By Emily Hutnyak

“I had been planning to spend my afternoon curled up by the fire with a good book and a cup of tea.” I picked a crumbling burnt-orange leaf out of my hair and tossed it to the ground. “Instead, I’m tramping through the woods on the hunt for an imaginary monster because you didn’t want to go on your own.”

Connie rolled her eyes, huffing. “I have nothing to apologize for.”

“No? Not even letting that fluffball you got at the harvest fair go free into the woods to attract whatever is scaring the town to death?”

She stopped short, slinging her bow over her shoulder next to her quiver so she could cross her arms and glare even harder. “Fuzzy isn’t a fluffball. She’s a—”

“Squiblee, I know. You’ve made that quite clear. Which means you should have known she doesn’t belong in our woods.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”

Connie brushed her windblown auburn hair out of her face to better scowl at me. “Not till you agree to stop arguing and hunt properly already. I thought my big sister, the master huntress, would know better than to make this much noise.”

I bit my tongue. She had a point.

I stopped walking, took a deep breath, and tried to calm down. Focus.

Connie flounced by me, smirking.

I gripped my bow till it dug deep into my palm. After another deep breath, I followed my sister.

As we walked, I scanned for any signs of the animal we were tracking but found nothing. Just as Father expected, we seemed to be chasing a phantom.

I wasn’t sure what was ravaging the villagers’ harvests, but a beast they couldn’t even describe—I knew it wasn’t that. And yet here we were, looking for it anyway.

Connie skidded to a halt at the edge of a clearing. I barely avoided crashing into her, struggling to get my balance after the sudden stop.

“We have a problem,” she hissed, vaulting up to the massive, low-hanging branch of a nearby tree.

I followed suit. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be quite so dull after all. “What?”

She pointed across the clearing at an enormous hole in the ground. Huge claw marks in the dirt around it quickened my pulse.

“That’s where I left Fuzzy.” Her whisper trembled. “I found her an old badger hole so she’d be nice and snug for the winter, but… but…”

But something much larger than a badger had found her darling squiblee and eaten it for lunch. What a terrible pity.

The real issue was that I didn’t know what sort of beast could have made those claw marks. Certainly nothing native to our province.

I ground my teeth together. This wasn’t supposed to be a real hunt! I wasn’t supposed to be at risk of becoming some creature’s midday snack.

“If we get out of this alive, you have some major apologizing to do,” I growled.

“I do not!” Not only did Connie sound distinctly weepy, she’d forgotten to whisper, which only fueled the fire in my blood. Hopefully the beast wasn’t home, and we could simply leave and report this new development to Father, but I didn’t want to take any risks.

“Connie–”

Too late. A loud moaning noise emanated from the hole, accompanied by several ominous scratching noises.

“You have nothing to apologize for?” I shrieked, clinging to the rough bark for dear life as my weapons tumbled to the leaf-covered ground below. “Not even making us monster food?”

A furry white blob rose out of the hole, snorting as it stretched to a towering height.

“Shoot it!”

Connie didn’t. Instead, she dropped her bow and quiver and held out her hands. “Fuzzy!”

The mountain of fluff shot toward us, careening into Connie with all the passion of a long-lost lover and knocking her from the tree branch into a huge pile of leaves.

I screamed. She screamed. The fluffball screamed. A very familiar scream, in fact.

I cut my cry short. It was just Connie’s stupid squiblee, now engaged in a tearful reunion with her.

A careful observation of the creature confirmed what I could hardly believe—it had grown from the size of a fox to larger than a bear. Oh, and it had wings now.

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I realized that Fuzzy had been eating all the villagers’ food stores.

Father was going to love this.

I eased down from the branch, lightly dropping to the ground.

Fuzzy lifted one wing in my direction, and I toppled over trying to avoid a mouthful of feathers.

Instead, I got a face full of them as two fox-sized fluffy bundles tumbled off Fuzzy’s wing and onto me, attacking me with ferocious, sticky licks.

I tried to push Fuzzy’s children away, but they wouldn’t have it, apparently under the impression I was their new favorite person in all the provinces.

And okay, it was a little cute.

I sighed and felt for where I’d last seen my bow. Using it as a prybar to get the fluffballs off and keep them at bay was the best plan I had.

My fingers closed around splintered wood, and I groaned. Fuzzy must have stepped on it.

“Aww, they like you!” Connie giggled.

I pushed one of the baby squiblees out of my face and glared at Connie. “Help?”

Fuzzy made a chuckling noise and nudged me with her snout.

“She likes you too,” Connie cooed. “Isn’t that adorable?”

“No, it’s not!” I shoved one of the pests back at its mother, and it wailed like I’d broken its heart.

For provinces’ sake, why did it have to be so cute? I grudgingly patted it. “Sorry. I guess.”

Connie laughed as the now overjoyed fluffball pounced on me again. “If we’re taking them home, you get to keep the babies.”

“Fine,” I muttered from under the fluff. “But you’re explaining this to Father.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emily Hutnyak is a young writer with dreams that touch the sky and an overactive imagination. She spins stories about teens like herself finding their place in the world and tales of the light and hope that can be found even in the darkest of places. When she’s not writing, you can generally find her hanging out with friends and family, reading, or, on rare occasions, venturing outside to get some fresh air and sunshine.

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