Farthest South by Ethan Rutherford

Author:Ethan Rutherford [Ethan Rutherford]
Language: eng
Format: epub

THOUGH HE KNEW WHERE the woman lived, the fox was apprehensive about returning. He walked for most of the day and then paused at the edge of the woods. With a backwards glance, he drew the cloak over his shoulders. He felt the transformation in his chest, painful but quick.

The child’s house was as he remembered: red door, peeling shutters. The garden grew untended and wild. Dry sticks lay across the brittle lawn and he was careful with his steps as he approached.

It appeared that no one was home. He looked in one window, then another. He saw the woman’s bed was unmade. The kitchen smelled of rotting food. The child’s room was untouched, as though he were expected back at any moment.

Then he saw her: thin and dressed in her nightclothes, she sat alone in front of the fireplace. He couldn’t see her face. He cupped his hands to the window, and then, as if she knew he was there, she stood and made her way across the room. She moved slowly and gracefully, walked as though she were the ghost he’d seen in his dreams. Leave, his thoughts commanded him, but he could not. She pulled at him with a strange gravity, and he found himself wanting to speak to her. Her hair was matted and snarled, the hem of her nightgown stained with mud. She had been in the forest, after all.

He retreated to the woods until night fell. He tried to clear his head but could not: it felt as though his brain had become gauze. When it was dark he returned, stood by her window, and watched as she lay down in her empty bed, closed her eyes, and slept. He did not know what to do. Finally, he wrapped the cloak around his shoulders, climbed through the window, and slipped into the bed next to her. She smelled like an animal at the end of its life. Her very breath was sorrow. Even in sleep she must’ve known he was not her child, but nonetheless she curled around him, pulled him to the hollow of her rancid chest, and fell into a deeper dream, the deepest there was. She called to her child, wanting only him. He remained in her embrace and listened.

Finally, he pulled away. He left through the window, closed it, and swept his footprints from the garden’s bed. On the front porch, he left the child’s blanket, and on top of that a pile of small bones. It would hurt at first, he knew, but it was better this way.

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