We ate strawberries on the last day of September. It was past their season, the taste too sweet, skin too ripe, too easily bruised. Red leaked from our fingertips like blood, and we sucked them greedily like starved vampires. The light was fading, so we crossed the field, looking for bats and other monsters that hid in the dark. We found a scarecrow, ripped open by some unknown creature, straw organs spilled to the ground. I felt pity rather than fear.
When the strawberries started to fall simultaneously, you found it funny. A chill cascaded into the air, our skin, forcing goosebumps to rise as the moon did, and night became us. I kneeled down to the torn fruit that lay helpless in front of me, yet somehow seemed to lead in a trail alongside the field. I didn’t even ask you before I tore down that path, torch in hand.
It seemed to go on forever, leading towards the woods. You gave me your hoodie, but it wasn’t the cold I was worried about. The trail came to a stop at the foot of the field before the trees, with nothing to show for it. You laughed and said it wasn’t like a rainbow, what, you looking for a pot of gold? My hands were freezing but I saw imprints in the dirt and knelt down. I pushed past the muck and the golden leaves, and there, between my hand and the ground, was a paw print.
‘What do you think?’ I said, breath visible in the air.
‘Werewolves.’
I snorted, just as we heard a howl. It was a miracle our necks didn’t snap as we both whipped our heads round.
‘Chimeras.’
I shoved you when suddenly we heard snuffling from the strawberry field.
‘Watch out—it’s hungry,’ you whispered, laughing as I snatched the torch from the ground and continued on my way. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To find the pot of gold.’
‘I wasn’t being serious—wait!’
I almost fell face-first into a tree trunk in my haste, feet crunching awkwardly in the leaves. Whatever was out there, I was sure I’d scared it off. And anyway, I wasn’t actually searching for a pot of gold. I’d recognised those tracks.
Twenty minutes of tireless searching, and you finally stopped me. It’s getting late, too cold to stay out. I was so close I could see more paw prints, as though the moon was guiding me. Across a thorn bush, tiptoeing around a bramble patch, and there it was, standing serenely in the moonlight.
I spun around, grasping your shoulders. ‘We found it! Our very own pot of gold.’
‘A fox,’ you sighed. ‘A bloody fox.’
A gleaming light reflected off soft, tawny fur as it stared at us with amber eyes. I beckoned it over with my hand, but it only sniffed the air, before scampering off. I watched the trail glow through the woods, as the October air began to settle in.
‘Not just any fox,’ I smiled, softly. ‘A golden fox.’
