Breath of Earth

by Beth Cato

  “Oh, is it?” He sat on a bench in the genkan and handed off the newspaper to her. The small side room was modeled on Japanese households and featured cubbies where men and boys stored their shoes. The space served a practical purpose in the auxiliary, but like many other Japanese customs, had become quite commonplace in San Francisco and the rest of the country. Ingrid retrieved his shoes from the wardens’ getabako and set them by his feet. She quickly replaced her house shoes with a thicker-soled set to go outside.

  As he tied his laces, she donned a hat and headed out to the street. The laundry truck had departed, but plenty of other vehicles had taken its place. The auxiliary’s stately brick building faced Battery Street. “This is a city built by geomancers, as surely as if we carried every brick,” Mr. Sakaguchi had commented more than once. Tony buildings stretched ten to twenty stories high—such height would have been foolhardy without the presence of the wardens and adepts to siphon from the earth. It created a fine cycle of business. Even Mayor Butterfield had once proclaimed that San Francisco prospered due to the grace of God, the Gold Rush, and geomancy.

  The thoroughfare was busy for a late Sunday morning, but by the finery of passersby, it seemed nearby churches had just finished their Easter services. Out of sight, a cable car chimed as it traveled along Clay Street. The stench of manure, autocar exhaust, and oil mingled like a rancid soup. A messenger bicyclist squealed to a stop at the steps, and leaning his transport against the stone railing, bounded toward the door.

  Ingrid skimmed the northbound traffic. Mr. Thornton joined her.

  “Nothing yet?” he wheezed.

  “No.” She glanced at the newspaper in her hand. “I should give this back to you. Is there news about India, sir?”

  He straightened as if he was suddenly well, his eyes narrowing. “Here? Americans caring about that sort of news?” He almost shoved the paper in her face. “Page thirteen. About a half inch of a column. Another twenty thousand estimated dead in hellfire bombardments in Calcutta over the past two months.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said softly. News of Japan and China dominated the headlines. The rebellion in India was Britannia’s concern, and most in America didn’t really care how many died on either side there so long as it kept Britain busy. Only horrific killings by the modern incarnation of Thuggees seemed to get special attention. Ingrid often heard young boys in the auxiliary excitedly discussing the gruesome executions said to be committed in the name of Kali.

  “Sorry. Yes, well.” He stopped himself, shaking his head. He glanced at his watch again and pressed a fist to his stomach.

  Since Mrs. Thornton’s passing, it seemed Mr. Thornton took all happenings in India as a personal affront. He’d called the place home for much of his life, and now its cities and jungles were being rendered to ash as the rebellion continued.

  Ingrid spied a red flag on a car and waved. The cab puttered their way.

  She held the door wide as Mr. Thornton stepped inside. The light vehicle lurched and squawked as he settled in. As she swung the door closed, he held out a hand to halt her.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Carmichael,” he said, his voice tremulous. She gawked at him. Mr. Thornton had never regarded her with as much arrogance as other men, nor had he ever been friendly. “You—you and your mother—have always been so kind to me. I still remember well how you tended to my wife at the end.”

  Mrs. Thornton had always been a pleasant soul, her dark cheeks rosy and her saris bright against the gloom of fog. Influenza took her quite quickly not long before Mama died.

  “It was only right, sir,” Ingrid said.

  Mr. Thornton flinched, his fist again curling against his gut.

  “I’m sure Mr. Sakaguchi will ring you later to check in. I hope you feel better quickly, sir!”

  She shut the door with a hollow metal click. The cab pulled away from the curb. The foulness of manure slapped her nostrils as the wheels rolled through fresh nuggets. Several men shoved past her, one granting her enough warning to snap, “Move, girl.”

  She hopped up the stairs, that familiar annoyance prickling at her chest. The messenger boy exited the front door and almost cleared the whole staircase in a leap.

  “Miss! Pardon me, miss?”

  Ingrid turned. A man stood on the first step, his body lean beneath a draped brown leather coat. He wasn’t slender in a fragile way, not like some men who could be bowled over by a stiff bay wind. Chestnut hair with a slight wave was cropped to a few inches in length, and framed a face with a rather angular nose. He stared back at her through a pair of pincenez glasses and smiled. Not a leer, not the stiff smile of someone exercising their dominion over her. No, he looked on her with genuine pleasantness.

  She cleared her throat. “Yes, sir? Can I help you?”

  “You work for the auxiliary, miss?” He doffed a brown derby hat that looked like it had been sat on more than once. Despite being popped back into place, little ridges marred the top of the dome.

  “I do, sir. I’m a secretary for Warden Sakaguchi, but I help the entire board.”

  “The name’s Cypress Jennings, miss, and Mr. Thornton expected me to call on him today about the private sale of some kermanite. He said he’d be in meetings and wasn’t sure about a particularly good time?” A southern accent, luscious as sorghum, flavored his words.

  “Oh. Yes. I’m sorry, sir. The board just adjourned for a break, but Mr. Thornton’s come down ill. He left not a moment ago.”

  The brightness in his face dimmed. Ingrid wished she could tell him to buy from Mr. Sakaguchi or Mr. Kealoha, but he’d already initiated business with Mr. Thornton. It’d be rude to poach away a customer.

  “You might try calling on him at home later,” she said. “Maybe he’ll feel better. I can write his address for you—”

  “Don’t fuss over it, miss. I can look him up. I do hope I can buy that kermanite today, though, before my business partner goes apoplectic.”

  “I hope you can make the purchase, too.”

  They stared at each other, the silence suddenly drawn out and awkward. He scratched at his chin, his lips working like he wanted to say something more.

  “I had best get back to work, sir,” Ingrid said, lowering her eyes as she knew was proper.

  “Certainly, miss. Thank you kindly for your time.”

  What a nice man! She slipped back inside the auxiliary and shut the big door behind her, then paused to lean on it. She felt the sudden melodramatic need to fan herself, and almost giggled out loud. Good grief, but that man’s accent alone could sweeten a pitcher of tea. She set her hat on its hook and switched shoes.

  Wardens and adepts cluttered the hall, hunkered down in their cliques. She passed by, mostly ignored. One man spat a juicy wad of tobacco into an ornate copper spittoon. Mr. Sakaguchi was nowhere in sight, so she crossed the hallway and knocked on a wooden door. At the sound of his voice, she entered the office.

  He stood in front of a furnace along the back wall. Dark cherry paneling and overloaded bookshelves created a claustrophobic cave. As she walked toward him, he shut the small iron door of the furnace. Odd; he used to always burn the notes he received from Theodore Roosevelt in that exact manner, but their friendship had been fractured for several months now. More likely, he needed to stoke the fire. Ingrid certainly hadn’t been in there to tend it.

  Instead, she contained lingering warmth from both the earth’s power and her brief yet pleasant interaction with that man on the steps.

  She fought the urge to smile too broadly, which would only invite nosiness. Mr. Sakaguchi had prodded her a bit too much of late. You need more friends your own age. You are too dependent on Lee. You need a life outside the auxiliary.

  A life, where? Ingrid loved Mr. Sakaguchi dearly, but sometimes her ojisan seemed to exist in a world of delightful ignorance where he had achieved enlightenment and expected everyone else to be on the cusp of it as well.

  He tended to ignore the fact that, at a glance, most people assumed I
ngrid to be an immigrant and likely illiterate or ignorant of English and Japanese. She didn’t fit in anywhere. Too educated to mingle with house staff in the off hours, too low in class to blend with the elite society with whom Mr. Sakaguchi often did business. Her age classified her as doomed to spinsterhood. Not to mention the complication of her magic.

  As for her dependence on Lee, well, that wasn’t about to change. She loved him like a little brother. It didn’t matter a whit to her that he was Chinese and regarded with contempt by much of society.

  Ingrid stopped in the middle of the room. To her surprise, Mr. Sakaguchi’s brows were drawn together, his expression sober.

  “Is there bad news?” she asked, again thinking of Mr. Roosevelt.

  “Perhaps.” He stood by his desk with his hands clasped at his back. “We may have company soon.” By his expression, these guests were about as welcome as a kraken at a ship’s christening.

  “Should I send a note along to the house, ask Jiao to prepare dinner or rooms?”

  “No. I don’t think that will be necessary.” Mr. Sakaguchi sighed and looked to the clock on his desk. “At least this matter of Vesuvius will conclude soon, my efforts as ineffectual as ever.”

  Ingrid frowned. It wasn’t like him to be this grim. What sort of horrid company were they expecting? She pivoted to lock the door, then walked to the Victor Graphophone on the cramped bookshelf. She thumbed through the sleeved record albums stacked to one side.

  “Ingrid, the meeting will commence in minutes—”

  She set the record on the spindle and fastened it into place. A tug of the lever and the black disc began to spin. She set the needle on the outer edge of the album. Static screeched through the horn and then the twanged notes of the shamisen rang through. The three-stringed instrument resembled an American banjo, and here it played a short, simple melody in repetition for some thirty minutes. Not that she would need to play the album for that long.

  “Then we have enough time for this. Here,” she said, motioning to the rug.

  He didn’t look enthusiastic, but he still walked over and lowered himself to the floor.

  She knelt to face him and tilted an ear toward the Graphophone, her hands poised in midair. Simultaneously, she and Mr. Sakaguchi clapped hands to a beat of three. She quickly moved her hands to make two Vs atop her head—fox ears—while at the same time Mr. Sakaguchi briefly rested his hands on his lap.

  Ingrid cackled. She won that round—a kitsune’s magic could bewitch a chief. Mr. Sakaguchi’s face twitched as they began the clapping again. This time, she positioned her hands as if on a rifle, with her right hand on a trigger and her left extended like the barrel of a gun. Mr. Sakaguchi made fox ears. The hunter’s gun could kill the kitsune. She won again.

  “At least try,” she teased.

  He did—the next round, he laid his hands on his lap again to symbolize the role of the chief, outranking Ingrid’s hand motion of the hunter with a gun.

  The twanged music played on as they continued. A regular game of kitsune-ken ended after a player won thrice, but Ingrid didn’t care about the numbers. They found the rhythm. Ingrid made fox ears and stuck out her tongue. Mr. Sakaguchi burst out laughing.

  His next motion of the rifle turned into wiggling fingers as if he threatened to tickle her like when she was a little girl—an act that used to make her screech and roll with giggles without a hand being laid on her.

  Kitsune-ken had been played for centuries in Japan along with a number of other hand-gesture games. This one was their favorite, though, because it was about a fantastic. Kitsune were powerful fox spirits known for their wiles and shapeshifting. Something about the game—about play-acting a being of power—inspired Ingrid to puff her cheeks, blow raspberries, and turn her pointy fox ears into arm-long ears like a donkey.

  Happy tears streamed down Mr. Sakaguchi’s cheeks. He gasped for breath as he doubled over in deep laughter. Cozy warmth filled Ingrid’s chest as she looked on him. This was how Mr. Sakaguchi should be—his spirit buoyant, eyes bright, a smile branded on his lips, even if it was to her aggravation.

  A bell chimed in the hallway; time for the meeting to resume. She turned off the Graphophone.

  Mr. Sakaguchi wiped his cheeks with his sleeve. A few final laughs wheezed from him as he stood. “Well. I believe you won, Ingrid.”

  “I wasn’t keeping score.”

  “I wasn’t either, but you still won.”

  They entered the hallway as some adepts rushed by. She glanced back at him. “If you need another reason to cheer up, remember that Lincoln premieres the day after tomorrow.”

  She was puzzled when his smile diminished. “I do hope I can still attend.”

  “Of course you can attend! There’s no reason for you to be called away. You’ll even have protesters lined up outside the Damcyan Theatre.” At that reminder, he grinned.

  Mr. Sakaguchi was a fiend for opera, and had been delighted that a company dared to perform Lincoln in San Francisco. It had outraged critics for a decade with the parallels it drew between Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and his late-life work on behalf of the Chinese in America. The fact that Mr. Sakaguchi would attend such a pro-Chinese—and therefore anti-Japanese—work might raise a few eyebrows, but he had a reputation for attending every operatic performance in the city. He was also known to bring his secretary in tow so she could hold calling cards on his behalf.

  Ingrid greatly enjoyed the outings. She could never dress like the other women in their furs, pearls, and masterful hats, but there was still something electric about the place. Plus, it was a delight to share in something that Mr. Sakaguchi adored.

  Mr. Sakaguchi paused at the table outside the boardroom and picked up Ingrid’s white pitcher.

  “At least it’s a small crack this time,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper. “Not like that Wedgwood you shattered. Your warfare on dishware continues.”

  “Maybe I should do something more rewarding than handle dishes all day.”

  “You shouldn’t hold power like that. You’ll make yourself sick.”

  “I doubt I’m even running a fever.” A lie. A small one. But her fever was under a hundred.

  “Don’t you have kermanite?”

  “I’m fine. I haven’t held this power for long, just since this morning.” She noted the brief widening of his eyes as he took in that information. He hadn’t felt the tremor at dawn, then. “And of course I have kermanite. I’ve been extra careful not to touch it.”

  Mr. Sakaguchi pursed his lips in disapproval. Here came the lecture. “Now, Ingrid, you know better—”

  She felt the sudden shift of matter beneath her. Pressure. Raw power. Surging upward. Heat. In that space of two seconds, she threw herself over Mr. Sakaguchi, catching the briefest glimpse of shock on his face as the hallway shattered around them.

  CHAPTER 2

  The world exploded. Bricks, wood, and heat—searing pain that unfurled from her heart and roared through her extremities. Death. Fire. Agony evoked the worst descriptions of the hellfire of Atlanta or Charleston, but in the space of a gasp, the pain was gone. The sudden cacophony silenced, darkness falling over them in a suffocating quilt. Ingrid’s ragged breaths echoed. The solidness of Mr. Sakaguchi’s shoulder pressed against her chest. That’s when she noticed her arm lifted above, her palm braced against something. She wiggled her fingers, just a tiny bit. The surface felt like glass heated by afternoon sunshine.

  Heat. The tingle of power had evaporated from her skin. That’s what she had felt—she had used her reserves to do this. It had never poured from her before, not like this, but then it never had cause to.

  “Are you hurt?” Mr. Sakaguchi’s voice was muffled in their tight confines.

  “No. I don’t think so.” Her voice sounded raw and strange to her own ears. “You?”

  “I’m unharmed.”

  “What happened?”

  “Pardon me while I reach into my pocket.” He shifted beneath her. Leav
e it to Mr. Sakaguchi to employ fine manners even in these circumstances.

  Something clicked and a beam of soft blue light sliced the darkness and burned her eyes. He’d pulled out his pocket-sized kermanite lantern. The light angled upward to reveal sand of all shades pressed against a translucent bowl, along with larger debris—bricks, splintered boards, nails. An adult hand. Fingers limp and curled, as if reaching for a pencil. At the wrist a cuff link of kermanite glinted, still brilliant in its clarity, but there was only a scant inch of sleeve cloth. Where the forearm should be, white bone jabbed against a knob of brick. Ingrid stared, blinking, wondering if she could identify the hand’s owner, and then realized anew that it was a hand. There. By itself.

  “Oh God,” she whispered.

  Whatever just happened had been nothing like a full earthquake that rippled and rolled through soil. It should have felt like tugging on a taut string and knowing it stretched far beyond sight.

  “This was too immediate, too abrupt,” she said. “Like an explosion.”

  “An explosion. Yes.”

  The light aimed downward. The wooden floor was gone, replaced by gray tiles—the basement floor. They had fallen and she didn’t even remember the sensation. Her only thought had been to grab Mr. Sakaguchi and keep him safe.

  His knuckles rapped on the ground beneath them. It echoed and clinked like glass, not sounding at all like tile. Sweat dribbled from the end of her nose and created a dark splotch on his suit.

  “You seem to have created a bubble around us. Very nice work.”

  “I try.” The tremble in her voice ruined the attempt at flippancy.

  “I never even saw your father do anything like this.”

  “I decided that if I’m going to do the impossible, I should make it unique. No copying.” She took in a rattling breath. Her lungs felt strained, tight. “The air . . . ?”

  “We’re trapped in here with a limited supply, it seems. I don’t think it will last us long.”

  “Oh.” A pause. “I suppose I should remedy that next time. Make a bigger bubble.”