I managed to retrieve my bow and quiver without incident — luckily dad was home before me, and he had one of those snores that sounds like someone’s sawing through a salgar tree. Not long afterwards I met up with the girls behind the shed in Tabatha’s garden. Roland was probably still where I left him.

“You look a little worse for wear,” Carrie greeted. “Everything alright?”

“Just a little drama. Nothing major.”

“Ooh, what drama?” I know she meant to say ‘oh’, but she definitely said ‘ooh’.

“Nothing. It’s nothing.” I said, hoping it would shut her up but knowing it wouldn’t.

“But you just said there was drama.”

“Carrie!” Tabatha snapped.

Carrie changed tune without missing a beat. “I’m going to stop you there, Mel. I’m afraid there’s no time for your drama. We have important business to attend to.”

“You’re going to stop me?” Hopefully it sounded incredulous.

“Hush now, Mel. We’re here for Tabatha.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Mel!” Tabatha got me too.

With an enormous force of will, I let the matter drop. “Sorry, Tabatha. Alright, what do we do?”

Carrie and Tabatha exchanged a look, and then the former meekly said, “We thought you might know.”

Sometimes I wonder if people want to see me hang. “I have no idea why I would know any more or less than you two.”

“Yes, yes, I know. But we thought you might know.”

“What if I show you Piglet?” Tabatha suggested.

I threw up my arms. “Sure, whatever.”

Tabatha took us to an open shallow grave, where Piglet lay wrapped in a shroud fit for a saint. She carefully exhumed — or exfelined — the animal. Scarcely able to look herself, she peeled back the cover.

That was just plain not pretty.

This was going to be hard to forget.

“So, what do you think?”

“Well, I don’t think he’s getting back up.”

“Mel!”

“Sorry.” I wasn’t that sorry. “I’m not sure. Probably a wild animal. I think you were right about that.”

“Probably?” Carrie asked.

“I’m not sure.” But I was sure. Damnit, I was very sure. The trouble was, I couldn’t easily — read: unincriminatingly — explain how I was sure. I was going to have to find a way to justify what I already knew. “See here? That looks like bite marks, doesn’t it?”

All three of us looked where I was pointing, and not one of us could make sense of it.

“Oh, oh yes! Yes, I see!” Carrie lied. “So it was a wolf!”.

“The bite marks are too small. See that shape there? That kind of, uh, horseshoe shape? This was something smaller.”

“That bloody dog. I’m going to kill him!” Tabatha growled.

“No, not the dog. A little bit smaller than that,” I nudged.

“A mouse?” Carrie asked.

“Seriously? A mouse?” Anvil, people can test your patience. “A fox, damn it. It was a fox.”

“A fox!” Carrie’s eyes lit up.

Tabatha stood, a dark obelisk against the mottled sky, bow in hand. She was ready for murder. “Take me to him.”

“I’m not the best tracker,” I dutifully evaded.

Tabatha notched an arrow. “Mel, I am shooting something tonight.”

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I sighed. “Follow me.”

I made a quick round of the yard. Like our own it was effectively a large herb garden, separated from the more generous vegetable patches by a low, wooden fence. Those herbs would have been pungent to the most bunged-up, sniffly individual, but I was starting to suspect they smelt a lot stronger to me than they did to the others. It had snuck up on me, that one. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint when my sense of smell had improved, but I was certain I hadn’t always found being six strides from a sprig of fennel bloody intolerable.

“Anything?” Tabatha asked.

I stopped near a row of sage.

Tabatha nodded — this was where Piglet had died. The fox’s scent was especially strong here. It was an alien smell, but familiar; it was like getting the whiff of a meal you loved as a child. I led them out back, through a field in fallow, and up a small incline.

The grass became heathland here. We had to navigate errant shrubs of heather, milkberry and wild lavender before we reached the fox’s hideout, tucked away in a small patch of dwindling woodland. I held up a fist to halt the others — something I’d seen my dad do and thought probably meant something to somebody.

“I’ll go in and flush it out. You two be ready,” I said.

They nodded in my general direction, which was the first time I realised they couldn’t see as well as me. It seemed my night vision was improving as well. Of all the irritating afflictions my curse gave me, at least I could live perpetually in hiding with the knowledge that I was not likely to trip on my way back from the latrine.

I shuffled into the forest, one foot delicately in front of the other. My toe clipped a root and I stumbled.

“Are you kidding me?” I whispered to the Anvil and the Glade both. They could sort out amongst themselves which one that was for.

Just like that, I knew I was being watched. The fox had heard me. I felt it on my right. Low on my right. I instantly felt stupid; of course it was low. I had to get around it somehow. I needed to force it towards Tabatha — Carrie was a rubbish shot.

I began circling wide, and immediately felt it tense. The damn thing knew what I was doing. I was going to have to speed this up.

Hoping to give it a fright, I ran further into the woods, tramping and stamping and making all sorts of predatory noise. The fox didn’t bite, though. It also went deeper. There was no way it would let me scare it out into the open. Seems that wily reputation is well earned.

With the fox wise to my plan, I was just going to have to outpace it.

“Yeah, right,” I said to myself, and then frowned when I realised I wasn’t doing a terrible job.

The fox zig-zagged to lose me, and I matched its movements reasonably well. A couple of times it stopped, and once or twice it feinted a double-back, but the unfortunate beast hadn’t encountered a human like me before. I knew what it was up to. At all times, the whole time, without having seen it once, I knew where it was.

I’ve hunted my fair share — I’m a village girl, after all — but this was a new kind of buzz. I felt powerful. I felt in control. I felt like an Alpha.

I bit down on those feelings hard. Hunting is not sport. A living thing has to die tonight, and that’s not something to celebrate, even if the Anvil demands it. Get a grip on yourself, Mel. Focus.

Cunning enough not exhaust itself, the fox went to ground. It made an attempt to hide, but I suspected it was prepared to fight its way out if need be.

I approached with caution.

I found the vixen in a throng of whisperwhip bushes. It was deathly still, but hypervigilant. She knew she’d been spotted.

“You move like a fox,” it said as I was drawing my bowstring.

That gave me pause — not least because it conjured unfortunate images of Gracie McGail’s insufferable face. “Thanks, I guess.”

The only indication that it was surprised by my response was a quick flap of the ear. Other than that, it didn’t so much as blink. “Is this because of the duck?” she asked.

It’s hard to say why I answered, but it felt rude to ignore it. Killing it was one thing, but I couldn’t just blank it. “The cat, actually.”

She made a sound that was hallway between a groan and tut. “I had forgotten that you humans were so inexplicably attached to those creatures.”

“Yeah, afraid so. Not a fan myself.” I drew my arrow back until my thumb was against my cheek, but this was all starting to feel a bit too distasteful.

“The cat killed one of my young. Killed for sport, not food. I killed it to protect the others,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” I really didn’t have to ask. I could smell the funk of her. I could smell afterbirth, blood, urine, saliva. I could smell her kits were nearby, and I could even tell she was lactating. It was — for want of a better word — gross. Go druid power. Yay.

“You know,” she said with complete confidence.

The vixen moved for the first time, whipping her head towards the sound of crunching leaves. “The other hunters are coming.” She made to bolt.

“Don’t,” I said, tautening my bowstring to its limit.

“If you are going to let me go then you must do it now.” She looked me in the eyes; it was probably the most unnerving thing I’ve ever experienced. “Please. I only wanted to protect my young. That is nature.”

I had a fraction of a moment to reflect on the truth of this, in which I marvelled at how the inescapable truth of it made me sick to my stomach. Then she died.

Tabatha’s arrow shot true. The vixen dropped.

It was a quick, clean death. For some reason, I said that to myself a few times.

“Are you alright?” Tabatha asked. “I heard some commotion and thought you might have taken a tumble.”

“Good of you to check,” I said, coughing a weird croak out of my voice.

“Of course.” She stood over the fox, snorted once in satisfaction, and then collected her arrow. “Thanks for your help.”

“No problem,” I said, but she was already walking away. “Shouldn’t we bury it or something?” I said before I could come up with a reason why.

“Bury it? Why on earth would we do that?”

“What if it attracts wolves, or something?”

“Wolves.” She giggled. “You’ve gone as mad as Carrie. Come on. It’s not over until we sneak back to our rooms.”

Yet for some reason I wasn’t moving.

Tabatha eyed me. I was still looking at the fox. “Look,” she said, “there’s nothing to worry about. It’s far enough away from the village. If wolves do come then they certainly won’t bother us. It’s just one dead fox in the woods, Mel. That’s nature.” She smiled. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

I followed a dozen paces behind, careening into thickets I had so dexterously avoided not moments before. My limbs were tired, my lungs were raw, and I had every reason to be thinking about bed and my dishevelled little pillow. Yet, for some reason, all I could think was: “That’s nature.”