The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight (A Tiger Lily Novel Book 2)

by K. Bird Lincoln

  The washbasin handmaiden, gave a little snicker. “Lord Hojo is a vassal back up North country, right?”

  Beautiful jostled my elbow as I finished pouring the bucket, causing the water to splash over the side of the washbasin onto the girl’s knees. “Lord Hojo gets more koku of rice a year than the Lord Deputy of Kyoto.”

  The girl smoothed the damp cloth, narrowing her eyes. She sneered. “All the koku in Yamato do not equal the ear of the Emperor. The Daimyo has his favor now, but he is old and ailing. The cadet branch is on the rise, and the Lord Deputy is a credit to the Ashikaga name.”

  “If you’re so fond of the other Ashikagas, why are you here?” said Beautiful.

  The girl huffed and gave us her back.

  “I don’t know what the Lord Deputy looks like,” I said quietly. We moved away from the washbasin with my empty buckets.

  “He would have been wearing the Ashikaga crest.”

  “Oh, then no, he wasn’t at the Sarugaku performance.” The three-leafed paulownia always drew my eye.

  “Little Turtle made me promise not to press you about what happened at the Sarugaku performance, but she didn’t say I couldn’t ask you about the nobles.”

  I beckoned her to follow me back inside the bathhouse. I needed Beautiful as a friend. A few details about the nobles I remembered, their clothing, and the attendants’ seating arrangements were a small cost to pay. And maybe it would sooth the sore spot in my mind where I had banished the sight of my lordling’s face under the pine as I walked away.

  After I’d finished recounting everything I could remember—hardly enough to satisfy her endless hunger for details of painted silk, shades of under robes, and the exact order of whose attendants sat where, but she was clearly in an amiable mood—Beautiful asked, “The Chamberlain says Lord Yoshikazu is too often in the teahouses to be a warrior like his father. When the Daimyo dies, do you think he will stay in Kyoto? Or will he come back to Ashikaga province?” Maybe she, too, realized that I would be her only ally after Little Turtle left.

  “Won’t Lord Yoshikazu stay?” I said. My lordling could never be the Daimyo’s heir—too dangerous to stay overlong in the capital. I sang a grateful little prayer in my heart for Ashikaga Yoshikazu. Luckily, my lordling need never take on the worries of being the Daimyo’s heir.

  “I would like to stay in Kyo no Miyako,” said Beautiful, propping her elbows on the rim of the cedar tub and resting her chin on folded hands. I knew the right answer to this one.

  “Maybe the Chamberlain would like you to stay, too.”

  “Oh!” said Beautiful, wrinkling her nose in pretend dismay. She swished herself over to the door. “What do you know about it? You’re too busy running back and forth from a certain room.” She stepped out into the sunshine, leaving a trill of laughter behind her.

  Running back and forth from a certain room. Well, it was Kazue running to that room today.

  I put a sleeve to my face, and it came away damp with spots from something other than the bath water. This would not do. I would not sigh here like some lovesick maiden from a song. I picked up both water buckets and concentrated on the pure, physical heaviness pulling at my arms instead of the heaviness in my heart.

  After midday meal, I offered to stay with Jiro to help with the washing up. Beautiful and Jiro looked at each other in surprise, but the red-faced cook nodded his assent. When all the handmaidens, including Beautiful, had left the room, I began scouring a ladle with a dried sponge.

  “You don’t have to do that,” said Jiro. “You’ll ruin your hands.”

  I held up my hands, showing him the cracked cuticles, short nails, and rough palms no amount of oils could quite smooth over. “I’ve been washing ladles ever since I could hold one in my hand. My Father is a cook at the Great House back in Ashikaga.”

  Jiro nodded. “So I’d heard. Make you homesick, coming in here?”

  I shook my head. “No, sir. Half the time I feel like a pond koi suddenly dumped into Lake Biwa.” I pointed at Jiro’s tidy row of knives and ladles hung against the wall. “Here at least I know what everything is for.”

  Jiro gave a belly laugh, and patted my shoulder with his big scarred cook’s hand. “Don’t you pay those stuck-up chattering-jays no mind. You’re getting the hang of things just fine.”

  Maybe Beautiful wasn’t my only friend here, after all. I gave him small smile, feeling the awkward curve of my lips. I was out of practice.

  After all the dishes had been cleaned, Jiro waved me over to a pair of stools drawn up next to the cooking brazier. Two cups of tea steamed in his hand. I accepted one with a nod and brought the cup to my lips.

  Sour plum in soba-broth. I sputtered. Not tea. Jiro laughed. “A little ume-boshi’s just the thing to put spring into your step. Drink it all down now.”

  The hard-won lightness I’d felt working in the kitchen congealed, the sour taste of the plum coating my tongue and throat. Sour plum in soba-broth had been Flower’s favorite. She’d said the same words eight thousand times to her twin just as an excuse to make it for herself. Whole hours passed now, here in Kyoto, where her death didn’t stick in my side like one of Jiro’s knives. Or no, it still cut, but maybe I had learned to live with the wound of her absence. Jiro’s words and the taste of ume-boshi made the knife turn, a fresh pain.

  “Lily!” called Kazue from behind me. “You’re to go to the dragon room. Lord Yoshinori wants you.”

  I set the cup down, relieved I had an excuse not to drink any more. “Aren’t you waiting on him this afternoon?”

  Kazue glared at me so hard I thought her eyeballs might pop out of their sockets. “He wants you.” The disgusted tone on the last word made it clear how she felt about that.

  Jiro tapped me with a rice paddle. “Little Turtle wouldn’t speak of why you came back with that puffy lip,” he said. I instantly quelled the desire to put my hand to my face. I’d forgotten people could read what troubled me so plainly. “If the lord is bothering you, you don’t have to go. I can tell the Chamberlain you’re feeling unwell.”

  Bothering? Jiro’s tone implied a whole depth of meaning to the one word. It wasn’t what Jiro thought. I pushed the paddle away. “No, thank you. There’s no need to worry for me. I’m not afraid of Lord Ashikaga.”

  I repeated the words silently as I followed Kazue back to the handmaiden room to change.

  I’m not afraid of Ashikaga.

  I’d screwed myself up into quite a ball of worry by the time I made it to the dragon room. The door slid open to reveal that someone had removed all Lord Hojo’s screens and paintings. In the middle of the empty room was a lantern set on a writing desk. Next to it was a metal ring attached to a small, metal cylinder with two teeth protruding from the end.

  A key. Other than the stone store houses—shadowy, cold places, full of spiders—there was only one room kept locked within the wooden wall surrounding Ashikaga Residence. A detached building stood half-hidden behind the main hall. A trellis built of cedar covered the gravel pathway between the buildings. Covering the trellis was a morning-glory with gigantic heart-shaped leaves. I had stood there once when I first came to Kyoto, breathing the delicate sweetness of the purple-tinged, blue blossoms. I’d imagined myself on the bank of Whispering Brook, checking reed traps for fish. One of the gardeners had found me there.

  “You’re out of place, girlie,” he’d said and shooed me away.

  I blinked. The lantern and key still sat on the tray, stubbornly mute to their purpose. Early afternoon light glowed through the mulberry paper. Dust motes drifted in the stream of light slanting before the room’s gold-leafed and crimson namesake painted on the main wall panel. I went to the window and pushed open the shutters. A soft breeze flitted past me into the room. The sunshine chased away the anxious damp
feeling on my face.

  “Lily,” said a quiet voice. I turned away from the window. Ashikaga Yoshinori stood in the open doorway, a hand gripping the frame as if needing support. Ashikaga wore hair loosely tied at the neck, and a robe with stains on the hem. “Can I come in?”

  The sun’s warmth on my back bled through into my middle. This was my lordling. We’d hurt each other last night. All morning I’d thought the connection between us damaged, but no, here it was, golden warmth like the sunshine, stretching between us in the dust-filled air, no matter my bruised lip or Ashikaga’s odd tentativeness.

  “I am yours to command.” I went to the tray and sat down.

  “Must I command?” Ashikaga followed using slow, contained movements, as if afraid of startling a rabbit in the woods. Settling next to me formally in seiza posture, my lordling raised one hand slowly, hovering the person-pointing finger near my mouth. When I did not flinch away, Ashikaga slowly outlined the sore place on my lip. I felt the urge to lean into that touch and press my cheek into the coolness of that callused hand. Another, more perverse, desire held me back. Ashikaga’s hand dropped away. I stayed still and silent, needing something more than just a gentle touch.

  “I hoped to get your assistance with a matter,” said Ashikaga. Such formal words and tones. As if we were in a room full of courtiers instead of just a peasant and noble in an empty room. Ashikaga fussed with the drape of the sleeves on the robe Kazue must have chosen this morning.

  A favor? Last night had made me sore in more places than just my lip. I was Ashikaga’s servant, not a horse or hound to be used so carelessly.

  “Would you prefer I call Kazue?” Ashikaga said.

  “Would you?” I said. “I can fetch her now.” I rose.

  Ashikaga’s hand shot out, pulling me back down. “You have this . . . strength. Like you have some secret knowledge that makes you sure, so clear in your actions. I can’t quite believe, sometimes, I make any impression on you at all.”

  I stifled a laugh. Me, strong and sure? Did my blundering around really fool others into thinking I was doing things on purpose? I’d thought Ashikaga, at least, understood. “I have no secrets that you don’t share.” I jerked my wrist out of my lordling’s grasp.

  Ashikaga stood in front of the open window. The light danced around loose hair and cast shadows that softened the sharp planes and pointed chin of my lordling’s face. My skin prickled with awareness.

  “You are wrong,” said my lordling in that quiet, night voice. The timbre unmistakably high, the words bare-faced and naked of slang. “Don’t you remember why I showed you my body in the Charcoal Maker’s hut?”

  I nodded, keeping my gaze shuttered, watching my lordling’s slender fingers press themselves one by one onto a robed knee.

  “I gave you my secret, hoping to balance things between us.”

  Ashikaga’s voice scraped over the last words. Before I could catch myself, I looked into my lordling’s eyes. So dark, swallowing the light as if something burned fiercely behind them that took in everything as fuel: me, the room, the dust itself, and still was left wanting.

  She looked at me that way, and I saw only Ashikaga. Not the naked body revealed in the Charcoal Maker’s hut, nor precisely the young lord. Like looking at a newborn baby in a mother’s arms. The baby just is—not male or female, but utterly itself. The purity of Ashikaga’s being glowed through her, made my lordling unbearably real in a way no one else could match.

  Ashikaga just was. It didn’t matter why or how. Ashikaga Yoshinori sat in this empty room with that wanting pouring out and none of it mattered.

  That guarded, secret place in me, where I thought only kami could touch, rose up to meet that wanting.

  “It will never balance,” Ashikaga said.

  “No.” And because it wasn’t my way to shape things with words, I covered Ashikaga’s restless hand with my own. Slowly, one by one, I pressed each finger into the knee. Ashikaga gave a little gasp, leaning forward. I pushed my lordling back with the heel of my hand. Now a frustrated sound, low in the throat, made prickling awareness flush into heat. I half-rose, looming over Ashikaga’s shoulders, catching my weight on my lordling’s hands to press them down. Don’t move. Don’t speak, I willed. Don’t reach for me. I needed to reshape this thing between us in my own way.

  Like coals banked in the brazier, but still alive with heat, I have hidden my heart in melancholy.

  Now the ash has burned away;

  Let there be ever more good things to come. . . .

  Letting the words flow on a whisper, I sang into my lordling’s skin. Where the loose robe revealed collarbone, I let moving lips tickle the depression at the center. Moving up the slender neck, I bathed my lordling with the Jindo heart of me that I always tried to hold separate with my breath. As the song wound down, I pressed my cheek to Ashikaga’s.

  “I’m sorry.” Ashikaga held still, contained, a hawk gathering itself before flight.

  “Yes,” I said and released my lordling’s hands.

  Ashikaga swiftly caught my wrists and pushed me back onto the tatami, pinning my wrists to the ground firmly on either side of my head. Slowly, so painfully slow now that I wanted movement, Ashikaga lowered parted lips to mine. Then my lordling was caressing my lips slowly, lingering, not relenting until the need for breath made us both gasp—but only for moment. Ashikaga lunged this time, mouth meeting mine with an urgency that made me think of last night and being pushed against the tree. But this was different, this was Ashikaga’s hands tangling in my hair, holding me not to restrain, but so we could get the perfect angle to make a humming, tingling sensation ripple down my arms and legs. My lordling drew my bottom lip between teeth, eyes open and boring straight into me, into the ache that hollowed out my bones, making me crave the firmness of this body on mine.

  Ashikaga kissed me, with a primal focus unlike the mindless desire to hurt flesh with flesh my lordling showed under the pine tree. I slid my hands down trembling sides, and then up the center of Ashikaga’s back, making fists to force us closer together. Ashikaga pulled up, looking down, lips red and swollen as mine must be.

  The dark wanting was gone, replaced by a familiar, sly glint. “So you’ll help me, then?” Ashikaga said. I lay, feeling bruised, my bones still aching, and my lordling looked at me like a cat at cornered prey. I pushed weakly, and Ashikaga rolled away with a chuckle.

  “What is it you want?” I said, sitting up.

  Ashikaga lifted a stray lock of hair and tucked it over my ear. “Besides you with me tonight when no one can walk in on us?”

  I waved a hand at the lantern and key to cover the heat rising to my cheeks. “What’s this for?”

  Ashikaga settled back on heels, face going solemn. “This is the key to my mother’s hall. These six months since her . . . death . . . Father has kept it locked.”

  I thought about what Zeami had told us after the Sarugaku performance. “What do you think you will find there?”

  “I don’t know. She was my mother. If Zeami speaks truly, that she attempted the wara ningyo curse on Ashikaga Motofuji and he killed her for it, then maybe something in her rooms can help us understand.”

  “Help us understand?”

  Ashikaga pulled me up to a standing position. Speaking each word with a precision that gave me no room to wiggle away. “Help you figure out how to put her to rest.”

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  THE MORNING GLORY smell still lingered under the trellis, although most of the blossoms had curled into brown husks. Ashikaga made sure no one was in sight, and then hurried me to the side entrance of the deserted hall. The key stuck in the lock. Ashikaga had to shove the lock hard, as if it had lain rusting years and years instead of barely half a year. A layer of dust weig
hed down the entry hall as well. Ashikaga’s lantern showed mouse droppings in the corners and moth holes peppering the mulberry paper. The sense of emptiness was complete, as if humans had never slept, laughed, or cried here. Even the constant mumbling of the cherry trees was muted

  Ashikaga stopped outside double, gold-painted fusuma. “This is her room.” Carved panels bordering the door depicted an intricate flowing design of lotus, peacocks, and wave-like spirals.

  The fusuma caught in its groove—the whole house intent on keeping its secrets. Ashikaga forced it open. A kimono stand spread empty, water-stained arms against the far wall. The tokonoma alcove on the opposite side contained an ink and paper drawing of sparse, bold brushstrokes like a child’s. A flower too shriveled to identify occupied a roughly worked clay vase.

  At the threshold I paused. Gooseflesh pimpled as if I could feel Lady Ashikaga’s death like a layer of ice covering the room. Death wasn’t pollution for Buddhists. Was it possible no one had cleaned the room since her death? Said prayers to Amithaba? Burned joss sticks?

  The dust was undisturbed except for my lordling’s footprints.

  Ashikaga uncovered the lantern and set it on the tatami. The light revealed only more dust, droppings, and a writing-chest. Ashikaga surveyed the room with folded arms, lifting an eyebrow in my direction.

  “I don’t think anything’s here,” I said.

  “Obviously. I hoped your sense of otherness would find something hidden. . . ?”

  I shook my head slowly. The part of me that heard kami sing only felt the cherry tree. This hall, whatever Ashikaga had hoped to find, was empty of the yurei’s presence. I brushed away a slight twinge from my conscience. My otherness sense would certainly help when I met Norinaga at Kiyomizu-dera. This was a fragile peace between Ashikaga and me—I had no desire to risk breaking it with a confession that I was going to meet Hosokawa-Norinaga. “I don’t think the yurei comes here.”