At the foot of the trail up to the Jizo Pass, we greeted, as usual, Mr. Red-Coat Jizo.

“Dear Mr. Jizo,” we said, “Once again please let us borrow this trail  for the day.”

“Sure,” he said. He always does.

But being asked makes him happy. He’s glad to know that we know that the trail, the ridge, and the view from atop Aozasayama can only be borrowed.

Just above the pass, as we headed across the ridge, we came through patches of frost.

Ms. Six Pence (that’s what I’ll call her) and her friend Mr. Six Pence (perhaps, in the future, sometime in the not-so-distant future) had joined the Hearty Hikers for the first time.

“Oh!” Ms. Six Pence called out suddenly. “I’ve got something in my boot.”

“It’s probably a one-yen coin,” Mr. Six Pence said.

She pulled off her shoe—and what do you know!—she did have a one-yen coin in her shoe.

“How did you know that?!” she asked him.

They shared a look. Then Tamiko and I shared a look—we both knew what their look was all about. There was magic in the air.

But then again, in the woods, as the trees feel all that moves among them, as they converse with their buddies about all that’s going on, magic is always in the air.

“Well, that’s certainly something new!” she said.

Up we went, me and Mr. Six Pence a little ahead. He said to me, “She spilled a purseful of change as she was going out her door. But don’t tell her—I mean, don’t remind her. I wanted to tell you, though. I don’t have special powers.”

“Oh,” I said, “but I’m afraid you do.”

“Diamonds!” we heard Ms. Six Pence call out.

“Diamonds, already?” I said to Mr. SP. He blushed.

The two ladies scrambled up to where we were waiting.

“You didn’t see the diamonds?” Tamiko asked me.

Ms. SP invited me to look into her camera’s viewer.

“Wow, where were those?”

“Just back there! You walked right past them!”

Indeed I had. But it’s always this way. When you’re with someone new, you see new stuff. I’d seen all kinds of frost formations, foot-tall frost flowers, but never these cute little green fellows.

“Waaahhh!” Ms. Six Pence exclaimed. “Fuji. There’s Fuji. And look at all that blue!”

Indeed, there was our old, old friend Fuji. We’d borrowed him for the day, too, and all the ridges between us and him. All this was ours and ours alone—do you see anyone else?—though, of course, only on loan.

And she was right. It was mighty blue. It’s often really blue looking out from the Aozasawa ridge, but it seemed especially so this day. I’m not sure whether it was the sky, or Ms. Six Pence, or both, that made it that blue.

Regardless, up into that blue we went.

And soon we were atop Aozasa. Fuji had stayed with us the whole time. As old friends do.

And just like the winter branches, we reached for spring, up into that amazing blue.

There was something soft and peaceful about the journey back.

And as I drove back toward town, and imagined how much Mr. SP must be aching to take Ms. SP’s hand, I remembered that old song:

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue—

and a silver sixpence in her shoe.