A Darkly Beating Heart

by Lindsay Smith

  We have to get away. The urgency thrums through me, louder even than the drums. If we don’t leave now, we’ll be up on that platform, too. It will be our throat pressed against the folded steel, our entrails waiting to spill across the stage—

  But then Jiro turns. Those hateful coal-black eyes meet ours across the crowd. The darkness on his face swells up like a bruise.

  Run, Miyu. Run!

  I shove my way toward the back of the square, elbows swinging wildly, sandals clattering across the cobblestones. The smell of incense and sake burn at my throat as I shove toward the edge of the crowd and break out into a run. The stables. I can make it to the stables, the ones near the honjin, as long as the crowd slows Jiro down as much as it had slowed me. The daimyo keeps a whole fleet of horses at the ready, and his estate is only a little farther up the road, at the far end of this street, behind our home.

  Shouting swirls behind me, crackling like dead leaves. But I can’t stop to make sense of it. I have to run.

  My lungs feel heavy as lead by the time I reach the top of the road and clamber over the retaining wall that surrounds the daimyo’s estate. My wooden sandals fall off as I swing up and over. Don’t bother with them; there’s no time. I’ll ride barefoot and naked if that’s what it takes. I have to flee. I curve around the estate and find the stables by their smell. I pick the fastest-looking horse I can find—not too big, not too old, one with restless limbs that happily snuffles at my hand as I hold it out. It’ll have to do. I don’t have the first clue about how to saddle a horse, but the saddle hanging on the side of his pen seems about the right size.

  We must move quickly. It’s already happening. It’s already too late.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and see once more: the whoosh of steel through cold air; the rivers of blood—

  Okay. I have to focus. Hideki and I went horseback riding once with our parents; surely it’ll come back to me like riding a bike. I sling the saddle over his back, then step around to his side to buckle the saddle underneath, taking care never to cross behind his rear—

  A shadow spins toward me from the doorway of the stables. I freeze; holding still against the retaining wall that separates the horse’s pen from his neighbor’s. Please, oh, please, stupid horse, don’t give me away.

  “Miyu? Oh, Miyu, my darling Miyu-chan.” Jiro’s voice sounds dipped in poison. “I know you don’t want to do anything rash. Not when we have our whole future ahead…”

  My rage is hot as phosphorous, burning a hole through my chest. Liar. Traitor. He used me like everyone else. Dumped on me simply because he could, because I was there, because everyone knew I’d take it. But he has underestimated the strength of my hate.

  “Don’t be rash, Miyu. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself. I’d hate to see you suffer any more than you must.”

  Rash? He dares to call me rash? Fool. Miyu and I have played the long game of vengeance. A smile unfurls on my face, snapping into place like a sail. Just ask my sister and her husband. I laughed in spite of myself. The dark haze I’ve felt hanging over me for far too long settles, and I wear it like a mantle. I’ll always have my revenge.

  Always.

  Always, Miyu sighs, her relief echoing my own.

  A blade punches through the thin panel that separates this stall from the next, inches from where my arm was pressed. I roll away as it slices its way down and retracts.

  No. He will not stop me.

  I grab the nearby rake. My anger is a cleansing fire, giving me focus. I will survive. I brace myself and wait until Jiro’s face appears in the doorway, teeth bared, eyes wild.

  His frame fills the exit and I jab the rake at him—

  But his sword arm is faster, honed from years of training. He slices away the rake end, then snatches the remaining pole and yanks me toward him. I topple forward, socked feet slipping easily on the damp hay, and barely catch myself from landing on my face.

  I let go of the rake handle and swing my hands up in the air to surrender. But he doesn’t stop his attack. He slams his body into me, pushing us against the far wooden wall of the stable, then holds his sword against my throat to pin me in place. The blade burns against my skin as he sneers.

  “I have no more use for you. Your purpose has been served.” He spits at me; the saliva dribbling down my raised forearm.

  I should be shaking. Cowed, terrified. But no. We no longer have a space in our black hearts for fear, Miyu and I.

  “How could you ever be so foolish to believe anyone would love you?” Jiro’s look of contempt stokes my certainty as I slowly slip my hand into the bun of my hair. The vein of his neck dances with each cruel syllable. “You are nothing. Just another dishonorable whore.”

  The darkness flutters in me. We are so much more than that. Far more powerful than he realizes.

  “Dishonor?” I laugh. “You say I’m the one without honor?”

  I bring my knee up into his groin. He recovers quickly, his samurai reflexes kicking in, but in that split second, his grip on the sword loosens. That’s when I strike. I swing my hand down, snatching the long pin holding up my bun. It gleams in the darkness as I drive it home, right into that dancing vein on his throat.

  I can almost see it now, meticulously marked and labeled on Hideki’s study guides back in his apartment. Fig. 1. Jugular vein. If punctured, patient may experience severe blood loss.

  Hot red blood fountains from his throat, spraying across me as he screams. The heat is such a comfort on my face as he sinks to his knees. I will wear it, unlike the entrails the children threw at me on my first visit to the village, as a badge of honor. Let red drip down my limbs. Let me paint my legacy across the earth as I walk.

  Jiro’s screams are sweeter than any chorus, as luscious as a symphony. He tries to swing the katana at me, but he is losing control, and fast. The sword clatters from his hand into the quickly muddying dirt.

  Too quickly, his screams end; the pools of blood cease to flow.

  I seize the katana from where it fell, the handle slippery. Then I rip the wakizashi from his belt. One weapon in each hand.

  Why stop here? Miyu asks. Why only him, when so many have done us harm?

  I feel my denial forming, calcifying like a pearl deep inside of me. I want to say that I got the revenge I needed; that my debts are paid. But I can’t bring myself to argue. Every time I try, I feel the buzz, I hear Miyu’s words circling in my head. I’m not in control of myself. I am only a passenger in Miyu’s life. She has control.

  Come, she tells me. It’s time for the rest of them to pay.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  I move without thinking, without needing to control my own body. Maybe Miyu’s in control of me now—I can’t say for sure. But it doesn’t matter. We are one mind, one will, and that is the will to wreak as much destruction as we possibly can. Jiro has paid the price for betraying us, but there are so many more who have yet to pay. I’m willing to give Miyu the power to make them pay. She deserves it.

  The world shifts around me, past and present swirling together. I don’t remember letting go of the stone. When did I? The village fades, and I’m plunged back into the darkness of the storage closet at the museum. Everything smells of metal, or maybe it’s the memory of Jiro’s blood, but then our hand closes around a splintering wooden handle. We feel up the handle to some manner of rusted, ancient farm implement. Yes. This is what we need.

  We start hacking at the door. The thin boards crack and rip apart easily, fine as fish bones. Within minutes, we’re able to reach out of the deep gash and unlatch the door from the exterior.

  Yes. It’s time. Time to have our revenge. We’re going to make all of them pay for what they’ve done. Miyu’s voice is breathless, raspy as a saw in my mind. All our lives, we’ve suffered, but it’s finally time to make it right.

  All my life. I look down at the farm tool in my hand, some sort of gardening trowel. Hardly menacing. Maybe not bad for hacking down doors, but it’s so dull and rusted, I can�
�t imagine it being any use for what Miyu wants. (What I want? Yes. What I want.)

  Upstairs, she urges me. I don’t even make the conscious choice to go—my feet move of their own volition, or maybe she’s guiding me. The world flickers around us: light and dark, the possessions of Miyu’s family warping in and out. We are both dressed in kimonos, but the colors shift, my body shifts—she’s a few inches shorter than me—but we are all the same, we are all one machine of pure vengeance with a samurai’s blood splattered hot across our face.

  We are one and we will kill.

  Upstairs. A sword on display. I seize it and set off for the main road toward the festival.

  There are still so many debts left to repay.

  Miyu’s thoughts chatter inside me like a screeching flock of crows. For years, I suffered my sister’s torment. She earned her suffering. I bought and paid for her death with my own life, with all the lies she spread about me as a child, the men she chased from me, with her own failures that she told Father had been my own.

  Why should she take a husband first, a respected member of the village? Mind you, he was a dreadful man, an utter bore and a drunk and, quite obviously, a lecher, but what man isn’t? All my suffering was worth it the day they put her in the ground next to him. The “lovers’ shrine” was but another hateful lie, another attempt to best me. The villagers of Kuramagi excel at concealing the ugliness beneath their façades. But I’ll have my revenge for that, too.

  Shadows swirl at our feet as we march down the winding cobblestone path away from the honjin. The amplified thud of pop ballad wars with the executioner’s drumbeat as we walk; a rotten-smelling wind rakes through our cheap kimono in one time and our bloodied hair in another. We are vengeance and we are hate. People scamper from our path, hands clenched over their mouths to smother out their gasps. Whether they wear vinyl dresses or soft cotton robes, their reactions are the same.

  Run. Run from the monsters you’ve forged with your cruelty, your vendettas pushed too far, your determination to have the last word. Run, before we return it a thousandfold.

  My sword arm itches—how Miyu aches to lash out at nearly everyone we pass! I dream of it, of the blood splattering us anew, warm as baptismal water ready to wash away our sins. Is it my instinct and restraint that keeps us from striking them? I wish I could say so, but I want to lash out as badly as Miyu does. I want to make my artwork real. To paint my photographs with red.

  How I wish Chloe were here, to see how I’ve fulfilled the prophecy of the artwork that she urged me to make. For I’ve done this all before, haven’t I? I have walked this path of hatred with darkness throbbing in my heart.

  Chloe remembers. I remember. I’m practically delirious now with the memory of it, the way I got my revenge. On that dark fall day, when I found Chloe in Portland in another girl’s arms, I didn’t rush back home. No.

  I waited, a plan forming in my mind with frightful calm.

  I waited for her new girlfriend to leave the house where they were couch-surfing. Chloe apparently made good on her promise to run away from home. I watched until Chloe left for work, and Selena went downtown, to some all-ages punk rock show. Selena. My prey. I zipped up my hoodie and followed her into the club.

  God, how she bored me. Chain smoking clove cigarettes with gauge-eared girls and boys made of twigs. Sneaking swigs from her friends’ flasks and talking too loudly with her empty, pointless words. What could Chloe possibly see in her? How could she have replaced me with this loser? I went to the alleyway to wait.

  And then she came out of the club alone, eyes wet, cigarette limp in her mouth. She didn’t see me—her back was to me as she muttered to herself and smoked. I was crouched behind a dumpster, surrounded by cast-off bottles. Almost without thinking, I seized one by the neck, warm beer sloshing down my wrist as I charged at her. In that moment, I didn’t care about the consequences. All that mattered was the way it felt to swing the bottle up into her jaw, the way it shattered apart, spraying us both with beer and green glass.

  It felt amazing. It felt like freedom, like I’d never even known.

  Yes. I love revenge as much as Miyu. I want that feeling of freedom again. Alone as Reiko, I thought I had freed myself when I made a bloody mess of Selena’s chin. But even though no one saw me and I made it back to Berkeley, Chloe knew. I KNOW IT WAS YOU, her first email read, and a half dozen more followed. I CAN’T PROVE IT, BUT I KNOW IT. YOU NEED HELP.

  I deleted them all.

  Weeks passed. My decision from RISD came—wait-listed. And then one Sunday night, a single email made it through my email block: YOU ARE ONE SICK, TWISTED, VIOLENT INDIVIDUAL AND YOU WILL ONLY GET WORSE. YOU NEED HELP. AND I’M GOING TO MAKE SURE YOU GET IT.

  That was the night before my paintings showed up at school, and the rest was a blur of benzos and small groups and waxed linoleum floors.

  I deserve freedom. I deserve revenge. That night in the alley, I thought I’d paid Chloe back for leaving me by slicing open her new girlfriend’s chin. But then she got me sent to the psych ward. Had I made those paintings? Yes. Was I violent? Certainly. But she’d made me that way. Couldn’t she see? She’d made me that way. Miyu understood that. Miyu would have done the same.

  I can smell the pyres of the village square now—the incense and stew and sake set out for all of Kuramagi to enjoy as they prepare for the annual purification ceremony. Only today would serve a different purpose. The square is a sea of kimonos and soldiers with their swords. Heads start to turn toward us as we near the square; men start to whisper and point. A soldier grips his sword hilt tight and takes a step our way.

  No. We cannot be stopped. We’ve earned our revenge.

  Once you are branded a whore, then a whore you become. Father had to keep up a good front for the daimyo, but he’d gladly sell me out to those willing to pay a high enough price. They told me purity was a virtue, but it seems it’s not as much a virtue as a fat purse. Jiro was the first man I chose for myself, after my sister’s husband, and look where that landed me.

  The world warps around us—fleeting images of the kind that had haunted my dreams flash before my eyes. The leering herb merchant with his belly slit open and his innards flopping limply from the wound. The children, all the children, face down in pools of blood. Even the samurai took grievous wounds, before they cut Miyu down.

  And suddenly I understand. Miyu had done all of this. She’d slaughtered Kuramagi in her life, and now she wants me to slaughter it in mine.

  You deserve this freedom, Reiko, she hisses, words whipping at me like a gale. You deserve to make them pay.

  I think of Hideki. The good child, our parents’ golden boy. Winner of scholarships, charmer of dinner guests, proof of their success. “They should have stopped with me,” he once said, right before he cut my ponytail off with garden shears. He deserves to pay most of all.

  I surge forward, buoyed by Miyu’s words buzzing in my head, only to stumble on the uneven stones.

  But then I remember how he let me come visit him in Berkeley after graduation, when I was unable to stand another moment around our parents. Hideki and I may never have been friends, but we both understood the kind of purgatory that was House Azumi, no questions asked. He looked so old, so exhausted, that weekend; thick bags bunched the once smooth skin under his eyes and his hair hung forward in oily clumps. His decision was weighing on him, I knew. He was going to quit med school, though our parents would cut him off when they found out.

  That afternoon, while I was laying in a puddle of misery on the couch thinking about Chloe, Hideki came and sat beside me. Instinctively I touched the five bruises on my wrist. How long had it been since he’d last hurt me there? How long had I been doing it to myself?

  “Listen, kiddo, I’m only going to say this once to you.” Hideki pushed the hair out of his face. “I’ve been a real shit brother, all right? I know that. I’ve done horrible things to you. Made your life hell sometimes. And Mom and Dad—well, they’re more inclined to like so
meone like me, who gets into med school and kisses ass and all that. Even when I was young I knew that, and I took advantage of it.”

  He shifted on the couch. “But I love you. You’re different, okay. You’re weird as hell, but you’re true to yourself. You don’t have to play Mom and Dad’s little accomplishments game, because you’ve figured out how to succeed outside of their rules. You’re going to art school, for God’s sake. You’ll be among kindred souls. That’s incredible. Do you have any idea how envious I am of you for that? If I could, I’d … God. I don’t even know what I’d do. It’s hard enough just having to hide this one tiny little part of my life from them, and I…” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess all I’m saying is, cheer the fuck up.”

  The memory still feels gentle, even though the rage boils inside me. Hideki had never been so kind to me. Not without a hammer waiting just behind the velvet. How dare he tell me to cheer up? When it was years of his lies, his bruises, his manipulation that led me to Chloe in the first place. And now he had revealed his one vulnerability. I had a way to make him pay.

  It only took one email, one cell phone snapshot of his withdrawal letter, to tear his whole world down.

  “I told Mom and Dad,” I said, before he could even set down his keys after returning from his final exam. “They know.”

  He was already shaking. “Know what?” he asked, the hairline fractures in his tone belying his attempts at calm.

  “That you’re not going to go to med school after all. They know all about your honorable discharge, about Marco, about everything.”

  Hideki was shaking. Our parents knowing that he was discharged from the military because a bunch of homophobes beat him up and that he was backpedaling from his med school plans—that would cause them to renounce him utterly. Financially. Emotionally. Completely cut off.

  And that was the one thing that Hideki could not take. Without their money and approval he would be a worthless nobody, just like me.