Hung the Moon

A Portion For Foxes

The wind picked up the morning Wendy decided to check Hogback for her friends. It hadn't been so long that she was panicking, but still. It didn't seem right, them not coming round like usual.

She'd chosen her clothing that morning as deliberately as Mum chose his own most days, a long dress in layers of black and blue with an asymmetrical tunic of gauzy grey over the top. She leant down to double-tie her boot laces, and when she stood up again she bound her hair up and pinned it out of the way.

She watched the reeds bend at the waterline from her window for a moment before turning to go downstairs.

"Mum?" She called, the sitting room empty.

She took her black wool coat from its hook and was just tying the bow and arranging the cape over her shoulders when Mum came in from the kitchen.

"What is it, starlight?" He asked. "You look like you're about to go steal someone's soul."

"No," she said. He smiled. It reminded her of a banked fire throwing shadows and sparks, the occasional crackle cutting through the relative quiet. His under-eyes were so dark they looked like bruises, and his fingers trembled when he reached up to touch his snake tattoo as if it were hurting him. "But I do think something might be wrong."

"Wrong?" Mum perked up at that, though the two of them realized at the same time that Mum wasn't wearing his sunglasses. Mum looked around for them, touched the place on his front where he might have hung them from the collar of his shirt, patted his trouser pocket.

It wasn't much. Anyone could misplace their glasses. Yet she remembered what it had been like to see her grandmother waste away in a care home; it had started with misplacing small things, until eventually she'd forgotten faces and names.

Could that even happen to demons? Was six thousand years considered old?

A chill gnawed at her jawbone and pecked at her skull. She hid it, instead crossing the distance and plucking the glasses from where they were perched on Mum's head. She offered them to him.

"Here they are," she said, forcing a smile as he had just moments earlier. He took them from her, sighing with relief, but then seemed to come to a stop before putting them on. He stared at them as if he couldn't remember what step came next. "Anyway, it's just...I haven't seen Adam and the Them for awhile."

"Feels off to you?"

He said, focusing on her face again.

"Yeah."

"Then you're probably right. I'll go with you."

"No Mum, it's okay. It's just Hogback." Mum's mouth thinned into a disapproving line. She remembered it quite well, that look, from when she'd been a small child. Though Nanny had never been much for corporal punishment, his disapproval could take paint off a wall at twenty paces.

"I'll take Dis," she added, hurriedly.

"All right. But at the first sign of danger -"

At first she wanted to snap and say she wasn't a baby and didn't need to be lectured - hadn't she watched him turn into a snake and not flinched? Hadn't she attacked Tisiphone with nothing but a knife and a kettle? - but something about the ever so slight gaunt quality to his cheeks made her stop and reconsider.

"Mum? What's -"

"I'm fine," he said, too quickly. "Take the damn mutt and go check."

She hugged him. He tensed, surprised maybe, but then hugged her in return. He was a demon, and yet she could feel so little fire. As thin as a line of graphite, she could feel the burden on his already overtaxed shoulders.