His upper lip curls back as he considers. “Fine. But be quick about it.” He gestures to the sake house. “I expect to find you waiting for me right outside of here.”
Tied up like a horse at the hitching post. “Of course, my lord.” I drop into as low a bow as I can manage, given the sickness swirling in my gut, then wait for him to enter the sake house.
I rush toward Jiro and brush past him, pausing only long enough to give him a significant glance. He nods, and I vanish around the corner, into a staircase that leads down to the next tier of streets.
Jiro rushes toward me, and we meet in the middle of the staircase. “Miyu.” He grasps my arms. “I’m so glad I found you. I have good news.”
Good news. “Jiro, listen to me. I’m afraid we’re in grave danger—”
“No, Miyu, please. I spoke to Goemon, and—and there’s a way for me to be free of my bond. I can leave the shogunate’s service with no obligation, still receive my annual koku. All the money we’d need to live comfortably.” He smiles so sweetly, so full of light.
Something in me tugs against my own instincts—a hesitation. Is it Miyu, sensing the danger that lays ahead on this path? But I want to avoid following her instincts. They led to her and Jiro’s deaths. “How?” I ask. I have to proceed carefully. Find just the right turning point to prevent their fate.
Jiro glances over his shoulder, then looks back to me, gripping my hands tight. “I—All right. Please, what I’m about to tell you—we must keep it secret. We can do this, but I need your trust.”
I nod, even as I feel my whole body tingle with chills.
“Goemon and I were sent here to investigate rumors of a plot. We’d been warned that the daimyo and his friends loyal to the emperor were planning to overthrow the shogun.” Jiro trembles as he speaks; I realize he must be betraying a powerful vow to even share this knowledge with me. “So far we’ve found no evidence of this coup, though…” He looks down, cheeks darkening. “I, ah, confess I haven’t been looking very hard, as I’ve been a bit … preoccupied.”
I blush, too, and run my thumbs over his knuckles.
“But if I find evidence of such a plan … If there’s anything you can tell me at all … It would be extremely valuable. That kind of information I could easily use to purchase my freedom. I would turn the information over to Goemon, and he’d take care of the rest. You and I could leave today, before that awful toad has a chance to miss you.”
Miyu’s body is in turmoil; her instincts screaming to turn and run. Fear prickles at the back of my neck; my heart pounds in time with the distant drums. But no. This is my chance. I can rewrite history for Miyu and Jiro. What if Miyu’s instinct is to keep Father’s secret, and that’s the thing that ultimately drives her and Jiro to suicide after forces conspire to keep them apart in this life?
I have to tell him. I deserve this.
Even if Miyu hadn’t.
“Yes.” I let out my breath. “It’s true. My father and the daimyo are involved. They’re plotting some sort of ambush during the festival ceremony.” I swallow; my throat is closing up on my words, but I have to go on. “I’m supposed to cause some sort of distraction, and then they’ll ambush someone on the—the high mountain pass.”
Jiro lowers our hands; he suddenly looks overcome with exhaustion, his face sagging, his shoulders slumped. “It’s true, then.”
“I’m afraid so. I don’t know who they’re attacking, but—”
Jiro flinches. “The shogun.”
My eyes widen.
“He is arriving for the festival to announce the latest decree regarding the barbarians at our gates. No one in Kuramagi was supposed to be aware of it, but … clearly that is not the case.” He forces himself to smile. “But now we can prevent it. And I can buy my freedom—and yours, too.”
I nod. I am still tingling all over, but maybe it is just residual. Relief. I am going to set things right—prevent whatever fate has befallen the lovers. Oh, God. An eager rush tingles all over my skin. This was going to be my life. Running away with Jiro. I am finally going to be free.
“Go—quickly. Go back to the honjin and gather your things. I’ll report to Goemon now, then I need you to meet me in one hour.”
“Where?” I ask. I’m already mentally inventorying Miyu’s room. Beyond a few kimonos and her coat, I can’t think of much else I need.
“Down the trail at the bottom of the village.” Jiro squeezes my hands, then turns to climb the stairs. “We’ll meet at the lovers’ shrine.”
By the time it dawns on me, he’s already been swallowed up by the crowd.
How could the shrine already exist if Miyu and Jiro are still alive?
But—but if the lovers’ shrine doesn’t memorialize Miyu’s and Jiro’s love—what happened to them?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I have to get to the museum and find out what really happened to Miyu and Jiro. I throw the stone out of Miyu’s pocket and slam back into myself in the ryokan. I have to save them from themselves.
Bile rises in my throat. Have I just condemned them to their death by ignoring Miyu’s warning signs? I race down the stairs of the inn and dive into the swarming streets of Kuramagi. The amplified cries of a folk singing group blanket the village from the central square. But I need answers from somewhere else. I fly up the stairs, up, higher, heading for the highest tier, for the honjin, for the one person who may be able to tell me what’s happening.
Don’t bother, the voice says, in the back of my thoughts. It’s time. Time to give them what they deserve.
But I can’t listen. I need to know. I need to save Miyu.
I need to save myself.
* * *
“The museum is permanently closed to you,” the historian snaps at me, as soon as I tumble in the door. “Get out. And take your boots with you.”
But I storm up to her. She’s got to be at least sixty, possibly seventy; her skin is still mostly smooth, but I bet her bones could snap open like Pixy Stix. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re going to tell me the truth—the whole truth.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She reaches for the receiver on an old black telephone resting on her desk.
I lunge for her and smack the phone from her hand. “I need the truth about the family that used to live in the honjin, back during the shogunate’s time!” My words sound wrapped in thorns. I feel strong, like all the hate I’ve carved into my muscles is roaring to life. God, it feels great.
The woman’s fearful expression eases, and she starts to laugh. “Ahhhh. I see. You want to know about the lovers’ shrine.”
“So it does have something to do with her family.”
“Yes.”
I’m looming over her still. “Tell me. The truth this time.”
“Oh, it’s such a tragic tale.” She crosses her arms in front of her, a strange grin on her thinning lips. “The tale of Fumiko and the blacksmith. Yes, this is what you want to hear.”
But I haven’t heard either of those names before—not in this world or in Miyu’s. “I don’t understand.”
“Fumiko was the eldest daughter of the man who ran the honjin, a loyal servant of the daimyo. Fumiko was married to the village blacksmith, you see, and she loved him very much.
“But the blacksmith fell in love with Fumiko’s younger sister. They had a passionate tryst—everyone in the village knew. It was very disgraceful. The father threatened to kill the blacksmith if he did not end it with his youngest girl. He needed heirs—legitimate heirs, to serve the daimyo.”
My legs wobble beneath me. Suddenly I have an awful, sick feeling about where this tale might lead.
“So the blacksmith and the younger sister made a suicide pact. They would die together, and be reunited in the next life.”
“No,” I say. This isn’t making sense. “That’s what the shrine says. But—but this isn’t what happened. Miyu’s still—she lived.”
A distant laugh rolls through me—coming from me,
though I find nothing funny about this situation. My head buzzes. What’s happening to me?
“Don’t ever say that name,” the historian screeches.
I charge her again, moving without thinking. I can’t control myself. My hatred is a living thing, pulling all my strings. “Don’t tell me what I can do.” I have her by the throat; my spit freckles her face. “No one can tell me what I can and cannot do ever again.”
I don’t know where the words come from, but I know they are true. I didn’t want my parents telling me who to love, how to act, what to study. I didn’t want Hideki lording over me ever again. And I can’t bear remembering Chloe telling me we were through. Why does she get to decide? Why shouldn’t I have a say?
My life. My rules. Everyone else will get what they deserve.
“The truth.” I tighten my grip. “All of it. Now.”
Finally she’s showing some fear. She doesn’t try to fight me off. “Fine! Fine! Just let me explain.” She’s trembling in my grasp. “The younger sister—that demon—she doesn’t drink the poison. The blacksmith dies, but she lives. Then she goes to her sister, Fumiko, and tells her—‘Now, we are even.’”
“So she seduced her sister’s husband just to get him to kill himself?” I ask. “Why?”
But I already know why. Because I have the same blackness roiling in me like hot tar.
“For years of torment from an older sibling, I suppose.” The historian manages a weak shrug. “For a lifetime of cruelty. How can you explain a monster like her?”
“Leave Miyu out of this,” I snarl. “She did what she had to do to survive.” A sibling’s cruelty—the worst kind. They’re supposed to be your flesh and blood, your ally against all else. Who can blame Miyu for what she did? Who can blame me for wanting to leave a hateful mark of my own?
I am Miyu. Blackness warms my vision, then the words echo, louder, slicing up my thoughts. I AM MIYU.
The historian only scowls at me. “Her sister kills herself, because what kind of life can a widow have in those days? A terrible one. Better off just to die. Everyone made it out like a tragic lover’s tale, when really, it was all about revenge.”
Yes. Revenge. The word is a sweet sip of cool water. It is the earliest spring bloom. Revenge is all that matters. Revenge is what I deserve.
The historian shakes her head. “It was a great haji—a great shame. A disgrace. She was so hateful, that Miyu, and everyone knew it. But we tell the other story to try to keep Miyu away. She was so convinced the world had done her a great disservice … But then, when the samurai came…”
“Then what?” I renew my grip on her. “What about the samurai?”
She clucks her tongue. “Now, now, now. You’re a hateful girl, too, aren’t you? Yes … It’s no wonder she found you. You two are kindred souls.”
Her words eat at me like acid. Kindred souls? What does she mean? I feel myself deflating. The humming fades; my limbs are fuzzy. I’m losing my grip on the historian—on my thoughts—on everything—
“Yes, Miyu, I know it’s you. You can never hide from us for long.”
My body is tensing up, coiled to strike. What is she talking about? How does she know? I try to speak, but can’t fight past this hatred that burns like poison in my throat.
The historian is everywhere, her voice booming off the walls. The walls I’ve wiped and wiped and wiped again, for decades. Forever. I’m stuck here forever. “I’m sorry, Miyu. As surely as you try to get your vengeance, we’ll always be ready to contain you.”
I crumple to the ground. Dark cedar rafters spin and swirl around me; I think I’m throwing up. I fling one hand out and away from me, trying to swat away—something. Everything. The dark shadow always at my back is creeping forward, catching me off guard at last.
“Yes, Miyu, we’ve got you now. We’ll stop you the same way we always have.” Her voice turns bladed. “Perhaps this time, we can stop you for good.”
I’m being dragged along the floor. A click. And then black.
I kick in the direction I think is the door, not that I can tell anything in the tarry black of the closet or whatever the hell she’s locked me inside. I hear the slow, uncertain sounds of the older woman punching a telephone number into her phone. “Onagi-san,” she says in Japanese. “I am afraid we have another one.”
Another one? Another what? I pound again on the door, but she ignores me as she listens to whatever Mr. Onagi is saying in response.
“Hai. We must deal with her the same as all the rest. Bring her to the festival once you’ve gathered the others.”
“Let me out!” I scream. What does she mean, “deal with me”? “You can’t do this to us!”
Us. The word curls around me like a cat, rubbing up against me, marking its property. Miyu and me.
Yes. We are one and the same. You are so like me—and you will be me. I’ll swap my life for yours.
Oh, God. Oh God oh God oh God, I wasn’t imagining the voices, the dreams, the strange thoughts buzzing like wasps inside my head—
Don’t you want revenge? she asks, that purring, rubbing feeling accompanying her words. Don’t you want to get what you deserve?
I’m shaking as I huddle in the thin cheap kimono Aki swaddled me in. I’m trying to hold onto myself. But where do I end, and where does Miyu begin? I walked the path of hatred long before I found her stupid stone. I perfected that path. She just gave me a new way to channel it.
You see, Reiko? We’re one and the same. You should be me. And I can be you.
Is she right? What do I have to live for, really? Not my brother or my parents. Not Chloe. Not Kenji, shoving me away. It’s true that like her I want revenge. I want to give Aki what she deserves. But this throbbing, growing seed of hatred inside me—that’s not me, it’s got to be her—
She laughs inside of me. I wouldn’t be so sure.
My dreams flood my thoughts—glimpses of the earth bucking around me, of the rivers of blood. No. Those are Miyu’s. But the way I respond to them … the way I feel an itch inside me, wanting them as badly as the first time I glimpsed them …
Yes. We are one and the same. What’s the use in fighting it? I was every bit as hateful a fiend as Miyu long before I came to Kuramagi. And I know it, deep down. I know the things I’ve done for revenge. The way I pushed Hideki. The real reason Chloe spread my photos around the school. The disaster I’ve set at the cultural festival. I know the things I’ve done. Period.
I have to keep Miyu safe. No one else understands her like I do.
When the samurai came—that’s what the historian said. When the samurai came … What happened then? I dig through the layers of the kimono and find the sagging pocket of the inner robe where I tucked the stone. If I can’t help myself here, now, then I can help Miyu back then.
Yes. You understand. We can help each other, she says. You can help me, and I won’t let them do to you what they mean to do.
I will. I’ll keep us both safe.
* * *
I am still in the village streets, not long after Jiro left to make his exchange. His information for his life. I am down a level from the main square, but I can hear the crowds from here—the chanting, the shouts, punching like fists. The festival is in full swing.
But something has shifted. Thick clouds, dark as smoke, hang low overhead. The air smells metallic. And the shouts—they are no longer cries of joy. No more folk songs twist and braid through the crowd. All I hear are ugly, brutal words, battering against a single subject. Has my father’s plan begun? Or has Jiro managed to stop them?
Danger, Miyu whispers, either to herself or to me—it doesn’t matter which. Yes. I have to agree with her. There is danger in the air, and whenever there is danger, the villagers turn on us.
Just like they did when we laid our sister to rest.
But they got what they deserved, we reminded ourselves. Our sister and her husband both. A childhood of her taunts, her greed, her gossip about us. At long last, we’d repaid our debt to
her.
Now there are other debts to repay.
I need to get back to the honjin to pack. I’m not sure how much time has passed, but I know I have to meet Jiro at the shrine soon. I charge up the narrow stairwell and turn down the main street, away from the square. But the wall of people pushes me back; I stumble into their flow and can’t swim to shore. As soon as I turn to face the square, I see why.
Goemon paces the length of the dais at the heart of the square. Lined up before him, resting on their knees, hands bound behind their backs, sit all of the daimyo’s conspirators in a row. Yodo and my father. The daimyo himself. The rotund man and the spidery one. Only Tsurube stands unbound—I have no doubt he was only too happy to change his allegiance at the first hint of a threat to his way of life.
And then, at the end of the row, a vicious grin slicing across his face, is Jiro.
I draw a ragged breath. He looks so pleased with foiling my father’s plan that he frightens me. But he must play the part of the triumphant warrior even if it was his final act as a samurai. As soon as his duty is done, he and I will be free.
“… for crimes against the shogunate. But it is not only those you see here before you who are guilty. It is each and every one of you who allowed such a crime to fester in your midst,” Goemon says.
Jiro nods, topknot bobbing as he does. “As far as I’m concerned, every last person of Kuramagi should lose their heads. The way they should have been dealt with in Mito and Chōshū.”
There is something vulgar in Jiro’s expression. He looks so pleased with himself, so delighted to hold his katana free of its sheathe. But then, he always did want to make use of his sword.
And now it seems he’s engineered for himself the perfect chance.
And suddenly I know. This isn’t his last moment of acting before his obligations to the shogunate are finished.
This is the first time he’s not acting at all.
He never wanted us, Miyu insists.
No. He never wanted us. We were only ever a tool for him, something he used to lever himself into ever higher regard in the shogunate’s esteem. He was never going to run away with me. He saw me as a coward, a desperate little girl he could use. Someone so desperate for love she would tell him whatever he needs to know.
A Darkly Beating Heart Page 16
