The Cats Of Japan

Her front paws landed on the step. Her hind legs slipped. Cold water seized her tail and dragged. She clawed at the wood, claws screeching against the grain.

“Come on,” she hissed.

The flood rose over the step.

Something bumped her belly beneath the water. Sora twisted and struck at it. Her paw met a smooth, hard surface - a stone lantern lying on its side. Its hollow chamber glimmered beneath the muddy current.

Not a stone lantern. A wooden one.

A small red lantern, carved with a fox whose eyes had been scratched away.

Sora pulled herself onto the step and stared at it. The lantern’s flame should have drowned in the flood. Instead, a pale blue spark trembled behind its paper window.

The rain changed.

For one breath, every drop that fell into the alley shone silver. The walls stretched taller. Roof tiles bent inward like dark teeth. The storehouse door vanished, replaced by a wall of black water.

Sora backed away.

A whisper moved through the flood.

“Open.”

She flattened her ears. “No.”

The blue flame flickered.

“Open.”

The voice was not in the alley. It pressed against her bones, thin and cold, like wind slipping beneath a door.

Sora turned toward the street. The way she had come was gone. Water filled the passage from wall to wall, rolling against the crates. Beyond it, lanterns floated in a line, though there were no poles, no shops, no paws to carry them.

The alley had changed.

Sora edged along the step. Her claws found a seam beneath the moss. Something metal clicked below them.

She dug.

Mud packed beneath her claws. A strip of bronze appeared, then another. The shape beneath the step was round, no larger than a rice bowl, engraved with curling clouds and tiny paw prints.

A gate.

Not a gate large enough for a cat to walk through. A gate for something smaller. Something that lived beneath the city.

The blue lantern rolled against Sora’s forelegs. Its paper skin was warm despite the rain.

She pushed it away.

It rolled back.

“Stop that.”

The lantern bumped her paw again. A narrow line of light appeared in the bronze circle beneath the step.

The flood surged higher.

Sora looked toward the vanished street. Water reached her chest now. Her paws were losing their grip on the wood. The old storehouse was gone, and with it the shelter she had wanted. If she stayed, the current would carry her into the dark end of the alley.

The bronze disk clicked.

A seam opened down its center.

Sora pressed both paws against it.

The gate resisted. Cold shot through her legs and made her teeth chatter. The whisper rose around her.

“Open.”

“I’m trying!”

She dug in harder. The bronze split with a sound like a temple bell struck underwater. A narrow doorway opened beneath the step, spilling gold light across the flood.

Beyond it lay another Kyoto.

Sora saw rooftops stacked upon rooftops, all floating beneath a sky filled with green lightning. Red bridges curved through the air. Paper charms streamed from invisible branches. Pale shapes moved along the bridges - long-legged figures, antlered birds, foxes wearing masks of cracked porcelain.

The rain on the other side fell upward.

Sora stared.

A gust burst through the opening and flung her backward. The blue lantern shattered against the wall. Its flame did not go out. It stretched into a thin, twisting creature with a body made of smoke and rain.

Two bright eyes opened.

The creature lunged.

Sora sprang through the gate.

She landed on warm stone as the flood roared past behind her. The little doorway snapped shut, cutting off the alley and the storm in one violent clap.

For several breaths, Sora crouched beneath a red bridge, water dripping from her belly onto the shining stones. The air here hummed. Every surface carried a faint light: the bridge rails, the moss between the stones, even the paw prints stamped into the mud.

She had found shelter.

Then something struck the gate from the other side.

The bronze disk shuddered beneath the stone.

Sora’s fur rose.

A second blow rang through the passage.

“Stay shut,” she whispered.

The gate buckled.

Sora looked around. The spirit world stretched in every direction, bright and impossible. A road of floating lanterns led beneath the bridge. A row of white foxes watched from a roofline. None moved to help.

The third blow cracked the bronze.

A voice seeped through.

“Little cat.”

Sora’s claws slid free.

The gate burst open.

Wind tore through the passage, carrying leaves, roof tiles, and black rain. The storm spirit poured between the bronze doors, no larger than a hunting cat at first, then swelling as it crossed the threshold. Its body twisted from cloud and water. Blue fire burned where its paws should have been.

Sora bolted.

The spirit followed.

She raced beneath the red bridge, paws striking the warm stones. Lanterns swung overhead though no wind touched them. A white fox leaped from a roof and vanished into a wall. Somewhere high above, a bell shrieked instead of ringing.

Sora veered toward a staircase carved into the bridge pillar. The steps twisted upward, then sideways, then down again. She tried the lower path, but it ended at a river flowing across the road.

The spirit swept over her.

Sora flattened herself as a sheet of freezing rain struck the stones. The storm spirit crashed into a lantern post, scattering sparks. Its shape recoiled, then reformed with a hiss.

“You opened the way,” it said.

Sora scrambled backward. “I opened nothing!”

“You called.”

“I needed shelter!”

The spirit bent close. Its face had no mouth, only a whirlpool of dark water. “Shelter is a door. Doors answer.”

It lunged.

Sora ran again.

Ahead, a familiar smell cut through the strange air: wet cedar, charcoal, and the faint sweetness of red bean cakes. Kyoto. Her city. The scent came from a narrow crack between two walls, where ordinary rain flashed beyond the spirit-lit passage.

An exit.

Sora squeezed through.

The world slammed back into place.

She spilled onto the roof of the abandoned storehouse, skidding across slick tiles. Below, the alley still churned with floodwater. The paper lanterns swung from their cords. The old wooden door stood exactly where it had been.

For one bright second, Sora thought she had escaped.

Then the storm spirit struck the roof behind her.

Tiles exploded. Wind flung Sora across the ridge. She caught a broken beam with both paws, claws biting into wet wood. The spirit rose from the hole, its blue eyes shining against Kyoto’s black sky.

The storm had crossed the gate.

Sora hauled herself onto the roof and ran. She leaped to the next building, then to a low wall above the alley. The spirit followed in a wave of rain that knocked tiles loose behind her.

Cats cried from somewhere below.

Sora looked down.

Three market kittens huddled beneath an overturned cart, trapped by the rising water. Their mother clawed at the cart’s wooden side, yowling as the current dragged it toward the open street.

The spirit swept over the rooftops. Wind slammed the cart against a wall.

Sora could keep running. The temple roofs were close. She knew the route to the dry bell tower.

The kittens did not.

She turned.

“Sora!” one of them cried.

She jumped from the wall onto the cart. The wood bucked beneath her. Rain stung her eyes. She dug her claws into the side and bit through the rope that held the cart to a post.

The rope snapped.

The cart lurched into the flood.

Sora seized the mother cat by the scruff and pulled her toward the higher end. The kittens scrambled after them, claws slipping on the wet boards.

Above, the storm spirit gathered itself.

Sora spotted the blue lantern drifting in the water beside the cart. Its broken frame glowed beneath the surface. The bronze gate had followed her - not as a doorway now, but as a small circle of light turning in the flood.

The spirit dropped toward it.

Sora understood then. The lantern was not chasing her. It was anchoring the storm to Kyoto.

She plunged one paw into the water and struck the glowing circle.

Pain flashed up her leg. The world filled with bells.

The gate opened beneath the flood.

Water vanished through it in a roaring spiral. The cart dropped hard onto the stones, leaving Sora and the kittens sprawled together beneath the market awning. The storm spirit shrieked as the current dragged its lower body toward the opening.

Sora clung to a post.

“Close!” she shouted.

The bronze circle spun faster. The spirit’s claws scraped across the stones, leaving trails of blue fire.

Sora reached for the lantern.

It burned through her paw.

She did not let go.

With a cry, she pulled.

The gate snapped shut.

The flood collapsed into the alley. Water rushed away toward the drains, carrying broken crates and leaves. The spirit vanished.

For a moment, there was only rain.

The mother cat pressed against her kittens, trembling. Sora’s paw smoked faintly, the fur singed black around her pads.

“You saved us,” the smallest kitten whispered.

Sora stared at the dark circle beneath the water.

“No,” she said. “I brought it here.”

A soft splash sounded behind her.

Sora turned.

At the mouth of the alley, beneath the swinging carp lantern, a single blue paw print appeared on the wet stones.

Then another formed beside it.

The storm spirit had not vanished.

It was walking deeper into Kyoto.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters and about 9,433 words in the full book.