With the e-mail sent, Eden stepped out into the pleasant sunlight of an Autumn afternoon. A few apples remained on the trees in the orchard. They glowed red with a full ripeness. Beside one tree a slight dip in the ground marked where her aunt had excavated the grave. Now grass had grown over it. From time to time, people would take the old path from the village to stand by it for a while. Each visitor would drop a coin into a narrow cleft that formed something like the opening to a rabbit’s burrow. Often they told Eden how pleased they were that she’d issued an invitation to practice their devotion whenever they wished.
Eden strolled to the back gate. The dyke, a narrow waterway as straight as a ruler, seemed to run through the fields into infinity. In the meadow Mr Hezzle drove his tractor. Cheerfully, he raised a hand in greeting. She waved back.
Content, relaxed, in love with her new life here at Dog Star House, she luxuriated in gazing out across this strangely beautiful, if forgotten realm of England. Eden’s eye focused on the distant horizon where ploughed earth became married to blue sky. Eden wished she could see a certain figure racing through the sunlight toward her. But she knew that wouldn’t happen by day.
He called on her at night. When all the shadows merged into one. When traffic absented itself from the
Then he’d softly stroke her face and whisper, ‘Eden loves’. In the past, his voice had appeared to emanate from everywhere but his lips. What’s more, it had been a disordered stream of half-memory mixed with raw emotion. However, gradually, over the last few weeks he’d begun to speak to her. Albeit haltingly. Nevertheless: speech meant mind. Mind meant intelligence.
Many a time these lines would run through her head:
But she had.
A bird singing on the fence drew Eden back to the sunlit present. She smiled. The miracle had happened. For her, the changes in her body were quite plain to see. And her ancestors had provided her with the words to describe just what the result would be.
‘Our child.’
Danger Signs
One
Pitt is twelve years old. Pitt is also crazy. Although it still shocked me when he told me what he planned to do.
‘You’re insane,’ I told him. ‘You don’t know what’s in there.’
‘Probably a psycho,’ said Jenny.
‘Or poisonous chemicals.’ Adam looked worried.
‘And missiles full of flesh-eating virus.’ I nodded at a sign on the fence. ‘That’s been put there for a reason.’
On the sign, this warning in big, shouting letters:
CAUTION!
RESTRICTED MILITARY ZONE
DO NOT PASS.
DANGER OF DEATH!
‘That clear enough for you, Pitt? You go in there you’re a dead man.’
He whirled round at me. ‘Hey, Naz. Are you saying I’m scared? Do you think I’m frightened of that?’ He punched the sign so hard it gave a heck of a clatter. Birds flew in panic from the trees. The notice was so old the painted side began to peel away from its wooden backing. The sign, itself, was a thin metal sheet. One still shiny enough to reflect the sunlight like hazard lights — as if to say:
‘No, I’m not saying you’re a coward. But if there are danger signs… ’
‘He’s right,’ Adam said, ‘if you ignore warnings you’re asking for trouble.’
Pitt snarled, ‘I don’t care about any stupid sign. I’m going in.’
With that he left without us. We watched him through the hole in the fence as he strolled in bright sunshine to the military bunker. The size of a house, it was built out of concrete that had been painted in camouflage greens. There were no windows. Only a big steel door. For the first time in our lives we saw the door was open. Wide open. Yawning so big it looked like a monster’s mouth. Beyond the door lay a dark tunnel. Like I said, Pitt’s crazy. But I didn’t want him to go into the bunker. I’d got a bad feeling about that place.
Let me explain something before I go any further. Okay, even though Pitt acts crazy we’ve been friends for years. He’s done things like put wings on his bike, rigged a motor to his skateboard (that got him a week off school with a twisted knee). When he talks about building a rocket we say he’s crazy. Then, deep down, we respect his amazing plans.
Yesterday had been a bad day for Pitt. We’d been walking across the playing field into town. Who should turn up but Adam’s fourteen year old brother, Brian, and his buddies. They’d been riding these illegal dirt bikes, revving the engines like lunatics. They’d ridden them close enough to make us dodge out of the way. Brian had made fun of Pitt for jumping ‘like a frightened little kid’. Then Brian had ridden the bike across the grass like a bullet. He’d swung a sports bag into Pitt’s face. It smacked him hard enough to cut his lip.
Adam had told his big brother to stop being a jerk. Brian laughed it off, saying Pitt shouldn’t act so soft.
So today Pitt had turned up with this bashed mouth. The wound resembled a little red flower on his bottom lip. When he touched the cut with his finger it still oozed blood. It looked really sore. Every so often he flinched as if it stung like it was on fire.
There were four of us — Pitt, Jenny, Adam, and me, Naz. All twelve year olds. We tried to cheer up Pitt as we walked through the woods but you could tell the attack by Brian still bugged him. He’d got real anger in his eye.
When we saw what had happened to the bunker it made us forget everything else.
Pitt had stared in wonder. ‘After all these years. That’s the first time I’ve seen the door open.’
When he realised there was nobody about, that’s when he announced he was going inside. So through the hole in the fence he went — ignoring the danger sign.
