Dorothy hid in the reeds until the gang had passed. Wearing her father’s tunic, trousers and cap, she knew she could be taken for a boy. At home, with Bram, she was Dodie, the big sister who brought home food. When she was out hunting, she was Dory, a lone boy fishing and fowling with the rest, and that was usually alright with the other hunters and hermits she came across from time to time.
But this gang had lots of men and she didn’t know any of them. They had maps and tools she had never seen before. And she was too close to home to risk attracting attention.
When the men passed, Dorothy carried on walking to the place where she had made her traps. She had tried to remember what her father used to do, bending sticks and bullrush into simple snares. But in the year since he had disappeared the fen had started to change. The water was often not where she expected it to be, sometimes too much of it and sometimes none at all. Although she feared another winter like the last, part of Dorothy was looking forward to the water icing over, hoping it would all stay in one place. She had already carved new skates out of bone for her and Bram.
Suddenly, up from the water reared an enormous swan, looking straight at her and hissing with wings outstretched. Dorothy made herself small, then watched as more huge white swans appeared on the water, all hissing and thrashing their wings. One by one, six swans took flight and circled overhead.
Uneasy, Dorothy carried on towards the water. Amongst the reeds, she found a seventh swan, smaller than the others, sprawled, its leg caught in her trap. Dorothy undid the snare, but the swan did not move. She stepped away, but the swan did nothing.
The big sky hummed with life as the day neared its end, birds and snakes and water voles and all. Dorothy didn’t know what would happen to the swan overnight. She lifted it up and made for home. Her arms flexed and strained as she walked, her legs aflame with heat in spite of the cold. The swan stayed utterly still.
Back home, Bram made a bed for the swan from blankets and leaves. “We can’t eat it,” he said. “It’s bad luck.” Dorothy nodded, though her body ached with hunger.
“Look Dodie.” He showed her some eggs he had found. They worked together to make a fire, cooked the eggs and placed stones around the fire to heat their beds.
When Bram fell asleep, Dorothy stayed up, looking at the swan, noticing its beauty. For a long time, she had been trying to catch a large bird but had been thinking only of food.
In the yellow light of the hunters’ moon, the swan began to change. Its body uncurled, growing upwards and taking new form. Dorothy’s heart thudded but she couldn’t move.
A swan-girl stood before her, with bare legs and arms and a cloak of long white feathers. Her hair was silver, her face sharp.
“You saved my life,” Swan said to Dorothy, her voice a low, watery hiss. Dorothy nodded. “By way of thanks,” Swan continued, “you can ask me three questions. Anything you desire to know, I can tell you.”
Dorothy stared at the girl. She wanted to reach out and touch her but somehow knew she must not. “Where is my father?” she asked, finding her voice.
Swan looked down at the ground, then raised her black eyes to meet Dorothy’s. “He is lost,” she said. “You will not see him again.”
Dorothy felt part of her fall away from time, into the deep of the thick wet land. A terrible muffled sound came out of her. Hope was gone.
Swan regarded her with interest. “Is there something else you would ask me?”
Dorothy wiped her face on her sleeves. “Will me and Bram be alright?”
Swan smiled. “Yes,” she said. “As long as you take care of each other, you will be alright. One day Bram will leave you, but he will send word.”
Dorothy nodded. “What is happening to the fen?” she asked.
“The men you saw today are called adventurers. They are draining the fen to make it into farms. Many years from now, the time you live in will be known as a time of darkness and ice. People will say the fen was wild and backwards, that the adventurers made the land rich and safe.”
Swan paused and closed one eye, as sleeping birds do. “In five hundred years,” she went on, “this land will be dry, hot and arid. The swans will depart, or perhaps die out. But the water will return. It will swallow the fen whole.”
Dorothy breathed hard, tried to calm her mind. “Why are you telling me this?” she asked.
“I have answered your three questions,” Swan replied. She lay down in the nest that Bram had made and closed her eyes.
Dorothy stepped outside, trying to imagine the land hot, then dry, then buried underwater. Facing south, she reached up to cup the swollen moon in her left hand, then stretched the fingertips of her right hand to point to Jupiter. She could see her breath. The moss beneath her feet crunched, frost and fog spreading fast. Hundreds of years from now, someone would stand in the same spot, hands up to heaven. But the ground would be hard, the weather warm. What plants would grow? What food?
In the morning, Dorothy woke to the sound of Bram singing softly. “I think she’s better,” he said as Dorothy rose. He was stroking the feathered back of the swan.
They led her outside. The water had come up overnight. It was closer to their home than it had ever been before.
The morning sky swelled with colours and birds.
The swan slid onto the water and glided away.
