almost all the Hiba forests are gone.”
“At least we still have this one,” Hiro sighed. “You can visit it every year in winter to see the flowers bloom. Their yellow pollen covers the snow.”
“It must be beautiful.” Jet said. She’d never paid that much attention to trees, but now that her grandfather had mentioned it, she realized trees had unique characteristics, too, like people.
“It’s like the sun against heaven,” Ojiisan replied. “We can come back together in the winter to see it. Hopefully, I’ll still be alive,” he chuckled.
“Of course you’ll be alive!” Jet said, alarmed.
“It’s just a joke,” he replied.
Soon an aquamarine lake appeared, as if suspended in the white-gray landscape. Jet had never seen water so transparent and brilliant, like crystal.
“This is Lake Usori. It’s Ainu for ‘bay,’” Hiro explained.
When the bus doors opened, the scent of sulfur swept in on the cold air from the rugged hills that loomed beyond the temple walls, almost knocking Jet over.
“The lake used to be volcanic crater,” Ojiisan pointed out as they walked around the grounds. Black burn marks scarred the hills’ flanks. There was no trace of greenery or plant life. “In the ninth century, an oracle told the Chinese priest Ennin to travel east to a sacred mountain. It was supposed to take him thirty days. Ten years later, he found Osore-zan, a huge volcano surrounded by eight mountains,” Ojiisan said.
“But our ancestors discovered Osore-zan long before Ennin did,” Hiro said defiantly.
Ojiisan shot Hiro a look, but Hiro shrugged it off.
“I just want her to know the truth,” he said.
“She’ll find out soon enough,” Ojiisan replied. “Let’s show her the lake. Then we can go to the temple.”
He took Jet’s arm and led her up the hill. She felt urgency in his grip, and they walked quickly, their feet crunching against small ash-stones left from the scorching lava.
“It looks like a lotus. That’s why it’s a perfect place for sacred Buddhist land,” Ojiisan said.
“A lotus!” Jet exclaimed. Whenever she’d complained about life, her mother spoke of the lotus, explaining to her how something so sacred, so beautiful, grew out of mud.
Remember, it’s not what you come from, she’d said. It’s what you grow into.
Soon, the aquamarine expanse of Lake Usori spread before them. The shimmering blue surface, uninterrupted by waves, accepted the soft rays from the autumn sky. Huge domes of lava were draped with braided ropes. The Emishi had put them there, Ojiisan explained. They’d believed the domes were deities themselves and that beyond the volcanic shores of Lake Usori was the home of the spirits.
The sulfur stung Jet’s lungs. Steam rose from holes in the ground. A pure white beach glistened ahead.
“Why are mountains sacred places?” she asked, remembering the Navajo mountains back home.
“The spirits of the dead fly up to heaven. We want their journey to be as quick and easy as possible,” Ojiisan said.
He dropped his gaze to the silk cloth containing the box of Satoko’s ashes that Jet held close to her chest. He took off his shoes and socks, walking along the sandy beach for a while. Then he crouched beside the lake and motioned her forward.
“I think this is a good place. Don’t you?”
Jet joined him and moved her hand along the surface of the water.
“Yes,” she said solemnly. “I think this is what Mother wanted.”
She handed the box to him.
“Satoko,” he called out softly, “why didn’t you come back sooner?”
He took out the urn and cradled it. Unbidden, tears fell from his blue eyes. He didn’t try to wipe them away.
Jet hated to see her grandfather so sad. It was making her sad, too, and she couldn’t afford to open that door—to think about her mother, her father, even Amy Williams and her high school friends who now seemed worlds away. She couldn’t afford to think about all the people who were no longer there.
“Ojiisan,” Jet cried, “why didn’t Mom come back to Japan?”
“It’s a long story… But, well, the village was attacked before you were born. Your mother had something those people wanted.”
“What was it?” Jet pleaded. “Please tell me. I need to know.”
“She understood a lot of things that most of us never will, and she had the courage to keep up the fight for years and not give them what it was that they wanted. When you arrived, I thought you’d have the answers. I’m still in shock that you don’t.”
Now it was Jet’s turn to apologize.
“I’m so sorry, Ojiisan. I wish I did.”
He nodded. “I only know that your mother was on the run all of those years.”
“Is that why we lived in New Mexico?”
“Yes. But I didn’t know that. For the longest time, I didn’t know where she was. She believed we were being watched and feared that if she returned—or you did—the problems would start up all over again.”
“I see,” Jet said, mulling over his words. She had grown up in her mother’s constant aura of fear and determination, thinking Satoko was crazy.
Ojiisan lit a bundle of incense and started to chant. The sun was slowly going down, the air cooling against Jet’s skin.
“Your mother died too young,” he said solemnly. “But it was her en, her karma. Only the dead can cut the ties of en.”
Jet nodded. She didn’t really believe in karma or fate. “Are you afraid of death, Ojiisan?” she asked.
He sighed. “If I were afraid of death, I’d be long gone by now. I simply want to be, like a rock that accepts the sunshine, rain, and wind peacefully. Death will come when it comes.”
Jet watched as her grandfather released the stark gray ashes and white bones into the water. Instead of sinking, one small bone floated, moving gently like a butterfly over the surface. Satoko’s nodo-botoke, the small bone of the Adam’s apple.
“Every creature in the world is precious,” he said softly, watching the water carry the ashes away. “Our survival depends on the animals and plants we eat. Our lives contain those lives and those deaths. The same is true with human beings—some take advantage of others. That’s just life.”
He looked at her meaningfully. “No one can escape the laws of this world. That’s why our people know how to fight. We’ve been treated unfairly, and that’s our en, our karma.”
“Can’t
