Fable's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The parted trail carried Fable deep into the shadow places. Then it split. Two gaps in the mist forked before him, each running clean and straight into the gray. Fable stopped. He sniffed one, then the other. No scent. No print. The witch had left no clue which way she turned. Worse, the edges of both gaps had begun to blur. The fog was closing. He had minutes, not hours. Fable paced between the two paths. Choose wrong, and the trail would seal behind him with the witch on the other side. He pressed his nose low and searched the ground. Nothing but wet moss and stone. Then a light drifted through the left gap. Small, soft, familiar. It was the fairy from the old oak. Her pale wings threw color across the mist. She hovered close to his snout, no bigger than his paw. "You followed me into the shadow places," Fable said. "Why?" "I keep quiet answers," she whispered. "You ask loud questions still." She floated toward the left fork, then paused. "I cannot walk your path for you. But I can show you what the fog hides." She drifted down the left gap. Firefly lights woke as she passed. They lit a cluster of apple trees mixed with pine and oak, shimmering in the dark. The trail beyond it lay smooth and untouched. "No one walked here," the fairy said. "The mist is whole. See the flowers? They stand straight." She led Fable to the right fork. Here the ferns leaned sideways. A low branch hung snapped. Fable crept closer. On a thorn, a black thread clung. The same black as the witch's cloak. "She went right," Fable said. His heart pounded. "Quickly, fox." The fairy's light dimmed. "The fog closes." The right gap was already narrowing. White mist crept in from both sides like a mouth shutting. Fable did not wait. He lowered his head and ran. The cold fog scraped his flanks. Behind him the trail sealed with a soft hiss, gone forever. Ahead, the gap held open just wide enough for a fox. He burst through into a hollow of stone. The mist thinned. There, ahead, he saw the wet edge of a black cloak vanish behind a root. She was close now. Closer than she had ever been. But when Fable turned to thank the fairy, she was gone. The gap behind him had closed. No light. No way back. He stood alone in the shadow places, with the witch just ahead and no path home. He had chosen right. He had not lost her. Yet the fairy's warning rang in his ears. Foxes who follow do not always come back the same. Fable looked at the black cloak slipping into the dark, and he went after it.