Foxfire (An Other Novel) (5 page)

All throughout dinner, Tsuyoshi asks polite questions about our day, and Gwen and I pretend like we had the most boring time in Harajuku ever. Later, my grandparents announce they are going to bed early because winter makes their bones ache. I’m secretly glad, since I’m not about to admit that I, a strapping young man, am also feeling dead tired at the ungodly hour of nine o’clock. After saying goodnight to Tsuyoshi and Michiko, I surreptitiously follow Gwen to her bedroom.

She lies on her bed and stares at me. “What happened?”

“When?”

“In the bathroom, earlier. Michiko told me something about you drawing kanji on the mirror.”

“Oh.” I lie beside her and put my arm around her waist. “Guess.”

“Your kitsune mom?”

“No.” I wrinkle my nose. “I highly doubt she’s spying on me in the bathroom nowadays.”

“The noppera-bō?”

“Bingo.”

The muscles in Gwen’s back tense beneath my touch. “What did it say?”

“ ‘Leave now. It is almost too late.’ ”

“Well, that’s cheerful,” she says.

“I know.” I’m silent for a moment. “But I’m not the type to run away. I’d rather let my kitsune mother come to me, and find out what’s really going on.”

Gwen says nothing, just snuggles closer to me and sighs.

We lie together, then, warm in the chill of the night. Outside, in the amber glow of the streetlights, it begins to snow. Gwen’s breathing slips into the slow rhythm of sleep. I glance at the door. I know I should go back to my own bedroom, but … just a little while longer. Gwen feels so good in my arms, like a puzzle piece clicking into place.

“Tavian.”

It’s just a whisper, so quiet I’m not sure I heard or imagined it.

“Come to me.”

A cold eel twists in my stomach. It’s my kitsune mother’s voice. How does she know the name that Mom and Dad gave to me?

“Tavian.”

Impossibly, she sounds like she’s right outside the door. I slip away from Gwen, gently so I don’t wake her. My heartbeat knocks against my ribs as I cross the room. I grip the doorknob with a sweaty hand, then twist it and fling the door open.

Darkness. At the end of the hall, a white ball of light disappears around the corner. Foxfire.

“Tavian.”

My whispered name echoes off the walls in a way I know defies the physics of the house. I run down the hall and come to the genkan. The foxfire glows from the crack beneath the front door. When I open the door, I see the foxfire flit into the elevator just as the doors slide shut.

Why won’t she stop and face me? Why does she keep running away?

“Wait!” The stillness of the hallway swallows my voice. “Okāsan!”

The elevator dings, and the doors open with a soft clunk. It’s empty. I dart into the elevator. My hand moves to the button, but one of them is already lit: 40, the top floor. The elevator ascends. In the polished steel of the walls, I can see myself reflected. The noppera-bō walks behind me, then vanishes. It’s too late for him; I want to find her now, and I will.

The elevator dings, then opens.

I’m in a dark room illuminated by a bare light bulb. Before me, snow falls on a steep staircase leading to the roof. The white flecks floating in the black look like the drifting of marine decay in the deep ocean, and for a moment, I feel like I’m sinking. I grab the railing of the stairs and drag myself upward, to the roof, where the whiteness of snow surrounds me.

She is there. Standing at the edge of the building, staring out at Tokyo.

She’s wearing a dark jacket and jeans, not a kimono—maybe that was my imagination—but her long hair flies behind her in the wind.

My heartbeat thuds so hard I wonder if she can hear it.

This might not be my mother. I’m terrified that when she turns around, she’ll wipe away her face. That I’ll be forced to confront the noppera-bō. I open my mouth to speak, but before I can, she turns to me.

Her face is the face I remembered from eleven years ago, with the same high cheekbones and sharp chin, but I don’t remember the faint lines by her eyes, or the streak of white in her hair. She stares at me with glittering, slit-pupil eyes more like those of an animal than a woman.

Was she always this wild?

“Okāsan?” I say.

She stares at me, unblinking, until my own eyes water and I have to blink. She doesn’t vanish like I’d feared. Am I dreaming, or is this real?

Her eyes narrow. She steps toward me, the snow crunching beneath her boots. “You should not be here.” She speaks perfect English, with only a trace of an accent.

Suddenly, I’m aware of the cold. “Why?”

“You should not exist.”

“What do you mean?”

She doesn’t say anything, just tilts her head to one side, her eyes reflecting the lights of Tokyo. She looks inhuman.

“What do you
mean
?” My voice is ragged, my throat raw. I walk toward her, my bare feet burning-cold in the snow. “You can’t say that. You can’t come back to me after eleven years, after leaving me alone in the snow. I thought maybe you died.”

She sidesteps away from me as I advance on her. She holds herself low to the ground, ready to run.

“I should not exist,” I continue. “Do you mean I was an accident? Is that why you left me?”

Her eyes flicker with something resembling sadness. “No.”

“Then tell me!”

I reach to grab her by the shoulder, to pull her to me, but she curls her lip, baring fox fangs. Her hand darts out and closes around my chin. Her fingers are hot on my skin, almost feverish. She tugs my face downward so she can stare into my eyes—only then do I realize she’s smaller than I am. She’s tiny, but she holds herself with such grace and fearlessness that I thought she was taller.

“Are you still a fox?” she whispers. “Can you still change?”

I blink, disoriented. “Yes, of course.”

Her face blurs as I stare at her, my eyes tearing. I retreat from her touch and peel off my T-shirt in the frigid air. I’m shaking uncontrollably. Cold stiffens my joints as I unzip my jeans. My kitsune mother stares at me as impassively as a fox regards a dead mouse, wondering if it’s worth eating or not. This woman is a stranger to me. Unrecognizable.

They line the hall as I walk past, barking at me like dogs, until I want to flatten my ears against my skull—

I creep from the dormitory, my nose twitching as a mouse scratches in the wall. I’m starving. A flashlight flicks on, and I scream—

They laugh at me as I huddle in the corner. I’m shivering, my pants wet because I didn’t understand how to ask for the bathroom, didn’t think that I could escape the cage of this room without them punishing me—

I shut my eyes against the flashbacks, my stomach queasy.

Fox
.

I can do this. This is who I am: half-kitsune. I can show her the truth. Or is the kitsune part of me dying? Is this why it feels like my ribs are clenching my heart, squeezing it tight? I strip away the rest of my clothes, prepared to become a fox.

“You are broken,” she says softly, almost as if I wasn’t meant to hear.

I clench my fists and jaw and stomach, then let the tension go all at once, drawing on the power inside me to push my body from human to fox. My heartbeat stutters, then stops. I gasp and stagger forward. My heartbeat stumbles back, erratic, weak, and I open my eyes. I’m on my hands and knees in the snow, naked. White snow fills my sight. My kitsune mother speaks, but her voice sounds too faraway to hear. My eyes slip shut as the pain gives away to sweet numbness.

Okāsan.

Darkness overtakes me.

five

L
ying on my back, moving through a bright hallway. Strangers run beside me, their voices muffled. We stop at an elevator, and when the doors open, I see my kitsune mother standing in the corner, waiting for me. She looks at me but doesn’t say a word, and no one else seems to see her. I try to reach for her, but a stranger grabs my hand and pushes it down.

I open my eyes.

I’m lying in a bed in a strange room. It’s early morning, judging by the gray light outside. When I move, my clothing rustles—I’m wearing a flimsy gown. I’m in a hospital. And Gwen is sleeping in a chair nearby, a pillow wedged between her head and the wall. I cough, then wince. My ribs feel like a rhinoceros stomped on them.

“Gwen?”

She frowns in her sleep, dark circles under her eyes.

I raise my voice. “Gwen?”

She blinks herself awake, then stares at me. “Tavian!” I can tell she’s been crying, and my throat tightens. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

I shake my head. “What happened?”

Gwen picks up her chair and moves it closer to my bed, then grips my hand as if she’s afraid I might drift away without her anchoring me. “I don’t know. They found you unconscious on the roof of the skyscraper, naked, in the snow—why did you go up there?”

I look away. “I was following my kitsune mother. I didn’t know if it was a dream or not.”

Her eyes glitter. “What did she do to you?”

“Nothing.” My voice sounds hollow. “She talked to me. I tried to change into a fox, then passed out.”

Gwen’s jaw tightens. “Michiko tried to translate what the doctors were saying for me. She said they were afraid you’d had a heart attack, but when they did some tests, they couldn’t find anything wrong. Just like the doctors back home.”

My kitsune mother’s voice whispers through my mind.
You are broken
.

“I don’t think it’s physical,” I say. “I think it’s paranormal. Something to do with my kitsune half. It happened when I dreamed of my kitsune mother being killed, and also when I tried to use an illusion against the Kuro Inu. Tsuyoshi wants me to go to a temple, to see if they can help me.”

“Tavian.” Gwen glares at me, but her voice sounds husky.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I thought it was nothing to worry about; just predictable angina. Just pain.”

She looks away and blows out her breath. “It’s not just pain. Not if you’re passing out because of it. Not if it’s keeping you from becoming a fox.”

“I don’t know if that’s why, though I haven’t shapeshifted since we got here.”

“Tavian … this can’t be good.”

“I know.”

Then again, Gwen is much more of a hardcore shapeshifter than I am.

She sighs and rests her head beside mine, but I’m already looking outside the window at the drifting snow. I wonder where my mother is now. Why do I even want to find her? My stomach feels sick, like the memory
I had of her soured and started rotting, twisting with worms. I should hate her, but she’s the woman who gave birth to me, who raised me for the first six years of
my life.

A phone buzzes—mine, on a table against the wall.

Gwen looks up. “You want me to get that?”

“Yes please.”

She grabs it and answers. “Hi, this is Tavian’s phone.” Her face gets a pinched look. “Ms. Kimura! Yes, he’s here with me. Yes, he’s awake.” She hands the phone to me.

Great. Talking to my parents is definitely not going to be a picnic.

I clear my throat. “Mom? I—”

“Octavian! What possessed you to go outside alone, in the cold, with your condition?”

“I wasn’t alone.”

“I—what do you mean?”

I think for a moment. “Who called the paramedics?”

Mom pauses. “I don’t know. Kazuki, do you know?”

“No,” Dad says, and nothing more.

“Then who was it?” Mom says, her voice sharp with impatience.

There isn’t a good way to phrase what I want to say next, so I plunge right in. “It must have been my kitsune mother.”

Silence. For so long, I wonder if my phone died.

“Are you still there?” I say.

“Yes.” Mom draws in a slow breath. “That
woman
lured you there?”

She didn’t lure me. Well, there was foxfire involved, but I went of my own free will.

Out loud, I say, “I wanted to meet her.”

More silence.

“Your mother is very upset,” Dad says, as if I couldn’t tell.

“I’m not upset,” Mom says quickly. “Not about that.”

But I know that every time I talk about my biological parents—my biological mother, really—Mom laces her fingers together so tightly her knuckles turn white, and she speaks in this tight, crisp way, like she’s biting off her words. I can imagine her doing it right now, and Dad putting a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

“Octavian,” Mom says, “I hope you know that your father and I will always support you when you want to learn more about your biological parents. It’s perfectly natural.”

That’s what she always says, often enough that it sounds like a script. But in private, when I’m not supposed to be listening, she talks about things totally differently. One night, when I was maybe eight or nine, she was whispering a little too loudly in the hall.

I already tried to explain things to his teachers. He wasn’t given a chance at a normal childhood. Not for the first six years of his life. That woman raised him like an animal. That woman didn’t even teach him how to dress himself. If they can’t recognize the consequences of such neglect and abuse, then to hell with them.

“Hello?” Mom says. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I say. “Sorry. I was thinking about what you said.”

“Tavian.” Dad clears his throat. “Now would be a good time to focus on your future.”

“My future?” I say, stupidly, since I already know where this is going.

“While you’re in Tokyo, you should use your time to do something productive. Talk with your grandfather.” Dad’s voice is brisk, like he’s on an international conference call. “I already told him about your interest in graphic design, and I’m sure he would be more than willing to find a place for you in the company.”

The company being the family hotel business, the reason why Dad has such a cushy job with their U.S. division.

“I will,” I say, too tired to argue.

Maybe I’ll be able to sit behind a desk for eight hours a day, five days a week. Maybe I can make art for a living. If creating logos and marketing pieces for a hotel counts as art …

“Oh!” Mom says. “Will you get out for Christmas Eve?”

“It’s Christmas Eve?” I say dully. “I forgot. Not feeling very merry right now.”

“Not until tomorrow,” Dad says. “We wish you weren’t in the hospital, but it’s the best for your health.”

“Right,” I say.

“Get some sleep,” Mom says. “You sound exhausted.”

“Well, it looks like I’m going to be stuck in bed for a while,” I say, trying to joke about it.

Mom sighs, but I can tell she’s feeling slightly better.

Sure enough, I spend Christmas Eve in the hospital while the doctors find absolutely nothing new. Gwen stays with me, reading passages from her book on yōkai out loud. My head swims with visions of strange-skinned demons and beautiful women with hideous secrets. I’d forgotten about the sheer number of Others who live in Japan, coexisting with humans for centuries, even millennia. Why do I feel like I don’t belong?

They finally let me leave on Christmas night. Tsuyoshi and Michiko treat me and Gwen to dinner. We go to a restaurant wedged between two concrete buildings, totally boring on the outside, totally vibrant on the inside. Red paper lanterns cast a warm glow over low tables where people perch on cushions. The menu promises all sorts of tofu delights. Tofu is a kitsune’s best friend. As evidenced, of course, by
kitsune udon
, a fantastic soup of chunky noodles loaded with deep-fried tofu. You can guess what I order.

“Better than hospital food?” Tsuyoshi says, with a deep chuckle.

I smile, but it feels like a mask. “Thank you for dinner. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas!” everyone choruses, playing their parts.

This is all too nice, like my grandparents want to counteract the bad luck of me ending up in the hospital. Like it’s their fault, not mine.

A skinny waiter refills Gwen’s teacup, his eyes fixed on her red hair. She’s gotten nothing but stares ever since she set foot in this restaurant—and she still doesn’t seem tired of it. Of course they gave her a fork, assuming a
gaijin
like her couldn’t possibly handle chopsticks.

Michiko smiles at me. “We knew this was a good place for kitsune.”

The waiter’s eyes sharpen. “Kitsune?”

“Our grandson.” Michiko nods at me. “We adopted him.”

I freeze, a chopstick-load of udon noodles halfway to my mouth. Oh my god. What did she just say? Telling somebody you’re Other is
not
polite dinner conversation back in the States. That’s the sort of thing that can get you killed. Or at least shot.

Gwen nudges my ankle with her toes, and I unclench my fists.

The waiter gives me a big smile, his teeth bleached bright. “Do you like the kitsune udon?”

I let nothing show on my face. “I’m eating it right now.”

“Another bowl, then, on the house.” The waiter bows and leaves.

Michiko smiles and looks at Tsuyoshi, who nods like a bobble-head. Why are they
smiling
? Is this
okay
? I don’t even know if I’m angry or scared or … happy. That might be pride on their faces, but I’m definitely not ready to be publicly announced as kitsune.

“Excuse me,” I say, in my politest Japanese possible, “but that makes me uncomfortable.”

Tsuyoshi’s bushy eyebrows descend. “What does?”

I meet his eyes. “Telling people that I’m kitsune.”

Silence. Tsuyoshi stares into his rice bowl, and Michiko busies herself rearranging the dishes in front of her. My face heats until I’m sure it must be the color of the lanterns above.

“You may have forgotten,” Tsuyoshi says quietly, “the place of the kitsune in Japan.”

I don’t think I could ever forget my childhood.

Out loud, I say, “I remember the place of the nogitsune.”

Tsuyoshi’s eyes flash. “There is no need to speak of that.”

Is he asking me to pretend I’m not a field fox? To let the waiter believe that I’m actually a temple fox? That I’m good luck rather than bad? I clench my jaw, biting back my words.

Gwen keeps her head down, taking quick, quiet bites of her food. I can tell she’s trying to figure out what we’re saying, even though she doesn’t understand very much Japanese.

The waiter returns with a giant smile on his face and a steaming-hot bowl of kitsune udon.

“Thank you,” I say, since it seems like the safest thing to do.

“Enjoy your dinner.” The waiter bows again, then leaves.

I stare at the ghosts of steam dancing above my bowl. My stomach feels hollow, but I’m not hungry anymore. Still, I force myself to drink every last drop of broth, if only to see Michiko smile again. Tsuyoshi won’t meet my eyes for the rest of dinner.

When I go to the restroom before we leave, Tsuyoshi meets me by the sinks. I look at him in the mirror; his face looks gray and whole decade older. “We will see the myobu tomorrow.”

I concentrate on washing my hands. “I’m not one of them.”

He closes the distance between us, his face so close I could count every wrinkle. “There is no need for your birth mother to bring disgrace to the Kimura name.
Shiranu ga hotoke.
”

Shiranu ga hotoke.
Not knowing is Buddha. Ignorance is bliss.

Tsuyoshi’s voice is low yet intense, like the distant roar of a waterfall. “You have a duty to this family. You will leave behind your past. You will speak to the myobu.”

My hands stop moving. I keep my head down and stare into the sink. Then I nod, because I know I have to.

Tsuyoshi wakes me at sunrise. He’s wearing an expensive suit and carrying a briefcase. In silence, we take the elevator down and drive to Ueno Park. Dawn tints the sky cherry-blossom pink over gray branches of trees famous for their flowers in springtime. Frost sparkles on the grass, turning the vast lawn into a galaxy.