Chapter Nineteen Sen
Sen’s father told her to save the head. It would be a present for Lord Shimazu, on the day he rose again.
She’d cut down many bamboo stalks and imagined they were the throats of her enemies, but bamboo did not have eyes that stared
back at her in accusation, or gray lips that gasped for air that wouldn’t come, or sweaty hair that clumped up with blood.
She held the severed head of the spy up by its hair, and even though breath no longer whistled through his ruined windpipe,
his eyes seemed to track her.
Can he still see me? Sen wondered as she stood in the forest before the grave she’d dug. Can he still think and cry and suffer? Decapitation was supposed to be a swift end, but no one would truly know if that was a lie, for the dead couldn’t talk.
Well, except for Sen.
She held the head up to the moon, and as white light spilled across the slack face, a strange surge of energy rushed through
her.
I did this , she thought. I cut this man down as easily as the bamboo saplings, and now I’m holding his head in my hand . The concept seemed as natural as the moon rising each night, like she had been destined to stand here in this moment—victor,
conqueror, warrior.
The wind rose to a mournful high pitch as it swirled around her, blowing the dead man’s hair around his face.
Sen needed to hurry and clean up so she could return to Lee, but she couldn’t seem to unclamp her hand from the dead man’s hair.
More of it blew in front of his face, whispering across his lips, and in the shifting moonlight, Sen swore his mouth moved.
Sen thought of the bodies of hares that twitched even when cut to pieces. Humans were only animals, so surely they were no
different. She raised the head closer to her face and tugged the hair back from its lips.
And then, clear as the unbroken stream of moonlight blaring across her face, the dead man’s head whispered to her.
No one leaves this house.
Sen gasped and dropped the head. It rolled onto its side and the eyes slid closed, bloody lips smearing with dirt and leaves
sticking to the cheeks. Her hand, which had been clenched tight and unmoving as a stone only moments ago, now trembled uncontrollably.
She took a steadying breath and wiped the sweat from her brow, then kicked the head for good measure.
She was a warrior, and the dead could not taunt her.
The head seemed to be done talking now, so Sen shoved the body into the pit. She’d spent the last hour digging a hole too
deep for any animals to unearth, even though she hadn’t seen a single animal in days. The last thing she wanted was a raccoon
digging up a severed hand and carrying it into town. So she’d dug through the soil that was wet and soft at first but quickly
gave way to dry, powdery earth and tiny stones. Her arms ached, but pushing herself to keep digging was easier than letting
her mind cloud up with other thoughts.
Like what the spy meant for her family, and what would happen next.
The government would notice this man’s disappearance.
Maybe Sen’s father was too enraged to consider this, but it was Sen’s first thought.
Soon, the imperial army would await a report, but none would come.
The army might send someone smarter, or they might save themselves time and send men with guns straight to their village.
It wasn’t a large village, and it wouldn’t take long to find them.
She dragged the man’s upper half into the grave. Ribbons of intestines trailed behind him, blackened from dirt. Perhaps Sen
had cut open his bowels, because something smelled awful, like he’d already begun to rot. She covered her nose with her sleeve
and looked up at the sky, wishing for the air to clear.
She pulled off the dead man’s shoes—maybe one of her brothers could wear them when they were older. Then she remembered that
her brothers would never get older. They would die when they were two and thirteen.
Maybe their bodies were only lost , Sen thought, even though the hope felt paper-thin. Maybe her mother and brothers had hidden, and the imperial soldiers had
marked them as dead, and that was why the koseki had listed their death dates.
But they would not have done the same for her father, and probably not for Sen. They had chased Iwasaki Itaro this far, and
they would end him.
As Sen shoveled the hard dirt over the body and the smell of wet earth slowly concealed the stench of death, a strange calmness
descended over her, as if she had buried her fears along with the corpse. She imagined being dead, melting into the dirt,
finally at peace. Are you proud of me, Chichiue ? she thought. I’m imagining death without fear.
At last, she patted down the earth with the back of her shovel, wiped the sweat from her forehead, and headed back to the
house.
She hoped Lee had waited for her return, or else her father would have killed him on sight. For a moment, she imagined the scene through his eyes, and she slowed to a stop. She saw herself—covered in dirt and blood, clutching a dripping, severed head in one hand.
She had grown up in the world of samurai, but Lee would not understand why she had killed the spy. He would fear her. He should fear her. She imagined the look of disgust on his face when he crawled out from under the porch and wished she could fold
up like a flower after sunset, hide inside herself.
She hung the head up on the west side of the porch, where Lee wouldn’t see it. Only then did she return to the yard and kneel
below the porch.
For a moment, she thought Lee was dead.
He lay still and pale in the darkness, covered in dried blood. His face had turned scarlet from it, his hair matted down from
its salt. But his chest rose and fell slowly, almost imperceptibly, like prey animals who pretended to be dead in the forest.
“It’s safe to come out now,” Sen said quietly.
Lee jolted at the sound of her voice, then slowly turned his head toward her. Against the mask of dried blood, his eyes looked
searingly green. He blinked slowly, as if just understanding her, then licked his lips.
Sen’s fingers clenched in the dirt. She thought of her own bloody reflection in the river, how she’d savored the taste of
blood on her lips. Then she moved back as Lee rolled onto his stomach and began to claw his way out.
Under the stark moonlight, Lee looked like he’d climbed his way up from the depths of hell. Surely he wanted to yell at Sen,
or run from her, but they couldn’t risk being heard so close to the house.
“You can wash off in the river,” Sen said, taking a step back to see if he would follow. “We can’t speak so close to the house,
or my father will hear.”
Lee looked down at the dirt, then up at her face as if searching for something. Sen took another step back, and this time he followed, walking unsteadily into the forest behind her.
Sen carefully carved a path around the grave she’d just dug, leading Lee to the river. She didn’t turn around as she walked,
too afraid of what she’d see in his eyes. She only listened for the sound of his footsteps to make sure she hadn’t left him
too far behind.
After a few minutes, the trees thinned out and they arrived at the river.
Lee brushed past her and sat down on the riverbank. He dipped his hands into the cool water and brought a handful to his face,
scrubbing at his eyes. He pulled his wet fingers through his hair, scoured his neck with his sleeve. Sen knew the river was
freezing this time of night, but Lee Turner didn’t shiver or break into goose bumps—he didn’t react at all. The water washed
away the remnants of her kill, leaving Lee’s skin rubbed pink and raw.
“That’s good enough,” he said at last, his voice strangely even. “I can shower when I get back. I just can’t look like a crime
scene in case my father sees me before I can make it to the bathroom.”
“Okay,” Sen said quietly, waiting for what would come next. They stood an awkward distance apart, the wind whistling through
the emptiness between them. Something had to have changed, now that he’d seen what Sen was capable of. But his eyes looked
the same as ever—darting across her as if cataloging her.
“How many people have you killed?” Lee said, as casually as if he’d asked her what she wanted for lunch.
Sen scowled. “I have only ever killed to keep my family safe,” she said.
Lee rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t an accusation. I’m trying to figure out why you’re the bridge.”
Sen grimaced, thinking back to Lee’s promise.
I’ve tried to reach out to the dead before, but so far, you’re the only one who’s been able to cross the threshold. I intend to find out why.
“This was the second person,” Sen said, speaking to the river rather than Lee.
He nodded as if that didn’t surprise him at all, then turned his gaze toward the moon.
“That makes sense,” he said airily, so quiet that Sen wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself. “Maybe the bridge between
life and death isn’t a bridge at all. Maybe it’s more like an ocean. You’re under the water, reaching for the surface, and
I’m on the shore, dipping my hand into the sea.”
“Why would you reach out for death?” Sen said, frowning.
Lee looked away, his expression stiff. “I mean that I’ve killed someone too.”
Sen took in Lee’s wiry frame, his stark eyes, his thin fingers. “You killed a... human?” she clarified, wondering if it
was a mistranslation.
Lee laughed, even though none of it was funny. “Yes, I killed a person,” he said. “A man.”
“On purpose?” Sen said, raising an eyebrow.
Lee swallowed, looking back to the sky as if considering. How can you not know? Sen wanted to ask, but the question seemed to trouble Lee.
“Yes,” he said at last, and this time he would not meet Sen’s gaze. It was the quietest word she had ever heard from him,
carried away on the dying wind.
Slowly, she sat down on a rock by the river. She set her sword in her lap, then pulled off her shoes and dipped her socked
feet in the water, letting the river wash the blood and dirt away. Lee watched her for a moment, then sat down beside her.
A careful distance remained between them, but Sen felt somehow that here, in this river, they were as close as they could
be without touching.
“You’re not going to ask why?” Lee said after a moment.
“Does it matter?” Sen said, shivering as the cold at her feet wormed its way into her bones.
“Some people would say it does.”
Sen turned to him then. In the darkness, his eyes looked like planets. “Some people who have never killed would say that it
matters,” she said, feeling as if Lee’s bright eyes were unmaking her, pulling the words from her throat. “I could tell you
many reasons why I killed that man, and maybe you would agree with some of them. But reasons are for people who want to forgive
themselves, and I do not. There is no reason that matters.”
Lee tilted his head, clenched his jaw as if closing his teeth around her words, tasting them. “I don’t want to forgive myself,”
he said after a moment. “I want to know myself.”
Sen dropped her gaze down to the river, where the cool water distorted the image of her feet. It seemed impossible for anyone
to truly know Lee Turner. He was more a phenomenon than a person, a scattering of stars that dimmed and spun with the seasons.
Even now, Sen couldn’t quite tell if she was looking at him or at fragmented light. Maybe that was why it was easier to talk
to him than anyone else, like her words were no more than a prayer whispered into wind that would carry them far away.
“The imperial army has many reasons to kill me,” Sen said. “Some would call them good reasons. But they don’t matter to me.”
“The imperial army?” Lee echoed.
Sen shrugged. “They’ve been searching for my father for a while now, and I’m sure they’ll find us soon. I know it’s how I
die. I’m sure you know it too.”
Lee’s lips parted, his gaze darting around her face for a moment. He closed his mouth, swallowed, turned away.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Did you tell your father that you need to leave Chiran?”
Sen let out a dry laugh. “He refuses,” she said, “so we will all die here.”
“Your father determines your fate?” Lee said, a bitter edge to his words.
“ Yes ,” Sen said. “You told me that in your world, you have no power at all. You might think it’s different for me, since I’m a
warrior, but it isn’t. I’m only the arrow that lodges in a tree, not the archer who aims it.”
“You could still leave,” Lee said, his voice rising. Sen didn’t understand why this , of all things, angered him. “You aren’t chained to this house.”
Sen shook her head. “The only thing worse than dying is leaving my father to die alone,” she said. “I won’t abandon him.”
At this, Lee fell quiet. She sensed that he wasn’t satisfied with her answer, that this sudden silence was more like the quiet
preceding a storm.
“But before I die,” she said, sitting up straight, “I have a promise I need to fulfill.”
Lee looked to her, brightness returning to his eyes. “Right,” he said. “I want to explore... whatever appeared when we
touched.”
Sen nodded. “We should return to your side of the house first. It’s safer.”
“All right,” Lee said, though he made no move to stand up. Perhaps he could also sense the strange peace that had descended
over the river, this cool silence in the clearing that felt like it belonged to neither of their worlds, but a separate third
world for only them. In that moment, as she sat beside Lee, death felt very far away, like it was no more than a bad dream.
“Let’s go,” Lee said at last, standing up and brushing off his pants.
They walked back to the house side by side, their wet footsteps sloshing in the mud.
Sen would have to hide the footprints later, but that was a problem for morning.
They returned to Sen’s room that would one day become Lee’s room, where a light burned from the other side of the closet door.
Sen waited for Lee to open it, but he had frozen in the doorway, his gaze fixed on the far wall.
The angle of the moonlight in the near-morning hours illuminated the far-left corner of her room, where she’d tossed her painting
supplies.
“What is that?” Lee said, pointing at the corner. His voice had sounded so quiet and earnest out in the forest, but now it
had jagged edges, too loud for this house where samurai were sleeping.
Sen followed his gaze to one of her recent paintings, the face of a woman she’d seen in her dream. She had wide moon eyes
and a long, haunted face.
“My paintings,” Sen said uneasily.
Lee shook his head, turning to her. “That’s my mother.”