Soft Breeze Dreams: 19th-Century Japan at Its Finest

When I got back home, it was to find a letter waiting for me.

The library door was still ajar, where I had left it open. The latches were rusted, and I had to push hard to get them to close. The old oak floorboards creaked under my feet as I shuffled through the bookshelves to reach my room.

I sat on my bed and opened the letter. It was from Bradon, addressed to all of us. He wrote about how he was going to travel around with his uncle for a bit before settling down at some distant town with his family. He said he was glad that he had met us in this life and hoped we would be able to meet again in another one.

*

*

I wondered if he knew about Emersyn's pregnancy when he wrote this. I slid the letter back into its envelope and put it on top of the lore book that lay on my desk. There was nothing else there; no letters or notes from her, not even a picture of us together. When I looked out of my window, I could see the hills and peaks in the distance. Between them, I could make out the small patch of land that bore witness to our existence.

*

*

On their farm, they had grown all kinds of vegetables - tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, potatoes - but only broccoli had survived the long winter months when the three friends first arrived there. They had taken turns keeping watch over the seedlings during their waking hours while dozing off during their sleep periods. The last time Bradon mentioned it was on his last day before he left for school ten years later. He was curious about what had happened to those seeds after all these years.

"There were no losses in our generation," Drew explained as she took off her gloves and hung them up at the entryway. She was carrying two baskets filled with vegetables she had grown herself - green beans and cabbage for now, but others would eventually follow in their wake. "But we don't know whether or not there are any seeds left now." She turned around and gave Emersyn a smile before turning to me next and placing both hands on my shoulders as she leaned forward to give me a kiss on my cheek. "How are you doing?" she asked softly as she ran her fingers through my hair.

Emersyn was sitting at her desk facing away from us, writing something down on a notebook lying in front of her - probably a list of things she needed to buy at the market tomorrow morning before it closed down for good. "We're fine," I replied absently as I watched Emersyn writing intently without looking at what she had written earlier - or so I thought until her pen stopped moving suddenly and she began scribbling furiously across what she had just written out just moments ago. "What did you just write?" I asked curiously as I walked towards her desk and leaned over her shoulder to look at what she was writing down now instead - only for me to recoil in shock as soon as something damp hit what should have been my face with a loud splat!