Yokai Magic

By Margaret L. Carter

When Val unearths a Japanese scroll and a cat figurine inherited from her grandfather, magic invades her world. The statuette, actually a cat spirit named Yuki—a yokai—enchanted into that form for her own protection, comes to life. Over a century ago, an evil magician cast a curse on her, and a wolf-like demon conjured by the curse still hunts her. Because Val is the one who broke the protective spell, that dark magic endangers her, too. She must turn for help to the last person she wants to get involved with, her former high-school boyfriend, now an officer in the Navy. Together they search for a way to vanquish the threat from the spirit realm, while facing the attraction they thought they'd long since put behind them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Jan 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781509223541

Margaret L. Carter

Reading DRACULA at the age of twelve ignited Margaret L. Carter’s interest in a wide range of speculative fiction and inspired her to become a writer. Vampires, however, have always remained close to her heart. Her work on vampirism in literature includes four books and numerous articles. She holds a PhD in English from the University of California (Irvine), and her dissertation contained a chapter on DRACULA. In fiction, she has written horror, fantasy, and paranormal romance, as well as sword-and-sorcery fantasy in collaboration with her husband, a retired naval officer. Recent publications include AGAINST THE DARK DEVOURER (Lovecraftian dark paranormal romance) and spring-themed light contemporary fantasy BUNNY HUNT. Her short stories have appeared in various anthologies, including the “Darkover” and “Sword and Sorceress” series. She and her husband live in Maryland and have four children, several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, a St. Bernard, and two cats. Please visit Carter’s Crypt: http://www.margaretlcarter.com

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A screech burst from Val. She stumbled backward and collapsed on the bath mat, with a jarring thump to her rear end. What on earth is that?

A hunchbacked creature about two feet tall huddled in the tub. Brick-red, naked except for a ragged loincloth of the same color, it had a mop of stringy, black hair and elongated fingers and toes with nails like claws. It was licking the tile walls with a long, sinuous tongue like a frog’s. Its saucer-like, black eyes stared at her. With a stifled eep! it blinked out of existence.

Trembling, Val clutched the edge of the sink and hoisted herself upright. She scurried into the bedroom and dove under the covers like a child fleeing the boogeyman.

She lay there with her lids squeezed shut until her pulse slowed to normal. I did not see that. I did not. She opened her eyes and gazed into the darkness, softened only by the night light from the open bathroom door. What is with these crazy dreams all of a sudden?

You are not dreaming. The feminine voice sounded as if it came from somewhere in the middle of the room.

Val sat up with the sheet pulled to her neck. Who’s there? She switched on the bedside light.

A slender, white cat leaped onto the end of the bed. The animal had emerald-green eyes and wore a red scarf around her neck. Greetings and profound thanks for your hospitality. I assure you this is not a dream.

Praise for Margaret L. Carter

Carter has a knack for dialogue and descriptions that make the characters and scenes come alive. Her characters have to be tough to solve their problems, and this makes for a great page-turner.

~ Barbara Custer, editor of NIGHT TO DAWN

Yokai Magic

by

Margaret L. Carter

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Yokai Magic

COPYRIGHT © 2019 by Margaret L. Carter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by Kristian Norris

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Fantasy Rose Edition, 2019

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-2354-1

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

With thanks to our son John, who initiated me into Japanese folklore and popular culture.

Chapter One

Dust and cobwebs coated the box marked Granddad’s mementos from Korea. Climbing onto a stepstool, Val swept away the mess with a broom before lifting the box down. It had probably sat undisturbed on the basement shelf since her family had bought the house, when she was twelve years old. She lugged her find upstairs and set it on a newspaper spread on the kitchen table. Her cat leaped onto the chair next to hers and stared as if supervising the job. With a paring knife, she slit the crumbling tape that barely sealed the box top.

After pulling out handfuls of wadded-up packing paper, she came upon a pile of letters with exotic stamps and a military return address. A separately bound bundle of envelopes looked like her grandmother’s reply letters. Val squashed the temptation to start reading them on the spot. If what she needed wasn’t loose in the box, she would riffle through the envelopes. From another nest of paper, she dug out a porcelain figurine of a white, green-eyed Japanese good-luck cat wearing a red scarf around its neck. She set the statuette on the table. The next layer in the box revealed a cylindrical package swathed in more paper and bound with tape.

What’s this? A picture of some kind? As she sliced open the wrapping, the knife slipped. The blade nicked her finger, and a drop of blood fell onto the package. That’ll teach me to use scissors next time. She dug a tissue out of her jeans pocket and wrapped her fingertip. For a second her vision blurred. What’s that about? Too long since lunch? The weird sensation faded, and she dismissed it from her mind.

To her relief, when she stripped the wrapping off the package, she found only a barely visible bloodstain on the very edge of the object inside—a Japanese painted scroll. After shoving aside the heap of mail and the porcelain cat, she unrolled the scroll on the kitchen table. It portrayed a small, red building with a freestanding, rectangular arch in front and a peaked roof. Maybe a shrine? A slender, white cat wearing a red scarf that resembled the one on the figurine sat in a demure pose in front of the gate. In the background, next to a flowering cherry tree and a sketchy outline of a stream, hovered a misty figure of a woman in a lavender, floral-printed kimono. She wore a scarf like the cat’s around her neck and something black on her left hand—a ring? A column of Japanese characters ran down the upper right side of the picture.

Val rubbed behind the ears of the long-haired, charcoal-and-silver tabby sprawled on the adjacent chair. What do you think, Toby? Could I sell this for a small fortune and get the roof replaced? Her pet blinked at her. No, that’s what I thought.

She sighed over the pile of mail. Sure, it would be interesting to read the letters her grandfather had written during his Army service in Korea in 1951, but would one of those envelopes contain what she was looking for? She’d hauled the stuff upstairs in search of a receipt for two Japanese ivory figurines that had adorned the fireplace mantel for as long as she could remember. Much as she hated the thought of giving them up, the websites she’d checked suggested their value would take a healthy bite out of the roof cost. She couldn’t legally sell ivory, though, without proof Granddad had owned it before the ban on possessing it existed.

After popping into the ground-floor half-bath to bandage her finger, she returned to the kitchen to finish emptying the box. It took her a minute to notice something missing from the table. Hey, what happened to the cat statuette? She glanced at Toby as if he might have an answer. He leaped to the floor and strolled away, plumed tail waving. With a shrug, Val peered into the box, in case she’d replaced the figurine in it without thinking. Not there. Then where did I put it? She flipped through the remaining papers, although there wasn’t enough debris left to hide the object. She glanced at the floor, where she would have seen obvious shards of porcelain if the cat had knocked the thing off the table. Hope I’m not losing my mind. I might need it again. Ridiculous. If I were going to have hallucinations, I wouldn’t start by imagining random Asian artifacts. Better quit for now. Definitely way past dinnertime. She stowed the items back in the box for safekeeping and cleaned off the table, then rummaged in the refrigerator for leftovers to heat up.

After supper, she strolled into the back yard, carrying a colander to harvest the newest batch of ripe tomatoes. Since she’d set the plants out late this year, they were still bearing in August. In this part of Maryland, summer heat lingered well into September. Maybe she’d whip up a pot of spaghetti sauce this weekend. Tall grass tickled her bare calves. Time to mow the lawn again already. Although she would miss the home where she’d lived off and on for nineteen years, shedding the burden of house and yard care would come as a relief.

Just as she finished filling the colander with tomatoes, the back door of the house on the right banged open. Mrs. Garrett, her gray hair slicked back into a tight ponytail and a loose blouse flapping around her thin torso, marched down the steps of the rear deck and across the lawn to the fence. Valerie Sherman, here you are!

Val suppressed a sigh. Right where I usually am at this time. Hi. What’s up?

That cat of yours has been in my garden again. Your mother would never have let that happen.

Val suppressed the impulse to snap, Well, Mom isn’t here, is she? Instead, she said as meekly as she could manage, Toby got out and went into your yard just that once, two months ago, and it hasn’t happened since.

I definitely saw a cat just a minute ago.

It wasn’t him—he. Because in her prime Mrs. Garrett had taught English at the local high school, Val still felt intimidated by her regardless of the passage of time. Even Mrs. G.’s Facebook posts bristled with grammatical correctness. The fact that Val had dated her son, Thad, from tenth through twelfth grade didn’t help. Get a grip. That ended thirteen years ago.

There it is again. The older woman jabbed a pointing finger at the low hedge on the other side of her lawn.

A lithe, white shape darted out of the shrubbery and dashed into the shadows at the corner of the house. Just before it vanished, Val glimpsed the shine of green eyes in the twilight.

That’s a white cat. Mine is gray. He hasn’t been in your yard. She inwardly cringed at the defensive tone in her voice, as if she weren’t a gainfully employed woman of thirty-one, but a teenager Mrs. G. had the power to flunk out of AP English.

Mrs. Garrett sniffed. All right, my mistake. But see that he doesn’t do it again anyway.

After a goodnight that her neighbor grudgingly returned, Val went inside wondering why the stray cat had looked familiar.

The brief conversation started her thinking about Thad for the first time in at least a week, since she’d last seen a Facebook post by him. She’d friended him just to prove to herself that casual communication between them was no big deal. She could like his posts and see him like hers in return without her pulse racing and her stomach fluttering. That was how she knew about his recent assignment to teach at the Naval Academy. He would be living in town