When Asako awoke, she was in a wholly new environment. Through tired eyes, she saw a thatched roof rising high above her. Dim light filtered into the room through screen walls, and the scent of burning pine filled the air. She sensed she was alone, and fell back asleep.

  She was next awoken by the juddering of a screen door being shoved along its wooden channel.

  “She awake yet?” enquired a woman’s raspy voice.

  “No, still asleep, and she needs more rest,” responded the recognisable voice of Tanaka.

  “She needs rest? I’m the one who needs rest, but I’ll seemingly only get it once I’m dead. Wake her

  soon will ya,” the woman grumbled.

  “All in time,” replied Tanaka. The door slid shut and the house fell silent.

  The room about Asako was small, barely enough for four mattresses. She glanced about, confirming

  she was alone, and as she contemplated trying to rise, she fell asleep.

  The next time she awoke, Asako was sitting upright covered in sweat, with a pinching pain in the rear of her throat and horrid thoughts evaporating from her mind. The terror.

  “The hell was that?” she heard the woman growl through the wall.

  “Just sleep,” she thought she heard Tanaka reply.

  “We’ll put a stop to that first thing in the morning,” the woman grumbled.

  She lay awake, peering around in the darkness. The night was warm, but she felt cold sleeping without her family. She’d seen so many unfamiliar sights on the journey, but had the deer she’d seen been real? What had happened after that? How had she got here? Tanaka must have carried her. He must have put her in the basket after all.

  The next time she woke, someone was tapping her shoulder and whispering her name. She opened her eyes expecting to see her mother, only to find herself looking at Tanaka, in the thin dawn light.

  “Asako,” he said, as she blinked at him and gazed about. “Time to wake up. It’s morning.” “Your house?”

  “Yes, and now your house too.”

  “How long I been here?”

  “One and a half days. You needed to rest. Try to remain awake, and soon I’ll bring you some food. You can rest here for today. Tomorrow I’ll show you around.”

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  He brought her a small helping of rice, pickles and, as a treat, a grilled sweet-fish. She’d never had more than a morsel of fish given to her at one time, so she savoured every piece of flesh as she deftly used her chopsticks to strip the bones dry. She spent the day lying, sitting and occasionally hobbling around the room. She rubbed her hands over the tatami mats, which seemed luxurious compared to the worn-out wooden floor of her family’s hut. She didn’t meet Imai that whole day, but that evening as her nightmare tore her from sleep, she again heard a foul-mouthed rant from the opposite side of the wall.

  “Asako, I’d like you to have breakfast with my wife and me this morning. Are you able to do that?” Tanaka asked at dawn. Asako didn’t reply, but that didn’t stop Tanaka from continuing.

  “Also, this could be difficult, but I’d like you to tell me about your nightmares. I know you can’t help it, but it could be problematic if the screaming at night continues. Could you tell me what you see in your dreams?”

  Asako dropped her head and turned away from him. He briefly clenched his fists, before releasing them and shaking his head. He lowered himself to the floor with his legs crossed beneath him, leaned back against a beam and placed his palms together on his lap. He breathed out a long sigh and then lifted his head.

  “After I said goodbye to Mae, I was haunted by dreams. Not terror like yours. Just sadness. Immense sadness. I would awake alone in the darkness, just wishing that a hole would open beneath me, a gaping chasm to swallow me whole and close behind me. I’ve heard that during earthquakes, cracks can open in the earth, fissures, suck people in and then shut around them to crush them alive. It’s a terrible thing to wish for, but such was my desire to die. Desperately so. You’ve experienced something tragic, and that saddens me, but such is life. Try Asako, try to beat the dream. I say that for your sake. Try not to let this vision—because a vision is all it is—defeat you. Teach your dreaming mind to fight back. Do you think you can do that?”

  Asako nodded.

  “Time will help. Time helped me. But a greater aid came from my thoughts. I tried to envision Mae living somewhere without me, living healthy and happy. That may not have been the case, but imagining it, almost wishing it into being, lessened the pain. So, Asako san, for whatever it’s worth, may I suggest you use your mind to nullify what you see in your dreams. If you’re being chased, chase back. If you are being punished, fight back. I think you can do more than you realise, so why not try?”

  Taking Tanaka’s advice, Asako referred to Imai as madam. They sat on opposite sides of a lowered table, eating rice and pickles. Asako sat quietly and observed the older two engaging in a civil conversation, answering courteously when they spoke to her. She was surprised that Tanaka’s wife—or new wife she remembered—appeared a lot younger than him. Her body was short and plump. A narrow nose and thin eyes set within a large circular face created a visual imbalance that Asako had difficulty viewing. There was something unsettling in her shifty, squinting gaze, and Asako dreaded the prospect of being alone with her.

  “So, Asako, contrary to what I told you yesterday when I said I would show you around, I’ve been called away for two days. I’ll be leaving soon after breakfast,” Tanaka announced, pushing himself back from the table. “Imai will take you to the bathhouse this morning as you have a few days of travel to wash off your body, and then she’ll show you a few chores you can begin with. I’ve told her about the great endurance you showed on our travel from Edo, and we are sure you’re going to do fine.”

  The words struck her, the pain in her chest palpable, as although she was far from comfortable in Tanaka’s company, him abandoning her to Imai was unquestionably worse. She sensed that while Imai was controlling herself over breakfast, that beneath her stocky frame, an altogether nastier character was manifesting.

  Dear reader.

  If you've finished up to the end of chapter 5, then I thank you. Unfortunately, I have now uploaded onto Royal Road all I am able to at this stage, roughly 10 percent of the novel. The entirety is available and free to read on Kindle Unlimited.

  Kind regards

  Reece McCoy

  https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3AReece%2BMcCoy&s=relevancerank&text=Reece+McCoy&ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1