“But your father—”
“He stays as close to the emperor’s side as possible, but, to be a proper advisor, he can’t stay with him every moment. Should the emperor meet an untimely death, a twelve-year-old boy will ascend to the throne. And with his maternal grandfather being sympathetic to the radical faction…” The rebels would find a way to eliminate everyone who could keep them from manipulating the inexperienced boy.
Aneko sighed and poured them each a cup of sake. “If only I could do something.”
Kaemon grinned, drained his cup and let it fall to the woven mat that covered the floor. “There is something you can do, that only you can do,” he drawled before reaching for her.
“At least let me cover the mirror first.”
“Leave it.”
Aneko grinned and lay beside him. “Fine. When the demon woman comes from within to steal your soul, don’t expect me to save you.”
* * * *
Kae stared up at the ceiling, listening to the soft, even breathing of Aneko, who dozed peacefully beside him. Moving slowly, so as not to wake the prostitute, he untangled himself from her limbs and sat up. As he reached for the sake bottle, light from the floor lantern glinted off the prostitute’s newest prized possession, a gift from a Western diplomat, and he smiled to himself at her earlier words.
‘When the demon woman comes from within to steal your soul, don’t expect me to save you.’
If pretty demons in mirrors were all he had to worry about, he’d be a happy man indeed—
Wait.
There was a woman in the mirror, and she was staring straight at him. He set down the sake bottle and reached for the razor-sharp katana that he always kept within arm’s reach, even in the Pleasure Quarters. He climbed over Aneko, who stirred when he jarred her.
The mirror was turned slightly away from him, giving him the advantage over his ghostly enemy as he made his way toward the lacquered cabinet where it stood. He used the tip of his sword to turn the brass-framed mirror so he could look at the unnatural woman again. Strange. She didn’t resemble any oni he’d ever imagined. She had long black hair and pale skin. Her dark eyes shone with blue flashes as a distant, silvery light reflected off her.
She seemed worlds away, and yet he could almost put his hand into the fathomless glass and pluck her out. She said something in a strange, lilting tongue and Kae pulled back, lest she suck him into her clutches and steal his soul as Aneko had warned. He prodded the mirror with the tip of his sword so that the glass faced the wall then covered it with the black silk cloth that Aneko used to keep the mirror’s demons at bay.
Kae returned to the futon and finished off the bottle of sake, content that he was safe once again.
Yet, she had been a pretty little demon.
Over the course of the ensuing weeks, in those fleeting moments before Aneko covered her prized mirror, the demon entranced him. A few times in the dead of night, curiosity propelled him to lift the silken cover and peek at the reflective surface. Often the glass reflected only the room’s objects, and he was certain the demon girl was nothing more than a trick of his mind, an odd play of light and shadow. Other times he’d see her deep inside, looking at him as if her captivating eyes called out to his very soul through the blue-tinted mist.
Chapter Three
Los Angeles
Present day
“You can’t take that to Japan, Em-chan.”
“But you don’t understand. I have to keep this with me. If I put it in the checked bag, it will break.”
Jake rubbed his temple and looked at his watch. “We have to get moving or risk missing the flight. If anything happens to it while we’re gone, I’ll find you another one.”
“No!” Emmi shouted, hugging the mirror to her chest. “You don’t understand! I saw Daddy in it—” She broke off, tears stinging her eyes. She turned away.
Gently placing his hands upon her shoulders, Jake turned Emmi to face him. “Tell me what happened, Emiko. All of it. I need to hear it.”
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“I won’t. I promise. Trust me.”
Emmi accepted that Jake may have experienced something supernatural without question. Her dad, too, had never been one to hide his open-mindedness about things that pushed the boundaries of ‘normal’. She explained to Jake what had happened that night when she’d first cleaned the mirror, and how she’d been getting up every night since, trying to see the image of her father again.
“I thought I caught a glimpse of him a couple times, but it was all blurry, like the glass was clouded or steamy—the way mirrors get when you shower.” She sighed. “It couldn’t have been Daddy. It probably was just a weird reflection.”
“You don’t have to brush the experience off because you think it’s what I want to hear,” Jake said softly.
“I’m not,” Emmi said defensively. “At first I was positive it was Daddy, but this man is younger, a lot younger, around my age, and he looked so serious. Daddy never let anything get to him. He was always happy and smiling.”
Jake nodded. “That he was.” He looked at his watch again. “Tell you what. Let me call the prop master. I know there are a couple of pieces that he has permission to carry on. Maybe he can slip the mirror in with them.”
* * * *
Halfway through the flight, Emmi had the uncontrollable urge to check on the mirror but forced herself to contain the impulse. Jake had been right back at the condo—airport security would probably consider the mirror a dangerous weapon if broken into shards. She should have left it at home. Even as she assured herself that the mirror was perfectly safe with the prop master’s more fragile things, Emmi’s stomach knotted with worry.
Emmi closed her eyes and tried to sleep, since there wasn’t much else to do to pass the hours. A weird, dreamy vision came to her just as she began dozing off. It was like the dream she’d had before the accident—the flash of insight that had told her there was going to be a wreck, and that she would be behind the wheel. However, this was clearer and more than a quick flash. Yet it still didn’t make much sense.
As if in a samurai movie, she saw herself on a street, being pulled against her will by a man in traditional Japanese clothing.
Emmi jumped in her seat and looked over to Jake, sitting quietly with his eyes closed. Was there going to be an accident on the set? Please, don’t let it be another omen, she prayed. She couldn’t lose Uncle Jake on top of everything else.
* * * *
“Finally moved up in the world, eh, Jake?” Dan Cruze, the film’s director, joked when they joined the crew assembling near the front desk of the luxury hotel not far from the Imperial Palace.
Jake grinned. “Only the best for the stunt coordinator slash martial arts choreographer hyphen consultant.”
The director flipped Jake off, which made everyone laugh, then he handed out the room assignments and hotel keys to Jake and the rest of the advance crew, who’d arrived ahead of the film’s actors and other crewmembers.
Emmi was getting her mirror from the property master when the director approached with the keys.
“Giving away our stuff, Eric?”
“No, Dan, I was carrying it for Miss Maeda. It wouldn’t fit in her carry-on, and I didn’t want to chance it in the checked bags.”
Jake gave the prop master a playful hug. “Eric is so sweet that way.”
Everyone but Eric laughed, and the director asked if he could look at the mirror. Emmi didn’t want to let him touch it, but Jake had that ‘do it for me’ look that coerced her to hand it over.
Cruze set the mirror on top of the hotel’s check-in desk and did that framing the shot with his hands thing, which she’d never seen done except in movies featuring stereotypical movie folk.
“This would be fabulous in my opening shot. We’ll pan across the room in the teahouse and show the ninja sneaking in to murder the sleeping samurai.” He looked at Emmi. “You’ll let us borrow it, right? I’ll pay you a rental
fee.”
A sick feeling hit Emmi in the stomach, and she wanted to throw up. Having heard enough about Cruze always getting his way, she sensed she couldn’t refuse. And yet… “I-I can’t.” She looked to Jake for support when Cruze’s expression hardened.
“It’s an heirloom, Danny,” he lied. “Kenny gave it to her before…you know.”
Cruze sort of winced and turned on Eric, the prop master. “You’ll make me an exact replica by five a.m. tomorrow.”
Eric sighed and guilt stabbed Emmi.
“Sure, Dan. I’ll get right on it.”
Cruze smiled. “Great. Later, people. I have an interview with a reporter from NHK in the bar.”
Eric took a digital camera from one of his bags. “I need to get measurements and some pics, okay? Then I’ll bring it to your room. You’re in seven-one-eight, right? That’s down the hall from me. I’ll be careful with it. You’ll have it back within the hour.”
Emmi nodded. “Is there anything I can do to help? I didn’t mean to make more work for you.”
Eric laughed. “It’s okay. I’ll get a bonus out of the fearless leader for the aggravation.”
Emmi smiled in return, but the sick feeling in her stomach stayed and got worse as she followed Jake through the garden-like atrium toward the elevators. Nothing could happen to the mirror. It just couldn’t.
“You okay, Em-chan? You look like you got hold of a bad piece of sushi.”
“I’m okay,” she muttered. She craned her neck to see the mirror one last time before the elevator doors closed.
Except she knew everything wasn’t okay.
* * * *
“There wasn’t a thing to worry about,” Emmi whispered to herself when Eric returned the mirror within the hour as promised.
She placed it on the desk and stretched out on the bed across from it. After a second, she impulsively got up to adjust the mirror so she could look into the glass when lying down, just the way she’d had it back home. It wasn’t positioned quite right, so she repeated the ritual until it was. Finally Emmi lay on her stomach and stared into the mirror, so many thoughts going through her head. Could it have been her dad’s spirit she’d seen, after all? Was he unhappy wherever he was?
Jake came out of the bathroom, toweling dry his long hair. He sat beside her. “You okay?”
“Why didn’t he listen to me?” Emmi blurted, voicing the question that had been nagging her for months. “If he’d believed me, he would still be alive.”
Tears stung her eyes, and the torment she’d been struggling to control felt like it would explode inside her. She got up and paced across the room.
“I told him I couldn’t drive him home from the eye doctor. I told him something bad would happen if I did. Why wouldn’t he listen? Why?”
The tears flooded out, and Emmi’s whole body shook from the force. She had to lean against the desk to keep from collapsing.
The mirror rattled, and she gripped the edge to keep it from tottering.
* * * *
Kyoto
1864
Certain he heard a woman crying, Kaemon paused while tightening the ties of his hakama pants as he prepared to depart the Pleasure Quarters.
“Aneko?” he called, walking toward the partially opened shoji to peer into the connecting room. It was empty, yet the faint sound of crying could still be heard. He realized that it came from behind him. He whipped around, surveying the room, his hand reflexively reaching for the hilt of his katana.
The crying came from…the mirror?
His dark eyes scanned the room once more for signs of an intruder. Finding none, Kaemon crept nearer the small cabinet where Aneko had set the mirror the previous night. Using the tip of his sword, he lifted the cloth from the glass. The cry sounded faint, almost like a bird’s distant cry echoing on the summer wind. But it was unmistakable nonetheless. The sound of a woman crying came from within the depths of the mirror itself.
He leaned forward but abruptly jerked back, afraid that the crying was just a ploy by the pretty oni who lived inside.
Words tumbled from her unseen lips along with her sobs, and Kae understood a few of the odd words. They sounded like the English that his father insisted he learn to help those who translated imported books to ensure that no references to Christianity remained in the books that were allowed into the country.
Slowly he began to understand the oni’s lament. Surely an oni would not lament the death of her father? Curiosity overpowered his better judgment, and Kae leaned in. He saw the shadowy shape of the pretty oni at the end of a long, murky corridor. She sat hunched over with her head buried in her folded arms. Her slim shoulders shook from her sobs. Impulsively, he reached toward the glass, wanting to ease the pain that carried across untold distances to touch him.
“Kae-sama!”
Kae jumped back, his sword drawn and at the ready. He relaxed. “It’s only you, Aneko.”
* * * *
Kyoto
Present day
“Oh, wow,” Emmi said as the rental van entered the Uzumasa Movie Village, the Japanese version of Universal’s famed Backlot. She could hear her father’s words from years earlier echo in her mind.
‘It was like being home, Em-chan, like walking into all those old stories great-grandfather Maeda used to tell. It was all smoke and mirrors, but it felt so real, just like I had stepped back a hundred years into the samurai clan that our people came from. And being there made me wish that the movie we were working on was true, that I could slip back in time to see it all for real just once…’
Though her father hadn’t had a chance during that film shoot, or after, to make a trip to the Kanazawa area where their family originated, Emmi hoped this trip would afford her the chance to do just that both for herself and for him.
Jake nudged her. “Time for that big break into stardom.”
Emmi smirked. “You mean time to be filmed and end up on the cutting room floor.”
“Your scene will stay. Trust me.”
Emmi smiled, feeling foolish for her behavior the night before. “I’m sorry I acted like such a baby last night,” she said, finally finding the words she’d wanted to say all morning.
Jake hugged her. “Don’t you apologize.” He pulled back and tilted her chin up. “And don’t you ever think that you’re responsible for the accident.”
Emmi nodded even though she knew the guilt would haunt her for a long time to come.
Jake led her to the dressing area and introduced her to a few makeup artists and costume fitters before taking his leave, assuring her she was in good hands. The ladies immediately got down to business, working their magic with powders, hair ornaments and silk.
An hour later, as Emmi checked herself in the mirror, she didn’t care if her ‘big scene’ did end up the director’s afterthought. This was the coolest, most exciting thing she’d ever done—apart from the time her father ‘directed’ her brother and her in a homemade samurai epic they’d sent to their grandparents for Christmas.
Makeup and Costume had poked and prodded Emmi into a traditional Japanese prostitute. Last came the wig that was poufed and embellished with tortoiseshell combs and silver hair pins decorated with coral beads and fringed fans. She was dressed in layers topped by an elaborately embroidered silk kimono.
At the sound of Jake’s wolf whistle, Emmi turned away from the large mirror in the extras’ dressing room.
“Every single one of your ancestors may very well reach beyond the veil and strangle me for saying this, but if I was a nineteenth-century samurai on the make, I’d pay some big money for the pleasure of your company.”
Emmi was certain that the burning blush she felt in her cheeks could be seen through the layer of white rice powder on her face. “Uncle Jake!”
“I mean that in a good way, really. If you twisted that obi around to the back like a ‘respectable lady’, you’d almost look like you’d just stepped out of the Imperial Palace.” He laughed when Emmi rolled her eyes.
He held out his hand. “Come on, I’ll escort you to the set so you don’t trip in those geta and break your neck.”
“You make me sound like I’m helpless,” Emmi said sharply, moving forward slowly on the high wooden sandals.
She’d just about reached Jake at the door when the bottom-most kimono slid from her grip and caused her to trip. Luckily, she fell right into Jake’s arms.
“Don’t even think it,” she said, glowering up at him.
“What? That the death glare on your face looks exactly like your mother’s?” he quipped.
Emmi was primped and prodded more as she waited for her big moment before the camera. Watching for the director’s signal, she repeated to herself exactly what she was to do— Slip off shoes— Hurry down hall— Slide open shoji— Look in horror at dead bodies— Scream like banshee.
She repeated it so many times she was certain that, when she next spoke, those words would come out of her mouth. The crew seemed to take an awfully long time to get to the panning shot of the opening murder. During rehearsal, the cast had taken only a couple of minutes to run through the entire scene. Emmi peeked around the cameras, scattered equipment and people to figure out the cause of the hold-up. When she finally caught a glimpse of Jake in deep conversation with Director Cruze, she hoped he wasn’t thinking of cutting her scene entirely.
At the wardrober’s insistence, Emmi moved to wait near one of the sound stage’s exits where she could get a bit of air, so as not to ‘sweat up the merchandise’ during the filming delay. The wind was beginning to whip up outside, and the breeze had a cooling effect on her nerves and skin.
A Japanese television film was in production at the studio as well, and Emmi watched a large, formal procession being rehearsed. The whole scene reminded her of being near her great-grandfather’s bedside during his last months. She had been a little girl but had listened raptly as he recounted the stories he’d heard as a young man about similar processions traveling from the main Maeda estate to conduct official business in Kyoto or Edo, which would later become Tokyo.
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