KEIKO: Thank you.
OLD WOMAN: Your hands!
KEIKO: How much do I owe you for this?
OLD WOMAN: They’re cold.
KEIKO: How much do I owe you?
OLD WOMAN: Cold hands means your heart is not steady.
KEIKO: What? (KEIKO takes out some money and gives it to her.) Here. This should be
more than enough.
OLD WOMAN : Reconsider eliminating your . . . pest, dear. I have a love potion in the
front of the shop . . .
KEIKO : No, thank you. This will do. I must get going now. (KEIKO exits in a hurry.)
Thank you!
(A cold draft is heard and felt. The OLD WOMAN walks to the front of the
shop.)
OLD WOMAN : (Talking to her late husband, AKI) Aki, did you see that girl run out of
here? (She laughs and lights a pipe to smoke.)
(Talking to KEIKO who is out of sight) You can’t kill a man with Wolf ’s Bane, dear . . . not
without great harm to yourself—if you haven’t the stomach. You should let water flow.
GHOSTS: (Echoing softly in the wind) Let water flow.
(The sakura blossoms rustle. A wintery gale blows and opens the shop’s door.
The blooms fall and blow along with snow inside the shop as the OLD WOMAN uselessly sweeps. She stops and sits outside the shop to smoke her pipe
until the sakura tree is left bare.)
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