The Fire Kimono

Prologue

Meireki Year Three (1657)

A fierce windstorm swept the hills outside Edo. Lightning seared bright white veins down the gray sky while distant thunder reverberated. A Shinto priest hurried along a path through the forest. He clutched his black cap to his head and staggered as the wind buffeted him. His white robe flapped like a swan in mad flight. Dirt and leaves swirled around him in cyclones that stung his face, blinded him. He stumbled faster uphill toward the shrine, where he could take shelter.

The trees swayed, creaked, and thrashed. The wind’s howling force knocked the priest to the ground. As he struggled to regain his feet, he heard an ominous cracking noise, as if the world were splitting. He saw a huge, dead oak tree pitch toward him. Crooked, leafless branches reached down like monstrous hands to grab him as the tree toppled, its massive trunk a black battering ram aimed to kill. The priest flung his arms over his head and screamed.

The tree crashed with a thud that shook the world. Branches scraped the priest, enmeshed him. He was stunned but miraculously alive. The wind’s fury ebbed. Untangling himself from the branches, he saw that the heavy tree trunk lay close beside him. The gods had spared his life.

Dazed, the priest climbed the hill, gawking at the fallen corpse of the tree. The roots had torn loose from the dirt. They’d left a yawning hole in the forest beside the path. Something in the lumpy earth just below the surface level at the edge of the hole caught the priest’s attention.

The object was brown from the soil, with a rounded top the size of a small melon. The priest squatted for a closer inspection and recoiled in dismay. Empty eye sockets stared and bare teeth grinned up at him. It was a human skull.