The solstice week came in on hard frost, and the wave was still in the street.
It was thinner now, but it had not done. Doors still opened in the day for a jar. Carriers still came with coin in cloth. The book's wave pages filled more slowly. Ren served the days as they came. The oldest month on the shelf was now the first month of autumn. Its jars went first, as the rule said. Behind them, the second month of autumn waited, untouched.
The winter list's turn came round inside those days, in its order.
The third name was served third. Dai, the rope walk's second boy. The rope walk's first boy came for the jar, with the price in a knotted cloth. Ren told him the course at the counter, away from the door's draught. The whole course, three days, morning and evening, the cup hot. The boy gave it back in his own words, and got the days right. He carried the jar down the street in both hands, under his chin against the cold.
The fourth name was served fourth. Chie, the widow of the thread counter. She came herself, in the middle of the day. She counted her price onto the counter from her apron pocket, coin by coin. Ren told her the course while her hands rested. She nodded at the days, and at the cup, and at nothing else. She set the jar in her market basket, on its side in the straw. Then she went out into the street's thin light, at her own pace.
Two more names of the list were done, in their order. Five stood on the page behind them.
Thirty-three jars went to the street in the week's last wave days. The jars for Dai and Chie were two of those thirty-three.
They went in the day, at the door and at the counter, by their lines. Ren counted the days off the page's groups of five. Eighteen jars in the first of those days' gatherings. Fifteen in the last of them. Every one of the thirty-three was of the first month of autumn. No jar was taken from the month behind it. The rotation held even as the asking thinned.
On the last evening, he read the wave's whole count off the two gatherings of pages. The first gathering held forty-six lines for the street. The second held thirty-three. The wave had taken seventy-nine jars in all. Each one stood in the book as a line, written before the jar left the shop.
The shelf, after the wave, held forty-four jars. The first month of autumn was down to seven jars. The second month of autumn still held thirty-seven. Ren counted them in the early light, before the shop opened. He touched each counted jar forward by a thumb's width. At the count's end, he eased the rows back into their places. The count and the shelf agreed.
The first snow of the winter fell in the night before the named morning.
It fell thin, and straight, and without wind. By dawn it lay white on the roofs and the street. Then he went in to count the jars of the paper.
The taking was done by the rotation, as the paper's jars had to be taken.
The seven jars of the first month of autumn came down first. They were the last seven of their month. Ren read each label as the jar came down. The name, the drying week, the mark. Then the second month of autumn gave its jars. Twenty of them came down, one by one, from the front of their rows. No younger jar was reached for past an older one. Twenty-seven jars sat counted on the back bench. Seven of the older month. Twenty of the younger.
They travelled in three low boxes, nine to a box. Straw was laid between the jars, and over them. The boxes were roped down, each with its own cord. Ren set them on the shop's snow sled, by the door. He drew it up the hill at the sled's own pace. The runners cut two clean lines in the new snow behind him. The street was quiet under its white.
The register office was dim, its lamp lit early against the snow light.
The keeper took the requisition from Ren's hand. He laid it open on the table. Beside it, he set the register, open at the shop's line. Ren lifted the boxes down from the sled, one at a time. On the table, he lined them up in their order.
Ren opened the boxes one by one, at the table's near end. For each box, he lifted the jars out first. He set them in a row, straw still clinging to some. Then he read each label aloud himself. The keeper followed on the paper as Ren read. The name, the drying week, the mark. Only when a box's labels were done did the keeper count its jars. He counted with his finger above them, not touching them. Box by box, the count rose to twenty-seven. Nine jars sat in each row, box after box. At the end, the full count matched the paper.
For the weighing, the keeper chose one jar from each box. Three jars went to the scales, in turn. Each weight agreed with the others. Each agreed with the standard the line named. The keeper nodded, and Ren returned the three jars to their places in the rows.
Then, under the line in the register, the keeper wrote the delivery. He wrote in his small hand, below the name and the preparations and the two conditions. The date, as the paper had named it. The count: twenty-seven jars of the fever cure. The price: the board's price, as posted. He blotted the entry with a strip of felt, and let it sit open a moment. The book now held three workings under the line. It held them as plain entries, with no praise added.
The money was set out on the table in hundreds. Twenty-seven jars, at three hundred the jar. Eight thousand, one hundred. The keeper counted the stacks across to Ren. Ren counted them back into the strongbox, stack by stack, in the reverse order. Each man's count matched the other's. The strongbox shut on money counted twice.
"Three entries now," the keeper said.
"Three," Ren said. "And each of them at the board's price."
Before the register shut, Ren looked at the line a last time. The name headed it, in the register's square letters. Under the name, the two preparations. Under those, the two conditions. And now three entries under all of them, written close and small. He had asked for nothing more than the line. The line had held.
He drew the empty sled down the hill through the snow. The boxes rode stacked and light. The runners followed their own two lines back down. The shop waited below, its stove lit, its shelf at seventeen jars.
Before the solstice evening came, Sada's son brought his slate to the shop.
He propped it against the counter's end, chalk toward Ren. Each week of the cold months had its own short line. The lines covered coal for heat, coal for work, coal for hot water. Ren copied each line onto a scrap of paper. He added the paper's figures at the counter's end. Sada's son checked each figure against the slate as Ren read it back. The full count came to two thousand, two hundred and fifty. Each week had been read once, and once only.
Ren opened the strongbox and took the money from it. He laid the coin in small piles on the scrap paper. Sada's son counted each pile aloud as he took it up. Ren counted the piles again, by their marks on the paper. The two counts met at the same sum. Then Ren gave him a damp rag from the counter. He rubbed the slate clean with it, line by line. No chalk mark was left on its face.
"My mother's name," the seller said. "It stands on your page yet."
"It stands fifth of those waiting," Ren said. "In its order. The page keeps it as it was written."
The seller nodded once. He took up the blank slate and went out into the snow.
On the solstice's own evening, with the street shut, Ren wrote the year's last page.
He set each line down slow, in plain words, one under the next.
The money, at the year's turning. The box stands at twenty-seven thousand and ninety. It is the most the box has held since the shop was a shop. Every ryō of it has its source written. The third order against the line paid eight thousand, one hundred. The winter's charcoal took two thousand, two hundred and fifty.
The shelf stands at seventeen jars. All seventeen are of the second month of autumn of this year. Their leaf life runs to the middle of the spring.
The winter list stands at five names, in their order. Genza, the gate sweeper. Ume, the dyer's grandmother. Kiku, the candle counter's second daughter. Renji, the roofer's apprentice. Old Sada, the charcoal seller's mother.
The register stands at three orders done against the line. Paid against the line, since the name was written: twenty thousand, seven hundred ryō. The two conditions stand as they were written. They have been honoured at every order.
The page of lots stands at five lots. The fifth lot holds on its trial days. Its sealed life is one month, and no more. Its keeping stands written as the thing a next lot must mend.
What the new year opens with, written as it stands. Seventeen jars, and their life to the middle of the spring. Five names, in their order, on the list's page. The low flats, in the second year of Jōji's holding of them. The high flats fallow still, left without sowing and at rest, at Sana's count, as they were left. The page of five lots, with its keeping to be made right. A sixth lot exists only if it is ordered.
He let the ink dry before he moved. The sum on the page was a street's sum, still. It was the count of a line that worked and an order that held. The book did not make it more than that. Neither did Ren.
Then he went to the back room's door, and looked up at the roof from inside.
The new roof of the back room carried the winter's first snow above him. The snow lay on it in one smooth load. No drip sounded at the eaves. No stain showed on the new beams. The roof held, the way it had been built to hold. Below it, the drying racks were empty and clean. Their slats showed pale in the cold light from the door. They waited for a leaf that had not yet been cut, in a year not yet begun.
Ren came back to the counter, and closed the day book on the year's accounts.