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Godmother Death by Allister Nelson  Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai Podcast. It was a cold night in Leipzig when I, Sieglinde, was born. I was the twelfth child of a woodcarver and washerwoman. We lived in a shanty by the opera house, and I grew up hearing the sound of music. Great arias poured out into the gutter. I collected them in my memory like spilled coins. “One by God, two by the Devil, three by Death,” papa always said. I was born an ill omen, on All Soul’s Eve, in a caul. It snowed the day I was a newborn suckling infant on mama’s teat, and Johanna and Ilke and the rest of my brothers crowded around my swaddled, nursing form. There was not enough food or money to last the winter. Papa often spoke--in the alehouse late at night-- of how he went into the woods on the night of my birth, walked miles and miles, begging for mercy, for a good godparent for me. He meant to bargain with God. But God plays favorites, papa said. So, He turned my father away. God could not be my godfather. Next came old Samiel, the Black Huntsman. He is wicked, papa thought, so into the barrel of papa’s gun Samiel’s soul went. Papa was always good at trapping things. Once, papa fit the moon into a thimble and blotted out the night for a whole week. The crops in Leipzig didn’t grow, and Mme. Friegler’s voice went to shards the whole time. When a cow was born with two black heads, papa put the moon back to ward off God’s wrath. So thereupon sauntered my new father Frederick, drunk off cheap ale., He went into the woods, into the darkest part of the forest, where sunlight never touched, and winter always froze. He found a graveyard of souls. Death was there, tending souls. And Samiel was still trapped in papa’s gun. “Will you be my dear Sieglinde’s godmother, Frau Todd? I have a handsome demon in exchange,” papa claims he boasted. Death smiled. Frau Todd is just, after all, and always takes pity on souls. “You know, Frederick, Heaven and Hell talk often about your penchant for stealing things with sweetened words. Just last year, you bribed a sparrow to give you two weeks off the back of summer so that you had more time to complete the legs of a chair.” “Though silver-tongued, Frau Todd, I am also an honest man. Is there any punishment for bargaining?” Death laughed. “No, dear Frederick, all is right in my eyes. I see you have a good heart, and that Sieglinde will grow to be a great woman. So yes, you shall free the Black Huntsman and set him back upon his Wild Hunt as Erl King, and I shall be dear Sieglinde’s godmother. She cannot fail with me by her side. I will make her rich, but moreover, kind.” And so, it was the talk of Leipzig. At Peterskirche, a flock of black crows attended my baptism, complete with their Lady in black lace. I grew up under Frau Todd’s wing and inherited father’s tricksome tongue. I was sixteen. Frau Todd had a cabin in the forest, where she taught me women’s crafts: weaving souls. Dousing with spring-green twigs. How to bake the best bread for my future husband. Frau Todd herself was married to Samiel the Black Huntsman. But she lived alone, and only visited him when the moon was full, or to deliver dinner. He ate souls that were too weak to pass on into Heaven or Hell. As for what Death ate – anything hearty, bloody, and half-alive. “Mama Todd, what would you trade for the jewel on your throat?” I asked Frau Todd the day fall came. Frau Todd smiled. “Only a fresh beating heart, Linde.” So, I baked a blackbird’s heart into a veal pie. The bird’s heart was alive by my magic, bloody and thrumming, when Frau Todd bit in. “I see you are becoming quite the thief of life, just like your father,” Frau Todd smiled, her blonde hair and winsome blue eyes beaming. She wiped the blood on a pearly napkin, then devoured the rest of the pie. Into my hands, Frau Todd placed the jewel. It was a large ruby that glimmered with black stars. “What are the virtues of this stone, Mama Todd?” Frau Todd was skinny as a spindle, dainty and precise, and always wore white, with a red ribbon in her hair. Almost skeletal, but not unpleasant, with long honey-colored hair, and eyes that burned like the sky. I felt she was always watching me. “That is the Jewel of Nocht. It can set to sleep anyone who you direct it at.” I had much fun, setting my schoolmarms to sleep. Frau Todd had made us rich, and I and Johanna and Ilke all attended a girl’s Catholic finishing school. Ilke was even learning opera from Mme. Friegler. I was a stickler for poetry. But the nuns did not like me slipping away to kiss cute choir boys and woo schoolgirls with sweet-smelling hair. So, I enchanted the nuns into snoring. “Linde, it is dangerous what you do!” Johanna giggled, embroidering a rose and thistle. She loved sewing. Mama was now a fine lady, but her hands would always be cracked from her time with lye and river rocks as a washerwoman. Mama did not want her daughters to know pain. And her sons had all made papa’s woodcarving business a booming industry. They each carved different parts of tables and shipped them out of Rostock to international waters. “You’re too much like papa, Linde. One day, it will do you in.” “Say Johanna?” I mused, clacking my nails on my chalk tablet. “How much is the smell of a thistle worth?” “Do thistles smell?” “To birds.” “Then I’d say… they’re worth laughter. Laughter can’t be sold, and often, laughter is a lie,” Johanna chuckled, used to my joking. “Shall I trade this thistle and rose?” “Only their smell, dear Johanna.” I tickled her. She burst out laughing in tears as I hit her sweet spot. Thistles smelled like rain, I learned. That night, at Frau Todd’s house, I used the smell of roses and thistles, perfected in Johanna’s virginal mind, to sweeten Frau Todd’s stew. Frau Todd’s face was electric. “This stew has life in it!” she beamed. “Linde, you are so clever with your magic.” Frau Todd gulped it down, but it never seemed to cling to her thin, thin shape. Death is always hungry, it seems. “I have the best teacher, Mama Todd,” I demurred. We finished the soup in companionable silence as the fire crackled. “Sieglinde, it is time,” Frau Todd said, her hair from her blond chignon falling a bit to her shoulders. “You are sixteen now. I will teach you my secrets.” It was the moment I had been angling for, caressing Frau Todd’s tongue with delicious concoctions. Though I loved her like a godmother, I wanted more power. “Are you sure, Frau Todd?” I said innocently. “Do not act the sheep when you are a wolf, Linde. You are as wily as me.” Frau Todd smiled. “You are a clever girl, my Linde. Come see my final secret.” She took me deep into the heart of the forest. A patch of heart-shaped purple herbs bloomed with fiery orange flowers. “These are my precious deathsflower, goddaughter” Frau Todd sighed sweetly, inhaling their overripe scent. “Crush and make a powder medicine of this for any patient you have. If I appear by the head of their bed, they will survive, and you may cure them. But if I appear at the dying man or woman’s feet, my Linde, I mean to drag them to either God or my husband Samiel. There is no stopping me then.” “Thank you, Frau Todd,” I said, tears in my eyes, and hugged her. I set up shop in Berlin in the Old City. The deathsflower grew wherever I went, in secret gardens and groves, appearing only for me. I made my way as a physician, in a time when Europe was being electrified and Prussia was bending to welcoming women into the arts and sciences. Some thought me a quack, but I cured when I could cure, and put to sleep with my Jewel of Nocht those bound for brighter shores, Frau Todd a vigil keeper at their toes. The families always felt overwhelming peace under my care, and godmother often took tea with me in my little flat by the opera. I still fancied the arias and had just seen Cosi fan Tutti for the first time. It could not beat The Magic Flute, but it had its charms. “Where do you take them, Frau Todd, truly?” I asked her over tea one day. I was so dark in comparison to her, a night girl, black hair, black eyes, tan skin, freckles and moles. I was beautiful in a way Death was not, and she was glorious in a way I could never be. Where Frau Todd was youthful, I would always be mortal, and where my magick worked in little tricksy ways like papa had taught me, hers was vast. Little slices of time and place I could carve up, bottle, and trap were mine. All the stars were my godmother’s. Great gaseous balls. With angel’s hearts. Beating, bloody, winged hearts that only Death could eat. Frau Todd smiled dreamily. “And what if God has as much appetite as I, or Samiel?” she teased. Only, I could not tell if she was serious or not. “So, a Heaven’s Gate is the same as a Hellmouth? God eats His chosen souls?” I shivered. Night set over my heart. Death’s lips thinned. “A grave is a grave, my Linde. We all rot, in the end. Except for me, of course.” The King of Prussia was marked for death. Some say he had crossed a witch on his campaign in France. Most thought it was a Hapsburg blood sickness. All I knew was, there was land and a title and limitless purse for any lass or man that could cure him. I hauled my belongings to court, my cart and best oxen and phials of medicine, and my precious deathsflower went deep into his palace. Finally, it was my turn. The Jewel of Nocht gleamed like a rose on my chest, Frau Todd was at his head, and nodded serenely. Smiling, I cured the king. There was a ball held in my honor. I was named Lady Sieglinde, First of Her Name. The royal coffers were mine. So was a palace back in dear old Leipzig – the King had done his research. I charmed the corsets off many lasses for a tussle in silken sheets, then sang the britches off several noblemen. With Frau Todd’s help, I distributed birth control made especially by my cultivated strains of sacred herbs throughout the palace, and I grew even more popular. But most on my mind was Princess Hilda. She was beautiful – curvy, brown ringlets, always dressed in green like Lady Greensleeves. I set to courting Hilda in secret, sang her the eponymous song meant originally for Anne Boleyn, even wrote her some of my poems. As we lay in my palace’s bed – Hilda was there to “study mathematics with the King’s savior” – Hilda asked: “My dearly beloved Linde, what is that jewel?” “What is the truth worth to you, my Hilda?” She had eyes like a doe. I realized then, all like a crashing train, that I was deeply in love. “A rose.” Hilda beamed. “And a thistle?” I said, shaking. Hilda giggled, staring at the silver astrolabe over my room and study. “Whatever you say, snake charmer.” I went home, and bought the rose and thistle embroidery from Johanna, and I gave it to Hilda… wrapped with a promise ring. We met back in Berlin. “Let’s run away to America, Sieglinde, together,” Hilda beamed, ravishing me with kisses. Heat grew in my legs. She made love to me to claim me. “I cannot do that Princess Hilda. My medical license, my land and holdings, my livelihood, are all here.” Hilda soured. “Am I worth anything to you but my title?” “Hilda, you are the blackbird heart in my pie.” The comely princess forgave me, kissing me through tears. “You say the funniest things, strange Sieglinde.” The next day, Hilda accepted a marriage offer from the Duke of England. I was bereft. I wanted to bargain, but for once I had nothing to give. Death is always hungry. And never hungrier than when it comes to Maidens. Death and the Maiden, entwined. Hilda fell sick with her father’s blood illness in a week. The King of Prussia said: “Anyone who can cure Hilda gets to become King. The engagement to the Duke of England is annulled. I will hand over my crown to whoever saves my daughter.” I disguised myself as a man. Court had forgotten the King’s Savior, secure as I was in my palace in Leipzig, but I had not forgotten the riches of palace. The riches all paled in comparison to my beloved. I cursed myself every day for not sailing away to America with her, starting over. I cut my hair, donned men’s britches, and rode in through a storm on my palomino gelding, death like a decaying rose in my shadow. There Frau Todd stood, at Hilda’s feet. Hilda was comatose. “Mama Todd, you cannot take her, I love her!” I pleaded, on my knees. It was only us alone in the room. Frau Todd grew steely. “My Linde, this time, I win.” I grabbed the Jewel of Nocht, and with its ruby beam, I put Death to sleep. My godmother collapsed in a pile. I moved Hilda’s bed so that her face was by Frau Todd’s breast, and her feet were by the wall. I leaned in to administer deathsflower tincture. The purple and orange swirls brought life back to Hilda’s lips. “Sieglinde, my beloved, is that you?” Hilda asked, sleepy-eyed, reeling. But Death dragged me away, away from Hilda’s embrace. “Why, Mama Todd? Give me this one thing!” “A heart is worth a heart, my Sieglinde.” Frau Todd was oddly happy. “I get to show you my favorite part of the forest. My beautiful Cave of Souls.” I awoke, scared shitless, in a cavern. Candles, candles everywhere on dank lime scale walls, blinding me. Tall tallows for children, half-burnt for the married, stubs for the old and ill. “Where is mine, godmother?” I asked. “Putting me to sleep was a neat trick. Just like Samiel did to rape me. When I was simply a girl. That is why I had to marry him, you see. It was the beginning of time, when a woman’s first blood meant something, my little linden tree. I was born from a linden tree, just like your namesake, Sieglinde. In fact, I was once called Eve,” Frau Todd mused. She held a sharp knife. “Where is it!” “What is a soul worth, my Linde?” Death’s blue eyes shone like stars. “A mother’s love,” I pleaded. “I never loved you, Sieglinde. Death cannot love. Fond of you, yes. But the only thing I love is hearts.” She showed me a pool of wax, candle flicker. “This is you. You will feed me.” “No – Uglugh!” Eve reached deep into my chest and carved out my heart with her paring knife. Swallowed, now I see all. Death is just. Death is not merciful. Death is not kind. And now I live in the first woman’s chest, a caged blackbird, trilling my mournful tune. She feeds me with tears over her unfaithful, ruinous husband. She cries over dead newborns. Over war-grizzled veterans who take their lives. She comforts them all. We walk through the ages, my cage Frau Todd and I. Now, we are never alone. 💀💀💀 Allister Nelson is an avid fan of fantasy romance, world mythology, and writing! She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, Tea Witch, armchair occultist, cult aficionado, Taylor Swift Truther, and big time navel gazer. She loves to cook, bake, bike, and play with her husband and dog. She enjoys taking them on long walks, and watering them occasionally. A lifelong Washingtonian, she loves writing diverse fantasy romances with a dash of intrigue and spice!
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Scattered Hauntings by Simina Lungu  Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast. Found in a journal left behind in an old basement. We could not determine who it belonged to, when it was written, or if the stories were indeed nothing but fiction. 1. No one had entered the village church for fifty years. But the organ kept playing every winter night. I heard it too, when I was there. I was sure it was only one of those legends meant to give tourists a bit of a scare. In fact, I actually wanted to go inside the church myself to prove there was nothing there. I couldn’t, of course. The church had been boarded up after a fire. It was not safe. “How convenient,” I could not help thinking. One night, I snuck into the churchyard. I could not get inside the building, but I could look through the windows. If there was someone sneaking in to play the organ, I would find them and expose them. The thing crawled from a hole in the ground. It walked on two legs, like a human being, but its skin was grey, and its face had a long snout. Its hands were long and ended in sharp claws. But it could play the organ. I stood and stared, unable to move, as that hellish thing started playing and others of its kind appeared in the yard and danced on the freshly fallen snow. I woke up in my room, although I don’t know how I got there. They told me it was not true, what I had seen. They told me I had been found unconscious in front of the church and I must have been attacked by robbers. But I knew they were lying. And I knew the thing playing the organ had been real. I know it is real because, after it finished playing and its dancing kin had retreated back underground, the thing from the church had looked right at me. And I still see its smirk every time I close my eyes. I haven’t been able to sleep since then. 2. When I was a child, there was this old house at the end of our lane. No one dared to enter it. The yard was teeming with weeds and other overgrown plants. When you got close, the muddy smell of untamed marshland overwhelmed you. There was always a wind blowing, moving the plants this way and that, causing them to be locked in an eternal dance. If you sat by the gate and listened carefully, you could hear a distant whistle, not that of a bird, but definitely not human either. It came from inside the house, drifting out the broken windows and over the untamed garden. The house was not deserted. There was a young woman living there, together with her son. The boy did not play with us, nor did we see him too often outside his yard. We would sometimes spot his mother leaving the house in the evening, but none of us knew where she went. I heard a lot of people say they were ghosts. I knew they were not, though. One night I saw the both of them crawling up the street, or, at least, their faces were the same. Their bodies were half-bird, half-lizard. They made the same whistling sound that you could hear coming from their house on hot afternoons. As I’ve said, I knew they weren’t ghosts. Because I knew they weren’t human. 3. Isabelle’s husband went into the woods one night and never came back. That was twenty years ago. Back then, Isabelle had been twenty and married only for six months. The Isabelle I met had lost her glow, the years of anxious waiting putting wrinkles on her face and dyeing her hair almost completely grey. She was hard as steel in most things, but she would never go anywhere near the woods where her husband had vanished. “What do you think happened to him?” I asked her one evening. “I don’t need to think,” Isabelle told me. “I know. I saw him, ten years ago.” “He is alive then?” I asked surprised. Her eyes glittered. “You could say that. But he is a tree now.” She told me that night that, ten years after her husband went missing, she ventured into the wood. She walked for a long time, following the path her husband must have followed. And then suddenly she saw it: a proud walnut tree, no more than ten years old. Its branches started swaying this way and that when she approached it, although there was no wind. “There is a forest demon hiding in the shadow,” she added. “It lures people and it turns them into trees. They’re alive. They’ll stay alive for as long as the tree does. A tree’s life is long. I know my husband will outlive me.” Since then, every time I pass a tree, I wonder if it really is a tree. Or maybe it had once been something else, and now is forced to watch the world go by and change, waiting for some storm to fell it. 4. One night, I woke up to the sound of scratching on my window. I lived on the fourth floor. There were no trees around my building. Nothing could have climbed up the window to scratch it. At first, I did not dare to open my eyes. I did not want to see what was waiting for me on the other side of the window, what had come for me, to take me into some underworld of shadows and flames. But then, I decided to be defiant. Or maybe I was just feeling too much terror to be reasonable. We feel more fear of the unknown than of what we can see in front of our eyes. I had to look, I told myself. Because nothing that was out there could be worse than what my imagination was conjuring up for me. So I opened my eyes, and I saw the thing that had come for me. It was my own ghost, come from the future. It gestured to me to open the window. “Come to me,” it said. “I will tell you how you die.” 5 I was travelling alone one night, and my car broke down near a swamp. That was when I saw the lights. They were flickering in the distance, friendly and enticing, like a story that ends with a warm fire and a door to shut away the night. I thought they were shining only for me, calling for me and urging me to join them somewhere safe, away from the cold. I took a step forward. Then I felt a hand on my arm restraining me. “Do not go there,” a voice told me. I turned around but there was no one there, and when I turned back to the swamp the lights were gone. Eventually I found someone to help me with my car and drove off. I did not think too much about the lights and the voice, deciding that I must have been half asleep and imagined both. Several days later I was told about a creature living in that swamp, how it lured travellers and drowned them beneath the muddy waters, how so many people had disappeared on that stretch of road, never to return. And I knew I could have been one of them, but something had stopped me. Something had prevented me from going. I would often wonder what the thing that stopped me was and why it had rescued me. Was it to save my life – or was it to spare me for something much more terrible? *** It seems that whoever wrote this journal began a final story. However, the last pages are torn, so I only have the beginning: “They say there is something in their basement. I heard it too. The quick patter of feet and the whisper of soft laughter. One day, I will go down the steps and look inside. They tell me it is too dangerous, but it is much better to find out what the thing is and keep it there, instead of waiting for it to get out.” 💀💀💀 Simina Lungu is a speculative fiction writer currently residing in Timisoara, Romania. She has several short stories published in places such as Night Picnic, CommuterLit, or Dark Fire Fiction. Her writings explore primordial fears as well as the need for human connections. Those who wish to know more about her can check out her website: https://corasimina.wixsite.com/siminalungu-writer or come hang out on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/simina.lungu.writer Poetry by Rhonda Parrish
Hush I laze on the front porch my creaky old chair rock, rock, rocking while moonlight crawls across the lawn every little blade of grass casts its own shadow in the blue-white light and crickets foolishly call out their locations to the bullfrogs who sing in celebration as they feast. A wind shushes though the grasses and reeds, ripples over the pond’s surface disturbing the reflection of a woman long blonde hair drip drip dripping and eyes empty as the old well in the West quarter I still the rocker, hold my breath barely dare to blink. No woman stands in the reeds along the shore nor wades in the shallow, stagnant water. No physical form, nothing from this world, casts the reflection, and I’ll not be so easily caught as the crickets.
She Laughed because tears because screams would have been blood in the water and the sharks were circling close she laughed though fear ripped at her throat and Their ragged fingernails tore at her jeans her skin she laughed and They laughed too —the pair doing the tugging the pulling-- They laughed along with those surrounding her circling her… row upon row of serrated teeth smiles laughing leering… she heard the click click click of every tooth on her zipper as it betrayed her click click click and she laughed, kicking and flailing bucking and twisting struggling to keep clothed when escape came (a bell calling the sharks to class) she gathered her tattered self, her scared and shattered self, and went to the Principal he shrugged, he said, “but you laughed,” she tried to explain about tears and sharks about showing weakness about fear “But did you say no?” He asked, “while those Boys—” “Sharks,” she corrected. “while those Boys were trying to take off your jeans did you say no?” “i kicked. i twisted,” she said. “i flailed and bucked.” “but did you say no?” she took His words His tone, His scorn His message she pulled it deep, deep inside-- the jagged shard around which to build a festering, seething pearl-- she wrapped herself around it encompassed it held it close added to it from time to time… and when its poison had done its work She came back incorporeal wrists dripping red with rows upon rows of serrated teeth She hunted them found them and they bucked and flailed and writhed and screamed and She laughed The Last Time I Was Here The first time I returned your back was bent, broken with sorrow. I wanted to see your face but your hands, your big strong hands, covered it while your shoulders spasmed with the strength of your sobs… The next time I was here your spine was straight and though your eyes were sad your face was round, belly a pot, from someone else's cooking. I was happy you weren't stuck, as I was, but sad, so sad, you'd moved on so quickly… When next I came back children in the other room were hushed by their mother, by each other -- "Leave Daddy alone today, it's the anniversary of a sad, sad day." But your pain had been tempered by time into a wistful sadness rather than a gnawing ache… The next time I returned, I heard the patter of grandchildren's feet and my fury knew no bounds. It's not fair! Some other woman was living my life, the life I, I was meant to have. I thundered and raged but all I could do was knock my dusty photograph off her wall… The last time I was here, your back was bent, broken by time, your hair sparse and gray, skin thin as wasp paper. Soon, I thought, soon my wait will be over, we'll be together again but when she came in the room and I saw how you smiled up at her… I said goodbye.
💀💀💀 Like a magpie, Rhonda Parrish is constantly distracted by shiny things. She’s the editor of many anthologies and author of plenty of books, stories and poems. She lives with her husband and cats in Edmonton, Alberta, and she can often be found there playing Dungeons and Dragons, bingeing crime dramas or cheering on the Oilers. Her website, updated regularly, is at http://www.rhondaparrish.com and her Patreon, updated even more regularly, is at https://www.patreon.com/RhondaParrish Fox Hunt by Linda A. Gould "Fox Hunt" first appeared in Commuter Lit on September 27, 2022  Photo of memorial with stone dog by Linda A Gould Click here to listen to this story on the Kaidankai podcast. Yukihiro hated foxes. A scraggly old male, its pelt matted and bespattered, had once eaten Yukihiro’s lunch while he bathed under a nearby waterfall. Enraged at the audacity of the sickly animal, Yukihiro threw a rock to scare it off. The fox ran away, but it carried off Yukihiro’s food, leaving him hungry for the first time in his 25 years. Never again would he allow such a lowly creature to cause him pain. He bought a dog and trained it to hunt foxes. The two spent hours every week walking through the forests and meadows of Yukihiro’s vast estate in search of their quarry. They were so successful, Yukihiro had a room in his home dedicated to storing fox pelts. Now middle-aged, Yukihiro’s hatred had not faded. If anything, it had grown, for his first dog had been maimed by a mother fox protecting her kits, and another had been killed. So, he was elated when he and his third dog came upon a den at the foot of a small mountain with three fox kits. They were just large enough to provide him with pristine pelts, but small and weak enough not to put up much of a fight. He skinned them on site, then tossed the meat to his dog. That evening, the setting sun burned through heavy black clouds that turned the sky a sickly green. Lightning raged across the craggy mountain ridge surrounding the town and thunder pounded the house walls like Wadaiko drummers at a summer festival. Yukihiro wasn’t surprised by a knock at the door. The Kyoto-Tokyo road ran along the edge of his property. It was a lonely stretch of road, and every time a storm raged, travelers were drawn by the lights of his home to seek refuge. He was no innkeeper, though, and refused them admission, instead sending them to his barn for shelter until the storm passed. He was surprised, therefore, when his housekeeper interrupted his dinner. “Excuse me, sir…” “What is it?” Yukihiro didn’t bother to stop shoveling rice into his mouth. “There’s a lady at the door, sir.” “Well, send her to the barn, like always!” “I think you might want to see her, sir. She’s a lady.” Yukihiro’s chopsticks paused mid-air. “What do you know of ladies?” He laughed; bits of rice flew from his mouth and dropped to the table like washed-out confetti. His housekeeper bowed her head. “You’re right, sir. I have never met a true lady. But, the woman at the door is like no one I’ve ever seen before. And her voice is like music.” Yukihiro turned to his son, laughing even harder, “What do you say, Taro? Shall we invite in this woman who has enchanted our servant with her musical voice?” Before Taro could answer, Yukihiro told the housekeeper, “Show her in.” The woman glided into the room, a paragon of upper-class grace and nobility, and as she moved, her scarlet kimono—which Yukihiro suspected must have cost its owner more than he made in a year—swished against the tatami like a whispered endearment. The woman’s face was an iridescent oval framed by raven-black hair, blemished only by a few tendrils that slashed across her milky white complexion like ink strokes against pristine paper. Taro expected his father to greet their guest, but the older man stayed rooted to his chair, mouth agape, staring at the woman as she stood expectantly in the doorway. Taro stood. “Welcome to our humble home,” he bowed deeply. “I am Takahashi Taro, and this is my…” “I’m Takahashi Yukihiro,” his father interrupted. He stepped between his son and the beautiful guest. “This is my estate.” “Oh kind sir, thank you, thank you for opening your warm home to me on this wicked night.” “It’s the least I can do. Sit down, sit down here by the fire. What are you doing out on this wicked night?” “My name is Fushimi Kuzune. I’m from Kyoto. I’m on my way to Tokyo to attend a funeral ceremony at Toyokawa Inari Temple. The storm came up so suddenly. Then, my escorts were killed by lightning.” She lowered her head. Her hands, cupped in her lap, trembled. She raised her eyes, which glowed from the firelight, to Yukihiro’s. Warmth and gratitude filled her voice. “I was all alone and saw one light in all the darkness. I was so frightened, but the light led me here.” “Well, you are safe now.” Yukihiro took her hand in his and patted it. He called to the housekeeper, “Stoke the fire and bring a bowl of soup for the lady. Hurry!” “Your escorts were killed? How is it, then, that you were not killed by the lightning?” Taro asked as he rested a fox-pelt blanket across her shoulders. “My escorts had found three animal carcasses on the side of the road. They said it was fresh enough to eat!” Kuzune shuddered. “I couldn’t stop them, but I certainly wasn’t going to partake, so I stayed in my palanquin.” “Ah, those must have been the three fox kits I killed today,” Yukihiro explained. “There they are over there, hanging on the wall drying.” He poured a glass of sake for Kuzune. “To be honest, I thought my dog had eaten them. Anyway, lucky me that it has brought you to my house tonight.” Kuzune removed the fox pelt from her shoulders and set it on her lap, stroking the soft fur. When she looked again at Yukihiro, her eyes were moist. “I am so grateful to you for inviting me inside. I would have perished out there on a night like this.” “Well, you are safe now. Rest here tonight, and I will personally escort you to the temple tomorrow.” With that, Yukihiro poured a glass of sake and, overjoyed with having a new person to talk to, set out to charm his guest with stories of his life. As often as he could, he included his expertise in fox hunting. “But aren’t you afraid?” Kuzune asked after a humorous story about a fox and a pumpkin. “Afraid? Afraid of what?” “Killing foxes. And killing them for sport.” “Why would I be afraid?” “Well…” she seemed unsure of herself for the first time. “Foxes are messengers for Inari Ookami, the god of agriculture. And you said your wealth is from farming.” Yukihiro’s laughter competed with the thunder outside. “You can walk for hours in either direction before reaching the edge of my land. I have been hunting since I was a young man and have prospered. I have nothing to be afraid of.” Kuzune turned to face Taro. Yukihiro stared at the erotic drape of the scarlet kimono that outlined the nape of her milky neck like lipstick on a mouth begging to be kissed. Desire surged within him. “Tell me,” she asked Taro, “when your father hunts, do you stay here, comfortable and safe in your home, or do you hunt with him?” “I am not a hunt—” Yukihiro laughed. “Him hunt? He doesn’t have the nerve. Throws up at the sight of blood.” He poured another round of sake. “That’s not exactly true. I threw up — excuse me for the vulgarity of this topic — once when my father took me with him. I learned I don’t like killing animals. Yes,” he reacted to Kuzune’s surprise, “I know how strange that is, especially in light of my father’s passion. So, I haven’t been since.” “Not that I need him. My hound and I are a perfect team.” “Oh, I love dogs. Where is yours?” “He’s probably in the barn. Come,” he stood and held out his hand to Kuzune. “Let me show you the room where I store my fox pelts. You’ll see how beautiful they are. Taro! Go outside and see if there are any travelers in the barn. See to it that they have water and blankets. It’s cold tonight. And bring the dog in if he’s out there.” Confused by his father’s sudden concern for travelers, Taro made his way to the door as his father guided their guest to the fox pelt room. He heard the pelt room door open and Kuzune say, “Oh! There are so many!” *** The house was quiet when Taro returned 10 minutes later. There was no sign of his father or Kuzune. The dog, who had followed Taro back to the house, settled in front of the fire. Taro headed to the pelt room and slid open the door. Kuzune was bent at the waist. Her hair had come unpinned and hid her face. Her kimono was loose, exposing one shoulder, and draped across her back, a scarlet streak painted against the auburn backdrop of fox fur. His father’s hands clawed at Kuzune’s back, and the couple’s moans were hungry, almost violent in the throes of their passion. Taro’s shocked gasp sliced through the room. Kuzune lifted her head. His father’s hands fell limp. They released their embrace. Yukihiro dropped onto the bed of fox pelts. Kuzune stood. His father’s head lolled to one side, his neck shredded, his head attached by a thread. Kuzune turned to Taro. Blood smeared her chin and fangs drew back into her mouth, but bits of his father’s flesh clung to her lips. She spit it away. Taro heard a growl behind him. “You . . . ,” she took a step toward Taro, whose legs ignored his command to run. “. . . were not there today when this monster murdered my children in their home, a place where they should have been safe!” As she took another step toward Taro, her mouth morphed into a snout, red hair sprouted along the sides of her face, and her vengeful eyes flashed. “But you!” She pointed to the dog and instantly transformed into a sleek fox whose pelt would have been the prize of Yukihiro’s collection. She rushed at the hound, who leaped to meet her charge. The two tussled among the fox pelts, then raced out the door. They ran across sodden fields toward the mountain where the kits had been killed that morning. Taro followed, calling for the hound to stop, but his father had trained the dog for just this situation, and it was gaining ground. Just as the hound leaped to take down his prey, the fox stopped and turned to Taro. It transformed again into Kuzune. She held out her arm. The dog sunk its teeth into her flesh. “Remember,” she said, then turned herself and the hound to stone. Taro did as he was told. He built a memorial that told of his father’s hubris. To this day, the stone memorial with the figure of the leaping hound stand as a reminder to all that foxes are sacred to the god Inari and must be respected. 💀💀💀 Linda Gould is an American who has lived in six countries. The mythology and folktales from each have inspired her writing-- fiction and non-fiction. Her work has been published in media outlets around the world. Gould is the editor of White Enso, an online journal of creative work inspired by Japan, and host of “The Kaidankai,” a podcast of modern ghost and supernatural stories read aloud. |
about the hostLinda Gould hosts the Kaidankai, a weekly blog and podcast of fiction read out loud that explores the entire world of ghosts and the supernatural. The stories are touching, scary, gruesome, funny, and heartwarming. New episodes every Wednesday. |
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