The outcast stumbled over tree roots in the dark, and her feet slithered in mud. The moon appeared fitfully between curtains of rain. The tree-lined road had become a narrow track that petered out in the forest. Even if she retraced her steps, even if she found the main road again, she would find no shelter there. Military vehicles painted with the American flag forced their way through hand-pulled carts, hooting with impatience and spattering mud over foot travellers. An asthmatic bus had laboured up the hillside, but she had no money for the bus fare to the city. Nor did she have money for an inn. She had hoped to find a big village where she could hide in an outbuilding.
Mindful of the kami, the outcast looked neither left nor right. If she showed proper respect and humility to the spirits resident in the trees, rocks and streams, they would let an unworthy person like herself pass without mischief.
She lost one sandal in the mud. She waited in case the fitful moon revealed its location, and hopped a few uneven steps before advancing barefoot over stones that jabbed her feet.
‘I did it for you,’ she whispered.
The listening trees quivered in sympathy, and rustled an invitation.
The outcast tripped and fell full length, too exhausted to rise. If fate took her here, there would be an end to cold, hunger and sorrow. Yet if she died here on the forest floor, she might herself become a kami, a vengeful spirit scouring the highways and by-ways for her faithless lover, ever ready to torment those who had fallen into similar disgrace. The thought propelled her upright again, and she advanced with caution.
Rain hammered on the canopy of leaves as wind and rain played catch-chase. She pulled the blanket tighter around her, arms aching from the absence of her precious burden. Her daughter was not here, lost in the forest. Her daughter was safe with the gaijin and his wife, in a warm home where she had food and clothes. She had never met the wife, but the gaijin had kind eyes.
He had spoken to her in clumsy Japanese. ‘My friend betrayed you. Your family has disowned you. My wife and I will raise your child in her father’s country. I promise you, she will lack for nothing.’
Only when the child’s father announced his return to America had she learned that a ceremony conducted by a priest was not valid in law. She had struggled to maintain a dignified façade in response to his careless insouciance. ‘Hey, why the long face, baby? We both knew it wouldn’t last.’ She watched him stride back to the army jeep and heard his comrades’ laughter before the door slammed shut. Then she stood alone.
Her mother confiscated the money he left.
The other gaijin, the one with kind eyes, had taken the child into his arms with such care. When the little one whimpered, he had spoken so softly that she strained to hear. ‘Aren’t you the pretty one? We’ll have to find a good American name for you.’ She watched him stroke her child’s hair. After that, the gaijin had pressed money directly into her hands, in breach of the rules of etiquette. ‘Take it, I insist. You need all the help you can get.’ She had rid herself of the handful of notes at the nearest roadside shrine. Placing her offering in the bowl, she bowed, and begged all the deities and kami of the shrine to extend their protection to her infant daughter. A child who would grow up in her father’s country, speaking her father’s language, and forgetting her Japanese heritage. That her daughter’s future was secure did nothing to lessen the knot of sorrow and shame under her breastbone.
The sodden blanket no longer protected her from icy rain. There was no visible path to follow. The bag containing her meagre ration of dried fish was empty. All that mattered was that her daughter was safe, asleep on another woman’s lap.
Remember me, she prayed. Remember your unworthy mother. With her remaining breath, she sang a lullaby to her lost daughter.
A flickering light danced through the trees in front of her; shrill, yappy barks drifted on the wind. The kitsune-bi, the fox fire.
The outcast struggled to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground in sign of respect. ‘Honourable One,’ she stammered. When it bowed in return the kitsune displayed seven tails, whose bushy white fur glinted in a shaft of moonlight. The apparition became a bride. The bride dissolved into a fox again, the folds of her kimono separating into silvery tails.
‘I was his bride, I was,’ she shouted. ‘You cannot take that away from me.’
The kitsune ignored her impertinent words. It waited, tails swishing with impatience. The wind howled. The listening trees quivered.
The outcast touched her forehead to the ground once more. ‘Honourable One, what must I do?’ The kitsune vanished and the dancing lights beckoned, but a tendril wrapped itself around her ankle, gentle as a lover. She attempted to pull free, although the stem held her close. ‘Stay,’ the rustling leaves pleaded. Pine needles pattered to the ground. Another tendril encircled her knees. ‘The dishonour was not yours. It was his. Become one with us. Stay, and we will cover you with a blanket of fallen leaves. We will leave you sleeping until the buds of spring pierce your skin to herald the returning sun.’
She stroked the tendrils before she disentangled herself. ‘Kodama-sama, I thank you for your benevolence to this unworthy person. My child lives. It is not yet time for me to leave this world of tears. As long as I live, my prayers go with her.’
She ripped a thread from the lining of her food bag and left it at the base of the nearest trunk. As an offering it was pitiful, but the tree spirits would understand that she left part of herself with them.
She blundered towards the teasing lights, which led her out of the forest and onto a road where two stone demons guarded a gateway. In her exhausted state, their bulging, all-seeing eyes and bared teeth appeared almost friendly.
Their presence signified a wealthy house, one where the kitchen maids might give her food and allow her to sleep in an outhouse. Her stomach growled at the thought of food.
Music and laughter came from inside the building. She avoided the lantern-lit front entrance, and slipped unseen towards the back.
The tang of pine needles lingered on the wind, a soft caress calling her back to the trees, but the mouth-watering aroma of fried dumplings lured her on. A door opened, shedding yellow light on the veranda. and a muscular cook stepped out to throw a pail of dirty water into the yard. He shouted for her to show herself.
‘Well, what’s this blown in on the wind?’ He sounded amused rather than scornful. ‘Let’s have a proper look at you.’ He beckoned her into the warmth and ladled out a bowl of soup. She shrank into a corner and swallowed the hot, onion-laden broth in haste, afraid he might change his mind and throw her out. Instead, an elderly woman appeared, dressed in an painted silk kimono, her face covered in thick white powder. The cook bowed. ‘Here she is, Mother.’
‘Stand up.’ The command was issued without a formal greeting, the voice peremptory. The muddy blanket was snatched away and dropped on the floor. ‘Show me your teeth.’ The older woman turned away, telling the cook, ‘She’ll do. I’ll send one of the girls to clean her up.’
The cook bowed low as she swept out.
‘Omae-san, fortune smiles on you,’ he said, handing her a rice cake. ‘Don’t worry, there’s plenty more,’ he added, when she crammed it whole into her mouth. ‘Mother looks after her girls – although she’ll expect you to learn some table manners.’
When someone came to take her to the bath house, the cook winked. ‘Remember me when Mother finds you a rich protector.’
*
The outcast luxuriated in the hot bath. She stabbed a hair stick through the heavy coil of hair and sank into the water up to her neck. It had been many days since she bathed. Clean clothes lay ready beside the tub. The cheap cotton robes were those of a servant, but how long before she was put into a fine kimono and told to earn her keep?
This then was her penance. The kitsune-bi, the fox fire, had lured her here. The stone demons at the gateway had not protected her. Instead they grinned in derision at her puny human efforts to outrun fate.
Under her breath she sang a lullaby to her lost daughter, safe on another woman’s lap.
About the author
Madeleine McDonald is a versatile writer whose published work ranges from flash fiction to romance novels.
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