Shinju

that housed her bedchamber. But instead of going inside, she paused, shivering in the cold wind. Then, making an impulsive decision, she stepped out of her wooden-soled shoes. Carrying them by their thongs, she ran lightly along the veranda in her split-toed socks, past the row of doors beneath the roof’s overhanging eaves.

An open window brought her up short. Through it she could hear the maids chattering as they swept the inner corridor. Midori ducked beneath the window so they wouldn’t see her. As she turned the corner, more female voices filtered through the thin paper windows: her father’s concubines gossiping with their attendants as they groomed themselves or sewed. A baby cried. Someone began to play a tune on the samisen, then stopped suddenly.

“No, no!” she heard her younger sisters’ music teacher scold. “Too fast!”

The melody began again, slower this time. Midori slipped past the music room, thankful that the children were occupied and couldn’t tag along after her.

Finally she reached her destination, a door at the north end of the women’s quarters. She slid it open and peered cautiously inside. The corridor was empty. She darted across it and through another door that stood opposite-into Yukiko’s bedchamber, where Lady Niu had forbidden everyone to go.

Midori closed the door behind her and looked around the chamber. All the windows were closed, allowing only a dim light from the corridor to filter in. She could barely make out the pattern of silver leaves on the white paper that covered the spaces between solid wooden doors leading to the adjacent rooms. Unlit charcoal braziers in the floor gave off no heat. A chill settled over Midori, one only partially due to physical cold. She hugged herself for warmth and comfort.

All Yukiko’s things-her bedding, clothes, floor cushions, writing desk, calligraphy implements, and toilet articles-had been put away. The mats had been swept and the cabinets that covered one wall closed. The bare room offered no sign that Yukiko had once lived there, or even existed.

A sob caught in Midori’s throat. The room’s impersonal emptiness finally brought home to her the fact that Yukiko was really gone. Even the sight of Yukiko’s shrouded body, laid out in the family chapel amid smoking incense burners and chanting priests, hadn’t done that. Tears coursed down her face as she realized that Yukiko’s death was not, after all, a nightmare from which she could awaken.

Dropping her shoes, she wiped her tears away with her sleeve. She must wait to mourn her sister. Now she had something else to do-something she’d been meaning to do for months. With Yukiko dead, it seemed more important than ever. She hurried over to the cabinets and flung the doors open. Then, frantic with her need to finish and escape before someone found her there, she began a wild search through the shelves of neatly folded clothing.

Her brave resolve almost crumbled. Touching Yukiko’s kimonos, she could feel her sister’s presence. She could smell the elusive flowery scent of her bath oil. Midori’s eyes blurred again, and a tear dropped onto the clothing. But she forced herself to move on to a large chest that sat on the floor beneath the shelves.

There, under a stack of summer kimonos, she found what she’d been looking for: A pile of volumes, each a thick sheaf of cream-colored mulberry paper bound with a black silk cord.

Yukiko’s diaries.

Midori snatched up the top volume. Carrying it over to the window where the light was best, she opened it, heart pounding. Now she would-or at least she hoped she would-learn why Yukiko had died. Despite her bold declaration to the handsome yoriki, she wasn’t all that sure that Yukiko hadn’t committed suicide. Lately her sunny, tranquil sister had seemed moody and withdrawn. All Midori did know was that Yukiko always recorded her thoughts, as well as her daily activities, in her diary. Now the diary would tell Midori whether Yukiko had really had a lover and grown desperate enough to take her own life-or whether something else had led to her death. Midori scrabbled impatiently through the soft pages, looking for the last entry. But halfway through, a passage caught her eye. With the tip of her tongue caught between her front teeth, she began to read.

Yesterday we went firefly hunting at Lord Kuroda’s villa in Ueno. In our gauzy summer kimonos, we flitted, ghostlike, over the dark fields, chasing the mysterious glimmering lights given off by the tiny creatures. The sweet scents of earth and fresh-cut grasses rose up from the ground. Crickets chanted a steady accompaniment to the children’s shouts and laughter. We captured the fireflies in small wicker cages, where they continued to glow and flicker softly-living lanterns!

Midori smiled despite her grief. Yukiko’s words brought back the enchantment of that evening. As long as she read, she felt as though her sister were still with her.

On our way back to the house, Midori and Keiko, in an excess of high spirits, began to run and giggle and push each other. They dropped and trampled one of the Kurodas’ firefly cages. As much as I disliked seeing their woebegone faces, I instructed them to confess what they had done and apologize to Lady Kuroda. But they saw it was the right thing to do, I think, because they were not angry with me afterward.

No one could ever be angry with Yukiko, Midori thought, as grief seized her again. As eldest sister, she had disciplined Midori and the seven other girls firmly, but always with such love and gentleness that they were eager to obey, just to please her…

Soft footsteps sounded in the corridor: stockinged feet making the thin wooden floor creak. Midori’s head snapped up. Guiltily she clapped the diary shut and looked for a place to hide. She mustn’t get caught here; her stepmother would punish her. The footsteps passed. Midori opened the diary at a different place, near the end. She began to read again, this time resisting the temptation to relive happy times, searching in earnest for clues.

The next passage she chose disappointed her. A description of an event that had taken place six years ago could have no bearing on Yukiko’s death. Here Yukiko’s tone grew troubled, her prose choppy as if she had written reluctantly, without her usual pleasure.

The seventh day of the eleventh month. A dark, rainy day. On such a day as this, my brother Masahito had his manhood ceremony. It was held in the main reception hall. Our father gave him his new adult name and special cap. Afterward, the fundoshi iwai ceremony. The whole family was present. Guests, too, in fine robes. Father’s retainers stood in ranks at the back of the main hall. Lanterns burned. I was so proud and happy to see Masahito receive his new loincloth, the first clothes of manhood. Now I look back on that day and weep. Would that I could feel the same joy and pride for the man of twenty-one years as I did for the boy of fifteen!

Midori puzzled over this passage. Yukiko and Masahito had been very close for a half-sister and -brother, but lately she’d noticed a certain coldness between them. She turned the page, hoping to learn the cause of their estrangement. But the passage didn’t continue. Instead she found a shopping list: embroidery thread, hairpins, face powder. Remembering that she had no time to lose, she hastily thumbed the remaining pages, looking for Noriyoshi’s name. She almost laughed aloud in triumph when she didn’t find it. Just as she’d thought: Yukiko hadn’t known the man. She ignored the nagging suspicion that perhaps Yukiko had not written about her lover because she was afraid someone would read her diary. Midori turned to the last entry, written the day before Yukiko’s death.

The time for decision has come. Except I do not know what to do. To act would destroy lives. But to do nothing-infinitely worse! To speak is to betray. To remain silent a sin.

Chewing her fingernail, Midori read the passage again. She ran her finger over the characters, which were shaky and irregular, unlike the beautiful calligraphy of the earlier entries. Yukiko’s agitation had expressed itself in her writing. Destroy… betray… sin. Such extreme language convinced Midori that here was proof that someone had killed Yukiko, because of something she knew. But what? What decision had caused her such anguish on the last day of her life? Midori flipped to the previous page. She began to read with growing dismay and fascination. So absorbed was she that she didn’t notice the door sliding open until it clicked to a stop.

Midori shrieked and dropped the diary. She spun around. Surprise turned to horror when she saw her stepmother silhouetted in the doorway. The light from the corridor left Lady Niu’s face in shadow. Behind her loomed the unmistakable bulk of Eii-chan, whose silence and ugliness had always frightened Midori. Now she darted a frantic gaze around the room, desperately seeking a hiding place. The cabinet? The chest? But it was too late. Lady Niu was advancing on her. Whimpering, Midori waited for her stepmother’s outburst and inevitable stinging slaps.

But Lady Niu stopped a few paces from her. Her serene gaze flickered over Midori, down to the diary on the floor, to the disarranged cabinets.