Read Online Foxfire (An Other Novel) by Karen Kincy - Free Book Online

do.”
    He arches his eyebrows but says nothing.
    We wind along a road through the trees as sleepy birds chirp in the canopy. A woman jogs past us, her black ponytail bobbing, her running shoes crunching the snow. At a bend in the road, an iron fence opens to a moss-streaked stone torii , an arched gate marking the boundary between the mundane and the sacred. Beyond this torii, framed by its tall columns, rows of smaller torii—wooden, painted persimmon-red and black—stand in orderly ranks, guiding a path between their posts.
    “Almost there,” Tsuyoshi says.
    We pass through the torii, the stone steps beneath our feet worn by thousands before us. The vivid red of the gates looks stark against the frosted leaves of bamboo. The path ends at a shrine to Inari, its sweeping roof hung with white paper lanterns, red banners, and straw ropes—all the traditional Shinto trappings. A pair of snarling stone foxes, both wearing red bibs, stand guard on either side.
    “Kitsune,” I say, the word a cloudy whisper.
    Something white and delicate drifts before my face. I hold out my hand. Not a snowflake—a cherry blossom. An ancient, gnarled tree shades the shrine, laden with flowers.
    A shiver crawls down my back, and not because of the cold.
    Cherry blossoms, sakura , are cherished for the way they fall in their prime, a beautiful death, a reminder of mortality. To have an ever-blooming tree, with sakura untouched by winter—it makes the hair on my arms bristle. The air reeks of yōkai magic.
    “Illusions,” I say. “The blossoms, maybe the entire tree.”
    Someone coughs quietly.
    Tsuyoshi dips into a low bow. I do the same, to be safe, and peek up through the fringes of my hair. Silk rustles like wind through leaves. Indigo, shot with gold, slithers along the flagstones—a kimono, worn by a woman. A twelve-layered kimono, exactly like those worn by court ladies a thousand years ago. Her eyes glitter like slivers of amber, and a sleek white tail peeks coyly from the folds of her garment. A jolt of recognition travels my spine. She smells, very faintly, of fox.

six
    M ay I help you?” she says, her voice silky.
    Tsuyoshi slips a silver case from an inner jacket pocket, flips it open, and slides out a meishi, orbusiness card, with a calculated slickness that can come only from decades of practice. I know from Dad that Tsuyoshi only half-retired so he could keep the honorary title of Chairman and the prestigious meishi that go with it. The temple fox murmurs her thanks, then whips out a meishi of her own from her kimono.
    Clearly they mean business.
    I glance at the myobu’s meishi. It’s elegantly printed in gold on fine rice paper. Her name: Shizuka. Her rank: some Japanese I can’t entirely read, but I recognize the characters for miko , shrine maiden.
    The two of them bow again, and then Tsuyoshi looks at me. His cheeks darken. “And this is my grandson, Octavian Kimura. I spoke of him earlier.”
    Despite being a meishi-less embarrassment, I try a charming smile.
    “Yes.” Shizuka blinks, her thick eyelashes like black wings. “Follow me.”
    She glides beyond the Inari shrine and opens a small gate. Behind the gate, a narrow path winds through the bamboo. I follow close behind her, trying not to sniff the air, wondering if she can tell that I’m also a kitsune.
    We reach a greenhouse topped by a high-arching glass dome. Shizuka unlocks the door and waves for us to enter before her. Inside, the air is the perfect temperature of a May morning, thick with the sweet scent of citrus leaves and the musk of earth. Shizuka slips off her shoes, and we do the same, moss squishing beneath our feet. A jade pool glimmers beneath the apex of the dome, shaded by an exquisitely gnarled lime tree no taller than I am, but likely five times as old.
    “Please, sit.” Shizuka settles on a mossy boulder by the pool.
    Tsuyoshi pinches his trousers at the knees and tugs them up as he sits on another boulder. His posture is ramrod