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An uncommon blizzard swept over Tokyo that winter.
Snowdrifts drove up, piled against the walls of the Ichinomiya house, such that Youko and Kantarou could do little but wait out the storm, shivering together under a work-weary kotatsu.
A neighbour had been kind enough to open up their stores of rice and pickled vegetables—starvation would not take them. Kantarou joked that they were better off than aristocrats in some Heian-era famine he had read about, but Youko did not find it funny.
The howling of the wind outside was fierce enough that they had to raise their voices. The plumbing had frozen solid and soon their throats were hoarse but they had little to drink, boiling snow to get by.
And then there was a new sound: rustling, knocking, at the front door. A light rap on the wood frame in a pitch and tone that superseded the violence of the storm.
Kantarou went to investigate, holding a blanket around himself as he went to the door.
He opened it as much as he dared, fearing it might fly open—but who would be out there in this weather? He spied two figures standing, silhouetted, in the driving snow.
They wore men’s clothes but had the faces of boys, neotenous and pale as what fell all around them. Frost gathered on their eyebrows, and they pulled ornately-patterned scarves close about their mouths. Kantarou’s keen eye appraised their wealth before he considered their plight.
“Please,” they said, in two voices as one. “We’re two weary travellers, let us rest a while.”
Kantarou was taken in. They had a pure charm to them, as though to tell them no would break their tender hearts. He nodded and welcomed them.
He pulled the door open enough that wisps of wind and snow wound their way across the bamboo floor, then shut it tight behind the two wanderers.
“Where did you come from?” Kantarou asked as the boys removed their thickly-woven winter boots. Kantarou had not seen outfits like theirs since he was following his mother around to little temples up and down Honshu. Anyone with sense these days wore Western overcoats and woollen wear in weather like this.
“Shikkoku, Shikkoku,” they mirrored one another, bowing to their host.
It was clear to Kantarou that these were youkai. What kind? He could not guess. His mind wandered to the folklore of that island but came up blank—and wondered still what would bring them to Tokyo. The realm of the supernatural held no room for coincidences. But he could not bring himself to offend these guests by prying.
Without being guided they found their way to the kitchen. Youko looked at them with fox-like curiosity; they sat opposite her at the kotatsu, sensing their toes by the small fire, by hers.
The wanderers produced two bowls of rice, perfectly rounded at the top and, somehow, untouched by the frost, which had melted off of their gentle faces as soon as they had entered. Kantarou took a seat again.
“I’m glad you have your own food,” he said, poking his chopsticks at the last few grains that remained. “We don’t have much to spare, I’m afraid.”
“We always bring our own,” said one of the visitors, the first time they spoke out of tune—but they did not look at Kantarou. Only Youko.
There was a golden, buttery sheen to the rice they ate; Kantarou provided them chopsticks, and they ate voraciously.
“So what are your names?” Youko offered, uncomfortable with silence when new guests were around. These were strangers in her kitchen: Kantarou had not consulted her, but she, too, would have felt a pinch of guilt if they had been left to suffer in the storm.
Their voices had a lilting softness which invited sympathy, as though each word was one note of a sad melody. “Hoshi,” said one, with a blue scarf. “Sora,” said the other, with a white scarf.
They nodded as one at Youko, as though approving. She did not know what they meant, but continued to eat.
“We are saddened that sister-flower has forgotten us,” said Hoshi, who did not take his piercing gaze off of Youko even as he ate. It grew more unsettling as the timbers of the house groaned from the whipping wind.
“Sister-flower?” Kantarou interjected, joining them in looking at Youko. Even Kantarou’s eyes now had an oppressive quality to them. She wished she could shrink under the kotatsu and out of their sight. So, instead, she excused herself: a small lie, no larger than her fingernail, that there was a window she had forgotten to close.
Sora cried out as she walked away. “Sister-flower, your dishonesty is painful.”
Hoshi echoed: “Sister-flower, why do you not remember?”
Kantarou was more puzzled. Youko felt their sad and pitiable voices grasping like a child’s fingers about her heart and she found that she could not bring herself to leave. She sat down again, and the faces of the strangers settled into expressions of calm once more.
“Sister-flower,” they repeated, when Kantarou again inquired. “She is our sister-flower, and we have missed her very much.”
Youko bit her tongue, something stopping her from lashing out and demanding they explain themselves. She did not have to ask; they finished their rice, and Hoshi spoke in an even cadence, words falling and lifting like petals on the breeze.
“We have come all this way for you. Do you not remember at all? Do you not remember your name, sister-flower?”
It only then dawned on her, and she eyed them warily. “My name is Youko.”
They shook their heads disapprovingly, as if watching the antics of a child. The sound of the name itself seemed distasteful to them, and they looked to Kantarou for an explanation.
“I gave her the name Youko,” he said with a shrug. “Doesn’t it suit her?”
The name, again, gave them a shudder. Demon fox. It was like a crude word or phrase, uttered with such softness and innocence by Kantarou. They were in a stunned silence, as though he might not have known the meaning behind that name—and then they stared at Youko, eyes pleading with her, faces falling into pallid anguish.
“Hana is your name,” they both told her, syllable by syllable, speaking to Youko like she had lost her mind and needed guidance returning to reality. Her discomfort rose with each word, their musical voices becoming subtly off-key.
“It isn’t,” she insisted, barely managing more than a whisper.
The strangers bore smiles so sharp they felt like a knife on Youko’s flesh. Their eyes were too blue; their clothes too unblemished; their hair too soft. The glamour began to chip away like old paint. She could see the tips of their teeth now past their rosy lips, and her heart leapt.
“You’re kitsune…” She brought her hand to her mouth, her chopsticks clattering to the floor.
They bowed their heads with sad looks, expressions mechanically shifting like dolls. “As are you. You must have forgotten us because you are hungry, Hana. Please do not go hungry.”
Kantarou watched them in awe; Youko in disbelief. The one man who could exorcise them and free her from this was so entranced by their words as sweet as rice wine he could not lift a finger against them.
A bowl of golden rice appeared in Sora’s palm. He handed it to Youko, the warm, fresh smell of every good meal she’d ever had ensconced within the wafting steam that rose from the rice. The porcelain sparkled like snow under the midday sun. It nearly overwhelmed her senses. Hoshi handed her chopsticks like a salesman presenting a pen with which to sign a contract. There was no escaping that the bargain here was her soul.
Who was Hana? The answers did not come to her no matter how far she dove into her memories. Should she remember?
Their scarves dangled over the kotatsu like hypnotic pendulums. Youko had to look away—first into their eyes, which made her feel a searing, intense pressure, then to Kantarou, who had a polite, distant smile on his face. He would have taken their offer. He would have sold himself.
“Eat, eat,” they intoned. “Eat, sister-flower, and you will remember everything. Do not rebuke your brothers. Would you be so cruel to rebuke your brothers, sister-flower?”
Their enchanting song echoed in her ears, and she covered them and closed her eyes to shut out everything.
Kantarou put his hand on her shoulder and she felt the chill of death, his ghostly-pale skin heavy as ice.
“Go ahead and eat, Youko. They’re our guests, please don’t refuse them.” There was no understanding in Kantarou’s eyes—or was there? Did he know? Youko’s heart beat faster.
The invocation of her name was a command her body heard before her mind. The air became thick and hot as a rainy summer’s day. The sound of the blizzard had vanished, replaced by an insistent buzzing in the back of her head that grew louder and louder as she strained against the demands placed on her.
Her vision narrowed and all Youko could see were the chopsticks and the rice and two blurred figures across from her. They were little more than shadows, black voids studded with ivory teeth, tendrils of shadow flickering along the edges of their forms like tails. She sensed a smile.
“Kantarou…” she rasped, able only to move her eyes with her own conscious thought. Her fingers twisted and grasped the chopsticks.
“Eat, eat,” the strangers cooed, atonal and grating like the rusted strings of some ancient instrument.
Youko was trapped in her mind, trying to signal somehow to Kantarou. He seemed so far out of reach, and the two kitsune leaned over toward her expectantly, their sister-flower so close to accepting the gift they had ventured so far to deliver.
“We simply wish to have you back,” came Hoshi’s plea, barely any rhythm to his words anymore, like an animal repeating human speech. “Hana, please come back. We have missed our sister-flower. Missed her so much.”
Sora reached out to her, in Youko’s vision a long silhouette of fabric and flesh extending across the kotatsu her head. It stopped a mere inch away from stroking her hair, somehow repelled.
“You will be fed, sister-flower. Nourished and loved.” Sora’s words seemed to pour directly into her ear, and a shiver ran down her weak spine.
Two pairs of hands raised the gleaming porcelain bowl to her face, the scent of some faraway home filling her senses—so warm, so close, so comforting. Was she Hana? She began to doubt herself. Perhaps this was right. Kantarou had been right, too: he was showing her the truth she had long avoided. Kindness, in returning her to her family. Yes—this had been a long time coming.
But it was not to be. Fear seized her: the unknown, the snow outside, loss: how many stories had she read like this? How many other victims had these cruel spirits taken?
That moment of fear was a bolt of clarity, one passing moment of blue sky amidst storm clouds. She seized it with all the willpower she had and struck the bowl and snapped the chopsticks.
Rice showered over the kitchen floor, sizzling and wicking away like hot rain. The smell turned sour and the shadows misshapen. They reared up like cornered foxes, their teeth bared, their eyes aglow with an unsettling glimmer. Their pleasant facades melted into the frigid air, their voices grating like metal on metal, the screech of a train coming to a halt.
“You will join us, sister-flower,” Hoshi demanded.
“You will return and be one with us, sister-flower.“ Sora joined him in renewed, eerie song.
A scream filled the air and broke through the melody, silencing even the blizzard. Youko only knew from the pain in her throat that it had come from her.
“Youko!” cried Kantarou, life and warmth and concern returning to his red eyes. He clutched the beads around his neck.
He leapt over the table at the intruders, palms together, and chanted the nam myoho renge kyo. Over and over the words passed his lips and grew louder with each recitation.
The shadows recoiled and hissed like boiling water; they fled to the lightless corners of the room but Kantarou and Youko chased them even from there.
“Youko, the door!”
She went to the entryway where the fox spirits had first entered and threw open the door, the snow beating against an invisible wall, the wind howling like a pack of beasts. The last motes of shadow were consumed by the storm, collapsing like rice paper immersed in water.
The storm let out one final roar, a demand from the clouds, retreating far away until it was little more than a distant echo.
The snow slowly abated. The clouds parted. Pockets of blue emerged from on high, and Youko felt the warmth of the winter sun on her face. Kantarou, panting heavily, stood behind her. His knuckles were white from grasping the prayer beads. The trembling chill that had overcome Youko’s body when one small grain of that golden rice touched her lips was now subsiding, and she breathed freely once more.
“I’m sorry, Youko,” said Kantarou, joining her in watching the blue sky pour forth. There was a rare tone of regret in his voice, one that she had not heard from him before this moment.
“We got out of it together, that’s all that matters,” she told him with a smile.
That she came so close to falling under the spell of those spirits felt heavy on her heart, a black mark that would fade only with time. Kantarou had faltered, and so nearly had she: but there could be no regrets between them.
Kantarou returned to the kitchen, but Youko stayed there on the threshold, looking out at the snow that shimmered like the porcelain bowl. She wondered if she did have a family out there, distant and missing her, missing their sister-flower, wishing to restore a name and a home she had long since forgotten.
But, she thought as she turned and closed the door: her family was here. Her home was here. The smell of rice and pickled vegetables wafted through the cool air over to her, and she joined Kantarou for a peaceful dinner.