As Fox walked towards the door, she could see her younger self running across the yard. Her red hair braided into pigtails, her knees covered in scabs and bruises. Celeste, where have you been this time?
She’d been in Ogre caves with Jacob, and in the oven rooms of Black Witches, yet she’d never wanted to leave a place as badly as she had this one. Not even her love for her mother had been able to bring her back. Now it was her love for Jacob that led her here again.
Knock, Celeste. They won’t be here. Not at this time.
As soon as her hand touched the wood of the door, Fox was assaulted by the past. It gulped up whatever strength and confidence she’d been given by the fur and the many years away from this place. Jacob! Fox pictured his face so it would remind her of the present and of the Fox she’d become.
‘Who’s there?’ Her mother’s voice. What a mighty animal the past is. The hushed songs her mother used to sing to her at bedtime . . . her mother’s fingers in her hair as she braided it . . . Who is there? Yes, who?
‘It’s me, Celeste.’
The name tasted of the honey Fox used to steal from the wild bees when she was a child, and of the nettles that used to sting her bare legs.
Silence. Was her mother standing behind the door, once more hearing the impact of the stones on the ground and on her child’s skin? It felt like an eternity before she pushed back the latch.
She’d grown old. The long black hair was now grey, and her beauty had all but faded, washed, little by little, from her face by each passing year.
‘Celeste . . .’ She spoke the name as though it’d been waiting on her lips all these years, like a butterfly she’d never shooed away. She took her daughter’s hands before Fox could pull them away. Stroked Fox’s hair and kissed her face. Again and again. She held Fox tight, as though she wanted to get back all the years when she hadn’t held her child. Then she pulled the girl into the house. She latched the door. They both knew why.
The house still smelled of fish and damp winters. The same table. The same chairs. The same bench by the oven. And behind the windows, nothing but meadows and piebald cows. As though time had stopped. But on her way here, Fox had passed many abandoned houses. It was a hard life, having to rely on sea and land to feed you. The machines’ noisy promises were so alluring: everything could be made by human hands, and wind and winter no longer had to be feared. Yet it was the wind and the winter that had shaped these people.
Fox reached for the bowl of soup her mother had pushed towards her.
‘You’re doing well.’ It wasn’t a question. There was relief in her voice. Relief. Guilt. And so much helpless love. But that wasn’t enough.
‘I need the ring.’
Her mother put down the milk jug from which she was filling her cup.
‘You still have it?’
Her mother didn’t answer.
‘Please. I need it!’
‘He wouldn’t have wanted me to give it to you.’ She pushed the milk towards her daughter. ‘You can’t know how many years you still have.’
‘I’m young.’
‘So was he.’
‘But you’re alive, and that’s all he ever wanted.’
Her mother sat down on one of the chairs on which she’d spent so many hours of her life, mending clothes, rocking babies . . .
‘So you’re in love with someone. What is his name?’
But Fox didn’t want to say Jacob’s name. Not in this house. ‘I owe him my life. That’s all.’ It wasn’t all, but her mother would understand.
She brushed the grey hair from her face. ‘Ask me for anything else.’
‘No. And you know you owe me this.’ The words were out before Fox could hold them back.
The pain on the tired face made Fox forget all the anger she felt. Her mother got up.
‘I never should have told you that story.’ She smoothed the tablecloth. ‘I just wanted you to know what kind of a man your father was.’
She brushed her hand across the tablecloth again, as though she could brush away everything that had made her life so hard. Then she slowly walked to the chest where she kept the few things she called her own. From it she took a wooden box that was covered in black lace. It was lace from the dress she’d worn in mourning for two years.