The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Up in Heaven:

“Hey, Flicker! Flicker Flicker Flicker! People are sending up sky lanterns! You gotta come see them!”

The Star of Reflected Brightness’ favorite runner, Sparkle, came tearing into the cafeteria, excited beyond all reason over a not-uncommon occurrence on Earth. The star child was still young, and the sight of human lanterns still novel to her, Flicker supposed, although he had to suppress a groan. After a particularly painful workday (which had involved a surprise inspection, so it was by definition painful), he’d miraculously secured an entire table for himself. Now he was nursing a cup of tea and his usual eyestrain headache.

Sparkle tugged on his arm – luckily not the one with the cup of tea. Laundry day in the dorm wasn’t for another two days, and since Flicker had been working overtime last laundry day, he’d missed putting out his robes. This was his last clean set.

“Flickeeeer! You’re not excited at all!”

No, no, he really wasn’t. Not after centuries of watching paper lanterns float up from below. “Just wait until the next Lantern Festival,” he advised. “Then you’ll be really excited.”

“Oy! Keep it down over there!” growled Wink from across the cafeteria. The other clerk had earned an official reprimand after the inspection for “excessive verbiage on reports leading to unacceptably high consumption of office resources, including but not limited to paper, inksticks, and brushes.” The cost would be docked from his next several paychecks, and he was not in a good mood. (Not that he ever was.) “Some of us are trying to rest after work.”

Which was precisely what Flicker had been trying to do too.

The star child pouted. “But he’s not coming to see the lanterns. They’re gonna hit the net soon. I don’t want to miss it, but he won’t come.”

The handful of other clerks in the cafeteria gave her weary smiles.

One sighed to no one in particular, “Remember when we got excited over lanterns?”

“Come now, Flicker, you can’t blame her for wanting to see them, can you?” another pointed out.

He noted that none of them were offering to drag themselves to their feet and take her lantern-gazing.

Mournfully, he drained the rest of his tea, took the cup over to the window where a surly dishwasher imp snatched it out of his hand, and allowed Sparkle to tug him out of the cafeteria. His colleagues might at least have acknowledged his self-sacrifice, he thought, but of course no one appreciated it.

Since star sprites almost never took the main boulevards, she dragged him along the back paths and out a side gate, where she stopped short. Below, a crowd of star children and imps had already claimed the puffiest clouds. Flicker supposed that the gardeners, cleaning staff, and boatmen of Heaven had to seize their entertainment where they could find it.

“Oh no! They took all the best seats!” Sparkle’s tone accused him of causing this tragedy with his dawdling.

“You could have come without me.”

Without deigning to comment, the star child hopped from cloud wisp to cloud wisp until she came to one that was large enough to hold both of them. She flopped down on her belly. Flicker followed more with more decorum, hitching up his robes so the hem wouldn’t pick up bits of stray cloud – they weren’t dirty, per se, but they clung like lint and just would not come off. Clasping his hands in front of him, he stood behind her, just in case.

Sure enough, she dangled the front half of her body over the edge of the cloud and crowed, “We’re just in time!”

“Don’t fall!” Flicker certainly didn’t want to be the one to inform the Star of Reflected Brightness that her favorite runner had tumbled down to Earth and needed special retrieval.

“I’m not going to fall!” But she did scoot back a few inches.

Whooping and cheering began to rise from the spectators on the lowest clouds. “Here they come!” someone shouted.

Through the wispy cloud beneath his feet, Flicker saw glowing yellow spots bob closer and closer, and then a swarm of paper lanterns was rising before his eyes. Star children jumped up and down and waved their arms, trying to grab the lanterns. Imps mocked the wishes and hooted with laughter. As for Flicker, he locked his fingers around the back of Sparkle’s collar and held her firmly on the cloud while she stretched out her arms and shrieked with glee.

“Good health for my loved ones. May Heaven protect us. May the Jade Emperor bless us. Success in my son’s studies. Gods save the Queen. Good fortune in our business. Prosperity. Good health,” she read off. “Huh. They really care a lot about good health, don’t they?”

“You would too, if you died as easily as humans do.”

“That’s so boring. I’d ask for something exciting. Like….” She scrunched up her face in concentration. “Like for New Year’s to go on all year!”

That was a terrible thought.

“Only because you’re not the one who has to organize all the events,” he snapped.

“Or clean up afore and af’er ‘em,” retorted an imp on a nearby cloud.

“Or pole the boats to take all them gods and goddesses where they want to go,” grumbled another.

“Or spend all day and night cookin’ up foods that they eat half of and throw away,” complained a third.

“Or find the funding to pay for all of that,” put in a new voice. A pure, bright white glow lit the night sky. “Offerings just aren’t what they used to be, you know.”

White Night, Accountant, First-Class, had arrived. He claimed the puffiest cloud as if he owned it. He might, for all Flicker knew.

Everyone yelped, jumped, and bowed low.

The Accountant waved a hand. “At ease. I’m not here for an audit.”

“What – what – what brings you here, Your Worship?” quavered an imp.

“The same thing that brought the rest of you here. Lantern viewing.”

Huh. So Accountants liked to see the lanterns too? “Is it so that you may gain a sense of what people wish for so as to incorporate the data into your models…?” Flicker asked respectfully.

White Night just tilted his head back to watch the first lanterns strike the net above them. They stuck to the ropes of clouds and winked out. On-duty imps began to pole their boats through the sky, collecting the lanterns for disposal.

A squeal yanked Flicker’s attention away from the Accountant back to Sparkle. “Look! Look! That one’s different!”

She was pointing to a lantern that was just floating up to his eye level. It was adorned with the standard wishes of “Greater knowledge. Success. Prosperity. Good health for myself and my friends,” but as it rotated, it brought two more wishes, both written in the same handwriting, into view.

One said, “I wish Stripey is doing well in his new life. I wish I will see him again.”

And the other, which sent such a chill down his spine that it nearly extinguished his glow, said, “I want to be a fox again.”

Down on Earth:

“O, joyous morning! O, beauteous mists!”

I could have assured Katu that there was nothing beauteous about these mists, which would only impede visibility and render us vulnerable to ambush, but why waste my breath?

Not trusting me to protect Lodia on the road to Jullia’s court, Missa and Rohanus had arranged with the Lady of the Lychee Tree to send a detachment of Earth Court guards – and one overexcited poet.

For whom this was apparently a joyous morning.

“O, rapture unforeseen!”

“I’ll show you rapture,” muttered the Kohs’ cook, Mistress Fan, who’d been pressganged into helping load the carriages and was distinctly un-rapturous about it.

The Kohs were sending Lodia off in style, with trunks of clothing and bedding and assorted pieces she’d embroidered over the years, which might prove useful as bribes. Missa had looked straight at me when she’d said that last part, trusting me to judge when to portion them out. I’d puffed up my feathers and given her a regal nod. I’d see to it that Lodia ingratiated herself with the appropriate courtiers.

“O exultation unforeseen!”

“Katu, please stop,” begged a young man who could have been a woodblock print copy of the poet.

Katu, as it turned out, had a twin brother named Kamullus. Blessedly for the family, however, Kamu had no poetic inclinations. Because if he had, the other citizens would have run the Lens out of Lychee Grove by now.

“O, delirious good fortune! O – ”

“Yes, yes, lovely.” Floridiana cut Katu off. She doublechecked that all our trunks were secured in her wagon – the Lady of the Lychee Tree had rewarded us handsomely for saving her fief – and ran a hand over Dusty’s neck. “We’re set.”

To Missa’s tightlipped displeasure, Katu gave his twin a one-armed hug and bounded into Lodia’s carriage.

Don’t worry, I told Missa. I’ll chaperon.

For some reason, my promise didn’t reassure Lodia’s grandmother all that much, but before I could inquire as to why, Floridiana snapped, “Len Katulus! You will be riding with me, young man. I intend to update my course materials on the Kingdom of South Serica, and I need you to provide me with an overview of its history, politics, geography, and culture.”

“Have you come to the right person!” Katu bounded back out of the carriage, rocking it on its wheels, and hopped onto the wagon seat next to Floridiana.

Dusty snorted and swished his tail into the poet’s eyes. For once, Floridiana didn’t scold him.

“Isssn’t it great that ssshe finally found sssomeone to talk to?” Bobo asked as she coiled up in the spot he’d just vacated. To Lodia, she explained, “Ssshe doesssn’t really have people to talk to about books and politics and ssstuff in Claymouth. The Baron and his family all read lots, of courssse, but….” And she swayed from side to side in a snake’s shrug.

But the commoner headmistress of the local school didn’t have nearly as much social status as she needed to be a regular dinner guest at the castle. She didn’t even have the social status she needed to tutor the Baron’s children.

Lodia folded her hands tidily in her lap. “Katu doesn’t really have anyone to talk to in Lychee Grove either. So ‘tis good that they have each other.”

Depended on your definition of “good,” of course.

One joyous, beauteous, rapturous, exultant, and delirious (mostly delirious) week later, we caught up to Jullia’s court, which had returned for now to Goldhill, official capital of South Serica. At Anthea’s invitation, we settled into one wing of her mansion there. This, too, she had renovated to resemble a hall in Cassius’ Back Palace.

While Lodia trembled through her first meeting with Anthea’s Wardrobe Mistress, Katu waxed poetic over the décor and the glory of the Serican Empire, Floridiana lamented the absence of a library or even a book room, and the gardeners bemoaned Dusty’s tendency to explore the grounds by taking bites of any plant he didn’t recognize, a servant escorted me to have tea with Anthea. (It was only supposed to be me, but I dragged Bobo along too.)

“So. How are we setting up this system of temples to the Kitchen God?” Anthea asked.

I’d already given this some thought en route to Goldhill. Currently, Kitchen God worship was decentralized, with each household setting up a mini-altar to him in its kitchen. He was humble (for a god), without any temples that he could call his own. Some might see that very humbleness as what brought him closer to the common people and won their hearts – but not me.

What I saw was a dire lack of pomp that would impress onlookers with his majesty and authority and that would attract lavish offerings in hopes of securing his influence in the Heavenly court.

But that was simple enough to remedy.

We’ll start by setting up separate temples to him, outside of people’s homes, I told Anthea. We need more control over what people offer him and when. What’s a good building we can take over?

“Take over? You mean, like an empty restaurant or warehouse?” Anthea looked like she was drawing a complete blank, as did Bobo.

No, no, no, I’m talking prime real estate here! A prestigious address! We’re trying to impress people, not make them think we’re here to serve them!

After a too-long moment to mull over my explanation, Anthea flashed us a toothy grin. “Well, the Earl of Black Crag does have a mansion near the palace that he won’t be using for a while….”

In Heaven:

Lady Fate was spending a pleasant afternoon playing with Regia, entertaining her cat by casting moon blocks. Out of nowhere, gold light blazed up from all of them. Startled, Regia hissed and shot out of the room.

Lady Fate hissed for a completely different reason.

Somewhere, somehow, someone had just made a decision that was going to alter the course of Serica’s future.