the story begins with yumiko the vixen and denji the kitsune

When Yumiko was young, she loved to watch her father in the moonlight. She would lie
down on the grass and listen for his footsteps as he padded across the hillside above their
cave, and when they found him sitting on top of the highest rock, gazing out over the forest
at night, Yumiko would creep up quietly behind him and stare into his eyes. He always
knew exactly what she wanted from him: just one glimpse into another world where all
things are possible—a world beyond death. But she had not yet learned that this other world
could be reached by only two ways: through the light or through darkness. The way we find
it depends upon how far we can look inside ourselves. In time, Yumiko grew older and
wiser. As an adult, she married a man who loved her so much that he could never see past
her fur. Her husband's love blinded him to everything else about her—her sharp claws, her
poisonous teeth, even to the fact that she killed his favorite hunting dog because the dog
refused to die after