The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake and Other Tales of Magic and Mischief

The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake

And Other Tales of Magic and Mischief

Eugie Foster

Copyright 2013 by Eugie Foster

Cover Art: White Jackalope III by Ursula Vernon

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 978-1-31011-120-4

This book is a work of fiction. All characters, names, locations, and events portrayed in this book are fictional or used in an imaginary manner to entertain, and any resemblance to any real people, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

To Matthew, who brings magic into my world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Girl Who Drew Cats

The Tax Collector’s Cow

When Shakko Did Not Lie

The Princess and the Golden Fish

Li T’ien and the Demon Nian

A Parade of Taylups

Cuhiya’s Husband

The Dragon Breath’s Seed

Kaawaa, Naagan, and the Queen’s Diamond Necklace

The Adventures of Manny the Mailmobile

A Patch of Jewels in the Sky

Spring Arrives on a Hob’s Tail

Second Daughter

Princess Bufo marinus, Also Known as Amy

Razi and the Sunbird

The Red String

The Tortoise Bride

The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake

About the Author

Copyright and Publication History

The Girl Who Drew Cats

IN A SMALL village in Japan, there was a girl who drew cats. Her drawings were so detailed and realistic, you would swear a pair of dainty ears pricked or burnished whiskers twitched whenever you glanced away. Her name was Ariko, and she lived with her widowed mother and two sisters.

At home, Ariko drew pouncing tabby cats on the paper screens, aloof moon-faced cats on the slated walls, and spotted bobbed-tail cats on the tatami mats. At school, she drew a parade of gamboling cats on the playground fence, and sometimes, instead of a page of sums or an essay, her teachers received drawings of sleek-furred cats as homework. Fortunately, they were lenient, for Ariko was bright and sweet-mannered, and she never talked back. But one week, after she turned in a picture of a heavy-eyed tomcat on Monday, a languid Siamese on Tuesday, a drowsy tortoiseshell on Wednesday, and a yawning black cat on Thursday, her history teacher sent a note home.

Am I paying your tuition fees so you can draw cats? Ariko’s mother scolded. Second sister is the top student in her math class, and eldest sister works in the fields so you can go to school. No more of these distractions. You must promise to apply yourself at school! And she took Ariko’s brushes and ink stone away.

But Ariko still drew cats. She sketched dust cats in the road, charcoal cats on the trees, and soy sauce cats with a chopstick brush. When Mama discovered the capering soy sauce cat on her freshly scrubbed paper screen, she sighed.

Ariko, what prospects will a girl have who draws cats? she said. Do you think any man will want a wife who just paints cats every day? Or the landowner will hire someone who daydreams about cats at work?

Ariko lowered her eyes. She didn’t care to have a husband who disapproved of her cats, and she didn’t want to work for someone like that either. I’m sorry, Mama. Maybe I can become an artist?

When she heard that, Mama scowled and sent Ariko to bed. But she spent the night pondering her daughter’s future. Come daybreak, Mama took Ariko to the local temple and presented her to the abbess, a wizened old woman in somber robes.

All my daughter does is draw cats, she said. There’s no use for art outside the temple, so her place must be here.

The abbess turned kindly eyes to Ariko. My name is Gently Floating Cloud, she said, but you may call me Lady Cloud. I don’t mind cats or drawings of them, and there is a sister here who can instruct you in the ways of ink and brush, but I’m uncertain whether you are suited for temple life. I have some questions I’d like to ask you.

I’m not the top student in my classes, but I’ll answer as best I can, Ariko said.

Lady Cloud clasped her fingers together. First, can you tell me what it is that you keep after you give it to another?

Ariko furrowed her brow like Mama did when she was troubled. With a pang, she remembered how Mama had admonished her to apply herself at school. Your word, she said. You keep your word when you give it.

Lady Cloud nodded. And you always must. Next, what is it that has never been but will always become, that’s never seen but is believed in by all?

Perplexed, Ariko cast about for inspiration. Her eyes lifted to the horizon where the sun was a blaze of white upon dawn’s indigo-violet tapestry. Tomorrow, she exclaimed. Everyone believes in tomorrow!

Indeed we do. Lady Cloud folded her hands in her sleeve. My final question is this: What is something so long as it is unknown but becomes nothing once it is known?

Ariko furrowed her brow and cast all around. But no answer came. How could one know something unknown? As soon as you knew it, it became known. And what did a bunch of riddles have to do with drawing, anyway? Oh! she cried, "A riddle is something when it’s unknown."

Lady Cloud’s face creased in a smile. Your answers reveal a resourceful and agile mind, appropriate for both an artist and a seeker of enlightenment. But I still have one more question. Is it your desire to live here and perhaps pledge yourself to a life of reflection and devotion?

Just then, a smoke-furred cat padded from the temple gate. Its golden eyes glinted like stars, and two tails curled and flicked over its back. Ariko watched, enthralled, her hands aching for a brush and ink to paint it.

I want to draw and paint and be the best artist I can, Ariko said. If the temple regards such things as worthwhile, my place is surely here.

So Ariko hugged her mother goodbye and followed Lady Cloud into the temple. There, Lady Cloud introduced her to Brightly Shining Virtue, a tall woman with birdlike eyes and ink-stained fingers.

I can provide you with tools, Sister Virtue said, handing Ariko a tattered brush and a chipped ink stone, but I can only teach an unbound mind receptive to learning.

I’ll work hard to open my mind, Ariko said.

We shall see, Sister Virtue sniffed. For our first lesson, we must establish the exact center of our composition, for Buddha is the epitome of perfect balance. And she made Ariko draw meticulous circles and precise rectangles crisscrossed by strict lines until Ariko began to see rectangles and circles whenever she closed her eyes. Then she set Ariko to tracing the Buddha’s tokens and insignia—his throne of lotus petals, the celestial clouds at his back, and his splendid robes and halo—until lotus petals, clouds, and shining raiment permeated her vision, eyes open or closed. But when it came time to depict the Buddha himself, although Ariko meant to paint the seated bodhisattva, what she drew instead was a mist-gray cat with two plumy tails.

Sister Virtue gave a shriek when she saw it. She snatched up Ariko and her painting and hauled both before Lady Cloud.

She drew a two-tailed cat in the Buddha’s place, Sister Virtue shrilled.

So I see. Lady Cloud contemplated the still ink-wet cloth. The subject is nicely centered, and the lotus throne is prettily drawn.

It is sacrilege to suggest a cat demon should be revered as the Buddha, Sister Virtue cried.

Doesn’t Buddha teach that all creatures, including cats, contribute to the beauty and prosperity of the world? Lady Cloud replied.

That doesn’t mean it’s right to venerate base animals or demons as divine, Sister Virtue said. I will not teach my craft to a wicked girl who honors a cat demon in place of the Buddha.

And nothing Lady Cloud said could persuade her to reconsider.

Ariko didn’t mind. All those circles and rectangles had been so tedious to draw, unlike graceful, fluid cat shapes. And even when conversations began to dwindle at her approach and sisters excused themselves from her presence, Ariko just drew a clowder of prancing cats on her chamber wall and ornamented the borders of several prayer scrolls with a reverent feline procession. However, when those cat-embellished scrolls went missing, later to be discovered blackened in the temple hearth, Lady Cloud summoned Ariko.

This strife between you and Sister Virtue is disrupting the harmony of the temple, Lady Cloud said gravely.

I’m sorry, Ariko said. I didn’t mean to offend her.

I know you didn’t, but I think it best if you left.

Ariko’s heart sank to her knees. Where will I go?

I’ve sent word to the abbess in the next village, and she has agreed to let you stay there if you do not wish to return to your family, Lady Cloud said. Although their temple has no artist to teach you.

My place isn’t with my family, Ariko said. And it seems it’s not here, either. Maybe I will find it there.

So Lady Cloud gave Ariko a packet of rice balls and a flask of barley tea for her journey and bid her a regretful farewell. Ariko tucked the provisions in her sleeve alongside her brush and ink stone and set out.

Lady Cloud had said the village was a day’s walk distant, but surely what an old woman’s shuffling legs took a full day to travel, Ariko’s young legs could manage before nightfall. She marched through the morning as the sun baked to zenith, pausing only to munch a rice ball and sip some tea. But she began to flag as the shadows stretched long. By the time the sun had boiled to a low, sullen bronze, Ariko was footsore and bone-tired. Nevertheless, she was glad for her brisk pace, for there, silhouetted against the darkening sky, was the winged pagoda and double-crossbeam gate of the temple.

Ariko hastened through the gate’s vermillion pillars, passing from the province of the worldly into that of the spirits as the last band of setting bronze extinguished. Escorted now by the slender moon, she clambered up the temple’s steps and rapped on its wooden door.

No answer.

She knocked again.

Silence.

Could they already be asleep?

Hello, she called. I’m Ariko. Lady Cloud sent me. She nudged the door, and to her surprise, it juddered open.

Inside, a deep hush pervaded the faded stone walls. Thick dust blanketed the floor and glimmering cobwebs dripped from every corner. Something was wrong. Clearly, no one—most definitely not a company of fastidious nuns—had set foot here in a very long time. Ariko had somehow come to the wrong place.

But Ariko knew she’d never find her way in the dark, so this forsaken, grimy place would have to do for the night. In the main shrine, paper screens decked the walls, reflecting and augmenting the wan moonlight. It was brighter here, and she used her sleeve to brush away the choking dust until the air glowed with a clean, silver light.

So many pristine, white panels.

Wouldn’t that one look fine with a frisking tabby in the corner? And that one with a regal queen nursing a litter of kittens?

Ariko’s weariness fell away as she took out her brush and wetted her ink stone with the dregs of the barley tea.

She drew big cats and little cats, stout cats and slim cats. She drew slitted cat eyes bright with mischief and tufted cat ears pricked and alert. She stopped only when exhaustion fogged her sight and dragged the brush from her fingers.

Half-asleep where she stood, Ariko glimpsed a pair of smoky tails and jolted alert. She stumbled after them as they flitted