like salt in water –

     invisibly

     changing my chemistry.

     How I could live

     so far beyond

     myself?

     He couldn’t stop thinking about her body covered in pastel white like his, it was the most wonderful thing anyone had ever done for him. It was her sign of acceptance. It was why he’d kissed her. He should have waited, they had only just met, but the timing seemed right and the moment intimate enough to warrant a kiss. She had viewed him with such wonder. Maybe too much wonder, he thought. He wanted to still seem human, relatable, hence worthy of a human love that wasn’t derived from pity.

     He lay down on his bed and got under the covers. It had been an exhausting night and he ran it through his mind. The pearl, her visions, the dissolving exoskeleton. There were so many things to think about, but he kept returning to a chalk white Marianne with her black hair screaming in the wind. He wanted only to remember and savour that image for as long as he could. It blew up in his mind like a balloon filling all his space and he felt happy.

     Marianne, I won’t have enough paper for you, he thought. And it was true; his paper supply was running low and soon he’d have to search for more. Thinking of doing that now felt alien and distant. It felt lonely. A few days ago he wished only for paper and food. He feared nothing because all of his fears had already happened.

     It took him a long time to understand that there’s an aspect of relief in disaster, and that living beyond the worst possible thing without an earthly tie can make you fearless. All of his earthly ties had been dismantled. And now Marianne.

     He knew he was probably getting emotionally carried away, but he’d been alone for so long, forever really, so it felt almost completely wonderful. Almost. He was wary of attachment.

     This was a difficult world for friendship, for love or any kind of emotional investment outside of your next meal. People and places changed and died frequently. He had known nothing other than the burn of loss, so was dangling between the high altitude of new adoration and the low grovelling of caution.

     The sun had nearly risen and the sky was as pink as his eyes. He got up and closed his blinds. He put his hand against the slats and wished that he were different, normal.

     Who was he kidding?

     The burden between the two of them was one of pure practicality. In the end, even if Marianne, or anyone for that matter, were able to see past his monstrous form, his nocturnal lifestyle would eventually cripple them. How could he put that obligation on someone he loved? And yet, being human and having human desires, how could he not?

     He flung himself back on his bed. She had cut straight into his interior, and for the first time, he had felt recognized. He couldn’t give that up. They had talked about only the things that mattered. Like his writing and how his poems sieved through him, anything could spark one, a branch shaped like an arrow, a throb of thunder, a word, a sigh. She understood how insight was always changing; bouncing from thing to thing like a tiny, glowing rubber door and through this door they both glimpsed different realities.

     He shivered. He was still cold from the sea. His sheets were a little damp. He wrapped up in a blanket and tried to sleep, but kept remembering her face dusted with the white chalk, her arms, her neck. She was wonderful. It seemed just like her to do something like that, impetuous and weird, yet perfect. And she still looked at him without flinching. Not even his mother had done that.

     He fingered the middle ring on the pointer finger of his left hand. It had been his mother’s wedding band and he always wore it. She had placed it on his bedside table the night she left. It was the last thing she’d touched. He knew this because he’d only been pretending to sleep. She hadn’t even touched him.

     When he told Marianne this, she had held his hand, which was shocking because most people could never quite believe that he wasn’t contagious. He was a mystery to nearly everyone, a ghost.

     All around them had been a wild whispering. The sparse leaves on the wind bent trees, the grasses, the distant tide, as though they were required to listen and what they heard was inexpressibly connecting.

     He thought of the places on his body where she’d touched him, his hands, his cheek, his shoulder. And how warm, almost radiating her palm had felt, as though it were pulsing. Maybe it was? Maybe it was searching for the crystal exoskeleton thing they had found?

     What was that anyway?

     He had once seen something similar in shape and reverence. It was in the woodland, only it was smaller and black like a polished beetle casing, but like the crystal fingernail, it seemed out of this world.

     He remembered picking it up. It had felt cold in his hand, cold as a rock in the snow, and he dropped it quickly. He didn’t like it. It seemed equally mysterious and repulsive. But how could something repulsive feel akin to something that would sink into Marianne?

     There was a knock on the door and his stomach sprang to his throat.

 

 

 

17.

 

 

 

     “Good morning,” Jude said and Ansley nodded a reply. “I see my presence disappoints you. So I ask myself, who else would you be expecting?” He leaned in and winked.

     “Nobody, I’m just tired, that’s all,” Ansley said and yawned.

     He hoped Jude’s arrival had nothing to do with Marianne. Her father would never let her see him again if he found out about their little rendezvous.

     “Of course. Are you too tired to let me in?” Jude asked and Ansley stepped to the side allowing him to enter. “I trust everything is satisfactory in your room?”

     “Yes, it’s great. Thank you,” Ansley said.

     Maybe he does know about the cove and he’s going to ask me to leave, or worse, thought Ansley. Jude saw the look on Ansley’s face and laughed.

     “Don’t worry! I’m here on a gesture of generosity, so relax,” he reached into his dressing gown pocket, pulled out a notebook and handed it to Ansley. “Go on, take it,” he said and shoved it into Ansley’s hands.

     Ansley flipped through it and found it was completely blank. Was this a test?

     “It’s illegal to write,” he said and, although it pained him, handed it back to Jude.

     “Oh dear,” Jude said, “I didn’t think you were so well trained. I hope you aren’t doing it just for my benefit. It’s true that I punish my Keepers for maintaining personal documents of any kind, but they are of a particular disposition where thinking would be tragic for business. I don’t mind you writing. You actually have things to talk about. It could be our secret,” he said and crossed his hand over his heart.

     “But why?” Ansley asked. “Why are you being so nice to me?”

     “Why indeed! I don’t know. I guess I’m becoming a softy. But also, I see things in you Ansley. We are not too dissimilar you know. I, too, was banished by my people, persecuted and unseen for my talents.”

     Ansley was very sceptical and had the sensation that Jude was tricking him somehow but couldn’t put his finger on it. Was the notebook bugged? Was he trying to catch him writing so he could banish him? Jude saw straight through him.

     “Stop over-analysing, please. It’s just a gift. Pure and simple. The gift of a regular old notebook,” he said and placed it on Ansley’s desk. “I’ll leave it here, use it if you want,” he said and opened the door to leave.

     “Oh, and Ansley?”

     “Yes?”

     “I applaud your taste. She’s very pretty, but don’t worry, all of your secrets are safe with me,” he said and pretended to zip up his mouth with his thumb and forefinger.

     Jude closed the door and walked down the hallway with a smile on his face. He fully understood that sometimes patience was the hardest work to sustain and waiting with awareness was definitely a course of action. It was how he was formed, eons ago, when the world was dark, yet aware of the light of life and anticipating its spark.

 

*

 

In this darkness, water flowed. It flowed and carried particles of clay formed of silicates. These lattices of elemental silicon, along with oxygen, were prolific throughout the Earth’s crust and were the embodiment of the Earth’s natural world.

     There was a stream that curved like a snake, and as the silicates flowed down its waters, some of the crystals became attracted to one other. These attractions lead to adhesiveness, so they bonded themselves together and began to clog the stream. It was an act of defiance that allowed similar lattices to coalesce in a pool, creating an early body of resistance.

     Time worked as time always does. And the pattern of resistance repeated itself, as it always does, but through its repetition, it became something new.

     The waters dried and the dust particles were blown further down the stream, where they stuck together and continued clogging the waters, making more pools of identical particles of silicate. Replication of the body had begun. Jude’s body stirred its awakening with a swirl of dust and that was all for thousands of years.

     Then ice formed, ice melted and the lattices, like sinews, were packed together and mixed with trace elements of metal. When the waters flowed again the lattices were joined together in a meandering shape of the stream. And now Jude’s body stirred with little ripples for thousands of years.

     The long body of water linked the silicates and the pressure of the Earth and the heat of the sun over millennia allowed electrons to flow. This was the spark of electricity Jude’s body had been waiting for, as it provided an energy source for life.

     Born of the Earth, the Sun and the Water, through the process of natural selection and evolution, Jude, a cold-bodied creature was initiated. Heat allowed cohesion of particles to create his form and neurons to fire for his mind to begin.

     But nothing magnificent happens quickly.

     He slowly flexed his figure and resisted the wind and rain. He hardly thought at all, it was enough just to be. He pulled more molecules of hydrogen into his being and came to master the empty world of barren elements; carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.

     In these days of dark and light Jude did not notice the alternative sparks of life; the carbon-forms, until they had taken a foothold, a bridgehead in the battle for the planet. So when the carbon-forms eventually started to sprout, seed and reproduce, he was happy, for there was company. It wasn’t easy being the sole silicon-form of life on Earth.

     Before he knew it, he was surrounded by a garden, the Garden of Eden.

    He had to admit that the carbon forms were things of great beauty. He loved how they rapidly evolved when compared to his own protracted beginnings. He soon discovered it was all the result of a glorious little helix, spiralled like a screw, and he used it to build his daydreams.

     Jude was full of dreams then. He often curled around the base of his favourite tree and basked in its green heat. He’d swirl like a synapse up the trunk and drape across the topmost branch. The stars buzzed above him and he marvelled at how each one was its own sun with an orbit and all the minerals necessary for life. He dreamed of creating his own planet, populated with the beautiful helix, as well as his own shimmering silicates that time would dovetail together, designing something new. Something wonderful and uniquely his to rule. 

     The trouble was that the carbon forms weren’t interested in listening to his dreams or anything, for that matter, outside of their own desires. The ease of their success had made them arrogant. They didn’t deserve the helix and their ingratitude grated against him.

     His anger started by breaking. That’s true for most things though, people and plants, and he didn’t think he was special for it. Even then, he’d been around long enough to know that a sense of entitlement was always the beginning of failure.

     Adam thought he was something special though, Adam believed himself to be God’s greatest gift and things just came too easily for him. For instance, whatever Adam planted immediately grew. Seriously, he just flicked a seed against the ground with no more consideration than you’d give a clipped fingernail and gorgeous flowers grew. It didn’t even have to be a seed. He could flick a bogie, or a spit wad or even pee and suddenly something would blossom into a thing of beauty, nourishment or both.

     Adam was constantly singing. Jude could hear him skipping and singing through the orchard. At first Jude tried to befriend Adam, but Adam was often so enraptured by himself that he took no notice of Jude, and eventually Adam’s voice snagged against Jude’s skin like torn metal.

     It was the way Adam swayed and swaggered and thought he was better than everybody else that made Jude vow to prove his brilliance. For years he performed menial tricks like eating small animals in one gulp. The carbon forms never clapped, so Jude’s tricks became more and more elaborate. He danced and coiled then shot up hissing through the clouds like a red spring, yet even this did not elicit a single round of applause.

     It gave him piercing thoughts and he grew fangs. He realized that what he thought, he could become. Isn’t that the most incredible truth? But there was no one to share this revelation with and so his disappointment gave way to loneliness.

     Then she arrived.

     The rumour was that she’d come from Adam’s ribcage. She was exquisitely beautiful, brown and golden, as if the sun had shed a tear and created her. Jude wanted to possess her. He wanted to make her do something forbidden.

     But first he had to get rid of those blasted angels. They had taken to following him around, clinging to him like flies on crap. He called them his harem. It got their wings all in a flutter, but she loved them and fed them as if they were pet hummingbirds. The angels whizzed around her and sat on her shoulders. There was never a moment when she was alone and the situation was becoming desperate.

     Mr. Perfect Ribcage didn’t help Jude’s despair with his constant singing, planting and celebrating. Every time they’d celebrate she’d have another baby. Babies flew out of her like bats screeching from a cave. She laughed, tickled them under the chin and called them her little cherubs.

     When it was feeding time they all stood in a circle around her, clapping their dimpled hands or standing on one leg, and milk shot from her breasts like a fountain straight into their little pink mouths. Then they danced and sang until they fell on the ground, like a pile of cats, and licked the remaining sticky bits of milk off one another’s skin. After a little nap, they would share a bowl of his pee-begot-fruits.

     It was so pathetic it nauseated Jude. He had to catch his own food. He had mastered, without recognition, swallowing an egg whole. An egg! Never mind a rabbit with rigor mortis. More than once he’d regretted not eating a cherub or two but he got his chance in the end. He decided he would get her to eat one of the forbidden apples. But how?

     He travelled to the edge of the garden for inspiration and inspiration came as a weed. To this day botany is a great interest of his. He adored the wayward seed pooped out or blown into the perfect flowerbed like a dirty stranger dumped into a picturesque town. Seeds are also mavericks. He learnt so much from weeds. Namely to lay quiet and root before exposing yourself, sinister planting, and that’s exactly what he did.

     This weed had thorns and even though he’d never seen a thorn before, he recognized it at once as sharp and poignant. He coiled around it and picked it. It pierced his skin and he knew it would pierce hers also. That night, he placed it beside the tree and waited.

     When she woke up the angels were already surrounding the weed. There was nothing else like it in the garden. What was it? Who put it there? Was it Him? Was He trying to warn us about something? Finally, the angels were occupied.

     Adam came and left immediately to compose a ballad about it. Eve came with her children twirling and leaping on and off of her like birds on a beautiful cow. She looked at it with her large cow eyes. She picked it up and it pricked her finger. For the first time in her life she saw her own blood, her own vulnerability, her potential loss.

     The blood trickled down her forearm and pinged off her elbow before it splat against the head of one of her children. She looked in horror at her bloody child and felt a fear as deep in measure as her love and for a split second she doubted the garden. That was all Jude needed, only a second of doubt, he slipped straight in and planted one of his scales. He knew he had her and all he had to do was wait; wait and study the tree.

    He was becoming a masterful serpent as fierce and steady as a maniac’s pulse. He curved and moulded around the branches like a gelatinous wave, a lick, and saw all. Scales of him caught on the jagged bits of bark; they nestled in like small eyes in sockets, black as onyx and shiny.

     He was all over that tree. The Apple Tree. Every morning all his little scales would light up as the sun emanated and rose. One would assume that the sun burst through the tree but it didn’t. It oozed through the tree like a stretch oozes through a body in the morning. It was as if the tree couldn’t help but spread its sun and all those little apples lit up like empty bulbs.

     They weren’t even allowed to touch the apples, but Jude loved them all the same. He loved them with a love as intimately fragile as a spider’s web or a throat. He could not help it that he was brutish. He’s a serpent, no less, each day he’d push down his brutish heart, like a jerking fish under a hand, and continued his study. He covered the tree as if he were holly or ivy, he was everywhere, he was infesting.

     Sometimes all you need is a bit of luck, and out of such luck, she started sitting in The Apple Tree like a soft bird. She’d swing her legs and the apples would gently bounce and sway in time with her bosoms. Her doubt was growing day by day and everyone could tell she was unhappy. Every so often he’d slip into her brain and leave another scale. Now she needed him, her melancholy was like some heat-seeking animal.

     He’s a reptile for goodness sake, though there is a heat to his venom. His venom was like a cancer in her. She longed for control but that was impossible. It made her desperate. Her desperation had become think and hardened. She spent her time travelling her mind and looking for a way out of herself and back to happiness. Often he slithered to the top of her brain-tree and watched. She looked like a lost minnow.

     One day he decided to speak to it.

     Listen little fishy, he said, your belly is as round as an apple, your blood is as red as an apple, perhaps its flesh will restore your happiness? Snake eats apples all the time and he is supremely happy. He smiled at her then.

     She bit it.

     Hook, line and sinker.

     “God, I’m good,” he thought.

 

 

 

18.

 

 

 

It was Project Nigh’s first official workday and Ansley was covering the twilight shift. Marianne wasn’t at lunch and Ansley was beginning to wonder if she might be avoiding him. It was frustrating and ridiculous that he couldn’t leave the confines of the castle to look for her. Although what would he say to her anyway?

     In the light of day, his romantic notions had dwindled to pity. She pitied him, hence her kindness, he wallowed. He understood pity. It felt comfortable to him. He sat at his desk and put his hand against the curtain so he could feel the sun pelting through the cloth. Sometimes he longed to fling back the curtains and bask in the sun’s full radiance.

     He could hear people working in the field below, the irregular murmur of conversation, the singsong of laughter and the clang of tools. He put his hands in his head and listened to a world he was not a part of. Hunger, molasses thick, poured into him and he filled with it. Marianne was out there.

     Desire is a bird in my throat,

     I imagine holding her,

     dismantling myself

     and blowing away

     like red and white

     confetti, cells,

     to love me

     would bring her

     darkness.

     It was true that the villagers had called him ‘Dark Ansley’ and they were right, he thought; only a monster hides from the sun. He got up, filled the sink with water and splashed it over his face. In the mirror he saw his small peg teeth, pallid skin and absence of hair. She had called him beautiful, but the way she said it had inferred a different, unique and alien beauty, not an ethereal beauty.

     He had been a fool to think there was really a chance of something remarkable with Marianne. If she embodied anything, it was sunlight, and he’s a human that sunlight could kill. A human version of one of those colourless, formless creatures that dwell in the black bottom of the sea. Only his poems illuminated him. In his mind he was shimmering. Only there, nowhere else, with no one else.

     He left the castle at sunset. He wanted to take a walk before his shift started. He wasn’t used to being indoors and missed the fresh air. The sky was red and veined with purple like a bloodshot eye. The owls had begun and the bats. He breathed deep the dusk and walked through the field towards the woodland. The wind rolled the leaves into piles.

     The beauty of being scentless was that animals were not frightened of you. Woodland had always been his sanctuary. He approached the deer drinking at the stream. Their tails flicked white against the darkening trees. Something in the underbrush was red and foreign.

     As Ansley moved closer he saw that it was a nicely folded tee shirt. He picked it up and underneath was a pair of jeans, trainers and boxer shorts. The clothes weren’t dirty and appeared to have been recently set down. It was puzzling and Ansley looked questionably at the deer, as they were the only other living creatures present. In response, they blinked at him, alert and graceful. They sniffed the air, acknowledged him with a ripple through their hides, and continued drinking.

     Except one. One remained completely still and stared at him with eyes that seemed human. It looked like it wanted to say something.

     “Hello?” Ansley said and instantly felt absurd.

     The deer didn’t speak; instead, it began to quickly fade into a boy. A real boy, about Ansley’s age, about fourteen and completely naked. They stared at one another, utterly shocked, and then the boy covered his private section with his hands and took off running.

     “Hey wait!” Ansley ran after him. “Wait!”

     Sticks cracked beneath their feet. They ducked and swerved around branches. Their breath was synchronized. His hair was a curly blond mess and the back of his head looked like a sheep’s butt. Ansley let out a snort of laughter. It caught the boy off guard and slowed him down, not much, but enough for Ansley to bridge the gap between them. He reached out his hand. He could feel the heat from the boy’s neck as he lunged forward and grabbed his shoulder. Then. Nothing. Gone. Like a bubble that pops as soon as it’s touched. The boy had vanished.

     “No!” Ansley shouted and ran back to the stream.

     His legs burned. His throat was full of musk and moisture. He spat and caught his breath. Tree shadows pulsed alongside his heart and a breeze shuddered over him. The thump of blood died down in his ears and left him with the sensation of being watched. He heard leaves break cautiously underfoot. The deer emerged from their camouflage. Slowly, they circled him; a ring of eyes and not one of them was human.

     “Who is he?” The deer blinked back at him.

     Aghast. He looked up at the sky. Stars tucked themselves between black branches, everything was hiding from him. Had he just imagined it?

     A large buck let out a single aggressive snort like a gunshot. Ansley turned and sprinted back to the field. He still couldn’t believe what he’d seen. Of course he was real. He had touched him. This changed everything. All the elements of Ansley’s world were transforming. His heart flung against his throat in spasms, like a creature trying to escape. 

     Ansley was standing in the field reeling from his experience when Jude approached him.

     “Ansley, my night hawk, my bat, my tenant of the underworld, your role is particularly important. Some might say it’s demeaning, but I think it’s luminescent! Here,” he handed him a bucket full of saltwater. “Now on the whole, I want it stated that I’m opposed to genocide, but when it comes to slugs, I say, kill the lot of them. How are you enjoying the little gift I gave you?”

     “I haven’t touched it yet,” Ansley said, challenging Jude because he just couldn’t believe that Jude wouldn’t prosecute him for an Expression of Personal Self.

     “Still suspicious? Aw well, time will take care of that,” Jude said.

     Ansley took a deep breath and tried to slow his heartbeat in order to regain his composure. Jude was alone and there were no cherubs or Keepers in sight. He wore a gold brocade dinner jacket and a mood ring.

     “Look,” Jude shoved the ring into Ansley’s face. “Green means I’m serene. How accurate. So do you have any questions regarding your cabbage mission?”

     “Just one,” said Ansley, happy for a distraction from the boy. “What do you want me to do with the bucket when I’m finished?”

     “Put the lid on it and shake them all down. Tomorrow night you can toss the remains on the compost heap,” he twiddled an imaginary goatee. “Any more questions?”

     “Yes, actually,” said Ansley. “Are those really cherubs?”

     “Fallen cherubs, big difference. Don’t trust them. They’re like lobotomised monkeys that would eat you if they thought it’d spark their ageing process. Even I wouldn’t eat you, would I?” He brought his nose down to Ansley’s nose. His breath smelled of uncooked garlic and rancid meat. His eyebrows met in the middle and created a single M spread like a child’s drawing of a bird, mid-air.

     Ansley didn’t feel completely sure.

     “Now, the night is young Ansley and the cabbages are latticed. I want the bucket full,” he said, spun around and marched up the hill towards the castle.

     Ansley bent down and began collecting slugs and snails from the cabbages. Their trails glowed like secret ink. There was a rustling from the trees behind him and the deer boy spoke.

 

 

 

19.

 

 

 

     “Did he really call you his night hawk? That guy’s weird,” said the voice.

     Ansley spun around but couldn’t see anyone. A bit of bracken shook and the boy, fully dressed in the red tee shirt and jeans, stepped out of the woodland. Ansley held his breath. He was real after all.

     “Sorry if I scared you earlier. I have that effect on people I accidentally meet,” said the boy.

     “Then we already have a lot in common. I’m Ansley.”

     “Hey Ansley. I’m Dex.” They shook hands.

      Ansley tried not to stare at him, but it was difficult because he was a striking combination of unusual traits. His hair was a long blond shock against his brown skin and his eyes were like two blue stones deep-set against protruding cheekbones. He looked like a chieftain.

     “So…what happened? I mean, what are you?” Ansley said.

     “I’m a shape shifter,” said Dex.

     “God, that’s… Well, I don’t know what to say. That’s amazing.”

     “Well yeah, until you’re caught naked or accidentally slip into a grasshopper or something. Although I’m quite good at controlling what I shift into now and, of course, where I leave my clothes. I just wasn’t expecting anybody to be there,” said Dex. “What about you? Why are you so ghostly looking? Are you ill or dead or something?”

     Dex stood above Ansley in a half-sprinting position, as though he were nervous and prepared to flee. Maybe he thinks I’m a zombie, thought Ansley. He should have worn his balaclava, but it was so suffocating, and he had wanted to feel the air on his face. After all, he hadn’t been expecting anyone either.

     “No,” said Ansley, “I’m not dead. Why? Have you ever met someone who is?”

     “No, but it could happen right?” said Dex.

     “I’m not sure,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I guess anything could happen now. But I’m not dead; I was born like this.”

     “I was born with my condition too, it’s called animism,” said Dex.

     “On the unusual genetics scale, yours is a million times better than mine,” said Ansley.

     “Oh I don’t know. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a leech? It’s terrible. It tastes like you’ve been sucking on pennies for a week,” Dex looked around. “What is this place? Are you actually growing food here?”

     This prospect seemed even more astounding to Dex than the potential that Ansley may be dead.

     “Yeah. It’s one of the last uncontaminated fields around,” said Ansley.

     “So you grow food from seeds?”

     “Well I wasn’t here when this was planted, but yes, I assume so,” said Ansley.

     “That’s incredible,” said Dex with reverie.

     He sat down next to Ansley on the grass.

     “No more incredible than you are,” said Ansley. “So how does it work? Do animals just suck you up or what?” Ansley asked.

     He was beginning to relax as well. Dex was easy to talk to and seemed relatively normal, considering.

     “Sort of. I have to touch them first. My father called it the “DNA exchange”. The idea is that once I’ve touched an animal I can, in theory, shift into its form whenever I want.”

     “What do you mean ‘in theory’?”

     “I mean I’ve nearly mastered control,” said Dex.

     “So you can decide which animals you’ll shift into?”

     “Basically, yeah, but at first I just shifted into anything that touched me. It was a nightmare. Flies were the worst,” said Dex.

     “Yuck, I can’t imagine. What about one of these?” Ansley held up a slug.

     “Seriously, I don’t even want to talk about some of my less glamorous adventures. It was all a part of a steep learning curve that I’d rather put behind me now, thank you very much,” Dex interrupted. “Let me help you with this,” he bent down and started taking slugs from lettuce leaves.

     “Isn’t that murder for you?” Ansley asked.

     “Well, I’m not sentimental. I’m keen for our species to evolve and that requires eating. It’s the food chain and all of that. Slugs will always be around.”

     “Point taken,” Ansley laughed. “So how’d you learn to control your animism?”

     “Three things: Practice, ritual and meditation,” said Dex counting on his slimy fingers.

     “Ritual?” Ansley was sceptical.

     “Ritual,” said Dex.

     “What running around naked under a full moon or something?”

     “Yes and bleeding goats.”

     Ansley just stared at him.

     “It’s a joke! A joke, it’s not like a crazy cult or something. It’s just making the effort to breathe and repeat the same thing again and again.”

     “Sorry, life has been turned upside down lately and I guess I’m at the point where I’ll believe anything. Ritual sounds like relaxing really,” said Ansley.

     “Kind of. Kind of like alert and focused relaxation. Once you can do that, you can begin to train your brain.” 

     “Right. Are you a wizard or something?”

     “No. I wish. My family were Druids generations ago but I just do my own thing now,” said Dex.

     “I didn’t realize there were still Druids around.”

     “Nobody is around, and the ones that survived, live in caves and eat moss,” said Dex.

     “Seriously?”

     “No, I’m kidding. Honestly, I’ve never met a single Druid that wasn’t technologically advanced.”

     “So what, like cloaks and iPhones?”

     “Yeah something like that,” Dex said. “Not like you. This is Rye village right? I heard you were a bunch of crazies shut off from the real world. Sorry. I hope I didn’t offend you, but you don’t seem, you know, fanatical or odd in any way. Apart from looking like a vampire, lurking around the woods at night and picking slugs from cabbages, but that’s just normal in my book.”

     “My father never paid much attention to what Jude said,” said Ansley.

     “Who’s Jude?”

     “Mr. Night Hawk. He’s the leader around here, the one who gave me the bucket. He calls himself a prophet,” said Ansley.

     “Ah,” said Dex, as if that explained everything.

     “My father always said that our house happened to be close to a village run by a fanatic. We’ve never had much to do with the village, or other people for that matter and I am not exactly parish council material. I can’t be in the sunlight. That’s why I’m so pale.”

     “Are you serious?”

     “Yeah. It keeps me pretty reclusive.”

     “I know what that’s like. Imagine it, playing football with your friends, sliding in for the perfect tackle then, whoops, you’re one of these guys,” he held up a wiggling snail. “No offence,” he told it and threw it into the bucket.

     “Has that really happened?” Ansley asked.

     “No, but it could have in the early days, and that’s why I keep my animism a secret, not everybody would understand. They’d think I was a freak of nature and want to run tests on me or something.”

     “Probably, but I have to say, you are a bit freaky,” Ansley teased.

     “Thanks, that means a lot coming from one who resembles the walking dead,” said Dex.

     “Anytime. I settled into my freakiness ages ago,” said Ansley.

     “Good for you. Now all you need is a corpse bride and a little haunted house,” said Dex.

     “Yep and all you need is a cage to control your inner animal,” said Ansley and they both laughed.

     “You are the first person to recognise me, you know, in animal form,” said Dex. “I couldn’t believe it when you spoke to me. How did you know?”

     “To be honest, I’m not sure. It was like I could sense a human inside the deer and that it wanted to speak. I don’t know. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before so I’m still having a hard time believing this is real.”

     Dex put his hand on Ansley’s shoulder. “Take it from someone on the other side of reality and forget about real,” he said.

     “What do you mean?”

     “I mean animism is just one wave, one actuality amongst thousands, millions, churning around the place. What’s visible is not all that there is, by a long shot. Take atoms. Atoms existed long before we discovered them right? That doesn’t mean they were untrue before we recognized them, does it? It’s the same with realities,” said Dex.

     “The last couple of days have been a true testimony to parallel realities, believe me. I can accept that idea now because of the things I’ve experienced,” said Ansley. “Maybe that’s why I was able to see you?” Ansley stopped picking snails and mused for a moment.

     He felt tied to a plan he had yet to comprehend and compelled to tell Dex about the cove, but stopped himself. It had been a private experience and he’d sworn to secrecy about the pearl.

     “That’s probably just your brain catching up, which is why you need to question everything. I mean everything. And especially the things you’re told are absolutely true. You need to keep evolving, mate. A few of us can kick start a species. Who knows? Maybe ten thousand years from now everyone will be able to shape shift or, God help us, maybe we’ll all look like you. Whatever the case, we’ll be as similar to the species we’ll become as we currently are to chimps. The future is wide open,” said Dex.

     “That actually sounds quite hopeful,” said Ansley.

     He stood and stretched his arms up to the black and blue sky. It was the time of night where everything was completely quiet. His favourite hours.

     “Of course it’s hopeful,” said Dex. “There is always room for possibility. Think about it. We feed from the earth until we deplete her and then she feeds from us and when she spits us back out again, we take a new form. We could be anything then, bacteria, a sycamore, a grasshopper, an angel. In that way the world is economical and where there’s economy, there’s intelligence and where there’s intelligence, there’s hope. But I’ll tell you what,” said Dex, “for you to see me, means something’s changing. Something big.”

     That’s exactly what Marianne had said, thought Ansley.

 

 

 

20.

 

 

 

Jude had always wanted his own world, but this pipedream was fraught with many obstacles that it seemed unobtainable. Until now. He knew there was a world hidden somewhere around the cove, so that problem was nearly solved, but there were other problems, bigger problems that needed consideration.

     He had his form, sure. He had his special attributes, doesn’t everybody? But at the end of the day, he was a crystalline creature at heart, without DNA, without the helix of evolution. How could he quickly grow a population without that beautiful merry-go-round of transformation? He was becoming impatient and wanted fast shaping life inside his rock and crystal world. Only the strongest would do. Only the survivors.

     He secretly called the castle his Petri dish. Since his time in the garden he’d always considered himself an amateur biologist really, plus who knew the earth better than a snake? Heck, even his body host, Simorg, had once been a microbiologist and that was no mere stroke of luck, it was carefully planned.

     Simorg Wright hadn’t always been a religious zealot, but was once a promising scholar with a propensity towards the radical. In fact it was a radical idea that got him laughed out of academia. He wrote an article stating that bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE) would eventually contaminate the ground making it unsuitable for plant growth because anything grown in it would eventually contain the prion protein.

     At the time, scientists were unfamiliar with the particular protein transfer his host was speaking about, and as is often the case, they abolished him from their sight so they didn’t have to think about something nonconformist. After his embarrassment, he moved into a council house in the small fishing village of Rye. He thought the sea air might do him some good.

     His neighbour, Mrs. Eleanor Murphy, decided straight away that he wasn’t, as she put it, dealing with a full deck and that it was her civic duty to keep an eye on him.

     An hour later she was ringing the bell of his house, cursing him for taking so long because she hadn’t worn her orthopaedic shoes and standing on a step was pure murder.

     “Yeeees?” He opened the door.

     He was very tall.  Jude preferred tall hosts as it allowed him to stretch out his snake body, but Mrs. Murphy certainly didn’t approve. Well, that height is just ridiculous, she thought, plus he had an academic’s unkempt bushy brown hair. He reminded her of a skinny topiary wearing headphones.

     “Are you going to take those headphones off and speak to me properly? I made you some bread.” She found that straight talking with a cranky voice was quite effective on young people.

     “I can hear you fine. They aren’t plugged into anything and thanks,” he said and took the bread out of her hands.

     She would remember that later. That he didn’t even wait for her to hand it to him, he just took it, and if he hadn’t have said thank you, she would have bashed him over the head with her handbag, like she did to that boy who wanted to snatch her purse in the Tesco car park before the earth went to hell in a hand basket and you could still buy an edible potato. Well that taught him.

    “Christ it’s worse than I thought,” she muttered under her breath, looking at the headphones and then the rest of him. He was wearing mismatched socks, one red and one green, poor dear thinks it’s Christmas. Did I say that out loud? She wondered. Getting old was a bother.

     “I beg your pardon?” He said.

     “Nothing,” she said and stared at him with a pinched face.

     He didn’t look like a psycho killer, though they never do, but she was good at first impressions. Always had been. Maybe he had a particular brain condition like everybody else in his generation? Nothing that couldn’t be solved with a good kick up the arse and decent nutrition. She stared at him. He didn’t strike her as a broccoli eater either.

     “Come in. I’m Simorg Wright.” He shifted from side to side. It was obvious that she unnerved him.

     “I know your name. I’m Eleanor Murphy, but you can call me Mrs. Murphy. I’ll come in but I’ll just stay for a light lunch as I don’t want to be any trouble.”

     This was the beginning of their short relationship, and even though they both annoyed one another, manners kept them pleasant. Manners and Mrs. Murphy’s sense of duty.

     She considered herself an undervalued civil servant for keeping such a sharp eye on him. When the council moved Mr. Wright into a smaller house two streets away, Mrs. Murphy was aghast at what she called ‘the pure and evil selfishness of the government,’ for the streets were cobbled at Mr. Wright’s new residence and wreaked havoc on Mrs. Murphy’s knees. She was an old woman now for Christ’s sake, didn’t the council care? It was just another way in which they abused the elderly, but she persevered and made the weekly journey to Mr. Wright’s for a cup of tea and a good poke around. 

     “You have to monitor a person who drinks his tea from a jug and constantly wears a pair of headphones that I’ve never seen him plug into anything,” she said.

     She tested Simorg. She wanted to see the shape his anger might take, so asked him about matters that she felt might drive him over the edge like the cost of leeks (a plant she regarded as a wild weed) or the unreliability of the weatherman. All the while she watched the cord to his headphones dangle like a vicious serpent, wondering if he might be ungodly as well as insane. As it turned out he was about to become both.

     It was Wednesday at ten to eleven. Mrs. Murphy would arrive at her usual prompt 11:00 o’clock. Simorg Wright filled the kettle and flipped the switch. The tornado sirens had been whistling for over an hour. They were so frequent now that people ignored them like they ignored car alarms. He looked out the window. The air was still and the clouds were grey. Maybe Mrs. Murphy would stay home? Either way, he fancied some pickled beetroot with his salad so went down into the cellar to get a jar. When he was in the cellar he tripped over a bicycle and lost his headphones. He got down on his hands and knees to search, while he was moving his hand across the damp stones, he knocked the shelf with the beetroot jars dislodging the raw plugs and screws from the wall. The shelf and jars toppled, crashing onto his head rendering him unconscious.

     He didn’t hear the sound of a train as the grey clouds swirled into a funnel that touched down on his housing estate. The houses collapsed in like a fallen pyramid of playing cards. Simorg finally woke up covered in glass and beetroot juice, he found his headphones and walked up the steps to a changed world.

     Simorg’s headphones started buzzing right away and had Mrs. Murphy survived, she would have applied her practicality to the situation and determined that a fly was caught in the headpiece.

     But, alas, Mrs Murphy had been swept up in the tornado and dropped in a tree a mile from the village. Her khaki mackintosh was fanned out like a nest and her body was purple and contorted like a weak bird.

     Simorg was also transformed.

     The voice. How could he explain the voice he heard? First, there was a buzzing and static like someone constantly crumpling up paper, but beyond those noises was a constant drip, drip, drip. The dripping was the only thing steadfast and anchoring and when he listened to it he had the strange sensation that the thing that was leaking from him was feeling. Compassion. He tried not to think about it, stayed in bed, put his hands over his head and prayed the dripping would stop. Suddenly it did stop and the voice took its place.

     “Get up!” The voice demanded. It was so loud. “Get up and have a bath, you’re a prophet now for goodness sake!”

     Simorg had no idea this voice belonged to Jude. He didn’t even question it, to be frank, he didn’t care because anything was preferable to the blasted dripping. Also he was suddenly blessed with the gift of rhetoric. He could roll his ‘r’s’ and enunciate implicitly. He was a baritone and loud. The old Simorg had always been a quiet scientist. He wore the headphones to drown out noise. His voice was unrecognisable to him now.

     “Turn on the radio and listen to what I’ve done for you,” barked Jude.

     Simorg obeyed and what he heard was remarkable. Two years after he’d been kicked out of mainstream science, they found that the soil had indeed been contaminated and that food grown in this soil was not edible. He couldn’t believe it. He had been right. He had predicted the future.

     “Put some shoes on, let’s go,” said Jude.

     The voice waltzed Simorg into the main office of the University of Sussex and demanded a formal apology; of course the apology was systematically refused, which forced Simorg to dutifully resort to plan B. Before he knew what he was doing, he dropped his trousers, showed them his bare bum and said something highly intellectual like, “nah nah nah-naa-naaah!” As he left the building he stuck two fingers up at them and felt brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. He jumped up and punched the air, yes!

      “See? You possess the rhetoric and unpredictable finesse necessary to be a world-class leader. Or at least a village leader. Now let’s get on with the prophet thing. First you have to ask me to stay. You do want me to stay, don’t you? After all I’ve done and how marvellous you feel?” Jude said.

     “Yes, yes of course I want you to stay,” said Simorg.

     “That’s all I need,” and the voice became a terrifying shape that snaked around filling his whole body.

     “Remember me?” Jude hissed horribly.

     Simorg crouched in the corner of his brain, small and afraid. He nodded. Yes, he remembered. He trembled. “What have I done?”

 

 

 

21.

 

 

 

Marianne went to check on the pearl the morning after she’d buried it. All night, it had lit up her dreams. It was quiet inside the house and she could feel her ears still ringing from the previous night’s sea wind and water. The pearl placed itself behind her forehead like a pulse that spread throughout her limbs, until there wasn’t a tired bone in her entire body.

     She looked at her palm and rubbed it with her thumb.

     She felt that something was changing inside her that was magnificently subtle, like a season. The pearl felt it too and was surrounded by an emptiness that it couldn’t penetrate. 

     She got out of bed and quietly dressed. She couldn’t hear anyone awake, so crept downstairs as silently as she could. In the kitchen she took a blue bottle from her mother’s medicinal stock and slipped it in her coat pocket.

     Her father caught her at the door.

     “Aren’t you an early bird,” he said and placed his hand over hers on the doorknob. “And where are you off to then?”

     She was prepared for him, took her hand from under his and removed a trowel from her back pocket. “I couldn’t get back to sleep, so thought I’d get an hour in before breakfast.”

     “Really? I have to say that surprises and pleases me Marianne.” He took his hand off the doorknob and patted her on the back. “There is something else I need to talk to you about. Someone told me they saw you talking to Dark Ansley, is that right?”

     She gripped the trowel in her hand defensively as she faced him.

     “I was only curious, Daddy. What’s that saying? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Why, you don’t think he’s contaminated, do you?” This seemed to appease him and his voice lost its previous edge.

     “Jude says he isn’t, but all the same, I don’t like you two talking.”

     “Okay Daddy,” she said and he opened the door for her.

     “Off you go,” he said.

     He stood watching her cross the field. The girl seems to have gained a bit of motivation and allegiance, he thought. That’s good; she could use a bit of loyalty. She turned around and waved.

     She would have to do some digging now. She went to one of the large vegetable beds and stuck her trowel into the cold earth. If her father were still there in half an hour she’d pretend she needed a wee and enter the woodland. It was early in the morning and the day had yet to warm. Her hands were cold. She knelt down and began digging. The grass was whiskery with frost.

     A few moments later she saw Jude parading down the pavement with a group of cherubs. His legs were so long it looked like he was on stilts. Excellent, she thought, as she knew her father would invite him in for a cup of tea, but instead, they stood outside and watched her. Eventually two cherubs appeared with cups of tea.

     It was frustrating. If she didn’t reach the pearl before breakfast, the field would be too full of people for her to sneak away. Jude was always ruining things. It was as if ruination was his secret intent. Even from the beginning, she had felt something low and sinister about Jude’s presence.

     She’d never forget the first time she saw him.

     It was the night of her father’s fishing accident. He’d gone out on his boat and hadn’t returned for hours. A storm had come without warning; the sky, the waves all seemed to be boiling and Marianne’s mother, Janet, stood at the window picking her cuticles’ and chewing her lip until it bled.

     The rain lashed against the glass in waves and lightening lit up crazed trees. To distract herself, Janet went to the kitchen and stirred a pot of soup she’d made earlier. Marianne could hear her sucking the blood from her lip.

     “Can you see him?” She asked Marianne who had taken her place by the window.

     “Not yet.”

     Lightening cracked and Marianne saw trees bend low and spring forward as though they were made of rubber, their leaves twirled like frantic pinwheels against a thousand shades of black. Wait. There. There was something.

     “I think I see a light!”

     Janet ran into the living room. The spoon was still in her hands and dripping soup on the carpet. They both peered out the window and when they saw his head torch bouncing like a ship lost at sea, they screamed with relief. Her mother ran out to greet him; she threw her arms around him and then stopped abruptly, when they reached the door Marianne saw why.

     He was soaking. His eyes were huge and bloodshot. He was stringed with seaweed and covered in mud. His face was white, pure white and he had no shoes on his feet. He looked possessed.

     “You should have seen it, it was enormous and evil, evil it was and it came at me under the water,” he muttered in a quiet but alarming voice.

     Her mother led him to the sofa and sat him down. She put another log on the fire and went to the kitchen to fetch him some soup. She didn’t look at Marianne.

     “There you are,” she soothed. “Get some warmth in you and you’ll be fine,” she said and handed him a mug. “What about the boat, Harold?”

     The mug steamed inside his sodden hands. They were wrinkled as raisins. He said nothing and stared at the fire.

     “The boat, Harold, where is it?” Her mother asked and put her hand upon her father’s shaking knee.

     “On the rocks, in pieces.” Marianne could hardly hear his answer.

     “Oh, Harold, can we fix it?” The boat was her parents’ livelihood.

     Her father threw his mug of soup against the wall. It splattered like an orange paintball. He grabbed her mother by the shoulders and shook her.

     “Who cares?! Listen! I’m telling you I saw the devil! The devil himself! It was a snake, a snake, and I’ve seen him before as a child and now he’s come back to me! I knew he would and I’m scared Janet, I’m so bloody scared,” he buried his head in her mother’s chest and sobbed. His large square back jerked.

     “Shhh, shhh,” Janet kept repeating.

     Marianne went to the kitchen and got a cloth. She cleared up the mess from the soup. She looked at her mother. Her mother met her eye and looked hopeless. She left them alone and went upstairs to her bedroom.

     She could hear her father mumbling and her mother soothing him with her soft voice. Her father had always been so strong and now he seemed weak and reduced. She took her sketchbook from under her pillow. Drawing soothed her. She began to draw a rollicking sea, a little boat, and beneath it, a serpent. She knew she was drawing fear.

     She understood the evil her father had encountered, had felt it lurking beneath her whilst swimming in the bay when the water suddenly went cold as though death had passed.

     The doorbell rang.

     She walked down the stairs and there was Jude. He was sopping wet. He took his hat off and bowed to Janet.

     “I was just checking for tree damage and saw Harold staggering towards the house. Is he alright?” Janet led him though into the living room where her father sat huddled beside the fire.

     Jude glanced at Marianne as he passed. His eyes were as void as space, as an empty eternity. People said that he heard voices that predicted the future and could save the present, so they followed him.

     What if he’s listening to the wrong voices? Marianne thought as she looked at him. She didn’t trust his motives. Who checks for tree damage before the storm is over?

     Her opinion didn’t have time to matter, for in the morning her father had already vowed his life to Jude and had become a Keeper. Jude, he said, had saved him from the devil, but Marianne could never rationalize this in her mind. She believed the devil was something we created ourselves and, sometimes, she thought with horror, unknowingly invited into our lives.

     She looked up at the clouds. They were racing as if in a speeded up movie. She’d never seen them move so fast. Thinking about the past made her feel afraid, even though it had already been lived, there was something about it that seemed dishonest and the dishonesty was what frightened her. Her father and Jude were still standing outside drinking their tea, talking and glancing over at her.

     There was something about their surveillance that felt overwhelmingly permanent. As though she might never be truly independent, might never live within her own dominion, making only her own choices and carving her own path. How could oneself be sovereign during a time of famine? Humans needed humans to survive. She looked at her father and Jude. They both waved. No, she thought, you are not my people. I don’t belong with you.

     But how to break away? Ansley. He knew the woods and he certainly didn’t fit into the Keeper community. Eventually he would have to leave. They would never allow him to stay, they would kill him before they would risk cross-contamination. Could she do that? Could she share his life of darkness? She immediately thought of Thumbelina wedded to the mole and felt disgusted with herself.

     She shoved the trowel into the soil and sliced through the skin between her thumb and pointer finger. It was a clean cut and it hurt like hell. She held on to it with her other hand. It was dirty with mud. The mud mixed with the blood and fell in clumps on the ground. She would need to clean it otherwise it would certainly get infected. It was bleeding furiously now and warm blood was dripping from her elbow and onto the dirt floor with a small, repetitive, pat, pat.

     A panic rose in her throat like bile. She unwrapped her scarf and wound it as many times as she could around her cut. It felt cold and wet at first then began to warm as it mixed with her blood. Her hand was as plump as a tennis ball and within seconds the blood stained through.

     The vision of the pearl’s waters rose like a gentle cloud inside her. She looked up. Fortunately, Jude and her father had gone into the house. She ran to the woodland as fast as she could.

 

 

 

22.

 

 

 

She knelt, panting, beside the pearl’s small silvery pond. It was the size of an open mouth and she peered down its neck. She felt that the pearl would heal her. Everything seemed to be waiting, urging her to do it, and so she dunked her hand inside its pool of water, scarf and all. The pain stopped immediately as the pearl poured its light into her.

     Could it be? She thought and began unwrapping her scarf. When her hand was revealed she gasped. The cut had completely vanished.

     The water was cavernous deep and black and she could see the pearl resting at the bottom like a white ball. She blew across the water and bounced its reflection. She took her mother’s blue medicine bottle from her coat pocket and filled it with the silver liquid.

 

*

 

So many things were possible, she thought as she walked back to the castle for breakfast, even the fact that she was just going crazy. Does it happen suddenly? One day sane, the next day mad? She had always thought it happened over a period of time. Like when anger takes a person, of course nobody starts out that way, but events can turn you like a piece of wood and a shape begins to take place.

     Was she the shape of madness? She remembered seeing a sculpture in an abandoned garden some years back. She was mesmerized by how its form shaped the space around it. Sometimes what the sculptor removes is more important than what they leave behind.

     She’d removed her idea of certainty. It had clung to her, yet when she held the pearl, it fell like a chunk of rock chipped from her eyes. Seeing and feeling are the same thing, she thought, and if the water could heal her hand, what else could it heal?

     Apart from the blood on her scarf and arms, she could have believed it had been a dream. She looked at her hand and there was no sign of the cut. What does it mean? Could it heal anyone else? She would have to try. She walked back to the castle in a daze.

     Jude met her at the castle door and her heart dropped. He was not the person she wanted to see at the moment. She put the scarf in her pocket so he wouldn’t see the blood. The last thing she needed was for him to suspect she’d been contaminated.

     “It’s a pleasure to see you’ve developed green fingers and initiative,” he took a loud and deep breath through his nostrils. “There is nothing like a good dig in the morning,” he took a sip of his tea and looked down at the cherub poised like a side table beside him. “Excuse me? Where’s your linen?” He asked and the cherub produced a linen napkin from his pocket and draped it over his head.

     Jude placed his cup of tea upon the cherub’s head. “Really, I shouldn’t have to ask,” he scolded the cherub, then turned and eyed Marianne suspiciously. “I saw that you came from the woodland?”

     This took Marianne off-guard and she fumbled her words. “Yes, I was looking for mushrooms,” she knew that he knew she was lying.

     Fortunately it was a lie that she could back up as her mother had taught her all about edible plants and fungi. But why hadn’t she just told him she needed a pee?

     “Ah a fungi expert, how fascinating. You know I’ve often thought of training the cherubs to truffle hunt, but where does one find the time? Don’t stray too far away from the field. I can’t have anyone contaminating the herd. Understand?” His eyes bore into her until she had no choice but to look away.

     “Okay, I won’t. I need to go and wash my hands before breakfast. Excuse me,” she said and walked to the kitchen.

    She washed her arms and hands. She could hear Jude talking in a hushed voice to someone, and then the click of his boots as he walked down the hallway. When she opened the door the Keeper was blocking the exit. If he were a dog, he’d growl, she thought.

     A window was open above them and there was a terrible coughing coming from inside a dorm room. The cough had a metal quality to its sound like choking up razorblades. It made Marianne’s body tingle.

     “Who is that?” she asked the Keeper and he just shrugged.

     “I didn’t see who it was, but Jude said he was keeping her in quarantine until she’s well again,” he said and sat down in a chair beside the door. He was on patrol.

     Behind them a cherub was rattling along the pathway carrying his breakfast. The tray was bigger than his torso. It was piled high with everything, porridge, berries, bananas, toast with butter and tea. He handed it to the Keeper, then spat on the grass, took a pack of cigarettes from his dirty nappy and walked towards the field smoking. She looked at the Keeper with surprise.

     “They hate humans,” the Keeper explained.

     “But they worship Jude and he’s human,” she said.

     “He’s a prophet, it’s different. Breakfast isn’t for another hour, now up you go,” he nodded towards the row of houses. “I don’t like talking.”

     She ran home and straight up to her bedroom. She took the blue vial containing the pearl’s water from her pocket. It glistened with promise and when she placed it on her windowsill it cast a blue rectangle across her bedroom floor. She washed her scarf in the sink and hung it up to dry.

     Her parents were fishing and wouldn’t be back until lunch, so she had plenty of time to deliver some pearl water to the coughing girl. What if it cured her? She prickled with excitement.

     She had to be quick and didn’t want the Keeper to see her, so went out the back door and climbed up over the fence. Within minutes she was standing underneath the girl’s window again. The Keeper was six metres in front of her and completely focused on his breakfast.

     The sound of dry retching came from the inside. Poor thing, Marianne thought, and scanned the building. A rake was leaning against the wall. Marianne used it to tap on the girl’s window. It was almost too easy.

 

 

 

23.

 

 

 

A small girl peered out. She looked as weak as a kitten with dark rings around her eyes and skin yellowed with jaundice. Marianne recognized her from the bus. She had looked feeble even then and Marianne wondered how long she’d been ill.

     “Down here,” Marianne whispered.

     The girl raised her limp hand hello.

     “I have something for you,” Marianne said. “Something that might make you better, but you have to keep it a secret. Can you do that?”

     The girl nodded. She seemed too fragile to speak and Marianne didn’t want to press her.

     “Good. Throw down your pillowcase,” said Marianne.

     The girl ducked away and seconds later floated the pillowcase down to Marianne. Marianne opened up the pillowcase and dropped the blue vial inside. She tied the pillowcase to the rake and stretched it up to the window.

     Beatrice took out the vial. It shimmered in her hands.

     “It’s spring water. You drink it. I promise it won’t harm you. I’ve had loads myself. I think it might even cure you, but I can’t be sure, so you have to trust me.”

     Beatrice closed the vial inside of her hand, nodded and shut the window. She was feverish all over and her teeth were chattering. It had taken all of her strength to reach for the pillowcase and she lay down on the bed exhausted inside a hot puddle of sweat.

     She closed her eyes and brought the vial to her mouth and swallowed the most delicious liquid. It was cool and sweet without being flowery. It tasted lighter than water. It tasted like a gulp of fresh, snowy air.

     As soon as it entered her body it seemed to blow through her limbs and lift them, even the burning hot hand she imagined was constantly at her throat released. Her mind cleared like a path swept of debris and she walked along it towards herself. She remembered herself.

     Beatrice, she thought, I am Beatrice and she took a deep breath. She peeled herself from her wet mattress and sat up. Everything spun and purred with life.

     She opened up the curtains and the sun poured in.

     Outside the breakfast trumpets began to sound. As soon as Marianne heard them she ran to the castle and straight up to Beatrice’s dorm room. A completely different child greeted her, a child of vibrancy and health, and Beatrice laughed out loud at the look on Marianne’s face. Marianne was not prepared for such an immaculate recovery.

     “I know! It’s a miracle!” Beatrice grabbed Marianne by the hands and pulled her inside. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said and gave Marianne a tight hug and started crying with gratitude.

     Beatrice was a beautiful child. She was around nine or ten at the most. Her long hair was black and her skin was flawless with ruddy cheeks. Her eyes were hazel and electric. Her bones looked bird-sized and Marianne loved her right away as one might love a small sister. They embraced for a long time, both recovering from the shock of the water’s power. Finally Beatrice settled down and dried her eyes on her sleeve.

     What was that?” Beatrice sat on the edge of the bed as if stupefied by her amazement. Marianne sat down beside her.

     “I can’t really tell you because I don’t exactly know. All I can say is that it’s a special water, but you must swear you won’t tell a soul about it,” she touched Beatrice’s arm, “I’m serious. Don’t tell anyone. Especially Jude. You mustn’t tell Jude or any of the Keeper’s okay?”

     “I won’t. I promise,” Beatrice said and crossed her heart on her chest. “What’s your name?”

     “Marianne,” she said. “What’s yours?”

     “Beatrice. Marianne, you saved my life,” she said and again started to cry.

     Marianne hugged her and stroked her hair. It was like touching an angel.

     “You stay here and rest. Have a bath if you feel up to it. I know you feel better now, but you still need to build up your strength.”

     “What will you do?” Beatrice’s eyes were needy, doe-like and full of admiration for Marianne. 

     “I’m going to find out more about this water,” said Marianne.

     “Will you tell me about it?”

     “Of course I will. I’ll tell you all about it this afternoon. We can even work in the field together,” she kissed Beatrice’s forehead and stood to leave.

     Beatrice lay down and closed her heavy eyes.

     “That’s it,” said Marianne. “Just rest and you’ll be as good as new soon,” she said as she softly shut the door.

     She stood in the hallway and took a deep breath. Her head was spinning.

     What on earth would she do with the power to cure?

     Better yet, what couldn’t she do?

 

 

 

24.

 

 

 

Ansley ghosted along the corridor from his room. He would have liked to go unnoticed and almost missed the days he’d spent in the woodland. Being nocturnal meant that he seldom saw other people, so he wasn’t used to the stares his appearance generated. He wished they would stare at him outright and just get it over with; instead they waited until they thought he wasn’t looking and glanced sideways.

     It was worse when they were trying not to be obvious because he could feel it, eyes like hot darts trying to quickly take his appearance in, to reconcile it, and familiarize themselves enough to look again without wincing. Or they avoided him and tried to act like his appearance was normal.

     He would never be normal.

     From his birth Ansley’s mother had a sadness that she couldn’t shake. She was not bad or weak but the force of her maternal bonds did not flourish and ultimately were set to repel. His father told him how he would perch him on his arms like a scrappy owlet determined to fly one day. Ansley was too young to remember this, but he used the image of an owl’s silent predatory grace to bolster his courage from the voyeuristic stares of the other castle inhabitants.

     The castle now sounded jovial and alive. People were no longer zombified. It was as if the food had awakened them and Ansley could hear their conversations as they walked down the hallway, their footsteps, the person in the dorm next to him brushing their teeth, the sounds produced a new level of intimacy, which meant community. Ansley both longed for community and feared it, in truth, there was a part of him that felt he didn’t deserve acceptance, and so he pretended that he didn’t want it. 

     It was so much easier to be with animals. Perhaps that was why he didn’t shy away from Dex, on some level he considered Dex part animal. Animals trusted their instincts and their instincts always told them that he was kind, despite looking like a monster. Dex spent a large amount of time as an animal and had developed that instinctual side of his personality.

     Marianne was another story. She just accepted his ugliness in one huge gulp, like swallowing cod liver oil or some nasty medicine that would benefit her in the end. There was something instinctual about her too and although Ansley couldn’t pinpoint it, he knew she was, well, sacred. That was the only word that popped in to his head. Sacred enough not to care about the trivialities of the exterior. Or at least he hoped she was.

     He took a deep breath and stealthily opened the door to the castle hall. He slipped into the breakfast room. Words and heat and breakfast smells flooded him. It was packed and excited. Everyone seemed to be talking about Jude and the second chances the new world offered and, of course, food. People dart glanced at him as he moved to the buffet table. He tried to steady his breathing.

     He stood in the queue for porridge. It steamed from a large silver urn. A cherub stood on a chair and used a big silver ladle to slop it into each bowl. Jude walked up to the cherub and smacked him on the back of the head, “Careful nappy brain,” he said.

     Jude was wearing a silk peacock blue shirt, black jeans, and a monocle, but no top hat. His tattoo looked like a flat purple toupee until you were close enough to see the tentacles. Jude took a bowl and sat down in a carved mahogany wing back chair positioned at the head of a table. A centipede of cherubs held the chandelier above him while he ate; all around him eyes were watching with idolatry. Ansley wondered what it would be like to be stared at with such admiration.

     Marianne was nowhere to be seen and Ansley sat alone at a shadowed table listening to the chatter and rain falling against stone. The wind moaned against the stone. The air was hot, but the walls were cold and at that moment he missed the freshness of the woodland more than he could say.

     A Keeper walked in, his rayon tracksuit was speckled with rain and Marianne was following him, when she saw Ansley she looked straight at him, and then ever so slightly shook her head no. Her meaning had been clear. Ansley wasn’t to speak to her, so concentrated on eating his porridge.

     Marianne and the Keeper sat at Jude’s table and when she went up for some breakfast she dropped a note beside Ansley’s feet. He stepped on it and waited for her to return to her seat before he picked it up. It was still damp from her nervous hand. To be caught with an illegal note would mean dire punishment for a Keeper’s daughter. The fact that she had risked herself for him gave him a joy beyond measure.

     The note had been folded into a tiny crane and he squeezed the bird in his hand as he walked back to his room. It was too dangerous to open the note in the dining hall.

     He locked his door, sat down at his desk and carefully opened the crane wing by wing so that he would remember how to fold it again.

     It was part of a poem:

     Out of the night that covers me,

     Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

     I thank whatever gods may be

     For my unconquerable soul.

     She had told him that his poetry must be his entry point. To where? He had asked. To the place where you truly live, she had said, your own home. She hadn’t laughed at him or made him feel soppy in any way. He read the poem once more. Is that what she thought of him? An unconquerable soul cloaked in darkness? He turned the note over and read:

     I’ll sneak out tomorrow night and visit you on your shift. Something amazing has happened. Mxx

     It certainly has, he thought and turned the paper into a bird once more. He placed it on the windowsill. On the pavement below, Jude was walking back to his house, contemplating the note he’d seen Marianne drop for Ansley.

 

 

 

25.

 

 

 

Jude opened the door to his library. The curtains were drawn and the room was dark but for the glow of his helixes. He lovingly ran his hand along the rows of jars. The little green swirls brightened with his touch.

    In the beginning his collecting habits had been random and disorganized. He had worked with quantity in mind, not quality, and this had been a mistake. Over time he realized that if he wanted to direct the evolutionary course of his planet, he needed to be selective. The disasters were a blessing for him as they naturally weeded out the weakest of the species. It was important to observe the survivors and choose the most suitable.

     He kicked off his cowboy boots and slumped into his thinking chair. That disfigured boy and his little girlfriend were definitely brave. Did they really think he wouldn’t spot the note?

     He practically invented body language. He should probably just eat them now, but then he wouldn’t discover what they were scheming. It was difficult to get the balance of dictatorship right. On one hand, he needed an evolutionary spark of innovation and genetic capability, on the other; he needed souls he could control.

     There was something about Marianne and Ansley’s relationship that overrode Jude’s greater sensibilities. He knew he should dispose of them as they were taking risks and not living in accordance with his laws. But. But what?

     Well, Ansley reminded him of the snake he’d been when he’d fallen in love with Eve. He simply wanted to see how it would end. Curiosity was a sign of intelligence and he was a supernatural genius, after all, so it did make sense. But the whole thing was rather pathetic. Did that hideous creature actually think a girl of her standing would return his love? And after she dumped him, and she no doubt would, Jude might find a proper confidant. 

     The truth is that he never got over Eve. Not really. He thought he had, for years, until that blasted cherub paid him a visit and all of his emotions rose to his throat like a geyser.

     The cherub had come to tell him about the seed. It was their first decade out of the Garden. Ages ago. He still can’t quite believe the cherub actually told him, but they were all trying to find their place in the ruined world and he was probably just rebelling against Eve.

     The new world was tough to begin with, even for Jude, as he hadn’t honed his skills and, to be frank, they were all a little spoiled in the Garden. He always did feel a bit sorry for the cherubs. Once they were out of the Garden they stopped ageing. Imagine being stuck inside an infant’s body forever, never getting your teeth, constantly wetting yourself, falling down, zoning out mid-sentence to stare at your feet or hands. Must be a total nightmare. Anyway, sympathy kept Jude from eating him on the spot.

     “You’re on my rock, kid, move it,” he said.

     The cherub didn’t budge an inch. He just crossed his chubby little legs and lit a leaf filled with tobacco plant. Jude couldn’t believe it. The cheek of this one will taste nice, he thought.

     “I’ve got news for you. Something you’ll definitely want to hear,” it said blowing a smoke ring. How obscene.

     “Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?”

      “Because it involves the Scripture Tree,” he said. He had the voice of a fifty year-old smoker. It was gross, but he was cocky and Jude liked cocky.

     “You look ridiculous. Put that death stick out, and not on my rock, I’m sunbathing here, show some respect. What’s wrong with you kids these days?”

     He needed to be told a thing or two, it was exasperating and Jude was losing his patience. The cherub stubbed his cigarette out and accidentally wet himself.

     “Ahhh! You’ve pissed on my rock, butterball! That’s it! You’re dinner now!” Jude lunged forward, fangs out and squirting. What was the harm in scaring the cherub a little when he’d already emptied his bladder?

     “No! Wait! The Scripture Tree, remember? The Apple Tree? There’s a seed left! I saw it! I promise you, I saw it!” the cherub was whimpering. Once a baby, always a baby, thought Jude and he stopped squeezing. “What did you say?”

     “I saw it. I did. It rolled down her cheek like a big white tear.”

     “You mean Evie?” He felt a lump in his throat, heck, he was all throat. He felt a lump in his body.

     “The one and only. She let it drop into her hands and clasped them together like this,” he demonstrated the hands-in-prayer, tight like a clamshell position. “Then she walked into the sea. We all begged her not to go.”

     “What? She walked into the sea! My Evie, you mean she’s gone?” Turns out he had a soft spot for her still, you see. She was the first he’d ever corrupted.

     “No. No. She came back but, well…” He seemed to be searching for the correct word.

     “But what?! But what?!”

     “But she’s different,” the cherub said.

     “Different? How?”

     “She was underwater for a long time. We all walked to the water’s edge and held our breath. Then bubbles started to rise, one by one, and the angels started circling overhead. They were singing when she rose to the surface. He opened the clouds and there was a pool of light. She walked calmly up to the sand and smiled at us. She had no hands. Her hands and the seed inside of them were gone. They’d completely vanished! The angels began to cry. Feathers fell from the sky. ‘What have you done?’ we asked her. ‘I’ve given them another chance,’ she said, rising in a beam of light. It was the seed. A seed from the Scripture Tree.”

     They fell silent for a while and thought about the blank planet at the bottom of the sea. It made him sick to think of her without her beautiful hands. He wanted to weep, but regained composure and snaked around the cherub’s neck.

     “Why are you telling me this?” he squeezed.

     “Because I know you can find it,” he said.

     “And if I did, what good would that do you?” He squeezed harder.

     “I’m hoping that you can change me, you know, let me age,” he gagged.

     Of course Jude ate him, even though eating smokers is downright disgusting, but the cherub had left him with no choice. He couldn’t have him hanging around and cramping his style. Besides he liked to remain indebted to nobody. 

     Jude searched for a while, but to be honest he wasn’t entirely convinced that cherub was right about the seed. Eve was prone to dramatics over the teensiest thing. That was an eon of moons ago and while he’d never forgotten about the seed, he believed it was probably just a myth, so kept it in the back of his mind along with the Golden Fleece and all the other miscellaneous quests.

     So imagine his surprise when, centuries later, he stumbled upon the cove.

     He saw what looked like big amazing birds circling in the sky as though they were attached to the sea with invisible string. That’s strange, he thought and then he heard them. Angels. You hardly ever heard them anymore but their sound was unmistakable. It was like the wind with a song in it or the ringing of a wave. It was not really his thing, but he appreciated that it was beautiful because he was not a total philistine. 

     The sun was setting and a light shone through an opening in the clouds that lit the cove like a radiant pink bowl. There was a feeling present, he guessed it was peace, anyway it made him incredibly uncomfortable and he knew, he just knew he’d found the cove with the seed. The angels saw him then and came swooping down like attacking eagles. What a bunch of harpies. That attack told him all he needed to know. It was true. God damn, it was true. A whole world contained in one little seed.

     He slid off. He needed to come up with a plan and a body, preferably the body of one who was meek. Weren’t they meant to inherit worlds or something like that? He thought of all the people he’d planted scales in and Simorg sprang immediately to mind.

     The last he knew he lived in the area and had little soul of his own. Too much soul burnt him but in a delicious mouth-watering way, like chilli-chocolate, so he sucked out their souls before eating and collecting their helixes. It was a bit of a pain, but it kept him fit, so he was not complaining.

     This, however, was different. It was his dream come true. If he wanted the new world the seed offered, he’d need to populate it with followers. This would be his greatest plan yet; he couldn’t just slide in with a plague or a band of murderers. No, he needed to be subtle, delicate and completely consuming.

     Ahh, Evie, he thought, thank you for this chance. To you, my star, my princess, to you, I give my skin.

     He rose from his chair and flung open the window. He took a deep breath of fresh air and smelled something absolutely delicious. What on earth is that? He thought and promptly followed his nose.

 

 

 

26.

 

 

 

Beatrice could hear a radio. It was like all of her senses were alight and amplified. It reminded her of her parents, as they used to listen to the radio in the evenings. They liked words in a room, not images. She remembered how their mugs of tea clinked against the countertop, remembered their hushed voices and her mother’s humming.

     She might have made up the humming, she was not sure, the memory was so far away now, it was almost unreachable. A thing like grief never leaves; it remains embedded, but eventually, it learns to step to the side, allowing other emotions to take residence. Overcoming her illness was the catalyst Beatrice needed to push faith into view. 

     Marianne was right, she was still weak from her ordeal, and it would take some time to get her strength back. Well, she had plenty of that, plenty of time and something new as well, something inside of her that hadn’t been there before her illness, like a coin shining at the bottom of a well. A wish was inside her.

     She was gazing at it when she heard someone on the other side of the door.

     Swiftly her wish shot up into her throat like an alarm.

 

*

 

Jude had tried his best. He really had, but he could smell her soul from up the road and there was something magnetic about it, something slippery and mouth-watering, like melted chocolate only lighter, fluffier. It was hard to be good when you were bad. 
     And just one little slurp, just one, wouldn’t hurt, would it? She was already ill, so it wouldn’t raise suspicion if she went missing.                      How often do you find a scrumptious soul with a deathly cough? These opportunities are rare, he justified to himself, and sometimes you just have to accept your true nature. He heaved a sigh of resolve, checked to make sure nobody was looking and slipped under the door.

 

*

 

She heard him before he appeared. The noise was sticky, slimy. She sat up and looked around the room. It was as if someone was shoving mincemeat under her door. Living mincemeat, like red worms, it congealed together and formed an enormous snake. It smiled at her and flicked its tongue as if testing the air. It slithered around positioning itself and began sucking. The sucking caught her mouth like a fish-hook. It pulled the air from her lungs and squeezed. Her whole body became rigid and unable to move. He sucked and sucked and she could see herself tunnelling into him like gold dust. All the while the wish hung on to one of her ribs like a bit of paper blown against a lamppost. It refused to let go, and when he stopped sucking, the wish fluttered slowly back down to the bottom of her. It was the only thing moving. Perhaps it’s my soul, she thought before she felt herself go.

 

*

 

He didn’t always eat them. You don’t last long in this business without a touch of resourcefulness, so he implanted the ones he thought would be useful in future. The ones he felt had found reverence in his presence, however grotesque. They were born bloodthirsty and he could smell that heat.

     Simorg the microbiologist had that smell. He was a little piggy that had been rolling in stink. He stank of neediness and the desire for acceptance. Jude could smell him halfway across the world. He hardly even needed his locator.

     Jude had skins waiting for him all over the world, just in case the seed was found and he needed to slip into a meek body. He was surprisingly picky about whom he’d use to populate his world, considering he needed them soulless, and that didn’t generally equate with good character. But the world was increasingly superficial and he had his choice among people.

     It was interesting to lead Rye as a mock community before he implanted his own world. He was learning how to speak to the carbon forms, how to govern, and on the whole it was a sociology experiment that he was enjoying immensely.

     Simorg should consider himself lucky, thought Jude; actually all the skins should consider themselves lucky because they hadn’t been eaten right away. He prolonged their lives and wasn’t life the greatest gift? Not that he was some bleeding philanthropist; mind you, more of a ventriloquist that preserves its puppets. And there have been a lot of puppets.

     He’d inhabited and discarded bodies many times throughout eternity, yet he felt, even from the beginning, that Simorg’s body was different. It was almost as if they were a team. Almost. Simorg had never been as repulsed by Jude as his other hosts, rather he was like a scared little pea that just rolled into the corner of his own brain. Jude nicknamed him Bird’s Eye.

     “Hello, Birds Eye!” he’d shout at him, but Simorg never laughed. It got on Jude’s nerves. It was funny, damn it! The other thing that was different was that Jude could feel Simorg thinking. God, it was annoying. If Jude could have put his finger on him he’d have squashed him. Why do you need to think when you have me? It’s not like you’re going anywhere, but Bird’s Eye was clever, too clever maybe, and stayed just out of reach.

     It’s not easy work and Jude dreamt about how glorious it would be to throw his skin off completely and bask in the sun like the old days. He had to keep Simorg’s body around to give him an air of authenticity, but as soon as he had enough DNA to populate his new world, he’d let the skin go but, honestly, he wondered if he wouldn’t half miss the little pea brain.

     He didn’t know he had it in him. It’d been handy to have another character around, like an extra heat, an extra blanket. He felt the cold now that he’s older, the actual temperature, but also the world’s frigidity of spirit. It wears on the elderly, you know. Simorg is his human touch; he needed to be believable, for without him, everybody just might’ve smelt a snake. C’est la vie.

 

 

 

27.

 

 

 

Jude felt that he could do anything now that he’d sucked out a lovely soul. It had been ages as so many of the trusting and delicious were the first to perish. And while, he supposed, it couldn’t be avoided, it was most certainly a shame. He was hungry and it was hard to be around all of these souls without eating a few. Cherubs just tasted nasty.

     Have a bit of control and fatten them up first, he scolded himself, make them strong and then devour. It made him sweat just to think about it. He’d been living off cherubs lately and that had completely put him off his food. It was definitely what you’d call a mixed blessing.

     And then, there she was, a little ping-pong ball of pure delight bouncing around in his cavity like an echo. “Say hello to Birds Eye,” he told her. It raised his spirits no end and he was whistling the Jolly Green Giant as he entered the breakfast room. 

     A Keeper put his podium in place and cherubs flew around the ceiling clapping their hands to get everyone’s attention. He started speaking when the chandelier was in place.

     “Good morning, my fine people. The day is clean and fresh and my lungs consume it for they can’t help themselves. Whose breath isn’t deeper when the air’s clean? We are creatures that consume purity. That’s our world. Consume or be consumed. Like it or not, the fact that you’re standing here means that you’ve chosen to consume purity. As have I! Aren’t we lucky? For we stand over the last patch of uncontaminated soil and today our hands will grow dirty with it. Tonight we’ll sweep it from our floors, wipe it from our knees and we’ll pick it from our fingernails. Don’t be complacent about the soil you tread upon. It represents power in an evolutional race where Homo sapiens are losing, but not you, not us, oh no. Those that stand here will win the last and most important battle the Lord has ever sent us. The battle for existence!” 

     Cherubs floated around with ‘Applause’ signs and everyone put down their cutlery and clapped. It enlivened Jude as he loved an audience.

     “I told them. I told the so-called scientists: if you bury BSE it will contaminate the soil. But did they listen? No! How can you grow pure food in a ground riddled with disease? Now they’ve all lost their minds! Who’s laughing now? Huh? My laugh is the laugh of a human. Their laugh is the laugh of a madman, a psychotic hyena! That’s right, our brothers and sisters around us have become animals, so we will recreate our family here, in this little community, with our simple hands in the earth, gritty and moist with life, we will remain the uncontaminated breed!” He shook the podium and stomped his cowboy boots.

     “Keep your minds earnest and swift. Keep your hearts wholesome and spirited and we will rise into the next millennia as a new species. Together! Humans have seen dark days and we aren’t past the darkest yet, but do not pity the fallen for they have been reduced by their greed! They have been reduced by their sins! They are on the descent and don’t you go with them, don’t you let them drag you down. There are still a few wondering psychos out there, so be careful and cut off, cut your old selves off. Imagine cutting the old world ties that bind your hands, your mouth, your legs, and come closer to us, closer still,” his voice softened and he raised a palm to the ceiling, then pointed.

     “You. And you there. You, child, come here, wrap your arms in mine. We are your family now, that’s it, wrap your arms together and sway, like boughs on a tree we will ride out this storm. We will hibernate through this rebirthing together, like pure babes in the womb of this fertile valley. We will rise out as one. Come and let’s take back our earth.”

     Once more, the cherubs floated with their ‘Applause’ signs, but they weren’t needed as Jude was given a vigorous standing ovation. There was a simmer of energy in the room that rose up and tried to lift the roof. Jude felt the need for action and did a few star jumps in the air.

     “Now let us march to the field that will save us!”

     He swayed his arms and marched out the door. Everyone scrambled to follow him as though he were the Pied Piper. He went straight to the greenhouse and started handing out gardening supplies. People were split into teams and given tasks of hoeing, harvesting or mulching. Marianne looked up at Beatrice’s room. The curtains were drawn and stillness radiated from the window. The little angel needs her rest, she thought.

 

 

 

28.

 

 

 

It was dusk when Marianne’s mother walked into their small yellow kitchen. Her cheeks were red and she smelled of fresh air. She took a baked potato from the oven and sat down across from Marianne looking completely invigorated. Marianne was finishing her dinner and still reeling from the shock of Beatrice’s recovery. Her father was at the castle.

     “I love a day of gardening,” her mother said, a little breathless. “Daddy is at a meeting this evening so it’s just us two,” she began cutting up her potato. “You seem quiet honey, is everything okay?”

     “I’m fine; just tired from today’s work, I guess,” Marianne said. 

     Her voice was an echo that bounced around her mind a million miles away. She couldn’t stop thinking about Beatrice and her emotions changed from exhilaration to panic with each passing minute. She was beginning to comprehend the responsibility behind the power she’d been given and it terrified her. Her mother sensed something was wrong.

     “I’ve been meaning to ask you, have you made some new friends?”

     “No. Why?” Marianne felt her mother’s tension and sat up straight in her chair.

     “Well,” her mother said. “I’ll just be honest. I’ve seen you sneaking out a couple of times and I was wondering where you’re off to?” Her mother put her knife and fork down on the table and waited for an answer. “Now it’s your turn to be honest with me, honey.”

     Marianne thought for a moment and then decided it was best to tell the truth.

     “I’ve become friends with Ansley and he can’t go out during the day,” she said and felt a small leap of triumph in her heart. It felt good to tell someone, like a release, but it certainly wasn’t what her mother was expecting.

     “You mean Dark Ansley?” She said, shocked and nearly choking on her potato.

     “Yes. The sun burns his skin so we have to meet at night,” said Marianne. “Which is why I sneak out.”

     “I see,” her mother was processing the information. “How did you meet?”

     “On the survivors’ bus. He’s kind and interesting and about the only person I can talk to in this place,” Marianne crossed her arms over her chest.

     “You can’t talk to me?”

     “That’s not what I meant. Of course I can talk to you, but he’s my age and we have similar ideas about the future,” Marianne said.

     “Really? Such as?” There wasn’t sarcasm in her mother’s voice, just curiosity.

     “I can’t think of anything specific, just stuff you and I talk about. Seriously, he’s really nice,” Marianne said. “You’d like him. He’s like us, he knows plants and fungi. He survived on them after his dad died. He writes poetry.”

     “Poetry? Who would have guessed?”

     Marianne didn’t want to be completely honest, although she felt that her mother would understand her visions, she wasn’t prepared to broach the subject yet. Her mother looked at her hands with a contemplative gaze and sighed.

     “It is important for you to have friends your age, especially since Joan’s tragedy, but do you know what the Keepers are saying about him?”

     “I can only imagine,” said Marianne.

     “They’re worried that he might be contaminated.”

     “That’s ridiculous,” said Marianne. “You don’t believe that, do you?” She leaned forward across the table.

     “No, actually, I don’t. He’s survived, hasn’t he? He’s just different,” she said.

     “Different is good,” agreed Marianne.

     “Yes, but it can also bring about apprehension. You need to be careful and so does he. I’m not crazy about you sneaking out at night to meet a boy, any boy for that matter, but I trust your judgement,” her mother said and placed her hand on top of Marianne’s. “Your father can never find out.”

     “I know,” said Marianne. “Believe me, it’s nothing sinister, I usually just help him with his shift. We talk a bit and then I come home.” She could tell her mother didn’t entirely believe that, but was going to let it slide.

     “Listen, whatever you do, I want you to be extra vigilant; okay?” Her mother said and Marianne nodded.

     She should have told her mother the entire truth, but there was so much to explain it was overwhelming. She felt a bit buried.

     “Especially now, because everyone’s scared and adjusting to their new way of life. It makes them paranoid,” her mother continued.

     “By scared you mean brainwashed,” said Marianne.

     “Maybe,” her mother sounded exhausted and leaned back in her chair. “But we’re safe here and we have enough to eat. How else could we make it through this time? I admit it’s not ideal and I don’t agree with everything that’s said or happens, I just don’t see another choice,” she reached out and lovingly brushed a strand of Marianne’s hair out of her face. “Hang in there.”

     “So, you promise you won’t tell Daddy about Ansley?”

     “I’m not comfortable keeping things from him, but I’m afraid he wouldn’t understand, so I won’t tell him. Like I said, he can’t find out because I’d hate to think what he would do if he did. However, your father is not himself these days and I’m overriding his judgement because you need friends. I’m happy you have one, whatever the package,” she stood and hugged Marianne.

     “Thanks Mum,” Marianne said.

     “Sure. It will all work out, you’ll see,” she said and walked towards the hallway. “I’m going to have a bath, honey. My muscles are aching from digging all day,” her mother said and climbed the stairs.

     Marianne just nodded her head yes and stared at the wall. She was tempted to tell her mother about the pearl, but where in the world to start? It was almost as if saying it aloud would somehow jinx the spell and reverse it’s powers. She looked down at where the cut had vanished on her hand and felt panic and wonder at the same time.

     Her thoughts flew around her head. She thought of Beatrice alive and well. It was true. The water could actually heal, she kept repeating in her mind. She touched the empty pouch around her neck. She was beginning to comprehend the pearl’s real power; it sat inside her and held the weight of knowledge. She knew she needed to make the right decisions.

     She could hear her mother walking around upstairs, and as soon as the bathwater started running, she went outside into the garden shed. She had to be quick. She stuck the trowel into her back pocket. The safest way to the woodland was to cut through the village.