Foxfire (An Other Novel)

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Foxfire
© 2012 by Karen Kincy.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

First e-book edition © 2012

E-book ISBN: 9780738731476

Book format by Bob Gaul
Cover design by Lisa Novak
Cover image © Fox statue: Keren Su/Photodisc/PunchStock
Man: eyedear/Shutterstock Images
Pagoda: MIXA Co. Ltd./PunchStock
Red fox: iStockphoto.com/Eric Isselée

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To Mad and Ellie, my sisters and first fans,
for the nights we howled at the moon

one

C
old.

Bitter, bone-deep cold, the kind that gnaws at your toes and nose. Your tail, too, when you have one, and right now I do. Its white tip brushes along the snow, flicking pine needles away as I skulk after my mother, my pawprints in hers, our ears pricked for any sound of humans. We don’t belong here, so close to the fields. But the scent of cooking tofu on the wind makes my stomach ache harder than any cold could.

My mother freezes, one paw raised, then coughs.
Hide
.

I dart beneath a low bush and crouch, shivering. The longer I hold still, the more I freeze. I’m just a kit fox, and my fur hasn’t grown as thick as my mother’s. She sniffs the air, then glances at me, her orange eyes sparkling.

Voices. Heavy boots, tamping down the snow. Two boys walk down the path, talking.

My mother sits and rubs her tail with her forepaws. Her fur crackles, the tiny sparks melting into a white ball of light.
Kitsune-bi
. Foxfire. A smile curls my lips, and I poke my nose farther out from the leaves.

The boys stop. “Look,” the fat one says. “Pawprints.”

The skinny one squats over the snow, then shudders. “Foxes?”

“Maybe. We should get out of here.”

My mother rears onto her hind legs and tosses the ball of foxfire down the slope. It rolls like a white apple, right under the nose of the fat boy. His gaze latches onto it, and he starts to trot after it—he can’t help himself. The foxfire rolls into a dark tangle of forest, and the fat boy crashes after it in his clumsy hunger.

“Daisuke!” the skinny boy shouts. “Daisuke, stop!”

My mother flicks her ear at me. Time to go. I climb out from under the bush and shake myself off, careful not to let the boys see. We flit through the shadows. The snow-burdened farmhouse stands ahead, just through the trees. Golden light spills from a kitchen window, along with the scent of tofu. I nearly whimper.

“Daisuke!” The skinny boy’s voice sounds shrill with panic.

I glance back. I hope we haven’t hurt them … but no, we trick, not kill.

The skinny boy whistles, then waves his arm as if calling a pet to come. I sniff with laughter. That won’t help.

Then three dogs streak from behind the farmhouse. Their breath steams the air as they pant, their black-spotted tongues lolling, their tightly curled tails held high.
Hokkaido-inu
, a breed with a fierce hatred of foxes.

My mother flattens herself to the ground, but it’s too late. Barking, the dogs spin toward her, their paws kicking mud into the snow.

The skinny boy laughs. “Found the fox, Daisuke!”

My mother’s muzzle twists into a snarl. The dogs hurtle toward her as if she’s nothing more than a scrap of meat to be snatched up. My heartbeat drums against my chest, and my legs lock into stiff logs.

A dog leaps upon my mother and drives its jaws toward her neck. She twists nimbly out of the way and sprints for the trees. The dogs tear after her, their teeth snapping inches from her bushy tail. She dodges between roots and brambles, a zigzagging streak of orange, then vanishes into the darkness of the night.

Daisuke stumbles back onto the path, blinking. “What happened?”

“You fell for foxfire,” the other boy says. “But I set the dogs on the little
kitsune
bitch.”

They don’t know I’m here. Quivering, I sink down into the snow and hide in the white. Wind shakes new snow like salt onto Japan. It blankets the black trees as the boys walk toward the farmhouse. It piles thick on my back as I wait for my mother. Soon I have to blink to see, then shake myself to not be buried alive. I dig a little den beneath the gnarled toes of a tree, then settle down for the night.

She will come back. She’s never left me alone before, not for long.

Fear drifts down inside me, settling higher and higher.

She will come back.

“Seriously, Tavian. What were you dreaming about?” Gwen asks.

We’re crammed in the sardine-tight rows of economy airline seating. Outside the tiny porthole window, dark sky and equally dark water stream by. I rest my forehead against the cool glass and squeeze my sleep-fogged eyes shut.

“Nothing spectacular,” I lie.

“You were making these weird noises,” she says, and I glance at her. “Whimpers.” She narrows her eyes at me. They gleam amber in the dim light, and I know she knows I’m not telling the whole truth. Or even a smidgen of it.

There’s no point in arguing about it, and I don’t want her eyes to get any brighter, not with a plane full of humans. I slip my fingers between hers.

“I’ll tell you later,” I whisper. “All right?”

“Okay.” Her mouth twists in that wry smile of hers. Snarky, she calls it. “With interest.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Interest?”

“Well, if you’re withholding interesting information from me now,” she says, “you’d better make it extra juicy later.”

Her hot breath in my ear distracts me, but I keep a straight face. “Yes, ma’am.”

Gwen’s smile relaxes into something realer. “You ready?”

“For what?”

“Japan.”

I laugh to mask my dread. “I’d better be.”

She squeezes my hand, then leans against my shoulder and shuts her eyes.

I don’t keep track of time. I’m lost in the sameness of the stale air and humming of the plane. My eyelids keep slipping down, but whenever I close them, all I see is the white of snow. I don’t want to return to that dream. I already know what happens next, when that winter night blurred into an eternity. Frigid fear still seeps through me now, like I never closed the door on that part of my life. Believe me, I’ve tried.

My mother left me to the snow and the dogs. I was six years old.

Dawn strengthens and takes hold, a gorgeous cherry-blossom pink that makes my fingers itch for a paintbrush. We land in Narita International Airport at around noon. The polished floors and exposed steel ceilings reflect the human swarms and the gleam of artificial light. By the time we get through customs, Gwen’s famished. She keeps groaning dramatically whenever we walk past vending machines, which stand like an army of robots with a tidy rainbow of snacks and drinks in their glass bellies.

“They have everything
here,” she says. “Jasmine tea, ice cream, ramen noodle soup—”

“Schoolgirl panties,” I say.

Gwen wrinkles her nose. “Tavian!”

“It’s true,” I say, grinning. “It’s a fetish around here. Businessmen pay tons of yen for—”

“Are those your grandparents over there?” She lowers her voice. “Because I’m not sure they’re interested in panties.”

My heartbeat stumbles. “Where?”

I’ve only met them once, when I was seven, and that was the day before I left Japan. My memory of them is more than a little moth-eaten, and I have to fill in their faces with the photos in our family album.

Gwen laughs. “I’m kidding! Wow, don’t have a heart attack.”

I make a noise between a growl and a sigh. I have no idea how she’s so hyper on so little sleep. Then again, that’s Gwen for you.

She inhales sharply. “Holy crap. Is that a Bigness Burger?”

Ahead, a fast-food joint with a blaring, mustard-
yellow sign beckons. Some desperate guy in a grinning fox suit is hopping around and waving like he’s walking on hot coals. I wince and walk faster past this travesty.

“Look!” Gwen says. “Isn’t that their
kitsune
mascot? Ki-chan?”

“Yes,” I mutter. “But that
thing
is not a kitsune.”

I happen to know a thing or two about the subject, being the genuine article myself.

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, you’re just biased.”

“I’m biased toward fast-food chains not making an idiot out of me.”

Gwen arches her eyebrows. “Well, I think it’s cute.”

“Japan can be a cute overdose.” I pretend to squeal like an anime girl. “Oh, so
kawaii
!”

“Admit it. Ki-chan is cool.” She pokes me. “In America you’d never see anybody using an Other as a mascot.”

“Because it’s not politically correct. How would you feel if McDonald’s made up Perky the Pooka to sell fries?”

Gwen snorts. “That might be kind of nice. You know, if people thought pookas weren’t evil rampaging demon horses.”

I shrug. I guess she knows a thing or two about that.

Ki-chan hears us speaking English and zeros in on us. He squats before Gwen—the most obvious sales-pitch target—and scoops air with both hands. Maybe he thinks he can literally reel us in with the sheer force of his craziness. He even makes a little yipping noise that makes me bite back a smile.

“Come on,” Gwen says, “aren’t you hungry? I read in the guidebook that Bigness Burger makes fabulous barbecued eel.”

I stare at her. “You’re actually interested in eating barbecued eel?”

“We’re in Japan!” She throws her arms into the air and dances, almost crashing into my suitcase. “Aren’t you excited?”

I catch her by the wrist and tug her to face me. She leans against me, her face flushed, her hair already wild, and kisses me quickly.

“This isn’t my first time here,” I say.

Her smile fades. “Bad memories?”

I shrug again. She’s only heard the quick and dirty version of my life in Japan.

Her eyes get big. “Grandparents. Three o’clock.”

“My three o’clock or yours?”

“Mine. See? They have a red umbrella.”

Sure enough, a silver-haired man in a crisp ivory suit strolls along with a red umbrella held high—that’s our signal. A woman about his age follows at his heels, chattering a million miles an hour in Japanese. She’s wearing grey plaid pants pulled up way too high at the waist. She’s got to be what, four foot six? Maybe? Granted, I’m only five foot four, but I could get used to this whole actually-being-taller-than-somebody thing.

I squint. Are they really Tsuyoshi and Michiko, my
ojīsan
and
obāsan
?

The woman glances in our direction. Her nut-brown skin is wrinkled in a thousand folds. She sucks in her breath, then seizes her husband’s arm. He swivels toward us, his face statuesque. He’s carrying her black and pink purse, which kind of destroys his stony I’m-your-elder-so-you’d-better-respect-me look.

His gaze moves from me to Gwen—specifically, Gwen’s coppery curls.

She tries out a smile. “Are you Tavian’s grandparents?”

The man’s brows descend and he adjusts his square glasses. “Octavian?”

“Yes.” I hold out my hand so he can shake it. “I’m your grandson?”

He grabs my hand like he wants to pulverize it and gives it a brisk up-and-down shake. “My name is Kimura Tsuyoshi. I am your grandfather.” Talking with him over the telephone didn’t do justice to his deep, Darth Vader voice. He’s only a few inches taller than me, so I have no clue why he gets to sound so imposing.

“And this is your grandmother,” he says, “Kimura Michiko.”

Michiko nods with a polite smile, and I bow back.

“Obāsan,” I say. “Good to finally see you.”

She straightens, her mouth all puckered up like she’s sucking on a straw and getting only air. Of course she’s staring at Gwen, who’s blushing red-hot and towering over everybody like a giantess.

“Yes,” Michiko says, “good to see you.”

“Thanks so much for inviting me and Tavian to come visit for the holidays!” Gwen says, shaking Tsuyoshi’s hand. “I’ve never traveled abroad before. I mean, I know this isn’t just travel, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know you better.” She clutches my hand. “I know you mean a lot to Tavian.”

Tsuyoshi and Michiko both nod, turtle-slow. They both speak English well, according to Mom and Dad, but Gwen does have a tendency to rattle off words when she gets nervous. I squeeze Gwen’s hand and try to communicate through eyebrows alone that she should talk slowly and simply. Also, not keel over dead under the force of Tsuyoshi’s scrutiny.

“Let’s go,” Tsuyoshi says.

He folds the red umbrella and marches away. Michiko follows him, so Gwen and I have no choice but to lug our luggage and try to keep up.

“I thought they were fluent in English?” Gwen whispers in my ear.