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‘You still have it?’
Her mother didn’t answer.
‘Please. I need it!’
‘He wouldn’t have wanted me to give it to you.’ She pushed the milk towards her daughter. ‘You can’t know how many years you still have.’
‘I’m young.’
‘So was he.’
‘But you’re alive, and that’s all he ever wanted.’
Her mother sat down on one of the chairs on which she’d spent so many hours of her life, mending clothes, rocking babies . . .
‘So you’re in love with someone. What is his name?’
But Fox didn’t want to say Jacob’s name. Not in this house. ‘I owe him my life. That’s all.’ It wasn’t all, but her mother would understand.
She brushed the grey hair from her face. ‘Ask me for anything else.’
‘No. And you know you owe me this.’ The words were out before Fox could hold them back.
The pain on the tired face made Fox forget all the anger she felt. Her mother got up.
‘I never should have told you that story.’ She smoothed the tablecloth. ‘I just wanted you to know what kind of a man your father was.’
She brushed her hand across the tablecloth again, as though she could brush away everything that had made her life so hard. Then she slowly walked to the chest where she kept the few things she called her own. From it she took a wooden box that was covered in black lace. It was lace from the dress she’d worn in mourning for two years.
‘Maybe I’d have survived the fever even if he hadn’t put it on my finger,’ she said as she opened the box.
Inside it was a ring of glass.
‘What I need it for is worse than fever,’ Fox said. ‘But I promise you, I’ll use it only if there is no other way.’
Her mother shook her head and firmly closed her fingers around the box. But then she heard some noises outside.
Steps and voices. Sometimes, when the sea was too rough, the men returned early from their boats.
Her mother looked towards the door. Fox took the box from her hand. She felt ashamed of the fear she saw on her mother’s face. Yet it wasn’t just fear; there was also love. There was always love, even for the man who struck her children.
He banged on the door, and Fox pushed back the latch. She longed for the vixen’s teeth, but she wanted to look her stepfather in the eyes. She’d barely reached up to his shoulders when he drove her out of the house.
He wasn’t as big as she’d remembered him. Because you were smaller then, Celeste. So small. He’d been the Giant and she the Dwarf. The Giant who smashed everything in his path. But now she was as tall as he, and he’d grown old. His face was red, as always – red from the wine, the sun, and the rage. Rage against anything that moved.
It took him a moment before he realised who was standing front of him.
He flinched, as if from a snake, and his hand closed around the stick he was leaning on. He’d always had sticks or belts. He used to throw boots and wooden logs at his sons and Fox, as though they were rats hiding behind his oven.
‘What are you doing here?’ he barked. ‘Get out!’
He wanted to grab her as he used to, but Fox shoved him back and slapped the stick out of his hand.
‘Let her go.’ Her mother’s voice was trembling, but at least this time she said something.
‘Get out of my way,’ Fox said to the man she’d once had to call Father, even though he’d taught her to despise the word itself.
He lifted his fists. How often had her eyes been glued to those hands, full of fear of the tanned skin on the knuckles tightening, turning white. She saw him in her dreams sometimes, and he always had the mouth of a wolf.
