by Asha Lemmie
“They won’t let us get away with this,” she said, her foggy brain slowly starting to fit the pieces together. “This is to declare war against our own grandparents. They will come after us.”
Akira nodded. Of course, he knew this. He had known when he started that there was no turning back.
“We won’t be safe,” Nori breathed. She could feel her chest tightening. “We’ve humiliated them now, we’ve tainted their honor and they won’t let that go. Not ever.”
Akira nodded again. His face was grave, but he did not try to soothe her with lies. Whether she wanted it or not, he always told her the truth.
Nori went perfectly still as the full reality of the situation dawned on her. Confining her had not worked. Banishing her had not worked.
She sucked in a little breath.
“They’re going to kill me.”
Akira pressed his forehead against hers, and she could feel the determination radiating off of him.
“They’re going to try.”
* * *
Akira never left her side for more than a few moments. When the doctor came to see her, her brother retreated to the corner, but he kept his gaze on them the entire time.
After the doctor signed off on her, giving her some pills to take for the pain and strict instructions to avoid putting undue stress on her leg, a maid came with some food. A few moments later, another maid came with some water for Nori to wash and a fresh change of clothes. When the woman left, Akira turned to face the corner so she could try to wash the smell of blood off her. She brushed out her hair as best she could and winced as she pulled a clean cotton slip over her body. She did not look at the bandages. With a little cough, she let Akira know that he could turn back around.
She didn’t want to eat, but Akira’s expression made it clear she had no choice.
She picked at her rice with her chopsticks. “What happens now?”
It was nearly morning. Nori could hear the world starting to wake up.
Akira rubbed his eyes. “They’ll find us soon. They have spies everywhere, they’re little better than high-born criminals.”
Nori pushed the rice aside.
“No, tabete. Eat.”
“Should we leave Japan?” she asked.
Akira shrugged. “That’s impossible. They’ll be watching the ports. And there’s no paper trail on you, no documents for customs. Legally, you don’t exist.”
She bit her lip. “You could go without me.”
His face soured. “If you’re going to be stupid, kindly shut up. I have enough to think about.”
She wrinkled her nose. Perhaps he hadn’t changed that much.
“I’m not a child anymore. I could manage without you.”
He flicked his wrist. “Nori, I didn’t go through all of this to find you for you to speak of leaving. You cost me a small fortune.”
She snorted. “Rather too much.”
He looked at her, and she could see the dark shadows under his eyes. “I’ll have to find a way to deal with our grandmother. She’s a vile old bitch, but she’s not stupid. She knows she has to win me over if she wants her precious name to live on.”
“I won’t have you selling your soul to her on my account,” Nori blazed. She started to stand up, but the pain in her leg was still too much. “It’s not right.”
Akira sighed as if to say that he was disappointed that, after thirteen years and a life hard enough to break her, she was still a fool.
“It’s the only way forward for us.”
Nori racked her brains for a rebuttal. “Can’t we stay here?”
“I have no doubt that her spies already know we’re here. Or if they don’t, they will very soon. There’s only one person here loyal to me. Otherwise these aren’t my servants, I didn’t grow up with them. I can trust them only as far as I can pay them, and she can pay them more.”
“Well, can’t we go somewhere else, then? Can’t we live in the country and hide?”
Akira looked at her blankly. “And do what? Raise pigs like peasants? Farm rice?”
She let out a frustrated cry. “You can’t just let her win!”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Winning means staying alive. Staying somewhere safe and warm, where we are kept and fed. That’s what winning is. Our victory will be in outliving them. We will dance to their tune now, but they are old and soon—in five years or ten—they will be dead and we can dance to whatever tune we play.”
“But—”
“I’ve thought about this. You don’t think I want to go to Europe? I’ve wanted to go there for years, to study music . . . I had planned to in a few years anyway, I’d hoped . . .” He looked away, and she could see that he had harbored hopes of his own, hopes that had been dashed by the reality of being saddled with her. He shrugged them away. “Anyway, this is the only way. Without my inheritance, we have nothing.”
She bowed her head beneath his relentless logic. “I hate her.”
Akira came over and sat beside her, wrapping one long arm around her frail shoulders.
“I know. I don’t have a choice,” he said wearily. “I’m sorry. I can’t keep you safe from her if I don’t offer her something. I swear to you, we’ll never go back to Kyoto as long she lives. But . . . I don’t have a choice.”
Nori clenched her fists. She hated this bed. She hated this room. She hated how powerless she was, how powerless she always was, and the weight of it was excruciating. She could do nothing. Again.
“What are you going to give her?”
There was only one answer. There was only one thing that was worth more than gold to Yuko and Kohei Kamiza. Only one thing that was worth more than the slight to their pride, more than their burning hatred for their bastard granddaughter.
Akira shut his eyes. “Me,” he said simply.
Nori felt a powerful urge to vomit. “You’re making a deal with the devil.”
“Actually,” Akira said wryly, “the devil might give me better terms.”
She heaved a racking sigh and reached out her arms to him. Wordlessly, he lifted her, scooping her up as if she weighed nothing. He got to his feet, and she let her legs dangle, uselessly, clinging to him like she would die if he let her go.
“I had really hoped you’d grow out of the crying.”
She tried to laugh, but all she got was another sob. “I can’t lose you again.”
He flushed, the color pinking up his pale cheeks. Even now, he was uncomfortable with deep displays of emotion or proclamations of loyalty. That was simply not Akira’s way.
“I’ll carry you outside so you can sit in the sun. So stop crying.”
She reached for her determination, buried somewhere deep beneath her impotent rage and her fear. It was much easier for her to find the courage to die than for her to find the courage to live under her grandmother’s vengeful shadow. It stretched across Japan like a dark, glossy mourning veil. Somewhere in this country, her mother was hiding too, safe in the knowledge that she had sacrificed her children for freedom from this poisonous name. Miyuki was sleeping in a cold room without enough to eat. Kiyomi was coming to terms with the destruction of her soul. And now Akira was steeling himself to fight her battle.
She knew, without a single shadow of doubt, that she was cursed, as her grandmother had always told her: a cursed bastard, born under a hateful star.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FEAR NO EVIL
Tokyo, Japan
November 1953
Unbelievably, the days leading up to Akira’s planned meeting with their grandparents, skillfully arranged by letter and set to take place in the great dining room, were perfectly calm.
The clocks did not stop. The sun did not refuse to rise. Everything trudged slowly on.
Akira was in and out of the house, running between this estate and his childhood home j
ust a few blocks away. He always took two servants with him and went in broad daylight, but Nori was sick with fear every time he passed through the electronic gate.
Nori had been strictly forbidden to leave the property for now, which made her smile. This, at least, was not new.
She spent most of her time wandering around the house, trying to stay out of the servants’ way. They were not unkind to her. They called her Ojosama or “madam.”
But it was clear that she made them uncomfortable. From what Akira had told her, their former master, his uncle, would be turning in his grave to know that she was in his house, eating at his table, being served and honored.
She retreated, as she always did, to the garden. It wasn’t in the best shape—the trees needed pruning, and the flowers needed weeding. There was moss atop the water in the fountain, and the bushes were overrun with animals and droppings.
It was clear nobody went back there anymore.
Still, there were some ancient trees that she liked to sit under. Sometimes she would have a book of poetry or ancient myths, other times a language book as she tried to improve the English that her brother spoke so well. She hated to be behind him. She was always trying to keep up. She wanted to be useful to him so badly that she could taste the desire in her mouth.
Other times she would practice her violin. It wasn’t so difficult for her anymore; even Akira had begrudgingly admitted that she shared some—some—of his natural talent. She could play some of his favorite pieces now, and when he was home, he would lean on the other side of the wide oak tree and listen to her.
He never praised her—this was asking for too much—but the tender way that he stroked her hair when she was done made her heart soar.
Today, Akira was out, starting the process to obtain forged documents for Nori; it was the easiest way since she had no birth certificate. With papers, she could pretend she was a person. Just in case negotiations went sour and they had to flee after all.
He’d taken a picture of her for the documents, and so for the very first time, she’d found herself smiling shyly into the lens of a black metal box.
Nori was feeling unusually cheerful. Akira had told her to stop moping and she was doing her best, trying to keep busy. She was in the garden making flower crowns when the woman in blue, who had greeted her when she first arrived, came out to check on her.
She always wore the same color kimono. Nori could only assume that she was in charge of the rest of the staff.
She bowed her head. “My lady. It’s time for your pills.”
Nori frowned. Ever since her “accident”—that’s what they were calling it now—she’d been forced to take pills to prevent infection. They tasted like chalk.
“No, thank you.”
The woman inclined her head. She was pretty and looked to be around twenty or twenty-one. “I’m afraid that the master was quite insistent. Please come inside and take them.”
“Oh, is Oniichan home?”
“No, he’s out. But he entrusted me with this task.”
Nori jutted out her bottom lip. “Did he say anything else?”
“He says bedtime is at ten. And to eat all of your dinner, not just the rice.”
She shoved down her irritation. “When is he coming back?”
“Morning, I think. He’s at our old estate.”
Nori frowned. “ ‘Our’?”
The woman said nothing. Nori looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“Who are you?”
She ducked her head. “My name is Ayame. I served in your . . . in Akira-sama’s father’s household. Since I was a child. When he decided to reestablish a household here, he asked me to run it.”
Nori had to resist the urge to let all her questions spill out of her mouth at once. “How long have you known my brother, then?”
Ayame went very still. “From the day he was born.”
Nori stood up and brushed the grass off her dress. “I’ll take those pills. But I would speak with you again, Ayame-san.”
She bowed and left. She could avoid the questions now, but Nori knew, and she knew, that this was not over.
* * *
Akira came home early the next morning. Nori ran to greet him, still in her nightgown. Her leg smarted, but she could walk just fine. No sign of a limp.
She bowed and he patted her gently on top of the head.
“You need a haircut,” he remarked.
She smiled. “What did you bring me?”
He handed her a package wrapped with bright yellow paper. “Some normal clothes. A few dresses, some sweaters and skirts. You can’t walk around Tokyo dressed like a woman from last century.”
She gasped. “And did you get me very fashionable things from the store windows?”
He rolled his eyes at her. “I got you what I got you. But anyway, you can open it if you want.”
Nori was already starting to unwrap the package. At the very top, she could see a short-sleeved, collared dress the color of toffee.
Akira’s cheeks were pink. “Do you like it?”
She looked up at him. “Very much, Oniichan. Thank you.”
He looked satisfied. “Well, good. Go and change, then. We’re going out.”
She froze, sure that she had misheard him. A shiver went down her entire body, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes.
“Out . . . where?”
Akira crossed his arms. He hadn’t even taken off his leather jacket. “Into town.”
She gaped at him. “But that’s one of the rules.”
His gaze softened. “Aren’t I your guardian now?”
“Oh, yes.”
“It’s not my rule. I thought this was what you wanted.”
“It is!” She gasped. Her eyes were starting to burn. “It’s . . . Yes. But you said it wasn’t safe.”
“Obaasama won’t do anything before the arranged meeting. It’s a matter of honor.”
“But . . .”
Akira saw straight to the heart of the matter, as he always did. “You’re afraid.”
She could not deny it. “I just thought you wouldn’t want to be seen with me.”
Akira clucked his tongue. “Don’t insult me.”
Nori had to admit that he had never treated her as an outsider. He found plenty of faults with her, to be sure, but it was always for what she did. Not who she was. Still, it was a serious thing he was suggesting—no one outside the family or the hanamachi knew about her.
Akira’s suggestion was to fly in the face of a thousand years of tradition.
“There will be a terrible scandal,” she whispered. “Grandmother will be very angry.”
“Good. With any luck she’ll have a stroke and we can move to Paris.”
“How can you be so sure it will be okay?”
Akira gave her that look he gave her when he expected her to figure something out.
“Can’t you just explain it for once?” she asked irritably. “You’re too clever for me.”
“Do you know why she has been able to do whatever she wants to you?” he asked, clearly hoping that he could lead her to water and she would be smart enough to drink.
“Because she’s rich. And noble.”
“Besides that.”
Nori racked her brain. “Because . . . because I’m a bastard.”
Akira’s stormy eyes were wide. “And?”
“And . . .” She broke off. “And because . . .”
Akira sighed. Clearly he had lost patience with her. “Because you’re a secret.”
She looked at him blankly. She had always thought that being a secret was the only reason she was allowed to live in the first place.
Akira continued. “Ah, think, Nori. Come on. You have no birth certificate; Mother probably had you at home. You’ve
never been enrolled in school. Legally, you don’t exist. And if the law doesn’t know who you are, it can’t protect you.”
Realization finally dawned on her. She covered her mouth with a shaking hand.
“If people knew about me . . .”
“If people knew about you, if you had legal documents . . .”
“I would be safe,” she said, and it sounded like a miracle.
Akira allowed himself a bright grin. “It would help. She couldn’t just make you vanish. People would gossip. People would know that she had done something to you, and she couldn’t bear it. She is desperate not to be seen as a criminal, she is desperate not to have the nobility know of her dirty dealings.”
“And the law?” she whispered. She could almost feel her grandmother’s wrinkled hand on her shoulder, clawing her backwards, away from any glimmer of hope.
“The law is mostly useless,” Akira confessed. “Everyone is in the pay of someone. But they would at least have to admit that they knew you were here, that you were real.”
I could be real?
She hesitated. “But if people knew . . . honor would demand my death, according to the old way.”
Akira snorted. “Honor gives that right to the family of the cuckolded husband. Which, in this case, would be me.”
She met his eyes. “I suppose that ship has sailed.”
He tapped her lightly on the nose. “Aho.”
“Do you really think this could work?”
“I’m going to try,” he said earnestly. “Tomorrow I’m going straight to the courthouse. I’ve been trying to get an appointment for weeks. I’ve already called a lawyer. I wanted to do this before, in Kyoto, but Grandmother has eyes everywhere in that city. The forged papers are still being made just in case, but I’m really going to try, Nori.”
She pressed her face into his chest. “Don’t put yourself in danger for me,” she mumbled.
“I suppose that ship has sailed,” he teased her. “Now, go and get dressed.”
She could hear her heartbeat blaring like a trumpet in her ears.
