by India Millar
“What? What is it? Kiku, what on earth’s the matter with you?”
She growled, low in her throat. When I stroked her, I felt her shivering. I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Kiku darted away from the futon and scratched at the bottom of the screen door.
“Kiku! Bad dog! No!” I lurched to my feet, my only concern at that second to stop her from damaging the lovely screen. Akira would not be pleased if he came home and found she had scratched it. As soon as I slid the screen back, Kiku ran straight down the corridor, ignoring all the rooms on each side, and started tearing at the screen that led to the garden. I followed her, wondering at the odd light. Was it what was known as a hunter’s moon, I wondered? One of those rare full moons that was bright enough to throw shadows and sometimes shone blood red.
I slid the screen back for Kiku and she tore into the garden, only to stop dead as soon as she was outside. I picked her up and took her back inside. I needed tea, I decided, and clapped my hands for one of the maids to attend me, smiling wryly to myself as I remembered the many times I had been awoken in the middle of the night to attend a patron when I had been a lowly maid myself. Nobody came at my summons, and I clapped again.
Kiku wriggled out of my arms and went back into the garden. I shook my head at her stubbornness and decided to leave her for a moment. The night was very cold, with a threat of frost before morning. My skin bubbled into gooseflesh as a stray wind rustled into my robe and stroked my flesh.
I glanced into the kitchen and slid back the door to the maid’s quarters, ready to give them a crisp telling off for being so tardy, and stopped dead, my mouth dropping open.
All three maids slept in the same room. Akira was generous, though, because the room large and airy and constantly warm from the heat of the kitchen. It was also empty. There was a tumble of futons on the floor, but nobody at all.
Suddenly, I was frightened. I ran back to the garden and called for Kiku. For a terrible second, I thought she had been spirited away as well, and then I heard her whimper from beneath a bush in the far corner. Ignoring the cold that bit into my bare feet, I ran over.
“Kiku, come out. Come on, now.”
I bent and clicked my fingers together to persuade her out, and at the same time I became aware of the growing noise beyond the garden wall. I crouched, my head on one side as I tried to make sense of it. At first, it sounded like the hum of bees. Then the noise came closer and closer still, and I could pick out individual voices. Men’s voices, talking loudly and excitedly.
Kiku liked it even less than I did. She shot out from underneath the bush and scrabbled up my robe to nestle in my arms, her cold, damp nose buried between my breasts. I stood up and then ducked instinctively as a burning torch shot over the garden wall and landed an arm’s length from me. I backed away, and then darted to one side as another torch came over, and then another.
It had not rained for many weeks. The normally vibrantly colored garden had died back and was tinder brown, waiting for winter. But it would not see winter, nor the spring that followed. The torches sparked and flared, and within seconds had released their fire to the garden. There was a whoosh of flame, and fire shot higher than my head, forming a flaring, hot tunnel on each side of me.
I clutched Kiku and began to walk backward, hypnotized by the flames. I could hear Kiku whimpering with distress and ducked my head to comfort her. The flames seemed to be reaching for me. I moaned out loud with relief as my searching foot found the wooden floor of the kitchen. It was silly. I knew it even at the time, but I closed the screen door carefully, as if it could stop the progress of the fire for a single second.
My mind was quite clear. I walked quickly back to my room and shrugged on my thickest kimono and a pair of wooden geta. I was almost out the door when I paused, listening. I could hear the crackle of the fire devouring the garden, see it sending writhing shadows on my wall. Shadows that illuminated my precious print of the kabuki theater.
It was difficult, as Kiku was panic stricken and clung to me, refusing to be put down. But I managed somehow. I broke a couple of finger nails prying the print out of its frame, and finally I had to resort to tearing at it with my teeth. The gold showered out, glinting in the red light. I stuffed the coins carefully into the inner fold of my obi and fastened it back in place quickly.
Kiku whined and panted and I patted her gently.
“I know, dear. I know. We’re going outside now. We have time.” I thought she gave me a reproachful look, and I shrugged, speaking to her as if she could understand my explanation. “I couldn’t just walk away from all that money. Whatever’s happening, we’re going to need every coin we can get.” If we survive at all, I thought grimly.
The smoke was getting thick, and I coughed as I darted toward the front door. I understood now, all too well, why Akira’s family had built their house like a fortress. But they hadn’t taken into account the power of fire—the power that even the highest wall was powerless to defeat.
The heavy, wooden front door had a square, western style iron lock. Akira had left the key in it, as usual. I had often thought that he left it there with the express purpose of mocking me. He knew I could not escape from him and had nowhere to go even if I tried. Now, the key itself seemed to laugh at me as it took on a life of its own under my fingers, slipping without turning. I tried again, and sighed with relief as I heard it click. I threw open the door and walked into hell.
I threw Kiku from my arms, watching her long enough to be sure that she had scampered between the massed figures that crowded the shallow street outside. All were men. Some carried torches, others had their hands on their sword hilts. As soon as they saw me, a hiss went up that sounded in my ears like the noise of heavy rain falling.
“There she is! Akira’s woman! Grab her.”
I took an instinctive step backward, and felt the heat of the fire on my back. Before I could decide whether to brave the flames or try and run—although only the gods knew where I thought I might run to—two of the men darted forward and grabbed me. I did my best. I kicked and scratched and when one of the men was foolish enough to let his face come into range, I bit him as hard as I could on his cheek.
But it was no good. I was lifted to shoulder height and carried out with as much ceremony as a good servant would show to tatami matting she was taking out to beat. Whether it was my defiance that annoyed them or they simply wanted to show me how helpless my position was, I had no idea, but as soon as I was free of Akira’s house the men threw me onto the road so hard that I bounced. I grunted as the air was forced out of my lungs.
The men circled around me. I stared around, but could see only a ring of robed legs. Their heads seemed to be so far above me that they were in shadow.
“Where is he?” one man shouted, leaning down toward me. “Where’s Akira?”
He had his hand on his sword hilt, and I saw that his little finger was missing. Rival yakuza then, come for Akira. I couldn’t speak. I was finding it difficult to get enough air to even breathe. The yakuza kicked me hard in the ribs, and I felt something crack inside.
“Where is he, geisha?”
“I don’t know,” I managed to wheeze.
The yakuza drew back his foot to give me another kick. But it never landed.
Somewhere from outside the ring of men, I heard the sound of shouts, and then screams. The men drew back, the circle disintegrating into a ragged line, each man reaching for his sword as he moved. I wriggled backward, leaning against the stones of the outside wall of Akira’s house. Already, the wall was hot from the fire within. I wanted to get to my feet, to run, but my broken rib was pressing hard on something it should never have been able to touch and my left ankle was lying at an odd angle. I thought it might have been broken when I was thrown down. I used the wall to try to get to my feet, but my ankle refused to bear my weight and I slid down again, tears of fear and frustration sliding down my cheeks.
Flickering firelight and light from the hunter’s moon com
bined to give the struggling, yelling men the appearance of demons, their faces alternately red and black. Suddenly, I recognized one of the yakuza—Ito, the young man Sute had taken a fancy to. And then another and another—all men that Akira had brought home with him. I forced my back against the wall so I could rise up at least a little and see better. If his men were here, then Akira would surely be with them. And for the very first time since I had known Akira, I wanted to see him.
And he was there.
He was fighting like the evil spirit he resembled. His eyes were bulging, his teeth set in a feral grin that had no humor in it. It seemed to me that Akira had an enchantment upon him. No matter who he struck, none of their blows landed on him.
I managed to pant encouragement, in spite of the pressure from my rib, desperate to urge him on. At the time, I saw no irony in it at all. At least Akira was the demon I knew, whereas his rivals were unknown, and feared all the more because of it.
And then I found the breath to scream out loud.
The rival yakuza leader was at Akira’s side. Akira, his attention distracted by the man he was already circling, didn’t see him. The other yakuza raised his sword on high, and my scream died to a wordless whoosh of air as I saw the silver blade singing through the air, toward Akira’s throat.
Out of nowhere, Ken was there, pushing Akira aside. Ken’s own sword was raised to parry the thrust of the yakuza, but even I—who had no knowledge of sword fighting except for the play acting I had seen in the kabuki—knew the action was too late. I fell on my face and began to scrabble over the road, pulling myself forward with my hands, desperate to help somehow. I knew it was hopeless, but I had to try. And then the yakuza’s sword was whistling down, and I saw Ken’s blood spurt black in the red firelight as the blade bit across his shoulder and chest.
Akira in his turn whirled and his sword stabbed straight and true into the yakuza’s belly. I saw it out of the corner of my vision, the tiny part that wasn’t taken up with watching Ken fall to the roadside and lie still. Still as death.
I was still scrambling forward, my eyes fastened on my lover’s body. I could hear the sound of men dying hard and angrily all around me, but nothing mattered but Ken.
And then there was a huge noise from somewhere close behind me. I felt heat on my back and head and I was enveloped in a blackness that was hard and unyielding. And then there was nothing at all.
18
Listen to the wind.
Does the gentle breeze carry
Seeds of the typhoon?
When I was a child, in the days when Mother was alive and Father was still indulgent to us children, my eldest sister had sometimes invited her friends to come to our home, and we played the game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai. Father said that it had not always been just a game, but many years ago had been a test of courage for the samurai. I could understand that; it always terrified me.
The game was always played at night, of course, using three different rooms. Father watched in amusement as my eldest sister lit one hundred paper lanterns in the last room. Or at least, she always said it was a hundred, but I could not count that high in those days, and now I suspect it was far fewer. But no matter how many lanterns were lit, she always made sure that there was a single mirror in the last room, lying mirror-side upward on the surface of the table.
When it was truly dark, we would all gather in the first room and in turns tell stories of ghosts and earthbound spirits. At the end of their story, the storyteller would go to the last room and extinguish a lantern. The purpose of the game was to tell one hundred stories, and by the time the last tale was told, the time would be ripe to call the departed but still earth-bound spirits back to us. They would, it was said, appear in the mirror.
Needless to say, we never got that far. As the night grew darker and the reflections in the mirror stranger, our giggles turned to fear, and before long somebody would insist that it was time they go home and the party would break up with many lanterns still burning.
So we never did get to see any yurei—any earthbound spirits.
And now I was a yurei myself.
I knew this was so because I could not hear, but I could see, although my sight was very strange as everything around me seemed to move as if in a wind and was hazy. Nothing was right, nothing at all.
It seemed to me that I was back in my old room in the Hidden House. Mostly, I was left undisturbed. But now and then somebody must have had the courage to organize a game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai as faces loomed over me, staring down. Their lips moved, but I could hear nothing. I felt nothing at all, neither hunger nor cold.
I was in my own world, and nothing could disturb me.
The faces that peered at me were familiar. I saw Sute, her blue eyes huge and staring at me in amazement. I would have liked to smile at her, but it was too much effort. The twins also were there, one on each side of me, their expressions serious. And Naruko and Masaki, together as always. Strangely, I felt I could almost hear Naruko’s high pitched voice. Almost, but not quite.
And Kiku was there as well. I knew I was truly dead when I saw her lovely almond eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled at me. Why else would she be in the Hidden House again? Mori-san would never have stood for her returning after her first visit. I waited for Carpi to visit me, and I was surprised that she did not come.
But Midori No Me did. For a moment, I thought she was the gaijin fox spirit, come to drag me off from this world forever to join her and I was very afraid. Then she smiled and I saw her green eyes light with pleasure, and in spite of her bright red hair, I knew this was truly Midori and not a fox spirit at all. She wiped my cheeks with her fingers, and I realized I was crying. And I also knew that if I could cry, I was not dead.
I was alive. And somehow I was back in the Hidden House, and Midori was truly with me.
At first, I rejoiced. And then my tears of happiness turned to tears of sadness as I realized that Ken was not there. And if he was not there, then it was he who was dead, not me.
Midori lifted me up and I cried into her shoulder as if I were a child seeking comfort from her mother. I still couldn’t hear, but we were so close I could feel the vibration of her words in her chest.
After a while, she laid me down again and closed my eyes tenderly with her fingers.
I slept. It may have been days later, or weeks even when I awoke again. I had no way of telling the passage of time. But one morning I woke up and smiled as little Kiku jumped onto my chest, snuffling her nose in my hair. She yipped at me, and I heard her. I cried out loud with surprise, and the screen door banged open, all of the girls jostling each other to get through first. I stared at all of them and cleared my throat.
I couldn’t speak. Nothing came out of my lips except a dry croak. Midori held a cup of cool liquid to my mouth. I drank deeply and tried again.
“I’m alive?”
The girls laughed out loud, and it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.
“You are alive, Mineko-chan.” Midori put her arms around me and hugged me tightly. “And you can hear again?”
I nodded, clearing my throat again.
“What happened?” I demanded. “Midori, you’re really here? Akira? What happened to him? How did I get here?”
I had to clamp my lips together as Ken’s name fought to leave my tongue. But I would not ask about him. He was dead, and that was the end of it. None of the other geisha knew about us. He had been my secret in life, and now he would remain my secret in death. Senseless as it was, I wanted him to be mine and mine alone. I was determined not to share so much as a memory of him with anybody. It was better that way. He was mine. He would stay mine.
“So many questions!” Midori interrupted my thoughts, smiling. “How much do you remember about what happened? You remember the battle? Akira’s house burning?” I nodded. “Akira used you as bait,” she said bluntly. “He knew that the rival yakuza would come and try to get you to tell them where he was. He had his spies
in their organizations, and he watched and waited until the very last minute, until they were distracted with you, before he attacked them.”
“I saw him. Yes.” I shuddered, closing my eyes as I remembered Ken pushing Akira aside. Taking the blow that was meant for him. “What happened to me?” I wriggled my ankle cautiously, remembering how it had refused to support me. It wouldn’t move, and I had a moment’s panic thinking it had gone until I realized it was just tightly bound. “I remember being thrown on the road, and I think something fell on me afterward.”
“The yakuza broke your ankle, and a couple of ribs. The doctor says they’re both healing nicely.”
“I thought I had died.”
“You very nearly did. The fire blew out the stone wall on Akira’s house. One of the stones hit you in the head. You’ve been unconscious for most of the past three weeks. At first, we thought you had been left deaf and blind when we couldn’t get you to respond to anything.”
She smiled, and I wondered how I had ever come to mistake her for anybody except my dear Midori.
“I really am alive?” I whispered the words in a sudden rush of gratitude that left me almost weeping with joy. “And you’re really here, in the Floating World? How did you get here? Why have you come back?”
“I’m here, that’s all that matters for the moment. And you are definitely alive. And you’re going to be well, soon. But enough for now. Go back to sleep, and we’ll talk again later.”
I shook my head. There was so much I needed to know! How could I even think of sleeping? But I was very, very tired. As I slipped into sleep, I guessed Midori had put some potion into the drink she had given to me. I struggled against it, but it was no good.
I slept.
The room was quiet and empty when I woke up. I yawned and wrinkled my nose in disgust. That smell! Surely it couldn’t be me? I scrambled clumsily to my feet and promptly fell over again, forgetting my bound ankle. I almost screamed with frustration. The noise brought the twins. They stood on each side of me, smiling.