Late Summer, Early Spring

by Patricia Correll

  Sleeping mats, blankets, water jugs, a few handfuls of food apiece. Iwata’s swords, plus a long knife—used for cleaning fish—donated by Kyoko.

  The lady herself stood on the porch steps, nervously twisting her sleeves. “Are you sure that’s enough food, my lord?”

  “It’s spring. Plenty of food in the forest.” Iwata began rolling up the mats.

  Hiroshi smiled at her. “We can set snares and fish, Mistress. Thank you for your help.”

  She bit her lip. “Master Sagawara, about Master Daigo—”

  She was cut off by Daigo’s voice. “Uncle! Lord General!”

  A note of urgency in his tone made them all turn. He was trotting up the path from the other end of the village, where the well was. He held two buckets, which rattled as he ran, empty of the water he’d gone to fetch. His limp was completely absent, but the short run had left him panting. Behind him jogged a woman around Kyoko’s age.

  “This lady says her son is missing!”

  Iwata glanced at Hiroshi, who met his gaze for a moment.

  Hiroshi faced the woman. “How old is your son, Mistress?”

  The woman shared a face with most of the island women: browned by the sun, made weary by work. Iwata must have seen her before, but he couldn’t recall her.

  “Nine, my lord. I set him to watching his sisters while I worked. When I came back to make lunch, he was gone. The girls said they were playing a hiding game at the edge of the forest. They said he hid so well they… they couldn’t find him, but he didn’t come out even when I called. Something’s wrong, my lord.”

  “How long ago did he disappear?” Hiroshi sliced through her nervous babbling.

  She shook her head. “The girls are still little, they weren’t clear. Perhaps an hour ago.”

  “Show us.” Iwata rose. They followed the woman across the village.

  Two tear-streaked children sat outside a house at the other end of the village. Iwata didn’t know enough about children to guess ages, but they were very small. Hiroshi sank to one knee and smiled at them. Iwata paced impatiently as Hiroshi elicited their brother’s name, where they’d been playing, and where the boy usually hid during their games.

  “Tatsumi,” Hiroshi reported, taking the wakizashi Iwata offered. From the corner of his vision, Iwata saw movement. Turning, he saw a group of men coming around the corner of the nearest house. They were all villagers, men Iwata recognized. Their faces were dark, twisted with anger. Among them was Daigo, his expression anxious.

  Hiroshi had seen them too. He froze, his hand holding the short sword away from his body, the blade turned away from the crowd. Iwata slid his thumb between the hilt of his katana and its sheath.

  “Have you come to help us search for the boy?” Hiroshi called.

  His tone was friendly, but Iwata detected sharpness in it. Iwata watched the men approach with narrowed eyes, not bothering to hide his hostility.

  The group stopped in front of the house. The boy’s mother quickly ushered the now sobbing little girls inside and closed the door.

  “We heard your fox took a boy.” The speaker was tall and powerful, his head shaved, and that, combined with his heavy brow, gave him the aspect of an ape.

  Daigo pushed to the front of the group and turned to face them. His expression of anxiety had vanished, replaced by stony anger. “What do you think you’re doing? If you’re not going to help us find the boy, then go back to your work.”

  Iwata’s gaze flickered over to Daigo. For a moment Prince Narita’s mild-mannered son had sounded as imperious as his father. He could have been Iwata’s closest friend, thirty-five years before.

  The ape-man’s expression wavered, then hardened. “We’ll find him ourselves. We don’t need help from your sort. You brought that monster here!”

  “Our sort?” Iwata snarled. “You mean trained soldiers who’ve spent weeks scouring the forest for the beast that threatens you?”

  “You brought it here!”

  The ape-man stepped forward, and Iwata saw he held one of the long knives used to scale fish. He surveyed the rest—some of the men were similarly armed. “And now it’s taken—”

  Hiroshi cut him off. “Will you help us or not?”

  The ape-man’s face flushed red. Some of the other men murmured uncomfortably. Did they see the sense in Hiroshi’s words? Iwata couldn’t tell.

  For a long moment they stood, watching, calculating. The men grew quiet, staring at the ape-man. The ape-man hesitated. Iwata made a decision.

  He turned his back on them and strode toward the tree line. Hiroshi followed, turning casually on his heel, though Iwata knew he was as tense as a drawn bowstring.

  Daigo waited half a minute before catching up to them. “What’s his name?”

  “Tatsumi.” Iwata flung his arm toward the trees. Behind them he heard footsteps—deliberate, chastised. “Spread out. We have to cover a lot of ground quickly.”

  They entered the cool dimness beneath the trees. Cries flew back and forth in a dozen different voices. “Tatsumi! Tatsumi!”

  Iwata hadn’t taken more than thirty steps into the woods when someone shouted, “I’ve got him! He’s here!”

  The searchers swarmed back to the house. One of the younger men carried a disheveled boy on his shoulders. Tears streaked his face, but he didn’t begin blubbering until his mother rushed out of the house. The man deposited the boy into her arms, where he was alternately embraced and cuffed.

  The men loitered around, looking embarrassed, their purpose cut short. The ape-man stood rigidly, his arms crossed over his chest. His knife was tucked away in his sash, but his eyes still glittered unpleasantly. There would be no apologies from that one, Iwata knew.

  Hiroshi emerged from the trees some distance away and sidled up to Iwata. “At least the child is safe.”

  “We won’t be for much longer.” Iwata nodded toward the ape-man. “He isn’t fond of us.”

  “I noticed. We should leave tonight.”

  Daigo bounded up, grinning. “Nothing but a false worry! The fox hasn’t dared to attack, after all.”

  Iwata scowled at the woman, who was ushering the boy inside. “Not yet.”

  “HE WAS trying to scare his sisters by not answering when they called, but when everyone started looking for him, he was afraid of being in trouble.” Mistress Noriko shook her graying head. “I suppose he’s learned a lesson, though he’ll forget it in a week. He’s a boy, after all.”

  Daigo grinned. “The way his mother was beating him, I doubt he’ll forget any time soon, mistress.”

  Kyoko forced a quivering smile. “I heard there was some trouble….”

  “It was nothing, a misunderstanding.” Daigo spoke so confidently that Iwata understood why Kyoko’s expression relaxed.

  But Mistress Noriko wasn’t so easily fooled. She snagged Iwata’s gaze, her eyebrows lifted in a question. He gave her a nearly imperceptible shake of the head for answer.

  After dinner Iwata and Hiroshi went to the storeroom. Hiroshi rolled up the sleeping mats and packed their few possessions while Iwata listened at the door. When he heard the other doors slide shut, he slipped out to the main room, where Mistress Noriko sipped plum wine by the fire.

  “Lord General, there you are. Will you have some?”

  He accepted the cup she offered. The wine was sweet.

  “I assume, after the events of the day, that you’ll be leaving tonight. It would be wise, I think.”

  “Master Sagawara is gathering our things.”

  “You’ll be leaving me with a despondent daughter.”

  “Not a despondent daughter, a very angry young man.” Iwata drained the second cup and put it down before she could refill it.

  Surprise flickered over her face. “You’re not taking Master Daigo?”

  “His uncle thinks it best.”

  “He must love his nephew very much to go off the honorable path.” She smiled slyly. “And you must love him, to allow it.”

 
“You remind me of a woman I used to know. The wife of a friend.”

  “I’ll assume that’s a compliment.” She chuckled. “I’ll protect Daigo as best I can. Not just for Master Sagawara. I’ve grown fond of the boy myself. Not as fond as Kyoko, mind you.”

  A door opened, and they both sat up, squinting in the gloom. It was Hiroshi, Snow trotting behind. Iwata rose and took the neatly rolled mat Hiroshi offered.

  Mistress Noriko nodded to them. “Take care, Master Sagawara, Lord General. Slay that creature.”

  Hiroshi bowed. “Please accept our thanks for your kindness now, in case we don’t return.”

  “Thank me when you come back.”

  The night air was cool and smelled faintly of jasmine. Iwata turned to Snow. “Snow, stay.”

  Her tail waved furiously.

  Hiroshi laughed. “I told you she wouldn’t be left behind.”

  “Let the stupid animal come, then.”

  They’d chosen their route the day before. The moon was full and spilled pale light over the village. They walked in silence to the place where they planned to enter the forest. Without hesitation they crossed from the silver-sheened clearing into the brooding darkness of the trees.

  IWATA OPENED his eyes to a tangle of roots, twisting and coiling like the heads of a dragon. Something pressed against his side. He looked and saw Snow, her head tucked into his chest so that she resembled a dirty, crumpled white kimono.

  Something else was stroking his hair, idly brushing it off his face. Iwata reached up and caught Hiroshi’s hand. “You’re supposed to be watching for the fox.”

  “I am.” Hiroshi closed his fingers over Iwata’s. “But I can watch you at the same time.”

  Iwata sat up, stretching. The movement dislodged Snow, who planted her paws on his legs and tried to lick his face. She’d been hunting before she joined him, and her breath smelled of blood and meat. Iwata nudged her off with a quick pat.

  “I heard something.” Hiroshi plucked the blanket off Iwata’s legs and began to fold it. “But you didn’t wake, and Snow didn’t react. It was a twig snapping, some animal.”

  Iwata nodded agreement. His neck ached—they’d been in the forest for days, and all that time he’d been tense, waiting for the wave of agony when they stumbled upon the fox. The pain had yet to come, but he couldn’t keep his body from anticipating it.

  “We should be nearly to the other side of the island, according to Kyoko.”

  Another beach. Iwata rolled up his mat. Did the fox know they were hunting it? If it did, it could elude them endlessly. He locked the thought away. No, it would come to them as it had before. Eventually.

  When the sun was high overhead, they stopped for lunch. Hiroshi had gathered a few handfuls of mushrooms, which they ate raw as Snow danced around them, whining. When Iwata dropped one for her, she snatched it up and immediately spat it out.

  “Go catch a rabbit,” he told her.

  She barked once and bounded away. Her tail, waving like an officer’s standard, was last to be swallowed by the trees.

  Hiroshi didn’t kneel next to Iwata but paced back and forth while he ate. He was as anxious as Iwata, and he’d hardly rested since they entered the forest. “Do you think Daigo is all right?”

  “Between Kyoko and Noriko, they won’t let anyone harm him.”

  Something rustled in the trees some distance away. Iwata raised his head, listening. But the noise was not repeated. “Daigo’s a man, Hiro. He can care for hims—” His sentence died in a sudden rush of fire through his veins. His muscles spasmed, and the mushrooms he held dropped to the ground in a pale heap. The pain forced the air from his lungs. Iwata gasped, trying to wrestle it away. He reached for his sword.

  Hiroshi had already reached over and drawn the wakizashi. He searched the green walls around them with his sharp gaze. “Sho?”

  Iwata forced his legs to straighten. He brandished his katana. Once upright, his vision began to clear. “Come out, you monster!” he barked.

  They waited, eyes straining, listening. There was nothing, no sound but their own breathing.

  And then Snow cried out.

  The sound made Iwata start. It wasn’t the brief, startled yelp of a kicked dog. It was a howl of fear that escalated into a scream of agony. The cry ended abruptly.

  It galvanized Iwata. He mastered the leaden pain in his limbs and staggered toward the noise. Hiroshi was quicker. He darted in front of Iwata, slipping through the densely crowded trees. Iwata limped after, his chest tight with dread.

  Hiroshi stopped so abruptly that Iwata stumbled into him. At the same moment, he felt the pain ease a little, a blade pulled from his flesh. The ache in his body began to ebb, but it was still severe enough to make his voice ragged.

  “It’s leaving.” He tried to push past Hiroshi, but his lover held him back.

  Hiroshi twisted his head, looking over his shoulder. His expression darkened. “Sho—”

  Iwata’s strength was returning. He gripped Hiroshi’s shoulder, ready to shove him aside, but Hiroshi gave in and stepped out of the way.

  A flat triangular rock, slightly tilted, held the forest at bay. The surface was pitted, cracked, and spotted with patches of moss. At one end, her black nose hanging off the edge, lay Snow. Her throat had been ripped open. Her white fur, dirty and tangled, was stained with blood so vividly red it seemed almost artificial, like fresh dye. Her head was thrown back at an unnatural angle, and beneath stretched a ruin of shredded flesh. The blood had run in rivulets down the face of the rock, collecting in the tiny holes. Snow’s eyes were open and glassy, clouding over even as Iwata stepped up beside her, heedless of the blood that clung to his sandals. Her black lips were drawn back, yellow teeth exposed in a frozen snarl. Slowly he sheathed his katana.

  Hiroshi remained where he was, saying nothing but holding the wakizashi at the ready. He didn’t need to; Iwata could feel that the fox had gone. But a tightness in his chest prevented him from telling Hiroshi that.

  Iwata shrugged off his pack and unrolled the sleeping mat, the gray blanket Kyoko had given him folded into a neat square in the center of it. He took it and laid it flat on a clean section of the rock. Then he rerolled the mat and carefully secured it. Hiroshi waited, saying nothing.

  The dog’s body was lighter than Iwata expected. Her warmth fled even as he laid her on the blanket. Her fur, after days in the forest, was stiff. His hands were tacky with drying blood when he was finished. Iwata wiped them on the grass by the rock. Then he wrapped the blanket around Snow, layering it until the blood no longer soaked through.

  “Sho.” Hiroshi had paced to the other side of the rock. Iwata turned to him. Hiroshi pointed to a spot where the undergrowth was torn and flattened.

  Iwata lifted the wrapped bundle and followed in the creature’s wake.

  THEY LOST the trail just before nightfall. They’d come to a broad, shallow creek that foamed around scattered rocks, and though Hiroshi searched the opposite bank, he found no continuation of the tracks in the fading light.

  While he looked, Iwata laid Snow down among the rocks. He gathered dry, broken branches and began to build a fire. The coming evening was warm, and there was no need for a fire. But Iwata kept piling the wood, then the dead leaves and grass, higher than any fire for the two of them would ever need to be. Hiroshi waded back to him, sandals dangling from one hand. He didn’t seem surprised when he saw what Iwata was doing. He crouched next to Snow and watched as Iwata lit the fire. It burned higher and higher, until the crackling of the flames drowned the creek’s restless cough. When it had burned high enough, Iwata lifted Snow and set the little bundle in the fire, pulling his hands back quickly as the hungry flames licked at him. He backed away and sat next to Hiroshi.

  After a while Hiroshi took his hand, twining their fingers together. The air filled with the smell of burning cloth, then singed hair, and finally cooking meat. Night fell around them.

  Hiroshi slept first. The fire was still burning when Iwata fi
nally unrolled his mat and took his turn.

  IWATA WOKE into daylight. Hiroshi paced the bank nearby, peering into the trees across the water. When he saw Iwata was awake, he said, “I’m going to search around the creek, try to pick up a trail.”

  “Don’t bother.” Iwata sat up. His back felt as if a horse had trampled him. “The beast came to us, back in the Nightingale Palace. It will come to us here.”

  Hiroshi kicked off his sandals, frowning. “I don’t want to wait for it.” He waded across the creek and began to search, weaving among the trees.

  Iwata rolled up his mat and tied back his hair. Hiroshi had laid out his breakfast on a cloth—dried fish and vegetables and a handful of berries. As he ate, he stirred the ashes of the fire with a stick. Scraps of cloth, chips of charred bone. After a human cremation, the priests would descend on the bier and gather the ashes into a box for burial. But he was no priest, and Snow was no human. Her ashes would sink into the earth where they lay.

  Iwata had been finished for several minutes before he realized he was still holding a strip of fish to slip to the dog. He laid it on the pile of fine gray ash. An offering.

  He shouldered his pack, picked up their belongings, and stepped into the water. It was shockingly cold, sending prickles of pain into his skin. The sediment shifted beneath his feet. The water rushed against his ankles. He stepped out onto a shelf of slick rock and put on his sandals.

  “Sho!” Hiroshi’s voice sounded from around a bend in the creek.

  Iwata made his way along the streambed, clambering over thin, chipped rock stacked in layers. The water tumbled over a small waterfall at the bend. Hiroshi stood just beyond it, half out of the tree line. He held up one hand, smiling grimly. Clutched between his fingers was a tuft of hair. It was white, yellowed near the ends where it had been pulled from the skin. Iwata held out his hand. The fur was dry and loose. Mixed with the white were three or four strands of red. Fur from the beast’s tail.