He pushed away his thoughts of his second (no, third, he corrected himself), family and crept quietly after the girl, unseen. He watched as she stole the fish then hurried home with it. He was glad she had found a way to feed herself. The elders had no right to fence the pond then start charging people. He snorted in disgust at the thought of them.

After she had gone, he made his way around the fence to the place she had gone through and placed the wire back so it appeared to have not been touched. The hole he had cut in it a few days before had been her salvation. When she had been turned away by his mate, he knew he had to do something else to help her. This was the best he could do. He smiled to himself as he went back inside to his whining woman.

She planted the seeds left over from last year early. She wanted to make sure she had enough food this year. What she didn’t realize was that even in spring there was sometimes a hard freeze. When that happened, all of the tiny vegetable plants that had just started to make their way up from the soil died. She lost everything, down to the last seed.

She didn’t allow herself to be discouraged for long, though. The traveling tinker was coming into the village tomorrow. She had heard some of the women talking about it. She would try to see if he would give her some seeds. She knew it was a long-shot, but just maybe he would take pity on her.

When the first bell of the tinker’s cart was heard, most of the village turned out to welcome him into town. This was the time when the people began trading their stored winter goods for things such as seeds and rice, flour, sugar, and other spices. Rin waited well into the night until all of the townspeople had finished their business. The tinker had begun packing his things away when he noticed the tiny figure, dressed in rags, standing quietly behind him. “Well, hello there!” the friendly man swept off his ridiculous hat, and made a grand show of bowing to the girl. She smiled timidly at him. “And what can I do for you on this fine night, young lady?”

Rin hesitated then pointed to some tubs of seeds she had seen the people bargaining for earlier. It was still too soon for planting season, and harvesting seemed an eon away. She was still stealing fish, but it was no longer cold enough to keep the fish fresh for longer than a few hours. She had begun taking only the smaller ones, as she had wasted two large fish when they had spoiled in the warming weather. However, with them planted in a garden, the seeds would feed her through the summer and fall and partly into winter.

“Do you have something to trade, little girl?” the tinker’s smile never faltered. He was a born trader. He could sweet-talk a wolf into buying a dead rabbit. Rin cast her gaze at the ground at his horses’ hooves, and sadly shook her head. When he said, “Well, then, I guess I will just have to give you some free samples”, her head jerked up in surprise. He smiled kindly at her and started busying himself wrapping tiny amounts of all kinds of seeds into small paper bundles for her. Her astonishment grew as he added two eggs and some cured pork into the bundle as well. When he turned around, he almost laughed out loud at the size her eyes had grown to. He had already surmised that the child was alone in the world. He himself had been left alone at the age of ten. He knew how hard it was to survive by one’s self in this world. He gave back whenever he could. With a wink, he handed her the package. “Now, don’t go telling anyone I gave you all this stuff, you hear? I can’t have everyone expecting me to just give my stuff away.” He pretended sternness on this last bit. She grinned at him, nodded her head, and scampered away, her heart lighter than it had been since the summer before.

This time around she waited until she saw other women begin planting their gardens before she started her own. It would still be awhile before the plants would produce anything edible. In the meantime, she was still sneaking into the reserve. Every few nights she would use her back entrance and steal a fish.

She began once again to pester farmers for work until they gave in and kept her busy. She would return home in the evenings, tired and hungry, eat whatever she had earned that day, and spend a little while in her own garden. Then she would crawl into bed, her body aching and sore from a hard day’s work.

She did not work like this every single day, however. Unlike the year before, she took one day every week to gather wood for her stove. She was determined to have as much firewood as possible this winter, already stored and ready for her use.

It was on one of these forays that her life changed forever.