The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

THE PEONY LANTERN Kara Dalkey

The autumn wind blows through flame-boughed trees and they sigh like parted lovers, or mourners for the year that is dying. The wind brings me memories.

I come from a family of lantern makers, and that is my trade now. It is a good trade, even for an old man such as I am. But not long ago, I had the excellent fortune to be in the service of a young samurai. His name was Shinzaburo and he was but a younger son of a lesser branch of the Taira clan. Still, I was proud to be Chamberlain of the Wardrobe for his household, and he was a kind and just lord.

My skills were not wasted in his service. Shinzaburo was courting the Lady Tsuyu, and as a gift for her I made a peony lantern. I still believe it was the finest I ever made. The petals were of the sheerest pink silk and they glowed with the light from the candle within. I was told the Lady Tsuyu adored the gift and I felt well rewarded.

But those pleasant days melted away, as cherry blossoms before the heat of summer. Our lord Shinzaburo was called to war—the Taira clan again went to the battlefield against the voracious Minamoto. Only our lord’s standard bearer went with him. The rest of us stayed behind, and kept his house, and waited.

And then we learned of the terrible defeat of the Taira. Our lord Shinzaburo and his standard bearer, we were told, died valiantly, though futilely, on the shores of Lake Biwa.

In sorrow, the household dispersed. His goods were taken to distant relatives and the other servants found other work. It was my sad task to inform the Lady Tsuyu of Shinzaburo’s fate.

I remember kneeling on her veranda in the autumn rain. As I was but a lowly servant, it was not seemly that I should speak to a lady of Tsuyu’s quality face to face. She sat behind cloth and wood blinds, and I could smell the chrysanthemum scent of her kimonos, hear them rustling with her small movements, see the trailing edge of one golden silk sleeve. The separation should have eased my discomfort, yet I was unable to find the proper words. I am no poet, but I passed to her under the blinds a blood-red leaf. “Our dear Shinzaburo is such as this,” I said to her, “fallen, yet in passing, glorious.”

I heard her sigh and knew she understood, but I did not hear her faint or weep. Her soft, young voice was steady as she thanked me for my message. She seemed resolute, her feet upon a path already chosen. I wished that I knew the appearance of her face, so that I could imagine her brave countenance. I asked if there was any service I could do for her. She politely said there was none and bade me go.

I returned the next morning to Tsuyu’s house to see if there was yet anything I might do, for I knew my lord had loved her dearly, and would wish that she be looked after. But when I arrived, I found the lady’s house deserted and empty. A neighbor said the whole household had packed up and stolen away in the middle of the night. I found myself wondering if Tsuyu had taken my peony lantern with her. As I passed the house one last time, I saw on one white shoji panel many spots of a dark red stain. Ah, I thought, where the lady has gone she will have no need of lanterns.

After this time, the only one of my lord’s servants whom I kept as friend was Gyunyuko, Shinzaburo’s old nursemaid. She was, and still is, a woman of grace and strength. Though she was very distressed to hear of our lord’s death, yet her faith was strong and she was certain our lord sat among lotus petals in the Pure Land. She had no other family, having outlived them all, so I became as a nephew to her. She went to live in a nearby village while I stayed in Heian Kyo, and from time to time I would send her some of what I earned from my lantern making. Once a month we would meet in the marketplace and exchange news and pleasantries. I expected this was the way we would each live out the rest of our days.

Then, two years later, Gyunyuko came rushing up to greet me in the marketplace. I still remember her white hair flying, her face like a child’s on New Year's Day. “I have wonderful news!” she cried, grasping my arms.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, “You have just learned that you have a long-lost grandchild.”

She grinned and beat a fist lightly against my arm. “Nearly as good! I have news of our lord Shinzaburo. He is not dead! A man in the village saw him return on a ship. Our lord should be here in Heian Kyo by now. Let us look for him!”

I cautioned her against listening to wild rumors, particularly those that give hope, but she would not be dissuaded. We sought out relatives of our lord. Those that would speak to us claimed not to have seen him. We went to all the places an itinerant samurai might be found, gambling dens, the willow district, the Rashomon. He was not there and none had seen him. At last, as evening threw its purple curtain across the sky, Gyunyuko and I wearily wandered back to the old house where we had served him.

And there he was. He stood staring at the now-dilapidated house, unmoving. The war had changed him. His face was more gaunt and pale, and his clothes were tattered. We rushed to Shinzaburo and bowed very low before him, exclaiming how pleased we were that he lived and had returned. We offered—no, begged—to again be in his service.

He regarded us with gentle, distant surprise. “I am sorry, my good friends,” he said. “It gives me joy to see you. But I cannot keep you in my service. I am ronin, now. Go, please.”

Gyunyuko and I pleaded that payment did not matter. We had each been frugal and had some savings. We would be happy enough with the honor of serving him.

At last, he said with a small, rueful smile, “Well, since I seem unable to send you away, I suppose you must have your wish.”

With joy, Gyunyuko and I set about making the ruin of the old house livable, as much as our aging bones would let us. We swept and cleared three rooms whose partitions and screens were still intact, brought in braziers to ward off the chill. Shinzaburo seemed to take little interest in our activities, instead sitting quietly in contemplation of the night.

Naturally, I had to tell him about the Lady Tsuyu. He nodded solemnly, saying he had heard rumors of her fate. Then he changed the subject and I said no more about her.

For several days we tried to regain some of the contentment of past times. In the early morning, Shinzaburo would go off in search of work, while Gyunyuko and I spent the day making little improvements and repairs on the house. Gyunyuko would mend his clothes, exclaiming how filthy they were. I patched the torn and weather-stained shoji panels, and found the job similar to making a very large lantern.

In the evening, Shinzaburo would come back. There was no news of employment, but he never seemed disheartened. Even then, in fact, I had the feeling he was waiting for something. To his credit, unlike other ronin, he did not take to gambling or drinking away his troubles. Instead he would spend his nights alone, painting, or writing poetry, or staring out thoughtfully at the moonlight.

On the eve of the first day of O-Bon, Festival of the Dead, Gyunyuko asked our lord Shinzaburo what sort of fruits or vegetables he wished her to buy for offerings to his ancestors, and what sort of brazier or lantern to use for the last-night fire.

To our surprise, Shinzaburo shook his head. “You need get nothing, Gyunyuko. I will not be celebrating O-Bon this year. ” When we gasped in shock, he added, “I have no wish to see the ghosts of my ancestors. I feel too much shame. And I have no wish to celebrate death, for I have seen too much of it. Let there be no lights or feasts. You two may go join in the parades and dancing if you wish.”

Gyunyuko did not protest further, but she retired to another room. After she left, I said softly, “No lights at all, Shinzaburo-sama? People will wonder. Neighbors will talk.”

He was silent a moment, then said to me, “Do you remember that peony lantern you once made?”

“I remember it well, my lord.”

“Could you make another? Not as elaborate, I cannot afford the silk. But from paper, perhaps?”

I said that I could and was pleased to see my lord smile.

The following day, the first day of O-Bon, I bought the paper and bamboo and spent the entire day making the peony lantern. I carefully fitted the bamboo struts together, pasted the paper peonies to the crown, and tied wide paper streamers to the sides. That evening, I hung the lantern on the gate post to dry. I hoped, also, that the neighbors might see it there and know that our household was not ignoring the proper festivities.

Shinzaburo stayed in that evening, as always. Gyunyuko retired to her room early, still worried, I think, about Shinzaburo. I went out to the veranda which overlooked a busy street and sat to watch the people go by.

Some bustled past carrying baskets of fruit to place on their household shrines. A group of men passed, carrying great taiko drums that boomed like thunder. Ladies of the willow districts strutted by in bright kimonos.

Most of all, I noticed the lanterns. It seemed half the people who passed carried one, gathering them for the last night of O-Bon. I could tell by the size, shape, and type of paper or silk used, which of my competitors had made which lanterns. Some had been made by the monks at local temples. I even recognized a few of my own, made in years past.

In all, I found the parade quite pleasing to watch. After the sun had set, the evening air had become cooler and less oppressive. The sky darkened to a deep purple and a few stars winked overhead. The passers-by in the street became fewer. Some children went laughing past, leaving a profound silence behind them. I began to consider rising and dragging my old bones to bed.

I saw a pink light bobbing in the distance down the road and it held my eye for a moment, then it was hidden behind the neighbor's hedge. A few moments later, I heard women's voices softly exclaiming at our gate. I turned and saw two women staring at my peony lantern. The taller one, who was dressed in kimonos the colors of moonlight, gaped at it in amazement. The smaller one of them was pointing at it, and in her hand she held another peony lantern precisely like it.

I rushed down to the gate and in my surprise blurted rudely, “Where did you get that lantern?”

The two ladies stepped back, startled. The taller one raised her sleeves demurely to cover the lower part of her face. The smaller one said, “Please pardon us, sir. This lantern was a present to my lady from Lord Shinzaburo. He used to live here, I think. We were very surprised to see another lantern like ours.”

And then I realized that the smaller woman was Lady Tsuyu’s serving maid, Yone. And the taller woman must be none other than the Lady Tsuyu herself. I gasped and bowed very low.

“Please pardon me, Lady Tsuyu,” I said. “Had I recognized you, I would not have been so rude.”

She laughed, and said, in a voice very like what I had heard two years ago, but more whispery and faint, “How could you recognize me when we have never seen one another?”

“Yes. And we had heard—oh, my lady, I have wonderful news for you. My lord Shinzaburo lives! He has returned home at last and is within.”

Lady Tsuyu was so surprised, she lowered her sleeves from her face. “Truly?” she whispered.

I politely looked away, but not before noticing that her face was beautiful, but pale, and more delicate than a snowflake.

Shinzaburo must have heard our voices, for he then looked out from behind the blinds. “What is it—Ah!” He caught sight of the lady at once and scrambled onto the veranda. “Tsuyu-chan!” he cried.

The two women were equally astonished to see Shinzaburo. He called for her to join him and she and Yone readily came through the gate, smiling at my paper lantern as they passed it. Lady Tsuyu let Shinzaburo help her onto the veranda.

I decided it would be intruding for me to join the reunited lovers and so I went inside the house and sought out Gyunyuko.

“That cannot be,” she said when I told her the news.

“It is true. Come look for yourself.” I guided her to the blinds and we peeked out around the edge at the lovers and Yone sitting on the veranda. Shinzaburo must have commented on her appearance, for the Lady Tsuyu coughed gently behind her sleeve and said, “Yes, I am sure I must look different. Forgive me. I have been ill.”

Yone bowed low in shame. “It is our great sorrow that we cannot appear in the finery of old times. Our family has become poor since the fall of the Taira, and I fear I am a very poor seamstress.”

Shinzaburo said, “It does not matter. None of it matters. The love in my heart is no poorer and I am happy to share its wealth.”

I let the blind fall silently back into place and Gyunyuko and I stepped down the hallway. “You see?” I said.

Gyunyuko only nodded, her ancient face very serious and thoughtful.

The following night, the second night of O-Bon, Lady Tsuyu returned and sat on the veranda, with Shinzaburo and me. She had again brought my peony lantern. She seemed even more delicate and pale than before, somehow. Her eyes were ever so slightly sunken into her face, so that in the light of my lantern, it suggested the face of a skull. No, I thought, I am imagining things. Yet I found myself wishing that I had noticed, as she climbed onto the veranda, whether the Lady Tsuyu had feet.

I shuddered and felt a need to leave. Murmuring about the cool wind and hinting that perhaps the Lord and Lady would like some privacy, I excused myself and withdrew behind the blinds into the house.

I stood in the dark hallway for some moments, trying to recapture my breath. This is what he had been waiting for, I realized. He knew she would come. That is why he asked me to make the paper peony lantern. To guide her here. I saw light approaching down the hallway. I started and then chided myself. It was only Gyunyuko carrying a candle.

“She has come again,” she said, shuffling up to me, “hasn't she?”

“Yes!” I said, hoping enthusiasm might cover my apprehension. “Isn’t it wonder-fill? It will be like the old times again.”

Gyunyuko frowned at me in concern. “I know what is upsetting you. And it upsets me too. Lady Tsuyu has indeed come back to us ... as a ghost.”

I tried to laugh but could not. “But, that is foolishness.”

“Look at her again. Look carefully.”

I turned around and went to the blind. Pushing it aside just a little, I peered at Lady Tsuyu. She raised her face to gaze sweetly at Shinzaburo, and I saw between her lifted chin and the collar of her kimono a long white scar slashing down across her neck.

I looked away and let the blind fall back into place.

“You saw the scar?” Gyunyuko asked.

“Yes. But it was only a rumor that—”

“No. Her neighbors found the knife. And the blood.”

“Yes,” I said softly. “I saw the blood too.”

“Then you know it is true.”

I grasped her shoulders. “He loves her, Gyunyuko. What shall we do?” Gyunyuko lowered her eyes and thought a moment. “She is not a vengeful ghost, so he is in no immediate danger. We can leave them be for now. But tomorrow we must speak to a priest. He can tell us what to do. ”

The following morning, after our lord had left on his usual search for employment, Gyunyuko and I went off to a temple. I had suggested we visit the Great Eastern Temple, Toji, but Gyunyuko shook her head and said it was more appropriate to visit the temple of Lady Tsuyu’s former home.

It was a tiny neighborhood temple, but quite tidy and well-kept. The little graveyard beside it showed much tending. As we walked the step-stone path up to the temple, we came to a stone basin in front of a small statue of Kwannon, goddess of mercy. An inscription on the basin declared it to be a repository for prayers to those whose graves were far away or of unknown location. But what held my eyes was a little pink silk peony attached to a wooden prayer tag that lay at one side of the basin. With trembling hands, I picked up the tag. The prayer upon it asked the Amida to reunite the petitioner with a lost loved one. No name was on the tag, yet I knew with a certainty who had left it. “Poor Lady Tsuyu,” I murmured.

“Poor Tsuyu!” Gyunyuko hissed. “Pah. She chose her path. Our duty is to protect our lord.”

“I think he knows what she is. Is he not choosing his own path as well? Do we have the right to interfere?”

A gentle cough behind us made me jump like a guilty child caught stealing a piece of fruit. A bald priest stood there with a patient expression, as if people fished about in the prayer basins all the time. Though it was quite improper, I held up the prayer tag and said, “Could you possibly tell us who left this? We think it might have been ... a relative of ours.”

The priest looked at me dubiously, but answered, “It is interesting that you picked that one. It was left some nights ago by a mysterious woman in pale kimonos. The priest who saw her was quite astonished as, he said, she resembled a woman who was rumored to be two years dead. He tried to speak to her, but she hid her face and hurried off into the night. If she is, indeed, a relative of yours, you might put that poor priest’s mind at rest by telling us who she is. ” Gyunyuko then said, with a glare at me, “Forgive our misstatement, holy one. The woman who left this is not our relative. She was betrothed to our lord, Shinzaburo, and she has indeed been dead for two years. She is a ghost.”

The priest’s eyes widened. “Is it so? Well, that is not reassuring at all. Are you certain?”

“She is so pale and delicate, she hardly seems a creature of this world—” “Many women try for such an effect,” the priest said.

“But when we saw her up close, we saw her death scar on her neck.”

“Ah,” said the priest.

Gyunyuko said, “We have come to ask how we may protect our lord from her—”

“Or if he needs to be protected,” I added.

“Well,” said the priest, “if she is a ghost, then your lord should be protected. For though her visit may be for love, still she will drain his life from him, for she needs it to remain in this world. ”

“I am bothered that our lord does not see the danger himself. ”

“Well, it is said that ghosts have the power to delude those who love them. No doubt your lord thinks her the beauty he once knew. But this is a very inauspicious time for her visitation. On the last night of O-Bon, she must leave this world and return to the Hollow Land.”

Gyunyuko sucked her breath between her teeth. “Then it must be that she intends to take our lord with her when she leaves. Please tell us, holy one, how may we protect him?”

“You must be sure that they are not together the last night of O-Bon.”

“That is tomorrow night, holy one. How might we safely accomplish this?” The priest rubbed his cheek, then brightened. “Wait here,” he said, and strode back into the temple.

Gyunyuko said nothing to fill the silence he left behind. I think she was angry that I lied to the priest, or that I doubted what we were doing. I looked down and saw that I still held Lady Tsuyu’s prayer tag. I gently placed it back in the basin beneath the statue of Kwannon.

Some while later, the priest returned, a bundle of old scrolls in his arms. “Here you are,” he said, handing them to me. “We have extra copies of these sutras. You may have them for your lord’s protection. Cover all the entrances to your house with these. Then, so long as the entrances are closed, no ghost may enter. This will keep her out on O-Bon night. And if she returns on the next,” the priest shrugged for emphasis, “then you know she is not a ghost.”

We thanked the priest and bowed to him many times, and carried the sutras home. We hid them behind the household shrine, and planned what we should do. The rest of that day, and that evening, we did nothing different. Even when Lady Tsuyu came again, we treated her as an honored guest. It was difficult for me to dissemble, though. Lady Tsuyu seemed more pale and ghastly than the night before. Perhaps, I thought, because of our visit to the priest I am no longer burdened with delusions and I see her true form. There was so much love in her eyes for our lord, however, that I could not hate her. Shinzaburo seemed to sense something was wrong with Gyunyuko and me, for he gave us strange glances. Still, we left him and the lady alone that night and I prayed their last night together would be a joyous one.

The following day, just before sunrise, Gyunyuko and I huddled in the kitchen to stay warm. We heard Shinzaburo and Tsuyu departing, our lord escorting her to the gate of the house. He sounded happy and hearty as ever. Love can work such wonders, I thought. I imagined them walking through the wild garden together, surrounded by morning mist. It was painful to think that it must end.

As soon as we were certain that Shinzaburo had left, we began our chore. The edge of very blind, every shoji, was covered with a sutra. I pasted the paper down carefully as Gyunyuko chanted the prayers. It was like building a giant temple lantern, and I wished I could take more joy in the process. At one point, I thought I saw Yone, Tsuyu’s handmaid, peering through the garden gate. I called out to her, but she ran away. I wondered if she were a ghost too. It took nearly all day to finish covering all the entrances to the house. We left only one spot uncovered at the front entrance.

Just after sunset, Shinzaburo returned. He strode confidently through the open shoji where Gyunyuko, as always, knelt in welcome. As soon as he was inside, she slammed the shoji home and slapped a sutra over the remaining spot, sealing the house safe from any ghost who might try to enter.

Shinzaburo looked around at the holy prayers plastered all over the walls. He turned on Gyunyuko. “What have you done?” he demanded.

Gyunyuko bowed very low. “Our duty, Shinzaburo-sama. We are protecting you.”

“Protecting me! From what?”

“It is our belief,” I said, also bowing low, “that your Lady Tsuyu is a ghost. We had heard that she had killed herself—”

“Foolishness!” Shinzaburo shouted. “Tsuyu is not a ghost! I have held her in my own arms!”

“Please excuse our presumption, my lord, but we spoke to a priest today. He said that ghosts have the power to cast delusions over those who love them.”

Shinzaburo bared his teeth, breathing rapidly in anger. “I knew I should never have hired you again. I should—”

We heard movement at the garden veranda and Lady Tsuyu calling, “Shinzaburo? Shinzaburo-chan?”

“Do not go to her, I beg you,” said Gyunyuko. “This one night, do not go to her.”

Shinzaburo! Tsuyu’s voice cried. “Yone told me something may be wrong and I hurried here. What is it? What is wrong?”

“Nothing, Tsuyu-chan. I shall be there in a moment.”

But Gyunyuko got to the veranda shoji first, scuttling quicker than I had ever seen her move. She knelt between Shinzaburo and the shoji, saying, “You must not let her in.”

“Shinzaburo!” cried Lady Tsuyu. “Please, you promised! I must be with you tonight. We must be together! Don’t leave me alone out here!”

“You see!” Gyunyuko hissed. “She will take you to the Land of Darkness with her.”

“Old fool,” Shinzaburo growled.

“My lord,” I said, “Let it be for this one night. If your lady is here again tomorrow night, then it is proven she is not a ghost and you may do with us as you wish. Indulge us, please, this one foolishness. It is for your sake.”

“Please!” Tsuyu shrieked behind the shoji. Her fingernails gashed the paper of the panels, like the claws of some wild animal, stopping where they came against the sutras.

Shinzaburo went to the simple wooden stand on which hung his long and short swords. He took up the short wakazashi and slowly drew it from its wooden scabbard. “Get away from the shoji,” he said, his voice soft and deadly, his eyes bright with rage. Gyunyuko bowed her head and did not move.

I knew that Gyunyuko would die for her duty if I did not act. As Shinzaburo stepped forward, I grabbed Gyunyuko’s arm and pulled her away from the shoji, sliding it open with my other hand. I spared Lady Tsuyu only one quick glance— she was a horror, with dark, sunken eyes, wild unkempt hair, and her face powder smeared and streaked. I hurried Gyunyuko out of the room and ran with her down the hallway to the farthest room of the house. There we huddled together in the dust.

“He has chosen his path,” I said to her, stroking her white hair as she sobbed on my shoulder. In the distance, I could hear my lord and lady moaning, but I could not tell if they were cries of ecstasy or despair.

I must have slept, somehow, for I awoke to the sound of a scream. Sunlight was streaming in through the window slats, blinding me. I rose and staggered down the hallway to my lord’s chamber. I arrived just as Gyunyuko stepped out, her face blank with shock.

“We never saw him in full daylight,” she murmured. “I never saw him eat.”

I grabbed her shoulders. “What are you saying? What has happened? Is our lord gone?”

Gyunyuko clutched at my sleeves and she stared up at me in terror and sorrow. “We were wrong!” She pointed into Shinzaburo’s chamber. “We should have been protecting her!”

I looked in and saw the thin, pale, and freshly dead body of Lady Tsuyu lying amid the bleached bones of my lord Shinzaburo, who had indeed died two years before on the shores of Lake Biwa.

We later learned from Yone, the handmaid, that Lady Tsuyu had attempted sepukku the night after I gave her the news of Shinzaburo's death. She had not cut deep enough and her relatives were able to save her life. But she lost the child she was carrying, and had remained ill ever afterward.

Gyunyuko, burdened with shame, became a nun at a nearby Shinran temple, hoping to forget this world. I returned to my family trade of lantern making, at which I expect I shall work until I, too, leave this world.

It must be the melancholy autumn wind that brings me such thoughts. The trees sigh and whisper together. Fallen leaves chase one another playfully past my feet. I hope my lord and lady now dwell in joy, wherever their karma has taken them. Someone is bowing to me—I turn, but no. It is only the peony lantern nodding in the wind.