Danny.’
‘I’ll be there tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Say about lunch time. I’ll help if I can.’
‘Danny, thank you.’ Ophelia’s face showed pleasure, but no surprise. I was their friend after all. To those at Black Stump—and Faith Hope and Charity, I supposed—that said it all. Of course one friend would help another.
I went to find Theo, to ask him to make a call to hire a floater for me. A manual one, on long-term lease.
Chapter 6
T he floater beeped as it neared the Black Stump coordinates. I switched it on to manual and managed to park it under the gnarled apple trees beside the main house.
I stepped out then stepped back again, as my foot landed in a puddle of something black. I glanced up.
A hook hung from an apple branch. It too was dark, crusted with something the flies nuzzled in the heat. Blood.
I shivered despite the sunlight. The blood brought back too many memories: Perdita’s body, slumped in the kitchen; her murderer hanging from this same hook, his guts hanging from his body, with Gloucester slumped and anguished beside him…
No, it couldn’t be the same hook. Or they’d have washed it, anyway. This blood was fresh—an animal, slaughtered for meat.
I took off my slipon and washed it, and my foot too, under the tap by the house, before climbing the steps to the verandah.
Chapter 7
T he Black Stump kitchen smelt of hens and fresh corn muffins and elderly washing-up. The scent of parched grass blustered down the hallway as the breeze blew in from the sea. There was a hint of compost toilet, too. The type that never quite managed to compost itself and instead bubbled in the blackness below one’s bum.
‘What do you know about wolves?’ demanded Ophelia.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, the washing-up piled behind us. The table was littered with cornmeal and sultanas and a plate of muffins on the table from today’s breakfast, or maybe yesterday’s or the day before’s. Somewhere outside a hen clucked then squawked in alarm, as a child ran after it.
I set my mind to recall. Even though I could no longer scroll through networks’ data as though they were an extension of my brain, I could at least remember what I had learnt when I was still Forest. ‘Not much,’ I admitted. ‘I never made a winter Virtual, you know, snow and wolves howling. Or a werewolf thriller either—too hackneyed.’
‘I keep telling you, they’re not werewolves,’ said Ophelia irritably, scratching at a mosquito bite on her arm. ‘They don’t change by moonlight or stuff like that. They just have wolf genes back in their ancestry, that’s all.’
‘That’s all? It sounds quite enough. Why wolf, anyway?’
Ophelia shrugged. ‘Who knows why most of the modifications were made in the wild years.’
I nodded. Perhaps someone who had money and a taste for kinky sex had said, ‘I want one of those. Make it for me.’ Or maybe they just wanted the perfect watchdog, with human intelligence and the jaw strength of a wolf.
Ophelia slapped another mosquito, ‘Blast these things. You’d think there’d be less in the dry, not more.’
‘So how many of them are there, anyway? These wolf-human crosses, I mean, not mozzies.’
‘Just the one family.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘Twelve I think, unless I’ve left someone out.’
‘So each generation must be getting more…humanlike, I suppose, as they interbreed with humans.’
‘Sort of. They don’t interbreed actually.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They breed with each other, within the clan. It’s not like human incest. It’s a wolf thing.’
‘I thought you said these people were human…’
‘Well, they are. It’s just—well, okay, I suppose they are wolves too. Some more than others…’
‘Can they interbreed with humans?’
‘I suppose so,’ Ophelia said crossly. ‘The question just doesn’t come up.’
I sat back in the shabby old chair and took another apple and corn muffin from the plate on the table.
‘I’ll be there tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Say about lunch time. I’ll help if I can.’
‘Danny, thank you.’ Ophelia’s face showed pleasure, but no surprise. I was their friend after all. To those at Black Stump—and Faith Hope and Charity, I supposed—that said it all. Of course one friend would help another.
I went to find Theo, to ask him to make a call to hire a floater for me. A manual one, on long-term lease.
Chapter 6
T he floater beeped as it neared the Black Stump coordinates. I switched it on to manual and managed to park it under the gnarled apple trees beside the main house.
I stepped out then stepped back again, as my foot landed in a puddle of something black. I glanced up.
A hook hung from an apple branch. It too was dark, crusted with something the flies nuzzled in the heat. Blood.
I shivered despite the sunlight. The blood brought back too many memories: Perdita’s body, slumped in the kitchen; her murderer hanging from this same hook, his guts hanging from his body, with Gloucester slumped and anguished beside him…
No, it couldn’t be the same hook. Or they’d have washed it, anyway. This blood was fresh—an animal, slaughtered for meat.
I took off my slipon and washed it, and my foot too, under the tap by the house, before climbing the steps to the verandah.
Chapter 7
T he Black Stump kitchen smelt of hens and fresh corn muffins and elderly washing-up. The scent of parched grass blustered down the hallway as the breeze blew in from the sea. There was a hint of compost toilet, too. The type that never quite managed to compost itself and instead bubbled in the blackness below one’s bum.
‘What do you know about wolves?’ demanded Ophelia.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, the washing-up piled behind us. The table was littered with cornmeal and sultanas and a plate of muffins on the table from today’s breakfast, or maybe yesterday’s or the day before’s. Somewhere outside a hen clucked then squawked in alarm, as a child ran after it.
I set my mind to recall. Even though I could no longer scroll through networks’ data as though they were an extension of my brain, I could at least remember what I had learnt when I was still Forest. ‘Not much,’ I admitted. ‘I never made a winter Virtual, you know, snow and wolves howling. Or a werewolf thriller either—too hackneyed.’
‘I keep telling you, they’re not werewolves,’ said Ophelia irritably, scratching at a mosquito bite on her arm. ‘They don’t change by moonlight or stuff like that. They just have wolf genes back in their ancestry, that’s all.’
‘That’s all? It sounds quite enough. Why wolf, anyway?’
Ophelia shrugged. ‘Who knows why most of the modifications were made in the wild years.’
I nodded. Perhaps someone who had money and a taste for kinky sex had said, ‘I want one of those. Make it for me.’ Or maybe they just wanted the perfect watchdog, with human intelligence and the jaw strength of a wolf.
Ophelia slapped another mosquito, ‘Blast these things. You’d think there’d be less in the dry, not more.’
‘So how many of them are there, anyway? These wolf-human crosses, I mean, not mozzies.’
‘Just the one family.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘Twelve I think, unless I’ve left someone out.’
‘So each generation must be getting more…humanlike, I suppose, as they interbreed with humans.’
‘Sort of. They don’t interbreed actually.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They breed with each other, within the clan. It’s not like human incest. It’s a wolf thing.’
‘I thought you said these people were human…’
‘Well, they are. It’s just—well, okay, I suppose they are wolves too. Some more than others…’
‘Can they interbreed with humans?’
‘I suppose so,’ Ophelia said crossly. ‘The question just doesn’t come up.’
I sat back in the shabby old chair and took another apple and corn muffin from the plate on the table.
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