The garden was a lie.
From the window, it looked like neglect. Tall weeds, thistle, something with yellow flowers that had gone to seed. But when I got my hands in it, when I pulled back the tangle, I found the bones of something that had been cared for once. Stone borders, buried under grass. A path, the flagstones cracked but still there. Soil that was dark, loamy, not the clay I'd expected.
The boy was already working. His hands moved fast, efficient, the way children work when they've been doing it their whole lives. He'd cleared a patch near the wall, exposing the tops of roots. Turnips. Small, woody-looking, but there.
I knelt beside him. The ground was cold, the damp seeping through my trousers. I grabbed a fistful of weeds, pulled. The roots held. I pulled harder. They came up with a wet tearing sound, soil raining down, worms curling in the exposed earth.
"You're doing it wrong."
The boy didn't look at me. His hands were in the dirt, working around a turnip, loosening the soil with his fingers before pulling. The root came up clean, the skin intact.
I looked at the mess I'd made. The weeds were shredded, bits of root still in the ground.
"Yeah. I can see that."
He handed me the turnip. His palm was dirty, the skin cracked, a cut on his thumb that had healed badly. I took it. The root was small, no bigger than my fist, the skin rough with hairs. I brushed off the dirt, felt the weight of it.
"There's more," he said. "By the wall. The carrots went to seed last year, but they come back. Sometimes." He was already moving, his knees in the mud, his hands finding another root.
I watched him work. The economy of his movements. The way he didn't waste energy, didn't pull too hard, didn't grab what he couldn't use. A child who'd learned to feed himself.
We worked in silence. The sun moved overhead, the shadows shortening, then lengthening. My back began to ache, the muscles in my shoulders burning. I'd spent fifteen years standing in kitchens, but this was different. Bending, pulling, the repetitive motion of hands in dirt. The skin between my fingers cracked, the soil working its way under my nails, into the creases of my palms.
By midday, we had a pile. Turnips, a few carrots so twisted they barely resembled carrots, something that might have been parsnip once, the skin wrinkled, the flesh woody. A handful of herbs I didn't recognize, the boy called them something I couldn't pronounce, said they were good for tea.
We sat on the stone wall at the edge of the garden. The sun was warm on my face, the first warmth I'd felt since I woke up in this body. The boy ate a carrot. Crunched it, the sound loud in the quiet. Juice ran down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of dirt.
I ate a turnip. Raw. It was bitter, the flesh fibrous, but it was food. I chewed slowly, felt my stomach clench around it.
"You never said your name," I said.
He looked at me. Chewed. Swallowed.
"Ren."
Ren. Short. Simple. Not a name you give a child you expect to keep.
"I'm Kaito."
He nodded. Didn't offer anything else. We sat, the pile of roots between us, the garden behind us, the manor in front. The house was dark against the sky, the windows empty, the door still open. A black rectangle I should have closed.
Ren was looking at it. His chewing had stopped. His hands were still, the carrot half-eaten in his grip.
"You don't like the house," I said.
No response.
"You won't go inside."
He put the carrot down. Wiped his hands on his trousers. His eyes didn't leave the house.
"My father went inside," he said. "Before. When they were asking. He went inside to talk to the lord. The old lord. The one before." A pause. His jaw tightened. "He came out different."
"Different how."
Ren looked at me then. His eyes were dry, but there was something in them that made my chest tighten. A flatness. The look of someone who has seen something they don't have words for.
"He stopped talking," Ren said. "He would just stand. In the field. Looking at the house. My mother would call him, and he wouldn't come. She'd have to go get him, pull his arm, lead him back." A breath. A quick, sharp inhale. "Then one morning he was gone. The door was open. His shoes were still there."
I looked at the house. The open door. The dark inside.
"Did he go to the mountain?"
Ren shook his head. "He went inside. I know he did. Because I saw him. At the window. The one upstairs. The locked one." He picked up the carrot again. Didn't eat it. Just held it. "He was looking out. At me. But it wasn't him. It was his face, but it wasn't him."
The sun went behind a cloud. The temperature dropped, the warmth gone in an instant. The house seemed darker now, the shadows deeper, the open door a mouth.
I stood up. My legs were stiff, my knees popping. I walked toward the house. Heard Ren get up behind me, his feet soft on the grass.
At the door, I stopped. Looked back. He was standing where I'd left him, by the stone wall, the pile of roots at his feet. The carrot was in his hand. He wasn't eating it.
"I'm going in," I said. "To put the food inside. You can stay out here."
He didn't answer. Just watched.
I went in.
***
The main room was the same. Cold, the hearth dead, the light from the door cutting a rectangle across the floor. The smear on the far wall was brown in the daylight, just a stain, nothing more. I walked to the kitchen, the roots in my arms, my footsteps loud on the stone.
Set them on the worktable. The wood was grey, the surface rough with age. I looked around. The broken window, the blanket still hanging over it. The rusted pots. The bucket I'd emptied, still sitting by the door.
I needed a way to cook. A pot that held water. A fire. A way to store food that wasn't just leaving it on a table.
Found a pot in the storeroom. Iron, heavy, the bottom crusted with something black and hard. I scrubbed it with sand from the yard, my fingers raw by the time I was done. It wasn't clean, not really, but it would hold water. Wouldn't poison me. Probably.
The fire was the problem. I'd used most of the kindling last night. The woodpile by the kitchen door was wet, the pieces soft with rot. I sorted through it, found enough dry pieces for a night, maybe two. Added them to the kindling I'd gathered from the garden, dead branches, dry weeds, anything that would burn.
Got the fire going. The smoke was thick at first, filling the kitchen, making my eyes water. I opened the door, let it clear. The smoke drifted out, grey against the grey sky, and I thought about the boy, alone in the garden, watching.
I filled the pot with water from the stream. It was a long walk, my arms aching by the time I got back, water sloshing over the rim, soaking my shirt. Set it on the hearth. Added the turnips, the carrots, the parsnip. No salt. No seasoning. Just roots and water.
The fire crackled. The water heated. Bubbles formed on the bottom of the pot, rose, broke the surface. The smell was faint, earthy, nothing like the kitchens I'd worked in. No garlic. No stock. No wine. Just the smell of boiling roots, the steam rising, beading on the walls.
I stood by the hearth, watching it. The heat was good on my face, my hands. My back was cold. My feet were cold. My shirt was damp with sweat and stream water, clinging to my skin.
Ren appeared in the doorway. He didn't come in. Just stood at the threshold, his hands empty now, his face pale in the grey light.
"It smells," he said.
"Food usually does."
He didn't laugh. Didn't smile. Just stood there, his arms crossed, his body angled away from the room, ready to run.
I ladled some of the broth into a pot I'd found, cracked, but it held liquid. Held it out to him. He didn't take it.
"I'm not coming in."
"Then don't. Take it outside."
He looked at the pot. Looked at me. His hands stayed at his sides.
"The house," he said. "Does it feel different? When you're inside?"
I thought about it. The pressure. The weight behind my eyes. The feeling of being watched.
"It feels like a house," I said. "Old. Empty."
He shook his head. A small motion, quick.
"It's not empty," he said. "It's never empty. My mother said the house was hungry. That's what she said. Before she stopped talking."
I looked around the kitchen. The hearth. The pot. The grey light through the broken window. A kitchen. A room. Stone and wood and air.
"When did she stop talking?"
He was quiet for a moment. His eyes moved around the room, tracking something I couldn't see.
"When the last one went," he said. "The woman. The one from the hut by the willow. She was the last. She went at night. We heard her. In the trees. Calling." A breath. A quick, sharp sound. "After that, my mother sat down. And she didn't get up."
I set the pot on the floor near the door. Pushed it toward him with my foot.
"Take it. Eat."
He looked at the pot. At me. At the room behind me. His hands unclenched.
"You should leave," he said. "The house. You should leave before it knows your name."
"It already knows my name."
He stared at me. His face was young, but his eyes weren't. They were the eyes of someone who had watched too many people leave.
"That's not your name," he said. "That's the name of the boy who died here. The one who hung himself. That's his name. Not yours."
The kitchen was quiet. The fire crackled. The water in the pot bubbled, a soft, steady sound.
"How do you know that?"
He didn't answer. He picked up the pot, his hands steady, the liquid sloshing against the rim. He turned and walked out. The grass swallowed his footsteps. The door was empty, just the grey light, the field beyond, the boy gone.
I stood by the hearth. The fire was dying, the flames low, the embers pulsing. I looked at my hands. The dirt under my nails. The cut on my palm, half-healed. These hands. This body. The name that came with it.
Kaito.
The same name I'd had before. The same name I'd answered to for thirty-four years. But it wasn't mine. Not here. Not in this skin.
The boy who hung himself was Kaito. The son of Lord Ishimoto. The disappointment. The drunk. The one who was found with a servant girl and ordered forgotten.
I was something else. Someone else. A sous-chef from Tokyo who died in a convenience store because a kid with a knife was scared and stupid and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But I was here. In this body. In this house. With this name.
The pressure was back. Behind my eyes. In my chest. A weight that wasn't physical, but I felt it anyway. The way you feel a storm coming, the air changing, the pressure dropping. Something was waiting. Something that knew I was here.
I looked at the ceiling. The locked door upstairs. The room where Ren's father had stood at the window, looking out, wearing a face that wasn't his.
The fire popped. A spark landed on the stone floor, glowed, died.
I went to the door. Looked out. Ren was sitting on the stone wall, the pot beside him, a turnip in his hand. He was eating. Slowly. His back was to the house.
I didn't call out. Didn't move. Just stood in the doorway, watching him eat, the steam rising from the pot, the grey light fading, the shadows lengthening across the field.
The pressure in my chest didn't go away. It settled. Deepened. Became something I carried.
I went back inside. Added wood to the fire. Sat down with my back to the wall, the hearth in front of me, the stairs to my left. The knife was in my hand. I didn't remember picking it up.
The light through the door was fading. The grey turned to blue, then to purple, then to black. The fire was the only light. It painted the walls orange, made the stain on the far wall pulse with the flames.
I ate. The broth was thin, the roots soft, the taste of earth and water. I ate until the pot was empty. Set it on the floor.
Above me, the house settled. A creak. A groan. The sound of old wood adjusting to the cold.
I looked at the ceiling. At the locked door I couldn't see but knew was there.
The pressure shifted. Something moved. Not in the house. In the field. Outside.
I went to the door. Stood in the frame.
The field was dark. The grass moved in the wind, a sound like breath. The tree line was black against the stars, the branches tangled, the dark between them absolute.
Ren was gone. The pot was on the stone wall, empty, the ladle beside it.
I looked at the trees. The dark. The space where the path was, invisible now, swallowed by the night.
And from the trees, a sound.
Faint. High. A voice. Calling.
Not words. Just sound. A pattern that almost meant something. A name, maybe. My name. The name I'd been given. The name I'd brought with me. The name that wasn't mine.
It came again. Closer.
I stood in the doorway. The knife in my hand. The fire behind me. The dark in front.
The call faded. The wind took it, carried it into the field, scattered it across the grass. The house creaked. The pressure in my chest was a fist now, tight, holding.
I didn't close the door.
I went back to the hearth. Sat down. The knife was on the floor beside me. I didn't pick it up.
The fire burned down. The embers glowed. The dark crept in from the edges, filling the room, filling the corners, pressing against the light.
I sat. The pressure didn't leave. It sat with me. Watched with me.
And somewhere in the dark, in the room at the top of the stairs, something waited. Something that knew I was here. Something that was patient.
The fire went out.
I sat in the dark. The pressure was everywhere now. In the walls. In the floor. In my chest. In my lungs.
I closed my eyes.
Listened.
The house breathed.