Sen grew used to hunger, held it tight in her stomach.We suffer but we endure, her father said again and again and again. Every night, he went out hunting, and Sen knew that if not thisnight, then the next, he would return with food for them all. Sen trusted him, for she did not yet believe in endings.
Back then, Sen had a little sister.
Her name was Kura, and she was born the year before Seijiro. Sen used to cut sugarcane for Kura and show her how to draw out the juice into her mouth and spit out the chewy fibers. Kura always asked Sen for sugarcane, to the point that Sen’s name becameSato, for “sugar.” Seijiro was her mother’s baby, but Sen thought of Kura as hers.
But there was no sugarcane that year, and no matter how often Kura’s pitiful voice called outSatoSatoSato, Sen could do nothing at all.
As always, their father found a way to save them.
There was no grand announcement, no explanation of his reasoning, no word at all. The next night at dinner, there was no bowl set out for Kura.
When Kura turned to her mother, she avoided Kura’s gaze. Kura turned to their father, who only told her it was not a mistake. Sen tried to share her food with Kura, but her father struck her across the face and told her to eat what she was given.
As she got older, Sen began to understand—her father had wanted the best chance at most of them surviving, so he’d prioritized the children who could be the most useful to him. Seijiro was a boy, and Sen was the oldest, so they could hunt and scavenge and hold swords, albeit clumsily. But Kura was still too young to be helpful, and she was only a daughter anyway. She was weak, and their father despised weakness.
Kura cried all night, so their father shut her in a closet, where her cries were muffled but still kept Sen awake.
In the morning, Sen walked out to the field to dig for berries, or leaves, or anything her sister could eat. Even tree bark could sate hunger. But the bark crumbled in her hands, for death hadravaged the land. No matter how long she searched, the barren land offered her nothing.
It was Sen’s job to dig Kura’s grave.
Her mother cried a bit but stayed far away. The land was so desolate that there weren’t even flowers to place as decorations. Death begot death.
“I’m sorry,” Sen whispered to the parched dirt, to her sister’s bones. Sorry for not being able to find enough food, sorry for failing her sister, and sorry for the small part of her that was grateful her father had chosen Kura and not her.
Now, in the house behind the sword ferns, Sen stomped over red spider lilies and belladonna blossoms, branches breaking like bones beneath her as she followed the path of the river. She wondered how far the silence stretched, how far she could walk toward the horizon before the forest woke up.
She had never ventured this far before, afraid of being seen by someone from the village. But now, it was dark, and her father was in the house, and there was no one to stop her from walking deeper and deeper into the night.
After a few minutes, the trees thinned and she spotted a clearing. She hurried toward it, brushing aside the prickly leaves of sword ferns. She stepped into the clearing and gazed across the garden at...
... her house.
Sen frowned. She looked over her shoulder, then back at the house behind the sword ferns. Her footsteps were still fresh in the wet dirt from when she’d first headed into the forest. Somehow, she’d gotten turned around and circled back home.
But Sen was always aware of her movement beneath the stars. She knew how to find north even in murky darkness. She recognized the giant boulder that her brothers climbed, the low-hanging branch with the crooked arm, the thicket of pokeweedberries the color of night. She knew the forest perfectly, and yet she had somehow ended up back where she started.
She stood in the clearing and glared at the window where the white man had appeared, but it was only a small square of darkness.
I need to clear my head, Sen thought, heading back to the house. She hadn’t meditated enough that morning, and this was the consequence. Her mind was stuffed full of silk and smoke.
She entered the house, locked the door behind her, then headed to her room. Her steps roused servants from their futons in the hallway, but she waved them away, stepping carefully around them until she reached her room at the back. She cleaned her blade, untied her hair, then changed into her sleeping kimono. It was just as cheap and stiff as her training dogi, but her father insisted that samurai needed different clothes for sleeping, for she couldn’t wrinkle her day clothes at night.
She had just lain down to rest when a shadow moved across the paper door.
That in and of itself wouldn’t have been a problem—her brothers were restless and often wandered around at night.
But the shadow came from behind the door to her closet, the door with only cement behind it.
Now a pale light burned behind it, outlining the silhouette of a figure cast in deep gray. They turned their head to the side, and as the light flickered, Sen caught a glimpse of curly hair.
The man in the window, she thought, seizing her katana.
The ghost was here to torment her, but he would have to try harder. Samurai only struck once.
She primed one hand on the handle of her short katana and took a steadying breath.
Chapter Six
