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There was never a fox when you wanted one.

Leo waited anyway. He was good at waiting.

He couldn’t tell how much time passed—except that the sun moved a little in the sky—but finally the fox appeared. Carefully it made its way across the drive and then stopped at the foot of the steps. Its nose worked.

“That’s for you,” Leo said. “Even though you are a traitor.”

The fox looked at him. Or at the spot behind him.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten,” Leo said. “You carried me off in your mouth like a dead rabbit and put me in a hole.”

The fox came up one step.

“I’ve decided to let it go. You were acting on instinct. You didn’t know what I was.” He considered this. “Neither did I, to be fair.”

The fox came up the remaining steps, took the bar in its teeth and lay down on the warm boards two feet from Leo to eat it. Close enough to suggest tolerance. No closer.

Leo watched it chew.

“My eyes are green,” he said. “Did you know that? You must have, I suppose. If you can see me.” He wrapped his arms around his knees. He kept his eyes on the fox. “If Nate were here now, he’d probably give you a name. I never thought to do that, but he names everything. It’s ridiculous. What grown man gives a name to a stuffed seal or a vacuum cleaner?”

Or a ghost who can’t remember his own.

Leo scoffed. “You look like a Fredric. No, that’s a stupid name. I don’t know. I’m not good at this.”

The fox ate. Apparently it did not care whether or not it had a name. Leo would tell Nate about that later.

“He’s gone to get paint,” Leo said, more to himself than anyone. “He says my eyes are too green for graphite.” He watched the fox’s jaw work. “Someone else must have known the color of my eyes. The boy with the blue eyes must have looked at me, but…” He stopped. “I don’t remember being looked at.”

He hadn’t meant to say that.

The fox finished the bar and licked the boards where it had been, and Leo sat there with his arms around his knees. “It feels weird to be looked at. Not bad, but… weird.”

The fox’s ears swiveled toward the road.

Leo looked too. Had there been a sound? Maybe that of a truck coming up the road?

No.

No one came.

“It wasn’t him,” he said.

The fox looked at him, yawned, and settled its chin on its paws.

“He’ll be a while yet,” Leo said. “Maybe. I don’t know how long it takes to buy paint.”

The fox closed its eyes.

Leo stayed where he was.

The sun moved off the steps. The fox left without ceremony, and Leo went inside to patrol because somebody had to, and found himself in the kitchen looking at the notebook again.

Then in the front room, looking out the window.

Then in the kitchen, looking out the window.

What was Nate doing? If he’d only gone for paint, he should have been back by now. Marvin had cleaned three rooms and the coffee in the pot had stopped steaming a long time ago.