Lily Brightbloom's Arc

Chapter 7 of 8

Daisy was still at the clearing's edge at first light. Lily had slept two hours by the willow. She woke knowing the trapper would already be walking his line, and every wounded thing drawn to the hollow would cross it before she could reach them. She needed a voice out ahead of her. Something small enough to slip past a boot, fast enough to turn a limping fox before he found the wire. She went to the old chapel behind the spring. Roots had grown through the stone walls and closed the roof. Stained glass still held color in two windows, green and blue. Field mice had nested there for years. Lily crouched at the door and whistled once, low. A brown mouse came out onto the step, whiskers forward. He whistled back, three clean notes. "I need a scout," Lily said. "Someone to sit on the outer roots and turn animals off the wire trails. You know the ground." The mouse tipped his head. He whistled a question. She understood the shape of it if not the words. How many trails. "Four main ones. I'll show you every snare I've found." He washed his face once and stepped down off the stone. That was his yes. She took him along the outer roots and pointed. Bent sapling here. Loop under the fern. Fresh dirt by the birch. He climbed each stake and sniffed. He whistled from the top of one, sharp and rising, then dropping. A warning sound. Loud enough to carry across a clearing. She could hear it three roots away. By afternoon the mouse had picked his stations. He posted himself on a knot of root above the first trail and waited. Lily did not have to wait long to know if it worked. She was carrying salve back to the hollow when the whistle cut through the pines, sharp, sharp, dropping. She ran toward it and found a young badger halted mid-step, one paw raised. Six inches ahead of him, a wire loop lay half-buried in leaves. The mouse was on the root above, whistling until the badger backed away and turned north along the safe seam Lily had cleared. She stood in the trail and breathed. On her way back she found Hank Timber at the spring, filling a canteen. He had come down out of the Greywood with an axe head snapped at the collar. He straightened when he saw her. "Heard whistling," he said. "That's new." "A scout. He turns them off the wire." Hank nodded once. He looked past her, toward the ranger post. "Man sets eight a day. One mouse won't cover eight lines by week's end." "He'll cover today." "Today's good." Hank capped the canteen. "But he's setting a wider ring tomorrow. Saw the stakes cut. You'll need more than whistling by then." Lily looked back toward the chapel. The mouse whistled again from the outer roots. Something had turned away in time.