There was once a girl who used to speak with a fox.
Not in riddles. Not in spells. Just… gently. As if the silence between them needed tending like a wound. Every evening, she'd sit beneath the hibiscus tree behind her grandmother’s house, a faded paperback in her lap, a mug of teh ais growing warm beside her.
And the fox would come.
Every time.
Sometimes he sat close. Sometimes only his tail curled into view behind the tall grass. But he always listened. And she always spoke.
They never made a promise.
They never said goodbye.
Then, one day, he stopped coming.
Years passed. People called her strange. Dreamy. Said she was "still talking about that forest fox" like it was a pet that ran off instead of a spirit that had once listened.
She stopped mentioning him.
But she never stopped remembering.
One late afternoon, while walking home along a quiet trail in the woods, golden light spilled across the earth. The air was crisp with autumn, and the shadows of the trees stretched like the arms of old gods.
And there—just ahead of her—was a glow.
Embedded in the forest floor was a square of light. A symbol. A pawprint. Not carved. Not painted. But shimmering like memory. She slowed. Knelt. Touched it.
It was warm.
Then she looked up.
At the edge of the trail stood the fox.
Older, maybe. Or perhaps just clearer now that she knew how to see him. His fur burned orange against the light, his white-tipped tail catching every falling leaf like a net of flame. He didn’t run. He didn’t speak. He just stood there—watching.
Something slipped from the wind and brushed against her boots. She looked down.
A folded piece of paper. No stamp. No envelope. Just the seal of a pawprint, pressed in gold.
She opened it.
"To the girl who kept watch under the hibiscus tree..."
"I left not because I wanted to, but because I was too wild to stay."
"You taught me how to be still. To listen without fear. To sit with grief, and not flinch. But foxes like me—we don’t lose our shadows. We just stop leaving footprints."
"I loved you the way fire loves wind. With distance. With ache. And always pulling."
"If you ever find warmth with no flame, or silence with no fear—that’s me. Still circling. Still remembering."
The letter trembled in her hands. Not from fear. Not even from longing.
Just truth.
The fox turned then, slowly, and walked away into the forest—where the light swallowed him, and the trees closed behind like a book finally shut.
She watched.
Not with sorrow.
But with a small, quiet smile.
Some things don’t return to stay.
They return so you know it was real.