"Aine," he repeated. "And your family name?"
"Aine Burke."
"Aine Burke?" he repeated, a sly smile spreading across his lips as he looked at her with renewed interest. "Well now, how very interesting."
"Again, I'm sorry to have bothered you," she said, taking an involuntary step backward. "I'll be going now...okay?"
The man stood and offered a formal bow. "I hereby grant your favor, Aine Burke. And with that, our dealings are at an end. I wish you a good day."
Aine opened her mouth, preparing to ask what favor he meant, but all at once the man dissolved into the blue mist and only the fox remained. The fox dipped its head once, then snatched the banana off of the ground and scampered away into the brush.
Wasting no time, Aine grabbed her paper bag and made her way out of the forest. She didn't run, afraid that she might draw the attention of something worse than a fox, but she walked as quickly as she could and ignored any animals she saw along the way.
"What the hell just happened?" she said aloud as she sat in her car. "What the hell just happened?!"
She fumbled with her key as she tried to start the car, her shaking hands making it difficult to fit the key into the ignition. When she finally managed to get the car to start, she breathed a sigh of relief and took a moment to calm herself.
That wasn't real. It can't have been real. Yet even as she repeated the words in her mind, she knew that it had been real. She could still see the man's ink-black eyes and hear the growl in his voice. She shivered as she shifted her car into reverse and backed out of the parking spot, eager to return to the safety of her home.
"It's over now," she said to herself as she sped down the highway. "I just have to stay away from the forest. It's over."
But, as she drove toward the safety of town, she knew deep down that something had shifted. Changed. And, for better or worse, her life had just taken a rather bizarre turn. The only question for her now was how she would manage to shift it back to the path she wanted it to follow.
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