“I know of Say, of course,” I said cautiously, “but I cannot say I have ever heard of Asa Fitch.” (This was true, although I admit that I mostly knew about Thomas Say, famed naturalist, because one of my father’s friends had named his bull snake Tommy in the man’s honor. I decided not to mention that to Halder.)
The doctor harrumphed, but seemed mollified. He gazed back down at the fly in the jar, which seemed to cheer him. “You might illustrate theCuterebranext,” he suggested. “Since you have such a fine specimen to work with.”
My skin crawled at the thought, but what could I do? “I’ll do that,” I said grimly.
Halder’s grin spread on either side of his weevil-like nose. “There’s a stack of killing jars in the library.”
I nodded, collected my specimen, and fled the room.
The botfly bumped against the glass. I glared at it. “All right, then,” I told it. “I suppose it’s you and me now. Let’s get this over with…”
Ironically, the next wild creature to alarm me was a member of my own taxonomic class,Mammalia.I was hunched over a sheet of watercolor paper, trying to add fractional amounts of deep red into the botfly’s fur, when I heard a scuffle of bark from the nearby trees.
I glanced up, expecting to see one of the countless gray squirrels that made their homes overhead, and instead found myself gazing into the masked face of a raccoon.
I started back, then hastily set the brush down before I could splash Tuscan red across a nearly finished illustration that had cost me so much labor. “Well, hello,” I said, amused. “What are you doing out so early?”
The raccoon stared back at me, clinging to the trunk of a sweet gum tree. Leaves cast a shifting shadow across its mask. I could not quite make out its eyes.
Slowly, as we studied each other, my amusement began to lessen. I’d encountered any number of raccoons before, of course. You can hardly wander the woods on the East Coast without meeting a few, and they love nothing more than to get into trash and make a dreadful mess. I had no fear of them, but a healthy respect. Despite their adorable looks, they have a savage bite if they feel threatened. Most of the time though, they’ll go out of their way to avoid conflict. (Well, unless you’re a chicken. They adore conflict with chickens, and the chickens rarely come off well.)
Something about this one looked… off.
Its fur lay in stiff clumps along its sides and chest. I would have guessed that it had been in the water recently, but it looked greasy rather than wet. Was it sick?
Rabies?While you do sometimes see raccoons out in the daytime, an unhealthy animal out during the day set off alarm bells. There was no way that it could make the jump from the sweet gum to the balcony, but I eased myself to the edge of my chair anyway, ready to dodge back if it made any threatening moves.
It didn’t. In fact, it didn’t move at all. It just clung to the tree and stared at me.
At least it looked like it was staring. I couldn’t see the shine of its eyes, so for all I knew, it was taking a nap in my direction.
Or maybe it doesn’t have eyes. Maybe they’re gone. Or maybe it never had any and it’s just got blank fur growing over the sockets…
That was not a thought that I enjoyed having. I could see it all too clearly, a skull like one of the ones in the studio, but with smooth bone where the orbits should be.
Stop that.
I wasn’t usually this fanciful. It was probably just left over from dealing with Halder and the dreadful botfly, and fromhearing Jackson’s stories about bloodless bodies in the woods and God knew what else. It was ridiculous, scaring myself with things like that when rabies was scary enough already. Iknewit was ridiculous. Rabies drove you foaming mad until you died in agony.
I wouldn’t be able to see foam at this distance. All I could make out was a pale blob on one side of its face, which might have been a scar or a patch of sunlight or a piece of bark stuck to its fur.
I wasalmostcertain it couldn’t make the jump from the tree to the balcony.
“Right,” I said. “I’m just… going inside for a moment.” (Yes, it was very silly. I knew that even at the time. The raccoon certainly wasn’t going to be impressed with my bravado. It was purely childhood logic at work: as long as I didn’t run, it wouldn’t be able to chase me.)
I stood up, nonchalantly gathered up my paints, balanced the half-finished fly atop them, and retreated at a decorous pace into the studio. When I closed the door, I could see the raccoon still facing in my direction. It hadn’t moved at all and I still couldn’t make out its eyes.
The next morning, when I came down to breakfast, there was a stranger at the table. She had the round, slightly jowly face that can be any age between forty and seventy, and I couldn’t tell what race she was. Generally around here that means people assume you’re Black, but I found myself reluctant to make that assumption either.
“Hezekiah Kersey,” she said, waving the edge of a shawl at me. She was bundled up in shawls as if it were January instead of the first week of May. The shawls were all bright colors, red and green and purple, so she glowed like an orchid in the dimness of the kitchen. I would have to use color straight out of the tube topaint the fabric, and layer the shadows carefully so as not to dim their richness. “But you can call me Ma Kersey. Ev’rybody else does, whether I birthed ’em or not.” She aimed a swat in Jackson’s general direction as she said it, which he ducked, laughing.
“You’re not old enough to have birthed me, Ma.”
“Flatterer.” She had two gold teeth that showed when she smiled.
“Sonia Wilson.” I extended a hand and she took it. Her grip was solid but brief, not trying to prove anything, maybe not thinking that anything needed proving.
“I hear you’ve come to draw up more pictures for the doctor’s book.”
