Read Shadows on the Moon for Free Online

time I looked at them, I remembered my old favorite with its little white bone flowers, and sliding it into Aimi’s hair that morning, and the way Aimi’s hair had swirled in the grass where she had fallen.
    My hands shook as I selected a long, sharp pin. How to clean it? I lifted it to my mouth and sucked it, grimacing at the metallic taste.
    I held the pin between my teeth as I rolled up my sleeve and selected an area at the side of my elbow, then I touched the now warm pin to the skin and pushed it in.
    I hissed, tears springing to my eyes as I dragged the sharp end across my arm. Tiny beads of bright red welled up against the white skin. Then the most glorious sense of relief filled me; I let out a long, ecstatic sigh. I had done it. It worked.
    This must be why Moon Priests starve and beat themselves,
I thought. The pain did something to you: set you free. Gave you control. I had caused the pain. I had chosen the spot, and I had applied the pin. The pain was mine, and no one could take it from me. It made me feel . . . real.
    I used one of the cloths set aside for my monthly bleed to wrap my arm. I would remove the cloth before Mai came to help me undress for my bath, and if she noticed the mark, I would say I had caught my arm on something. No one would guess. No one would know. I cleaned the pin, dried it on the edge of my kimono, and set it back in the box. My hands were steady now as I put everything away.
    How much easier life was once you learned how to lie. I had gotten into trouble by speaking out of turn, arguing and answering back so many times. Not anymore. Now I would do what I wanted, and no one would stop me.

Mother looked beautiful in white. Of course, women always look beautiful on their wedding day. Someone told me that once.
    “Terayama-san is a lucky dog.”
    I didn’t blink as the man behind me spoke but kept my eyes on my neatly bended knees as the Moon Priests chanted in low voices and the thick blue incense billowed across the room. Most of Terayama-san’s friends seemed to believe that because I was still and quiet, I was also deaf. I was growing used to it, though. If I pretended I did not hear, I did not have to be embarrassed, and that spared me the need to blush. I had never known how to blush until recently. Yet another newly acquired skill.
    A second man chuckled. “Lucky? My dear friend, she is thirty at least, and has not a copper piece of her own. Her family are not even well connected.
She
is the lucky one.”
    “So old? With that face?”
    “Oh, she may even be older. Have you seen her daughter? The girl must be fourteen or fifteen.”
    “There’s a daughter? If she looks anything like Yukiko-san, I should have thought he would marry her instead. If he’s after an heir, that is.”
    “Ah, well, there is a romantic story behind it all. Apparently Terayama-san wooed the lady long ago, but she chose another: picked the penniless poet over the wealthy eldest son. From what Terayama-san hints, she soon regretted it, but by then it was too late. So the wise Terayama-san bided his time, watched her from afar, and when the first husband finally had the grace to surrender his soul to the Moon, Terayama-san swooped in and got her straightaway.”
    “Seems like rather a lot of effort on his part!” The man laughed. “Like a child returning to the festival year after year, trying to win the goldfish prize.”
    “Precisely. One does wonder if he will be quite so pleased with his bargain once the shine wears off. I pity the woman then.”
    They moved on to discuss other things while I sat as still as a statue, watching Terayama-san and Mother. They knelt formally side by side, facing the room; she in the stiff white robes and headdress of a bride, and he in black, with a white
tomoeri
collar that made the skin of his throat glow. They sipped from ceremonial cups of sake as the Moon Priest nodded benevolently at them.
    The ceremony was almost over now. The triumph was there on