Page 144 of The Frozen River

Because the fox is sliding forward, one delicate paw after the other, and now she is only a whisker’s breadth away, staring at me as though I am the most curious creature on earth. I would never have believed such a thing could happen, have never heard of such a thing in my life.

Tempest—my own little fox—eases her slender head forward and sticks out her pink tongue. Once. Just once she licks the tip of my nose. It’s a greeting. A peace offering. Some acknowledgment that we are one and the same. But it is fleeting. Gone as quickly as it came, just like her, because in one bound, she springs over my head, nose pointed toward the house, tail toward Water Street, and begins to bark.

There is nothing comely or tender about the sound this time. They are vicious little snarls that rip the air and snap my senses into order once again. I struggle to my feet and back away. Not because I am afraid of Tempest. Certainly not. But because I realize that these are warning barks.

We are not alone in the woods.

But in the distance, I hear an answering call. Another fox. Her mate, perhaps, somewhere closer to the house.

I turn to Brutus just in time to see him spin around and bolt in the opposite direction. That traitor has run off and left me.

“Et tu, Brute?”

I limp toward the mill. My ankle is sprained, and a cut runs the length of my right forearm, dripping blood into the cuff of my sleeve. My breath comes easier now, but still, there is a whistle at the end—a dispute, lodged by my body for its recent treatment. Brutus is gone—run off toward the Hook—and has taken my medical bag with him, so I do not even have my bandages.

I am still cursing the beast when I step out of the woods and see a lantern burning in the mill window.

“Ephraim,” I wheeze, and shuffle faster.

A horse is hitched to the post, snorting deep in the shadows, and a long rectangle of pale light slips out from the door and falls onto the muddy yard.

I turn sideways and slide through the narrow wedge of open door. “That damned horse threw me again,” I say. “Mark my words, I’m selling him for glue.”

At the sound of my voice a low, angry growl fills the room. Cicero. He lies on the floor beneath Ephraim’s workbench. He lifts his head from his paws and rounds his spine slightly, all the bristly hair standing on end. Teeth bared. Eyes flashing. No wonder the foxes are barking tonight.

His master stands a few feet away, flipping pages in a book that I immediately recognize as my journal. He looks up at me, dispassionate.

“I would like to know,” Joseph North says, ripping a page from the spine, “what you were really doing in my house yesterday?”

“Get out,” I say, grabbing onto one of the large central posts for support.

“No.”

“Ephraim will be home any moment.” “That excuse didn’t work the first time,” North says, tearing another sheet of paper from the book. It falls to the floor and settles at his feet. “And I’m rather weary of hearing it. Your husband is in Boston. Petitioning his claim to this property.”

“My children—”

“Are all in bed. Asleep. You are alone, Martha. The question is whether you are afraid.”

Rrrriiiipp. The sound echoes through the mill. This time he wads the page with his fist and throws it to the corner.

“No. I am not afraid of you.”

“Rebecca was afraid when we went to her that night. You should have seen the way her legs trembled on that bed.” He says it so casually. As though he doesn’t care that he’s confessing to a crime. “Don’t worry,” he adds. “I’m not incriminating myself. I’ve been acquitted, remember? I can’t be tried again.”

“Get out,” I tell him, the air hissing through my teeth, ribs creaking in protest. I wonder if I broke something after all.

Cicero leans forward at the note of anger in my voice. Bares his teeth.

“No. You and I are going to have a little talk. And we’re going to start with why you were in my house.”

“Medicine. For your wife.”

His eyes narrow. “You’re hurt.”

I wince but do not answer him.

“Well, that will make this easier.” He turns another page in my journal. Reads a benign entry aloud. Pats his mouth as though yawning. “Where is my letter, Martha?”