Fire Fire by Eva Sallis

nothing was done about it.
    The blood beat in Ursula’s head. A black horror opened up inside her ribcage and her voice fluttered out like a bat from a cave, telling him to put Teresa down.
    She sat with the goat’s head in her lap, watching the yellow eyes calm and fade as the vet eased a shockingly large amount of straw-coloured liquid into her jugular vein. Ursula was dizzy, flying without control.
    The vet offered to help bury the body but Ursula refused.
    She sat in the bracken, disbelieving even when the dirty white body went cold. It took her three hours to bury it. The hole in her chest was swallowing her up. A feeble, piping, self-righteous voice told her that she had done the right thing, but the gathering roar at the heart of the cave warned that for the rest of her life she would be alone in knowing it.
    Ursula broke the news on the phone. Acantia didn’t say much. When she got home, she asked to see the grave. Her face was serious. Acantia told Ursula that the vet’s diagnosis was tragically ignorant and that she had returned home with the cure for Teresa from a goat expert in New Zealand. She said that Ursula had been too lazy to nurse the goat to health and had taken a disgusting way out.
    Ursula was eleven, a criminal and a murderer. There was no consolation.
    The vet bill was added to her account, now an impossible eight hundred and forty dollars to be paid to Acantia when she was grown up.
    The next time Acantia went on holiday with Pa and the children, Ursula stayed home again, waving them all off amid jokes about not killing off any more goats. She roamed around happy, the self-sufficient princess buried in the forest. She wandered from animal to animal, taking more care of them than usual, because she and they were special when she was home alone.
    Fundevogel the kitten was quiet and miserable, staying in one spot most of the day. Ursula picked him up and he screamed. She felt him all over and, with her scalp crawling, touched a spongy mess filled with little rocks and shards where his firm cat pelvis should have been. He was panting, stretched out on her lap. She sat by the phone waiting for Acantia to call. When the call finally came Ursula gabbled hysterically about calling the vet. There was silence on the end of the line. Then Acantia said quite gently, ‘What’s the matter? Who is ill?’
    Ursula’s teeth chattered.
    â€˜Fundevogel! His pelvis is completely smashed! I have to call the vet!’
    Acantia said calmly, ‘Someone must have slammed the door on him. I thought there was something wrong with him before I left. You will have to put him down. It’s the humane thing to do, and I know how seriously you take that. You are a courageous girl. Get a bucket and some rocks and make the water warm so it is more comfortable for him. Now stop working yourself up. You have killed things before.’
    â€˜I have to call the vet!’
    â€˜No. That you may not do.’
    The phone clicked like a light switch.
    Fundevogel lay in Ursula’s lap in a daze. She laid him out on the floor, averting her eyes from his life-in-death form, while she prepared everything as Acantia had said.
    He fought but she was stronger. He bit through her hand between the thumb and forefinger. Blood spread in the green bucket like purple smoke. When he was limp, Ursula held the kitten’s mouth to her lips, but then breathed in slowly, tasting water. If I bring him to life I will only have to kill him again . She went up into the bush cuddling his body. Now she was truly a murderer and she was back in Acantia’s world. She wandered down the hill, looking at the animals with hatred. She let the cow go hungry, her resolve strengthening with every bellow.
    Ursula lay in the dark house alone through the long nights until everyone returned. Acantia hugged her tightly. She said Ursula was very brave and Ursula soaked up all the comfort she could get. Acantia brought the light and