Abigail perched all that night in the ancient, craggy Scots Pine in the village square watching the dull light in Violet’s cottage window while Armand hunted and brought her food. The tree was beautiful, but sitting in it while Abigail gulped down her mice made Armand’s feathers stand on end as if lightning were in the air. The men didn’t hunt owls, not usually, but they were so dangerous in so many other ways that sitting in that old pine in the center of the village felt like perching in the open mouth of a wolf or a bear.
The village was asleep outside a few lanterns in windows. Armand with his sharp ears could hear them snoring in their beds. He heard the sheep shuffle in their fold, the cattle groan in their paddock, the chickens warble in their various coops. Codger the lurcher turned a circle on the stoop of the shepherd’s cottage and lay down again, his nose buried under his tail. A dog somewhere else howled at the moon, which was nigh unto full and heading downslope toward the horizon. Abigail was done with her mouse, so Armand lifted off to find her another one, or a rat, in the midden behind the village. On his second pass, he found Martin the fox trying to find his way into a chicken coop.
“You figure out a way to stop the men from building that train yet?” Martin asked when Armand settled on the roof of the coop, inspiring awestruck clucks from its inmates. “They caved in my cousin’s den yesterday, killed one of the kits in the nest and winged my cousin with a shotgun.”
Armand thought of what Hamish had said. “Not yet,” he said. “I’m working on it.”
Armand saw a corner of the fox’s mouth lift in a smile, not a nice one. “Two more days, Armand. And then we’re doing it my way.”
“And what way would that be, Martin?” Armand’s tone was as frosty as the coop eaves. The chickens started clucking faster. One of the fox’s eyes flashed like a second moon.
“Don’t you fret, old boy, it won’t put you and yours out. It’ll just give these fools something other than their infernal train to worry about for a good bit.” Armand said nothing to that. He lifted off the coop and went to hunt voles in the fallow fields. He caught one and ate it, brought a second back to Abigail in the old pine. Dawn was coming on. As Armand swiveled his head around to look at the setting moon, in the uncanny way that owls do, a V of snow geese flew straight across it.
“Do you think we’ll be all right perching here for the day?” Abigail asked. “I don’t want to leave Elsie.” Armand heard the worry in her throat around the lump of vole she was swallowing. He nodded.
“For one day, I think so my love.” He flapped up to her branch, and she tucked her head into the warm crook between his ear and his wing, and they slept.
The Rookery 