I loved the wall around my little farmhouse, but it was an illusion. I believed it kept me well hidden—that it obscured me within as well as it obscured the world without. It didn’t.

Others knew of me.

Madame kept me well supplied in fuel. And the garden was plentiful with stone lanterns. Every once in a while, when in an extravagant mood, I lit them all. Branches of the plum trees dressed in full blossoms seemed to dance in the lantern’s glow, casting the whole garden in a gorgeous purplish light.

It didn’t occur to me that anyone else was observing the glow, or took any particular interest in it.

But there he was, my brother, almost unchanged from our youth, on top of the wall, staring at me in my midnight lantern-lit garden.

“Yoshi?”

“Is it really you, Furi?”

I jumped to my feet and laughed open mouthed. “Unbelievable! It really is you. How did you find me?”

He hurried forward a step. Then he stopped, bowing a low, formal bow. In closer proximity, I could see how he had grown. He was not the same bashful youth I remembered.

“I didn’t know it was you,” he admitted. “I only suspected. There were rumors about a woman with an extraordinary gift with silk. Supernatural, almost! And I remembered you at the reel. Your speed and dexterity, always so impossibly quick.”

“But how did you find me?”

“Everyone knows there is an eccentric weaver closed within this wall. I thought I might scale the wall and see.”

I gasped. “Everyone knows?”

Yoshi frowned. “But no one identifies you with the weaver—even my parents.” Yoshi smiled bashfully, “I had another motive. I hope you will forgive me.”

“You’re my brother, in spirit if not in blood,” I said, frankly. “And how many times did you save me from going hungry?”

“A few too many for my mother’s credit.”

I stiffened. “How are your honorable parents?”

“In good health, but they are very upset with me, and my life choices.”

“What do you mean?”

“I am engaged to marry—against their wishes.”

I laughed. “It would be hard to satisfy them. I don’t know whether to congratulate you or console you.”

“I feel so close to happiness, but there is a shadow always looming. It’s why I’ve sought you out.” He frowned with worry and I wished to help him, but was sure I couldn’t.

Yoshi cleared his throat. “Eiko is the daughter of a fisherman. She and I are very suited in social class and temperament—but Mother hoped I would marry someone more—someone who would help the family business grow even larger. The girl who my father and she had arranged for me to wed from my youth did not survive.”

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“So many have perished in the plague. And yet your mother forbade your new match?”

“Yes, but I stood my ground, and Eiko’s family approved of me. They would welcome me into the family trade, and you know how I always felt about sericulture.”

Yoshi had loathed the silkworms, but to leave his parents was a hard thing. “Your parents have no one else.”

“Yes, exactly. No one to take care of them and no one to keep the butsudan shrine when they die.”

“I would keep it, but I don’t think it would please them,” I said.

“No. It wouldn’t,” he agreed. “But you could do something else for me.”

It cost me something to ask it, but I did. “What’s that?”

“Make Eiko’s wedding robe.”

I could feel my face fall. “Yoshi. You cannot ask me for that.”

“I know you work silk, but I can provide a linen thread. Weave her robe and you will honor her above the whole of our community. If my parents see and hear Eiko praised by our village neighbors, they will soften toward her.”

“Your parents don’t really deserve you, Yoshi.”

“No. I am a rebellious son for choosing my bride against their wishes. This, when I am all they have.”

They might have kept me, but that was well in the past, and I didn’t speak the thought aloud.

“I would be eternally grateful if you would do this thing for us.”

“Yoshi. You don’t know what you’re asking. Let me provide the thread and let some other artisan weave the cloth.”

Yoshi’s face fell, but he bowed low. “Never mind. I had to try. It was very good to see you, Furi. I wish you health.”

I said goodbye and I let him go. I had no desire to go anywhere near Yoshi’s wedding. My best gift was to stay far, far away from him and his bride.

“You are not going to let him go like that?”

Now Madame stood at my side, watching Yoshi retreat up the wall.

“Madame. I’m sorry to have disturbed your sleep.”

“He is the closest thing to a brother you have.”

“Yes. And that is why—”

“No. That is why you will not let him go,” Madame said. “Stop! Boy, Stop!”

“Yoshi paused on top of the wall.

Madame called to him, “I will provide linen thread. Furi will weave the wedding robe! Send your bride to be measured in the morning!”

I frowned at Madame. “Madame, you have no right to interfere.”

“I think I have a right. And I will risk your disapproval on this matter,” Madame muttered as she shuffled back up the steps to the house.

* * *

Madame stayed at the farmhouse now as often as she stayed in her own home. I was not quite used to her presence, but my episodes of losing consciousness seemed to become less frequent. Whether I liked her frequent company or not, my mind was easier.

My mind may have been easier, but my temper was not. Madame taxed me constantly, demanding compliance with her aristocratic rites.

As a servant, I had no need or occasion to practice the complex maze of ritual language and observances, and yet she insisted upon my learning everything. At first, I thought it was a matter of her own vanity, but I gradually learned there was more to Madame than appearances.

“Madame. Please,” I begged. “I’m sure I could finish much more weaving if you would permit me to forgo tea and music lessons.”

But Madame made an imperious gesture and changed the subject. “You never met my daughter, Fuyuko, did you?”

“No, Madame.”

“She was only sixteen last year when she died.”

“I know you were very fond of her. I’m sorry.”

“Let me show you a sketch an artist did of her.” Madame shuffled off to retrieve the picture and knelt beside me again. “It is one of few things I have kept of hers. Is she not lovely?”

“Yes, Madame.” And she was.

“Women and children live such retired lives. There are few who remain who even knew her. Even the artist who drew this perished. So I have heard. She left a great crater in my heart, and that wound is almost all that is left of her in this world.”

“I am sorry.”

“Love is agony, Furi.”

“Yes, Madame,” I whispered, and tears pricked the lenses of my eyes.

Madame smiled. “You know, you remind me of her.”

“Not at all.”

“Yes. You do. And sometimes it is a dagger to my heart to watch you playing her koto.”

“Then I shall never play it again!”

“No, indeed,” Madame shook her head. “You must play, and play often. The secret to happiness in this life is to learn to savor the agony. It is well worth savoring.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Have you ever loved anyone, Furi?”

I started at the question, but answered, “I believe I have.”

Madame seemed surprised. “No. I don’t believe it. Another may have once loved you, but if it had been your own heart laid across love’s alter, you could not help but understand me.”

Madame was a puzzle, but I began to miss her when she stayed away.