Sky dark, wind high, ground dry. Wind runs strong from the home of Morningstar; I’ll hunt at Old Farm, for Cold Farm will smell me coming tonight. I must eat well, soon will be the time of the dog foxes and I’ll have no peace for a moons-worth and more. Old Farm, Old Farm, I’m coming for your fat hens, your sharp rats, your careless stores, your open doors.
Old farm’s dogs are old, old farm’s locks are old, old farm’s rats are old but still they bite as I bite them. Ha! Would you, my dirty darlings? Howl for your deaths old rats while I kiss your brittle bones. Your blood will soothe my tongue, the stringy meat of your old thighs will sleep cradled in my hot belly.
Who’s that? Moon coming to greet me? I see you Lady Moon; go draw up your hood til my meal is done? Then we will together sit on Stoney Hill and sing – ha! – til the end of night; together we’ll head for sleep at dawn over the water, you into your cave under Eveningstar, and me into my den under White Tree. Thank you, my Lady.
Who’s this? Red Cat going by? I see you Red Cat with your yellow eyes. I watch you slide through the dark and I wonder if you’re made of the shadows. Then I smell your stink! None of the shadow gods stinks like Red Cat. Will you walk with me? For I have a thing to show you.
There’s a new person in Big House. They have no dogs but they have no hens. They have no hens but they have no dogs. I left a trap, a test, a gift: a kangaroo leg part-dried, part-gnawed, part-furred. The person moved it to the long grass. I moved it back to the short grass. When the meat and fur fell away they hung the bones on the fence. I waited but no dogs came. Last week, I left more bones by their gate, and the bones stay there still, as curved and white as Lady Moon when she is starving. I feel this is a good sign. I feel this is a safe house now and we may use their long grasses and stony ground and spikey thickets for our safety. Come with me, Red Cat, and visit Big House.
But first, Old Farm’s fat hens! Ha!
P A Swanborough 