Year of the Demon

She filled her lungs and blew them empty, filled and emptied again, filled once more and dived, not straight down like a cormorant but angling like a dolphin. Halfway down she spiraled and cut the reverse angle, trying to track back toward the sandbag. Even at the halfway point, she was deeper than any other girl her age could dive.

She thought about the wreck. At this depth she would have entered the yawning maw of its upper hold. Again, even the thought of being enclosed made her want to vomit. The memory of being dragged down by the breastplate gripped her like Masa’s fist. The darkness of the hold was terrifying, even from the opposite end of the bay. The mere thought of what might have been in there—

There it was. The sandbag. Shioko might have called them frog-eyes or bug-eyes, but Kaida’s eyes were awfully good at spotting things underwater. She reached the bag and tugged on the line, signaling Haru-san that she’d found it. Then she kicked hard off the bottom and let herself ascend, matching the speed of her bubbles.

Her fear of the dark hold had gone. But where? It vanished as soon as she saw the sandbag. As soon as something else captured her attention. Because what scared her about the hold wasn’t the hold. It was what she imagined it to be.

It was just as Masa had told her: imagination could always be relied upon to conjure greater nightmares than the world itself could ever produce. That was why he and Genzai and the others struck such terror in Ama- machi. The villagers contended not with the outlanders but with demons, hungry ghosts, dark sorcery—or so the elders said. And that was why Kaida and the rest were diving on the south end of the cove: imagined fear, nothing else.

Kaida’s lungs burned like huge hot coals by the time she broke the surface. She sucked in a deep, loud breath, then latched on to Haru-san’s boat and let her body go limp.

“My, my!” he said. “Am I glad to be out on the water today! I can’t believe I just saw what I saw.”

“Believe it,” Kaida said, panting.

“You must be exhausted.”

Just then Miyoko appeared, just as if he’d summoned an evil spirit. Her long, pale form fluttered up from under the stern and she too took hold of the little boat’s gunwale. “Oh, Kaida-chan, look at you. Are you feeling ill?”

“I’m fine,” said Kaida. “Come on, let’s go back to the bottom.”

Miyoko gave her an evil grimace. Haru-san didn’t catch it. Neither did Sen.

“Come on,” Kaida said again. “We’ll go down there together. Sisters.”

“Sisters,” Miyoko said bitterly. Usually she regarded Kaida not with hatred but with cruel curiosity, the same fascination she had with the mice she sometimes trapped in little fishnets to see how long they could hold their breath before drowning. Not this time. The hate all but seethed from her now. Haru-san and Sen, bless them, were still blind to it, dutifully hauling in their sandbags. Hand over hand, they steadily drew in the dripping lines, and Miyoko watched on with growing dread. Diving was the only competition she knew Kaida could win. Pride demanded that she compete anyway, and that pride could not abide a loss—not to bug-eyed, one-armed Kaida.

Kaida could almost hear the thoughts wriggling around in Miyoko’s mind, seeking some escape, just like the mice she liked to drown. Kaida couldn’t let that happen.

“Are you feeling ill, Miyoko-chan? Not too exhausted, are you?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her face a squinting, wrinkled mask of hate.

All the while the wet, braided lines hummed against the gunwale of the little rowboat. At last, with a cheery “Here you go,” Haru-san passed Kaida a dripping bag. He kept hold of the line while she slipped the tether around her ankle. Sen aped him, handing over Miyoko’s bag, and Kaida felt a little thrill of triumph when Miyoko took it.

Miyoko gave her sweet little smile and said, “You know, Kaida-chan, why don’t you go ahead and dive, since you’re all ready to go, and we’ll find something to do together once we’re back in the village? You know, something we can do with all our sisters.”

The veiled threat was not lost on Kaida. The wisest strategy was to deflect and retreat. Go back home, stay alert, and hope that Miyoko lost interest before she got around to mounting a full assault. Kaida’s instincts pointed her in exactly that direction, but she was feeling saucy. “You’re right,” she said. “If we’re going to find something we can all do, we can’t dive here, can we? Because I’m the only one who can make it all the way down.”

Miyoko fumed. Finally Haru-san and Sen took notice. Sen didn’t know what to do with it, but Haru-san snapped. “Kaida, that was out of line and you know it. Miyoko’s older than you. You ought to show some respect. Go ahead, Miyoko. Tether your sandbag. She opened herself to this. It’s your right to show her up.”

Miyoko managed a humorless smile. Kaida beamed. “First one to the bottom wins,” she said. She let go of the boat and plummeted.

To Miyoko’s credit, she made an honest go of it. She made it almost halfway down before she kicked free of her sandbag. Kaida looked up, letting the weight carry her down, watching Miyoko grow smaller and smaller as she kicked hard for the surface.

There would be a price for that. Kaida knew it, but somehow she feared it less than she used to. Perhaps it was because today they’d been diving where she was at her best. Or perhaps it was last night’s victory at the Fin. Whatever the reason, Kaida decided she liked not being afraid.

She stayed in the water after most of the other ama had grown cold and tired, even though her own teeth were chattering. Her legs were so sore that she was glad they were too cold to feel much. She waited until all three of her stepsisters were sitting in Haru-san’s boat, then picked a different boat to ride in on—not because she was afraid, but because she wanted to show them she’d outwitted them again. She made sure they saw her smirking at them too. That would come with a price as well, but in her newfound cockiness she chose to overlook that fact.

For reasons she couldn’t fathom, a strange thought floated unbidden through her mind: if Genzai could have seen me today, he’d have been proud.

27

The sand was warm, but Kaida knew she couldn’t lounge on the beach long enough to stop shivering. Her stepsisters would come for her soon. So instead of waiting for the sun to do its work, she forced herself to her feet and jogged along the strand to warm herself.

That was what she told herself anyway, though in truth she knew seeing Genzai again was inevitable. It was no girlish, swooning, romantic drivel. The village girls talked that way, sometimes even about men as old as Genzai. Kaida had no thoughts in that direction. If she were ever to love Genzai, it would only be for taking her away from Ama-machi. She did not go to him out of infatuation. She went because she could see the outlanders paddling back in from the wreck, and if they’d found what they were looking for, they would pack up their camp and disappear.

Grown men could row faster than she could run on wet sand, and though she had the shorter distance to travel, they had the surf to aid them. She drew within shouting distance as they beached the first of their rowboats. Their next three boats came in almost in the wake of the first, but Genzai had been in the lead boat and he was already marching toward Kaida, leaving ragged-edged footprints in the sand. Deep creases furrowed his brow and the corners of his mouth turned down.

“Take me with you,” Kaida said. “Please.”

“Go home, little one.”

“You found what you were looking for, neh?”

“No.”

Kaida looked past him. Two men bent down to lift something heavy out of the belly of one of the rowboats. She ran on toward Genzai, drawing close enough now that she could smell the sweat and salt water in his clothing. “You’re lying,” she said. “Whatever you found, I can see them taking it. Please, you have to—”

Suddenly she was flat on her back. Somehow he’d kicked her feet out from under her, though an instant