After the horrible visitor, Precious Dragon sank into such a sound sleep that he did not wake up until noon of the following day. Mrs Pa did not want to disturb her grandson, but she did shake his shoulder gently, just once, to make sure that he could be woken. He rolled over, breathing peacefully, a tousle of hair falling into his eyes, and she crept from the room. However, she need not have worried. Precious Dragon came into the kitchen of his own accord, just as she was making lunch.
"Grandmother? Hello."
"Hello, Grandson," Mrs Pa said. She did not want to tell him about her worries: the creature might come back, and even if she had been capable of dealing with it herself, that she might not be here. Mai—being dead—had left no provision for her son and sooner or later, given the state of the household finances, Mrs Pa would have to go back to her cleaning job. Her regular employers had been most understanding about this particular week, but she could not reasonably expect any more time off. But if she was to go back to work, who would look after Precious Dragon? And if she took him with her, she would have to warn her employers in advance—and how would they react to the presence of a small child in their homes? Badly, given the usual nature of employers.
But Precious Dragon seemed to have an uncanny understanding of her fears. He hoisted himself to the edge of the couch and sat down, swinging his legs.
"You'll have to go back to work soon, won't you?" he pronounced.
His apparent reading of her mind gave Mrs Pa such a start that she nearly dropped a plate. She was so surprised that she turned to face him and said, as if he were a grown-up, "Yes. And I don't know who I'm going to get to look after you, because I don't know whether or not I'll be able to take you with me. I think maybe your father's family is the best choice. I'm sure they'd like to see you, anyway." And she felt a pang of guilt because she had not yet contacted them with the news that their grandson had been so in danger—Precious Dragon was just as much theirs as he was hers, except that they had not been the ones asked to go to echoing Sulai-Ba to rescue him, and Mrs Pa felt a deep kind of pride at that.
"I am happy to visit my other grandparents," Precious Dragon said, very gravely. "I should like to get to know them. But there is another choice."
"What choice is that?"
Precious Dragon gave a slight frown, as if peering into a future that he could not properly see. "I do not know yet. But someone will come."
His trust in life to provide touched Mrs Pa, but even though she had seen some of her grandson's weird abilities, she was not sure that she believed him.
In this, however, she was wrong.
The knock on the door came early in the evening, a tentative, uncertain sound, so faint that at first Mrs Pa thought she was imagining things. After the previous night, she wasn't going to open the door without checking first, so she put the chain on the latch as a precaution before looking through the spyhole and then opening the door a crack.
There was a young woman on the step. She wore a pretty frock, modestly highlighting an elegant figure, and a large hat. She wore sunglasses, even though the sun was setting over the port in a smear of gold and red. She stepped back a little as Mrs Pa opened the door, and something ambled out from the shadows: a black and white shape that Mrs Pa thought at first was a dog. Then she saw that it was a badger.
"Good evening," Mrs Pa said, somewhat taken aback.
"Good evening," said the young woman. "I am so sorry to trouble you. My husband mentioned you to me—he's Detective Inspector Chen, of the city police department." She held up a picture of a round, rather surprised face. "You met him last night."
"Why, so I did," Mrs Pa said. Precious Dragon nudged her arm.
"Grandma? It's all right." He spoke with such confidence that Mrs Pa reached out and unlatched the door.
"Before I come in," the young woman said, "there's something you should know. I'm not human." She took off her sunglasses to reveal large, crimson eyes. "You see, I'm afraid I am a demon. My husband rescued me from Hell, though, and now I live here. I should quite understand if you'd rather I didn't come in."
"No, that's all right," Mrs Pa said, marveling at her own daring. "After all, my daughter herself lives in Hell. I know that in her own case it was because of someone else's corruption, but even so—not everyone from Hell is wicked."
"Hell is a wicked place," Chen's wife said with a sigh. "And so is Earth, sometimes." She took a step forward. "My name is Inari."
"I think you'd better come in," Mrs Pa said.
Inari accepted tea, and the badger had a saucer of water that it drank with a loud golloping noise.
"Please excuse badger," Inari said. "He doesn't have very human manners. He's my family's familiar."
Precious Dragon sat smiling at the badger. "He's very furry," he said.
"Yes, he is. But I'm afraid he doesn't like to be cuddled," Inari explained. "I like your tiger."
The little boy beamed. "My grandmother bought it for me."
"What a nice grandmother!" Inari took a sip of her tea. "Mrs Pa, my husband has asked me to—well, to keep an eye on you, really. He was very worried."
"That's extremely kind of him," Mrs Pa said. Pride, and the loss of face, almost made her add, but we can manage. She was too old for face; she could not manage. She bit the words back. "I've been wondering—you see, I have to work. I have no choice. But I didn't know if anyone might look after Precious Dragon for me . . . He is not the usual kind of child, Inari."
"No. I can see that he is not." Inari smiled. "But then, I'm not the usual kind of childminder."
"You may think it's very naïve of me, to hand over care of my grandson to a stranger—if you wouldn't mind, of course. I'm sure you're very busy."
"No," Inari said, rather wistfully. "Actually, I'm not."
"But you see, Precious Dragon seems to trust you." She turned to her grandson, who replied with a nod. "And Precious Dragon seems to know things."
"I should be honored to look after him," Inari said. Something in her voice prompted Mrs Pa to say, as delicately as she could, "Do you—do you have children of your own?"
"No." Inari paused. "You see—I'd like a child, of course. We both would. But it would be a big problem to find a hospital that would take me if anything went wrong, and I don't think they'd know what to do, anyway. I'm not supposed to be here on Earth. And if I went back to Hell to have the baby, then there would be other complications. There are problems with my family, you see. And also, well, Chen is human and I'm not. It's not so easy sometimes."
She glanced at Precious Dragon as she spoke, evidently wondering whether this was a suitable subject to raise in front of a small child, but Precious Dragon was considering her with his customary gravity. Mrs Pa said, with a sympathy that struck at her heart, "I know. It's never easy."
"Well," Inari said. "Enough of my problems. I mustn't keep you. Here's my number—let me know when you'd like me to—" Mrs Pa thought that she was about to say "babysit," but that hadn't sounded right the first time, somehow "—look after him," Inari finished.
"I will. And thank you."
Inari put her sunglasses back on, even though it was now long past twilight, and Mrs Pa showed her to the door. The badger rose, too, and moved past her, sinuous now as it slid into the shadows, and she watched them walk up the harbor path, the demon girl and the beast at her side, until the shadows swallowed them.