Paul stared up into the branches of the tree, scowling. It wasn’t that it was the tree’s fault, as trees went it wasn’t bad. A fine healthy specimen of a momi fir, perhaps thirty five or forty feet tall, just like many of the others growing on the mountains around the temple.

No, the tree wasn’t the problem… it was the fact that it was right in the middle of the temple complex and that it had, most decidedly, not been there yesterday.

“Shoko-san!”

There was a rustle up in branches somewhere, and Paul thought he could make out small body up high.

“Hey, get down here now, please.”

There was a set of crashes as the person descended in a controlled fall, bouncing from branch to branch, until a small heart-shaped face peered down through the lower branches at Paul. It was manifestly not Shoko-san, not unless she’d swapped her fox ears with their black tips and red-gold fur, for white cat ears.

“Nyaan?”

Paul stared up at the cat-girl perplexed, wondering what she was doing here.

“Um. Good morning miss.”

The girl dropped the final few feet, and bowed.

“Good Morning Herald-san. I am very sorry if my work disturbed you.”

“Um.. please, call me Paul, or Paul-san if you must. No, your.. work… didn’t so much disturb as… Well, why is there a huge great tree in the middle of the courtyard, and for that matter how?!”

The girl grinned, and preened just a little.

“Lord Sura asked me to place this tree here! As a gift to Inari Okami and specifically to you Paul-san.”

“Okayyy… again, how? It looks a bit big for you to carry.”

“Nyaan! Now, yes. But when I brought it here, it was just a tiny sapling. Lord Sura enchanted it so it would borrow some days of it’s life, fifty years hence. When it comes time to remove it, the spell can be undone and it will be a sapling once again.”

“I… see. Well, that explains how, but why?”

The cat-girl, or Neko, tilted her head to one side, in a distinctly cat-like expression of puzzlement.

“It’s a Tree, for Kurisumasu... I was told you’re English, you should know that!”

Paul leaned back slightly, looking up at the tree.

“Yeahhh…. Normally they’re a lot smaller, so they fit inside the house, and they have decorations on them.”

“Lord Sura thought you’d want to decorate it yourself… and it’s so big because he wanted it to be the best!”

“Well, tell Lord Sura, thank you and it’s exactly how I imagined a Boar forest spirit would imagine a Christmas tree to be.”

“Nyaan! He’ll be pleased!”

“I didn’t get your name by the way, or why you’re doing this.”

“Oh, I’m Aki, and I owed Lord Sura a favour, not a big one though. This was repayment.”

“Ah, ok. Pleased to meet you Aki-san. So... is there any more work to be done on it?”

Aki shook her head, then looked faintly embarrassed.

“Ah, well… no. My job was to place it where it would have enough room, and trigger the spell. After that, there was nothing else to do.”

“Then what… oh. Let me guess, couldn’t resist climbing it?”

The Neko grabbed her ears, ducking her head to hide the fact her cheeks were flaming red.

“Nyaa! It’s a very nice tree!”

“Agreed, it is...and if you’re not busy once we’ve got the decorations sorted out, perhaps you could help us hang them?”

“Oh! May I?!”

“Yup, come around again this evening. We might just have figured out what we’re doing by then...”

“Nyaa! I finish work at the plant nursery by five, I’ll come straight from work.”

Paul nodded, thinking to himself that explained why Lord Sura had asked her..

“Ok, I’ll see you then.”

Aki scampered off, leaving Paul wondering what twist of fate would result in a neko working in a plant nursery. A dryad he could understand… still, maybe she just liked plants.

Half an hour later, and Paul put the breakfast tray down next to the hump under the quit.

“Inari, sleepy-head.. food.”

“Mph!”

“C’mon Inari, it’s a bright, brisk day.. oh, and we’ve got a damn great Christmas tree in courtyard, thanks to Lord Sura.”

Inari moved, so that an ear poked out from under the covers. Paul reached out, and brushed a fingertip over the little black tuft of hair at the end, setting her ear to twitching.

Inari’s protest was muffled by the blankets and the quilt heaped up on top of her. Paul sighed, and with one hand lifted the covers, using the other to waft the bacon-scented air rising from the tray into Inari’s blanket den.

After a moment, an inquisitive nose emerged, sniffing the air, followed by the rest of Inari as she emerged, bleary eyed. She smiled sleepily up at Paul, and then sat up stretching.

“Good morning Paul-san.”

“Morning Inari, sleep well?”

“Mm. Yes...thank you.”

Paul pressed a cup of coffee into her hands, and she sighed as she inhaled the curl of steam rising from it, before she set to eating breakfast.

She was working on her second cup of coffee when she remarked.

“Did you say Christmas tree?”

“Oh, you heard that? Yes. You know anything about it?”

“Um… I thought it would be nice if we celebrated Kurisumasu, for you.. after all you’re away from your family.”

Paul snorted and shook his head.

“No I’m not. You’re all right here. But thank you for the thought.”

Inari smiled at Paul, her unguarded expression full of love... before she buried her face in her mug again, her cheeks a touch bit pinker than they were before.

“Ah..I was thinking we could put it in the Main hall and..”

“Inari, it’s about thirty, forty feet tall.”

“Oh! But how…?”

“Magic apparently, the Neko, a nice girl by the name of Aki, who brought it said something about borrowing a few days of it’s life from about fifty years into the future, presumably when it’s full grown. That’s the other thing, it’s growing in the courtyard… fully rooted etc.”

“Oh. I think Lord Sura might have misunderstood what I wanted..”

“That’d be a safe bet. But it’s ok, we can still decorate it. In days gone by it was customary to ‘dress’ a tree outside, and hang lanterns on it as a guide for travellers... Oh! Now that’s a thought! Ok, you know you said you’d need some place high up to put a beacon for your messenger foxes to navigate by? Would thirty something feet be high enough maybe?”

Inari giggled and nodded.

“Yes! That would make a perfect star on top of the tree!”

“Splendid! And provided it remains dry, we can have the JSDF people pile the presents under the tree prior to distribution. Might even manage to persuade them to wear green pointy hats, since they’re filling in for Santa’s elves.”

Inari blinked, looking at him in puzzlement. Paul shrugged.

“The story goes, Santa has little elves helping him at the North-Pole, making the toys and so on.. Although, come to think of it, I suppose here that would be Koropokkuru maybe?”

Inari nodded slowly.

“Yess… although the little people aren’t known to be particularly helpful to anyone, not since their princess was kidnapped about..oh.. four hundred years ago.”

Paul raised an eyebrow, and Inari shrugged at his unspoken question.

“I don’t know the details, but the story is she fell in love with a human man. They ran away, and her family said she was kidnapped. After that, they’d have nothing more to do with humans. I don’t know what’s happened to them since, but they were never very social even with other yokai.”

“Oh… well. Anyway, ancient scandals aside, we need to figure out how to decorate a nearly forty foot tall tree. Which is going to take a hell of a lot of tinsel and baubles I bet!”

“What and what?”

Paul blinked, and then smacked his palm on his forehead.

“D’oh.. Of course, you’ve no idea what those are! Ok, step one, show you some pictures of Christmas trees. Step two, see what we can come up with, illusions maybe. Step three, deck the halls etc.. Um, there’s a thought, the oldest sorts of decorations used to be what one could find in nature. Does holly or ivy grow around here?”

Inari nodded, looking thoughtful.

“There was a time when those were used to make decorations, long ago… but for a different ceremony.”

“Do you remember how? It would be good to bring in a little of the old into the new.”

“Mm. Yes. I think so. You want...oh what is the word.. garlands? Long strings of ivy with small holly twigs woven into them. Is that right?”

Paul nodded.

“That’s right, garlands, swags, or boughs. As in the song ‘deck the halls with boughs of holly..’ and so on.”

“Ah! So that’s what that means.. I heard the song in town yesterday and I wondered.”

“Yeah, it’s a very old traditional English Yuletide or Christmas song, although honestly, most people can never remember more than the first verse or two. Me included.”

Inari chewed on a strip of bacon thoughtfully, then swallowed remarking.

“We could make paper lanterns and light them with foxfire. If Rin and Shoko help, we can do many different colours too. I’ll ask Kiko to assist in building a spell so they stay lit, and don’t need to be recast every evening.”

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“That sounds like a good idea… beats LEDs anyway. No wires everywhere.”

Paul looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled an odd crooked smile as he continued.

“You know… if we made a version that has a pre-made talisman built into the base, that you just activate by touch, we could mass produce those by printing and then sell them.”

Inari tilted her head looking at him.

“Why would we do that? They wouldn’t work without magic.”

Paul nodded.

“Which would mean you’d have to buy a small household mana convertor to power them wirelessly, right. At least until we start building a municipal ‘grid’ of mana convertors, and realise Tesla’s dream of wireless power distribution.”

“Oh! I get it! Encouraging people to use magic by making it more like technology.”

Paul made a ‘so-so’ rocking gesture with his hand.

“Something like that, I was thinking that magic isn’t as developed as science, because it hasn’t worked in most places for ages. But, now we’ve fixed that problem, we could do something to develop new ideas based on what we’ve found out via science, and come up with real world applications for it. You know, start people thinking what else they can do with this stuff, rather than just keep doing the same thing over and over.”

Inari paused, a slice of toast half-way to her mouth as she thought.

“I...see. Ambitious as always my Herald. But why? The old ways work.”

“They work sort of.. but only a few people can do magic the old way. I want to make it as ubiquitous as technology is, and as easy to use. Which will require a rethink of how it’s done, and a whole new set of techniques and magical technology. Because if it’s as widespread and useful as technology is now, then it can’t just be easily forgotten again, or shunted aside as a relic. If it’s useful, it’ll thrive and since the core of magic is the mana convertor, that’ll mean people will want to have those everywhere. Which will ensure the continued survival of yokai.”

“Ahhh, I see! Sneaky… but your first attempt at doing magic wasn’t very successful Paul.”

“I know, I’ve been studying. I had the right idea, but I forgot to add limiters. The theory was sound at least. But yes, I plan on trying again with something a bit less ambitious. The lanterns would be an excellent place to try again… with a little help from you and Kiko of course.”

Inari nodded.

“Of course we’ll help… I can show you how we do it, then you see if you can copy that, yes?”

“Maybe not copy exactly, but get the same effect yes. And make sure I don’t blow myself up or something.”

Inari giggled

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea. Ok, we can help, it’ll be fun too, certainly more entertaining than folding a few dozen paper lanterns.”

Paul smiled a bit lopsidedly.

“Let’s hope it’s not too ‘entertaining’ though.”

Mid-morning found Paul sitting outside the main hall, keeping warm by an iron dish-like brazier, designing talismans to conjure and control foxfire… or at least, trying to. He’d so far consigned a dozen or more sheets of paper to the flames as failures. Those that hadn’t immolated themselves anyway, which was why he was working outside, a safe distance from the old, and very dry, timber building.

The crunch of footsteps across the gravel made him look up, and then smile as he recognised the witch, Haruna Maaya, leading three young girls. The youngest of them looked to be maybe twelve, and the oldest was perhaps seventeen or eighteen… and bore a marked resemblance to Maaya, leading Paul to assume she was Haruna Akio, Maaya’s daughter.

Paul stood up as the group of four came over to him and he smiled, addressing Maaya.

“I see you met them at the train station with no bother then.”

“Yes, thank you again Herald-San.”

“Please, call me Paul. Glad I could help. Warm yourselves by the fire a bit. I’ll tidy up here and see about putting some tea on.”

Maaya nodded, as her daughter picked up the latest talisman Paul had been working on.

“Ah, careful that’s..”

There was a brief surge of power and the carefully inked diagram drawn in silver conductive ink flashed with a brilliant purple light before the paper ignited.

Akio dropped the talisman onto the gravel, fanning her fingers where they’d been scorched.

“Cool!”

“Well, it would be if that’s what I was trying to do… dammit. Back to the drawing board.”

Maaya scowled at her daughter.

“Akio! You mustn’t meddle with other people’s work.”

“Oh don’t fret Maaya, I’ve been trying to build a working talisman all morning.. so far I haven’t hit upon a layout that works right.”

Paul was suddenly aware that all four witches were staring at him intently.

“Ok, what?”

“You have been inventing those?”

“Um.. yes? Did I do something wrong?”

The youngest witch giggled.

“Boys can’t do magic!”

The next older girl added.

“And you don’t just make up spells, they have to be carefully copied from the family grimoire. The most anyone does is substitute components...and those are just.. well, they’re scribbles of ink! How can those be spells?!”

Paul tilted his head, regarding them in a puzzled way.

“Um… ok. I have the feeling this explanation might take some time. Maaya, I think your village’s magical tradition is very different, more like old school hermetic or perhaps shamatic magic.. right?”

Maaya nodded slowly.

“You are close, but not exactly right. I don’t recognise what you are doing here though.”

“It’s called, making it up as I go along… ok. With your permission Maaya, I’d like to show you four something that’s liable to overturn what you think you know about magic.”

“I doubt that, but please proceed Hea.. Paul-san.”

Paul flashed a smile at the woman and three girls.

“Ok, follow me… and the Great and Mighty Oz will show you his workshop..”

Maaya looked nonplussed, but all three girls giggled.

Paul lead them to his workshop, casually waving to Yuri whose turn it was to be on guard today. The girls clustered close to Maaya as they passed the tall and imposing Oni, not quite flinching as she smiled at them, but definitely twitching.

Any fear they felt though was quickly forgotten as they looked around the workshop itself. Maaya frowned as she peered around.

“I can tell that a great deal of magic has been worked here.. but I cannot tell what sort or how.”

“You’re probably sensing the residual field actually… and it’s not precisely magic, but raw mana that’s created here.”

“You can’t create mana! It has to be drawn from somewhere.”

“Well, technically true.. but what I’m doing is converting ordinary electrical energy into mana.”

Maaya shook her head.

“That’s impossible!”

“I beg to differ. Watch.”

Paul pulled on the lever that opened the sluice gates, sending water rushing over the water-wheel outside. Once that was turning at full speed, he engaged the generator, sending power through the heavy cables to the mana convertor set up. Crossing over to that, he carefully brought the convertor to sizzling, crackling life…

Turning round he saw that all four witches eyes seemed to be as big and round as dinner plates in their shocked, pale faces, with mouths hanging open.

“Like I said...”

“How are you doing that!? How does it work?!”

That was Akio, almost pleading with him.. the next younger girl had conjured some fire to her hand and was twisting and turning her fingers, playing with it with a look of wonder on her face. Even Maaya looked stunned as she spoke.

“There’s… so much power just pouring off that..that..”

“I call it a mana convertor.”

Akio spoke up.

“How does it work?”

“Ok, you may not know, but the origin of magic is certain crystals trapped in earthquake fault lines. When there’s a quake, the crystals get squeezed, and through a process called piezoelectric effect, make electricity. This interacts with certain other crystals, which turn it into mana. There’s a few more steps involving haematite and magnetic fields, but that’s the gist of it. What I’m doing is recreating that, using pure electricity, on a very large scale.”

Maaya shook her head.

“That’s no magic I’ve ever heard of.”

“That would be because it’s new. Something I put together.”

The youngest witch looked at him and breathlessly exclaimed.

“You can do that?! Just.. make up something new!”

“Well.. yes.. if you have half a notion as to how magic works. I mean, not just the rote application of spells, but the actual theory behind it. How it all works… Ok, how many of you understand maths and physics?”

All four of them looked between each other, but no-one volunteered. Paul sighed…

“Ok, detailed explanations will have to wait otherwise I’m just going to sound like I’m talking gibberish.. but suffice it to say, I’ve figured out some of the underlying mechanisms behind magic..taken the back off the clockwork and seen what makes it tick so to speak. I don’t understand more than a tenth of it.. but it’s a start. Enough that I can design new spells. Ok, you..”

Paul pointed to the youngest witch, then frowned slightly.

“I’m sorry.. we didn’t do introductions. I’m Paul, and you are?”

“Dot. It’s short for Dorothea..”

“Really?”

“It’s my great, great grandmother’s name, she was born in the old country Mother says.”

“Hmm. Ok then Dot, do you know how to cast a circle?”

“Of course, that’s the first thing we learn! For protection and binding.”

“Ok, do you know why it works? Why not a square?”

Dot blinked, and looked at the others, who shrugged.

“It.. it just does...”

“Ok, it’s because the circle conducts mana, which as it flows around it, produces a vortex, like a whirlpool… this twists anything trying to cross the line, so it also swirls around the circle. This generates a null spot, like the eye of the storm and also breaks up any pattern in the mana, aka spells.”

“Ohhhh… Mistress Maaya, did you know that?”

“I did not… but, what has that to do with creating new spells.”

Paul grinned, warming to the topic.

“Ok, so, the circle is the simplest example of what I’m doing. By creating patterns that manipulate the flow of mana, I can give it shape and form… which is what a spell is, basically. There is a bit more involved with it. For example, I use iron oxide ink to create the outer-most circle, because that absorbs mana and in effect acts as an antenna to pull in power from the mana field being generated here, and I use words and symbols to inscribe intent into the talisman, because those interact with the weak mana field created by the body’s biomagnetic field, in effect imprinting my will into the conductive ink.”

“I.. don’t think I understood most of that.”

“Doesn’t matter… basically, it’s sort of more like traditional Japanese magic, but with weird science added in.”

The middle girl spoke up.

“Um, my name’s Chiyo and… and can I learn to do this? Only I’m not very good at traditional magic, and this way kind of feels like it almost makes sense to me already...”

Paul looked at Maaya.

“Would that be ok? I mean, I hadn’t planned on taking on a student and I’d need her parents permission I guess… but so far, I’m the only one that understands how all this works, so if anything were to happen to me….”

Maaya shook her head slowly.

“Her parents don’t want Chiyo back… they.. well they have yokai blood in the family line so..”

“Oh. Well damn! That’s cold of them!”

Chiyo stared intently at the floor, scuffing it with the toe of her beat-up sneakers.

“You don’t know what I had to do… but if you did, you wouldn’t want me either...I don’t even want to be me too.”

Paul took three steps closer to her, and put his hand on Chiyo’s shoulder.

“Kid, you are now, officially, my apprentice. The first apprentice technomage, ever. And in case you are worried, I have spent half my life in and out of war zones and some of the nastiest hell-holes around the world… there’s not much left that can surprise or shock me about what people will do to survive. And no, I am not bothered by whatever it is you did, because it wasn’t your fault. That’s reserved for the people who forced you to work for them. There’s nothing about you, that can make me think less of you.”

Chiyo lifted her head, and studied Paul’s face for a moment. Then she reached up, and undid her cloak clasp, before letting it slip to the floor.

For a moment it looked as if the young girl was wearing another cloak underneath, one of shimmering shining gauze… then she spread her wings.

Paul blinked, and then frowned. The shimmering transparent wings strongly resembled a dragonfly’s in structure and texture, but were perhaps more akin to a butterfly’s wings in shape… although it was hard to tell as they were sadly crumpled and torn, with great rents running almost the entire span of them in what was clearly a deliberate pattern.

“The Hunters did that? Clipped your wings so you couldn’t fly away?”

Chiyo nodded, tears welling in her eyes. Paul growled softly under his breath.

“Just when I think I couldn’t hate them more… Ok, I’ll have a word with Inari and Kiko, see if our resident Goddesses can do something to fix those for you.”

“They can do that?”

“Probably… I’m assuming they haven’t healed because they’re dead tissue, like hair or finger nails.”

“Yes… once damaged they can sometimes be repaired but not healed.”

“Hm.. well, repair might be a more accurate word then, but still it should be possible. I can ask at least, and if they can’t, I’ll see what science can do for you instead.”

Chiyo stared at him for a moment, then went down on one knee.

“I pledge my life and my service to you Herald-san!

“Ah.. um… I accept your pledge, and promise to do my best to look after you, to um.. protect and train you to the best of my ability and..and.. oh for goodness sakes, get up. Enough with the medieval oaths and stuff...”

Chiyo giggled.

“That’s NOT how it’s supposed to go!”

“Like I know? Alright everyone, impromptu class over, let’s go get something to eat! Maaya, we need to discuss what taking an apprentice involves as far as your people are concerned, and make sure I’m not about to step on any cultural landmines.”

Maaya nodded.

“Agreed… although I think there will be great deal of ‘making it up as we go along’ because I can’t recall ever hearing of anyone taking an apprentice before, not in this sense. Children study their family’s branch of magic, usually with their mother, or an aunt or some other relation.”

Paul nodded.

“I take it, it’s a female only thing then?”

“Yes.. men don’t do magic. In fact, I would’ve said can’t… until today.”

Dot piped up suddenly.

“Can I be a ‘prentice too?! I don’t want to work with smelly old herbs and bits of animals any more!”

Paul opened his mouth to answer, but Akio jumped in.

“Me too! Your magic is cool Paul-san, and I don’t wanna go home. I want to explore and learn about the outside world and not be stuck in the village all my life doing nothing!”

Maaya looked horrified at her daughter.

“Akio!”

Paul held up his hands.

“Whoa, girls..hold on! Ok, Dot, I’ll need to talk with your parents. Akio, you would need your mother’s permission..”

“No I don’t! I’m seventeen. I can do what I want. And I don’t want to waste away in the sticks! I like the city, and I like using magic to do stuff… although, maybe not the way the Hunters wanted me to. That was icky.”

Paul looked at Maaya who had a pinched-lipped expression as she held in her reaction. Sighing he shook his head.

“Look, Akio… firstly I’m not 100% sure I know what to do with one apprentice, much less three. I’ve hardly even begun to figure this stuff out myself. It could end up with you teaching me… and hold your horses, before you fly off in a temper! Secondly, while you are right about the age of consent and so on, you owe your mother your freedom. If she hadn’t had the sheer guts to approach me, I would not have known what happened, and you three would be still be in jail somewhere. Given that she’s missed you, it’s hardly fair to be wanting to leave her the day after you get free, now is it?”

Akio muttered something that probably wasn’t very polite, then nodded reluctantly. Paul patted her shoulder.

“Take heart though, we can work something out. Even if I do take you on as an apprentice, I won’t be teaching all three of you full time, so you’ll have to head home. Besides, here is hardly the bright lights of the big city.”

“It is in comparison.. you have electricity for a start.”

“Ok, ok, enough. Food...lets go and get some. Ah, first however, a quick lesson. Watch and pay careful attention to the shut down sequence. Getting it wrong can result in a wrecked mana convertor, and potentially the loss of eyebrows from the resulting explosion.”