Vulture's Gate (21 page)

Bo laughed and Li-Li elbowed her sharply.

One of the men put his finger on Li-Li's cheek. ‘There's no one in the Zenana as clever as you, Li-Li. Not even Verity or Meera. Some would say you're too clever for your own good.'

Li-Li suppressed a little snort of annoyance. ‘This is Hackett,' she said.

Hackett was taller than the other men. His black hair was smoothly combed and slicked back. He leaned down to talk to Bo, his mouth close to her ear, and his breath was warm and minty against her cheek.

‘Welcome to the Zenana, Bo. I want you to know that if there is anything I can help you with, you only have to ask. Perhaps I could come a little earlier next week and we could walk around the garden together. Get to know each other. I want you to be happy here.'

Bo liked the way he spoke to her, as if she was his equal. She looked up into his broad, handsome face and smiled.

‘I'd like that,' said Bo. ‘It's very dull here, being cooped up all the time.' Then she turned to see Li-Li grown pale, her eyes glittering.

‘Are you all right?' she asked, putting one arm around Li-Li. ‘You look faint.'

‘I don't feel very well. Will you help me upstairs?'

In their bedroom, Li-Li drew the curtains and pushed a chair against the door. Then she climbed into bed and put her arms out for Bo to join her. When they were nestled snugly under the blankets, Li-Li cupped her hands around Bo's ear and began to whisper in a low, raspy voice. Bo realised she was crying.

‘Promise me you won't go anywhere with Hackett?'

‘Why?'

‘Because he'll hurt you, the way he hurt me. I had to go to Mater Misericordiae because of him. He made me bleed. Meera thought I had my period but it was Hackett's fault. I wasn't ready but he tried to . . . to make me ripe.'

‘You're doing it again. Saying things that make no sense. What do you mean?'

Li-Li took a deep breath and spoke softly. ‘When we get older, we start to bleed. It happens to all girls. We bleed every month. That's when we're ripe. That's when they'll take us back to the island. We'll have to stay there while they harvest us.'

‘Harvest?'

‘Alethea told me that girls have over four hundred thousand eggs inside them. Eggs to make babies. Once a month, we bleed, which is a sign that the eggs haven't made a baby. They need seeds from boys to hatch properly. In our lives, only four or five hundred of our eggs will ripen properly. At Mater Misericordiae they give you medicine to help make lots of eggs come out every month, not just one. And they keep them safe in freezers to make babies with later. Some girls get sick from the drugs and then they never come back to the Colony. And most girls, not pretty girls, they stay and incubate babies. Nearly all of the babies are grown in glass jars but special babies are grown inside the incubator girls for a while. Those precious ones, the girl babies and chosen boys, are put inside the incubator girls for a few months. Then they're cut out again and put in glass boxes until they're properly cooked. And then the brewers put another baby in you. So you cook tiny babies and are cut open over and over again. It's horrible.'

Bo felt dizzy.

‘Why don't they leave the babies in the girls until they're ready to be born? Boys and girls.'

‘Because they're running out of time. They need more girls and more babies. That's why they feed us so well and take care of us. They want us to be healthy breeders.'

‘I don't understand. Why don't they just make all the babies inside glass boxes? Why do the girls have to incubate them?'

‘Only the boy babies grow properly in glass. Things always go wrong with the girl babies if they're not inside a mother. And even the boy babies in the glass boxes, sometimes they don't work either.'

‘Is that where the Festers came from? The glass boxes instead of the mothers?'

‘I think they use animal eggs to make some boys. Or maybe the Festers were ones that didn't cook properly.'

‘They looked pretty cooked to me.'

‘I don't know!' said Li-Li, her whispering growing louder. ‘I don't know everything. All I do know is that the mothers can only incubate a few babies each year so they keep you on the island forever. Incubating and incubating forever and ever until you die. That's why I went with Hackett. I thought he would want me to be his wife. The pretty girls are chosen by the husbands. They don't have to die. I let Hackett hurt me because I thought he'd help me get back from the island when I grew up. Once they have all your eggs, you can come back to the Colony and get married, if one of the men wants you. I don't want to be like my mother and die on the island.'

‘Your mother?'

Li-Li rolled away from Bo and covered her face with her hands.

‘They lied to her. They told her the island was a safe place for women. We sailed into the harbour together. She thought we would find a home here, but she was wrong. They brought me to the Zenana and took her away. When I went to Mater Misericordiae I thought I'd find her, but I found the truth. The horrible truth.'

‘We have to get out of here, Li-Li,' said Bo, sitting up.

Li-Li pulled her back down under the covers. ‘Shhh,' she said, stroking Bo's face and pulling the coverlet up over their heads. ‘They can hear everything we say, unless we're careful. Bad girls disappear, the way my mother did. That's why we have to be nice to everyone, Bo. Girls have to be nice and try to get a husband. That's why the husbands come every week. They watch you and wait and if you're nice enough, they'll help you later.'

It was hot and fetid beneath the covers but Bo couldn't push them back until she had all the answers.

‘Like Hackett? Do you think he'll help you?'

‘Maybe I wasn't nice enough,' said Li-Li despondently. ‘Maybe if I'm nice to one of the other husbands, they'll want me.'

‘I'm not “nice” at all, Li-Li. I don't want to marry someone like Hackett and I don't want to be one of their incubators either.'

‘Neither do I!' sobbed Li-Li. ‘But better to marry than to incubate forever. That's what Meera says.' She wept hot, angry tears that spilled onto Bo's shoulder.

‘But Meera and Verity. Why do they get to look after all the girls and not die on Mater Misericordiae?'

‘They're boygies – you know, shemales. They aren't good for breeding but they make the Colony work.'

‘I don't know what that means. But I do know one thing. You won't go back to Mater Misericordiae. Neither will I. We're going away,' said Bo firmly.

Li-Li choked back her tears, almost as if she was laughing.

‘Oh Bo, don't you understand! Once you turn into a woman, you won't be able to live with the Festers. You could only do that because they didn't know what you were. There is nowhere to go, nowhere safe for women.'

Bo was quiet. ‘Even if the world is dangerous, I can make my way in it. I don't need the Zenana. I can make my own home. I had one before, I will have one again.'

‘My mother had a home too, an island where I was born, far to the north.'

‘Was that the magic faraway place you told Serene about in your story?'

‘I made some of that up. I can't remember very much about it, I was so small. I don't even know what it was called. It feels like a dream from an imaginary life. But I know there were other women there, and I think we were happy. Then one day, when we were out at sea, there was a storm. The island disappeared. We were swept away and drifted for weeks until we sailed through the Heads, into Vulture's Gate.'

Bo pulled Li-Li's head onto her shoulder and stroked her silky hair. ‘Are you sure the island was destroyed in the storm? I mean, what if it's still there? A place where you can grow into being a woman and not be afraid? Where there are so many women that it's normal?'

This time Li-Li was silent for a long time. ‘How would we get there?'

‘Somehow,' said Bo, ‘we'll find a way.'

31

SONS OF GAIA

It took Callum three days to reach the middle harbour where
the Gaias had their base.
Festie had explained that the Sons of Gaia lived in a tower of dead wood, an aerie built on the side of a precipice. In places, the bush was so thick that Callum had to carry Mr Pinkwhistle in the string bag, for fear he would lose him in the thorny blackberries. Without co-ordinates, he could only rely on instinct.

He spotted the aerie long before he reached it. Remembering Festie's instructions, he unfurled the white banner with the black flower and secured it to a stick. Then he crawled along rocky waterways and scrambled through dense undergrowth until the banner looked limp and ragged and his knees were bloody with gashes. As he drew closer, he saw guards scattered through the bush. A hundred Sons of Gaia watched silently from beneath wide-brimmed bark hats as Callum made his way to the base of the aerie. No one spoke, no one questioned his mission.

A tall, skinny man in khaki shorts stepped forward as Callum approached. His legs were like the knotty roots of an old tree and his eyes were sunken in his leathery face.

‘You are not the leader of the Festers. State your name and business.'

‘Callum Caravaggio. Roc is dead. I am the new leader of the Festers.'

Callum thought his voice sounded odd, too childlike. They'd never believe him. Festie had made him recite the announcement but when it came out of his mouth here, at the base of the Gaias' stronghold, it sounded tinny and unbelievable.

The man gestured for Callum to climb the ladder. Callum followed him up a winding flight of stairs. At the top was a tiny room looking out over the harbour. It was full of bird droppings and pigeons roosted on the windowsills. As Callum stepped over the threshold, he thought of Bo, of how terrifying this would be for her. Suddenly, he realised he too was afraid.

Another Son of Gaia stood by the window. Like the man with ropy legs, he was dressed in a khaki-coloured shirt and very short shorts. His head was smooth and shiny, though his chin was covered with a bushy beard.

‘Welcome, Callum Caravaggio. I am Quoll and this is Quokka,' he said, gesturing to the man who had led Callum up the ladders. ‘We are the eldest Children of Gaia in this aerie.'

‘I want to talk to Gaia. He's your leader, isn't he?'

The men laughed and indicated for him to sit down but Callum chose to stand.

‘She. Gaia is our mother.'

Callum was bewildered. ‘I don't get it,' he said.

Quokka and Quoll looked at one another and shook their heads. ‘Gaia is your mother also. She is the mother of all the sons of men. Gaia isn't a woman. She is the planet Earth. And as you know, she has been ill. She is trying to heal herself and we, as her loyal sons, are helping her.'

‘Helping her?'

‘By assisting her to rid herself of the most noxious creatures on the planet, the creatures she has been trying to divest herself of for generations.' Quokka leaned forward. ‘The sons of men. We have a mission to eradicate every last human. When we are gone, the Earth's balance will be restored.'

It took a moment for Callum to make sense of what Quokka had said. ‘You're the ones that bait the Festers.' In his mind's eye, he could see Bo walking across a courtyard with Blister's body in her arms.

‘We do not intend to poison all the Festers. Not while they are of use to us. Only the strays. If some of the Festers fall victim to the baits, this is because Gaia wills it. The Festers only exist because Gaia wishes them to assist in her endgame.'

‘Roc said you could help us,' said Callum. His head was throbbing. The more he heard, the less he understood.

‘We work in mysterious ways,' said Quoll, smiling at Callum's confusion. ‘The Festers are nimble and reckless. Their hatred of the Colony served us well. But we heard news of the Festers' destruction. Without your tribe, what can you offer?'

‘It's true. There aren't many of us left. Right now, there's only me. But I know that you're digging under the South Wall and I want to help. I'm good in small places. I can wriggle in anywhere. And I have this.'

He lifted Mr Pinkwhistle out of Bo's string bag and set him on the floor of the attic.

Quoll and Quokka stepped back warily. ‘This is the technology of the Colony. Merely a toy from the before times.'

‘No, he's better than any toy. He has all sorts of sensors that can help you underground,' said Callum. ‘GPSs don't work down there, do they? But Mr P has a muon detector and I know how to work it. Me and Mr P could be useful to you.'

The men put their heads together and whispered while Callum waited. The aerie swayed slightly as another man climbed up the ladder and into the tiny attic.

Quokka looked up. ‘Koala, you have finished?'

‘I have fulfilled the promise. Nekhbet Tower is destroyed,' he said. He pushed past Callum and set a tray of food and tiny cups of steaming liquid on the floor. Like the other men, he had a shiny bald head but his beard was thick and reddish. When he turned around, Callum felt an electric shock of recognition.

‘Rusty! Dad!' cried Callum, flinging his arms around his father.

‘Callum?'

No one spoke. Gently, Rusty pushed Callum away and bent down to look into his face. ‘I thought you were dead, kiddo.'

‘You know this Fester?' asked Quoll, his voice tinged with disapproval.

Rusty took a step back from Callum. ‘A Fester? Callum, a Fester?' He fell to his knees in front of Callum and grabbed him by both arms. ‘You haven't eaten any fruit from the trees on the way here, have you?'

Callum stepped away in horror. ‘You're the one that lays the baits?' He stumbled across the aerie and picked up Mr Pinkwhistle, clinging to him. Sensing Callum's distress, Mr Pinkwhistle mewled and his eyes glowed a soft pink. ‘Where's Ruff?' asked Callum, dreading the answer. ‘Where's my other dad?'