Geometric fox behind the ear

The fox came back on Tuesday, right at the hour the ferry should have been whistling past the skerry, and it sat on the cold stone wall by the peat store as if it had an appointment. You'd have laughed. Its outline was all wrong, sharp corners where a fox ought to have soft fur, as though someone had folded it from a sheet of slate-grey paper and never smoothed the creases. Mr Gillies swears it's the same animal that raided the hens in March, but I think he's just tired of losing eggs.

I did what Dad would have done. I put the kettle on, left the back door open, and sat with my tea while it took the measure of me. It didn't come any closer. It turned its head one way, then the other, and every angle of it caught the light off the loch like a cut edge. I thought of the box of his old paper tricks in the loft, the cranes and the frogs, and how he used to say the whole trick was to fold a thing so it could only ever be one shape.

When I went to fetch the box down, the fox was gone, but the wet moss beside the gate held a single neat print: three toes and a small triangle at the heel. I've pressed a sheet of Dad's good paper into it, and it's drying on the windowsill now.

Come at Easter if the boat runs. Bring the tin of thread.

Love, Ishbel