He cheerfully lined the main section with grass, made note of good places for extra entrances and exits, and was particularly pleased that the creek gurgled one hundred yards below him. He was close to water but in no danger of flooding. To make the site even better, the pricker bushes and rambling old tea roses would keep out the nosy.
The hands that cut and placed the stone vanished from the earth in 1787. The small house was eventually abandoned as the next generation prospered to build the first section of Roughneck Farm, the simple but large, graceful house that Sister and her husband, Raymond, bought when young marrieds. It had a roof and walls but the staircases had collapsed. It was a ruin. Together they restored the place, doing much of the work themselves. In good time, Raymond began to make a lot of money. By the time they reached their midthirties they could pay for any repairs or improvements.
While Sister knew of this old, well-built foundation, she never cleared it. She recognized a splendid site for a den as well as Comet. She wanted Roughneck Farm to appeal to foxes the way Murray Hill appeals to a certain kind of Manhattan resident.
Comet carried in more sweetgrass and suddenly dropped to his belly, hearing a light flutter of mighty wings. These wings were silent until it was too late.
A pair of huge balled-up talons raked his back.
He snarled, then bolted for the main entrance. He heard a large bird walking around the opening to his den and cursed that he hadn’t time to dig out more exits.
“Oh, come on out, you big chicken,” a deep voice chortled.
“Athena.” He popped his head out as the two-foot great horned owl turned her head nearly upside down to stare at him.
“Scared you,” she laughed again.
“Nah, I wanted to make you feel good,” he lied.
She blinked, her large golden eyes both beautiful and hypnotizing.“You are too clever by half. Take care, Comet, that you don’t come to a bad end. You put me in mind of Dragon, that arrogant hound. He’s another one who pays no heed to good sense.”
Comet emerged from his den. Arguing with Athena could bring reprisals. She wasn’t just the queen of the night, she was the queen, period, but her authority irritated him. On the other hand, foxes and owls were allies and it was best not to disturb the equilibrium.
“Isn’t death always a bad end?”
“No.” She unruffled her feathers, the sunlight warming her.
“H-m-m. I don’t want to go anytime soon.”
“Who does unless they’re suffering?” She paused, turned her head around almost backward to behold Bitsy, the screech owl, flying toward them.“God, I hope she isn’t going to sing to us.”
Bitsy lived in Sister’s barn. A little thing, but her voice could wake the dead. She so wanted to be like the great horned owl whose voice, sonorous and low, filled the forests and meadows with melancholy beauty.
As hunting had been good for all the prey animals, they lingered in the soft early-morning light before retiring to their nests and dens. The foxes, on such a warming autumn day, would find flat rocks on which to sunbathe.
“Guess what?” Bitsy also lived for gossip.
“What?” Comet humored her.
“You scared the bejabbers out of those Custis Hall girls. I heard them talking at the tailgate.”
“This pipsqueak scared them?” Athena asked, which thrilled the screech owl, who felt she had important information.
“They were separated from the others, wandering about in the mist. Comet popped out right in front of them, uttered a few unkind words, and took off. It’s a pity humans have such poor senses. Those girls, when they first took the wrong turn, couldn’t have been more than a hundred yards from the other humans, yet they couldn’t smell horse or human. They rode left, everyone else rode right. It’s a wonder humans have survived.”
“Herd animals. They can’t survive without one another,” Comet astutely noted.
“That doesn’t explain their inability to smell. What’s the difference if there’s one human or one thousand? They still don’t know what’s under their nose, literally.” Bitsy puffed out her plump breast.
“Now, Bitsy, every creature on earth has figured out what it must do to live. Humans are day hunters, we’re night hunters. Their eyes aren’t too bad in the light. Nothing like ours, naturally, but they’re perfectly serviceable. They can climb trees, build things. They are so successful now that most of them don’t realize how weak they are. Ah, well, it will all come to a bad end,” Athena said and sighed.
“That’s what you said about me and that snot, Dragon.”
“Really!” Bitsy’s huge eyes grew even larger as she listened to Comet. She then turned to her heroine.“Did you say that?”
“I did. And now, of course, you want to know why.” Athena raised her right eyebrow.“Because both of them are too clever by half. Sooner or later, they’ll reach too far.”
Comet smiled.“Is that an observation or a prophecy?”
“Both,” Athena succinctly replied.
“Any other prophecies?” He unfurled his long pink tongue.
“Here’s an observation before a prophecy. You’re in Inky’s territory. You’d better reach an accord.”
Inky, a gray fox whose coat was so dark she shone glistening black, was a beloved friend of most of the other animals as well as Sister and the hounds. Everyone knew Inky. She visited the kennels nightly as she made her rounds. The only animal who didn’t like Inky was Golly.
“There’s so much game this season. I don’t think Inky will mind.” He considered Athena’s advice, though.“But you’re right. No point getting on her bad side. And I can’t take her for granted even though we are littermates.”
“Her cubs are leaving the den. They’re making their way in the world. What if one of them wanted this den?” Bitsy kept tabs on the neighborhoods.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” Comet had no intention of surrendering his new apartment.“Athena, your prophecy?”
“We’re a week from All Hallow’s Eve. Propitiate the dead.”
“Some dead can’t be satisfied.” Bitsy believed in ghosts. She’d seen them.
Comet, like most animals, was sensitive to what humans especially couldn’t explain. They often felt spirits around them, but the species was hag-ridden by logic. Few would admit to the experience.“Not a good time to go to Hangman’s Ridge.”
Athena’s voice lowered.“And it will be black as pitch on All Hallow’s Eve, beware.”
C H A P T E R 4
The bricks of Custis Hall’s original four buildings around the quad had faded over the two centuries of their existence into a glowing paprika. Mt. Holyoke, founded on November 8, 1837, boasted being the first institution of higher learning for young ladies. But Custis Hall, a preparatory school, predated Mt. Holyoke by twenty-five years. It masqueraded as a finishing school. The girls learned management, mathematics, Latin, French, embroidery (a good hand was considered one of the gracious arts), a smattering of history, and a bit of literature, although the reading of modern novels was discouraged by the administration. Novels were considered racy. A copy ofMoll Flanders orLes Liaisons Dangereuses could park a pretty bottom on a hard bench in front of the headmistress.
Charlotte Norton smiled to herself thinking about the history of Custis Hall as she eased off the accelerator, turned right onto the campus, passing through the monstrously large wrought-iron gates, the morning sun hitting the buildings so they shimmered. She never tired of seeing the restrained architecture. She loved her work and felt not one pang of jealousy when her former graduate school classmates moved ever closer to becoming presidents of universities, a few already presidents of smaller colleges. Her passion was secondary school.
She noticed, as she coasted into her parking space, a van with the local TV station’s call letters and number on it. It was parked illegally alongside the main campus road and she had no idea where the campus police might be.