The Heart of a Fox

by T. Isilwath

  While he was certain that she was describing Michael as accurately as her memory allowed, there was no telling what the man would do if he suspected that his wife-to-be had been consorting with a half-demon. It didn’t matter if nothing inappropriate had occurred between them. It was bad enough that they were alone together. The very fact that they knew each other might be enough to arouse suspicions and condemn her to death, but he would die before he allowed a single hair on her head to be harmed.

  But still, with him in the scanty garment she had made that covered only his most essential parts, and she in the swim clothes that left very little to the imagination, it was inevitable that he would have unclean thoughts, especially if their bodies touched while they were in the water or on the beach. He tried to stop them, but he couldn’t. Thankfully, if she noticed his reaction to her, she made no mention of it and treated him exactly the same as she always did.

  The days were filled with sunlight and happiness, more happiness than he had enjoyed in many, many years. If he could have kept her on the beach all summer, he would have, but he knew their “seaside holiday” as she called it would be brief. She had to get back to her camp in case someone came looking for her, and the villagers were expecting him to bring the salt for the caves. He took what he could get, cherished the four days they did have, and readily agreed when she suggested that they visit the beach again sometime soon. He would gladly bring her there again, if only to watch the wind play with her hair and see her splashing in the waves. She had looked so peaceful and content when she was sitting on the sand, watching the gulls fish in the surf and the dolphins playing just off shore.

  There had been a shadow that had come into her eyes, but she had insisted that it had nothing to do with him. He had seen it creep into her expression on their first day at the beach, and it never seemed to completely fade. It was a sadness, a resignation that had touched her, but she shoved his questions away and said it was nothing more than homesickness. He knew homesickness had much to do with it, but he also knew that wasn’t all, and it hurt him to think that she would not tell him her true feelings after all that they had shared together.

  By sunset on the fourth day, they had enough salt to fill the carrying sacks Ichiro had given him, plus a good deal left over for Joanna’s cooking, and they resolved to leave in the morning. At dawn they woke, ate breakfast and broke camp. While she packed up their things, he brought the salt up the cliff and let the bags rest at the entrance to the tunnel, then he had her climb onto his back, and he carried her up without so much as a shaky step. Once they were up, he set her on her feet, hefted the salt, and they left the beach behind. By nightfall they were back in Shimosa and almost halfway home.

  They made camp for the night, and Joanna prepared dinner from the remainder of the fish they had caught that morning, supplemented with some vegetables they had foraged along the way. He built the fire while she had gone through the ritual of blessing their camp and making offerings to the forest and spirits. He never interfered with any of her religious practices, and he suspected that her faith was one of the things that sustained her during her difficult times.

  That night after they had finished eating, he saw her take one of the last bottles of her medicine and use it to refill her medicine pouch. He frowned because he knew that she’d had only two unopened bottles left, and now she had just the one. It seemed to him that she was getting a little low, and she probably ought to think about restocking. So far she hadn’t mentioned it, but he wondered when they would go searching for the ingredients that made the medicine. If the ingredients for the medicine were hard to find, then it was best if they got started right away, or if the medicine could only be made by a doctor, then they needed to find one in Musashi who would be willing to prepare a batch for her.

  He certainly didn’t want her to run out of medicine. Her life depended upon her taking it, and without it he knew she would die. The thought of anything happening to his vixen was enough to set his heart to racing and make all his fox instincts start screaming in protest. If Joanna was not going to mention getting more medicine, then he would have to bring it up and see what she had to say.

  “Soon we will need to make more medicine for you,” he said casually, trying to downplay the seriousness of the subject. “I know that is your fourth flask and you only have one other left. We should begin searching for the ingredients so you will not run out.”

  Joanna looked at him and did not answer right away. That in and of itself made him uneasy, but the expression on her face disturbed him even more. It was a closed expression, a blank one meant to conceal and control one’s reactions. A cold chill settled between his shoulder blades, and he crept closer to her in trepidation. She watched him, a strange sadness coming into her eyes, and he saw her tighten her jaw just before she looked away.

  “Joanna-sama?” he questioned.

  She refused to look at him and that made him even more concerned. He knew her well enough to know that she never dropped her eyes unless something was upsetting her. The chill spread up his neck and his mouth went dry.

  “Is… is something wrong?” he ventured.

  She sighed deeply and looked at her hands, her teeth worrying at her lower lip, and he knew she was going to tell him something unpleasant.

  “I… I’ve been trying to avoid this,” she finally said softly. “I know I probably shouldn’t have, but I didn’t know how to tell you, and I didn’t think you’d understand before now.”

  He swallowed the lump in his throat and tried to quell his growing concern.

  He didn’t like the sound of her voice or the fact that she wouldn’t look at him.

  She was sending him all the wrong signals.

  “What is it?” he asked, noting that her scent was laced with sorrow and fear.

  “Akihiro… there is no more medicine. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and I can’t get any more,” she admitted with an air of defeat.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded, the chill now spreading to his chest.

  She shook her head then raised her eyes to the heavens.

  “I’m sorry. This is hard,” she admitted, sighing again.

  “What do you mean there is no more medicine?” He was trying hard not to panic, but there was a numbness accompanying the chill now, and it was making his hands tingle.

  She looked at him and he could see the resignation in her eyes. “Just that. Once I run out of insulin, there isn’t any more.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course there is more. You had to get it from somewhere. If you need a doctor to make it, I will find one. I will go all the way to your home village if I have to,” he insisted.

  “You don’t understand. There is no doctor in all of Japan that can make this medicine for me. The technology to make it won’t exist for hundreds of years,” she replied sharply.

  He blinked at her, stunned, and she put a hand to her forehead in a gesture he knew meant that she was in distress.

  “I have to tell you. I haven’t been completely honest about why I’m here.” He gulped, anger flaring inside of him at her words. “You’ve been lying to me?” he gasped, the sting of betrayal chasing the chill away for a moment.

  “No!” she replied immediately and her vehemence actually brought him comfort. “No. I… I haven’t lied. I just haven’t told you the whole truth. I didn’t know how.”

  He could see the pain on her face. He hated it and he wanted desperately to be the one to make it go away.

  “Then tell me now,” he said gently. “So that I can help you. You must know that I will do anything for you.”

  She nodded and he could smell tears welling in her eyes. “I know. But…

  but you can’t help me, Akihiro. No one here can help me. My fate lies in the hands of people who are very far away.”

  Perhaps she meant a journey across the sea. If that was so, he would see it done. There were ways to book passage on merchant ships.

  “There are ships,” he offered
. “Traders from China. We could…”

  “No,” she interrupted firmly. “No ship can help me. The problem isn’t where, Akihiro, it’s when.”

  ‘Huh?’ “What? What do you mean?”

  She seemed to gather her resolve, and when she spoke, it was the last thing he was expecting to hear.

  “I am here by accident. I wasn’t supposed to come here. I am where I am supposed to be, but not when. I am centuries away from the time I know.”

  He blinked at her, not comprehending her words. He heard them, but he didn’t know what they meant. What could she possibly mean by telling him that she was centuries away from her home?

  “What?”

  She sighed heavily. “I’m from the future, Akihiro. The accident sent me back in time. I was supposed to come to Japan, but not in this era. The best I can tell, I’ve been thrown back at least 400 years into the past.” The words were starting to make sense, but he was having trouble hearing them over the pounding of his heart. ‘Thrown into the past?’

  “In my time, we have many magic things. We can travel all over the world; cross the seas and go almost anywhere we want. I had to cross the ocean from my home to Japan. I used a new way to travel, but something went wrong, and I was sent here by mistake.”

  “I… I don’t understand…” he managed, his voice shaky.

  Her hand reached out to take his arm and squeezed it gently, and her eyes met his and held them.

  “In my time, the year is 2012. Oda Nobunaga of Owari defeated the last Ashikaga Shogun and forced him out of Kyoto in 1573. That’s almost 440 years before my time. But I know from the questions that I have asked you that you have never heard of Oda Nobunaga, and all Japanese people know who he was and what he did. That means I am even further in the past than 1573. How far in the past, I don’t know, but I know that it’s a long time. When I say that I am a very, very long way from home, I’m not just talking about distance.”

  He stared at her, but he didn’t have words to answer. He wanted to believe that she was lying, or that she was crazy, but he knew that neither was true. He would know if she was telling untruths; he would smell it in her scent, but there was nothing to suggest that she was being dishonest. As she looked at him, silently begging him to understand, so much that had once confused him now made sense: her strange scent, her trouble with Japanese, her weird clothes and belongings. He’d been so caught up in her that he hadn’t seen what was before his very eyes. He had been many places all over Japan in his wanderings, but he had never met anyone who had smelled or looked like her and not been of demon blood. Everything was so much clearer now, but with that clarity came a new understanding of her situation, and the chill that had been taking over his body returned in force to freeze him cold.

  ‘If she is truly from the future, and if what she says is true, then the medicine for her disease hasn’t been invented yet.’ The thought was too horrible to even think about, and he grasped for something he could do or say. ‘The era. She’s asked me before what year it is and I never gave it much thought. It didn’t matter to me, but maybe it does to her.’

  He thought hard, trying to remember if he had heard anything about what era it was now, and he was just about ready to give up when he recalled an overheard conversation between Kaemon and one of the villagers. ‘The man came to the shrine because he’d gotten a letter that he couldn’t read. What did Kaemon say when he read the date? I know he said something…’ The word popped into his head suddenly as he replayed the conversation in his head.

  ‘Daiei. It was the fourth year of Daiei, but the year has turned since then so now it would be the fifth year.’

  “Daiei. It’s Daiei. The fifth year,” he answered, feeling elated to have remembered.

  “Daiei,” she repeated. “And you’ve never heard of Oda Nobunaga?”

  “No, I’m sorry. If I had, I would tell you. I swear it,” he promised.

  She squeezed his hands reassuringly. “I know. It’s okay. Thank you.”

  “Does knowing the era help?” he asked, hoping for some good news.

  “A little.”

  “Will it help you get home?”

  “No.”

  “What can be done?”

  “Nothing. Only the people who made the thing that sent me here can fix it.

  All I can do is wait and hope that they find me in time.” He asked the dreaded question, although he already knew the answer. Still, he needed to hear it from her own lips.

  “What will happen when your medicine runs out?”

  She was quiet for a moment, and his heart sunk, his whole body going numb and paralyzed with fear.

  “I’ll die,” she finally answered. She said it so simply and plainly that at first he thought she was joking, but then he saw the resolve in her eyes.

  “You’re serious aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  The answer hit him like a blow and he recoiled, pulling his hands from hers. It couldn’t be true. Not Her, not his vixen, not the holder of his heart and soul. She could not possibly be dying.

  “No! I refuse to accept that. There must be something that can be done!” he insisted, clenching his fists. There had to be something! It couldn’t be hopeless!

  “I don’t know what. The situation is out of my hands. I don’t have the knowledge or the materials needed to figure out how to travel through time, and I doubt anyone here does either.”

  It wasn’t true. Some dragons could travel through time; at least they could if the stories were accurate, but it could take him months to find a dragon, let alone one that would actually talk to a half-breed or help a human. Joanna didn’t have months. Maybe if he had known about her plight when he first met her, then he might have had enough time to find a dragon, but now… It was an impossible task, and he did not want to leave her side for that long.

  ‘What of she runs out of medicine while I am gone? She’ll die! And she just says it as if it is nothing!’ “How can you be so calm about this!”

  “Getting upset makes my sickness worse and I use more insulin. I’ve done my best to stay calm and try to be patient. I’ve accepted my fate. I made peace with it while we were at the beach,” she explained calmly, but he caught the slight tremor in her voice.

  ‘So that was the reason for her sadness. She was accepting the fact that she was going to die.’ “Well I don’t accept it! If I had accepted my fate, I would have died years ago. I know all about cheating fate. If there is something that can be done, I will find it.”

  ‘I’ll save you. I must save you. Without you, I’ll die.’ “I’ll save you. I promise! I’ll find a way,” he swore.

  “I believe you.”

  She’d said it, but he knew she didn’t really believe it. She had already resigned herself to death, and she didn’t think anything could alter that fate. The true magnitude of what she had told him was finally starting to settle in, and he could hardly believe it.

  “Joanna-sama, how could you have kept this from me?” he asked brokenly, his hands curled to his chest.

  She reached for him, her face sympathetic. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t know how to tell you, and until recently I wouldn’t have known the words. I also kept hoping that someone would find me and take me home.”

  “And will they? Will your people find you?” he asked, his voice desperate.

  He would do anything, even give her up, if it meant she would live.

  “I don’t know. It depends on what went wrong and if they can recreate it.

  But it’s been three months, and they’re running out of time. I have about another seven or so weeks of insulin left. After that, I’m on my own.” He swallowed hard and realized that his hands were shaking. “And… and how long will you have once the medicine is gone?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on how well I can control my blood sugar. I could last a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a few months. I doubt I could last years. Everything hinges on me keeping my numbers in the right range.” She
was still speaking calmly, but he could sense the building tension in her, straining like a rope that was stretched beyond its limits.

  The numbers. It all came down to the numbers. Well, he would see to it that the numbers stayed where they should. “I will make sure your numbers stay safe,” he vowed with complete conviction.

  She gave him a little smile and tender pat on his shoulder in a semblance of sympathy, but he knew she was only patronizing him. “I know you will.”

  “I swear you will live until your people can find you.” Her face fell and she looked away, her jaw tight.

  “Joanna-sama?”

  “In truth, I hope that they don’t find me,” she admitted softly. “I hope that I never go home again.”

  “What!” he blurted, shocked by her words. “Do you want to die?”

  “I don’t want to die, but my being here was an accident. It should stay an accident,” she answered, her voice rough and raspy with emotion.

  “Why? How can you say that?”

  “Because you don’t mess with time!” she yelled suddenly.

  It was the first time she’d ever raised her voice to him in anger and his soul recoiled, but she didn’t seem to notice his distress as she kept speaking, her voice rising higher and higher as she grew more and more upset.

  “If they find me, then it means that they figured out how it worked and can recreate it! What if they can go anywhere they want into whatever time they want? Can you imagine the damage that could do if used by the wrong person?

  “What if someone decided that Oda Nobunaga shouldn’t unify Japan?

  What if someone decided to kill your father before you were ever conceived?

  Even now, who knows what my presence here is doing? I shouldn’t be here!

  What if something I’m carrying starts the next plague? What if I’m responsible for the deaths of thousands! What if something I do here changes something in the future and destroys the world I know? What if the wrong people use the technology to wreak havoc on history? It would all be my fault!”