Shadows on the Moon (9 page)

And so she had turned to Terayama-san.

“Now you may go and clean up,” she was saying. “Go up onto the deck so that you might have some fresh air. You’re looking rather pale.”

I probably answered. I’m not sure what I said, but it got me out of the room.

I walked along the wooden corridor, my steps gaining speed until the hem of my kimono snapped against my legs and my sandals slapped the floor. My thoughts and feelings were in turmoil.

I had often wondered when it had begun, that strange game between Terayama-san and my mother. The game of rejection and pursuit.

Now I had the answer. It had not been in the ruins of my father’s house, or in the few missing days before that. The game had begun before I was even born, when Mother was the same age as I was now. It had begun when she had chosen Hoshima Daisuke instead of Terayama Ryoichi. And it had lasted all those years.

Mother seemed to think that it was devotion and love that had kept Terayama-san’s interest. But I could not free my mind of the image of the cat at its mouse hole, so still, so patient.

He had come to our house all the time. Laughed with my father. Eaten at our table. All the time, he had been looking at her. All the time planning, watching. All the time waiting, waiting, for his chance.

He had lost the first time.

He had never given up.

I burst out of the corridor, the door slamming back with a sharp crack that was hidden by the rush and boom of the water against the ship’s hull.

It was overcast, the sky as white and hard as the inside of a tea bowl. The air was cold and tangy with salt. I stood for a moment, panting, my fists clenching and unclenching. After a couple of long, deep breaths, I pulled the door closed behind me.

A few yards away, a thin wall of wooden planks curved around the entrance to the deck. I could look out only by standing on tiptoe and peering through one of the moon-shaped piercings in the wood. A sailor went past carrying a coil of rope over his shoulder that was as big as my torso, and a seagull flew low over the deck. I sighed.

I had hoped, since we all shared the same corridor and door onto the deck, that I might meet the strange foreigners here. However, so far they had managed to avoid not only me but also Terayama-san. He had been talking about it —
again
— last night, while my mother and I had pretended to eat. He had spoken of little else since we had come aboard. He was convinced that by gaining some influence over the men he would gain influence over the Moon Prince, too — but it seemed to me that this was almost irrelevant now. It was the chase that consumed him. The more the foreigners evaded him, the more determined he became to corner them. The more he was thwarted, the deeper his obsession grew.

Just as it had been with Mother.

Yet once he had caught her, his frenzy had subsided. I saw the puzzled looks she gave him sometimes now, as if she, too, realized that something was different but could not understand what. He cared for her, treated her kindly, was proud of her beauty and the fact that she carried his heir, but his focus had shifted away from her. I believed he did love her, in his way, but his burning need to possess her had faded now that she belonged to him. She was his wife, and she could never leave him.

Once the mouse was dead, the cat lifted his paw.

I leaned against the wooden wall and kept squinting through the little pierced moon shape. I wanted to get out of the enclosure and walk — pace up and down, stamp my feet and work off the unhappy, confused feelings that were boiling inside me. But I wasn’t allowed to go out there, not without Terayama-san to escort me.

A tiny, rebellious thought flashed through my mind. I knew a different way to get rid of the confusion and restlessness. A quick and easy way. I had my own little cabin, adjoining Mother and Terayama-san’s. I slept alone now. Mai was on the other ship. I would be able to pull the pin from my hair and make a quick, smooth cut. . . .

I squeezed my eyes shut. I needed to get out and walk, now, before I gave in. I would endure whatever punishment my mother or Terayama-san meted out later.

I reached out for the brass latch of the gate, but before I could press it down, a shadow passed across the moon piercings and Terayama-san opened it himself. I snatched my hand away and dragged a mask of calm across my face.

Terayama-san stared at me, his eyes blank in the way that I knew meant anger. “What are you doing out here?”

“M-Mother is sleeping. She said —”

Just like that, his face changed; the telltale stoniness was wiped away like grime removed by a wet cloth. He smiled his warm and charming smile.

“I am sorry, Suzu-chan. Of course you will be wanting some fresh air after being cooped up for so long. Come with me. You will feel much better after a walk.”

He took hold of my arm and guided me firmly out of the enclosure. Having unexpectedly gotten what I wanted, I immediately wished that I was back in the enclosure. Alone.

The wind rolled over the deck with a low, wavering moan, bringing salt droplets to sting my face, and despite my double-layered kimono, I shivered. If Terayama-san had not had such a grip on me, I would have wrapped my arms around myself for warmth. The ship jerked and rocked more strongly, making me brace my feet as a spray of gray-and-white water flew up the side of the deck.

Overhead, the sails made deep booming noises as the wind dragged at them, and the ropes and rigging creaked loudly.

“Well, and how is your mother today, Suzu-chan?” he asked, pitching his voice over the ship’s noises as he pulled me along.

My name is Suzume. It may mean nothing more than “little brown sparrow,” but it is
my
name.

“She is very brave, but her health is not good,” I said. “She is not eating. I am glad we will reach land soon.”

“You have been a great comfort to her.” He smiled again, but his eyes flickered away from mine, his attention fixed somewhere over my head. What was he looking for? I refused to crane over my shoulder and look, too, so pretended that I did not notice.

The ship bucked again, more strongly this time. Terayama-san’s fingers tightened still further, keeping me from falling. I held in a sound of pain. I would have gotten fewer bruises from a tumble on the deck.

“Neither of my ladies has her sea legs yet,” he said indulgently. “Why don’t we walk to the side, and you can lean against the rail? It is easier to keep your footing like that, and you can see the sea properly.”

I didn’t really want to see the sea. I was trembling with the cold, and my arm was throbbing, and I felt . . . uneasy. Something inside was urging me to shake off Terayama-san’s hand and run back to the cabin. He didn’t wait for me to agree, just maneuvered me over to the side of the ship.

“Here, stand on this. You’ll get a good view.” His hand left my arm at last to grab my waist, and he lifted me onto a large coil of rope. I wobbled and found myself clutching at him. Standing like this, I was taller than he was, and the rail went up only to my hips. The sea was jumping and fizzling below, blowing more spray up into my face until I had to turn my head away. I clutched at him more tightly.

“Terayama-san, I do not think —”

As I spoke, my eye was caught by a fleet, dark shape that swooped through the black tracery of the rigging, circling and diving as if at play. It was the falcon. This was the first time I had seen it since that day on the docks. Even above the sound of the sea, I heard my stepfather suck in a sharp breath.

At that same moment, the ship made another bucking movement. Terayama-san seemed to stumble. His shoulder drove into mine.

A scream wrenched from my lips as I was shoved forward, feet skidding off the coiled rope. My hips smacked into the rail, and I tilted like an acrobat about to do a cartwheel. I screamed again, slapping my arms down against the wooden planks. The silver-gray water reached up as if to grab me.

There was a flash of red on my left. A hand clamped down on my shoulder like an iron vise. Another hand grasped the back of my kimono. I was dragged back over the side, ribs grating painfully on the rail. Then I was falling again, backward this time, onto the deck.

I landed with a sob, fighting to breathe. It took me a minute to notice that I had not landed on wood but on a person. My rescuer lay underneath me, his arm now around my waist. His heart was racing against my shoulder blade, chest heaving with shallow gasps like my own.

I turned my head and looked into the face of one of Terayama-san’s foreigners. The boy.

This close, I could make out the patterns of dark blue dots that swirled across his cheeks. His eyes were not dark, as I would have expected, but a sort of brownish green, the color of mulberry leaves. He smelled like cassia: the very best quality cinnamon.

The foreigner slowly pushed himself up, bringing me with him. His arm was still around my waist, and the heat of him seemed to pulse against my chilled skin, even through the layers of my clothes.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice a husky, softly accented whisper.

“I — I do not think so,” I said, taking stock of my aches and bruises. “Thanks to you.”

He smiled, a crooked half smile that suddenly made me feel hot all over. “It was my pleasure.”

Before I could reply, Terayama-san was leaning over us, pulling me away from the boy’s warmth. I began to shiver immediately and barely heard Terayama-san’s deep voice repeating, “Thank the Moon. You nearly went in. Thank the Moon.”

Terayama-san put his arms around me. I found myself going still, like a tiny wild creature that plays dead in the hope it will confuse the hunter. Then the awkward embrace was over, and he was pushing me to sit on a wooden crate nearby. “Are you well, Suzu-chan? Are you all right?”

I nodded, meeting his searching look for a second. My shivering was getting worse. I could feel my teeth chattering. Terayama-san turned away from me and executed a perfect, elegant bow for the foreign boy, who still sat on the deck.

“I owe you a debt which I can never repay, honored guest-san. I do not know your name, but please, you must allow me to thank you properly.” Terayama-san held out his free hand to the boy to help him up.

The boy looked at the hand expressionlessly, then got to his feet unassisted. His voice was cold — almost belligerent — when he said, “Your daughter has already thanked me. I require nothing more.”

No one had ever dared use that tone with my stepfather before.

Terayama-san rocked back slightly, and his hand dropped to his side. It flexed convulsively, the knuckles turning red, yellow-white, red, yellow-white. I closed my eyes, wrapping my arms around myself.

But when my stepfather spoke again, his tone was the same, humble and sincere.

“Perhaps I have given offense? I beg your pardon. I meant none. But you are very young; perhaps I might speak to your father. I would like to tell him what you have done for me. We could drink tea in the captain’s cabin.”

“Thank you for the invitation,” the boy said. “But I am afraid I do not care for tea.”

There was a high-pitched shriek. I opened my eyes and saw the falcon glide down and alight on the young foreigner’s extended forearm, which was bound with a brace of red leather. It had been the leather that had caught my eye as he pulled me back over the side of the ship.

Once again our eyes met. I mouthed
Thank you,
my throat too dry to sound the words. The blank look left his face, and he ducked his head, almost shyly. Then he turned to look at Terayama-san, and his face was cold again.

“You should take your daughter belowdecks. I think she is not well.”

Terayama-san’s hand flexed again. “Yes, of course. But first —”

The young man turned from Terayama-san’s protests and walked away, his back very straight, the bird still on his arm. He passed the group of sailors who had gathered nearby and were gaping at us as if we were a traveling spectacle which they expected to pay a copper piece for. The boy winked at them, and as if a spell had been broken, they began to disperse across the deck. One of them reached out and hit the boy on the back, almost sending him flying. The bird on his arm spread its wings and shrieked in protest.

Terayama-san watched for a second, and then swore once, softly and viciously.

I was dizzy. My head pounded. My body had gone as soft and floppy as melted tallow. Yet despite all that, I now realized two things.

The boy who had just saved me — and perhaps all the foreigners Terayama-san was so keen to meet — had some kind of shadow-weaving talent. The boy had been close enough to reach me seconds after I began to fall, and yet I had not seen him on the deck in the moments before that, not even a glimpse. More than that, though, I had felt his weaving shredding away as he laid his hands on me to pull me back from the edge. I had felt it but not understood it, just as one can hear speech in a strange language and not comprehend a word. Of course Terayama-san had never had any luck seeking them out. These men could make themselves invisible in plain daylight.

The second thing I knew was this: after seeing the falcon flying above the deck and realizing the foreigners must be nearby, my stepfather had been so determined to get their attention that he had deliberately pushed me over the side of the ship.

Terayama-san had tried to kill me.