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580 lines
33 KiB
HTML
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<div class="section" id="xhtmldocuments">
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<h2>30</h2>
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<p>“Did you hear something?” Jasmine Cook raised her
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head up from the pages on the table. “I thought I heard a
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noise.”</p>
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<p>“It’s probably a coot, or a mallard duck,”
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Flora Spiers told her. “Spring is about to be sprung on us,
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and a young waterfowl’s fancy turns to whatever it is
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waterbirds do at this time of the year.” She was chubby and
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had thick, short, grey hair and shrewd, jolly eyes. She was beyond
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the door in the galley, over by the stove, stirring a mixture of
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Chinese vegetables in an old, blackened wok. In the low, narrow
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room Jasmine could smell the aroma of garlic and soy sauce and
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crisping beansprouts.</p>
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<p>Jasmine scratched out two words she had written and replaced
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them with ones she considered more apposite, reached the end of her
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paragraph and then sat back, pushing her glasses up on top of her
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head. At the age of fifty, she had well-cut dark hair which was
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still natural and framed a youthful face. She was slimmer than
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Flora, a few pounds lighter, and when she smiled, her teeth were
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perfect and even. She collected the pages which were scattered over
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the low table, shuffled them together and put them into her
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case.</p>
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<p>“That’s the last chapter but one,” she
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announced with a satisfied smile, raising herself from the seat to
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stack the case on a shelf, before coming through the narrow
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passage.</p>
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<p>“Well done you,” Flora said. She turned round and
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kissed Jasmine on the lips. “It’s been a long
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time.”</p>
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<p>“But worth it. The final chapter’s a real climax.
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The perfect end.” She put her arm around Flora’s
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shoulders and hugged her, letting her hips slide close. “And
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thanks for the support. If it hadn’t been for you, I’d
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still be floundering.” She leaned to the side and rubbed her
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head against Flora’s, feeling the rustle of greying hair
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against her own, then hugged her again and kissed her temple.</p>
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<p>“I think spring is springing,” Flora said.
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“The magpies are out in force on the willow. I got a shot of
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them this morning when the mist was thick. The sun was coming
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through the branches and everything was fuzzy and monochromed,
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except for the velvet of their wings and tails. I got another shot
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of two whooper swans taking off towards us, coming right along the
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canal. If my exposure was right, it’ll make a magnificent
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illustration.”</p>
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<p>“Your exposure is always right,” Jasmine said,
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almost bawdily. She slid her hand down Flora’s back, feeling
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the warmth come through the blouse. Flora moved back, just a
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fraction, to press herself against the touch, almost like a
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satisfied cat.</p>
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<p>The noise came again. A small whimper of sound.</p>
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<p>“Did you hear that?” Jasmine asked.</p>
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<p>“Hear what?” Flora said. Despite the close contact,
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she was still gently stirring the vegetables on the heat. The oil
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sizzled.</p>
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<p>“I heard a noise.”</p>
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<p>“The canal’s full of noise, if you listen.
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There’s ducks and moorhens and all the finches in the bushes.
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If you sit quietly enough you can hear the voles in the
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reeds.”</p>
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<p>“No,” Jasmine stopped her. “I thought I heard
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someone crying.”</p>
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<p>“That’s your imagination. That’s what makes
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you the writer.” Flora gave a little jolly laugh. “I
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wish I had had that talent. I can only work with what I see.”
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She leaned back and with her free hand, she drew her fingers very
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gently down Jasmine’s cheek. The touch was smooth as silk and
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for an instant she felt the wonderful surge of desire and a deep
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swell of love. “Which reminds me,” she said, forcing
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her mind down from a such springtime heights. “If it’s
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still calm tomorrow, we’ll have another morning mist, and I
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can take your picture for the book jacket. We can get something
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really atmospheric, something with impact that people will
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remember.”</p>
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<p>“And a fog to hide the lines,” Jasmine said.</p>
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<p>“You don’t need that, love. Not ever.”</p>
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<p>Jasmine smiled. “I wish we had more time here,” she
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said. “It’s so peaceful and private. It’s like
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being in a world of our own, just you and me, and the mist to keep
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the rest of it at bay. I just don’t want to go
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back.”</p>
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<p>Flora was about to respond when the thin, shivery little cry
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came again. “There,” Jasmine said. “I told you I
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heard something.” She pulled away slowly, turning to listen.
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The sound shivered again.</p>
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<p>“Is it a rabbit in a snare?” she asked. Flora
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frowned and listened too.</p>
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<p>Very weak, very faint, the wavering whimper broke the silence of
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their held-in breathing. Jasmine felt it resonate inside her head
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and a strange, unexpected sense of sudden loss went through
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her.</p>
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<p>“It sounds like a child,” she said, pulling further
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away, moving towards the galley doorway. Flora’s hand
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followed the motion, trailing down between her shoulders, almost in
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an attempt to hold her back. The touch altered the cringing feeling
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that was somehow squeezing on Jasmine’s skin.</p>
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<p>“Don’t go out,” Flora started to say, but then
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the cry came stronger in the night. It ended in a small, choking
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sob. Flora could not help but take a step forward. In her ears
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there was a ringing sound, very high, almost sizzling, the way it
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was when her sinus pressure was bad in the winter. The pressure
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spread along her temples. Jasmine was moving through the narrow
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hatchway.</p>
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<p>The door slid open and a cool swirl of damp evening air came
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tumbling down into the warmth of the narrowboat. Far off, on the
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estuary, oystercatchers cried to each other, like lost souls,
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drowned spirits on the watery mudflats. An owl moaned in the stand
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of chestnut trees on the north side of the canal.</p>
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<p>A child sobbed. It was a wordless cry, but eloquent of loss and
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need and helplessness. Flora felt her heart kick and then quicken.
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Jasmine felt a terrible pang of melancholy sorrow, and over that,
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she experienced a fierce twist of inexplicable hunger.</p>
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<p>She stepped up onto the deck, feeling the mist catch in the back
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of her throat. It twirled in pallid tendrils here, not freezing,
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but still cold in early spring air. It curled around the deckhouse
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and oozed inside, a questing miasma that seemed to have volition
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and direction. Flora shivered.</p>
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<p>“Can you see anything?” she asked, still aware of
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the fuzzy pressure in her temples. Jasmine had stopped, head cocked
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to the side. There was no wind. Further down the stretch of the
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canal, on the flat and shimmerless water, the moonlight reflected a
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perfect sphere that limned the trailing willows. In beside a bank
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of tumbling ivy, a vole squeaked and then took to the water,
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sending out concentric circles of jewelled light which faded out
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slowly as they reached the far side and merged with the floating
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weed. This part of the canal was wider, a place where two barges
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could pass each other with still enough space for a third to be
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moored. A stand of reeds edged out into the water, tall and
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greening now after the winter slump. Something rustled in the
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depths, though there was no wind. It could have been a duck heading
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for shelter, or a wild mink hunting.</p>
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<p>The soft whimper shivered the reeds, made them rustle.
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Jasmine’s head swung round. Flora saw her breath billow a
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hazy plume.</p>
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<p>“Who’s there?” Jasmine asked. The moonlight
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caught her hair and turned its shine to a glint of blue steel.</p>
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<p>A small shape came slowly out from the reeds. At first, before
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it had moved, Flora could have sworn there had been nothing there.
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She had looked when she’d heard the rustling sound, looked
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with her trained eyes that could spot an adder sunbathing on autumn
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leaves, or a lacewing on a green stem. The moonlight had reflected
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from the black water between the new-grown stalks and there had
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been no shape here.</p>
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<p>But now there was a small child.</p>
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<p>His face was in shadow, but she got a glimpse, maybe just an
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impression of a haunted look, like the melancholy face in the moon.
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He was thin and pallid, at first as insubstantial as the mist. He
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moved, holding a thin, starved arm out to them, a waif in
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supplication He took a step forward, yet when he moved there was no
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sound of his passage through the bed of reeds.</p>
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<p>“He’s making no sound,” Flora said
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distractedly. “Isn’t that strange?”</p>
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<p>“Oh, Flora, it’s a child,” Jasmine said,
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cutting across her thoughts. “The poor thing.” She
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stepped out along the planking to where the edge of the hull rubbed
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gently alongside the edge of the canal, pressing against the old
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tyre buffer. Flora followed, suddenly almost supernaturally aware
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of the night, the blare of the moon. It was as if every sense had
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been powered up to new levels of reception. She could feel the
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water-mist scrape against the skin of her neck and cheek. Way down
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on the estuary, far beyond where the canal emptied out into the
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tidal basin, she heard the mewling of dunlin and the piping of
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redshank. Somewhere in the willow, an early cranefly rustled its
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wings and then fell silent. Flora got to the edge of the barge as
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Jasmine stepped off and down to the turf that lined the bank. She
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was turned away, walking quickly towards the stand of water
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reeds.</p>
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<p>The small boy was ankle deep in water. The moonlight limned the
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gaunt outlines of his thin frame, giving him a silver-blue aura
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which seemed more solid, more substantial than the rest of him. His
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arms were held out towards her, his body bent. He took one silent
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step, the kind of step a heron might take, putting his foot back
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into the water so delicately, so deliberately that there was hardly
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a ripple.</p>
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<p><em>Help me please.</em></p>
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<p>Jasmine heard no sound, but whatever she did hear, her own bran
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translated it into a language she could understand. Every cell of
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her body responded.</p>
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<p><em>Help me help me help me</em>.</p>
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<p>Behind her, Flora too felt the irresistible tug. The child stood
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with the scart water up above his ankles, naked and slender, with
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great moonshadow eyes and delicate, fragile limbs. His whole
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posture begged or help. It sang out from him. He whimpered and in
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both women, the most basic instincts of all switched themselves on
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and waxed strong.</p>
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<p>“Poor little tyke,” Flora heard Jasmine say.
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<em>Poor little tyke</em>. The words had been on her own lips.
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Jasmine was bending. The little figure reached for her, stretching
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its thin hands upwards.</p>
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<p>In that bare instant, Flora felt a shudder of fear. It rippled
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through her in an inexplicable rush of dire threat. She opened her
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mouth, suddenly wanting to urge Jasmine away from the gaunt little
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child. Jasmine was bending and the boy was reaching towards her.
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The slender arms seemed to lengthen. The moonlight wavered on the
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skin as if the child’s surface was twisting and melting. The
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little round head inclined.</p>
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<p>Jasmine put one foot in the water, crushing the reed stems and
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splashing down. On the other bank, maybe a hundred yards from the
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barge, a duck took off in a whirr and crackle of alarm. Down in the
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water, unseen by anyone, a whole swarm of tadpoles, so numerous
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they turned the water black in the light of day, stiffened,
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convulsed and sank to the bottom to form a sludge of slime. A large
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pike cruising in the dark of the willow roots suddenly rocketed out
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from its shelter and went rippling down the waterway two feet below
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the surface, moving at such panicked speed it sent up a powerful
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bow-wave and did not stop until it reached the lock a quarter of a
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mile distant.</p>
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<p><em>Don’t touch it, stay away!</em></p>
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<p>Flora almost blurted the words but they stayed unsaid in her
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mouth. The little round, pale head turned towards her and dark eyes
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fixed on hers. She tried to look away, tried to step off the barge
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and onto the bank. The eyes turned and locked into her. Something
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stroked inside her mind and the alarm deflated as quickly as it had
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swelled.</p>
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<p>“Oh, Flora, he must be frozen stiff,” Jasmine
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crooned. She reached and touched and lifted the child into her
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arms, straightening up and turning, the way a mother will do when
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her child has fallen. She spun round to take it away from danger,
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from cold, from the night, smothered the boy in her arms and then
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turned towards Flora.</p>
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<p>“He’s shivering,” she said. “He most be
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frozen to the bone. I can feel it going right through
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me.”</p>
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<p>“What’s he doing here?” Flora started to ask,
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but Jasmine cut across her again. “Quick, get the kettle on.
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He’ll need a warm drink. He’s like ice.”</p>
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<p>Jasmine opened her baggy cardigan, clutched the small boy close
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against her, jamming the infant against the swell of her breast and
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then wrapped the cardigan closed. She could feel the awful damp
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cold ooze from him into her. It was as if he was sucking the heat
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out of her and it felt as if she was being drained. In a few short
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steps she was back on deck. Flora had done as she was told and was
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already stooping to get down into the cabin. Jasmine followed
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quickly, shivering now with the cold of the contact. The small
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frame twisted and wriggled against her, seeking comfort. Her heart
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swelled with the sudden need to protect the little boy.</p>
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<p>“How did he get here?” Flora was asking.
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“Should we call an ambulance?”</p>
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<p>The boy whimpered. He looked about three, or maybe four. The dim
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oil lamp threw more shadows than it cast proper light, but even
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then he twisted away from its glow.</p>
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<p>“It’s hurting his eyes,” Jasmine told her.
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“Turn it down. We can use the light from the galley.”
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Again Flora obeyed.</p>
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<p>“He just needs to get warm. He’s obviously
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lost.” Jasmine brought her other hand up to clench the
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shivering little frame against her. There was a tickle inside her
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head, a little fruity hum, almost like the sound of a fly trapped
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in a bottle. It touched here, it stroked there. She felt nothing
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except the growing, swelling need to protect the child.</p>
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<p>“What’s that smell?” Flora asked.</p>
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<p>“What smell?”</p>
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<p>Flora sniffed. She closed her eyes and sniffed again, then very
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slowly, she shook her head. “I thought I smelled something,
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but it’s gone now.” She raised her own hand and used
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the back of her wrist to rub away an itch of tenderness just under
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the skin of her breast, mirroring almost exactly the same motion in
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Jasmine. She turned and went into the kitchen, put on the kettle,
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and came back. Jasmine was sitting back on the corner seat,
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clutching the little fellow tightly. The child was lost in her
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shadows. In the dim light, Flora could see the contented smile
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slowly spread on her face.</p>
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<p>“Come sit with us,” she told Flora. “We can
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heat him up together.”</p>
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<p>Flora slowly crossed the narrow room from the galley door and
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squeezed in at the corner. There as a smell here, the scent of a
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small child. She recognise it now. As the little boy warmed up, she
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could smell warm milk and washed skin. It reminded her of her own
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sunny childhood when her mother would soap her in the bath. She
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drifted off in the wave of reminiscences, overtaken by a sense of
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need and warmth, of gathering fulfilment.</p>
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<p>Some time later, when the moon was high, they went to bed, not
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daring to allow much distance between them, or between themselves
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and the child. They had discussed nothing at all since they had
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come back on board with the little tyke who had whimpered from the
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water. In the narrow bed on the narrow boat, they huddled close for
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the warmth that they needed, pressing their naked skin together
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while between them, smothered and protected in hot mounds of flesh,
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the boy was safe from all harm.</p>
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<p>In the night, they dreamed hot visions of touching and probing
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and slick wet contact.</p>
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<hr />
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<p>Helen Lamont woke up in the night, gasping for breath. Her eyes
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were wide and staring into the dark of the room and a cold sweat
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sheened her skin.</p>
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<p><em>Oh God.</em> Her chest heaved and hitched and the back of
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her throat was dry and the intense feeling of overwhelming
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catastrophe rocked her whole body.</p>
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<p>She had been dreaming and then the dream had broken and she had
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snapped instantly awake, all her nerves taut and bristling. A shaft
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of moonlight speared between the curtains, making her damp skin
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gleam blue. The fear rippled within her, a nameless thing, a
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shadowed, stalking beast in the night.</p>
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<p>In the depths of her sleep, something had reached outwards with
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a foul touch of rot. The wary sentry inside her own mind, the
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<em>fey</em> ability to sense danger had felt its approach and had
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slammed her from sleep.</p>
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<p>Sudden, unbidden tears glistened and spilled, making her vision
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waver. She reached in the dark for comfort and safety and
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protection. Somewhere inside herself realised that there was none
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to be had.</p>
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<hr />
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<p><em>He had come to awareness slowly.</em></p>
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<p>It was almost as if he had never existed before the moment in
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time when sensation came back to him and for a moment all his
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receptors went into a spasm of sensory overload. He awoke with a
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start, though in fact, this wakening had been a long time coming, a
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slow rise from a great depths that had taken forever and then when
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it had come, it arrived with such a violence that he was wrenched
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out of his dead slumber.</p>
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<p>Panic blazed and his first instinct was to turn away from this,
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to scrabble back to the dark and stay there until all was still and
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all danger had passed.</p>
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<p>Yet he could not deny this now. He was different. From what, he
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did not know, but the difference, the change was in him, complete
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and absolute. He stopped, feeling the depth of the cold inside him,
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yet knowing it was warmer than before. Down here in the soft cold,
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small things wriggled against his outer skin, tiny things clambered
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on many legs. He reached out with that part of himself that
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mind-snuffled, touched one, tasted, spat. It died. He needed richer
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than this.</p>
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<p>His limbs twitched and a grind of pain burned in them. They had
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not moved in a while, and they too were different now.</p>
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<p>He stopped again, gathering strength, suddenly exhausted with
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the quiver of motion, with the effort of thought. He crouched there
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in the cold, gasping like a half-born hatchling.</p>
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<p>This was just another beginning. He could sense it. In the
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silence of his rest he gathered himself. Down his back there was
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pain, a pressure pain, and all of his bones ached, but it was a
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good pain, the hurt of growth. He felt as if much of him was new
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again, but there were still parts from before. He tried again,
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twisted his thoughts in one direction, cast back. Inside his mind,
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a scene flicked.</p>
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<p><em>The dogs were after him, slavering in fear, howling in
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anger. He felt the powerful flip of the throw and saw them attack
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each other while blood spattered the dead leaves.</em></p>
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<p>Another flick. <em>She was coming for him through the fading
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light of the day, turning up towards him and he had felt the urgent
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need for her. The other one hit hard and pushed her away and the
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anger had blurted so hot it was like a light stabbing in his
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eyes.</em></p>
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<p>Flick...<em>They had been behind him. He could sense the pursuit
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in the skin of his back, in the bones of his spine. He had cast and
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touched and almost had her. Then there had been pain, bright and
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burning and then cold.</em></p>
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<p>He had gone down in the cold, into the dark depths and the light
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was out of his eyes. Hands were on him, ripping and squeezing. He
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had tried to push his mind into the man’s own thoughts, but
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he could not force his way through. Something inside him had broken
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but that did not matter now because the desperate chase and the
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danger had brought on the next matamorphosis. It had come on him so
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suddenly that he had not even recognised it. All he knew was the
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enfolding cold and the collapsing darkness and he was down there in
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|
the clammy black. Sensation began to ebb away from him. After a
|
|
while, the weight eased and he sensed the man pulling up and away.
|
|
Here in the wet dark he turned very slowly and burrowed deeper,
|
|
down where the water pressure was heavy and the mud was thick. He
|
|
kept moving, ever slower, twisting and squirming until her reached
|
|
a crevice in the dark. He got inside, burrowing still, drew himself
|
|
in and waited while the sediment settled around him and all went
|
|
quiet.</p>
|
|
<p>The dark grew through him. Up there, far away in the day, the
|
|
sparks and jitters of other minds began to fade. <em>She</em> was
|
|
still there, he could sense, but all was muffled and after a while,
|
|
they all went away. Some time later, there was more noise, the
|
|
close proximity of another mind, but it was as if seen through
|
|
thick insulating layers. Him mind was freezing down, His skin was
|
|
thickening against the cold and the change was on him. This time it
|
|
was an immense change. He crouched under the ledge of stone,
|
|
swaddled in the winter-mud where other small lives had burrowed
|
|
away from the bite of winter. His skin thickened, hardened and the
|
|
cold too faded away as if it did not exist. His breathing had
|
|
stopped, but now his skin took in what it needed, even as it
|
|
hardened like insect chitin. After a while, even this stopped.
|
|
Around him, the larvae of other things, the smaller predators
|
|
curled asleep in their pupal cases, waiting for the warmth that
|
|
would transform them. Unconsciously, he mimicked them. His thoughts
|
|
slowed, flickered, slowed further and then died, all except the
|
|
singularity that was his continuing self.</p>
|
|
<p>He was, on almost every level, unaware of the profound changes
|
|
going on within the shell of thickened skin. Yet very deep inside
|
|
his own existence, he accepted the power of it and waited. The dark
|
|
time went on for ever and ever seemingly without end.</p>
|
|
<p>And then he had awoken.</p>
|
|
<p>Awareness came suddenly, though he had been swimming up towards
|
|
consciousness for a long time. It slammed him out of the miasma
|
|
with sudden violence and he was himself again, and yet he was
|
|
<em>different</em> now. He sensed inwardly, poked and prodded with
|
|
the tendrils of thought, explored his newness, the different
|
|
configuration, and he knew in his wordless, instinctual way, that
|
|
he had attained a new level of being.</p>
|
|
<p>The hunger came.</p>
|
|
<p>And it was a different hunger. It yawned deep inside him, a
|
|
searing wild emptiness that needed to be filled. As soon as the
|
|
hunger gnawed in his belly, his higher awareness told him he was
|
|
still changing. He needed to feed to become what he would yet
|
|
be.</p>
|
|
<p>He flexed and felt something rip down between his thin
|
|
shoulders. His limbs were still crossed over each other, still, as
|
|
far as he could perceive, still flexible and unhardened. He flexed
|
|
again, bunching unused muscle, gathering strength and the harsh
|
|
rending came more strongly. Something gave, the sound of a membrane
|
|
bursting, like living hide ripping. This skin was different, for it
|
|
had protected him from the cold in the depths of his new change. He
|
|
pushed, felt the scrape of the casing on his back, pulsed, pressed
|
|
again, and felt more give. This went on, pulse and give, then rest.
|
|
Pulse and give, then rest. Cold water was oozing in between the
|
|
shell and his own flesh and that eased the passage. His new skin
|
|
shrank from it, allowing water pressure to help his own effort. He
|
|
pushed hard and the shell split up the back of his head with a
|
|
ricketing vibration that felt as if he was being wrenched in
|
|
two.</p>
|
|
<p>And suddenly he was free again. His limbs twisted, shoved, found
|
|
their way out to the open. He arched again, turned in a slow,
|
|
muddied somersault (<em>and if David Harper had seen it, he would
|
|
have seen the dark, demonic similarity to the dragonfly larva
|
|
arching out of its chrysalis</em>) drew himself right out. It was
|
|
still dark here, still cold, but he was less vulnerable than
|
|
before. He crouched tight, ignoring the press of thick mud, waited
|
|
until he had his strength back and then started to burrow out. The
|
|
tide was within him and he knew the time was right. His senses
|
|
picked up the darkness above and the light of the moon. It drew him
|
|
towards it. Very slowly, very purposefully, he burrowed upwards
|
|
from the deep ledge. After a while he came to a dense place where
|
|
old roots and dead reeds matted the bed of the canal and he had to
|
|
claw his way through them. Here it was still dark because his
|
|
movements had sent up clouds of sediment, but he crawled on,
|
|
feeling the tug of the other gravity, got past the muddied water
|
|
and out into the clear.</p>
|
|
<p>Above him, high up there, the thin circlet of silver light
|
|
danced in a watery sky. He slowed again, waited unbreathing, then
|
|
very deliberately clambered up the slanted bank until his head
|
|
broke the surface. Water expelled from his blunt nostrils and he
|
|
snuffled air for the first in a long time, like a scenting
|
|
animal.</p>
|
|
<p>It was night, but it was no longer cold. He reached up and got
|
|
into the shelter of the reeds. He cast out a thought, cast out his
|
|
sense, now with almost casual ease. That power had increased in the
|
|
long sleep; he could sense it’s strength. Some distance away,
|
|
he touched the warmth of another creature and he slowly made his
|
|
way towards it. Behind him, the lights of the bridge dazzled him
|
|
and he kept his eyes averted. Some distance away, where a road
|
|
paralleled the canal for a span, lights flashed past, painful in
|
|
the night, making his eyes sear with hurt. After a while, he was
|
|
past a higher bank that cut off the glare and then the canal took a
|
|
turn that hid the bridge from him., He was in a shaded part where
|
|
the willows overhung the deep water. Ahead of him, closer now, he
|
|
could sense the warmths he needed and he quickly and silently eased
|
|
his way forward.</p>
|
|
<p>He emerged, silent as death, from the patch of reeds, and
|
|
trailed out a cold quest of sense. He touched the one and then the
|
|
other and pulled them towards him. A hunger like a yawning chasm
|
|
opened up inside him.</p>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<p>Jasmine Cook woke up in the night and she shivered.</p>
|
|
<p>She woke with a start and turned in the dark. The boy was
|
|
staring into her eyes and her heart did a little heavy flip. She
|
|
reached for him to pull him close. He was cold and his skin was
|
|
damp and he made the little whimpering sound that touched the deeps
|
|
inside her and made her want to hug him out of any threat of
|
|
danger. She brought him to her naked skin and rocked him, humming
|
|
wordlessly in the dark. The boy pushed in against her, flattening
|
|
himself to gain her heat.</p>
|
|
<p>“Poor little thing,” Jasmine crooned. “But
|
|
you’re all right now. All right now little tyke. You’ve
|
|
got someone to look after you now.”</p>
|
|
<p>In the dark, Flora snorted and Jasmine smelled a warm scent on
|
|
the air, a cloy thick odour that was at once familiar and strange.
|
|
When she had awoken, the boy had been on the other side of the bed,
|
|
close to Flora. There was no envy at all in Jasmine. They were
|
|
together, friends and lovers. They had talked many a time of having
|
|
a child, though time had passed them by and the imperative that had
|
|
swamped both of them, each at different times, different ages, had
|
|
faded. Now it was back. They had a child to protect and
|
|
nurture.</p>
|
|
<p>It just fit, a gift from God.</p>
|
|
<p>“Little Moses,” she said, smiling contentedly in the
|
|
silvery dark. “Out of the water, in a basket of reeds.
|
|
You’ll be our little prince, and you won’t ever have to
|
|
be cold again.”</p>
|
|
<p>She pulled the child in close to her. Flora snorted again and
|
|
the thick smell wafted round, but Jasmine was already falling into
|
|
a deep slumber. In against her, the thin little body shivered and
|
|
she held it close, hugging it tight, and she drifted off into that
|
|
strange sleep. Once again she dreamed, but this time she dreamed
|
|
that she was trapped in the dark, pinned down by a weight that
|
|
prevented her from moving. Her legs were open, spread out and the
|
|
weight on her was bucking very slowly. She felt cold, ice
|
|
penetration and a burst of pain. Inside her, something ripped and
|
|
she tried to cry, tied to scream, tried to wake, but she was
|
|
trapped in the dark and the dream went on and on through the
|
|
night.</p>
|
|
<p>In the morning, she came out of a deep, yet troubled slumber.
|
|
Inside the boat, the air was heavy and cool and the metal smell was
|
|
still thick upon it. She pressed the child against her, protecting
|
|
it, unaware that she even made the motherly motion. The narrowboat
|
|
was quiet, safe for the husky little snuffle that came from the boy
|
|
under the blankets.</p>
|
|
<p>Beside her, Flora was lying on her back. Both of her eyes were
|
|
open and her moth gaped in a black yawn. Her hair was rumpled and
|
|
sticking up in little corkscrews.</p>
|
|
<p>Under Flora’s mouth, another black hole gaped. A dark
|
|
trickle, thick as a mooring rope, dripped down from Flora’s
|
|
bottom lip, while under her chin, an even darker, shiny handswidth
|
|
covered the skin. It had soaked into the bedclothes.</p>
|
|
<p>Jasmine puled back. A hand clutched her heart and squeezed it to
|
|
sudden stillness. The dim shadows of the room spun and blurred. The
|
|
hand let go and her heart bucked once, twice. A pulse throbbed in
|
|
her temple and a scream started to expand somewhere in the pit of
|
|
her belly.</p>
|
|
<p>“Flo...” she started to say, but the word got caught
|
|
in the desert at the back of her throat and ground to a halt.</p>
|
|
<p>Under the blanket, the small boy stirred. Jasmine tried to reach
|
|
for him, to turn him away from this. Her mind was still making the
|
|
colossal effort to take in the horror on the bed beside her. Flora
|
|
had grunted in the night. She had made the little gurgling sound
|
|
and the blood smell had rolled up from the bed.</p>
|
|
<p>“Oh,” Jasmine moaned. “Oh no...” That
|
|
was as much as she could manage. She was pulling back, drawing away
|
|
from the clotted, somehow stagnant sponge of sheet. The wet of
|
|
Flora’s blood was on her. She had been lying in it and the
|
|
brown-red clots were smeared on her own skin. The fear was winding
|
|
up, a dreadful juggernaut of absolute and utter horror.</p>
|
|
<p>She pushed the boy, getting her own body between him and the
|
|
gaping thing on the bed that had been the woman she had loved and
|
|
was now a dripping, ripped abomination.</p>
|
|
<p>Her motion on the bed made Flora’s mouth jiggle wider. A
|
|
slew of viscid dark dribbled. Flora’s eyes did not waver.
|
|
They were fixed on the ceiling. A thin, translucent sheen, like
|
|
peeling skin, or perhaps like the cocooning web of some monstrous
|
|
grub, covered the naked surface of Flora’s skin. Under it,
|
|
Jasmine could see the flaccid, collapsed breasts. Her body was
|
|
caved in, slumped as if she had been drained by some powerful,
|
|
unearthly suction.</p>
|
|
<p>Under the sheet, the boy turned, using her body to clamber
|
|
upwards. She tried to hold him down, overpowered by the need to
|
|
protect him from the dreadful danger that had befallen Flora. That
|
|
need was so powerful it overshadowed her shattering dread. She drew
|
|
her eyes away from Flora’s body, turned. The boy came up and
|
|
his eyes opened. She saw a glassy sheen of red that held her own
|
|
eyes.</p>
|
|
<p>He was bigger now. His belly was grossly distended and swung
|
|
obscenely as he moved, glutted with his latest feeding. His frame
|
|
had extended, grown in the night.</p>
|
|
<p>And then the thing was on her. She could do nothing at all but
|
|
fall back against the headboard. Without using any physical power,
|
|
he forced her head back, nuzzling in there. Down between her legs,
|
|
she felt the cold penetration and a shock of realisation rippled
|
|
through her.</p>
|
|
<p>It held her with its eyes and its mind while it fed from her.
|
|
Her limbs spasmed and a deep, central part of her own mind
|
|
screeched and writhed and tried to pull away, the way Ginny Marsden
|
|
had done, the way Kate Park had done. It held her and inside her
|
|
depths its cold spread in a deadly baneful creep while on her neck,
|
|
a small popping sound told her the blood was beginning to flow.</p>
|
|
<p>Beside her, on the bed, Flora stared at the ceiling. After a
|
|
while Jasmine’s vision began to waver and fade. The thing
|
|
that lay astraddle her, forcing her arms wide and her legs wider,
|
|
sucked noisily on her neck while that other part of it found other
|
|
sustenance deep inside.</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
|
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</body>
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</html>
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