by Zoe Marriott
“What did you do, my dear?” Her voice was hushed.
“I cannot tell you. I will not. But you must believe me. This is my chance, my only chance, to atone for what I did.” I turned to look at her, at her unhappy, white face. “Will you still help me, Akira?”
“I will always help you, no matter what,” she said, squeezing my shoulder. “You are my sister. I love you.”
I turned my face into her neck and remembered with a piercing ache doing the same thing to Otieno. Oh, Moon, what have I done? Why must I break his heart, too?
“I cannot see him again,” I said, my voice low. “I know what I must do, but if I see him again . . . I cannot.”
“All right.” She nodded. “You must write him a note. I will give it to him.”
“He will not accept it.”
“We must not give him a choice. It must be a clean break; a swift, sharp pain that will heal quickly. I will send you back to Mie-san’s place. You can practice your dancing with them, and Otieno will not be able to find you. I will stay here until he gives up.”
“Yes. Thank you,” I said, relief and agony mixing inside me.
He would be disbelieving at first, as he read the note. He would fling it aside and push past Akira to search the house. Walking from room to empty room, the sense of betrayal would creep over him. It would be so much worse than that time at the tea ceremony. I remembered the way his big hands had touched me so gently and saw them bunching into fists of anger and denial. He might shout at first — that soft, beautiful voice that had whispered loving words against my skin — and demand to know where I had gone, why I was doing this. There would be no answer.
He would shake. Not as he had trembled when he lay with me, from happiness and nerves and excitement, but with the pain and the rage. Then he would turn away from Akira and leave, because he would not want her to see him break down.
I thought of the words of an old song, a sad song, that I had sung for him once: Oh, my love. I would shatter my own heart a thousand times before I hurt yours. But I had already shattered my own heart, and it had made no difference.
I felt my control begin to splinter and I said quietly, “Akira?”
“Yes?”
“Could you make me another cup of that sangre-root tea?”
She flinched as if from a blow, but gently patted my head. “Of course. I will be back in a few moments.”
I waited, just barely managed to wait, until she had left. Then I lay down on the ground before the shrine and cried. Miserable, painful tears that shook me from head to foot but made no sound. The tears of the hopeless.
Akira, when she returned, picked me up and made me drink the tea, and then held me, saying nothing, though tears streaked her own face. I cried for a long, long time. I could not seem to stop. Perhaps I did not want to stop.
But when morning came, and brought Otieno with it, I was gone.
Even through the fog of misery that clouded my mind, I noticed Mie-san’s and Yoshi-san’s surprise when they saw me again. I was expected, of course; Akira had sent a message in the middle of the night, reasoning that they would be awake anyway. But they had expected to see an urchin, tattered and dry and yellow as a blade of winter grass. With my hair elegantly arranged, skin glowing with life and good health, and subtle shadow-weaving enhancing everything, I must have looked to them like an entirely different person.
The pair greeted me enthusiastically and drew me inside with real happiness, and I realized that this was how it would always be from now on. People would see the mask I wore and react to that, even if they had some idea that the person inside did not match. It ought to have been pleasant to confound their expectations, but it only made me feel more lost, more lonely.
For every increase in the beauty of my illusions, there had been a deepening in the shadows within me. Inside I was uglier then than I had ever been.
Yoshi-san went to arrange tea for us while Mie-san sat down with me in a pleasant room which I suspected she normally used to entertain patrons. I gave her the longer note that Akira had hastily penned before I left and asked me to present on arrival.
Her cheeks flushed and her breathing quickened, and I guessed that Akira had written to Mie-san about our plans for the Shadow Ball. When Yoshi-san returned, and she read the note, too, her eyes shone with identical glee.
“We will arrange for you to have the same room as before,” Mie-san said. “You must tell us if you need anything at all, Yue-san. It is our honor to help you.”
I tweaked the face of my mask into a smile. It was good to know that I was not a completely unwanted burden, but I did hope Akira would arrive soon. I needed her to shield me from them and their interest and excitement, which felt like rough sackcloth scraping over grazed skin.
“Perhaps if I could rest a little?” I said, knowing it was feeble. “I was awake quite late last night, at Lord Yorimoto’s party.”
“Of course, of course,” Yoshi-san said. “Such fine, fair skin needs a great deal of sleep to keep its brilliance. I will take you up now.”
After they had petted and fussed me onto a futon, they drew the screens, placed some scented oil in the room, and left me alone.
I cried again then — but the tears brought no relief. My eyes were sore and swollen, and despite the drag of deep exhaustion, sleep would not come, either. I could not stop thinking about Otieno and what I had done to him. I tried to tear my mind away from my betrayal, but it merely strayed to Father and Aimi and the last time I had seen them. Then I thought about my mother’s babies: the twin boys who would now be a little over a year old. I wondered what would happen to those half brothers of mine when I used the Shadow Promise to reveal Terayama-san as a traitor. I wondered if it made me weak that I did care a little, or monstrous that I did not care enough to let it stop me from destroying their father.
Then I went back to thinking about Otieno. I ground the heels of my palms into my eyes, trying to drive his image out of my memory. Finally I got up and crept across the room, searching. I found what I wanted in the form of a sharp set of hairpins that had been left by some previous occupant of the room.
I hesitated. It had been a long time since I had done this. I knew that Akira would not be happy if she found out. I could not afford to make any obvious marks. Not here among strangers, not so close to the Kage no Iwai.
But I could not help myself. I picked an area on my upper thigh and pressed the point of the pin to my skin, then drew it slowly across in a straight line.
The pain made me grit my teeth. Blood welled up, and with it, that almost forgotten sense of relief, as the stinging pain became comfort. I sighed, feeling some of my tension leave me. It was hard to resist the urge to mark myself again. The desire to keep cutting, to scratch and scratch, was frightening in its intensity. That was selfishness. I knew that this one line could be passed off as an accident; two or more would give me away.
Feeling dull and dim now — and glad of it — I dabbed at the blood and lay down again, and after a few minutes, I slept.
It was two days before Akira came to join me at the okiya. I hurried down to greet her and clung to her, and she shushed me gently and soothed me. I drew back a little fearfully, wondering if she would tell me anything, or what I might see in her face.
She looked away, as if bracing herself. Then she spoke.
“He is gone.”
It was as if she had struck me with a blade. Pain rushed out through an invisible wound, dripping and spreading through me as blood would pour from a mortal injury.
Gone.
I had known it must be true. That was why she was here. But it hurt. It hurt. So much that it scared me. It felt like dying. I turned away from her, my hands knotting together as I forced myself to stay upright.
There was no hope this time that Otieno would arrive, bruised but grinning, in my doorway. There would be no big gentle hands, no cassia smell, no strong arm to rest against, to make me warm again. He was really gone, for always.
That night I curled my chilled limbs around the one thing I had left and clutched it to me. Revenge. That was the meaning of my life now.
If you do not avenge them, no one will.
If you do not destroy Terayama-san, no one will.
Forget everything else, and remember that.
The next day Akira said she wanted me to show my two dances to Yoshi-san and Mie-san so that they could offer me advice. Inevitably I found myself going over each dance again and again while both women called out blunt and sometimes obscene comments on tiny faults like the position of my index fingers, the angle of my jaw, and the expression on my face. Akira observed, wincing occasionally.
“Something — something is not quite right,” Mie-san said. “I cannot pinpoint it.”
“She is not putting her heart into it,” Yoshi-san said decisively. “That is what is not right.”
I bit down on my lip and worried it between my teeth. I was sweating, panting, and so limp I could barely lift my head, and yet I knew Yoshi-san was right. I no longer had a heart to give.
“Yue, the reason I asked Mie-san and Yoshi-san for their help is because I learned something worrying at Yorimoto-san’s party,” Akira said. “Do you remember that when I told you I wanted you to learn to dance, you protested? You said none of the noblemen’s daughters would be dancing. Well, apparently this is not true. Since the last Kage no Iwai, it seems there has been a fashion for the city’s nobly bred young women to attend dance lessons and learn all the traditional dances that might be performed by oiran.”
“No wonder,” Mie-san said. “You were magnificent, Akira-sama.”
“I was certainly successful,” Akira said dryly. “Which I think is more to the point. And, also probably as a result of my success, when organizing this Shadow Ball, the princess decreed there would be no gijo or other entertainers dancing. There will be musicians, but the only dancers will be those invited to the ball as a potential Shadow Bride.”
I forced myself to pay attention and frowned as I turned over her words. “You always intended me to dance, did you not?”
“Yes, but I intended you to be the only potential Shadow Bride doing so. It would have made you unique and captured the prince’s attention, if for no other reason than because it was shocking. Now there will be several other potential brides dancing. The prince will apparently be free to choose whichever girl catches his eye. Considering your beauty, and the fame that we have created in Kano Yue’s name, I think it certain that you will have your turn to perform. The problem is that the others will also have their turn, and many of them will have been dancing since they were able to walk.”
“You think I will humiliate myself,” I said flatly.
“Not that,” Yoshi-san broke in. “Your performance is technically very good.”
“It is?” That got my attention.
“Yes, but your dancing does not have that extra quality which will make it stand out from the others,” Yoshi-san said. “Not even your Chu No Mai, which is what I would recommend you perform. If there is a girl there who has the soul of a true dancer, she will outdo you and probably ruin your chances.”
“Then what am I do to?” I asked.
“Costume!” Mie-san said. “Do you remember that seven-layered costume I had, Yoshi-chan? Each layer was inspired by a line from the poem ‘The Mountains of the Moon.’”
“Yes, yes!” Yoshi-san said excitedly. “It would not have mattered if you had fallen over your own feet that night. All anyone remembered was the costume.”
Mie-san looked affronted and Yoshi-san quickly added, “You danced beautifully, though.”
“Yoshi-san is right,” Akira interrupted. “The other girls will not think of costumes — they are noblewomen, not gijo. I imagine they will simply dance in their formal kimonos. This is a way for Yue to stand out. We do not have time to create a seven-layered costume, but perhaps . . . three layers?”
“Inspired by a haiku?” Mie-san asked.
“Love comes like storm clouds . . .” Akira said. “Perfect.”
Within minutes, what seemed like all seven of the gijo who lived in Mie-san’s okiya had been unearthed from their rooms and given instructions to open their clothes chests and search out suitable kimonos for alteration. The little sitting room where Mie-san and Yoshi-san took their tea became a sewing room, and we all lived in it for the next five days, working feverishly to transform the borrowed kimonos into a costume so beautiful that it would hide the performer’s missing heart.
I would arrive at the ball in the kimono that Akira had already had made: a demure, pale pink one sewn with flowers and birds. It was the sort of kimono that most of the girls would probably be wearing. All the better, said Akira, to highlight my uncommon beauty. On top of that I would wear an uchikake kimono — a very long robe with a padded hem that would be left untied and allowed to trail behind me. That was in a deep pink and was covered in a pattern of daisies and songbirds.
Unlike the rest of the girls, though, I would be wearing another costume beneath that first one, hidden from view at the neckline and hem by a plain white nagajuban.
The first layer of my dancing costume was black: shocking because it was a color never worn by unmarried girls unless they were in mourning. We sewed tiny sparkling fragments of metal to its surface in patterns that resembled the constellations of the stars, and embroidered the sleeves and hems with silver-thread clouds in billowing swirls. This was the night sky with clouds from the first line of the haiku. Rather than an obi — which would be impossible to untie during a performance and would be too bulky anyway — it was held closed by a sash of flame red. For maximum effect, Mie-san suggested flinging it away into the audience once it was no longer needed.
The second layer of the costume was a gown of silver gauze which I believed was actually a piece of nightwear. The gijo to whom it belonged had not been glad to give it up, but her protests were hushed by the others. The fabric was incredibly fine, fluttering and catching the air as I moved. It represented the “wind” of the second line, and to make this clear, we made curling leaves from gold and red and copper silk and fastened them to the hems and cuffs, where they drifted and rustled just like real ones. The sash for this one was gold, and again I was to send it flying as I untied it.
The final layer represented the moon. It was pure white — a color reserved for brides, just as black was reserved for mourning — and it had no ornamentation. The shadows of the haiku would be created by my hair, which now reached the middle of my back, and by the movement of my body as I danced, shifting the sheer fabric across curves and lines it did not quite reveal. This kimono had to be pulled on over my head because it was sewn shut.
My final sash was also white, but it was embroidered with yellow camellias for longing, blue forget-me-nots for true love, and red zinnias for loyalty. The sash belonged to Mie-san, who surrendered it to the cause willingly. Yoshi-san, who was the best seamstress, carefully added one yellow chrysanthemum to the design. This was the flower of the Moon Prince’s crest and would be the equivalent of sewing his name on the sash. It told him I longed for him, loved him, and would be loyal to him.
“You must aim this at Tsuki no Ouji-sama,” Yoshi-san said. “Let it fall at his feet. He will pick it up and read its message, and feel the warmth of your body in it and smell your scent.”
I nodded and smiled, pretending to admire the beauty of the sash and the cleverness of Mie-san and Yoshi-san’s plan, when truly her words made me feel ill.
That night, while everyone slumbered, I slipped out of bed and down to the sewing room, and lit a lamp there. The costume, complete now, lay on the table, its various layers tenderly folded, glowing and glittering in the golden light. Waiting.
I picked up that last, flowery sash, and took a needle and threaded it with orange thread. I was no master seamstress, but I had just enough skill to add a tiny, tiny star of orange in the top right-hand corner of the piec
e of fabric. That star represented the many delicate petals of an orange lily. The flower that stood for hatred, and revenge.
When my work was complete, I refolded the sash and placed it back in its position of honor at the top of the low table. Then I blew out the lamp and sat quietly in the moonlight that filtered through the lattice window screens.
All the preparations were complete. The decisions had been made — the melancholy Chu No Mai was to be my dance — and there was nothing left to be done. In under two days, I would attend the Shadow Ball and spend every particle of my will to capture a prince.
I looked again at the stunning costume. There had been times over the past few days, as we worked our fingers to the bone, when I had wanted to laugh at all our efforts to make it fit the haiku. Not because it was funny, but because it was so desperately sad. Of course, my costume must be inspired by that poem now, of all times, now, when I finally understood it.
When Akira had recited the haiku to me the first time, I had been confused, thinking it compared love to storm clouds because they were capricious and fleeting. Perhaps love was capricious and fleeting, but that was not the true meaning of the poem. The true meaning was this: that love, when it came, was powerful enough to transform everything. Anything. Even the unchanging, ever-changing face of the Moon herself.
Youta’s story had proved that. Akira’s story had proved it. But I had needed to fall in love myself before I could truly understand. I had needed to meet someone so precious that he had the power to transform me completely.
I had thrown my love away like trash on the wayside. I hated myself for it, and yet I knew that it had been inevitable. Such a precious thing could never have been meant for someone like me. If I had tried to keep it, I would have destroyed him.
I had been telling myself all week that I wanted nothing more than revenge now, that it was my only desire and my only wish. It was not true. In the aching emptiness of my soul, there was room for one more wish, just as powerful as the first.
