Your uncle is an ass. You should report...

The message flashed before him as he knocked the door open, his fingers retracted and eager to punch. Kira stood frozen. Behind her, the newspaper stand had tumbled down, the first papers in each rack crumpled, the corners ripped. The mess was the least of his worries.

"He came in," Kira said shrilly. "I couldn't get him to leave. He... he." She held her shaking arms tight against her body.

Vidar sniffed. Stale beer.

At the back of the store, by the opened fridge, stood a man in a long, dirty brown coat. His hair lay flat against the back of his head, yet otherwise spiky and unwashed. One by one, the red cans of Jupiler disappeared into his arms.

"Marcel!" Vidar shouted.

 He strode towards the man with long, quick paces. His muscles quivered. Trespassing the store and frightening Kira. Now, the old drunkard had crossed a line!

"Just taking a few nightcaps, lad," Marcel slurred. "We're not all like you and that Canadian actor from the Matrix—forever looking thirty-five. Some of us have to drink away our sorrows, forget just how cruel time has been."

Vidar grunted. "We're not open yet."

"The cute little lady—"

"Hold your tongue!" Vidar bellowed.

If Marcel was dazed, he didn't show it. "Ah, come on, for old time's sake. I was one of your first customer's back in the early nineties. So, I'm early. I'll pay for these drinks and another magazine." Then he made the mistake of looking past Vidar, a sly smile on his face. Kira whimpered.

Vidar inched closer, his shadow cast over the drunkard. He clenched his fists, swallowing the rage boiling at the back of his throat. 

Through clamped teeth, he snarled. "Leave."

"But..."

"I said leave."

Foam spluttered around as Marcel dropped the cans to the floor. His elbow bumped into Vidar as he strutted past him, his head held high. "There was a time you were grateful to have me as a customer. The only reason this place isn't bankrupt is that I suggested you sell magazines and drinks. I'll take my business somewhere else."

A trail of crashing cans followed him out of the store. The occasional piece of ten or twenty-cent clattered down as well.

Kira leapt back as he approached.

Vidar drew in slow breaths. He could knock Marcel to the moon and back, beat him black and blue until he remembered neither his name nor the town he was born in. But he didn't want to resort to that kind of violence, not in front of Kira. 

Once he started revenge, he couldn't always control how it ended.

"I'm so sorry," Kira squeaked.

He exhaled, unclenching his fists. The urge to yell that she should stop apologising for other people's mistakes was strong, but he refrained from doing so. He flexed his hands, stretching the stiff muscles.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked.

Softly, she shook her head. Her voice trembled with emotion. "He looked weirdly at me. I thought he would—"

The upbeat melody coming from the kitchen tore into their conversation.

"You should get that," she said with a sob.

Mo could wait. "Are you okay? If you want to go home instead, I'd understand. You don't have to stay."

"No," she said firmly. Her eyes darted across the store. "Weirdly, this place makes me feel safe. You're huge, with your long hair and scruffy beard, like an old Viking warrior. Nobody messes with you."

Vidar's heart leapt at the word 'warrior'. "I don't scare you?"

Wiping her eyes, she lifted her shoulders. "You remind me of my brother. Big giant, but with a heart of gold. Unless you crossed him," she added, offering him a watery smile.

Vidar didn't pry. Whatever had happened to Kira's brother, it didn't seem like it was a cheerful story.

"There's breakfast in the kitchen. I'll take care of the mess," he said.

She took the offer, only to pop back into the shop a few moments later. The song stopped just as she handed the phone back to him.

"Oh, sorry," she said.

"I'll call him later." Vidar pulled the newspaper stand back up. "Could you have another look? The keyboard is in a strange language, and there are still old messages. I have no business with... you... your private life."

A blush appeared on her cheeks. "Sorry, I'll take care of it."

Over breakfast, she fixed the phone. Vidar sent a message to Mo saying that Reynaert went MIA, and that he would chase that lead. 

The Ifrit replied with a 'k', which made Vidar grin. At least, the Ifrit messed up spelling words on his phone too.

During the day, more young folk than usual entered through the door. Nearly all of them headed towards the single-seater Vidar had put in the store for Kira to read, right in the spot where Sunna's rays shone in the hours before noon. They talked rapidly, with lots of oh's and ah's and too many words he didn't understand but always ended with Kira pointing at the table.

He sold three books during lunch alone, and twice the number of candy bars and soda cans that usually passed his counter on an ordinary Friday. If this was the new normal, Marcel could buy his beer and sex magazines some place else.

In between serving customers, Vidar leafed through the slightly crumpled newspapers, too damaged to place back into the racks but still readable. No matter which paper he picked up, the first pages were littered with economic and political drama. One politician dragging the other through the dirt, men in expensive suits warning about a new financial crisis, and corruption among high-ranking police officers. 

Nothing about strange fox tracks or missing chickens.

Beyond the headlines, the current paper focused mostly on local stories. If he could find a clue on where to find Reynaert, it would be in this section. He skimmed the articles. A toothless farmer from Zandhoven winning the lottery, a mother of three writing about her battle against cancer. Good for her; she had defeated the terrible disease. But the news didn't bring him closer to the old trickster.

On the next page, a group of young activists protested against the city cutting down fifty-five hectares of forest to expand the harbour. A few years earlier, something similar had happened in Lilo. Too many acres of woods destroyed for factories that were never built.

The picture depicted the teenager holding a sign, bloodred letters dripping blood reading 'the forest bleeds.' 

He flipped the page. A blonde-haired, short-skirted Americanesque pop star was praised for her new, groundbreaking album. She broke free from the patriarchy!

More TV and movie news filled the remaining pages.

Nothing about foxes. Which meant Reynaert wasn't up to his usual mischief, or people had stopped caring about it. Neither scenario was ideal.

But he wasn't going to give up yet. There had to be another way to get the stories the papers didn't write about or had stopped writing about.

A girl with a single pierced ear came through the door. She was chewing. Her heels ticked loudly. "Hey, can you help me do my homework?" She smirked.

"Erm... I don't do anyone's homework." Kira tensed.

"But you're so smart. Can't you do it?"

"Is there a problem?" Vidar set his hands on his hips.

"I'm not afraid of you," she scoffed. Her narrowing pupils told another tale.

"I don't see why you should."

She rolled her eyes, then darted another look at Kira.

"Whatever, nerd, this place is lame anyway." Her heels ticked back out, her presence in the store as short and unpredictable as April rain.

"You know her?" Vidar asked.

"Just a troll from TikTok."

Vidar frowned. That girl had far too few wraths to be related to his old mountain cousins. "A troll?"

"Yeah, usually they don't confront you like that."

Vidar shot his head back, laughing. "But a troll?"

"It's just a name that we give to annoying people on the internet. They're not actual trolls, like you know, from old mythologies."

"It's a funny word."

"Yeah," she admitted. "I never thought about it like that, but you're right."

Vidar tapped his fingertips against each other. "I... err... I was wondering if I would want to complain about my chickens getting killed by an animal—which app would I use for that?"

"Oh." She stretched the sound, her voice high and soft, like a puppy howling. "Poor chickens."

"Not mine, I'm... I'm asking for a friend."

"Still, poor chickens." She curled her bottom lip. "I guess your friend could report it to the police, but you know our mayor." Waving her hands, she faked a deep masculine voice. "Only the war on drugs matters. Why help either the chickens or the poor foxes whose habitats get so small they have to hunt in urban areas."

"Anyway, he just wants to complain, perhaps find other... victims."

"Facebook, maybe Twitter. No, definitely Facebook. They have these groups, and your friend might have to do some digging to find the right group."

Vidar hummed. He would leaf through the newspapers again tomorrow, and again on Monday. Facebook. 

He wasn't that desperate yet to use Facebook.

The week ended, and another started. Day after day, Sunna did long hours as she travelled from the east to the west.

Mo regularly texted that he was on the verge of having a breakthrough with Eshu and that he was onto something. 

The news was repetitive and boring. A famous Flemish celebrity announced her divorce from her billionaire husband. Football players scored and won, while politicians praised the plans their predecessors cancelled. Humans lived and died, but they only ended up on the front page if they had accomplished something. What for wasn't always clear to Vidar.

The shop kept him busy. Not only did his book sales soar, but he also spent a lot of time restocking candy bars and drinks. Instead of running to the supermarket, the skaters came to him for their daily sugar rush.

And Kira kept reading and talking about books to an audience of hundreds on her phone. Occasionally, she showed him the comments, praising her and requesting other creatures. 

None of them mentioned seeing the fox.

It wasn't until the week after that he finally tapped the white and blue icon on his phone. The thing asked what he had on his mind. 

Reynaert, Vidar thought, but he wasn't going to share that information. The alien living in his mansion in Silly-something valley in the USA didn't need to know that.

Instead, he opted for the more familiar symbol of the magnifying glass and typed chicken. A group with twenty thousand members called 'Chickens, more than a hobby' popped up, first in a list of many.

He joined the group and scrolled through pictures of fluffy chicks picking grain, and the people asking for help to get their chickens to lay eggs. Further down, there was someone complaining that everything was the fault of the left. Blue thumbs appeared beneath the post, though nobody cared to explain what everything entailed. Or the left, for that matter.

Another group was holding a chicken coop competition. The constructions varied from painting the coops in bright colours to a fellow who had built a miniature mansion, including a swimming pool and the obligatory chicken wearing sunglasses.

The third group, True Chicken lovers, had one post of a lady with curly ginger hair holding a bloody feather. Dozens of crying yellow faces were left underneath the post. A second picture, placed in the comments, revealed the paw prints of an animal.

Vidar couldn't make out which creature it was; the picture was too blurry. One comment after the other mentioned it was a marten.

Not a fox.

He cast his phone aside as a customer came in. One sale led to another, and another. Kira needed help to pick another book. He spent the rest of the day in and out of the storage room. 

That evening, he fell asleep five minutes into the sixteenth episode of the fourth season of Vikings, only to wake up from a text from Mo saying he was going to meet Eshu, followed by eight exclamation marks. 

Before he went to bed, there came another message. Eshu was awesome, apparently. For some reason, Mo had only typed five exclamation marks.

It wasn't until a few days later that he re-opened the Facebook app, only remembering his online quest when Kira mocked the app.

Instead of chickens, he searched for foxes. Red cars and aluminium wheels showed up on his screen. He scrolled past people called Fox, then too many shops selling clothes (not fox furs—he checked), and finally a big centre selling animal food. The owner's last name was Fox too.

At last, he found a group. 'Sly Foxes in the Magical Forest'

Never in his 21st-century life did he close his phone more quickly. The image of grown humans in fox suits doing questionable things forever burning in his eyes.

Such strange foxes on Facebook.

He never opened the app again.

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