-nana Natsume-- 💯

Nana Natsume was not a soft, cookie-baking grandmother. She was a blade wrapped in linen. Her back was ramrod straight, her silver hair pulled into a severe bun, and her eyes—the color of dark amber—missed nothing.

The next year, the house smelled different. Of medicine and quiet decay. Nana Natsume was smaller, tucked into a mountain of blankets like a seed in winter soil. Her amber eyes were still sharp, but her hands shook as she tried to lift a cup of tea.

“I’m not taking it, Nana. It’s yours.”

On his first morning, Ren found her on the engawa, the wooden veranda overlooking a garden that looked like a green explosion. She was not meditating. She was tearing a worn paperback in half. -Nana Natsume--

And he decides what happens next.

She closed her eyes. “Nothing is mine . Everything is just passing through . I am passing through. The cat is passing through. The only thing that stays is what you do with it.”

“Good,” she said, and reached into the pocket of her frayed cardigan. She pulled out a small, wooden cat. It was carved crudely, its tail a little too long, its ears uneven. “This was my komainu . My lion-dog. My father carved it the night the soldiers came to take him away. He said, ‘Natsume, as long as this cat has your name on its belly, you will be brave.’” Nana Natsume was not a soft, cookie-baking grandmother

“No,” Ren lied.

That was the last summer she was strong.

And on its belly, next to the faded Natsume , are new kanji, carved with a careful, trembling hand: The next year, the house smelled different

She didn’t wake up the next morning. The villagers said she died of a weak heart. Ren, holding the uneven wooden cat, knew the truth. Nana Natsume didn’t have a weak heart. She had a full one. So full of war, of loss, of gardens grown from rust, and of a boy who needed to know how to sit in the dark.

She turned it over. On the bottom, faded kanji: .