It is an indisputable fact that the bloodline of my clan extends back into the ancient mists of the Heian period. We may be tanuki, but we most certainly do not emerge into this world by falling out of the hollows of camphor trees like fur-ridden gumb.a.l.l.s. I have a father, and obviously my father had a father, and so on and so forth.

Take, for example, the s.h.i.+mogamo clan, to which I have the humble honor of belonging, and the Ebisugawa clan, which is an offshoot of my own esteemed clan. These families trace their lineage back to the tanuki of old who, during the reign of Emperor Kammu, moved along with his capital from the town of Heguri in Nara to the land of milk and honey in Kyōto. Personally, I believe that this great migration was less a conscious decision to leave the land of the Manyōshū, and more like an unruly mob of tanuki following around the scent of freshly cooked rice and soup emanating from the humans' kitchens. Thus they multiplied, unasked for and unwanted: actions hardly deserving of the lofty t.i.tle of "forebears".

Since the Heian period, we have been inexplicably fettered by our wildly criss-crossing bloodlines. Even a bohemian tanuki such as myself finds it difficult to just throw off these ties that bind. Petty squabbles that would normally be flushed down the drain can turn into mortal conflicts, merely because of the blood that flows through our veins.

Small wonder I can't stand the saying, "Blood is thicker than water".

My father was an eminent tanuki, famed through the capital. He commanded the respect of tanuki everywhere, and with that respect he held the tanuki world together. Unfortunately, he breathed his last several years ago.

The legacy of my great father consisted of four sons, including myself. Unfortunately, none of us boys had quite been endowed with the capacity to carry forth the bright flame of our father's torch. But having to live up to the name of our great father was just one of the myriad misfortunes that surrounded us siblings.

As we grew up following the death of our father, talk of us began to spread: our eldest brother was uptight, but had a tendency to fall apart when push came to shove; our second-eldest brother was a shut-in; I was a dilettante in the tradition of Takasugi s.h.i.+nsaku; and our youngest brother had the worst transformation skills that perhaps the world had ever seen. "What a shame that these children are all that remains of the great s.h.i.+mogamo Sōichirō's legacy," people would whisper, and soon our reputations were sealed.

Overhearing these whispers, my eldest brother furiously took out his anger by ripping off the straw belts girdling the pine trees in Okazaki Park. "I'll surpa.s.s Father, and show them all!" he vowed, his right fist clenched in rage. "Good luck with that...just don't get me involved," our second-eldest said, blowing bubbles at the bottom of his well. I said nothing, and gorged on castellas, my favorite snack. Our youngest brother curled into a ball, mumbling, "I'm sorry, Mother," but he was never one to turn down a castella, either.

Somehow, none of this fazed our mother, and the reason was very simple: she refused to believe with a single hair on her body that her sons, of all people, could be the laughingstocks of the tanuki world. She was convinced that each of us was more than worthy to carry on our father's legacy. The way she persisted in her unwavering, almost irrational faith was what made her a mother, and it was what made us, us.

Our father was a great tanuki, but our mother was great too, in her own way.

The city sweltered under the burning rays of the sun as August made its entrance.

In spite of that, our home in the Tadasu Forest by s.h.i.+mogamo Shrine remained pleasantly cool. My little brother and I spent our days cooling our feet in the little brook that ran through the forest, drinking ramune from porcelain Kiyomizu-ware bowls, and delivering bentos and Akadama port wine to Master Akadama. Occasionally, I would even seat myself at one of the gigantic desks at the Okazaki library and bury my nose in the wisdom of the ancients...or at least I would daydream about it, anyways.

"Sit there daydreaming all day, and you'll turn into a fool!" Mother would chide me if I sat there long enough, which was my cue to accompany her to play billiards. A scolding usually meant that she was feeling lonely.

A peculiar couple would occasionally drop into the billiards hall atop the café at the west end of the Kamo Bridge. They were quite well known in the area for their singular appearance: the man was a beautiful pale youth who always wore a chic black suit with a deep crimson necktie, his hair smoothly and meticulously coiffed, and the woman was a sweet young thing draped in clothes white as snow, like a sheltered mademoiselle. There was something theatrical about the duo, both in appearance and in mannerisms, like they were straight out of the Takarazuka Revue.

I speak of these two in the third person, but the sheltered mademoiselle is really me, and that improbable modern-day dandy is my mother.

Ah, the fabulous Takarazuka!

Mother has been an ardent fan of the Takarazuka Revue since the springtime of her youth, and she hops on the Hankyu line to make a pilgrimage any chance she gets. Takarazuka syndrome is an insidious disease, contractible by both humans and tanuki, and once it has taken hold the chance of recovery is close to nil; even with bleeding-edge medical care, full remission is considered impossible.

Knowing this, we had never really tried to take away this happiness from our mother, but after the death of our father, her Takarazuka syndrome progressed to the point of no return, and at sundown each day she would suddenly appear in the gloom of the Tadasu Forest in the form of a das.h.i.+ng young fop and sally forth for a night on the town. As she always took on a male form, whenever one of us brothers was called forth to accompany her, we almost always played the part of a demure young lady. Our outings attracted a lot of attention, and the occasions on which local TV crews hunted us down on Teramachi Street were a source of great terror for us, though our mother was always delighted to take an interview.

As far as I knew, Mother had never so much as laid hands on a cue stick before, but one day out of nowhere she grew a pa.s.sion for the sport and became a regular at the billiards hall. Hobn.o.bbing with students and old-timers alike, she picked up tips here and there, and soon enough she was dominating the felt. "Gallant young lads and elegant sports like billiards go hand in hand," she insisted, another one of her quirky, old-fas.h.i.+oned notions.

In both human and tanuki circles, she was known as the Prince in Black, and by all accounts, she had come up with the nickname herself.

I sat by the window in the billiards hall, a mild-mannered maiden gazing down at the evening settling over the Kamo River. Cars and buses pa.s.sed by, their headlights glittering as they crossed the Kamo Bridge. Clouds stretched far off into the distance, and the sky over Higas.h.i.+yama was as black as if someone had spilled ink all over it.

Mother was utterly focused on the billiards table, not a hair coming out of place no matter how she stooped over the table. I had no interest in the game whatsoever, looking on absentmindedly as she concentrated on the b.a.l.l.s tumbling across the table.

"So, what's this I hear about you running into Benten?" she asked, cue stick in hand. "You know how dangerous that is!"

"Everything's fine, Mother."

"That woman is not to be trusted. Slip up once, and you could find yourself being thrown headfirst into a stew! You know that's something we've always had to watch out for. Humans are so much crueler than tengu, or foxes."

"Well, what choice did I have? Master Akadama asked me to."

"That tengu is always worrying about things that are inappropriate for someone his age. And people like that are always the hardest to deal with." She sighed ruefully.

Master Akadama's abduction of the girl named Benten from the banks of Lake Biwa was well known in Kyōto, as was his devoted instruction of her in the magickal arts and her subsequent public snubbing of him.

With a crack, Mother sent the multicolored b.a.l.l.s scattering across the table. As a spectator, it looked terribly simple, but things never went so well when I tried for myself. Mother had previously spent much effort attempting to teach me, but found me an unwilling student. Apparently she had now turned her sights on my younger brother.

"Obon will be here soon, and we still don't have a pleasure barge ready. I do hope Yaichirō is on top of things; have you heard anything from him?"

"Nope, he hasn't said a word to me."

"I hope everything's alright. After all, we don't have the Manpuku Maru anymore." The black-clad youth before me frowned, his eyebrows knit. "I do wish he would ask you for help and stop trying to do everything by himself all the time."

Every year on the night of the Okuribi, our family goes out in a pleasure barge. This barge is equipped with a special apparatus which burns alcohol as fuel and allows the craft to fly through the air. The family tradition of sailing amongst the summer stars on Obon and watching the fires light up on the mountains below was started by my father. But last year, we were drawn into a silly quarrel, and our barge, the Manpuku Maru, was burned down to the hull. Alcohol-powered boats that soar through the sky are not exactly easy to find, and my eldest brother was supposed to obtain a replacement, but I wasn't interested in prying into the particulars of how.

"As far as I can tell, Yaichirō isn't too keen on the idea of relying on us youngsters."

"And I want you to try and get along a little better with him, do you hear?"

"But of course, I love my brother. He's a good guy!"

"That's quite enough sarcasm out of you!" said Mother, glaring at me. "Yaichirō is too straightforward and naive to know how to deal with a rabble-rouser like you. You need to tone it down if you want to get anywhere at all."

"I think I'll pa.s.s on that."

"Fickle, yet stubborn to the bone: you must have inherited that from me. Still, you can only take that att.i.tude so far."

A few schoolboys with whom Mother was acquainted made their appearances. Seeing me standing there demurely, they hesitated, but I decided that now was a good time to make my escape and see my second eldest brother at Rokudō Chinnōji. Interrupting Mother jawing with the schoolboys, I pulled her into a corner and told her my plans. She beamed when she heard that I was going to see my brother.

"Excellent!" she said. "Make sure he's still breathing."

"You should go see him too. You still haven't been even once, have you?"

"He wouldn't be comfortable with me there."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"Being there is the right thing for him, but I think he'd be embarra.s.sed for me to see him down there."

She made to return to her billiards companions, but abruptly wheeled back to me.

"Oh, and on your way back, be a dear and pick up Yas.h.i.+rō from the Ebisugawa power plant. Treat him to a nice meal, too; I think he's sick of all that training."

Two days ago, my youngest brother Yas.h.i.+rō had started an apprentices.h.i.+p at the Faux Denki Bran distillery by the Ebisugawa power plant to get some hands-on training.

"The weather's looking a little cloudy today, Mother. I think you'd better wrap things up soon. If it starts thundering we're going to have another mess on our hands."

"I know, I know," sniffed the Prince in Black, returning to the billiards table. Her exquisite coiffure shone under the lights of the room. She may have looked like someone who had showed up at the wrong costume party, but inside that outlandish appearance burned the fiery spirit of a mother. Mothers really are something else—maybe even a little scary in their own way.

I curtsied daintily at the gathered schoolboys, receiving sickly smiles in return, and went down the stairs.

By the time I reached the Kamo Bridge, the pet.i.te mademoiselle was no more, replaced by a surly, long-haired male college student. This was my customary form when out and about in the world of humans, and as a consequence I was sometimes known as the Unkempt Undergrad.

Twilight hung above as I pedaled my bike down Higas.h.i.+ Ōji Avenue, heading for Rokudō Chinnōji, south of Kenninji. My brother had been holed up in a well on the grounds of the temple for some years now, taking a very premature retirement. He was famous as the most lackadaisical tanuki in all of Kyōto.

Since he was no more than a pup, he had jealously guarded displays of exertion on his part like a tiger guarding its cub, and his lack of color when interacting with others made everyone think he was a simpleton.

As he grew older, his demeanor remained largely the same, but being allowed to drink alcohol gave him new opportunities to show his quality: a few drinks to loosen up, and his reticence would vanish like the morning mist. Night after night, he would transform into his specialty, a simulacrum of an Eizan train, and rush through the streets of Kyōto, scaring the wits out of unsuspecting humans just looking for a good time.

Father often took my brother out to drink, but their outings usually involved him urging my brother to "do your thing", and riding the false train all through the city, roaring with laughter. He was quite fond of my brother's train.

Because they went pub crawling so frequently, my brother probably spent more time with Father than he did with anyone else, and I'm sure he saw a side to him that no one else got to see. It was no surprise that our eldest brother, a teetotaller, was bursting with jealousy. Father's death was an especially hard blow for our second brother, causing him to give up Faux Denki Bran entirely and slip back into his sh.e.l.l.

The worst of it came when, hearing him mumble, "I can't be bothered to keep breathing," our enraged mother tossed him into the Kamo River. Emotions were running high, what with our recent loss, though that is no excuse for a mother to hurl her son into a river. But the most shocking part was the way our brother gurgled, "Swimming is just too much of a bother," and simply let the river carry him all the way down to the Gojō Bridge without any fuss. There he caught on one of the pylons, so my little brother and I retrieved him and carried him dripping all the way home.

It was during this time that he decided to quit being a tanuki.

We were all convinced that our brother had finally lost his marbles, but once he had decided on something, there was nothing anyone could do to change his mind. Spurning our pleas, he left the Tadasu Forest, choosing to settle at the bottom of a well in Rokudō Chinnōji and turn into a frog.

Since that time, he has not taken his tanuki form. I can no longer remember the way he used to look.

Mother has never once come to visit him in his well, and for some years now the two have not spoken.

The glimmer of night spread through the streets of Gion surrounding Yasaka Shrine.

From the bottom of the stone steps leading up to the shrine, lights glittered exuberantly down the length of s.h.i.+jō Avenue. Hanamikoji Street stretches south from that wide boulevard, but crowded as it was I soon took one of the narrow alleys branching off of it instead. Away from the main thoroughfares, the neighborhood was hushed and still. I pedaled along past eateries and cafes, their lights flying past then falling away smoothly behind me, dreamlike.

Making use of a gap in the wall, I entered Kenninji. Its grounds seemed to stretch out boundlessly in the gloom, and not a soul was in sight. Sodium lamps cast their yellow light between the rows of gloomy pine trees. I left the temple and came out onto Yasaka Street to the south, following along as it sloped upwards towards Higas.h.i.+yama Yasui.

Rokudō Chinnōji is in a block of buildings on the south side of the street. Visiting hours were over and there was little chance of being seen, so I boldly hopped a block wall and made my way round to the back of the main temple building, clambering over a wooden door and peering down into the opening of a disused well.

"Yajirō," I called.

A faint, gurgling reply echoed up from the black depths, bouncing off the gravelly sides of the well. "Yasaburō?"

I sat on the edge of the well and scanned the bottom, my eyes narrowed, but couldn't make out anything in the darkness below. It hardly mattered, though, since all I would have seen was the shape of a frog.

"I'm eating dinner here, if you don't mind."

Sitting down by the well, I dug into a takeout bowl I had bought from a gyūdon place in front of Yasaka Shrine.

"That gyūdon must taste real good," Yajirō said earnestly at the bottom of the well.

"I bet you must eat nothing but bugs down there."

"What can I say? This frog thing isn't just for show, you know."

"Don't they ever stick in your throat?"

"Well, if I'm lacking anything down here, it's not water," he reasoned. "And I'll tell you, there's nothing like the feeling of a perfectly sized bug sliding down your gullet."

"Sounds like you're really getting the hang of it," I observed, wolfing down my gyūdon with renewed appreciation.

The grounds of the temple were hushed; no one came to visit the well at this time of night, and with the temple nestled deep in from the street, the rumble of cars could be heard only distantly.

About two years ago, we learned that Yajirō had become so accustomed to being a frog that he was unable to turn back into a tanuki. But whereas the rest of us had been going to pieces at this horrible revelation, Yajirō had spoken of it as sanguinely as if he had been talking about the weather.

I once asked him if he felt sad about it.

"Sad?" he replied. "I suppose I was a little down the night I realized, but hey, there's nothing I can do about it now." It was remarkable how easily he had stopped trying.

I suggested that perhaps our grandmother could set him to rights.

"I'd rather stay as a frog for the rest of my life than let that barmy old bat help me!" he huffed. "I never meant to go back to being a tanuki, anyway, so it's all for the best."

And with that, my brother casually resigned himself to his fate.

"I know it's been a while since I last visited. I hope you haven't been too lonely without me," I said, between mouthfuls of beef.

The dry puffing sound I heard appeared to be my brother laughing. "What with everyone taking turns to come and ask the same thing, I don't hardly have time to be lonely."

"You get a lot of visitors, then?"

"Not as many as last year, but they show up from time to time. I'm busier now than I was when I was a tanuki. Kinda strange, when you think about it."

"Well, you didn't exactly have too many friends when you were a tanuki."

"You know who came to visit me the other day? Master Akadama."

"Lamenting his lost love, no doubt?"

"Benten, my fair Benten...he used to be such a grand tengu, didn't he? Where did all that go? I couldn't hardly believe my ears. You ask me, I'd say he's overdue for an intervention."

"It's too late for that. I think he's going to be stuck like this for the rest of his life."

"The Master kept rambling on and on about his love life, so I just kept quiet and hunkered down, and by and by he left. And who else showed up then but Yaichirō!"

"Yaichirō came here? Why?"

"He must have been feeling torn about something. Didn't say anything either, just stood a while, then left."

"Maybe he was going to lecture you, then gave up?"

"It didn't seem that way to me. He's got a lot on his plate, you know."

"You don't need to remind me."

"Lately I've been feeling sorry for him. He's wound so tight doing everything he can to fill the shoes of his dad, one of the greatest tanuki to ever live, and all he's got for brothers are a frog, a fool, and a little kid, not one of them worth a darn."

"You won't hear any arguments from me on that. I couldn't think of any if I tried, anyway."

"I'm glad I wasn't the oldest son." He sighed heavily. "If I were him, I think I'd turn into a frog and go live in a well."

At some point last year, making pilgrimages to Yajirō's well became something of a fad amongst troubled tanuki of all shapes and sizes.

When he was still a tanuki himself, hardly anyone gave him the time of day, and even younger tanuki would call insults towards him as he pa.s.sed by the playground. It seemed a cruel twist of fate that after leaving the tanuki world and turning into a frog, he suddenly found himself in the limelight.

n.o.body knows who started the trend, but seemingly out of nowhere, tanuki would visit the shrine, lower their heads to the mouth of the well, and whisper their pent-up worries to my brother. Irresponsible rumors began to swirl that the morning after, all their problems would have cleared up, whether it was constipation or a pimply complexion, and soon my brother's fame was such that each night tanuki lined up at the well, clamoring to have their problems heard. Even tengu began to pay visits to the shrine. Inevitably, the visitors would leave with a new spring in their step, leaving my brother sitting sullenly at the bottom of his well.

"It's like they're trying to bury me alive with all their problems," he groused. But my brother had never been one to let anything ruffle his fur, and as a frog he no longer had any fur to be ruffled at all, so he soon became accustomed to the complaints was.h.i.+ng over him. This was, after all, his favorite spot.

The many troubles that bedevil this world can, in broad terms, be split into two categories: those that are trivial, and those that are not. Both have in common the unwavering fact that worrying about them accomplishes nothing of any use. If a problem can be solved by applying effort, then it is better to work on it rather than to worry about it, and if it cannot be solved in this way then there is no point in worrying about it. But every so often a problem comes along that can't be pigeonholed so easily. Problems like these call for stress relief, even if only temporarily, and that's where my brother's well comes in.

Obviously, no one expected that talking to a frog in a well was really going to solve their problems. They just talked. Without any expectations, they didn't have to worry about being disappointed when their lives didn't magically improve. Just talking to my brother, maybe shedding a tear or two, would lift the weight from their shoulders without Yajirō saying a word.

"Anyone would feel silly talking into an empty hole," he mused. "There's no point spilling your secrets if no one's listening. But talking to another tanuki would be mortifying, and you can forget about humans and tengu. Most people barely even consider me a tanuki, considering that I'm stuck as a frog forever, and you never need to worry about me going anywhere. That's probably why I'm such a big hit."

"You don't try to give them advice?"

He shrugged. "Why would I? Those are their problems to deal with. Besides, sometimes people like talking to someone who doesn't try to get cozy. That's why they come here."

"You think that's what it is?"

"Beg pardon, guv, but it ain't nuffink to do with me," he said. "I'm just a frog in a well, who's never been out to see the open sea."

What about the rest of us and Mother? Do we matter to you?"

"Even I'm not that heartless," Yajirō pouted, looking a little offended. After a moment of troubled reflection, he added, "But when it comes down to it, I'm still a frog."

I finished up my meal, hoping that I would never grow tired of the simple pleasure of gyūdon, and spent some time looking into the well and talking with my brother. We had always been close, but somehow we seemed to talk more after he turned into a frog and holed up in this well. Yajirō seemed to be more comfortable in this skin than he had ever been as a tanuki.

"So, nothing troubling you in particular these days?" he asked. "You never did like to complain, even when you were a kid."

"There's nothing to complain about, really. One of the perks of living life for fun and profit."

"How're things going with Kaisei?"

"Her life is none of my concern."

"Now, now, don't be shy. You can tell your dependable big brother everything...even if he is a frog. But frogs are like bad pennies: you can always count on us to turn up."

"Father's the one who decided this betrothal business on his own. And for his part, Ebisugawa's done away with the agreement, anyhow."

"But you've still been seeing each other, I hear?"

"Hunh. I never have the slightest clue what she's thinking. I still haven't gotten a good look at her face."

"Ah, young love. It's enough to make a green frog go red all over."

"You can have all the wet dreams you want down in there. But up here, things aren't all suns.h.i.+ne and rainbows. If old man Ebisugawa was my father-in-law, that would mean that pair of idiots Kinkaku and Ginkaku would be my brothers-in-law. Imagine the living h.e.l.l that would be."

"Mmm, that would be enough to make me go hide in a well."

"It sounds you were always end up at the bottom of a well no matter what."

"Look, this sounds rough, but it's what Father decided, after all."

"Putting it like that doesn't help very much."

"Still, I'm sure he must have had his reasons."

"On the contrary, it wouldn't surprise me if this was just a scheme to get his hands on some Faux Denki Bran under the table."

"Don't be silly. He loved his alcohol, sure, but even he wouldn't go that far…" Yajirō objected.

The spirit known as Faux Denki Bran is renowned within the city of Kyōto, beloved throughout the tanuki world, and is even said to harbor a few secret admirers in the human community. An imitation of the famous Denki Bran manufactured in Asakusa, this elixir was first concocted in the Taisho era, and to this day it is brewed in secret at a distillery behind the Ebisugawa power plant. Both production and distribution are controlled by the Ebisugawa clan, who alone hold the secret recipe. Ebisugawa Sōun, the head of the Ebisugawa clan and de facto chief of the tanuki in Kyōto, married into the clan, and is in fact Father's younger brother.

The Ebisugawa clan was originally an offshoot of the s.h.i.+mogamo clan, but there has always been bad blood between the two families. Over the years, many attempts have been made to solve the longstanding feud, the marriage of Sōun into the Ebisugawas being one of them, but far from defusing the tension, Sōun grew to harbor a burning enmity towards his former clan and did all he could to fan the flames of the conflict. The s.h.i.+mogamo clan was left looking like fools.

The rivalry grew after Father's death, and Sōun's two sons inherited their father's hatred of us. They were twins, Kurejirō and Kuresaburō, but everyone called them Kinkaku and Ginkaku. We all studied under Master Akadama at his school for tanuki, though we were more like cats and dogs with the way we were always at each others' throats. I was befuddled when Father decided to betroth me to their younger sister, Kaisei. It seemed utterly preposterous. Incidentally, Father was the one who came up with her odd, most un-tanuki-like name: "Sea Star".

Mother was absolutely incensed when Ebisugawa Sōun came to the Tadasu Forest after Father's death to inform her that he was cancelling the engagement. She had always been particularly fond of Kaisei, but that day she went completely berserk, screaming "Drop dead!" and literally kicking Sōun out of the forest. Strangely enough, Sōun said nothing in return and and simply took his leave, an odious smirk on his face.

For me, the end of the engagement came as a relief, but that incident marked the severing of ties between our two families, a break that has continued to this day.

"A d.a.m.n fool situation, all right," Yajirō reflected. "Do you think our families will ever stop fighting?"

"If Father was still here, he'd put a stop to Sōun throwing his weight around."

"No doubt, he would have made a better go of things."

"Say, Yajirō. Do you think Sōun was responsible for what happened to Father?"

When he heard this, Yajirō abruptly closed his mouth, and for a few moments there was silence.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Best you avoid saying anything reckless," he finally answered, sounding uncharacteristically strained. "Nothing sillier than getting yourself in trouble over some idle chitchat."

I shut up.

Somewhere, I could hear a bicycle whirring through a narrow alleyway.

"With Obon coming up, I've been thinking about Father," mumbled Yajirō softly. "You'll be going up in a pleasure barge during the Okuribi, yes? Not that I'll be joining you, being a frog and all."

"Yaichirō is supposed to be getting another one, though I haven't the slightest idea how he's faring."

"Right, because the last one got burned up."

"Thinking about what happened gets me so riled. d.a.m.n those two, Kinkaku and Ginkakuji!" I kicked the side of the well.

"Easy, easy. Father would have just laughed it off, I bet." Down in the well, Yajirō seemed to be reminiscing about bygone days. "When he died, Yas.h.i.+rō was still a newborn, and you had just entered Master Akadama's school, huh?"

"Time flies, I suppose."

"You know, Father always used to go on about you when we went drinking. I've never told Yaichirō this, because I know how jealous he'd get, but Father always thought of you the most highly out of all of us. Apparently he even told Master Akadama to take special care with you. Said you resembled him the most."

I sniffed, my nose suddenly p.r.i.c.kling in the night air.

"Do you remember the last thing he said to you, Yasaburō?"

"No, can't say that I do."

"I've racked my brains about it over and over, but I just can't remember either. That's always bothered me," said Yajirō. "Some son I turned out to be."

Our cruise through the night skies over the Gozan no Okuribi has been a cherished tradition of our family since the time of our father. Each year, we enthusiastically see off the visiting spirits of our ancestors on their journey back to the other side, but when I was younger it never occurred to me that one day I would be sending my own father to the land of the dead.

The summer that my younger brother Yas.h.i.+rō was born would also be the last summer Father would ever see.

Our barge glittered resplendently as it drifted over the city. Father had taken the form of a pot-bellied Buddha and was boasting about his newborn son. I remember vividly how broad his grin was under the light of the lamp hanging at the prow of the s.h.i.+p.

As Yajirō had said, I couldn't recall Father's last words to me, but then, his death had come so unexpectedly. You could hardly blame it on a lack of filial piety, so there wasn't really any need for Yajirō to be so hard on himself. None of us could have imagined what was going to happen.

There we stood on the grounds of the temple, tanuki and frog, heads bowed in solemn remembrance of our father.

Yajirō broke the silence, sounding terse. "Hold on now, we've got a big one coming on."

"A big what?" I asked, taken aback.

"My rump is itching. Looks like Raijin will be paying a visit."

"That's not good!"

I stood up and scanned the sky. The face of the darkened sky was hidden by clouds. I didn't hear any rumbling, but I trusted the judgment of my brother, who had developed an intuition for water in all its forms.

"Thanks for dropping by," he burbled from the bottom of the well. "Take care of Mother for me...since I am a frog and all."

I was up and running before he had finished his sentence.

On Yasaka Street, a frigid gale had started to blow.