Princess Kaguya: The Last Night on Earth

Kaguya’s father had filled the house with guards. Before dawn, the moon would come for his daughter. He meant to send it home without her.

Long before that night, he had found a bamboo stem shining in the grove. Inside stood a girl so small he could carry her in one hand.

His wife laid the little girl in a basket to keep her safe. Their house, once quiet, filled with light. They had wanted a child for so long.

Gold began to appear in the bamboo. The family grew rich. In three months the little girl grew into a young woman, radiant enough to brighten a dark room.

Years passed. Then Kaguya began to sit alone beneath the moon. Night after night, her parents found her crying. At last her father asked why.

She belonged to the moon. At the next full moon, its people would fetch her. She did not want to leave the two people who had made Earth her home.

The emperor had once sent Kaguya poems. Now he sent archers. They watched the roof, the gates, every entrance. Her father ordered that nobody should sleep.

Her mother hid with her in an inner room. Kaguya wished she could stay and care for them in their old age. But she knew what the guards did not.

The harvest moon climbed. The guards waited. At last the sky began to pale. Perhaps, her father thought, they had kept her until morning.

Then a cloud moved down from the moon. It stopped above the house. Within it stood a chariot and figures whose clothes shone like light.

The leader called for Kaguya. Her father begged him to leave her here. Then the screens of her room slid open by themselves. She was there for everyone to see.

They led her to the chariot. Her father followed. If she must go, could he go too? The answer was no.

Kaguya took off her embroidered outer robe and placed it in his arms. She asked him to think of her whenever he looked at the moon.

An attendant lifted a cloak of wings toward her shoulders. Kaguya asked them to wait. Before she left, she would write one last letter to the emperor.

The chariot rose. Dawn turned the clouds pink, and Kaguya disappeared among them. Her parents watched until there was nothing left to follow.

Once, he had carried her home in one hand. Now he held her robe in both. His wife laid her hand over his, and together they carried it inside.