[Folwren]

Wren looked in disbelief at the Widow, laughing as if the whole thing was actually funny. The bundle of cat and apron under arm was still struggling like mad. Wren’s hands went to her hips and she stamped furiously, her foot splashing in the water still on the ground.

“Why don’t you let him go?” she demanded. “You’ll hurt him if you keep him like that - or suffocate him, or something. How dare you call him a bad kitty? He only took a bit of the chicken. And then for that, you haul him back in by tail and then pick him up and wrap him as though he were no better than one of the mice that he catches! And then you say that he’s going to get the trouble that comes with it! You can’t do anything to him. Let him go and leave him be!”

Whether it was her place or not to demand the cat’s freedom, Wren didn’t bother to think. Nothing could get her ire up faster and longer than the mistreatment of an animal and she particularly loved cats, of any shape or size. She was oblivious of the Cook’s evident dislike of this particular feline, nor had she been around long enough to know better than to get on her bad side. As for the Widow Rosebank, Wren was more inclined to speak sharply to the woman who’d given her something to worry about than not. So she stood staring up at the widow, a defiant and fierce light in her eyes - a look that did not often occupy Wren’s face.