Skulk by Rosie Best

took a couple of faltering steps away. The fog kept coming.
    “What is it?” I asked.
    “Don’t ask bloody stupid questions, just run!”
    I felt something snatch at my brush and yelped, tugging it away from the grasping tendril of fog. The other fox turned and bounded away in a flash of orange. I leapt after him. He turned into an alley like a fuzzy bullet and I skidded along in his wake. He was all line and muscle and grace as he jumped up onto the back of a car and a tall council bin and the low roof of a garden shed. I tried to follow, but I slipped on the car, leaving ragged scratches in the paintwork and sliding off again.
    “Come on,” he shouted down from the shed. I looked back. Fog-tentacles were coiling around the corner of the building, glowing bright and dirty orange in the street light. I took a shaky step back and jumped up onto the car, steadied myself and made the leap up onto the bin, and then to the thankfully rough and graspable roof of the shed.
    As soon as I’d made it, the fox was off again. He jumped down into a scrubby garden and headed for a tiny hole under a fence.
    “Wait,” I called, jumping down after him. The impact was hard on my paws, but I recovered.
    He hesitated for a moment, tossing his head. More of his composure seemed to return to him and he preened, looking down his nose at me. “Do you want to lose it or not, darling? Let me tell you, that thing’ll do more than pull your pigtails if it catches us.”
    I followed him across two gardens, up a slippery climbing frame and over a row of garages. Finally he jumped up through a metal railing onto someone’s private balcony and came to a halt. I clambered after him and sat, panting and staring.
    He smirked at me. He still looked like a fox, but I could read his smirk in the way his eyes narrowed and his ears twitched. I felt so clumsy next to him, and it wasn’t just that I was new at this. Something told me this fox had more grace and poise than I’d ever have.
    “What was that? Who are you?” I panted. “Are you like me?”
    “If by ‘like me’ you mean ‘a shifter’, then yes,” said the fox.
    “Shifter.” I rolled the word around my mouth. “Wait, how are we talking? Are we making sounds?”
    “My word,” said the fox, “you really are new to this, aren’t you, love?”
    “I have absolutely no idea what’s happening to me,” I admitted.
    “ Well ,” he said, sitting back on his haunches and curling his brush neatly around his paws, “it’s certainly lucky for you I came along. Top tip: you don’t want to get caught in the fog.”
    “Um. Thanks,” I said. “Um. My name’s Meg.”
    “James Farringdon,” the fox said, getting to his paws and giving a deep bow. “It’s been a pleasure, but I should really be going.” He picked up the bag in his jaws again. It rattled.
    “What, now?” I sprang to my paws. “Can’t you… I mean… can’t you tell me more about this? What’s a shifter? Is it just like shapeshifting? How did this happen? Am I... am I safe?”
    “Ish,” said James through the mouthful of bag. He blinked at me and then put it down again. “Look, dear, I’ve been doing this for a while, and there’s not much more to say. We’re people who can change into foxes. What you choose to do with that is entirely up to you.” He licked his muzzle thoughtfully with a thin pink tongue. “Although... which one died?”
    “What?” I shook my head.
    “You’re new. So one of the others must have died.”
    “There are others?”
    James rolled his eyes. Fox-face and everything, they actually rolled.
    “Well, yes . Did you think it was just you and me?”
    I sat back on my haunches and scratched my ear. After a couple of scratches, I realised I was doing it with my back leg.
    “So, what? I got it from the dead guy? Like a disease or something?”
    “That’s how it works.”
    So, it wasn’t the stone. I frowned. But then the stone and the fog and the shifting – how are they