The Yokai can stand here forever, counting the monsters, the creatures, and the human-looking characters that pass her: umbrellas hopping on single legs, people with shamisen-shaped heads walking koto dragons on leashes, giant spiders the size of vans, giant-back televisions with tiny legs, a seven-foot tall mountain goat with a cartoonish grin walking on its hind legs, a dog with a human face, electronic toilet seats scuttling along the ground like Roomba vacuums (the Yokai does her best to avoid stepping on those), an androgynous-looking woman with a long swan neck handing out hot spring eggs, a giant cloud of smoke drifting above her head … The Yokai could spend hours trying to count and describe them all.

A little boy and girl, no more than two years old in appearance, hair and clothes drenched with water, stop at her feet. “Look, sister,” says the boy. “It’s that girl.”

“Wait, brother. That’s no girl. We know you. You’re the one who wants Akki’s boy.”

The Yokai looks back and forth between the two children. They indeed appear to be children, but judging from the rest of the crowd, the Yokai deduces they are not. “I have to find him again, before it’s too late. Do you know where I can find him?”

“Sorry, Miss Baku. We don’t know where he is anymore.”

The boy cocks his head. “Aren’t you cold?”

“No,” the Yokai looks down at her body. She is barefoot on the snowy pavement, wearing nothing. “I don’t feel anything,” she adds, mystified.

“Well, we haven’t seen him in the woods for months. He hardly wanders around alone there, anyway. Certainly not anymore.”

The Yokai sighs. “Okay, thanks.” She watches them rejoin the procession, holding hands. Had she and the man ever held hands like that? She cannot remember. She watches them go with a longing that makes her stomach sink.

“You are jealous,” buzzes a voice behind her. She turns around to see a giant Japanese hornet floating by on a large velvet cushion, holding cigars in four of its appendages. The other two rest on the cushion for balance. “You wished for that, once. With Akki’s boy. Did you not?”

“I think I did — I mean, I do,” the Yokai says. “Have you seen him?”

“I am afraid not, child. I see nothing these days. It is my time to hibernate until the heat of summer returns that I may terrorize your fellow humans once again.”

“But I’m leaving, and I have to find him before I go.”