Chapter Twenty-Two Lee #3
Lee hadn’t realized until that moment how fragile his entire life was. One wrong word, and he would lose Hina, his father,
his freedom. He was standing in the middle of a frozen pond and it was cracking under his feet.
“Thank you, Hina,” he said carefully, “but I’m fine. Really.”
Hina hummed. She didn’t believe him, but it didn’t matter. He was doing her a favor.
He took his tea to his room and sat on his futon, staring out the Sometimes Window rather than looking deeper into his own
mind. He could hear Hina’s heartbeat in the kitchen and his father’s heartbeat in his study, but they felt a thousand miles
away. Lee was alone in the house.
The tea went cold in his hands, and the shadows shifted as the sun moved across the sky. He lay in bed reading until light
finally bloomed behind the closet door. Lee stared at Sen’s silhouette, the soft folds of her robes, the edge of her sword,
the way her hair shifted as she tilted her head to the side. He could hear her heartbeat too, in sync with his.
In two days, she would die. He imagined her shadow fading until there was nothing but darkness behind the door—the only door
that he’d ever wanted to remain open. He rose to his feet and opened it.
Sen pushed through, slamming the door behind her. Lee stumbled back and fell onto his futon, feeling impossibly small under
Sen’s looming shadow. She crouched over him and caged him with her arms on either side of his head, her dark eyes blazing.
Lee remained still and limp beneath her.
“You said you think death is like an ocean,” she said, her words bright and breathless. “I’m under the water and you’re above it, and we’re reaching for each other, meeting in the middle.”
“I... Yes,” Lee stuttered. “But—”
“So, could you take my hand and pull me out?” Sen said.
Her arms trembled, a soft glint of fear in her eyes as she held her breath and awaited his answer.
What happened while you were gone? Lee thought. Perhaps Sen had panicked as she drew closer to the day of her death. She had never before seemed so unraveled.
“What do you mean?” Lee asked.
Sen let out a sound of frustration, biting her lip and hanging her head. Her soft hair brushed across Lee’s face. “Do you
think the past can be changed?” she asked, the words so quiet and fragile that a soft wind could have torn them apart.
Lee wanted to lie to Sen, to tell her whatever would calm her enough to continue helping him. But now, with her heartbeat
so close to his and the fragile look in her eyes, he couldn’t find the words.
“I don’t know,” Lee said at last. “But if you want any chance at all, you need to leave Chiran.”
Sen huffed out a stiff breath. “I told you, I can’t leave my father,” she said. “I need to stay and fight. Couldn’t you help
me with that?”
“ Me? ” Lee said. He tried to sit up, but Sen wouldn’t move, her glare pinning him to the futon.
“Couldn’t you find me other kinds of weapons?” she said, leaning closer. Without the curtain of her hair blocking the moonlight,
her eyes looked like an endless abyss. “The imperial soldiers will have guns, so it’s only fair.”
Lee shook his head. “Sen, I can’t get guns in Japan. I don’t even know how to get them in America.”
“ Your people brought them to Japan ,” Sen said. She leaned so close that Lee could taste her anger, could feel the feverish heat in her face, the frantic beating of her heart. “You can use weapons against us, but not for us?”
Lee had never feared Sen before that moment because he’d thought he understood her. He had something she needed, so she wouldn’t
harm him—it was that simple. But now Sen had become desperate, and desperation made people unpredictable.
“Sen, I would if I could, but they don’t give guns to foreign tourists in Japan,” Lee said.
Sen gritted her teeth, and for a moment, Lee was certain she was going to kill him. He had never seen such blazing anger in
her eyes—in anyone’s eyes—before. Even when he’d killed James, he hadn’t seen such hatred, because James’s eyes had popped
out of his skull rather quickly.
But then Sen’s gaze snapped to the left—toward the hallway—and she jumped to her feet, startled by whatever she saw. She turned
toward the closet as if she meant to return home, but hesitated at the sight of shifting shadows and muted voices on the other
side.
“I have to hide,” she said as she turned around, her gaze darting around the room as if cataloging her options. But there
was no furniture in Lee’s room, nothing Sen could hide behind.
Sen’s gaze landed on his empty suitcase, which he’d just finished unpacking, and she rushed toward it.
“No, don’t—” Lee said, but Sen had already pulled the lid shut on top of herself.
Get out , Lee wanted to scream. That’s a sacred space. He felt nauseous just looking at the suitcase. He remembered the dead sea turtle rotting inside. Let me out, Lee. He gripped his hair, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. The world was white sand beneath his feet, ready to swallow him.
The door to Lee’s room slid open.
Hina stood halfway in the doorframe, one hand tucked behind her back.
“Hina?” Lee said, frowning. Why would Sen be afraid of Hina? Sen had drawn her sword at the sound of his father approaching,
but cowered away from Hina, who was half his height?
“I thought I heard something,” Hina said evenly. “Are you all right?”
Lee did his best to relax his shoulders, to pretend the suitcase in the corner didn’t exist. If he paid too much attention
to it, Hina would get suspicious. “I’m fine,” he said as calmly as he could.
“Are you sure?” Hina said. Lee held his breath as Hina’s gaze lingered on the suitcase.
“Yes,” he said quickly. “Don’t worry, Hina.”
Hina’s gaze settled on his face, and Lee gritted his teeth against the sudden thought that Hina knew everything, could see
every single one of his lies written across his face.
“All right,” she said at last. Lee let out a breath as she turned around.
Just before she closed the door behind her, the bright hallway lights glinted off something in Hina’s left hand, tucked behind
her back. For a moment, it looked like she was clutching a ball of sunlight. But then the light shifted as she moved the object
in front of her, and Lee caught a glimpse of a cooking knife, immaculately sharp.
As the sound of Hina’s footsteps faded, a strange coldness bloomed in Lee’s bones. Hina had always felt safe and warm, but
in the last few days, she’d become another puzzle piece that wouldn’t fit.
Once he was sure Hina was gone, he knelt in front of the suitcase.
His numb hands ghosted over the lid but didn’t dare open it, too afraid of what he would find.
He imagined lifting the lid and finding a suitcase full of bones.
Or maybe he would find Sen’s rotting corpse, just like the dead turtle—skin pale and stiff, gray and unseeing eyes rolled back.
Sen never should have climbed inside. She might as well have thrown herself into the mouth of a beast.
But then the suitcase shifted and the lid popped open.
Lee scrambled back as Sen emerged from the suitcase, her hair askew.
“ Get out of there ,” Lee said, gripping Sen’s arm over her sleeve and all but hauling her out. “Why would you do that?” he said. “Wh-why would
you hide in there?”
But Sen must have misunderstood his question, because she glanced warily at the hallway, where Hina had departed. “There’s
something wrong with Hina,” she said.
Lee wanted to defend Hina, to say that Sen was the ghost, the one who wasn’t right. But after seeing how coldly Hina had spoken
to Sen, and now the knife behind her back, Lee didn’t know what to think.
“Her energy is strange,” Sen continued. “It felt like a forest fire was tearing down the hallway, but it had eyes and was
coming only for me.”
Hina wouldn’t hurt you , Lee wanted to say. But now he wasn’t so sure. Hina had said she knew he was keeping a secret—maybe she thought it had something
to do with Sen. She probably didn’t know Sen was a ghost, but she clearly thought Sen was a threat.
Lee felt as though all the fragile threads of his life were pulled taut, threatening to snap. He was supposed to know exactly
what everyone was thinking, how to pluck their delicate strings like a harpist. But he could no longer read Hina, his father,
or even Sen.
“ Forget about Hina! ” Lee said. His words were too harsh, but he no longer cared.
Let Sen see the real Lee Turner, the one who’d fed James Baldridge to the darkness.
Lee was alone no matter what he did, so there was no use pretending to be anything but this dark, ugly thing.
“You don’t get to come here making demands of me when you haven’t held up your end of our deal,” he said.
“You didn’t even show up this morning. I’ve given you information and you’ve given me nothing. You...”
He trailed off, because Sen wasn’t even listening to him. It was obvious from the way she was staring transfixed at his chest,
as if seeing straight through him.
“ Sen! ” Lee said.
Sen blinked hard, tearing her gaze from his chest and meeting his eyes. “I intend to help you,” she said, though her voice
sounded far away. “I never lied to you, I just—”
“Just what ?” Lee said, taking a challenging step forward.
Once more, Sen’s gaze drifted to his chest before she blinked quickly and looked away.
“What is it?” Lee said, clenching his fists. Sen had come in here and cornered him, climbed into his suitcase, and now, worst
of all, she was keeping secrets. If she made him, he would shove his arm down her throat and wrench every secret up from deep
inside her.
“ What is it? ” Lee said, the last time he would ask kindly.
Sen grimaced. “It’s just... You have a stain on your shirt.”
Lee felt as if he’d been doused in kerosene and lit aflame, his whole body alight with terror. He followed Sen’s gaze, but
he couldn’t see any stain in the dim light.
He tore off his shirt and cast it to the floor. The sword ferns shifted restlessly beyond the windows, jagged shadows cutting
through the moonlight, shifting like they were at the bottom of a dark sea, rocked by the waves. Lee fell to his knees and
slammed his shirt into the shivering prism of light that the window had cast on the floor. He scrutinized every inch of his
shirt for stains, his frantic fingers pinching the fabric, feeling for errant textures.
Sen knelt beside him, her hands clawing into the tatami mats as she watched intently. “There,” she said, pointing to the neckline.
And there it was—a small spot on the right side of his collar, dark brown, nearly a perfect oval. Lee raised the shirt to
his nose and inhaled.
Soy sauce.
That’s right, Hina was cooking with soy sauce when I walked by , Lee thought. The fear fell away like dead skin once the stain had a name, a reason, a story.
A breeze sighed through the window and his skin prickled with goose bumps. He was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that
he was shirtless, that Sen was sitting so close he could hear her heartbeat, that she was staring at him. For a moment, he
saw himself through Sen’s eyes—so thin that his skin wrapped tight around his ribs, his chest ghostly white, his stomach soft.
He was one of the tiny white bugs that devoured rotting driftwood the sea gave back, small and ugly.
He moved to put his shirt back on, but hesitated at the sight of the stain. Even though he knew what it was, the whole shirt
felt tainted now.
“I don’t like stains either,” Sen said quietly. “They’re like...”
“Like ghosts,” Lee said before he could help it.
“Yes,” Sen said, as if Lee made perfect sense. The moonlight gleamed in her dark eyes, twin moons in each pupil. “They’re
reminders of the past.”
“But a past no one wants to remember,” Lee said.
“ Yes ,” Sen said breathlessly. “They’re scars that our mistakes leave behind.”
Lee nodded vigorously. He could no longer feel the cold breeze on his bare arms, could no longer feel that he had a body at
all. He felt stripped down to his soul, fragile as a forgotten song carried by the wind. Only Sen could hear him.
“Your heartbeat is so loud,” she said—her words quiet, so as not to drown him.
“Mine?” Lee whispered. “All I can hear is yours.”
Sen shook her head. She drew closer, pulling her hair behind one ear. She brought her ear close to his chest, careful not
to touch.
“It’s like a bird is trapped inside, trying to break free,” she said.
Lee swallowed, unable to move with her so close. Slowly, she reached a hand out. “Maybe this is where your mother is,” she
said.
Before Lee could ask what she meant, her hand was moving toward the center of his chest. He held his breath, anticipating
the coldness of her touch over his fluttering heart.
But her hand plunged into his chest like his rib cage was made of quicksand, her whole forearm disappearing as she leaned
deeper and deeper into him, her lips a breath away.
“Sen,” he whispered as the world dissolved.