Vixen. Rosie Garland

thrusting from his head, mouth gaping in its final shriek and gagged by the thick tongue bloating between his lips. The pustules at his throat broke open long ago and are congealed with black ooze.

      I am muffled in silence, as though the forest is stuffing her fingers into her ears. I wonder if this is what the birds want to show me. I squint through the branches, a dart of disappointment that I have lost them, then spy the flock heading west. The call to be away is clear. I set my shoulders straight, leap over the pilgrim’s carcase and follow them out of the trees.

      I keep pace as best I can: running alongside streams and ducking under hedgerows in case I should meet some worthy peasant who takes it upon himself to ask difficult questions of a strange girl wandering where she shouldn’t.

      The starlings reel in the direction of the sea, a bowshot distant, chattering, We know what’s coming! Follow us and we’ll tell all! I skirt the village and chase them into the saltmarsh, a scribble of whip-grass and vetch heavy with the brackish reek of sedges. There’s not so much as a bush to provide cover. My feet itch to be back in the forest, my neck prickling with the fear some man is watching. But curiosity drags me forwards. I must know.

      ‘Come on,’ I growl. ‘If you’ve got something to say, be done with it.’

      The mere is raked with drainage ditches, digging their talons through the mud. Weak sunlight catches the surface of the water, turning them from black to silver, silver to black. I jump into one, scuttle along out of sight.

      After a few minutes I meet a water rat dashing in the opposite direction, fur sticking out in a shock of frizz. The only thing they fear are dogs, and where there’s a dog there’s a man soon after. I crouch low in the cutting, sending silent thanks to the fleeing creature for its warning. My ears are cocked for barking, for the snuffling of a wet nose on the scent, the encouraging shouts of its master; but there’s nothing save the racket of birds heading further into the marsh.

      More water rats bounce past on tiny paws, then a pair of otters, all running inland. The hindmost otter pauses and hops onto her hindquarters. She peers at me and sniffs.

      ‘What’s afoot?’ I ask her. She pats her broad paws together. ‘That’s right. Tell your old friend. What’s all this business with the birds? I’ve never seen such a commotion.’

      For answer, she ruffles her whiskers and dives back into the waterway. With a flick of her tail she catches up with her mate and is gone. I can’t help but laugh. I have always found the beasts of the field far better company than men. The breeze stiffens and I curse myself for leaving my over-tunic in the fork of the tree. I press on, shivering in under-tunic and half-hose.

      The starlings continue to swirl, crashing into each other with such force that they tumble to earth in a sprawl of feathers. I trip over snapped bodies: beetle-wing eyes already dim, the tips of their beaks pointing in the same direction, towards the sea. They are not alone. A wild parliament of birds is gathering there.

      Lapwings brush the earth with their bellies, curlews flipping over like cakes on a hot stone. A pair of swans thrash their necks so furiously I think they will snap. Even rooks have joined the throng, drawn from the forest as urgently as myself. The air roughens with the okokok of geese, the clattering of oystercatchers, the booming of bitterns, a hubbub of squawking and screeching. In the melee, more and more collide and plummet, raining down until the earth is pillowed with plumage.

      ‘What do you want?’ I shout. ‘Why have you brought me here?’

      At my words, the company falls silent. They stretch their wingtips and pause, hanging in the thickening air. It is the matter of a moment. Then, as if by some unknown command, they draw together like the fingers of a giant hand, from the greatest to the smallest, till they are one flock. Not one touches the other, not by so much as a tail-feather.

      With stately grace they form a circle the breadth of the heavens: no haste, no sound, even the beating of their wings muted. They glide round and round in a dizzying arc, the maelstrom so thick as to make the morning dark as evenfall. I watch open-mouthed, and in the silence I see what is coming. To the west, massing over the sea, is a mountain of cloud, black as the bottom of a well and greater than any I have ever seen.

      ‘A storm?’ I yell at the birds. ‘Is that all? You dragged me out of my warm, comfortable tree to tell me it’s going to rain?’

      I shake my fist and a bellyful of seagull shit lands on my head. I run my hands through my stinking hair, cursing shitty-arsed birds the world over. My fingers tangle in filth.

      ‘Why me?’ I yell, dripping with half-digested fish. ‘What did I ever do to you?’

      The gulls laugh, a raucous rattle like a stick dragged along a gate. A black-faced bird unpicks itself from the whirlpool of wings and dives so close to my head that I have to crouch to escape its attack. It swoops away without striking. Another does the same, and another, buffeting my head with salt air. I have seen birds mob a cat before, and have laughed mightily at the sport. Now the tables are turned and it is not in the least amusing. Drops of rain strike my shoulders, save it is not rain, it is more bird shit. All join in, pelting me with muck.

      ‘I hate you!’ I shriek. ‘I’ll kill every one of you! I’ll set fire to every nest and burn your hatchlings to cinders! I’ll burn down the forest and you in it!’

      Egg-killer! they shriek. Murderer of our children!

      I see the empty nests, all their generations gulped down my gullet. ‘I was hungry!’ I whine.

      They make one more turn of their grand dance. The smallest are the first to leave: sparrows and wrens head back to their hedgerows, followed by the larks, the thrushes, the blackbirds, the plovers, the fieldfares, the magpies, unravelling themselves one by one from the tight-wound skein of quill and claw until only the gulls remain, chuckling at the joke I am beginning to understand. I was the fox. Now I am become the quarry.

      I look up at the jaundice-yellow sky. I’ll have to take to my heels if I’m going to outrun the storm back to the forest, for it is coming in fast. I hear the cracking of a distant tree, pulling up its roots and crashing through the frail arms of its brothers as it falls to earth. But there are no trees: it the sound of approaching thunder.

      I take no more than three paces before the rain begins in earnest. At least it’ll wash off the muck, I think. I race along and soon come upon the drainage channel, now churning with orange water. I can’t believe it is full so quick, for the downpour has barely started.

      It is too dangerous to crawl within, so I crouch and run alongside, comforting myself with the knowledge that no other person will be so mad as to venture out in this weather. I am a fool to be so caught, and counsel myself over and over never to follow the flight of birds again, for they bring nothing but trouble.

      ‘You bastard birds!’ I shout, and am rewarded with another splat on my arm. ‘Ha! Missed my head!’ I cry, and a volley lands on my shoulder.

      The marshland is a blur, rain pouring so heavily that I swear it goes up my nose. I am grateful for the straight line of the ditch, guiding me back inland, but the next step thrusts me into mud up to the knee. I sink further and only just manage to drag my foot out. Somehow, I have followed the ditch in the wrong direction and am at the sea’s edge. Rusty water spews into the estuary.

      I throw myself backwards and gasp on the quaking edge of the morass. I shove down the shock and remind myself that I have made a simple mistake and gone towards the sea rather than away from it. All I need do is retrace my steps and all will be well.

      I turn about and make my way as swiftly as I can, which is not that fast, for the ground sucks at my feet as though unwilling to release me from its grasp. I fortify myself with the thought that soon I will come upon a hedgerow that betokens solid ground. But the ditch is met by two more: one leading to the right and one to the left. It is impossible to see further than five paces in either direction. I hop from sodden foot to foot, the earth softening dangerously as I loiter.

      I set off to the left but go barely twenty paces when I am knee-deep in sludge again. I