The ninth name on the winter list had waited through two servings.
Hana had been served in the winter. Jinsuke and Tami had followed her. Fumi, the carter's boy and Ine had closed the snow weeks. Rui had taken the seventh turn in the spring. Old Bunta had taken the eighth, at his own slow pace. Five names remained on the page after Bunta. The first of those five was next, by the list's law.
Ren read the page at the counter, under its stone. The ninth name was written there plainly. Aya, the dyer's second daughter.
She came for her course on a bright morning. Dye coloured her fingers to the second joint. Blue, deep and worked in, the dyer's trade colour. She set her price down in a neat stack. No coin rolled, none had to be chased. The jar for her came off the front of the shelf. Its label named the summer month, the oldest leaf.
He told her the taking at the counter's end. The whole course runs three days. Morning and evening, without a gap. The cup hot, every time it is taken. Aya repeated it back in a level voice. Her stained fingers rested flat while she spoke. Then she took the jar in both hands. The door let in spring air as she went out.
One more name served in its order. The summer month had given the jar. The front row lost one more of its few.
The street kept asking while the month ran out.
Three more jars from the summer month went over the counter. They went on three different days, to three different doors. Each fever was an ordinary fever of the season. Each course was told at the counter, in full. Each taking was given back before the jar moved. The book wrote each jar under its month. Every line said the same: summer month. No line reached for a younger month while the old one lived.
The days between the servings had their own small weather. Rain washed the street one morning, and dried by noon. Wind took the dye-yard's lines of cloth the next day. The shop's door bell rang for powders and salt between fevers. Ren worked the counter and watched the front row. Watching it was part of the spring's first work. A row left unwatched drifts out of its order. This one kept its order, jar by jar, day by day.
The front row thinned as the days passed. Seven jars had been its count after Bunta's week. Aya's jar made six of them. The street's three made three of them. Three jars, in a row built for fourteen. The wooden slip behind them marked the month's end. Beyond the slip, the next month waited, fuller, younger.
Ren could read the days left in the labels. The sheet's rule gave leaf six months of life. Six months from the drying month, and no more. The summer month's drying lay six months behind. Its end fell inside this week of spring. The labels said so, in their small hand. A label was not a hope or a warning. It was a date, and dates in this shop were kept.
He served what could be served while the life ran. That had been the spring's first work, from its first week. Nothing was saved back for a fuller shelf. Nothing was held for a better price. The board's price never moved, for any hand. The month gave its jars until its days were gone.
Then its days were gone.
On the morning the summer month's life ended, he counted the front row.
He counted it at first light, before the shutter rose. Three jars sat at the front of the shelf. He lifted each one down to the counter. He read each label aloud to the empty shop. Name, drying week, mark, the same on all three. The drying week put them in the summer month. The summer month's life ended this morning.
He counted them again on the counter. Three. He set them apart from all other stock. No hand but his would touch them now. They would not be relabelled with a younger week. They would not be given a longer life on paper. A jar past its life was not a jar for sale. It was not a jar for a gift, either. What the shop would not sell, the shop would not pass on.
The book took the count before the fire took the leaf.
The summer month, on the morning its life ends: three jars remain unserved. Counted on the counter: three. They will be burned in their month, as this book has always burned what its life could not hold.
He carried the three jars out in a grain basket. The basket was shallow, woven for market loads. All three rode in it at once, snug in straw. The yard behind the shop lay in full noon light. No rain hid anything that day. No dusk softened the work.
The fire place was the yard's stone ring. Flat stones circled a bed of old ash. The charcoal seller's offcuts fed its small fires. Ren laid dry shavings in the ring first. He set the kindling over them in a loose cross. The flame took on the second match.
He broke the first jar's seal with his thumbnail. The wax came away in one curled strip. He shook the dried cure out onto a flat stone. The leaf was pale, and its smell was thin. Age had taken its strength before this morning. The fire would only finish what time had written.
He fed the leaf into the flame in small handfuls. Each handful caught, curled, and went dark. Smoke rose straight in the still noon air. Then the second jar's seal broke the same way. Its leaf followed the first into the ring. The third jar emptied last of the three. Its wax strip joined the others on the stone.
When the leaf was all in, he worked the fire with a green stick. Green wood bent before it burned, and it served. He turned the ash over, edge to centre. Unburned flecks showed pale against the grey. He turned the ash again, and waited. He turned it a third time, at the fire's own pace. At the last turning, no fleck showed. Nothing in that ring could be gathered as medicine. Nothing could be sold from it, by anyone, anywhere.
The empty jars went into a bucket of hot water. He scrubbed their insides with a twisted cloth. The cloth came out clean on the last jar. He set the three jars mouth-down on the yard wall. Spring sun dried them where they sat. Empty jars were next season's work, not a loss. The loss was the leaf, and the book would carry it.
That afternoon, the book closed the summer month.
Ren opened it at the shelf's page, in the lamplight. The month's whole account lay in its lines. Fourteen jars had opened the spring at the front. The street and the list had taken their share in order. Three jars had outlived their serving days.
He wrote the closing in the book's plain hand, line under line.
The summer month, closed. Served from it, to the list and the street together: eleven jars. Burned in its month, counted first: three jars. Eleven and three make fourteen. The month is whole in its account, and nothing of it remains on the shelf.
Eleven served while the life ran. Three burned when the life ended. No jar of that month remained anywhere in the shop. The front of the shelf belonged to a new month now.
The same day's ordinary work had its own lines. After the burning, the afternoon's trade took four more jars. All four came from the second summer month. The second summer month was now the front month. Each course was told and repeated in the day's own way. Each jar was written under its own month. Second summer month, said all four lines. The younger month had stepped to the front. It was being served from its front, in its turn.
In the evening he counted the shelf one last time for the spring's first work.
The count ran by the wooden slips, month by month. The front row now held the second summer month. Fourteen jars sat in that row, labels facing out. Behind them, the first month of autumn held sixteen. Behind those, the second month of autumn held sixteen.
Fourteen and sixteen and sixteen. The shelf held forty-six jars. No summer month jar remained among them. That month's place in the row was empty space. The slip that had marked its end now marked the front.
The list's page took the last count of the day.
The winter list: nine names served in their order. Four names remain on the page, each waiting its turn. The shelf: forty-six jars. The summer month: closed, eleven served, three burned.
Four names still waited for their turns. The shelf had room, and the next month had life. Its weeks would run into the summer, by its labels. What it could hold, it would be asked to hold. What it could not, the book would count the same way.
Outside, the light went down late, the spring way. The yard's stone ring held grey ash and nothing else. Ren shut the book on a month that was fully written. Served first, burned last, and counted at both ends.