Things I’ll Never Say (14 page)

Molten chocolate lava cake. If I don't eat at least two, Dad will be disappointed. He'll ask what's wrong. He'll say, “You're not yourself.” There'll be a moment after that when he reaches across the table and takes my hand, and I'll wait a second, because I like how it feels to have him looking, and asking, and caring, but all I'll be able to say in response is “Don't be silly. Of course I want another.”

And we'll stay out together longer while I eat it. Then right before we leave, I'll slip into the bathroom and bring a Popsicle stick out of my purse and take care of it. All the heaviness will leave me in a blinding rush. I'll walk back to Dad with Scope-minted breath and a smile.

I don't know why it always seemed like the less of me there was, the more he would be able to see me. I lie on the bed again. Stare at the old ceiling, so full of whiteness and non-rainbows.

For a moment, far below and deep, the ground trembles from another passing train. The rhythm is constant, like a pulse. The bed and the walls shiver with the unsettling timbre of unspoken things. And I find myself wondering what else I'll be eating — or not eating — for dinner.

What have I done?

The golden light of the fire flickers over my pale, shaking hands without warming them. Icy sweat slithers slowly down the taut ridge of my spine, dampening the elaborate silk and brocade layers of my dancing kimono. This opulent chamber, larger and more luxurious than anything I have ever seen in my life, looms around me like a threat. I do not belong within it. This is all a mistake. I should never have come here.

My own chamber is small. In just the right light — light that I am careful to arrange so that the effect is as forgiving as possible — the flaking gold paint, faded patterned-silk screen, and chipped bowl that I always fill with fresh flowers manage to achieve a certain . . . elegance. Just as long as no one looks too closely. I take care that they do not. When I am in that room, all eyes must be on me.

And that, of course, was my downfall.

It was just a foolish, reckless jest. How was I to know that he would take it seriously? How was I to know that he would
succeed
?

What have I done?

“Tell me how I may prove my regard to you, my dove,” Lord Minamoto had demanded, sitting beside me in my small, gaudy chamber. There was a tiny water stain on the woven mat by his foot, and I absently hoped that he had not noticed it. “I adore you! I must possess you! Tell me what I can do!”

Nothing
, I thought then, stubbornly.
There is nothing a man who wishes only to possess me — like a thing, like a prize — can do to gain my heart.

But I could not say it. Who would believe that a creature like me even had a heart?

This was my job. To entertain. To dance, yes — dance the role of the young, beautiful maiden, enchant the theater's audiences and make them all fall in love with me so that they would return again, yes. But also to win patrons from that audience. Rich men who would pay for my time after my performances. Who would pour gifts of gold into the Owner's hand in order to secure my favors. This, too, was a dance. To flirt and seduce, to tantalize while remaining out of reach for as long as possible. To draw out their courtship and draw out their wealth.

I was very good at it. Too good. The ardent look on Minamoto-sama's face made that obvious.

Lord Minamoto was rich, and the Owner expected a certain return. If he did not get it, I would have to pay. Pay in tears and bruises. The Owner owned the theater, but he also owned me. The contract my parents had signed when I was eight spelled it out. Until I paid him back the purchase price he had given them for me, I was his to do with as he willed. I had started dancing when I was twelve, four years ago. Four years of strained muscles, sweat, tears, of folding illusions so close to my skin that no one ever saw the real girl beneath the mask. I thanked the Moon every day for the shadow-weaving that allowed me to pull threads of light and color and darkness from the world, and change or enhance my appearance. At sixteen, I was the most celebrated dancer in this quarter of the Perfumed District.

I had barely earned a third of the money required to buy my freedom.

Minamoto-sama is not so bad
, I told myself. So his skeletal hands touched me as awkwardly as a child prodding at a dead toad with a stick, and his breath stank of fermented beans. I had endured worse. Much worse. What did it matter?

I made sure that my shadow-woven face — enhancing my beauty and concealing every hint of disgust — was firmly in place, and turned to him. Braced myself to endure his kisses, endure whatever else needed to be endured. . . .

Then he spoke again, his breath slithering into my ear like a moist slug plucked from a swamp leaf: “You are more beautiful than any woman, Kano-san.”

Not a ripple showed on my face. Inside, I flinched as if he had thrust a dagger into the soft, vulnerable heart of me.

I hated him for it — hated myself for it. He did not know me. Why should I let his words hurt me? But just for a moment, in that piercing pain, I wanted to scream at him. To command him from my presence. To tell him that I was a woman like any other, with a woman's heart and a woman's soul that could not be bought, for any price.

And I knew that I could not, would not, let him lay those hands on me that night.

Stall. Put him off. Just for now. Just for tonight . . .

Slowly, subtly, I dragged radiance into the threads of my mask. I met Lord Minamoto's eyes, watched as awe, blank adoration, and something that trembled on the very edge of fear dawned across his face. My beauty was fierce. Unearthly. Inhuman.

I whispered, “Let me dance at the Shadow Ball, my lord. Let me dance for the Moon Prince. Then I shall be yours.”

An impossible request. I had wanted only to disconcert him, buy myself a reprieve. Someone like me would never be invited to dance for the Moon Prince.

Or so I thought.

They'll kill me. What have I done? What have I
done
?

I held myself motionless as I knelt on the edge of the tatami mat behind the stage at the Moon Palace. My posture was perfect, my hands clasped tightly together. Only I would know that my skin quivered and my hands trembled as my eyes passed, unseeing, over the seething, colorful mass of other dancers that swirled around me.

The finest performers from all over Tsuki no Hikari no Kuni, the Moonlit Lands. They would perform before royalty tonight, before the nation's richest and most influential noblemen, at the Kage no Iwai, the Shadow Ball. Tonight, Tsuki no Ouji-sama, the Moon Prince, divine ruler of the Moonlit Lands, would choose his Shadow Bride.

The bride was selected by the prince himself, from all the unmarried noble young women of his nation, for no other reason than her outstanding beauty. She was considered a gift from the country to its ruler — a lovely, gently bred virgin, offered up to be the Moon Prince's lover, to bring him joy and delight. A sacrifice. For although Shadow Brides seldom stayed with the Moon Prince for more than a year, they could never afterward have another lover or marry. In times past, when the Moon Princess had failed to provide the country with an heir, the son of a Shadow Bride had sometimes been named prince, or their daughters married to a suitable royal candidate who ruled through them. No possible confusion could be allowed to taint the birth of a potential future ruler.

The Shadow Bride was second only to the prince's wife, the Moon Princess, in rank, and her family gained enormous political influence from her position, which meant that the future of the whole country was affected by Tsuki no Ouji-sama's choice. The Shadow Ball was the most public and important of all our country's official events.

And now I was to dance at it. To entertain the prince and his princess, and all those untouched, virginal, noble young candidates for the place of Shadow Bride who laughed and smiled and mingled in the palace beyond the stage curtain.

I. Kano Akira. Daughter of a common tile-maker and a laundress. One of innumerable undistinguished children, sold like a sack of firewood, and made to dance before the baying crowd at just twelve.

What am I doing here?

A small hand came to rest on the vivid scarlet silk of my sleeve. I started violently, holding my shadow-woven mask — the illusion of my own face, fixed into an expression of perfect serenity — in place with an effort.

There was a girl kneeling politely at my side. She was young, no older than fourteen, and her face was pretty but unremarkable. Nevertheless, I recognized her, and the fact sent a jagged claw of terror scraping through my insides.
Does she know who I am? Will she expose me?

“You are Yoshi-san. I have seen you dance,” I said, hoping that my voice sounded as falsely composed as my face. “You are very accomplished.”

“I have seen you dance also.” She removed her hand from my kimono and bowed deeply, her forehead almost touching the floor. I stared in surprise.
What in the world?

“You are Kano Akira-sama,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “The owner of my Okiya takes her most promising dancers to your theater to watch you dance, so that we might learn from you. I hope one day to have a tenth of your skill.”

“My dear . . .” I said hurriedly, my eyes darting to the other dancers and their owners clustered around us. Was I imagining things, or did some of them watch me from the corners of their eyes? “I am honored by your regard, but please —”

She sat up, the movement quick and graceful. “I just wished to know how it was that you came to be here. Surely you cannot mean to dance?”

I swallowed — my throat clicked drily — and nodded.

“Why?” She breathed. “It is forbidden! If the Moon Princess, or anyone, were to guess —”

“My patron . . . My patron sent me here.”

Her eyes widened with dismay and disbelief before she bowed her head.

“He is a fool,” I said grimly.
I am a fool.
“But not a complete fool. I am to dance anonymously. He thinks that no one will find out . . . who I am. What I am.”

“We will not betray you,” Yoshi-san said fervently. “None of us. I promise it.”

“Thank you.” Impulsively I leaned forward and pressed my papery-dry lips to Yoshi-san's forehead in the traditional kiss of good luck. Her skin was salty and damp. She gasped with surprise, her eyes searching my face. Then she smiled.

“Good fortune always, Kano-sama,” she whispered. She rose gracefully to her feet and fluttered away.

Time spilled past. Other dancers came and went, sweeping around me in tides of perfume and silk. Their music, played with exquisite skill by the royal musicians, drifted back through the curtains that hid the stage like ragged mist. Sometimes I sat, trying to school my nerves to silence. Sometimes I walked, stretched, warming my tense muscles.

At last, when each dancer had taken her turn, the deep brass voice of the gong rang out once more beyond the curtains. The other girls, sweating and untidy and in varying states of undress, froze, their eyes turning to me as silence fell. A voice cried, “Lord Minamoto's Gift!”

I forced my shoulders back, lifted my chin, and moved unhurriedly up the steps to the edge of the curtains. Whispers of good fortune, half-completed blessings, fleeting touches on my back and arms, propelled me forward on legs that shook like the last leaves in an autumn gale.

I stepped through the curtains onto the small stage.

And froze.

I did not hear the court musicians begin the piece of music to which I was to dance. I barely noticed the hundreds upon hundreds of faces — every wealthy and influential nobleman and -woman in the Moonlit Lands — that turned expectantly in my direction, or their carefully schooled expressions of weariness and apathy. All I saw was the throne, placed directly before the stage. The towering black throne with its gleaming silver moon crest. Tsuki no Ouji-sama's throne.

It was empty.

On the left, a slight, nondescript person stood to attention. A guard, a servant, perhaps an adviser. On the right there was another, smaller throne. A woman sat here, clothed severely and expensively in black. My eyes could not rest upon her long, for this was — could only be — the Moon Princess. Famed for her stringent morals and her vicious jealousy over her husband.

But of the Moon Prince himself, there was no sign.

Fury and despair broke loose within me and surged up with a roar, filling my body with fire. I, Kano Akira, the greatest dancer the Moonlit Lands had ever seen, risked my own life to dance before my ruler. And he could not even be bothered to watch.

My music swelled: the high, plaintive cry of the flute, the low melancholy murmur of the stringed
biwa.
Only one thought remained in my head.

If this is to be my last dance, by the Moon, I will make him regret missing it.

Later, I remember little of that performance. The music and my own rage buoyed me until I felt as if my limbs were wings. I did not dance on a stage but moved, weightless, through the air itself. My shadow-weaving billowed around me like storm clouds fleeing the wind. I flew.