Fifty Words for Rain(46)

Only your life is more important than your obedience.

Only the air you breathe.

She pinched the skin on the inside of her palm. I am sorry, Okaasan.

This time, I choose.

Kiyomi glanced at her. “What are you thinking of?” she whispered, her voice low with suspicion and fear.

Nori smiled. It was a reflex, like a toy reacting when a knob was turned to wind it up.

“Betsu ni,” she said. “I am thinking of nothing at all.”

Kiyomi reached out and touched her shoulder. “I know you have no love for me,” she started.

“You have been a better guardian to me than most,” Nori said dryly. It dawned on her how sad it was that it was absolutely true.

“So perhaps you will take my advice now.”

Nori turned a blank face to her. “You seem distressed.”

“And you don’t!” the madam burst out. Even underneath her painted face, Nori could see the pallor. “The question is why you don’t! You have said nothing since . . .”

Nori inclined her head but said nothing.

Kiyomi searched her face, her dark eyes trying desperately to seek out the truth, but she had done her job too well. Nori’s face was a cool mask. There was nothing to be found.

“You haven’t even asked me his name.”

She did not even dignify that with a response. There were only two names that mattered here: master and slave. Kiyomi knew this. But she was clearly desperate to find something to say, anything, that would change what could not be undone.

Finally, Nori spoke. She could not explain it, but she felt an absurd kind of pity for the woman before her. Even though she had power and Nori had none, even though she would go on living in wealth and comfort while Nori would soon be cold in the ground . . . she found that she would not trade places.

“It is a long road to Tokyo. You should try to rest.”

Then she turned her face back to the window, closed her eyes, and waited.

Her courage sat curled in her lap like a sleeping cat, waiting with her.

Soon.



* * *





The road was not so long after all. Perhaps they had not been on the edge of the earth, as she had thought. Perhaps their little world had existed right alongside this one.

Nori had never seen Tokyo before. She had heard stories, of course, stories of bright lights and busy people in modern clothes: not kimonos, but suits and dresses with short skirts. She had been told of women who wore gel in their hair and painted their nails, of men who wore smart hats and walked around holding women’s hands in public, in broad daylight with no shame. This was a city full of neon signs, of scholars, of music and life. And somewhere, there was a toy store that had once sold their last silk stuffed rabbit to a beautiful boy who never combed his hair.

She did not allow herself to think his name. Even now, to think that name was to lose all of her strength and crumble into nothing.

She pressed her palm to the window and spread her fingers apart so that she could look out. Then she saw it, looming in the distance. The walled city in a city: Edo Castle, surrounded by moats on one side and a massive gate on the other. All designed to keep the rest of the world out.

“The palace,” she whispered.

“Yes,” Kiyomi said teasingly, pleased that she had finally gotten Nori to speak. “You must view it as your ancestral home.”

She turned away from the window and looked straight ahead. “No. I do not.”

“Well, that’s not where we are going. Which you would know if you had asked me.”

“I don’t care.”

“They are your cousins, you know.”

“I am a bastard,” she said stiffly. She folded her hands in her lap. “I have no family.”

“You came from somewhere,” Kiyomi pressed. “You did not spring up from clay.”

Nori drew in a deep breath. “Why are you doing this?”

“I don’t know—”

“Why are you doing this now?” Nori hissed. She could feel her pulse quickening.

Kiyomi folded her lips over her teeth and did not answer right away. She glanced ahead. The driver had not spoken a single word, nor given any indication that he was listening.

Quickly, as if trying to do it before she changed her mind, Kiyomi pushed a button that brought up a black screen between the back seat and the front.

This was as alone as they were going to get.

“I was wrong,” she whispered. She seized Nori’s hands in her own and spun her around so that they were facing each other. “And now you must listen to me.”

“Stop it.”

“Noriko!”

“It’s not your concern anymore. I don’t belong to you now. Why do you care?”

“Death isn’t what I wanted for you. None of this is what I wanted for you.”

“What we want doesn’t matter. You have taught me this.”

Kiyomi’s expression was pained. There were tears behind her eyes. “My God, Nori. You have to live. You have to survive. You . . . you just have to survive. I cannot save you from this. I cannot give you hope, for it would be a lie. But you must live.”

“This isn’t your concern,” Nori repeated through cold lips. Her calm was slipping away from her, as it always seemed to. “It’s not as if you’ll have to give a refund.”