Asuka had never before felt trapped in her life, perhaps because she had never before had reason to want to leave the walls of her home aside from short trips in a carriage to the shrine on the mountaintop. Although she still dreamed of Katashi, he did not answer any of the letters she sent him. She tried staying awake all night in case they weren’t truly dreams but dozed off shortly before dawn, then dreamed. And in her dreams, she could never speak.
But she knew where Katashi lived. She passed his house in her carriage every time she visited the shrine. It was beyond the outskirts of the city at the edge of the forest, just off the road that went up the mountain to the shrine.
So on a night when Masuyo did not come, she dressed in her warmest juni-hito, slipped out of the house while h
