by Asha Lemmie
“Why?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “You are my sister.”
“Tell me what to do, Oniichan,” I plead with him. “Tell me what to choose. Please.”
He tuts. “Oh, Nori. You know I can’t do that. You must choose your own path.”
“I can’t do it,” I whisper. The paths laid before me are all winding, and I cannot see where they will lead. There is no choice that will not require sacrifice; there is no way to escape pain. “What if I choose wrong?”
Akira winds his hands into my curls. “No matter what you choose,” he says patiently, “just keep going forward.”
“I can’t do it, Akira-san. I don’t want to go back. Please don’t make me go back.”
He tucks my palm into the crook of his arm. “That’s not up to me,” he says gently. “If it’s not your time, you can’t stay here. You’ll have to go back.”
“But I’m dead?” It is half a question and half a statement. But the hope in my voice is undeniable. “This is heaven.”
Akira shrugs again. “You know I don’t believe in heaven, Nori. This is just a garden.”
“I don’t care where it is,” I wail. “I just want to stay with you. Please.”
I wind my hands into the fabric of his yukata, as I used to do when I was a little girl and begging him for just a few more minutes, a few more seconds of his time.
“Please don’t make me live in a world without you.”
His eyes are brimming with warmth, and he leans forward to plant a kiss in the center of my forehead. “Oh, Nori. You’re stronger than you know. You don’t need me anymore.”
“Don’t leave me,” I whisper, leaning forward so that our foreheads are touching.
Already I know that he is right when he says I cannot stay here. I can almost hear the sand slipping through the hourglass. We don’t have much more time. If there is a forever for the two of us, it does not start now.
Akira wraps his arms around me and tightens his grip, holding me close with all of his strength.
“Never,” he says simply. “I will never leave you.”
We don’t say anything else. We don’t need to. I won’t waste whatever time I have left with him on words. There is nothing I can say to Akira that he does not already know, and there is nothing I can do to stop the sand from slipping away. All I can do is hold him, right here, right now.
I don’t know how long it is. In any case, it will never be enough time. I shut my eyes so that I don’t have to see the sky darkening and the garden falling away.
It’s time to go back now.
The way Akira gives me one final squeeze, one last featherlight kiss on the top of my head, tells me that he knows it too. But I will not say goodbye.
I will see him again.
I open my eyes and look into his, hoping that they will say all of the things that I don’t have time to. Somehow, I know that whatever I say now will be the last words I am granted. This is the end of my miracle. I take his hand in mine, even as some invisible force pulls me away.
“You are my sun.”
He pulls my hand up to his lips and kisses it. And then he smiles at me. Even as the darkness comes up behind him to swallow everything, I can see it, the memory of his beautiful smile. But I can still hear. It is faint over the sudden ringing in my ears but it is there. I hear his response.
And you are mine.
* * *
The next day, Nori faced her grandmother again. The marks on her arms were concealed by the sweeping sleeves of her white kimono. Her hair was parted in the middle and straightened, falling to her waist. She stood straight and proud.
The fear was gone.
Yuko’s face was tight and sour. “I thought you would have left by now.”
“I have come to give you my answer.”
Her grandmother scoffed. “Well then. Don’t keep me in suspense.”
Nori drew in a deep breath. “My answer is yes.”
Yuko’s eyes went wide. “You . . . you will do it?”
“I will.”
“Praise be,” her grandmother breathed. For a brief moment she seemed to come back to life. “God has spoken to you, hasn’t he? He has shown you your destiny is to serve our family? You have come to see what I have always tried to show you?”
Nori folded her hands in front of her. “My reasons are my own.”
I will change this family, Oniichan. I will rid it of fear and of hate, and fill it with humanity and love. I will use my power to help the powerless, as I have always been. I will restore true honor to our name.
Just as you wanted, just as you would have done in my place. I swear it.
And when my work on earth is done, I will come to you.
Please wait for me.
In the garden.
Kyoto, Japan
December 1965
The child was born in the Kamiza estate, on the fifth day of December.
God’s ways were mysterious indeed, for it was perfectly healthy, with fair skin, a full head of curly, sandy-brown hair, and its mother’s amber eyes. Everyone remarked on what a beautiful baby it was.
More importantly, the child was a boy.
Yuko declared it was a sign from God that the house was blessed. She was so delighted that a healthy male child had been born that she hardly cared his father was a foreign nothing and his mother was her once despised half-breed granddaughter. Her frantic need to see her house restored was the only thing keeping her alive, for by all medical accounts she should have been dead already.
“If you can have a bastard boy,” she said, by way of a messenger, “you can have a trueborn son with your husband. I am pleased with you, granddaughter. Ask for any favor and it is yours.”
The nurse offered her the baby once he was cleaned and swaddled, but Nori shook her head.
“Give him to Akiko-san,” she said quietly.
She turned to the messenger. “And tell my grandmother I would call in my favor.”
“Yes, my lady?” he asked.
“Send someone to find my mother,” she said simply. “And if she is alive, bring her home.”
The man nodded and scurried from the room.
Akiko bustled forward and took the little bundle from the nurse’s arms.
“He is a beautiful boy. I will love him well. I will take every care, little madam. I promise.”
“I know,” Nori said warmly. She was still hazy from the drugs they’d given her for the pain. “I would trust no one else with him.”
Akiko had been the one to ready the nursery, to make the baby clothes, to think of names. But the names she thought of were only for girls.
Akiko hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want to hold him?”
Nori turned her face away.
In truth, she couldn’t stand to touch him. Her choice had made him a bastard. Her choice had made him fatherless. Her choice had made him the first son, but the one who could never inherit anything, who would forever be in the shadow of his younger brother. His half brother. The son she would have by her carefully selected future husband.
One day, this boy would be old enough to understand. He would want an explanation and she had none to give.
Noah had received nothing but a curt letter, full of lies that she loved him no longer and a plea for him to forget her. She sincerely hoped that he would not notice the tearstains on the page. She hoped that he would hate her, that his humiliation and his rage would sustain him for a time until she became nothing more than a distant memory.
He was young, barely twenty, and she told herself that he would recover from this.
She did not allow herself to think of the alternative.
Because the alternative made her a monster.
Alice had received a deeper glimpse into the truth, but they would probably neve
r see each other again.
She had broken her promise to stay. She was a Judas to those who had loved her most.
These were just the first sacrifices she’d made in pursuit of her chosen path.
She knew there would be others.
“Take him to his room and feed him,” she said, and she did her best not to sound as cold as she felt.
Akiko’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, little madam. He’s your son. Don’t you want to touch him?”
Nori managed a small smile. “Maybe tomorrow.”
* * *
With Akiko busy looking after the baby, it was her daughter, Midori, who attended Nori through most of her recovery.
She was a pleasant girl who liked to chatter about fashion and movies. She looked at Nori with a glazed expression, her cheeks flushed with hero worship.
“You’re so pretty,” she gushed one day as she brushed out Nori’s hair at the vanity.
Nori smiled. “So are you.”
Midori shrugged. “The boys at schools don’t think so.”
“The boys at school are stupid.”
Midori giggled. “Maybe. But I’ll never get a boyfriend at this rate.” She hesitated and looked away. A question was written in her downcast gaze.
Nori inclined her head. “What is it?”
The younger girl blushed. “Nothing. It’s not my place. Mama says I talk too much.”
“It’s okay,” Nori said gently. “You can ask me.”
Midori shifted from foot to foot. “You . . . you had a boyfriend. A fiancé, I mean. You were going to marry him?”
Nori felt her stomach twist. She tried not to wince.
“Yes.”
“And he’s . . . the baby’s father?”
The pain intensified. “Yes.”
“But you can’t be with him,” Midori concluded, “because you have to marry someone respectable and have a legitimate child. That’s what Mama says.”
Nori pushed back her irritation. “Yes, that’s right.”
“But why?” Midori blurted out. “Why can’t you do as you like? Once Okugatasama dies, won’t you be in charge?”
Nori took a deep breath and looked at her strained face in the mirror. She had to remind herself that the dark machinations of her family dynamic were lost on this naive girl.
Just as they had once been lost on her.
“That’s not possible,” she said bluntly. “Firstly, I’m going to have a difficult time being accepted as it is. The right husband, with the right name, is my only chance. I can’t marry where my heart lies and keep power. If I married a foreigner, we’d both be turned out in a heartbeat.”
Midori scrunched up her nose. “But can’t you keep a lover? If it makes you happy?”
Nori raised a dubious eyebrow. “No. I’m not a man. I can’t do that. They’d name me a whore—if they haven’t already—and no one would listen to me. And besides . . .” Her voice cracked. “They might hurt him.”
Midori gasped. “They would do such a thing?”
Of course they would. They’d slit his throat before breakfast and go on with their day. And then, after dinner, they’d slit mine.
“Better not to risk it,” Nori responded. She forced herself to smile. “Besides, my Noah would never agree to sit in the shadows and watch me marry another man, watch me have another man’s children. He’d never be able to watch my inheritance skip over our son—and any man I marry would insist that it does. Otherwise there is no point marrying me at all.”
She closed her eyes. “And Noah deserves better. If you only knew him, you’d know he deserves . . .”
Everything.
Midori’s lower lip quivered. “That’s not fair. If you have power, you shouldn’t have to lose what you love. That’s the whole point.”
Nori dug her nails into her palm. “I wish it were like that. But I have no power if I’m not respected. And I can’t be respected if I don’t play by the rules. Some of them, at least.”
“And the rest?” Midori asked quietly.
Nori met her gaze. “I’ll make my own rules.”
“But can you do that?” Midori asked doubtfully. “Will they let you do that?”
“I have to,” Nori said simply. “I made a promise.”
Midori looked near to tears. “But you still love him?”
Nori went very still. For a moment she was in another place. A tiny church, with fragrant honeysuckle blossoms all around, and warm hands in hers. “I do.”
Midori blinked, clearly trying to look cheerful. “But you love your family more?”
Nori could smell something else now. Fresh rosin. Lemons. And wasabi. Always too much wasabi.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I love my family more.”
* * *
The wheel turned in earnest then. Nori rose from her childbed a few weeks later to find that the world had not waited for her to recover.
Yuko had wasted no time in arranging banquets and parties for all of Kyoto, perhaps even all of Japan, to meet the family’s mysterious new heir.
The going lie was that she was the long-lost daughter of Seiko Kamiza and Yaseui Todou, Akira’s father.
Nobody believed it, but nobody cared. The friendship of the family was something everyone wanted. With the proper husband at her side, no questions would be asked.
As it turned out, it made no difference to them who wore the coronet. They were all out for themselves anyway.
Stacks of classified papers were delivered to her room, and she pored over them. The amount of money soon to be hers was truly staggering. By her calculations she could buy several islands and not run out. There were dozens of other houses, some here, some abroad. There was money tied up in several Kamiza-owned businesses, legal and otherwise. Among them was the brothel she’d once been sent to a lifetime ago.
She pulled out a red pen and crossed it off the list. Other arrangements would have to be made for the girls, but there was no question of her profiting off the desperation of poor young women and the depravity of selfish men.
Her grandmother summoned her every day now.
Though Nori dreaded the trips to the shadowy room that smelled of death, a secret part of her was fascinated by the world unfolding before her. It was more than she could have dreamed of. Like a horse with its blinders removed, she could suddenly see the world she had been born into.
She sat on a little stool close to the bed and listened. Yuko certainly had a lot to say.
“And when you speak with your advisors, you must make it clear that you have the final say. You must keep your heel on their necks. You’re a woman, they won’t like it, but they don’t need to like it. Or you.”
“But don’t I want people to like me?” Nori ventured.
“No,” Yuko snapped. “You can be charming, you can shine before them like a holy icon, but they don’t need to like you. It’s more important that they respect you.”
Nori shifted in her seat. Even now, she was unsure that a girl who had been born and bred to obey could command.
“And you can’t show that kind heart of yours,” Yuko went on. “It won’t serve you. You’ll end up strangled in a ditch. There are too many who will want your place and who will resent you, for being a woman, for being born so low and rising so high.”
“But you ruled,” Nori said, “though you are a woman.”
Ruthlessly, she thought but did not say.
Yuko smirked. Her skin was deathly white, but her eyes were blazing.
“You think I’m a monster,” she said. “And I imagine to you I am. But when you are in my place, you will understand. I was a girl when I came to power, younger than you, with a bad-tempered husband, but I did not shrink quietly back and allow him to rule me. I did not submit to the countless men who tried to bend me to their will. I was smarter than
all of them, and slowly, I clawed my way to their respect. I was a beautiful blossom, but I had thorns. You will learn. You will understand me better after I am dead. You are a mother now—to a child and to a dynasty. You will see what you will do to protect the things you love. You will be horrified by what you’ll do. And you will do it anyway.”
Nori shook her head. “I will never be like you.”
“Then you will fall,” Yuko said simply.
Nori stood up. “I will not fall,” she said quietly. “For you are not the only example I have set before me. I do learn from you—you’re right—but I knew someone who was kind but firm. Who was honest but kept his own counsel. Who was clever and wise beyond his years. Who understood that it is the future, not the past, that we must look to if we are to survive. So you see, Obaasama, quite by accident, I been molded for this new destiny of mine.”
But not by you.
Yuko narrowed her eyes. “You’re going to have to be strong. It takes strength to lead.”
“It takes strength to survive,” Nori corrected her calmly. “And if nothing else, Grandmother, you have taught me that.”
Her grandmother smiled wryly. Her fire was flickering out. She leaned back against her pillows and closed her eyes.
“There can only be one ruler,” she said. “If it’s not you, it’s someone planning to destroy you. Remember that.”
Nori nodded.
“Now, leave me,” her grandmother breathed. “I need to sleep. I feel a long sleep coming.”
Nori bowed. “I have one last question, Obaasama.”
Yuko made a wheezing noise to indicate that she was listening.
“Do you have any regrets?”
The question hung in the air for a long moment.
Her grandmother turned her face away. “Many,” she said quietly. “And none.”
Nori felt frustration seize her. There was a lifetime of things to say and not nearly enough time.
“I don’t understand.”
“You will,” her grandmother said, and the way she said it, it sounded like a curse. “You will, Nori.”