Of Silver and Amethyst

The dark stone steps carved into the small mountain were still slick from the previous night’s rain. A thin layer of golden leaves just barely covered them, making them rather treacherous to walk on. But he was fine with that. If he fell and died, so be it. He deserved it after what he did to her. Shaking himself free of the thought, he pressed on.

He leaned on a relatively young red oak at the top, having finally completed the climb. The shrine was just as he remembered it: tilted ever so slightly on its aging stone foundation, red tiled roof still missing tiles here and there, and the paper covering of the sliding bamboo doors still ripped slightly in the bottom left corner.

The inside, however, he found to be changed. She had cleaned it up a bit; swept the floors, busted up the cobwebs in the rafters, and even repaired the bell, polishing it and securing a brand new rope. The offering box still sat hungrily, greedily even, beneath the bell and its rope, yearning for some poor fool to buy into its archaic magic and feed it a few coins. But something caught his attention, and it broke his heart.

For there, atop the offering box, placed delicately by tender hands on a pastel yellow handkerchief, lay her necklace. Its amethyst beads fit perfectly into their silver braces, and the small silver cross at the end shone just as bright as it did the day they had met.

She had told him that it was given to her by her mother, an avid Christian, before she passed away. Her father had forbid her from keeping anything that reminded her of her mother, so she had hidden it at the shrine while her father destroyed everything of the sort. Once she was sure that he was satisfied with himself, she retrieved it.

The necklace was actually how they met. He had noticed it while she was shopping in his father’s store, buying bread for her family. She seemed alarmed at first, but he assured her that he simply thought it was well-made and wanted to inform her of such. The two conversed before she gasped, insisting that she must return before her father became suspicious.

But she came back the next day, necklace on and basket, empty, in arm. He made a remark about seeing her again, to which she simply yet politely insisted that she was, in fact, a regular, just that he was normally too busy helping others to really notice her. A hasty and rather embarrassed apology was issued, and they continued talking.

He started seeing her outside of the shop, too. At the park, out in the streets, or occasionally at a kagura show. At first, they seemed completely coincidental; as they happened upon each other, he began to very much doubt that, however. Though that is not to say that he was completely innocent. All too often he found himself out roaming the streets until he found her, and on those increasingly rare instances which he didn’t, he became slightly irritated.

Eventually, somehow, they decided to come out and be honest with each other instead of searching the whole of Nara City only to clumsily claim what a coincidence it was to see them there and move on. He spoke first, boldly and clearly, and she reciprocated clearly, albeit shyly. She had one request moving forward: do not tell anyone. At first it struck him as odd that she say that, but once she explained, he understood. After all, why would the owner of a large kimono company and staunch conservative allow his daughter to marry a Westernized bread vendor?

And so it happened that their relationship of stolen kisses in his father’s shop and hushed giggles in the parks blossomed, each day bringing something fresh and relaxing. He was ecstatic, she enamored with him completely. This dragged on for weeks, months, and eventually the turning of the year came.

They greeted the new year with love and hope, hope that their love could leave hope behind and just be. Together they prayed, in her family shrine on the slope of Mt. Wakakusa, and dumped coins into the offering box. But it was all for naught.

Her father grew increasingly suspicious with her sneaking off all the time unaccompanied, and demanded that she explain herself. She claimed that it was simply to clear her mind and maintain the shrine, but he didn’t accept it. He pressed her for the truth, yet she was unwilling to speak. She didn’t eat that night.

He demanded that he do see him when she relayed these events to him, crying into his chest in the back of the shop where no one could find them. She tried to talk him out of it, wailing, saying that it would be of no use and that he should keep quiet. He refused and insisted anyways. Fetching his grandfather’s kimono from the attic, he vested and set off, hand in hand with her.

That would be the last time he ever saw her. Her father was furious, and he did little to soothe him. The two shouted and argued the whole time, to the point where her father refused to allow him in his house a moment longer. She begged and pleaded that he not be cast out, but her cries fell on deaf ears. He was dragged out by her father’s retainers, as they were, and despite his best efforts to break free the most he could do was call out to her.

Two weeks and three break-in attempts later, he received a letter, or more appropriately a scroll, at his father’s shop. It was from her, and what he read broke his heart. Her father had engaged her to the son of another wealthy kimono company and had demanded that she make him aware so as to prevent any “further complications”. But it didn’t end there. She refused to settle for anyone else but him, and was to take her own life. Her final gift to him was in the family shrine.

He stood in front of the offering box, tears welling up. That necklace and handkerchief were all that he had left of her. No longer would he hear her soft voice or gentle laugh. No longer would he grasp her soft hands or hold her close. No longer would he love, and no longer, he had decided, would he live. Donning the deep purple token, the sole remainder of the one he loved, he knelt to pray. He sat in silence, preparing himself to avenge her the only way he knew how.

Wakakusa was peaceful that day. Fall brought calm to the plentiful fauna that called its slopes home, and brought the golden-brown leaves down to earth, their final resting place before they would be swept away by the wind and never thought of again. And on that day, from the Yamayaki on Wakakusa, a man laden with silver and amethyst joined them.