The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy, Book 3: Together

By Claire Youmans

She loves to weave. Her brother dreams of sailing. But can two powerful siblings keep their way of life alive?
Japan, 1872. Dual-natured bird-girl Azuki delights in making her highly desirable woven kimonos. But something about her intricate loom work is making her sick. And even worse, the illness has spread to her majestic Toki plumage.
Sparrow-boy Shota worries that his friendship with the Dragon Princess is waning. With his sister falling desperately ill, he hopes to impress the royal dragon-girl by tracking down the legendary crane-woman who can heal Azuki. And as soon as she’s recovered, he can follow his ambition to become a master mariner and help sail Azuki’s gorgeous fabrics to far-flung destinations.

But with Shota’s perilous journey attracting the attention of foreign invaders and giant sea monsters, his adventure to save his sister and impress his friend could end up at the bottom of the ocean.
Can Shota, Azuki, and their dragon friends join forces to survive the turmoil and protect their dreams?
Together is the third book in the Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy historical fantasy series. If you like classical Japanese folklore, enchanting characters, and heroic journeys, then you’ll love Claire Youmans’ captivating tale from the Meiji Era.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claire Youmans
• Release date: Jun 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781732353664

Claire Youmans

Claire Youmans first went to Japan in 1992 and was immediately captivated. After years of travel and study, she continues to be charmed and amazed by a fascinating history and a culture that is both endearingly quirky and entirely unique.In 2014, she started Tales of the Meiji Era with The Toki-Girl and the Sparrow-Boy's unparalleled blend of magical realism and historical fantasy in the first book of the series, Coming Home. She continues exploring the collision of magical realism, history and folklore to share her love and fascination with a very different country and culture.Exciting adventures continue to unfold in this delightful fantastical yet historical world. Follow these at www.tokigirlandsparrowboy.com, www.facebook.com/tokigirlandsparrowboy/ and on Twitter @tokigirlsparrow, linkedin at www.linkedin.com/in/tokigirlandsparrowboy, IG @ tokigirlandsparrowboy, and http://claireyoumansauthor.blogspot.com, for poetry and ruminations on life in Japan.

Book preview

Chapter One

Sparrow, Hiroshige

Azuki, the Toki-girl, stood on the front gallery of their newly enlarged house clutching a neatly bound twig broom. Despite the lowering clouds, she could see over the compound wall down the hill where the horses, Blackie and Red Wind, pushed aside the last of the snow to graze on the first of the season’s grass. She smiled and sniffed the freshening air. It was already a brand-new year! In the Lunar Calendar, New Year’s marks the start of spring, and there were signs of it everywhere in swelling buds and hints of green.

Smoke rose from the chimney of the new bathhouse by the river — Shota’s idea, eagerly endorsed by Azuki — managed by a formerly outcast woman and her son. Hanako, their cook-housekeeper and another former outcast, banged a pan as she put things away after clearing up the breakfast dishes. That reminded Azuki she should be sweeping, her part of the household chores, rather than simply drinking in the pleasure of being home. Princess Renko should be arriving soon, so Azuki hurried to finish her task. She put the broom away just as Renko appeared in dragon form and turned swiftly into a girl.

"I am still in trouble!" the Dragon Princess told Azuki as the two girls stepped out of their shoes. As they did, they stepped from the stone floor of the genkan, or foyer, onto the wooden floor of the entry, where they slid into slippers. One of Azuki’s straw zori sandals tumbled when she stepped out of it, but Azuki didn’t pick it up. Renko caught it as she stooped to turn her own wood-soled raised geta around for an easy exit, and lined it up correctly with Azuki’s other outdoor shoe. It wasn’t like Azuki to be untidy, she thought. Azuki opened a sliding door and ushered Renko into a small reception room. Rain began to patter on the tile roof.

Father got mad all over again for me attacking the Dai-Tengu alone! Renko flicked the long sleeve of her blue and green kimono aside as she stepped out of her slippers and glided through the sliding shoji-screened door into the tatami mat floored room. I don’t know what set him off! Now, he says I must stay small until I realize how very young I am and learn to ask for help when I need it.

What do you mean, ‘stay small’? Azuki asked her friend as she seated Renko on a cushion at a low table facing the sliding door that looked out on the inner garden. Azuki seated herself and tapped a small gong, in case Hanako hadn’t seen Renko arrive.

Azuki looked like an ordinary Japanese girl, with black eyebrows and brown eyes, but she had a longer than ordinary face. Her nose, too, was longer than was usual and turned down a little at the tip. Her skin was generally fair, but her face was slightly ruddy — it was bright orange when she was a toki. She covered her head with a tied-on scarf because she grew feathers where most humans grew hair, but with her head covered, she attracted no particular notice at all.

Renko looked…different. She was about the same height as Azuki, though sturdier in build. Her skin was pinky-fair; her hair was a bright yellow and, today, her eyes were a startling shade of green. Sometimes they were blue, equally astonishing, and sometimes they were both. When she was a dragon her scales shaded green to blue and back, too. As a girl, she was a huge anomaly among humans in the Meiji era of Japan.

Dragons can shrink to the size we were when we first emerged from the egg, the Princess explained. We never stop growing, but this allows us to live in ponds and lakes and rivers as well as in the ocean. Father says I have to stay as small as I can. I’m no bigger than an ox!

The Princess, though courageous and fiercely loyal to her friends, was also impetuous and rash. Azuki knew that was what angered the Dragon King, but those very qualities had saved Azuki’s life, so she could hardly fault her friend for them. In her other form, Azuki was a toki, a Japanese Crested Ibis, but Azuki’s adoptive parents were humans, so she’d lived almost exclusively as a girl, ever since she was a chick. Or a baby. Whichever. She’d never known toki parents, just as Renko had never known human ones. Her dragon father was both strict and fierce. Azuki knew almost nothing of Renko’s mother, except that she lived halfway around the world.

Your father frightened me when he dealt with the Tengu, Azuki said. She couldn’t suppress a little tremble in her voice. An angry Dragon King was not someone mere humans — or toki — wanted to encounter. Is he like that when he is angry at you?

He’s worse at home. The Princess grimaced. He has a terrible temper and doesn’t bother to control it there, but it does blow over in time. He’s so mad he even threatened to talk to Mother, but I don’t think he has. A frisson passed over her. I hope he doesn’t. Father is overprotective and gets mad, but Mother doesn’t even like me.

How could your mother not like you? Azuki’s human parents had cherished both Shota and Azuki, as did their uncle, and Azuki couldn’t imagine anything else.

It’s not me, exactly, the Princess explained. It’s what I am — a dragon-human. Mother’s not fond of humans. She wants me to hide being dual-natured and live as a normal dragon. Humans, where she lives, are her enemies. They try to steal her jewels and minerals or drive her away from her mountains. Sometimes humans hunt and kill dragons.

That’s awful! Why would they do that? For Azuki, dragons were to be respected and never angered, but not hunted or killed. In Buddhism, killing any living being was abhorrent, with rare exceptions. Even then, one atoned for the act with thanks and offerings for the victim’s enlightenment. The Dragon King hadn’t killed even the Tengu, who were arguably demons and therefore subject to different rules. Instead he had exiled them, transporting them somewhere far away via a massive waterspout.

I don’t know, the Princess admitted, but that’s why Mother thinks my human nature is a disgrace, and I should forget about it, but I can’t. It’s part of me. She sat up straight and defiant, carefully adjusting her kimono, and changed the subject.

How is Shota-san? the Princess asked. She liked Azuki’s younger brother. Her father called him an irreverent scamp, but he always had some exciting adventure to recount. Renko liked adventures, and the stories that told of his exploits with the sparrows, and their dealings with other beings, were tales she particularly enjoyed.

He’s at the boys’ school in the village, Azuki replied. Uncle worked it out with the Headmaster. The boys attend the traditional school at the shrine in the mornings and come here in the afternoons for Uncle’s Imperial Comprehensive School. Uncle has a morning beginners’ session for small children and the girls with no prior education. We all learn how to read and write, of course, and mathematics, science, history and literature, too. It’s not only Master Confucius, like the boys’ school, though we still have to memorize plenty of his Chinese precepts. She settled her sleeve and patted her obi to make sure the things she had tucked in its elaborate folds didn’t poke out. Her kimono was a lustrous white, shading to peach and orange like her feathers. Renko’s shimmering blue shading green outfit mirrored her scales and her beautiful eyes.

The Princess didn’t go to a school and neither had Azuki, before Uncle’s Imperial Comprehensive School. Girls were educated, often haphazardly, at home. Renko never felt the lack; her father believed in education for his daughter. Azuki and Shota’s uncle was their guardian, and therefore charged with managing their business affairs as well as their upbringing and education, and he valued education, too.

Doesn’t your uncle have enough to do? Renko inquired. Surely he could teach you both at home with less effort.

The Empress wants comprehensive schools for both boys and girls, like they have in the West. Didn’t you know? Azuki found the whole idea so exciting she bounced on her heels, her face animated. When Uncle stopped being a monk, he wanted to do something more than farm — anyway, the farmland is Shota-kun’s inheritance, not his — and as a monk, he’s well educated, so… . She turned her hand palm up and smiled at her friend. He likes being among the first to follow the Imperial Family’s lead, and modern things excite him. I’m glad he’s doing it. I like school. Azuki tilted her head, smiled again and shrugged. Knowledge, any knowledge, was a treasure to her, but she realized not everyone felt the same way, Shota for one.

Studying’s all I’ve been doing, the Princess replied with a shake of her gold-topped head and a grimace. It’s difficult when Father’s angry with me. He’s changeable as the wind. I wish he’d let me practice storms! He could blow the anger right out of his system with one good cyclone. It was the work of dragons in the East to bring storms. Whether the storms were beneficial rains or horrific typhoons depended on the size and mood of the dragon as well as the needs of the planet. The needs and desires of humans or others were not to be taken into account. Azuki and Princess Renko had met when the Princess impulsively and disobediently rescued Azuki from a storm the Princess had caused.

The wood and shoji-screen door to the corridor opened and Hanako, a round and pleasant looking middle-aged woman, entered with a tea tray. She wore an indigo dyed kimono in a vine pattern sashed with a brilliant yellow and pink obi. It was so beautiful it must be Azuki’s work, Renko thought. Hanako smiled at the girls, knelt and bowed deeply to the Princess. She set out the round-bellied porcelain teapot glazed in white with a design of iris painted on it, an example of the new export ware. The pot contained freshly brewed tea. The cups, made of the same material, so thin they were almost translucent, had sprigs of sakura cherry blossoms painted on them. Hanako also set out a coordinating dish of savory rice crackers wrapped in seaweed and dipped in soy sauce, and another full of crackers glazed with sugar. She filled their cups with the aromatic tea and bowed again.

Hanako had been present when the Dragon King exiled the Tengu, but Azuki suspected Hanako had closed her eyes and wished herself elsewhere; Hanako now made it clear this was not a subject for discussion. The housekeeper bowed deeply again, opened the door to the inner garden for the view, and left through the hall. Renko found something a bit off about the woman, though she was unfailingly courteous. Renko felt curious enough today to press the point.

Hanako-san smiles, the Princess said after Hanako withdrew, but she never speaks to me. She sipped her tea serenely, asking without asking, so Azuki could avoid a perhaps intrusive question. Through the garden door Hanako had opened, Renko watched the light rain falling among the carefully pruned trees and shrubs, some of them starting to show hints of new leaves among swelling flower buds.

She can’t talk, but as you’ve seen, she communicates, and she hears perfectly well, Azuki replied. She refilled Renko’s cup.

She’s mute because an enemy put corrosives in her tooth blackening. We can be grateful the corrosives didn’t damage the outside of her mouth. Azuki bounced on her heels again. This was exciting and Renko likely didn’t know!

Have you heard the news? We don’t need to blacken our teeth when we get married anymore. I had a letter from Anko-san. Lady Anko was the daughter of their liege lord Eitaro and, Azuki hoped, would become a purely human friend. The Emperor changed the law. Even the Empress will be going out with white teeth. It’s to go with her new Western dresses.

The Western people thought their ways obviously superior, Azuki’s uncle had told them. The Japanese people felt the same about their own, but were more flexible in terms of anything that could be thought of as fashion. Renko wondered what would happen if she blackened her own teeth. She giggled at the thought of her dragon fangs turned black, and told Azuki, making them both laugh aloud. Imagine! A dragon coating her fangs with blackening paste!

Sensei, as Renko called him, using the proper term for a master or teacher, said surface imitation was a key to their acceptance as an equal power by the West. Everybody found it exciting and fun to learn, experiment, adapt and adopt, too. Some Western ideas were good ones, Sensei had pointed out, especially the technological advances like Azuki’s mechanical loom. Azuki wanted to learn more, of course. She was excited about what the foreigners brought Japan, as well as the things, like the fine export porcelain, art, paper, and fabulous fabrics like hers, that Japan could send to them.

Speaking of dresses, tell me about your weaving, the Princess said, once her giggling finally subsided. How does that progress?

Did you notice Hanako-san’s new kimono? Azuki beamed as the Princess nodded.

That’s your work, isn’t it? Renko said. She had thought so. The kimono was elegant, the fiber hemp so it was warm but draped beautifully.

I wove that on my new loom. Azuki went on to elaborate — she couldn’t resist, even though Renko had heard it before, which made Renko smile — on how the new style loom used patterns to automatically create quality fabric quickly. The patterns could be reused to produce multiple bolts that were identical. A skilled weaver had only to set up the loom and create the pattern.

"I made the obi, too, Azuki concluded, but I did that by hand." An