I watched the sun rise in the morning, past the sliding doors of the engawa that faced the mountain. Mist signaling the end of summer lingered heavily, covering the top of the mountain, rising from the damp grass. During the night, as we returned home from the festival, the three of us had laid together in my room under a pile of blankets made from fur, somehow comfortably, and as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I recalled as I looked into the distance, how winter in the mountains with Mori had afforded me so many nights wrapped together with another body for warmth. I thought that this winter though, we would be wrapped up together for less necessity.
Silently, the Geisha lowered herself gracefully at the table opposite from me. Without words, I immediately poured tea for her, sliding the cup across the table to meet the expression of happiness on her face. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance this morning."
I could feel a swell of enjoyment at sharing such innocent humor with her. "The sun hasn't even risen. Could you not sleep?"
"I'll go back to bed soon." I watched her, sparing only a sliver of my attention from the corner of my eye, the sunrise more appealing. The way she arranged herself as she sat gave away that her company was for more than enjoyment. "I wanted to take the opportunity to speak with you."
"Don't speak so formally to me." The yukata from the night before still adorned me, and it still smelled of the wafting smoke from the vendors selling fish cooked over charcoal.
"It's not my place, but I believe my little sister is ready to step away from the title Maiko and become Geisha."
I filled her tea cup for her, a gesture of respect more than it was necessary. "I trust your judgement. I would like to watch her perform, just as a formality."
Her nod was solemn, knowing, and she smiled while she rested at the bottom of her nod. I studied her face for a time, coming to understand how beautiful she was behind the mask of a Geisha. Her face was plain, but symmetrical and smooth like fired porcelain. I could easily see her appeal without effort, but I could remember being a beautiful child, and I knew she had not been. She took her time and grew into the beauty that she presented to me, and during that time she took, she learned how to wield it as well. "Seishin, you adopted me out of obligation to this Okiya, but Sayaka-chan is your only concern. All you see is her. Do you even remember my name?"
In the shrine on the night of her adoption, I remembered, I set fire to her name as the Kanushi spoke it, scarring the inside of my memory with the ashes of it. "You were named after Hiroyuki-san, I could never forget. Yukiko."
"You're a terrible Okiya mother, Seishin." She no longer bothered with any honorific attached to my name, emphasizing that while she had some sort of respect for me, or fear, she saw me as her equal. I could hardly disagree with her. She had wanted me to forget her name, so she could have something to prove.
"Maybe I should leave the task of explaining the bidding to you."
She rose from the table, leaning down to slide the empty teacup across the table to me. "Never." As she passed, her hand came to rest firmly atop my shoulder. Her disrespect was apparent, but I felt myself in no such place to mind. I enjoyed the banter we shared, and I had come to understand that it was simply a price for her closeness. "Come to see her dance tonight at the teahouse. I will give the tokens to her patrons. You can decide what you want for Sayaka-chan."
In the back of the teahouse, with the lights dim, the stage illuminated, my heart beat slower. The Geisha's little sister drew beauty across the stage as she danced, threw her fans, but I could see refinement needed in her movements. Refinement that no untrained eye would crave, but I calculated what it would take to reach perfection each time. Sayaka had perfection carved into her from the moment I laid my fingers upon her. In every dance we moved through together, in the methodical way I had taught her how to apply makeup, even when I washed her hair for her, perfection was my only wish for her. We had become complicated. She watched the Maiko's dance with me, my chest against her back, her hand so small reaching back for mine.
"She dances beautifully."
"Not nearly as beautifully as you."
I held her in my gaze for a moment longer as she tilted her head side to side, and I could almost pluck from the air above her head the formulas running through her mind as she watched. "Thank you for teaching me, Seishin-sama."
I felt her body jump as I let my chin rest gently atop her head, an action she couldn't have expected. "Don't call me Seishin-sama."
"Okasan, then?" I could detect a laugh as small as her hand in mine through her question.
"Just call me Seishin."
Silence settled over us as we watched the lanterns on the stage shift from yellow to red, and I was fascinated momentarily by the performers' aids as they swiftly replaced the papers shading the candles. The shamisen player knelt, her pretense of going unnoticed given away with her stares into the audience. I knew every eye would be on the Maiko, though the musicians possessed far more talent. Had I taken up a shamisen instead of a katana those years ago, perhaps that kind of fame would have saved me. Complication melted away from us for a moment. But I remembered, I brought her to watch the Maiko dance with me because what I had to tell her was far more serious.
I reached around her, to take her carrying bag from her hand. "I asked you to carry this trinket box for me, do you remember?" I opened the bag, letting my fingertips wander inside without taking my eyes from her. I wanted to read her face at every stage of the conversation like Mori read my mind, transparent and pliable. "This box holds a token." I held it up for her to see, as it fit in the palm of my hand neatly, the red satin glowing against the darkness of the shadows at the back of the teahouse.
"It's a rice cake."
I couldn't be sure what to do with her innocence. "Yukiko-san is handing these boxes out to her little sister's patrons now, during her performance. They let her patrons know that a bidding war is about to be orchestrated to buy something very precious from her. And this transaction is the last step from Maiko to Geisha."
I waited for her reaction, but I was disappointed to receive none. "Sakura told me about this before she left." She looked into my eyes as deeply as the Kitsune's magic did. Her face was so full of youth, but it was foreboding. "You get to decide if I'm ready, don't you? But surely, I'm not. Surely, I have more to learn."
"Don't be scared, child." Against my body was the only comfort I had to offer. Not words, not actions, not reassurance, not harshness to make her obey me. "That transaction was the one that destroyed me years ago, and I was older then than you are now. It also gave me freedom. It gave me the most pleasure out of any experience that I had on earth."
My fingers felt against her small frame as if I could pierce through the flesh of her shoulders and wrap around her bones. My voice to her was like a father's, but her eyes on me were different. "I have a plan to lie for you. To orchestrate a bidding for you, but sell you to no one. And tell them all that an anonymous bidder paid the highest price."
I heard Hiroyuki-san in my mind, and I could see his face as detail as if he stood next to me. I knew in his grave, he was as conflicted as I was about the exchange. I would cost the Okiya a great deal of money, but I had paid nothing for her love. "No one would ever find out? I could still be called a Geisha if I had to lie?"
"No one would ever know."
"I think though, this is a rite of passage in my life that I must learn."
"It's your choice, child, just know I can do this for you." To save your innocence, because no one cared enough to save mine. To have the way you look upon the world unaltered.
"Seishin, will you be the one to teach me this?" Perhaps a saving grace. Perhaps the worst words she could have spoken.