Maybe a Fox (11 page)

“Are you okay, Jules?” Sam called from the bus window. But she didn't have an answer. She didn't know if she was okay or not. She just knew that she was tired of being trapped in After Sylvie. As she walked toward the house, the invisible line glowed, almost as if it were taunting her.
Do not. Do not. Do not.

She walked into the house and let the door slam behind her, then let her heavy backpack thud onto the table. She was about to stomp through the house, but Mrs. Harless called, “Jules! Can you keep it quiet?”

In the living room, all the curtains were closed. The room was too dark. And Mrs. Harless was too pale.

“One of my migraines came on this morning,” Mrs. Harless told her. “I'm just going to lie here on the sofa for a bit.”

“Sorry,” Jules whispered. And she was for a moment, but then she wasn't because there, in the dark living room, she saw a chance. She waited until she was sure Mrs. Harless was asleep and then, quieter than falling snow, Jules slipped out the front door and turned toward that invisible line and walked directly up to it. She looked around to make sure no one was there, and then she spoke aloud to the woods.

“Dad,” she said, “I know this is against the rules.”

Then she stopped. Hearing the words out loud—and knowing how adamant her dad was about this new Do Not—made her hesitate. She looked around again, double-checking that she was alone.

“But hear me out,” she said. “I need to find this place. I made a promise to Elk and I didn't keep it. . . .” She stopped again. She wasn't making much sense.

“I won't go anywhere near the”—she made herself say it—“the Slip. I promise.”

There. That would have to do. Before she lost her nerve, she stepped over the invisible line and onto the trail. Liz Redding's question streamed through her head:
No sign of the body?
No one had found Sylvie's body. No one.

But Elk had told her that he thought that Zeke's spirit was in these woods. Maybe Sylvie's spirit was there too. It was the last place that Sylvie had been, in the woods, after all. If Jules couldn't find her sister's body, maybe she'd find her spirit. Maybe she'd find it in the Grotto. It was a place of spirits, at least that was what Mrs. Harless said. And Elk believed it, otherwise he wouldn't have given her the twin agates to place there in case the worst happened.

Jules looked up, way up, at the tall feathery tops of the white pines, dark against the sky. The bus ride home had taken forever. She guessed that it was about four thirty. She had to hurry. Dad would be home soon. She picked up her pace, veering left after the stand of white birch, past the giant white pine. As she got deeper into the trees, she could smell the water from the river. It was a familiar, fresh smell. She had not been near the Whippoorwill since Sylvie had vanished. She wasn't going there now. She never, ever wanted to see the watery gorge again.

Jules kept the sound of the river to her right and soon came upon the oxbow. This was a shallow pool, an offshoot of the river, and usually dried up in the summer months. But in the spring, it was filled with melted snow and rainwater, perfect for animals to pause for a drink, or for a migrating duck to stop over for a day or two. Jules and Sylvie and Sam had always gone to the oxbow in spring, crouching in the brush, trying to be woodland creatures so that they wouldn't scare away the fawns and does and foxes and raccoons.

Jules stepped toward the shallow pool, but as she did, the unmistakable sound of an engine filled the air.

A four-wheeler.

She peered through the branches. The four-wheeler drew up beside the edge of the oxbow, and the driver swung himself off in a single easy motion.

Elk! Of course.

Jules started to call to him but stopped. Seeing Elk in the woods was different from having him stop by the house. There was something about him that made her think that he had come here to be alone. Jules crouched low behind the trees and stayed still.

Elk reached behind the seat and pulled something out, a long leather case that zipped on one side, and inside it . . . a gun. Before Jules could even blink, Elk brought the gun to his shoulder and fired.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The sound slammed into her.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Jules's heart skipped a beat. A flock of starlings scattered through the tree limbs, muffling her whimper. She pressed her hand over her mouth to keep herself quiet. Elk reloaded and shot again. Now Jules covered her ears, but it didn't help.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The shots resonated through the ground and up through the soles of her boots. A squirrel skittered by, a blur of brown-and-gray fur. Smoke filled her nostrils. She counted the shots in her head. Nine so far.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Ten, eleven, twelve. Elk kept reloading and firing again. Slower now.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

Jules squatted down and pressed her forehead against her knees, her hands over her ears. The air around her crackled with each shot.

Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

And then there was one more, the last.
Boom.

Twenty-one shots across the water. A deep quiet now settled over the woods. Elk gently lowered the gun and stood as silent as a stone.

After a long time, he put his hand over his heart and called out, “That's for you, Zeke.” Then he swung the gun over his head three or four times and hurled it into the water.
Splash.
Elk watched it sink, and then he saluted. Jules saw how crisp the salute was, how sad Elk's face was. Then he turned around, climbed back on the four-wheeler, and drove off.

The echo of the gunfire was all around, the air sharp with the smell of sulfur from the spent ammunition.

Shame crept through Jules. She felt as if she had just witnessed something private. Something too private, something that was intended for no one but Elk and Zeke.

She rose, but she couldn't walk away just yet. Her legs were shaky and she felt a little dizzy. The stream of light from the sun acted like a spotlight on the edge of the water. She followed its beams, stepped forward, and there, right next to the shore, partly covered by leaves and branches, was a paw print the size of a dinner plate.

Jules squatted down and balanced on her toes. Hesitantly, she reached out to it. Her fingertips came right to the edge of the track. She pulled her hand back, fast.

Catamount.

It could be nothing else.

Sam! His burning wish! And almost instantly, the huge cat in the glass case at the museum loomed in front of her vision. She could see its vicious teeth and the wide paws, paws that sheathed long, thick claws, claws that could rip through the skin of its prey. Suddenly she couldn't make her muscles move. What if the catamount was just behind her, waiting to sink his claws into her?
You have to go,
she told herself, and finally she managed to look up.

There, only a few yards in front of her, was a fox.

T
he loud booms of gunfire terrified Senna.

Band of cloth clutched in her jaws, Senna had tracked Jules to the oxbow. She was followed by Older Brother, who had traced his sister's scent through the woods. Reluctant though he was to be that close to any human, he was more reluctant to leave Senna. When the tall man with the rifle started shooting, Jules sank to her knees, and the two foxes melted into the underbrush behind her. Then they waited, waited and waited along with Jules, until the noise finally soaked into the ground and the chittering of a hundred birds filled up the woods.

Senna crept forward, onto the path. Brother hovered in the background, watching, wary. Senna stood motionless, the narrow strip of cloth clutched between her teeth, while Jules rose to her feet. Her bright hair swung about her shoulders as she made her way to the oxbow and knelt down. Senna and Older Brother heard her gasp and watched as she leaned forward and hovered her spread fingers above the catamount print.

Senna placed one paw after another on the grass, dry in the late afternoon, smelling of green. She carried the cloth band between her teeth.

Another step.

Jules was still kneeling by the giant paw print.

Senna did not move, even when the girl stood and turned. Spine straight and ears pricked up, she met the girl's gaze. The two of them—fox and girl—looked at each other and did not blink.

Senna lowered her head to the ground and let the narrow band of cloth slip from her mouth. In the same moment, she melted back into the tall grass where Older Brother waited. She crouched low, retreating deeper. Jules pounced like an animal on the dirt-crusted once-blue band. She held it to her nose and breathed in.

If Senna had been alone, she would have stayed. But Older Brother had had enough of humans. He stood over her, batting at her with his paw. The smell of catamount was strong now too, much stronger than before. He nudged her with his muzzle, panic in his touch and eyes. He barked, and finally he pulled her by the ruff of her neck, and they were off.

S
ylvie's headband! The same headband she'd been wearing when—when. Jules dashed that thought away and turned to the next one. Had a fox just
given
her the headband? Wait, a
fox
? Could that have just happened? And if it
had
happened, where had the fox gotten it? Her mother's headband, the blue one with the yellow buttercups embroidered on it. The same headband that Sylvie had worn the day she disappeared.

Liz Redding's horrible question came back in that moment.
No sign of the body?
Because this
was
a sign of the body, wasn't it? Sylvie had been wearing this when she fell into the Slip. This was a part of Sylvie, come back.

Jules's thoughts were all jumbled up. Had that little fox really been standing there just now? Had it really dropped the headband right in front of her? Why wasn't the fox afraid of her—was it rabid? No, it wasn't rabid. It was a fox who had come to give her a gift. No, foxes didn't give gifts. Foxes weren't human. Foxes were afraid of humans. They avoided them. None of this made any sense.

But the headband made sense. The headband was real. It was Sylvie's. Their mother's. Sylvie's. It had belonged to both of them.

Jules rubbed her fingers over it. Faded gray now, only a remnant of the blue it had once been. Sylvie had always taken such good care of it, washed it by hand in the sink, cold water only, using her coconut shampoo instead of detergent. Jules held it up to her nose and breathed it in. Dirt. The dirt of her woods. And the river, the Whippoorwill. The slightest scent of Sylvie's coconut shampoo. Dirt. Snow. River. Coconut. The headband held all those smells. But it also had a smell that Jules didn't recognize. Not at first. She breathed in again.

Fox. It must be fox. The little red fox that had stood there looking right back at her, no fear in her eyes or in her posture, as if she had been waiting for Jules to notice her, so that she could give her the headband and then fade away.

Foxes were supposed to bring luck. But Jules did not feel lucky at all.

She pulled her hand lens out from under her shirt. Then she rubbed one of the embroidered flowers with her thumb until some of the silt let go, showing the yellow threads below. She clicked on the LED beam and shined it on the faded buttercup. In the light's glow, it was just as bright yellow as the mustard that had splashed out of the jar that day her mother crumpled in half on their front steps. As bright as it was in Sylvie's hair the day she ran down the trail, ran so fast, away from Jules.

F
rom the shadows of the trees, Senna watched as Jules stood up, the headband encircling her wrist. For a moment, Jules seemed disoriented, bewildered. But then she collected herself and took off in the direction of the tree line. With Older Brother by her side, Senna resisted the urge to follow her to the yellow den. He reached over and tugged on the scruff of her neck. He nipped at her nose and chewed on her ears.

She batted at him with her paw.
Danger, Senna. You have to run fast.
The Someone's voice was still in her ears. But for now, the danger seemed past. The gunshots that had rung out earlier were done. The bear was not on the move. Most importantly, she had delivered the gift to Jules.

She gave herself a whole-body shake, stretched, and leaped after her brother. Her beautiful Older Brother. She glanced at the huge sand-colored cat, only a few yards away, as she ran past him. He blinked his yellow eyes and rested his paws on his chin.

S
am walked up his drive and there was Elk, waiting for him just like the other day. This time, though, he took him by the arm and said, “Come with me. I want to show you something.” Elk's voice sounded different to Sam. Instead of the almost whisper that he had been speaking in these past weeks, now his words tumbled out, crisp and clear, sounding like the old Elk, the one Sam grew up with.

Sam grinned. It was unusual enough that his brother had been waiting for him, but this, this was so unexpected that Sam just dropped his backpack at the door and followed Elk into the woods. The sun hung from the branches of the trees, as if the trees had snagged it on its way down, slowing its descent into the spring evening. It would be dark soon.

“Hurry up, Sammy,” Elk said. Sam hadn't heard that nickname since way back in the days when Elk and Zeke used to let him tag along on their expeditions.

Sam picked up his pace, and soon he realized that they were aiming for the oxbow. The river was slower there, and muddy. It was a gathering place for animals, so Sam and Sylvie and Jules used to go there to hide behind the foliage and watch the comings and goings of their fellow woodland creatures. It was a little swampy and usually swarming with mosquitoes. Sam didn't care about that, though. He just wanted to keep walking with his brother beside him.