I crept up into the chair opposite him and poked at the stew with my spoon. It was thick, packed full of cubed meat and vegetables, and my mouth watered at the smells of sage and thyme steeped in the broth. After several mouthfuls,I finally found the courage to speak in the face of my father’s scornful expression.
“I want to make a mash for Clover after supper.” My voice was quiet in the small room. “I did chores for Harlan yesterday, and he gave me some coin, so I bought grain and apples for her. For a treat since it’s so cold.”
The ghost of a smile crossed my father’s face, and I gave a reflexive smile of my own.
He waved a hand. “That won’t be necessary.”
My smile faded. He’d refused to do anything to help with Clover’s care since the soap maker brought her to me the year before, so the thought of him having fed her when I was late was almost laughable.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I haven’t fed her yet tonight. Did you?”
He scoffed. That hint of a smile returned, and it wasn’t kind.
“Eat your food, boy. I’ll hear no more about that damned goat.”
We passed the remainder of the meal in silence. After I was finished and excused, I washed my dishes and went for a pot to heat the water to make Clover’s mash.
“Leave it,” my father snapped from his seat at the table. “I won't let you waste grain and apples on an animal. It’s bad enough to have to provide hay.”
“But I bought it myself. You didn’t?—”
He pounded his fist on the table. “I said no!”
I shrank back, and my voice shrank with me. “Can I at least give her one of the apples?”
When he rose from his chair, I’d have melted into the floorboards if I could have.
“If I have to tell you ‘no’ one more time?—”
“Yes, Father,” I broke in, unable to hide a flinchwhen he reached for my arm and yanked me close. His fingers dug in.
“Anddon’tinterrupt me again, boy.”
He flung me toward the hall, and I scurried for the front door before he could make good on any of his unspoken threats. I stuffed my feet into my boots, swung my damp cloak around my shoulders, and ducked outside and around to the small pen behind the house. My whole body shook as I opened the hay bin and scooped up an armful to drop into the manger inside the fence.
“Supper, Clover.” I hopped over the fence and came around to the front of the three-sided shelter where she slept. “Sorry it’s not the mash I promised…”
My gaze settled on the pile of bedding inside the shelter, and my stomach lurched when I realized what was sitting there. Clover was gone, or at least most of her. All that remained was her severed head, eyes open and clouded over with ice, set atop a mound of bloodied straw.
She’d died alone, this animal I had raised almost from birth, who listened to all my problems and my dismay at the changes in my father over the past year, and all the things no eight-year-old should have to witness or deal with. I’d sought comfort from her time and again, but I hadn’t been here to comfortherin return.
I wondered if she’d been scared, if she’d looked for me, if she thought I’d abandoned her, or if she knew how much I’d loved her to the very end.
Tears blurred my vision as I stumbled out of the pen and back toward the house in a horrified daze. I couldn’t understand how this had happened. The fence was unbroken, and there was no sign of an animal attack. With the wall, there was little chance of a predatorfinding its way into Ashpoint anyway. Something—or someone—else had done this.
I tracked snow inside as I staggered into the kitchen and leaned heavily against the door frame. My father sat in his chair at the table, watching me with a sneer of disgust as I fought against a sob to speak.
“What happened to Clover?”
He gestured to the pot of stew on the stove. “Where do you think I got the meat for supper?”
Fierce heaves dropped me to my knees. It took only seconds to rid my stomach of every scrap of that stew all over the kitchen floor. I gasped for breaths between gags and sobs until there was nothing left in me.
A bucket clattered to the floor beside me followed by an old rag. When I finally pried my eyes open, my father loomed over me looking more furious than I’d ever seen him.
“You will not waste food in this house,” he growled. “Clean this mess, and then you’ll eat another bowl.”
I hiccupped a sob. “Please, no…”
