worked. Reiko hadn’t left home since that third episode.
Confined to the estate, she’d pondered the baffling spells. Why did she have them, when the other women seemed unaffected? It was true her experiences had been worse than theirs. She also believed that the terror she’d stifled, while they gave free rein to theirs, had become trapped inside her and demanded release. Yet understanding didn’t cure the spells, nor did berating herself. Now she felt as much a prisoner as when locked in the Dragon King’s palace. She realized that unless she forced herself to go outside despite the spells, she would remain always a prisoner. Unless she could brave the world’s hazards, she must forever cease helping Sano with his investigations, abandon the detective work she loved, and shirk her duty to further her family’s welfare.
Like it or not, the time to act was now. Reiko flung the quilt off her legs and rose from the kotatsu.
“Mama, where are you going?” Masahiro said.
Already Reiko felt her heartbeat speed up as the panic encroached. “Out,” she said.
“Where, Mama?” said Masahiro.
“Someplace,” Reiko said, fighting to control the tremor in her voice. “Anyplace.”
“But the weather is so cold,” Midori said. “Why not stay home, where it’s warm and we can all be cozy together?”
Reiko saw that Midori was just as afraid to leave the security of the estate as she was. Midori hadn’t even tried to go out since they’d come home. But while Midori was content to stay, happily occupied by new motherhood, Reiko was not. Although gripped by the fear that if she went she might never return, she hastened from the room.
She ordered a manservant to assemble an escort for her. As she donned her cloak and shoes, her mind recalled women screaming during the ambush. As she climbed into her palanquin, she envisioned fallen bodies and blood everywhere. While her palanquin and escorts bore her downhill through the winding passages of Edo Castle, shudders wracked her body. Her frantic gasps and thudding heartbeat sounded loud above the remembered voice of the man who’d almost killed her. But she held firm, like a lone, courageous warrior facing an enemy legion.
By the time her procession left Edo Castle, the spell receded. Reiko felt triumphant even though shaky. She was outside the castle, and she’d survived. Next time would be easier. Eventually she would conquer the evil magic and the spells wouldn’t trouble her again. Now Reiko looked out the window of her palanquin at the city she’d not seen in five months. Her procession was moving down the wide boulevard through the district south of Edo Castle where the daimyo lived. Huge estates lined the boulevard, each surrounded by barracks, their white plaster walls decorated with black tiles set in geometric patterns. Multitudes of samurai rode along the street.
Suddenly a procession overtook Reiko’s, and she saw the crest of the Yanagisawa clan on the riders’ garments. A black palanquin pulled up alongside hers; its window opened, revealing a woman dressed in dark gray kimono and cloak. She was in her thirties, with a plain, flat face devoid of makeup. Her dour, narrow-eyed gaze brightened as she beheld Reiko, and a hint of a smile curved her broad lips. Now Reiko remembered that there were dangers that weren’t just the product of her imagination and threats not dispelled when Sano had rescued her from the Dragon King.
“Hello, Reiko-san,” murmured Lady Yanagisawa, wife of the chamberlain.
Beside her appeared a beautiful little girl with a happy smile, and a vacant expression in her eyes: Lady Yanagisawa’s feebleminded nine-year-old daughter.
“Hello, Lady Yanagisawa,” Reiko said. “And hello to you, Kikuko.”
What a misfortune that she should encounter them, of all people! Yet Reiko knew this meeting was no coincidence as surely as she knew Lady Yanagisawa was capable of great harm.
Lady Yanagisawa, ignored by the husband she loved with a passion, and mother of a child who would never grow up, was so jealous of Reiko’s beauty, adoring husband, and normal child that hatred infused her affection for Reiko. The affection drove the shy, reclusive Lady Yanagisawa to cling to Reiko, her only friend. The hatred drove her to mad acts of violence against Reiko.
“What a surprise that we should run into each other,” Lady Yanagisawa said in her soft, gruff voice as their processions moved sedately in parallel.
“Indeed,” Reiko said.
She knew that Lady Yanagisawa spied on her, bribing Reiko’s servants to tell her everything Reiko did. Reiko had been forced to employ her own spies in her own household to catch the informants, whom she dismissed. But Lady Yanagisawa’s money bought her more spies among the new servants. Reiko supposed they’d told Lady Yanagisawa she was going out, and Lady Yanagisawa had rushed to follow her.
“It’s been so long since we’ve met,” Lady Yanagisawa said. Her intense gaze flickered over Reiko, as if hungry for every detail she saw. Her jealous hatred shimmered like heat waves from a volcano. “How glad I am to see you again.”
How glad you must be for a chance to attach yourself to me and attack me again, Reiko thought. The bad spells weren’t the only reason for her reluctance to leave home. Her five months’ hiding had protected her from Lady Yanagisawa.
“I’m glad to see you, too,” Reiko lied. She didn’t dare offend the wife of the chamberlain, who would punish any offense against a member of his family, even one for whom he cared nothing. “And you, Kikuko.”
The child giggled. Reiko stifled the aversion she felt toward Kikuko. Kikuko was sweet and innocent, and Reiko pitied her, but she was her mother’s obedient tool of destruction.
“I’ve called on you many times, but your servants said you were ill.” A hint of slyness in Lady Yanagisawa’s eyes said her spies had told her differently. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you,” said Reiko. She would feel even better if Lady Yanagisawa would leave her alone. Anger at the woman’s machinations filled her.
Lady Yanagisawa lowered her head and gave Reiko a hooded, indirect glance. “I wouldn’t like to think you’ve been avoiding me?” Accusation laced the humble query.
“Of course not. I’ve thought about you often and wished to know what you were doing.” Indeed, Lady Yanagisawa haunted Reiko’s thoughts like an evil spirit, and she’d wondered what new demented impulses bred inside the woman. “That we’re face-to-face eases my mind.”
Face-to-face, she could watch Lady Yanagisawa. It was when Reiko turned her back that disaster happened.
Lady Yanagisawa nodded, pacified, but her expression turned anxious. “You’re not angry at me for…” She paused, then whispered, “For that… incident?”
“I don’t know which incident you’re talking about,” Reiko said truthfully. Did Lady Yanagisawa mean the one that had involved Kikuko and Masahiro last winter? Or the one between herself and Reiko on the Dragon King’s island?
A sigh of relief eased from Lady Yanagisawa. “I was worried that you hadn’t forgiven me. Now I’m so glad to know you’ve forgotten what happened.”
Reiko could never forget the first incident, when a scheme contrived by Lady Yanagisawa had almost killed Masahiro, or the second, when Lady Yanagisawa had tried to kill her. Since these attacks had occurred despite Reiko’s friendship with Lady Yanagisawa, Reiko dreaded to think what unholy destruction Lady Yanagisawa would wreak should they become foes. Hence, she’d forgiven the unforgivable and endured Lady Yanagisawa’s murderous friendship.
Their processions moved together into the Nihonbashi merchant district. Commoners thronged the streets; shops overflowed with furniture, baskets, ceramic dishware, shoes, and clothing, while proprietors and itinerant peddlers hawked their goods to the crowds. The road narrowed, requiring that Reiko’s and Lady Yanagisawa’s processions either go single file or separate.
“I have an idea,” Lady Yanagisawa said, her plain face alight with eagerness. “Let’s go to your house, and Kikuko can play with Masahiro.” She addressed her daughter: “You’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?”
Kikuko nodded and smiled. Reiko shuddered inside, wishing she could bar the deadly pair from her home. A feeling of helplessness combined with her anger and hatred toward Lady Yanagisawa and her fear of what the woman might do next.
“Then it’s all settled.” Love and envy smoldered in the gaze Lady Yanagisawa turned on Reiko. Oblivious to the wrongs of her actions, her own motives, and Reiko’s dislike, she said with perfunctory courtesy, “Unless you have other plans?”
“None,” Reiko said.
