FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Brenda, it's your turn now..."

All eyes turned to the vixen and she giggled, running a paw through her blonde hair nervously. "Um...oh, I don't know. I don't think I can top that one..."

"Oh, come on, you promised..." The skunk pressured, her silky, thick tail thumping impatiently on the bedroom floor.

"Cathy, I don't really have anything, well, okay one thing..."

"Well, talk about it then. But remember, you gotta make it into a story, just like everyone else."

The fox sighed deeply. "It's kinda hard. You guys all tell the coolest stories. I mean, the one with Kris' bracelet, that was really cool!"

The otter flushed crimson and looked down, fingering the charm-bracelet around her wrist.

"Well, you gotta tell us something, it's one of the slumber party rules." Cathy was insistent now, and the other four girls gathered around her nodded solemnly, as though they were performing a sacred ritual or secret pact.

One of the other foxes spoke up gently, "Look, if she's having a hard time with it, it's okay. We can't all tell good stories, it's something inside. My mom is a writer and she says her books just come out of her heart somehow. She has to feel something, y'know?"

Cathy rolled her eyes. "That is so square, Rina..."

The vixen protested. "But it's true! I know how she feels. When I told MY story? I had to picture something in my head that made me feel really relaxed, y'know? The beach was perfect and-"

"And we got to hear how your anklet turned a shark into a prince, yeah, I know. It was a way cool story. But...this is my party, my room, so...my rules. If she can't tell a good story, she has to go outside for five minutes..."

Everyone turned to look up at the bedroom window, where heavy snow was starting to lace the corners of the panes, and a cold wind occasionally shoved the featureless white violently to the side.

Brenda gulped. "In...in my PJs...?"

"Yup."

"Cat, you're such a pooper sometimes," the other skunk sighed and got up from the floor, getting another pillow from a rocking chair nearby. The chair creaked slowly back and forth.

"Well, all she's gotta do is tell a cool story about a trinket she owns. Come on, Bren, just think for a sec and it'll come out, I bet."

The fox looked uneasily at the others and closed her blue eyes. "Alright..." she swallowed again and a strange smile began. "I'll tell you about my ring. But you guys gotta promise not to tell! It was my mom's..."

The girls quickly hushed themselves and curled up into various positions on the rug, nodding.

"My mom disappeared about 15 years ago, when I was really little. Her mom had this ring before her, and her mom before her and...well, it's a lot of moms. I remember showing it to one of my guardians, and she told me it had this strange power..."

**

"That will be five dollars, mademoiselle," the gentle-fox spoke with a heavy French accent. "I believe it is quite fitting for you, no? The diamond necklace you wear, and this ring? Good match."

The vixen gave him her money and took the gold ring, her blue eyes staring at the green jewel set into the circular arrangement of tiny diamonds around it. "I honestly do not like emeralds so much," she sighed wearily, "but it's so lovely, Francois. Merci..."

"Not at all, Mademoiselle Carter. I'm sure you will find it a joy to wear." The old fox watched as the vixen slid the ring around a digit and wiggled it. "Good fit, no?"

"It's perfect. Simply perfect." She turned her paw slowly, examining it from every angle. "I can't believe you're practically giving this away..."

She thought she saw a fleeting look of dread pass over the old fox's face, but it was gone quickly. Just a trick of the streetlight perhaps. "Ah no, no, I would charge much more, but...for a beautiful woman like you, mademoiselle, I just want to see you happy. And the lucky man accompanying you..."

She blushed, showing a tinge of red through white-furred cheeks. "I'm...not married. I...lost my husband in the great war. He didn't survive. There was an attack on a town here close to Paris. I in fact was coming here to visit his memorial. He'd always wanted to be buried in such a beautiful city such as this, and he always marveled over the Eiffel tower and the..." She trailed off, realizing she was babbling, and worried a strand of perfect white pearls around her throat. "He meant much to me."

The old fox smiled widely. "Ah, Mademoiselle Carter," he took her paw gently, "if you will allow me to say, I am glad your husband did his duty. You have to be proud knowing he and others like him saved Paris from tyranny." His gaze softened a bit, and he added sadly, "Were I twenty years younger...I could have fought, I could have done so much...and you would have been already in my arms."

She giggled, squirming her paw away from his grasp. "Oh Francois...always the charmer."

They laughed softly together under the setting sun and hugged fondly, like old friends. "Come, Sarah," he nuzzled her cheek, "before you leave Paris, I insist on treating you to a delightful dinner under the stars."

"Mr. Guillon, I accept..."

**

"Okay, this is sooooo borrrring," Cathy interrupted, rolling over onto her back on the floor and crossing her eyes at Brenda. "So, they had dinner, and then what? You're supposed to be telling a really spooky story."

"Well, then don't interrupt her and she will," Rina growled.

"I'm not!"

The storyteller vixen spoke up suddenly. "Did I tell you that Mr. Guillon ended up dead the next day, slashed to ribbons in his bedroom?"

Everyone stopped talking and turned to look at Brenda curiously as she nodded. "That's right. Dead. Because of the time, there wasn't too much left to really identify anything, but they figured it was his bed, and as at least part of him was found on it, so it must have been him."

Cathy snerked. "So, you're telling us your GRANDMA killed him?"

Brenda shrugged. "I don't know. She was never seen again actually. My mother told me she fled Paris and she herself was raised by my grandfather..."

"Well, what's this have to do with the ring, sweetie?" Rina spoke up, sitting forward and crossing her legs.

The fox swallowed hard. "That's what I'm getting to. The next part of the story..."

**

"Dazzling, Johnathon. Ohh, it's just how I imagined."

Theresa Carter took a long, dreamy look at the gold ring, the sparkling emerald and the surrounding cluster of perfectly-cut diamonds. "it's beautiful..." She started to cry and wiped tears from radiant blue eyes.

"Now now, no tears for Terrie," Johnathon nuzzled the fox and touched noses with her. "Well...this is the engagement ring, provided your father approves of me." The young fox suddenly looked chagrined, his ears drooping, and Theresa elbowed him.

"It doesn't matter what he thinks, my love. He's never really cared for me at all through my childhood. Ever since my mother left him. I think he secretly held a grudge, or some burning hatred for women after Catherine. Perhaps he saw too much of her in me, or..."

"Are you seriously apologizing for your father, Terrie? Please don't. I'm...I'm sure your father has his reasons. Nonetheless, I want to be the perfect husband to you..." He took her paws and squeezed them against his belly. "I'll never be your father..."

"I know that, John," she murred softly and kissed him quite passionately.

"Mmm...Come, it's nearly lunch. Let's ask Sandy and Carol to join us at the estate. We'll make a lunch and pool party of it. A celebration of our engagement. Let Brenda stay in the bassinet. My housekeeper will take excellent care of her while we're outside."

"I'd love it...but we'd wake the baby and-"

"Shhh, she'll be fine..."

**

"God, Brenda, what is this?!"

"Cat," Kris growled, "will you knock it off and let her talk?"

"Well, I just wanna know what is going on is all. We ask for a story, and we get a Victorian romance or something!"

"Johnathon, Sandy Dermen, and Carol Cain were found dead at the bottom of the swimming pool that evening, their throats slashed so bad they were practically decapitated. Divers remarked on the fact the heads sort of tried to float up, attached with nothing but a few strands of tendon and flesh..."

They all turned to look at the vixen again, their eyes wide. Rina was the first to speak this time.

"What happened to your mother?"

Brenda looked at her lap, and folded her paws inside, trembling now. "I told you before, I don't know...all they found of her was the ring Johnathon had given to her, laying on a patio table near the pool..." She glanced at her right paw, stroking the gold ring around her digit. "That's...that's how I got it, I guess..."

"Brenda?"

She turned to look at the otter.

"You talked about this before, with me. Something about how the ring affected people, did something to their minds? I didn't believe it because, well, I'm just not that superstitious. But...you really think the ring does what you told me?"

"Kris, what did she tell you?" Cathy asked.

The otter shrugged. "Just that there was, you know, that whole string of murders associated with the ring, and then the owner would just disappear afterwards. Not a trace of them..."

They all looked at Brenda with a mixture of concern and fear and Cathy's eyes widened.

"Is that why you..." she started to whisper, and then the bedroom door was thrown open. The girls gasped and looked up as a dark figure strode in and flicked on the light at the wall. They immediately scrambled up from the floor and ducked out of sight.

"Here we are, the second bedroom," an adult vixen said gaily as she padded around the room, followed by a young fox couple. "As you can see, lots of room here, spacious, not furnished yet. You can see that the previous owners left behind the carpet here." She looked down towards where Brenda cowered under a small table and added, "but we'll get that removed obviously..."

"Well, we can always sand the floor and make it bare, I guess," the male fox grumbled, and then snugged an arm around his companion. "The renovation expenses just keep on adding up, don't they?"

The vixen giggled. "It's worth it. There's great history here, especially after all the murders..."

The realtor nodded and walked past Cathy to open a curtain by the window so they could watch the snowstorm continue, the wind whistling. The young fox glared up at her from behind the curtain but said nothing. "Definitely a steal alright. Poor girls...I still get goosebumps when I come in here..." She walked back towards the doorway and turned out the light. "All of them...it's just tragic...so tragic..."

"What was her name again? The one that-"

"Oh, her. Brenda. Brenda Carter."

"Oh right, right," the male fox nodded. "Do they have any idea what happened? It's been, what, almost 50 years? What possessed her to just go off like that?"

"Well, we'll never know since she cut her own throat right afterwards. They found her dying on the floor, barely able to speak through the blood. She kept saying "no more, no more". They tried to call for an ambulance but...obviously we didn't have the kind of emergency response we do now, and she died here, surrounded by the bloody corpses of her friends..."

"Oh, let's not talk any more about it," the wife sighed and snuggled close to the other fox's side, getting chills suddenly. "It's the past. Let's work on our future..."

"Amen to that," he answered, and the three turned and left the room, closing the door gently behind them.

One by one the girls crept away from the shadows and curled up together on the floor again.

Cathy smiled, "Alright, who wants to tell the next story?"

Rina raised a paw. "Oh, me! I'll go next..."

They all huddled close together around the skunk as she began her tale and the wind howled again in earnest.

END