Seven
The breeze worries the canopy as Solma follows the trail of marks cut into the trees. She tests the wind with a finger and grimaces. Wrong direction. Not good. The pigs’ll smell her as soon as they’re in the corral. They’ll panic. She’ll have to take the shot quickly and make sure the other animals get clear before panic turns to rage.
Absently, she reaches into her pocket and feels bereft for a moment when the matchbox that held the bee isn’t there.
That bee.
Something rustles to her left and Solma snaps to attention, dropping to her knee and taking aim. A scraggly, black squirrel, mostly skin and bone, skitters amongst the leaves. Solma curses it. She pushes on, hating the way the forest taunts her, hating that she must shoot a panicking animal, hating that if she doesn’t, peop
