“Ah… that,” I winced, looking away sheepishly.

“Hey, don’t give me that look,” Saoirse giggled, nudging my shoulder with her snout. “You’re a hero!”

“Wait, I am?” I asked, turning back to her in surprise.

“Yeah?” she said, like I was asking a stupid question. “You released all the spirits from our dying world! I mean, admittedly it’s a bit chaotic right now, we’re all scattered across the globe randomly so… yeah. Plus you humans— wait, no that doesn’t really apply to you anymore… so yeah anyway um, humans are kinda hard to deal with after so long thinking spirits and gods and stuff were myths. Most of us are scared and hiding because we don’t have the ability to traverse the leylines like the gods do, so yeah. I uh, came and sought you out!”

“That was a lot of information,” I said, staring at her with only a bare minimum of comprehension. “First question, what do you mean human doesn’t apply to me anymore? I mean, I have the ears and tail, but I’m not a full fox like you.”

She gave me a long look, slowing down for the first time since we’d met. “You… wow, humanity really has forgotten us huh? So first things first, I guess… us loarne, fox spirits from northern europe, we can take the form of a fox, or one like yours. I’m just in my fox form right now. As for why human doesn’t apply to you anymore…”

Hesitating, she gave me another long stare, followed by a sigh of defeat. “There’s no nice way to put this, but you spent too long as an untethered soul in the spirit realm. Normally that would kill you, but since you have the blood of spirits within you, it changed you instead. You’re like me now, a spirit.”

For a split second, I began to freak out, fear rippling over me in a wave of goosebumps. Then I realised something… something vitally important. “Wait, does that mean I can turn into a fox too?!”

That seemed to take her by surprise. “Y-yes? Use glamours too, as well as other abilities that our kind possess, if you can become powerful enough.”

“Show me how? Please?” I begged, turning my whole body towards her. “Please?”

“Now who’s going too fast, huh?” she laughed, poking my thigh with a paw. “I feel like we’re skipping some steps here.”

Rolling my eyes, I put on my best astonished expression, saying, “Oh no, I am no longer human, even though I feel like a normal person with a few extra bits. Also apparently being a spirit gives me the power to turn into a fox. Oh no, woe is me.”

“Bloody hell,” she smiled, tilting her head at me, ears twitching with mirth. “That’s some crazy strong sarcasm there. I see your point though. Not much effectively changed for you, so yeah… not actually a big deal. Weird, does that mean I could just take human form and wander round and get a job and a mortgage and stuff?”

“You’d need a whole lot of paperwork before that happens,” I said with a little giggle, relaxing back again after my initial excitement.

It was interesting really, how little the news hit me. I already knew that the change hadn’t been enough for anyone to notice it, not compared to my new foxy features anyway. As far as I understood, those features were separate from my spiritual transformation too. So like, was there any reason to freak out? Not yet at least, but time would tell. Right now I had bigger priorities.

“So will you teach me to turn into a fox?” I asked as casually as I could manage.

“Fine, fine,” she said playfully, swatting me with her tail. “Follow me into the woods behind us, so people don’t freak out on us when you change.”

“Like we don’t already look weird, a kid talking to a fox,” I commented, standing up anyway. I might have gotten a lot of crazy info just now, but that didn’t stop me from noticing the stares I was getting.

Her reply was a foxy laugh as she leapt up and back towards the forest. Chick was fast, that was for sure!

I followed behind at a more sedate pace, if only because I was a little wary of following a spirit into the woods. Especially one who came from a line of spirits who were notoriously cunning. Contrary to popular belief though, celtic fox spirits weren’t seen as duplicitous or evil or anything, and a lot of times a sighting of a fox would have actually been a good omen.

The mystique of following a fae fox creature into the woods was ever so slightly undercut by the trash that littered the overgrown patch of woods. A trolley lay overturned, so old it had been claimed by a tree as a support in its eternal search for sunlight. Small drifts of sun bleached plastic lay in every nook and cranny, while beer bottles littered the ground, each one home to some sort of strange and unique terrarium.

Saoirse stood in the center of the forest, like, actually stood there in human form. She was taller than me, all willowy limbs and adolescent awkwardness. Her hair was a mix of red and black, curls exploding everywhere in a bouncy cloud of rebellion. Basically, she looked like half a dozen girls my age, bar the big fluffy fox tail and excitedly twitching fox ears.

Dusting off her plain grey T-shirt and jeans, she smiled hesitantly at me. “Ta-da! This is me, my humanoid form anyway.”

“Looks good,” I smiled, feeling much more connected to this girl that I had when she was a talking fox. “I love your hair.”

“Ach, it’s a mess, I’m pretty excited to get my hands on some anti-frizz shampoo now that I’m on earth,” she laughed, scratching at the back of her head shyly.

“Yeah, it’s for that reason that I’m keeping mine short,” I giggled, swishing my hair around for emphasis. “If it gets any longer than this it’ll go from wavy mess to curly disaster in a week.”

That had her chortling with laughter, plonking herself down in the dirt and rubbish as she did so. “Ah this is great, you have no idea how nice it is to be in a world that hasn’t contracted down to the equivalent of a pinhole!”

“What do you mean?” I asked, following her lead and planting myself down in the dirt.

“Something about what those hunters did to the leylines did a right number on the spirit realm. I mean, I ain’t been alive for most of it so I don’t know what it used to be like, but right now we’re relegated to an island the size of this city, maybe a little larger,” she explained, waving her arms around all over the place for emphasis. “When they started locking leylines down with their witch burnings, it caused some sort of corruption to spread through the spirit world, a mass of disgusting black soap bubbles is what it looks like.”

“Witch burnings?!” I squeaked, ice forming in my gut as I realised what that meant, and just how many of my kin had died to cut magic completely off from the world. It was straight up genocide.

“Indeed, they burn a witch on the leyline to seal it, nasty stuff,” she confirmed, not seeming as bothered about the idea as I was. “Anyway, that corruption spread with every sealed leyline, until we were left with just the Isle of Seers. Used to be a holy city for us, neutral ground in a world full of squabbling spirit nations and tribes. Now we live there, the survivors, all crammed together onto that tiny rock. Well, lived there anyway. We all got ejected out here when you dunked that ball of god goop.”

Dunked the ball of god goop… righto. That was one way to describe it.

“That’s… well I’m glad you have a wider world to live in, I just hope you all don’t mess up what humanity has built so far. History and myth doesn’t exactly place many of the gods in a positive light,” I said, thinking of all those greek myths where some god had a temper tantrum because humanity wasn’t paying him enough attention.

“True enough. I’m not going to be rocking the boat though, that’s for sure,” she agreed, miming out the whole act of tipping a boat over. She was a very active girl when she spoke.

Clapping my hands, I decided to get us both back on task before we spent the whole afternoon talking about spirit politics. “Okay so, fox mode… how do I do it?”

“Oh, that’s easy, just become a fox,” she said, like it was just that simple. “Should be instinct, really.”

I stared at her incredulously, waiting for the punchline on a joke that didn’t exist. “Seriously?”

“Alright, you gotta look inside yourself, feel the fox, become the fox, spot a bird and chase it for ten minutes, get distracted by a strange noise, run after the strange noise, discover the strange noise was a car and run away before it hits you, that sort of— oh, you got it,” she said, rambling on about a series of events that sounded way too specific to be random.

Wait.

Oh.

I was a fox now. My clothes had mysteriously vanished, which was handy. Just hoped they came back when I swapped to human form again.

Wriggling around in a manner reminiscent of my first few minutes in the spirit realm, I found myself back in that same little canine body. Dark purple fur glistened, turning black as it reached the tip of my tail, snout and lower legs. My little paws scrabbled in the dirt as I twisted and turned, wrestling with my new anatomy in an attempt to get a better look at myself. Damn, where was a mirror when you needed one?

Finally, I gave a little jump into the air, just for the fun of it, landing in front of my cousin with a thump. “So, how did that even work?”

“Oh, I just started talking, taking on the mindset of a hyperactive fox,” she grinned, surprising me with a gentle boop to my nose.

I jinked backwards and gave her a brief little growl. She was right though, if I thought back on it, I’d sort of felt the magic building within me, an excited fizzing feeling that had ended in that transformation. Better yet, I knew how to get back, I could feel it! This was so great!

“Yes!” I laughed, jumping around the woods happily. “I’m a fox again! Aweeesommme!”

“Hey, don’t go running off!” Saoirse called, beckoning me back with frantic waving of her hands. “We still need to teach you how to create a glamour!”

“Make me!” I replied, leaping over yet another abandoned, rusty trolley.