Note: I'm really not too sure how to categorize this, so just in case, I'll additionally warn here that this story is somewhat dark. Although since the novel is a bit more than somewhat dark, and this is bookverse fic after all, that should probably go without saying. :P
Disclaimer: I don't own Wicked.
It was a summer night, cooled by the breeze coming in off the lake, but still too warm for wearing shoes. The moon, nearly full, seemed to rise further above the trees as they exited the yard, illuminating the surfaces of things with a pale insipid light, leaving shadows looking blacker from the contrast. Bfee carried a rifle slung over his shoulder and kept an ear out for any movement in the underbrush all around them. His son followed just behind.
"The moon's following us," Boq observed. He turned around to walk backwards for a moment, his face tilted up toward the sky. Only just turned ten, and still small for his age; his clothes were too big for him, having been taken in from Bfee's with room optimistically left to grow into during the hoped-for growth spurt. The sleeves and trouser legs were rolled up several times and still managed to look cumbersome. His own rifle was carried over his shoulder in an awkward imitation of his father.
"Quiet, now," Bfee said. "And watch where you're going." When Boq didn't seem to hear, Bfee sighed and went back to turn him around manually. "Stick close. We didn't come out here to play."
Trotting by his father's side obediently, Boq asked, "Why does the moon look like it's following us?"
"It's just your imagination," Bfee said gruffly. By some perverse instinct, it seemed, his son never asked him questions he knew how to answer.
Usually he would have preferred to have a less distractible partner during a long watch. But this son of his was perceptive, when he could be made to mind the task at hand, and a fairly good shot, or at least he was since he had been fitted with spectacles year before last. And Bfee hoped this would be something of a learning experience for the boy, a way to focus his attention.
There was a small hill nearby, overlooking their property. The bank facing the farmhouse had fallen in during some rare heavy rain years ago, leaving a steep, crumbling expanse, crisscrossed with the skeletal branches of trees half-buried by the avalanche, too dangerous to try climbing. The top of the hill and the opposite side were kept from the same fate by the spidery network of tree and grass roots running deep into the earth, stitching it together. It was accessible only by circling far around and going up this path through the trees.
To Bfee's annoyance, Boq had turned around again, and stopped walking. "What did I tell you?"
"But I thought I heard a voice. It sounded like someone said my name."
Bfee listened. Not a sound could be heard other than the gentle rustling of the leaves above. Tugging on the back of Boq's collar, Bfee guided him forward to walk ahead where he could be watched. "Can't have your mind wandering all over the place and hearing things that aren't there, understand? Just pay attention to what's in front of your own face."
They had reached the top of the hill. From here, they could look down on the structures below without being noticed: the little house, the chicken coop, a long-empty rabbit hutch falling into disrepair, and the barn, further away.
"You can see everything from up here," said Boq, appreciatively. But he was looking out over the familiar scenery, toward the choppy silver surface of the lake – or perhaps beyond. In reality they weren't that high up, but from a child's perspective, they may as well have been standing atop a mountain.
An uncommonly large scrub oak had fallen near the edge of the hillside, some time ago judging by the state of decay, creating a clearing in the dense brush. Bfee settled down behind the mossy trunk and motioned to Boq to do the same. If they listened carefully, they could hear the quiet murmuring of the sleeping chickens from here, carried up to them on the wind through the starry night. "We'll wait here," he explained. "It's close enough. You help me keep watch, and if we catch anything going for the chicken coop, we'll see if we can't take care of it from here."
"How long do we have to wait?"
"Only for the one night, if things go well. We can't lose any more to the foxes, or whatever it is that's been taking them."
"Why not? We have extra."
"What a question. You like to eat, don't you?"
Boq nodded thoughtfully. "But foxes like to eat, too."
"Well, they can find their own food, can't they? Now hush up."
Bfee laid his rifle across the fallen tree and waited. For a while Boq imitated him, squinting down at the chicken coop intently. When that lost its charm, he entertained himself by writing his name in the dirt, his brothers' names, the names of everyone he knew, then crossing them out and starting over. Inevitably, he bored of that game, too, so Bfee permitted him to wander a little further down the path, where he couldn't be spotted from below, with strict orders to stay away from the hillside's crumbling edge and outside the forest. Although he had entertained a vague hope of being proven wrong, he hadn't truly expected Boq to contribute anything tonight. When Bfee's father first took him along on such an excursion as a child, he had dozed off a few minutes in and slept straight through the gunshots, only waking when his father retrieved the carcass of the coyote they'd been hunting and laid it out beside him, laughing. Compared to that, Bfee supposed, it was hard to go wrong.
"Dad?" The startled whisper carried like a shudder through the silence. Bfee was up immediately, rifle in hand, and found Boq crouching before a patch of bare earth. With one small finger he traced in the air the outline of a track in the dust, a light paw print, half obscured by the soft grass. It was nearly as long as Bfee's hand. "Big fox," said Boq, quietly.
Bfee glanced around them, suddenly on alert. It was clear that this was too much for only the two of them; too dangerous to have a clumsy little boy out here with only one guardian, and a creature that size about. Tomorrow he would gather a few neighbors into a proper hunting party to take care of this. "Let's go back down."
For once Boq didn't waste any time. They made their way around the shoulder of the hill and into the cool shadows under the trees, huddling so close they were in danger of tripping over one another's feet. Facing behind them, Boq tugged at his father's sleeve. "I saw something move."
"Just your imagination," Bfee shot back. True or not, they couldn't stop to look. There was a definite hissing sound from the leaves around them, but it might have been the wind.
Bfee was making his way so quickly that by the time he realized he was no longer being followed and looked back, Boq had been left behind. He was standing just at the curve of the path with his rifle hanging forgotten at his side, a pathetically tiny figure frozen in a patch of moonlight, staring into the trees with wide eyes. Something curled and lashed in the shadows: the tail of something large and feline. Bfee shouldered his own rifle, but the creature was hidden and shielded by the trees. If he didn't hit his target on the first try, the beast might still leap at Boq; for that matter, he didn't have a clear enough shot to be sure that Boq would be unhurt if he missed. He edged closer instead, crossing to the other side of the path to get a better view.
That same melodic hissing sound was emanating from the underbrush now, and certainly not the wind this time; the treetops were still. Boq leaned forward, almost took a step toward it, listening as if hypnotized.
The beast's huge shaggy head came into view around the curve of a tree as Bfee moved. It was a felltop tiger, close to the ground in a predatory crouch, its lips drawn back in a snarl. Old, thin and sickly from hunger, it must have been magnificent in its prime, years ago. It noticed Bfee just as he took aim and fired.
The tiger stood up in one sinuous motion, took a shuddering step toward Boq, and collapsed again. Blood dripped from its neck into the dust, but although it was weakened and fatally wounded, it wasn't yet dead. These tigers of the hills were supposed to be shy of humans; this one must have been made reckless by starvation. Its ribs were clearly visible through its mangy pelt as it panted for breath, but its golden eyes, burning with impotent rage, followed Bfee sharply as he approached. Boq hadn't made a sound or moved; he shook his head in blank disbelief, unable to tear his gaze from the dying animal. At close range, Bfee aimed again just between the tiger's ears.
Boq was stricken silent all the way back, and Bfee couldn't find the voice to scold him yet, either. His madly racing pulse did not slow until they came into sight of the house again.
Stopping abruptly as they crossed the yard, Boq stared upward at the moon once more, his eyes eerily filled with its pale light. "I know you said it wasn't real, but I thought I heard my name again, so I listened."
At that moment Bfee wanted nothing more than to get them both back inside where it was safe, but something in the boy's voice made him pause, a little awed in spite of himself by this sudden show of gravity.
Boq dug his toes into the dirt, anchoring himself in place as he struggled to remember. "'The moon doesn't follow you,'" he said, reciting words that weren't his own. "'You might as well find it out now. The moon doesn't know you exist, and even if it did, it wouldn't care where you were going.'" Cradling the rifle to his chest, he turned a plaintive gaze on Bfee. "But tigers can't talk." It was almost a question, but of course he must have known the answer.
"No," Bfee said automatically, mystified. Then the realization crept over him like a killing frost. "No… tigers can't."
They stood together just a few steps from the doorway, listening keenly as the wind rustled the distant treetops, avoiding one another's eyes. Bfee found himself shaking, ashamed, afraid to think. The rifle was still warm and impossibly heavy in his hands.
The hatred in that Tiger's eyes…
"I wanted to say something," Boq said, his voice rising until it cracked. "I wanted to, but I thought maybe it wasn't… maybe it was just…"
Even on the verge of tears, Boq seemed years older than he had been when the moon rose. He seemed so much grown that Bfee struggled with the temptation of sharing this burden. Why shouldn't he? He had never been one for coddling and sheltering his sons; far from it. Wouldn't the truth be better, after all?
But no, he thought; not now, not here. This was a child, only a child, who had witnessed what could be the first real blow to his innocence. And there he waited, desperate to have his fears proven wrong, to be absolved from blame. For once, Bfee realized, and perhaps only this once, he could give the answer that Boq wanted to hear. How could a father refuse that of his son?
"You're right," said Bfee. The full weight of guilt settled down upon his shoulders, but he forced himself to speak firmly. "Tigers can't talk. It was just your imagination."
Boq's arms fell to his sides in relief, the mouth of the rifle he hadn't used scraping the dirt at his feet. He ducked his head to hide the tears that were finally spilling over. For now he could hold on to those words, though Bfee knew he would wonder, later on, when he was alone. Perhaps he was young enough that he could come to really believe them in time.
When dawn broke, they found the chicken coop untouched for the first time in days, and all the remaining chickens inside, unharmed.