mind to offer much comment on the matter and merely took her deep, leisurely puffs. Though she was far calmer now, there was still a trembling in her fingers now and again. When she’d exhausted one ball of tobacco, she tapped the pipe into her small ash-box and repeated the packing process carefully, sometimes asking assistance from Ubame when her fingers weren’t steady.

She might have normally been economical with her calming tobacco, but this was hardly a time to spare expense. In any case, the ever critical herb was a common one on the Mountain, and her shredded tobacco was far from a fine grade, so she hardly wanted for a steady supply. The blesséd satchet had been fully packed to start and wasn’t even close to half-empty.

Whatever disapproval Ubame felt, she didn’t let it show very clearly sitting next to Sannyo. Only once did she raise the reminder of Sannyo’s stated intentions to ‘cut back’ before summarily letting the matter drop. Even so, there was a lingering question in her otherwise calm face. Sannyo had chosen to disregard it and offer nothing even resembling an answer, and that fact did seem to draw silent rebuke from Ubame. Nevertheless, they shared in a sense that speaking on certain subjects would do little good. A look at Nemuno and her largely self-inflicted wounds satisfied them both on that score.

Pointing with her pipe to where Ubame’s discreetly applied powder had come off of her arm, leaving an exposed bruise, Sannyo affected an air of concern. “I could get you far better. One that won’t come off even trying to bathe an unruly cat,” she joked with a surreptitious glance at Nemuno.

“Well, now. I’d hoped you would let it alone.” Ubame moved to hide her arm, the blush on her face clear even in the dim light. “I forget to cover up one time and I swear I’m burnt black.”

“Come off it. You say that like it’s so terrible. I think you look great when you’ve tanned. Always have thought so.”

“You stop that. You’re not the one who has to see it in the mirror.”

Sannyo shrugged her shoulders and leaned back on one hand, kicking her feet in the open air. Despite the humidity, the night air on the Mountain invigorated her. Spotting a few phantoms streaking through overhead, she laughed to herself. “I was just thinking of the summers we spent when we were younger. When our mums talked about the stars, for a long time we thought they were talking about the phantoms,” she offered as an answer to Ubame’s inevitable prying look.

“Ah, I sort of remember, yes. They always did try to keep us under cover all the time. We all wanted to play under open sky and they’d get mad at us.” Ubame mirrored Sannyo in leaning back on her hands, though she kept her feet in the water. Glancing about, she allowed the clouds around her expression to part and ventured a self-mocking smile. “Funny how we grow up and change our minds.”

“We never really heard how it was for them. Not much, anyway,” Sannyo went on as if she couldn’t hear, unsure if she was being slighted. There was always room for doubt with Ubame. “And I’m not sure how much I could believe now. I sure didn’t believe much when I was a kid. It all sounded like faerie tales.”

“Well, some of us do take in strays.” Ubame’s smile widened a little glancing over at Nemuno, who mumbled and gurgled in her sleep.

Sannyo took a long, meditative draw from her pipe, letting the smoke settle deep into her lungs and holding it in silence for a while. The cicadas spoke up in their loud voices as if to fill in the gap. The subsequent exhalation manifested as a white cloud that erupted from her nostrils. Sure that she’d exhausted the current wad of tobacco, she tapped out the ashes with a loud clink that broke the silence.

“It’s weird to me how the others are so keen on being left alone,” she said as she was about to reïgnite the pipe. She caught a look from Ubame and waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t even need to tell me what they’re saying.”

“A downward-bound fish — as tasty and tempting as ever to the bear.”

“Yeah, yeah. Believe you me, I know. I also remember our mums saying much the same, but they still got together. You still remember how it was, don’t you? Feels unfair to you now, if you ask me.”

Ubame swept her hand through the dark curtain of her hair, letting it fall splayed wildly about her. Lifting her feet in the air, she silently held her pose. “What can be done? A shy child makes for a good watcher and invites less trouble,” she concluded, slapping her feet back in the water with an audible splash.

“Even watching, it seems to me like she invites enough trouble,” jibed Sannyo, blowing a puff of smoke in Nemuno’s direction. The sleeping hag pawed at her own face like a grooming cat and rolled closer to Ubame.

Shaking her head softly, Ubame pulled the supine Nemuno over the rest of the way and gently stroked her exposed belly. Nemuno practically purred at the attention, melting into her hag-sister’s lap. Though she hated to admit it, a quiet envy nipped at Sannyo as she looked on, feeling only truly accompanied by her pipe.

Lungful after lungful of the herbed tobacco had brought out its intended effects. Sannyo no longer felt her hand tremble and she felt more centered within herself. At the same time, there was a certain sense of the world growing far away from her. She was generally aware of Ubame pampering the hag-sister with whom she’d fought not hours prior, yet the scene somehow blurred as if caught in the fringes of her eyes. Many things about what she saw felt distant and without urgency. The empty expanse of the skies far over the treetops seemed to be inseparable from the rest of the darkness surrounding the house. Memory and reality mingled for Sannyo, until she couldn’t be sure she wasn’t being carried down a stream of her own recollection.

She bit down on the pipe’s metal endpiece. There was no fighting off the torrent. Dewy tears ran down her cheeks and came to rest amongst the summer perspiration on her skin. She didn’t even want to fight them; she welcomed them. A weight she had hardly noticed settling on her was beginning to lighten. Drop by drop, it was coming to pieces. She would carry it for some time, she was sure, but there was no denying the relief she felt at just that much. She set the pipe to rest on the ash-box after tapping out the newest ashes.

A hand cradling her cheek reminded Sannyo of Ubame’s presence. Ubame had managed to pull her closer until all three hag-sisters were pressed together. “And you think the two of you are so different.”

“No, I don’t,” Sannyo denied flatly.

Ubame pinched the flesh of Sannyo’s cheek between her fingers, making Sannyo flinch. “Both so difficult in so many of the same ways. It’s a wonder you get on so well.”

“Our mums did call me a spoiled one. I wonder whose fault that was.” Sannyo let herself lean on Ubame’s shoulder, resting her head in the crook.

“So spoiled it made others a bit jealous.”

Scents of the fields, the heat of the day, and the dry, acrid leaves of the bushes that grew around the house rose from Ubame. Not that Sannyo minded at all. Much the contrary, she drew deep of them. “Such an ugly little thing. Jealousy, I mean.”

“We yamanba are ugly creatures, even if most can’t see the ugliness.”

“Good thing I’m not one of those anymore,” Sannyo said with a laugh that didn’t lack its own acridness.

Things went quiet once more and remained that way for some time, the night air largely clear. Here and there, a firefly’s light flickered briefly. Crickets chirped as if hesitating to fully disturb the scene. The silence reverberated with unspoken words and cries yet unvoiced. After a moment, Sannyo felt Ubame’s shoulder shaking. She peered up but couldn’t see her hag-sister’s face clearly. Ubame suddenly looped an arm around Sannyo’s shoulder and squeezed her tightly.

“What?” Sannyo demanded. The sudden extreme adhesion between them pitched her from the lazy river of her thoughts and into the hot nocturnal air. Squirm though she might, she was the proverbial fish caught in the bear’s jaws.

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,” managed Ubame through heavily suppressed laughter. She breathed a hard sigh having brought herself under control. “I just have to correct myself: You’re definitely the more difficult one.”

They had retired sometime in the pre-dawn hours, Ubame dragging the slumbering Nemuno under the mosquito netting with her and Sannyo retreating up the ladder. The effects of her pipe had allowed Sannyo to drift off without much difficulty, and she arose early in the morning with a certain lightness in her step and a mild appetite, much to Ubame’s surprise. Nemuno had not stuck around even for breakfast, it appeared.

“Disappointed?” Ubame joked, picking up immediately on Sannyo’s search for her hag-sister.

Sannyo scoffed before taking a sip of her tea. “Don’t be daft. I’m just a bit hungry for once and wanted to be sure nothing would spoil that.”

Ubame pattered back and forth conveying the rice tub and large bowls of soup to the table before settling in herself. Her hag-sister’s fare didn’t reflect any sort of richness within the season, falling back on preserved things, but Sannyo nevertheless felt a quiet gratitude for the steadiness of its flavour and filling character. She had been around for an autumn’s harvest and knew that the rewards for summer’s toil and deprivation weren’t to be taken lightly, so there was nothing for it but to look forward to that time.

Once they’d breakfasted, Sannyo got to the business that had ostensibly brought her into Ubame’s territory. She set about looking over the house, from the integrity of its foundations to the cleanliness of the doors. Ubame followed a step or two behind, helping see to what issues she and Sannyo could deal with together, occasionally defending her lacking maintenance in places with excuses. The whole ordeal realistically took little time overall, but Sannyo couldn’t help feeling a bit wearied by the end. She finally opted to set aside some less critical matters and didn’t press on the dirtied shouji or the conspicuously absent roof tile. The house itself would stand up to most potential issues until Sannyo’s next visit at the very least.

Finishing that bit of work then raised the question of what Sannyo would do now. Sannyo hestitated to answer at first, excusing herself to smoke once more as Ubame prepared tea. The smoke that had given her clarity in the evening only seemed to further entrench the question in her mind, burying it in a haze as she herself faded into a white, cloudy landscape. Certainly, there were others waiting for her back in civilisation and matters that needed attending. She had barely informed most of those concerned of her departure, leaving only a vague letter in her wake to be found by whoever came calling first. Some of those regular patrons at the gambling hall were likely disappointed. Maybe some of them had even sworn off gambling for a time out of annoyance at her. Perhaps, Sannyo thought, that would be the best case for those who could still be saved. Those who couldn’t…

Tapping out her ash and repacking her pipe, Sannyo found herself humming a tune that she at first couldn’t recall knowing, seemingly just a random assortment of notes that somehow emerged naturally. Only once she had taken a shallow draw of smoke did she hit upon the tune’s origin. She expelled smoke from her nose in her laughter. The clouds in the backdrop of her mind parted enough to allow an intense beam of aftenoon light through, Sannyo remembering herself sitting on the veranda. At length, amidst jokes from Ubame, she took to singing words she could recall from girlhood days. The jaunty song ill fit someone of her more refined leaning now, yet every melodic turn was so ingrained in her that she couldn’t stop herself. Swinging her legs from the veranda, Sannyo allowed herself to be taken up in the same song that Nemuno had been singing just the day before. At least, she felt, her own take was more musical and in-tune.