R. Anderson - Wayfarer

He had just turned on the shower when he noticed something outside the window. Brushing aside the gauzy curtain, he peered out to see Peri striding across the back garden toward the house. She carried a vicious-looking knife in one hand, and the limp body of a dead rabbit in the other.

Timothy let the curtain fall and stepped into the shower, but even the hot water couldn’t wash away the crawling feeling that had come over him. As a child he’d thought everything Peri did was wonderful, but seeing her now reminded him just how unnatural her love of hunting really was. As far as he knew, she didn’t eat anything she caught, or sell the pelts either. Yet as long as he’d known her, she’d been killing wild rabbits and other small creatures on a regular basis….

“You’re up early,” Peri remarked when he came down to the kitchen a few minutes later, still damp-haired from his wash. “Did you sleep all right?”

“Not bad,” said Timothy, watching her sidelong while she wiped her hands on a tea towel. They looked clean, but as she turned them over he could see a dark line of blood beneath one nail.

“Well, I’ve already eaten and Paul won’t be up for an hour at least,” said Peri, “so you may as well go ahead and have your breakfast. There’s fruit and cold cereal, or you can make toast if you’d like-here.” She pulled the toaster from a shelf and set it on the counter, hesitating fractionally before plugging it in with a quick, almost savage thrust. “I’ll be in the studio if you need me.”

One apple and two bowls of cornflakes later, Timothy piled his dishes by the sink and looked out the kitchen window. The sky was the color of dirty wool, the garden dismal with rain. He still wanted to have another look at the old oak tree, but there was no reason it couldn’t wait until the weather cleared.

All at once he heard a high-pitched cry, and a small brown shape flashed by the window, with a crow in close pursuit. Timothy knew more about marabou storks than he did most British birds, but he was pretty sure crows didn’t usually hunt on the wing like that. Didn’t they eat things that were already dead?

From the other end of the house came a muffled oath, and the sound of feet pounding up and down the stairs. Timothy stuck his head out into the corridor to see Peri wrench the front door open and leap outside-

Had she been carrying a gun ?

Timothy raced down the hallway and skidded to a halt on the step. Peri stood barefoot on the muddy lawn, an air rifle raised against her shoulder. She squeezed the trigger, and the crow plummeted from the sky.

Shocked, Timothy was about to protest, but then Peri turned and the fire in her dark eyes silenced him.

“Go back inside, Timothy,” she said.

“What happened?” said Paul sharply from behind them. “I thought I heard-”

“You heard me,” said Peri. She strode back into the house, propped the gun against the wall, and began wiping the dirt off her feet with a rag. “But it’s all right now.”

“Is it?” asked Paul.

Peri straightened up. “I did what I had to do,” she said. “And if those crows don’t keep their distance, I’ll keep shooting until they get the message.” Her fist clenched around the rag, crumpling it. “How dare they!”

Paul opened his mouth, glanced at Timothy, and shut it again. At last he said with deliberate calm, “Quite. But I expect people might begin to wonder, if you make a habit of it.”

People meaning him, Timothy supposed. But it was a bit too late to stop him from wondering now. “I don’t get it,” he said. “It was only a crow.”

“You don’t understand,” said Peri, and turned an appealing look to her husband. “It was chasing one of ours, Paul. What else could I have done?”

“Ours?” Paul looked startled, as though this put a whole new complexion on the matter. “Did it get away all right?”

“I don’t know,” Peri said, pushing her feet into her shoes. “I couldn’t see her anywhere.”

“I didn’t know you kept birds,” said Timothy.

“We don’t,” said Paul. “They’re wild. It’s just that we’ve been looking after them for a few years now, and we’ve become…quite fond of them.” He glanced at his wife, who had turned her face away, then continued in a crisper tone, “The crows here are overpopulated, and they’re becoming more aggressive all the time. If something isn’t done to protect the other wildlife, we’ll soon have nothing but crows.”

“I’m going to look outside,” said Peri. “In case she’s just hiding.” She snatched up the rifle again and disappeared.

“Well,” said Paul to Timothy, “we may not get out much, but never let it be said we aren’t interesting.”

He smiled wryly as he spoke, but there was no humor in his eyes, and Timothy’s answering smile was equally thin.

Peri spent much of that morning in the garden and the neighboring fields, searching for her lost bird. When she returned to the house her expression was strained, and Paul began to look anxious as well. They kept leaving Timothy alone and going off to consult with each other in whispers, until Timothy couldn’t stand it any longer and went upstairs to play his guitar.

After five years of practicing an hour or more every day, he knew the strings so well he could have played blind. He’d even started picking out some tunes of his own lately, though songwriting proved to be more of a challenge than he’d expected. The tune he’d been working on had an amazing chord progression; just playing those three arpeggios made his bones vibrate. But he hadn’t been able to figure out what to play next, no matter what he tried.

Once again he felt eyes upon him, though he knew no one was there. Timothy steeled himself to ignore it and kept playing. Arpeggio, arpeggio, arpeggio…

Then his fingers seemed to move of their own accord, leaping up the neck of the guitar to a position he’d never even thought of before. He’d found it! Timothy slapped the guitar in triumph-and amazingly, that was right, too. Arpeggios, strum, slap, repeat. Perfect!

He was playing the line over and over, cementing it in his memory, when something small and brown flickered at the edge of his vision.

Peri’s missing bird?

Timothy thrust the guitar aside and jumped up just in time to see the thing zoom out into the corridor. Beyond the doorway a blur of distant movement caught his eye. Aha! He pelted down the hallway to the bathroom-to find nothing but his own reflection in the toothpaste-speckled mirror. He’d been chasing himself.

Maybe the bird had flown out the window? He’d only raised it a couple of centimeters after his shower, but now it gaped wide. Timothy was reaching out to close it when he saw Peri walking across the lawn.

He was about to call down to her, but then she stopped and glanced back over her shoulder, as though anxious not to be seen. Instinctively, Timothy ducked out of sight, and when he dared to look again, Peri was standing at the foot of the oak tree, one hand raised to its massive trunk. She knocked once-and then, to Timothy’s surprise, she knelt down on the muddy ground and bowed her head.

It couldn’t be what it looked like. She must be pulling a weed, or picking up a bit of rubbish, or setting another rabbit snare. But as he watched, she took something out of her pocket and tucked it between the roots of the tree. Then she folded her hands in her lap and her lips began to move, as though she were praying.

No, that was ridiculous. He’d met nature worshippers, but Peri surely wasn’t one of them. As far as he’d been able to tell, neither she nor Paul was particularly religious: That was one of the reasons he’d looked forward to coming here, knowing they wouldn’t judge him by what he did or didn’t believe.