Fox Among the Demons

by Trudie Collins

  Fox had been expecting them to deny everything again, but they didn’t. “You had better all sit down,” Natasha’s father said.

  Fox took an empty chair and pulled Natasha down onto his lap. He put his arms around her. This was not going to be easy for her to hear.

  Once Sandra was seated once more, her father began his story. Everything Natasha had said was true. Their daughter had been born with an inoperable heart condition and they opted to take her home. She would die sooner outside of the hospital, but only by a few days. They wanted to spend some time with her at home, as a family.

  The next evening, a stranger came to the door. How he knew about their daughter, they had no idea, but they listened to what he had to say. He was giving them the opportunity to have the daughter they wanted, one that was healthy and would live past the end of the month.

  “We did nothing wrong,” Natasha’s mother said.

  This time Natasha did explode. She jumped to her feet. “Nothing wrong? You gave away your own flesh and blood. You had no idea who that man was. He could have kidnapped me for God’s sake. How do you know there isn’t some mother out there still weeping over the child that was taken from her all those years ago?”

  “Of course you weren’t kidnapped,” her mother snapped at her. “The man was your father.”

  “How do you know?” Natasha asked. “You claim to be my mother, but that’s a lie. How do you know he wasn’t lying?”

  Her mother had no answer. There was more Natasha wanted to know. “So who am I? Who are my real parents? Do they have any hereditary diseases I should be aware of?” Neither of her parents could answer her questions; they had no idea.

  Natasha took a deep breath to calm herself. “I just have one more question. Why? Why did you do it?”

  This one could be answered. “Because we wanted a daughter. Ours was dying and you needed a good home.”

  Natasha grunted. She disagreed with her parent’s assessment that they provided a ‘good’ home. She had heard enough. She stood up. “Thank you for finally telling me the truth. It’s just a shame you waited until it was too late.”

  “What do you mean?” the man she no longer thought of as her father asked.

  “I gave you one last chance to stop lying to me and you didn’t. My statement that you will never see me again still stands.” She then turned to her sister. “I don’t blame you for any of this, Sandra. You are still welcome at my house any time, as long as you don’t bring them with you.”

  Sandra did not try to change her mind about the people who had pretended to be her parents. She understood why Natasha had to reject them from her life. She would have done the same thing in her position. “Come and see me soon,” she said. “I’m home for a few more weeks.”

  Her sister’s understanding brought tears to Natasha’s eyes and she had to look away before they fell. Taking this as a cue that they were leaving, Fox stood up and joined Natasha, taking her hand as she left the room. “Are you alright?” he asked her quietly. She shook her head.

  She heard her father’s voice shouting at her from the lounge. “How dare you walk out on us. We brought you up. You have no right to turn your back on us. You are our daughter and we deserve your respect.”

  “No, I’m not,” Natasha said so quietly that Fox almost didn’t hear her.

  Nobody followed them as they left the house and closed the door behind them. Natasha turned around and looked back at the house she had grown up in, knowing it was the last time she would see it. No matter what happened, she would not go back. She had closed the door on that part of her life and would not look back.

  Natasha had never been close to her parents, had never felt comfortable around them and there were often fierce arguments. She was not upset about not seeing them again, but she was upset about not knowing who she was. She was scared. She no longer knew anything about her blood relatives and had no way of finding out.

  “What will you tell Lucy?” Fox asked once they were in his car.

  “Everything,” she said. “I will let her make up her own mind about what she wants to do.”

  “Your place or mine?” Fox asked her.

  “Yours. I could to with the company right now.”

  The journey to the hotel was made in silence. Fox kept glancing across at Natasha, but her eyes remained fixed on the road in front, her face unreadable.

  Everyone was in the lounge when they got there, waiting for them to return. “How did it go?” Komi asked.

  “Not well,” Fox said. “We’ll tell you about it later. I’m not sure Nat is up to talking about it.”

  He had his arm around her and she was resting her head on his shoulder. She raised it and said she was okay and that talking about it would probably do her some good.

  She told them everything, all that had been said and her reaction. “So basically,” she said when she had finished, “my so-called parents confirmed everything Lukine helped me to remember.”

  “How will this affect Lucy?” Trey asked. Natasha was pleased that his first thought was for her niece.

  “It doesn’t. She may not be my blood, but as far as I am concerned, nothing has changed. She is still my niece. Her father was my brother, regardless of who my real parents are.”

  “What will you do now?” Bolene asked.

  “Find my real family. I don’t know how, but somehow I am going to find a way and when I do, I hope they have a very good explanation for what they did.”

  Witch

  The weeks passed. Now that she was no longer at school, Lucy found herself a job waitressing in a café. She didn’t enjoy it much, but it put some money in her hand and gave her something to do while she waited for her university course to start. Her trial results had been good enough to get her into her first choice so she was not too worried about her impending results. She had opted to go to the local university, allegedly so she could stay living with her aunt. Natasha had her suspicions that there were other reasons.

  Trey began to stay at Natasha’s place more and more often. He became such a regular visitor that Natasha asked him one day if he was planning on moving in. He actually gave it some serious thought before saying no.

  Since coming clean to Fox’s family about their relationship, Fox and Natasha never spent a night apart. Natasha still attended her dance classes, but Fox was always waiting for her at her house when she got back. Fox moved his things into Natasha’s room at the hotel and she made space for some of his clothes in her walk-in wardrobe at her house.

  Komi stopped making moves on Natasha and accepted the fact that they could only ever be friends. His attitude toward her changed and she began to like him more and more. The three often did things together and Komi was never made to feel like the third wheel.

  One day, Fox brought up the subject of Alignment day. It was only a few months away and he wanted to take Natasha with him to his homeland, if she could get enough time off work.

  Natasha was thrilled with the idea and wanted to know more about the festivities. Fox had taught her about the political side, and she didn’t want to hear another word about that, but she was fascinated with how Fox’s people celebrated the event.

  “Why don’t I show you,” Fox said. “We have a way of capturing images, kind of like a cross between a photo and a video. I’ll bring up some from the last few Alignment day celebrations.”

  He took her to the office and switched on a contraption that looked similar to a television. It stood on top of the desk and had no visible means of power. “Magic,” Fox said when Natasha asked him how it worked. He went on to explain that it was actually just a viewer and the images he would soon be showing her were stored centrally in Yong’s capital city.

  He spoke into the viewer, stating a date, time and place that he wished to see. He was going back a little under thirty years as all of the adults he knew said that was the best year for partying on Alignment day.

  Three-dimensional images appeared on the screen of people dressed
in strange costumes, drinking from brightly coloured glasses and eating food Natasha had never seen before. In the background it looked like others were performing some sort of formal dance, like they did in court during Tudor times, based on television shows she had seen.

  The image played for a couple of minutes, then froze, as though it had been paused. Fox requested another image, the same place but a short time later. He explained to Natasha about the dancing, the traditional food and drink and the costumes.

  Natasha hardly heard what he said as she stared at the screen. One of the men in the background had captured her attention. “Who is he?” she asked, pointing to the man.

  “I’m not sure,” Fox said. “I’ll see if I can get a clearer image of him. Why are you asking?”

  “I recognise him.”

  Fox froze. “How do you recognise him?”

  Then Natasha said the words he had been expecting. “I think he was the man who handed me over to my fake parents.”

  Fox smiled at her. “Then let’s see what we can find out about him.” He spoke some commands and the display on the screen changed. A full profile of the man appeared, along with some of his details. He was an attractive man, in his late twenties, with a full head of grey hair and a matching, nearly trimmed, beard. His smile reached his eyes, which sparkled. Going by looks alone, he didn’t seem the sort of man who would abandon his child to a stranger.

  Fox’s eyes fell on the name and he felt his stomach drop. Zem Tansel. He knew that name; he knew it well.

  “No,” he said. “No no no no no. Please Creator, let me be wrong.” He asked for details on Joonie Tansel and the man’s image disappeared. A woman appeared on the screen, with long black hair and matching eyes; eyes that Natasha would never forget.

  “That’s my mother,” she stammered. “Who is she?”

  When Fox turned to face her, he was trembling. “That’s my almost step-mother, the woman who accidentally killed my father.”

  Natasha couldn’t understand why Fox was reacting so badly to finding out who she really was. His next words told her. “She’s a witch.”

  Fox’s father was a wizard, which meant, whether he wanted to be or not, Fox was a wizard. Natasha had just found out her mother was a witch, which made her a witch. Witches and wizards couldn’t be together without one killing the other.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said and ran from the room.

  “Nat,” Fox called out. “Nat.” The pain and desperation in his voice made the others come running. Komi arrived first to find Fox standing, staring at the open door. He looked terrible.

  “What’s wrong?” Komi asked. Fox tried to speak, but was unable to form coherent words. He pointed at the screen.

  Komi didn’t want to leave Fox’s side, but he needed to know what was going on. He moved to the other side of the office so he could see the screen clearly. He instantly recognised the picture on it. “Why were you showing Nat an image of Joonie Tansel?”

  “S....S.....She’s her mother,” Fox managed to stammer.

  “May the Creator be merciful,” Bolene said. She and Lukine had arrived in time to hear Komi’s question and Fox’s answer. They both knew what the information meant. “Where’s Nat?”

  Fox could do no more than shrug his shoulders. “Look after him,” Bolene said to Lukine and went off in search of Natasha.

  She found her in her bedroom, curled up on the bed in the foetal position, crying her eyes out. Bolene didn’t say anything; she just lay on the bed beside her, placed her arms around her and held her tight.

  ————————————-∞————————————-

  A few hours later, Komi, Lukine and Bolene were in the library, discussing what had occurred. Fox had locked himself in his room and Natasha had said she wanted to be alone.

  “I don’t understand,” Komi said. “How can Joonie and Zem Tansel be Nat’s parents? They had a baby boy and a few days later Zem and the child disappeared. It makes no sense.”

  “It does if they lied about the baby being a boy,” Bolene said.

  Lukine joined in the conversation. “From what I remember being told, a few days after the happy event, Joonie claimed that Zem had run off with the child, but nobody believed her and she was accused of murder. I don’t remember anything more.”

  “Then let’s look it up,” Komi said.

  The three went to the office and spoke their request into the device that Fox had been using earlier. It told them all they wanted to know, and more.

  Witness statements from the trial said that Zem had been visiting a friend when Joonie contacted him to say she had gone into labour. That was the last anyone saw of him. Joonie insisted that nobody should assist with the birth, not even her sister, Maylan, so the happy couple were alone when their child was born.

  Friends and family had been asked to give them a few days peace before visiting so nothing more was heard from any of them until Joonie turned up at Maylan’s house claiming Zem had stolen their baby boy.

  Multiple witnesses said that Zem would never do something like that. An investigation was launched. Scrying spells failed to find him on Yong and none of the gates to Earth reported anyone matching his description passing through. Everyone came to the same conclusion: Zem and the child were both dead.

  With no body and no evidence of foul play, Joonie could not be found guilty, but many believed she was lying about what had happened, even Maylan.

  “She moved away, met Fox’s father and the rest is history,” Lukine said.

  “Well we know that some of what she said was true,” Bolene said. “We know that Zem and the child were still alive after the birth and that somehow Zem managed to smuggle them both to Earth.”

  “But why?” Komi asked. “Why did he take the child? Why did he give Nat away and where is he now?”

  “And why did Joonie lie about the child being a boy?”

  They were still pondering these questions when Natasha crept down the stairs. Nobody heard her as she made her way to the schoolroom. She went unnoticed as she walked down the corridor a few minutes later, opened the front door and left the hotel. She was expecting someone to come out and try to prevent her leaving and was relieved when no-one did.

  How she managed to drive without crashing, she had no idea. She found it next to impossible to concentrate on the road and her vision kept blurring every time her eyes filled with tears.

  She no longer wanted to be left alone, but she didn’t want to see any demons, so she drove to the one place she knew she would get the privacy and comfort she needed: her sister’s house.

  Sandra had only been back in the country for a few days and was due to leave again the following week, but Natasha was sure she would let her stay until then.

  She parked on the street, walked up the driveway to the front door and rang the bell. Then she began to pray that Sandra was at home.

  When Sandra opened the door, she took one look at the state Natasha was in and hugged her tight. Without saying a word, she took her into the lounge and let her cry herself dry in her arms. Only then did she ask what was wrong.

  Natasha told her everything. At first Sandra found it hard to believe, but after what had happened at her parents’ house, she was prepared to listen with an open mind.

  “What are you going to do?” Sandra asked when Natasha had finished speaking.

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  “Stay here as long as you need. The house is all yours while I am away.”

  “Thank you,” Natasha said and wiped away another tear that had trickled down her face. “I wasn’t sure how you would feel about me, now that you know what I am.”

  Sandra hugged her once more. “We may not be related, but you will always be family. Tell me what I can do to help.”

  There was nothing Sandra could do, other than be there for her, but Lucy was another matter. Natasha gave her a call to explain what she needed and why. Lucy was devastated by the news and s
he was crying by the time she hung up. She did, however, agree to do as Natasha had asked.

  ————————————-∞————————————-

  Fox blinked. He had been staring at the wall for who knew how long. He had no idea what to do. He felt numb inside. How could this be happening? He had finally found the love of his life, and she felt the same, but now they could not be together. He needed to talk to Natasha. He needed to see her. He needed to know how she was.

  He forced himself to stand up and leave his room. He knocked on her door, but there was no reply. It wasn’t locked, so he went in. There was no sign of her. The bedclothes were crumpled and he went over to them and placed his hand on her pillow. It was still wet from her tears.

  He had to find her. He had to hold her and tell her everything would be alright, even though he knew it wouldn’t. They couldn’t be together, no matter how much they wanted it, without one of them killing the other and, while he was prepared to die for her, he wasn’t prepared to risk her life in exchange for a few years of intimacy.

  He found the others in the office, still doing research on Natasha’s biological parents. They didn’t ask how he was feeling. They knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t want to talk about it. He asked them where Natasha was, but they had no idea she had left her room.

  Before they could search the house, they heard the front door open. Fox ran to it, but it was only Trey and Lucy. The look on their faces told Fox they knew what had happened. “We need to talk,” Trey said.

  Bolene made coffee and they were all sitting at the kitchen table when Lucy said the words she didn’t want to voice. “Nat has left and isn’t coming back. She has asked me to collect all of her things for her. Everything Fox left at her place is in the back of Trey’s car. She said she never wants to see another demon as long as she lives and I’m pretty sure she means it.”

  Komi immediately took his communicator out of his pocket and spoke Natasha’s name. There was no answer.

  “No,” Bolene said. “I will not accept that. We have to go and see her. We can help her get through this.” She turned to Lukine. “Come on, we’re going to Nat’s place.”