Shadows on the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

the kitchens. I sat for a moment, blinking rapidly, then went to find my parasol.
    The feeling of peace stayed for most of the rest of the day, but by breakfast the following morning, I could hear the real Suzume starting to talk again, her voice angry and raging. My head ached with trying to ignore her.
    After dinner, Mother, Terayama-san, and I gathered in one of the rooms overlooking the gardens. They were discussing their wedding trip, talking and laughing — Mother delicately flirting. As the evening went on, a ruddy color began to darken Terayama-san’s cheeks, as if he had been drinking — but he had not. The heat, the hunger, reappeared in his face. Cat. Mouse.
    I plucked at the edge of the bandage on my hand. I hardly needed it, really, but Mai had insisted it stay on for another day at least. I pulled at the loose threads, winding them around my fingertips until the ends of my fingers went purple.
    Something is wrong between them. She doesn’t see it. Doesn’t see the look in his eyes
—
or doesn’t care. Doesn’t she remember how Father looked at her? Doesn’t she remember him, miss him, at all?
    “Terayama-san,” I said suddenly, trying to drown the screaming out, “may I ask something?”
    I looked up from my bandage to see my mother and Terayama-san both staring at me as if they had forgotten I was in the room.
    They wish you weren’t in the room,
the real Suzume said. I pushed her voice away and continued: “I am sorry if I have disturbed your conversation. I was lost in my own thoughts.”
    “You have not disturbed us,” Terayama-san told me. His voice was perfectly friendly, perfectly sincere. His eyes looked through me as if I were rice paper on a screen. “What did you want to ask, Suzu-chan?”
    That is not my name! My name is Suzume, and no one, not even my father, ever shortened it.
    “Before,” I began cautiously, forcing myself to sound calm, “I was very fond of music. I wondered if I might be allowed to take up the
shamisen
again.”
    “No,” said my mother before Terayama-san could answer. The blunt interjection was so unexpected that we both looked at her with surprise.
    “But, Mother, why?”
    “You must learn to leave things from the past in the past,” she said, “and be happy in your new life instead. You have much to be grateful for. I do not want to hear you speak of it again.”
    Terayama-san nodded at that, already looking away. “Your mother is right, Suzu-chan.”
    They went back to their talk as if I had never spoken. A moment later, I stood and left the room.
    My feet shush-shush-shushed on the tatami mats as I went down the corridor. I was walking too quickly. Almost running. Mother would have scolded me. But Mother was not here, was she? She was back there, with him, leaving her past behind. Leaving me behind. I would run if I wanted.
    I put back the screen to my room, startling Mai, who was kneeling in the corner, folding clothes into a cedarwood chest.
    “Nakamura-sama?”
    “You may leave,” I said coldly. Never would I have spoken to a servant at home like that. Never — before they were all killed. “I do not feel well.”
    She climbed to her feet, coming forward. “Oh, then I —”
    “I do not want help. I want to be alone.”
    “Yes, Nakamura-sama.”
    I slammed the screen shut behind her and went to the square recess in the wall, the bottom part of which was taken up with a cabinet with a sliding door. There was a blue cloisonné vase on top of the cabinet that Mai had filled with delicate, scented golden orchids this morning. I wanted to pick up the vase and fling it across the room, but instead I opened the cabinet and drew out a long box of gleaming cherrywood. Terayama-san’s gift to me on the day he and Mother had announced their betrothal.
    The box was filled with hair ornaments —
kanzashi
pins and combs: coral, mother-of-pearl, silver, ivory, and tortoiseshell. They were more beautiful than anything I had ever owned before. Every