Cruze set the mirror on top of the hotel’s check-in desk and did that framing the shot with his hands thing, which she’d never seen done except in movies featuring stereotypical movie folk.
“This would be fabulous in my opening shot. We’ll pan across the room in the teahouse and show the ninja sneaking in to murder the sleeping samurai.” He looked at Emmi. “You’ll let us borrow it, right? I’ll pay you a rental fee.”
A sick feeling hit Emmi in the stomach, and she wanted to throw up. Having heard enough about Cruze always getting his way, she sensed she couldn’t refuse. And yet… “I-I can’t.” She looked to Jake for support when Cruze’s expression hardened.
“It’s an heirloom, Danny,” he lied. “Kenny gave it to her before…you know.”
Cruze sort of winced and turned on Eric, the prop master. “You’ll make me an exact replica by five a.m. tomorrow.”
Eric sighed and guilt stabbed Emmi.
“Sure, Dan. I’ll get right on it.”
Cruze smiled. “Great. Later, people. I have an interview with a reporter from NHK in the bar.”
Eric took a digital camera from one of his bags. “I need to get measurements and some pics, okay? Then I’ll bring it to your room. You’re in seven-one-eight, right? That’s down the hall from me. I’ll be careful with it. You’ll have it back within the hour.”
Emmi nodded. “Is there anything I can do to help? I didn’t mean to make more work for you.”
Eric laughed. “It’s okay. I’ll get a bonus out of the fearless leader for the aggravation.”
Emmi smiled in return, but the sick feeling in her stomach stayed and got worse as she followed Jake through the garden-like atrium toward the elevators. Nothing could happen to the mirror. It just couldn’t.
“You okay, Em-chan? You look like you got hold of a bad piece of sushi.”
“I’m okay,” she muttered. She craned her neck to see the mirror one last time before the elevator doors closed.
Except she knew everything wasn’t okay.
* * * *
“There wasn’t a thing to worry about,” Emmi whispered to herself when Eric returned the mirror within the hour as promised.
She placed it on the desk and stretched out on the bed across from it. After a second, she impulsively got up to adjust the mirror so she could look into the glass when lying down, just the way she’d had it back home. It wasn’t positioned quite right, so she repeated the ritual until it was. Finally Emmi lay on her stomach and stared into the mirror, so many thoughts going through her head. Could it have been her dad’s spirit she’d seen, after all? Was he unhappy wherever he was?
Jake came out of the bathroom, toweling dry his long hair. He sat beside her. “You okay?”
“Why didn’t he listen to me?” Emmi blurted, voicing the question that had been nagging her for months. “If he’d believed me, he would still be alive.”
Tears stung her eyes, and the torment she’d been struggling to control felt like it would explode inside her. She got up and paced across the room.
“I told him I couldn’t drive him home from the eye doctor. I told him something bad would happen if I did. Why wouldn’t he listen? Why?”
The tears flooded out, and Emmi’s whole body shook from the force. She had to lean against the desk to keep from collapsing.
The mirror rattled, and she gripped the edge to keep it from tottering.
* * * *
Kyoto
1864
Certain he heard a woman crying, Kaemon paused while tightening the ties of his hakama pants as he prepared to depart the Pleasure Quarters.
“Aneko?” he called, walking toward the partially opened shoji to peer into the connecting room. It was empty, yet the faint sound of crying could still be heard. He realized that it came from behind him. He whipped around, surveying the room, his hand reflexively reaching for the hilt of his katana.
The crying came from…the mirror?
His dark eyes scanned the room once more for signs of an intruder. Finding none, Kaemon crept nearer the small cabinet where Aneko had set the mirror the previous night. Using the tip of his sword, he lifted the cloth from the glass. The cry sounded faint, almost like a bird’s distant cry echoing on the summer wind. But it was unmistakable nonetheless. The sound of a woman crying came from within the depths of the mirror itself.
He leaned forward but abruptly jerked back, afraid that the crying was just a ploy by the pretty oni who lived inside.
Words tumbled from her unseen lips along with her sobs, and Kae understood a few of the odd words. They sounded like the English that his father insisted he learn to help those who translated imported books to ensure that no references to Christianity remained in the books that were allowed into the country.
Slowly he began to understand the oni’s lament. Surely an oni would not lament the death of her father? Curiosity overpowered his better judgment, and Kae leaned in. He saw the shadowy shape of the pretty oni at the end of a long, murky corridor. She sat hunched over with her head buried in her folded arms. Her slim shoulders shook from her sobs. Impulsively, he reached toward the glass, wanting to ease the pain that carried across untold distances to touch him.
“Kae-sama!”
Kae jumped back, his sword drawn and at the ready. He relaxed. “It’s only you, Aneko.”
* * * *
Kyoto
Present day
“Oh, wow,” Emmi said as the rental van entered the Uzumasa Movie Village, the Japanese version of Universal’s famed Backlot. She could hear her father’s words from years earlier echo in her mind.
‘It was like being home, Em-chan, like walking into all those old stories great-grandfather Maeda used to tell. It was all smoke and mirrors, but it
felt
so real, just like I had stepped back a hundred years into the samurai clan that our people came from. And being there made me wish that the movie we were working on was true, that I could slip back in time to see it all for real just once…
’
Though her father hadn’t had a chance during that film shoot, or after, to make a trip to the Kanazawa area where their family originated, Emmi hoped this trip would afford her the chance to do just that both for herself and for him.
Jake nudged her. “Time for that big break into stardom.”
Emmi smirked. “You mean time to be filmed and end up on the cutting room floor.”
“Your scene will stay. Trust me.”
Emmi smiled, feeling foolish for her behavior the night before. “I’m sorry I acted like such a baby last night,” she said, finally finding the words she’d wanted to say all morning.
Jake hugged her. “Don’t you apologize.” He pulled back and tilted her chin up. “And don’t you ever think that you’re responsible for the accident.”
Emmi nodded even though she knew the guilt would haunt her for a long time to come.
Jake led her to the dressing area and introduced her to a few makeup artists and costume fitters before taking his leave, assuring her she was in good hands. The ladies immediately got down to business, working their magic with powders, hair ornaments and silk.
An hour later, as Emmi checked herself in the mirror, she didn’t care if her ‘big scene’ did end up the director’s afterthought. This was the coolest, most exciting thing she’d ever done—apart from the time her father ‘directed’ her brother and her in a homemade samurai epic they’d sent to their grandparents for Christmas.
Makeup and Costume had poked and prodded Emmi into a traditional Japanese prostitute. Last came the wig that was poufed and embellished with tortoiseshell combs and silver hair pins decorated with coral beads and fringed fans. She was dressed in layers topped by an elaborately embroidered silk kimono.
At the sound of Jake’s wolf whistle, Emmi turned away from the large mirror in the extras’ dressing room.
“Every single one of your ancestors may very well reach beyond the veil and strangle me for saying this, but if I was a nineteenth-century samurai on the make, I’d pay some big money for the pleasure of your company.”
Emmi was certain that the burning blush she felt in her cheeks could be seen through the layer of white rice powder on her face. “Uncle Jake!”
“I mean that in a good way, really. If you twisted that obi around to the back like a ‘respectable lady’, you’d almost look like you’d just stepped out of the Imperial Palace.” He laughed when Emmi rolled her eyes. He held out his hand. “Come on, I’ll escort you to the set so you don’t trip in those geta and break your neck.”
“You make me sound like I’m helpless,” Emmi said sharply, moving forward slowly on the high wooden sandals.
She’d just about reached Jake at the door when the bottom-most kimono slid from her grip and caused her to trip. Luckily, she fell right into Jake’s arms.
“Don’t even think it,” she said, glowering up at him.
“What? That the death glare on your face looks exactly like your mother’s?” he quipped.
Emmi was primped and prodded more as she waited for her big moment before the camera. Watching for the director’s signal, she repeated to herself exactly what she was to do— Slip off shoes— Hurry down hall— Slide open shoji— Look in horror at dead bodies— Scream like banshee.
She repeated it so many times she was certain that, when she next spoke, those words would come out of her mouth. The crew seemed to take an awfully long time to get to the panning shot of the opening murder. During rehearsal, the cast had taken only a couple of minutes to run through the entire scene. Emmi peeked around the cameras, scattered equipment and people to figure out the cause of the hold-up. When she finally caught a glimpse of Jake in deep conversation with Director Cruze, she hoped he wasn’t thinking of cutting her scene entirely.
At the wardrober’s insistence, Emmi moved to wait near one of the sound stage’s exits where she could get a bit of air, so as not to ‘
sweat up the merchandise
’ during the filming delay. The wind was beginning to whip up outside, and the breeze had a cooling effect on her nerves and skin.
A Japanese television film was in production at the studio as well, and Emmi watched a large, formal procession being rehearsed. The whole scene reminded her of being near her great-grandfather’s bedside during his last months. She had been a little girl but had listened raptly as he recounted the stories he’d heard as a young man about similar processions traveling from the main Maeda estate to conduct official business in Kyoto or Edo, which would later become Tokyo.
The Maeda clan ruled some of the most fertile land during the feudal era. Their resulting wealth from the abundant rice crops elevated nearly every Maeda male to the social rank of daimyo, which she’d always equated with dukes and princes. She remembered the passion in Great-grandfather’s failing voice as he spoke of their ancestral domain, the Kaga han.
A wry smile curved her lips as Emmi thought of how vexed the ancient man had become when his thoughts turned to the Meiji Restoration, which had abolished the old, feudal class system. In protest of the military governor Tokugawa’s overthrow, Maeda Takehito, her great-great-great-grandfather, had renounced his citizenship, sold everything and relocated to America. He’d considered it the perfect slap in the face to the new government, which professed support for the emperor but had no intention of letting him truly rule the land that was his by divine right.
“They need you on the set, Miss Maeda,” one of the director’s assistants called, jarring Emmi away from her memories.
She reverted to her earlier internal chant as she wove her way past the cameras, cables, technicians and actors to take her place on the set. Slip off shoes— Hurry down hall— Slide open shoji— Look in horror at dead bodies— Scream like banshee.
“And cut!” Dan Cruze shouted after Emmi did her short scene. “Nice job, kid. Looks like we have another ‘One-take Maeda’ in our midst.”
Emmi blushed as Jake led the crew members who’d known her dad in a wild round of applause. Fortunately for Emmi’s pride, Cruze called for everyone’s immediate attention a moment later.
“Listen up, people. We’re shutting down for the day.” He paused as a murmur arose. He waited until his assistants had regained everyone’s attention before continuing. “All I know is what the Toei Studio rep just told me. Some freak storm with hurricane force winds has come out of nowhere within the past hour, and it’s headed right for us. Get to the hotel ASAP. That means go in costume and take the props in your hands with you. We’ll collect them once we get there.”
Emmi shivered as a deathlike chill blew over her. “Uncle Jake. I have a bad feeling.”
He gave her a hug and urged her toward the exit. “It’ll be fine, Em. It’ll probably blow over before lunch.”
* * * *
Emmi hadn’t seen such a commotion in the streets since wildfires had spread through Southern California a few miles from her parents’ house. She was very glad to reach the safety of the hotel—until she entered the room she shared with Jake and found her mirror missing.
“We were robbed! Uncle Jake, someone stole my mirror!”
“Emmi, Emmi, calm down. It wasn’t stolen.”
“But it’s gone!”
“I had to borrow it.”
“What?”
“The prop one was dropped, and it broke. Cruze insisted that he needed it for his shot. It will be all right. I’m sure Eric will grab it.”
“Eric came back on the shuttle with us. He didn’t have it. I have to get it!” Emmi darted for the door.
Jake grabbed the back of her kimono. “No!”
She pulled away. “It will get ruined! I need it with me!”
Jake grabbed her shoulders and gave her a quick shake. “Emiko! It’s a mirror. It’s just a mirror. I’m not letting you risk your life to get it.”
“You said the storm was nothing!” she shouted back.
“Look, the Toei people wouldn’t have ordered us out if it was nothing.”
Emmi jerked herself free from his grasp. “Then I have to get it, or it will be destroyed!”
“No!” Jake took a deep breath. “Look, I’ll call the studio. I’ll make sure one of the security guys puts it in a safe place, okay?”