Foxfire (An Other Novel) by Karen Kincy Page B

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.
    “Be careful,” Tsuyoshi mutters, as he parks the car, “and don’t meet strangers in the eye.”
    “Why?” I say. “Isn’t it safe around here?”
    Tsuyoshi shakes his head. “Homeless people.” He unbuckles his seat belt and slides out. “ Bakemono .”
    Bakemono. Changed thing, as in yōkai who shapeshift, or those whose bodies were once human but are now supernaturally, irreversibly changed. The word has overtones of the monstrous—like the scary stories kids at the orphanage told, after the lights went out and they thought I couldn’t hear their whispers.
    So are there are both homeless people and bakemono in the park? Or are the bakemonohomeless?
    “There,” Tsuyoshi murmurs.
    At the other end of the path, a stunted old man hobbles nearer, leaning on a blue umbrella like a walking stick. He’s wearing a muddy gray tracksuit and battered running shoes. His gray beard probably hasn’t seen a comb in ages. He keeps his gaze lowered politely as he passes us, or maybe he’s looking for fallen change.
    “No,” Tsuyoshi whispers. “Not a bakemono. A man.”
    I don’t bother pointing out that as shapeshifters, kitsune are bakemono too—even those myobu we’re going to see. Of course, myobu are too respectable to be monsters, and I suspect Tsuyoshi would smack me if I called them “bakemono” to their faces.
    “Another one,” Tsuyoshi says.
    “Where?” I whisper.
    I’m getting a sick little thrill from spotting the homeless and worrying that they might be dangerous, might be Other. This time, it’s a woman squatting by a garbage can, picking through a take-out box of noodles with chopsticks. She’s wearing nothing but rags, and her long black hair curtains her face, hiding her features. A man jogs past, and she cranes her neck toward him in a fluid, boneless motion.
    Tsuyoshi sucks in his breath. “Bakemono.”
    “How can you tell?”
    The woman answers my question when her neck snakes longer and longer, like silly putty, even while her body stays motionless. She arches her neck high over the jogger, keeping pace with him, as if she’s going to sink fangs into his back. What is she? The word dances around the edges of my memory. I swear Gwen just told me, that there was a picture of this particular yōkai in her textbook.
    “ Rokurokubi , ” Tsuyoshi whispers. “Long neck woman.”
    The rokurokubi sighs and withdraws from the jogger, her neck retracting into itself. She spots us and blinks her doe eyes.
    “ Ohayō gozaimasu ,” she says. Good morning.
    I bow to her, just because it’s better to err on the side of polite.
    The rokurokubi loops her neck toward Tsuyoshi to get a better look. “I am very hungry,” she says in English, her voice breathy. “I would love a bite to eat.”
    Don’t rokurokubi prey on men? Or is that a myth?
    Tsuyoshi stares the rokurokubi in the eye. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have any food.”
    The rokurokubi drifts close to me. “If you could spare a few yen … ”
    Oh. Oh! She’s begging for change, that’s all. I dig out a five hundred yen coin from my pocket.
    “Take this,” I tell the rokurokubi.
    H er body shuffles forward to meet her head, until her neck looks nearly normal. She cups her hands and I give her the coin. Our fingers brush for a second—her skin feels chapped from the cold, but nothing odd. Normal.
    “ Arigatō gozaimasu ,” she says. Thank you very much. She shuffles away into the darkness, her head bowed, her hair swaying in the wind.
    Tsuyoshi blows out his breath in a plume of white. “That was brave.”
    God, I feel like such a jerk. Assuming she was going to mug us, or worse, just because she’s Other.
    To my grandfather, I shrug. “It was the right thing to