Sean blinked rheumatic eyes. He remembered that voice. He recognized the shape of its timbre and the fact it once meant something to him. A long time ago when he was someone else, when his back didn’t hurt, when his mind wasn’t a labyrinth in which he sometimes sat dreaming of sunlight and baying hounds, green moss and a gold coin hanging from a white throat. Someone from his childhood, Sean decided. Someone that made an adventure of seeking out old friends, someone with a memory better than his.

Wrong, laughed a voice somewhere inside him.

“Do you remember me, fox?”

He hesitated. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

The woman sat down beside Sean, her hand closing over his. She smelled of summer and strangely enough, of clay. “That’s alright. Mortality demands different things from each of us. I’ve missed you, fox.”

“I’m sorry,” Sean exhaled. “I wish I could say the same about you, but I don’t know who you are.”

“But you remember Erin, though?”

“Yes, of course. Everything. She’s my wife.” Sean paused. “She’s in the next room as well. I’m afraid she might be quite angry if she returned to see you holding my hand.”

The woman did not move her grip. “And your sister’s first child? And your mother’s funeral? And the first time you saw snow on the peak of a mountain? The sunlight white-gold on the ice? Do you remember all that?”

“Yes.” He lied. “All of it.”

She laughed then. The sound was the heartbeat of a cello, dark and rich. “You were never good at hiding things from me, fox. I don’t know why you try.”

And the words found their way out of his throat before Sean could think twice about their birth. “Because your exasperation is fun, neko.”

Ah, the fox thought. There I am.

“Welcome back.”

The fox ran his eyes down the woman beside him, teeth in his smile. She looked exactly as he thought she would, only older than either of them expected to become. His maneki-neko grinned back. “What took you so long?”

“You. This is your fault. You left and took away all my magic.” He inspected her again. “Did you have a good life, neko?”

“A complicated one, but yes. I’ve so many stories to tell you, fox. I’m sorry it took me so long to come back.”

“I’m sorry I never went to look for you.”

She nodded. Her hair was the color of polished enamel, and she wore rubies on her ears and her fingers. It was, the fox decided, a nice touch. “What now, though?”

The old woman sighed and poured tea for them both. “I don’t know. These bodies likely have a few years left. Enough time to tell each other all the stories we’ve missed.”