Fox O' Nine Tales: Larissa Of Foxwood

Chapter Thirteen : Larissa and Timothy Reunited

A Fox O'Nine Tale

By R.W. Slavin

Book One: Larissa of Foxwood

Chapter Thirteen : Larissa and Timothy Reunited

Larissa became aware that she was dreaming in that sort of fuzzy half-awareness of being asleep and dreaming that sometimes came about when she was dreaming precisely when Lula-Belle said to her, "You sure know how to get yourself in a real pickle, big sister." Larissa was pretty sure this meant she was dreaming because Lula-Belle was her family's housecat back home (where she never once spoke in human words) and had in fact passed away and been buried (in a tearful and well-attended ceremony) in the backyard two years before. Larissa was only pretty sure she was dreaming because even when she was somewhat aware of being in a dream-state, the cloudy dream logic that always obtained in her sleeping mind often calculated fuzzy half-logical conclusions, like it just might be possibly true that Lula-Belle was back from kitty heaven and chatting with her about her sticky situation. Lula-Belle had always been the one who could read Larissa's moods best, the one who always appeared just when Larissa was most upset and most in need of a compassionate furry confidante to comfort-cuddle with.

"But I guess," said Lula-Belle, gazing up into the night-sky, "if you had to find a rabbit hole to fall down, the one you picked sure is more interesting than any I've ever stuck my nose down. And so pretty!"

Larissa was sitting on the lip of one of the shimmering moats ringing Foxwood Castle, her dangling legs dipping her bare toes into the cool water. Exotic luminescent fishes leapt from the water again and again as if they were performers in some secret moonlight ballet. Lula-Belle sat happily next to Larissa, looking up into the infinite mosaic of brilliantly bright stars covering the canopy of night from far horizon to far horizon.

"I don't think I've ever seen so many stars," said Larissa, "or so bright!"

"Being lost is usually such a scary thing," said Lula-Belle, "but this is all just so absolutely puuurrrrrrfect...," her last word trailing off in an actual extended purr, which made Larissa laugh.

The two dear friends' celestial idyll would last only a few moments...

Lula-Belle the Cat suddenly jumped to all her four feet.

"Look!" she cried. "It's a shooting star! No! Oh, no! It's a comet coming right at us!"

Larissa whipped her eyes round to where Lula-Belle was looking and saw the burning star indeed hurtling out of the sky directly in their direction. She grabbed up Lula-Belle into her arms and pulled her legs out of the moat in preparation for fleeing. But then the crashing comet did the oddest thing. It slowed down and changed direction, first going a little ways to the left, and then a little ways to the right. And then it just sort of stopped and hovered over the moat, a molten red fireball slowly rotating and dropping sparks into the water below. Somehow it was now much smaller than it had appeared to be just moments before.

"Don't be scared," whispered Larissa to her quaking kitty. "We're just dreaming."

"I sure hope you're right," Lula-Belle whispered back. "I'm too scared to hi-hi-hi-hi-hiiisssssssss..."

Then the hovering red fireball exploded.

And it exploded noiselessly - not like a fireball, but more like a dandelion suddenly exploded by a child's breath. Very much like that indeed, because it exploded into a cloud of thousands of individual white lights which did not extinguish and disappear rapidly, as one would expect, but instead remained brightly burning and swarming madly over the moat's waters, looking like the angry residents of a suddenly destroyed hornet's nest. And as Larissa continued to watch, fairly as much petrified now by the wonder of the event as by her prior fearfulness, she could see that whatever the swarming white lights were, they did in fact have wings.