by Tim Susman
What would be the end result? He could not guess, but any venture that allowed him and his people more power, that stemmed the tide of broken arms and severed tails and seizures and disappearances, that was a venture he wanted to pursue. “It sounds admirable,” Emily said, and Kip agreed; he had told Coppy as much in the past. He wondered if this might be one of those things beyond him that the raven on his leg had spoken of.
“We’ll do our best,” he said, echoing the raven’s words, “and then nobody can say any ill of us.”
Coppy gave him a big, full, smile, and Kip’s tail wagged as they walked back around the Tower to their tents.
Neither the wagging nor the smile lasted to the tent door. As they stood at Emily’s tent, before Kip could even wish her good-night, the reek of blood and rank fox urine—wild fox, not a Calatian—came to him on the night breeze. His fur prickled, rising on his shoulders and tail enough so that Coppy noticed. “What is it?” the otter asked.
Kip lifted his nose. “Blood,” he said, and that stilled the other two while he made sure the scent was coming from his and Coppy’s tent. Jaw set, ears flat, he strode for the doorway, then paused with his paw on the canvas flap, not certain he wanted to pull it aside and see what was there. No sound came from within, but added to the blood and urine smells were the musk of a panicked wild fox and some feces. Coppy, beside him, made a gagging noise, and Kip’s throat tightened as well.
He grasped the flap and then stopped. There was another smell, fainter. Kip brought his nose close, running it up and down the cloth, not only to delay the moment when he would have to confront what was in their tent, but also to make sure of what he’d suspected from the first: the scent on the canvas was Farley’s.
“You might not want to look at this,” he told Emily.
“I’ve as strong a stomach as either of you,” she retorted. “And we’re classmates, or going to be. I want to see what our other classmates think is an amusing prank.”
“It’s not to be amusing.” Kip lifted the cloth slowly. “It’s to drive us away.”
The scene inside looked like something out of a nightmare. Blood spattered their bags and both beds, but the majority of the blood surrounded the small, ragged body on the dirt floor. The sense of violation that had grown from the first scent of blood in the tent faded temporarily, overwhelmed by Kip’s sadness at the wasted life and the suffering it had undergone.
“God’s wounds,” Coppy swore as Kip took two steps forward, not even attempting the vain exercise of keeping his feet clear of any bloody patches.
It was a young fox, he thought as he looked down, a male—of course. Both hind feet had been clumsily severed, and then the poor animal’s stomach had been opened. His gorge rose. “They crippled it so it couldn’t run, then gutted it so it would thrash around and cover the tent in blood before it died.”
“Sweet Lord.” Emily’s hand was over her mouth, her face white. She stepped quickly back outside the tent.
Coppy’s paw was at his mouth too, but he remained inside. “This is one thing we never had on the Isle. Farley, you reckon?”
“I know. I can smell him on the door.” Kip’s paw went to his arm. He could almost feel Farley’s weight, smell his breath, hear his snarled words and see the hate behind those small eyes.
“They won’t take that as evidence, I’d wager.”
“No.” Kip looked around the room, everywhere but at the animal on the ground that had suffered and died a painful death for no reason other than that it shared a remote ancestor with him. The short, shallow breaths he was taking to avoid inhaling too much of the smell were making him lightheaded. “How much of our luggage can be saved?”
“Oh, most of it, I should think.” Coppy picked his way across the room, also avoiding the body and the blood-soaked ground. “Blood’s mostly on the outside of the bags, and the beds aren’t ours. Don’t move, I’ll get yours.”
“Thank you.” Kip looked down again then, because he thought he ought to. The fox was beyond his help, beyond anything he might do for it, and to avenge the life of an animal was ridiculous. And yet, he felt more outraged that this innocent creature had suffered than he did at the viciousness of the message it had been used to send. He was being warned that he, too, would suffer; or maybe the message was not even that sophisticated. Maybe the message was simply, look what I can do to your kin.
Coppy retrieved both bags, and then he and Kip stepped outside. They walked a little ways away, to Emily’s tent, but she was nowhere in evidence. “Gone to fetch a Master, probably,” the otter said.
“Or to be sick,” which was what Kip wanted to do. He gripped his bag awkwardly in one paw, muscles tight as he fought off nausea. At least in the night, the blood on it wasn’t visible, although he could still smell it. “Where will we get water to wash this off?”
“Down at the Inn,” Coppy said.
“If we’re going down the hill, we might as well go home.”
“But come back tomorrow.” The otter’s eyes shone, his brow creased.
“Of course.” Kip found it easier to smile, to reassure the otter. “We’re not letting this keep us away.”
Coppy relaxed, and so did Kip, the visceral revulsion of the violation receding. He had allowed himself to be lulled, however briefly, into thinking that he could be accepted here, and Farley had wasted no time in reminding him that he never would, that every day would be a struggle.
Emily returned as the fox and otter were gathering their bags to walk down the hill, two black-robed figures in tow. With a sinking heart, Kip recognized Master Patris’s stomping stride and glowering stare, and next to him was the slighter figure of Master Argent.
“Allow me to warn you,” Patris growled as they approached, “that disturbing the Masters for trivial altercations does not have a positive effect on your candidacy.”
“Have you not made your decisions yet?” Emily asked. Kip glared to try to silence her and she looked away, pretending not to have seen.
“You will address me as ‘sir,’ or ‘Head,’” Patris growled.
Emily smiled. “So that means we’ve been accepted?”
The old Master glared at her and then stared down Kip. “What is this about?”
Kip told him, trying to keep to the facts. “A forest animal—a fox—was slaughtered in our tent. Everything’s covered in blood.”
Argent looked past Kip to his tent, but Patris continued to stare at the fox as though he’d spoken in a foreign language. “Blood? What nonsense is this?”
“See for yourself,” Kip said as calmly as he was able.
Master Argent strode forward first, and Patris followed him, hurrying the twenty feet to Kip and Coppy’s tent. “You see how much trouble they attract. It is already starting,” the older master said in what Kip thought was supposed to be a low voice, inaudible to the Calatians. The fox’s ears caught it clearly enough, and Kip closed his eyes, taking a breath.
“Everything all right?” Emily asked.
“Fine.” Kip breathed in and out. “I just—I wish I didn’t feel that they were blaming me for this.”
“Blaming you?” Emily’s voice rose. “Who is?”
The two sorcerers opened the flap to the tent and stood, looking in. Neither made a move to enter. Kip glanced back at them, and Emily followed his gaze. “Patris?” she whispered.
He nodded once. She glared. “Of all the pig-headed, prejudiced, idiotic—”
“Hush,” Kip said, caught between alarm and amusement. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks.”
“Doesn’t matter? He’s the Head!”
“I mean—” He drew in a breath. “He’s only one sorcerer, and he isn’t going to expel us for something like this. He can’t.”
“It still matters what he thinks,” she said, “and if he thinks this is your fault, then he’d better not say that in front of me, that’s all.”
“Why did you bring him, anyway?”
“I didn’t mean to. I asked for Mast
er Argent and he came along.”
“Did you go inside the Tower?”
She shook her head. “I waited at the door. Some servant answered and I asked him to fetch Master Argent. They both came down.”
The sorcerers had retreated from the tent and were now conferring with each other. Kip politely looked away while not-so-politely cupping his ears back to listen. He caught a tingle of peppermint oil in his nose again as a third voice joined the two older ones. After a moment, he recognized it as the voice of the demon from the gate.
“No person was being harmed,” it said, “so I didn’t stop it. I was under no orders to.”
“Did he capture the fox on the college grounds?”
“Nay. Brought it up the hill.”
“Did you see who was responsible?” Argent asked.
“Of course. Opened the gate for him.”
“And who was it?”
“Now, listen—” Patris said, but the demon was already responding.
“The stout young fellow from the town below.”
“Farley Broadside,” Argent said.
“Aye, perhaps.” The demon sounded bored now. “I’ve not had time to learn all their names. I know the fox and the otter and the girl, though. It was none of them.”
“It hardly seems worth—” Patris said, but again he was interrupted.
“The young man in tent number fifteen,” Argent said. “That was him?”
Kip heard a faint rush of air and felt movement against his whiskers. Then another movement, and the demon said, “Aye, that was him.”
“You’re dismissed,” Patris said.
A moment later, Emily said, “They’re coming back.”
“They know it was Farley,” Kip whispered, and cupped his ears forward.
The two sorcerers approached them. Patris cleared his throat. “While we attempt to determine who was responsible, we will provide you with another tent in which to sleep, if you would like.”
“It was Farley Broadside,” Kip said. “I smelled him on the tent flap.”
Argent began to speak, but the older sorcerer talked over him. “I’m sure you understand why we cannot accept your word for that. In the meantime—”
“I don’t understand it,” Emily said. “Kip’s not lying. What’s more, I think you know that.”
Patris jabbed a finger in her direction. “This is not your concern, and you will address me as ‘sir’ or ‘Head’ or you will be subject to discipline.”
“It is my concern,” Emily shot back, “because if something like this is allowed to happen without any punishment, then I am worried for my own safety, sir.”
“I don’t see why.” Patris waved a dismissive hand. “You’re not a Calatian.”
Emily gaped at this, and in the silence, Coppy said, “We’re goin’ down to the town to clean up our things.”
“But we would like another tent to sleep in.” Kip fixed Patris’s eyes. “We’re coming back.”
Emily walked down with them, saying she wanted to meet Kip’s mother, but Kip wondered if she preferred not to be left alone among the other candidates. He knew better than to voice that question, though she herself half-answered it with a short tirade as they left the college gates. “Not a Calatian! Not a Calatian!” she fumed. “Not to brush over the suffering of your people, but I don’t believe I can name a woman of my acquaintance who has not been berated, struck, or worse by a man over the course of her life, not to mention forced into undesirable marriages, ignored, pushed aside, taken advantage of…” She took a breath.
“Neither of us has ever done that,” Kip said.
The young woman sighed. “You are lovely people and I like you both. But you told me you’re engaged to a thirteen-year-old girl? Was that her choice?”
“She’s fourteen, but—she’s the only fox. It’s not exactly my choice either.”
“That doesn’t make it any more right for her.”
Kip shook his head. “But—“
Emily raised her hand and smiled. “I don’t wish to fight, Kip. I am more sensitive to marriages. Several of my Boston friends were married against their wishes—well, not against their wishes precisely, but without being consulted. They did not feel put upon. ‘It’s the way of the world,’ they’d say, ‘and I have a husband and will have children, so what have I to complain about?’ I know how the world works, and as I think about it, it’s bad luck you and your betrothed are caught by circumstance in a situation where there are no other choices for you.”
There were other male foxes of near-appropriate age in New Cambridge, but Kip thought he might save that information for a future time. Coppy took advantage of the break in the conversation to point down. “There’s the town hall,” he said, gesturing to the white wooden clock tower that gleamed in the moonlight. “And the church just ahead of us.”
The church’s steeple glowed pale against the dark night. “Our school was right behind the church,” Kip said.
“Did the humans go to the same church and school?” Emily looked up in between watching where she put her feet. She had removed her shoes, the better to pick her way down the dark road. Kip and Coppy, though they had not walked the hill often, saw more clearly in the dim light and walked with more confidence.
“Yes,” Kip said. “Church, not at the same time. You know about the school.”
“Oh, of course. Your story.” She exhaled and stepped forward, then glanced up again. “What’s that dark patch?”
“To the left? It’s where some of the Calatians live. We have good night vision and we don’t need lamps set about all over.” He pointed to the right, where smaller patches of dark spotted the streets. “We live over there, in the shops.”
“Some of us see better at night than others,” Coppy grumbled with a smile.
“It’s still very much a farming town, isn’t it?” They had descended far enough that the leafy maples now blocked the view of most of the town. In the day, the first yellow spots of fall would be visible, but now the trees were nothing but silver-limned shadows. “I mean, not that that’s a terrible thing. Boston is so built up, there are more shops than you can imagine.”
“And we have no lawyers,” Coppy put in.
“Indeed,” Emily said. “There’s another benefit.”
They reached the Founders Rest, the inn at the bottom of the hill, and walked in front of the plain stone church. Few people were about at this time of night and barely a breeze stirred the few leaves that had fallen onto the road. Kip could remember when he’d thought the church had been built for Calatians, before he understood that humans had separate services under the same roof. But he also remembered the moments of peace he’d found there, the sermons Father Gregory made to apply holy text to the Calatians and include them in the community.
Turning left onto the shop-lined Half-Moon Street, Kip pointed out their perfume shop, some six doors down. Like all of Half-Moon Street, it was quiet and dark, the glassy windows shimmering with moonlight. At the end of the street, a figure walked past, paused, and walked on; one of the Watch on his rounds. Kip felt pleased to be sure it was not Farley.
“You live above your shop?” Emily murmured as Kip led them to one side and around the back. She touched the wooden boards Kip had helped paint blue as a cub of twelve.
He pointed up. “I jumped out that window once. Twisted my ankle but didn’t break anything. I was trying to get into the Brocks’ backyard.” He nodded to the small yard next door. “Harley Brock bet I couldn’t.”
“Did you?”
He grinned and nodded. “I knew I could.”
He and Coppy left their bloodstained bags at the corner of the house before they approached the back door that led to their living quarters. It had only been five days since he’d seen the door, but he paused before it anyway, breathing in his family’s scent. And before he could reach out, his mother opened it, surprise creasing her brow over her narrow muzzle and amber eyes. “Kip? Coppy? We didn’t expect—oh, does this mean
—?”
Behind her, Kip’s father walked up, frowning. Kip shook his head quickly. “We haven’t heard officially yet.”
“But we like our chances,” Coppy chirped.
“I wanted to bring Emily down to meet you,” Kip said to his mother. “She’s become a true friend in a short time, and she’s helped us greatly.”
“We’re all finding the way more difficult due to our fortunes of birth,” Emily said. “I’m Emily Carswell. It’s a pleasure, Mrs. Penfold.”
The two ladies shook, and then Kip’s mother said, “Call me Ada. Come in, please, and do sit down.”
The three of them crowded upstairs past the kitchen into the small living-room with Kip’s parents, and Emily sat with Kip’s mother on the small sofa while Kip’s father took his armchair and Kip brought in two wooden chairs from the kitchen. Coppy sat down in one, but Kip stayed standing, his paws tight on the back of the chair. Urgency with all the news he had for his father thrummed in him, but courtesy restrained his tongue.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Emily said, “only I’ve never been in the home of a Calatian.”
“Of course,” Max said.
“The backs of the chairs are cut out for your tails, I suppose. Do you have them made in town or is there somewhere that sells them?”
Max smiled. “The Morgans make furniture.”
“And it smells delightful here. I suppose you use your own perfumes for the room?”
“Yes,” Ada said. “Max allows me to choose the fragrance, and we apply the scent to cloths like these.” She picked up a folded cloth from the bookshelf to her right.
The cloths also held the scent of the family members who handled them, but Kip didn’t feel like explaining that right now. “Dad,” he said, “can I talk to you about something in the back?”
His father nodded and rose without asking any questions. Coppy stayed behind as the two Penfolds walked out through the back door, and though Kip saw his mother’s flicking ears, Emily asked another question and their conversation kept going as he shut the back door behind him.