In the Blood (9 page)

‘Are you sure you won’t have more tea? Some cake?’ Sister Tracey asked Neil.

The cake looked like date-enriched clay.

‘No, really, thank you,’ said Neil, standing up as well. ‘We’re expected elsewhere.’

They escorted us to the floater, Sister Tracey detouring slightly for a napkin to wrap up some cake for Neil. ‘Growing boys need their food,’ she said archly, pressing it into his hand.

‘Thank you,’ said Neil, just a little desperately. ‘It’s very kind of you.’

I stopped with one foot on the floater step and smiled down at him. ‘You know, I could make the rest of the enquiries without you, if you’d like to stay,’ I offered sweetly. ‘You could see the rest of the community and I could pick you up in a few hours.’

Neil ignored me. He brushed past and sat down firmly in the floater and fastened his seatbelt. I sat beside him and waved politely to the departure committee.

‘Do call in if you’re ever this way again!’ called Brother Perry.

‘We would love to show you…’ Brother Cydore’s words were lost as the floater gathered speed.

‘You know,’ said Neil. ‘That’s the first time I ever saw you laugh.’

‘I didn’t laugh! I very carefully didn’t laugh!’

‘Well, it’s the first time I ever saw you not laugh,’ said Neil.

I grinned at him. ‘All right, all right. That poor child though, growing up in a place like that.’

‘They were pretty horrible, weren’t they?’ agreed Neil.

‘No wonder she left as soon as she could. I mean it’s all right for us to giggle, but imagine being trapped there, surrounded by relentless love.’

Neil snorted. ‘I don’t suppose love had much to do with it.’

‘I don’t suppose it did.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘Do you mind if we call in to Black Stump? Not that I think we’ll learn much there. But it’s just possible she had a friend she’s kept in touch with.’

Neil nodded, and reset the controls on the floater.

T
he table at Black Stump was covered in blood.

It had taken us ten minutes to reach Black Stump in the floater. It would have taken Doris four hours, or even more, unless she had managed to get a ride on a floater during a trading visit, which wasn’t likely. Utopias are generally jealous of their independence; one Utopia probably wouldn’t return a wandering teenager to another, but neither were they likely to interfere and actively encourage her to leave with them.

Black Stump was further inland than Nearer To Heaven, about two kloms up a narrow valley, at some stage evidently heavily cleared but now, since the Decline, thickly regrown with thin saplings and tea-tree.

Only the paddocks around Black Stump were still clear. Dark, lush green fields like something out of a last-century postcard (I’d done a work on postcards once), with pale brown cattle grazing fatly. A UV-resistant breed, my memory said, though my memory failed to provide the context in which I’d researched that bit of data.

Near to the community buildings were orchards, old lichened trees rather than Neil’s careful uniformity, and fields of lucerne, corn, potatoes, pumpkins and mixed kitchen gardens just verging on disorderly.

We stopped outside what I took to be the main building, a house that dated from at least a century before, wooden, with shabby paint and wide verandahs,
sheds behind and vaguely wandering hens. There was no sign of human occupants.

We climbed up onto the verandah, avoiding a toy tractor on the third step, and someone’s boot on the fourth. The front door was open, but all that was visible was a long hall with doors opening off each side of it and a closed door at the other end. The only furniture was a long coarsely woven mat, made of some long-dead natural fibre, and tacked on the wall unframed paintings that I hoped had been produced by the community’s children rather than a display of what the members regarded as high art.

‘Do you want to knock or will I?’ asked Neil.

‘I’ll knock and you yell,’ I suggested.

‘Yell?’

‘Well, someone should have seen us arrive or heard us. I suspect there’s no one home or they’d have investigated by now.’ I knocked as loudly as I could on the splintered door jamb, then looked pointedly at Neil.

‘Anyone home?’ he yelled obediently.

No answer, unless you counted the rooster crowing indignantly out the back.

‘Hey! Is anyone here!’ yelled Neil again.

Sill no answer. A lone chook strutted around the corner of the house, observed us, then disregarded us as beings not carrying buckets of useful food for hens.

‘Well,’ asked Neil. ‘Do we politely explore the sheds or enter uninvited?’

I glanced at my watch. ‘Enter uninvited if we want to get back while it’s still light.’

Neil shrugged. ‘Doesn’t bother me what time we get back,’ he said.

I thought of my dark path. I’d seen a bloodstain this morning that I’d missed before. I thought of my dark,
still house, where anyone or anything could be hiding. ‘I’d rather get back in daylight,’ I said.

Neil glanced at me, then nodded. ‘Okay by me,’ he said. ‘Will we give it one more try? Anybody home!?’

His yell set the hens clucking and the rooster crowing again, evidently recognising a competitor. We stepped inside.

The sudden coolness struck me first. I still hadn’t got used to the coolness of Outlands houses after the heat outdoors. Even in this house with its open door the air was markedly cooler than outside. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I liked the diversity, or missed the comforting uniform climate of the City.

The second thing that struck me was the smell. Apartments in the City often have their own smell—their owner’s favourite perfume, cleanser or incense, but overriding it all is the almost subliminal smell of City airconditioners, triple filtered air and, in the more affluent areas, O2 boosting for increased health and performance, although I suspected it was mostly fashion—evidence that extra oxygen increased your ability to do anything, except burn to a crisp if it were ignited, was slim.

This house smelt of dust and overripe fruit and the almost imperceptible scent of many people, each with their own combination of odours.

Neil rapped on a door to our right. ‘Anyone around?’

No answer, even from the rooster. I knocked on the door on the other side. It swung open under my knuckles, onto what was evidently a children’s playroom. A blackboard at one end showed a rudimentary animal with ‘dog’ printed under it, and there were cushions and toys scattered about the room.

The next door down was open. I peered inside. A dining room, with a long table and a smaller one at the far end. There were twelve settings at the larger table, six small chairs at the other. Both tables still bore evidence of a meal—a serving bowl roughly covered, a salad bowl with remnants of wilted, oily lettuce, plates still with portions of uneaten food, knives and forks scattered.

Neil stepped inside and lifted the lid of the bowl. ‘Spaghetti with tomatoes and basil and artichokes,’ he said. ‘Looks good.’ He glanced down the table. ‘A bit messy for kids though, unless they have a dog who likes to snuffle up the scraps.’

‘Errk,’ I said.

He grinned at me. ‘Elaine and Theo had a dog like that when I was a kid. He wasn’t supposed to eat indoors, but he always managed to find something under my feet.’ He gestured at the table. ‘They seem to have left in a hurry.’

I nodded. ‘It’s a bit like the
Mary Celeste
.’

‘Who was she?’

‘It was a ship back in the nineteenth century,’ I explained. ‘She was discovered abandoned in the middle of the ocean. No crew. No signs of violence either. Nothing stolen, no storm damage. Just simply no one there.’

‘There must have been some clue as to what happened,’ said Neil.

I shook my head. ‘Just the table left in the middle of a meal and the chairs overturned.’

Neil snorted. ‘Nineteenth century was before satellite surveillance, wasn’t it? I bet no one checked on the ship that found them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, we only have their word for it about what they found. Maybe the crew sold everyone on the
Mary Celeste
into slavery, or…well, I don’t know. Something anyway.’

‘Mmm,’ I said. I followed him out into the corridor again.

The next two rooms were children’s bedrooms, comfortably untidy and only slightly grubby, four bunks in one room and two bunks in the other, as well as an adult-sized bed.

Neil nodded at it. ‘They must take turns sleeping with the kids. Most places do.’

‘You know a lot about Utopias,’ I said.

‘I spent a few years wandering round a few of them. Most teenagers do,’ said Neil.

I stared. ‘I thought you went to the City?’

‘I did. I wanted to know what a bit of the world was like before I made my mind up where I wanted to live.’

‘Virtuals will do that for you. Quicker, too,’ I said.

Neil snorted again. ‘Virtuals only tell you what their creators know. Most Outland Virtuals are created by City people who have never even been here.’

‘I’m sure that’s not true. Lots of…’

‘Shhh,’ said Neil. ‘What’s that?’

I hushed in time to hear it too—the almost silent opening of a door. I stepped out quickly into the corridor.

It was a cat—a small ‘c’ cat—a motley of white and marmalade with long whiskers and soft paws. ‘Marow?’ it asked, peering up at me.

‘It’s hungry,’ said Neil.

‘Mraw,’ agreed the cat. It hunched, then leapt up into my arms. I caught it automatically. ‘Hello, cat,’ I said.

The cat settled itself more comfortably and began to purr.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I get the message. The kitchen’s through here is it?’

I pushed the final door open and stopped.

The table was red. Not painted red, but puddled with small dark pools and smaller drops already drying to an almost purple brown. There were puddles on the floor too, and footprints where someone had trodden in a pool without noticing. The prints were small and shoeless, and heading for the door.

‘No!’ I said. ‘No.’

‘Danielle,’ said Neil.

‘No, I can’t believe it. Not like this.’ The cat dropped from my arms unnoticed, then padded its way over to one of the puddles. To my horror it dipped its tongue into the red, before I could stop it, then rejected it. It padded over to the open back door instead, sat and began to wash itself.

‘Danielle, it’s all right,’ said Neil gently.

I stared at him. ‘How can you say such a thing? How can you possibly…oh God, I think I’m going to be sick.’ I headed abruptly for the back door, but Neil stopped me.

‘Look,’ he said, his hand on my arm. ‘Look over there.’

I looked. There were bottles on the bench by the sink, six of them, no seven. They too were filled with the red liquid. For a moment the world grew fuzzy. I thought I was going to faint.

‘It’s cordial.’ Neil’s voice sounded very far away. ‘It’s only cordial. Or some other fruit drink anyway. Look, there’s a bowl of raspberries and blueberries too.’

‘What?’ I blinked up at him, and then at the bottles and the bowls of fruit. ‘Cordial?’

‘Cordial,’ repeated Neil. ‘A drink made of fruit juice. Look, sit down a minute!’

‘I…yes, yes, I’d better sit down.’

Neil swept a rag doll off a chair and pushed me into it. ‘I’ll get you a drink.’

‘Not…not the cordial. Please.’

‘Just water. Okay?’ He filled a glass and handed it to me, then took it back and fished something out. ‘Tadpole,’ he explained.

I glanced at the water. ‘I’m not sure…’

‘People have been drinking tadpole droppings for millennia,’ said Neil impatiently. ‘It hasn’t hurt anyone yet.’

I wondered if he had evidence for that. I sipped anyway, and felt better. Neil scraped a piece of spaghetti off another chair and sat next to me.

‘You thought it was blood, didn’t you?’ he asked.

I nodded, already ashamed. I thought he’d laugh at me, but he didn’t. He patted my arm awkwardly instead. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I suppose it’ll be a while before her death stops haunting you.’

‘Doesn’t it haunt you too?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t find her. It can’t be the same. I…’ he lifted his head. ‘Voices,’ he said.

They were coming from out the back past the sheds. It sounded like at least a hundred people and a few elephants too, but suddenly the back door was thrust fully open and I saw there were only seven of them: two adults, a man and woman both in their late twenties, and five children, ranging in age from a toddler to about ten years old.

‘Hi!’ said the woman happily, tossing back long, wet hair. ‘We saw the floater! I’m Perdita.’ She held out a red-stained hand. I took it and shook it gingerly.

‘I’m Gloucester,’ said the man, unloading the toddler from his arms. His hair was as long as the woman’s, but tied back in a thick plait. ‘No,’ to the cat, who had taken advantage of the fuss to leap onto my lap and then onto the table. ‘Get off, Spot, you know you’re not supposed to be up there. And these are Horatio, Portia, Malvolio, Viola and Corrie.’

‘Carrie?’ asked Neil, slightly stunned.

‘Corrie,’ I corrected. ‘Coriolanus, right?’

‘Right,’ said Gloucester grinning. ‘Family tradition.’

‘What about Spot?’ I asked weakly.

‘Spot’s Shakespearean,’ declared Gloucester. ‘“Out, damn Spot!”’

The cat leapt back onto my lap, and began to knead my legs with long sharp claws.

‘Hello,’ said Corrie, who looked about eight. He wore something soggy and green that might have been either underpants or shorts, rough leather thongs and nothing else. He stuck his finger in his mouth (both red-stained) and giggled at me. Portia hid behind Perdita’s skirts and peered out at me. Her fingers were red as well.

‘I’m Danielle,’ I said. ‘And this is Neil. Look, I’m sorry to barge in like this…’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Gloucester happily. ‘I’m sorry there was no one here when you arrived.’

‘It was just so hot at lunchtime,’ explained Perdita, busy at the sink filling smudged glasses with cordial and water. ‘So we all thought, bother it, we’ll go for a swim till it cools off a bit. So we did.’ She handed a glass to each of the children, then one to Neil and me.

Gloucester lifted the lid off a jar on the table. ‘Empty,’ he said. ‘Per, where are…oh, here they are.’ He passed
us another jar. ‘Cornmeal and blueberry cookies,’ he said. ‘A bit heavy but not too bad.’

‘We’re out of wheat flour till the autumn trade with the City,’ explained Perdita. ‘But cornmeal’s almost as good.’

It wasn’t, I discovered as I bit into the cookie. It was heavy and gritty with a sort of constipated feel to it. But I supposed you could get used to it.

One of the children—Malvolio—tugged gently at my skirt. ‘Come and see the chickens,’ he ordered. His nose was running, but at least the snot was clear.

‘There are sixteen,’ offered Viola, deciding to sit on my lap. Her shorts—or underpants—were wet as well. So, soon, was my lap. ‘There’s a white one and two red ones and three grey ones and ten black ones and can we have a ride in your floater now?’

‘Maybe later,’ suggested Gloucester, catching the expression on my face. ‘How about you lot go and fetch the eggs. You can tell them all about the chickens at dinner. You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?’ he asked.

I glanced at Neil. He made an ‘it’s up to you’ face back.

There was no way to refuse their hospitality without seeming rude and anyway I didn’t want to. ‘Yes, thank you,’ I said.

‘Maybe you’d like to stay the night too,’ said Perdita happily. ‘It’s been weeks since we had any visitors, and that was only Brother Paederophile.’

I stared at her.

‘Brother Perry,’ explained Gloucester. ‘From Nearer To Heaven. It’s a community just up the coast.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘We’ve just been there. No, we’re not thinking of joining it,’ I added quickly, seeing the
expressions on their faces. ‘We just wanted to bring them news of one their ex-members.’

‘Mmm?’ said Perdita. ‘Which one? Don’t forget the nest under the tractor!’ as the children ran out the door.

‘Sister Doris,’ said Neil.