Chapter Eleven Sen
Sen’s father was lost in the woods.
He had gone out that morning before sunrise. Now the sun was setting, Sen’s mother was calling everyone back for dinner, and
her father still had not returned.
Sen stood at the edge of the forest and listened for his footsteps over dead leaves; his breaths, which were growing deeper
and more labored as he aged; the shifting leaves of the branches that he brushed out of his way. But no sound came, and the
forest held its breath.
Where have you gone? Sen thought as the leaves shivered around her. She imagined the forest eating her father, vines winding down his throat and
ears, roots shackling his wrists and ankles, dragging him into wet dirt. She opened her mouth to call for him, but thought
better of it. The person in the forest was not her father, and she did not know this creature’s name.
Instead, she turned her face to the white sky, which was slowly deepening into auburn. There was not even a hint of smoke
in the air.
Of course the demon had lied to her. Sen was embarrassed that she’d even wondered if his words were true. All he had done was remind her that she was weak.
Something flashed in the corner of Sen’s vision. She whipped her head around and caught the tail end of a flashing light,
the same as the other night. It wasn’t yet dark, so it couldn’t be the bullfrogs. The light flashed again, and Sen grew more
and more certain that it must have been a spyglass catching the harsh edge of the setting sun. Someone was watching her family.
Footsteps crunched through the forest. Sen turned to the right, where the trees began to shake.
And there was her father, drenched in red.
At first, Sen thought he was wearing scarlet gloves. But then the smell of salt reached her, and she realized that her father’s
hands were glossy, dribbling a crimson trail behind him. A streak of red marred his face near his mouth, a single sharp line.
“Are you hurt?” Sen asked, rushing forward.
Her father shook his head. “It’s fox blood. I wounded one, but it escaped before I could properly kill it.”
Sen glanced out at the silent forest. There were no foxes there, of that she was certain. She knew the sound of fox footsteps
over dirt, and there hadn’t been any for days. The forest was vacant.
She could taste her father’s disappointment, so she said nothing. Her brother had been hoping for meat tonight, but it looked
like there would be nothing but rice and grains again.
They walked in silence back to the house, where Youna was waiting in the open doorway. Sen’s father pushed past her with a
bloody hand.
Sen toed off her shoes and followed close behind. Servants were arranging half-empty dishes on the table while her mother
held the baby. As soon as her father stepped into the room, her mother drew back. “Why did you not wash at the river?” she
said.
Sen’s father ignored her and sat down so heavily that all the dishes rattled. Sen sat on her cushion beside Seijiro, glancing at the murky gray porridge sprinkled with herbs that Sen didn’t recognize.
Her father picked up his spoon and bowl with a bloody hand and began to eat without giving thanks for the meal.
Sen made uneasy eye contact with her mother, whose expression carved into a deep frown. “You didn’t bring back any meat for
us either?”
“Okaasama,” Sen whispered, for she sensed the dangerous edge to her father’s spirit. His shadow stretched taller along the
wall behind him, swelling until it was nearly twice her mother’s height.
“You have no job,” her mother said, clutching Kotaro tight to her chest. “You spend all day in that forest, and you can’t even bring food for us ?”
A dangerous silence fell over the table. Sen knew it was the hunger talking—her mother’s eyes were bloodshot, her lips chapped.
But still, she had made a dangerous error.
Sen tried to stay as still as possible, as if she could wither away from her father’s anger. Seijiro scooted closer to her
as their father set down his spoon and bowl, turning slowly to his wife.
“I have no job?” he said quietly. “Then tell me, whose savings pay for the servants that help you make this sludge that you call a meal to serve me ?”
Sen’s mother winced, clutching the baby to her chest.
“Who protects this house from the men who would have you killed?” her father continued, rising to his feet. Seijiro’s grip
tightened around Sen’s arm.
“Who keeps your children safe?” he said. “Who made you the wife of a samurai when your father was nothing but a shit shoveler?”
“I’m sorry,” Sen’s mother said, bowing as best she could with the baby in her arms.
Sen’s father scoffed, his shadow swelling up past the wall and spilling onto the ceiling. “Unlike you, I don’t have servants helping me do my job,” he said. “Why don’t you provide food for this family, since you seem to think you’re the head of house?”
Sen’s mother was crying now, tears dripping down the top of the baby’s head as she mumbled a string of apologies.
“Sen,” her father said.
Sen jolted at the sound of her name. What had she done wrong?
“Go get my kaiken,” her father said.
Sen knew better than to keep her father waiting when he was like this. She hurried off to his room and snatched his short
dagger from his shelf. When she returned to the kitchen, her mother was hugging herself and sobbing, while her father was
holding the baby.
Sen clutched the kaiken in both hands, her gaze shifting uneasily to Kotaro. Surely her father wouldn’t hurt his own infant
son, would he?
“Sen,” her father said evenly, “I want you to help your mother prepare the meat for dinner.”
Sen’s mother let out a sob and hugged herself tighter. Even Seijiro was crying, huddled back against the wall. Kotaro was
the only one who seemed unfazed, staring at Sen with wide eyes.
“How, Chichiue?” Sen said quietly.
Her father looked down at her mother, who extended a trembling hand to the table. She pressed her palm down and carefully
spread her fingers out.
“Your mother is going to provide for this family, since she thinks I’m not doing a good enough job,” he said.
Sen stayed perfectly still and silent, terrified of saying a single wrong word and unleashing her father’s wrath on her instead
of her mother.
“And you,” her father went on, “will show your brothers how clean your strikes are.”
Sen’s fingers clenched reflexively around the kaiken case. Even now, as her mother sobbed, her father’s compliment warmed
her. He thinks my strikes are clean , Sen thought, traitorously.
“Onēsan, don’t!” Seijiro said, his face wet with snot and tears.
Her father picked up a bowl and hurled it at Seijiro’s head. He ducked just in time, and the bowl shattered against the wall,
splashing gray porridge everywhere. It crawled down the wall, leaving a dark stain. Kotaro started crying, reaching out for
his mother.
“Sen will obey me, because she is the only one of you who understands what it means to be a samurai,” her father said. Then
he turned to her, his eyes shadowed. “Isn’t that right, Sen?”
Sen swallowed, feeling as if she was standing on the precipice of a great canyon. The darkness in her father’s eyes called
to her like the mouth of an abyss, a cold breeze winding around her ankles and urging her to step forward and fall.
Before the rebellion, her father never would have harmed her mother—he knew she was a samurai only by marriage and not by
birth, and expected nothing of her but to give him heirs. He reserved his anger for his children, who he thought he could
mold into warriors.
But before the rebellion, he never would have trusted Sen with something like this. He’d always treated Sen as a child to
be disciplined, not as his sword arm. But now she was an extension of him, a keen blade that would not fail.
Her mother had never cared for her anyway. But her father still might.
Sen unsheathed the kaiken.
“How many fingers?” she said. The words felt like ice as they left her mouth. She could hear nothing but her own heartbeat.
Her father grinned. The edges of his smile were sharp as the afternoon sun, and Sen basked in their warmth. I will not fail you , she thought.
“What do you think, Sen?” he asked. “Three? One for each child she wants so badly to feed?”
Her mother whimpered, but the sound was very far away from Sen, who could only stare up at her father. She memorized the shape
of his smile, unsure when she would ever see it again. The rest of the world fell away, and she was on a dark island in this
one precious moment when her father’s anger was directed at someone else, when Sen was perfect for him.
“Two,” Sen said, “or she won’t be able to hold the baby. It would make more work for the servants.”
“True,” her father said, nodding in approval. “Go on, then, Sen. Show your brothers how a samurai strikes.”
Sen glanced at Seijiro, but he hadn’t risen from the floor after their father threw the bowl. He was still curled up with
his face on the ground, sobbing. Kotaro had gone limp in their father’s arms, crying and gnawing on his robes. At last, Sen
turned to her mother.
Her mother flinched at Sen’s gaze, like Sen was a burning star too bright to look at. It was the same way she looked at Sen’s
father.
Sen smiled.
As her father loomed behind her, she gripped the kaiken in one hand.
“Don’t move, or you’ll lose more than two,” Sen said. Then she raised the dagger over her head and struck down.
After dinner, Sen polished her father’s kaiken while the servants wiped up the blood.
The room smelled of salt, and the table had a dark tinge that wouldn’t wash away.
The blood had splashed much farther than Sen had expected, all over Sen’s shirt, the back of Kotaro’s head, even the wall by the kitchen door.
Sen had watched the blood track down—a dark, narrow line, as if red wine had splashed and then dripped down, or perhaps a thin finger had smeared it like a tally mark.
Sen’s mother had hidden away in a spare room with her brothers, but there was no need. Sen had pleased her father, and his
anger had evaporated. Don’t you see that I kept you safe? Sen wanted to scream. I did this for you, because no one but me can be what Father needs.
The whole house was hiding from her, but Sen felt full of sunlight. She sat on the porch and waited for her father to return
from the forest once more so she could present him with his clean kaiken. Let the others fear her as they feared her father.
“My lady.”
Sen jolted and spun around. Youna was standing in the doorway with a rag and a bowl of water. She knelt beside Sen and took
her hand, then began to clean her fingers, which were still stained with her mother’s blood. She paid careful attention to
the creases in each knuckle, each nail, each torn cuticle. Sen’s own mother had never washed her so carefully.
“Why aren’t you hiding with the rest of them?” Sen said when Youna finished cleaning her left hand.
“Do you wish me to hide, my lady?” Youna said, rubbing her warm washcloth up Sen’s wrist.
“I don’t care what you do,” Sen said stiffly, “or what any of them do.”
Youna paused in her washing, meeting Sen’s gaze for a fleeting moment, then turned her hand over and washed her palm. She
finished cleaning her hands, then folded up the cloth. “You should go inside, my lady,” she said. “The mosquitos will come
out soon.”
“I await my father’s return,” Sen said.
“And your father awaits no one,” Youna said.
Sen tensed, turning the dangerous edge of her glare on Youna. “What do you mean by that?”
Youna rose to her feet, her dark shadow falling over Sen. “The Lord Iwasaki lives alone,” she said. “His house has no doors.
You are better off staying in this house than seeking him.”
Sen stared at Youna, her skin feeling tight and dry where Youna had washed it.
“You speak out of place,” Sen said at last.
“I beg your pardon, my lady,” Youna said, bowing and returning to the house.
Sen let out a breath, leaning back and glaring at the forest. Her father would be pleased when he returned and saw her still
awake, still waiting for him.
She startled at the sound of small footsteps to her left and unsheathed the dagger.
But it was only a hare darting down the main path, scurrying under her porch. It was the first animal Sen had seen on the
property in days. She knelt down on the ground and watched it burrow into the dirt.
What are you running from? she thought.
But when she turned to the sky, she got her answer.
In the distance, toward the town center, the sky swirled with thick, black smoke.