Kagome wandered toward the house a step, as if in a dream. Then she stopped and stared, drawn up short. Something waved in front of her face, breaking her stare.

“Hell-o-ooo, earth to Kaa-san!”

Kagome blinked and glanced over at Shin, perched on a fence rail and waving a small hand into her face. She shook her head and smiled.

“Sorry, spaced out there for a sec.”

“You’ve been spacing out a lot lately.”

Kagome frowned at him. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that.” Shin hopped off the fence, frowning back up at her from the lane. “Stop saying ‘I’m sorry’ all the time. It’s annoying.”

“I’m—” Kagome caught herself, and breathed. “Okay.”

Shin nodded, smiling. “Okay.”

With them stopped just outside in the yard talking, the old couple who lived in the house wandered forward, after peeping at Kagome and Shin through the reed curtain. Together the old man and woman crinkled smiles at them and bowed.

“Miko-sama, thank ye for safeguarding our village,” the old lady said.

“How long do ye think it’ll take ye to stamp the demons out?” the old man asked.

Kagome explained that they had just about finished the ‘stamping out’ part, but that keeping the demons out was the overarching concern. To this end, Kagome had given instructions for a sacred shrine to be built over the course of the next few days, with ritual consecration and reinforcement to follow.

During this explanation, Kagome’s eyes must have kept straying wistfully toward the house behind them, because the old lady finally interjected politely with, “Is something the matter, Miko-sama?”

Kagome put up her hands apologetically. “No—no, it’s just that…well, some years ago, my son’s father and I sheltered in the house that used to be here.”

“Wouldn’t call that pile of rotten sticks that used to be here a house,” the old man remarked. 

His wife shot him a reproving glance, which he didn’t seem to see.

“Yeah,” Kagome said, smiling ruefully, “I guess ‘house’ was a bit of a stretch.”

“Where is he now,” the old woman asked gently, looking down at Shin, who was looking away from them all, “yer son’s father?”

“Gone,” Kagome said, nothing else.

The silence that followed this seemed to speak for itself. The old woman nodded. The old man squinted off somewhere into the distance.

“Please, Miko-sama,” the old lady said, clasping Kagome’s hand, “please stay here, in this home which held such meaning to ye. We’ll go and bunk with our daughter a few houses yonder.”

Kagome tried to decline, but the old couple insisted. And so after they’d packed up a few personal effects, the old man and old woman turned the house over to her and Shin. Kagome crossed the small cheery threshold with Shin at her heels. As the reeds swished shut behind them, he phased into his hanyou form and sniffed about.

“You and my dad traveled to a lot of places together, right? So what’s so special about this one?”

“Well,” Kagome said, faltering a little as she flushed, “this is the one where we made you.”

Shin nodded, like he understood exactly what she meant. This surprised her.

“Er, Shin,” she asked, “you know how babies are made?”

“Sure I do,” her son replied, with an uptilt of chin. “The guy sticks a seed in the girl’s belly. When it grows big enough, she lays an egg, and the baby hatches out.”

Kagome’s lips crooked. “Well, that’s the gist of it, I guess.”

They had a nice quiet dinner together that night, just the two of them alone in this cozy little house. After dinner, they did some schoolwork, despite Shin’s best efforts to play dead. Then they got into their pajamas, blew out the candles, and said goodnight.

Sometime after, a heavy pelting rain began to fall. The night wind howled through the trees. 

And for the first time she could remember in ages, Kagome dreamed.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi