"See? This is Mr. Turtle! He's my friend!" Taila's muffled voice proclaimed as she fished in her pocket.
I shrank into the deepest corner and pulled my head and legs into my shell, hoping she'd get distracted by something else before she found me.
No such luck. Questing fingertips brushed my shell.
Well, there was no helping it. With a dart of my neck, I nipped the closest finger.
A shriek. The hand vanished. My world started bouncing up and down as Taila screamed, "He bit me! He bit me!"
Well, that seemed a little melodramatic. It was just a tiny, warning nip, to remind her that my existence was supposed to be a secret. I hadn't drawn blood. I hadn't even broken skin.
"Here, Taila, lemme see that finger." The cat spirit sounded patient, as if he had plenty of experience dealing with small children and their tantrums.
Something jostled me, and I pictured Taila thrusting her not-at-all-injured hand at him.
There was a brief pause, and then the cat spirit crooned, "It's just a lil' boo-boo. Lemme lick it better."
A rasping noise, followed by Taila's giggle. "That tickles! Uncle Tasy, that tickles!"
"What'd I tell you? All better now!"
Just then, a new voice, shrill with panic, broke in. "What's wrong? What's wrong? Taila! Taila! Master Gravitas, what's wrong with Taila?"
Ugh, I couldn't see anything from inside this pocket! I started chewing a hole through the cloth.
"It's all right, Mistress Khun," soothed the cat spirit in the same tone he'd used on the four-year-old. "Taila had a lil' boo-boo, but it's all better now, ain't it?"
Apparently she agreed, because I was bounced around some more, and then she was announcing, "Auntie Jo! I had a boo-boo here, an' it hurt a lot, an' Uncle Tasy licked it, an' now it don't hurt anymore!"
Oof, okay, that grammar needed fixing. Maybe I could work out a system in which I poked her or kicked her every time she messed up.
Throughout all this, I'd kept chewing on the fabric, and at last I broke the last thread. Through my new peephole, I saw a blur of stained, brown cloth that could only be Mistress Josy's skirt.
After ascertaining that Taila's finger wasn't in danger of swelling up and killing her with blood poisoning, the woman relaxed and stepped back far enough for me to glimpse more of her. It was that sweet potato vendor. And wait! The brown cloth I'd seen wasn't her skirt at all: It was her apron! Stars and demons, had the woman never heard of laundry? And she sold food for a living? Seriously, who'd eat anything she prepared?
At times like this, I yearned for Cassius' palace and its horde of impeccably clean chefs, sous-chefs, food tasters, footmen, and serving women.
Plonking her hands on her hips, Mistress Khun shouted in a very good imitation of Mistress Jek, "JEK TAILA! What're you doin' here on yer lonesome? Does yer ma know you ran off?"
None of Cassius' servants had talked like this either.
"Ummmmm...." In my field of vision, Taila's shirts shifted, and the toe of her shoe started digging a hole into the dirt.
Well, on the bright side, the girl wasn't a liar. That made her easier to handle. Marginally.
"JEK TAILA! Don't you DARE tell me you sneaked out and came all the way into town!"
YOU ARE READING
The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox
FantasyAfter Piri the nine-tailed fox follows an order from Heaven to destroy a dynasty, she finds herself on trial in Heaven for that very act. Executed by the gods for the "crime," she is cast into the cycle of reincarnation, starting at the very bottom...
