<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Akiko shifted slightly in place, trying to calm herself as she knelt in front of the iwakura, dressed in her miko’s vestments. It was fully dark now, the precincts lit by large braziers burning wood, two of which stood near her, the firelight playing over the stones so that they almost seemed to be dancing themselves. She could see Kazumi and Shiraishi raising the white curtains around her, and hear the murmuring of the spectators. Most of them were staying to see what came after the secret ceremony, it seemed.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">Kazumi and Shiraishi knelt off to each side, and bowed towards her. Taking a deep breath, Akiko bowed to the iwakura, her face touching the ground. Bowed again, her mind clearing of everything except the dance. She clapped, and thought she heard echoes. The second time she was sure she did, the scatter of sound bouncing back from the rocks. She bowed once more, then calmly took up the mask and placed it over her face. Kazumi got up, moving round behind her, and tied the cords to hold it in place. Then she bowed, and returned to her seat as Akiko watched herself stand up.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;"><em>I am in the iwakura,</em> she realised. <em>The kami is in me.</em></p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">She reached down, picking up the sakaki branches laid in front of her, and stood smoothly, her strange perspective causing no problems at all. She raised both sakaki vertically, and bowed, towards the iwakura, towards the place whence she was looking out.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">And she danced. As she moved, the flames of the braziers flared up, dimmed down, guttered like candles, cast strange shadows across the curtains, and then, in one dazzling flare, went out.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">There were two points of light in the darkness, fixed in a pair, moving up and down, towards her and away. <em>My eyes,</em> she suddenly realised. A fire burned in them, the only light now in utter darkness, but still she danced, the ground firm under her feet. Even through the sandals she could feel every blade of grass, every particle of soil as it moved beneath her. She looked down, and the points of light vanished, as she swept the sakaki along the ground, the gentle smell of the bruised leaves filling her nostrils for a moment. The rasping sound of the leaves drawing across the soil drowned out the noises from the crowd beyond the curtain, without seeming to get any louder, and then the silence was complete.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">She was still dancing, but there was no sound in the darkness, no scent of grass, no sense of wind on her skin or ground under her feet. Nothing but her awareness of her own body, her right arm stretching heavenwards as her left drew close to her chest, touched her chest.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">But she couldn’t feel it. There was nothing but the dance. Nothing but the movements. Nothing but a pattern of limbs in space, a pattern that cried something out, as she jumped, from nothing into nothing.</p>
<p style="margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; font: 13.0px Optima;">And landed in blinding light as the earth rang under her like a bell.</p>