Do you see? If we
Walk closely together, then
Our shadows are one
It wasn’t raining. In fact, the weather was warm and sunny. Alfie had his head on my thigh, and I shifted, trying to get comfortable. He moved reluctantly and gave a great, doggy sigh. When I ignored that, he raised his head and made a soft, questioning noise deep in his throat.
“Later, Alfie. I don’t feel like going for a walk just yet.”
The deerhound scrutinized me sorrowfully. I avoided his reproachful gaze. We would go for a walk. But not just yet. I was waiting for something. I had no idea what it was, but the foreknowledge of something about to happen had been with me from the moment I awoke. I smiled to myself and put my hands on my belly in great content. My baby had quickened a few weeks before, and now I took great delight in every movement, even the unexpected kicks that made me gasp. He—for I was sure it was going to be a man-child—was vigorous. Almost nothing could give me greater pleasure. Nothing, except to have Kazhua back in my life. But this time, I deliberately pushed the hope that my new baby was an omen, forecasting her return, away from my thoughts. Perhaps I was catching Callum’s superstition, but after the loss of my last baby I forced myself to wish for nothing but the birth of a healthy child.
Every day that I awoke was happiness. We were back in Glen Kyle, in the Highlands of Scotland. Home, at last. Although I could not forget the terrible time I had spent in the Palace of Pain, it was beginning to feel more like a nightmare than something that had actually happened.
As I had predicted, by the time Sergeant Lestrade got his men to Epping, it was as if Soames had never been there. His entire haul was a bunch of bewildered tarts and equipment that had him scratching his head as he tried to work out what it was used for. Lestrade assured us that Soames would be found and brought to justice. I doubted it. Poor Amy finally decided to take the money that Callum pressed on her. She would find her own shop, she said. Callum, bless him, had simply accepted her words and had discreetly left the room for us to say our goodbyes.
“You will be all right?” I asked foolishly.
“I think so,” Amy said very seriously. “I told you, I’m going to make myself a well-known and respected member of the community.” Her lips twisted briefly as she spoke the word “respected.” “And I intend to buy a very large dog. Not to sell in the shop, but for myself. I’m going to train him to be suspicious of anybody who looks at me the wrong way. He can sleep at the side of my bed. If Soames or any of his men try to get to me, they’re going to get a very nasty shock. I’ll be well protected, don’t you worry.”
She grinned and gave me a brief kiss before she walked away. She paused at the door and smiled at me.
“Take care yourself, Tomo,” she said, and then she was gone.
Today, for some reason, the memories were especially vivid. I shook my head, intent on flinging them away.
“Lady Kyle.”
Lost in my thoughts, I had not heard the door open. I smiled at Donald, Callum’s Estate Manager. Before we had gone to war in the Crimea, I had been sure that Donald not only disliked me, but that he also disapproved of Callum’s choice of wife. Perhaps I had been wrong, or perhaps it was the knowledge that Kyle was about to have an heir, but since our return from London, Donald had so far forgotten himself that he even smiled at me occasionally.
“Hello, Donald. What is it? Callum’s not here at the moment. Did you want him?”
“No.” Donald had forgotten to use my title. That was unheard of. I sat up, staring at him with interest. “It was you I wanted, ma’am. You have visitors. Would you like me to show them in?”
“Who is it?” I was intrigued. Normally, the maid would come and announce visitors, all of whom were known to our staff. Everybody in the house from the scullery maid to Donald himself had relatives working in other houses in Kyle. Everybody knew each other. What was so unusual about these visitors that Donald had chosen to ask if I wanted to see them? He stared at me, his mouth pursed like a button that had been sewn on to his face.
“The lady said she would prefer to introduce herself, ma’am.” Why, I wondered, was he staring at me so intently? I put my feet down from the sofa. Alfie seemed to have caught Donald’s uncertainty. He was wagging his tail and at the same time muttering, deep in his throat. I stilled him with my hand and nodded at Donald.
“I see,” I said, although I didn’t see at all. “Please, show them in, Donald.”
I knew her at once.
She walked toward me in front of a tall, handsome Japanese man. From his bearing and the rich subtlety of his robes, I guessed he was a nobleman. The thought flickered through my mind, Not Danjuro, then. Another Japanese woman stood respectfully at his side, with her eyes lowered politely. But I spared them all just the one glance. I had eyes for nobody except my daughter.
My Kazhua.
Oh, but she was so beautiful! She had Simon’s eyes, a true and lovely green. And I could see her father in her auburn hair and widow’s peak. But her skin tone was mine, and the way her cheekbones curved like a curlew’s wing. I put my hand to my throat, as if I could force out the words that lingered there.
Kazhua stared at me, and then slid to the floor with all the elegance of a piece of silk folding. She prostrated herself full length, so I could barely hear her voice.
“Anata ni oaidekite kouei desu, Terue-san.” I am honored to meet you, Terue-san.
I sank to my knees beside my daughter and raised her up. We stared at each other silently. Finally, I found my voice and my manners together and managed to croak,
“Meiyo wa watashi, musumedesu.” The honor is mine, daughter.
Her lovely lips trembled into a smile and I began to laugh and cry at the same time. I ran my fingertips over her face, hardly able to believe that this vision before me was flesh and blood.
“Mother?” she whispered. She spoke in English, and it was just one small shock on top of the greater one. I responded instinctively in English.
“Kazhua. Oh, Kazhua. My daughter. Every day since I had to leave you, I’ve dreamed of meeting you again. And now that you’re here, I can’t bring myself to believe it.”
We stared at each other, and then Kazhua put her arms around me and we embraced, both of us shuddering with tears. I had no idea how long we stayed locked together, but finally I heard Callum’s voice and his hands were helping me to my feet. I saw Kazhua glance at my thickening waist, and suddenly I was deeply embarrassed. Then I saw the joy in her eyes and my own happiness was complete and utter.
We sat together on the sofa, our arms wrapped around each other. Alfie, catching the mood, ran around the room barking loudly until Callum threatened to throw him out unless he shut up. Then he sat and wagged his plumed tail so briskly it scratched on the floor and made everybody laugh. I couldn’t take my gaze off Kazhua. How, I wondered, had I managed to live all this time without her at my side?
We had so much to say to each other, but first I had one question above all else to ask.
“Do you hate me, daughter? I would have given my life not to have left you behind, but it would have been useless. If I had stayed, all three of us—you, your father, and me—would have been put to death.”
“I know,” she said simply. “I got your letter, eventually. Not long before I escaped from the yakuza Akira and left for America with Danjuro.” I glanced at her male companion and raised my eyebrows in curiosity. Kazhua shook her head. “Mother, this is Lord Shimazu. He is my sponsor for the kabuki. And my friend.” Shimazu bowed to me courteously. Kazhua then bowed her head courteously at the woman who had not yet spoken. “This is Mineko. She was my younger sister in the Hidden House, and now she acts in the kabuki with me.”
Pride welled in my heart and tears came again. My daughter—just as I had—had broken with tradition. She and her friend both acted in the kabuki. I wondered if I would ever have the words to tell her how proud of her I was. Suddenly, I remembered my manners.
“Please, allow me to introduce my husband. Callum, Lord Kyle.”
Callum rose and bowed, very correctly. Equally formally he murmured his pleasure at our visitors’ presence. In perfect Japanese. I smiled at him proudly.
“This must all seem so strange to you, Kazhua,” I apologized. Kazhua laughed and shook her head and I stared at her in astonishment.
“Not at all. I know far more about you than you think. When I ran away from Edo with Danjuro, we ended up in America. I acted in the kabuki with him for a while, but we grew apart and went our separate ways.” She frowned and I raised my eyebrows at her. She met my eyes and I read the message there clearly. We would speak about all that later. “I first met Shimazu-san on board a ship, on our way to America. Then the red thread of our fates led us to each other again in America, just as I always knew that one day my red thread would find the mother I had lost. You were always in my thoughts.” She smiled at me. I saw her beautiful face through a haze of joyful tears. “We landed in San Francisco. A friend there helped me discover that a Japanese lady had arrived there with her American husband at about the time I was born. She gave me this, and I knew it was you and my father.” Kazhua held out a scrap of pasteboard to me. I shook my head in disbelief as I recognized it as the photograph Simon and I had had taken just before we left San Francisco. Or Yerba Buena, as it had been called then. My hand trembled as I handed it back to Kazhua. “My friend found out that you had both moved on to Virginia from San Francisco. Shimazu-chan went with me to Virginia, to High Grove Plantation. I hoped I would find you there. We didn’t find you, or my father, but we did find my uncle William.” Her face was suddenly full of wonder. “In the space of a minute, I went from having nobody to finding I had a family. He told us all about how my father had died, searching for me in Edo. That made me very sad, but also very proud. He also told me how Callum-san had helped free many slaves, and how you had helped him escape in the end. I knew then that I was proud of both my parents, and also my new father.”
“But how did you find us here? Scotland is a long way from Virginia.” I leaned forward in my eagerness to hear her words.
“William sent us to talk to Reverend Smallbone. He knew your history, Callum-san.”
Callum smiled and shook his head. “Callum is quite good enough, Kazhua,” he said.
She smiled back at him before she spoke again. “He told us that you had both escaped to Canada but that Callum’s home was here, in Scotland. He said that you talked to him often about how you missed Glen Kyle.”
“We went to Edo to find you,” I interrupted. Suddenly, it seemed very important that Kazhua should know that we had tried, and failed, to find her. “I think you couldn’t have been gone more than a few months, perhaps a year. We met Akira.” Kazhua shuddered. I nodded my understanding. “Eventually, we found out that you had escaped to America. I cursed all the gods when I thought that I had been there myself for so long. I couldn’t believe that fate had been so cruel to us.”
Kazhua looked at me with wonder in her eyes. “It’s worse than you know. I went back to Edo,” she said. “It must have been quite soon after you had left, but nobody told me that somebody had been searching for me. I had no idea.”
“I’m not surprised about that,” I explained. “We took great care to make sure nobody realized we were interested in you. We were worried it would awaken memories that were best left undisturbed, for all our sakes.”
We both shook our heads in disbelief at the ways our paths had crossed, but always a fraction too late.
“Akira’s dead,” Kazhua said. She nodded at Mineko. “He had taken poor Mineko as his concubine. She nearly died herself when rival yakuza set fire to his house. There was a terrible battle. He is dead,” she added, as if I had doubted it. “I saw him die.”
“Good,” I said simply. I felt no remorse at my words. “He was a terrible man, but I think he would rather have died than lived without you, Kazhua.”
We were all silent for a moment. Then Alfie, becoming bored, scratched vigorously behind his ear and broke the tension and we all laughed.
“Can you stay?” I asked shyly. “All of you. Stay here, I mean. Or must you go back to America soon?”
Kazhua turned her head to glance at her nobleman. He shrugged and smiled. Kazhua’s gaze went to Mineko, who grinned.
“If you are happy to have us here, we can stay.” She smiled radiantly. “We must go to London eventually. Mineko and I are going to act in the theater there. We have a contract to perform in Twelfth Night at the Theater Royal, on Drury Lane. We must be there by Christmas.”
She stopped, staring at me as I gasped in disbelief.
“I’ve seen Twelfth Night. At the Theater Royal.” I shook my head. “Of course. You and Mineko are going to play Viola and Sebastian, aren’t you?” I began to smile. The red thread of fate again. How could I ever have doubted that we would find each other?
“We are. And after that, we may decide to open a kabuki in London. Who knows, you may yet get tired of having me so close!” I shook my head and mouthed never silently. We smiled at each other. “There is a long, long story to tell you, Mother. And I know there is so much more I need to hear from you. But there is plenty of time. I would be very happy if we could stay with you, at least until my little brother is born.”
We all sat quietly for a long time. There would be need for words, lots and lots of words, later. But for now, it was enough that the red thread of fate had finally led me to my daughter.
I had no idea I was crying until Kazhua mopped away my tears with her sleeve.
Callum put his arm around me, and I smiled tenderly at Kazhua.
“We have found each other at last, daughter. I always knew that one day our fates would lead us to each other again.” I glanced up at Callum and saw great joy in his expression. I understood at once that I spoke for us both. “Nothing will ever part us again. Even if we are half a world away from each other, we will always be united in our hearts and minds. The world is ours, Kazhua. And now that we are together we have all the time there is left to us in this world.”
The happiness that was in all our hearts overwhelmed the need for mere words. We sat silently. I watched as Kazhua lifted her hand and looked wonderingly at her smallest finger. I had no need to look at my own hand. I felt the red thread of my fate tug gently but insistently as it ran toward her. To my daughter.