Chapter 22
The Hill

The South Side Hill looks sullen from the other side of the city. It looks long and tall, with dark patches in the snow. William knew what the darkness was. It was goulds, and berry bushes, and boulders. A South Sider like him knew the hill was not as dark as it looked. Up close, you got to know berry grounds and rabbit paths.

He followed a rabbit path now. He thought, this is how I leave the world. I go to the rabbits' world. Graceful, wild hares. They eat willows and rushes. They make paths and gates. Tidy gates and shelters and hiding places.

He felt the snare wire in his pocket. He could hear Iris's brother Joe now. Joe said there was a special place in hell for people who snare rabbits. William knew why he said that. He had heard how a rabbit screams like a human baby in the snare.

But it was all right for Joe. He had snared a clerk's job with the railway. If he never snared a rabbit he'd still have meat. Pork and beef and no lack of bread and cake.

William had not told Iris he was coming here. She knew him. She did this herself. How often she wore his coat and took her shotgun to Freshwater Bay. She came home with nice ducks. She knew where every one of his snares was. She had more of her own.

She caught white hares with pink eyes. She told him they weren't hares at all. They were human infants eagles had stolen and changed into hares. She would not cook them. He cooked them. She drank the broth but did not eat the meat. She sewed the skins into cradle blankets.

The hilltop was a lonely place. She said an eagle had tried to steal Alice Maud there when she was a baby. Iris had laid her in the partridge berry bushes, all wrapped up. She turned her back to pick berries. But her back prickled.

She looked at her baby. She felt her own mouth water, and she thought, "My, that thing is plump. How white and tasty it looks."

She felt an eagle was near. She could feel the hunger of the eagle. She told herself not to be so foolish. And then, ten feet above little Alice Maud, she saw a great brown bird. She called it an eagle. But it was a falcon.

It hung in the air over the baby. It did not move. Iris swooped on her baby. She folded her in her shawl and fled down the hill.