“She speaks the language of the barbarians,” the elder samurai says. His right hand crosses his body and slides to the handle of his katana. “Do you allow her to consort with the animals aboard the kurofune?”
The American naval vessels, right. Okay, fine, so they’re going to scold me for going out of character. I can play along just long enough to find a graceful exit.
“Please forgive my daughter, Goemon-sama,” Father says to the older samurai. “She is of a dark disposition, and her sense of humor is lacking.” Father’s lip curls back so hard I can almost hear it. “Miyu, bring our guests some tea.”
“Hai, Father.” I bow and scrape my way toward a smaller bed of coals sunk into the tatami flooring. Once they are stoked, I set a kiln onto them and set about the lengthy process of stirring the powdered green tea leaves into heated water.
Finally, I pour the boiling water into a clay teapot and set it on a wooden tray, along with teacups and a tray of tiny confections shaped like maple leaves, just like at the teahouse I’d visited once with Akiko. The raindrops against the roof high above me patter in time with the rising cadence of my heartbeat. I truly want to do a good job of presenting the shogun’s representatives with tea. I am nervous. Where did that come from? God, what a strange feeling—to actually care about something. But that’s the magic of playing a role; no matter how you feel about yourself, you can’t let your character down.
I carry the trays to a smaller alcove, where Father and the two samurai sit with their backs to the tokonoma that display a scroll depicting cloudy mountain peaks and a vase holding a chabana of a single fresh blossom. They have removed their katanas and wakizashi, the shorter knives usually worn on the right, and placed them in front of where they kneel, parallel, like a thick demarcation line. I kneel beside Father, who faces them, and distribute the tea and sweets.
“You perform a less formal tea ceremony?” Goemon, the older samurai, asks, though he addresses my father and not me. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t expect refinement from a little village out here.”
I wrinkle my nose. How complicated can it be to pour some tea?
“Thank you,” the younger samurai says, with enough kindness that he seems to want to chip away at Goemon’s criticism. I glance up at him and flash a grateful smile. He is a full samurai, I see now, and not just a squire like I’d originally thought. He is lean, his muscles taut without being chiseled; his eyes are the same rich dark hue of the honjin’s wood, clear when he looks at me, but as his gaze moves back to his senior, they bear the same smoky screen as the unpolished planks. Something in his expression tightens, and I recognize it instantly.
His look has the slow simmer of a hatred contained for too long.
I nod my head and lean back until I sit on my heels.
Goemon, the senior samurai, swallows his tea in two gulps; rather than turn the bowl deliberately in his palm to drink from a clean lip, he seems to rotate it with a tension that goes right into his shoulders. The junior samurai follows the tea ceremony protocol more closely, and nibbles at the confection with a wry grin.
Finally Goemon sets down his empty teacup. “We have been sent here to review some discrepancies in your village’s records.” He frowns at Father. “The shogunate is concerned your territory has not been paying its proper tithes.”
Father tips his head forward before he speaks. “I would be honored to fetch the records for you. However, if you wish to rest before I do so, my daughter would be happy to show you to your rooms. You must be tired from riding, and damp from the rain—”
“We do not wish to rest. We wish to complete our work here and be done with this wretched village,” Goemon says.
I rock backward. I’ve been so absorbed in our reenactment that I’ve actually forgotten to walk my path of vengeance. Now, though, I feel its old familiar hunger opening up inside of me like quicksand. I need a hatred to keep it fed. Goemon, the older samurai, seems more than happy to step up to the task. The younger man tilts his chin away with a flinch. Perhaps I’m not alone in that hate.
“Your merchants dress as well as your farmers, as if they think themselves above their lowly station,” Goemon said. “Meanwhile, your farmers behave more like their swine. You let your daughter gab in the tongue of the Western mongrels, and the stink on the streets leads me to believe you’ve adopted their bathing habits as well—or lack thereof.” He scowls. “I can only imagine what sort of disarray the daimyo’s records are in.”
Yodo pushes open the front door, removes her jacket and shoes, and shuffles toward us. Dark patches of rain speckle her robe and cause the loose wisps of hair against the nape of her neck to curl and frizz. “Greetings, most honorable samurai of the bakufu. It is an honor to host you in Kuragami village.” She sinks into a kneel so deep she looks boneless as a slug. “My deepest apologies, but the daimyo’s clerk is not able to meet with you at this time. He has been called into the fields to settle a dispute among the farmers, but will join us as soon as it is resolved.”
Goemon’s silence hums in my ears: the way a forest falls too quiet just before a storm sweeps in. Then he smiles in a way that freezes my blood. Like he knows Yodo is lying, and it pleases him. As if he is hoping for a challenge. “I would like to rest after all before we explore the village,” he says. “Please, show us to our rooms.”
As I stand, I feel Goemon’s gaze upon me, slithering down my back like a bead of sweat. Jiro, the younger samurai, waits for his senior to stand, then slides his katana and wakizashi back into his belt. “Right this way,” I say, again feigning confidence that I can improvise my way out of this if I only believe hard enough that I am Miyu.
I lead them to the staircase and climb up to the second floor of the honjin. Instinctively, my gaze snags on the hidden panel where the museum docent told me the imperial loyalists’ secret meetings were held. (Had that only been this morning? I feel like I’m fossilized in place; I can scarcely remember anything outside the rainy dome of our little role play.) My socked foot slips on a step, and I fling my arms wide to catch myself on the staircase railing. Shit. I’ve been too busy thinking about the hidden room.
But Jiro catches me by the wrist and holds me steady as I find my foot beneath me again. “Thank you,” I say under my breath. My skin is warm where he touched me; it makes warmth bloom on my face as well.
“I hope this room is satisfactory to you.” I kneel and slide open the main panel to the largest guest room. A small window on the far wall looks down on the interior garden. “If you require anything else, my room is upstairs and down the hall.” The words startle me as I say them, but then, what hasn’t startled me about this day?
“I am certain we will,” Goemon says, and sweeps inside.
Jiro starts to follow him, but then turns to face me, and makes the slightest bow. Something hitches in my throat. “Thank you.” He speaks in English. His voice twists on itself, like a ribbon of water being poured. “Your tea was … delicious.”
I smile, though my face feels stiff, pained by it. “You’re welcome,” I answer in English, too. His grin goes wide.
I shuffle down the hallway before he can say anything more. The anger in my belly is still there, crackling, crackling. But it feels different from the familiar path I tread in Tokyo. It is carving a fresh path of hatred—Miyu’s path. It is beating a dark new rhythm in my thoughts. However I have come to be in this role, I can’t bear the thought of letting it go.
And that scares me most of all.
CHAPTER SIX
I slide open the panel to what is apparently my room, step inside, and close it behind me with a heavy exhale. Silence crowds around me—no noise but the dull and distant voices of the samurai and the pattering rain. For a few moments I feel nothing, see nothing, only that murmur and drum on the roof overhead. And deep inside, I begin to feel the satisfaction of a role well played, a character I’d just pulled off.
Then Reiko’s thoughts start to smother me once more.
Stupid, stu
pid, stupid. A Greek chorus of failures, narrating my every step. Why was I playing pretend instead of focusing on my revenge? Why get sucked into some sort of kabuki theater melodrama when I have more than enough troubles of my own? Like my brother and his shredded-up esophagus, waiting for me to give him an answer I can’t possibly give. Like the RISD wait list that I’ve probably been struck from after the Saint Isaac’s incident last winter. Like Aki and her stupid quest for indie idol fame, just begging me to put my fist right through all of her plans.
Like my quest to find the perfect revenge.
I need to cut. The need comes over me suddenly, and with a powerful undertow. Everything I’ve set aside while I floundered through the past hour’s pageantry comes rushing back, hitting me all at once, and I desperately need to release the pressure. If I can’t, I might explode.
I scan the room. Something feels lopsided about the way it is arranged, like it is an overtrimmed piece of meat. Something has been cut away. There’s a low chest of drawers, a single pallet to sleep on, a wall scroll hanging on one screen depicting two women glancing behind them, smiling as they saunter down the street. A chain of kanji characters trails alongside the women. I move to the chest of drawers and start hunting through it. More robes, carefully wrapped around dried herbs. Blankets. A few scattered scraps of paper holding shakily written lines.
Then I find a drawer of hair accessories—combs and long metal pins. I’m shaking with relief. I pick the longest of the pins and scamper over to the pallet.
It takes far too long for me to fumble with the obi that holds my robe closed, then I have to dig through the starchy white robe I wear beneath the outer kimono, then unwind the strange undergarments I’m wearing beneath that. I bend my legs in a V, fingers trembling with anticipation. Where should I start? I run one finger along my upper thigh, already imagining how relieved I will feel to savor that pain once more—
Then I stop.
My scars are gone.
My thighs are blank. A cold, pale surface, unmarked.
No. No. Those scars were my history. My memory. How could they just be gone? The pressure swells against my eyes. Tears blur my vision as I search my stomach and hips. But there is nothing. None of the beautiful cuts I wrought the day I found out that Chloe had moved on or the day Hideki came home from Iraq for good. Who am I without my scars? Who am I without proof of my suffering?
I rip off the kimono. Hear it thunk onto the mats as the heavy stone hidden in my inner pocket strikes the floor—
And in an instant, everything changes.
* * *
Someone’s saying my name.
The scent of wet earth surrounds me, fresh with the possibility of growth and renewal. The rain sounds like a symphony as it filters through the trees. But here, I’m dry and warm, cradled in the hollow sanctuary, my hand resting just over the rough hewn altar where the black oddly shaped stone rests.
“Reiko.” A hand curls around the sagging boulder that blocks most of the entrance to the den. “Reiko, come on. I know you don’t want Aki to get drenched.”
I blink, trying to place the voice. It’s speaking English; that much I’m sure of, but it’s much steadier than Jiro’s voice, the way it rasped and twisted on itself when he spoke the foreign words. Jiro and Goemon, the shogun’s representatives. Shit. Where am I? I have to get back to the honjin. Soon, the daimyo’s clerk from Kuramagi Castle will arrive from the fields, and Father will want me to—
“Reiko.” Kenji squeezes around the boulder. He has to hunch his head forward to fit inside the hollow; he braces his forearm against the root-snarled roof. “Let’s get back to the village and wait out the rain.” He smiles, but I can see the scaffolding at the edges of it—a forced grin. “Maybe we can have some hot tea, huh, while we dry out?”
I swallow, barely able to move the muscles in my throat. Did I black out? Did I hallucinate the whole honjin scene? It had felt so real, even more vivid than my usual medicated anxiety trips. I could taste the scent of smoke and powdered tea leaves in the air. I can still see the way Jiro looked at me as his tongue stumbled over the English words. The “barbarian’s” tongue, like Goemon said. Even at the thought of Goemon, I’m already shuddering.
“Where are they?” I ask Kenji. “Where’d the reenactors go?”
Kenji takes a step back, pressing into the grimy boulder. “The … uh … What is it, to reenact?”
“The people from the festival. They’re reenacting the—” I stop. Frown. I don’t like the way Kenji’s looking at me. Not like I’m crazy—I know the way people look at you when they think that. They turn overly gooey, a pure sugar candy, and speak with a sunny kindergarten-teacher tone. This look is something different. Like I’m a rabid animal, and any moment, I might strike.
I’d thought it was a game for the festival. Then maybe a hallucination. Now, standing here with Kenji, I’m less sure than ever.
“We, um. We need to get Aki inside, you know, so she doesn’t ruin her costume…”
Over his shoulder, I hear the steady percussion of rain on the tree canopy high overhead. “Sure,” I say. “Sure, sure.” I can explain to him once we’re back in the village. (When the hell did I leave the village again?) I take a step toward the hollow’s exit, which is enough to send Kenji squeezing back outside. But then the humming again drills into my head. I glance back at the altar, and see my silhouette glinting in the face of the curved black stone. The stone’s sitting there just as it was before I picked it up. I cannot leave it behind. Whatever is happening, I know the stone is the key.
Whatever is happening …
I tug my hoodie sleeve down around my palm and, without touching the stone to my skin, slide it into my camera gear bag.
“Hurry up, Kenji,” Akiko whines, as I make my way back out of the hollow. “She’s going to ruin everything!”
I open my mouth to reply, but Kenji’s already answering. “I think she’s just having another episode. This is what your dad said to watch out for. Give her time.”
Assholes. Way to talk about me like I’m not even here. I stagger back down to the trail, now gridded with mud between the old stones, and start slogging my way back toward town. Dimly, I can hear the clip-clop of Aki’s wooden geta as she hurries to keep pace.
Just a few steps more. I grip the wooden railing as I climb the cut stone stairs onto the first tier of narrow streets. I’ll find my reenactment group and we can get back to the plan. Forget Akiko and her stupid aki * LIFE * rhythm failed conglomerate. As horrible as the characters in the game were, they’re far more interesting than Aki and her dumb show.
And when I was among them, I was more interesting than myself.
“Wait—Reiko, the ryokan is back this way—”
But the streets are empty; the only sound is the steady patter of rain. It drips into my eyes as I peer inside one of the tourist shops, where half a dozen Europeans with backpacks are crammed, pretending to look at wooden bowls and paper parasols as they wait out the downpour. No. This can’t be right. The streets should be overflowing with the peasants and merchants and farmers and samurai. Where are the daimyo’s clerks, rushing toward the honjin to bring Goemon and Jiro the records they requested? Where are the merchants—the real merchants, not these tourist trap souvenir proprietors—laying out their wares for the cultural festival?
The honjin. I turn and charge toward the next set of stairs to take me to Kuramagi’s crest. I have to get back to it. My Docs slide on the slippery stones, but I keep my grip on the railing.
“Rei, come on. What’s going on?” Kenji calls behind me. “We really need to head indoors—”
But all I care about is getting back to the game. I need to slip back into Miyu’s life, into her worries. Her stream of hate …
The honjin door slams shut behind me as I charge up onto the raised platform of the main room. “Excuse you!” the museum attendant cries, chasing after me. No, she’s speaking Japanese—“Sumimasen! Your shoes! Please, you must take them
off!”
But I’m already halfway up the stairs. I can’t hear anything now but the throbbing of my pulse inside my ears. My skin is tightened like gooseflesh, like I’m waiting for a lightning strike. I reach Miyu’s bedroom—my bedroom—and slide the rice paper panel back.
But it’s been emptied out of all her things. Just a bunch of glass display cabinets, none of them from the arrangement earlier today.
“Reiko. Hey. What’s the matter?” Kenji is behind me as I turn. He’s too close. I slam my fists into his chest to shove him away.
“What the—hey! What’d you do that for?”
“Where are they?” I scream at him. “Where are the hatamoto? What happened to my costume?”
Kenji steps back from me. “Reiko … I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
What the hell is happening to me? I sink against Kenji for a moment, then pull away when he goes tense. Am I losing my mind? Overdosing on meds? Maybe I’ve already killed myself, I think. Maybe this is my purgatory, forever trapped with Akiko, forever going insane.
I head back downstairs, where Aki and Tadashi are arguing with the museum docent. “Please forgive my rude American cousin,” Akiko is saying. “We’re doing her family a favor, taking care of her. She won’t be a problem much longer.”
I clear my throat extra loud as I reach the downstairs, but they keep chattering away, like I’m not even there. “I know she’s a clumsy oaf, but we need her help for the cultural festival. What’ll it cost to repair the damage?” Tadashi asks, pulling out his wallet. “Please understand, she does not represent the aki * LIFE * rhythm brand, which is all about respect for heritage and innovation of the modern way of life…”
“Just get her out of here.” The docent cuts her eyes toward me. “Please. Don’t come back to this museum.”
“The museum owner is very offended by your disregard for the museum building,” Kenji says to me. Like I’m a baby. “I think we should return to the ryokan.”
A Darkly Beating Heart Page 6