Shepherd Hunted

by Christopher Kincaid

  Timothy stifled another yawn.

  “So the wayward husband returns.” Melanie studied Timothy. “I don’t see any signs of another woman, and you do not smell of drink.”

  Timothy grimaced.

  Melanie held up a hand. “No offense meant. I just thought something happened when I saw her come in with that scamp.”

  “Wait. Kit is here?”

  “Trent brought her hours ago. I had to all but take a skillet to Trent to make him leave.” Melanie met Timothy’s eyes. “You are welcome.”

  Timothy sighed. “Trent never gives up, does he?”

  “Not for as long as I’ve known him. He even tries with me on occasion. You’d think he’d learn after I blackened his eye a few times.” Melanie clapped her hands. “Clarise, let’s see if we can save young Timothy from his wife.”

  Clarise scurried into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a pair of steaming honey rolls on a small plate. She returned to her feather duster but kept shooting Timothy looks.

  He sighed. I didn’t do anything to deserve those looks.

  “Good luck, Timothy. I will charge you for anything she breaks.” Melanie winked. “Think on that before you say anything.”

  Timothy trudged up the stairs. Trent found Kit. Kit was drunk. Trent was a known womanizer. No! Timothy would not let his mind go that way. Melanie ran Trent off. What had happened before they came to the inn?

  Did Trent know her ears and tail were real?

  Acid churned Timothy’s stomach. The scent of the honey cakes curled his nose. Timothy should never have let her go to the festival. He should have stayed with her. He paused at the door and took a deep breath. At least she was safe. She would understand how hard he had looked for her, right?

  It was time to face the executioner.

  “Look what I found!” Timothy opened the door and thrust the honey rolls in. Honey slid from the plate and down his hand. Melanie’s cook was generous with portions.

  The single window framed Kit. Her tail’s fur stood in every direction. Her blouse was rumpled, and her ears slumped.

  “When were you going to tell me?” she asked.

  “About last night? I looked for you all night.”

  Timothy laid the sweet rolls on the table. He held his arm out, and honey slithered down it.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what? I lost track of you and—”

  She held up a crumpled piece of paper with two fingers.

  Timothy’s hand felt the pocket of his coat. The note! His eyes fled to the threadbare farmer’s coat rumpled on his bed. I forgot about the note! When they’d visited Timothy’s home, he had discovered the truth of Kit’s birthplace. The records could have been wrong. He had prayed they were wrong. Not even the Inquisition could massacre an entire village. I foolishly wrote down it down. Why didn’t I just tell her? Because I thought a note would be easier?

  And she now held that note.

  She gazed him with a single green eye. The watery depths stilled Timothy’s heart. Her gaze accused and berated him.

  Betrayal.

  “I wanted to tell you. I tried to tell you. I…I couldn’t find the right time,” Timothy said. The words sounded empty.

  “Did you? Did you really? You knew that I wanted to find my home. Two hundred tails collected. You actually wrote that. How could you?” Kit waved the note. “It would have been enough to just tell me everyone was killed. Why? Why would you write something so terrible?”

  “It was what the account said. I…I thought you should know. I—”

  “Was it fun, knowing this and listening to me wonder about home during those late nights? Oh, I guessed what might have happened,” Kit said. “But did you think I didn’t want to know until I got there? Did you think I would want to know that two hundred of my people had their tails cut off?” She quivered. “For trophies? Seeing that fat man’s single trophy and knowing my tail might have been next…do you know what that was like? Ugh. My head hurts.” She rubbed her forehead. “So was it fun, Timothy?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about…I didn’t know…I’m sorry.” He was an idiot. How could he not have considered that? Kit knew she was likely the last fox. She even told him she didn’t want to be alone. Stupid.

  Kit rounded on him, and her shoulders trembled. Her lips curled back in a fanged sneer. “Was. It. Fun? Was it fun for you to listen to me wonder about my home, knowing it was gone? And I confided in you. I trusted you. Did it make you feel like a man or something to protect a helpless little girl? You even left me last night! Frolicking with that big-chested squirrel?”

  “No! I spent all night looking for you.”

  “Did you?” She slashed the honey cakes with her gaze. “Sweet cakes for the little girl. How could you not tell me I was alone? That everyone was—”

  “I tried—”

  “Oh, you tried. That should be enough. The wise Timothy tried to tell me my family, my kind, are dead. Tails and ears all cut off.”

  “How could I tell you something so terrible? I…the words…” Timothy’s shoulders slumped. She had every right to be angry.

  “I should have chosen Trent. At least he is honest about what he cares about.” Despair, anger, and fear warred across Kit’s face.

  Timothy squared his shoulders. “I…I care for you. I should have told you…I’m sorry.”

  “More words.” Kit’s head sagged against the window frame. Sunlight wrapped golden fingers around her. The pain in her eyes chilled Timothy more than the morning air. Kit’s sudden laugh tore through Timothy. “You care for me? You are no different than the hunters who just want me for my tail. You humans are all alike. “

  “Stop it, Kit.” Timothy’s terror edged his voice. “I am not that way, and you know it.”

  “Do I? Who are you? Who are you to me? Who am I to you? Do you even know what it is like to be this alone? For all I know, I am the last after you humans have hunted us. I should have gone with Tahd. At least then I could have a child and not be alone.” Her meadow eyes were lost to the conflagration. “That’s it! I need to have someone mate with me. Then I won’t be alone. That is what you want isn’t it?”

  She stalked toward Timothy. Her hands unlaced the neckline of her blouse. Timothy grabbed her shaking hands. She did not pull away. She trembled.

  “Stop it, Kit. I am not that kind of person. You need to calm down. It’s just a silly note from a silly book.”

  Her gaze drowned Timothy’s sky. “Then why didn’t you tell me? Why did you hide it?” she whispered.

  “I didn’t want you to be hurt.”

  Kit shoved Timothy and turned away. “Just leave.”

  Timothy hesitated. He let his arm fall. He had to do something, say something. Tears threatened his cheeks. No words would come. He heard a sob. He was not sure if it was hers or his own. He looked back at the woman silhouetted in the morning sun. The white tuft ears shook. Her tail wrapped around her.

  He walked out the door. Her last words squeezed through the closing space.

  “I’m sorry.”

  * * *

  Sister Tera passed a boy leaning against a building. Coughs racked his small frame. Ahead of him, several other boys waited. They stamped their feet and urged the coughing boy to hurry up. The boys jeered and laughed about how lazy the coughing boy was because he couldn’t run with them. The boy wiped his mouth, shouted a jeer of his own, and charged after.

  Tera stepped around a pool of mead. At least, she told herself it was mead. The town still hadn’t completely recovered from the night of sin. A few barrels graced the sides of the streets, and the markets were quiet. Here and there drab, serviceable clothing of daily life replaced the rainbow festival costumes of the previous week. Tera, for one, was grateful not to be struck blind just by glancing at someone.

  An old woman stopped and made the sign of the cross. Her face was a tangle of time. Sister Tera returned the gesture. “What can I do for you today?”<
br />
  “Sister, if you would, please pray for my daughter. She is terribly sick.”

  Tera looked harder at the woman. She realized the woman’s face wasn’t marked by time but by a hard life of labor. The brown eyes that pleaded from the tanned face were young.

  “Let us pray for her now.” Tera took the tree-bark hands into her own. Tera preferred to pray with the people. She thought it odd how other sisters preferred to pray in private.

  “Thank you, Sister.” The mother sagged and smiled.

  “Use this to buy some medicine too. God likes to work through us.” Tera pressed a silver coin into the mother’s palm. The coin could buy several months of food or a little medicine. How apothecaries priced medicine was sinful.

  The woman bowed. “Thank you, Sister!”

  Sister Tera’s thoughts returned to Evelyn. The woman had skittered away early that morning, muttering nonsense. Where Evelyn found the money for the overpriced inn room Tera did not want to know. Evelyn spent part of the night cleaning the inn, much to the innkeeper’s dismay. Tera couldn’t understand the woman’s obsession.

  The town needed moral teachings. How many wedding vows had been broken last night? Could a single fox demon spark such widespread sinning? Tera knew little about demons. Balwar said men were more dangerous. How could that be? What could a single fox do? Yet Tera remembered how the peace of the abbey had been shattered by the fox.

  A hairy, bare-chested man hefted a barrel onto his shoulder. He gave Tera a respectful nod. She pulled her habit closer around her. She guessed the man’s muscles and fur kept him warm enough. She hurried past. A few brown leaves skittered and swirled around a young man plodding down the street. His brown hair, the same color as Evelyn’s, fluttered. His gaze bored into the cobblestones, and he wore an expensive, fur-trimmed coat. Tera pushed down envy. The coat looked warm. Where had Timothy gotten such a nice coat? She crossed the street and drew close. He didn’t react until she touched his shoulder and called his name.

  Timothy looked up, eyes wet and distant. Tera didn’t see any trace of possession within them. But then, would she? Demons and possessed people were supposed to leave red in the eyes, but the fox’s eyes were green. Timothy’s eyes were the same color as his mother’s.

  “Sister Tera. Still in town I see. Are you heading back home soon?” His voice sounded flat, broken.

  “Maybe. Did something happen? Are you—”

  “I should have told her,” he said. “I didn’t because I was afraid it would hurt her, but waiting made it worse.”

  “Her? You mean the demon?” Tera asked.

  “She is not a demon, Sister. At least not that way. She is a lonely woman who doesn’t have a home to return to. She is a person who has had everyone fail her. Including me.”

  “Timothy,” Tera said. The fox seems to have lost its grip on him. Now is my chance. “Foxes are demons. They are not natural!”

  Timothy’s gaze skewered her. “‘And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.’ Are you telling me, Sister, that God made demons too? What about everything being good?”

  Tera fish-mouthed.

  “Kit is not a demon. She is a person like you and me. A person I hurt.”

  Tera grasped for words. Demons came from hell, but if Satan could create them…No. Such thoughts were blasphemy.

  “There are no demons, Sister. The only demons are those we make. But it doesn’t matter.” He looked behind him. “After what I did, she won’t want anything to do with me.”

  He trudged away, shoulders slumped.

  Tera gathered her stricken thoughts and her habit before jogging after him. He looked so lost. What had happened? Did he see the truth despite not accepting the fox as a demon? Tera had to help him. Breaking the fox’s hold on him would weaken the demon. “You could go back to the abbey. Mother Mae misses you, I’m sure. Where is the demon?”

  Timothy skirted a muddy puddle. A single leaf broke the amber mirror. He paused. Tera bumped into him and almost lost her balance. “If I go with you, will you leave Kit alone?”

  “I can’t promise—”

  “She is not a demon. Will you leave her alone?”

  Tera said nothing.

  “Meet me here in a few days.” He gestured at the burned out festival castle. Tera didn’t realize they were already in the square. “I need time to think and to say good-bye.”

  “Tell me where it is, and I can help you.”

  Timothy shook his head. “She is likely with him now. Better if she is.”

  Him? So he doesn’t know where the demon is? That might be for the better, but I will need to get back to my search.

  “Getting away from this filthy town will do us both good,” Tera said. She sounded like Evelyn! Tera would not abandon the town to the fox. With the depravity she’d witnessed at the so-called festival, the fox had many souls to coerce. Evelyn and Timothy could go home without Tera.

  “Sister Tera?”

  Tera molted her thoughts and smiled. “Certainly, Timothy. I will be here every morning until you are ready. We can all go home.”

  “Home.” Timothy stared downed the street. “Not everyone has a home to go back to.”

  She hesitated, feeling awkward. She never knew what to say. She lightly touched his shoulder. “You do…with us.”

  He shrugged her off. “A few days.”

  Tera resisted the urge to tackle him and drag him back with her immediately. But judging by the look on his face, she decided she might regret it if she tried. Not for the first time, she wished she was stronger. She left him standing there, a war raging on his face. Whatever happened looked to have freed Timothy from the fox—at least partially. She needed to find Evelyn. Perhaps together they could convince Timothy to join them against the demon.

  Tera passed few other people on her way back to the inn. She rounded the corner and saw Evelyn sitting on the front steps of the inn holding a small girl. A woman dressed in a blue smock wrung her hands and paced. As Tera neared, she saw the girl’s small body spasm. Evelyn rocked the child. Tera was a poor judge of age, but she guessed the girl was four years old. The wet cough sounded bad to Tera.

  “Thank you for this. No one would help us. What doctor would leave a poor, sick child?” the woman asked.

  “Promise breakers. Filth.” Evelyn’s gaze focused on Tera. Her hand continued to smooth the girl’s straw hair.

  “Sister, fetch me willow bark and hot water. A cup. Clean!”

  Tera hesitated.

  “Go!” Evelyn said. “And bring a packet of it.”

  “Evelyn, I found Timothy. We need to—”

  “I found Timothy.” Evelyn rocked the girl. “Now go! Willow bark and hot water.”

  I can’t take her to Timothy like this.

  “Where, Evelyn?” Tera asked. How could tree bark help this girl? The mother wrung her hands. She glanced between Tera and Evelyn.

  “This dirty inn has it. Go!” Evelyn said.

  Tera shook her head. People started to gather.

  “Who would talk to a nun like that?” A man backhanded the air in Evelyn’s direction.

  “Look at the kid. Poor thing,” an old woman said.

  “The doctors are leaving town. Isn’t that odd? Right after the festival too.”

  “Good riddance. They take your every copper and then tell the coffin maker you are coming.”

  Tera slipped around Evelyn and silenced the chatter with the heavy inn door.

  Master Giffer sat behind his desk, looking haggard. Wide shoulders made the man look more like a blacksmith than an innkeeper. The poor man didn’t know what to think of Evelyn after she spent most of the night cleaning. Giffer wavered between pleased and disturbed, mostly disturbed. Tera suspected only her habit kept them from being thrown out.

  “Master Giffer, would y
ou happen to have any willow bark and hot water?”

  “What is that woman—willow bark, Sister? I can make you willow tea. There is no need to do that yourself.”

  Close enough. “That would be nice. A little willow in a packet too please.” Tera had no clue what Evelyn had in mind, but it was best not to agitate the woman. Maybe she will become lucid enough that we can talk to Timothy.

  “Of…course. The innkeeper looked beyond the empty common room and at the entrance.

  “I have no idea what Evelyn is doing. I am sorry for all of this,” Tera said.

  “No, no. Nothing to be sorry about, Sister. You two are…unique guests. Having you under my roof is an honor. Now if you will excuse me.”

  A few moments later, Tera stood outside with a small paper packet of powder and a steaming teacup. The tea smelled bitter. People had gathered closer to Evelyn.

  “Smoke drives out illness. We are dust and must return, but that doesn’t mean soon. There is much to do,” Evelyn said. Heads bobbed with thoughtful expressions.

  Why are these people listening to her?

  “Here.” Tera pushed the tea and packet at the woman.

  Evelyn touched the steaming cup against the child’s lips. “Drink. Yes, like that. Slow.” The girl coughed and sipped. Evelyn met the mother’s eyes before sweeping the small gathering. “God punishes oath breakers, and we all break our word. But he is merciful and keeps promises.” Evelyn shoved the packet at the mother. “Make tea. Clean tea from this. I make no promise that she will live. I will not dirty my mouth.”

  “What can I do to repay you?” the mother asked.

  “Stop sinning. Spread the word. Judgment comes,” Evelyn said.

  The mother clutched the packet to her chest. “Thank you. I will. You are a good person. Anything to save my baby.”

  The girl seemed to be breathing easier. People jabbered among themselves.

  “Look at the girl. The woman must be a saint to stop that coughing so easily.”

  “Nonsense. She—”

  “Mommy?” The girl opened her eyes and reached for her mother. Evelyn slapped the hand.