OUR REVELS NOW ARE ENDED         

There is screaming in the distance. Somewhere, out there, beyond the garden gate. It wakes the woman from a deep and restful sleep, and she is left kicking against the covers, reaching for the tail end of a dream that makes no sense—something about ropes and rivers—but it fades from her mind as she sets bare feet on the scuffed wood floors.

The screaming grows louder now, more intense, and two long strides bring her to the window where she pushes aside the heavy curtains. For the first time in many long months, there is no frost on the corners of each glass pane, no bits of silver filigree that catch the light. Spring has finally come to the town of Hallowell.

No, she thinks, listening closer. Not screaming.

The sound is that of whining and whimpering. But not a dog. Nor a wolf. Not the mean yip and snarl of a coyote. It is gentler. Softer.

So, it is my fox then, she thinks.

The woman grabs a blanket from the foot of the bed and wraps it around her shoulders. The floorboards creak with age as she moves toward the front door. Her feet are bare, pale and ghostly, but it is warmer now, and she has no need of stockings, of boots.

When the woman pulls the door open, she sees the fox immediately. “Tempest,” she says, her voice little more than a breath in the cool morning breeze.

The river is open. Where once the ice lay thick and solid from bank to bank, now it moves in a molten, gurgling flow. It is still cold as death from the long winter and the snowmelt, but has become a churning, lethal wall of water, dirty and dark, flowing south. And there, in the distance, if you listen closely, is the sound of a water-wheel. It too turns freely, sending its music into the dawn. A tinkling, metallic charm.

The fox hears both river and wheel as she sits at the entrance to her den, watching the woman. She hears them and is pleased. This is a gentle season, at least until the rains begin. That always brings a different kind of trouble. For now, however, the valley is lush and verdant and filled with new life. Nuts and berries and little creatures flitting from tree to tree. There are flowers: daffodils and iris and hyacinth. The soil smells fresh and ripe, tender shoots pushing through the surface of every field. Worms and ladybugs and butterflies.

The fox also has something to offer the world this spring, and she whimpers again, urging her kits to leave the den. They are hesitant, so her mate meets her at the entrance. Presses his nose to hers. He shoves them out gently, one by one. Slowly they tumble into the grass and begin to explore the gnarled roots of the ancient, live oak tree. They investigate this new place. Scratch at the bark. Sniff the three large moss-covered stones. They climb and tumble. Hide and play.

And all the while the woman watches from her place at the door. Watches and wonders. Remembering. Wistful. Beneath her awe is a kind of grief, old and tender, like a scar. But even that cannot swallow the joy she feels at the sight before her. There are four kits. One male—big and red like his father—and three females. Slender and dark, like their mother. Silver. Rare.