Foxfire (An Other Novel) (12 page)

“Shit,” I hiss.

Of course it won’t open for me. Yukimi probably handcrafted this illusion herself. Maybe it only works for people who aren’t pissed off at her. That would be perfect.

I pace along the perimeter of the courtyard, brushing the grit and snow from my stinging hands. There’s another door, but it’s locked. I stare at the fire escape above my head, curious, then jump and grab the bottom rung of the ladder. My hands slip on the icy iron bar and I fall back down.

Times like this, I wish I could fly. Gwen has it easy.

Down on my hands and knees, I discover a missing brick in the wall across the corner from the fire escape. I kick at the weak section until more bricks crumble away. Through the ragged-edged hole, light from a faraway street lamp leaks through.

“Excellent.” I rub my frigid hands together.

Now, if only I could fit through. Well, a fox could. But that’s a transformation I haven’t made in Japan since I was seven years old. I swallow hard and stare at the freedom beyond. I’m afraid of what will happen if I push it. Afraid of the way my heartbeat is erratic right now. Afraid that if I fall, no one will hear me.

It’s damn cold out here. I’m starting to shiver uncontrollably.

“Well, a little fur would help that,” I whisper.

I roll my shoulders to get the kinks out, then flex my fingers. The bones in my hands ache as they rearrange into paws. I pant, my breath steaming the air, and run my tongue over my sharpening teeth. Pain shivers through my nerves.

This isn’t supposed to hurt. Should I keep going?

I force myself to breathe steadily and focus on the transformation. There’s a prickling along my arms as red fur shadows my skin, but no pelt sweeping over me in a fraction of a second. My skeleton aches, resistant to the change, and I clench my muscles, willing it to shrink into fox bones.

A snarl rips through the air. I swing my head around. Yukimi.

“Stop,” she says.

I bare my teeth at her. “Leave me alone.”

“This is not the way you need to do this,” she says.

My teeth itch as they retreat to their human bluntness. I wrap my arms tight around my chest, fighting the urge to whine against the sharp pain inside me.

“Eat this,” she says.

She crouches beside me, a fruit cradled in her hand. An apricot, almost, but it’s too small for that. The strange fruit’s skin shimmers the color of honey on cream.

Shivering, I stare at it. “What is it?” My voice sounds raspy.

Her eyes burn like embers. “It will help you get better.”

I laugh, a short bark. “So you know there’s something wrong with me. That I’m going to die.” My voice snags on the words. “That’s why you left me in Hokkaido, isn’t it?”

Yukimi’s face betrays no emotions.

I take the fruit. It feels warm and oddly light in my hand, its skin covered with a delicate fuzz. I bring it to my nose and sniff. Jasmine-almond-nectar-syrup, an intoxicating confusion that tingles in my nose and hovers in the back of my throat.

“This is an illusion,” I say.“Isn’t it?”

“No,” Yukimi says. “Eat it. Trust me.”

I force my stiff legs to straighten, and stand. “Trusting you is the last thing I want to do right now.” But I’m still clutching the fruit in the palm of my sweaty hand.

Yukimi crouches with her arms resting on her thighs, her hands hanging near her knees. A wind whistles through the courtyard and spreads her hair behind her.

“This isn’t going to work.” I force the words past my tight throat. “I know half-breeds like myself aren’t strong enough to control a kitsune’s magic. The myobu told me.”

“The myobu?” She flashes her fangs. “They know nothing.”

“You said yourself that I was broken.”

Yukimi looks me in the eye. “Broken things can be mended.”

Anger reignites in me, and heat spreads through my skin like wildfire. I hate how she’s speaking so calmly, like this is nothing important and I’m nothing to her.

“There’s a lot you’re never going to mend,” I say.

I fling the fruit from my hand. It bounces against the wall and rolls across the snow. Yukimi stares at it, can’t even look me in the eye. I’m done with this, done with her.

I turn my back on her and walk away.

“Kogitsune,” she says. Little Fox.

The word hits me in the back like an arrow. I stop, my spine stiffening. “What did you call me?”

“Kogitsune, eat the fruit.”

twelve

A
s I stand with my back to Yukimi, I suck in the icy night air to steady myself and freeze the blurring in my eyes. Once I’m sure my voice won’t betray me, I speak.

“My name is Octavian Kimura,” I say. “You never named me.”

There’s a long silence. I turn back, and she’s standing there looking at me with her head tilted to one side.

“And you never told me your true name,” I add.

“Very few have ever known it,” she says.

“I’m your son.” I swallow past the burning tightness in my throat. “Or did you think I was just a pet?”

She seems unimpressed by my jab. “You were a kit-fox.”

“I’m not a kit-fox anymore.”

“I can see that.”

I circle closer to her. “When were you planning on naming me? And telling me the truth about why we were in Hokkaido, and who my father was? Why can’t you tell me now?”

“You tell me,” she says, “why you need my name. And my blood.”

I take a slow breath and let it out again. “Shizuka, the myobu, said that’s what she needed for my naming ceremony. Along with the name and the blood of my father.”

Yukimi folds her arms. “And you trust this idiot Shizuka?”

I shrug. “Despite being a myobu, she’s tried to help me much more than you ever have.” But I think of the donation Tsuyoshi gave to the shrine, and I grimace.

“You know nearly nothing,” Yukimi says calmly.

“Through no fault of my own,” I say.

I glance at the fruit on the ground, then pick it out of the snow. It’s bruised but unbroken.

“Tell me what this is,” I say, “at least.”

“Anburojia
.”

I blink. “Ambrosia?”

“That’s what we call it. I’m sure scientists have given it some other name, something Latin, but they haven’t discovered what we have.” A smile touches Yukimi’s eyes. “The anburojia fruit tastes incredibly bitter to everyone who does not have magic. For those who do, it’s a sweet delicacy that enhances our power.”

“Enhances.” I grimace. “I don’t do drugs.”

“It isn’t illegal, and it isn’t poisonous.”

She has no reason to give me anything dangerous. Does she?

Yukimi curls her hand around mine, closing my fingers around the fruit. Her eyes meet mine, and beneath their phosphorescent glow, a confusion of emotions tangle.

“Will you try it?” she says.

She isn’t crawling into my head and puppeting me to eat the fruit. She’s just … asking.

A frigid wind gusts through the air, blowing her hair across her face like black ink across white paper. My eyes stinging, I raise the anburojia to my lips and take a bite.

Flavor floods my mouth. Anburojia tastes the way harps sound, glimmering on my tongue like gold. I shut my eyes and hear a groan escape me. I suck the juice from my fingers and bite deeper into the anburojia. My teeth hit the pit of the fruit and I gnaw away its red flesh, devouring every last shred of it.

“Delicious,” Yukimi says, “isn’t it?”

I nod and swallow again, the taste of the anburojia lingering on my tongue. “I don’t feel any different.”

She laughs, then, and it catches me so off-guard I flinch.

“Maybe I need to eat more,” I say, my taste buds aching.

Yukimi shakes her head and takes the anburojia pit from my fingers. She tucks it into her pocket. “I have no more with me. These fruits can be difficult to obtain.”

I frown. “You said they weren’t illegal.”

“And they aren’t.” She turns away from me, and starts walking. “Let’s go. There’s a lot of night left.”

“Where?”

Yukimi throws a glance back at me. “Nowhere and everywhere.”

I run after her, excitement shivering through me. Her ears have sharpened into foxy points, peeking through her disheveled hair. She seizes my wrist and marches through the illusory wall. This time, I pass through without a hitch.

“I have a favorite alley,” she says.

I arch my eyebrows. “For shapeshifting?”

Yukimi says nothing, but when she looks away, I glimpse what might be a smile. She lets go of my wrist and strides ahead without looking back, like she’s not afraid of me running away—or she’s so confident that I will follow her.

Of course I do.

Her favorite alley smells strongly like mold and rodents, but it’s only a few twists and turns away from the Sisters’ Lair. An old wooden cask stands in the corner of the alley, smelling faintly of sake. Yukimi slides the top aside, removes her leather jacket, and tosses it into the cask. She starts kicking off her boots.

“Wait,” I say.

“Wait?” She drops her boots into the cask. “Don’t worry. Nobody but kitsune even know this cask exists. The most you have to worry about is rats nibbling at my illusion.”

A twisting has taken residence in my stomach, and I clench my hands to keep them from trembling. “I haven’t done this since I came to Japan. Shapeshifting, I mean.”

Yukimi looks back at me with fox eyes. “You are a kitsune.”

“Only half,” I say.

“Half is enough.”

“But Shizuka, the myobu—”

“Did she tell you not to become a fox?” Yukimi tugs her sweater over her head. “Or are you too afraid?”

“No.” To both of her questions, actually. I take a deep breath and try to beat my anxiety. “But you saw me on the roof, that night before I ended up in the hospital.”

“That’s why I gave you the anburojia.”

“But—”

“Tavian.”

Hope darts through me like a bright bird. That’s the first time she’s called me that, in person, and not in a dream or some strange illusion. If I were a fox right now, I’d be dancing from paw to paw, my ears pricked, waiting for more.

“You can’t wait any longer,” she says.

Yukimi walks barefoot to me, wearing only jeans and a tank top in the winter air. Goose bumps dot her arms—she is vulnerable, after all. She places her hand in the middle of my chest, shuts her eyes, and pushes. Heat rushes outward to my fingers and toes, and I stagger back with a gasp. My skin is glowing, fading.

“What did you do?” I say.

She smiles, her teeth feral, and turns away. Her red pelt cloaks her skin as she shucks away the last of her clothes and slings them into the old sake cask. She stretches her arms, her fingers reaching as if she can claw the stars from the sky.

In a flash, Yukimi shrinks into the shape of a fox.

My breath comes ragged in my throat. A shudder ripples through me, and I drop to my hands and knees. My hands reshape into black paws, and my spine arches as it shifts. I grit my teeth and strain against the transformation.

Yukimi watches me, her head held low, her eyes burning.

I can’t do this with my clothes on. I kick off my shoes and unzip my jacket and jeans—and I’m not going fast enough; I’m losing to my shifting body.

“I don’t think I can—” My words choke off as my throat changes.

My pulse races until my heartbeats become uncountable. I black out, my thoughts erased by a blissful agony, a euphoria of pain. I scream—and it’s the howl of a fox.

Slowly, the pain fades with every heartbeat. And my heartbeat, thudding a fast rhythm, isn’t faltering. I crack open my eyes. I climb to my feet and look at myself.

I’m not dead. I’m a fox.

I leap to my feet and yip out of pure surprise. Yukimi trots to me and touches her nose to mine. She grins like only a vixen can, her tongue lolling. I shut my eyes and inhale her scent with a shuddering breath, my chest brimming with contentment. This is how it used to be. This is what I left behind—me and Okāsan, both of us foxes, with the night wide open before us. My legs feel light, like I can outrun the rising sun.

I point my muzzle to the wind and sniff. No hint of inugami.

Yukimi makes a little “quirk?” noise in the back of her throat. I glance at her eyes, and I know what question she’s asking. We don’t need words, the two of us.

I know how I want to reply.

With a leap into the air, I dart from the alley, my tail streaking behind me. See if you can catch me. She used to have longer legs than me, but I’ll bet I’m faster than her now.

Behind me, I hear small paws drumming on the pavement.

I quicken my pace from an easy run to a headlong sprint, my blood humming in my veins, my legs pumping like a perfect machine. There’s no room for fear or hesitation.

I hurtle down the dark street, starry sky spilling above me, reflected in the skyscrapers of Tokyo. We’re on the outskirts, away from the heart of the hubbub. Out here, dark windows outnumber the light ones, and the streets are free of humans and cars. Mostly free—a man on a bicycle whirs past, then slows as he sees me. I keep pace beside him, glancing into his eyes.

“Hey!” he shouts, a silly grin on his face. “Kitsune!”

I could melt into the shadows, could make him think he saw no more than a mirage on a night when he was sleepy-drunk, but the temptation of mischief is too great.

I slow to a trot, then stand on the sidewalk, twitching my tail like a cat. The man brakes and hops off his bike in a wobbly way. He leans his bike against a trash can and creeps to me in a frog-legged crouch, one of his hands outstretched.

“Come here, little fox,” he singsongs.

I glance at my surroundings, noting my escape routes, noting how Yukimi watches me from the shadows, waiting to see if I haven’t forgotten how a wild fox behaves.

The man’s breath stinks like cigarettes and beer. Judging by the red splotches on his cheeks, I’m surprised he could even stay upright long enough to bike this far. His glossy gaze stays on me as he sidles nearer. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a thin stick of something wrapped in paper.

“Here you go.” The man holds it out to me.

I tiptoe nearer and sniff his offering. Minty. Gum? I curl my lip. Clearly this guy doesn’t know any better. He gives me an empty, hopeful smile and shoves the gum closer.

Yukimi skulks a little closer, her eyes sharp with curiosity.

Oh, believe me, I won’t disappoint. I haven’t forgotten my old tricks, and I’ve learned some new ones.

I inch closer to the man’s hand. I crane my neck forward until my whiskers brush the stick of gum, then grab a hunk of my magic and twist it into an illusion. I breathe onto the man’s fingers. He watches me, his wet lips hanging open.

The stick of gum twitches in its silver wrapper. It wriggles and rears in his hand, shaping itself into a tiny serpent. The man’s head jerks downward as he realizes the gum is moving, and the curiosity on his face twists into horrified fascination.

The serpent tastes the air with a gum-pink tongue, then hisses.

“Shit!”

The man flings the serpent-illusion away and keeps shaking his hand like it bit him. He leaps onto his bicycle, almost crashing onto the pavement, and starts pedaling hard. I trot alongside him, just to see the look on his face as he leaves.

I forgot how
entertaining
this could be.

Claws click on the sidewalk. Yukimi comes to stand behind me and rests her muzzle on my shoulder. I shut my eyes against the swell of pride overflowing from my heart, spilling through my ribs, spreading through my veins as bliss.

Yukimi pulls back to give me a look, her eyes challenging me to another race. The taste of anburojia lingering
on my tongue, I follow my kitsune mother into the night.

There’s something beautiful about forgetting, about letting your thoughts melt into a wordless blur of scents unwinding on the wind and paws skimming the ground and a belly full of a stolen bite of tofu, of a rice-flour candy given by the ragged woman in the park. In return for the candy, we gave her a blanket, an illusion strong enough to keep her warm through the snowy night.

We linger in the park, a scrap of green in the gray, a nearly forgotten memory of the forest. I can’t help but feel a sharp craving in my stomach, a yearning for the aroma of clear air, of snow that contains no scents but its own wild coldness.

Then Yukimi nudges me with her nose, and we’re running again.

We return to the alley near the Lair as dawn edges the bottom of the sky, gray leaking into black. Faced with the memory of the glittering nightlife of Tokyo, the grime of the alley looks that much grimier. I wait in my fox form, my eyes on the street, as Yukimi makes her transformation back to human.

“It’s late,” Yukimi says.

And by that she must mean early. Not the time for us to be running outside in our fur.

I sigh and squeeze my eyes shut. My pelt clings to my skin and my bones resist bending. I crawl out of my fox body and force myself to become a boy again.

As soon as my fur disappears, I’m dunked in glacial cold. My teeth start chattering like crazy, and I dig my fingernails into my arms like that will banish my goose bumps. I’m shaking from the inside out, but I’m not sure it’s all because of the temperature. There’s a scraping in my stomach, a craving in my gut.

“I think the anburojia is wearing off,” I say.

Yukimi tosses me my jeans. “It will. You have to live with it.”