describe either the proprietress or the eponymous Okami Inn. It was a dilapidated place on the verge of becoming a ruin.
“Okami-hiiobaachan is our great-grandmother. She was born in the Meiji period,” said Inaho. “She has been running this inn for sixty years and still, she does not look a day over 95. Can you believe it?” Mrs. Okami looked none the wiser as Inaho explained this in English and Tabitha couldn’t tell if Inaho was being facetious or just plain loony.
“What’s going on?” Tabitha whispered to Bungo as her misgivings grew. “This place doesn’t look like the guidebook description!”
Although Inaho went ahead and translated before Tabitha could stop her, Mrs. Okami didn't protest. The ancient woman spoke slowly in an anachronistic dialect that Tabitha strained to understand.
“Unfortunately, that guidebook entry is from the Shōwa period before the economic bubble burst. Foreign tourists no longer come to see the monkeys. Without guests, most villagers closed their shops and left town to look for work elsewhere. The ones who remain rarely venture outside anymore.”
Finally, Bungo laid down Tabitha’s luggage. “What do you think? This town used to be an overnight destination for travelers passing through the mountains. We need your help to put our great-grandmother’s inn back on the map.”
Tabitha felt a rush of blood to the head. She touched her temples on both sides as she always did when she was nervous. The inn, with its broken windows and ferns popping up in every nook and cranny, looked more appropriate for archaeologists to dig up than for travelers to stay. Time had taken a toll on the inn, reclaimed by primeval life forms too ingrained to uproot. She imagined herself in the kimonos of the hot spring resort innkeepers she’d seen on TV, running around to serve visitors, bowing, smiling, and talking to them. How they must’ve worked to the bone from so much physical movement, cooking and cleaning all day! Given the intimidating mental image and how this was her starting point, she immediately dashed the thought. No way. This inn was way too far gone to consider.
“What if I say no?” Her voice quivered. “I mean, l-look at this place. It’s got bats! Ferns! It's old! I can't even teach m-middle school students, let alone run an inn!”
“Hiiobaachan, would you mind getting our guest some tea and cookies? Inaho, go with her and make sure she takes her time,” Bungo said, turning away. Inaho bustled out holding her great-grandmother's hand.
Bungo returned his attention to Tabitha. “Look, it is important that the inn stays open. Without this inn and the visitors it brings, this village will disappear altogether.”
“I can’t help you, Bungo. This is out of my depth.”
“You can help me, Tabitha. You can choose to do this. It is not impossible. I know it is hard to help a couple of strangers, but Inaho and I brought you here because we have faith in you. Please, Tabitha, I need you to stay. Inaho needs you to stay. Our great-grandmother and an entire village need you to stay.”
Bungo's words brought back a flood of memories. Had anyone ever said that to her? Certainly not her students or Mrs. Ishida. No one had ever needed her. She looked around the musty wine cellar and felt the cool ceramic under her palm. Even though it might give her the sense of purpose she’d been looking for, restoring the inn would be a herculean task.
“But… the condition of this inn, do you really think I can restore it?”
“Of course!”
“But how…?”
“Just have a little faith,” he urged. “This will all work out.”
This again? Tabitha thought about the old woman who seemed ready to fall over if someone didn’t take her place. She felt bad for her, but…
“But you are worried that you will choose wrong if you stay.”
“Yes, exactly!” Tabitha exclaimed. Wait, how did he know?
“And you think Inaho and I are bad great-grandchildren for not doing this ourselves.”
“You’ve got to stop reading my mind, Bungo!” Tabitha protested because the thought had indeed crossed her mind.
“But think about it. This is exactly what you wished for. A new job, a place to live, and a chance to help someone who needs you.”
“But I’m just one person!” Tabitha sobbed. She ran toward the wrought-iron door where they’d come in. “I can’t do anything right! I’ll screw up your family inn! I’ll-”
“Nothing will ever change if you keep on running away,” he called behind her.
Tabitha stopped. She pictured herself living with Mrs. Ishida or going home to her parents with her head bowed in shame. No, those things were out of the question. Bungo was absolutely right. She’d held a defeatist attitude for too long, never allowing herself to accept new challenges. She believed and accepted her own mediocrity, causing herself to wallow in negativity. But nothing would ever change unless she started believing in herself. Hadn’t Siobhan also told her that she needed a little faith?
The long hallway back to the alley loomed long and menacing before her. Walking down that path now would feel like a regression, a return to the ordinary world she had wanted to escape. She had to be brave if she wanted to change her life. Nothing would ever change if she didn’t. With a heavy heart, she shut the door and turned around. “Okay, Bungo,” she relented. “I’ll give it a try.”
The creaky cellar door swung open, and Inaho barreled back into the earthen room, carrying a furoshiki, a cloth bundle in her hands. “Onii-chan, did I hear that right? Did she actually say she would do it?” She’d been eavesdropping, and in her haste to reappear, she had kicked over one of the ceramic jars. It cracked, leaking the smell of sauerkraut into the room. “Uwa! Shoot!”
Bungo reached over to pull his younger sister by the ear. “Ack!” How similar the two of them now looked, standing side by side without an inch of difference in their heights.
“Thank you, Tabitha. Our great-grandmother will be pleased.” He nudged his sister. “Will you do the honors, Inaho?”
“Aw, man, is it time, already?”
“We have to get back to our shrines,” said Bungo. “Our work never ends.”
“Oh alright. I will give her my ability,” Inaho mewed. She turned to Tabitha. “Do you still have my omamori?”
“Yes,” Tabitha said slowly, wondering if she’d packed it. That had been only yesterday. She reached into both her pockets and it appeared like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat.
“Usually, people get all superstitious and never open their omamori, but that is just silly if you ask me. Go ahead and open it.”
Tabitha wanted to protest that it was Inaho who had warned her not to open it in the first place, but she did as she was told. The pouch opened, and inside was a round black pill. She pinched the pill in her thumb and forefinger and examined it in the light. It was no larger than a breath mint, but it smelled pungently of tree bark and mothballs.
“That there is my hoshi-no-tama, a star piece filled with mystical powers. If you take it, you will gain the ability to forget the past. Furthermore, I will take it as permission to erase all the bad memories holding you back so you can move on.”
Inaho undid the knot on the furoshiki and laid the contents on top of a huge ceramic pot labeled sake. It was her shrine maiden vestments—the white haori and red hakama. Immediately she began stripping off her clothes and changing into them as though Tabitha weren’t there.
“Are you preparing for a ritual later?” Tabitha asked, averting her eyes.
“Yeah, preparations at the shrine for Oharae, the grand purification ritual that happens on the last day of every year.”
“I see…” Tabitha trailed off. She had to get one more thing off her chest before she took the hoshi-no-tama. “You said you were an altar girl and a Buddhist monk in the past, but no matter how you slice it, you don’t look older than sixteen. How could you have had the time to do those things?”
Inaho scratched her head, as if trying to recover the memory. Finally, she shook her head. “Yeah, I know I did them, but beats me how I ever had the temperamen
t for Zen meditation. I have just a faint memory that I did those things in a previous life. But poor hiiobaachan! She is the reason I am still here, to make sure someone continues our family inn’s legacy. Until our samsara ends, oniichan and I will keep roaming Japan granting wishes. It is the fate we chose—to come back to earth as kitsune.”
Once dressed in her vestal robes, Inaho stooped down to pick up the pieces of the broken jar. A blue light flashed in her hands, and a moment later, she had replaced it among the other jars, good as new.
“You see, my special ability is to reset things, including memories to their original state. Either choose your fate or let fate happen to you. The choice is in your hand.”
Tabitha admitted she was tired of letting her emotions control her. So many memories still tormented her. She remembered the rough night at the pub, the humiliation at Iwai Girls’ School, and recently, the shame she felt in being pitied by Mrs. Ishida. Then she wondered what it’d be like not to have those memories anymore. Sure, those memories had troubled her, but was forgetting them the only way to move on? The option to forget laid before her. What would Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung say? She felt like a wounded tiger each time those painful memories rankled, making her recall all her failures and embarrassing moments since she got to Japan.
She realized she wanted that blank slate.
Her hands quavered as she finally brought the dubious pill to her mouth