Chapter 8

Lying on my back, moving through a bright hallway. Strangers run beside me, their voices muffled. We stop at an elevator, and when the doors open, I see my kitsune mother standing in the corner, waiting for me. She looks at me but doesn’t say a word, and no one else seems to see her. I try to reach for her, but a stranger grabs my hand and pushes it down.

I open my eyes.

I’m lying in a bed in a strange room. It’s early morning, judging by the gray light outside. When I move, my clothing rustles—I’m wearing a flimsy gown. I’m in a hospital. And Gwen is sleeping in a chair nearby, a pillow wedged between her head and the wall. I cough, then wince. My ribs feel like a rhinoceros stomped on them.

“Gwen?”

She frowns in her sleep, dark circles under her eyes.

I raise my voice. “Gwen?”

She blinks herself awake, then stares at me. “Tavian!” I can tell she’s been crying, and my throat tightens. “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

I shake my head. “What happened?”

Gwen picks up her chair and moves it closer to my bed, then grips my hand as if she’s afraid I might drift away without her anchoring me. “I don’t know. They found you unconscious on the roof of the skyscraper, naked, in the snow—why did you go up there?”

I look away. “I was following my kitsune mother. I didn’t know if it was a dream or not.”

Her eyes glitter. “What did she do to you?”

“Nothing.” My voice sounds hollow. “She talked to me. I tried to change into a fox, then passed out.”

Gwen’s jaw tightens. “Michiko tried to translate what the doctors were saying for me. She said they were afraid you’d had a heart attack, but when they did some tests, they couldn’t find anything wrong. Just like the doctors back home.”

My kitsune mother’s voice whispers through my mind. You are broken.

“I don’t think it’s physical,” I say. “I think it’s paranormal. Something to do with my kitsune half. It happened when I dreamed of my kitsune mother being killed, and also when I tried to use an illusion against the Kuro Inu. Tsuyoshi wants me to go to a temple, to see if they can help me.”

“Tavian.” Gwen glares at me, but her voice sounds husky.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I thought it was nothing to worry about, just predictable angina. Just pain.”

She looks away and blows out her breath. “It’s not just pain. Not if you’re passing out because of it. Not if it’s keeping you from becoming a fox.”

“I don’t know if that’s why, though I haven’t shapeshifted since we got here.”

“Tavian… this can’t be good.”

“I know.”

Then again, Gwen is much more of a hardcore shapeshifter than I am.

She sighs and rests her head beside mine, but I’m already looking outside the window at the drifting snow. I wonder where my mother is now. Why do I even want to find her? My stomach feels sick, like the memory I had of her soured and started rotting, twisting with worms. I should hate her, but she’s the woman who gave birth to me, who raised me for the first six years of my life.

A phone buzzes—mine, on a table against the wall.

Gwen looks up. “You want me to get that?”

“Yes please.”

She grabs it and answers. “Hi, this is Tavian’s phone.” Her face gets a pinched look. “Ms. Kimura! Yes, he’s here with me. Yes, he’s awake.” She hands the phone to me.

Great. Talking to my parents is definitely not going to be a picnic.

I clear my throat. “Mom? I—”

“Octavian! What possessed you to go outside alone, in the cold, with your condition?”

“I wasn’t alone.”

“I—what do you mean?”

I think for a moment. “Who called the paramedics?”

Mom pauses. “I don’t know. Kazuki, do you know?”

“No,” Dad says, and nothing more.

“Then who was it?” Mom says, her voice sharp with impatience.

There isn’t a good way to phrase what I want to say next, so I plunge right in. “It must have been my kitsune mother.”

Silence. For so long, I wonder if my phone died.

“Are you still there?” I say.

“Yes.” Mom draws in a slow breath. “That woman lured you there?”

She didn’t lure me. Well, there was foxfire involved, but I went of my own free will.

Out loud, I say, “I wanted to meet her.”

More silence.

“Your mother is very upset,” Dad says, as if I couldn’t tell.

“I’m not upset,” Mom says quickly. “Not about that.”

But I know that every time I talk about my biological parents—my biological mother, really—Mom laces her fingers together so tightly her knuckles turn white, and she speaks in this tight, crisp way, like she’s biting off her words. I can imagine her doing it right now, and Dad putting a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

“Octavian,” Mom says, “I hope you know that your father and I will always support you when you want to learn more about your biological parents. It’s perfectly natural.”

That’s what she always says, often enough that it sounds like a script. But in private, when I’m not supposed to be listening, she talks about things totally differently. One night, when I was maybe eight or nine, she was whispering a little too loudly in the hall.

I already tried to explain things to his teachers. He wasn’t given a chance at a normal childhood. Not for the first six years of his life. That woman raised him like an animal. That woman didn’t even teach him how to dress himself. If they can’t recognize the consequences of such neglect and abuse, then to hell with them.

“Hello?” Mom says. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I say. “Sorry. I was thinking about what you said.”

“Tavian.” Dad clears his throat. “Now would be a good time to focus on your future.”

“My future?” I say, stupidly, since I already know where this is going.

“While you’re in Tokyo, you should use your time to do something productive. Talk with your grandfather.” Dad’s voice is brisk, like he’s on an international conference call. “I already told him about your interest in graphic design, and I’m sure he would be more than willing to find a place for you in the company.”

The company being the family hotel business, the reason why Dad has such a cushy job with their U.S. division.

“I will,” I say, too tired to argue.

Maybe I’ll be able to sit behind a desk for eight hours a day, five days a week. Maybe I can make art for a living. If creating logos and marketing pieces for a hotel counts as art…

“Oh!” Mom says. “Will you get out for Christmas Eve?”

“It’s Christmas Eve?” I say dully. “I forgot. Not feeling very merry right now.”

“Not until tomorrow,” Dad says. “We wish you weren’t in the hospital, but it’s the best for your health.”

“Right,” I say.

“Get some sleep,” Mom says. “You sound exhausted.”

“Well, it looks like I’m going to be stuck in bed for a while,” I say, trying to joke about it.

Mom sighs, but I can tell she’s feeling slightly better.

Sure enough, I spend Christmas Eve in the hospital while the doctors find absolutely nothing new. Gwen stays with me, reading passages from her book on yōkai out loud. My head swims with visions of strange-skinned demons and beautiful women with hideous secrets. I’d forgotten about the sheer number of Others who live in Japan, coexisting with humans for centuries, even millennia. Why do I feel like I don’t belong?