Tale of the Warrior Geisha Read Online Free PDF Page A

reached inside and felt around, as if she was sticking her hand into a leather pouch, searching for a coin. Yamabuki gasped at the sight.
    The woman gasped, too, doubling over, scooting away from the table. “My baby! My belly. What is happening?”
    â€œStop!” Yamabuki said, afraid, for the first time, of the ghost.
    Obāchan-obake returned to her seat.
It is a boy. But the cord is wrapped around his neck and he will die.
She shook her head sadly.
    Yamabuki’s stomach dropped. How could she tell this woman such horrible news? She was just a little girl herself. She stared at the woman’s belly, her hands going numb from her clenching them so hard.
    â€œTell her,” Okāsan said.
    Yamabuki broke down into tears that turned quickly into sobs.
    â€œJust spit it out!” Okāsan said.
    Yamabuki took a breath and collected herself. She knew from experience that people often got angry at the people who told them bad news, even if the news was true. Once, her father had been demoted—not his fault, as a better-connected family member got his post—and her mother had punched him in the jaw. Now it popped every time her father opened his mouth too wide. She considered what to say. “A son. A fine big healthy boy,” Yamabuki burst out.
    The noblewoman’s mouth widened into a relieved smile. She struggled to her feet, a fat bag of coins appearing in her hand. Okāsan helped see her out.
    I am so sorry, child.
Obāchan-obake squeezed her hand.
    â€œGo away. Never come back,” she shouted at the ghost. But the ghost refused to budge, looking on sadly with her hollow eyes.
    The baby died, but no one blamed Yamabuki. The success of Yamabuki’s first reading traveled quickly, and soon there was a daily line of people who wanted Yamabuki to tell their fortunes or speak to the dead.
    But the only
obake
Yamabuki could see was her own
obāchan
. And sometimes she wasn’t sure whether her
ob
ā
chan
was just an imagined friend.
    For most, Yamabuki made up stories. She told the farmer to keep an extra eye on his crops, because someone wanted to steal them. She figured this could be true—people were always stealing crops. She told a courtier his wife was having an affair with another—also easy, as she had heard the maid and her mother gossiping. So far, she had been very lucky.
    Everyone in the capital heard of her. Her father had gotten a raise, been promoted. All because of her, Okāsan bragged. Okāsan and her soothsaying daughter.
    The most popular
imayō
, or song, of the day was Ryōjin Hishō, song 364, about a mother looking for her child. Akemi, Yamabuki’s maid, first sang it to her.
    My child . . . soothsayer she’s become, I hear,
    Out wandering the land.
    The song made Yamabuki long for her mother. Not her actual mother, but an imaginary mother who would hold her and be kind to her. She wiped at her eyes. “Don’t sing it again.”
    â€œIt’s about you,” Akemi told her.
    â€œNo. In the song, the mother doesn’t have her child. They are poor.”
    â€œDoes your mother have you?” Akemi asked, and Yamabuki had no answer.
    Now she held one of her father’s books in her lap, pretending to read. It was only
The Tale of Genji
, and she had read it a hundred times now. “A depiction of a court life that is rapidly changing,” her father had remarked sadly. The novel was written more than a hundred years earlier. Yamabuki still loved the poetic images, the romantic nature of the admittedly promiscuous Genji’s heart.
    The screen opened and Akemi appeared, not Okāsan. Akemi was now tall and beautiful, a woman at age fifteen. “Your appointment has been canceled. He’ll be here tomorrow instead.” She did not step inside, but beckoned Yamabuki out. “It’s too fine a day to be inside.”
    Yamabuki went out but gasped as the sun hit her skin. It felt like