Initially, she can’t quite comprehend it. Well, she does, but she doesn’t. She’s touching the fox, and yet the fox is her. It’s simple, really, and yet all she can do is shake her head and frown the same way she does whenever her parents try to make her eat her greens. Squinting like a… Read more

Brushing away the curls of hair stuck to her forehead, Gretchen blinks at the moon as the steam from the fox’s mouth swallows her tiny body. It feels like she’s floating in a bathtub of milk or a pocketful of cotton wool. Maybe even cotton candy. Licking her lips at the thought of sticking her… Read more

Through the legs of the horses and over the backs of the bumbling badgers, the fox frees himself from the slippery clutches of the muddy rivers wrapping around his feet. Leaping high into the air, it’s as if the laws of gravity don’t apply to him, and like a helium balloon, he rises over the… Read more

Holding tightly onto the neck of the fox the same way she does her father when he gives her piggybacks around the living room of their apartment, she kicks her feet and screeches like a banshee. The fox is bewildered yet not disturbed, for the little girl has given him the energy to keep going—her… Read more

With her fingers digging into his wet body, Gretchen sets herself down on the fox’s back. The horses, seemingly hellbent on chasing the night into the mouth of oblivion, disappear among the moving trees ahead. The fox, small as he is, gallops so fast that Gretchen has to wrap her arms around his neck to… Read more

Gretchen breathes in the steam from the fox’s nose. The fox, with its wet coat of fur glistening like oil, does the same to hers, and in both their lungs, the universe bubbles like a pan of boiling milk. The bubbles, tiny but massive, escape through their nostrils and drip down their chins to be… Read more

Mesmerised by the slow spinning of the wheel, Gretchen wishes to speak, but the words don’t come. They’re in the back of her throat somewhere, formed and precise, and yet try as she might, they won’t venture out. All she can do is gaze at the structure that at this moment seems to her to… Read more

With Gretchen’s eyes dazzled by the sight of this strange and wonderful apparition, the fox continues to stare at her with what resembles a smile on its whiskery face. It doesn’t need to look at the wheel. It’s seen it before. Turning with aged precision, the paint of its metal frame appears new and yet… Read more