She gave a husky chuckle, then sobered. “I’m supposed to be helping out in the kitchen today. Cooking the workers lunch, then taking it out to the fields for them. Bugger, it’s like some kind of Amish festival. And how come we’re reverting to gender stereotypes?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s us girls that are doing all the cooking.”
“Not all of you.”
“The majority. You should work out a better rota for us.”
“Why me?”
“You seem to be taking charge around here. Quite the little baron.”
“Okay, I designate you to draw up a proper equitable rota.” He stuck his tongue out at her. “You should be good at secretarial work.”
The pillow hit him on the side of his head, nearly knocking him off the bed. He caught the next one, and put it out of her reach. “I didn’t do it deliberately,” he said seriously. “People tell me what they can do, and I shove them at the first matching job. We need to get a list of occupations and skills sorted out.”
She moaned. “Bureaucracy in heaven, that’s worse than sexism.”
“Just think yourself lucky we haven’t got round to introducing taxes yet.” He started searching round for his trousers. Luckily, the Manor had entire wardrobes of Grant Kavanagh’s high-quality clothes. They weren’t quite Luca’s style, but at least they fitted perfectly. And the outdoor gear was hard-wearing, too. It saved him from having to dream up new stuff. That was harder here, in this realm. Imagined items took a long time to form, but when they did, they had more substance, and persevered longer. Concentrate hard enough and long enough on changing something, and the change would become permanent, requiring no more attention.
But that was inert objects: clothes, stone, wood, even chunks of machinery (not electronics), they could all be fashioned by the mind. Which was fortunate; Norfolk’s low-technology infrastructure could be repaired with relative ease. Physical appearance, too, could be governed by a wish, flesh gradually morphing into a new form— inevitably firmer and younger. The majority of possessed were intent on reverting to their original features. As seen through a rose-tinted mirror, Luca suspected. Having quite so many beautiful people emerge in one place together was statistically implausible.
Not that vanity was their real problem. The one intractable difficulty of this new life was food. Energistic power simply could not conjure any into existence; no matter how creative or insistent you were. Oh, you could cover a plate with a mountain of caviar; but cancel the illusion and the glistening black mass would relapse into a pile of leaves, or whatever raw material you were trying to bend to your will.
Irony or mockery, Luca couldn’t quite decide what their deliverance had led them to. But whichever it was, eternity tilling the fields was better than eternity in the beyond. He finished dressing, and gave Lucy an expectant, slightly chiding look.
“All right,” she grumbled. “I’m getting up. I’ll pull my communal weight.”
He kissed her. “Catch you later.”
Lucy waited until the door shut behind him, then pulled the sheets back over her head.
Most of the manor’s residents were already awake and bustling about. Luca said a dozen good-mornings as he made his way downstairs. As he walked along the grand corridors, the state of the building gradually registered. Windows left ajar, allowing the nightly sprinkling of rain to stain the carpets and furniture; open doors showed him glimpses of rooms with clothes strewn everywhere, remnants of meals on plates, grey mould growing out of mugs, sheets unwashed since the start of Norfolk’s possession. It wasn’t apathy, exactly, more like teenage carelessness—the belief that mum will always be around to clean up after you.
There were over thirty people having their breakfast in Cricklade’s dining hall, which now served as the community’s canteen. The big chamber was three stories high, with a wooden ceiling supported by skilfully carved rafters. Cascade chandeliers hung on strong chains; their light globes were inoperative, but they bounced plenty of the sky’s ambient light around the hall, illuminating the elaborate Earth-woodland frescos painted between every window. A thick blue and cream coloured Chinese carpet silenced Luca’s boots as he walked over to the counter and helped himself to scrambled egg from an iron baking dish.
The plate he used was chipped, the silver cutlery was tarnished, and the polish on the huge central table was scuffed and scratched. He nodded to his companions as he sat, holding back any criticism. Focus on priorities, he told himself. Things were up and running at a basic level, that’s what counts. The food was plain but adequate; not rationed exactly, but carefully controlled. They were all reverting to a more civilized state of behaviour.
For a while after Quinn left, Cricklade’s new residents had joyfully discarded the sect’s loathsome teachings which the monster had imposed, and dived into a continual orgy of sex and overconsumption. It was a reaction to the beyond; deliberately immersing themselves in complete sensory-glut. Nothing mattered except feeling, and taste, and smell. Luca had eaten and drunk his way through the manor’s extensive cuisine supplies, shagged countless girls with supermodel looks, flung himself into ludicrously dangerous games, persecuted and hounded the non-possessed. Then, with painful slowness, the morning after had finally dawned, bringing the burden of responsibility and even a degree of decency.
It was the day when the bathroom shower nozzle squirted raw sewage over him that Luca started to gather up likeminded people and set about restoring the estate to working order. Pure hedonistic anarchy, it turned out, was not a sustainable environment.
Luca saw Susannah emerge from the door leading to the kitchen. His every movement suddenly became very cautious. She was carrying a fresh bowl of steaming tomatoes, which she plonked down on the self-service counter.
As he had applied himself to getting the farming side of the estate functional again, so she had taken on the manor itself. She was making a good job of providing meals and keeping the place rolling along (even though it wasn’t maintained as it had been in the old days). Appropriately enough, for Susannah was possessing Marjorie Kavanagh’s body. Naturally, there had been little room for physical improvement; she’d discarded about a decade, and shortened her extravagant landowner hair considerably, but the essential figure and features remained the same.
She picked up an empty bowl and walked back to the kitchen. Their eyes met, and she gave him a slightly confused smile before she disappeared back through the door.
Luca swallowed the mush of egg in his mouth before he choked on it. There had been so much he wanted to cram into that moment. So much to say. And their troubled thoughts had resonated together. She knew what he knew, and he knew . . .
Ridiculous!
Ridiculous because Susannah had found someone: Austin. They were happy together. And I have Lucy. For convenience. For sex. Not for love.
Luca forked up the last of his eggs, and washed them down with some tea. Impatience boiled through him. I need to be out there, get those damn slackers cracking.
He found Johan sitting at the other end of the table, with the single slice of toast and glass of orange which was his whole meal. “You ready yet?” he asked curtly.
Johan’s rounded face registered an ancient expression of suffering, creasing up into lines so ingrained they must have been there since birth. There was a glint of sweat on his brow. “Yes, sir; I’m fit for another day.”
Luca could have mouthed the ritual reply in tandem. Johan was possessing Mr Butterworth. The physical transformation from a lumbering, chubby sixty-year-old to virile twenty-something youth was almost complete, though some of the old estate manager’s original characteristics seemed to defy modification.
“Come on then, let’s be going.”
He strode out of the hall, directing sharp glances at several of the men around the table as he went. Johan was already rising to his feet to scurry after Luca. Those who had received the visual warning crammed food in their mouths and stood hurriedly, anxious not to be left behind.
Luca had a dozen of them follow him into the stables, where they started to saddle up their horses. The estate’s rugged farm ranger vehicles were still functional, but nobody was using them right now. The electricity grid had been damaged during the wild times, and only a couple of possessed in Stoke County owned up to having
