by Zoe Marriott
I was leaning out at such an acute angle now that only my desperate grip on the tree branch was keeping me from sprawling facedown on the grass.
The servants and Terayama-san’s friends all seemed to be echoing my posture, their faces rapt. So my sudden absence had been noticed and remarked upon, and not just within the household. People had wondered, even if they had not dared to question Terayama-san. Abruptly he seemed isolated, almost vulnerable, not lifted up by people’s unspoken fear and admiration but pinned down by the curiosity of their stares.
“I have certainly been sorry not to see her again,” Otieno said. “I was looking forward to it.”
Terayama-san’s eyes never strayed from Otieno. “Of course. Suzu-chan was very beautiful.”
There was an echoing silence that seemed to go on and on, one that even the quiet sounds of water and wind song and birds calling could not touch.
“Was?”
Terayama-san’s face twitched. A tiny, betraying movement of unease. “She is not well. That is why she is resting in the country now.”
“And when will she be back?” Otieno asked.
Before Terayama-san could formulate another lie, the veranda door slid open.
I jolted as I saw my mother’s slender form there, her face and hands intensely white against the black of her formal kimono. The bones of her face seemed to push sharply against the skin of her face, threatening to break through, and when she stepped forward, it was with the careful movement of one who knows that carelessness will be painful.
“Yukiko,” Terayama-san said, his attention leaving Otieno abruptly. He stepped up onto the veranda and reached for her arm. “You should not come into the sun in this heat. The doctor said it would be too fatiguing.”
My mother flinched when Terayama-san laid his hand on her, then sighed and leaned into his support. “I am sorry, Shujin-sama, but I was curious, since all the servants had disappeared.”
Terayama-san glanced around, as if noticing the clustered servants for the first time. A curt jerk of his head was enough to send them scurrying about their business.
“We are finished now, my dear,” he said, voice tender. “We were about to come inside.”
He gently guided her back through the opening, ignoring his guests, who slowly began trailing after him.
So Terayama-san still cared for my mother — as much as a man like him could care for anyone. And why would he not, when she had given him everything he wanted: his sons, and her compliance and silence? He was the picture of the devoted husband. Yet she was bone tired and ill, and her first reaction to his touch had been to wince from it.
Did she regret the choice she had made? Seeing her like that, I allowed myself to believe it. Allowed myself to believe that she thought of me, missed me, despite everything.
Otieno was the only one to hesitate on the veranda as everyone else slipped inside. He made as if to step through the doorway, but at the last moment turned back, as if he was unable to help himself.
Our eyes met.
My breath stopped. His did, too. I could see it.
We each stood in the shadows, reaching for one another across the sunlit space between us. Without ever touching, we touched. I felt his hand on me, and it was warm and familiar and wanted.
Then someone on the other side of the screen caught Otieno’s hand and forced him to step inside or fall. Otieno crossed the threshold. The screen slid into place, breaking our contact like a pair of scissors severing a stretched thread.
I sat down on the grass, my legs no longer strong enough to hold me.
I tipped the pail of rubbish into the trench, and the skinny stray cats converged on it. My eyes did not really see them; instead, I saw three black-and-white arrows finding their target, a pair of bare, determined shoulders covered in blue marks, and those eyes, those pale eyes that should have been strange in the dark face but somehow were not. . . .
There was a footstep behind me.
I jumped and the wooden pail thudded to the ground, cats scattering as I turned.
Otieno A Suda stood in the gateway, arms crossed, one shoulder propped against the fence.
Awareness and elation burst over me, making every inch of my skin flush. Then I realized that my shadow-weaving was not in place.
I put my head down so that my hair fell everywhere and yanked Rin’s grimy, blank face over my own. Baka-yarou, I cursed myself. This man was not like the kitchen staff. He would not see only what he wished to see. No, no, it would be all right. Otieno had glimpsed Suzume for a bare moment a year ago. It was twilight now, and everything was smudgy and gray. Surely no one could make out Suzume in Rin’s tattered and grimy form. He was not here for Suzume.
Then . . . Why was he here? Why did he look at me — at little, tattered Rin — as if he knew me?
“Honored guest-sama.” I let my voice rise into a timid treble. He was not to know that Rin did not normally speak at all. “How may this humble one be of service to you?”
Even in the dimness his eyes were uncomfortably sharp. I forced myself not to fidget, and after a moment, he bent to stroke one of the cats, which had returned to cautiously sniff at his boots. “I am just enjoying the night air. What are they called, these creatures?”
“You do not know cats?” I heard the note of amazement in my voice and hastily cleared my throat. “I mean, they are called cats, honored guest-sama.”
“It may seem strange to you, but there are no such creatures in Athazie. There is an animal — a very large animal — that lives on the plains and is much the same shape. We call it gadahama. The golden hunter. He does not say meep, meep as these tiny ones do. His voice is like this.” He drew in a deep breath, then let out a deafening roar.
The cats fled again, their legs going in all directions at once as they scrambled away.
I did not realize I was laughing until I saw him smile in response. I turned away, putting my hand over my mouth, trying to push the sound back in. When I looked up again, Otieno was closer: no longer leaning against the gate but standing next to me.
“Your voice reminds me of a bird,” he said, still smiling. It was a different smile from the one I had seen earlier. It was gentler, almost shy — but still just as dangerous. I backed away from him, the last of the sudden laughter fading.
He said, “There is a small bird with a sweet voice called a pipit. That is what you are like, I think. A little brown pipit.”
“No, I am — no, honored guest-sama,” I said, the words coming out so flustered that I did not even have to try to sound stupid. “My name is Rin.”
“You call yourself Rin? What does it mean, this word? I have found that names here always mean something. Are you named for a flower? Or a star?”
I hesitated. “Cold. It means ‘cold.’”
“That will not do. It does not suit you.” He stepped closer again as he repeated softly, “Pipit.”
Unable to help myself, I met his eyes. The softness was there, too, and without thinking, I took a step toward him. We were close now, almost touching. The air seemed to crackle between us, lit with that strange connection, with the need to reach out. One of his hands lifted. Mine rose to meet it.
Then a shudder of incredulity went through me. What am I doing? I shrank back, whipping my hand behind me. He moved as if to follow me, but froze when I shook my head.
“No. Please,” I whispered. I hardly knew what I was saying. It didn’t matter. I knew he would understand. And that was the most frightening thing of all.
“Do not fear me,” he said. The words were a plea. “I will not harm you.”
There was a sound of furtive whispering and muffled giggles. A light flared, and then the warm yellow of lamplight shone through the trees not far away.
Yuki and her young man.
I felt as if I were waking from a dream. I was frightened again, and not sure why, but I was sure that I needed to get away. Away from this boy Otieno and the way he made me feel. The things he made me think and sa
y.
“Good night,” I mumbled, slipping past him.
“Good night, Pipit. Sleep well.”
I tightened my grip on the mantle of illusion and ran.
I was good at avoiding people I did not want to see. But Otieno’s talent for finding people seemed to be stronger. After that night, he began to turn up all the time, wandering casually into the less glamorous parts of the garden just when I might be expected to be there. It didn’t seem to bother him that I had little time to stand and talk, or that — in my quest to keep the distance between us — much of the time I was short to the point of rudeness. Five minutes talking to me as I drew up water from the well or coaxing a smile from me as I poured garbage into the ditch seemed to be enough for him.
His interest in me made no sense. Even if Otieno saw through my shadow-weavings — and I had no way of finding out without first admitting that I was trying to hide something — I very much doubted that he would be interested in me now. I had been called beautiful, but that beauty had been just as much an illusion as Rin’s ugliness was. Soft living. Expensive clothes and jewelry. Cunning hair arrangements and, when needed, the gentle mask of Aimi’s smile. Now I was sweaty and grimy, with red, cracked hands and jagged short hair. Who would find me beautiful now?
We were utterly different. And yet, still, there was that spark of understanding between us. An affinity that I could not deny.
I sighed, giving the bottom of the garbage pail an extra whack. Then I stiffened. He was there.
I always sensed Otieno before I saw him. His footsteps were silent and he was wearing his own cloak of shadows, but in the last two weeks I had learned the feel of it. It was like a quiet, melodious humming in the air. I closed the gate before I turned.
“Does your father know you are out here?” I said.
There was a low, husky laugh that sent a thrill up my spine. “I cannot creep up on you anymore.”
The shadow against the wooden fence wavered and became Otieno. He was leaning one shoulder against the wood, smiling at me.
I refused to let my reaction to that lazy smile show. “Well? Does he?”
“Not exactly,” Otieno said. “He knows there is someone I like. He knows when I go out, I go to see her.”
“But not that she’s a low, dirty drudge,” I finished.
“You are not low,” he said seriously. “So please do not speak of yourself like that. Neither are you dirty — or not any more than anyone would be after a hard day of work. I have been dirtier than you many times, and so has my father.”
My shadow-weaving should have shown layers of sweat and muck. Otieno acted as if he did not even see it. While I could sense Otieno’s shadow-weavings, I could not pierce them so easily.
“I am a drudge, though,” I said. “And he does not know. If he realized who your ‘someone’ was, he would take you away from this house within the day.”
“My father judges people on who they are inside, their qualities and character, not by their job.”
“Then why have you not invited me in to meet him?” I asked mockingly, knowing that if such an invitation were ever issued, I should run away for fear of discovery.
“It is not because I am ashamed to know you. We are guests, Pipit, and I know that Terayama-san’s ways, and the ways of this country, are different from my own. I cannot insult my host openly, much as I dislike him. That would be to embarrass my family and my ruler. It would be different in Athazie. Besides, it is not as if you do not have secrets of your own.”
“Tell me about Athazie,” I said hastily, hoping to distract him. “What is it like?”
Otieno spread his hands, as if there was too much to describe. “It is beautiful. To me it is the most beautiful place in the world. The plains are golden at this time of year, with long grasses that sing when the wind moves them, but soon the dry season will end, and the sky will turn purple and fill with rain. You can see rain coming for miles. It sweeps along the plain like a great veil, and it is warm. It feels like an embrace.”
“Is everyone there like you? So . . .” Now it was my turn to gesture helplessly.
He gave me a sidelong look. “So loud?”
“I did not say that.”
“You have said it before. We are not so formal, not so restrained as the people of this country. We laugh if we are happy and cry if we are sad, and there is no shame in it. I often find it hard to understand what people here are thinking.”
“You do not seem to find it hard to know what I am thinking.”
He reached out suddenly and touched my face. I froze, my breath caught in my throat. “But I do.”
“What are you . . . ?” I whispered as he leaned forward.
My body lit up as his lips pressed softly against mine. One long finger stroked slowly down my neck, and lightning sparks of sensation sizzled across my skin. I gasped. He drew back a little, looking into my eyes.
His fingertip rested lightly on my throat. Unconsciously I reached up to touch it, and he caught my hand and held it to his heart. I could feel the rapid pulse thrumming there, just like the time he had saved me.
“Soon, Pipit,” he said. “Soon I will be able to show you.”
Before I could ask what he meant, he pulled away, his body disappearing into a ripple of shadow and then nothingness. He was gone.
I went into the next day in a kind of daze, unsure whether to be ecstatic or miserable. I bumbled and bumped and made such a mess of things that morning that Aya threw up her hands and assigned me tasks that would get me out of the kitchen and out from under her feet. “Before you kill yourself or someone else!”
Youta looked at me searchingly, but all I could do was roll my eyes. How could I describe what had happened or how I felt about it? I did not know myself. What did Otieno mean to show me? Was I a naive fool to feel that tiny fragile fluttering of hope?
Then, just before noon, as I carried two pails of peelings to the rubbish pile, I heard the faint echo of laughter from the garden. And I forgot all about Otieno. About Youta. About the need for secrecy.
A moth, its entire body from wings to feelers, is designed to reach out to the moon. It cannot help it. At that moment I felt like a moth, drawn by an instinct beyond its control. I put down my burden and turned toward the sound, following it through the cover of trees and out again into the humid warmth of the sun.
I found a place under the weeping willow once more, and pulled a shadow-weaving over myself. I became a blur of green. Hidden, I watched.
On the grass near the veranda, a soft blanket had been spread out. A little cloth awning had been erected above it, to shelter it from the sun. Isane sat at the edge of the blanket, smiling, holding a long wooden wand, from which pieces of glass dangled on fine threads. My mother and the two babies were on the blanket with her.
Mother wore a comfortable, informal kimono, and her hair was loose, streaming down her back like black water, rippling in the light breeze. Sunlight caught in Isane’s glass beads and sent rainbows dancing over Mother’s face. The babies gurgled and cooed, their little pink fists waving madly as if they wanted to capture the spinning lights.
She laughed again and reached down and lifted one into her arms. She laid the baby against her shoulder and rested her cheek on its almost bald head, closing her eyes.
The gossip in the kitchen was that Terayama-san’s wife — I had tried to train myself to think of her that way — had not been well for a long time. Not since the babies had been born. Aya said that some women were like that, perfectly healthy until they bore children, and then never right afterward. She said that the lady probably missed her daughter and was worried about her being unwell and far from home. The cook was under orders to create a specially nourishing menu for her. I told myself fiercely that her suffering was none of my concern. She had made her choice and must live with it.
This woman was not shattered and broken and in need of careful treatment to retain her sanity. She was a little thin, a little pale, true. But it was
nothing a few more good meals would not cure. She looked ten times better than she had the day of the archery contest.
It was then that I realized the truth. Mother was not mourning anymore.
She was not tortured over the deaths which were her responsibility. Nor did she pine for the daughter who had disappeared to no one knew where.
Instead of suffering, she was getting better. And she was happy.
Happiness glittered and sparkled on her face, as clear as the tiny prisms from the toy. Nothing mattered to her but the child in her arms. For that child, she had sacrificed Aimi and my father. For that child, she had sacrificed me.
I walked away, but I could still see, as if it had been imprinted on the back of my eyelids, the look on her face. If she had ever cared about me, she did not now. She had forgotten Suzume.
Suzume no longer existed.
I emptied the garbage from my pails. I went back to the kitchen and set about fulfilling the tasks Aya had given me. I had done them a hundred times. I did not need to think. My back bent; my hands moved. Slowly, slowly, like scorch marks deepening on a piece of paper held near an open flame, the knowledge of what I must do was forming inside me.
I could not touch Terayama-san, or face him, or hurt him in any way. I had promised.
I had never promised any such thing about my mother.
The weapon I needed was directly before me. The next time I passed through the herb garden, I saw the tall sangre plants with their yellow flowers, swaying in the breeze. The plant that had made Yuki so miserably sick with cramps that Aya refused to let her take it anymore.
I stooped and ripped out one of the plants, whole.
I quickly and furtively stripped away the leaves, flowers, and stems until I held in my hand the soily root. I washed it well, then poured the water away into the dry earth and drew another bucket to take back to Yuki. I tucked the sangre root, tangled and white and clean, into the breast fold of my kimono.