Murmurs

As late spring melted into early summer, the village of Kōgoe thrummed with its usual agrarian rhythms. Dawn after dawn, farmers moved in single file along the narrow footpaths between flooded rice paddies, guiding oxen or carrying hoes over their shoulders. The thatched cottages nestled under zelkova and chestnut trees were often wreathed in bluish cookfire smoke by sunrise, as wives prepared millet porridge before the day’s labor. Children with trousers rolled up to their knees helped shoo birds from the seedlings, their gleeful shouts echoing across the water. At midday, elders took respite under the shade of a maple, chewing on pickled radish and sharing news of the weather. In such a season, every hand in the village was busy - planting, weeding, fishing, tending silkworms - and every life danced to the heartbeat of growing things.

Summer deepened over the farms of Iwate, bringing long days of warm sun and intermittent rains. Jūbei’s fields grew lush and green. The rice paddies stood taller than a man’s waist, each stalk crowned with heavy heads of grain still a month from golden ripeness. His vegetable rows, too, flourished beyond expectation. Broad leaves of squash and cucumber sprawled over their mounds, and bright yellow cucumber blossoms winked amid the green. The air was thick with the hum of cicadas each afternoon, yet in Jūbei’s plot even the locusts and beetles seemed fewer. Each morning, Jūbei walked his rows and marveled that not a single potato beetle or aphid colony blemished the leaves. Now and then a bright ladybug dotted a cucumber vine here or there, dutifully nibbling away any tiny pests before they could take hold. It was as if the beneficial creatures had rallied to shield his crops. Meanwhile, just a field over, Itou could be seen picking caterpillars off his cabbages and bemoaning weevils boring into his greens. Jūbei offered him a few of his excess cucumbers as a friendly gesture, but the man accepted them with a confused frown, clearly wondering how Endō’s farm remained so untouched. The usual plagues of summer - nibbling insects, mildew, hungry sparrows - all skirted his crops as if held at bay by an unseen fence. By twilight, when other farmers lit smudge fires of rice straw to ward off pests with smoke, Jūbei found he hardly needed to; the boundaries of his fields were strangely serene.

True to his word, Jūbei prepared to fulfill his pact when the first cucumbers ripened on their vines. It was early in the seventh month when he found three fat cucumbers ready for picking, cool and dark green under their canopy of leaves. He picked them carefully at dawn, their spines pricking his fingers, and washed them in a bucket of clear water. That evening, as the crickets began chirping and a silver half-moon rose, he carried the fresh cucumbers to the old willow by the riverside. This was the very spot where the kappa had returned his gourd - a little embankment sheltered by draping willow branches and guarded by mossy stones. In ages past, there might have been a small wayside shrine here; Jūbei half-remembered a tale of an altar that once stood near this tree, though now only a half-buried stone foundation remained. Perhaps his offering would revive that ancient custom. After all, there were stories of villages that still honored the river spirits - in far-off Tōno, he’d heard of a Kappabuchi pool where locals cast cucumbers and maintained a shrine to a kappa that had protected their temple generations ago. Here in Kōgoe, such rites had faded from living memory, but Jūbei felt in his heart the rightness of the act.

Kneeling on the damp earth, Jūbei arranged the three cucumbers on a flat stone at the water’s edge. The river’s current glistened with twilight’s last purple hues. He bowed his head low, the willow’s fronds brushing his shoulders like a curtain. “Guardian of my fields,” he said softly into the dusk, “I present the first fruits, as promised. May you accept this humble offering.” The only answer was the murmur of the stream and the creak of crickets in the rushes. Jūbei waited, eyes closed in respect. A moment later came a gentle plop - when he looked up, one of the cucumbers was gone, ripples spreading outward from the spot. The remaining two cucumbers slowly drifted off the rock and into the eddy, as if nudged by unseen hands. In the dimness beneath the willow, Jūbei thought he saw a sliver of movement - a glint of yellow eye, a hint of a grin - before the river went still again. A cool breeze sighed through the willow leaves, tousling his graying hair. Jūbei smiled to himself. The pact was kept.

Unbeknownst to Jūbei, not far behind, a pair of eyes had been watching. Old Itou, a neighbor whose paddies bordered the river upstream, had been walking home from an evening check on his irrigation sluice. Seeing Jūbei’s figure by the willow, curiosity had gotten the better of him. From behind a thicket, Itou had witnessed the strange scene of Jūbei bowing in the twilight and the cucumbers vanishing into the stream. Itou crept away unseen, heart pounding with superstitious awe. By the time the next market day dawned, the whispers had begun.

At first, it was just a subtle shift in how the villagers looked at Jūbei. He had always been a quiet man, respected enough for his diligence and pitied for his recent loss. But now there was something more in their gazes - a mix of curiosity and wariness. A miller’s wife, passing by Jūbei’s flourishing vegetable patch on her way to the well, marveled at the size of his cucumber leaves and the absence of holes from bugs. She reported to her friends that Endō-san must be using some secret fertilizer or charm. Two fields over, young Gorō chased sparrows from his millet and noted that none perched at all in Jūbei’s rice - not a single crow or sparrow dared peck there. He joked to his father that perhaps Jūbei had taught the birds manners. The father only stroked his chin and wondered.

As the weeks passed, the murmurs grew. Under the eaves of the communal storehouse, where farmers gathered to tie up rice sheaves or pound millet, men spoke in low tones that carried just far enough for Jūbei to overhear. “Never seen a healthier crop than Jūbei’s this year,” said one. “Not a rotten patch or broken dam in his lot,” muttered another, “even after that gale last fortnight laid some of ours flat.” “Maybe the gods are repaying his hardships,” offered the village headman kindly, remembering how Jūbei had weathered his wife’s death. But others were less charitable. “Repayment? Hah,” huffed Itou - the very neighbor who had spied at the willow, though he did not admit that part. “He’s up to something, mark my words. I saw him myself muttering prayers by the river, making offerings…” This claim drew startled looks. One greybeard, who recalled old folk traditions, squinted shrewdly. “Offerings by the river, you say? What to, I wonder?”

Itou lowered his voice dramatically. “What else? Some river spirit… or worse. He left cucumbers, of all things.” At that, a murmur of recognition passed - cucumbers were well-known in superstition as appeasement for water goblins. “A kappa?” one woman gasped, nearly dropping the bundle of kindling in her arms. “Shhh,” hissed another man, glancing around as if the very word might summon one. The headman, a balding fellow with kind eyes, frowned slightly. “We’ve had no kappa here for generations. There used to be a shrine by the willow for the river deity, but it’s long neglected…”

“Neglected by us, maybe,” Itou interjected, “but perhaps not by Jūbei.” He leaned in, tapping the side of his nose. “His fields prosper unnaturally, I tell you. And I heard crows won’t land there. Not one! The rest of us lose half our seedlings to those black pests, but he doesn’t even need a scarecrow.” The gathering fell silent. Such talk walked a fine line - half admiration, half accusation. In a village so dependent on nature’s whims, any hint of one farmer garnering extraordinary favor could breed unease.

A few of the older villagers exchanged knowing looks. They remembered snatches of old festivals their grandparents had spoken of - rites to thank the river and mountain kami for good harvests, often around the equinoxes. Long ago, it was said, offerings were indeed floated downstream to placate whatever unseen beings dwelt beneath the currents, ensuring the village fields thrived in return. But those practices had waned in the last two generations, brushed aside as superstition by many. Could it be that widowed Endō Jūbei had quietly resurrected such a pact?

For his part, Jūbei carried on as humbly as ever, largely oblivious to the more fanciful rumors. He noticed that neighbors spoke a touch more tersely around him, or fell silent when he approached, but he attributed it to his own preoccupation with the harvest. He kept mostly to himself, tending his crops from dawn until the stars appeared. In the sultry afternoons, he would pause at the edge of his rice paddy, wiping sweat from his brow, and feel an uncanny stillness in the air. It was as though the usual bustle of nature calmed when he was present - frogs hushed their croaking, birds circled wide away from his plot, even the cicadas seemed to chirr a little softer. Standing there amid the rice, Jūbei sometimes felt the hair on his neck prickle, sensing he was not quite alone. He would turn slowly toward the river, its bends hidden behind tall reeds, and offer a subtle nod. He never saw the kappa outright, but now and then a ripple or a glimmer of green at the corner of his eye told him his guardian was keeping watch.

At nights, after supping on millet porridge and pickled radish, Jūbei would sit on his wooden porch and gaze over the moonlit fields. Fireflies drifted above the paddies in silent lantern processions. On such a night, one of his few friends, a farmer named Kaneko, stopped by to share a cup of thin sake. Under the guise of neighborly concern, Kaneko gently probed: Was everything well with him? He had heard some odd talk in the village. Jūbei smiled and assured him all was well. His fields were doing nicely, that was true - perhaps Lady Luck had finally granted him a favor after years of hardship. He left it at that. Kaneko hesitated, then lowered his voice. “Some say you’ve… done something, Jūbei. An extra prayer, maybe. You know how people gossip.” He chuckled weakly. “If you have any charms, perhaps you could share a little of that luck?”

Jūbei only shook his head and poured his friend another cup. “No charms. Only hard work and a bit of rain at the right times,” he said softly. “I pray no more than the rest of you.” This was not a lie, he told himself; he did work hard, and he offered prayers - to the same gods as everyone, even if one particular river spirit also heard them. Kaneko studied him in the gentle dark, then nodded. He didn’t press further, and soon the talk turned to common matters - the forecast of an early autumn, the price of seed barley, the mischief of a wild boar that had rooted up some distant cousin’s potato patch.

Yet even as he reassured his friend, Jūbei felt a pang of guilt nibble at his heart. His prosperity this season was not only luck and labor, and he knew it. It owed to the kappa’s seal hanging now at the corner of his field - the very gourd dipper carved with that swirling emblem. By day, he kept it on a post beneath the scarecrow’s tattered hat. By night, he took it inside lest it wander off or draw too much attention from curious eyes. Whenever he handled the gourd, he felt a subtle warmth radiating from the carved symbol, as if in quiet affirmation of their pact. Sometimes, he found a freshwater fish or two left flapping in a puddle near the gourd at dawn - gifts from the river, which were regarded as a mark of good fortune for his household. Every such sign strengthened his resolve to keep the pact a secret and to uphold his end of the bargain unfailingly.

The summer waned and the harvest season arrived. Under a brilliant harvest moon, the rice was gathered in - sheaves of grain piled high like hillocks of gold. Jūbei’s harvest was, as many had anticipated, exceptional. His granary barrels filled to the brim with rice, enough not only for his own needs but to trade for other goods and to set aside as store for winter. His cucumber vines had yielded crate upon crate of crisp fruits which he had quietly distributed among neighbors in a gesture of goodwill. Many thanked him for the generosity, though a few accepted with puzzled looks, wondering what fortune allowed a man to give away so much of his crop.

On the last day of the rice harvest, the village held a small celebration in the drying yard - a customary gathering to thank the local deities for the season’s bounty. They hung paper lanterns from the eaves and shared steaming bowls of ozoni soup and roasted chestnuts. Young women clapped and danced to the rhythm of a folk tune, their laughter echoing as children chased each other with straw doll toys. The familiar scents of sweet rice wine and grilled river fish filled the cool autumn air, normally a time of pure joy. As twilight deepened, a group of men struck up a rhythmic beat on a taiko drum and everyone clapped along. Laughter and relief at another successful year flowed freely with the warm millet beer.

Jūbei sat quietly on the sidelines of the revelry, content to listen to the chatter and songs. But even in this cheerful setting, he could not ignore the furtive glances thrown his way. A knot of younger farmers was huddled not far off, speaking in tones just low enough to be covert. Jūbei caught snatches: “…his fields never flooded once…” “…maybe he found a tengu’s feather or something…” “…no, I tell you I saw a strange light over his paddies one night… like a will-o’-wisp…” A chill wind gusted briefly across the yard, and Jūbei pulled his jacket tighter. He felt suddenly apart from the others - a blessed man, perhaps, but also a marked man. Marked by the favor of a being they did not fully understand and thus perhaps feared.

As stars bloomed in the sky, the headman finally approached Jūbei, his expression amiable but serious. “Endō,” he began, offering a cup of beer. “You’ve had quite the harvest. The best in the village, by my reckoning.”

Jūbei accepted the cup politely. “I have been fortunate, Headman. I’m grateful to our land for its kindness this year.”

The headman nodded, then spoke in a lowered tone. “Aye… fortunate. You know, some of the others… they wonder how it is. I’m an old man; I’ve seen strange things in my time and I don’t judge what I don’t fully know. But if there’s anything you’d like to share - any help you received or technique you found - it might ease their minds.” He looked squarely at Jūbei. Though kindly, the suggestion was clear: If you have a secret, perhaps you should tell it, lest people grow distrustful.

Jūbei felt the weight of the moment. He looked out at the dark fields beyond, lit by the orange glow of torches. Across his own rice stubble, he thought he saw a few fireflies dancing - or were those the lantern-like embers of eyes watching from the irrigation ditch? He blinked and they were gone. He bowed to the headman. “Truly, I have no secret that anyone else could not come by,” he said slowly. “I do the same as all - tend the water channels, pick off beetles at dawn, weed diligently, pray at the shrine…” Here he paused. “Perhaps… perhaps I prayed a bit harder this year, being alone and having only myself to rely on. The spirits must have heard.”

The headman studied him, weighing this answer. At last, he sighed and patted Jūbei’s shoulder. “Well, whatever the cause, we’re all thankful for a good harvest. Just take care, son. Sometimes too much fortune attracts… envy.”

His words rang in Jūbei’s ears long after the gathering dispersed. Walking home under the canopy of the Milky Way, he understood that envy had indeed been aroused. He resolved to tread carefully. He would continue to honor the kappa discreetly, and share what he could with his neighbors to foster goodwill. Perhaps, in time, their suspicions would fade like autumn’s heat into the cool of winter.

That night, the village lay quiet. Jūbei stepped outside his cottage to inhale the crisp air before sleep. In the distance he heard the river flowing steady and constant. A pale mist was rising from the water, drifting over the moonlit paddies. No crows cried; no creatures stirred. It was as if the world itself were holding its breath. Jūbei closed his eyes and listened to the faint chorus of frogs near the riverbank, a gentle melody in the silence. He hoped - fervently - that this peace would last. Little did he know that the murmurs of envy were only the beginning, and that the balance he had so carefully kept was about to be tested by those eager to claim a gift they did not understand.