THE LOUNGE room was in semidarkness. The heavy curtains were drawn with only a crack of light shining through. The room usually smelled of beeswax furniture polish and whatever flowers filled the crystal vase on the side table, but the musky smell of the fox was unmistakable and so was the sharpness of antiseptic. The sliver of light fell on the old whelping box but missed the tiny bundle in the corner.
She is so small, Connor thought looking down at his sister. He knelt as best he could beside the box and the pad of his fingertip stroked the length of the snout that peeped from beneath the blanket.
“She’ll start to wake up soon so try to keep it quiet,” Pa Mac said from the doorway. “Henry said he’ll come back tomorrow.”
The door clicked shut leaving the room very still. Connor heard the people outside and a car he assumed was Henry’s take off down the gravel drive. He watched fine dust particles float through the shaft of light and lifted his hand so they swirled around it. He was tired. Heart and soul tired.
“Here,” Spencer whispered. An overstuffed tapestry cushion was dropped on the floor beside the box and then another next to it.
“Thanks,” Connor mumbled and stretched out on the floor. Everything ached, but that was okay because he had Mab next to him.
“Um, I’ll go and see what’s happening and….”
“You don’t have to go.”
“I just thought, um, it might be better if I wasn’t here when Mab wakes up.”
Connor looked away from his sister and up at Spencer. “Why do you do that?” he asked.
Spencer picked at a fraying hole in the T-shirt. “Do what?” His tone wasn’t defensive, but it was getting there.
“Worry about being here with me.”
“I don’t… it’s just that….” Spencer sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “It’s okay when we’re alone, but….”
“But you don’t want your family to see us together. Humans can be really dumb at times. We love who we want and be with who we love.”
A weird expression crossed Spencer’s face—it was a cross between confusion and…. Connor didn’t know what?
“Yeah, but I’m not furborn,” he said quietly.
“No, you’re a raven.” Connor turned back to Mab and slid his hand beneath the blanket to hold her paw. The floorboards vibrated softly with light steps, and Spencer settled behind him.
The sun had moved higher in the sky when Connor was woken by a wet tongue tickling his fingertips. “Mab?” He whispered and hoisted himself onto his elbow. She pushed her face from under the blanket and looked at him. The bright mischievous spark was missing from her gentle brown eyes, but Connor reasoned she wasn’t quite awake yet. She whined softly and licked his hand again.
“I know,” Connor said. “You’re safe now, and you have to let yourself heal.”
Her pain touched his thoughts and so did her loss: her mate, her gran, and her babies—all gone. Mab shoved her head under Connor’s hand and lay quietly. He leaned closer and whispered promises that things will get better so long as she didn’t give up, even though he wasn’t sure how they could. He kissed her and tucked the blanket back around her. Mab closed her eyes.
Connor had no idea how he could come close to fulfilling his promise because his world no longer spun on the same axis. His family were all but gone, his house violated and…. Stop! He sat up. Furborn are stronger than this. Especially Coutts furborn, we don’t give in and we don’t give up. They were words Gran told him every time Connor whined, and he whined a lot. Too much time with humans, she’d say although he did notice that he got away with a whole lot more than Mab ever did. He was allowed to explore the forest and race along the firebreak where Mab was told to stay close to the cottage. Connor played at the edge of the farm watching the big horses, but even then he knew not to go near the sheep. He’d make up games of hiding in the longer grass near the fence posts and make little noises at the domesticated animals. The horses always knew he was there and tended to ignore him much to his chagrin, so he’d up the stakes and crawl on his belly into the paddock until the horses had had enough of his antics. Sometimes they’d charge at him only to veer off at the last minute, other times they’d stamped the ground with their heavy hoofs, and he’d feel the earth shudder beneath him. Connor would yip and jump but bolt to the safety of the forest just the same.
He never really understood why this world wasn’t open to Mab or why she was taught stealth and hunting skills that he learned bouncing around after mice. He understood now, though. Vixens had to be strong and smart to bear healthy kits and protect her family. Mab never complained, well hardly ever, because she knew that one day she would be the Coutts matriarch.
“Poor Mab,” Connor crooned softly. “You always knew, didn’t you? You always knew that you would have to take over from May in a world that had changed beyond our kind.”
Connor waited until she drifted off to sleep and settled on his cushion with Spencer snoring quietly beside him. I don’t know what to make of you, raven. I was raised to distrust those of skin and only skin. School reinforced that because I was different, and there seemed to be some teenage law against having red hair. What do they think of you at your school? Connor knew Spencer was an outcast just as much as he was. Maybe outcast is too strong for you? But you are different, and teenagers have a nose for that.
Mab whimpered and tried to get up on legs that would not obey. There was panic in her yelp, and her legs thrashed at the blanket.
“Mab, Mab, it’s okay,” Connor said quickly. He carefully held her still until she calmed and lay panting. “That’s it, Mab, you have to rest and get better. There is a whole world of furborn out there that we have to meet.”
Mab looked past Connor.
“I talked to one of them.” Spencer reached over him to touch the edge of the whelping box.
“Tell her about them,” Connor said and leaned back.
Spencer went through the strange meeting with the fox in the park and the Carlton Café. He described Duncan and his excitement that there were still furborn of the Coutts line in the country. Mab rested her chin on her paws. “I’m sorry, Mab, that was thoughtless of me,” Spencer apologized.
“It’s okay,” Connor muttered. He stroked Mab gently and told her to sleep. They sat like that for some time, back to chest and faces barely touching, but it couldn’t last. Connor tipped his head back and asked, “Want to help me up?”
They got up like old men and staggered through to the kitchen on legs that didn’t want to take them and heads that could barely control them.
“How’s the patient?” Joyce asked. She smiled at them, but it was a mechanical action. Her eyes gave away the tears shed and the fear she held for her granddaughter.
“She’s awake now,” Connor said.
“Any news…?” Spencer began, but tears welled before he could get out a single word more, and his nan pulled him into a hug. She reached out and dragged Connor in too.
“Can I join in?” Neil asked and flopped down on a chair that scraped the linoleum floor.
“You look like you need to,” Joyce said.
She released the boys and brushed down her apron. Nan’s security blanket, Spencer had told Connor once, and it must be true because he couldn’t remember a time in this kitchen when she didn’t have it on. It was the one thing that hadn’t changed.
“When was the last time you ate?” she asked Neil. “And you two must be hungry?”
Neil shook his head. “No thanks, Mum, but a coffee would help.”
“I suppose you two want coffee as well?”
Connor smiled at her in mock disgust and asked for a tea. Spencer did the same. He waited for Spencer’s dad to tease them with a snarky remark, but it didn’t come. Neil sat resting his head on his hand.
“What can I do to help, Dad?” Spencer asked and sat near him.
The muscles in Neil’s clenched jaw released some of the tension. “Not much you can do at this point, Spence. The search and rescue squad are in the area where they found her pack.”
“There are some people in the city who might be able to help,” Connor cautiously suggested.
“Thanks, Connor? But I’m sure—”
“No, Dad, really. They’re ah, kinda Connor’s family, so I bet they’d be good at tracking.”
“Family?” Neil queried.
“Distant family. I met one of them when I was in the city, but um, that’s a long story for later, okay?”
Neil nodded slowly. “It might be good for you to have some family around, Connor, and I guess we can’t say no to any help.”
A helicopter buzzed low over the farmhouse and the rotor blades rattled the tin roof as it passed. It was doing a good thing searching for the little MacKenzie, but Connor could still imagine Pa Mac cursing them for scaring the sheep.
“Come on,” Spencer said and tipped his head toward the door.
Pa Mac wasn’t shouting at the helicopter, in fact he was sitting quietly in his chair with Bella and Tosh at his feet.
I guess family are more important than his stupid sheep.
“Here,” Spencer said and handed him his phone. “This is a call you should make.”
Connor looked at the phone as if it would bite him. “I don’t know how to use this,” he said.
“I’ll call them, then give it to you, okay?”
Do I do this? Connor debated. Do I contact other furborn and lead them here? This is bigger than telling Spencer, this is…. Connor frowned. Gran isn’t here, and I can’t burden Mab so…. “Do it,” he said and took a deep breath.
Spencer quickly found Duncan’s number, pressed Call, and handed the phone over. It rang many times and each ring brought new reasons why he should hand the phone back. There was a click and a deep male voice said, “Hello? Is that you Spencer?”
Connor shook his head and said, “Um hello, I’m Connor Coutts.”