Chapter 10

When she did join him, Boo curled up in Leopold’s lap, and said nothing, just as if her role really was concluded. He waited, she slept, and a knock on the patio glass alerted him when the time was up. Reynard sat there, calmly. Leopold gently slid Boo to the couch, where she gazed up at him and leapt down, venturing off to another haunt, while Leopold went to see what the fox had in store for him. He wondered if he should make an introduction. “Hi, I...”

Gerald Leopold, I know, said the fox. We run a tight operation, no fooling, okay a lot of fooling around, but we get the essentials taken care of, and that’s what’s really important. So let’s get going already.

“Where are we going?” Leopold asked, wondering if he should use the patio, or the door at the bottom of the stairs, in the hallway outside of the apartment.

Oh, I’m not going far, Reynard said, and you might as well use the door. It’ll give you greater peace of mind.

“So I take it you’re not going to be with me long,” Leopold said.

The cat already told you that, Reynard said. And please, get a move on it. You feel like chatting, we can do that when you’re outside.

“Fine,” Leopold muttered, crossing over to the closet, before remembering he might want his cell phone, which was on the kitchen table, where the new plant was being pruned by Boo. “Shoo,” he indicated, with a word and a hand, and Reynard looked impatient, which sent Leopold walking a little faster this time to the closet, where he retrieved his jacket, and then he put on his shoes, and then he was out the door. Once he was outside, he noticed Reynard a little off from the patio, clearly not interested in meeting up with him, but rather the other way around, which Leopold obliged. “This won’t be long, will it?”

Consider the next few days worth of your experiences to work like how you calculate ‘dog years,’ Reynard said. They’ll be in collapsed time. You won’t return home to any questions about where you’ve been, since you’ll be back before your sister comes home from work today. Don’t ask me to explain it exactly. Something to do the difference between animal and human experience. You just don’t notice, so it doesn’t matter. By the way, I hope you like walking. We don’t do automatic transportation. We have other tricks.

“I’m fine with walking,” Leopold said, though he was concerned for his shoes, and the bottoms of his pant-legs, which always seemed to suffer the brunt of his foot travels.

You should try paw pads, Reynard suggested. They always wear well.

“You can even hear my thoughts,” Leopold said.

Sure, you hear ours, Reynard said. It only seems natural that we’d hear yours.

“But you understand what I say when I talk, too,” Leopold said. “How do you cross the communication barrier?”

Something like, we just do, Reynard said. Anyway, that’s more a question for the one you’re going to see.

“Please don’t tell me he’s a wizard,” Leopold said, “or a professor confused for one, with smoke and mirrors and all that.”

No wizards, Reynard said. No professors, no smoke, not where we’re going, no mirrors. It’s a little more concrete than that. A little more realistic, a little less fantastic. At least it’ll have to seem that way, since you’ve already cleared the first hurdle. Do you find me fantastic?

“Yeah,” Leopold said, impishly. “Sure I do! You’re fantastic, Reynard. Seriously, though, I think I’ve reached the point where this isn’t so bizarre anymore. You’re the third animal I’ve heard now, and the second I’ve spoken with. I understood ants. Either all of this makes sense or none of it does. There’s too much for none of it to, so all of it does, and so here I am, talking with a fox, and letting him guide me. To where exactly?”

To whom, Reynard said. I’m getting tired of reminding you about that. You don’t seem to catch on very quickly, which I suppose was the selling point for Boo. She’s a little devil, that one. Did she tell you about the German Shepherd?

“Sure she did,” Leopold said. They were walking through woods, through fields, through pretty much anything that did not bare an immediate mark of civilization, and there was plenty for Leopold’s shoes and pants to worry about. As it was winter, much of that meant he was getting wet, which he managed by trudging through varying amounts of deposit. Reynard never slowed down, even when he sank in several inches with each step. In fact, sometimes, he never broke the surface, even though he was of a considerable size. As with every such scenario, Leopold struggled to keep up, no sympathy lost on him by his guide. “She said that he led a boy down a path he wasn’t ready for. Like a trap.”

Something like that, Reynard said. Don’t worry, though. You’ve proven your worth, as she suggested. The only surprises you’ve got ahead of you are of entirely practical matters, how you arrive at your answers, and what those answers are.

“But I never asked any questions,” Leopold said.

Answers are not meant to have questions, Reynard said, just as you do not go in search of something you are looking for. You only think you are. You find something by accident, not by design. If you look for something, you find exactly what you expected, not what you didn’t expect, which would seem to be the point of the search. How could you expect the unexpected? Therefore, how can you find something by looking for it? How can you ask a question and expect an answer? The answer comes without the question. The question is framed for the answer, not the other way around. You have a popular television program to the effect, don’t you?

“I wasn’t told this was a quest for philosophy,” Leopold said.

You weren’t told anything, Reynard said. Was that not your complaint?

“I wasn’t complaining,” Leopold protested.

You asked a question, Reynard said. A question is a complaint. Pay attention.

“I am trying, you know,” Leopold said.

That’s both the pity of it and the joy, Reynard said. Joy isn’t my concern. Perhaps you would do well to be quiet and think about it. You’re a nuisance to me, and a charge. Nothing more. Understand that.

“I’m beginning to,” Leopold said. He wanted to ask how much longer it would be, but knew what the fox’s response would be, and further that the fox already knew this desire, and that the only result was that Leopold was starting to sulk. But he carried on, even as Reynard drew farther away as he lagged behind. Yes, it was becoming depressing, this quest he had never signed up for, not that the fox’s logic couldn’t twist even that truth around. It was ridiculous, and Leopold was not afraid to admit it.

Maybe ridiculous was exactly what it was supposed to be, or one way it was supposed to be seen. If he told any of this to anyone, it would certainly seem ridiculous to them, there was no question about that. He couldn’t even be sure how the astronaut was taking it, how he’d reacted to the phone call, beyond what he’d said. From what Leopold gathered, he wasn’t even having the same experience. It was as if he was being manipulated, to be made useful for whatever Leopold was heading into. He probably wasn’t even aware of it.

Then again, that might be true of Leopold. He could be a pawn in a scheme hatched for the astronaut, the one someone had already made an action figure for. In that case, Leopold would be the bizarre footstool robot, serving the astronaut’s needs in an appropriately subservient design. It was somehow a less pleasant thought, with the roles reversed. Maybe he had a problem with ego. In truth, he always had. Admitting that was brutal.

Okay, a voice said, and it took Leopold a minute to realize it was Reynard’s. He took a look around his surroundings to reacquaint himself with the reality of his situation. Reynard had stopped, in a dense forest, along a well-worn path probably used by ATVs, and Leopold discovered that he had stopped, too, instinctively. Reynard was well off in the distance, so that he could have been any fox, his distinctive patch of white on the back of his neck not visible from there.

“You could come back,” Leopold said.

Or you could meet me here, the fox said.

“Fine,” Leopold relented, and complied. “I don’t see anything.”

Of course you don’t, Reynard said. There isn’t anything to see yet. There will be. Be patient, and please don’t miss me too much.

“That’s sarcasm,” Leopold said.

And you are observant, Reynard said, trotting off. When you want to be. It won’t be long. You can take that literally.

“I will,” Leopold said defiantly, realizing he’d forgotten to say goodbye to Boo, and satisfied he had no interest saying so to Reynard, not the least of which was because the fox shared this particular sentiment. So he decided to. “Catch you later, Reynie!” The only reply was a huff and the resulting breathe shot into the chilly air, which was all that was still visible of the fox now. The trip had taken ten minutes at least. Leopold took a look at his watch, and decided to count the minutes of ‘won’t be long.’

When another ten minutes had passed, and he was beginning to freeze something reminiscent of solidly, Leopold began to contemplate writing the whole thing off and turning back around, confident he knew his way back, and that all he will have lost was a half hour. Then he began to think about what Reynard had said about compressed time, and what that might mean for what he will have lost, and decided it could be as little as a few seconds, like he had never gone, and that thought soothed him for the next twenty minutes, when finally something stirred behind him, shaking itself and letting identifying tags tell at least part of its story. Leopold turned around and told the rest himself.

“Sam,” he said. “Fancy meeting you hear.”

It’s not a bit pleasant, Sam said, and you know it, so wipe that smirk off your face and let us be on our way. We have much to do, and I’m not in the mood to fool around.