I couldn’t wait for the next party in Caltrop Pond, but in order to attend it, I needed alcohol. Which I didn’t have. And which I wasn’t sure how or where to obtain – except that it would not be from the Jeks’ winter store. I pondered the issue all afternoon while monitoring Taila’s movements, and by the time Mistress Jek dismissed Bobo and herded her family indoors for supper, I had my solution.

Before the viper could slither out of the yard, I emerged from the green onions to intercept her. But she, as it turned out, was also searching for me.

Hey, Bobo, I greeted her.

“Rosssie!” she cried in delight. “I thought it was you! What are you doing here?”

Let’s talk elsewhere. I waggled my head away from the cottage, in the rough direction of Caltrop Pond.

“Sssure!”

I led her away from the cottage and into a stand of bamboo, whose rustling leaves would help cover our voices. On instinct, Bobo glided up a stalk and curled around it loosely, draping her head down to look at me.

“What’s up?” She lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper, the kind parodied by stage actors playing Imperial spies. “Why all the sssuper-sssecret sssecrecy?”

Funny you should ask, I answered with a significant nod. About the secrecy, I mean.

“Huh?”

Taking one step closer, I craned my neck upward and whispered back in the same melodramatic tone, You asked what I’m doing here. I’m on a secret mission on behalf of – And I swiveled my head from side to side, as if checking for eavesdroppers, before rolling my eyes up at the sky.

The viper gawked at the bamboo leaves overhead for a very long moment.

“Oooooh! You mean, you’re working for – ?” Copying me, she pointed her nostrils at the sky a couple times and also rolled her eyes upward.

Yes. Discretion is of the utmost necessity.

“Ooooh! You’re a sssecret agent for the gods!” She nodded so hard that the bamboo bounced. “You can count on me. I’m very dissscreet!” Sliding down to my eye level, she stage-whispered, “Ssso, which god? Which god is it?”

Very discreet, indeed. I wish I could tell you. But the god’s instructions were very specific.

“Oh. I sssee.” Bobo looked crestfallen, but perked up at once. “Will you tell me sssomeday? Promise you’ll tell me sssomeday!”

No harm in promising, since she was too dumb to make me swear an oath. Of course.

“Great! Ooh, this is ssso exciting! I’m friends with a real sssecret agent sssent down to Earth by the gods! Can I help? I want to help. How can I help?”

Well, since she asked so nicely. After a pretense of deep thought, I suggested, Well, actually, there is something. It’s very important.

That excited her. She leaned forward until her nostrils practically bumped mine. “Uh huh, uh huh! Anything!”

Wow, was her life really that boring?

I confided, It’s important for me to blend into the social scene here, so no one suspects me. So it would be useful for me to attend the parties at Caltrop Pond –

“Sssay no more!” she exclaimed. “I know exactly what you need!” She tapped her nostrils with the tip of her tail in a cliched knowing gesture. “I ssstill have a few bottles of Missstress Shay’s ale. I’ll bring one for you tonight!”

Oh, thank you so much! I really appreciate it! The next time I make my report to Heaven, you can be certain that I will mention your assistance.

She couldn’t really puff out her chest, but her spine straightened and she lifted her head. “It’s my honor! You can count on me! I’m very dissscreet!”

Well, as it turned out, she was two of those things. She did consider it an honor to assist me, and she did indeed bring an extra bottle of Mistress Shay’s revolting ale for me to present to the Dragon King of Caltrop Pond. As for the discretion….

“Shtripey! You made it! Shtripey Shtripey Shtripey!”

Waving a wing, the duck demon waddled across the dance floor to join us. “Hullo, Bobo, Rosie. You seem extra energetic tonight, Bobo. Get a new job?”

“Huh? Oh, no.” The viper sagged for a moment, then cheered up and draped a coil over my back. “I jusht learned shomething very important.” She shouted into his ear, “Roshie ish a shecret agent!”

Great. I darted a guilty glance at the nearby dancers, but no one was paying attention.

Bobo! I hissed, at the same time that Stripey remarked in an indulgent voice, “Is that so?”

“It’sh true!” she insisted. “She told me sho hershelf. Thish afternoon.” And, at his tolerant chuckle, “I washn’t drunk when she told me! Tell him, Roshie!”

Ah, the advantages of associating with the local drunk. No one believed her when she blurted out all your secrets. And she always knew where to find alcohol.

I made a show of proclaiming, Yes, Stripey, she is correct. I am indeed a super-secret secret agent. Then I shrugged my shoulders and tipped my head back and forth in a comical way.

“Roshie!” Bobo pulled back, looking hurt.

Stripey draped one soothing wing around her and the other around me. “Come on, you two. More dancing, less conspiring. All of us are off duty.” He winked at me.

I winked back, thinking that a duck demon bandit might prove useful too. Approached the right way, he might agree to have his flock warn me if Taila tried to drown herself or feed herself to a catfish demon. At the very least, perhaps I could convince him to donate some duck eggs to her diet. It wouldn’t hurt any humans, plus it would decrease the number of bandits-in-training. The Accountants should like that.

So, what’s the plan for tonight? I asked him and Bobo, who was swigging from a flask in resigned silence.

“Same as last night,” he replied. “We drink and dance here until His Majesty decides he wants fresh air, and then we drink and dance on land until dawn, and then people show off their stamina by performing the Dawn Dance, and finally we wrap it up with the Chicken Dance. Fun, ain’t it?”

It did sound fun. I resolved to memorize the choreography for the Dawn Dance tonight so I could perform it tomorrow.

It took three nights for me to become a regular in the Dawn Dance sets. One to memorize the choreography – and two to figure out how to execute it. Turtles aren’t the most, shall we say, dexterous of creatures.

And it took under one day for Bobo to blab my secret to the Mistress Jek.

I was busy indulging Taila in another game of pretend cooking when it happened. (Which really was a game of pretend, because I had no experience with cooking. The four-year-old knew more than I did.)

“Here’s yoooour soup, Mr. Turtle,” she sang. She mimed ladling soup out of a cabbage with a stick. “And here’s myyyyy soup.”

When she made as if to pick up an imaginary bowl in both hands and bring it to her lips, I couldn’t stand it anymore.

Stop.

“Huh?” Taila froze, blinking in confusion.

First of all, don’t say “huh.” It’s vulgar.

“Vul-gar?”

Oh, great, she didn’t know what that meant, did she? I rephrased, It’s rude. Bad manners. You don’t want people to think you were raised by raccoon dogs, do you?

“Raccoon dogs?”

Did those not exist anymore, or had she never seen one? If the species had gone extinct since the end of the Serican Empire, I wouldn’t miss it. Raccoon dogs tried to steal prey from foxes, so we killed them whenever we could. And people with no taste claimed that they looked cute. Humph.

A raccoon dog is a small creature with dirty grey fur and a black face like it’s wearing a bandit’s mask. You’ve never seen one?

Eyes huge, Taila shook her head.

That’s for the best. You don’t want to. They’re mean. So you certainly don’t want to act like one. Now sit up straight, leave your bowl on the table, and sip the soup from a spoon.

We didn’t have chairs, bowls, spoons, or soup for that matter, but I thought her imagination could supply them. And indeed, she straightened her back and pretended to spoon soup from a bowl in her lap. That cross-legged position had to go too. I did not want to see her bare legs.

Don’t sit like that. It’s vulgar – rude. Either kneel, or lean to the side a little and fold your legs gracefully.

I really wished I could demonstrate, but I had to settle for talking her through more acceptable feminine postures.

Better, I said at last, grudgingly accepting that a raccoon dog pup wasn’t going to transform into an elegant fox overnight. You look less like a savage now –

And that was when Mistress Jek came stomping around the corner, straight at the two of us. Her deportment needed a lot of work too, except I didn’t have to look at her as often, so it was more tolerable.

Adopting a vacant expression, I pretended to be a normal turtle that her daughter had coopted.

“YOU!”

Did Mistress Jek yell all the time, or was that her normal speaking voice?

“YOU! TURTLE!”

I blinked at her, then pulled my head and legs into my shell. Behind Mistress Jek slunk Bobo, looking sheepish.

“Missstress Jek, ma’am,” she was babbling, “that’s an agent of the gods, we have to be polite….”

The woman was having none of it. “YOU! Turtle! What are you doin’ in MY yard, and what do the gods want with MY daughter?”

I considered leading her to believe that Bobo was hallucinating, but having Taila’s parents obey me seemed more useful. Coming back out of my shell, I fixed Mistress Jek with an imperious stare.

Kneel, woman. You’re in the presence of an emissary of the gods.

She snorted. “I’ll kneel when I believe it. No god would be interested in us.”

I bristled and said in an icy tone, You are correct. No gods are interested in you. It is your daughter who is the object of their attention.

I wasn’t sure she’d be able to unravel that sentence, but she got the gist of it. “Why?” she demanded. Her voice was full of suspicion, not at all what you’d expect from a proper, Heaven-fearing peasant. “Who the gods love, die young. What do they want of MY daughter?”

For her not to die young. For her to lead a good life. The same things Mistress Jek wanted, really.

Jek Taila is destined for great things, I proclaimed. She was not meant to squander her life in obscurity in a backwater hovel.

“What things? Why do the gods care what happens to the likes of us?” repeated Mistress Jek stubbornly.

Surely you’ve heard of reincarnation? Your daughter was an important person in the past. (Hundreds of years in the past.) She will be an important person again in this life. (Maybe. Probably not, though.)

At the mention of reincarnation and past lives, Mistress Jek’s shoulders loosened a little, as if that made sense. I supposed that parents always believed their offspring were special. There was still significant distrust in her tone, however, as she asked, “What d’ya mean, `important’? Is she goin’ to marry Master Gian’s son?”

I had no idea who Master Gian was, but if Mistress Jek knew him, then he couldn’t be important. Oh, no, you have to think bigger than that. Unfortunately, I am forbidden to reveal her destiny. I can only say that it does not lie on the banks of Black Sand Creek.

At least, not if I had anything to say about it.

“Hmph.” Mistress Jek scowled but conceded, “Well, you talk like one of them scholars up at the castle, so maybe yer telling the truth. But I want proof yer not a kidnapper.”

A what?! Who would want Taila???

You go too far, woman! Extending my legs as far as they’d go and raising myself off the ground as far as I could, I lifted my head Heavenward and called, Oh Great Goddess, send a sign to this unbeliever!

I was gambling that no matter how busy Aurelia was, she was still monitoring me and Taila. And indeed, a heartbeat later, golden sparks started to blink into existence like fireflies. More and more appeared, until they solidified into a very harassed-looking Flicker.

Oh, hey, Flicker! She sent you?

Flicker’s lips pressed into a thin line. He turned his disapproving stare on Mistress Jek.

At the sight of a glowing, golden entity in flowing robes appearing out of thin air, the woman flung herself to the ground and pressed her forehead into the dirt. Eyes shining with excitement, Bobo flattened herself along the entire length of her belly.

“What in the world is going on here?” Flicker demanded. “I’m busy, you know.”

Both the question and irritation were addressed at me, but Mistress Jek assumed he was talking to her. “Forgive me, Great One!” she cried. “Forgive me for interruptin’ yer work!”

Still in a lofty tone, I proclaimed, I have been endeavoring to convince this woman that Heaven sent me to watch over her daughter.

Flicker heaved a long sigh, as if he’d expected nothing else, even if he’d hoped against hope. “My name is Flicker,” he told Mistress Jek in an exhausted voice. “I am a functionary in the Bureau of Reincarnation in Heaven.”

Huh, “functionary.” That did sound more prestigious than “third-class clerk.”

“For better or for worse, this turtle has been assigned to watch over and guide your daughter to a better life.”

Assigned? For better or for worse? Gee, thanks, I told him sarcastically. Of Mistress Jek, I demanded, Now are you satisfied?

“Yes, yes! Forgive me for questionin’ Heaven’s will, Great Ones!”

“Good, good. Now if that’s all sorted out? I have a whole waiting room full of souls.”

Flicker’s impatience was all aimed at me, but with her face in the dirt, Mistress Jek couldn’t tell. “Yes, yes! Forgive me for interruptin’ yer work, Great One!”

Flicker started to dissolve back into golden motes.

Wait, before you go, I called, lumbering forward. How did you know to come? Why didn’t she come? Did she send you?

“What do you think?” he snapped. “Her actions are far too constrained for her to ‘pop’ down to Earth whenever she wants, so she ordered me to monitor your actions and assist as necessary. So please don’t make it necessary.”

That was good to know. Sure.

He heaved another weary sigh, as if he knew how much sincerity went into that single word. Then he blinked out of existence.

Satisfied, I surveyed Mistress Jek, Bobo, and Taila. The woman was slowly getting onto her knees, face pale (and dirty). The viper was writhing with excitement, no doubt at her vindication. And the girl was standing with her hands plunked on her hips and her head cocked to a side, as she had been throughout the conversation.

All right, I announced, if you’re done questioning my authority, I have changes to implement here.