<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Akiko woke early the following morning, feeling completely refreshed. She remembered only fragments of her dreams, including something including Akira that made her blush, but there was nothing that seemed like a message from the kami. The sky was just beginning to brighten, but she could feel that there was no point staying in bed, and, in any case, she wanted to be up.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Pulling on a yukata, she let herself out into the garden, hoping not to waken Shiraishi, if she was still asleep. The surface of the pond was very still, a dark mirror with a few sparks of light deep within it, and the breeze she created as she walked past was enough to make them dance. She purified herself at the entrance to the shrine grounds proper, and switched her vision to look at the kegare.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">There was none.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">For a moment, she wondered whether she had managed to change her vision, but the things she could see moving were not all birds and insects; some were clearly minor spirits of one kind or another. The iwakura and pool both shone from within; fire inside the stones, like a blaze in a hearth, while the pool was lit from below in Tamao’s five colours, the light shifting with the ripples of the surface.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Akiko walked further into the precincts, looking around her. The sounds became clearer, with the buzz of insects and song of birds joined by the laughter of water falling into the pool, and a deep beat, below all the others, felt as much as heard, her bones vibrating in sympathy. She could hear the grass bending under her weight, and springing up again as she passed. At the side of the pool, she could feel its warmth, even in the summer air, and a faint mist hung in the air above it, a mist she could taste on her breath. The water tasted of invitation, and for a moment she crouched to look into it. Her reflection looked back at her, and just for an instant she thought she saw something else behind her, thought she saw Tamao, but then the snake was gone, and maybe she had just imagined it.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">She stood again, and walked away from the central area into the trees. She could smell the wood and the leaves, and let her fingers trail gently over the bark of the trunks she passed, enjoying the warmth and roughness. The trees seemed to be leaning over her, faces in the leaves and branches, spirits in the form of large insects springing from one to the next.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Akiko stopped to watch them for a while, enjoying the play of light on their iridescent wings, the glitter of their carapaces, the sounds of their feet scuttling over the bark. The green-gold of the beetles, the brilliant rainbows of the butterflies, all living colours. There was no kegare here.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">She walked further into the woods, aware that it was very dark in their shade, but still able to see clearly as the spirits stood out against the last of the night. As her feet disturbed the earth, she could smell the loam, and distant birdsong filled the background as she stepped into the clearing around the kami tree.</p>