Frost Dancers: A Story of Hares

by Garry Kilworth

  The tractor-man was something like a shepherd. He was seen at least once or twice a week, and sometimes every day for long periods. He had an animal earthy way about him. The arable smell of silage and kale clung to his clothes, and his grizzled hoary chin and unkempt hair full of wayward seedlings made him a less artificial creature than most men. His coat and trousers were stained with the produce of the land. His fingernails had much of the country’s soil beneath them. Skelter felt that if the tractor-man stood still for more than a short period of time, grass would begin to grow in his seams.

  He was not a noisy man, but silent, contemplative, though without any great show of philosophic observance that hares sensed in some of the lonely walkers in and around the region. He was a creature carved from the flatlands, so much a part of the landscape that hares considered him pure flint and alluvium, with a coating of human skin. They had seen him pick a bluebell and inspect it with pride. They had watched him dust the chalk from his hands in satisfaction at the end of a day. They had witnessed his delight at a strawberry sunset, and sensed his inner peace as he tramped over the fields on a frosty morning to carry out his ministry and mission on the land.

  He was simply, the tractor-man.

  ‘What a noble visage has the hare,’ said Stigand one day, when the harvest was behind them all, and the land had settled once more into its gentle rhythms. ‘Such a classical profile. We otters have not the presentation of hares: their chiselled appearance and regal bearing!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Skelter, becoming embarrassed.

  The hare and the other were on the bank of the stream, idling away a passive noon.

  ‘You otters have such skill in the water. If you were my shape, you would probably be no good at swimming.’

  ‘That’s impeccably true,’ said Stigand with a sigh, ‘but those magnificent hind legs – you must be proud of them?’

  Skelter glanced at his powerful legs.

  ‘Well, that’s true, but you have your ruddershaped tail, which is also very powerful.’

  A head popped up from beneath the water and Sona, Stigand’s mate, was there before them.

  ‘Fisc!’ she said.

  Stigand glanced at Skelter. ‘I think I have to go fishing,’ he said.

  ‘Fisc!’ cried Sona.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Stigand wandered down to the water’s edge, ‘Ic cuman.’

  She disappeared beneath the surface, and immediately she was gone, Stigand wandered back to his spot in the sun.

  ‘She is wanting me to fashion a new holt soon, but these sunny days – ahhh, how can one think of work? I am an ancient otter, too old for these employments. Now, you were telling me of the great quest you must be undertaking with valour and stoutish heart. A quest to find the identity of the flying monster, yes? This is a very brave thing you do.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I’m going to do it yet.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so. This is such a formidable endeavour, I would myself be full of quakings. But you! You are the noble beast of the field. There is no fear that touches your heart and mind. Such courage is a grand thing, smallish hare from the highlands.’

  ‘Yes, grand,’ replied Skelter, not altogether as convinced of his own bravery as Stigand seemed to be. It was very difficult to talk to the otter about the mission, without feeling one would be letting him down if he did not carry it out in the end.

  He left the otter lying on his back, his belly warming in the sun, and went back to his form. Eyebright was out somewhere, feeding in one of her neighbour’s fields. She had said she was tired of mustard plants and wanted something different. There were lettuces to be had, and radishes, and onions – many other vegetables, more than enough for all.

  Skelter decided he had to talk to Jittie. He had not seen the hedgehog since he left her in the early summer, and now he had a need of her advice. It was time for a visit. If need be, he could stay the night, in his old form if it was still there.

  He set off over the fields at a reasonable pace, moving away from the river and travelling through territories of various hares, with whom he paused to pass a few words.

  Longrunner greeted him with, ‘I hear you’re going to fight the flogre for us.’

  ‘Fight it? No, no. Find out what it is, but not fight it. I’m only a hare, not a wildcat.’

  Longrunner looked disappointed. ‘Oh, misinformed again.’

  ‘Well, these things get distorted, and anyway I haven’t yet said I’m going to do it. I said I might.’

  Longrunner seemed to lose interest.

  ‘Oh, well, best of luck. You off to reconnoitre the church tower now?’

  ‘No, I’m visiting a friend.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The same sort of conversation was had with Headinthemist and Fleetofoot, who were sitting together in a field of stubble that had not been fired. They were arguing over a white pebble that the harvester had upturned with one of its wheels when Skelter arrived, but they seemed animated by his presence and wanted to know all about the mission he was on to destroy the flogre.

  By the time he left them Skelter had decided he did not want to run into any more hares. They disturbed him with their assumptions and he was feeling more than a little annoyed with moonhare and sunhare, who had obviously exaggerated what had passed between them and himself. He started to wonder what his old clan of Screesiders would say, if he told them he had volunteered to investigate the nest of a golden eagle. They would look at him as if he were mad.

  ‘Maybe I am mad?’ he asked himself, as he travelled alongside a ditch, to reach the five-barred gate. ‘I keep thinking that perhaps my experiences have made me braver, but in fact they’ve probably affected my brain.’

  As he was approaching the field in which Jittie’s old rabbit hole was located, he glanced up into the sky. The evening was coming in like a purple curtain, trailing across the flatlands from the horizon. There was a smudge of redness on the bruised-fruit face of the heavens, and as he stared a silhouette crossed this fading blush. Although a long way in the distance, Skelter knew it was the flogre. It was huge in comparison to the birds who were returning to their nests. It was like a great upturned boat with wings.

  Immediately Skelter began to shake with trepidation.

  How could he even think of visiting the den of this monster, when he could not view it from a great distance without trembling? It was impossible. The whole idea was out of the question. Jittie would confirm his fears.

  When he found Jittie’s hole, the nest was empty. No doubt she had gone on one of her wanderings. Skelter was disappointed and settled down where he was for an hour or two, not wishing to venture out into the deadly twilight.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Bubba was restless, shuffling through the bones of his victims that lay around the floor: femurs, skulls, mandibles, sternums, ribs, metatarsals. They rattled as he clawed through them, old and new bones, cluttering the floorboards of the ancient tower. There were probably more bones in the belfry than there were in the churchyard. Bubba was not happy. He always stirred the skeletons of former meals like this, when he was moody and depressed.

  Men had been in his room lately, to inspect the remnants of the rope that dangled from the bell. Bubba had vacated the tower, when he heard them ascending the stone spiral staircase, but he could smell where their hands had been. It worried him, that odour.

  What did these humans want in the nest of Bubba? Did they know he was there, or were they just carrying out some task of their own, which had nothing to do with him? Bubba decided that he must be wary of traps. Humans were strong on revenge, and if they suspected he had taken some of their pets – which of course he had – they might try to kill Bubba.

  That was all right: let them try. Bubba was ready to defend himself. But it was better not to precipitate these confrontations. Let them take their course.

  He shuffled around amongst the debris that covered the floor. The men must have seen them. What had they thought o
f the skeletons? It was obvious that the tower had not been visited for many years, that this was the first time those particular men had been in the belfry. It could be that they imagined the bones were old, the accumulation of many years of wild creatures using the tower as a home or refuge.

  Bubba went to the sill and took off into the darkening purple. He cruised high above the map of the peninsula, away from the deadly telephone poles with their invisible wires.

  The fields below him were the colour of wounds, darkening every moment. Night flowed from the ditches, down the winding lanes, out of the copses, spinneys and orchards. Bubba was leaving his tower later and later in the evening, until now he hunted when it was almost dark. This was not his preference but had been forced upon him by his prey, which had learned to make themselves scarce during twilight.

  Of all the creatures he hunted Bubba was most unhappy with the hares: they had somehow managed to dig themselves fortifications, which he could not breach. The only way he could catch them was to linger after dark and swoop on the first hare to leave its form. This was a very rare happening, for Bubba needed moonlight to see by and he was becoming frustrated by the dark nights when no moon shone.

  Bubba felt he should punish them. It was apparent to him that they had been taught unnatural ways by some creature they respected. It could not have been a rabbit, though that was the most logical choice, but Bubba had observed their doings from the tower, when he first moved in, and rabbits and hares went about their separate businesses without social contact with one another. They were not enemies, but they were not friends either.

  No, some newcomer was amongst the hares, and had brought foreign ways to them. So far Bubba had not been able to detect this creature, but he kept his orange eyes open for sight or sound of an unusual animal. When he found this individual, Bubba was going to rip out its heart.

  Bubba found a quirk of nature in himself. Now that he was being denied a kind of food that had previously been plentiful, even though at the time that food was not considered especially appetising, it had suddenly become a necessity of life. Bubba had not favoured the taste of hare over rabbit, duck, or even lamb, before those creatures had built their fortifications. Now however, he craved hare. Nothing seemed to match the flavour of hare. He could taste hare flesh in his dreams and woke with a longing on his tongue. It became increasingly obvious to him that hare flesh was essential to his diet, and that if he caught nothing else as the days passed he had to find hare.

  As he was cruising over the fields, in the last dying rays of the sun, he spotted a hare by a ditch. Bubba continued in his flight, not deviating by even a fraction, in order that he avoided the hare’s notice. Sudden moves attracted attention. It was Bubba’s observation that hares rarely looked up into the sky: they studied the hedgerows and ditches for foxes creeping up on them, were wary of holes which might contain rogue badgers, but the sky was not an area they regularly scanned for signs of danger.

  Of course, since Bubba had been on the scene, the hares were watching for him, but they were not trained observers of the skyscape. To the untrained eye of a hare, he would appear simply as a dark outline.

  However, to Bubba’s amazement and anger, this hare recognised who and what Bubba was almost as quickly as Bubba had seen the hare, for it had looked up and then immediately taken cover. It was as if the creature was habitually used to observing the skies, was vigilant, mindful of a need for intelligent examination of all overhead movement.

  To make matters worse, the hare had immediately taken refuge in a rabbit hole, instead of bolting in fright (like he was supposed to). A rabbit hole. Surely this was no ordinary hare? Yet, though the time had been short, Bubba had not noticed any substantial differences between this creature and other hares in the vicinity. A little smaller perhaps, but maybe it was a young one? There was something his keen sight had caught but which evaded his brain for the moment. His instincts were often ahead of his conscious thought, and he knew if he left it alone, and did not worry it to death, it would filter through to his intelligence in the end.

  He wheeled away, knowing that this strange hare who had the audacity to hide in rabbit holes – in itself very strange and disturbing behaviour and totally unharelike – was lost to him for the present. He would in future keep a sharp eye out for this creature.

  For this night, he had to be satisfied with a rabbit who ventured out of its burrow a little too early, possibly eager to get at the fresh grass before its fellows. Its greed had been its downfall.

  Bubba cruised towards the tower with his substitute prize for a longed-for hare, sliding silently down the black rays of night, to land on the sill of his tower. Once inside, he began to devour the still-warm creature, satisfying his hunger but not his craving.

  As he tore at the skin of the rabbit, around its silly dandelion fluffball of a tail, Bubba’s subliminal instincts suddenly connected with his conscious mind.

  Of course! That hare he had seen. When it had retreated down the rabbit hole, its tail had been in full view.

  There had been no black flash!

  This was obviously a new type of hare in the district, one that Bubba had never seen before, and this creature was a keen observer of the skies, knew how to protect itself against flying predators.

  Bubba brooded as he ripped at the rabbit and swallowed chunks of meat.

  This small hare, without doubt, was the creature who had been transforming the habits of the local hares. He sensed a boldness and a confidence in this creature which was lacking from the local population.

  This new hare would have to be dealt with. It would have to be hunted down without mercy and torn to pieces. The lord of the flatlands would not tolerate being thwarted, and his rule by the claw and hook was not to be questioned.

  —Tower, I shall destroy this upstart.

  —Of course, Bubba, for the hare has upset the delicate balance of nature and taught the locals unnatural skills.

  —Am I right to be angry, tower?

  —You are Bubba, and can be anything you like.

  —I can’t be a man.

  —In spirit you are a man.

  Bubba settled into the night, letting himself merge with the darkness of the tower, become one with the black stone.

  PART FOUR

  The Quest for the Flogre

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Autumn is a time which gives rise to hare unease, for it is the colour of foxes.

  When the leaves turned to russet hues, and were a perfect match for the colony’s main enemy in life, hares started at every turn, catching sight of their enemy out of the corner of their eyes, only to realise their mistake (or not, in certain cases) a moment later. It was not a happy state of affairs, to be constantly jittery, the heart jumping every few seconds into the throat.

  Their nervousness during this period fed on itself, transmitting signals to other creatures until everyone was creeping around, continually on edge, irritable, moody, and not at all sociable. They constantly looked to the auguries for comfort, told their troubles to the luminous honey fungus, and spoke with the harebells and the spirits of their ancestors.

  Not only was it a fox-coloured land, but hares regarded with disgust the untidiness of the season as it littered their beautifully clean fields with old leaves and dead blossoms, filling the nice straight furrows with mushy trash and clogging the ditches so that the water had no freedom of flow. They did not understand why the trees had to moult at all, especially just before winter. When other creatures were all growing thicker, longer coats, the trees got rid of theirs, ready to dance naked in the ice and snow and freezing winds. It just didn’t make any sense.

  Skelter was sitting in the corner of the meadow with Eyebright near him. There had been disturbing dreams, the day before, in which his ghost-hare had appeared to him. Skelter had decided these dreams were the result of autumn and the troubled times. When the air was thick with red and gold, the two colours of which he was most wary, was it any wonder he was fret
ting? Foxes and eagles. It was a good job that such creatures had not been painted brown and green, or hares would be nervous wrecks.

  He had not been able to contact Jittie, but had made up his mind about the mission. He wanted to stay with the colony: they were his family now.

  For some reason Eyebright was not pleased with him and again Skelter put it down to the fox-coloured land.

  Eyebright said, ‘So, you’re determined to go through with it?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  ‘How can you be “afraid so” when you’ve got a choice? Moonhare is just using you, you know. This information isn’t vital to the colony. Why don’t you reconsider? Stay here with me until the spring, then make a decision. What can a few months do?’

  Once Skelter had made up his mind on something, it was very hard to dislodge him. He was a highlander. His kind did not go lightly into something, but spent long hours in thought before making a decision. Once that decision was made, however, it was in there, firm as a buried rock.

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether I go now or later, the danger will be the same. I prefer to get it over with. You believe the flogre is a supernatural creature, I don’t, and I mean to prove I’m right. Once we find out what this creature really is we can work out more ways of defending ourselves from its attacks. I’ve seen a dark shape in the sky, but I mean to come back with a good description. It’s probably some kind of giant owl or something.’

  ‘Owl? That size? Don’t be ridiculous Skelter. The rabbits have ancient stories about eagle owls, which they claim preyed on them when they lived in another land, but they say the flogre is twice as large … oh, you’re so stubborn. Nothing I say is going to make any difference, is it?’