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Chapter 3. Nothing Spoils a Seashore Holiday

by Pearl

Little pebble upon my paw,
from where I'm standing here on the shore,
How many seasons have you been here?
Little kitten upon the shore,
from where I'm lying here on your paw,
You are to me like a passing breeze.
The sun will always shine where you stand,
no matter in which land you may find yourself,
Now you have my blessing, go your way.

"You're not supposed to eat the pebble, Luv," Pearl laughed, gently taking the stone from the infant. In its place she offered a spoonful of cream colored mush. "This is your food, Darling."

The sight of a parent and child picnicking on the beach had never been a common sight on Evnara, especially not now after everything that had happened. Pearl, however, wanted Sandy to remember more than just chaos and panic. She wanted her to grow up with memories she could cherish as she got older. Here the two sat on a blanket by the shore with another blanket rolled up and placed behind the little one who was just learning sit on her own.

"What do we have mixed in your porridge today, hmm?" The kit leaned forward, mouth open wide, to find out. She almost overbalanced and toppled ears over tail.

"Well there's no need to get that excited," the older vixen chuckled again, steadying the little one before she continued the meal. "It's only a bit of mashed apples. Better then those turnips we tried though, eh?"

Sandy had recently become dissatisfied with milk. This was a relief to her guardian. Finding a nursing mother to bottle up a seemingly endless supply to sustain the kit had been an incredible challenge. Pearl, however, had refused to leave her grandkit with the female until she was weened. She was determined to do this parenting thing on her own.

The vixen wanted Sandy to have all the things she hadn't been able to give to Jasper. This was coming at a higher price than Pearl had imagined, though. All of her precious gems were slipping through her claws; both the flesh and blood ones and the stones she had acquired for her services.

"I just can't stay, Ms Pearl," said Jade as she threw her clothing and other belongings into the bag lying open on her bed. "The twins made it out before the blockade went up, and Emmy . . ."

"That was. . . very unfortunate," Pearl admitted sadly. Neither of them wanted to remember what had happened to the wildcat who had run away and become one of the victims of the madness.

Jade sighed. "I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but Ms Pearl, that child has totally distracted you from the business. It's not doin' me any good to stay here."

"Well you have to do what you think is right, Jade."

"And that's another thing, Ms Pearl. My name's not Jade. It's Tala."

"We've still got each other, haven't we, Luv?" Pearl spooned another dollop of the mixture into the infant's waiting mouth.

Sandy spit it back out happily in response. Her grandmother laughed and looked around to see if anybeast had noticed.

There was somebeast watching, an otter with a sling in his paws and a dagger in his belt. Pearl nodded at him warily.

She supposed she should have been glad that the woodlanders had come. It had been they who had cleaned up the island enough to make this little outing possible. However, that didn't make her any less nervous to be observed so closely by one of them.

Pearl put on a brave face for the child and whispered, "I believe we have an audience. Shall we give them a show." Lifting Sandy high over her head she began to sing, not one of the bawdy ballads she had used to entertain the customers at the Oasis but a nonsense Dibbun's song she had learned long ago.

That's when the rain began, first one drop and then another. One splashed on the kit's nose and she looked cross-eyed down her muzzle.

"I guess that signals the end of our picnic," Pearl swung the child around once more, both of them laughing, before she settled Sandy on her hip and began the one armed job of gathering their things into the picnic basket.

Their observer didn't seem in the least deterred by the change in the weather. His eyes were focused on the vixen and the kit. Whatever or whoever it was that had compelled him to keep watch on the pair had obviously provided strong motivation.

"Right then. Let's go home." Pearl glanced back once more at the otter before she started for the road that would take her back to the center of the city and the Oasis. She continued to sing odd snippets of the song as they went along. This was mostly to spare the child from any fear of danger but it also had the effect of calming her own nerves.

It could just be a coincidence, the vixen told herself as she caught another glimpse of the same otter after turning several corners and even taking an alleyway she wouldn't normally have used.

The streets were wet now and her thin, fashionable shoes would soon be soaked through. "We won't need a bath tonight, will we, Luv?" Sandy clapped her paws together and cooed, but Pearl could hear the splashing of their pursuer's footpaws behind them and she picked up speed.

"Hold on there," the woodlander shouted, and she could be in no doubt that he was speaking to her.

Pearl didn't stop. Instead, she quickened her pace again. Instinct warned her that something was not right.

"Please Marm, I don't mean y'any harm. I just want t'talk to ya." Indeed, she'd heard that one before.

One inadequately shod footpaw found a large puddle just as she reached the Oasis, but the vixen ignored this and took the front steps two at a time. She dropped her basket, and searched franticly in her pocket for the key.

Sandy thought this was great fun. She flailed her arms about, squealing, and making it very difficult for Grandmum to keep a hold of her with one arm.

Finally Pearl found the key and brought it up to the lock, but her paws were shaking and the small piece of metal slipped from her grasp. "Damnit," she whispered. Then looking at Sandy she amended the statement, "You didn't hear me say that."

The tiny vixen giggled with glee while the older stooped down carefully as not to drop the infant and picked up the key.

When she stood again however, she was eye to eye with her pursuer. "Why'd you run, Marm? D'you have some place you've got to be?"

"I was just going home." Pearl tried to control her trembling as she gestured towards the door with the key in her paw. Maybe he'd think it was just the cold rain giving her a chill.

The otter took a look at the building and seemed to realize at once what it was, or what it had been. "You live here?"

Were woodlanders really this dimwitted? Pearl thought. In her annoyance she regained some of her bravado. "Yes, I do."

"And the kit?"

"Well she's mine so I suppose she lives with me." She tried to keep the sarcasm from her voice and turned back to the door with the key.

He put a paw on her shoulder to stop her. "You live here with that kit?" He asked again, slower this time as if he expected a different answer.

Pearl answered just as slowly, "I live here with this kit." Then in a rash outburst she continued, "We can't all grow up posh and cozy at Redwall, can we?"

Maybe it was her tone, or the mention of that precious piece of property back in Mossflower, or maybe the idea that a whore raising a kit in a brothel was bad enough. He frowned at her. "I'd like you to come with me."

She frowned back at him. It was raining harder now. "I'd like to get this kit inside before she catches death of cold. You're welcome to come in, have a cup of tea, we'll talk about this." Some of her natural hospitality came through even her worry and annoyance.

The woodlander looked appalled. "Nah, I think you'll be comin' with me." He clamped a strong paw around the upper part of her arm that wasn't occupied with restraining the kit.

"Sir," The title was laced with contempt. "I would ask you to remove your paw."

"'Fraid I can't do that. You come along easy now so that little one doesn't get hurt." Vermin she may be, but he did seem to be honestly troubled about the kit's welfare.

Pearl attempted to jerk her arm away once and then consented. "Right then, I'll come, but I'm going to make sure your superiors know how you kept this child out in the rain."

"Y'doomed her to a life o' sellin' herself for profit, an' yur worried 'bout the rain," the otter mumbled as he escorted Pearl a little more roughly than necessary down the street toward the building where the woodlanders had set up their headquarters.

"I've what?" Pearl asked in horror having heard the comment, and she forgot to struggle. She was having a hard enough time keeping hold of the squirming kit, who still believed the whole thing was a game.

Bitterly, her captor pulled her on a bit faster. "Well, yur a . . . and what's she s'posed t'learn by watchin' you? That that's . . . okay?" He growled under his breath at the very idea. "An innocent Dibbun, and you teachin' 'er all sorts o' nasty tricks. Yur not fit t'raise anybeast."

He'd said the very thing she had feared. Maybe she was unfit to be somebeast's mother. She had failed Jasper, and now she was on the path to failing his daughter as well.

Sandy seemed to sense her grandmother's change of mood. She whimpered and then began to cry.

"It's just fine, Luv. Don't you worry," Pearl shushed her. "We'll get this straitened out and go home as soon as we can." She could tell the words were as unconvincing to the kit as they were to herself. Still, she tried to keep her own tears from spilling down her cheeks the way they were cascading down Sandy's.

It seemed an eternity of walking through the driving rain before they reached their destination, where a mouse behind a desk asked the otter, "What's that you got there, Ronan?"

"That whore they asked me t'follow, she's got a kit," Ronan answered. He smiled proudly as if he had done a great deed for society.

The mouse looked up with a disgusted expression. "Bring the kit to Leazom. She'll know somebeast who can care for it properly."

The otter nodded and proceeded to try to take Sandy from Pearl's arms.

"NO!" The vixen screamed. Could they not see her tears? Maybe not because of the rain. She kept a tight hold on Sandy while she pleaded, "It's not like that! I don't do that anymore! I would never raise her to do such a thing!"

A tug of war ensued which alerted Sandy all the more to the seriousness of the situation. She let out a high pitched wail and grasped on to pawfuls of Pearl's fur.

Doggedly holding on, Grandmother and child screamed out their protest, "You cant take her from me!"

The woodlanders however turned a deaf ear to the pleas of both the vixen and kit. Others joined the struggle and eventually separated the two.

"Wait! No! Where are you taking her? No, please!" Pearl shrieked, finally defeated. "She's all I have." She watched helpless as they whisked Sandy out and the child's cries died away.

"Take this one down with the others," the mouse ordered and with that washed his paws of the momentary disturbance.

The vixen was too distraught to notice the rain now as she was marched back out the door and down the street to the old tavern. There she was tossed unceremoniously into a makeshift cell with another vixen and a pine marten.

So this is to be it, She thought to herself hopelessly. I failed Sandy just like I failed her father. The future looked so bleak. After everything that had happened, everything she had done, she wasn't the same creature she was when Jasper was a kit. She had changed, fought to better herself, put old mistakes and bad choices behind her.

That thought lit a fire in the old girl. She had changed. She wasn't an unfit parent and she was going to prove it to them. All she had to do was get out of here and make them see.

Pearl looked around at the other beasts that occupied her cell. They looked as bedraggled as she had felt a moment ago but she could give them hope. Her paws smoothed down her wet fur and clothing as best as she could to freshen her appearance and then she addressed the room, "Well isn't this a pretty kettle of fish, but we'll settle it out soon enough. In the meantime we might as well get to know one another if we're to be roommates. My name is Pearl. What's yours?"

The Marteness ignored her, slinking off into a corner to sit with her knees drawn up to her chest. The young bespectacled vixen, on the other paw, looked up at her elder with a simple, innocent smile. "Oh, I've heard loads about you, Ms. Pearl, so I have."