Free The Still Point by Amy Sackville Page B

to see by, flooding the ice milk-blue; a ring of light circled it, and above it hung another orb, only the faintest waver betraying it: paraselene . Edward said the word to himself: a mock-moon. It seemed somehow congruous, in this place of phantom land and phosphorescence, which might have been another world entirely. A different sphere; nearer, perhaps, to heaven. No tumult of angels, no press of pudgy cherubim, no rush towards glory, but just that stillness, the dark sapphire immensity with its doubling moons and silver lights. They coursed above him, shivering a gossamer sheet across the apex, winding golden cords across the rosy sky, the lilac, jade, ice-blue sky… When he thought he had caught at a word to describe it, it changed again to elude him. If he were a god, he thought, he would spend his nights at this play, far from the flawed and petty makings of the world that turns below. He would spend his nights thus, casting silver webs across the sky.
    As the smoke on his breath thinned into the mist of an ordinary exhalation in the cold, he flicked the stub of his cigar over the rail. Watching its arc burn bright, he sensed a movement on the edge of his vision, out on the ice; something alerted by the sudden glow. He turned his head slowly, and slowly took up the rifle propped by his side. His gaze found that of his prey. Two pairs of bright black eyes met across the ice. A white fox, so far north in winter but sleek, not starved, with one paw raised and frozen there; wary or impudent, he could not say. She sniffed the air and smelled him: tobacco, cured meat, Norwegian ale. The musk perhaps of his armpits, for his blood was high now despite the cold. He felt it thudding in his head (and the ice, far off, turning with a boom); he was all eyes, ears and sharpness: a hunter. He raised the gun
to his shoulder, the fox still frozen to the spot. Alone on the ice there, the only living thing for miles around besides the deep, hidden fishes, and the dogs and men far from home. There had been no snow; her step was sure and almost trackless on the ice. She was ready, paw raised, to run. Edward fired.
    The peace of the evening erupted into frantic shouts and barking as the men rushed on deck at the sound of the dogs’ frenzy. The shot had broken their twitching slumber and they snapped and bayed, straining and pacing in a chaos of teeth and fur. Anton Andreev calmed them in the Russian they seemed to understand. His favourite, Anna the old bitch, whined towards him and he took her long head in his hands, letting her lick his face; yesterday she had bitten one of the whelps to death, but Anton couldn’t help but forgive her.
    They searched for Edward, calling for him over the dogs’ cacophony on deck and below, until Freely, knowing his friend better, pointed to a dark figure on the ice. Edward had climbed down from the deck and reached his kill, and was kneeling to inspect her. A clean shot to the heart. He lifted her like a babe in arms and made his way back to the ship, with no triumphant trophy-bearing.
    ‘I’m sorry I woke the dogs, Anton. My brother would never allow me to let a beauty like this pass us by.’
     
    There is no white fox in the collection at John’s home, of course. She sank, presumably, with the ship.
    Edward caught at least one other. He describes it in the diary he took with him to his death: ‘A fox on the ice today. Shot it with one precious round. She was weak with hunger, as we are. A pity to watch her last breaths. Call it an act of mercy. Our vegetarian is now a happy carnivore, picking at the carcass
and sucking at the bones like a child on his thumb. We skinned the meat and divided it as fairly as we could, and ate her raw. Foolish to waste fuel on fresh meat. We are become as savage as the dogs, which tore at each other out of boredom.’
    In fact, the days of boredom were long past; the dogs had wolfed their dead companions down, skin and all, one by one as they fell or were shot for the