The Night Parade (14 page)

At home, her father never talked about his life before he'd moved to Tokyo, but in the old house, he came alive with stories. The crickets began to chirp, and Saki pulled her attention away. Had they really been talking for so long? In Tokyo, everyone's schedules were so different. Between her school, cram school in the evenings so she wouldn't fail her high school entrance exam next year, and her father's working hours, Saki could go for days without seeing him at home.

In spite of the warm atmosphere at the table, Saki's anxiety built as the night wore on. There was only one night left to navigate the Night Parade. If she couldn't rid herself of the curse by morning… She didn't know what would happen, and that was the scariest part.

Soon, all four of them were yawning. Grandma packed up the letters and the photos and ordered them all to bed. As the night came, Saki waited under her covers with the bag of marbles hugged tightly against her chest.

Saki lined up her futon on the floor and cracked open the door to the woods. She set her head on the pillow to watch the wind brush against the trees. The leaves whispered softly in the night. After a while, the sound lulled her eyes closed.

Something hit the side of the house so hard that it shook the walls of the room. Saki's eyes snapped open with a start. She pushed her hair back and blinked through the veil of sleep as a second noise thumped and clattered on the walkway outside. Her brother slept through it without even a hitch in his snores.

She sat up and pressed her eye to the crack in the door. The wooden geta, with their translucent shadow straps, lay strewn upon the walkway. Not a single figure, footprint, or silhouette appeared among the trees to show what might have thrown them.

Her vision went dark. A third object hurtled toward her face and hit the crack between the door and the wall. Saki recoiled, her heart in her throat. The object outside rolled around on the walkway for a moment before coming to a rest. With careful shuffles, Saki approached the crack in the door again.

A fat brown teakettle rested sideways against the house. Saki waited a few moments, and when she was sure that nothing else would lob itself at her head, she crept out onto the walkway and gathered up the shadow-strapped geta.

She scanned the line of trees, but there was still no sign of any spirit out in the woods. She looked up. No spirits waited in the sky. The path from the first night, where she had followed the fox, appeared and disappeared through the leaves.

“Hello?” she called out to the darkness. “Isn't a guide supposed to, I don't know, guide me somewhere?”

The third spirit, whatever it was, was taking its sweet time. With a scowl, Saki sat down on the walkway and kept her eyes on the trees.

“I don't have time to wait around all night, you know. I have to get to the Midlight Prince before the Night Parade ends.”

No answer came but the whisper of the wind as it shifted an object behind her. The teakettle that had hit the house was still overturned. Saki hoisted it upright and noticed a strange crinkling sound from the spout. She dug a finger inside and, with a little effort, drew out a rolled-up slip of paper.

Saki unfurled the paper and squinted in the dark. The childish characters scribbled on the paper were blotted with globs of dark ink.

“
Careful of the hole in the bottom
…” she read aloud. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Saki turned the kettle over and tapped on the metal. If there was supposed to be anything that looked like a hole, Saki couldn't find it.

The teakettle's handle flicked up and became a furry tail. The spout morphed into an animal's head and looked up at her. The spot where Saki had just tapped was the creature's rump. Giggling with delight, the animal passed a load of gas.

Saki dropped the creature face-first in the dirt. She jumped up and swatted the air, trying to get rid of the horrible smell.

“Ugh! Gross! Why would you do that? What kind of spirit are you?”

“The brilliant kind,” the furry creature replied. “Bet you've never seen anyone do that trick before.”

The stripes on his narrow face ended in a wet, black nose. The spirit was a tanuki, a raccoon dog. His potbelly swayed as he came forward, sitting his round rump below the walkway with his paws splayed out. His mischievous eyes were fixed on Saki.

She restrained herself from jumping down and giving him a good smack. She crossed her arms and looked down her nose at the creature. “Are you my guide or what?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up, sweetheart. Can't a fella take a stroll alone?” He polished his front paw on the fur of his belly. “But I guess I am kind of irresistible. I can't blame you for wanting a piece of this action. Doesn't everybody?”

Saki made a face.

“Hey, what was that for?” the tanuki demanded. “You've got a bad attitude, sweetheart.”

“Look, I don't have time to play games,” Saki said. “I have to find the Midlight Prince to lift my curse before the Night Parade is over. And I have to get all the way back through the shrine before morning. If you're not going to take this seriously, tell me now before you waste any more of my time. I'll go by myself if I have to.”

The tanuki scratched his head. “Wow, that's a lotta stuff to do. But you'll never make it back there. I heard they got all sorts of creepies and crawlies trolling around lookin' for some human girl.”

Saki bit her lip.

“Huh. I guess that's you, sweetheart.”

Saki leaned back against the wall of the house and tried not to cry. It was her last night to lift the curse, she couldn't get through the shrine without being picked apart by insect soldiers, and the one spirit who was supposed to be helping her was sitting around cracking jokes. She'd have been better off going back inside and pulling the blankets over her head.

“Hey, why the long face?” The tanuki paraded around her ankles, trying to catch her gaze. “Since you're in a real pinch, lemme help you out. I got some friends who might be able to sneak you up to this prince-y fella.”

Saki brushed back her tears. “You do?”

“This prince guy ain't as handsome as me, but who is, really? I even know a secret shortcut. No way those shrine drones are gonna find you there. We got a deal?”

Saki opened her mouth to reply then stopped. She tilted her head as the tanuki fidgeted with his paws. “Why didn't you just tell me that from the start? What's the catch?”

“Catch? Sweetheart, why you gotta do this to me? Don't I look like a spirit you can trust?”

Saki blinked once. “No.”

The fox's betrayal was still fresh in her memory. She crossed her arms and stared down the tanuki.

“All right, all right, I'll fess up. Truth is I heard what you did for the fox. I know she tricked you and all that, but you gotta understand that the lady hauled in some major goods. You know what I mean? I just want one of them little magic marbles for myself, that's all.”

“Thanks anyway,” said Saki. She slid on her geta as she hopped off the edge of the walkway and trudged down the path to the Pilgrim's Road.

The tanuki called after her. “Wait! Hold up, sweetheart!”

“I'm not your sweetheart.”

“Yeah, okay, that's fair. Just let me finish. She told me not to lose you!”

Saki pivoted. The tanuki almost ran into her leg.

“She? You're working for someone else?”

“I wouldn't say ‘working for'… She asked me for a favor is all. And when a spirit like that asks you for a favor, you ain't saying no. Now she ain't like Mr. High-and-Mighty in his super-shiny tower, but she's the next closest thing. They call her the Lady of Bells, and she guards the shrine. I heard you met her last night. Sharp, nice curves. A real prize.”

The silver spirit had stopped the insect soldiers on the nightingale floor.
You must hold close to courage
, she'd said.

“She's a close, personal friend. I don't want to disappoint her.”

“I'd rather she take me to the Midlight Prince,” said Saki.

“You're stuck with me, sweetheart. You called me.”

“Aha!” Saki turned on him with an accusatory finger. “So you
are
my guide.”

The tanuki slid away from the main path and winced. “I hate that name. I'm not like those other stiffs, the fox and that terrible tengu. He gives me the skeevies.”

Saki snorted. No other spirit quite inspired that same squirming feeling in her guts, and while he had spent too much time barking out cryptic orders, he'd had discipline. She shrugged one shoulder. “He was a bit stern, but at least he had a plan. Wait, where are you going?”

“I told you, sweetheart. There's more than one way to climb a mountain. Especially on the Night Parade. Follow me.”

The tanuki waddled along the line of trees, and Saki followed behind. She glanced back at the fox's path one last time before it disappeared into the forest. The tanuki made a sharp turn. He zigzagged between the trees, following no particular route. Saki almost tripped over a tree root as she hurried to keep up.

“Wait!” she called after the spirit. “The path's too narrow. I can't see where we're going.”

“Can't see? Sweetheart, you need to take a better look around.”

Saki passed another tree. With just one step, the path became a winding road. She and the tanuki were the only beings in sight, and the road sloped up so gradually that the landscape looked more like rolling hills than a steep mountain face.

“Are you sure this goes to the right place?” Saki asked. “I can't even see the top of the mountain.”

“Sure I'm sure. As long as you know where you wanna go, just about any road will do.”

“Tonight is all that's left. We've got to hurry.”

“Whatever you say, sweetheart. Say, you wouldn't mind giving an old tanuki a lift, would ya?”

“I only have two legs. You have four. Therefore, you should only get half as tired.”

“You sure are a strict one, aren't you?” he grumbled. “The tengu musta rubbed off…”

A crop of posted signs emerged as Saki and the tanuki continued down the back road, written in an old style with characters so strange that they were nearly impossible to read. The most peculiar part by far was the height of each one. Even the biggest sign only reached Saki's hip, and some were even shorter.

“Are you sure you know where you're going?”

“I know this road like the back of my tail. Relax, sweetheart. Enjoy the scenery.”

The road curved to and fro, as if it hadn't decided where exactly it wanted to end up. Around the next bend, lanterns of all shapes and sizes began to appear in the trees. Some were fat, some were tall, some were red, and some had faded far too much to tell what color they might have been. Much of the paper covering the lanterns was ripped and riddled with holes.

The roadside lanterns were not at all like the kindly daruma lanterns from the Pilgrim's Road. Their lights flickered and cast long, dancing shadows in the forest. Sometimes it looked as if someone were there, watching from behind the trees. Saki picked up her pace, and the tanuki waddled to keep up.

“Hey, where's the fire?” he asked.

“I think it's nothing,” said Saki with a glance over her shoulder. “But we should keep moving anyway.”

When she turned her eyes back, Saki ran headfirst into an old umbrella sticking up in the road.

“Ouch!” She staggered back and rubbed her forehead. “You could have told me I was about to run into something,” she hissed at the tanuki.

The furry spirit was too busy rolling on the ground with laughter to hear her reprimand. Saki scowled. How hard would he laugh with his tail stomped beneath her foot?

“This isn't funny.”

“Eheheh… Sweetheart, you need to lighten up. Maybe another bonk on the head will knock that frown off your face.”

Saki didn't understand why she hadn't seen the umbrella before. The road was wide and clear. There hadn't been any sharp turns or blind corners. Also, it wasn't nearly tall enough to have hit her in the face. Planted straight up in the road, the umbrella only reached Saki's stomach.

“What in the world…” she wondered aloud.

As Saki stepped closer to examine the umbrella, a rip pulled apart in the center of its battered paper. The movement was slow, like an eyelid opening. The darkness inside the umbrella folds stared back at her.

The ribs of the umbrella pitched up and smacked Saki on the chin.

The tanuki howled with laughter. “Oh, it got you good!”

Saki grabbed her smarting chin and recoiled from the strange umbrella. It flexed its joints, its paper folding up and down in a silent fit of giggles.

The lanterns all around them had pulled apart as well. Their candle flames danced in the center of the rips like pupils. They rattled their paper and rolled out long, wet tongues of melted candle wax.

“They're all alive.” Saki fell back onto the dirt in wonder. “Have they been watching us this whole time?”

The tanuki scratched his nose with a back paw. “I don't see why they wouldn't be. We're heading straight into their village, after all.”

There was a tug at Saki's pocket. She turned her head as the umbrella hopped down the road, her bag of flat marbles caught on a splinter on its handle. Saki scrambled to her feet and took off after it.

“Hey! Give those back! They're mine!”

The tanuki lagged behind, wheezing as his potbelly swayed from side to side. As Saki ran, the flickering gazes of the lanterns followed her down the winding road.