Flower of the Poison Tree

They called her Isobel then. Her hair was bright and her eyes were dark; she took in the world and she burned. And so it was no surprise that she began to stray, into the forest and far from the village, to those deep forbidden places where the magicians were said to dwell. They took the forms of animals. They were tricksters. She had been warned of them since birth. And yet from the moment Absalom beckoned, and she touched his thick red fur, seeing the shades of sunrise, she knew where she belonged. The fox was sleek and beguiling, and she, having nothing, could neither give nor lose.