Temple of the Dueling Heart

by Moon, Avia Belle

• ISBN13: 9781426912825
• ISBN10: 142691282X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-07-27
• Publisher: Author Solutions

Summary

Imagine yourself traveling on a journey to Japan to erase your massive debt, only to find herself forced to confront a stalker, a past history of sexual abuse, and a dependency on sleeping pills and anti-depressants. This is what heroine Helene Capri must face in Temple of the Dueling Heart. Like the beautiful Blue Grotto in Italy, her past remains submerged beneath a sea of childhood memories.She must use her monolingual skills to survive the obsessive stalking of Mikari Wolfe, a man in conflict with his Japanese-American identity. Along the way she also meets Anastasia, a Russian art exchange student searching for herself in Anastasia Romanov, the alleged murdered daughter of the last tsar of Russia. From the opening scene of a woman about to jump in front of a train, the interplay between these three characters drives the dynamics of plot in a setting of psychological tension and suspense, shifting between the two faces of Japanese society...uraomote. Temple of the Dueling Heart can be called a ghost story, in that each character must confront phantoms from their past. Or it could be called a brain scan of modern Japan, with a paranormal twist...

Excerpts

ACT ONECitadel by the SeaHELENE BENT over in agony, feeling asteroids explode in her abdomen. She heard a voice announcing an approaching train through the anguish in her womb.She wasn't a woman bent over a bench in a country that boasted the safest track record in the world.She was draped over a divan in a jungle of Rousseau.Through the fog of her contact lenses she saw another woman standing at the edge of the platform, peering down into the tracks. The woman was poised to jump. Helene tried to stand up, but the pain in her stomach pulled her back down to the bench.The train drew closer, its lights shimmering in the rain."Stop!" The thunder of its approach drowned out her voice. She stood up and slowly made her way through the barricade of bodies to the platform, trying to ignore the spasms racking her abdomen. She touched the arm of the train conductor. He turned to her. Japanese flowed from his lips. She couldn't reply, only point.His eyes followed her finger to the woman crouched down over the platform. He glanced at the freight train speeding towards the station, then ran to a pole and pushed a button. A yellow light flashed. The train screeched down the tracks, slowly rolling to a stop.Helene struggled over to where the woman stood with her head bent over the platform. A cloud of perfume enveloped her in a fragrant mist. Helene touched her arm. "Are you all right?"The woman lifted her brain and turned...SLEEPLESSSEROTONINREUPTAKEDIMPOTENT.She readied alien blue bullets...Helene stepped back.Aimed. "You are who?"Helene stared. "I thought...maybe you needed some help."And fired. "I do not ask for help.""I'm so sorry, I thought that you were going to..."The train conductor walked to the woman and led her away."Please, wait." Helene pulled a white card out of her bag. "Call me, if you need anything."The woman took the card and stared at it for a moment, then walked away.Helene turned around and walked into the late afternoon sunlight flooding the station. A glittering object on the platform caught her eye. She picked up a silver necklace. It was a pendant of a two-headed eagle. She turned it over and stroked the deep crack running through its heart. She slipped it into her pocket and walked towards the area where the buses were lined up.She stared out the window as the bus snaked through the blur of concrete and rain. Gaseous neon illuminated a Chinese woman speaking on a cell phone with her legs sprawled out on the curb. Four-pronged cellular phone antennas pierced the sky like devils' pitchforks. The bus turned off the main road, passing the history museum. Suddenly, brakes squealed through the steamy jungle along the sides of the road. Helene looked up, almost expecting to see a dead monkey.An elderly woman pushing a cart full of white Japanese radishes hobbled across the street.Helene rubbed her eyes again, irritated by her contact lenses. Another wave of pain exploded through her stomach.The bus drove into huge clouds, passing shops selling seafood and bait. The coastline came into view...waves tumbled over a sea wall...gulls dipped into the muddy green waters. Pregnant clouds hung in the horizon, silver in the light. Lightning crackled across the sky as she climbed out of the bus. She walked past a red and white tower soaring out of a rice paddy. A curtain of indigo fluttered in the entrance of a public bath.She noticed the frame of a house about two hundred meters away. Orange light glowed through shadows of workers on the second floor. She glanced at a cat sitting on a stone wall next to the construction site. She leaned down, stroked its gleaming black fur, and looked out to the sea. A grim building sat on a hill jutting out of the waters. She turned around and walked up to her doorstep. A white envelope peeked out of the mail slot in her door. She stepped in, the odor of enclosure and humidity filling her nostrils. She yanked down the string of the fluorescent light in the living room, illuminating a low wooden table with photos of her and Sangria taken at the airport two weeks ago. She could still hear their conversation."You'll be fine.One year in Japan and you're out of debt.""I don't know if I like this house, it's kind of creepy!""Hey, think of it as antique. It was built in the Edo Period.""Who lived here before?""I think a woman and her daughter.""I still don't like it.""You like your debt better?"She looked up. A cockroach, shiny and huge, was crisscrossing its way across the wall."Shit!" She ran into the kitchen and took out a spray can of pesticide, then crept back into the room. The cockroach froze, and then quickly scurried up the ceiling. She aimed the spray can like a gun and fired, hissing it to death. She turned around, walked back into the kitchen, and washed her hands. She watched the rusty water flow out of the faucet.She walked back into the living room, sat on the couch, and opened the letter from her credit card company that had arrived in response to her late payments.Your interest rate has been raised to thirty percent.She tossed the paper down on the table, and then climbed the stairs to the second floor. She was about to walk into her bedroom when she noticed that the rice paper doors of the tatami room were slightly open. She stared at them. The room had been closed since Sangria left. She peered through the crack into the darkness, then closed the door and walked into her bedroom. She pulled down the string to the light, illuminating ten thousand dollars of camera equipment, all paid for by credit cards.She walked to the window and slid back the rice paper screen. She looked out through the bars of her verandah, feeling imprisoned by her debt. The only way out was to work hard for a year, and then leave. She turned around, walked to the closet, and slipped out of her gray silk shirt. An image of Claude's face appeared behind the lens of his camera."Put that shirt on, the gray one."She turned around. "Sorry. Don't want to.""Come on, just put it on.""Sorry. Can't do.""Just put the fucking shirt on."She walked to the closet, took out the shirt, slipped it on, and turned around, purple bruises raging underneath her arms. "Take your stupid shot now."He lowered the camera. "You gotta quit bumping into things.""Yeah. Like abusive men."