The Heart of a Fox

by T. Isilwath

  His hand reached out to rest lightly on his vixen’s arm, touching her so she would know that he was there even if he was silent. He knew her people prayed to their gods with smoke, and he had often seen her praying by their campfire in the grove. He looked at the red coals in the irori firepit, then at the gray tendrils of smoke that wafted upwards, and said a prayer pleading for her recovery.

  ********

  She had slid the shoji open as silently as she could, but she knows that he heard it. She knows that his ears can hear the rustling of a mouse in the grass from across a field and pinpoint its exact location. She has seen him do this so there is no reason for her to believe that he cannot hear the scrape of the door sliding along its track. As her eyes adjust to the darkened room, acclimating to the light provided by the glowing embers in the firepit, she sees him raise his head from his place beside the strange woman, and she swears that his eyes glitter in the dark.

  They are silent as they stare at each other. She is neither in the room nor out of it; standing on the threshold of not only the sickroom, but her own buried memories. She is frozen with them, caught in the battle between what she knows to be true, and what she has convinced herself to believe. It is the continuation of a conflict which has raged inside of her for more than ten years, and she is never certain which side is winning. (Or which side ought to win for that matter.) Her brother has made his position very clear, but the rules that apply to him do not apply to her. She is female, and women are held to a different standard.

  She struggles with her confusion and uncertainty; just as she has since she was a little girl and learned the hard way what was permitted and what was not.

  This creature which she sees before her was once her friend, before reality and her father taught her otherwise. He had made her laugh, brought sweet things for her to eat, and watched over her when she was alone. He had saved her brother’s life, and he had been her hero. She remembers how her smile could brighten his face, and the sight of him had always brightened hers. For a while they had been inseparable, spending long days together in innocent bliss. She recalls being giddily happy when she was with him, and sometimes she misses that feeling. Her life is cold and lonely now.

  But the human world has no place for demons, especially half-bloods born to a fallen woman. And she is a priestess, a vision of purity, and she cannot afford to sully herself with an inappropriate association. This reality her father emphasized with every strike of the lash into her bare flesh, until her blood ran freely as much as her tears. But more than the pain and humiliation, and her father’s wrath, were the vivid descriptions of her fate should their friendship be discovered. She, she was told, would be made to kill herself in order to redeem her honor, while he would be murdered in the most brutal way possible. Then his ears and his tail would be cut from his body and prominently displayed as trophies in the headman’s house. Even more, she knew that he would die to protect her, and she would be forced to watch.

  So she had done the only thing left for her to do, and protected him the only way she could. She had spurned him, rejected him, and hoped that he would come to hate her. It was a testament to the human heart that beat in his chest that the most she ever saw from him was sorrow. He seemed unable to hate her, clinging instead to the dead memory of their friendship and showing a greater capacity to forgive than most “pure” humans she knew.

  Earlier in the day she had found herself unable to speak, faced with such blatant evidence of the compassion her father swore did not exist. Seeing him tend to this strange woman had brought back many memories from her own childhood. She had tried to cloak herself in righteous indignation in an attempt to hold off the visions that teased her mind, but her brother seemed intent on dragging those long buried memories out into the light of day. She was surprised how little they had decayed.

  Too late she realizes that she has been standing still for too long as he begins to uncurl himself from his place beside the woman and rises to his feet.

  She does not know what she will say to him when he asks the inevitable questions, but she is unable to make herself back away. She notices the difference in him. He is no longer an awkward child, but a burgeoning adult, just on the cusp of maturity. More than the physical changes that have altered his body over the years are the subtle shifts in his thinking and reactions. He growled at her today; sent an obvious challenge to something she had said. He had never done that before. Always he had lowered his ears and submitted to her will, but not today. He is becoming an adult male.

  “Suzuka-sama, is something wrong?” he asks her, one hand combing back his tangled hair. His clothes are disheveled, and she knows he has not spared a moment to eat or sleep. He does nothing that will take him away from his female’s side.

  “No, Hanyou, there is nothing wrong,” she replies.

  She knows the word is not his name. She does not speak his true name, although she has always found it beautiful and most befitting of him. If she allowed herself, she might be forced to admit that she has always found him beautiful, both in body and in soul. But he is lost to her now and she knows it.

  In truth, he has been lost to her for a very long time.

  “Have you been giving her the medicine?” she asks, seeking a neutral subject in order to divert his searching gaze.

  “Yes, Suzuka-sama. I gave her a cup at sunset and another at full dark.” She cannot suppress the smile that touches her lips. He always took his responsibilities more seriously than most of the villagers. “Has the fever come?”

  Now he lowers his ears and looks away. “No. But by morning, I am sure.” There is a desperation in his words that she knows well. Having ministered to the sick for most of her life, she recognizes the fragile thread of hope the victim’s loved ones cling to. She hasn’t the heart to tell him that time is running out. He knows anyway. She can hear it in the timbre of his voice.

  “Ring the bell if her condition changes,” she instructs him. She will not tell him to come find her in the house. That would be too much.

  He nods. “I will, Suzuka-sama.”

  “Very well. Do you have all that you need?”

  He looks briefly over his shoulder, and she knows he will not ask for anything for himself. “Yes, Suzuka-sama. I have all that I need.”

  “Then I will leave you for the night and check on you in the morning.”

  “Yes, Suzuka-sama. Thank you, Suzuka-sama.” He bows to her, both arms at his sides. She does not bow back.

  Swallowing all the words left unsaid, and all the bittersweet memories that haunt her, she turns and quietly walks back into the interior of the house, sliding the door closed behind her. They will know by daybreak if their new patient will live or die.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It took almost a full day (and much worrying on his part), but the fever finally did come. He smelled the change in Joanna’s scent and felt the heat begin to emanate from her prone body, and he was strangely elated. With the advent of the fever, he knew that his vixen had begun her fight to live. Kaemon saw to it that he was kept supplied with cool water and clean cloths that he could use to wipe her brow and keep her head from getting too hot. The young priest also saw to it that he would be allowed to remain by Joanna’s side.

  Ichiro had returned from his trip the following day and had been predictably unhappy to find a half-demon inside his house. But before the situation could become heated, Kaemon had interceded on his behalf. The man convinced both his sister and his father that allowing him to remain with Joanna was in the best interests of the patient, and a compromise was reached.

  The only door he was allowed to use was the one that opened directly onto Joanna’s sickroom from the engawa. All other doors were Sealed so he could not pass beyond the one room, and the rest of the house was purified. It didn’t matter that the only room he was interested in was Joanna’s, but he let them do what they felt they must. As long as he could continue to stay with his vixen, he didn’t care what they did. He suppos
ed it helped that Ichiro had returned shortly after Joanna’s fever had begun, and he was adamant that he would not leave her.

  As it was, her life depended upon him remaining close and vigilant. In addition to the fever, her diabetes was out of control with her blood numbers swinging wildly. It was getting to the point where he could track what her illness was doing by scent alone, but it wasn’t enough to get him ahead of it.

  Twice her blood number went above 400 which had him scrambling to bring it down, and both times his inexperience caused him to give her too much insulin, making her blood number crash too low. The first time the magic box read 42

  he thought it was a mistake, but when it was 38 one hundred slow breaths later, he knew he had to act immediately. He’d grabbed her special magic pen and pressed the button on the thick end as he set the narrow end against her arm. He hoped he’d done it right.

  The next two days were a harrowing experience. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. He didn’t even leave the sickroom to relieve himself. For the first time he understood what Joanna must have been going through when she took care of him while he was in the throes of fighting off his own oni-gumo poisoning, and he had an even greater admiration for her kindness and generosity. He worried constantly as her fever raged, and more than once Kaemon had to assure him that Joanna was not going to die.

  The young priest was a blessing and a constant source of comfort. He brought food (which Akihiro didn’t eat) and even went out to gather more herbs for Joanna’s medicine. He kept the fire going in the irori and made sure that the kettles of oni-gumo poison antidote and green tea were full and warm. He came in several times a day, and even in the middle of the night, to see if there was anything that needed to be done. Akihiro was certain he would have fallen apart if Kaemon had not been there to reassure him. Numerous times the young man had found him in tears as another spike sent her blood numbers soaring.

  In addition, the fever made her delirious and she would thrash and cry out as the poison began to wear off. While his knowledge of her native languages was extensive, he often didn’t know what she was saying or who she was calling for. He did hear her cry out for Michael and her grandmother, and once she had even cried out for him, making him glad to know that, even in her delirium, she thought of him as a protector. Still, her whimpers of pain and upset tore him apart, and it frustrated him that he couldn’t comfort her. He spoke to her and cradled her in his arms whenever he could, trying to keep her calm and safe. He feared that if she struggled too much she would dislodge her medicine pouch or otherwise hurt herself, and holding her made him feel better even if he couldn’t make the fever go away.

  The village, of course, was in an uproar. Word spread quickly about the strange woman that the half-breed had carried to the shrine, and everyone wanted to know who she was and where she had come from. Akihiro had little time for them or their prying questions, and he barely tolerated Hiroshi’s presence when the headman came to investigate the situation for himself. Once again, Kaemon proved to be invaluable, placing himself in the position of contact and answering inquiries. The young man told the truth as much as he knew it. He told them that the woman was a stranger from far away, the victim of an accident who had found herself alone in the forest and that Hanyou had been providing for her.

  He recounted Akihiro’s tale of the oni-gumo scouts, and their attack on the woman, which was enough to send the hunters out looking for any signs of the demon spiders near the caves. Thankfully, it appeared that the salted caverns remained empty of eight-legged monsters, and the success of “Hanyou’s plan” went a long way towards earning him tolerance regarding the situation. As long as he kept his temper, and stopped baring his teeth and growling at every new person that came into the sickroom, everything seemed fine. At least for as long as the newcomer remained deathly ill.

  Akihiro dipped the rag into the cool water again and squeezed out the excess before placing the cloth across his vixen’s forehead. He had her head cradled against his thigh with the rest of her upper body folded into the circle of his legs. For a normal human, her weight would have cut off circulation, but he barely felt the pressure on his limbs. He’d found that she seemed calmer when she was held, so he kept her close and talked to her as much as possible. By now he had been awake for nearly three days straight, and he was reaching the limits of even his fox blood. His mouth was dry and hunger clawed at his belly, but he refused to stop what he was doing in order to see to his own needs. Earlier, Kaemon had managed to get him to eat a few bites of millet and fish, but that was the most food he had consumed since the beginning of the whole ordeal.

  “There, Joanna-sama. More water. Soon it will be time for more medicine.

  I know it tastes bad so if you don’t want it, you’ll have to wake up and say so,” he told her, wiping her brow with the cloth.

  The interior shoji slid back, and he lifted his eyes to see Kaemon enter the sickroom carrying a cup of tea and more fish mixed in millet. He watched as the man put the food down and came over to inspect the patient.

  “The fever has begun to break,” Kaemon said. “She is beginning to sweat.” He nodded. After a particularly high spike earlier that morning, he had smelled the acrid sweat begin to seep from her pores. “Yes,” he agreed.

  “I will bring more blankets and we will sweat it out of her. I will also prepare a fever medicine.”

  “Thank you, Kaemon-sama.”

  “This is a good sign. If the fever had gone on much longer I would have worried that she was not strong enough to fight it off.”

  “Joanna-sama is very strong,” he said, quelling the urge to growl when Kaemon touched Joanna’s cheek.

  Kaemon smiled softly at him. “I can tell. She has a powerful fighting spirit.

  And a very attentive caregiver. Her success is as much your doing as hers.” He blushed and looked away. “I didn’t do anything you or Suzuka-sama wouldn’t have done.”

  “I disagree. You haven’t left her side for almost three days. You have neglected yourself and your own needs in order to see to hers. Rarely have I seen such diligence.”

  He gazed down at Joanna’s peaceful face. “I had to,” he whispered. “Her blood sickness… It was out of control. I had to watch carefully, but even then I barely have it contained.”

  Kaemon shifted closer, sitting on the wooden floor. “Show me this medicine pouch again.”

  He wanted to refuse but he owed Kaemon a great deal for all his help and support, so he reluctantly folded back the blankets and the yukata to reveal the small black and silver box.

  “I have never seen anything like this. It’s magic you say?” He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Strange magic. I’ve never seen its like. She got it in her country?”

  “Yes.”

  Kaemon pointed to where the tube went into Joanna’s skin. “The medicine goes in there?”

  “Yes, but the tube has to be changed every few days. And the pouch has to be filled about as often, but I have given her so much medicine recently that it’s almost empty, and I don’t know how to fill it,” he admitted, lowering his ears.

  He’d seen her do it, so he was relatively confident that he could figure it out, but he was worried that there was something special about the procedure that he didn’t know, and he feared that he would make a mistake. Where Joanna’s medicine was involved, he couldn’t afford any errors. His eyes slid to the bundle that kept the last vial of insulin, and he felt a shiver of fear.

  “She’s almost out of her medicine too. After that, we’ll have to rely on Oshou Siego’s herbs.”

  “Have they been helping?” Kaemon asked.

  “I think so. Or at least they were until… all of this happened. Now I’m not sure how much effect they are having. I hope there is enough medicine to last her until she has recovered from the oni-gumo poison.”

  “If the fever breaks tonight, we can expect her to wake soon. Once she is conscious she can tell you what to do.”

  His eyes re
turned to staring at Joanna’s face. The scent of her sweat was getting stronger, giving credence to Kaemon’s assessment that the fever was breaking. “I hope so. It has been very difficult to keep her illness under control.

  There is so much I don’t know. Joanna-sama has lived with this disease since she was a child. She knows much better than I how to handle these situations. I fear I have not been very successful in treating her sickness.”

  “You have done the best you can. I doubt that she will fault you for anything that you have done while she was unconscious. She must know that you saved her life, and I am sure that she will be very grateful,” Kaemon told him comfortingly.

  “I will feel better when she is awake.”

  Kaemon nodded. “I think we all will. And on that note, I will go fetch the blankets. If the fever wants to come out, we will give it all the help we can.”

  “Thank you, Kaemon-sama.” He choked down the lump that suddenly formed in his throat and blinked back tears. “I… your help has been invaluable.

  I have no words to express my gratitude, or my debt to you for helping me.”

  “As I have said before, Hanyou, you once saved my life. The least I can do is help you to save another.”

  The young man smiled at him again and quietly rose to his feet, turning his back and leaving the sickroom. He slid the shoji door closed behind him.

  ********

  She was running through the forest, her heart pounding and her chest about to explode from her efforts. She knew she was being chased by a hideous monster, but she didn’t dare look back. Deep inside she knew she had no hope of escape, but her survival instincts made her run anyway, and she felt the familiar panic of desperation. Futilely, she called for help.

  “Michael! Akihiro! Anyone?”