The Book of the Sword

Simon Pulse

My name is Heaven Kogo, and I died on my wedding day.

I know that sounds strange. But it's true.

I don't mean I died, died, with a funeral and a coffin and grieving relatives. I'm still alive and well -- more or less. But something happened on my wedding day that changed everything that came afterward. I started to feel like my life had two distinct periods -- Before Wedding and After Wedding. Sometimes I wish I was still trapped in Before.

On the morning of October 31 the old Heaven Kogo stood in the foyer of the Beverly Wilshire hotel, dressed in wedding-day finery, a white kimono that had been in the Kogo family for generations. I'd been pretty sure my life was over ever since my father had announced I would be marrying the odious Teddy Yukemura as part of some "business decision" six months ago. The kimono was white, to symbolize both death and rebirth. Heaven Kogo was dying and being reborn as Mrs. Teddy Yukemura.

I was ready to slit my throat.

Being dead would be better than being reborn and married to Teddy. True, getting married and moving out of my father's house meant a kind of freedom I had only dreamed about -- I could read what I wanted, watch what I wanted, go to dance clubs and parties and other countries. Up until my wedding day I'd lived almost my entire life on my father's compound outside Tokyo, with Konishi dictating where I could go and who I could see (usually, nowhere and no one). But I wouldn't really be free -- I'd be married to Teddy, one of the grossest and most arrogant guys I'd ever met.

I'd only met Teddy a few months before, though I'd heard rumors about him since I was tiny. Like mine, Teddy's father was an ultrapowerful businessman. Like me, Teddy had grown up seeing his name splashed over the gossip pages. Unlike me, I suspect Teddy sort of enjoyed it. Teddy was spoiled, greasy, thuggish. You only had to spend a few minutes with him to figure out that he was the kind of guy who used his father's money and standing to get him anything he wanted -- legal or not. He was a wanna-be gangster who dyed his hair a horrible lion yellow and had a cell phone permanently glued to his ear. Our few "get-to-know-you" dinners had left me with a horrible impression of him. He was a selfish, pleasure-loving party boy, and he never showed the slightest bit of interest in me. And before I realized that I couldn't stop the wedding, that had been a relief. Yet in just a few hours I would be alone with Teddy in the bridal suite.

Standing next to my father, waiting for the heavy ballroom doors to open so that I could walk down the aisle, I experienced one last spike of hope. I slid my hand into my obi, where I had tucked the hundred-dollar bill that I'd found in a bouquet of fat red roses in my dressing room. Yes, it was still there. The little piece of paper that might mean I didn't have to marry Teddy. I snuck a fast peek at it, careful not to let Konishi see. The words were still there, too, written right on Benjamin Franklin's face, in my brother, Ohiko's, handwriting -- Wait for me.

I wasn't totally sure what Ohiko's message meant. Six months ago he had been banished from our compound, and I hadn't seen or heard from him even once in all that time. My brother was my favorite person in the world -- warm, understanding, and strong. Like my father, he was trained in the samurai arts. Maybe that's how Ohiko planned to save me. If my life was a movie, Ohiko would burst into the ballroom half a second before I became Mrs. Yukemura, hold Teddy off with his amazing swordplay skills, and whisk me to safety. Maybe that would happen. I was in Los Angeles, after all. Tinseltown. Wasn't I entitled to a small share of movie magic?

And this is the Beverly Wilshire, I reminded myself. This is where a powerful businessman fell in love with a hooker. Anything's possible here. For a second I wondered if I could find a Julia Roberts-style prostitute for Teddy to marry instead. He'd definitely have more fun on the wedding night. An entirely inappropriate snort of laughter escaped my nose.

"Heaven!" Konishi hissed suddenly. "Behave like the adult you will soon be!" I looked up at him, and he seemed to melt a few degrees.

"You must remember, my daughter, that you are a bushi, a samurai woman, and a samurai woman must, like a man, put her duty above all else. Your duty, right now, is to behave in a fashion that reflects well on the Kogo family," my father lectured. "Remember who is waiting behind those doors and consider that you must, above all, behave in a manner befitting your stature. I am very proud of the way you have conducted yourself in these last months. You have shown the true colors of your upbringing and done your duty with grace and graciousness."

Translation: I had done absolutely everything my father told me to do. I had been a good little girl. But I wasn't a little girl anymore. Little girls don't get married.

"Teddy is a generous man. I promise you will want for nothing," Konishi added.

Sure, nothing except love. Nothing except freedom. Maybe Konishi didn't think I deserved those things.

I sighed, feeling a mixture of tenderness and fear as I looked up at his face. This was my father -- my daddy, my hero, my protector. When I was growing up, he made me feel like the most special person in the world. He was way overprotective but kind -- I really believed that he thought he was shielding me from all the dark things in the world. In his way he was protecting me even now, making sure I married a man with enough money to give me anything I needed. But didn't he think I deserved to be loved? Didn't he think I deserved someone better than Teddy?

For a crazy moment I thought about saying no. I'd whip off my wooden sandals and run out the front door. Then I'd start a new life, a free life in America, away from Konishi and his crushing love and his horrible tests of loyalty.

But in an instant I knew I just couldn't. For one thing, I loved my father too much to humiliate him that way. And the truth was...my father frightened me.

Konishi could be ruthless. After all, he had disowned Ohiko, his only son and the person I loved most. I wasn't sure what had caused their falling-out, but my father ranted and raved about "family loyalty." It was strange. Before that point I had never seen my father speak so harshly against a member of his own family. He could be cold sometimes and very strict, but I always thought that he was on our side -- that it was me, Konishi, and Ohiko against the world.

Right before that he had fired Katie, my English tutor, my source of American movies and my best girlfriend, for speaking out against my marriage. When he first told me that I would marry Teddy and I protested, Konishi's face went cold. The father who loved me and called me his "good-luck girl" was totally gone. He told me if I didn't go through with the wedding, he would disown me, too.

I guess to Konishi, some things are more important than love.

I couldn't turn to my adoptive mother, Mieko. She would only see me as she always had: as some kind of insect, something mildly unpleasant that had to be dealt with. She would tell me to obey my father, just as she obeyed him. Always. I think Mieko would obey if my father asked her to cut off her head and serve it to him for dinner.

But then, I was about to marry a greasy gangsta for him. So I guess there's not that much difference between me and Mieko.

"Are you listening to me, Heaven?" my...