“What …?” the Yokai says out loud. She struggles to remember how she got here. Half-remembering, the Yokai sees, in her mind, a group of children that passed by, chasing one another. Or, being chased. A vague image of an old, gawking woman floats through her memories, as well. She remembers a child left behind, screaming, swallowed up by a wall of darkness. She does not remember walking about the woods after that, but here is where she must have ended up.

“I’ve gone in circles, I guess,” she says, deciding it is best not to think about it too much. The Yokai figures it is better to preoccupy herself with how to get out of here.

Slowly, the clouds part above her, exposing a blanket of stars in a sea of violet darkness. One at a time, the stars descend on her; like fireflies, they blink as they approach. They come close, so close she can reach out and touch them. Twinkling like gold, they float down, down, down like falling leaves, then bounce along an invisible horizon above her head.

“How pretty,” she whispers.

“Wish I could say the same for you!” Someone blows a raspberry in her ear.

“Hey!” The Yokai leaps to her feet. She finds herself surrounded by blinking lights, will-o’-the-wisps of gold that now float around her. She hears laughter, but not the kind that she would want to join. Mean, threatening laughter. “Who said that?! Who’s there?!”

The laughter grows louder and more intense. “Well, well, look who it is? The freak everyone’s so scared of. What’s wrong, freak? You lost again?”

“Don’t bother explaining, freak,” one of the lights barks at her. “You ain’t welcome here. You’re the futakuchi-onna or whatever who ate Akki out of house and home. You better beat it!”

“You sure she’s a futakuchi, brother?” says another light. “She sure don’t look like one.”

“Yeah. What in the hell are you supposed to be, anyway?”

“Maybe she’s some sorta shadow yokai.”

“Well, she’s a pretty gnarly shadow, if you ask me. She just looks like a freak.”

The Yokai whirls around at the sound of each chastising word. Why do they keep calling me a freak? The Yokai thinks about all the creatures she has seen tonight. The strangeness of them all, and yet she is the one everyone runs away from. It does not make sense. What makes her more monstrous than them? Her words are on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason she cannot bring herself to speak. Instead, she tries to smile. “I’m sorry, I —”

“Ew! What’s wrong with her face? What’s she doing?”

“Are you smiling? What is wrong with you?”

“She must be stupider than we thought.”

“Or stupider than she looks!”

“And what the hell is that on her robe? Is that — ew, it is! It’s blood! It’s fucking blood!”

“No!” The Yokai waves her hands. “It’s peach … I think …”