The Fox Hunt

Chapter One

There had never been such a flood. Not in living memory, at least. It had come up suddenly, silently. A dark tide clawed from the river, finger by finger, into the sleeping city. Under the cold gaze of the Hunter’s Moon, it eased past the windows of students and academics, porters and librarians. It brushed their tangled dreams, lapping higher and higher.

In the span of one nightfall, the waters had claimed the university. 

At sunset, the cobblestones had rattled with book-laden bicycles, and the paving stones echoed with the tap of hurrying feet. The medieval mouths of the great college gates gaped wide to welcome their gowned undergraduates and threadbare lecturers, to cradle the ancient dons tottering to their places at High Table. Bells rang out from myriad spires, and evensong silvered the air around Gabriel Tower.

By morning, all was drowned. Slick, black ropes of water fingered the college foundations. Ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep. Beneath its touch, gold stone weathered green. In the grey dawn, rows of bicycles bobbed at their moorings, as though lifted by ghostly hands. The straight march of the High Street turned wavering and sly.

And then the rain started.

It would become the tale of decades. The students passing books and precious paintings up to safety, bracing against waters that curled around hips and thighs. Lectures were cancelled; tutorials postponed. In Persian-carpeted studies, Professors Emeritus settled in with their decanters. Underpaid lecturers huddled closer to their space heaters, submerging themselves even deeper in Aramaic love poetry to stave off thoughts of the damp. The few cars that attempted to drive through the flood sputtered and died, bonnet-deep in swirling pondweed. Wading the streets was a task for only the bravest or the most desperate. For three days, the tourists had to stay out. The students had to stay in. 

And in their absence, the other lives in the city rejoiced. 

As the waters triumphed, dark fish swam up the steps of the Senate House. A shifting sheet of pewter covered the formal gardens, where eels wrestled in ecstatic knots among the drowning rose bushes. Spiders danced in the vaulted stone cathedral of St. Dunstan’s College.

Then, on the third day, the flood began to recede. The river drew back its reaches from the modern outskirts first. Within a few hours, even the water at the ancient heart of the city stood less than knee deep. The mortal world began its inevitable process of reclaiming and forgetting. Waterlogged college gates were pushed open again. An army of college servants began sweeping river silt from the courtyards.

And high in Gabriel Tower, Emma Curran woke from a troubled nap with a start. Mist had laid damp fingers on her windowpane, clouding the city outside. She listened for the sound that had woken her, and heard nothing. But something had changed. She was sure of it. It took her a moment to realise.

The rain had finally stopped. 

She had listened to it through the three long days of her confinement. So long, the tapping water had begun to sound like whispers from beyond the windowpane. They had seeped into her dreams. She rubbed at the window with her sleeve, and peered out.