The scratching began after Ysabet had taken off one boot.
She sat on the edge of her bed, the second boot planted between her feet, and listened. A cart passed on the far side of the bathhouse. The scratch came again, followed by the soft thump of something falling against wood.
She put the boot back on.
The lamp showed her an undisturbed yard. Kettle slept with her head tucked. Tallow had arranged his tail across the entrance to his stall, a familiar hazard. Under the bench Sedge’s eyes glinted, then closed.
A faint scrape came from the laundry shelter.
Pip was standing beside the crate. Its body faced the hurdle, but its eye had turned toward the gap between the bricks and the timber post. Something moved there.
Ysabet lowered the lamp.
A field mouse dragged itself out of the gap. Its fur was wet along one flank, though the yard was dry. It took three quick steps, tipped over, and struggled upright. One hind leg remained out to the side. The little chest fluttered.
“Oh, you poor scrap.”
She knew field mice. She had evicted enough of them from her grain. This one was young, with ears too large for the narrow head and the bright, fixed gaze of an animal that had used everything it had getting here.
Pip moved.
Ysabet’s left hand went to the hurdle latch. She stopped before she lifted it.
She did not know what Pip ate besides clay. A handful of food refused in a strange yard proved very little. Nor could she put a hand between two frightened creatures and expect a useful result.
She fetched a folded towel and an empty basket from her room. By the time she returned, Pip had lowered itself in front of the mouse. One small foot rested on the earth between them.
The mouse tried to climb over it.
Pip lifted the foot.
Ysabet knelt outside the enclosure. She could scoop the mouse up in the towel, give it darkness and warmth, examine the wet patch. If a cat had caught it, the wounds might be deeper than the fur suggested. If it could not drink by morning, she would have to decide what kindness was possible.
Pip’s eye followed the towel.
She opened the gate a finger’s width. The mouse lurched against Pip’s leg.
The fold of skin beneath the creature’s jaw lifted.
Ysabet held her breath.
A small foot moved beneath the mouse’s chest. Another steadied its flank. Pip eased it over the raised fold and into the dark behind it. The skin fell partway closed. A thin tail remained outside.
She could still see the mouse breathing.
Pip settled onto the earth.
Ysabet set the basket down. The towel lay across her knees, suddenly enormous and clumsy.
“All right,” she said.
She waited long enough for her legs to ache. Pip did not move away or pull the skin tightly shut. There was no chewing. Once the mouse shifted, and the fold lifted to give it room. Its tail drew in, then slid out again, curled at the tip.
Ysabet brought the lamp closer, stopping when Pip turned its eye away from the light. In the dimmer edge of the glow she could make out a shallow hollow beneath the loose skin. The mouse lay against Pip’s body, one ear visible. Its breathing still ran too fast.
She moved the water dish within reach, spooned a little water into a shallow clay fragment for the mouse, and put three soaked grains beside it. Pip watched, then lowered its head. A narrow foot rolled one grain against the mouse’s nose.
The mouse did not eat.
After a while, Pip rolled the grain away again.
Ysabet sat back against a shelter post. Cold crept through the soles of her boots. The mouse had stopped shaking, but she could not tell whether that meant warmth or exhaustion. Pip’s hide lay smooth around the little hollow. Along the creature’s back, other folds remained loose and empty.
She had no spare hot brick. She went to the stove, warmed one gently, wrapped it in the towel, and set it at the enclosure’s far end. There was space to use it or avoid it. Pip did neither. It remained where it was, its eye half covered by the drooping upper fold.
“You have a better position than I do,” she murmured.
She left the basket nearby and went inside.
Sleep came in short pieces. Once she woke certain she had heard a cry, then realized it was a hinge on the bathhouse roof. Once she slept long enough to dream that Vennick was paying her in cups, every one of them full of mice.
At the next real sound she rose before she was properly awake.
Pip was walking around the shelter.
It took slow, careful steps with its front legs, while the rear pair kept the fold carrying the mouse level. The empty food patch lay behind it. A little pale dust marked the earth where the brick chips had been.
Ysabet brought more.
As she put them down, Pip’s jaw opened with a trembling motion. It seized a piece larger than those it had taken before. The smooth plates scraped together. Half the chip fell from its mouth, and its forefeet fumbled before catching it.
She pushed the rest within reach with a stick.
Pip ate without arranging anything.
The lamp flame stirred. For a moment light reached inside the lifted fold. Ysabet saw a soft pink surface where she remembered only the shadow between layers of grey skin.
She bent closer.
Pip twisted away, hiding the opening behind its body.
Ysabet straightened and moved the lamp back.
“Sorry.”
The creature remained turned from her. She left the food and withdrew to the hurdle, where she could see its whole body without looming above it.
It ate three more fragments. With each bite a fine shiver passed down its flanks. The loose skin under its jaw drew inward, paused, and settled in a rounder shape. The change was small enough that she doubted it until the mouse moved and the opening stretched with it.
Her own stomach tightened.
She had seen new tissue grow. A working beast’s heel could thicken after a season on gravel; a marsh runner could develop a breathing slit after weeks spent escaping rising floods. One of the carriage lizards she treated had grown an extra pad at its shoulder where the harness always chafed. That had taken most of a summer and an embarrassing amount of meat.
She had never watched the flesh arrive.
The mouse’s nose appeared. It rested against the lip of the hollow. Pip stopped chewing until the nose withdrew.
Ysabet reached for her bill and the stump of pencil. She wrote standing beside the lamp.
After midnight. All offered clay eaten. Skin inside lower fold appears lined. Do not know previous condition of fold.
She underlined the last sentence, then rubbed the pencil mark with her thumb because it sounded as though she were scolding someone.
At the bottom she added:
Need more clean clay.
The potter at the east market might trade a sack of scraps for an examination of his kiln mule. The mule bit, but generally on purpose, which was easier to work with than most alternatives.
Pip finished the last chip. Its legs spread a little wider beneath it. The fold no longer hung like an empty pocket. It held a shape even when the mouse shifted toward the back, an oval chamber with a turned edge.
Ysabet sat down on the bucket again.
This time she stayed.
Morning arrived in the upper windows of the bathhouse before it reached the yard. Birds began picking at the gutter. Kettle emerged from her shelter, stood in a patch that would eventually be sunny, and looked offended by the delay.
Pip lay on its side under the shelf. All six feet were drawn close, the smallest pair tucked against the others. It looked less full than it had at the auction. The upper skin sagged over its eye. Along its back two folds had thinned enough that lamplight showed a faint brown glow through them.
Ysabet’s notes lay across her knee. She had added nothing since the sky began to pale.
The mouse climbed out.
It hauled itself over the thickened lip, front feet first, and stood on the earth beside Pip. Its injured hind leg still pointed wrong. The wet patch had dried dark. It took a step, stopped, and began licking its chest with abrupt, jerky strokes.
Ysabet made herself remain seated.
After a little while the mouse reached the soaked grain. It held one between its paws and gnawed.
Pip raised its head.
The mouse froze. Pip lowered its head again. Only the eye moved, following the grain from the ground to the tiny mouth.
Ysabet realized her own mouth had opened. She closed it.
The mouse ate less than half the grain. It drank at the edge of a shallow chip of clay Ysabet had filled with water, its whiskers trembling against the surface. Then it turned in an awkward circle and dragged itself back to Pip.
The fold opened before it reached the lip.
For a moment Ysabet could see the chamber clearly. The lining had fine, close hairs along its inner wall. A raised seam held the hollow away from Pip’s body. No bedding had been carried inside. The mouse settled against the soft surface, leaving its bad leg extended, and the opening eased nearly shut.
Ysabet put a hand over her own stiff fingers.
There was warmth against her face, faint but distinct. She moved nearer, to the same distance at which she had examined the broken cup, and held the back of her left hand toward Pip. The warmth persisted. It came evenly from the place where the mouse slept.
Pip lifted its eye toward her hand. She took it away.
The creature rose and went to the food patch.
It scraped at the bare earth. A narrow forefoot turned over a stone no larger than a fingernail. Pip bit it, dropped it, and scraped again.
Ysabet stood.
“Breakfast first.”
She could offer the potter two visits. If he wanted three, she would argue. She collected more safe brick from the bathhouse steps, brought the pieces to the enclosure, and watched until Pip had eaten the first one.
Then she went inside to find a sack.
At the door she looked back. The newly lined fold moved with the creature as it chewed. From within it protruded one small ear.
Ysabet had bought an animal she could not identify. Before the sun was up, it had grown something for which she did not have a proper name.
She put the pencil in her pocket. The potter would have questions. She hoped they would all concern his mule.