Chapter 2: A Fox's Tale
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
– Antoine de Saint Exupery
Ireland 1916
The English officer had not even realized that in his shock of seeing a talking woodland creature, he had drawn his revolver but it now hung limp in his right hand while he looked into the vulpine's green eyes. The strange fox was giving him what was commonly known as sad "puppy dog eyes", a look that reminded him of a dog he owned as a child. That dog was an energetic black and white border collie named Badges who followed him in all his youthful adventures until one day his best friend took a misstep and broke his hind leg. At the still somewhat innocent age of eight, his father had handed him a small-caliber rifle and told him that it was best to put "the poor dog out of his misery", that he should "steel up and be a man about it." The look that Badges gave him before he pulled the trigger still haunted him and so slowly he fumbled backward until he found a seat, the gun was now forgotten in his hand.
"What should we do?" the sergeant frantically asked. He stood there staring with wide eyes at the fox, he had his rifle at his shoulder as if he expected the talking animal to leap out of the chair and bite him.
"Gun powder," the fox named Nick suddenly said, as if answering the soldier's question.
"I beg your pardon?" the sergeant replied in confusion.
"Your species invented gun powder, something which was never created where I come from," the fox answered. "You have all of these terrible weapons of war, which kills thousands of your kind, and yet you continue to fight over scraps of soil as if it was more precious than the blood which soaks into it. What a terrible path your kind has taken towards self-destruction."
"Just where do you come from?" the officer asked as he leaned forward.
"Another reality," Nick sighed out. "Bob…"
"Who is Bob?" the sergeant barked out. "Is there someone else around here, another talking fox?"
"Bob is Robert J. Fitzgerald, the former lord of these lands," the fox answered. "Anyway, old Bob was a somewhat brilliant man and he had convinced himself that he could combine science with mysticism to create a way to interact with the afterlife. He began to study the writing of mystics and spiritualists, such as Anna Kingsford and Madam Blavatsky. Bob also reached out to men such as Sir Oliver Lodge and even the writer Arthur Conan Doyle. Then there was Nikola Tesla, who claimed that he had heard the voices of ghosts while experimenting with a crystal radio powered by electromagnetic waves."
"What does that have to do with you being here?" the officer now calmly asked.
"He began to study electromagnetic waves as a method to create a way to talk to the dead, but when this failed Bob turned to obscure writings and theories. He then found a strange book that had been brought to this green island by a group of men fleeing a cold island to the west. It is an evil text which was hidden in the very bowels of Dublin, it is called the Rauðskinna. It is a book of pure evil, but Bob did not fall under its influence and used electromagnetic waves to bend it to his will," the fox stopped and shook his head. "Or so he thought."
"This is preposterous!" the sergeant scoffed. "Rubbish!"
"As preposterous as a talking fox?" Nick bitterly chuckled. "Years ago I would have thought this was funny. I used to have a great sense of humor..."
"This book, the one you said that Lord Fitzgerald controlled," the officer interjected. "You said he thought he had power over it, what happened?"
"For one thing, it seized me...snatched me off the streets while on patrol with my partner Judy," the fox answered. "It dumped me here years ago and I have been stranded in this strange land."
"On patrol?" the sergeant interrupted. "You were in the military?"
"I was a police officer," Nick replied even as he picked up a brass badge off of the nearby table. "A police officer," he sadly repeated as he caressed the object.
"Why didn't you two compel this book to return you home?" the officer continued to ask, even as he holstered his revolver.
"He tried, spells and incantations combined with the harnessing of lightning itself, but it blew back upon him," Nick softly replied. "Bob was gravely injured and the book was lost instead."
"And he left all he owned to you and not his living kinfolk?" the sergeant commented in disbelief. "Surely someone…someone human has a claim on these lands?"
"Bob had never married and had no children, he also didn't want one of his cousins to become just another absentee landlord in London. He told me stories about those who lived here, many who have dwelt upon these lands for generations upon generations before his ancestors came and took the land in conquest."
"We English brought civilization to this land!" the Sergeant snarled.
"Civilization? Civilization?" Nick snarled back. "I also was told by Bob the stories about those landlords in faraway London expelling those who toiled the land to turn it over to grazing sheep, all for better profit. What civilized creature would allow what the villagers call the An Drochshaol to happen? Does not your England pride itself in having a mighty navy, but yet why was that navy not used to ship food to those who starved around here? No, the only ships were those who took their desperate sons and daughters to faraway lands, and all your queen did was walk around wringing her paws in despair during those starving times."
"That is not so!" the officer protested. "Many a good soul in England raised funds to buy food for those in need."
"The cemetery by the church tells me another story! I have stalked among the tombstones just like my less civilized brethren, in the dark of the night. I have heard through the pub windows the bitter tales being told of those days and yet you came here thinking I was a human to demand to know where my loyalties lie. You wanted to know if they with a crown, who has allowed those who rule this land to continue to abuse these people, or if I stood with those who took up arms in a desperate rebellion against that crown?"
Both the officer and sergeant looked down at the floor in shame, for they knew the stranger spoke the truth.
"I told you I am with neither!" the fox said as he stood up on his hind legs as if he was a man. "There is so much potential in your species for doing good, but instead you have turned to your baser nature as if you were the savage beast."
"How dare…?" the sergeant began to protest.
"Dare?" the fox growled. "Dare? I dare because I have no fur in this endless game of oppressor and those who are oppressed. Does your king really think that he can hold the lands he claims when so many of his followers are dying every day in a war overseas? How long will he rule over those who yearn for freedom when his recruiters find that the streets and countryside around his palace are empty of those who can serve?"
"The Empire…" the sergeant interjected.
"This empire only stays together because of those with the guns who patrol it and the others who are paid off for their loyalties."
"We should bind him and take him back to headquarters," the sergeant now snapped in growing anger. "Let our superior officers deal with this devil."
"Foxes are red because they were made by the devil!" Nick quoted with a smirk on his muzzle.
"What?" the officer asked in surprise. "Why did you say that?"
"Oh that is just an old saying which the rabbits have," the fox answered with a shake of his head. "So bind me and take me back to your commanders, but how do you know I won't talk for them and act like my primitive cousins from around here instead?" He added a series of very foxish barks, yips, and growls to emphasize his point.
"We can get you to talk!" the sergeant threatened.
"I have heard that this is something called Easter week, a celebration for a great miracle," Nick said as he walked over to the fire and poked it with an iron. "So maybe I will declare that I was sent by your god to proclaim peace on earth or the animals will inherit this earth instead of you men? That would cause quite a stir, would it not?"
The sergeant looked over at the officer, "This is absurd, sir. We need to seize this creature and take him back to camp." The officer did not respond but sat looking at Nick. Finally turning to the fox, the gruff soldier reached down as if to grab him while he added. "Come on you, let's go!"
With a snarl, Nick leaped forward and before the startled sergeant could reach for the fox, it raced between his legs and out of the door. "Stop that fox!" the sergeant commanded to the confused soldiers who were just returning from searching the mansion.
Bang! Bang!
"Don't shoot him!" the sergeant yelled. "I want that fox alive."
All that the bewildered soldiers saw of Nick was his reddish-orange tail before it disappeared down the long corridor upstairs.
"What are you waiting for? CATCH THAT FOX!"
Still sitting inside the room, the young English officer finally stood up but hesitated before following the others. Slowly he picked up the brass badge and stared at it for a few moments before he slipped it into his uniform's pocket.