Paw raised. Listening…listening. The telltale rustle in the grass was coming closer. Ears swiveled to better catch the sound. Wait for it…wait for it… Hind legs tensed and prepared the correct angle of the leap. Then, airborne. Upon return to the earth, her paws struck only earth. There was a slightly louder and more frantic rustle that moved quickly from earshot.

Rachel wished that foxes could swear. As it was, she could only let out a frustrated yip, which probably scared away all the other rodents within several yards. This thought didn’t faze her. She sat back on her haunches and reflected on the afternoon of hunting. Had there really been a time when she had been accustomed to this routine? Had there ever been a time where she was patient enough to slog through mistake after mistake? She had only been hunting for an hour or so and she was already bored. She amended that thought. The word "bored" was probably too limited in scope to describe what she was feeling. Discontent? Ennui, perhaps? Something along those lines. But what could be wrong with being a fox? Men in red coats with dogs, she thought, that was one thing.

Rachel padded off out of the clearing, still very much hungry for a mouse or a vole. Rabbit would have been divine, but there weren't many of those around the area. She curled up in a bed of brown-gray leaves that were already well on their way to becoming compost. She had been tired for most of the day, even though she had gotten a fair amount of sleep. It had been spread out in small portions throughout the twenty-four hour day, but that was normal. Sleep was good. She liked the feel of the fine brush of her tail against her face, trapping gentle sunbeams in her mostly-full winter coat, and being able to shut out fears of predation or other dangers to some extent. Still, she would always have to wake up some time and hunt. She liked to hunt well enough (it would be silly not to), but she couldn't fill all of her waking time with it.

The sky was fading to a sad grey color already, the days were considerably shorter now in mid-November. Rachel regarded this through half-closed golden eyes that were catching and making the most of every little ray of light that still filtered through the clouds and the leafless trees. Soon would come the time when all foxes would begin to seek each other out for comfort and warmth, as they had not adapted to sleeping the winter away like some of their prey had. They did have other things on their mind. Companionship was one of those things, as winter was such an empty period. Survival was naturally another important priority. But the heat and tightness in their, shall we say, nether regions, was perhaps the most important. Rachel was a little odd in that she already felt it, and had in fact, felt it ever since early October. It hadn't lessened much in intensity, either, considering that she had had two suitors since then. What was even odder was that neither of them had been vulpine, or even canine. But then, neither was she at the time...

In Japan and China, lone lovely ladies by the side of the path were to be avoided, for there was a good chance that they were foxes in disguise. Some foxes did that from time to time, see. Rachel had begun to think it odd that they would have to go outside their species for this sort of gratification, but there was no denying that she had been there, and found it to be an interesting experience. Perhaps a little too interesting, considering how things turned out. The notion was certainly biologically questionable as well, in that Rachel wasn't too sure that she liked the idea of being in heat more or less constantly. But from all observations, it seemed that humans were constantly in heat as well. And they seemed to get along just fine.

Rachel stood up and began focusing her energy and the unseen energy of the forest around her (Chi, perhaps?). She didn't feel a strong physical imperative as she had back in October, but there was that ennui. Or perhaps it was angst. There were so many words. Either way, she couldn't put it off any longer.

****

”Hey dude, check her out,” whispered a young man from several tables down.

”Woah,” whispered his friend appreciatively, “She is a fox".

Rachel groaned and tried to tune her sensitive ears out. She had inspected herself in the ladies room mirror earlier, and had appeared the same as before; shimmering mahogany-red hair flowing gracefully down to her shoulder blades, iridescent brown-gold eyes with slightly elliptical pupils, cunning devil-may-care smirk, and a slender, yet gracefully curvy body. Everything that every boy's mother warned them about. Still, she thought, it was no wonder that that girl had found her out some weeks ago, there wasn't a thing about her that didn't just scream fox. She could even smell that musky fox scent on her. And shouldn’t I at least look Oriental?

Her clothes were another point of interest, it seemed. She wore a simple black wide-necked T-shirt and blue jeans through no conscious decision. Perhaps it was a simple adaptation to surroundings. Of course, if that were true, I would probably have a business suit and a cell phone, judging by this town.

Rachel flipped half-heartedly through one of the books piled on the old graffitti-speckled table in front of her. The mythology section of the county library was fairly scant, or concentrated mostly on Greek and Roman antiquities. There wasn't a lot on Oriental myths, and even less on kitsune. Rachel was continuing the research that she had begun a week or two ago. She found a few scaattered myths here and there about samurai or scholars being tricked by those devilish foxes. Sometimes they drained men of their life-force, sometimes they just wanted some rice cakes. Sometimes they were portrayed sympathetically, and the fox-woman would end up marrying the guy, who would eventually discover her secret. According to one book, the guy discovers his wife's tail poking out from under the bedsheets, and so the fow-woman flees in disgrace. Rachel couldn't help but cringe. The guy had been married to this woman for years and just now finds out that she has a tail? She slammed the book shut, her mind a confused jumble of foxes and farmers and scholars and wealthy landowners and et cetera. Just a bunch of stupid stories written by a bunch of stupid people afraid of the boogeymen lurking in the deep dark fucking forest.

And yet she walked erect in these library aisles after padding around on all fours earlier that day. She knew how to stalk and hunt mice, and also how to communicate with humans. She even had rudimentary knowledge of human society, and technology like cars and appliances and computers. Well, actually, computers were rather confounding, but that seemed to be the majority opinion among the humans as well. More interestingly, she had recognized the word "kitsune" when she first heard it, and it had triggered some vague sort of racial memory that led her to realize some notion of what her origin was. And most importantly, she had drained two humans of their vitality, killing one of them in the process.

****

She had much to learn. The circumstances by which she had come to rest in this suburban limbo were only part of it. She reflected on this as she sat behind the library, bouncing the ball that she had found in her pocket during her previous time in human form. That is to say that she had thrust her hands into her seemingly pockets in an attempt to feel, or at least look more "with it", and had ended up unexpectedly pulling out a white ball. Naturally, this touched off a nearly fabric-rending search of the rest of her jeans which turned up nothing.

Still, Rachel found herself examining and playing with the ball as if it were a newly unwrapped Christmas present. It was shiny, immaculately white, perfectly spherical (or at least gave the definite impression that it was so) and small enough to fit in a half-closed fist. It also gave off a softly penetrating warmth similar to that of the reddish flames that she had recently discovered that she could conjure. She bounced it off the wall, and it returned at the same speed with which she threw it, catching her in the gut in the process. After a hollow cough, she threw it at the wall again, this time more gently. It seemed to be relatively unaffected by air resistance or any supposed kinetic energy transfer when it hit the wall. Rachel finally decided to put the ball back where she had found it, and walked out towards the parking lot with her pockets still flat.

****