In The Burrow

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Ochre fox

A fox was looking at me wide-eyed!

This is the first time I ever saw a fox in real life. He sniffed a little, I slipped a breathe. I couldn’t contain my excitement.

The sun shone in white light, his furs were now in its actual ochre color. He tilted his head a little and I examined that his eyes were flame. His iris were in swirls of red and gold... and were moving around his widened pupil. I stared at it, proving myself that I was seeing perfectly right and likewise mesmerized. I half-blinked.

A rustle from the distant startled both of us. Dada was heading towards the car, perhaps to fetch me. A white cat is trailing lazily behind. As I eyed back the window, the fox was no longer there.

My eyes sought through the movement from nearby trees, only to see glimpse of his three, swaying ochre tails.

“Morning,” Dada greeted as he opened the car’s door to get the luggages. A sweat trickled on his forehead. “Are you alright?”

I swallowed. “Yes... I was just...”, lost for words, Dada never obliged it out of me. He just nodded. Perhaps, he just assumed I was bit not accustomed to the new environment. I was born and raised in the city after all. But the countryside is much of how I imagined it to be. Except for a queer fox.

I reconsidered telling him about it but a cat suddenly leaped inside the car. In my surprise, the sketch pad fell off my lap.

Dada laughed. “This is Elf.”

Her blue eyes lazily followed me as I tried to get my sketch pad and charcoal from under the car seat. She was somehow looking at me suspiciously, as if I have done something unlawful under her nose. Though, she proceeded to inspecting the car. A minute later, she was scratching her body all over it.

Dada was looking at her fondly. “Her mother died a month ago. That was our old cat. But she looks like just like her.”

“What’s her name?”, Elf looked at me at the sound of my voice.

“Elf.”, Dada answered.

“No. I mean, her mother.”

Dada’s eyes disappeared as he chortled. “Yes, Elf,” He answered in between.

I scrunched my nose. “They have same name?”

“They all have,” he found the question rather silly. “Your grandmother loves naming our cats Elf.”

Smiling, I tried to touch the cat’s head but she tilted it in time, avoiding my hand. My lips parted. Dada’s laughter rang a minute more before he beckoned me to go out the car.

The morning breathed in scents of dew and cradling summer. It was cooler than I was used to, but it fondled me in sort of warming way.

Led by Dada, I slowly trailed after him through the wide forest glade, carrying my sketch pad. Dandelions wishfully sprouted through the thickets of carabao grass and butterflies fluttered above. From the distant, an old yet small white house stood afore the canvas of mountains and cerulean sky. Beside it is a well near the pond of water lilies.

The house’s front door opened revealing an old, plum woman carrying a kettle. Elf raced past through us at the sight of her, her tail dancing behind. The aroma of newly-baked apple pie wafted through grasses.

Arriving at the front step of the house, we had a better view of her in the balcony. Lala looked just like the same silver haired, lovely woman. She was wearing her favorite blue dress marked with paws. However today, it is filled with white strands of what seemed like cat furs. Twice a year, she would visit us back in our house. The number of times that an outsider could enter the city. Now, it was us who was going to live in her house.

“I’ll put this bag in your room.” Dada entered through the door, and I was left with her.

Elf was now on top of table, sitting next to a slice of apple pie. She sniffed it before purring and taking a small bite while looking at me suspiciously.

My brows furrowed. What could have I done?

“I see, Little Elf had met my Thalia.”, Lala said pouring a tea on cups and adorning it with small white flowers on top. It looked like the pond of water lilies. Settling the porcelain kettle in the middle of the table, she took two of the cups and offered one to me.

I put my sketch pad carefully on the table and accepted it, murmuring a quiet “Thank You.”  She gracefully sat on seat near Elf and I decided to take the opposite. I took a tiny sip from the tea and was delighted that it tasted of fresh and sweet lemon.

“She not much like me...”, I confessed, considering her behaviors towards me. Lala chuckled in sort of way that Dada did.

“She’ll do.”, she said assuring. She turned to have a rather silent conversation with her cat through their eyes.

“And I see, my Thalia had also met our neighbor. ”, I paused midway putting my cup on the table and looked at Lala’s peaceful demeanor. She calmly sipped on her tea and smiled contentedly. I always liked Lala. She is kind, gentle and patient, but there’s something with her that is quietly mysterious.

“Neighbor?”, I demanded.

She hummed. “The one who said hello.”

“The fox?”

“Fox?” She smiled at me curiously.

It was then that Dada came back from inside the house and sat beside Lala.  Elf had jumped from the table after finishing her slice of pie and decided to chase the butterflies.

“Your room is on the second floor. Your old auntie Lyria’s house,” informed Dada. I just gave him a small nod. “You’ll be enrolled at the school tomorrow as well.”

Lala hummed again, this time, rather reminiscing. “Oh, she’ll love it. My Thalia and my Lyria are very alike.”

I idled there for few minutes, sipping my tea from time to time, thinking of the new life ahead of me and the words of Lala, yet that morning, I never had have any chance to open the conversation again with her, as the day went eating the apple pie and fixing my room.

There was a knock. It rapped annoyingly upon the door of my room and made me scrunch my nose in frustration.

It took me an hour before I managed to slip a rest last night, thinking too much of the world behind and now, I would be just woken up by a— a—

It banged. Great! I jumped out my blanket to glare at the door and waited for another bang.

Only to find silence. No one’s knocking. The door was still. The lamp lit perpetually dim and did not even fluctuate as if telling me it heard nothing.

I held my breath as cold crept through my skin, crumpling the hem of my dress in my fist. Perhaps it was unrestfulness, but I could not stop thinking of many terrifying pictures in my head.

The window creaked.

I gasped.

A white cat slid ghostly inside my room with dead rat on her mouth and jumped on the small chair neath the window. Her eyes taunting, glowing. I had the sudden urge to throw the lamp at her, out of frustration. Out of false fear.

Out of disturbed sleep.

It remained on its position as if daring me to do what I am thinking, staring at me with its predatory blue eyes.

I sighed. As if a cue, Elf moved through the floor gracefully. The black tail of rat dangled with her tail. I took a breath again, this time calmer. Emotions at its peak were the hardest to control.

The dew-laden breeze of night assumed its welcome. I inhaled through it in a shiver. The window lock was made of nail and hole attached to the wall, something that could not be opened from the outside. I locked it before I slept, I was sure. The lamp suddenly blinked.

I tried not to think of anything. It's either the nail was loose or my memory was flawful. Catching my slippers under the bed, I then sauntered to the window to close it, as soon as I could.

Yet, as I held the glass window, a shadow moved through the roof. A few bricks fell with the swiftness. My mouth gaped to scream. Two balls of swirling iris glowed in the dark, surprised and three tails took off.

The ochre fox flew through the night.