Heaven's Net Is Wide by Lian Hearn (good books to read for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

that girls were taught to fight in the West, and then they found old bamboo poles in the outbuildings and sparred with them. Her strength and speed surprised him.

“One day we will fight side by side,” she promised him when the heat forced them to stop and retreat into the shade. She was breathing hard, sweat glistening on her skin. “I have never let a man see me like this,” she said, laughing. “Other than Sugita Haruki, who taught me to fight with the sword.”

“It suits you,” he said. “You should appear like it more often.”

THE HEAT CONTINUED, and after the evening meal Naomi begged Sachie to tell a ghost story.

“It will chill our spines and cool us,” she said. Her spirits were high, her look brilliant, her happiness overflowing.

“This shrine is said to be haunted,” Sachie replied.

“Is there any that is not?” Shigeru asked, remembering Seisenji.

“Your lordship is right,” she replied, smiling slightly. “Many dark things happen in these isolated places: uneducated people are afraid of their own violent thoughts. They turn their own fears and hatreds into ghosts.”

Her insight impressed him. He saw there was more to her than he had first thought. Sachie was so quiet and self-effacing, and he had been so obsessed with Naomi that he had overlooked her intelligence, her lively imagination.

“Tell us what happened here,” Naomi said. “Ah! I am shivering already!”

Sachie began her tale in a deep, sonorous voice. “Many years ago, these shores were inhabited by evil men who made a living by luring ships onto the rocks. They killed the survivors of the shipwrecks and burned everything except what they took for themselves, so that there would be no witnesses and no evidence. Mostly their victims were fishermen, occasionally merchants, but one night they wrecked a ship carrying a lord’s daughter to her betrothal in a city in the South. She was thirteen years old; she was washed up on the beach when the ship sank and all her retinue were drowned. The cargo was of her betrothal presents: silk, gold and silver, boxes of lacquer and zelkova wood, flasks of wine. She begged them to spare her life, saying her father would reward them if they returned her to him, but they did not believe her. They cut her throat, filled her clothes with stones, and threw her body into the sea. That night, while they were celebrating their catch, they heard sounds from this shrine and saw lights. Flute music was playing, and people were singing and laughing.

“When they crept close to investigate, they saw the girl they had murdered, sitting in the center of the room, surrounded by her waiting women and her retainers. At her side was a tall lord, dressed in black, his face hidden. They thought they were concealed, but she saw them and called out, ‘Our guests are here! They must come in and join the feast!’

“The evil men turned to run away, but their legs would not obey them. The girl’s gaze pulled them in, and when they stood trembling before her, she said, ‘You betrothed me to death, and this is my marriage feast. Now my husband desires to meet you.’ And the man at her side stood; Death stared in their faces. They could not move. Drawing his sword, he killed them all, and sat down again at his wife’s side.

“The feast went on even more wildly, and the dead men’s wives said to each other, ‘Where are our husbands? They are enjoying the stolen goods without us.’ They ran to the shrine and burst in, and the girl said to them, ‘I am glad you have come. My husband desires to meet you.’ And the lord stood up and drew his sword again and killed every last woman too.”

“Did they have any children?” Naomi said. “What happened to them?”

“Their fate is not recorded,” Sachie said. “But after that, this place was uninhabited.”

“Until a gentler people came,” Naomi murmured.

“The men who brought me told me the villagers here are Hidden,” Shigeru said, equally quietly. “I believe they have suffered from these same men. I will take steps to put an end to it.”

“They are so isolated and so defenseless,” Naomi said. “We can protect them from the land-each year we conduct campaigns against bandits and outlaws in these and other remote areas of the domain-but we do not have the ships or the resources to deal with pirates.”

“They are not pirates,” Shigeru replied. “Not yet. But they are full of grievances of their own, so they prey on those weaker than themselves. I will speak to their leader and command him to keep them under control. His son told me a story,” he added. “He is a boy of about eight years old, Fumio. His father adores him and takes him everywhere with him.”

“Tell us!” Naomi said.

It was around the first half of the Hour of the Dog, night had fallen completely. There was no wind and the waves were muted. A pair of owls were calling to each other from the old cedars, and a few frogs croaked from the pool. Now and again some small creature scampered through the rafters. The flickering lights threw their shadows above them, as though the dead kept them company.

Shigeru began his story. “Once a boy went fishing with his father. A storm came up unexpectedly, and they were blown far out to sea. The father gave his son all the food and water he had, so after many days the man died, but the child lived. Finally, the boat washed up on the shores of an island, where a dragon dwelled. The child called to his father, ‘Father, wake up, we are saved!’

“But his father did not wake. The boy cried louder and louder, so loud that he woke the dragon, who came to the beach and said, ‘Your father is dead. You must bury him and I will take you home.’

“The dragon helped the boy bury his father, and afterward the