Instead, she learned to hold it—gently, imperfectly—and let it be.

The thrill was gone. The hunger, the heat, the secret shiver—all of it drained away, leaving only a hollow ache. She looked at the crushed geode, the scattered shards, the dust on her paws. Around her, the willow whispered. Somewhere a cricket sang. The world had not noticed her violence. But Beatrice had.

But the feeling grew.

It started with a cherry stone.

She placed it on the anvil of her secret workbench—a flat stone under the weeping willow. She raised a hammer. Her paw shook. The geode gleamed up at her, innocent and invincible. She thought of all the things she’d crushed: the eggs of the thrush (empty, she told herself), the jawbone of a shrew (already dead), the little glass bead from the badger’s bracelet (he never missed it). Each one had been a door to a dark, sweet room. And now the geode was the grandest door of all.