Iron Rice Fox Ch. 1 d

If you forgot what happened in the last part, click here. Or click here to start from the beginning.

The sounds of the night began as Yuki’s body cooled. He ached to sit down or stretch his legs.

A low-pitched noise sounded at the edge of the forest. Yuki held his breath and wished he could see. The fox circled him.

“Do they think I am so stupid that I cannot differentiate between male and female?” the Fox growled.

“No, Master.” Yuki’s heart threatened to jump from his chest.

The Fox breathed loudly in Yuki’s ear, ruffling his hair and warming the cloth wrapped around his face. “You lie.”

Yuki said nothing but willed his breathing to remain even. When would he die?

“You smell like my son,” the Fox commented.

“Yes, Master.” Yukie supposed that was true enough, given the time Koh had spent with him.

The great beast resumed his pacing. “He told I’d kill you, then.”

Iron Rice Fox Ch. 1 c

If you forgot what happened in the last part, click here. Or click here to start from the beginning.

Within a week the argument had turned from Yuki's health and safety to his attire. He shivered in the center of the bedroom with his arms spread while Auntie adjusted an old kimono around his shoulders. Mother clung to a bright white silk gown.

“Dear Father,” she argued gently, “what will Yumi wear for her wedding?”

There's a Beast In My Basement

There is a beast in my basement. He stays in chains without complaint; I think he knows the damage he could do. Does he have a conscience. I’m not sure. He does as I bid, and I bid him often. Come here, Beast, and lick my bones lest I rot for lack of touch. His tongue slides on skin and skin sizzles for his tongue. I don’t close my eyes, I watch him as he obeys with simmering anger.

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Iron Rice Fox Ch. 1 b

To read the first part click here.

Yuki sighed as he dumped the waste in the outhouse after dinner. So he would die, then. He washed his hands in the cold stream until he could no longer feel them.

A small figure stood by the path to the main house. Yuki started, then relaxed. It wasn’t a girl. Koh was staring fiercely at the older boy.

“They can’t send you,” he said angrily. “You can’t go.”

Yuki crouched in front of the child. “Koh, were you being a mouse? It’s not polite to listen to other people’s conversation.”

“You can’t go,” the boy repeated, tears welling. “You can’t go, because then no one be kind to me.” He scrubbed at his eyes, the moisture smudging the dirt on his face. “If Yuki gone, I’m not see him, and I’m not see Mayu, and no one be kind.”

Reaching out a cold hand, Yuki ruffled the boy’s hair. “I’m sure he will not take me. I’ll come back.”

“Mama say he kill you,” Koh sniffed, using the collar of his shirt to wipe his nose. Yuki gently tugged the garment away from the mucus and wiped Koh’s nose with his handkerchief. Koh inhaled shakily. “Her say if you go then you die and you family, too.”

“Koh—“

“Papa, him not like to be tricked,” Koh warned, tears escaping the corners of his eyes. “Him get mad and eat you.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Yuki promised emptily. “I’ll tell him I have to look out for Koh.”

He pulled the child into his arms. Koh threw his small arms around Yuki’s neck, pulling him tight. Yuki felt snot and tears soaking into his shirt and wished he could find some sort of childish exaggeration in Koh’s fears. He patted the boy’s back with one hand while Koh sobbed. Yuki felt like crying, himself. What had he done to be sent to a Fox?

Iron Rice Fox Ch. 1 a

It is nearly spring. The rice fields are bare, the haze of smoke graying the air and the smell of burning chaff permeating even the dampest dark corners. The old women are gathered around the shabu pots, gossiping and shushing the children who run through the house. The children are all female, their hair braided and knotted and stuffed under soft wool caps, budding breasts bound. The unlucky ones beg their brothers to drop rolls of bloody rags into the outhouse. They cannot go outside. The Iron Rice Fox is on the hunt.

This one is a trickster, a sly wild thing whose motives are his own. Only one thing about the Fox is certain—when winter's rice is gone and leaves peek their green heads from dark branches, he will come and collect a bride.



Yumiko tugged at a snarl in her hair. “I don’t understand why he must come every year. He should have enough women to entertain himself by now.”

“Your city on the other side of the mountain has not seen their Fox in a generation’s time,” her cousin laughed. “Maybe he’s selling them off to lazier Foxes.”

“Well, there’s One Eye, who came back with that freak child of hers.”

Rie sniggered into her sleeve. “Maybe that’s why she likes Yuki so much. Birds of a feather and such.” The girl picked up a comb to re-plait her cousin’s hair. “Oi,” she addressed the boy crouched by the stove, “We’re cold.”

Yuki dusted his hands on his pants as he stood. “The fire is relit,” he informed the two girls.