Blood Runs Thicker than Water

       Joxter, usually so languid and lazy, could move like lightning when he absolutely needed to. In an instant, he was gone scrambling up the workshop’s wide door like a squirrel, then leaping onto the roof of the neighbouring police station. Snufkin was no stranger to climbing fences himself, and he clambered up the gate’s wooden battens without trouble. But at the top, he hesitated. The roof was higher than it seemed from below. Too high to jump. How had Joxter—? Oh. The claws. Of course. His father must have dug them into the exposed timber beams of the half-timbered wall (Fachwerk, wasn’t it called?). Snufkin gritted his teeth. He could see the fire’s glow already licking the wall and making him visible in the dark, smoke pooling inside, not thick enough yet to hide him. Precious seconds slipped away as he fumbled to summon his own claws, the way Joxter had shown him. Shouts rang below. Policemen spilled into the courtyard, rifles raised and pointed straight at him. “Halt!” Nothing gives a better kick up the rear than an armed keeper yelling Halt. Snufkin jumped. His claws caught a beam, but his feet scrabbled uselessly against the smooth plaster. “Father—!” But his voice drowned in a crack of gunshots. Bullets whistled far above, then past his ear, splintering the wood beside him. Another shot—and a searing pain exploded in his right ankle. His claws ripped free. The wall vanished. The ground didn’t. He must have blacked out for a moment, for when his thoughts cleared, his first instinct was to roll behind the gate, but heavy boots were already thudding close. A hand wrenched his arm, flipped him face down. A kick to the ribs knocked the air from his lungs. Cold metal snapped around his wrists. “Got the blasted terrorist at last,” a voice growled. “Take him to the station?” “Are you mad? He’ll bolt! And with the Chancellor’s office nearby, and this fire—no, call the prison van. Straight to the cells. And by the booble, get someone put the fire out already!” Despite everything, pride for his elusive and ingenious father, expected to escape even from this situation, warmed Snufkin for a moment. Then his collar jerked as a hemulen hauled him upright. Four more officers stood guard, two with rifles levelled. His ankle burned and was not walk-worthy; he yelped and tumbled down as soon as the policeman let him stand. The hemulen had to drag him by the scruff like a naughty kitten, nearly strangling. Before getting past the station’s back door, Snufkin glimpsed (or imagined glimpsing) two blue sparks flickering beyond the fence, in the dark tangle of pine branches. For a heartbeat, he thought his father might leap down, claws bared, to fight. Or draw some other mumrik trick out of his sleeve. But nothing happened as he was thrown into a standard cage cell. Even mumriks have their limits. After that spurt, Joxter must’ve sprawled on some branch or roof, unable to move a hand. He was clearly waiting, biding his time. Meanwhile, the senior officer hemulen shuffled through paperwork, peering over his spectacles. “Name?” Snufkin stayed silent. The weasling guard snarled, slamming a fist against the bars. “Answer, you little—” “We are police, not thugs,” the hemulen cut in sharply. “We follow legal procedure. Our duty as constables is to detain, not to investigate or judge.” The weasling leaned in, teeth bared. “If Kirkke kicks the bucket, I’ll rip your throat out myself.” Immediately, he sneezed and recoiled. “If you mean the sentry,” Snufkin said, edging away from the bars, “he only drank sleeping drops. That’s all.” "Like I don't hear p… the smell!" The hemulen grunted. “Investigation will show whether it is a sleeping tincture or poison.” He scribbled something. “Species?” A pause. “A mumrik, obviously. Age?” Snufkin shifted, trying to ease the throbbing in his leg. He kept his mouth shut. The officer filled in the blanks with dashes. And then it struck Snufkin—not once had they mentioned chasing a second arsonist. No questions about accomplices. Had they even seen Joxter? If they hadn’t, then better to keep his father’s presence a secret. Let surprise remain on Joxter’s side when he gets to break his son out. But was he ready? Blood was soaking his boot and smearing the cell floor already. Unable even to stand, limbs trembling, vision swimming. If he passed out now— “Your legal procedures won’t matter,” he croaked, licking lips, “if I die of blood loss or infection before trial.” The hemulen scoffed but sent a junior officer to fetch bandages and carbolic. No one was gentle. All the stares reeked gleeful hatred. The dressing was sloppy, tight enough to sting. “That’ll hold you for a couple of days,” the constable muttered. Then the van arrived. A solid metal box. Through the barred rear window, Snufkin saw nothing but darkness, but he memorised every turn, every jolt. Jolts were especially vivid as they seemed to run straight through his leg and up the spine. He tried to move the wounded foot but it would only ache. Otherwise, the journey was uneventful. A screech of gates. Muffled voices. Dawn was breaking when they hauled him out, just long enough to see the prison: a grim, square building surrounded by barren ground. Inside, more procedures. A search. His pockets were emptied (thank goodness he’d left the harmonica with Moomin). Only then did he realise his hat had already been lost in the chaos at the workshop. A corridor between a row of heavy doors and a dim empty space. A staircase, another corridor, a turn into a blind end with one door swung open, revealing a concrete cell—a single cot, a sliver of artificial light through the door’s tiny grate. Handcuffs clicked, and Snufkin was thrown inside. The hit on the floor jarred his leg, and he cried as the door clanged shut behind him. Alone, he exhaled and let himself rest for a minute, no more. The floor was too cold, and he should try everything possible to help to a breakout Joxter would certainly arrange. It took a long time to get to the door, and all for nothing. The hinges were outside, the doorplate overlapping the gaps, and the wall material was solid and too hard. Snufkin stopped dulling the claws in vain and leant at the wall. A whiff from a pipe, or even just a cigarette, would be nice, but hardly these people would provide for it. He had seen a number of jail cells from inside, from purely decorative ones like in the Moominvalley to real things, but this was at the top of the range. If he were a mumrik waiting outside the walls and fences, what he’d do to free a kinsman? No ideas. That is, a mighty TNT bomb might help… but Joxter had yet been using only the simplest kitchen supplies and would hardly have anything more powerful than hattifattener seeds. Probably he’d wait until Snufkin is brought outside for any reason. Anyway, it was too early to give up. To keep his brain off the pessimistic path, he imagined sitting by the fire near his tent in the Moominvalley and relating this whole rescue affair as an adventure tale with a happy end. By the laws of storytelling, this moment would be a twist before culmination, when everything looks gloomy. Moomintroll would stare round-eyed, and pluck at his tail tuft, and whine in terror for continuation when Snufkin made a pause after describing the prison… After indefinite time, the clatter of boots and the screech of the cell door jerked Snufkin from his daze. Hands clamped around his arms, hauling him upright, the cuffs biting into his wrists. He forced himself to focus. The prison was a grim, rectangular block with two floors, a central courtyard sealed under a glass roof. Beyond it, a glimpse of sky: blue, streaked with wisps of clouds, so free behind dark supports and trusses. Corridors lined the walls; a staircase led down. Every step sent jagged pain through his wounded leg. They brought him into an interrogation room—a bare space with a table and benches. Then she entered: a gaffsie prosecutor in a plain black dress, her face sharp and unpainted, clutching a thick stack of papers. Her eyes gleamed with vindictive triumph. Behind her, two hemulen guards and a weasling in plain clothes followed (not the yesterday’s guy, thank goodness). "Name?" Snufkin stayed silent. His mouth was too dry anyway. The gaffsie frowned, leaned closer setting a lantern to shine right into his face, then with sudden suspicion she produced a handkerchief and scrubbed at his forehead. The soot. He had forgotten. "Ah," she murmured, glancing at the half-empty arrest form. "Those lazy constables. The only filled line is 'species: mumrik', and even that is not verified." She turned to the weasling. "Expert assessment?" The weasling bared his teeth, leaned in, sniffed—and recoiled. “What, the—the allergen?” The gaffsie knitted her brow in mild displeasure. “Alright, let’s proceed to—” “I still can have a say.” The weasling growled. Then he asked for a handkerchief, and one of the hemulen guards produced one, the size of a tablecloth. With it tied like a bandit-style face mask, he slithered closer and grabbed Snufkin’s hand, the cuffs jerking the other hand up and onto the table, gripped the fingers to a point of pain, making the claws appear. “Out of flat-face furless critters, only mumriks have claws,” the weasling smirked all smug. There was clearly some tension between the two, but Snufkin had no idea what good he could make of it. Meanwhile the gaffsie brightened. "Alright, species confirmed, meaning the name follows by default. No need for silence, suspect. The only mumrik at the island had already been processed for vagrancy, two months’ imprisonment last winter. Now I call for the warden, and he confirms your identity—" Panic flared. If the warden said he wasn’t Joxter, they’d realise that the real troublemaker was still free, and tighten the security or even set a trap with Snufkin as a decoy! "I’m Joxter," he rasped. "I... darkened my skin. For disguise. Both now and in the winter." The further questions came in a relentless tide. Had he, on such-and-such date and location, destroyed or stolen private property marks, signs forbidding smoking or trespassing, warnings of one-way traffic or steep slopes, or roadworks...? Snufkin clenched his jaw. After a handful of unanswered queries, the gaffsie smiled thinly. "Nothing to say? Then, following paragraph b Article twenty-five Part two of the Procedural Code, we may resort to physical coercion." Before he could parse the bureaucratic slang, a hemulen wrenched him up and away from the table by a wrist. The weasling slithered closer in a flash, his sharp fist drove into his stomach. Snufkin bit back most of a yelp, but then a kick slammed into his wounded ankle. He screamed in white pain. "Would you kindly cooperate?" the gaffsie asked sweetly after he caught his breath. What now? Snufkin didn’t want to pin these crimes on his father (even if they were actually Joxter’s)—but if they broke him here, escape would be even harder. And there are just signs, right? Nothing really criminal. Sorry, father. He nodded. Back at the table, he asked for water. At least that much leniency he was granted. After slowly emptying a paper glass, he confessed to every accusation. Those were only various signs, just as Joxter had told him. Only in the end, hattifattener seeds at the power station, the workshop arson, and poisoning of the sentry emerged. "It were sleeping drops!" Snufkin jerked upright. "Just as confirmed by the analysis. A sleeping tincture severely overdosed," the gaffsie countered. Behind her, the weasling growled. "I didn’t know—I never meant—" "Why," she interrupted, "did you commit these acts?" "I fight restrictions on freedom," he said hoarsely. "And do you put your freedom above lives of other creatures?" "What? No! Everyone deserves to live—and to live free, that's the point, I defend everyone's freedom, not just mine!" His head spun from that outburst. The prosecutor stood and placed some sheets in front of Snufkin and nodded to the hemulens. “Sign here, here, and there.” She pointed at empty spaces in the forms. Snufkin panicked again. The only thing implying Joxter could write was the short message he had sent. And it had been signed by a mere initial J. Was it Joxter’s signature or just abbreviation? No, Joxter was too lazy to use more than one letter. Snufkin stretched fingers bidding time to recollect that one letter in every detail, then took the pen and put that fishing hook simile in all the places required. Every move irritated the fresh bruises under the cuffs. "Fine,” the gaffsie slumped for a moment, then stood up. “Oh, that’s one hell of indictment to write for tomorrow trial. See you there." And she left the room, accompanied by a triumphant click of shoe heels. As the guards hauled Snufkin away, he was too fazed to catch a glimpse of the sky through the glass roof. But somewhere out there, Joxter was watching. And tomorrow there’d be a courtroom. Usually, it was someplace else. In the town maybe. There must be a crowd. Chaos. A chance.