On a crisp morning two weeks into autumn, when woodsmoke from the bathhouse chimney hung low over the marsh road and white rime crusted the cabbage leaves, a barley farmer named Toms came up the lane carrying a slatted turnip crate at arm’s length.
From inside the crate came a harsh, rattling screech, like a rusty hinge being dragged backward across slate, followed by the thump of a small body throwing itself against the pine slats.
“Found it wedged under the floorboards when we pulled down the old stone granary by the dyke,” Toms said, setting the crate down on the brick walk with visible relief and sucking a fresh scratch across the back of his wrist. “Hook-eared scavenger. Young one, by the teeth. One of the boys wanted to take a spade to it, on account of it killed a setting hen before we boxed it, but its front foot’s all blown up with pus from a rusty nail. Thought I’d ask if you wanted to look at it before we knock it on the head.”
Ysabet knelt on the bricks beside the crate, keeping her movements slow and out of the shadow over the top slats. Inside, pressed into the far corner among bruised turnip tops, was a bony, dog-sized creature covered in coarse, muddy bristle-fur, with two tall, hooked ears laid flat back against its skull and a long yellow-toothed snout trembling with terror. Its left front paw was held up off the wood, swollen to twice…
