Wildoak

After Maggie leaves him, Rumpus plays for a while and then settles down in the branches of the old oak. When it begins to storm, he seeks shelter inside the tree’s hollow; he has never experienced thunder before and finds it terrifying. The next morning, he explores a bit and goes to a stream to drink. Intrigued by a fish, he bats at it and is surprised when he actually catches his first prey. Before he can figure out how to eat it, he is distracted by the appearance of a fox. On his way back to the old oak, he sees a field of sheep. He instinctively wants to chase them, but then he smells blood and the scent of the fox, again, and he decides that he wants nothing to do with a place where something has been recently killed. He heads back to the ancient oak, hoping that Maggie might have returned with meatballs.

The narrative flashes back a few hours, to when Maggie wakes after a night filled with frightening dreams about Granville. She rereads the letter she has received from her mother, in which Evelyn assures Maggie that her animals are receiving good care and that Evelyn misses Maggie.