and swallowed.
“Got it!” Immediately, Inaho clapped and rubbed her palms together for friction. Tabitha saw them glow blue again, but inside her palms appeared an iridescent blue spark. Inaho blew gently into her cupped hands, and the spark raged into a blue flame. It grew larger and brighter as Inaho swathed the flames in circles around herself, each swipe depleting the room of more oxygen. Blue fire ignited in Inaho’s eyes and white bushy tails popped up behind her. One, two, three… three tails total. The tails kept swishing, batting the flames into a frenzy until they became a rotating Catherine wheel. The tails transfigured into ethereal hands molding the flames. At once, she was dictating her own center of gravity, her whole body floating off several feet off the ground.
“Yoisho!” Inaho heaved. She lifted the growing blue flames in her hands over her head. The room grew hotter. Winter seemed to have melted away, banished by Inaho’s fireball.
“What on earth is that?!” Tabitha cried as the flames grew in size and intensity.
“My sister’s ultimate technique, the kitsunebi-ōdama,” said Bungo. “The larger the ball of fire grows, the greater the blast radius when it explodes.”
Tabitha’s mouth went dry. Speechless. Beads of sweat evaporated as soon as they appeared. Inaho’s three tails pushed her off the ground and sent her flying upward. The fireball in her hands upended the ceiling, bursting through the roof with a thunderous crash. Both her fiery blue hands were lifting the ball higher and higher in rapid ascent. She was hundreds of meters off the ground before she stopped; a singular curiosity suspended in midair holding a miniature blue sun. She inverted her body orientation like a ballerina in zero gravity, and the blue sun now pointed toward the earth.
Back on earth, Tabitha breathed, “What’s she going to do?”
“She is going to drive the ball of light into the ground at Mach speed. It should be a sight to behold if your eyes stay open long enough for your brain to process it,” Bungo answered.
“At this rate, the whole town will be caught up in the blast. Stop her!” Tabitha entreated. “Or we’ll all die!”
“Have a little faith, Tabitha,” Bungo laughed. “My sister may be crazy, but she knows what she is doing.”
“If she dives, she’ll send us all to kingdom come!”
Blue solar flares arced on the surface of the kitsunebi-ōdama, each crackling like the fourth of July. It suspended in midair as Inaho flew around it with her three tails like giant hands sculpting it into a long oblong shape. Even the morning sky had changed from blue to violet. Dark storm clouds gathered all around Inaho as she molded her fireball, dehydrating the atmosphere. The low rumbling of the clouds sounded like the sky was breaking. Rain sounded imminent, and the miniature blue sun was now the size of a…
“A blue whale falling out of the sky?” finished Bungo.
“Falling Whale!” Inaho’s three tails wrapped around the base of the gigantic whale. “Orya!” She hurled it at supersonic speed. The whale torpedoed through the purple ether, making a beeline straight back into the cellar where Tabitha and Bungo were standing. And for that moment, Inaho’s creation was an impending meteor.
“No! Stop!” Tabitha screamed, trying to shield herself with her arms. But it was too late.
Inaho’s molten blue whale of flame slammed into the ground where it burst into infinitesimal beams, infinitely refracting and enveloping everything its crystalline blue light.
A telepathic communication transmitted into Tabitha’s brain at that instant. She heard the words of an ethereal voice echoing in her ears, more austere than anything Inaho had ever said.
When bad memories moil and fray
Your expression will betray
How your blue sky has turned to gray
The camera does not lie
I can see the times you cried
In the hollows of your panda eyes
Inaho will extirpate
Cruel fate, conflagrate!
Let all the tears evaporate!
So fade, fade to black.
The flashbacks,
they will not come back!
The world went into a dizzying spiral. Tabitha felt herself lose the strength in her legs and someone catching her by the armpits. Guided by invisible hands, she lay down a soft piece of earth. She heard Bungo’s lilting voice echo as though the sound waves were traveling across a great distance to reach her.
“Our hiiobaachan will take care of you for the next 24 hours. You will gradually lose the memory of every bad thing that happened in your life, and when you wake up, you will not remember us either. But worry not, we will send all the help you need to restore this town in the coming months.”
“Yeah, thanks for helping us carry on the inn,” Inaho’s voice rang. “This inn means everything to hiiobaachan.”
“No!” she heard herself saying. “Don’t go yet! I still don’t know what I’m doing.”
Tabitha opened her eyes and saw Bungo standing in front of her, holding out a small porcelain plate. She scrambled to her feet from the earthen floor. Then she turned her head from side to side, not believing the spectacle. The musty cellar now looked warm and inviting with its Japanese cedar panels. Cracked windows and broken beams had been restored to their original splendor as if time in that confined space had reversed. Light from the winter sun outside bathed the cellar in gold. Everything looked good as new. Better than new. The giant ceramic pots glistened like someone had polished them. She could sense an artisan’s mastery in every detail of the room. Then she felt something falling from the ceiling. She held out her hand and realized it was salt. Bungo was trying to catching the crystals in a plate.
“B-but how is this possible?”
“The effect of Inaho’s Falling Whale resets everything caught in its light,” said Bungo. “Right now, you are seeing everything as it really is through your mind’s eye.”
Indeed, the vintage room felt totally restored. She liked the room now, and she hoped the rest of the inn would be just as appealing. It maintained a Shōwa period charm, but with some luck and hard work, she finally felt assured of the Okami Inn’s future. She glanced back at Bungo. He had fashioned the crystals into a conical pile.
“Here, this is a morijio, a pile of salt to purify your new inn. I hope your stay in Japan will be meaningful and fulfilling.”
“My inn?” Tabitha felt taken aback. When had it become hers. She received the pile of salt, now wondering whether all this were a dream.
“Your inn,” Bungo repeated, “And no, this is not a dream.”
“What about your great-grandmother?”
“She will be glad someone carries on our family legacy. At her age, it is a bit of a relief that she can finally retire.”
“And where’s Inaho?”
“Here I am!” Inaho called as though she’d been waiting for her to ask.
The cellar door swung open again, and Inaho sauntered up to her, stopping at her brother’s side. “I went through all the other rooms and sprinkled salt everywhere. Everything is good to go.” She smiled brightly at Tabitha. “I know you will be a smashing success and make our hiobaachan proud.”
The siblings bowed low, Bungo pushing the back of Inaho’s head until she reached the proper angle to show respect.
“But if I don’t remember you, how will I ever find you again? I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for me.”
“If you leave some inarizushi for us at the shrine, that would be more than enough,” said Bungo.
“Senbei crackers for me, please!” Inaho chirped.
“We have to go now, but we are so happy for you.”
“Come visit the Inari Shrine in Tokyo sometime. I will be waiting!”
They turned and disappeared through the black wrought-iron door. Inaho’s three tails were still swishing to and fro as the door shut behind the siblings. Tabitha closed her eyes, and everything faded. She couldn’t think anymore.
Epilogue:
In the following years, the Okami Inn
changed Tabitha’s physique. She’d lost weight, becoming muscular through doing the inn’s management and hospitality legwork. Her Japanese was now fluent, and she regularly conversed with regular patrons of the inn and foreign tourists in both Japanese and English.
The destination had become popular, and the defunct train line had been restored. Foreign tourists passed through the town and revitalized its economy. Mrs. Okami had willed the inn to Tabitha before passing away.
Her college roommate, Siobhan, came to visit one spring after the snow had melted, a time when the herds of macaques retreated to the snowy mountains.
Their reunion was a strange one. Siobhan was now forty, a successful actress, and separated from her husband. She had arrived in Nagano to shoot a movie and had stopped by the Okami Inn to see her old friend. She lay languorously in a lounge chair after Tabitha served her tea and cookies. Her sleeveless A-line dress swept over the wicker chair and her strawberry blonde hair was arranged in luscious waves. Tabitha thought her friend now had the air of an empress.
“I’m impressed, Tabby. You’ve really turned your life around. Proprietress and beautiful hostess to boot. How’d you land this gig?” Siobhan acted like nothing had changed, still speaking like she did back in college.
Tabitha had the distant memory of riding a public bus from the mountain shrine to the Okami Inn. But she couldn't remember the impetus that had brought her to this place.
“Honestly, I’m not so sure. I remember getting fired from the company that sponsored my visa and making a wish at a Shinto shrine one