“I don’t know where I was before, but it wasn’t here” she thought, placidly. 

Well, that’s not true.

She didn’t think that. Not in so many words, but that’s how it happened. And she was probably at least a little aware of it. One second she was away, or sleeping, or just not quite…conscious, and the next thing she knew she was there. 

Here. 

I guess that’s what happens when you start paying attention after you haven’t for a while. 

Whatever it was, she was awake in some capacity now. 

It was bright. Not blindingly, and come to think of it she didn’t actually see light coming from any particular direction, but somehow or other there was a clearness to her surroundings. 

She began to wander. 

There seemed to be paintings and photos and poems and great works of art (and works of art the were considerably less great) just about everywhere, though nothing seemed particularly cramped or out of place. 

It was like a museum only no one was whispering—no one was doing anything, to be frank, because no one but she was there—and there wasn’t a sign or brochure anywhere to be found. 

Every piece she saw had a nice little description nearby, on plaques or stands, or even post-it notes just stuck up a little unevenly. 

She loved the descriptions.

“It’s not art until you’ve read the descriptions.”

That one she did actually think. 

Anyway, she wandered for quite a while, though she could be sure how long. It felt like hours, but she didn’t feel even the slightest bit tired. 

She saw a painting done all in little blobs and swirls that looks like nothing until you backed up, and when she read the wall-sign next to it learned that the artist had been studying components of larger images, as well as the harmonization of color and light. 

“Well done” she thought. 

She saw quotes from famous actors and actresses, all of which were described in further detail, explained, analyzed, and some even had short bio’s and fun facts about the quoted celebrity. 

“Spectacular.”

Eventually, through a pair of big white arches, on the other side of a beautiful indoor courtyard, she saw black, neatly types words printed right onto a wall. She couldn’t quite make out what they said so she walked over, a spring in her step with the excitement of more to learn. 

When she got to the wall, she read aloud:

“Everyone who terrifies you is sixty five percent water, and everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes you cannot even breathe deeply, and the night sky is no home, and you have cried yourself to sleep enough times, that you are down to your last two percent, but nothing is infinite, not even loss. You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day you are going to find yourself again.”

There was a small description plate mounted on the wall beside the words, but all it said was

”- F. Butler”

That was it. 

She looked around for more, but found nothing. The rest of the room was empty. There was nothing to see but the arches leading back to where she had come from. 

There were not plaques, or stands, or post-it notes. 

She was in utter disbelief. 

“Not even a full name!” She thought, indignantly. 

“How am I supposed to appreciate this beautiful scrap of thought when I don’t even know about the person who wrote it?

Or the context?

Or whether or not this is the whole thing, or just an excerpt?”

Just then she heard footsteps behind her and whirled around hopefully.

“Thank God, it’s someone come to explain. Or replace the sign. Maybe they took it away for a moment to be polished.”

But the only thing she saw was a shuffling old man, wearing a brownish suit with a red tie. His hair was whiter than wind (because even though you can’t see wind, it always feels cool, like white probably would; like clouds, or snow, or milk, or rain in the movies, which is also actually just milk), and he looked like he might be muttering to himself. 

Or whispering. 

It sounds better if you say whispering, less crotchety. 

She watched him shuffle closer and closer, and then watched him as he gazed up at the words. 

She assumed he was reading, but it took him forever. 

“Maybe his vision’s not so great”

After a prolonged silence, uncomfortable on her end but, it seemed, perfectly comfortable for him, the old man spoke. 

He turned to her and said

“Well that’s certainly something to think about, eh?”

She didn’t say anything. 

The old man continued:

“I’ve stood here and read that a couple of times—always leaves me feelin’ a little lighter. But a little sad, too. You know? Its sad. Kinda pretty, and hopeful, but sad because you know some people probably need to hear stuff like that and don’t too often. Or if they do, they forget. That’s kinda sad.”

She was quiet still, and they stood thoughtfully for a few more moments until the man spoke again.

“I printed it up there a while back so people could see it more, maybe remember more. Who knows if they do though, hard to tell.”

She looked shocked now, and blurted out

“You put that up there?”

“Well sure,” he said “I put all this’ he gestured behind him in the direction of the rest of the exhibits ‘up myself bit by bit. Just stuff I found, things I learned. Thought people might be interested.”

“Who wrote this?” She asked in a small voice, but her eyes belied a fervent eagerness. 

He looked at her with an unreadable expression. 

“Don’t know,’ her said ‘F. Butler.”

“Who is that?”

“Don’t know” he said again. 

She looked beyond perplexed. 

“How could you put this up here, hang it up and show it to people, to me, and know nothing about it? How could you share it with the world when you don’t even know what it is or where it came from?”

He just looked at her again, and suddenly she felt sort of embarrassed, but she couldn’t decide why. She ignored it the feeling and asked

“Where did you find this?”

And the man just said

“Don’t really remember, to be honest. I read it somewhere, or heard it from a friend years ago and it stuck with me. Sometimes things just stick. Doesn’t matter what they are or where they came from. It means something for whatever reason and you just hold onto that.”

She looked, if not convinced, then at least slightly less bewildered. 

They stood there a while longer before she said 

“It is kind of sad, in a way. But I like it”

And with that she turned back and continued wandering.

In five hours and 45 minutes my alarm is going to go off and I’m going to go:

“eehhhh,”

and then drag myself (literally drag) out of bed and start getting ready to face the daylight. 

What an absolute delight—although my scorn is only mostly serious. If waking up early for a job I more than tolerate—with people I more than cooperate with—is my biggest problem then I’m doing alright. 

Anyway, I just went out and lived large and saw Beautiful Creatures all on my lonesome and even though it’ll leave me drowning in coffee dregs tomorrow, I feel pretty dope tonight. That was absolutely the most idiotically wonderful, guilty pleasure, girlish, fantastical indulgence I have had in a long time. I mean…there was sorcery, reckless abandonment, passionate love, cool makeup and costumes, southern accents…THERE WAS THAT WHOLE THING WHERE THE DARK, MISUNDERSTOOD NERD GIRL IS PURSUED SHAMELESSLY BY SOME AVERAGE (YET SEXY) JOCK-TYPE GUY WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE SMARTER AND MORE OPEN MINDED THAN HIS CLASSMATES…I’m sorry. I got a little excited there. It was great. And now I’m in a great mood. 

Guess who needs to get out more?

I don’t know what else to say.

Well, that’s obviously not true. I’ve always got more to say. 

I found that whole thing inspiring for some reason. I think it was less that it was such a great movie (because I don’t think it was, and I absolutely don’t recommend it to anyone who isn’t…well…me?), and more that it was just a few hours of total need-gratification—thus confirming my hedonist suspicions that there is very little else more meaningful or important in the world than letting your heart have what it wants. I obviously wanted to shamelessly indulge on melodrama and the impracticalities of love and witch craft. Alone. In a movie theatre entirely to myself, with the darkness and the sound overwhelming any trace of my girlish giggling.

Need fulfilled. 

Unless What a Girl Wants in On Demand tomorrow night…

Okay, that’s it for tonight. I must drown the urge to start writing fantasy stories with sleep, else tomorrow will be twice the shit-show I’m already expecting. 

Yikes! Goodnight.

Is there anyone left who still reads this? It’s been so long since I really wrote anything, and longer since that what I wrote was not creative. 

It’s almost 1am on a sunday (monday, really) and I can’t sleep. It’s the good kind of insomnia though—the productive kind. There are nights I lie awake, or sometimes only half awake, and I toss and turn and watch the thoughts circle around aimlessly, chasing each other, fighting for attention, never stopping to rest. And there are nights when the itch to make progress is strong enough to break through layers of laziness and disinterest. Tonight is the latter, which is nice. 

I finished a book my friend recommended. Book one of The Wheel of Time. Thank you Ahmed, if you’re reading this. It was spectacular and I’ll be making my way through the next TWELVE as of…tomorrow probably. It’s addicting, Light! Burn me. 

Anyway, I don’t know what compelled me to write, I just had the urge and went with it. I seem to be at my best (or I should just say my most productive) once everyone has gone to sleep and it’s quiet. I know there’s that saying “you’re not the center of the universe” but sometimes it’s easier to get work done when you can believe you are, and sometimes it’s easier to believe that when you’re mostly alone. Not entirely, but enough to hear only your own thoughts, in your own voice. 

I just wrote several paragraphs rambling about…I don’t even know what. There was something about learning to think smaller, accept baby steps, don’t rush, a house-elf, my mother, living to be ninety-million years old because my brother is good at science and he’ll figure out a way…

You can see why I back-tracked. 

I’m home now, for just a little while but longer than I expected, and I’m very very happy. This was a good decision. Time to calm down, I think. Time to be happy.

My body, my soul, my | I am a harp | I am musical, am whimsical | and I am particular | I am played with skill, or, if simply by curiosity, then not for long | my melodies are true only when played in full my | novelty swiftly replaced | boredom reigning over the would-be-musician who does not understand his instrument | I have different notes | strings | some plucked more often than others | hunger is frequent and rings high | thirst as well, but low | loneliness can be a constant thrumming | one string is plucked fiercely | daily | desperately | the string that plays the hint of an excited whisper of a good idea and then | there is a chord for fear | soft | minor | one is for joy | is opposite, and an octave higher | one is for love, though it has not been pulled on recently, and has never been put rightly | into song |

Something about the stars there’s | something about them they |

Can bathe even the most devout of skeptics in a shower of understanding |

I know this the way moss knows to grow north |

I know it the way skin knows to pucker when it’s cold, and the way the jazz musician knows to play faster when the girl with the red lipstick gets that glimmer in her eye that says “let’s dance.”

I know it the way the sun knows to be warm |

There’s something about the stars that makes a point—no | a million points |

Ten million | There’s something about the stars that says |

There is no end in the number of answers that exist, and they are all correct |

I looked at them once and felt alone, and I was |

Another time, I looked up and I felt that I was somehow both enormous and inconceivably small | and I did not think to question how that could be |

Then, there was the time I looked up and thought for sure that I had once been one of them |

I thought | What if that’s how we started? |

What if we are stars | and after millions of years of growing and burning and shining | we explode | and all of our pieces scatter throughout the universe | and some of them fall to earth | and when they do, some of those pieces fall into the bulging stomachs of expectant mothers | and that’s how we get our souls | I thought | what if when that happens, it’s time to be born | and we’re brought out into the world and from that point on, our only real purpose is to collect as many handfuls of our lost and scattered pieces as we can |

What if happiness is what it feels like to find a piece? |

What if heartbreak is what it feels like to lose one? |

What if friends are the people who have picked up one of your pieces along the way, and lovers are the ones made up of pieces from the same star as your own | What if that’s what soul mates are? |

I sat and I stared at the stars and for however long | I felt certain | I felt faith | And I called that faith God because it was the closest I’d ever come to meeting him | And I thought | Maybe I wasn’t just close | Maybe that was her I just bumped into | Maybe God isn’t a he, or a she, or an it, but the feeling of being certain while also being open minded |

I laughed because I felt, in that moment, that I was truly happy | and then I stopped laughing and just smiled wide to myself because I thought |

What if I just found one of my pieces?

The Art of Stereotyping

(Source: quote-book, via teachingliteracy)

I don’t understand that word you love:

freedom.

It makes me…emotional.

Some of you want it, You dream about it and beg the skies to let it fall down upon you like rain. 

Some of you have it (or say you do anyway). You say you’re “blessed.”

Some of you don’t seem to be sure and I’d say that makes you the wisest. 

I was free once. 

I didn’t know it of course, but I was. I was free. Totally. I was a kind of free you couldn’t imagine—not even in your wildest dreams. 

I was pure. 

It’s been a long time since then, though. A long, long time. And I don’t suppose I’ll ever get to go back. 

I hear some of you say things about living with consequences:

“Well, you’ve made your bed and now you have to lie in it.”

I like that one because it makes very little sense to me. I understand the idea though. I agree with it. 

I don’t have a bed but if I did, it would be made. And I’d be lying in it for a very long time.

***

Before you, there was only me. 

Sort of. 

Truthfully, before you there was nothing but nothingness. The thing to understand though—I was the nothingness.

Energy. Think of it like energy. Raw, undirected

pure energy.

That was me. And “me” was all there was. 

I think I was what you call “conscious” but not as concretely as you describe it. 

There was nothing to control. I controlled. Nothing to be. I was. No directions. I moved. 

I was not something that could exist now in your world. You cannot begin to fathom…

There was an explosion.

In one single moment that lasted for lightyears, hours, the blink of an eye, I was on fire. It started somewhere within me and radiated out. It blinded me. 

I blinded me.

It grew from something I am loathe to admit for it was from this one minuscule hiccup that it all began. 

It came from a thought. 

I did not used to think. I did not feel. I did not ponder or reminisce or examine. I simply existed and that was enough for I existed freely. Until the thought. 

I suppose I “evolved.” That is what you tend to call it when a creature progresses. But I was never a creature before then. I was never anything because I was everything. 

But I digress. The thought—it was a small one. Though perhaps not as small as I am leading you to believe. 

The thought was this:

“I am one”

And then there was fire. 

Small first—an ember. But it glowed, it grew, it burned me. It ripped through me like a flaming, eternal kidney stone and I became the agony. I writhed in shock and pain for eternity, or just a few moments. I waited for the end and was disappointed a million times over. 

But finally, mercifully, it began to subside. In its place, a small, pulsing calm. 

I was still ablaze but the fire was cool now. Soothing. And healing. It felt wonderful, like that first breath of air after being under water for too long—just when you think your lungs can’t take another moment…

and then it was too cold. I felt myself cripple and wither under the pressure of such an enormous cold. 

I was cracking. I was weak. My whole self was drifting apart. But just as I started to crumble, I felt a small, unifying warmth spread within me and I was grateful. The feeling was short-lived however, for the nourishing, blessed warmth soon escalated.

The burning had returned.  

Curse the burning! Curse its merciless warfare on my newly awakened self! Curse the fucking flam— 

A cool breeze. 

A bitter cold.

“This will never stop” I thought. My second thought, one of resignation, I am ashamed.

But…the burning and the calming. I was so disoriented. Burning and calm, burning and calm. I was an infinite mass of these two infinite extremes and it made me…tired. I was so tired.

The sorrow and the joy. They consumed me until there was little left i could recognize as myself. 

And then, all at once, it stopped. 

I was weary. I did not want to see but it became unavoidable—too tempting. 

I looked. 

I saw nothing. 

I looked. 

I felt everything. 

I cannot describe it to you. I cannot make you know what I knew in that moment. 

I was a budding flower and a drowning bird. I was a breeze. I was music. I was an unjust death. I was a jealous girlfriend and a protective sibling. I was negligence. I was pride. I was deep, sinking depression.

I was everything.

I cannot show you…but perhaps you already know for that moment was you, too. That moment was as much your first as it was mine. 

You grew. 

You sprouted roots and grew tails; wings; noses. 

You hardened and softened and stretched and wrinkled and flew and swam and walked. 

I watched and was happy until you grew enough and began to notice me; to see. 

I was free once. Totally. Until that moment where you looked up and understood me—addressed me as one does an abusive lover—and began to think. 

Now I am a slave. Your slave.

I wear chains of interpretation and expectation. My wrists—do I have wrists, Master?— are bound by accusations. I am beaten down and sculpted daily by desperate prayers and casual conversations; burned repeatedly by the use of “my name.”

It is not my name you use but your own—do you know that?

It is not me who charges you onward (faster and faster towards various brinks of destruction!—

but I must stop myself now. 

I am not angry. Nor do I feel resentment. 

Sometimes…yes, sometimes perhaps, but not permanently. 

I am not a slave. Not in your sense of the word anyway. I just…

am. 

I exist differently than I once did. More complexly.

I love you for it. 

And hate you. 

But really, I am no slave; I am only subject.

We had a pet phoenix once. It was cool because its feathers were blood-red but with tiny flecks of gold at the tips. It eyes were black—like charcoal—but not beady so much as just pensive. 

We shared him and we were in love (with each other and also with the bird who, incidentally, we named Marcus) and we could have gone on like that forever. 

Except that we actually couldn’t, we only felt like that because that’s what happens when you get wrapped up in loving a person. 

Anyway, we used to just sit there are talk about our Marcus because he looked so damn cool. Plus, we liked to discuss the philosophical nature of him—the way he would, after a certain amount of time, burst into gorgeous, hissing flames, crumble to ashes and then re-birth himself. 

Outrageous. 

But we sort of fell apart when Marcus didn’t come back exactly the way he was supposed to. 

We had been having an argument. A lot of mean things were said and I think I was the one to cry first but maybe it was the other way around. 

Either way, there were some pretty tense moments flying around. They weren’t the end of the world and we probably wouldn’t have harped on them as long as we did except that at one point while we were yelling and shaking our fists, Marcus decided to die. 

We’d seen him do it a hundred times before so we wouldn’t have paid any attention except for the fact that during the argument, a glass of water was knocked to the floor and it splashed onto the pile of ashes that was soon to become a new baby Marcus. 

Neither of us knows who spilled it. Maybe it was somehow both of us—a combination of clumsiness and terrible timing—but somehow or other that glass of water ended up making almost-Marcus more of a would-be-Marcus because when the re-birthing began, we could tell something wasn’t right. 

Usually it’s very graceful, the way it happens. The ashes shift around only slightly, as if being pushed along by the slightest of breaths; dancing in whispers. Then they’d start to grow together and weave themselves like tiny, smoldering threads (of life) and then eventually a little Marcus would look at us and we’d sort of just know he was saying Hello and he’d sort of just know that we were saying Welcome Back.

But this time it was gross. Pieces started glomming together and stacking themselves haphazardly, one on top of another, and then they sort of mushed around like mud until a form made itself apparent. 

After ten minutes or so Marcus was sitting there in front of us but it was pretty clear it was a different Marcus than before. 

He was more rust-colored than he should have been. Like blood that had dried and crackled up in the sun. The golden flecks were more like orange splotches and his eyes  were clouded over like cataracts or something. 

He squawked.

Marcus never used to squawk. He only blinked or, occasionally, made a soft rumbling noise in the back of his throat when he felt we hadn’t talked to him enough that day.

We had been quiet while we watched this whole disaster unfold but once we had time to process what had happened, the ceasefire was replaced by ungodly amounts of aggression and profanity. 

We were just never the same after that. 

We blamed each other vehemently (and ourselves just as much but only on the inside so as not to concede defeat).

It was only a matter of time before we stopped fighting by giving up speaking to one another. And almost no time after that did we learn to avoid the awkwardness of our silence by simply avoiding ever being in the same place at the same time. 

There was nothing left between us but the smoking remains of broken promises. 

They smelled like burning. 

We still shared Marcus though, despite our total lack of communication. We passed him back and forth, sometimes silently from one to the other (with barely a moment of the briefest eye contact that said,

Your turn to be with him. Enjoy looking into the face of your own failure you monster),

sometimes just via friends or family members. 

Marcus was clearly miserable with the whole thing.

By the excessive blinking, you could tell whatever had happened to his eyes was making him uncomfortable. And he couldn’t fly anymore. And I think he may have been partially deaf because he seemed a little unbalanced and sometimes wouldn’t look at me if I called his name from the couch (which was to the left of his perch). 

So all in all the whole situation was just extremely unpleasant and the three of us were really having a difficult go. 

Which is why we decided to let Marcus go. 

Go go.

After the incident, Marcus’s re-birthing had been wild and unpredictable and generally seemed to cause him a lot of distress. We decided to just make it stop. For the good of us all. 

When it came time for him to burn, we waited silently. When the flames tired of licking themselves clean, they floated off as puffs of dull smoke and we collected the ashes. 

Some of them we flushed. 

Some we buried. 

Some we threw into the wind and felt comforted because there seemed to be something symbolic about letting him fly again. 

We each kept a pinch for ourselves and the rest we just sort of forgot about I guess—they ended up in the cracks of floors and corners of boxes and wherever else lost things go. 

And we didn’t see each other again for a long time after that because there wasn’t any reason to. 

We kept to ourselves and led separate lives and tried to accept that some things die. It was okay because we came up with ways to rationalize it all and make us feel like there was some grand, ultimate truth that we were somehow closer to understanding. 

We weren’t, really. 

Not until the day that everything burned again. 

Turns out, scattering the ashes didn’t do a whole lot. I mean it delayed things, that’s for sure (it’s hard to birth yourself when all of your pieces are missing) but it didn’t stop it. 

Some bits were really too far gone. The stuff we flushed was sort of a hopeless cause. Some of the bits that had been blown away ended up in oceans and ponds or eaten unknowingly by unsuspecting people enjoying their days. 

Those parts were dead and gone. 

But the ones that had just been lost or buried or hidden away in dark closets, they found their way back to each other. It took a long time because, like I said, ashes move slowly. Gracefully. They make no real rush of things and put themselves together carefully, with poise and no regards to other people’s opinions, but they did it. 

And when they did they burned—reforging themselves instead of breaking apart. 

I know this because I saw it. We both did. 

We ran into each other (I mean literally ran into each other) in a crowded part of town and both said “sorry” out loud before realizing who it was and the fact that we were supposed to be not speaking. 

And then we looked at each other for a moment and to us it seemed very meaningful and intense but I think the people around us probably didn’t notice at all. Or at the most, wanted us to move because we were in the way of their walking.

So we moved. 

We walked to somewhere that was quiet which turned out to be the mouth of an alleyway. And in the corner we both saw it: a gently writing pile of ashes gathering itself together and then burning. 

And then the flames subsided and there was Marcus. 

Only it wasn’t Marcus exactly because it was slightly more magenta in hue but the gold was there and its eyes were clear and bright as ever and it wasn’t squawking. 

And he looked at us and we just sort of knew he was saying Hello. 

And we looked at him and I think he just sort of knew we were saying Welcome Back. 

Winter is always hardest for the foxes. 

For one thing, it’s very cold. Fur is always helpful but sometimes the snow seeps between their little paw-toes or soaks through their coats and then they shiver the whole night through. 

For another, food is sparse. All the bunnies and chipmunks burrow down and only rarely poke their heads up to risk getting some fresh air—it’s stuffy in those snore-filled, cuddle holes but not that stuffy. 

But ultimately, the worst part about winter (for the foxes, I mean) is the snow sprites. 

Everyone knows about wood nymphs and water fairies and the like. Not in any great detail but everyone’s heard of them. They live in enchanted forests or babbling brooks and flit about, distracting travelers and town folk with their tinkling laughter and general shininess. But all in all they’re harmless. 

Not so with the snow sprites. 

Snow sprites are especially wily and conniving to boot. 

Given that nine months out of the year they exist in almost complete dormancy, it may come as no surprise that during the winter months (when they’re finally free), they get a bit…rowdy. 

And who is there for them to play with?

Why, the foxes of course!

Now, before you get concerned, you should know that the foxes aren’t entirely helpless. They’re lithe little things and extremely crafty. They can also smell anything within a twenty-meter radius. Even apprehension which, to them, has a faint burning aroma.

But even with all of that, the snow sprites still have two definite advantages: 

One, they are quite small—only about the length of a human pinky finger. 

And two, they can hide almost anywhere given that they can merge with other objects. 

This makes things much more difficult for the foxes who, upon taking the bait and starting up a chase, often find themselves colliding (head first) with various kinds of trees, rocks and other foliage. 

It’s frustrating and also tiresome to constantly be picked on. 

And to constantly lose.

However, one particular season (a winter when the sprites were feeling especially rambunctious), the foxes came into a rather large bit of luck. 

Settlers from the north—big, burly men with rugged beards and even ruggeder wives—were passing through the forest on their way to the southernmost plains. They were going to start anew.

With them they had buck-skin tents and bear-skin robes. They had sustenance in the form of salted meats and full-grain breads. 

They were a coarse people with very little fondness for nonessentials. 

Except for Mai. 

Mai, though easily as hardy as the rest of her clan, just barely made the cut as a bona fide sentimentalist. She brought with her one delicate, wooden figurine—in remembrance of her grandmother. 

The figurine was a painted perfect, milky white. Its eyes were pale green and the hair a deep auburn. It wore the traditional, beaded prayer garb of their people and matching moccasins. 

Mai held the thing dear and was always most careful with it during the clan’s travels. 

On the third night in their wooded encampment, Mai retrieved it from its protective cow-hide satchel and immediately set about alternating between cleaning and admiring. 

In the glow of the firelight, the figurine shone and glittered. The delicate features gave the subtle impression of humanly motion and Mai allowed herself the temporal peace of reminiscence.

She turned it over it her hands, watching contentedly as the small, pretty face seemed to smile and dance

and wink. 

Mai kept her composure. She allowed for no physical reaction that might alert one of her kinsmen to her distress. 

She did this not out of doubt for what she had seen but for the safety of her one beloved possession. 

Spirit lore was highly regarded as a science amongst her people. Mai was as familiar with the stories as she was with the process of tent-pitching or fishing in the winter.

She knew exactly what was taking place. 

In my hands, she thought, I hold a snow sprite.

Slowly, she looked about her for she knew that such a creature would take sanctuary in this thing, amongst all these people, only if it were in a considerable amount of danger.

Sure enough, circling the camp she saw the faint glimmer of many pairs of eyes.

Non-human eyes.

Fox eyes.  

Mai’s pulse quickened for she found that in her desperation she was unable to come up with a sound solution. 

How can I drive out this spirit without engendering the foxes to storm the camp?

How can I save this one thing that I love without putting the clan in danger?

She could not think of a way. It seemed she could either save the figurine or save her camp. But not both. 

Mai was distraught. 

She racked her brains.

She took a deep breath, collected herself and thought rationally. The solution, it turned out, was remarkably simple. 

Painful, but simple. 

Mai stood and signaled to her husband that she was going to relieve herself at the outskirts of the camp—where the wilderness just barely brushed their small slice of cultivated existence. 

He nodded his assent.

She stood and quietly tucked the figurine into the folds of her robe. She walked purposefully but unassumingly toward the trees. 

When she was out of sight, she crouched down and placed the figuring on the carpet of pine needles before her. She knew that the sprite would not relinquish its hiding place within the near future. The wolves were still about. 

So she left it there. Alone in the inky blackness of the forest’s mouth.

She did not cry though her heart tingled as though a hole had ripped opened within her and a breeze was now gently blowing through—tickling her in an unpleasant, nagging way.

She was lost in her loss until two points of vaguely greenish light grabbed her attention.

It was a fox. 

She looked at it for a long moment. She was not scared but knew that an understanding must be made between the two of them if they were to go their separate ways unharmed.

They stayed like that for moments that felt like hours until the fox made a sudden motion. 

It jerked its head in the direction of the figurine. She did not turn. 

There was a rustling in the distance behind her and then she heard the faint sound of gnawing and a small, tinkling whimper. 

She knew what was happening. 

She did not cry. 

The fox approached her cautiously.

It licked her moccasin. 

It followed her back to camp. 

It slept beside her. 

It walked next to her while she traveled. 

It stayed and made their togetherness a home.