Chapter 3 — The Battle of the Daimonji Pleasure Barges (Part 1)

To imitate the beauties of nature is sublime, but there is nothing so fascinating as imitating humans. Walking alongside them through their daily lives and undergoing their yearly rituals is strangely delightful. This irresistible idiosyncrasy was almost assuredly passed down generation by generation from the distant reign of Emperor Kammu, and my departed father used to call it “fool’s blood”.

“That’s your fool’s blood talking,” he used to laugh whenever one of us brothers stirred up mischief and caused a ruckus.

Humans make merry during the Gozan no Okuribi, that poetic embodiment of summer. That we tanuki mirror their revelry on that night is no doubt the doing of our fool’s blood.

I am particularly fond of the Gozan no Okuribi, because of my memories of Father that are entwined with it. Father had gaudily decorated our pleasure barge, the Manpuku Maru, and was having a grand old time, gazing down at the fires on the mountains below as the barge sailed through the stars. I can still vividly recall him reclining at the prow of the ship, grinning that happy grin and boasting about the present hale and hearty state of the clan to the spirits of our ancestors.

Even after his abrupt departure to the other side, Mother and we still went out on the barge every year on the night of the Okuribi. Our honored ancestors were the furthest things from our minds. Occasionally we would reminisce about Father, but for the most part we simply enjoyed ourselves high up in the summer sky.

We can’t help it. We’re tanuki.

It’s just the doing of our fool’s blood.

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It was August, and the Okuribi was drawing near.

The day was broiling in the beastly early afternoon heat as I took Yashirō along with me through the Tadasu Forest, crossing the Aoi Bridge and leaving Shimogamo Shrine, traipsing along towards the Demachi shopping arcade.

At the arcade I bought a bento box and Demachi Futaba mochi to present to my mentor, Master Akadama. Master Akadama was a tengu who bore the illustrious moniker Yakushibō of Nyoigadake, and had conferred his wisdom on many a tanuki, but now he lived a secluded life in a cheap apartment behind the shopping arcade, spitting contempt on the world at large.

The other day, I had paid a visit to the Master in the form of a young maiden, intending to lift his spirits, but had instead been met with a barrage of humiliation. I had been the very model of a good disciple, yet for my commendable thoughtfulness I had received only insults, leaving me seething. This time the boiling heat was driving my mind ever more towards trickery, so I had taken the form of a scruffy college student.

My little brother, Yashirō, walked around in his form as a little boy, clutching a large bottle of Akadama port wine to his chest. This was the only transformation he knew how to do, and if something happened to startle him even in the slightest, his tail would come shooting out, earning the poor kid the nickname “Lil’ Bushytail”.

That summer, he had secretly confided to me, “Guess what, Yasaburō? I can charge phones!” He proudly put his little fingertip to his phone and started charging it. He may as well have used that ability to power an electric rice cooker, for all the use it was; with all the wires stretching around Kyōto there wasn’t much use in being able to charge a phone. It might be useful if you had lost your way, but that was all. Still, once the Faux Denki Bran distillery had entered its summer recess, Yashirō spent every day under the shady boughs of the Tadasu Forest, playing around and charging his phone.

“Who exactly are you going to be calling, anyways?” I inquired.

“Mother, of course!”

“But aren’t you two usually together anyhow?”

“That’s not always true. Like when I’m at the distillery!”

So we chatted as we strolled along.

At the midpoint of the shopping arcade is an alley running to the north, and a little way into this alley there is an old apartment. This apartment, most unsuited to be the dwelling of beings that soar the skies as they please, is the residence of Master Akadama.

Our visit was not merely to offer food and alcohol to a tengu who would otherwise subsist on a frightful gruel of his own making. We had another piece of business in mind.

That business was the matter of the Manpuku Maru.

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The Okuribi was drawing near, yet we, the Shimogamo clan, had no flying pleasure barge to speak of.

The reason for this was that our own Manpuku Maru had been lost during the previous year’s Okuribi, in a pointless battle with the Ebisugawa clan.

“The fire was sparked by celebratory fireworks. It was merely an unfortunate accident,” claimed the Ebisugawas. But to call it an accident seems quite odd, for I had seen with my own eyes those two Ebisugawa idiots, Kinkaku and Ginkaku, bafflingly chanting, “Strange bedfellows! Strange bedfellows!” while they shot off fireworks in our direction. If anything was an “unfortunate accident”, it was the birth of those two miserable tanuki into this world, emphasis on “unfortunate”.

I had some ideas about where to get our hands on another barge, but my older brother Yaichirō instead relied on his political skills to sort everything out, for he had a deep distrust of his brothers’ ability to get anything done. He had never had any faith in me from the start, and all my suggestions fell on deaf ears. Being snubbed like this infuriated me, and I went to Rokudō Chinnōji to hurl obscenities at Yaichirō, where they would sink into the well.

Mother very much looked forward to watching the Okuribi fires from the barge, and while the order of the night was always merrymaking, it was also an important occasion to reminisce about Father. Therefore Yaichirō spared no efforts to obtain the Manpuku Maru Mk. 2, and at last he was able to borrow a barge from an acquaintance in Nara.

However, on its way over to Kyōto in the dead of night, the barge suddenly fell out of the sky, and without being given a chance to show its quality the Manpuku Maru Mk. 2 came crashing down to earth on a sandbar in the middle of the Kizu River. With scant time left before the Okuribi, Yaichirō’s schemes were sunk.

Prodded on by Mother, Yaichirō bowed his head to me.

“You see where things stand. Is there nothing you can do?”

This all would have been so easy if he had just asked for his capable little brother’s help in the first place. Keeping my back turned to him, I cooled my feet in the stream that runs through the Tadasu Forest and gulped down a porcelain bowl of ramune.

“Yaichirō was at fault here. You’re the only one we can depend on now,” Mother told me.

“I’ll do something, if he gets down on his hands and knees,” I said. Yaichirō’s fur bristled with fury, but he began to lower himself to the ground.

But before he could do so, my mother flew into a rage. “That’s enough!” she shrieked, and shoved me into the brook. “What kind of person would force his brother to grovel in front of him!”

I hauled myself out of the water, sopping wet and shivering.

Having no choice but to wipe up my brother’s hairy mess for him, I set my plan in motion and went to borrow Yakushibō’s Inner Parlor from Master Akadama.

Yakushibō’s Inner Parlor is a sort of conveyance used by tengu, formed in the shape of a traditional tea room. It is fitted with open verandas on all four sides, making journeys through the sky quite pleasant. Repulsed by the idea of relying on a vehicle to bear him aloft, Master Akadama hardly ever used it all, yet he refused to sell it to one of his acquaintances who happened to be an antiques dealer. I was convinced that it was still sitting somewhere gathering dust.

What possible reason could there be for a tengu whom age had robbed of the power of flight to refuse such a convenient way to take to the skies? I’m sure he had his feeble excuses, like not wanting to advertise the fact that he was weakened and facing an identity crisis as a tengu. But there was more to it than that.

Master Akadama’s parlor burned Akadama port wine as fuel in order to take flight. And faced with the prospect of feeding wine to a flying conveyance, he would much rather pour it wine down his gullet instead and use it as fuel to take flights of fancy through the wild skies of his imagination.

I was tempted to ask him if any tengu could really be satisfied with that.

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I stepped into Master Akadama’s apartment to find it as warm as a sauna. Garbage was piled up everywhere, and dust danced in the light streaming through the window. Just the sight of it made my nose itch. Yashirō sneezed, sending his tail shooting out.

“Oh, it’s you two,” Master Akadama said, sounding bored, though he was already entertaining another guest. Wearing only his yellowed underwear, he sat cross-legged in the middle of the narrow room on the tatami mats, facing another elderly tengu.

This tengu’s name was Konkobu of Iwayasan. He turned to face us and said, “Yasaburō, of the Shimogamos. What a splendid young man you have grown into,” his voice unusually gentle for a tengu. White light glinted off his black-rimmed spectacles, and a bolo tie hung around his neck over his sweat-dampened dress shirt.

“Don’t be a fool. A tanuki, being splendid,” Master Akadama snorted, fanning himself with anuchiwa. “You coddle these tanuki far too much. That’s why these furballs all give themselves airs.”

Konkobu had handed over leadership of the Iwayasan tengu to his successor, and now he ran a secondhand camera store in Ōsaka for fun. Master Akadama often mocked him for his love of cameras, deeming it a hobby unworthy of a tengu.

Mentioning that he had only just arrived, Konkobu swiftly unwrapped a parcel on the tatami. “Yakushibō here doesn’t want the refreshments I brought, so why don’t you lads have them instead?”

“Taking the train to get here from Ōsaka…no tengu would suffer himself to be seen flying with you,” Master Akadama muttered petulantly, prompting a wry smile from Konkobu.

“Just you try flying from Ōsaka to Kyōto in the midst of summer. Why, you’d fry your brains! The Keihan trains are nice and cool.”

“Utterly shameful!”

“I must say that this was quite a surprise. Here I come all the way to Demachi to see you, and I fly up to Nyoigatake only to find it crawling with the Kurama tengu! Gave me a shock, it did, to hear that you’d moved down here to the Demachi shopping arcade.”

“Maintaining the place was too much of a nuisance, so I’ve let them handle it.”

“Aye, but I don’t believe that’s something Yakushibō of Nyoigatake should be doing,” said Konkobu, looking sternly at Master Akadama as if he was lecturing a spoiled child. “I don’t like those Kurama tengu. Pale as beansprouts, that uncanny bunch.”

It had been a year since Master Akadama was defeated in the tengu capture-the-flag match and been booted from Nyoigatake, but he would never admit that he had lost. “I am merely allowing them to look after my mountain,” he stubbornly insisted. His obstinacy was pitiful to witness.

“If you want to drive them out, I could get my successor to help,” Konkobu kindly suggested. “The tengu of Mount Atago would lend their aid as well, if you asked. Tarōbō may not see eye to eye with you, but he loathes the Kurama tengu.”

“This is none of your business!”

“Isn’t it time you settle things and hand over Nyoigatake to your own heir?”

“That fool is dead to me.”

I had heard that Master Akadama had a son. He was said to be an Adonis of a tengu, so handsome that it was hard to believe that he was related by blood to the Master, but over the years the stories about him had been so embellished that it was hard to tell fact from fiction.

Long ago, this beautiful tengu had dared defy his own father, their quarrel shaking the peaks of the Higashiyama Sanjūroppo mountains. Master Akadama had still been a powerful, imposing tengu then, and without hesitation or mercy he had rushed to meet his son head on. People likened it to a lion testing the mettle of its cub, but I suspected that the Master had simply been working off the excess from a temper tantrum.

The battle had continued for three days and nights, but in the end the youthful heir had suffered a tremendous defeat and fled Kyōto. After wandering the length and breadth of Japan for a time, he had supposedly quit for England, and since then his whereabouts have been unknown. Perhaps he had striven too hard to take on the trappings of a gentleman, and became too ensconced in his British ways to ever come back to Japan.

Incidentally, that quarrel had apparently been fought over a woman.

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“Nothing can change until your heir comes back.”

“He won’t come back,” said Master Akadama, flapping his fan noisily and staring at the blazing sunlight streaming in through the window. After a moment, he muttered, “I have another candidate in mind, one worthy to follow in my footsteps.”

“I’ve not heard that you had another son?”

“Not a son. She may still lack in training, but she has much promise.”

My hair stood on end, and I shuffled towards the Master on my knees. “If you’ll pardon the question, Master, but this candidate wouldn’t happen to be Benten, would it?”

Seeing the Master nod, the three of us sighed in unison.

“Now that simply will not do,” Konkobu groaned. “That one’s a nasty piece of work.”

“How could any tengu be nasty? Don’t talk such piffle.”

“She’s bound to bring disaster, mark my words. You had best steer well clear of her.”

Master Akadama glared sulkily at Konkobu for a moment, then snuffled his nose like a pig, tossed the fan away, and threw himself on the floor. Despite the fact that he was several centuries old, Yakushibō of Nyoigatake still resorted to his signature move of sulking in bed when things weren’t going his way.

On his knees facing Master Akadama, Konkobu bowed his head. Droplets of sweat fell onto the tatami.

“The Okuribi will be coming soon. Does it not trouble you, not to be on your own mountain?”

“Spectating is much better down here. Up on the mountain, I can hardly tell what’s what.”

“And there you go again…” With that, Konkobu gave up talking, and the Master shut his eyes tightly, while the seconds ticked pointlessly by.

Mount Daimonji, where the character for “Dai” or “big” is located, lies on the western slope of Nyoigatake.

As the lord of Nyoigatake, it was a point of pride for Master Akadama that the Daimonji fire was under his jurisdiction. Feeling it his overseer’s duty to keep a baleful eye on the proceedings, he would cruise around Daimonji on the night of the Okuribi, knocking over the carefully arranged piles of pinewood and being pursued by cops from the Shimogamo station. But that was all before he was chased away into retirement in the Demachi shopping arcade by the Kurama tengu. Now he could only look up at his mountain, side by side with the very humans he had once so ridiculed. How grievous must be the wounds on the poor Master’s heart.

I timidly ventured to speak. “About the Okuribi, Master…”

“What is it, Yasaburō,” the Master grunted, his eyes still closed.

“You are aware, I am sure, that we take a pleasure barge out every year on the Okuribi.”

“I am. Tanuki are such incorrigible fools.”

“Last year, we were caught up in one of the myriad dastardly plots of the Ebisugawa clan, and our barge was burned up. We have contrived to find another barge, but to no avail…thus, we have come to humbly beseech you to allow us the use of your inner parlor for a single night.”

“Inner parlor? What do you mean?”

“You know, that small tearoom-like contraption that flies through the air.”

“Ah, yes, that thing. Now where did I leave it…?” The Master slowly sat up, a vacant expression on his face. “Oh, of course. I gave it to Benten.”

The room was silent, each of us struck dumb by amazement.

I still remembered how disgusted I had been when Master Akadama gave the Fūjin Raijin fan to this Benten, witnessing this woman of ill repute drain him of all his possessions. Now that he had given her the parlor, he hardly had anything left to his name. Unable to fly, unable to summon whirlwinds, only a tengu-like air of penury hung about him now, and that in abundance.

I held a great deal of respect for the Master whom I served, but my patience had been pushed to its limits. This was not an infrequent occurrence.

“I can’t believe you!” I shouted. “How can you just give her everything you have!”

Sitting cross-legged, Master Akadama’s face flushed red, and his already wrinkled expression crumpled even further. He grabbed a large daruma that was lying beside him and hurled it at me. Konkobu attempted to placate him, but the Master’s rage could not be contained. After the daruma came a lucky cat, then a fukusuke statue, then another daruma, flying at me one after another. I ducked my head, running helter skelter to avoid the projectiles flying through the air.

“Still you fail to understand, you fool?” cried the great Master. “I only wish to see her smile!”

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Finally having managed to appease the Master, my brother and I accompanied Konkobu out of the apartment.

“I hear Yakushibō owes his everyday livelihood to you,” Konkobu said as we walked through the Demachi shopping arcade. “That’s kind of you, uncommon kind indeed.”

“I just let myself get forced into it during a moment of weakness. None of his other students visit him either.”

“Yakushibō may only ever have complaints to give, but I have no doubt he appreciates what you do.”

“I would appreciate it if you would avoid giving compliments you don’t mean.”

“Alas!” Konkobu smacked his forehead. “How unbecoming of me.”

“I’d never make a living if I was always expecting handouts like those.”

“That is most likely true.”

Konkobu was planning to stay a while at Iwayasan. He seemed rather pleased that the Master’s heir had reached out, and while he had no plans to return to Japan, he had invited Konkobu to pay him a visit. On the night of the Okuribi, Konkobu intended to come down from the mountain and watch the spectacle from below.

“Why don’t you invite Yakushibō to your pleasure barge? I may just impose on you as well.”

“That seems perfectly reasonable to me.”

“Farewell, then. Have a care for Benten.”

Konkobu was going to take the bus from Demachiyanagi station over to Iwayasan, so we parted ways at the west end of the Kamo Bridge. The sun glared down from its zenith above the shallow waters of the Kamo River. We watched as Konkobu tottered along the baked pavement of the bridge.

The Master had informed us that Benten would be visiting Nishizaki Gen’emon, the famous fan store in Sanjō Takakura, so we boarded a bus on Kawaramachi Street. Yashirō was frozen stiff in his seat, looking as if his tail would pop out at any moment.

“Benten doesn’t eat tanuki stew every day, you know. It’s only at the year-end party,” I reassured him. “If you want, you can go home now.”

But Yashirō was adamant. “I’m going too. Mother says I need to learn to keep a stiff upper lip.”

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Nishizaki Gen’emon lies a short distance from the Sanjō Takakura intersection in a quiet neighborhood, in a building that looks just like the old-fashioned houses that surround it.

I pulled open the sliding door, inlaid with glass into which the name of the shop is distinctly etched, and stepped inside, calling out a greeting. The dim interior of the shop was cool and fragrant with the scent of incense. Gorgeous fans were exhibited on display stands on the dirt floor, like butterflies coquettishly resting their wings. We said hello to Gen’emon, who was sitting at the edge of a raised wooden floor conversing with a customer, then took off our shoes and headed further in onto the wooden floor.

We brushed past a deep blue curtain into a hallway. The deeper we went, the heavier the scent of incense became, and drawing breath grew more and more difficult. The brackish air made the soles of my feet stick to the dark floorboards. The sounds of the city streets faded away, and we were surrounded by a stillness so absolute it felt as if we were burrowing down to the edge of the world when we heard the cry of a seagull somewhere high up in the sky. Light was streaming into the corridor ahead where the hallway bent to the left.

We turned the corner and found ourselves at the front of a small diner.

A salty breeze ruffled the curtain at the entrance to the restaurant, and light reflected from the waves flickered throughout the room. The restaurant was lined with modest tables, the walls covered with faded paper signs advertising the menu, but not a customer was in sight. Just outside the café was a jetty where several small boats were tied up, and beyond it was the wide expanse of the sea, sunlight sparkling on the lapping waves. With the sounds of a wind chime tinkling in the breeze, the shrilling of seagulls wandering across the azure sky, and the roar of the ocean all mingling in my ears, it was hard to believe that I wasn’t traveling the world on a lonesome journey and was still, in fact, in the midst of Sanjō Takakura.

An old woman came out from the kitchen.

“Is Lady Benten at the clock tower?” I inquired.

“Yes, she is indeed,” replied the old woman, pointing out over the sea. Though the mist made it difficult to make out, I could see the silhouette of a tower looming over the ocean in the distance.

“The waves have been rough as of late, but today the weather is quite lovely,” said the old woman, making her way over to the pier and preparing one of the boats.

Yashirō and I boarded the boat and set out bobbing over the water, the waves splashing noisily at the waterline. At first Yashirō seemed to be quite enjoying himself, but the deeper the water got, the worse the pallor of his face became. Once I turned to make certain that I was still rowing in the right direction, and when I turned back the little boy was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a furry tanuki curled up in the boat.

“Couldn’t hold it, huh?”

“Sorry, Yasaburō. I’m just too scared to hold onto my transformation.”

“Well, that’s alright. Just relax and let me take care of things.”

We approached the towering building.

This august ruin, weathered away by wind and rain, had been built by a prosperous merchant in the Taishō period in the Occidental style, but now eighty percent of the edifice lay below the waves. Once it had been a hotel, and its clock tower, which still proudly rose over the sea, had proudly featured as its emblem. For years the celebrated clock tower had endured the salty sea air until its mechanisms had rusted away, its hands never to move again.

Beneath the clock tower, a platform bobbed on the water, complete with a colorful parasol.

“Heeey!” I called. Sitting up, Benten waved a hand at us. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt with a tasteless idiom emblazoned on it in large characters: “Peerless and Unrivalled”.

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I stopped the boat by the floating platform. Benten took one look at the furball cowering in the corner of the boat and took off her sunglasses. “How adorable. Your little brother?”

Scattered under the parasol were Benten’s favorite radio set, a small paperback, an assortment of donuts, a telescope, and a large bottle of Faux Denki Bran. Benten offered us a partially eaten donut, which Yashirō took, fidgeting as he gnawed on it. Occasionally he made a gagging sound when a crumb got caught in his throat.

“Goodness, you look hot in that outfit. Couldn’t you transform into something lighter?”

I sat down and crossed my legs before her, unsmiling. “What’s with the shirt? I would have expected you to have better taste.”

Benten glanced down at the curve of her bosom. “I got it from the Ebisugawas.”

“Kinkaku and Ginkaku?”

“That’s right, along with this Faux Denki Bran.”

Taking smooth sips of liquor, Benten listened while I explained the purpose of our visit. When I got to the part where Kinkaku and Ginkaku had burned our pleasure barge, she burst into laughter, slapping her porcelain-white thigh.

“Just yesterday, Kinkaku and Ginkaku came and told me that you would be visiting. They asked me to stay out of tanuki disputes and left me with this silly T-shirt and a bottle of Faux Denki Bran.”

“A cheap sort of bribe!”

“Isn’t it? I could get my hands on these things any time I wanted.”

“Those idiot brothers could never come up with anything more sophisticated than this.”

Benten cackled roguishly. “So you want the parlor?”

“With all the hairs on my chinny chin chin.”

“What to do, what to do. There’s nothing in it for me, after all.” She drew her knees up to her chest and looked out at the sea with an air of amusement.

Sensing that pushing her any further would be fruitless, I decided to ease off for the moment. “What are you doing today?” I asked instead.

“Waiting for a whale.”

“You mean there are whales around here?”

“Sometimes they pop their heads up, over there,” she said, pointing. “When I woke up this morning, I had a sudden desire to pull the tail of a whale. That’s why I came. Of course, now that I’m here, there aren’t any to be found.”

“That’s life.”

I continued to make idle conversation, keeping her company during her whale waiting. At her urging I had some Faux Denki Bran. Between the heat of the day and the liquor and the rocking of the platform, I felt my head start to spin.

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A boat came scudding in from the direction of the jetty. It was being rowed by Gen’emon, from the fan store.

Benten stood up, smiling beatifically. Gen’emon knelt and presented her with a small wooden box, then promptly returned to the boat and rowed off.

“What’s that?”

“See for yourself,” Benten replied.

In the box was a splendid folding fan.

It was the celebrated Fūjin Raijin fan. Master Akadama used to keep it in his pocket, using it to change the weather in Kyōto as he pleased. Waving the Fūjin side would raise a great tempest, and waving the Raijin side would call down a thunderstorm. Using this power, Master Akadama would often cancel engagements that he did not wish to attend. Giving this fan to Benten so heedlessly was most certainly one of the most imprudent acts in history.

“I asked Gen’emon to repair the fan. You tore a hole in it last month, doing your Nasu no Yoichi impression. Or have you forgotten?”

“I prefer not to dwell on the past.”

“You naughty tanuki. I want you to think on what you’ve done.”

Benten removed the fan from the box and spread it.

Flecks of gold sparkled on the fan in the summer sun. Laughing merrily, Benten waved the fan around through the air. It looked as if she was dancing, though I doubted that she actually knew how. Finally, glaring at the sea, she raised the Fūjin Raijin fan high over her head and gave it a wave. Out of nowhere a squall brewed up, and something white and hazy flew forth into the sky, spinning like a top.

In an instant the sky was covered in clouds.

A sound like the grinding of a gigantic millstone rumbled through the sky all around us. Lightning crackled, washing blue light over the clock tower rising up from the ocean. Immediately large raindrops started to pound the surface of the water, and the metallic grey waves heaved and roiled as far as the eye could see.

“Such beautiful weather, gone to waste,” said Benten, sounding delighted. “I’ve decided. Because it’s you that’s asking, I will let you use the parlor.”

“Thank you very much.”

“But what would I do with you, if you were to ruin the parlor like you ruined my fan?” she frowned. “You’re such a troublemaker.”

“I shall treat it with the utmost care.”

“I know!” The frown vanished from Benten’s face, and she clapped her hands together with delight. “If you ruin the parlor, I’ll have you perform at a banquet for the Friday Fellows. It just so happens that they asked me to provide entertainment. If you fail to amuse us, we’ll turn you into a stew and eat you!”

“I assure you, I would not be tasty at all.”

“That’s all right. I like you so much I could just eat you up.”

That was Benten; old friend or not, if she said she would eat you, she would eat you. Being devoured by your first love was in its own way a pretty romantic way to go, but there was still too much for me to do to let that happen.

A particularly loud clap of thunder boomed through the sky. Yashirō left out a muffled yelp.

“Oh, look!” Benten cried, snatching up the telescope and surveying the ocean like a pirate captain.

A huge black mass slipped in and out of sight between the billowing waves. It was enormous, perhaps the size of a small island. This must be the whale.

Benten bent over lithely and threw off her clothes. Naked as the day she was born, she leapt into the air, tracing a graceful, tengu-like arc through the air towards the whale dipping in and out of the water in the distance. Skimming on the surface of the ocean below the lightning dancing through the low, dark clouds, she hovered over the dark backside of the whale. As the whale made to dive back down into the depths, Benten grabbed hold of its great tail fin and tugged it upwards, attempting to drag it up out of the water.

Watching the great struggle between Benten and the whale, I heard aplopsound behind me, like the sound of a pudding dropping onto a plate. I turned to find that my fainthearted little brother had regurgitated his donut. Rain-soaked and pitching on the waves, he was observing the remains of the donut, looking bewildered.

I gathered his shivering body into my arms and waited for Benten to return as her high-pitched tengu cackle pealed over the desolate gray waves.

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Yashirō and I took possession of the inner parlor from Benten on the rooftop of a building by Shijō Karasuma.

The inner parlor is a 4½ tatami room fitted with a decorative alcove, earthen walls with charming round lattice windows, and low-paneled paper sliding doors. It is bare, other than a small chest of drawers used by Benten. Just outside the sliding doors is a narrow platform that circumscribes the tea room; during flight, one may sit here to enjoy the nighttime view, dangling one’s feet in the air. There is also a mean little wooden door, but not being tengu, we are not at liberty to use it. There is no platform outside this door, and were one to step foot through it during flight, one would quickly find oneself freefalling towards the buildings below.

In the middle of the tatami is a fireplace, and set atop this fireplace is a teakettle engine shaped like a kagami mochi. The teakettle is quite a marvelous thing, for not only does it power the parlor through the air, but one can also boil water in it as well.

Benten rummaged noisily through the drawers in the corner, carelessly pushing aside expensive handbags and gemstones, and finally produced a bottle of Akadama port wine. “Pay attention. This is how you operate the parlor,” she said, and poured wine into the teakettle on the fireplace. With a rattle, the parlor lifted itself into the air.

For a while, we simply enjoyed our cruise through the sky above the twinkling city lights. At last, Benten handed over control of the parlor to us, with one final admonition.

“I trust that you won’t break it,” she said, before pushing open the wooden door and floating off into the stars, towards what I’m sure was a night of extravagant delights.