Spring came back to the street with wet roofs and open doors.
The first week of it was Ren's opening week. He lifted the shutter early. Light fell across the counter in a clean band. Behind the shop, the beds showed dark soil and no green yet. The year would start with work already written down.
He turned the day book to its final page. The solstice had closed the book on a rule. The oldest month at the front. The oldest month served first. The book to say which month held the front.
A rule on paper was only a rule. This morning it would become a shelf.
He fetched four shallow trays from the back room. Each tray was plain wood, wide enough for one row of jars. He set them in a line on the workbench. Then he began at the high shelf, one reach at a time.
Every jar came down into his hands. Every label got read before the jar was placed. The label gave the name first. Then the drying week, in its small hand. Then the shop's mark, low on the paper. The drying week told him the month. The month chose the tray.
The first tray filled slowly. These were the jars from the back of the shelf. Their labels named the summer month, the year's first making. He set each one down with care. Old glass knocked softly against wood.
The second tray took the second summer month. The third tray took the first month of autumn. The fourth tray took the second month of autumn. No jar went into a tray unread. No jar was guessed into its month.
When the high shelf was bare, he counted the trays. He counted with a finger above each rim. He did not touch the jars while he counted. Touching moved them, and moving lost the place.
The summer month held fourteen jars. The second summer month held eighteen jars. The first month of autumn held sixteen jars. The second month of autumn held sixteen jars.
Fourteen and eighteen made thirty-two. Sixteen and sixteen made thirty-two more. The shelf's whole count was sixty-four jars.
He counted the trays a second time, from the last tray back to the first. The numbers came back the same. Sixty-four, by months, and no jar left homeless between them.
Then the rule stopped being words.
He cleared the high shelf with a dry cloth. He put the summer month back first. Those fourteen jars went to the front of the shelf. Their labels faced the room, plain to read. Any hand reaching in would meet them first.
Behind them he set the second summer month. Behind those, the first month of autumn. At the very back, the second month of autumn. Youngest at the rear, the way a queue runs.
Between each month he slid a thin slip of wood. The slips were plain pine, cut square. A thumb could feel where one month ended. A thumb could feel where the next began. The shelf now held its order in wood as well as in paper.
Ren sat back on the stool and looked at it. The front row was the oldest leaf in the shop. Its life was the shortest life left. The sheet's rule was simple about such leaf. Leaf lives six months from its drying month. The summer month's six months ended this spring. Its first weeks, the solstice page had said. Serve it first, or burn what could not be served.
The labels all faced the room now. A hand could read the shelf without turning a jar. That was the point of the morning's work. The count could be checked by eye, any day. The order could be checked by a thumb, in the dark. Ren ran one finger along the front row's rims. Fourteen jars answered, one after another. None of them hid behind a younger month. None of them would wait out its life unseen. The fault of the winter was an order of hands. The cure for it was also an order of hands.
The shelf was ready to be served in its order. The book took the count before any jar moved.
The shelf, counted by months, in the first week of spring. The summer month: fourteen. The second summer month: eighteen. The first month of autumn: sixteen. The second month of autumn: sixteen. In all, sixty-four jars. The summer month now holds the front of the shelf, and will be served first.
Before the street woke fully, he counted the strongbox.
The box came up onto the counter on its side. He worked the count into its open lid. The lid made a shallow tray of dark wood. Coin went into it in piles of one hundred. Each pile was counted aloud as it grew. Each full pile was pushed to the lid's edge.
The piles crossed the lid one by one. Hundred under his thumb, hundred under his thumb. The sound was small and even. No pile was hurried. No pile was trusted without its count.
The last coins made a short pile. He counted them twice over, alone. Then he counted the whole sum back into the box. This time the piles went in from the far edge. The order of the counting changed. The sum did not.
Seven thousand, one hundred and ninety ryō. Counted twice, and the two counts agreed. It was the year's opening count, and he wrote it as one.
The box, counted twice at the year's opening: seven thousand, one hundred and ninety ryō. Its sources sit in last year's book, line by line. Against it, nothing owed. Above it, no note, and no promise.
Under that line he set the year's other counts, plain. The shop's name held a line in the register up the hill. The line had worked once, in the winter. Twenty-four jars had gone up against it. The conditions on the line had held through that work. The standing order for the hill ran on beside it. Its months kept their own count, apart. And on its page in the book, the winter list waited. Seven names waited on that page, in their order. Their turns would come as the shelf allowed.
Three counts, three pages, none of them mixed. That was how the year opened.
The street began its spring asking before the week was old.
The first caller came with the thaw still on her boots. Her house had kept a fever through three cold nights. Ren reached to the front of the shelf. The jar he took came from the summer month. He told the taking across the counter. The whole course, three days. Morning and evening, the cup hot. She repeated it back without a missed word. The price went across at the board's price. The jar left in her basket, under a folded cloth.
A second caller came the next morning, early. His knock was soft, as if noise cost money. This jar also came from the front row. The summer month gave it, and the book took its line. The course was told the same true way. The frame of the telling was the hour and the hands. A man in a hurry, holding his cap. A jar wrapped against the bright cold.
The third jar from the summer month went out that same week. An older hand carried it home this time. The hand shook a little on the counter's edge. Ren set the jar down and waited. Waiting was part of the price of doing this right. The taking was repeated slowly, and it was right. Then the door shut behind the jar, into the spring light.
Every fever jar that week came from the front row. The second summer month stayed untouched behind its slip. Its turn had not yet come in the year's order. Each jar was written down by its month. Summer month, said every line of that week. No line borrowed from another month.
Between the callers, the counter kept its ordinary spring work. Powders were weighed for the day's small askings. Salve pots went out at their own price. Salt went out by its measure, kettle by kettle. None of that work touched the shelf's order. The front row served the fevers, in its turn. The rows behind it waited, in theirs. A jar taken out of turn would bend the count. Ren took none out of turn. The book's lines stayed as clean as the shelf.
By the week's end the front row had thinned. That was what a front row was for.
On the week's last evening he counted the shelf again.
He counted it where it sat, tray work done and gone. A finger travelled above the rims, row by row. The wooden slips marked the borders for him. Summer month first, at the front. Then each month in its turn behind it.
The summer month held eleven jars now. The second summer month held eighteen jars. The first month of autumn held sixteen. The second month of autumn held sixteen.
Eleven and eighteen made twenty-nine. Sixteen and sixteen made thirty-two more. The shelf held sixty-one jars, and the count was clean.
He wrote the week's closing under the opening count.
The shelf, at the first week's end: sixty-one jars. The summer month: eleven. The second summer month: eighteen. The first month of autumn: sixteen. The second month of autumn: sixteen. Three jars given to the street this week, each by its month, each at the board's price.
Outside, the street lamps came on in the spring dusk. Behind the shop, the beds waited in their dark rows. On the shelf, the oldest month held the front. It would go on being served first. Its weeks were few now, and the book knew their number.