“Where’s Reynard got himself to, Rori? I ain’t seen him for days.”
There’s a waver in Ida-Belle’s voice as her question travels up the henhouse stairs, a straining to be casual. Her feet scuffle in the dust, sandals shifting back and forth with toes pointed in. Clouds of dirt lift, cling to her ankles, then settle like sighs on the ground.
“Answer to that will cost you.” Aurora’s response comes from within the whitewashed structure; it sails out the multi-paned windows on a wave of chicken giggles and clucks. A minute later the woman appears, apron-covered legs framed in the lower half of the screen door, head and torso indistinct in the shadows cast by the coop’s overhanging eaves. One stride short of emerging, she looks down the five wooden steps to where Ida-Belle waits.
“I got coin,” the girl says, fumbling for the cotton purse she wears slung over her shoulder. She’s just gone twenty-one but long hours in the woolshed have wizened an extra decade into her face. Her hands—one now lifted to shade her eyes from the glare reflecting off the tin roof, the other pressed flat against her belly—are pink and soft. Years of gathering, combing, and carding lanolin-rich fleece has left even the creases around her knuckles smooth.
“Bet you do.” Arms wrapped around a pail of feed, Aurora uses a hip to push open the door. Springs squeal as the hinges stretch wide to let her out; they recoil with a clatter of wood against wood.
“Call me batty,” she continues, clomping down the steps, “but I reckon you ain’t drove halfway across Napanee to talk about Rey.”
“No,” says Ida-Belle, eyes cast down. “I reckon not.”
Aurora shifts her grip on the pail, cradles its weight in her left arm. “Well, out with it then.”
“Jimmy’ll kill me if he finds out I came.” The girl’s voice trails off as she looks up, takes in the henhouse. The place is bigger than her cottage and twice as old. Foundations raised four feet off the ground, the weatherboard building tilts to the right. Its porch sprouts support pillars like dozens of running legs caught beneath its bulk in mid-stride. A brace of hares, necks slit and draining red, dangles over the railing just high enough to be out of predators’ reach. Garlands of bones and feathers, poppy heads and rosehips hang in rollercoaster loops from the eaves. To the left, a ramp sticks like a laddered tongue out a rooster-sized hole in the wall. Though a scrub brush and pail wait below the rainwater tank’s faucet, every horizontal surface remains speckled with bird shit.
“Ain’t no one forcing you to stay, girl. Get on with it, or get moving. My lasses have had themselves an upset this week; they sure as hell need my help if you don’t want it.”
“It’s just—” Ida-Belle pauses, begins again. “I can’t give you much in the way of payment, but I was hoping?” Her eyebrows and shoulders lift as she speaks, then slump as she sees the older woman’s stern expression. “I was hoping.”
Aurora sighs and puts down the pail. Straightening up, she wipes her hands on the back of her pants, then adjusts the fox’s tail tucked under the ribbon of her hat band. With a flick of the wrist, she sets its length drooping over the brim, its fur a striking contrast to the faded grey of her braids.
“Me and hope ain’t exactly seeing eye to eye these days.” She directs Ida-Belle to the Shaker-style rocking chair at the foot of the stairs. The girl perches on the edge of the seat, clutching her purse in her lap, close-lipped while Aurora continues. “That vixen blinds fools with promises then snatches them away just for kicks. Makes a person think she’s doing the right thing for her relationship when, in fact, she ain’t.”
“Oh.” Ida-Belle slouches under the weight of her disappointment. When she goes to stand, Aurora places a grimy hand on her shoulder to keep her seated.
“Quit your fluttering, Ida. If I had a mind to be rid of you, you’d already be gone.” From the way her client’s hands keep straying to her midriff, Aurora can see what it is the girl wants, why she’s here—but the words have to be said if the magic’s to work. “Get your thoughts in order, once and for all, then talk loud enough for my lasses to hear you. Nice and clear, mind; none of this faffing about hope.”
Ida-Belle takes a deep breath, exhales as she settles back into the chair. “Me and Jimmy’s been married nigh on six months now.”
Aurora keeps quiet as she waits for the girl to go on. The silence lengthens, broken only by the chickens’ chattering and cooing, and the steady creak of cicadas conversing in the cornfields. Aurora searches through her apron pockets for a pipe and some leaf. Finding both, she presses a thumb’s worth of tobacco into the bowl, clenches the stem between her teeth as she rummages around for a match.
“My friend Loretta said you helped her out once—” Ida-Belle’s face reddens. “She said you could see the future.” Aurora lifts an eyebrow, puffs her pipe to life, neither confirming nor denying the girl’s implicit question.
“I know it sounds crazy,” Ida-Belle says, “but ever since she came here Loretta ain’t had to face a single one of her mother-in-law’s visits. Even the ones what weren’t planned ahead! And when I asked how she got so lucky, always being out when Gerdie comes ’round to piss her off or tell her how to run her own household, Loretta showed me the little calendar you gave her—the one what’s got a bunch of dates and times written on it, starting from the day she came here and running well into the next five years.”
For the first time, Ida-Belle looks Aurora straight in the eye. “She wouldn’t tell me how you done it, Rori. Only that you done it.”
Aurora doesn’t smile, even though she’s glad to hear her previous clients continue to remain discreet in advertising her wares. Wouldn’t do no-one good to have the whole town flocking to her for answers whenever they got too lazy to do things the hard way. Ain’t time for that, far as she’s concerned.
Head wreathed in blue smoke, she leans against the elevated porch and gives Ida-Belle no more encouragement than a simple, “Uh-huh. And?”
Visibly steeling herself, the girl says, “I need to get knocked up, quick.”
Aurora nods, head bobbing to a familiar tune.
“Six months we’ve been married, Rori. Six months and so much fucking my nethers is rubbed raw—and still. Nothing.” She leans her head back, watches a sparrow flit from the henhouse roof to the chimney of Aurora’s cabin on the opposite side of the yard. Her lower lids well with tears. “Jimmy’s been eyeing that skank from the Buy ’n’ Save all winter. I reckon if I don’t give him some reason to stick around, he’ll be gone before shearing time.”
Aurora takes the pipe from her mouth, flips it and taps it on the edge of the porch. Soft clumps of ash drop to the ground as she asks, “So which do you want to know? If you’ll be pumping out wee ones soon, or if you’re going to lose Jimmy? We can only cover one thing at a time.”
Tears spill onto Ida-Belle’s pale cheeks. “Babies,” she whispers, while twisting the ring with its tiny zirconium stone, spinning it around and around her wedding finger. Aurora looks down at her own left hand; still surprised, even after a week, to see the bright white space where her own band of gold used to be. She clears her throat.
“You do realize there’s only so much we can do?”
Ida-Belle smiles through her tears, thoughts of Loretta’s success making her deaf to the older woman’s caveats. “Anything’s better than nothing.”
“Fine.” Aurora pockets her pipe and heads for the stairs. “Stay here. A few minutes and we’ll have you an answer.”
Aurora’s chickens would never be satisfied with a standard coop.
Stacks of cramped aluminium boxes, barely large enough to accommodate a hatchling much less a brooding hen, definitely wouldn’t suit them; nor would short plywood walls, so low they’d force their keeper to slouch while visiting her charges; nor wire mesh ceilings or floor-level apertures of the sort typically knocked together to aerate, and confine, egg-laying chooks.
Aurora’s lasses wouldn’t have a bar of that. They perch on overstuffed cushions; each nestled securely on mahogany bookshelves stretching well over forty feet to the rafters of the house’s double-peaked roof. They are hand-fed three times daily, given heaters when the seasons turn cold, and special treats on their birthdays. Unlike ordinary hens, Aurora’s tiny oracles smile, snack and lay their fortunes in comfort.
When she enters the henhouse, the gabble of voices crescendos in fear; the racket ebbs once the chickens recognize Aurora’s shape silhouetted against the screen. Hanging on the wall next to the door, an enormous blackboard gives the names and shelf numbers for every bird in the coop: fourteen hundred and seventy-six clairvoyant biddies—one for all but two of Napanee’s townsfolk. Enough warm light streams in to illuminate the handwritten list, but it isn’t bright enough to hurt the lasses’ sensitive eyes.
Scanning the columns of names, Aurora mutters, “Ida-Belle Caplin . . . Ida-Belle . . .” and wishes, not for the first time, that she’d had the presence of mind to house the girls in alphabetical order. Sixteen rows down, she sees what’s left of her own entry. Aurora Jenkins, Q42. She glosses over it when she notices Ida-Belle’s berth is P43.
Damn you, Rey, she thinks. She’s steered clear of Minnie’s roost all week; now there’s nothing she can do but try not to stare at it while she negotiates with Ida-Belle’s hen. Double-checking the supply of Tic Tacs she keeps in her top apron pocket, and hooking a pouchful of dry-roasted seed to her belt, Aurora weaves her way between bookshelves to reach the far side of the room.
The oracles generally pay her comings and goings little mind, unless she’s got riddles for them to solve. But this week they’re bursting with questions, most concerning Reynard. Every third step or so she’s forced to stop, kiss their baby-smooth cheeks, stroke the bridges of their button noses, and reassure them that he won’t be back any time soon. Although her caresses calm them, her words sound hollow. She knows it’ll only be a matter of minutes before they forget and get anxious again.
Their far-seeing skills are flawless—except when the future involves that trickster she’s called husband for twenty-five years.
“Excuse me, Miss Rori?” A tiny voice chirps at her as she passes aisle G. She stops and looks up to the top shelf, into the pale green eyes of an ancient Plymouth Rock lass. The oracle’s plumage is patterned like black and white tweed, each feather neatly groomed despite the bird’s age; her face a perfect replica of old widow McGeary’s, the crone who’d just celebrated her eighty-fifth winter.
“What can I do for you, Valma?” The hen tut-tuts at being addressed so informally—she prefers to be called Madam. She wrinkles her coffee-coloured face into a grimace; her wide lips shrivel into a frown. A red pillbox hat slips down her forehead until her arched eyebrows are hidden beneath its decorative veil. She leans over to scold Aurora.
“Rape!” The word shrills out of the hen’s throat, then is clipped short in a panicked bu-gock. “Those gold demons you let loose in this place keep making advances, trying to have their filthy way with me while I’m asleep. I feel them pecking at me—peck, peck, pecking all night! I just know they’re aching to get beneath my frillies.”
“Oh, Valma,” Aurora says, her tone exhausted. “I thought we dealt with this already. The roosters can’t reach you all the way up there, hun. That’s why we moved you, remember?”
“I ain’t so sure about that, Miss Rori. I see them eyeing me all day, just waiting for me to nod off. No matter how high I fly above their heads to show they can’t have me, they keeping coming back. The perverts.”
Aurora sighs. None of her sibyls can fly—in that way they’re no different from bird-faced chooks. And the roosters are just that: roosters. It’s their nature to be curious; they don’t know any better. A pair of twin Brahma hens to Valma’s right, one girl and one boy, start giggling at the oracle’s rant. Their near-identical faces, accentuated by tufts of herringbone feathers, are both at least half a century away from her kind of senility. To the aged hen’s left, a New Hampshire brown studiously avoids Aurora’s gaze. She gently shifts her bulk to hide a long, sharp piece of straw sitting next to her pillow.
“Stop crowding me!” Valma squawks. The twins’ laughter redoubles.
“Be quiet, the lot of you.” Aurora reaches up, snatches the straw, lifts the heavy brown lass back onto her cushion. “You been using this to torment Val while she’s sleeping, Jolene?”
“She snores like the devil,” the oracle announces, head tilted at a haughty angle. “It’s the only way to shut her up.” The twins nod their agreement, clucking, “It’s true, it’s true!”
“You’re a pain in my backside, that’s what you kids are.” Aurora turns back to Valma and says, “Open wide,” then tucks a mint beneath the old woman’s tongue—both to still her complaints and to reward her for putting up with the other chooks’ crap. Ignoring the jealous looks Jolene and the twins shoot her way, Valma hums with satisfaction.
“I ain’t got time for this now,” Aurora says. “But I will deal with you—mark my words.”
It’s enough to have Rey stirring shit in here, she thinks as she walks away. Without the seers getting in on the pranks as well.
H, I, J, K—there’s a gap in the rows, a small crossroads separating the double-digits on the left from the triple on the right, bookshelves and chooks on all four sides lit by a series of crazed skylights above—L, M, N, O . . . Aurora’s pace slows. She passes through mote-filled beams of light, reluctantly moving into the shadows beyond.
The space where Minnie used to sit is still littered with ragged feathers. A lavender-scented blanket lies twisted like a snarl across the cushion. Red is splashed on both where the other lasses had drawn blood defending their shelfmate. Even now the air stinks of fear, smeared straw, and gore.
“Calm down, ladies, gents,” Aurora says, barely audible above the oracles’ shouts.
“It ain’t fair, Rori—”
“—where’s my goddamn bird? What’s my future?”
“Hush now,” Aurora urges. The hens keep yelling, their scratchy voices repeating the argument she and Reynard had had in front of them last week.
“I can’t take it no more, this bird telling you secrets—”
“—shitting out eggs filled with god-knows-what each week—”
“—unnatural stuff what keeps you looking like you was twenty-five—”
“That’s enough,” Aurora says.
“Stay away from her, Rey—”
“—put her down!”
Minnie’s neighbours lunge at her vacant pillow, as if Reynard were still trying to throttle her. Meanwhile, the lasses on higher and lower shelves mimic the trickster’s pleas, his accusations.
“—you said you’d stopped using!
“—and I ain’t got no magic yolk to keep me fresh—”
“Enough,” Aurora repeats.
“—I share my magics with you all the time, but things ain’t even between us—”
“—ain’t my fault I’m different from you—”
“—Am I even in that future she shows you?”
“Shut up!” Aurora’s chest heaves, her pulse races. That’s twice now she’s lost her temper in this very spot; twice her words have brought the bickering to a halt. Life ain’t even, she’d hollered a week earlier, walloping her husband’s pointed ear. The blow had saved Minnie, but not before the prophet’s little face had turned blue, neck purple from the crush of Reynard’s frustration.
It took a sedative tablet to keep the oracle from flapping herself into an early grave; a lavender-scented blanket draped over her shivering body had helped soothe her into a doze. Such measures wouldn’t cut it now. Faced with several dozen anxious birds, Aurora’s patience is stretched. “I don’t want to hear any more of that talk, you got me? Either look forward like you’re meant to, or shut the fuck up.”
Apart from a few sniffles, a couple squeaks of dismay, the hens do as they’re told. Hands shaking, Aurora reaches up to wipe tears away from P43’s blue eyes. The chick’s nose is red from crying, its tip curved exactly like Ida-Belle’s.
“It’s all right.” She pushes damp feathers away from the white Delaware’s freckled cheek, adjusts the red coronet so that it sits straight on her head. “Everything’s okay.” She offers two Tic Tacs; the chook gobbles them up. Holding a third just out of the hen’s reach she asks, “What’s your name, hun?”
“Ellie.”
Aurora pops the mint into Ellie’s mouth. “Good girl,” she says, tracing the grey barring on the ends of the bird’s hackles, wings and tail with a finger. Smoothing the feathers down; settling the hen’s nerves along with her own. “Did you hear what Ida-Belle needs?”
Ellie says, “I think so,” but her expression is uncertain. Aurora takes another mint, places it in the flat of her palm.
“The girl wants babies. Will she have them?”
The oracle licks her lips, looks up like she’s consulting the heavens, though her gaze has turned inward. A moment passes, then with a confident, single nod she says, “Yes. Sure will.”
As if on cue, the instant Ellie’s prediction is voiced the other oracles begin gossiping about her technique; critiquing her accuracy; commenting on how much better they would have done in her place. Aurora rewards the young lass with another sweet; waits until she has stopped crunching it before asking, “Any chance you can give her something to speed it along?”
Big smile. “I reckon.”
Ellie inches her hindquarters over the back of her green pillow, which is heavily speckled with white. Throat vibrating with the force of her clucks, face crimson, pearl teeth making semi-circular dents in her full lower lip, the oracle pushes.
Grunts.
Pushes.
A throat-tearing squawk. A sound like a marble rolling across a wooden table. Sweat beads Ellie’s forehead. Her colouring returns to normal and her breathing steadies. She grins sheepishly as Aurora reaches beneath tail feathers to poke around through the straw and moult. Pride gilds her features as she sees what Aurora digs up.
A bright red egg, displaying Ida-Belle’s name in silver cursive, sits large and shiny in the cradle of Aurora’s hands. Congratulations roar out from all sides, deafening, as the oracles in rows P and Q compliment Ellie on her first delivery.
“You’re in luck.” Aurora places the egg, still warm, onto Ida-Belle’s lap. “She was feeling talkative.”
Confusion creases the girl’s brow. She picks up the egg, turns it over. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
The older woman lights her pipe, takes a long pull. Sweet smoke fills her mouth and drifts out her nose, temporarily replacing the lingering scent of fowl. She lifts her hat to wipe the sweat and feathers clinging to her forehead and says, “What do you think? Crack it.”
“D’you got a bowl or something I can drop the yolk into?”
Aurora shakes her head. “Just crack it as is, Ida. On your knee.”
Ida-Belle is only half-successful at keeping the sneer from her lips. She looks down at the egg, then at the clean culottes she put on special for her visit to Aurora’s. Such a clever design—she’d stitched them herself. Grey cotton patterned with orange and red pansies, they look like smart pants when she’s sitting, and a skirt when she’s standing. But they won’t look nowhere near as stylish with yolk dribbled all over.
Hesitant at first, then more forceful when she sees how tough the shell is, Ida-Belle strikes the egg against her kneecap. With a crunch, fractures appear across its red surface, spreading out from a circular indent. She digs her thumbs in, waits for the white to ooze out. Her hands remain dry. Small fragments break off as she splits the shell in two; it separates with a sound of twigs snapping, and releases its furry contents onto her lap without mess.
Three miniature bunnies, perfectly proportioned, each one no bigger than a lamb’s eye. All white with beige patches, velvet ears, and pink noses twitching, they roll across Ida-Belle’s thighs and snuggle into the warm space where her legs press together. Blinking, they look up at her; sprigs of parsley, chives and garlic tied like bows around their necks.
“Good work, Ellie.” Aurora’s voice startles Ida-Belle from her inspection of the rabbits. “You got three chances to get it right, thanks to your generous lass. Now, tell me. How does Jimmy like his stew? Beef? Lamb? What’s his favourite?”
“Lamb’s cheapest,” Ida-Belle says, slowly.
“Of course,” Aurora says. “You got some ready for cooking back home?”
Ida-Belle nods.
“Good. Seems clear what you’re meant to do.” Aurora picks up one of the bunnies, raises it to the level of her eyes, tries not to think of it in a roasting pan. It stares back at her blankly. “You gots to pop one of these here baby-makers in with your dinner tonight—Jimmy like chives and ’taters with his meat?”
Again, Ida-Belle nods.
“All right then, use this one first.” Aurora reunites the chive-necked bunny with its brothers, places a hand on Ida-Belle’s shoulder. “Chop him up good and small so’s Jimmy won’t notice it. That’s real important: it’s got to be kept secret, you hear? This ain’t nobody’s business but yours.”
“Yeah, all right—”
“And don’t go spilling to Loretta, neither.” Aurora gives Ida-Belle a hard look, gestures for her to stand up. She collects the eggshells for compost, and helps the girl tuck the rabbits into her purse. As Aurora walks her client to her truck, she gives final instructions. “Some magics is quieter than others, and this here’s one of them. Understand? You keep them creatures out of sight until it’s time they get ate. Like I said, you gots three chances—your lassie said you’ve got babies coming, and this here’s how you’re going to get them. All right?”
“So we just gots to eat them? That’s it?” Ida-Belle turns to unlock the car door, keeping her back to Aurora to hide the hope shining in her eyes.
“That’s it.”
“Thanks, Rori.” The girl spins on her heel, flings her arms around Aurora’s shoulders, then quickly steps back for fear of crushing the bunnies. Her face is flushed. “How much do I owe you?”
With a sniff, Aurora considers the collection of boxes stacked in the tray of Ida-Belle’s pickup while the girl digs into her purse for some money. “How’s business going with that lot?”
Ida-Belle looks up, sees what’s caught Aurora’s attention. “Buy ’n’ Save’s just ordered another two crates—they say ladies drive all the way from Overton to get our creams. Can you believe it?” She burrows beneath the trio of rabbits, snags another two-dollar coin.
“Do they really work?” Aurora wonders if lanolin by-products will smooth her face as well as the pure stuff does Ida-Belle’s hands; if they’ll be even half as effective as Minnie’s fortunes.
“Well, I ain’t going to shit you, Rori. Not after today.” Ida-Belle reaches into the cab, opens a box and pulls out a jar of homemade moisturiser. “You gots to use a fuckload of it to see results—but, yeah. I ain’t heard no complaints.”
Ida-Belle offers a handful of change, all she can muster from the bottom of her handbag.
“Keep your money,” Aurora says. “Give me a couple jars of that night cream you got there, and maybe some of that SPF stuff too. However many you think’s fair for a bellyful of wee ones.”
Buy ’n’ Save’s order is one carton lighter when Ida-Belle’s truck backs down the gravel driveway. Aurora rests the box on the ground, straightens to wave goodbye. Halfway up, she comes eye-to-eye with a fox poking his scruffy head out of the long grass across the lane.
Aurora’s heart leaps.
She’s so glad to see he’s back again, that he’s still okay, she takes an eager step forward—but is brought up short by the box at her feet. Happiness turns sour as she takes in what he’s reduced her to. Using products to replicate the youth Minnie gave her every week; the clear skin, the deep auburn curls. She snorts. Next she’ll be relying on chemicals to dye her hair! It just ain’t natural.
Hefting the carton, Aurora spits in the fox’s direction. Heart pounding, she snaps, “Bugger off!” The tail dangling from her hatband bobs in time with her retreating steps as she makes her way up the drive, trying to appear unruffled as she enters her lonely cabin.
In the brush, the fox yips after her. He waits a moment, but she doesn’t give him a second glance. Reluctantly, he slinks out of sight, convinced that progress had been made.
Yesterday she wouldn’t even talk to him.
“C’mere, Rori,” Reynard had called from the kitchen. “I got a surprise for you.”
“Just a minute,” she’d replied, rinsing the rest of the soapsuds out of her thick red hair, scowling to find strands of grey. The water scalded, filled the bathroom with steam. She’d stood under the shower until she could hardly bear the heat any longer. She’d hoped it would wash away the guilt that had clung to her since she’d lashed out at Reynard that afternoon, guilt that even a three-hour walk into town and back hadn’t alleviated. Hoped he’d forget about their fight, and what caused it. Hoped they’d be okay. Her skin reddened.
Faucets squeaked into the off position. Aurora had grabbed her plaid housecoat, wrapped it around herself, tied it. Her feet left wet prints on the scrubbed wood floor as she collected the pile of clothes she’d shed on the bathmat. She’d looked at the closed bathroom door, hesitated.
“I’ll just be a second, hun,” she’d said, crouching down to open the cabinet beneath the sink. Shifting spare rolls of toilet paper, boxes of tampons and half-empty bottles of mouthwash and shampoo, Aurora had reached all the way to the back to grab a quilted makeup bag—one Reynard thought was filled with cotton balls. Sitting back on her haunches, she’d unzipped it; released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding until the tension in her lungs eased.
A deep blue egg, her name inscribed bronze in its thick shell, sat perfect and whole at the bottom of the case. She’d saved it for two days.
Despite what Reynard thinks, Aurora thought, I have been trying to cut back on taking Minnie’s fortunes. I really have.
But today had been too much to cope with; the new shoots of grey in her hair were proof enough of that. Muffling the sound with a washcloth, she’d gently tapped the egg against the basin, spinning it deftly between her fingers.
Tricksters like him have their own ways of dealing with things. Aurora shook her head. Not that it mattered. So far, the fates simply hadn’t laid a Reynard-faced chook in her coop. There was nothing she could do about that.
A piece of shell flaked off, landed silently in the sink. Aurora snapped away shard after shard, until only the base of the egg remained. Perched in its curve was a three-tiered fountain, decorated with peacocks, ferns, and doves. At the very top, a nymph balanced on the tip of a finial, her arms stretched to the sky. From each of her fingertips, a jet of water arced into the air then collected in a pool at the bottom of the shell.
Aurora had leaned into the spray, dousing her face with its rejuvenating waters. She’d felt the skin tightening around her eyes, the laugh-lines smoothing from her cheeks, the shrivel of her lips puckering, the sag of her chin straightening. Wiping steam from the mirror, Aurora looked at her youthful features. Satisfied, she raised the fountain in silent salute to Minnie, then tilted her head back and drank it dry. By the time she’d towelled her hair, the troublesome greys had disappeared.
“Close your eyes,” Reynard had said, when she’d stepped out of the bathroom. Actions following words, he’d swept her into his arms, used his furry hands as a blindfold, then danced her in the dark across the kitchen.
She’d smelled the feast long before she’d seen it. Aromas of roasted onion and garlic, fresh bread and warm butter, gravy and boiled potatoes; the scent of wine mulling with spices; an apple pie cooling on the counter—all combined to make her heart lift, and to curve her mouth into a smile.
“Ta-da!” Reynard unveiled his surprise, arms flung wide. Tears had sprung to Aurora’s eyes as she’d taken in the spread laid out before her. Reynard had set the table with their finest crockery—most of the plates and bowls actually matched. Her grandmother’s silver cutlery lined the place settings, arranged just the way Aurora liked it. Casserole dishes heaped with food covered the table, so many it was hard to see the fine linen cloth beneath. Occupying the place of honour, in the centre, was a roasting pan covered with aluminium foil. Aurora’s smile had widened.
Reynard only wooed her with treats like this when he wanted to apologize.
“Thanks,” she’d whispered, sliding her arm around her husband’s waist. Unlike her, he’d dressed up for the occasion: a sport-coat over his denim shirt, ears tucked beneath slicked-back hair, and sideburns plastered down with so much pomade he almost looked tame. Only his tail hung free, swinging out beneath the rough hem of his jacket.
She’d kissed him, scratched her nails up and down his back until he purred. Giggling, she’d said, “Why don’t you shift into something more comfortable?”
Reynard chuckled and licked her cheek. Soon his nose lengthened, as did his ears. Rusty fur spread from the top of his head across every inch of his skin. His limbs retracted, leaving a puddle of clothes around his black paws. Lifting his head to look up at Aurora, he leapt onto one of the kitchen chairs and yipped in delight. Instantly, night replaced day. “Take a seat,” he’d instructed, humming the moon into the sky, frosting the room with its blue light.
“For you,” he’d said, and pulled the aluminium foil off the roast with his teeth. “Carve it up, love.”
“With pleasure,” Aurora had replied, reaching for the carving knife.
Her hand froze in midair. Looking up at her, amid a bed of garnish, was her own face in miniature. Minnie’s face; body plucked and stuffed, basted and glazed with spiced butter.
Aurora had sat, paralysed, staring at her oracle while Reynard stood, muscles tense, staring at his wife.
Outside, a rooster hopped onto the sill of the kitchen window, pecked at his reflection in the glass. The sound fractured the silence, the shock that had held Aurora in thrall. Springing to action, she’d snatched the knife and, so quick as to have been done without thinking, brought it whistling down on the tabletop.
Separating Reynard from his tail.
There was barking then, and shouting. Neither had run as long as the thin ribbon of blood that followed the fox out the front door. Neither had hurt as much as the wedding ring being torn from Aurora’s finger. Neither would be harder to forget than the corpse of her future lying cold on their Wedgwood platter.
The telephone jangles Aurora awake.
It takes her a minute to get her bearings. Images of Reynard’s betrayal slip like a veil from her mind. It’s morning, she tells herself, and bright. The disgusting smell of roasted chicken fades, replaced by the scent of clean sheets. Echoes of her husband’s nightly howling—his skulking below their bedroom window, snuffling and whimpering for forgiveness—are drowned out by the phone’s insistent ringing.
The tightness in her chest gets sharper as she reaches for the cordless receiver, rolling over the pillows stuffed in Reynard’s side of the bed. Poor imitations of his absent form. Pillows don’t throw their arms around her at night, don’t wake her with a hot tail pressed against her backside. They don’t make her feel safe.
Her throat constricts. They also don’t murder innocent lasses for jealousy.
“Rori?”
“Yeah.”
“Rori, it’s Ida-Belle. You gotta help me.” Her voice is pitched so high it could scrape paint off the ceiling.
“Just chop that rabbit up nice and small. Jimmy won’t notice a thing.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I done it already—and now I’m a fucking blimp! Ain’t no way even a fool like Jim won’t notice this. What am I supposed to do? He’s going to think I cheated on him, ain’t he? No way this thing in my guts is a one-day-old kid. I look like I’m ready to pop!”
“Hang on a sec, Ida.” Aurora sits up in bed, swings her legs over the side. “When did you eat that stew?”
“Jimmy takes supper at five.”
Aurora looks at the clock. Seven in the morning. Either Ellie’s got some powerful magics in her eggs, or else Ida-Belle is skimping on the truth. “Any way you might’ve ate more than your share of that rabbit? Did Jim get any at all?”
Silence.
“Out with it, girl.”
“Well,” Ida-Belle begins, “I really wanted to make sure it’d work, right?”
“Uh-huh . . .”
“So I started chopping up that first little bunny, and it were so much easier than I thought, so I said to myself, “If one’s good, don’t you reckon all three’ll be even better?” And—”
“And you put all of your chances into the stew. At once.”
Ida-Belle sniffles, her voice thick with tears. “Am I going to die?”
Aurora shoulders the receiver, pulls on a pair of jeans, tucks in the shirt she slept in. “No,” she says, taking her apron from the hook on the back of the bedroom door. She slips it around her neck. “You ain’t going to die.”
“But what am I going to do?”
“Quit your blubbering, for one thing.” Aurora gives the girl a chance to control herself. Grabs her fox-tail hat, plunges it onto her head. “I’ll have a word with the chooks, see what they’ve got to say about this situation. But if I was to have a guess, I’d say you should make way for triplets.”
“Oh God . . .” Ida-Belle’s tears pour out thick and fast.
“Hush now.” Aurora’s tone slips down an octave. Quiet and soothing; the same sing-song she’s used in the henhouse every day this week. “Come see me this afternoon, all right? And, this time, bring Jimmy.”
Ida-Belle can’t reply for crying.
“Hush,” Aurora repeats as she walks to the front door, propping it open with her foot. “We’ll sort something out, all right? All right?” She can sense, rather than hear, Ida-Belle’s nod. “That’s a girl. It’ll be fine, Ida. The lasses won’t let you down.”
Reynard would think this was a hoot, if he were here.
Ellie knew the girl would eat all three rabbits at once, and she didn’t say nothing about it. Probably reckoned she were doing Ida-Belle a favour. The whole thing makes Aurora feel tired, and she wishes her husband would put his fox-gloves on and work some trickery to lighten her mood.
But he ain’t here, she thinks. Right before she sees him.
He’s lying at the base of the oak tree they planted outside their bedroom window the year they got married. Morning sun is still low enough to hit him full on; the tree doesn’t provide much shade until late afternoon. His fur is mangy, streaked with red gashes, like he’s been on the wrong end of a fight. The stump of his tail is crusty with dirt and blood. More than a few flies buzz around him, alight on his eyes, in his ears, around the mess of his arse. Aurora’s heart races.
Oh, God. Don’t be dead.
She runs toward him, stops two feet away. Without going any closer she can see his face muscles twitch, like he’s winking at her in his sleep. With an effort, she turns back, crosses the packed-dirt yard and walks up the henhouse steps.
“Morning, chooks,” she says, and smiles to hear a chorus of greetings clucked from all sides, from both girl- and boy-faced lasses. Some, still not fully awake, stare vacantly at the moths fluttering up near the rafters. Others flap their wings for attention, bock-bocking demands for mints. Jolene and the twins avoid meeting her eyes as Valma looks on, disgusted; while yet others perform a waddling turn, point tails out, and doze off to pass the hours until feeding time.
Ellie, she notices upon reaching the aisle between rows P and Q, is one of the latter. Worn out from the effort of yesterday’s prediction, the Delaware hen is sleeping deeply.
“The mess, O-Rori,” chides a masculine-featured Cornish hen. From his berth in Q41, he stretches his head out to block Aurora’s path. His royal blue neck feathers, knotted beneath his bearded chin like an ascot, give him a regal air that suits the disdain in his voice. “Isn’t it high time you cleaned up this filth?” He peers over the top of his gold-framed spectacles, shudders at the mess still littering Minnie’s satin pillow.
“Honestly,” he says, now directing his gaze at his keeper, “preserving the scene of the crime in this fashion is downright macabre.” He sniffs. “And the fleas are becoming unbearable.”
Aurora looks across at Ellie, at Minnie’s soiled roost, then back at the sleeping oracle. I reckon letting her rest a few more minutes won’t hurt.
Adrenaline surges through her as her subconscious whispers, I reckon it’s time to move on.
She fetches a hand-broom and dustpan, fills a bucket with water, drops some soap and a couple old rags into her apron pockets. The pail clunks on the floor in front of Q42. Aurora hunches slightly to get a better view of the damage. Feathers, muck, and blood. A lump forms in the back of her throat. Straightening up, she tries to melt it by sucking on a Tic Tac—then has to dole out doses of the oval sweets to every open-mouthed bird from Q22 to Q57.
With most of the bay satiated, if not quiet, and the air sharp with the scent of mint, Aurora begins the task of sweeping away all trace of Minnie’s death. First, she removes the blanket; cleans off the pillow, sets it aside; then launches in with the broom. Bristles rasp across the bookshelf’s surface as she tackles the worst of the mess, moving as quickly as possible. Dirt, straw and down swirl into the dustpan’s waiting tray. While she works, Aurora’s eyes don’t stop watering.
“You’ve missed some,” the Cornish hen bosses. “Reach all the way to the back.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Aurora snaps. The insult she’d been about to unleash comes out as a strangled gasp as her broom snags on a clot of feathers. Dragging it to the shelf’s edge, she catches a glimpse of royal blue peeking out of the mass of red and white.
She picks up the egg with trembling fingers, brushes it off. It’s smaller than any of Minnie’s other fortunes, but still big enough for her to read the dedication clearly:
Aurora & Reynard Jenkins
Although the henhouse is as noisy as usual, to Aurora it seems the whole world has gone mute.
Why is Reynard’s name on her egg? Minnie couldn’t have laid it on the fox’s last visit—sluggish with sedatives, she would have barely had time to struggle, to scream, before he’d slit her throat. Aurora places the egg on the shelf, leans it carefully against the Cornish’s cushioned roost. Staring at the bearded lass without really seeing him, Aurora realizes that Minnie must’ve laid it while Reynard had been throttling her.
While the two of them were too busy fighting to notice it.
“Get that flea-bitten thing away from me.” The hen’s foot connects with the egg, sends it over the shelf’s edge. As if in slow motion, Aurora watches the treasure sail earthwards, her hands clumsy and slow, swiping at empty air seconds too late.
A dark blue fault line splits the egg from top to tail as it cracks against the bucket’s rim, then bounces in with a splash. With a shriek.
Surrounded by shards of bobbing blue shell, a fox-faced hatchling cries as he fights to keep his head above water.
Oh, Minnie. Aurora’s eyes flood as she watches his baby wings weaken, his thrashing grow more frantic, his screams more shrill. Without moving, she waits to see if the newborn far-seer will resurface. Fair’s fair, ain’t it? The fox-hen gasps for breath, goes under again. And again.
Even is even.
Outside, Reynard whimpers, calls out for his wife. Just as he’s done every morning upon waking, finding himself tailless and trapped in animal form, bitten by flies and regret. Tailless and alone.
Life ain’t even, Aurora thinks. She knocks the pail over and its contents drown the henhouse floor. Leaning over, she rescues the sputtering lass. Uses a rag to pat his wings dry, then dabs at his cheeks with her fingertips. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.
The chick sneezes. Opens his golden, Reynard-shaped eyes, and winks.
Aurora snorts. She pulls the fox-tail from her hatband, wraps the sodden oracle in its russet length. Holding the bundle close to her heart, she takes a deep breath. Gathers her nerve. Plans what she’s going to say to her husband, then slowly walks outside.