"See?" Inari said to the teakettle. She held up the radish, carved into a delicate lace of petals. "Isn't that pretty?" She placed the radish in the middle of the table and studied it with her head to one side. Even though she had followed the instructions in the magazine so diligently, it was the first time she had managed to finish a whole one without the edges breaking off. She gave the teakettle a look of mock disapproval.
"I hope you're not sulking because we went out without telling Chen Wei. Or perhaps you're just tired. We walked a long way today, didn't we?" She grimaced suddenly, and sat down on the couch to examine her feet. Even though she had put on the thick cotton tabis, the soles of her feet still felt a little raw, but at least they had not burned as badly as they had on her first excursion. And this was now the third time she had ventured from the safe confines of the houseboat. Inari felt encouraged. "Not so bad today," she said hopefully, to the teakettle.
She thought back to the market: a marvelous place, filled with lights. When evening began to draw closer, the lamps that hung from the high beams of the market came on, sending shadows across the green mounds of pak choi and cabbage; gleaming from the glistening sides of carp and mullet. Clutching the bag containing the teakettle, Inari had walked in a trance through the coolness of the fish stalls; sensing the flickering, newly released spirits all around her as they snapped their tails and swam towards a different sea. The meat section had, in turn, been filled with the vast, bewildered shades of cattle: stepping delicately across the blood-wet floor to where the shadowy avatar of Wei Lo, lord of the herds, waited with infinite, enduring patience. Their presence, and their acceptance of their fate, had saddened Inari and she moved on, among the stalls where the vegetables were stacked in rows and the air was redolent of earth and greenness and growing, sunlight and storms. Inari bent over the leafy bales of kale, and tasted rain.
The rest of the market was filled with things: clothes and trinkets and electronic equipment, none of which Inari understood. They were dead, and always had been; she passed them by. But she spent a long time in the remedy section of the market, studying the powders and roots, the acupuncture diagrams and the posters depicting the shiatsu meridians. Bamboo and dandelion; lotus and plantain. . . The spirits of the plants surrounded Inari, murmuring of healing, and she stopped to listen. A basket filled to the brim with pale, dried snakes rustled into life as she passed, hissing sibilant warnings into the air, and Inari looked up to find the stall holder staring at her with manifest suspicion. The teakettle stirred uneasily in its bag. Inari gave the stall holder an apologetic smile, and walked hastily on. Her favorite stalls of all contained spices and money. She lingered over cinnamon and star anise, scenting the incense meals of her childhood: her mother stepping barefoot about the kitchen, trailing odors of cardamom and ginger and fire in her wake. She studied the hell money with a grin, noting how little it cost, and she fingered the paper stoves and chairs and teacups—flimsy shreds suitable only for a dollhouse. Inari sighed, knowing that these days she could afford to replace all the furniture in her mother's home for less than the price of lunch in the local noodle bar, but she did not yet dare. The authorities were watching; the wu'ei constant in their vindictive vigilance, and the last thing Inari wanted was to bring more trouble on her family, whatever they had done to her. Reluctantly, she had left the market and stepped out into the rose-gold light of evening.
Now, back on the houseboat, Inari emerged from her memories to see that something was happening to the teakettle. It had begun to rock back and forth on the stove, as if in agitation. Its shiny iron sides seemed to twitch. Then the metal sides of the kettle sprouted into a thick pelt of striped fur. The handle disconnected itself at one end and flattened into a short tail. The spout of the kettle snaked through the air, as if seeking a shape, and then shortened. Two cold black eyes appeared above the spout. Teakettle had become badger.
"Whatever is it?" Inari asked in alarm.
The badger sat up on powerful hind legs and spoke in a dark, earthy voice. "Danger!" it said.