Chapter 24: The Guide Fox
A scratching sound. Rob whining.
Arthur woke in the middle of the night when he heard the sounds.
“Olivia, wake up. Olivia,” he said.
“Hm? What?”
“I heard something downstairs. I’m going to go look. You lock the door and stay here. If you hear a struggle, move the bed in front of the door to barricade it. Don’t come out, no matter what.”
“All right. Be careful.”
Arthur slipped his dagger into the holder around his waist, then also picked up his long sword. Olivia waited as Arthur slipped silently out into the hall then locked the door. Inside was warm and cozy, but the air in the room was chilly. She couldn’t stop trembling from nervousness.
She pushed her ability to hear thoughts to its limits but found nothing. She strained her ears to pick up sounds and waited, but still heard no loud sounds from downstairs.
After some time, she heard the jingle of the bell over the door.
He wouldn’t open the door if it were burglars, right? she thought. She debated whether she should unlock the door and go downstairs or not, but Arthur came back before she could decide. He knocked on the door, and she unlocked it, letting him into the room. He looked a bit flustered.
“You’ve got a visitor,” he said.
“Me?”
“There’s a fox.”
Just as Olivia was about to run downstairs, Arthur draped a wool shawl around her shoulders from behind.
“Thank you,” she said.
“The snow’s pretty deep out there.”
She hurried downstairs and opened the front door, where she saw a fox in the snow that was about as high as her own knees. And she recognized the fox.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Humans. Die. Baby.
“I’ll go immediately! Just wait a moment.”
She ran upstairs and told Arthur what was going on while she changed.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
“Thank you. Can you tell Colin we’re going out? And that we’re borrowing Greta.”
“Will do.”
Arthur finished changing, went to Colin’s room and knocked on the door to tell him what’s going on.
“All right, let’s go,” Olivia called.
“Colin, if you could look after the place,” said Arthur.
“But where are you going at a time like this?” asked Colin.
“We’ll explain everything when we get back.”
Colin had no idea what was going on. He watched in confusion as Olivia and Arthur got on the horses with their lamps before setting off into the deep snow. Rob tried to go with them, but Olivia told him no. Now he was just watching them go with sadness.
Colin locked the door, shivering as he did. He was going back upstairs when he chuckled to himself, remembering the animal he saw. “I must be half asleep, still,” he said. “Thought I saw them going out into the snow being led by a fox. Urgh, it’s freezing. The snow really chills the air.”
He hurried back to bed, curled up, and tried to go back to sleep, but he was so cold he couldn’t drift off. He kept rolling over, but eventually gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs.
After standing in the kitchen for a moment thinking, he lit a fire in the stove. “Might as well warm up the kitchen. And they’ll probably want some hot water for tea, and maybe they could use some warm water to warm up their feet too, when they get back. Don’t want them getting frostbite.”
He felt bad using the kitchen without permission in a house he was visiting for the first time, but eventually decided this was an abnormal situation and went ahead and boiled a big pot of water.
As he was adding a log to the fire in the stove, he heard a crunching sound. The back door opened, and Lara appeared, her feet crusted in snow.
“I rushed over to see what was going on because I saw a light…” she said. “What are you doing, Colin?”
“Arthur and Olivia went out somewhere.”
“…Oh. Something must have happened. If that’s the case, we should probably warm up the restaurant, too.”
She brushed the snow from her feet and started moving briskly despite having just woken up. Colin thought about how his girlfriend really had things together, then said, “Do you have any idea why’d they go?”
“Hm, I don’t know. Maybe there was an emergency with someone who’s sick? Oh, yeah, that has to be it. Olivia’s satchel with her medicines is gone. They must have been called out for someone sick.”
Lara quickly got the fire going in the restaurant fireplace, then hung a big pot there, too.
“With this snow, I’m sure it’d be a good idea to boil plenty of water,” she said. “And we should probably get some food ready so they can eat right away. Colin, I’m going to make something. You can go to sleep. There’s still loads of time until sunrise.”
“But this is an emergency. I don’t want to be the only one lying around sleeping while everyone else is working. Tell me how I can help.”
“That’s sweet of you. All right, then, mind making me a cup of tea? With extra milk and honey. I’m going to make a simple onion soup.”
Lara peeled onions, diced them finely, and sautéed them in butter. Colin thought she was incredible. He boiled a kettle of water and made her tea. When he handed her the teacup, he said, “Listen to this. Earlier, I’m pretty sure I was still half asleep, and I swear it looked like Arthur and Olivia were being led by a fox. That’s crazy, haha!”
“Huh. So, it was a fox that came to see them?”
“Hm? You really think it could be? That’s impossible.”
Lara took her eyes off the sautéing onions to look over at Colin. She was smiling and her eyes twinkled like a mischievous child. “Maybe that sort of thing does happen. I kind of think it might. I wish I could’ve seen that, a guide fox. Hey, Colin, are you hungry?”
“Yeah, a little. Even though it’s the middle of the night.”
“If I made you a piece of toast with butter and raspberry jam, would you eat it?”
“Happily! Are you sure it’s all right, though?”
“Of course. Though, it’s kind of unfortunate that the first thing I ever make for you is going to be bread and jam. Oh well.”
Colin’s heart skipped when she said, “the first thing I ever make for you.” If there was a first time, it meant there was going to be a next time. He couldn’t help wondering when that would be.
“Anything I share with you is obviously going to be amazing!” he said.
“Aw, thanks.”
Inside the restaurant was warm thanks to the fireplace and stove.
Elsewhere, however, Olivia and Arthur were following the fox down the snowy road. The two horses struggled to make progress through the snowbanks at night, but it was still faster than walking on foot.
Olivia called to the fox from above, “Is it still far?”
Nearby.
“And there’s a baby?”
Baby die soon. Baby cry.
Olivia searched the fox’s memories and found the sound of a baby crying inside a carriage. There wouldn’t be just a baby, so she assumed there were also adults. Olivia was feeling panicked, worrying that this carriage might have lost a wheel and that their horses could have been injured if they had strayed off the road, which would also be bad.
Everything in sight was a single sheet of snow. It was impossible to tell where the road ended, and the unkempt lands began.
The fox traveled through the snow by leaping and at one point turned off the road towards a marsh. The area initially looked flat, but there was actually a slight decline that grew suddenly sharper. Once the sun was set, anyone not from the area wouldn’t notice the slope.
Arthur and Olivia followed the fox down the slope and finally caught sight of the carriage. It’d toppled over on the slope. The horse was just about still standing, but it couldn’t move because it was still attached to the carriage. It let out what nearly sounded like a scream when it saw Arthur and Olivia.
Help! Help! Can’t move!
“We’re coming to help right now!” called Olivia, and she and Arthur jumped down from their horses at the same time.
They hurried over to the carriage in the snow. There was no sign of the driver. Without saying anything Arthur quickly climbed up onto the side of the overturned vehicle and opened the door. While he did, Olivia unhooked the horse’s harness to set it free.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Driver’s inside, too,” said Arthur. “Could you give me a hand?”
“Yes!”
Olivia looked into the carriage and saw the driver lying across a woman holding a baby as if protecting them. They were most likely unconscious. Arthur and Olivia worked together to pull out the driver first.
The driver opened his eyes and in a weak voice urged, “Please, save the lady and the lass.”
Arthur next pulled the baby out of the carriage and handed her to Olivia, then slung the woman over his shoulder and climbed out.
They patted the woman’s cheeks and rubbed her limbs while calling to her, somehow managing to get her to wake up, but she seemed incredibly tired. The baby let out a weak cry, but immediately fell unconscious again.
Then Olivia realized the fox was standing there watching them, unmoving.
“Thank you for letting us know about them. This is a thank you,” she said, and she pulled some boiled chicken out of her satchel and threw it to the fox. It dexterously snapped it out of midair and disappeared.
“Arthur, let’s hurry back.”
“Yeah. Should probably go as fast as we can. I’ll carry the baby inside my coat. We’ll have to hope the adults will make it with the warmth from the horses.”
They put the woman on the horse who’d been pulling the carriage, along with Olivia, and Arthur took the driver on Annie with him. Olivia pulled the woman close to her, so her back was pressed against her own chest, and rubbed her as they rode, with Greta following the other two horses.
On the way, the woman began shivering severely. Her body was trying to produce warmth. Olivia could even hear chattering as her teeth clattered together. She whispered in the woman’s ear, “Do not fall asleep until we get to my house. Your baby is with my husband, being warmed against his chest. You don’t have to worry about her.”
The woman nodded as she was racked with tremors. They could hear a life-filled crying coming from inside Arthur’s coat. He said something to the baby, and the woman groaned, “Oh, thank God, she’s alive.”