“I didn’t know if you were coming back,” Kestrel burst out.
“I always come back,” he said, catching her in his huge paw again and scooping her close.
His presence was so big, and Kestrel so small, that it was like being an ant squashed against a cliff. She couldn’t stay mad at him for more than ten seconds, even when she tried. All she wanted to do was stay like this forever, in the only place she felt safe, with her face pressed against her dad’s coat.
She felt silly for doubting he’d come back. He always did.
They walked around the perimeter of the village, her dad’s traps clanking all the way. Pippit was clinging to her boot, his nose wiffling excitedly. Kestrel was unused to openly strolling around. She wanted to jump back into the shadows.
“Did you find anything for my collection?” she asked, trying to hide her nervousness.
“Not this time,” he said, shaking his head. “But I promise I always look.”
Kestrel opened her mouth to tell him most of it had been stolen by the village kids, but she thought better of it. She didn’t want to ruin his visit. Besides, now she had Hannah’s plait to add to her collection. It was even better than the silver ring.
Her dad held his traps still as they passed behind Ike Fletcher, who was peering into the well with an expression of deep distrust.
“Ike’s scared of water,” her dad said softly, nudging her when they were safely away from him. “He looks in there every day to check there aren’t any monsters.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Kestrel, feeling thrilled with this new piece of information. She wondered how Ike would feel if he knew the Briny Witch lurked around the village.
“Just watch him. And you see that thing inside Walt Leith’s coat?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s a bottle of poison. They say he’s saving it for when his grabber comes.”
Kestrel looked at Walt with a shiver, imagining him sitting behind his door at night, holding the bottle.
“That’s how his great-grandfather died,” her dad continued. “He refused to be eaten by his grabber. The old man was still alive when I was your age. He said he remembered life outside the forest. Lots of the old people claimed they weren’t born here, or that the forest grew up around them.”
“I bet it’s true,” Kestrel said, excitement squirming in her gut. It explained her feeling that the forest was a single, huge living thing, almost a monster in itself, and that it was doing its best to trap them.
“How many wolves did you get?” Kestrel asked. Her dad looked around and touched his hat, running his fingers through the claws, counting them. The gesture was so automatic it was almost a tic. He didn’t believe in scarecrows and sticks to keep the grabbers away, but he always said that wearing wolves’ teeth would throw grabbers off his scent.
“Since I last saw you?” The claws hanging all around his hat jangled as he slipped them between his fingers. “Fifteen. Nine gray, five black, and one silver. The last one had green eyes and one ear. It had me pinned down by the throat, but I threw it off and tossed it down a hole.”
“Good move,” she said approvingly. Her dad smiled like she’d said something funny.
“And what about you, little fox?” he asked, gently pushing her away so he could see her better.
A scream cut the air in half. Kestrel grabbed her spoon and brandished it in the direction of the noise, her mind already racing through the options. A wolf? A grabber? Another horde of poisonous rabbits?
Her dad pulled her back. Before she could protest, Mardy burst out of her house.
“Who took my rug?” she screeched. “I’ll beat you to a pulp!”
Anyone who was outside stared at her. Kestrel felt her dad’s hand slowly drop from her shoulder. Mardy looked around, then started to shiver.
Nobody said anything. Kestrel couldn’t stand it anymore. She opened her mouth, ready to offer help, but Mardy turned and fled back into the house.
Walt, who still had a log in his hands, blinked and continued to stoke the wolf fire, as though he hadn’t heard anything. Ike patted his pocket watch nervously and peered into the well.
“Why don’t they say something?” Kestrel asked hotly. Her cheeks felt warm and prickly.
“They’re scared, pet,” he said, his voice strangely grave. He ran his fingers through the teeth a second time in a distracted, worried way.
“Has she lost it?” she asked. “Or do you think it’s her grabber?”
She looked at her dad. He turned away quickly, but she saw enough to know that he was scared. His face was pale.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her stomach dropping.
“Nothing,” he said, turning back to her. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“You’re lying,” she said fiercely. “I’m not stupid.”
“All right,” he said. “You’re only twelve. You shouldn’t be hunting grabbers. And you know you can’t catch them before they’ve eaten. They’re too fast and clever.”
Kestrel watched him carefully, but the look of fear had gone. Maybe she’d imagined it.
“I’m clever, too,” she said. “I won’t stop trying.”
Her father heaved a sigh and raised his hands in mock defeat.
“I still don’t know why you do it,” he said. “I always hoped you wouldn’t catch it from your grandma, rest her soul, but you’re every bit as stubborn and restless as she was.”
Kestrel dropped her head. She hated it when her dad mentioned Granmos; she felt like the truth about her death would come bursting out of her at any moment. The guilt of keeping it secret made her want to shrivel up.
But she was so used to keeping secrets. Even her training had been kept under wraps.
Your dad doesn’t need to know, Granmos had said when she was little, casting Kestrel her special, hawkish look. I tried to train him once, but he was too sensitive. Couldn’t handle it. In this family, strength passes down the female side.
“How did you grow up without being mean?” Kestrel asked. The idea of having Granmos as a mum seemed horrifying. “Didn’t she scare you?”
“She wasn’t so bad,” her dad said. “I know she was a bit tough on you sometimes, but she only wanted to make you stronger.”
A bit tough? Kestrel wanted to scream. She threw me down a well in the middle of winter to see if I could swim!
Sometimes, even now, when Kestrel heard an unexpected noise, she was still terrified that her grandma was about to attack her.
“Anyway, she adored you,” her dad added. “Do you remember the coat she made you when you were nine? She hated sewing, but she spent three weeks making it. She couldn’t wait to give it to you.”
Kestrel did remember. It was an exact copy of her grandma’s coat, the colorful one made of rags. Kestrel loved the coat so much she didn’t take it off for weeks. She’d only gotten rid of it after her grandma died, when even looking at the coat made a knot of guilt form in her stomach. She’d left it hanging on a branch in the middle of the forest.
“I remember,” Kestrel said uncomfortably.
But then she thought of her tenth birthday, and the gift she’d received from Granmos then. It wasn’t nice, like the coat.
The night of her birthday Kestrel was in bed, half asleep, when something jabbed her in the ribs. She woke up to see Granmos’s wrinkled face inches from her own, her crooked teeth bared in a grin.
“You see the door?” her grandma said, pointing a long, red fingernail at the front door. Kestrel’s mother snored in the corner of the room, oblivious. “Have you noticed how it stares at you?”