>>5958234…
You can only barely see out of the seams in the fabric pressed against your face. The shroud is black, nontraditional from the white initiation veils you’ve seen, of which you have seen one: your grandmother’s. Aside from the color, you know it is hers, you can still make out the faint stains of spilled coffee along the left sleeve. A mistake you made a year ago when you first arrived at her shrine, one she hasn’t caught onto for the simple reason that she hasn’t had to perform a <span class="mu-i">Miko’s</span> initiation rite since she had validated your mother when she was at an age younger than yours, a fact your grandmother never lets you forget, oh how she would have loved to attend your initiation, if only you hadn’t avoided this path.
Yet, here you sit facing away from a shrine’s altar, veiled and observed by the elder <span class="mu-i">Miko </span>and <span class="mu-i">Kannushi</span>. It’s a far larger shrine, though you do not recognize its location. It’s too dark to make out any details, and you wonder if this is truly a place from your memories or one cobbled from media perception and your resentment for the traditions of your mother’s family branch.
You feel vile. After every failure, you still hold their grace.
You open your mouth to protest, but fall silent as one of the elders begins to sing. Her ancient dialect so thick, you can’t make out the lyrics. It begins to get cold as the elder’s haunting song transitions slowly but surely to an unhinged chant.
You shudder, it starts in your shoulders barely noticeable under the veil. Then it progresses to your forearms, and you stop it at your elbows. It finds a different path, your knees wobble slightly, and the faint pain that came with holding your <span class="mu-i">seiza/i] on the rough wood is intensified by the motion. You give in and let your hands begin to tremble…
Your whole body quakes, and then you feel yourself in the warmth of summer…
(Continued…)</span>
