The Last Crane of Edo
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 7: The Night Before
Midori heard her through the wall.
Not crying exactly. The small careful sounds of someone trying not to. Which was worse.
She rose, wrapped her sleeping robe around herself, and crossed the corridor to Miyu’s room without knocking. She never knocked with Miyu. She simply opened the door and went in, the way you entered a room that was also partly yours.
Miyu was sitting on the edge of the bed with her hair half unpinned and her hands in her lap and the expression of a woman who had been holding something together all day and had finally run out of reasons to keep holding.
Midori sat behind her on the bed without a word and began unpinning the rest of her hair. Her fingers moved through it automatically, the way they had moved through it a thousand times in the palace — finding the pins, removing them, setting them in a small row on the blanket with the precision that was simply how Midori’s hands worked.
Miyu let out a long breath. Like something unknotting.
“I’m frightened,” Miyu said. In Japanese it sounded like a confession.
“I know,” Midori said.
“Not of the ship.” She paused. “I don’t know what I’m frightened of exactly. Everything after the ship.”
Midori’s fingers moved through her hair, smoothing, ordering. “Tell me.”
“In the palace I knew what I was,” Miyu said. “I knew my rank, my room, my duties, where I stood in relation to everyone else. Even when it was terrible it was — legible. I could read it.” She was quiet for a moment. “What am I in America? What do I read there? I don’t have the language. I don’t have the — “ she searched. “The map.”
“Neither do I,” Midori said.
Miyu turned slightly. “You have him.”
Midori said nothing. Kept working through her hair.
“I saw your face at the shrine today,” Miyu said softly. “When the priest said the words. You weren’t frightened at all.”
“I was frightened,” Midori said.
“It didn’t show.”
“It never shows.” She found the last pin and set it with the others. Then she began to braid Miyu’s hair for sleep, her fingers dividing it into three parts with automatic ease. “Do you remember the first winter we were in the same quarters? You were so cold at night you couldn’t sleep.”
Miyu almost smiled. “You gave me your extra robe. You told me you weren’t cold.”
“I was freezing,” Midori said.
“I knew that,” Miyu said. “I knew and I took it anyway because I needed it.” A pause. “I’ve always taken from you.”
“You’ve always needed things,” Midori said. “That’s different from taking.”
Miyu was quiet. The braid grew under Midori’s hands, neat and even. Outside the Sumida moved past in the dark, the sound of it constant and low.
“What happened,” Midori said. “The twelve days. Tell me.”
Miyu’s shoulders shifted slightly. She had not told anyone. Not completely.
“The first two nights I stayed with Hana. You remember Hana — she had a cousin in the textile district who let her sleep in the back room.” She paused. “The third night the cousin’s husband came home and there was no room anymore. I slept in a temple doorway.” She said it plainly. Not performing the hardship, just reporting it. “The priests were kind. They gave me rice in the mornings.”
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