Chapter 1: Wanderlust

“Onward, you dumb beast,” Satou said as he slapped the ox on its rump. The animal lurched, digging its cloven hooves into the soil and dragging the plow that was strapped to its back. It was May, rice planting season, and the terraced paddies were being tilled in preparation.

He removed his straw hat for a moment and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his kasode, the hemp rough against his skin. It was a hot day, and the dragonflies were swarming, knowing that the paddies would soon be filled with water in which they would then breed. There was a rhythm to life here, like the beating of some celestial heart. The men irrigated the fields, the water brought the insects, then the insects brought the frogs which in turn brought the storks.

His family’s farm was built into the pocket of a valley amidst rolling hills, surrounded by dense woodland and encircled by the grand peaks of a mountain range. Their snowy caps stood tall, their rocky faces partially obscured by a blue haze and their sprawling lowlands enveloped by forest, the trees gently swaying in the breeze. The rice paddies were carved into the foot of one such mountain, where the valley channeled life-bringing water that was used to irrigate the crops. They were tiered one on top of another, with rock retaining walls to hold the soil in place, each one a unique size and shape to conform to the available land. When they were full of water, they shone like mirrors, reflecting the natural beauty that flourished around them and serving as habitats for all manner of wildlife. But right now they were just dirt waiting to be tilled before the planting could begin.

“Gazing longingly at the mountains again, Satou?”

He turned to look over his shoulder, seeing one of the laborers standing behind him. It was Nagao, an older man, one of the villagers who lived on his father’s land. He was clad only in a loincloth and a sweatband, the heat of the spring afternoon making his already taxing work all the more difficult. His face was leathery, and his skin was tanned by his years of hard labor, but he always seemed cheerful. All of the inhabitants of their mountain enclave were tasked with cultivating the land, even the son of the proprietor was not exempt from such duties.

“Nagao,” Satou replied, the man’s comment snapping him out of his stupor. “Aren’t the mountains beautiful today?”

“Indeed they are,” the old man chuckled. “But your task is to plow the paddies, not to appreciate the mountains. Come now, or your father will become angry.”

Satou reluctantly tore his eyes away from the far-off peaks and resumed his tilling, guiding the ox along as the hoe churned up the earth behind it.

“You’re always looking ahead Satou,” Nagao said as he walked along beside him, spreading ash on the disturbed soil as he went from a straw pot that was slung across his shoulder. It would serve to fertilize the earth before the planting of the seedlings. “You should pay more attention to where you are right now. That is your chief concern.”

“Are you to be my mentor now, Nagao?” Satou asked sarcastically.

“No,” the old man laughed, “but you would do well to listen to your elders.”

“You’ve worked these lands longer than I’ve been alive,” Satou began, “what do you know of the mountains and forests?”

“When your grandfather led a group of farmers up into the valley,” the old man began, “it was to escape the harsh labor and the crushing taxes imposed by the provincial governors. He founded a shoen, a farming community out on the edge of what is known. Because of its remoteness, it continues to enjoy autonomy. Beyond the boundaries of your family’s holdings, there is naught but wilderness.”

“So nobody has ever explored these forests?” Satou asked, “nobody has ever scaled those peaks?”

“Not to my knowledge, no. Where is this wanderlust coming from, Satou? You have a privileged position in this community. One day you will inherit these lands from your father, and you will be tasked with managing the shoen in his stead, as his father did before him. You are becoming a man, you can no longer while away your days playing in the woods.”

They reached the end of the paddy, and Satou turned the ox around, leading it back in the opposite direction. At least the sun was beginning to dip behind the mountains in the West now, and his work would soon be over. His gaze was drawn to the East, where the golden rays illuminated the naked mountainsides in an orange glow, casting deep shadows on every crack and crevice. Their skirts of dense forests seemed all the deeper and more mysterious in that eerie light.

“There is one thing that I can tell you,” Nagao added, noticing the youth’s wistful expression. “The Northeast is bad luck, it is kimon, the demon gate.”

“A demon gate?” Satou asked incredulously.

“Yes, legends say that evil spirits travel from that direction. Temples must be built facing that way, and you must never venture Northeastward alone lest you encounter a gaki, a hungry ghost that preys on unwary travelers.”

“Those are just stories told to scare children,” Satou insisted, disappointed that the old man was telling him folk tales rather than anything useful. “How could a direction be bad luck? We must be Northeastward of someone, somewhere. Does that make us unlucky?”

“That is the wisdom of our ancestors, you should not be so quick to dismiss it. If I were you, I would keep my head out of the clouds and focused on the earth beneath my feet. There is nothing for you out there, Satou, you would do well to realize that.”

He didn’t reply, keeping his hand on the ox’s lead as it stumbled through the mud, his eyes wandering back to the distant horizon.

Satou accepted the bowl of stew from his mother, bringing it up to his lips and shoveling a piece of meat into his mouth with his chopsticks. It had the texture of venison or perhaps rabbit. The game was plentiful at this time of year, and the community was able to supplement its diet of grains and vegetables, mostly barley and soybeans, with some much-needed protein. While they grew rice, it was rarely eaten by the farmers themselves. Most of it was carted off to be sold or traded with other settlements. Although their shoen was autonomous, they could not avoid paying taxes to the local government in the form of produce. There was a lot of politics and social maneuvering involved that Satou did not yet understand, but that he would no doubt be expected to learn once he took over stewardship of the farmland from his father.

His family sat around a squat table in the center of the room, kneeling or sitting cross-legged on a reed mat, his father seated across from him as he ate from his bowl. His mother was on his right, clad in a colorful silk kimono, and his younger brother Nishio was on his left. Their house was lavish by local standards, the floors were made from wooden boards instead of bare dirt, and the roof was lined with tiles instead of straw. As the leaders of the community and the owners of the land, the Hisatomo family had accumulated a great deal of wealth and status.

They were beloved by the peasants who lived under them, their methods less stringent than those found in the shoen down where the land was flat, as was the tradition passed down by his father’s father. Satou had never visited such a place before, he was accustomed to the slopes and crags of the mountains and valleys, but he could imagine what it might look like. On a clear day, he could see far enough to make it out in the distance, land as level as the table that he was eating from. Down there were the great cities and the battlefields where warriors fought for Shoguns and Emperors. It all seemed so far removed from their peaceful rural life.

“Satou, how goes the tilling?” his father asked.

“It’s going well, father” he replied as he set down his bowl. “The dragonflies are already back, it’s like they know that the paddies will be filled with water soon.”

“That they do. It must be twenty-five years ago now that the hillside was burned and cleared. Those dragonflies have been spawning there since before you were born. I think the yield will be good this season, the weather has been favorable.”

“There’s something that I wanted to ask you, father,” Satou said hesitantly.

“Go ahead.”

“I was talking to one of the laborers today while I was working in the paddies, and he told me a legend about bad spirits traveling up from the Northeast. I wondered if there was any truth to it?”

“Satou!” his mother sighed, “I wish that you would concern yourself with more important matters rather than letting your imagination wander so. Leave the ghosts stories to your younger brother.”

“It’s a superstition,” his father grumbled, pausing to take a draw from his bowl. “Some of the older members of the community believe that evil spirits dwell in the Northeastern forests and that they will travel down to our shoen if they are not appeased. The old women like to scatter roasted soybeans as a ward against them.”

“Would you say it’s frivolous?” Satou asked.

“I would say that as the stewards of this community, we should not mock the customs of our friends and neighbors. Let them perform their rituals and spells, it’s harmless.”

“Grandfather never said anything about the subject?” Satou pressed, but it was his mother who answered him this time.

“Your grandfather had more important things to worry about.”

He bowed his head and continued to eat, knowing better than to bring up the subject again. After a short while, his mother spoke up, this time with an excited tone.

“Satou, your father and I have some news for you. We were waiting for the right opportunity to bring it up, but now seems as good a time as any.” She looked to her husband, waiting for his permission, and he nodded to her. “We have found you a wife!” she proclaimed happily.

“A-A wife?” Satou stammered, stunned by her outburst.

“Yes! She is the heir of a nearby shoen, a woman of high standing. When you wed her, it will unify our two communities. It will create a great alliance between our families, and our collective workforce would very nearly double overnight. Their family is of equal social standing, and her father is honorable, she will be a perfect match for you.”

“I-I see,” he replied, concealing his shock as his mother looked on with a wide smile. “What is her name?”

“She is of the Matsuyo family, their farming community lies a day’s hike to the South.”

No first name? He didn’t press the issue, his parents probably didn’t even know her full name, they only cared about her lineage and her family’s holdings. He had known that he would be expected to marry one day, but he had always quietly hoped that he might be allowed to choose his own bride, perhaps someone from the village who he got on well with. He had never even seen this Matsuyo girl before, he hadn’t exchanged so much as a word with her. What if he didn’t like her? Arranged marriage was a common occurrence among those of the higher classes, but he had felt confident that such traditions might be overlooked in a place as remote as this.

His father seemed to sense his apprehension, addressing him by his full name, Satou standing to attention reflexively.

“Satou Hisamoto, this marriage will benefit your family greatly. As the inheritor of this shoen, you must put the needs of your community before your own. Remember the old adage, those who come together in passion stay together in tears. It is not only politically expedient to wed this girl, but it will make you happier in the long run. Your mother and I were wed in much the same way.”

Satou bowed his head, not daring to argue with his father, and his mother chimed in with a cheerful expression on her face.

“Do not worry Satou, you’ll like her! She’s a fine young lady, and she will make you a fine bride.”

Satou could not defy his parents, and so he acquiesced, bowing his head as he resumed his meal.

“As you wish, mother, father...”

“I want you to open the sluice gate this season,” Satou’s father said, walking beside his son as they made their way along the grassy embankment of one of the rice paddies. “The fields are all prepared, and the rice is ready to be planted, it is time.”

“Me?” Satou asked.

“Yes, you.”

“Shouldn’t one of the laborers do it?”

“Satou, if you are to lead this community one day then you must learn every aspect of the shoen’s operation. The sluice gate is essential for irrigating the paddies, the farm cannot function without it. Follow the dry stream bed up from the highest paddy, it will serve as a footpath, and after three miles you will reach the gate. Take a rake with you and remove any dead leaves that might be clogging the flow, then open it up.”

“Isn’t the sluice gate ... to the Northeast, up the mountain? Nagao says that I am not to travel that way alone.”

“Nagao is an old man who thinks that there are yokai hiding behind every tree,” his father replied impatiently. Satou considered for a moment. He was always looking for opportunities to venture out into the wilderness on his own, and this was as good an excuse as any. He wouldn’t exactly be treading new ground. Generations of laborers had been up and down that path a hundred times, but he would be able to spend some time alone in the woods at least.

“As you wish, father.”

That seemed to please the man, and he patted his son on the back with his calloused hand.

“It is a great honor to be responsible for the sluice gate. Opening it signifies the beginning of the growing season, a time of plenty. I will have someone fetch you a rake.”

The dry stream bed wound its way through the trees, hugging a sheer rock face on the left as it climbed its way up the mountainside. It had been carved out two generations prior by the original settlers, its purpose to divert the water flow from a mountain stream and redirect it down into the rice paddies. It was quite a feat of engineering, Satou didn’t want to imagine the time and effort that must have been required to dig a three-mile-long ditch in this rough terrain. He had his rake with him, pausing occasionally to clear away the dead leaves and debris that had fallen into the recess.

The forest was quiet save for the rustling of the trees and the sounds of chirping cicadas, there was a pleasant breeze to stave off the humidity and the canopy above shielded him from the sun. It was certainly more pleasant work than tilling paddies.

After a while, he finally heard the sound of running water, and he spied a small waterfall in the distance. Here fresh water from melted snow made its way down from the icy peak, cascading down the rock face before reaching the forest soil, then carving a new channel down the mountainside. As he marveled at the natural beauty of the scene, he came across the sluice gate. It was carved from rock, like a miniature dam with two possible routes, one of which was currently blocked with a wooden panel that was slotted into grooves in the stonework.

Satou kneeled and reached into the water, feeling the cool liquid against his skin, removing the wooden panel. Immediately the water began to spill into the stream bed, and he quickly placed the panel into the adjacent groove. He stood and watched as the stream was redirected, slowly making its way down towards the shoen. When it reached the highest rice paddy it would fill it until it almost looked like a pond in its own right, then the water would cascade down into the lower paddies, and so on and so forth until each one was full to the brim with fresh water. Then the laborers would plant the rice seedlings and the growing season could commence.

He sat beside the stream and dipped his fingers into the flowing water, enjoying the sensation. There was nobody to order him around up here, nobody to prevent him from taking a deserved rest for a few minutes. His father so often acted as if pausing even for a moment to take a breather would somehow impact his productivity. You must serve as an example to the other villagers, he would say, as if being a leader meant that you could never catch your breath.

Come to think of it, there was nobody here to prevent him from exploring either. As regimented as his father was, Satou thought it unlikely that the man would know precisely how long it would take him to climb the mountain and then return. The water would arrive long before he did, which would serve as proof that the work had been completed.

He looked up at the waterfall as it splashed against the rocky outcrops, and he wondered where it came from. What lay above that rock face? Did the water pool in places, or was it a continuous stream that came all the way down from the snowy peak? If he followed it a little ways up the mountain, it would be impossible to get lost, and his father would be none the wiser. He briefly considered Nagao’s warning, but he hadn’t encountered any evil spirits so far, perhaps the old man really was just blowing hot air.

He stood and stretched, appraising the forest ahead as he planned his route. He didn’t want to risk climbing the rock face, but he could skirt around the edge of it and find another way up, then follow the stream up the mountainside. Using his rake as a walking stick, he began his explorations.

The stream snaked through the forest, Satou marveling at how it traced the natural contours of the land, carving through the soil as it sought out the path of least resistance. He had been following it for perhaps another mile. The incline here was steep, and the woodland was dense, ferns and other roughage making the going more difficult. He had to be careful of protruding roots, twisting his ankle or taking a fall up here would be dangerous as nobody knew that he had left the beaten path.

This was unexplored forest, he could be sure of it, not only due to the harsh terrain but because of the superstitions that so many of the older villagers seemed to share. They would come this way to find water to irrigate the farm, yes, but they would venture no further if they didn’t have to. He laughed to himself, imagining them scattering roasted soybeans all the way in an attempt to ward off spooks and ghouls.

The water was crystal clear, so pure that he could see the stones and pebbles beneath it that had been smoothed and polished over the eons. At one point he came across a deer that was drinking from it, taking a moment to watch the majestic creature before it noticed him, prancing off into the forest with surprising grace and speed. It moved like it was itself a ghost, unhindered by the bushes and plants that served as an almost impenetrable barrier for Satou.