Foxfire (An Other Novel) (15 page)

“More beer?” Ozuru says, clearly trying to defuse the tension.

Yukimi drains her can and reaches for another. Frowning, I look away. I don’t think alcohol is going to do anything useful. If anything, it will feed the anger coiled inside me.

I’m going to have to ask my father—Akira—for his version of events. It gives me a twisted feeling of satisfaction, a perverse thankfulness, to know that even when he’s a ghost I can still talk to him. Do I want to know how he died? He must have been a yakuza, since he was a Matsuzawa, so it must have been violent.

Without his blood, you may use his bones.

I shudder and twist away from my food, my stomach souring, and scan the restaurant. The breakfast crowd has thinned a bit—just a young couple in the corner, whispering and giggling over their food, a wrinkled old man devouring his yakitori, and a little girl with pink barrettes in her hair. No, she isn’t a little girl. I know her.

The temple maiden from Ueno. Junko.

I slide off my stool. If anyone asks, I can say I’m looking for the bathroom. But in truth, I’m meandering toward Junko as casually as possible. She’s not eating anything, just taking quick, nervous sips from a glass of water. When she sees me coming, her face turns beet red and she starts to stand.

“Wait,” I whisper. “Junko, it’s me.”

“I know,” she says, her voice so high-pitched it’s almost squeaky. “But you’re with
her
.”

“It’s all right,” I say. “She—”

“Who’s this?” Yukimi’s voice sounds too loud in my ear. “Your girlfriend’s come looking for you?”

Junko’s face becomes a deeper beetlike shade.

“She’s not,” I say.

“Then who is she?” Yukimi looks sideways at me, her eyes shifting from black to amber.

“Someone I met earlier,” I say with a shrug. “At a temple.”

Junko nods and stands, bowing quickly toward Yukimi. “Excuse me, but I have to leave.”

“Temple?” Yukimi’s nose twitches as she samples the air. “Interesting. I didn’t think a myobu would dirty her paws by stepping into a restaurant like this.”

Junko keeps her face downcast, but I see her eyes flash. “I know who you are, nogitsune.”

“Oh, do you?” Yukimi blocks Junko’s path. “Have a seat.”

The miko sits, her shoulders stiff. She folds and refolds a napkin, her fingers twitchy.

Yukimi leans closer, her hands flat on the table. “Who are you?”

“Nobody,” Junko says.

“Hey,” I say, “let’s not interrogate people over breakfast.”

Yukimi ignores me, her gaze intense like she’s scented prey and is just waiting for it to crawl back out of its burrow. Junko’s fingers keep folding the napkin, creasing it, turning it over—origami. She’s crafting an illusion. This should be interesting.

“We nogitsune are nicer than that,” I say. “Right, Okāsan?”

Yukimi’s gaze flinches toward me, like I knew it would. “Is this that myobu you talked about earlier? Shizuka, or whatever her name was, who knew so much about us?”

“What,” I say, “you don’t know her? She seems to know you.”

Yukimi gives the myobu a cold glare. “She’s clearly a spy.”

Junko tugs on the corners of her napkin and it becomes square in shape. She brings it to her mouth and blows into it, inflating it into a perfect, tiny paper lantern.

“Oh, how clever,” Yukimi says. “Is that a gift for—”

A glow sparks inside the lantern. Junko lifts the origami above her head, her eyes squeezed shut, and smashes it on the table—a blinding flash explodes.

A few people scream, and shouts go off like scattered aftershocks. I can’t see anything but white, my eyes aching. I hear Yukimi swearing and a chair scraping on the floor. I blink fast, my vision returning in fragments: the chair—the man—the oni—the door. I stumble toward the door and shove it open.

Shoes slap on the road, growing fainter.

“Wait!” I shout. “Junko!”

The footsteps stop.

“Tell Shizuka!”

The footsteps start again, faster.

A hand latches onto my elbow. “Did you see which way the myobu went?” Yukimi says.

“No, I can’t see anything,” I say, which is mostly true.

“Damn,” she growls. “I should have known better than to have fallen for such a simple trick—but it’s so simple I wasn’t thinking of it. That little myobu … how do you know her?”

“Like I said, I met her at a temple. She’s not Shizuka.”

“Don’t hide anything from me,” Yukimi says.

I take a deep breath and count to ten. I have the urge to tell her she’s the master of hiding things. My eyesight comes back almost completely and I meet her gaze.

“She’s just a scared miko,” I say. “She probably thought she could win points by spying on us.”

“On the Sisters,” Yukimi says.

“Are you that paranoid about the myobu?”

“Yes.” She stares down the road. “You have no idea.”

“Well, fine. Be paranoid. But I’m going to finish my breakfast.”

Yukimi glares at me, trying to hide a flicker of amusement in her eyes. “You can’t eat if you’re dead.”

“I don’t intend to die.”

Ozuru marches from the restaurant. Out here, he’s even more huge than he looked like inside. “What the
hell
happened back there?” he bellows, spit flecks flying.

“Then again,” I mutter, “we might die right now.”

Yukimi grins and claps the oni on the biceps. “Don’t worry, Ozuru. We’re fine. Just a myobu spy, but the mere sight of me scared her away. They’re sending little girls now.”

“That was a pretty big illusion for such a little girl,” Ozuru says.

Yukimi’s grin sours. “Maybe.” She forces her mouth into a smile again. “Ozuru, now that we’re out here, let me ask you a question. Do you happen to have any fruit on the menu?”

“Fruit?” Understanding dawns on the oni’s face. “Oh, yeah, I do.”

I arch my eyebrows. “Is this the fruit I think it is?”

Yukimi laughs, her eyes a bit wild.

fifteen

T
he back room in Ozuru’s restaurant smells like decades of greasy cooking are baked into the walls. Cardboard boxes and crates stand in wobbly stacks. I hear a squeak and see a shadow that looks suspiciously like a rodent, but I say nothing.

“Still have rats?” Yukimi says.

“The little bastards have gotten smarter lately,” Ozuru says. “Don’t taste quite as good, either.”

I try not to think about what might be sizzling on the grill right now.

Ozuru kicks aside some cardboard and unearths a small wooden box. He sets the box on a table and pries off the lid. Anburojia lies inside, each pale gold fruit individually nestled in tissue paper. The oni’s huge fingers look like they would crush the anburojia, but he plucks one out with surprisingly delicacy and places it in Yukimi’s hands.

“Only four?” she says.

“My supplier in Okinawa says it’s been unusually cold.”

“Hmm.” Yukimi brings the fruit to her nose and inhales deeply. Her eyelids flutter shut. “I’ll take them.”

“Great.” Ozuru fidgets, his eyes on the door. “Same price as usual.”

Yukimi slips a wallet from her jacket pocket and peels away an obscenely large amount of cash. Ozuru flips through the bills, then nods and pushes the box of anburojia toward her.

“There’s enough in there to cover the cost of our food, too,” she says.

“Thanks. Good seeing you again, Yukimi.” Ozuru glances at me. “And your son.”

“Same to you,” I say.

I sound so calm about this black market transaction.

We exit through the back door and Yukimi heads to her motorcycle. A trio of teen guys with cigarettes stand beside it, gawking—until their eyes slide over to Yukimi instead.

One of them whistles. “This your bike, lady? Hot.”

My god, I can’t believe my mother is getting catcalled. I seem to be invisible to these guys.

“Sure.” Yukimi opens up a saddlebag and starts tucking fruits inside.

“Start her up,” says a particularly delinquent-looking, zit-infested guy. “I’d love to see how fast you can go.”

Yukimi buckles up the saddlebag, her back to them.

I roll my eyes and pick up a handful of pebbles. Let’s see if I can pull this off. I bring the pebbles to my mouth and breathe on them, concentrating on a particular illusion. My heart beats faster but holds steady, and the pebbles start squirming in my hand.

“Hey!” I shout. “Look!”

All three glance my way, and I chuck the illusion in their faces. Black beetles cascade down on them, creeping into their hair, falling into their eyes, scuttling down their shirts.

Yukimi smiles as the guys shriek and swat at themselves. “Let’s go.”

We climb onto the motorcycle and zoom out of there, the engine purring like a big cat. Behind us, I hear the pebbles clatter on the ground as the illusion fades away.

“You should be careful doing that,” Yukimi says, over the wind.

“Why?” I say. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“For a small illusion, yes. But you still don’t have full control over your foxfire yet. Not without a name.”

“So when are we going to do this naming ceremony, anyway?” I say.

“Soon.”

She accelerates, and the sound of speed erases my words.

Back at the Lair, the sound of snores greets us. I peek into the living room and see Aoi sprawled on the couch, her mouth open, the TV remote dangling from her hand. On the soundless TV, game-show contestants race down a slip-and-slide. Yukimi crosses the room to turn off the TV, and I follow behind her. There’s a woman I don’t recognize snoozing in the easy chair, and a vixen curled by her feet.

More of the Sisters, I guess. How many are there?

Something crunches beneath my foot. I glance down and see I’ve stepped on the smashed guts of my cell phone. And then it occurs to me that I don’t need a cell phone to contact Gwen or my grandparents. All I need to do is enter their dreams while they’re sleeping. I glance at my watch: 10:40 a.m. They have to be awake right now. But later …

Yukimi walks upstairs with the anburojia, and I follow her to her room.

“When are we going to eat those?” I say.

She tugs open a dresser drawer and tucks the fruits among sweaters. “After dark. For now, we sleep.”

“But it’s the middle of the morning!”

“And we’ve been awake all night.” Yukimi arches an eyebrow at me. “Now isn’t a good time to be running as a fox.”

I stifle a yawn and try to pretend like I’m not swaying on my feet. “What, the inugami have a day shift? Wait, I already know the answer to that question.”

“Oh?” Yukimi says. “How many times have you run into them?”

I count off with my fingers. “Once in Harajuku. Again in Shinjuku Gyoen. And later, they attacked my grandmother and my girlfriend when they were coming home from shopping.”

Yukimi’s face darkens. “They know where your grandparents live?”

“I hope not, but probably—”

“Zenjiro won’t let an opportunity like this pass.”

I meet her eyes, keeping my voice calm. “If you think he’s going to hold them hostage, why won’t you let me call them? Then I can warn them, and tell them that I’m okay.”

Yukimi tidies the anburojia, her gaze distant.

“Or would you not care,” I say, “if an elderly couple got caught in your fight with the inugami?”

She shuts the drawer with a thump. “I’m not completely heartless.”

Good to know.

“I was thinking of a pay phone,” I say. “Far enough from here that it wouldn’t give away the location of the Lair. We could take the metro so we’re less conspicuous.”

“We?” she says.

I smile. “Well, unless you want to let me go out there alone.”

Yukimi’s eyes flash. “Alone is bad.”

“That’s what I thought. So, when does the next metro leave?”

“Next metro? Nice try.” She sits on the edge of her bed and kicks off her boots. “We’ll do it tonight.”

The hopeful smile on my face collapses like a house of cards. “Sure.”

Yukimi slings off her jacket and falls flat on her bed, her hair fanning around her head like a dark halo. Shadows hide the fatigue on her face. She shuts her eyes.

“Go to sleep,” she says.

“Of course.” I try to sound upbeat. “Wouldn’t want to drop dead.”

She opens her eye a crack, then shoos me away.

I leave, shut the door behind me, and sigh. The sigh merges into a jaw-cracking yawn.

Damn it, I am tired.

I fill my cheeks with air and let it puff out slowly. My feet feel like anchors as I go downstairs. I head into the bedroom there and discover yet another strange woman sitting cross-legged on the blanket I’d had before. She’s polishing a dagger with a rag and some oil. She looks bony, her face and her elbows sharp.

“Who are you?” says the woman. “Yukimi’s?”

I hesitate in the doorway. “She told you?”

“Yeah.” She holds the dagger to the light, her reflection glinting in the blade. “How long are you going to be here?”

“Not long.”

The woman arches her eyebrows, then unfolds her too-thin legs and stands. She sheathes the dagger in her belt and slips past me, leaning against the doorway so we don’t touch.

“You don’t belong here,” she mutters as she passes.

“I already know that.”

I close the door behind her, cutting off that nasty glint in her eyes, then grab a new blanket, one that doesn’t have unknown fox fur on it. I spread the blanket in the cleanest corner and lie down, staring at the cracks and mildew on the ceiling, trying to find faces. As if the noppera-bō might actually return to me here. My father.

I shut my eyes.

It’s dark in the room when I wake. My sleep was nothing more than time lost. I don’t remember any of my dreams, if I had any, and fatigue still drapes me like a heavy blanket.

A shadowed woman stands over me, her eyes yellow.

I sniff the air, catching Yukimi’s scent, and my muscles unclench. “What time is it?”

“You have a watch,” she says.

So she’s going to be cold again.

I look at my watch and hit a button to make it glow. 8:53 p.m.

“You overslept,” Yukimi says. “Night fell hours ago.”

“I was tired.”

She walks out of the room, her boots clicking in the hall. “Let’s go.”

I climb to my feet and try to rub away the sleep clinging to my eyes.

“Are you hungry?” she says.

“Not particularly.”

Yukimi slips a golden-white fruit from her pocket. The anburojia glimmers in the dim light, haloed in its own coat of fuzz. I suck in my breath, drinking in its exotic scent. I remember the last time I ate anburojia, and how craving-sick I felt afterward, but I can’t help wanting to sink my teeth into the fruit.

“So we’re running as foxes again?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“After we call my grandparents,” I say. “Remember?”

“We can stop at a pay phone along the way.”

I scrutinize her face, but she’s better at hiding her expressions than I am at reading them.

Yukimi rubs her thumb along the skin of the anburojia fruit. “You need to build your strength. It’s no wonder you’re so weak, living so long as a human among Americans.”

I arch my eyebrows. “Am I not Japanese enough for you?”

“No.”

Ouch.

She presses the anburojia into my hand. “Take it. Save it for later.”

I close my fingers around the anburojia, the fruit’s flesh cool and soft against my skin, and tuck it into my jacket pocket. “How much later?”

But she’s already walking away.

We leave the Lair on foot. A few stars try futilely to glimmer to life above, their glow outshone by the glare of Tokyo. Ragged clouds droop overhead, dripping slushy rain.

True to her word, Yukimi leads me to the nearest metro station. I duck into the porcelain-tiled underground, my heartbeat thumping, and look for a sign identifying our location. Shin-Nakano Station. On the Marunouchi Line. I don’t remember where it goes, just vaguely recall it snaking like a red serpent across most of the map.

The sound of an approaching train echoes down the tunnel.

“Hurry,” Yukimi says, her footsteps staccato on the tiles.

I jog after her. We’re on the platform leading out of town, toward the edges of Tokyo. Away from Akasaka.

The train slides from the tunnel with a metallic whir. The brakes whistle and the doors chime open. We climb onto a car, our heads bent against the glow of fluorescent, too bright after the darkness. Yukimi slips on a pair of sunglasses and looks straight ahead. The passengers ignore us, and we them. We slip into the gloom of the tunnel.

In this place between places, I stare at my reflection. Bruises shadow my hollow eyes. My hair hasn’t seen a comb for who knows how long and it spikes in every direction. I look like I could be a runaway, or homeless. I wonder what would happen if I managed to find a police officer. Would they even believe what I told them?

One stop. Two stops. Three.

I nudge Yukimi’s arm. “Where are we going?”

“To the end of the line.”

“We don’t need to go that far for a pay phone.”

“Yes, we do.”

Judging by the hard line of her lips, she’s not concerned about the pay-phone call. She’s trying to find a place safe for foxes, far from the territory of the yakuza and their dogs.

The metro’s brakes squeal. “The next station is Ogikubo.”

I peer out the windows. We’re above ground now, the tracks running past stores that aren’t nearly as flashy as the ones downtown, the skyscrapers not reaching quite as high.

Yukimi touches my shoulder, nudging me from the metro. We cross the tracks and head down a narrow street bordered by stores selling ordinary things like eggplants and magazines and plastic trinkets. It doesn’t feel like a dangerous part of town, but Yukimi still walks briskly, making eye contact with no one. She turns down a side street and walks in the shadows of patchwork houses stitched together.

I follow in her shadow, the slushy rain sticking in my hair. I already know that there’s no pay phone out here, not where she’s taking me. I can see trees ahead through the buildings, a place where we can shift into foxes and I can forget why I even came.

Or I could make my escape.

We reach a river, the water dark and glistening in its concrete constraints. Yukimi paces along its edge, the wind unwinding her scarf so it spirals behind her. I slip my hand into my pocket and tighten my fingers around the anburojia. As a fox, I can run faster. As a fox, I can slip into the night and lose Yukimi, then return to Akasaka.

“It’s cold, isn’t it?” Yukimi says. “My teeth are chattering.”

“Well,” I say, “at least we’ll be warmer in our fur.”

She laughs, giddy, as if she’s already eaten the anburojia. It’s easy to laugh back, to pretend like I’m also excited by the idea of slipping into my fox-skin and forgetting my humanity.

I walk a little faster. “Where are we going?”

“To a park farther down the river.”

The bare branches of trees spiderweb the sky, and we leave the street behind for paths in a park. The river flows between artificial banks paved with cobblestones like fish scales. I find some stairs carved out of the stones and follow them to the water.