Maybe a Fox (10 page)

He had shrugged. “You talk to Sylvie, I talk to Zeke,” he'd said. “I don't care what others would say if they knew. Some things don't make sense to anyone but yourself.”

Jules wanted to be back in the woods. She wanted to sit with Elk in the clearing. She wanted to see if she could spot the little fox again, if she were quiet and sneaky enough not to startle it first. She wouldn't mind seeing the bear, either. He was so fat and happy from all the garbage he'd been stealing that he probably wouldn't even notice her. Yes, it was time to get back to the woods.

And now, her brand-new burning wish—
find the Grotto
—tugged at her.

She took a step. Then another. But the invisible line stopped her. She stood as still as she could so as not to make any noise, not a sound, and then she inched forward. Her toes were right up against it. It would be so easy to cross it. It was invisible, after all. Jules leaned forward. She could do it. One step, and she would be over it. She felt the pull, as if there were a rope tied around her waist and the woods themselves were tugging on it. She could almost feel the rope's rough, scratchy braids in her palms. An invisible tug-of-war.

She nudged the line again with her toe. There was no fence, no wall. But it would mean another broken Do Not. Her whole life, she and Sylvie had been allowed to roam through the woods together with Sam. So long as they stayed away from the Slip, and within earshot of the house, so long as they didn't mess with any wild animals, they could tramp around to their hearts' delight.

But they had broken the cardinal rule:
Do not, under any circumstances, go near the Slip.
And because of that, Sylvie was gone, and now she and Dad lived in a time called After Sylvie. Jules reached into her pocket and pinched her sister's mitten, hard. If only Jules had held on tighter, if only she had gone with Sylvie. She could have caught her, she would not have let go. She would not have been like the River Brothers. She would have held on tight.

Do not cross that line,
Dad had said. He had added,
Don't even think about it.
Right on time, Jules heard the familiar rumbling of her father's pickup. He pulled into the drive and slammed the door of the cab, and walked toward her, her tall, worried dad, his arms outstretched.

“Juley-Jules,” he said. “We did it. We made it through the first day back.”

And for a brief moment, the thought of stepping over the line let go its terrible grip.

K
apow!

The windowpane in the Porter kitchen rattled. The crack of gunfire always surprised Sam, even though he had grown up hearing it. Someone must be out for that stupid bear again. Unless it was wild turkey season already. Sam had lost track. Then he remembered that his father had had a call from Fred Archer. “He's worried about his lambs,” he'd told Sam, stuffing his cell phone in his front pocket. Then he looked right at Sam and said, “Archer won't come onto our property, but you be careful out there anyways. Bears don't care about property lines.” Then he sighed. “And sometimes an angry farmer won't either.”

Sam knew that was true, even though he'd never seen anyone trespass on their property, or the Shermans', either. He knew that the Whippoorwill was a better barrier than any fence.

Kapow!
There it was again.

Sam knew the sound must upset his brother, reminding him of the war he had come home from. He could tell by the way Elk's eyes squinted, the way his shoulders tensed up, whenever he heard it.

Between Jules and her crazy anger at Liz, and Elk and his silence, Sam was exhausted. Sometimes he wanted to shout that
he
missed them too. He, Sam Porter, had loved Sylvie and Zeke! But there was no room for his sadness, smushed between Elk and Jules the way he was.

Maybe things would begin to change now, though. Jules might have been nuts at school, but he couldn't really blame her. Liz was an idiot. And Jules was back. He didn't have to sit on the bus alone anymore.

And at dinner that evening, Elk had suddenly looked up and said, “I've got the strangest feeling that someone's watching me out there in the woods.” Before anyone could reply, a look of embarrassment came over Elk's face, and he added, “It's probably that bear that's been getting into everyone's garbage.”

Maybe,
thought Sam,
but what if it's the catamount?
He had listened to the news on the radio every morning, but there had been no more reports.

The old catamount in Montpelier had done something to him. Ever since he had seen him, since he had stared at that case and seen his glass eyes, he had longed to see a real one, as if seeing one alive might restore the dignity of the one in the glass case. It mattered, didn't it? Seeing one that wasn't trapped, or at least knowing for sure that one was still out there. It mattered.

Kapow!

Another shot. This one closer. Sam pushed his chair away from the table. If there really was a catamount in their area, would a hunter shoot something so rare? Dumb question. If Fred Archer thought that his lambs were in trouble, it wouldn't matter. Even if it was against the law, that catamount would not be allowed to live.

Sam understood the farmer's point of view—he had to protect his livestock. But just as there were rogue bears out there, there were also rogue hunters, hunters who would get it into their heads that a catamount rug for the living room was a good idea. Sam knew they wouldn't care if this was the last catamount in the world.

But what if it was? What if his catamount was the very last one? The thought of there being only one of the big cats left made Sam fiercely protective. He pictured the small red fox, the one beside the bridge. She would be just as much a target. Foxes were not beloved by people who raised lambs either. It was a hard balance to maintain, between the humans who lived next to the woods of Vermont and the wild animals who roamed within them. To Sam, they were all woodland creatures. Every last one.

S
enna awoke when the roosters at the farm across the river began to crow. Far to the east a line of light began to rise above the pines. Older Brother was still sleeping. She pushed her muzzle into his neck experimentally, to see if he was ready to wake up, but no.

She hated being apart from him, but her need to find the Someone had grown stronger and stronger. She was linked to the girl Jules, but there was still a Someone she was supposed to find. It was a need that started in her gut and radiated into all four of her paws. The gray-green bars shimmered in the corner of her vision. Now, in the early morning, the river called to her. Maybe the Someone was there, by the river. She brushed against her sleeping brother once more, and then off she went.

Past the clearing, with its scent of Elk and catamount. Past the smell of the yearling bear and his stench of human garbage. Past the hidden cave with its mingled scents: humans both ancient and recent, animals, and rocks.

Senna's heart thudded in her chest. She lifted her head and saw that she was nearly there, bright sparkles of water ahead. She began to slow, trotting down the animal path that skirted the riverbank, leaping lightly over rocks and roots, through the piles of boulders and leaves, until she stood on a high, flat ledge above the Reemergence.

She looked down. The water came bubbling up out of the darkness, spreading over the surface of the earth, singing and murmuring its way south. She was distracted by a new scent, unfamiliar and tantalizing. Not prey. Senna scrabbled with her paws and claws, shoving aside smaller rocks with her muzzle.

There.

A small, dirty circle of cloth, human cloth. Had it once been blue? Black? Whatever its original color, it was faded now, by the sun and the snow and the elements. Mud-streaked, with claw marks.

Senna bent her head and sniffed. Happiness rushed through her at the smell. She plucked it up between her teeth and shook her head, so that the little band of cloth snapped back and forth. Then she smelled something else in the cloth, something that commanded all her attention.

It reminded her of something, but what?

Whiteness rose in Senna's vision.

White. Cold. Clean.

Snow.

In the knowledge passed down by her fox ancestors, she knew all about snow, even though she had never felt the crunchy cold of it beneath her paws. She breathed in the strip of cloth. Then she plopped into the fallen leaves beside the water and rested her head on it.

The ancient memory of falling whiteness made her shiver. But then she saw something else, something that wasn't ancient at all. A snow family. There was a mother and a father and two daughters. And right in the middle, a tiny snow fox.

Jules. Jules had made the small fox.

Then there were footsteps, running out into that cold clean snow. Senna could feel it in her own body, in her own legs, the sensation of running through falling whiteness.

Senna's whole body buzzed. There was something she was supposed to do with this narrow band of cloth, faded blue, the blue of almost-day, with stitched-on flowers.

She shook the band again and picked up her pace. First she crossed the field, then she headed directly toward the cave of rocks, the one behind the enormous white pine, just off the path.

Senna paused. The scent of humans was strong here. So was the scent of catamount, and a dozen other animals who lived nearby. But there was something else, too. The scent that she smelled on the band of cloth was also here, in the hidden cave. Slight, but there nonetheless. Senna hesitated. She understood that not every creature in the woodlands could see the cave, and even fewer could enter. Or would enter. The cave made itself known only to those with a reason for finding it. With the cloth in her mouth, Senna had a reason.

She nosed aside the drooping leaves and edged her way inside, where she leaned into the darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust.

This was an old, old place, a place where many before her had come, both human and animal. And Kennen, too. As if to prove it, the gray-green bars swayed before her, glimmering in the darkness. The Kennen. This was Senna's home territory. She breathed in the ancient smells, both familiar and not.

A sensation of warmth, of quiet, filled her, and she remembered the den of her birth, far below the surface of the earth. The gray-green bars slipped in and around her; then they banged together silently against the cavern walls. They threw off a spark of light, tiny at first, then growing in size. While Senna watched the light expand, a woman appeared inside it, a woman with long hair the same color as Senna's own fur, reddish-brown now that she was almost full-grown, flickering in and out.

Oh! Senna knew her immediately. It was her! The Someone. At last.

Joy sparkled through Senna from the tip of her nose to the end of her long tail. She stood on her hind legs and pressed her paws against the Someone's legs. She had found her! The missing Someone. Senna turned in a tight circle; a tail-chasing happiness filled every ounce of her small fox body. The colliding bars seemed to chime.

But then the woman turned her back to Senna and began to walk away. Senna followed. Where was she going?

Deeper into the cave the woman with the red-brown hair led her. But the woman did not turn around. Senna trotted faster to keep up, the band of cloth in her teeth.

Senna heard a woman's voice, familiar, but not.
Danger, Senna. You will need to run fast, as fast as you can.

Senna ran, but she couldn't keep up.

The woman grew smaller and smaller.
Run faster, Senna.
But no matter how fast Senna ran, she couldn't catch her. Faster and faster she went, so fast, as fast as a fox could go. But it wasn't fast enough. Finally the woman disappeared, and all the happiness Senna had felt evaporated into the stale air of the cave. Only the woman's words remained, echoing in Senna's ears. A message. Danger was nearby, danger was coming.

Run faster, Senna.

But Senna didn't want to run, she wanted to stay with the woman, she wanted to curl up on her lap, wanted to go to sleep there. Senna tried to follow her again, but the woman was nowhere.

A whimper escaped her. The bars flickered once, and then they also disappeared. The band of cloth lay on the beaten dirt floor of the cave, and Senna plucked it up between her teeth and reemerged into the sun.

Then the fur on the back of her neck rose. The hunter was out there, his rifle strapped to his back. The woman's message rang in Senna's ears.
Danger. You will need to run fast, Senna.

But first, Senna knew, she had to find Jules. She had to give the headband to Jules.

J
ules managed to make it through another day of school, although each time she saw Liz Redding, her jaw tightened. Even the bus ride home with Sam didn't help to tamp down her anger. When Mr. Simon dropped her off, she stormed down the steps.