Livora Gracely

Same face. Three swords. The introductions took a little longer.

“Didn’t I just let you in?”

The young woman at the gate looked past the keeper’s shoulder.

“That was my sister.”

“Then didn’t I just let your sister in?”

“That was my other sister.”

The keeper looked down at his register. He had written one name very confidently.

Three Arrivals

Inside the courtyard, two women turned toward the gate. The third stepped through to join them, and the keeper discovered that his difficulty had acquired a second difficulty.

All three wore dark robes, red sashes, and white headbands. Three sheathed swords rested at their sides. The breeze lifted the loose ends of their ribbons, offering no assistance whatsoever.

“Hana,” he said, pointing at the nearest one.

“Mei.”

He pointed at the middle one. “Mei.”

“Aki.”

He considered the woman on the left.

“Please be Hana.”

“I usually am,” she said.

His brush hovered above the page. Somewhere inside the hall, wooden practice swords knocked together. The courtyard smelled of damp cedar and freshly swept earth.

“You weren’t standing there before,” he said.

“We walk,” Mei explained.

A Useful System

The keeper asked them to stand in a row: Hana, Mei, Aki.

“There. Now nobody move.”

Mei glanced at the practice hall. “Is that the first lesson?”

He dipped his brush. A drop of ink fell beside the name he had already written.

Hana leaned closer. “You have me down as Hama.”

“I can correct that.”

“Good. Hama hasn’t brought a sword.”

While he scraped the extra stroke into something smaller, Aki bent toward the gate. Its lower hinge pin had worked halfway out. She pressed it back into place with her thumb.

“You may want to check that,” she said.

The keeper looked up at the gap in his row.

“Who moved?”

“The gate,” said Mei.

Hana turned to her and caught a trailing end of her headband before it brushed the wet register. She tucked it through the knot and pulled gently.

Now two of them had moved.

The keeper laid down his brush.

One at a Time

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Could we begin again?”

Mei opened her mouth. Hana touched her sleeve, and she waited.

“I’m Hana,” said the woman still holding the ribbon. “I arrived first.”

He looked at her face before writing. This time, he made the name carefully.

“Hana.”

She nodded.

Mei introduced herself next, without adding anything about gates, walking, or the unfortunate Hama. Aki came back from the hinge and waited until he was ready.

He wrote all three names. Beside Aki’s, he made a small reminder to repair the gate.

“Thank you,” he told her.

“It should stay up until then.”

“A generous improvement.”

Mei laughed. He looked at her.

“Mei?”

“Yes.”

His shoulders lowered.

Present

At the hall door, their instructor called, “Hana?”

One hand rose.

“Mei?”

Another hand.

“Aki?”

The third.

The keeper watched them cross the courtyard. Hana checked the knot she had retied; Aki avoided the loose stone near the steps. Mei turned back and gave him a small wave.

He returned it, then drew three neat ticks beside the names.

The instructor looked toward the gate.

“Any trouble?”

The keeper glanced at his register.

“Three,” he said. “All present.”