The Night You Returned

I stood in the cold kitchen, my arms wrapped around myself as I stared out the French windows at the moonlit garden beyond. It was a full moon that night and I marvelled at the bright reflections on the dew-covered grass, and the way the shadows spread like velvety holes of darkness across the silvery landscape.

There was a movement in one of the bushes of to the left and I turned my head to see a small dark nose appear followed swiftly by two big bright eyes and a pair of large ears. The fox’s face was a very dim, almost greyish, tawny colour in the pale light and its thin body was crossed with shadows where its skin clung tightly to its small ribs. As it came cautiously forwards another little head appeared behind it, smaller than the first; it appeared to be a mother with a cub.

The two shadows crept forwards, running slowly across the garden, their skinny bodies held close to the ground as though to avoid detection. Suddenly the mother stopped, the cub butting into her back leg. Her face was turned toward me, the pale amber tinged eyes boring into me as she gauged as to whether or not I was a threat. Finally deciding I was not, she carried on across the garden toward the bins, the cub in tow. As they disappeared out of sight around the side of the house I let a small smile play across my lips.

I was remembering one spring when we were children and you woke me up in the middle of one night to show me a small family of foxes that were raiding the bins beneath your window. Your face was full of such unadulterated joy that I could barely look away from you for a moment to watch the foxes. But when I did I found an equally joyous expression stealing across my own face. Because they were so beautiful, their coats gleaming softly in the dim light of a crescent moon, as they raided the rubbish, soft mews of excitement issuing from the adolescent cubs thin black lips. We stayed there watching for quite some time, but far too soon the mother gathered her family together and led the way away into the shadows. We stayed up in your room every night for weeks waiting for them to return, but they never did. And I never saw that expression on your face again.

Turning away from the French windows I made my way down the hall to your door. I paused outside for a moment my hand resting on the cold metal of the door handle, and then I pushed it open, stepping into the room.

You had not been in your room for almost seven years, and everything in it had the strange abandoned feel of an empty museum, the precious monuments left to decay. But now you stood there, next to the window, silver in the moonlight as you turned your head to look at me. You had not aged a day since that night, and your face was still that of a twelve-year-old boy, your messy hair partially covering your dark brown eyes as they stared at me solemnly.

I stared at you, sadness making me weak as small pearly tears crawled down my cheeks. I stepped towards you, afraid because you were there, afraid that you might disappear. As I stood next to you, you pointed out of the window, a smile appearing on your face as you turned your gaze to the bins below. I didn’t look immediately, staring instead at you, in your perfect shimmering white beauty. My fingers reached upwards, fearful as I put them to your soft snowy cheek. My fingers went straight through your skin as though nothing was there; I could feel nothing. I closed my eyes as more tears poured over my cheeks.

When I opened them you were still staring out of the window, the look of joy lightening your features, and finally I looked out of the window, the wonderfully familiar scene spreading a sad smile across my lips.

When I looked up again you were looking at me and you seemed to have aged.

“They came back.” You whispered.

I nodded “And so did you.”

You smiled at me, not the joyous smile, but my smile. The smile that had always come to your face when you saw me, the warm, if slightly weary grin.

“Yes.” You said.

And then you disappeared again, slipping into shadow with the fox and her cub.