got to the large main porch, which ran almost all the way around the house, walked quickly over it and heard the floorboards creak under her feet, then reached the sliding door that led into the spacious living room and picked it up Hand to open it, but before she had even touched it, it was suddenly pushed open from the other side, and Chiyo - still completely lost in thought - let out a suppressed scream. On the other side of the door stood Maria, looking at her in surprise.

"Chiyo-chan!"

"Ma ... Maria! You scared me ..."

"Well, listen -" Maria pretended to be indignant. "I know we haven't seen each other for a long time, but I haven't changed that much, have I?"

"No," said Chiyo and grinned sheepishly, she suddenly felt - outside of the gloomy little bathhouse - because of her fear quite ridiculous. Then she looked at her sister; It was true, she had barely changed.You had always looked at her Japanese blood a bit more than Chiyo, and that was why she had never been so sure whether she should envy her sister for it or not. As always before, Maria wore the jet black and completely straight hair about shoulder length, she never did anything with it, and yet it always looked perfect! She had a classic wide face that made her slanted eyes really work, and when she tucked her hair up, which she sometimes did for a bath, she always reminded Chiyo of an old poster with a beautiful geisha on it that she had years ago had seen once on a trip with her aunt to Gion. Chiyo envied her a little for this classic beauty, with which she could pass as a real Japanese woman. Chiyo, on the other hand, immediately looked at the mongrel. Her face was narrower, her eyes weren't quite as slanted, and they weren't dark brown like most Japanese people were, but a strange light silvery gray, even if her hair was almost as dark as her sister's.Chiyo let her hair grow for years now, it now reached almost to her waist, but that was almost never seen, because she almost always wore it twisted in a bun or braided in a braid.

Maria opened the door completely to let her younger sister in, when Chiyo stepped over the threshold she was welcomed by the cozy warmth of the heated house, as if by a friendly host. Apart from the two sisters, no one was apparently awake.

"How long have you been so scared, Onee-chan?" Maria wanted to know with a smile. Chiyo noticed that she had been speaking Japanese to her the whole time as a matter of course - the previous two years alone, or with her grandfather and uncle, she had evidently gotten used to it, (since there had been no one with whom she spoke German could have spoken) and did it automatically.

"Oh, that was nothing, I was just in the bathhouse, but there was -"“In the bathhouse?” Maria raised her narrow eyebrows in surprise. "Outside? But why is that?"

"How - 'Why is that'? To bathe, why else?"

Maria opened her mouth to say something, but at that moment the door opened and Seiji Nakamura, her grandfather came in. He smiled at the girls who bowed their heads respectfully as he entered.

“Grandfather, you're up already!” Maria hurried to meet him. "I've already made tea, wait, I'll bring you some."

"Thank you very much Mariko, Shin will take care of it, I've already sent him to the kitchen, he doesn't do enough in the kitchen anyway."

"But why should he, he is a young man, and should rather take care of his work. You can let me do the housekeeping, grandfather."

The old man laughed. "Just let him do it, Mariko, he'll be fine, don't worry, he won't break up all the tea servives in this house - there are a lot here, after all."Maria looked as if she wasn't so sure about that personally, but was silent.

Seiji now turned to Chiyo. "Chiyo-chan, it's nice to have you with us again. Did you sleep well, the first night in the new bed?"

"But grandfather, I've been sleeping in this bed since I was four!"

"Sure, but now with the certainty that it will be for longer than just a few weeks."

She laughed. "Well, I slept very well on my old new futon, but I wonder if it will be the same next week ..."

"Are you worried about school? You don't need to, Chiyo-chan, you'll be surprised how quickly you get used to it, it was the same with Mariko."

Maria now nodded encouragingly to her too. "Believe me, Chiyo-chan, it really isn't that difficult, and if I can help you just say it - there is really no need to be - ... Oh, it occurs to me, Grandfather, Chiyo was in the old bathhouse.Didn't you let her know? "

Chiyo was amazed at her grandfather's alarmed look. “You informed? Why?” Chiyo looked from one to the other. "It's broken, isn't it? At first I thought only the heating in the anteroom was out, but then I went into the bathroom and the water was freezing -"

“You reached inside ?!” Her grandfather gave her a startled look, but then quickly recovered himself. "Well, everything is fine, but you are not allowed to go in there, Chiyo, do you hear? You can't use the bathroom anyway, it can't be heated anymore, we now have a new bathroom inside the house. If you follow the hallway on which your room is located, it will be at the very end on the left-hand side - where the second kitchen was before. And don't go into the bathhouse in the back garden, will you? "

Chiyo looked at him in surprise. "Of course I won't go in again if you can't use it anymore, it would be stupid to do that, too.But what would be so bad about it? As serious as you sound, grandfather, you could almost think it would be dangerous there! "

"Well, dangerous might not be the right thing ... In any case, you shouldn't go inside, the house is old and dilapidated, and if we're unlucky, the roof will come down this winter."

"But why didn't you have it repaired when the heating broke, Grandfather. I loved the bathhouse."

"I liked it too, Chiyo-chan, it's one of the oldest parts of this property - but to be honest - well, it wasn't really repairable anymore. We tried shortly after the heater broke, but then some ... well, mishaps happened to the workers, and then at some point we left it. "

Chiyo was about to inquire curiously what the mishaps had been when a handsome man in an expensive suit, shirt and tie, and a newspaper in hand, pushed open the sliding door to the hall and stepped in.Shin - or Shinichi Nakamura, Seiji's youngest son, and Chiyo's and Maria's uncle. When he saw Chiyo, he nodded briefly in greeting.

"Your tea is ready, father - Mariko, didn't you want to get it?"

It was just a question, but there was a sharpness in it that brooked no contradiction, and Mariko immediately hurried out the door. Shinichi worked as a lawyer for a large and important electrical company, and Chiyo could well imagine him as one of those tough lawyers from television, he was definitely intimidating. She had never liked him very much, with his sharp eyes and what she thought was a permanently arrogant expression on his beautiful face. He was only twenty-eight, but he had risen quickly in his profession, and the only thing he'd ever liked her might have been a derisive smile or a couple of derisive questions. Chiyo once asked herself whether she should give him credit for the fact that he was at least not as horrible to her as he was to Maria, but to this day she had no idea why that was the case, and then decided not to to do.Maria reappeared with a tray full of teacups and a teapot, but immediately disappeared again to bring in the rest of breakfast. Chiyo offered to help her, but she refused with thanks.

"You just got here, Chiyo-chan, sit down and have some tea in peace."

Obediently, Chiyo sat down at the low family table, where Shinichi had already taken a seat, and read his newspaper. Her grandfather also disappeared now, presumably to wake his other son and daughter-in-law so that they could be at breakfast, as Chiyo assumed. So she was left alone with her uncle in the living room. She sipped her tea and watched him furtively for a moment while reading - Maria had once told her that there were girls calling for him all the time, but she had never had the impression that he had a steady girlfriend. Chiyo tried introducing himself with a friend and failed miserably.For that a person would have to have friendly and gentle sides, and she had never discovered anything of those with Shinichi. It might be very pretty, but it was like glittering, shimmering ice: beautiful, but cold and hard - without the slightest soft side. But there was something burning on her tongue, and he was most likely to get a straight answer.

"Um ... Shinichi-san?" It had never seemed strange to refer to a family member with this respectful address, since he had always been so strange to her.

He looked up from his newspaper (at least!) And regarded it as anything but friendly.

"I still have to read this, Chiyo ..." he replied slowly. "So if it's nothing important ..."

"I ... I just wanted to know what happened to the workers in the bathhouse that made them stop working - Grandfather sounded so serious!" said Chiyo hastily.

Her grandfather hadn't put it in such a way that something had happened WITH the workers, but she had to give it a try.Shinichi eyed her so coolly for a while that she almost certainly believed that he would tell her right away that it was none of her business, or that in the end, even out of contempt, he would not answer at all, but to her great surprise he suddenly turned to her .

"Well ... it's not that easy to explain. Father had hired more than one group of workers to have the bathhouse repaired, but every time it failed inexplicably." He eyed Chiyo appraisingly for a while, and she stopped caught his breath, was afraid he would leave it at that, but went on to learn. "The first time suddenly a whole piece of the wall came down and almost killed one of the men. Another time, just as the group was about to start