After summer began, the place on the slope looked more like a home with each passing day.
It felt as though this summer would go on like this forever.
They moved people over in more than a dozen groups, mostly women, children, and half-grown youngsters. The jonin-level members went last, in the order already agreed upon.
The rules hadn't changed.
Each household received only one message: tensions were running high in the clan, so they would move over and settle in for a while.
By late June, the vacant patch behind the storehouse had been tilled and planted with vegetable seeds.
New matting patched the hole where the roof had collapsed.
The east storehouse was partitioned into two rooms, one for people and one for grain.
The doorway opened twice a day, once to transport people, once to transport grain.
The doorway never said what it had carried.
By day, Kiyoshi went to school, came home, and tossed stone weights as usual.
At night, where no one could see, the doorway opened and closed.
This summer, he still lived his life in the daytime.
During the day, Izumi went through the doorway to help settle everyone in, then returned at dusk.
She took that explanation about settling in very seriously: on the first day, she assigned the little ones their sleeping spots; on the second, she learned who everyone at the cooking hearth was; on the third, she started taking charge. Even the wet creases in the sheets hung out to dry had to be smoothed flat with her own hands.
The cloth pouch against her chest bounced as she ran up and down.
Her steps were light when she came home at dusk. Sometimes she hummed, off-key and utterly unapologetic about it.
She didn't know what she was helping