“Yes, Mom,” I said. She meant the nice table. I had a better idea, though. Especially since I was dying to know what else the investigator had to say about Jun.
On the way to the dining area that adjoined the kitchen, I passed the common room, where my four aunties were still huddled in bed. “Privilege of age,” they always said about their sleeping late. Of course when I tried lazing about, I got cuffed on the side of the head. Not hard, but it still infuriated me.
Once I reached the kitchen, I grabbed settings out of cupboards and drawers and laid them out on the counter: chopsticks, spoons, and bowls for rice, soup, and the small side dishes called banchan, like mung bean sprouts and gimchi, spicy pickled cabbage. I grabbed real rice, imported from off-world and saved for special occasions because it required too much water to grow, instead of the crumbly altered grains we produced locally. After hesitating, I added some of the fancier foods and drinks we saved for festival days, like honey cookies and cinnamon-ginger punch. As I worked, I tried to listen in as Mom and the stranger talked in the hallway, but their voices were too low.
“I’m just about done, Mom!” I called out so she’d know to bring the guest in.
Then I concentrated hard, thinking about rectangles, right angles, and straight lines. About the smooth, polished red-black surface of that lacquered table. If I was going to imitate a table, I had to appear better than the real thing.
Charm swirled and eddied around me. My shape wavered, then condensed into that of the knee-high table. I couldn’t put out the table settings now—Mom would have to take care of that. In the meantime, while I could only observe the room as a blur through the reflections on my surface, I could listen pretty well.
Most foxes only used shape-shifting to pass as humans in ordinary society. My true form, which I hadn’t taken since I was a small child, was that of a red fox. I had one single tail instead of the nine that the oldest and most powerful fox spirits did. Even Great-Grandmother, before she’d passed several years ago, had only had three tails in her fox shape. When the aunties had told us stories about magic and supernatural creatures, and taught us lore about our powers, they had cautioned us to avoid shifting into inanimate objects. It was too easy to become dazed and forget how to change back into a living creature, they’d warned. I’d experimented with it on the sly, though, and was confident I could pull it off.
I heard footsteps. Mom’s I would have recognized anywhere. She had a soft way of walking. The investigator also stepped quietly—too quietly, almost like a predator. Like a fox.
“Where did your daughter go off to?” the investigator asked.
A flicker told me that Mom was looking at the countertop where I’d left the settings out. “Pardon her flightiness,” she said with a trace of annoyance. “She’s been like that a lot lately.”
Is that so? I thought.
Mom began transferring the dishes onto my surface. I endured the weird sensation of being a piece of furniture. Even as a table, I had a keen sense of smell—a side effect of being a fox. The rich aroma of cinnamon-ginger punch would have made my mouth water if I’d been in human form. It didn’t always work in my favor, though. The cabbage pickles were starting to go sour. I bet the investigator would be able to tell.
Clunk, clunk, clunk went the dishes as they landed on my surface. Mom wasn’t slamming them down, but they sounded loud. Then she put the silk cushions on the floor for the courier and her to sit on.
I had a sudden urge to sneeze, which felt very peculiar as a table. It wasn’t my own Charm causing it—
Mom?
I concentrated to get a better picture of what Mom was up to. I was right—she was using more Charm! And this time she wasn’t doing it to fancy up her clothes. Rather, her Charm was focused on the investigator, who still hadn’t given his name. She was trying to get him to lower his guard, by using the kind of magic she had always told me honorable foxes never resorted to. The prickling sensation intensified, although it wasn’t directed at me.
I quivered with outrage. Some of the platters on my surface clanked. The investigator froze in the middle of reaching for his chopsticks. “What was that?” he asked.
“Maybe there was a tremor,” Mom said after a brief pause. “We get those from time to time.” I could smell her suppressed anger, even if she was hiding it from the investigator. She was onto me. I was going to be lectured later, I just knew it.
Surely the investigator wouldn’t fall for her excuse? This region was old and quiet, no volcanoes or anything. But I resolved to tamp down my reactions.
“You must have traveled a great distance to reach us here in the outer rim,” Mom said. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful in the matter about my son. Serving in the Space Forces was his dream, you know. I can’t imagine that he’d turn his back on it.”
His voice was curt. “Your daughter’s hiding something, Ms. Kim. If you don’t help me determine what it is, then I will be forced to open a general investigation into your family. In my experience, everyone has dirty laundry. Even in a place like Jinju.”
He didn’t get any further. I wasn’t going to let him get away with threatening my mom! Especially since our family did, in fact, have a secret we couldn’t afford to reveal. My senses jumbled as I resumed human shape. I shook the dishes off my back. But I hadn’t reckoned on getting burned by hot soup as it splashed out of upturned bowls. I yelped. My flailing caused more of the dishes to crash on the floor and break. I was going to have kitchen cleanup duty for the rest of my life.
“Min!” my mom shouted. She attempted to grab my arm and yank me out of there.
I dodged her, flung a shard at the man, and scooted backward. I didn’t want to get too close, because he was a lot bigger and it would’ve been easy for him to overpower me. On the other hand, I wasn’t going to run away and leave my mom alone with him.
Mom made another grab for me. “This is not the way,” she said in a taut voice. “Let me handle it.”
It was too late. The investigator and I locked gazes. “Foxes,” he hissed. His eyes had gone hard and intense, like a predator’s. Even with the gimchi dumped over his head and dripping down the bridge of his nose, he looked threatening. I could smell the anger rising off him. “So that’s why they needed the cadet.”
Before I could react, he lunged for me and snatched me up by the throat. I scrabbled for air, my fingernails lengthening into claws, and tore desperately at his fingers.
“Please,” Mom said, low and fast. “I’ll make her tell you anything you need to know. Just let her go.”
“You’re in no position to bargain, Ms. Kim,” he said. “Do you realize how bad it will look that one of your kind joined the Space Forces only to go rogue? Or how paranoid the local population will become when they realize that anyone they know could be a fox in disguise? I have no choice but to inform the authorities about your presence here.” He reached into his coat, and his fingers closed around something that gleamed.
I panicked, thinking he was going to draw a blaster. I turned into the densest, heaviest block of metal I could manage. Gravity yanked me straight down onto the man’s foot. Mom sneezed in response to my shape-shifting magic. The investigator didn’t scream or even grunt, just remained silent. That scared me most of all.
Making rapid changes exhausted me, but what choice did I have? The world swam around me as I took human shape again. My clothes tugged awkwardly at my elbows and knees. I’d gotten the garments’ measurements wrong.
Gray-faced, the man bent over to examine his foot. Before he stood upright again, I snatched up a saucepan and brought it crashing down against his head. He fell without a sound.
All my aunties had woken up by now. Mom had to explain the situation to them while the oldest one complained about having her sleep interrupted. Still, even she had to admit that we were in trouble.
Mom and the two strongest aunties dragged the unconscious investigator into the parlor. I looked away, feeling a little guilty about all the trouble I’d caused, though the sound of his head thunk-thunk-thunking across the threshold gave me a moment of vindictive pleasure. They laid him on a quilt as if they were going to nurse him back to health. The quilt would have to get washed afterward. I could guess who’d be stuck with that task.
Mom took me aside while the others fussed over the investigator. Her fury gave off a bitter, acrid smell. “I’ve told you time and again that using our powers will get us into trouble,” she said. “And to make matters worse, you had to attack the man. I could have gotten rid of him and he’d have been none the wiser.”
I bit my tongue to keep from pointing out that she’d been using fox powers herself. I just stared at the floor and muttered, “Yes, Mom.”