They got out, Viola guiding Dot to a patch of rough grass to relieve herself. Her mother whisked a palm against the brittle paintwork of the veranda, bringing about a small storm of white flakes, already deciding what grade of sandpaper might do the job. Jacob Crane paced the dirt driveway as if it were a stage, regaling them with the origin of the farmstead’s name. It was a dialect word for a seal, an animal that returned to the island in the winter, sheltering in the western coves to feed, ahead of the breeding season. The man then turned to survey the neglected land beyond the house, the lumpy soil, hands resting on the belt of his brown slacks, and began a list of what needed to be done. Weeds must be cleared. Seeds must be planted. Every tree was capable of bearing fruit if it was treated the right way. Viola seemed to be included in this last statement. Mr Crane fixed her with a benevolent blue-eyed gaze.

Viola’s mother looked up from her assessment of the woodwork, alert, her pliant smile all of a sudden erased.

‘You’re the headmaster, you say?’ she asked.

The man peeled his gaze from Viola to give the woman a firm, proud nod.

Then Dot barked, directing their attention to an animal meandering light-footed across the abandoned land, its fur as red as the hair on Viola’s head – as the hair on her mother’s head too.

Mr Crane’s expression tightened.

‘We shoot them, I assure you,’ he said. ‘We snare them. We don’t let them get out of control.’

Viola crouched down low to loop a finger through Dot’s collar, a question finding its way to her tongue. How did the foxes get here? The first farm animals, like the horses, came in the belly of ships, she presumed, their arrival as deliberate as her own. Rats and mice might become trapped accidentally within cargo, slip on and off a vessel unnoticed. But a fox… ?

The animal paused to look back at them, reproachful, before disappearing into the tangle of a hedgerow, and in that moment it became clear to Viola that it was not her question to ask. The fox was demanding it of them. How did you get to the shores of my beautiful island? it wanted to know. Who said it was a good idea for you to come?

Ordinary Time: Autumn 2017

ORDINARY TIME: AUTUMN 2017

In the beginning came the end: the moment Jade-Marie Ahearn sang too loudly during morning assembly.

Father Daniel, gentle and grey, in appearance and in word, had introduced the liturgy without incident. Mentions were made of the day’s saint – a man who had done the required amount of preaching, healing and converting of pagans, but little else to martyr him above all the others – then the eagle-head lectern was passed to Mr Crane.