The Night Parade by Kathryn Tanquary Page B

broken horn holding her up, one spike of his club hooked on the back of her nightshirt. His face was set in the same yellow-toothed grimace, but he set her down next to him on the side of the road with a gentle plop. When she was safe, he turned back to watch the procession.
    â€œThanks…” The breathless word brushed her lips. She turned her eyes to the sky, but the swarm was nowhere to be found. Nor, for that matter, was the fox. She was exhausted and lost, but at least she was no longer alone.
    She cleared her throat. The ogre’s drooping eyes swiveled to meet hers. “Um, excuse me. Do you know where this path leads? I’m trying to go back to the human world…”
    The ogre shook his matted hair sadly. He held out his clawed hands. Dark stains, like the ones that had crawled all over the dead log, wriggled on his hands and burrowed along his skin. Saki lowered her eyes.
    â€œAh, so that’s why you’re not joining the rest. You’re not pure either, huh?” A little beggar’s bowl sat at his feet, chipped and empty. “Are you just going to wait here? What if you never get in?”
    The old ogre looked out toward the crowd. None of the passing spirits paid him any heed. His smell was somewhere between a wet dog and an old shoe, but Saki scrunched up her face and patted his wrinkled arm. Then, after a moment staring at the spirit procession, she took one of the flat marbles from her pouch and held it out.
    â€œHere,” she said. “I don’t know if you can use this, but I think it’s valuable, so you might be able to trade it for something.”
    The ogre blinked and sniffed at the glass piece. He gave her a sidelong glance, as if she were tricking him.
    â€œI’ve got lots. You can have this one, I promise.”
    The ogre held out his two calloused hands. His eyes followed Saki’s fingers as she dropped the marble into his palms. The glass liquefied the instant it touched the ogre’s red skin. Instead of absorbing him, as it had the mountain witch, the little beads of glass-water sped across his hand and sucked out bits of the wiggling stains. When each bit of darkness had been sucked clean up, the glass hardened until it shattered, leaving the dust to blow away into the night. The ogre’s hands were still wrinkled and worn, but perfectly clean.
    His rubbery lips twisted up in a smile. His eyes danced, and he held Saki’s hand to shake it. The force of the handshake rattled up her arm and shook her all the way to the brain. The ringing in her ears slowly quieted, only to be replaced by a low, sinister buzz. Up in the sky, the swarm blotted out the stars above the Pilgrim’s Road. Spirits stopped in their tracks to glance up, and Saki froze, unable to breathe, until the old ogre shook her from her fear. Their eyes met for only half a moment.
    The ogre hoisted Saki over his head and set her on the road downhill. He bowed once in a gesture of farewell, then took up his battered club to face the swarm with a mighty battle roar.
    Saki summoned all her strength to make her legs move again. The road was smooth, but the curves were tight, and half a dozen smaller paths branched out along the way. There was no way to tell which way would lead her home, if any of them would. Tears gushed from her eyes, but there was no time to stop and feel sorry for herself.
    Just before she passed another turnoff, her shadow-strapped geta gave a lurch and ran her off the main road. The little dirt path was narrower than she remembered, but the daruma lanterns in the trees shone brighter.
    In the time it took to blink, Saki found herself thundering down the hill toward her grandmother’s house. The door to her room was ajar by only a few inches. For a moment, she thought she could make out her pillow. The buzzing behind her grew louder. The fear rose like bile in her throat, and Saki turned her head. A set of thrashing pincers tore the tree