Spring deepened.
The plum blossoms began to fall.
They drifted soundlessly through the courtyard, pale petals scattering across the wooden veranda like fragments of a dream that had broken apart.
She tried to catch them. Each time she reached out, they slipped past her fingers, landing softly in her sleeves, her hair, her lap. She giggled anyway, as if the blossoms were teasing her on purpose.
"Stay still," her mother said gently from behind her. "If you chase them, they will run."
The girl froze immediately. A petal landed on her nose. Her mother laughed. There it was again: soft and warm and bright enough to make the world feel safe. The girl loved that sound most of all. Her mother's hands moved slowly through her hair, untangling the strands with careful fingers. She always combed gently, never pulling, never rushing. Even when knots resisted, she only paused and tried again more patiently.
"You must be kind to your hair," her mother said. "It remembers how it is treated."
The girl nodded solemnly.
She believed everything her mother said.
A breeze drifted through the open doorway, carrying the scent of damp earth and distant tea leaves from the fields. The paper screen trembled softly in its frame. Somewhere inside the house... A cough sounded.
It was quiet. So quiet most people would not have noticed.
But the girl did.
She turned slightly. "Mother?"
Her mother's hand paused only for a moment before continuing to comb.
"Yes?"
"Did you cough?" Reina asked.
"No," her mother said gently. "Perhaps the house did."
The girl accepted this explanation without question. Houses, after all, did make sounds. Floors creaked. Doors sighed. Wind whispered through beams. It was perfectly reasonable that a house might cough.
She relaxed again.
Outside the gate, a motorcar passed along the distant road. The low rumble of its engine drifted faintly through the air, unfamiliar and heavy, like faraway thunder. The girl tilted her head, listening.
"That sound," she said. "It's like the sky is thinking."
Her mother smiled faintly. "Perhaps it is."
Another petal fell. This time it landed on her mother's sleeve. The girl reached up to brush it away but stopped.
Her small fingers hovered.
"Mother…"
"Yes?" Her mother answered.
"You look tired."
Her mother blinked once, as if surprised, then smiled in reassurance.
"I am only resting my eyes."
But her lashes did not lift right away.
The girl watched her carefully. Children notice things adults think they hide. The faint paleness beneath her mother's lips. The slight tremble in her fingers. The way her breaths were just a little slower than before.
The girl did not understand what those signs meant. She only knew they made her chest feel strange. So she leaned backward gently until her head rested against her mother's shoulder.
"If you sleep," she said softly, "I will be quiet."
Her mother's hand stilled in her hair.
For a long moment, she did not move.
Then her fingers resumed their slow, careful strokes.
Petals continued falling.
One by one.
One by one.
One by one.
From the hallway, unseen, a servant watched. Her brows drew together faintly. Because she had heard it too.
The cough.
The wind shifted. A cluster of blossoms loosened from the branch above and scattered down all at once, blanketing the veranda in pale white.
The girl gasped softly.
"It's snowing."
Her mother's voice, when she answered, was quieter than before.
"Yes," she said. "Spring snow."
The petals did not stop falling.