Foxheart

by Claire Legrand

  One of the cows gave a sorrowful moo.

  “Quicksilver!”

  Quicksilver flinched and turned sheepishly to face Anastazia. “Yes, O wise older self?”

  Anastazia’s cracked lips twisted into a not-quite smile. “Don’t even try that face with me. I know that face. I used that face, and so have all of ourselves, for lifetimes and lifetimes. What did you do to poor Sly Boots?”

  “I thought you didn’t like Sly Boots.”

  “I don’t, particularly.”

  “He just popped right up out of nowhere!” Sly Boots grabbed the fence rails and pulled himself to his feet. “How’d you do that? Did you tell him to do that?”

  “It was only a bit of fun, Boots,” said Quicksilver. “Besides, I had to make you stop picking your nose.”

  Sly Boots rubbed the back of his head, scowling. “You could have just asked me.”

  “But where’s the fun in that?” said the yellow bird, perched atop a fence post.

  Quicksilver thought of her friend in his true form, wanting him to be a dog once more—but nothing happened. Her mind met only a thick gray wall. “Fox, what are you doing? Change back!”

  “I don’t want to,” Fox sniffed, turning up his yellow beak. “I quite like being a bird.”

  Quicksilver crossed her arms over her chest. “Anastazia, Fox won’t do as I say!”

  Anastazia looked up at the sky and closed her eyes. “May the stars send me patience. . .”

  “All I can feel when I think instructions to him is this gray wall. He’s keeping me away!”

  Fox stuck out his pink bird tongue, fluffed up his golden feathers, and started preening.

  “He’s your monster,” Anastazia explained to Quicksilver. “He can try to keep you away for a time, but ultimately he has to do as you say. Just breathe. Clear your mind of all thoughts except the one you need. Focus.”

  Though her cheeks were hot with temper, Quicksilver managed to slow her breathing and follow Anastazia’s instructions. She pictured Fox—the dog Fox, sitting obediently before her like a well-trained pup, gazing up at her adoringly.

  She cracked open one eye. There Fox sat, wholly doggish once more, looking grumpy.

  “There,” he muttered. “Back to normal, just as you wish. Master.”

  Quicksilver plopped down onto the grass. “That was exhausting.”

  “It won’t be, once you both get used to each other,” said Anastazia. “Now, get up. Let’s try again.”

  “I liked you better when I didn’t know what you were thinking,” grumbled Fox to Quicksilver.

  “I liked him better when he couldn’t talk,” Sly Boots muttered, climbing back onto the fence. “Rotten mutt.”

  Quicksilver’s temper flashed, and Fox obeyed her thoughts at once.

  “What did you say?” Fox growled, appearing before Sly Boots as a snarling golden wolf.

  Sly Boots nearly fell off the fence again. “N-nothing! Nothing, I swear!”

  “No wolves.” Anastazia marched over and pulled Fox away by the scruff of his neck. In her grip, his ears flattened and he tucked his tail between his legs. “The Wolf King’s pack has become a bunch of bloodthirsty beasts, though they didn’t ask for it. They represent death and pain for our kind. Remember that, Quicksilver.”

  Quicksilver mumbled an apology and told Fox to become himself again. He obeyed, albeit slowly. His reluctance made her mind feel like taffy, being slowly tugged this way and that.

  Of course you know what all of this means, don’t you? Fox thought to Quicksilver, as Anastazia started lecturing them about the improper use of magic.

  A thrill jolted through Quicksilver’s chest. She nodded to Anastazia, though she had no idea what the old woman was going on about. That we could pull some really excellent jobs, with magic like this?

  Hmm. And that in a land full of witches, there are bound to be a lot of really excellent things worth stealing?

  Quicksilver bit down hard on her tongue to keep from smiling. And that, if you were, say, a mouse, you could squeeze into really small places?

  And that our friend Bootsie is most likely afraid of snakes? I think I’d look quite dashing as a snake, don’t you?

  Quicksilver’s stifled laughter came out as a giant snort.

  Anastazia turned, narrowing her eyes. “Were you listening to me?”

  Sly Boots piped up from the fence. “You were talking about how magic must never be used to harm another person, unless that person is the Wolf King or one of his associates, or unless your life is in danger and you’re forced to use magic to defend yourself—”

  “Not you, boy. Quicksilver?”

  “I . . . what Boots said?” Quicksilver shot Anastazia a hopeful smile.

  Anastazia sighed. “Quicksilver, this is serious. You’re a witch now. You can’t act as though you’ve no responsibilities in the world. Your blood contains power that, when used improperly, could do a lot of damage. You must pay attention during these lessons. Otherwise you’ll never be strong enough to face a unicorn, much less the Wolf King.”

  At the word “unicorn,” the cows made alarmed noises and bumped into one another in their haste to hurry away.

  But Quicksilver was already planning thieving jobs in her head, and imagining all the many ways she and Fox could trick their marks. How much magical, witchy loot they would bag, and how they would live in the mountains someday like kings, and never have to talk to anyone ever again.

  We’ll have to work hard, Quicksilver thought to Fox. I’m not sure we could steal a piece of candy right now, much less riches and gold. That means you’ll have to listen to me, do as I say.

  Fox’s indignation was like a tiny black cloud in her mind. As long as you actually pay attention to what you’re doing, he thought back, we should be fine.

  Quicksilver stomped her foot and screamed in frustration. Fox stomped his paws and echoed her scream—only much sillier—and then rolled his eyes at her.

  “Anastazia, he’s being incredibly rude!” said Quicksilver, pointing at Fox. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

  But Anastazia only muttered, “I wasn’t nearly this impossible when I was your age,” and stalked away, popping candies into her mouth.

  Quicksilver stared, her temper fading. The annoyed look on Anastazia’s face was so familiar and so perfectly echoed how Quicksilver felt whenever she grew annoyed with something . . . it made her feel as though she’d stepped outside her body to float in the sky.

  How bizarre it was, she thought, to look at this old, hunched woman and realize that, though her body would change over the years, her messy, grumpy soul would stay safe and unchanged inside her.

  .15.

  THE LITTLE HURTS

  That night they slept on the ground near the cow pasture, on soft mounds of sun-warmed grass dotted with white flowers. Anastazia had fallen asleep with her bag of candies in hand. Her snores were wet and thunderous.

  “Do I snore?” Quicksilver whispered to Fox, but he lay on his back beside her, his paws up in the air, twitchily asleep.

  Quicksilver smiled at the sight, but a thorn of fear pricked her heart. She yearned for things between them to be as they once were—Fox and Quicksilver, Quicksilver and Fox. The best thief—and dog—in all the Star Lands.

  “Things with Fox will get better,” Sly Boots remarked, his voice hushed.

  Quicksilver whipped her head around, ready to snap at him to leave her alone—but couldn’t do it. Sly Boots lay on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, chewing on a long stalk of grass and staring up through the wind-whispering trees to the stars overhead.

  He looked almost . . . tolerable.

  “There’s the Three Sisters,” Sly Boots said, pointing to a cluster of stars. “See that bright one in the middle?”

  Quicksilver blinked and looked away from him, settling her head back onto her pack. “Yes.”

  “That’s the heart they share. And there—that’s the White Bear, and that bright blue star is
his eye. You follow that, and you’ll go north, because that’s where all the snow bears live, in the Far North.” He sighed. “It’s funny. I don’t think I believed her, until now. Anastazia? I thought she’d spelled us into some odd witch land that only looked like home but wasn’t really home. But seeing these stars, stars I’ve seen all my life . . . I don’t think even witches could make stars look that real. And besides, if I squint really hard when I look at her, I can see you in her face.”

  Quicksilver harrumphed. “Her nose isn’t the same. It’s all swollen and crooked.”

  “I suppose she must have gotten hurt a lot, fighting the Wolf King.”

  The Wolf King. Yes, Anastazia had spent a lot of time fighting the Wolf King, or so she said, and now she wanted Quicksilver to do the same—though Quicksilver couldn’t fathom how, or even why, she would do such a thing. So far the only witch Quicksilver cared about was herself—herselves—and she didn’t see why they had to bother helping anyone else.

  As long as she and Anastazia stayed away from the Wolf King, what did it matter what happened to the other witches? If they were stupid enough to get themselves hunted, then why did it fall to Quicksilver to help them?

  No one had ever helped her.

  She glared up at the sky. She hadn’t thought of her parents once since arriving here, in this new time, but now that things were calm enough to think, her thoughts wandered to them. As she so often had when she was younger, she tried to remember their faces—perhaps her mother had gray hair too. Perhaps her father had a squashed nose. A crooked smile. A dimple or two.

  She turned over on the hard ground, trying to shrink the ache in her heart through sheer force of will. Out of everything she could do, she was best at that, maybe even better than she was at stealing—bearing down on the little hurts inside her to keep them from getting bigger and swallowing her whole.

  “Are you nervous?” Sly Boots asked. His voice was soft, but it still startled Quicksilver.

  “No,” she said. She paused. “Nervous about what?”

  “About fighting the Wolf King.”

  “Oh, him?” Quicksilver let out a breezy laugh. “To be honest, I haven’t thought much about him.”

  “I’d be nervous.”

  “Well, that’s you, isn’t it? I’m not afraid of anything. You can’t be afraid of anything, if you want to be a good thief.”

  “You’re lucky,” Sly Boots said with a sigh. “I’m afraid of everything. Always have been.”

  Quicksilver turned over to look at him. In the moonslight, Sly Boots seemed rather unlike himself—more freckled, but not so sad and hopeless, and with a serious, grown-up sort of look in his eyes that made Quicksilver feel as though she had never seen him before. She wished he would spit out that stupid piece of grass. Her head buzzed from working with Fox all afternoon, and the grass was distracting her. Every sound seemed magnified; her limbs ached.

  “Sly Boots?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I’m sorry about your parents. You must feel awful.” As soon as she spoke, Quicksilver flushed. Who was she to be sorry? She hadn’t hurt his parents. She didn’t have parents at all. She pounded the ground with her fist. “You know. For not being able to help them, and not being able to steal anything for them, and for mucking up that job in the first place.”

  “I do feel awful,” said Sly Boots. “But thank you for being sorry. I don’t usually have anyone to say they’re sorry for me.”

  “Me, neither. I like being alone, though. When you’re alone, people can’t hurt you.” Quicksilver dug her fingers into the dirt. She really needed to go to sleep and stop saying such things. Her pounding head was turning her into a babbling fool.

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  “I really will get you back to them, as soon as I know how.”

  “I know you will.”

  “It shouldn’t take us long. Fox and I are already pretty good at this magic stuff.”

  Sly Boots smiled. “I noticed. So did the back of my head.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t been picking your nose . . . and you know, Fox gave me the idea, at least part of it—”

  “Really, it’s fine.”

  Quicksilver fell silent. It seemed wise to do so. She couldn’t seem to stop tripping over her own tongue. She stared up at the stars, her mouth in a hard line, until sleep had nearly taken her. Then an idea came to her. She shook Sly Boots’s arm.

  “I’m awake, you know,” he said.

  “I have an idea. Witches are alive in this time, right?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “So I reckon there are lots of witchy medicines and healing what-do-you-call-its all around the Star Lands. I’ll find out which ones we need—I’ll say, ‘Oh, Anastazia, please teach me about witchy what-do-you-call-its,’ and she’ll say, ‘Oh, of course, my brilliant and talented student,’ and she’ll tell me everything because she’ll want to show off—and then Fox and I’ll steal whatever we can find, and when we send you back to your parents, you’ll absolutely be able to make them better!” Quicksilver grinned at him. “You get your medicine, and I get to steal things. It’s the perfect plan.”

  Sly Boots stared at her. “You’d do that for me?”

  “No, I’d do it for me, because stealing is fun. But it’d work out nicely for you too. Conveniently.”

  Sly Boots continued staring.

  Quicksilver shoved him. “What? Stop it.”

  Before Quicksilver could stop him, Sly Boots drew Quicksilver into a tight hug and then let her go at once. “Good night, Quicksilver,” he said, with a shy smile. “You’re a good friend.”

  “I’m not your friend.”

  “Well, all right. I suppose we haven’t known each other that long. But you will be. We will be, I think.”

  Then Sly Boots rolled over, and Quicksilver was left fuming until she fell hard into a dreamless sleep.

  .16.

  A COOPERATIVE WITCHLING

  For the next day, and the day after that, Quicksilver and Fox spent their time learning how to be witch and monster, while Anastazia lounged on a rock in the sun, sometimes giving instructions and sometimes falling asleep in the middle of lunch.

  “Again,” barked Anastazia, after Quicksilver and Fox’s fourth failed attempt at producing a successful glamour—a magical disguise that changed her face to look like someone else.

  “But I’m tired,” whined Fox, collapsing dramatically in the middle of the clearing that had become their home. The thick stretch of oak trees that hid them from the road rustled lazily in the warm breeze. “Can’t we work on this later? Perhaps we could be on our way to find the bones and practice as we go?”

  Quicksilver shot him a look. I don’t want to go yet!

  Ah, but I do, Fox replied. Magic practiced in a safe, quiet clearing doesn’t really count. We need to test ourselves! He paused, cocking his head to look at her. Are you frightened of leaving?

  All right, now you’re just being mean. Of course I’m not frightened. I just like it here, that’s all. But Quicksilver avoided Fox’s keen gaze, hoping he couldn’t sense the truth—that she was, in fact, the tiniest bit frightened of this unfamiliar, long-ago world.

  And that she worried that hunting for bones would rather get in the way of thieving.

  “Oh, yes, Fox, what a grand idea,” said Anastazia, with an enormous roll of her eyes. “And what if we were to encounter the Wolf King on the road, with Quicksilver still getting worn out after only five minutes of work, and you only able to dependably shift into birdies and kitties and itty-bitty mouses?”

  “Isn’t it mice?” Quicksilver pointed out.

  “I’ll say it how I like, and so will you, once you’re an old woman.”

  “So,” said Quicksilver, putting her hands on her hips, “just because you’re old, you can say whatever you like, even if it’s wrong?”

  “That’s about the crux of it, yes.”

  “Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! I could never
get away with saying wrong things, even when I was small!”

  Anastazia sneered. “The sky is purple, unicorns are evil, and life isn’t fair. These are the facts of it, my dear.”

  “Don’t call me ‘my dear,’” Quicksilver snapped. “I’m you. It’s strange.”

  I’d consider backing off, master, Fox thought calmly to her. She looks ready to burst.

  “She looks ready to collapse into a blob of wrinkles!” Quicksilver cried, so flustered that she forgot to keep her thoughts between herself and Fox.

  Anastazia shot to her feet. “Look good and hard, girl, for this is your future. Now, try again, or so help me, I’ll—”

  But then Anastazia stopped. For of course she couldn’t do anything at all these days, except for perhaps irritate someone to death. She no longer had a Fox, and therefore whatever magic remained in her blood lay cold and dormant.

  Anastazia returned to her rock, arranging her cloak about her and avoiding Quicksilver’s gaze. She looked out at the meadow full of grazing cows and said quietly, “If you’ll try once more, please.”

  Quicksilver wished she wasn’t so angry and could comfort Anastazia without losing something of her pride. To be without a Fox was not a fate she would wish on any version of herself, no matter how old and wrinkled and mean.

  “Quicksilver!” cried Sly Boots, hurrying into the clearing, his arms full of goods from town. “Anastazia! Wonderful news—I’ve found help! A whole group of witches, traveling together. They were in town at the market, and I noticed them because of their monsters and hair, of course, and I told them about you, and how you’re going to fight the Wolf King. They said they’d help us, so now we can do everything faster and go home sooner—”

  Anastazia jumped up from the rock and slapped Sly Boots.

  He dropped his parcels and held his cheek. “Are you mad?”

  “Are you mad, boy? I don’t want other witches here! We work alone. We can’t trust anyone else! Our mission is dangerous, and the Wolf King has many spies. Anyone we meet might be listening with his ears, seeing with his eyes—”