Extract - The Starfox

An extract from Anne-Marie Stone’s Young Adult fantasy adventure, where creatures of the forest begin dissappearing and only a Starfox can save them...

Chapter 1

A twinge, an involuntary flick of his paw and Pacem was awake. He wriggled. He kicked. He sat up straight and half asleep, stared through the blackness.

‘Typical,’ he sighed, as his hot breath curled in white spirals round his muzzle.

Another twitch, another twinge and his frustration mounted.

‘It’s bad enough being the runt of the litter without having a dodgy paw as well!’

He glanced at his brother Vanus, lying there with huge paws splayed out and his tail already thick and bushy; and his sister Casola, sprawled across him, with legs that seemed to go on forever. Even tiny Myrriah, tucked in between, had something sturdy about her.

Why can’t I be like them? Why can’t I be bigger, stronger and why do I have this stupid, twitching paw?

He looked down and began to lick it and that’s when he noticed, amid his usual reddish-brown fur, a patch of white.

It was quite a big patch. It hadn’t been there last night or the night before but it was there now. He scrambled over his brother and sisters and padded to the outer chamber to take a better look.

It was cold and the moon cast an eerie blue light on the earthen floor. In the far corner, he could just make out his mother, Fides, asleep in the bracken, her body curled in a circle and her flank gently rising and falling.

As he gazed at her, a shaft of white light pierced through the den and a blast of icy wind made him shiver. He shook himself and padded towards the entrance.

There, floating in an inky black sky, was a brilliant star, dazzling him as it hovered over his den. He placed his paw in its pool of light and studied his mark.

He could see it clearly now; it was in the shape of a star, too. As he stared at it, it began to glow and little vibrations started pulsing up and down his leg. All the while, the star in the sky flickered and flashed at him.

Just in that moment (though he didn’t know why), Pacem was sure the star and the patch on his paw were connecting. He gasped and tried to snatch his paw away but he couldn’t. The vibrations carried on, until his leg, then his whole body began to shudder and shake.

‘Stop! Stop!’ he yelped.

In an instant, his mother was by his side.

‘What is it, Pacem? What’s wrong?’

‘That big star outside. It was shining down on my paw and it made it do weird things.’

Fides yawned, stretched, then lowered her head to examine his paw. As she lifted it, she flinched. It was only a tiny movement but Pacem caught it. He studied her face. She seemed frightened. Why would she be frightened of his paw?

Then her expression changed and she smiled, but it wasn’t the soft, reassuring smile he was used to, it was stiff and uncertain.