Aisha dreamed she was sleeping beside her mother.
The curtains were drawn so that it was dimly lit even during the daytime, and a medicinal smell filled the room.
She heard the door open and her father entered. She tried to open her eyes but her lids wouldn’t budge. A deep exhaustion filled her head, making her too sleepy to pry them open.
She thought she caught the cool scent of flowers, and her eyelids fluttered.
Fragrant blue grass…
It wasn’t her father who had entered the room, but the Kokun.
Before she knew it, the walls of the room had switched to those of a huge, shadowed hall. Illuminated by the late afternoon sun that streamed through the skylight, the Kokun walked over and sat by her bed.
She had no face.
Aisha jerked and opened her eyes. Her heart hammered against her ribcage.
She was in a dimly lit room, large and empty with a row of vacant beds. It was still daytime. Light glowed faintly behind the curtains.
Someone was sitting beside her.
“Are you awake?” a soft voice asked.
Aisha gasped and turned to stare at the woman who sat there. She seemed to embody the scent of fragrant blue grass.
The Lady Kokun…but…it can’t be…
Although Aisha knew it was impossible, the woman sitting there smelled exactly like the one who had been behind that bamboo screen.
People’s scents change from one moment to the next. Even so, Aisha could identify someone despite these changes, just as a mother will never mistake her children even if they cut their hair or wear different clothes.
“How are you feeling?”
The woman’s voice jolted Aisha from her thoughts.
“Thank you,” she managed to croak. “I’m fine. Excuse me, but you are…”
“I’m sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Olie.” She paused for a second, then continued, “There’s a reason I can’t tell you my surname, but I’m staying here thanks to the kindness of Master Raoh.”
Aisha’s eyes narrowed. “Miss…Olie.” Her brain had finally switched on, and she began thinking furiously.
This was the person she’d sensed behind the bamboo curtain. Of that, Aisha was certain. Yet it was unthinkable that the living goddess from the palace could be sitting on a chair beside her bed. It was unthinkable, yet this was no dream. The Kokun was here, right before her eyes.
At that moment, a bell rang, signaling the start of the lunch hour.
As the familiar sound washed over her, Aisha’s confusion and agitation abated a little. Whether she understood the reason didn’t matter. If this woman had decided to call herself Olie and conceal the fact that she was the Lady Kokun, then Aisha had no choice but to accept her as that.
Still, the thought of lying in bed in her presence was unbearable. Aisha threw back the blanket and tried to sit up, but Olie raised a hand to stop her.
“Please. Don’t get up.”
“But…”
Olie smiled. “This is no time to worry about manners. You fainted; you must rest.”
Her friendly tone robbed Aisha of speech. Although Olie was an ethereal beauty, she didn’t dazzle. Rather, she seemed kind and gentle, yet with an inherent dignity.
“I’m sorry to have surprised you like this. You must have thought it very strange to wake up and find a stranger beside you. It’s just that when I heard about how you fainted, I wanted to ask you something.”
Aisha kept her eyes respectfully averted. “What would you like to know?” she asked.
“Well, you see…”
Olie paused, then said, “There’s no need to look away. Let’s speak normally, face to face.”
After a moment of uncertainty, Aisha raised her head and looked at her.
Olie relaxed visibly. “That’s better,” she said.
She cleared her throat and started again. “Let me go back to the beginning. I’ve been having trouble sleeping lately. Last night too. I just couldn’t get back to sleep, and it seemed pointless to stay in bed. So, I got up and went to the window. It was a lovely moonlit night, wasn’t it?”
Aisha said nothing.
“It was so bright the eaves looked like they were covered in frost. Bright enough that I could see someone moving in the garden.”
She looked at Aisha and smiled. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
Aisha nodded. “Yes, it was me.”
“You were removing a plant and replanting it elsewhere, yes?”
“Yes.”
Aisha braced in anticipation of her next question. She knew she couldn’t explain why she’d done that. But the question wasn’t the one Aisha was expecting.
“What plant were you moving?” Olie asked.
Although puzzled, Aisha answered honestly. “I beg your pardon, but I don’t know what it is called. It is not one that grows in my homeland, and I have not yet been taught its name.”
A light kindled in Olie’s eyes. “You didn’t know its name, yet you knew it needed transplanting. Is that right?”
Aisha started to nod, but then froze. The realization of what Olie’s words meant struck her like a lightning bolt.
She knows!
She felt like laughing at her own denseness. Of course, she knew. She was the Lady Kokun, the living goddess who could read the scents of all things.
I don’t have to hide.
The tension inside her snapped, and she began to tremble. The pain that had been building up ever since her arrival burst its bonds, and she shook uncontrollably.
Olie watched her steadily. There was a strange light in her eyes that Aisha couldn’t fathom. Although Olie’s expression remained calm, from her scent Aisha could tell that her heart was racing.
“It’s just as I thought,” Olie murmured. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
What she was thinking, Aisha couldn’t guess, but for a long time Olie didn’t move. Finally, she breathed slowly in and out several times as though to calm herself, then opened her eyes. They were filled with compassion.
“It must have been so hard,” she said. She reached out a hand and patted Aisha on the shoulder.
At her touch, Aisha felt hot tears well in her eyes. Unable to hold them back, she squeezed her lids shut and let out a sob.
“You couldn’t sleep either, could you?”
With her eyes still closed, Aisha nodded. Tears spilled from beneath her eyelids.
She hadn’t been able to sleep. Not at all.
When she’d arrived at this garden, she’d been inundated with the screams of plants. The clamor of smells had been so intense, she’d felt like throwing up.
There was one section of the garden, in particular, where so many incompatible plants had been placed together, she’d wondered why on earth they’d been planted there.
Some species inhibit the growth of other plants. Normally, scent voices are mere whispers compared to the screams and angry shouts of humans, but in that section, certain sensitive plant species shrieked incessantly because of their proximity to plants that hindered their growth. Their anguish, in turn, affected the surrounding plants and trees, causing chaos throughout the garden.
At first, Aisha had tried to adapt. It was her only option for survival. She’d thought that if she could just get used to the scent voices, she could suppress her reaction, like she did in a crowd.
But even when she was inside, the scents that crept into the building were so distressing she lost her appetite. Instead of getting used to the smells, her misery intensified with each passing day.
It was impossible to accustom herself to the tormented voices of plants subjected to such torture. She felt so sorry for them that, after five or six days, she could no longer even sleep.
She thought of running away and joining Milucha and Jiiya on the farm, but decided against it. No matter how small the risk, she couldn’t chance anyone finding out they were still alive.
If she were to survive, she’d have to find a solution, yet no one would understand her, even if she tried to explain the idea of scent voices. After agonizing over this for some time, she had hit upon the idea of rescuing the plants by secretly moving them to another part of the garden.
Olie continued to pat Aisha’s shoulder. “This is no ordinary garden,” she said. “It’s a place to experiment.”
Aisha’s eyes widened. “Experiment?”
“That’s right,” Olie said gently. “In a normal garden, farmers strive to foster the healthy growth of their plants, but here they also do the opposite. Some sections are used to test what inhibits plant growth. The area of the garden to which you’ve been assigned is one of those. That’s why incompatible plants are being grown side by side.”
Aisha stared at Olie. This possibility had never occurred to her. “Why do they need to test that?”
“To understand plants more deeply. If we want to foster plant growth, we need to understand any factors that could hamper it. That includes what stunts them and what kills them. Many different experiments are conducted here to find that out.”
Olie spoke in a low voice, but her tone was clear and her words were easy to understand. “For example, by trying out many different things, we might learn how to prevent weeds from growing without using weed killers that harm the human body.”
She paused for a moment, as if thinking, then said, “You know that some crops wither when grown near ohaleh, right?”
Aisha’s eyes widened. An image of the rolling sea of golden grain out the window of the carriage popped into her mind. Along with its distinctive, powerful smell.
I see.
She’d heard from her father that ohaleh inhibited the growth of other crops, but since she’d come to this region, she’d noticed that the soil where ohaleh grew had a peculiar smell, quite different from any other soil. It wouldn’t be surprising if other crops couldn’t thrive in it.
“Although it’s impossible to farm other grains alongside ohaleh rice,” Olie continued, “certain vegetables can be grown with it. At this garden, they’re studying which plants grow best where and how. Climate and soil conditions differ in each region, and each protectorate has its own indigenous crops. At Lia Garden, they’re carefully researching every aspect of farming and plants to promote agriculture and prosperity throughout the realm.”
So that’s what’s going on here.
Aisha suddenly realized she’d stopped trembling. She’d been told she’d be working at a garden, only to discover it was a very strange garden indeed. Olie’s explanation had dispelled her fear and eased her mind.
“But—” she began, then checked herself hastily.
“What is it? You’ve nothing to fear,” Olie said with a friendly smile. “Go ahead. Say whatever you like.”
Emboldened, Aisha blurted out, “It seems so cruel. Plants can’t move. They can’t run away when they’re in distress. They’re screaming in agony…and it’s not even their fault.”
Olie’s eyes widened in shock. She sat silently, her mouth slightly open. “Yes…Yes, that’s true,” she murmured finally, then fell silent again, her eyes downcast.
Unable to bear the silence any longer, Aisha sat up.
As if nudged, Olie raised her head and began to speak. “Living here is torture not just for the plants, but for you too. I’ll think about whether there’s somewhere else we can send you.”
Startled, Aisha stammered, “S-somewhere else?”
She was immensely grateful that Olie understood her so well, and joy suffused her at the thought of escaping this place. It seemed like a heavy ceiling that had been pressing down on her had suddenly been lifted. But when she recalled her situation, her face clouded.
“Please. Do not waste your time on someone like me,” she said. “I sincerely appreciate your concern, but in my circumstances, I am not at liberty to—”
“Your circumstances?” Olie asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“What kind of circumstances?”
Aisha clenched her hands together and averted her eyes.
“It’s difficult for you to answer, is it?”
Aisha bowed her head. “Yes. I beg your pardon.”
Olie’s face relaxed. “That’s all right. I’ll talk it over with Master Raoh when he comes back. Let’s decide after that.”
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From Kokun by Nahoko Uehashi, translated by Cathy Hirano. Used with permission of the publisher, Europa Editions. Copyright © 2025.
