CONNOR SKULKED behind them—there was no other word for it. The men with clipboards asked old man MacKenzie questions and wrote things on a checklist. Well, one did. The other man seemed more interested in the lambs and ewes in the home paddock. The sheep huddled together in the far corner with lambs behind them. One ewe stamped her foot in protest.
“Feisty,” the man laughed.
“Domestic, but not totally domesticated,” Pa said. “They handle well, but are very protective of their young, as they should be. Neil, open the gate so we can have a closer look.”
Pa whistled. Bella and Tosh quickly separated a ewe and lamb and herded them through the open gate to the small yard.
Connor watched them inspect the sheep in ways he would not want to be inspected. He grimaced and Spencer laughed. “They have to see if she’d be good for breeding, I guess?”
“Isn’t her lamb proof of that?”
It was all a lot of bother for a bunch of sheep, Connor decided and sat on a nearby stump.
The inspectors seemed impressed, and Pa MacKenzie was smiling.
“Good,” he said. “Now let’s get a cold drink and go through what’s to be done.”
A copy of the checklist was given to Pa, and they went through it together over a couple of beers. The quality of the MacKenzie Cheviots couldn’t be faulted, but there were a few issues about the farm itself that needed further discussion. Connor sat with his legs dangling down over the edge of the veranda eavesdropping on the so-called necessary changes. It was near impossible to remain silent and each suggestion horrified him more than the last.
THE WORDS of the Cheviot breeder’s inspector spun round and round in his head: “You need to cull the foxes. Get the council to up the bounty… set traps….” It was bad enough with the shooting, but give them a reason and you’ll have every yob from the district tramping through the forest. Connor pressed his palms to his eyes. Mab has to hunt. Gran is too old and that just leaves Mab to find all the food. His sister was an exceptional hunter—better than him. She was always quieter and more patient, where Connor liked the pounce rather than stealth. His chest tightened and stomach hurt. They were his responsibility since Rob was hung on the tree.
Tears prickled.
I’ve let them down.
That bloody tree….
Connor’s hands balled into fists. Fox and furborn had hung from its branches for as long as he could remember. As a kit he was scolded with the curse, “Beware the tree” or if he’d been really naughty, which happened a lot when his teeth were coming in, “To the tree with you.” An icy shiver would run the length of his spine and his tail puffed to full brush. The tree was their nemesis even more than the farmers with their rifles and snares. Death was part of life, but to rot in the tree denied them their return to the earth. The threat was never uttered again after his mother swung from a high branch.
Connor didn’t know if the tree still stood or the lightning strike had achieved what he couldn’t. He’d ask Spencer in the morning. Spencer! He bolted up in bed jarring his leg in the process. Spencer took me home before, I could… I can’t ask him again. He’s a MacKenzie and the MacKenzies are sheep farmers. Connor stared at the dark glass of the window—both farm and forest hid behind his reflection. He grimaced. I’m better in fur.
In fur? He looked down at the pale skin and ginger hair of his immobilized leg. It wasn’t that pain was less intense in his fox self, but life in fur meant ignoring or more accurately, enduring the hurt.
It’s the only way.
He nodded and his dark reflection agreed.
His cast hit the floor with a thud. Connor froze. Various pitched snores echoed along the hallway. When none faltered in their rhythm he hobbled slowly to his door. If he took fur here his clothes would be safe in his room, but escaping the house would be a problem. Even if he somehow managed to open the door, the farm dogs were on the other side.
Skin it is.
Bridie trotted out of Emily’s room with a puppy grin and tail wag. Connor held a finger to his lips and she lowered her head to scurry toward him.
“You have to stay here and guard your family, little one,” he whispered and gently pushed her rump to the floor. “Good girl.” Her tiny tail swept the floor. She wriggled on her haunches but stayed put.
It was almost impossible to tiptoe in a cast, but Connor made it down the stairs without disturbing any of the sleeping MacKenzies. The two farm dogs were another story. Bella flattened her ears and emitted a low rumbling growl while Tosh stood at the ready by her shoulder.
“I am no threat to your family,” Connor whispered. The dogs didn’t back down and watched each tentative step toward the end of the veranda. When his feet touched the driveway, Bella snorted and moved to lie in front of the door. Tosh remained on his feet. They wouldn’t advance while he was in skin, but Connor knew they’d happily tear a fox apart. He blew a long breath and swung his crutches toward the shed where he’d be hidden from the farmhouse windows.
Changing to fur wasn’t the way humans imagined. Connor had witnessed the bone-crunching transformation to wolf in one of his few visits to his school’s media class. He’d chuckled at the close-ups of the actor screaming in agony while every bone in his hand shattered and reformed into misshapen paws. He’d groaned and slouched on his desk when the would-be wolf fell on all fours—spine popping and bulging through fake skin. No idea, Connor mused during the discussion of the director’s intentions for the scene. Words like evolution, retribution and the beast in everyone were bandied around, but all Connor wanted to say was bullshit! Change wasn’t painful. Why would it be? It was natural—nothing broke, nothing had to. His bones flowed into their other shape like stream water following its natural path. No pain. Just a heady sense of becoming.
Connor’s clothes pooled at his paws and he gingerly lifted his hind leg from the cast that had toppled to the ground.
Bella barked.
There was no way he could outrun the farm dogs on three legs even with a head start. He slunk along the wall of the shed, hiding in the moon shadow until he reached the track between the paddocks. It meant leaving his cover, but the dogs already knew he was there and wouldn’t leave their post on the veranda so long as he continued to travel away from the MacKenzies. Connor still ran as fast as he could on his three good legs past the startled city horses and on to the firebreak before the forest.
His forest.
His home.
The scent of humans and farm animals—especially the sheep—still tainted the air, but they gradually faded when he crossed the grass and entered the tree line. Eucalyptus, rotting leaf litter, and summer blooms enveloped him. Connor flopped down next to the broad trunk of an old gum tree. His tongue lolled pink and wet while he caught his breath in the layers of cast-off bark.
A possum scurried above him. He looked up and listened to its rustling path through the summer scorched leaves. It stopped. Are you listening for me too? Connor emitted a quiet chuff and grinned widely as only a fox can when it bolted farther up the tree. He pressed his face against the warm trunk to bask in the beat of the earth that flowed up from its roots.
This is where I belong.
Connor would stay in fur with Mab and May for as long as he could, but they—the MacKenzies—would look for him. The raven would ride the big horse into the forest and keep searching until he was found.
Spencer himself was another reason he’d return to skin.
He was different from the other teenagers at the hated school. Spencer didn’t tease him for being a Coutts, or tell him he didn’t belong in a normal school. Connor never retaliated because May had drilled her warnings into him from the first time he took skin. Walk among them unnoticed, she’d told him over and over until it was etched into his being. But the reality of being a Coutts regularly tested his resolve and frequently stretched it to the breaking point. His red hair didn’t help either. Spencer wouldn’t slam him into lockers or wallop the back of his head with a football—always an accident, of course.
Connor snorted and stood up. His hind leg trembled before his paw touched the ground. He tucked it close to his body and took a few tentative hops. White-light pain froze him and forced a yelp, but he couldn’t stop—he was furborn and his family needed him.
The going was frustratingly slow, even though he left the track and cut through the undergrowth, but the growing scent of his kind kept him moving. He heard Mab mere seconds before he saw her red figure at the edge of the clearing. He chuffed back and she bounded toward him. All pain was forgotten when his sister bounced around him and licked his face.
Home.
THEY WILL hunt for you.
Connor lowered his head to avoid his grandmother’s scrutiny.
He needed us and we need him, Mab tried, only to receive a sharp yip for her effort. She quickly retreated to her kits.
They will hunt you and find you here. They will not understand the fox with the broken leg is the boy they know and they will use their guns.
Connor raised his brow to glance at her. She was right of course, but he’d planned to be back before they even noticed he was gone.
A kit whimpered in its sleep, and May huffed. You are no more than a kit yourself Connor.
He shuffled closer, snuggled as much as he dared and May relented. She licked his face and crooned a sound reserved for the youngest of kits.
The sheepmen are hunting again. They are raising the bounty and no foxes are safe. The tree may not stand, but they will hang red bodies on another. I had to warn you.
Connor looked at Mab, who rested her chin on a squirming kit. Its half-open, unfocused eyes peered at him.
Have I been that long in the house of humans?
They grow fast and will soon need more than my milk. I must provide for them, hunters or not.
No! Connor stood shakily up. No, I will find a way.
Take care, young Connor. They will hunt you too, May warned him, but there was also permission in her words.
NIGHT HAD traversed the arc of the sky by the time Connor limped his way to the horse paddock. He collapsed onto the grass panting his pain. His strength was gone and his normally lithe body lay broken. If the dogs came now, he could offer no fight.
Grassy breath ruffled his fur, and Connor opened his eyes to a whiskery muzzle nibbling the grass beside him. The big chestnut had him in his sights, but still pulled at the grass near his snout only stopping for a moment when Connor raised his head. Rocky was wary but not afraid. You know me, don’t you? You carried me home with your raven. Most animals sensed the skin beneath the fur and the fur within the man—even the dogs, although that wouldn’t stop them killing fox or furborn.
Time to change.
Connor sighed.
The grass tickled his bare skin, and he reached up to run slender fingers over the dark muzzle.
“You’re not afraid of me, are you Rocky?”
The other horses wandered over to see, but only Peanuts the pony was brave enough to join Rocky at the fence—perhaps in hope of a carrot?
It took Connor a few attempts to haul himself to his feet. Puffy, fluid-filled skin encased his ankle and spread its sickly red up his leg. His fox self dealt with it, but bile rose in Connor’s throat, and he gripped tightly to the fence post.
Peanuts nibbled at his fingers searching for treats only to be pushed aside by Rocky.
“No sugar lumps tonight,” Connor murmured, and his pain-addled thoughts remembered the only book he chose to read at school. He knew nothing about the Russian Revolution and didn’t particularly care, but there was a message for him in Animal Farm that the writer probably hadn’t intended—the corruption of animals who chose to emulate humans. He’d asked May if it referred to furborn, but she shook her head at him and the book. Humans are strange creatures who squabble and fight over things that are not meant to be theirs. We’re not like them and do not want to be them. We are what we are and that is enough for us.
“We are what we are,” Connor whispered and began his painful journey back to the farmhouse.