A Fox's Family (Sample)

Chapter 1 - Part 1

As was per the norm since her daughter's disappearance, Camellia found herself sitting on the balcony to her clan's estate in Tampa Bay. Situated on the table next to her was a hot cup of tea, from which a beautiful fragrance wafted, relaxing her mind, even as the worry she'd been feeling for the past three months continued to plague her.

She looked down at the garden below, expansive and lovely, filled with a wide variety of well-maintained and beautiful flowers. Even though it was fall, the flowers continued to bloom, courtesy of her maid's prodigious gardening abilities. They were some of the loveliest blossoms she'd ever seen, and once upon a time, Camellia would have already been down there at this early hour, admiring them up close.

Despite staring straight at them, she did not see the wondrous array of colorful blossoms and hadn't for a while now. Unable to grasp the complexities of multiple thoughts at once due to the degradation of her mind, Camellia could only focus on a single subject. Her missing daughter, Lillian.

On August 4th, Lilian had disappeared from the grounds of this very mansion, vanishing without a trace. While some worried that she might have been kidnapped, the general consensus was that she had run away.

Neither Camellia nor anyone else knew how the young kitsune had managed to escape without being noticed. Evidence pointed towards excessive use of her Celestial abilities, which could, in the right circumstances, render Lilian all but invisible. Since then, Camellia had done little more than fret.

She might have had a mind reminiscent to that of a child, but she was still a mother.

"My Lady," a voice came from behind her. "You have not touched your tea. Is it not to your liking?"

"Hmm?"Camellia looked down at the tea, blinking. She then looked at the woman standing by her chair, a female with hair the color of midnight and three fox-tails waving about behind her. "Ah!Sorry, sorry. Camellia got lost in thought. Tee-hee!" After gently knocking her knuckles against her head, the five-tailed kitsune took a small sip of her tea. "It's very good."

Her complimentary words earned a gentle smile from the fox-woman dressed as a French maid. "I am glad to see that you still enjoy my tea. For a moment, I was worried that my skills might have slipped."

Camellia felt a small sense of dread well up inside of her at the maid's mention of "slipping skills." A shudder coursed through her body for reasons she couldn't understand.

The shudder went away, as did almost everything else, when a hand covered in a white glove began petting her on the head.

"Hawa..."

"Still so easy to please, My Lady." The kitsune maid was nothing if not amused by her mistress' reaction towards something as simple as head petting. It reminded her of,well, it sort of reminded her of a dog, though she would never say that out loud.

As the utterly blissed out Camellia enjoyed having her maid's fingers scratch behind her ears, a familiar presence appeared before them, floating just a few feet from the balcony.

"Oh. It's one of my sister's Kudagitsune."

The wraith-like fox-spirit with the pipe-like body couldn't have belonged to anyone but the maid's elder sister. The scroll, ghostly and translucent, much like the creature carrying it, told them as much. Kotohime was the only Pnév̱ma clan vassal who still used scrolls to deliver messages.

Most kitsune made do with simple envelopes these days.

After the fox-spirit dropped the scroll on the table and vanished back into its ethereal existence, the three-tailed maid unfurled the object and read its contents. Her eyes widening in a mixture of surprise and delight, she rolled the scroll back up, and then looked at the woman she served with a warm smile etched upon her fetching lips.

"My Lady, it appears Kotohime has found your daughter."

"My daughter?" It took Camellia a second or two to get out of the blissful state that her maid's head petting had put her in. It took another second for her to hear the words spoken, and then one more to process them. "H-hawa! You mean she found Lilian?!"

"Yes.According to my sister's report, Lady Lilian is currently living in Phoenix, Arizona."

"I can't believe it...my daughter's finally been found..." Tears leaked from Camellia's carnelian eyes, and a smile so joyous and bright it put the sun to shame appeared on her lovely face. "Camellia...Camellia needs to tell Iris that her sister has finally been found!"

Camellia scrambled out of her chair, stood up—

"H-hawa!!"

—And then promptly spilled to the floor when she tripped over her own five tails.

"M-My Lady!" A very worried maid knelt next to Camellia, who pushed herself into a seated position. "A-are you alright?"

Like every fall she'd taken this past century, Camellia took this latest one with good humor. "Ah. Don't worry. Don't worry."She looked down at her chest. "Camellia's breasts broke her fall."

The maid felt a small drop of sweat trail down the right side of her face.

"R-right..."

**

Hello, everyone! This is the fourth book of the American Kitsune series. A Fox's Family can be bought in paperback and Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Indie Bound, Books-a-Million, and other online retailers. You can also buy the kindle version on Amazon. A link to my website, www.varnell-brandon.com, is available in the external link section.