Mira Thorn's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Mira sat by the cage and watched the female's ribs settle into a slower rhythm. She had just started her list of supplies when she heard the wet crackle of leaves at the channel's edge. She turned. Something was moving through the reeds where she had sunk the cut vine. A fox stepped out into her work area. Moss grew along its back in thick green pads, and small mushrooms rose between its shoulders. Its eyes burned white. It nosed the bank where the vine had gone under, then turned toward her open tool chest. The chest sat on raised wooden legs near the cage, lid propped, the brass latches catching the late light. Inside lay her clean gauze, her sealed jars of saline, the bottles she meant to use on the female's lungs. Sap streaked the fox's muzzle already. If it climbed in, every jar lid, every cloth would carry spores. Mira stood slowly. The male raptor went still against the bars and watched. She did not have time to drive the fox off twice. She needed it gone, and she needed it to stay gone while she worked through the night. She stepped sideways toward the chest, keeping her body between the fox and the cage. The fox lowered its head and pushed its nose under the propped lid. Mira's hand closed on the gourd rattle hanging from the chest handle. She had made it last winter for snakes. Clay-sealed shell, swamp stones inside, a corded loop. She lifted it off the hook and shook it hard once, close to the fox's ear. The sound cracked across the clearing. The fox jerked back and snapped at the air. Mira stepped forward and shook the rattle again, lower, sharper, driving it toward the channel. The fox bolted into the reeds. She followed three paces and shook the rattle a third time at the bank, where the cut vine lay sunk under stones. Then she went back, closed the chest, and dropped the brass latches shut. She tied the rattle to the latch ring so any nudge would set it off. She checked the chest for sap. A smear ran across the lip of the lid where the fox's muzzle had touched. She wiped it off with a rag and burned the rag in her fire pan. Inside, the jars were clean. The gauze was clean. She had kept the supplies. But the fox had shown her something she had not planned for: the sunk vine was still venting under the water, and anything that drank or fed at that bank would carry the poison back through her camp. She sat down by the cage with the list in her lap and crossed out two lines. The vine had to come out of the channel before morning.