THIEF OF BREAN (VOL-1)|✓

SCARLET SCREAMS- XXXIII

The little Rabir lifted its head from the pecan between its paws. It chirped and blinked at the stranger staring at it emptily. The fur puffed along its spine was a beautiful golden. The rest of its coat was ginger with a pink, hairless underbelly.

"The guy is four month old. At this time they begin to distance from the mother and socialise with the world," the lanky, brown haired stall owner, Jude Burch told Carl.

The babel of animals and birds all over the stall was a fine remembrance of his journey in the Ackerman for Carl. Few feet behind Jude stood a long row of stacked cages with quirky squirrels busy making frantic scuttles over each other's backs.

About ten to fifteen black feathered turkeys gobbled inside their big coop, lying to the farthest corner of the stall. In another line of cage, kittens mewed and tussled with the stringed feathers suspended form the roof of the enclosure. And finally, his eyes landed on a big Serval cat that sat gravely behind the confine, watching a bunch of playful ferrets in the cage to its side.

"Two hundred Taneens, Sir," Jude priced the little Rabir.

Carl wrinkled his nose. Just then, the bells of the stall chimed and an old woman rushed in through the door. Stopping few steps behind the counter, she rounded the stall in distaste.

"Where is the turkey?" she spoke to no one in general.

Carl peered about the stall again to see if he could find the big Rabir that Aud had tried to sell him for nine hundred Taneens.

"A minute, Mam," Jude told the woman. He called out for a boy named Tom and asked him to bring the bird. Then he turned to Carl. "This is an exotic species. It is only found in the terrains of Prunell."

"Hmm, Prunell."

Jude Burch was looking at him expectantly. "They will make a good company, just like dogs. And they'll keep you warm and warn you of strangers."

"So I have heard," replied Carl.

"Well, does it fly?" the old woman asked stepping next to Carl and screwed her eyes at the rabir.

"No, it doesn't."

"Ah, what a shame."

Shortly, Tom brought her a blue fan tailed turkey with a red wattle and a blotched rump.

Burch looked more or less like his trade partner Bigge, raw-boned, innocent, polite and skilled to lure a customer in. But again, human mind was always inscrutable. One would never know what hid under those manoeuvrable layers of flesh. So it was important for Carl that he learned about this calm and composed nature of Jude Burch. It would help him gauge his reactions when he'd begin his questionings.

"Can I be assured that this is the best gobbler you have got?" the woman asked the attender boy.

"Definitely. This is the best one," said the boy. A hint of amusement flickered behind his loose stubble.

She craned her head to colourful bag purse tucked in the crook of her arm and fished about seventy taneens in a hurry, shoved it into the Jude's palm and rushed out with the bird yelping frantically in the cage.

"Would you take it, Sir?" Jude asked him. "We have older ones too, six months, seven months-"

"Before that." Carl cleared his throat. "I would like to ask you some questions about your friend Aud Bigge."

Jude's brows knotted up. Then they flexed in an unreadable realisation. "Aud?" he said and looked away at the turkeys to the side.

"He is wanted by the constabulary," Carl showed him his ID.