When Mom got sick she came back for a week. Knowing the house was waiting to catch her alone, she had been careful to keep people around her as much as possible. Still, it found moments…a suddenly dark room followed by caresses, a shadow figure watching her from under a table, the cellar door swinging open silently when she went near it. That was where it really wanted her. Down there in the dark.
When Mom passed away she brought her husband, not realizing at the time she was already six weeks pregnant with Collin. The bed shook violently their first night there, but Jack slept through it. In the morning, however, he told her it had woken him up, then asked, “Is that the kind of thing you lived with?” She nodded, and he held her tight for a long time. Jennifer was elated that finally, someone had caught a glimpse of the house’s true nature. That night in the shower, the house paid her back for her small victory. The water turned suddenly to a frigid blast, and then a hand she couldn’t see pushed through the shower curtain and raked deep, red scratches across her belly, making her scream.
They spent the rest of their time at a hotel. Her family chastised her that she was breaking her father’s already wounded heart, but Daddy had helped them load their bags in the car, and then looked his daughter in the eye and just nodded.
Jennifer’s feet scuffed up the buckled sidewalk, past the tree, right up to the front step. A curtain moved in the front window just the slightest bit, a peek. It had been waiting, knowing she would come, needing to settle all debts and claim its own. All her life she had been trying to get away from here, but kept coming back, as the house knew she would.
And now she was here for her final visit. She knew what it wanted, could imagine the cellar door swinging wide in anticipation. What would be waiting for her there, she wondered? Her sister and cousins would wait for her in the morning, but she wouldn’t be showing up. They would call her cell phone, but she wouldn’t answer. They would come to the house, but wouldn’t find her. She wouldn’t be making any arrangements, wouldn’t be at the funeral.
Jennifer pulled the key from her jacket pocket, holding it before her eyes. It looked black, and she could almost feel it tremble in her fingertips, just as she knew the house was trembling. She took a deep breath.
Then she dropped the key on the mat.
“We’re done,” she said, her voice clear and strong.
She turned and strode back up the walk, back to her rental car. With luck she could catch a late flight and be in Phoenix in time to have breakfast with her boys.
She knew her Dad would understand.
SOMEPLACE THE WIND BLOWS THROUGH
It sounded like the sea. So she imagined, having never left Oklahoma. It came in waves, making the treetops sway and the leaves flicker, a soft rising and falling like a never-ending whisper.
Hope sat on a bench in Filson’s only park, a small square ringed by shops with the town offices at one end, a dull bronze statue of a soldier at the center. Her twin sister Faith sat beside her, both little girls swinging their legs slowly and holding hands.
“It’s quiet,” said Hope.
Faith nodded.
A tendril of breeze spiraled down from above, ruffling their hair and blowing a windshield flier across the fresh-cut grass. Hope loved that smell.
Nothing moved on the streets, no cars or farm trucks, no folks passing by to say hello. No squirrels played chase-me games up and down the tree trunks, and the branches above were silent in the absence of birds.
“I miss the sounds.”
Hope looked at her sister and squeezed her hand.
“I miss mommy and daddy.” Faith’s eyes welled up again, and so did Hope’s.
“Me too.”
They sat that way for a while, staring out at the park, their tears turning pink as they tried to understand. They didn’t want to think about the people lying on the sidewalks, slumped over steering wheels in motionless cars. Didn’t want to think about their little house three blocks away, just past the intersection with the blinking yellow light and the Dairy Queen that closed just after Labor Day. Daddy in the front yard by his grass fertilizing machine, mommy on the floor of the small living room with a spilled glass of tea.
Faith started coughing. So did Hope.
Filson, Oklahoma was quiet all over. The big trucks by the grain silos were still, the high school gym with its orange and blue decorations for Homecoming was silent. Only a couple of small oil wells chugged slowly on at the west end of town.
Faith covered her cough with her hands like mommy had taught her, seeing crimson droplets on her palms. Hope’s chest rattled and she leaned against her sister’s shoulder, her eyes glassy.
“Do you think Jesus will be here soon to get us?” Faith asked.
Hope didn’t answer. She was already gone.
High above the waving treetops of Filson, a large aircraft left a lonely white contrail across a cornflower blue sky. Serious men and women aboard Air Force One spoke with authority and confidence about biological warfare and acceptable losses.
Faith’s body shuddered with coughs and she put her arm around her sister, their heads touching.
“Goodnight, Hope.” She closed her eyes.
And the wind kept on.
RISING SUN, SETTING SUN
A pearly mist hovered over the field, making ghosts of the gnarled trees and hiding the large buildings of the school. With the sun not yet above the horizon, the damp sea air cast a morning chill. Three wooden posts were placed close together on the field, each topped with a cloth bag, bamboo helmets strapped to them. From within the mist an impatient horse snorted and stamped. A pair of whispers in the mist, and a pair of arrows slammed into two of the posts. Next came a rattle of armor and the pounding of hooves.
A phantom charged into view, a man in elaborate armor wearing a horned helmet, his horse thundering over the field as the rider smoothly drew a weapon with a long shaft and curved blade. In a moment of sound and speed the horseman was at the posts, his naginata flashing in a deadly arc as he sped past. The helmeted bag on the third post was cut in two, splinters of wood sent flying as the horse reared and turned, shaking its head and snorting steam in the morning air.
“Speed,” announced the mounted samurai, “is the sister of surprise.” He waved a gloved hand. “In such an environment you must take advantage of the elements, conceal your location, choose when and where to attack. This tactic will be useless, however, unless you close quickly with the survivors.”
Fifty feet away from the posts, twenty young men in gray kimonos and shaved heads bowed as one.
Zenki Mokinoto, samurai and sempai, instructor-student in the House of Itto, dismounted as one of the students came forward to take the reins of his horse. He handed his slender halberd, longbow and quiver to another boy before approaching the group, tucking the ornate helmet under one arm. Zenki had been born into a noble house, his father a general who died in war during the boy’s seventh year. From birth he, like his brothers, had been trained to follow his father’s path. The general’s station assured his sons the finest instruction, here at the Itto Ryu.
The samurai led his group back to the courtyard of the great house. Without a word they formed ranks and waited while he moved to a low veranda to remove his armor. Nearby, another group of students was practicing the basics of swordsmanship, using oak bokken, practice swords. They were novices and clumsy, but their instructor – a man in his late twenties wearing a green patterned kimono – was patient, explaining techniques and working slowly.
Zenki ignored the group of novices as he performed the slow ritual of removing the many layers of armor, tying it into a tight bundle for storage. This was practice armor, not the elegant suit for war, which would instead be placed upon a stand and set in a place of honor. At thirty-five, the samurai had already fought in five campaigns, from repelling Chinese invaders as a teenager to enforcing the Shogun’s rule in smaller actions. He was a master of the sword, a superb horseman and highly skilled in the naginata, a difficult
weapon to use when not on horseback. Yet despite his abilities and experience, he understood that every samurai was a student throughout his life, and so Zenki kept coming back to the Itto School.
His reasons were not altruistic, for he was an ambitious man. He had fought beside Itto Ittosai, the founder and sensei of the school, had helped him put the Tokugawa clan in power. Zenki was popular at court, and he understood the intricacies of politics and noble honor. At one point he was offered a post in the Shogunate, second-in-command to a Daimyo, a noble lord, but he turned it down, insisting humbly that he was merely a student and unworthy. Instead of being an insult, it made him that much more desirable and favored, as he knew it would. It was all part of the game.
Ono looked up from his teaching at the samurai kneeling on the veranda, then at the man’s ranks of silent pupils. He frowned. Zenki had put on an impressive display for the youngsters, showing them skills which one learned only after many years of actual application. The demonstration had little practical use here, where fundamentals must be mastered before advanced training took place. Zenki’s group would have been better served by performing a thousand repetitive cuts with their swords than being an audience to the horseman’s prowess. Ono turned back to his class, annoyed with himself. They were equals, both sempai charged by the headmaster with instructing the students. Each would follow his own philosophy of training, and who was Ono to dispute Zenki’s methods?
“Ono-san,” one of his pupils called.
“Please,” said Ono, frowning, “you must show respect by addressing me as sensei.”
The student bowed his head at the shameful error.
“What is it, Kano-san?” Ono liked the boy, a youth of fourteen mired in the clumsiness of puberty. Kano was one of Zenki’s sons, and Ono knew that if the boy had made such an error in his father’s presence he would have been beaten.
“Sensei, forgive my stupidity, but will you please show me the placement of the feet during chiburi?”
Ono stood beside him and slowly demonstrated the technique of snapping blood off the blade, the boy paying careful attention. Kano thanked him and bowed, then concentrated as he repeated the move. Ono nodded, moving on to another boy who was having trouble.
Ono was the son of a samurai in charge of a small village and monastery, his early life one of quiet simplicity. Due to the proximity of the monks, he was raised in a spiritual environment and had come close to becoming a holy man himself. When bandits attacked the village, however, slaughtering the monks and half the village samurai – his father included – Ono learned that such a tranquil life could only exist so long as there were swordsmen to safeguard it. Rather than be one who reaped the harvest of peace, Ono chose to stand among those who defended it. His father’s position gave him the opportunity to train at the legendary Itto Ryu.
He was eleven when the Tokugawas came to power, already training to be samurai. At thirteen he was recruited as a spearman to defend the Shogunate against a coup attempt. At twenty he was part of a force tasked with enforcing the Shogun’s will with a Daimyo who refused to pay the full amount of required tribute. This short and bloody campaign ended with the Daimyo’s samurai lying dead throughout his castle, the feudal lord himself choosing the honor of ritual suicide. It was during this battle that Ono gained the reputation of a natural swordsman, an honor which embarrassed him, for he saw himself as a mere student who had much more to learn. He believed surviving that skirmish had been luck and divine providence rather than skill.
The samurai stopped the practice and had his pupils kneel for meditation designed to still their spirits, to let them absorb what they had learned. He looked over to his counterpart, seeing that Zenki had organized sparring among his group. The older man strode up and down the lines of battling young men, correcting errors with painful cracks of a bamboo cane and shaking his head in disgust.
One of Zenki’s students tried to parry the downward strike of his opponent, and the jarring contact of wood on wood knocked the practice sword from his hand. The bokken pinwheeled through the air and struck Zenki’s foot. Practice came to an instant halt as the samurai strode to the offending pupil and slapped the side of his head, hard. He fell to the ground, and with the bamboo cane, Zenki began whipping the boy’s back savagely. The other students dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads to the earth.
The beating was short and mean, yet the youth bit back his cries and endured the master’s anger. At last the cane broke across his back, and Zenki stood over him, barking about clumsiness and the dishonor of losing one’s sword in combat. He ordered the boy to retrieve his bokken and resume practice, even though he was clearly in great pain, lines of blood seeping through the back of his kimono. The boy obeyed, and the other students quickly returned to their sparring.
Ono watched the incident quietly, arms folded. The boy essentially belonged to Zenki, and if the samurai chose, he had every right to inflict whatever punishment he desired, for any offense, or even no offense at all. His methods, however, were distasteful to the younger samurai, and it was no secret that Ono objected to Zenki’s harsh manner. Neither was the fact that both men intensely disliked the other.
As he watched the other sempai, Ono reflected on this. Was it jealousy? Clearly Zenki was a far better swordsman, and was without question an exceptional horseman. Horses frightened Ono, a shameful fact he tried to hide and which left a large gap in his skills, making him incomplete. Zenki was famous, favored at court, adept in the subtleties of bureaucracy, another area which held little interest for Ono, and in this modern day of 1620 a necessary skill. The older man’s flower arranging was inspiring, and his silk paintings were much in demand. One piece – a spidery sketch of two cranes – was rumored to grace the Shogun’s private chambers. What was Ono compared to Zenki, the perfect samurai?
Perhaps it was jealousy, shameful and bitter, an emotion unworthy of the teachings of his father and the monks. And yet, Ono truly believed Zenki lacked the proper humility of a samurai, lacked the spirituality that would lead to enlightenment. Zenki did not understand Itto’s philosophy.
Arrogant ass, Ono chastised himself. Do you dare to believe you understand the old man’s philosophy? Who are you to judge another man’s spirit? Who are you to say who is a fit samurai and who is not? Tend to the gardens of your own failures before casting an eye upon your neighbor’s field.
Ono closed his eyes in shame, then dismissed his class. They joined the weary students of Zenki’s group, filing into the great house to bathe before more studies. As they left, Zenki stood across the courtyard, fists on his hips and his stance wide, silently challenging the younger instructor to say something about the whipping.
Ono bowed respectfully and quietly left the training ground.
The sun was below the mountains, the coming night clear and pleasant. A soft breeze rattled the wooden chimes on the veranda, making a row of colorful paper lanterns sway. Ono and Zenki, dressed in comfortable silk robes, knelt on soft bamboo mats, enjoying the open air and peacefulness. Itto Ittosai, seventy years old with a balding head and weathered face, knelt beside them. He was dressed in simple white robes with a silk sash, sipping the sake being served by Ono’s wife Maiko. The old man’s face was serene, his eyes gentle as he thanked the lovely young woman.
Zenki held out his cup, ignoring Ono’s wife as she served, as was customary. He did not notice her beauty, did not notice her at all. Nor did he often take notice his own wife, whom he kept tucked away tending to his house and children, never passing up an opportunity to remind her that she was plain and undesirable. His two concubines, however, were quite beautiful, and his wife could never hope to match their grace. She had given him two sons, however, and for that he was somewhat grateful. But then it was her duty. Kano and Mifune would one day bring honor to his name.
The samurai breathed in the night air, closing his eyes. Something important had happened this afternoon, an event which was of consequence to him. Shortly after noon, an emissa
ry from the Shogunate had arrived at the school bearing a message from the ruling Tokugawa. The Shogun desired a master swordsman to teach his first-born son the way of the sword, a great honor to the man selected. Naturally Ittosai was being considered, and the emissary inquired if the headmaster was open to such a proposal. Itto had yet to give his answer. For Zenki this meant that the Itto School – and its best sempai – was favored. It also meant that the time was quickly coming for Zenki to make his bid for power, to take a worthy place in the Shogunate. Such as a Daimyo. With his master as sensei to the Shogun’s son, Zenki would be the natural selection for such a post. His noble birth, skill at arms, favored status and spiritual purity made him perfect for the rank.
This was what Zenki had worked towards his entire life, the reason he strove for perfection, his own road to enlightenment. He honed his skills so that he could best serve the Shogun and protect Japan, and it indeed needed protection. The harsh experience of war with the Chinese had taught him that, and his hatred for them was great. Once Daimyo, he would lead a campaign against mainland China as his ancestors had. He would make them servants of the rising sun, as they should be.
And of course, with the position would come the expected wealth and influence, the comforts to which such a post was naturally entitled. That, too, was as it should be.
Ono accepted the wine from his wife, nodding politely. She smiled in a way that was for him alone, lowering her eyes before retreating into the house. The samurai loved her very much, and she in turn had borne him four beautiful children, the oldest only seven. And just as Zenki pondered his own ambitions, Ono considered what he wanted. Good marriages for his daughters, training at the Itto school for his sons, peace for his family. And for himself, a quiet road to enlightenment, a desire formed during his childhood near the temple. That was not to say that a part of him did not desire privilege and a measure of authority, the respect of others, and the opportunity to share the things he learned. Any man who claimed otherwise was either a liar or a monk, and Ono was neither.
In The Falling Light Page 14
