The Apothecary Diaries - Volume 4 - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Festival

Maomao was given a traditional-looking outfit to wear: a pure-white jacket and a red skirt. She covered her face with her fox mask and carried a lantern decorated with pampas grass and rice stalks. Thus attired, she was told, they were going to walk to the shrine at the edge of town.

The men wore blue clothes, while the children had bundles of rice and pampas grass draped behind them like tails. These people appeared to worship Kosen, a fox deity. The fox was a spirit of abundance, venerated in many places. It was only natural that there should be a major festival in autumn, when so much came from the land.

Maomao heard the chiming of a bell. Beside her was someone who had outlined the eyes of their mask in a way that looked faintly ridiculous, despite its being a fox. The normal color to paint around the eyes of a mask like this was red, yet this person had used green, and the corners of the eyes seemed to droop down somehow.

“Looks more like a tanuki,” Maomao commented to the mask’s owner, Shisui. Maybe she was better at drawing bugs than beasts. The thought brought an unexpected smile to Maomao’s face. Guess this is hardly the time, she said to herself. But she also knew that denying herself a pleasant thought wouldn’t help her under the circumstances.

“You remind me of a cat, Maomao,” Shisui said. There was a bell on her hair stick that jingled every time she laughed. It sounded oddly like the bugs she’d once collected. Just on the end of the hair stick, Maomao could see a small bug carved from a jewel. The girl really did like insects.

“Here, Maomao, make sure it’s nice and tight,” she said, and then snugged down the string of Maomao’s mask. The string went right over where Maomao had tied her hair, though, and Shisui couldn’t quite get it to stay. “Hrm. Hang on, I’ll try again. Sit down.” She helped Maomao seat herself on the railing of the inn. Then she brushed Maomao’s hair aside and retied it.

“Hmm, it needs something else. It looks so lonely with just a hair tie.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Oh, I know! I’ll lend you a hair stick. I have one shaped like a spider’s web. It’s really cute!”

Maomao wished there were some way to politely refuse. She dug into the folds of her robes and managed to come up with the hair stick Jinshi had given her. It looked plain, but the quality was fine. Maomao, who was perfectly happy to get by with a simple hair tie, tended to leave it in her robe.

“Use this, if you would.”

“Aww...” Maomao didn’t have to turn around to picture the pout on Shisui’s face. She pressed the hair stick into the other girl’s palm. “Gee, this is nice, Maomao,” Shisui commented.

“Someone gave it to me,” she replied. Given it to her without much ceremony, true enough, still.

“What if I asked you to give it to me? Would you do it?”

After a moment’s pause, Maomao said carefully, “I’m afraid not.” She’d considered simply handing it off to someone once before, but hadn’t. If she had then—or did now—she could barely imagine what the eunuch-impersonator would say. Whatever it was, she knew he would be angry.

You’d think I’d just need to keep my mouth shut.

But Jinshi was oddly skilled at reading Maomao’s expressions. Partly because they’d now known each other for a fair amount of time, true, but even by that standard he was quite sensitive to slight changes in her face. Even though Maomao, for one, felt she wasn’t very deft at controlling her facial muscles, and thought all of her looks manifested as little more than scowls.

Then again, maybe she could give Shisui the hair stick; if she never made it back to the capital alive, she wouldn’t have to worry about the consequences.

“There, all done.” Shisui patted Maomao’s shoulder and she stood up. Her hair was now tucked behind her right ear, making the mask much easier to put on. When she looked out at the village through the small eyeholes, the whole world seemed different. Maybe it was because it was night, or perhaps it was the wavering flames of the torches, but the people walking around in their masks really did look like foxes.

Except for the one standing next to her, who still looked like a green-eyed tanuki.

Shisui, however, wasn’t the only one who had painted her mask in green; once in a while they crossed paths with a green-eyed fox. Most of them were men; their blue trousers gave them away. Maomao started to wonder if the green eyes had some sort of significance.

“It’s otherworldly, isn’t it?” Shisui said.

“Uh-huh.” That much was certainly true.

“You’re not freaked out?”

“The point of which would be?”

She agreed, though, that it was unearthly. Instead of her normal shoes, she was wearing wooden clogs that clacked with each step she took; and then there was the bell ringing, and an owl that hooted from the forest. All the noises came together into something uncanny, until she was almost convinced she could hear foxes yowling in the night.

With the foxes’ voices in the background, they walked among the lantern plants and the rice stalks and the firelight. They emerged from the forest and made their way along a single narrow path winding among the rice paddies. Their progress was accompanied by an occasional unpleasant hissing, the sound of insects incinerating themselves as they flew into the torches placed at intervals along the path. There seemed to be quite a few of them.

“Lots of grasshoppers this year,” Shisui said. That was exactly why the festival had to be so lavish. That was the wish it carried. “Around here, we venerate a fox deity who brings abundance. You know why?”

“No, why?”

Riiing, riiing. Shisui’s bell chimed as she walked and talked. “There was once a tribe of native peoples who lived in this area.”

Then, though, a people from a different country came from the west. The locals didn’t simply accept them immediately, of course. No one would be so naive. Most villages chased them out, wanted them to go away. But a few villages, a very small number, took those newcomers in.

“These people from the west, they knew things—and some people here saw the value of that knowledge.”

The newcomers knew how to make fields more productive, how to exterminate harmful insects. Valuable knowledge indeed. Many, however, still didn’t smile on them. Around the time the newcomers had settled down and begun to have children with the locals, their neighbors attacked, seeking to steal their fields.

After several such attacks, the people built a hidden village, so that their children and grandchildren would be safe. They found a place where hot springs bubbled forth from the earth, and there they built. Presumably, what they constructed was the village where Maomao now was. And the foxes? They represented the people from that foreign land, she thought. Referring to those of other tribes as if they were animals was hardly uncommon.

In other words, the deity—or perhaps deities—of this village was the very ancestor of these people, and the villagers were themselves fox-gods.

“They say the foxes here are white foxes. So that mask was pure white when you picked it up, right? But by settling here, they became dyed with color.”

White foxes. Did that symbolize pale skin? And could the dyeing be taken to refer to intermarriage?

I feel like I’ve heard something like that before, Maomao thought, and at almost the same moment Shisui provided the answer.

“The men of this village, a lot of them can’t tell colors apart,” she said.

“Can’t tell colors apart?”

“Yeah. It’s a lot less common among the women, though.”

Well, that explains it. That was why there were so many masks with green eyes. And why so many of them were worn by men. And even why one of them belonged to Shisui.

Shisui took the pod from the lantern plant attached to her lantern and broke the orange skin, taking out the berries within. She wiped them briskly against her sleeve and popped them into her mouth.

“They don’t taste very good,” Maomao informed her.

“I know.”

“They’re toxic.”

“I know.”

Prostitutes used lantern plant berries as an ingredient in their abortifacients. The berries wouldn’t kill you, but they weren’t exactly pleasant to eat.

Among those who had fled here from the west, some must have gone to the area of the current capital and become the ancestors of today’s Emperor, while those who put down roots in the north had founded this village.

Their wooden clogs tapped along the ground. The light of the lanterns was lovely, and at the same time eerie, making Maomao feel as if, were they to continue to walk down this path, it might lead them to some other world.

The closer they got to the shrine, though, the more ordinary things felt. Street stalls began to appear, and the aroma of meat on skewers perfumed the air. There was the smell of some sweet candy, as well. The shopkeepers wore fox masks like everyone else, but presumably they didn’t accept leaves as currency, as foxes were said to do.

Shisui abruptly stopped, raised her mask, worked her jaws a few times, and then spat the skins of the lantern-plant berries into the grass.

“Disgusting,” Maomao remarked.

“Hah, sorry!” Shisui trotted toward one of the street stalls. “How about something to eat?”

“You’re buying.” Maomao followed her to a stall selling skewers of meat; she started to drool when she saw the chicken dripping with grease. The offerings, however, also included frog and locust. Maomao regarded them silently.

“The locusts are plump and delicious this time of year,” Shisui explained, and without a trace of hesitation she munched one of the bugs right off the skewer.

“I think I’ll stick to chicken.” Sure, Maomao could eat locusts. But why not have chicken if there was a choice?

“Not frog?” Shisui asked.

“I don’t want to eat any frogs for a while...”

“What’s with the glassy look in your eyes, Maomao?” Apparently it was obvious even behind her mask. In any event, Shisui said, “Got it,” and took a chicken skewer from the man running the shop, then handed it to Maomao. Maomao pulled up her mask and dug in. It could have used some salt, but maybe that was too luxurious to hope for. Instead, the meat had been rubbed with herbs.

“Hm?”

“What is it?” Maomao asked. Shisui was frowning. Then she turned toward the grass and spat something out again. “I told you, that’s gross,” Maomao said, thinking that Shisui had some surprisingly rough edges. She appeared to have spat out the locust she’d just bought.

“That sucks. That place mixes grasshoppers in with their locusts. What a rip-off.”

“Uh... They all look the same to me.”

“Well, they’re not. It’s hard to tell with the wings and legs pulled off, but they taste nothing alike.” Shisui was munching on another insect to get the flavor out of her mouth. This one must have tasted better, for she was chewing thoughtfully.

Maomao sometimes ate snakes and frogs, but rarely bugs. In farming villages, eating insects often doubled as a way of keeping harmful pests away from the crops, but the pleasure district was more urban. Locusts were not a very popular dish, considering how many more flavorful and delicious things there were to eat. Sometimes, though, in years when the swarms were especially bad, farmers struggling to make a living would show up selling locusts in town.

The shrine sat on high ground, with a stone staircase leading up to it. That allowed it to look down on everything around it, including the land past the forest. The trees gave way to open plains, beyond which stood a mountain range.

Another town? Maomao thought. The range glittered with light—and not starlight.

“Maomao, over there,” Shisui said, bringing her back with a tug on her hand. There was a line, and when people reached the front of it, they left their masks at the shrine. A human figure could be seen within the shrine’s vermillion interior: a child, wearing a white mask and white clothing and sitting utterly still. Their face was hidden, but the mask looked familiar. It belonged to that brat, Kyou-u. He looked like trouble, yet his brushwork was delicate and his mask beautiful.

“Each year, children are chosen to sit there in lieu of the god,” Shisui explained.

“I’m impressed he can manage.”

“Hee hee. Everyone wants to do it. It is tiring, though—so they switch with someone else in shifts, before their legs go numb. I wonder if it’s a pleasant memory for them.” For some reason, Shisui’s eyes had a distant look. Then she said, “Looks like he’s almost done. Let’s go wait for him.” She led them around the back of the shrine.

There they found three more children, chatting, presumably waiting their turns.

“What’s going on?” Shisui asked, inserting herself in the circle of kids.

“Look at this,” one of the youngsters said, displaying his rice-stalk tail. On close inspection, one could see that the fruit was in fact still unripe. “I got a bad one.”

“That’s because you didn’t look carefully when you chose,” Shisui said, exasperated. “Some people are stingy, you know.”

That is to say, feeling that it was a waste to offer a good, full ear of rice for the festival, they would give one that was poorly developed instead. Maomao looked at the stalk of rice. It had leaves, sure enough, but the ear was hollow—empty. It looked immature; not like it had never fruited, but rather as if it simply hadn’t had time.

“I got it from the village chief,” the kid said.

“Well, there’s your problem,” one of the other children responded with a shake of the head. “A part of the chief’s crop always comes in late. And because he’s such a tightwad, those are the only parts he ever donates for the festival.”

“What? Bah. The fox’ll curse him for that.”

“All the kids around here know about it,” one of them told him. “You don’t because you just came to the village last year. Live and learn!”

The boy’s shoulders slumped. Maomao looked at the ear of rice she was holding. The fruit was full and ripe. She detached it from her lantern and gave it to the boy.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. She wasn’t exactly deeply religious; it didn’t matter to her how nice an ear of rice she had.

The boy, meanwhile, bowed to her, his eyes sparkling.

“How’d I do, Sis?” Kyou-u asked the moment he saw Shisui after coming out of the shrine. Another child, holding a fresh ear of rice and glowing, took his place.

“Very nice, very nice.”

“Hee hee!”

Maomao didn’t know what was so nice about it—he’d just sat in one place in the shrine—but she kept her peace.

“I wish my mom could’ve seen me,” Kyou-u said, somewhat sadly.

Shisui patted him on the head. “I know. Go make your offering, and then let’s go see the fire, okay?” She pointed to a watchtower beyond the shrine, down the opposite direction of the stairway they’d come up. But it was in a very strange place.

“Is that...a spring?” Maomao asked.

“Maybe more of a pond,” Shisui said.

The watchtower stood upon a body of water; it seemed to be mounted on a raft.

Kyou-u quickly came back from offering his mask and they headed down the second set of stairs. Plenty of other people who had offered their masks were already there. Straw was packed around the base of the watchtower, and when she looked hard, Maomao could see what seemed to be white masks by the light of the lanterns.

“After the masks have served as an offering for a whole year, we burn them along with the watchtower. It’s said that once the masks have been consumed by the flames, the wishes written on them are carried up to heaven, and whatever you wished for will come true,” Shisui said.

“I didn’t write anything,” Maomao said.

“Do you even believe in a superstition like that, Maomao?”

It was a good question, Maomao thought as she gazed at the watchtower. Instead of wishing fervently, it would be faster to simply fix your eyes on your goal and get moving.

“It’s not a superstition!” Kyou-u protested. “The wishes do come true. I made real sure to paint my mask nice and write my wish real neat, just like last year. It has to come true.” He was getting excited. Had he wished for something so important to him?

“What’d you wish for?” Maomao asked.

“You can’t tell, dummy!”

“Okay. Fine.” She’d just asked to be polite; she didn’t actually care. Kyou-u, though, seemed bothered that she’d dropped the subject so readily. He kept glancing furtively at her.

“Look, here comes the flame,” Shisui said, pointing at a young child holding a torch. A “tail” of rice bobbed behind him; he appeared to be the child with whom Maomao had traded rice stalks.

“You didn’t want that role, Kyou-u?” Shisui asked.

“Hmph. I decided to let someone else handle it. I’m not a kid.” Despite his protestations, there was a hint of envy in his eyes.

An adult wearing a mask accepted the torch from the child, put the flame to an arrow, and passed the arrow to another adult standing nearby with a bow. The second person drew back the bowstring audibly, then let the burning arrow fly in a lazy arc until it dropped down precipitously—directly at the base of the watchtower. A peerless shot.

The watchtower must have been soaked in oil, because it caught with a whoosh and the flames spread quickly. They could hear the wood crackling.

“It’s so weird,” Shisui said. “How the watchtower burns, but the raft right under it doesn’t.”

That was probably because the raft was in contact with the water, keeping it cool enough to prevent it from burning. In any event, the watchtower turned into a pillar of flame, taking with it the fox masks around it. The smoke, then, must carry the wishes to the sky.

“Oh...” Kyou-u mumbled. The tower was collapsing, and some of the masks dropped into the water; he looked at them intently, trying to see whether his own mask was among them. But there was no way to tell from this distance. Not even half the masks were completely consumed by the fire and taken up to the heavens.

“The wishes that don’t come true sink down to the bottom and nourish future blessings,” Shisui said, almost to herself. “Insects don’t survive the winter; all they leave behind are their children.” She was focused on the distant spectacle of the conflagration of the watchtower.

Maomao didn’t understand the meaning of her words. Not then.