The Wings of Dreams

tutor.”
    Shushou went to pick up her chopsticks and sighed instead. “The tutors my father hires teach nothing but etiquette and business. Besides, without a recommendation to the district academy, the whole matter is moot.”
    The prefectural academies prepared students for the district academies, which prepared students for the provincial colleges. College graduates were pretty much guaranteed a position in the civil service. In short, her merchant father could never quite grasp that Shushou wished to try for a career in government.
    “It’s so frustrating! I was that close to becoming a district scholar,” as students who’d received a recommendation to a district academy were known.
    “But you’ve come so far already! Not only your father, but even your brothers and sisters were perfectly satisfied with a preparatory school education.”
    “I don’t think were so much satisfied as they didn’t have the brains to earn a recommendation to the prefectural academy.”
    Keika gave Shushou a surprised look. “ That again. Certainly you cannot begrudge the knowledge and skills that made this fine house possible. Why in the world would you want to become a civil servant?”
    Shushou took a sip of tea and stared out the window. “Rise high enough in the government and you will never grow older.”
    “My, my. What a childish aspiration.”
    “What wrong with not wanting to die? To live forever and not turn out like your mom, all baggy and wrinkled.”
    “Don’t be mean. Leave my mother out of this, if you please.” Keika frowned, then peered at Shushou’s face. “Are you going to eat?”
    “I’m not in the mood. I lost my appetite.”
    “What are you going on about?” Keika picked up the chopsticks and thrust them into Shushou’s hand. “Such persnicketiness invites the wrath of the gods. Food is getting more expensive by the day. The average household cannot even afford the meager meal spread out before you.”
    Shushou looked at the array of dishes. “That’s just silly,” she said, putting the chopsticks down.
    “Miss—”
    “I have no illusions about how wealthy we are compared to everybody else. No ordinary family could afford something like this. But whether I eat or not is neither here nor there.”
    “You’re just going to leave it there? There are so many who would love to partake of such a feast and cannot. And not only that, there are people who won’t even be able to eat dinner tonight!”
    “And?” Shushou looked up at Keika. “I know that. As my father likes to say, if you stay shut up inside the house and never venture outside, you’ll never learn anything about the world. Going to school and meeting different people makes it painfully clear that other families aren’t like ours.”
    “And so—”
    “And so nothing. The one has no relationship to the other. Will eating this meal cause equal portions to rain down on those who go without? If the hungry are so pitiful, then take this food and give it to them.”
    “Pardon me for saying so, Miss, but even this is far more luxurious than what I will ever eat.”
    The kitchen workload had only increased of late. Keika and the rest of the live-in servants had seen cutbacks in their own meals. She was a growing girl, and the portions had never been generous to start with, so it was not unusual for her to wake up at night with an empty stomach these days.
    She glared angrily at Shushou, who raised her cool countenance to Keika and said, “It’s all yours, then.”
    “Miss!” Keika exclaimed in a shrill voice.
    “Look,” Shushou said, a chastening tint darkening her eyes. “The headmaster’s house had no bars on the windows. He was attacked by a bafuku youma and devoured. A child fed himself for three days with the money he plucked from the mouth of his dead father, money earned delivering buckets. You sleep safely in your bed. You eat regularly and do not starve. I hope you appreciate how blessed you are.”
    Keika bridled. “What are you trying to say?”
    “If you are going to feign ignorance of the obvious, then at least spare me the hackneyed moralizing. I don’t want it. Take it away, all of it.”
    Now Keika’s face paled. “Miss, what’s gotten into you!”
    No sooner had Keika’s anger flared but Shushou grabbed the soup bowl, rose to her feet, and threw it at her. “Shut up! I told you I didn’t want it!”
    Keika stood there in stunned silence. The soup had cooled enough that it was no longer