The Place Where

by Rodion Pretis

  Mark didn't answer. My father began to talk about how young he was when he first went to work. I noticed that Mark was staring at me, and I felt that the moment was approaching: he was going to say something in order to switch his father from his affairs to mine. After waiting for his father to pause, Mark asked:

  “Hey Joan, why are you holding onto the glass all the time when you eat?” It looks very stupid.

  I looked at my hands. And indeed, my left hand clutched a glass of milk tightly.

  “You are as if afraid that someone will steal your milk,” said the father, grinning. - Relax, you're not in the den of wild animals!

  The next day, I again returned to the clearing of Fox in the thicket. When my mother asked me where I was going, I said that I wanted to play with one girl I met yesterday, and that I would have dinner with her. My mother had already begun to bombard me with a bunch of questions that I didn't want to answer, but just at that moment the phone rang - one of her city friends called. I stood next to me for a minute, as if waiting for my mother to pay attention to me - and she impatiently waved to me, showing that I could go, which was exactly what I was trying to achieve.

  The fox sat with her feet in her chair under a tree, reading a book.

  “It's a pity that hedgehogs are not found here,” she said, as if continuing the conversation that had begun earlier. - In England they are full.

  She tapped the book with her finger, and I looked over my shoulder at the picture.

  “Yes, that's great,” I said hesitantly.

  “The foxes eat them,” she added, grinning.

  I shot her a wary look.

  - Let's go! - She got out of the chair and led me into the depths of the forest. She wanted to show me the place where a tributary flowed into the stream, leaving the pipe under the embankment. It was a real concrete tunnel, so big that, standing in the middle of the stream, I could barely reach the top with my outstretched arm. We wandered through the water into the depths of the pipe, through the darkness saturated with the smell of algae, until the mouth of the tunnel turned into a tiny point of light in the distance.

  - Really, great? - Fox's voice sounded hollowly, reflecting off the walls of the pipe. “It's cool here even in the middle of the day.” Great place to hide.

  I looked into the darkness, velvet black and silent, except for the gentle musical murmur of water. She scared and attracted at the same time.

  “I would like to know where she leads,” the Fox said. - Someday I will take a flashlight with me and go there further.

  I looked back at the glare of light at the end of the pipe, then again stared into the darkness and cringed.

  “Fine,” I said. - We can go together.

  - Noticed. Okay, let's go, I'll show you something else. My secrets. - She splashed across the water towards the exit, and I followed her, returning to the heat and radiance of the day.

  The fox showed me a labyrinth of inconspicuous paths laid in the bush around her clearing. They were very narrow - just so that we could crawl, no more. In places where the paths crossed, piles of stones were piled up “to fire at uninvited guests,” she said. Suddenly she touched my hand.

  - You drive! She shouted. - Catch up!

  And the Fox dived into its labyrinth, and I went down after it, diving under the branches and going around the corners, but not leaving the path, as tearing through the bushes threatened with bruises and scratches. I spotted her, and then she chased after me, screaming and hooting at the run. We ran around and around, turning from one path to another; sometimes I caught a glimpse of a clearing with an armchair - a place that in my thoughts I began to call her living room. And at times I found myself deep in the bush, hidden from the whole world. All around, until I learned that the path that goes near the broken branch leads to the living room, and the one near the pile of stones to the place where the newts live, and so on.

  The fox was chasing me, and suddenly it was not heard. I could not understand where she had gone, and quietly crawled back to the living room, trying not to make noise. Having almost reached it, I heard a sound behind me. The fox jumped at me from a branch of a walnut tree and slapped on my back.

  - You drive! - she said. - Let's go eat.

  We returned to her living room in the clearing and went for lunch. It seemed like the most mundane thing on earth - sitting under the trees and eating crackers spread with peanut butter.

  “Are foxes really found here?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she answered. - Only during the day you will not see them.

  - And how did it happen that you became the queen of foxes?

  She was sitting in an armchair, and the light falling through the foliage of walnut trees stained her hair. I squinted, and in the lazy afternoon heat the bright spots of sunlight flashed like precious stones, and the battered chair became the throne. She raised her head regally, peering into the foliage.

  “It started a long time ago,” she said slowly. - When I was a little girl.

  And she told me a story.

  Once there lived a woman who did not like what she was. She felt anxious about herself, as if she were cramped in her own body. Looking in the mirror, she did not recognize herself. Is that her nose? Is it her eyes? It seemed to her that something was wrong with them - although she could not say what the correct eyes or nose should be.

  The woman lived with her husband in a house on the edge of the forest, not far from a small town. She had a little daughter, just starting to go to school.

  And then one day, when this woman's little daughter was at school and her husband was at work, she put her house keys on the kitchen table and went outside, leaving the door wide open behind her. She went along a path that led into the depths of the forest. Caught in the most often, she turned to the side and went between the trees where there were no longer paths.

  She left the trail quite far when the rain began - at first a little, then more and more; drops threshed her face, shirt and jeans on her wet. She looked for places to hide, and found a hollow, fallen trunk large enough to climb inside.

  A woman crawled into him on her stomach. Inside the barrel it was dry, comfortable and warm. She waited until the rain ended, closing her eyes and listening to the water above her head drumming on the leaves, dripping from the branches to the ground and flowing in trickles among the leaves. Listening to the rain, she fell asleep.

  Waking up, she realized that she had changed. For the first time in her life, she felt at home in her body. The smells around were bright and alluring - the delicious aroma of beautiful foliage and worms, the warm smell of the squirrel that lived upstairs on the tree. Listening to the squirrel jumping among the branches, she suddenly realized that she was moving her ears to monitor the sound. Then she looked at herself and saw that her whole body was covered in fur. She buried her nose in her long fluffy tail, wrapped around her paws.

  While she was sleeping, she somehow turned into a fox.

  The fox moved in her chair, looking at me for the first time in her story.

  “That was my mother,” she said. - The little daughter is me.

  I lay on the ground, sleepily listening to Fox's voice. Listening to her story, I already forgot why the Fox is telling her. I sat down and stared at her with all my eyes.

  “What, you want to say that your mother turned into a fox?”

  She nodded. Sunlight still stained her hair, but the gems disappeared. In front of me was just a ragged girl who was sitting in a shabby chair, looking at me with unusual tension.

  I hesitated. Maybe she's joking? Or is she crazy?

  “That doesn't happen.”

  She shrugged.

  “Nevertheless, it was.” One fine day, I left home to go to school. When I returned, my mother was not there.

  “Maybe she just went somewhere?” Why did you decide that she turned into a fox?

  Fox leaned her head against the shabby back of the chair.

  - On the day when she disappeared, my dad
and I were sitting on the porch in the evening, and suddenly I saw a fox sneaking along the edge of the lawn in front of our house. And I realized that this is my mother.

  “How do you understand that?”

  - By her look. I just knew that. I asked dad, and he said that such an explanation is no worse than any other. - She frowned, looking at her hands. - In those days, things were not going very well with us. Dad drank and all that. - She raised her head. - Since then, he quit.

  I did not know what to say. A crazy story. It might be safer to talk to her about her father than about her mother.

  “By the way, what does your father do?” How did it happen that he ended up at home in the middle of the day?

  - He writes stories and books. Fiction basically. Well, those with rockets on the cover, even if there are no rockets in the book. And also ... ”she lowered her voice,“ and sometimes he writes pornography. ” Truly indecent things. He does not show them to me, but I know in which box he holds them. I heard he once said that they pay better for this than for fantasy ...

  I was still trying to get comfortable with this information when Lisa suddenly straightened up.

  - Listen! - she said; her voice suddenly became strained.

  Somewhere nearby, voices were heard - several boys were talking and laughing.

  “We have to hide,” said the Fox, jumping up from her chair. Without asking unnecessary questions, I followed her.

  From my shelter in the bushes, I saw that there were three boys walking along the path - one was my brother, the other two I did not know.

  “Teachers have almost all the goats,” said one of the strangers, a stocky blond. “Take at least an Englishwoman, Miss Jackson - she only indulges her favorites.”

  - Damn, what are you all about that! “I can't believe that only two weeks are left before the start of school,” said the second boy. This one was tall, with greasy blond hair. - Let's stop now and have a smoke.

  Blond just at that moment came to the edge of the meadow.

  - Hey! Take a look! - He plopped down in a chair, pulled a plastic bag and paper out of his pocket, and began to fold a jamb.

  My brother looked around, looking at the shelves, teapot, dolls.

  “Sounds like some kid's shelter.”

  “It looks like a great place to party,” the little haired boy replied, sitting down on the ground. “Bring the girls here ...” he grinned. “No one will disturb us here.”

  The blond smoked a cigarette and took a deep puff. The smell of marijuana came to my shelter. He handed over the joint to the fair-haired.

  - Do the local girls like parties? My brother asked. The blond laughed.

  - Some show off, but there is nothing at all.

  The blond-haired handed the jamb to my brother, and he inhaled the smoke deeply.

  I was wondering where the Fox went. The blond-haired boy described Christine, a girl who liked parties.

  - Here is a hot girl! He said. - An excellent body, and she knows what to do with it.

  “As if you had ever come so close to her to find out,” the blond laughed.

  It was very strange to sit in the bushes, crouching to the ground, and watch the boys smoke weed and talk about school and girls. I felt invisible and strangely powerful. The boys did not know that I was here. My brother did not know that I see him smoking weed. They did not know that I was listening to their conversations.

  “It needs to be cast,” the little haired boy said. Taking a step in my direction, he began to tinker with his fly.

  - Hey! This is a private property! - Fox came out of the forest on the other side of the meadow. - You violated the borders of someone else's territory.

  All three boys stared at her. The blond smirked, and the fair-haired laughed out loud, continuing to keep his hand on the fly.

  - Well, yes, right. And you know what, I was going to pee here, so it looks like I will continue to violate them. Wait a bit and you will see something that you have never seen before.

  The fox disappeared into the thicket. Now the blond was laughing too.

  “She doesn't seem to be eager to see this, Jerry.”

  - Shut up, Andrew!

  I retreated along the path a little deeper.

  - Hey, what's that over there? - said Jerry, peering in my direction. “Looks like there is someone else!”

  The stone, flying out of nowhere, crashed loudly into his shoulder. I started to run along the path, recalling what Fox said when we first met her: “I can hide in trees and I can knock a man with a stone from thirty feet.”

  I heard Jerry breaking through the bushes. Most likely, he was chasing me, but when I need to, I can run pretty fast. In addition, it was too large to easily squeeze between the bushes. From somewhere nearby, I heard the hooting of Fox and the reciprocal abuse of my brother and blond. The path I ran along led away from the living room, and then returned to it again. I grabbed a few stones from the pile near the path and, having reached the place where it was already close to the living room, I threw one at my brother. I decided that I had hit, but did not stop to look; I was running again, and in the bushes behind I was popping, then there was a sudden explosion of curses. Another stone hit the target.

  The fox lurked somewhere, but from the side of the clearing came the roar and swearing. I crept along the path closer, trying to move as quietly as possible. Through the bushes I saw the boys. My brother's face and hands were covered with scratches, he picked thorns from his T-shirt. Blond Andrew was bleeding from the abrasion on his head, where the stone hit. Jerry was pulling shelves off a tree. Shards of a teapot were scattered on the ground. That must have been the rumble I heard.

  “Damn you, goats!” He shouted, referring to the trees. - Dukes are smelly!

  I heard footsteps behind me and cringed, hiding behind the bushes. Gus walked along the path leading from the house.

  - A curse! - said Andrew. - Got game.

  He started to run, but Gus was faster. With one hand he grabbed Andrew by the collar of his T-shirt, the other was already lying on my brother's shoulder. Jerry, however, escaped - he ran down the path somewhere into the forest.

  “Hey, let me go!” - Andrew ached. “We did nothing!”

  Gus looked scary even when I first saw him, and then he smiled. There was no smile on his face now. He examined the shelves lying on the ground, a broken teapot, fragments of plates and cups scattered in the weeds.

  “The evidence is against you, kid.” It looks like you were having fun with my daughter's things here.

  - This is all Jerry! - said Andrew. “We did nothing.”

  “I don't like the guys having fun on my premises,” Gus continued, as if Andrew hadn't said anything. “I think the cops will be interested in learning about all this.” His eyes rested on a bag of grass forgotten in an armchair. “Perhaps if I challenge them, this will be the best way to ensure that everything does not happen again.”

  The blond began to whine again about the fact that they did nothing. I never saw my brother look so pale and dull, even when my father arranged for him to drag him out.

  Reluctantly leaving the forest, I climbed into the clearing.

  “Hi, Gus,” I said hesitantly.

  “Are you all right, Triton?”

  - Yeah. Uh ... - I jerked my head in the direction of Mark. - This is my brother Mark. Uh ... - I frowned, looking first at Mark, then at Gus, and then again glancing at the ground. “Could you let him go?”

  “Your brother, how is that?” He glanced sharply at Mark, then turned his gaze to Andrew. “Sarah, maybe you'll finally get your ass out here?” His voice warmed a little.

  The fox came out from behind the trees on the far side of the clearing.

  - What happened here? Gus asked.

  - They invaded someone else's possession. When I told them to get out, the other guy said he was going to urinate on my things. Then I started throwing stones at them.

  “We did not know that this was someone else's possession,�
�� Andrew said. “We just wanted to cut it, and ...”

  “Do me a favor, shut up, please,” Gus said.

  Andrew was silent. Mark did not say anything.

  “That's better already,” Gus said in a casual tone. - I don't like when guys rummage in my daughter's things, and I don't like when they lie to me. I would like to understand how I can ensure that this does not happen again.

  “I will never come here again,” said Mark.

  Gus nodded.

  - Well said. Your sister is a good girl, and that speaks in your favor. - He turned to Andrew. - What about you?