With puckered lips I blew the flame from the tip of the incense stick, and continued to press them together into an expression that outwardly mirrored the disgust I felt inwardly. The tendrils of smoke began spiraling upward to the sky, like a chain upon which I could have hung a letter to be delivered to the heavens. Instead, I pressed the stick into the pile of gray sand atop the gravestone, and let the smoke carry my disappointment instead.
"You left me with something of a burden." The stone I spoke to remained unaffected by my words, the spirit long gone. "Out of every person capable of carrying your burden in Miyako, you chose me, an outsider, too weak to carry it." I tipped the sake cup toward the gravestone in a silent cheers to no one but myself, and lifted it with one hand to sip. I felt heavy suddenly, as I called the responsibility blame, and guilt crept in on me. I leaned back against the gravestone, letting the smoke of the incense circle my head like a swarm. My gaze lowered, too much effort spent to remain stoic.
"I got married, you know? Of course you know. You knew that I would even while you were still here. You should have seen her." I smiled to myself, raising the sake cup. I remembered how she looked above all, more than anything else, as if she was the only thing during that night I wasn't blind to. I couldn't recall the words that were spoken, I couldn't remember what the shrine looked like, but I could remember her in a detail that my eyes didn't have the capacity to see.
I expected an answer, conversation. I had spoken to the dead so many times, I was used to less exchange of words. But I had spent so much time with the living that I was trained to speak and wait for a reply. I drained the cup and placed it atop the gravestone, patting it with my palm. "Well then, since you have not much to say, I'll carry on with my burden." I left the incense burning, and dusted the platform of the gravestone with the hem of my kimono as I turned to walk out of the row.
The back of the teahouse was dark where I stood, engulfed in shadow. I watched the Maiko I had taken under my wing since her sister had fled. Sayaka. I swore to myself with every breath I took that I would not lead her down the path that I had taken. With care, I had become close to her, but I had not earned her trust. With Mori by my side, she feared what I was capable of, and I dared not let her know that the demon was solely myself. The Kitsune I shared my life with should have feared me as well. I watched her dance with all the grace that I had shown her, the steps she took I had ingrained in her, to the point of her fingertips holding her fan. I swayed to her music, stepping to the dance in my mind, projecting my image onto the stage beside her. Hours we had danced together in the grass behind the Okiya, the mountain in the background, in the rain, in the sun, in the night. I had perfected her.
I closed my eye and hummed the tune of the shamisen that she danced to, mapping her steps across the stage. I could hear voices invading, the chatter from the audience only paces from me in the shadows. "I hear that house is cursed by Kitsune." Not here, I told myself. Not in the middle of her performance. Let her talent speak for itself. But I burned the image of the owner of that voice into my mind.
I walked slowly with Sayaka beside me, her small frame challenged to fall into step with my large strides, and I instead fell into step with her. The zori on her feet were tall, the cobblestone walkways between the teahouse and the Okiya unforgiving, and she reached to hold my hand with a childlike innocence. She concentrated so hard to stay upright as she fought the impossibility of the zori and cobblestone, her hand on mine closed tighter and tighter. I smiled down at her, a look which I kept nearly undetectable, fearing if she had caught the way I smiled upon her, she would feel something for me.
Then, as it was burnt into my mind, the image of the owner of that voice in the teahouse caught my attention. Ahead of us on the path, walking vulnerable and unaware, and I had been weakened by my affinity for my Maiko, as the demon in me woke. I dropped her hand, and somewhere around me heard her call my name as my pace quickened, but so too did the world around me become all the more loud. I heard a laugh in the back of my mind, a laugh that didn't belong to me, and I let my body be overtaken as my knee lifted, my foot connected firmly with the back of the owner of the voice.
Before the body could rise, I stood over it, crouching to curl my fingers securely in the collar of the kimono. The face looking back at me expressed only fear, and I drank it in as if it would keep me alive. The people crowding the street around us were unmoved, stopping to stare, to see what I would do, but nothing more. I stood, my back parallel to the body under me, my fist enrobed in the fabric of the kimono pressing hard into the body's chest. The world around me fell silent.
"The only curse my Okiya is under is me."
I felt a sense of pride renewed in my heart as I threw my grip on the body down, stepping over it as if it was simply trash. I looked to both sides for Sayaka, her overtly elaborate kimono causing a scene in the street, her white makeup struggling to cover her skin over the hours of the long night. I held my hand out simply by my side, inviting her to take it, and watched as she removed her zori to run with them in each hand to close the distance between us.
"Let me carry you, child, your white tabi will be black with the filth in this street if you walk like that." I turned my back to her, kneeling so she could wrap her arms around my neck and shoulders. I took the zori from her hands and held them by the strap together, hooking my arms around her thighs to lift her.
A demon in one instant. A gentleman in the next. A lover, a slave driver, a caretaker, a succubus, and in every instant, more confused about what my place in the world had become.