by Nick Lake
On this day my beloved ones
Who have departed—
Even they return to this place.
Shusaku paused, listening to the voice. “That’s Yukiko,” he said. He led Taro and Hiro down a side alley and to a door set into a wall. Here the singing was louder, and Taro could hear another girl joining in. “And that’s Heiko,” said Shusaku. “Her sister.” Glancing up and down the street to check that no one was watching, he took the long black scarf from a fold of his kimono, and retied his mask.
“I thought you said you knew these people,” said Taro.
“I do. But they don’t know I’m tattooed. It’s a long story.” Shusaku finished arranging the folds of black fabric, then pushed open the door, gently.
Taro looked in to what seemed a scene from an ukiyo-e painting, and couldn’t help letting out a soft gasp. In the moonlight the garden could have been a dream. A miniature landscape of pool and stream and trees, it seemed perfect and glowing in the bluish light, and Taro felt that if he stepped forward it might vanish, revealing itself to be nothing more than an illusion painted on the air by a playful spirit. Suffused with the light of the moon, the scene was also lit by candlelight that shone from inside the house, throwing a soft glow through tall shoji panels onto the grass and moss.
In the center of the garden a heron stood very still in the middle of an ornamental pond, as if admiring its reflection, cast clearly onto the water by the moon. Across the pond a weeping willow touched the soft grass with its fronds. At the far end of the garden rose a rock garden that resembled mountainous scenery, even down to small bonsai pine trees.
Between the mountains and the pool ran a stream, its waters gurgling quietly. A bridge arced over it, elegantly curved, and on the bridge stood the slender silhouettes of three women—or rather, Taro realized, a woman and two girls.
As Taro watched, the girls knelt by the stream. They held oblong lanterns, windowed by shoji paper, each side painted brightly with a different primary color to represent the four elements. The shoryo-nagashi, able to carry messages to the dead. Inside the lanterns candles flickered, casting colored light on the cold water of the stream, and the mossy forest floor.
“I call on the spirits of my father and mother, and all unresolved karma, to accept these messages,” said one of the girls, her voice a little choked. She placed her lamp in the stream and it floated, spinning, away. Speaking the same words, the other girl placed her lamp in the water, and it raced after its companion.
Taro felt a wave of pity. They’re sending shoryo-nagashi to their parents, he thought. They must be orphans.
Having waited for the floating lanterns to spin away down the stream, and out of the garden through a hole in the wall, Shusaku stepped forward into the garden. The heron turned its head to look at him, then launched itself, ungainly yet somehow graceful, into the air.
Taro and Hiro followed Shusaku into the garden, as the taller of the girls turned and stifled a gasp. “A ninja!”
Shusaku put a finger to his lips. “It’s me, Shusaku,” he hissed.
“Uncle Shusaku!” said the girl, no quieter than before.
Both girls left the bridge and ran over, and Taro saw that the one who had spoken—she seemed to be the elder—was slim and tall, with an intelligent, kind face. Her sister was more muscular, her hair shorter and her face more guarded.
Shusaku closed the door behind him as the girls walked over, followed by the most beautiful woman Taro had ever seen.
Shusaku bowed. “Abbess,” he said.
“Shusaku. You have returned.” The woman’s voice was neutral, betraying no pleasure or pain. “But why do you wear the mask in my home?”
Shusaku shook his head. “I can’t explain right now. Later.”
Taro stared. Could this really be the “old woman” Shusaku had spoken of? She was so elegant, so smooth-skinned, so graceful …
But then the woman beckoned him forward, and Taro saw that her face was lined with fine wrinkles, and her hair was not dyed by the moonlight but was actually white.
The woman turned to Shusaku. “The boy. It is he? It is the—”
“Yes,” said Shusaku, cutting her off. Taro wondered what she had been about to say about him. “Is it so obvious?” he asked. “How did you know it was not the other?” He indicated Hiro, who fidgeted, squirming with embarrassment.
The woman looked at Hiro, and laughed. “No. He is a fine boy, but …”—she turned back to Taro—“destiny clings to this one like smoke.” She examined Taro, then turned back to Shusaku. “You have made him a vampire,” she said. It was a statement, but it was also a question.
“Yes,” Shusaku almost sighed. “It was unavoidable.”
The younger girl—Yukiko—sucked in a sharp breath, frowning at Taro. He took a step backward, seeing the hostility in that look, but she composed her face into a smile, and he relaxed.
The woman nodded slowly. “If you say so, then it must be so.” She looked at Taro. “Later I will read his fortune. It should be interesting. In the meantime perhaps you had better tell me why you have come.”
“We needed a safe place to stay.”
“You will always have that here,” said the woman. “But your mission was only to save the boy. Why bring him with you?”
“Things became … complicated. They sent many ninja against him. I had to turn him to save him.”
“So you said.” She spread her hands. “Well, you’re always welcome here, as I said. We have food and we have fresh clothes, and rooms to sleep where the sunlight cannot enter. Stay as long as you like. The girls will be pleased to spend some time with their uncle and protector.”
Shusaku nodded, then looked at the taller girl. “Heiko. It is a pleasure to see you again.” He turned to the other. “Yukiko. You have grown.”
“That is what girls do, is it not?” said the girl. She was pretty despite her more athletic build, and had a cheeky look about her.
“I suppose it is,” said Shusaku, smiling. Then he turned to Taro and Hiro, introducing them to the girls. Yukiko gave Taro a warm smile as she bowed to him, and he thought he must have imagined that sharp look when Shusaku had revealed that he was a vampire.
“We should talk alone for a moment,” said the abbess, putting a hand on Shusaku’s arm. “The young people can get to know one another.” She led the ninja into the house, leaving Taro and Hiro with the two girls.
“You don’t look very important,” said Yukiko to Taro.
“I’m sorry?” he replied.
“Shusaku must think you’re important, if he’s already turned you. Usually people have to go to the mountain and train before they get to be ninjas.” Her words were tinged with a hint of bitterness.
“I was dying.”
She sniffed, and then her shoulders relaxed a little. “Really?”
“Yes,” said Hiro. “He was run through with a sword.”
“Well,” said Heiko, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder, “in that case I’m glad Shusaku turned you. It would have been a shame if you had died before we met you.” She smiled.
“Thank you,” said Taro. “And anyway, I’m not a ninja. Not yet, anyway.”
Yukiko looked him up and down, her gaze lingering on the point where his too-long kimono puddled on the floor. “I have to admit you don’t look the part,” she said, a touch of amusement entering her voice now.
“Yes,” said Heiko, a smile playing on her elegant features. “Where did you get that kimono?”
Taro felt acutely conscious now of the absurd clothes swamping his body. “I … borrowed it.”
“That means he stole it,” said Yukiko. “Maybe he will make a good ninja, after all.”
CHAPTER 17
“Don’t worry about Yukiko,” said Heiko to Taro as they sat in the room that overlooked the garden. Occasionally, from outside, came the sound of Hiro and Yukiko’s wrestling. “She wants so badly to be turned, but she likes you even if she mocks you—I can tell.”
>
It had been several incense sticks since they had arrived, and Taro had come to like both sisters, though Yukiko still seemed cautious of him, and every now and then he had seen her looking at his elongated vampire teeth.
Heiko, the elder, was tall and willowy, with pale skin and enormous eyes. He felt a little bashful in her company. Yukiko was shorter than her sister, and younger, with an impish smile. She was also stronger, with a muscular physique that reminded Taro of Hiro. Already she had attached herself to Taro’s big friend, and had spent most of the time discussing holds with him, play-fighting, and exchanging tips for unbalancing an opponent. To Taro’s surprise, Yukiko had even challenged Hiro to a wrestling match, and the pair had been fighting ever since. Taro wasn’t used to girls and boys fighting, but Heiko had assured him that ninjas made no distinctions—a woman could scale a wall and slit a target’s throat just as well as a man.
And besides, Yukiko kept winning.
“And you?” said Taro. “You don’t want to be turned?”
Heiko dipped her brush in the pot and drew a series of deft strokes across the paper. She had explained that Shusaku favored calligraphy as an exercise for swordplay, and though Taro had initially been surprised that this scholarly pursuit should be considered a martial training, he could see now the way that Heiko’s rapid hand movements—the brush dancing back and forth—could serve just as well to impel a sword.
She held up the parchment, then crumpled it up and threw it aside. Taro couldn’t see what had been wrong with it. “I will be a ninja,” she said. “It’s what I have always trained for. But I’m in no hurry to give up being a girl. To stop eating food, and live on human blood.” She made a face, then put her hand to her mouth. “Sorry,” she said. “No offense.”
“I wouldn’t have chosen it either,” said Taro. He had drunk the pig blood that Heiko had given him—she and Hiro and Yukiko had eaten soup—and though it had restored his strength, he had dug his nails into his palms as the warm, slippery blood had run down his throat.
More pleasant by far had been the bath he and Hiro had taken, stretching their aching limbs in a tub of very hot water that the girls had run for them, before retiring, giggling, to another room. Taro hadn’t bathed in hot water since he and his mother had gone to the onsen springs near Shirahama, a few days before her death, and he had enjoyed luxuriating in the bath while a small part of him, deep inside, had remained cold. He knew that it would not warm until he could see his mother again, could reassure himself that she was safe.
New clothes had been laid out for him and Hiro when they’d gotten out of the bath, and now Taro was sitting cross-legged on the floor in a kimono that, mercifully, was just about the right size. Taro hugged his knees, happy to be once again warm and clean. From outside, he heard Yukiko say, “Tell you what, I’ll go easy on you. If you can beat me one round out of five, I’ll let you be my servant for the rest of the year. You can bring me tea and refreshments.”
Hiro tutted. “Big talk for a weed like you.” But he was panting, and Taro smiled. Yukiko was obviously a fearsome opponent.
“She won’t break him, will she?” he asked Heiko.
She grinned. “No. But he may be sore for a while. Be glad you’re in here with me. A bit of writing isn’t likely to get you hurt.” She twirled the brush in her hand, then dipped it into the ink and began drawing the kanji character again.
“What does it say?” asked Taro.
“It says Shusaku. I intend to give it to him as a present. And to show how I have progressed.”
Taro nodded. “He’ll be pleased.”
“I hope so.”
“Is he … your uncle?” said Taro. He was sure Shusaku was not the girls’ father, but his demeanor toward them was affectionate and protective, as if he stood in some relationship of familial authority toward them.
“No!” said Heiko. “He saved our lives, when we were very young. He had just become a vampire himself.”
Taro was surprised. “He wasn’t always one?”
“No one is. You have to be turned, like you. Before that, he was a samurai.”
Taro stared. “A samurai? Shusaku?”
“Yes.” She held up the brush. “How many ninja teach calligraphy, do you think?”
Taro rocked back on his heels. He couldn’t imagine Shusaku being anything other than a solitary ninja, creeping around the landscape in darkness. He couldn’t picture him on horseback, wearing armor, bearing a katana. “But why would he become a ninja instead?” he asked.
“It wasn’t his choice. He was turned to save his life, like you.”
“Turned? Who by?”
Heiko drew the brush across the page with a flourish, then smiled at the character she had drawn. “This one will do.” She set it aside. Then she leaned a little closer to Taro, as if to impart a secret. “He’s never spoken of it. But the abbess says that it was for love.”
“He became a vampire for love?”
“In a manner of speaking. It seems that he fell in love with a ninja girl, and she with him. But he was injured in a great battle, and she could save his life only by changing him. Like a love story from a poem, isn’t it? Of course, it all ended tragically too, just like a poem.”
“Why, what happened to her?” asked Taro.
“She was killed.”
“Killed?” Gods, poor Shusaku. That explained why he had never mentioned any of this.
“Yes, a samurai killed her in battle, when she was with Shusaku.”
Taro nodded slowly. A samurai. Of course. It explained so much about his ninja rescuer’s attitude toward the warrior class.
Just then Hiro and Yukiko tramped heavily into the room, smiling. “I’m not sure if I want to be a ninja,” said Hiro, continuing a conversation from outside.
“But you should!” said Yukiko. Her eyes gleamed. “Uncle Shusaku has already taught us some elements of the discipline. It’s great. Well, not the meditation. That’s boring. But the sword-fighting and the staff … oh, and the shurikens! I think when I’m a real ninja the shurikens will be my favorite weapon for killing with. We practiced once on dead pigs, and when the throwing star hits the meat—thwock—it’s such a satisfying sound!”
Heiko tutted. “You would do better to concentrate on the more elegant disciplines. Lock-picking. Calligraphy.”
Yukiko scoffed. “Calligraphy leads to madness and watering eyes. And anyway, careful and elegant doesn’t save your life if someone is trying to kill you. Imagine if Shusaku had come to our rescue with a brush when we were babies. He’d have been slaughtered.”
Taro stared. He had never in his life heard a young woman talk so casually of violence. But Yukiko narrowed her eyes, and he looked down, realizing he was being rude.
“Shusaku rescued you when you were only babies?” he asked, ignoring the playful argument between the two girls.
“Oh, yes,” said Yukiko. “We grew up in Lord Oda’s domain. Our parents were killed by Yoshimoto’s army. Shusaku found us when he was on a mission. We were hiding under the doorstep of a pleasure house in winter, shivering against the cold. Some bandits were hiding out in there, and Shusaku had been hired to kill them. But as he went inside …”
“I heard the crying of young children,” continued Shusaku, entering the room ahead of the abbess. Taro had the sense that this was an oft-told story. “And so I peered under the step. There were a toddler and a baby, the one holding the other, both weeping with terror. So …”
“He picked us up, walked through the door with one of us under each arm, and killed the bandits using only his feet,” concluded Heiko. Taro noticed to his surprise that she was blushing.
“Well, that’s not quite true,” said Shusaku. “I bit out the throat of one of them.”
Taro looked at the ninja, thinking how little he knew the man still. He’d thought he was only a ninja—a dishonorable assassin—and now it turned out he had been a samurai, and he spent his time rescuing babies from bandits.
Shusaku w
alked over to the writing desk. “Heiko. I see you’re working on your calligraphy.”
Heiko presented him with the drawing of his name, and he smiled. “It’s beautiful. You have made much improvement.”
Heiko beamed with pride. But then she looked quizzically at the ninja. “You still wear your mask.”
“Yes. I ought to tell you about that.”
“Are you injured?” said Yukiko. “Burned?”
Taro looked at her, puzzled. “It’s just his tattoos,” he said.
“Tattoos?” asked Heiko, just as puzzled, and Taro remembered that the girls didn’t know about them.
“Taro’s right,” said Shusaku. Slowly he unwrapped the black scarf that concealed his face. As it came off, Heiko gasped. She ran to him, studying every detail of his face, and Taro almost wished that he could see it—could see the writing covering the ninja’s skin.
All he saw was the eyes.
Then, shocking Taro, Heiko burst into tears, and ran from the room. The abbess reached out a hand to stop her, but Heiko jagged to the side with surprising speed and grace—in that instant Taro saw that to consider her more studious and still than her sister would be a mistake—and disappeared through the door.
“See?” said Yukiko. “I told you calligraphy leads to madness and watering eyes.”
CHAPTER 18
Heiko’s eyes were still puffy and red, but the abbess had calmed her down, and now they were all gathered again in the main room, Shusaku standing with his arm around Heiko.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It must have come as a shock.”
She touched his face. “Why did you do it?” she asked. “Two months ago your skin was clear.”
Taro was as amazed as she was. Shusaku had done this only two months ago? He had thought the ninja had always been tattooed.
Shusaku sighed. “It is the Heart Sutra. It protects me from other ninjas, makes me invisible.”
“I know what it does,” said Heiko. “You told me the story of Hoichi yourself.” She sounded angry.
“Ah, yes. Of course.” Shusaku’s eyes looked pained.