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Burning Waters

Morning of August 25th, 1883 – just outside the village of Sumur, western Java, Indonesia

_ _

The young explorer Francis Brushton-Foxworthy was left stood in a Norfolk jacket and his woolen breeches on the rickety jetty, tail caressed by the warm eastern currents.

“Paws alive, this is very different to Venice!”

Indeed it was! His home Earth in London – with warm mud walls, worms on demand and, most importantly, his heavily pregnant mate - felt like it was a million miles away too; but he wasn’t about to let that stop him “growin’ a tail” as his father put it. With the smell of his dad’s insistence in his nose, Francis padded down onto the beach to explore. The weather was warm, the smells of stagnant seaweed, hot sand and typhoon-swept palm leaves overloading his keen senses. The Jukung captain would be back in about seven days to pick him up. He had very little time to look around and, as his inimitable patriarch said “boy, you need to bring Vulpic civility to those savage tails”.

Paws above, dad, really?!

Francis just wanted to meet them, experience a different culture and perhaps pick up a trinket or two along the way.

The beach was empty, left open to the sky and the swash of the Sunda Strait; but now Francis laid his eyes and nose on a shack in the undergrowth that made him wonder whether he was truly alone out here. He approached it cautiously, sniffing at its primitive interior as he stuck his head through the makeshift door. It smelled so familiar. It was out of the sun, cool and content with the very basics, trinkets of porcelain, glass and metal decorating the woven-reed walls. He thought of padding in and perhaps nabbing these abandoned treasures of shipwrecks long past, but there was something otherworldly about this whole set-up.

Something or someone seemed to surround him. Someone was watching him.

He spun on his footpaws as if to catch that someone spying; but there was no one there.

“Over here, my friend!”

The voice came from nowhere. It was only as he peered over the rocks and down to the shore that he noticed someone relaxing on what looked like an old wooden crate. They were smoking or drinking something... he couldn’t quite make it out.

“Don’t keep me in suspense, boy. Come meet me… know me better.”

Francis gingerly made his way down to the fox’s side, out in the sunshine. He was the young sort, probably in his thirties with large, black-lined ears, a thin muzzle and deeply maroon fur down to a long tail with a tip like charred meat… and all this bare to the sun, where a pair of tan shorts and his tatty beige shirt didn’t reach.

“And you are?”

“Francis. Francis Brushton-Foxworthy. Explorer.”

“Wow, that’s a mawful!” The fox giggled, looking sideward at his company, a sly smile coursing his muzzle, paused from supping on something that smelled like coffee. The boxes he sat on were broken and splintered, imprinted with black letters that read ‘V.O.C’.

“I’m Rubah. Rubah Api… professional time-waster.” And out came a paw, Francis shaking nervously.

“Can I offer you a snack, Francis? Worm, perhaps?”

“No uh… no thank you.”

“Coconut shavings?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

“Cacao bean?”

“Uh gosh I…” Francis had to be brave at some point, “Sure, I guess.”

Rubah rummaged in an earthenware pot nestled in the sand at his footpaws to delicately pinch a single bean between the sharp claws on his left paw, before handing it to his new charge. Francis took it and nibbled nervously.

“Bleh!”

“Hahahahaha! A little bitter for you, Fran’?”

“You could say that!” He spat out the fragments of shell and grainy kernel.

“Heh, where you stayin’, friend?”

“I uh… I don’t know. I was going to trek up to the village and…”

“Heh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you… not now you’ve met me.”

“Why?”

“Oh, paws alive, here we go!” Rubah put his porcelain cup down, and looked up at the youngster, “You here for stories, boy?”

“Not really, I…”

“Good! Then I’ll keep it short.” Rubah sat up, his tail swishing around as he did so, the box creaking beneath his weight; and now he was sat staring up at Francis, “I was cursed to be one of the Hudoq by Inari. He cast me to the ocean, all because I tricked a farmer into a swamp at night so I could steal his chickens. Soooo lame!”

He got up, emoting with his paws as he did so, protesting his innocence in the only way a trickster fox knew.

“Blah blah blah, anyway… I washed ashore here and made myself at home. But the locals though, sheesh! They chase me… constantly.”

“Why ever do they do that?”

“Fear, my dear boy. No one dares converse with me for fear they’ll be… cursed. Wooooooo! Heheheheh!”

His laughter died slowly as he desperately tried to take himself seriously.

“I’m just trying to make-up for my wrongs. But my anger does get the better of me. When I was first cursed, I had a halo of fire over my head. It slipped to my paws and hocks to become north, south, east and west when I allowed Tambura to erupt in eighteen-fifteen.” He padded closer, “See? It singes my fur from time to time.”

Francis beheld a close-up of the fox’s red-black wrists, encircled by the finest lithium-like fire. They were just like the ones around his hocks, a twisted flame surrounding them like cuffs.

“Eighteen-fifteen?” He murmured, still gazing at Rubah’s ‘chains’, “But… you look so young.”

“Heh, looks are deceiving, my dear fox.” He grinned slyly, “Listen… I know you had your eyes and nose on what I have here. Let me show you where to find the best of it.”

Rubah led the way down the beach, Francis noticing that in every pad of his black-red footpaws the sand would turn to glass. He was an enigma; but what he had to show him was stunning! He barely had to wade a foot into the warm waters before he was pulling porcelain cups, clasps and trinkets from the surf.

“Dutch East India Company ships used to sail past here.” Rubah murmured, handing over a blue-white tea cup, “But some wrecked, and their cargo litters this whole beach and the shallows. I know this is what you’re after.”

Needless to say, Francis spent the whole day examining his finds, carefully washing them off and looking at their markings through a silver loupe; and all whilst Rubah sat and watched, sipping on his seemingly never-ending cup of coffee. The archaeology aside, the resident fox was always sure to cast an eye over to the volcano Krakatoa. It was almost as if he were talking to her.

Smoked fish, dried insects and sweet leaves were the pair’s snacks as the sun crossed the sky, the darkness of dusk still not dampening the spirit, especially since Rubah seemed to have his very own ‘night lights’. The fire on his paws had seemed to grow much wilder throughout the day, Francis remarking on it only as Rubah became distracted and silent. He’d got to his footpaws and gone to the shore as the sun faded – must’ve been about seven o’clock; and now he was conversing across the waters to Krakatoa.

“Calm yourself!” He murmured, paws outstretched as if to soothe.

And he waited for a ‘reply’, before speaking as if to defend himself.

“No but… hey now, wait a paws-damned minute, I…”

He was actually arguing with a volcano!

“OK alright, that was me. Yes, and that!”

Another pause struck as if he were listening.

“Alright, and that too and… hey, there’s no need to rub salt into my tail! I get the picture, but you mustn’t… you can’t be serious?!”

Rubah’s muzzle fell, the colour draining from his fur.

“You need to leave.” He muttered without even turning to look at Francis.

“Wait, what?! I can’t. They won’t be back for another week.”

“They’ll be here. Go to the jetty at midnight, and they’ll be there.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I… I just do.” He turned to glare at him with a simpering smile, “You believe in ghosts, Francis?”

“Uh, not really.”

Rubah just grinned and his eyes glowed red, like the flames from two phosphorous matches caught in miniature drinking glasses.

“Remember… midnight, my friend.”

**

Midnight on August 26th, 1883…

Sure enough, a Jukung was there to take him out to open water; but Francis was just as eager to bring Rubah with him as he was to find out how they knew to fetch him. Luckily, one of the crew knew broken English; but would only want his complicity in a swift exit, later revealing that they had received a sign from a spirit fox “coated in fire” who’d told them to be at the jetty.

“You have family, sir?”

“Yes, yes I do. My mate is pregnant.” Francis answered pensively, “But what about Rubah Api? You’re just going to leave him to die?”

“Please. Rest.”

“You’re not listening to me! We can’t leave without him!”

The older oarsfox muttered something, a guttural disagreement that had his motheaten tail batting angrily; and that waft of musk made Francis obey.

“What did he say?” He murmured sheepishly, paws cupped in his lap.

“He say… devil fox touch you. No let him here.”

And that was the last he saw of the beach and of the endless trail of cracked porcelain, seashells and palm leaves. Francis had no say. It was either go with these rag-tag locals, or forever be abandoned in the East.

They sailed from the strait towards a freighter, the SS Paws For Thought, where Francis clambered aboard up the rope ladder, full rucksack on his back and his tail trailing, heavy with salt and sad musk.

“You didn’t have any friends on Java, did you?” The captain murmured nervously as he stared through binoculars at the islands they were leaving behind.

“I did actually.” Francis turned and saw the eruptions light the sky, huge clouds of ash filling the air. His heart sank and his tail drooped instantly.

He padded out to the deck, tears brimming in his eyes as his muzzle was crossed by the unbelievable fire and fury. Watching the hot lava hit the water was simultaneously amazing as it was frightening.

Francis bounded back inside as the captain put the footpaw to the pedal and steamed them away as fast as the engines could manage.

**

Late evening of December 31st, 1927 - Jamaica Wine House, St Michael’s Alley, City of London

_ _

We skip forward and bring you to Francis sat at his favourite haunt, surrounded by caramel panels, greens and the darkness that foxes were used to the world over.

By now, he was retired, having not only made it back from Indonesia in one piece, but also having made his money in stocks - cacao and glass, you see! The “Magnificent Brushton-Foxworthy Moon and Sun window for Earths of all sizes”, had been a huge success.

Francis was reading a newspaper and drinking his favourite oakleaf and almond coffee when one of the many small articles on the front page of the Daily Tail caught his nose. Another island, Anak Krakatoa, had emerged from the same caldera in the Sunda Strait but two days earlier.

“Tremendous, what?!” Another club member came padding over, paws about a whisky tumbler.

“Um, yes… indeed so.” He iterated intently, a pang of guilt hitting him.

“You adventured that far out?”

“Yes, I… I knew someone out there.”

“Are they well?”

Francis paused, his heart skipping a beat. He squinted at the photo and, with a closer look, he could make out someone sat on the beach… distinctly cultrate ears, relaxed footpaws and porcelain cup in-paw.

“I do believe they are.” He murmured happily.

***